 The bombings were heavily covered by the United States media.While Helder was not at the top of his college class, his teachers described him as a reasonably good, quiet and polite student, and at first there was confusion as to what the motivation for the bombings could be.Within the year prior to his arrest, Helder had become passionate about astral projection techniques and came to believe that death of the flesh and body is not the end of existence, as evidenced by the manifesto he sent to "The Badger Herald" of the University of Wisconsin–Madison at the beginning of the bombing spree.