‘Flight from hell’: Seatmate of duct-taped American Airlines passenger tells Glenn Beck the FULL story

On September 3, Messianic rabbi and bestselling evangelical author Jonathan Cahn was flying home to New Jersey from Dallas on an American Airlines flight when, he says, a casual conversation with his seatmate — 67-year-old Arizona realtor Arthur Lundeen — turned into chaos.

According to Cahn’s account, conversation was flowing normally between them until Cahn mentioned his new book and the gospel, at which point Lundeen allegedly flipped in an instant and began cursing Jesus before allegedly hitting Cahn’s laptop and grabbing at him.

Other passengers described the outburst turning violent, with Lundeen allegedly shouting a slew of profanities, including racial and homophobic slurs, allegedly biting one of the passengers who stepped in to help restrain him, and bleeding from wounds passengers said he inflicted on himself from struggling.

After Lundeen was restrained with zip ties and duct tape, the flight was diverted to Baltimore, where police arrested him and charged him with second-degree assault and disorderly conduct.

On a recent episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Cahn told the Blaze Media co-founder that news reports covering the incident are heavily focused on “side things” and are missing the much bigger story behind what he describes as “the flight from hell.”

“What happened was demonic. It was real spiritual warfare,” Cahn tells Glenn, noting that this wasn’t the first time he’s been caught up in the cosmic war between light and dark.

“Every time ... I put out a book there’s crazy attacks,” he says, “and that makes sense ... because the books reveal the spiritual realm.”

Cahn’s newest book, “The Altar of Pergamon: The Mystery of the Dark Angel and the Future of the World,” which his publisher billed as his most “explosive revelation” yet, released on September 1 — just two days before Lundeen allegedly attacked him.

“I get on the plane, and the guy is to my left — friendliest guy in the world. By the way, Glenn, I wasn't supposed to be on that seat. Last minute, I'm switched to that seat,” Cahn recounts.

He says their conversation about family and life went on for “two hours” and was so amicable the flight attendants thought they “knew each other.” But the second Cahn turned the chitchat to spiritual matters, the warmth vanished.

“I wanted to get work done, but I figured, OK, maybe God wants me to talk to this guy ... and then I said, ‘God, give me a chance to share Your love with him, Your salvation with him,’ and so it happens,” says Cahn.

Lundeen, according to Cahn’s account, explained that he had “rejected” Christianity “as a kid” because of things he didn’t like about “Christians.” When Cahn then tried to explain to him that Christianity isn’t about Christians but about “you and God,” “God’s love,” and being “born again,” Lundeen allegedly got defensive.

“He says, ‘How do you know God is real?’ and I said, ‘Well, I was an atheist. I saw biblical prophecy coming true, and I couldn't argue with it,”’ he recounts.

“Everything's great, and then it turns. That moment, I don't know. I've never seen anything like this in my life. It was like his face changes, his voice changes. ... He's cursing God. ... He's cursing Jesus. It's blasphemy on the airplane. They didn't put that in the articles,” Cahn recaps.

Lundeen’s vehement reaction to the gospel, Cahn says, then began to spiral out of control.

“He's saying vulgar things. People all around are getting disturbed. ... Then the flight attendants come over ... and then he stands up, and he goes to the people in front and says, ‘Do you believe in Jesus?’ And then he starts talking about hell,” he says.

“Imagine a demonic manifestation ... and then suddenly, he turns friendly again like he's a different person.”

But the sudden shift back to amiability didn’t last long, says Cahn.

He explains that earlier that week before he went on his book tour, a small “black patch” had unexplainably appeared on his computer screen. According to Cahn, when Lundeen saw the black patch, he “[tapped]” it “three times,” and it immediately “[spread] across [his] screen.”

“Then he puts his hands around me ... and he's laughing like it's a joke,” he tells Glenn.

But what triggered the “ultimate escalation,” he says, is when Lundeen saw an image of his book’s cover — which features a hooded, winged “dark angel” representing Satan — on the computer screen in the area the black patch hadn’t covered.

“Then he starts shouting ... ‘What did you do? What did you do?’ like I did something wrong,” says Cahn.

“You will never see this in any newspaper, but ... he says, ‘I'm going to punch your blanking Jewish face in.’ ... Then he starts hitting me.”

At this point, it dawns on Cahn that dark spiritual forces are trying to destroy his computer, which stores his life’s work as a Christian author.

“I take my computer, I start closing it up. ... At that moment, he lunges at me, and he lunges at my computer, and he grabs my computer with all his might, and he's trying to wrest it from me and undoubtedly to destroy it,” he says, adding that this struggle turned into a “wrestling” match that he ultimately won but not without reinjuring his newly healed arm.

At this point, other passengers got involved, leading to Lundeen being restrained and the plane’s diversion to Baltimore. This is part of the story news outlets have honed in on, says Cahn, adding that some articles he’s seen even frame Lundeen as a “Christian who is racist.”

Glenn confirms that the articles he’s read frame the incident around Lundeen’s alleged racist, sexist, and homophobic comments. “None of what you said was in that story — none,” he tells Cahn.

That’s because the “real story” of the gospel triggering a “demonic manifestation,” says Cahn, is one the media would never dare touch.

To hear more wild details from Cahn’s “flight from hell,” watch the full interview above.

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