A plane, a controversial banner, and a secretive provocateur tweaking Harvard

It's a bizarre mystery vexing Cambridge this week. A single-engine Cessna plane has been flying over the Harvard University campus, towing a banner apparently meant to taunt the institution and inflame emotions over the Israel-Hamas war.

The question is, who's paying for this airborne message? Mark Simmons, who owns the company flying the plane, says he has no idea.

"I don't know the name of the person or the company," Simmons said in a phone interview Friday. He said there's an intermediary between him and the customer:  another banner-towing operator from out of state, who subcontracted the business to Simmons.

Even if he did know, Simmons said, he wouldn't reveal the customer's identity. He feels a need to protect them, he said.

"This is so hostile," he said of the reaction to the banner. "God forbid anyone ever finds out. This is a horrible place we're living in right now."

On Friday, the plane took off just after 10 a.m. from Westerly State Airport in Rhode Island and flew over Harvard, pulling a confusing banner with the Palestinian flag and the words "Harvard hates Jews."

The banner has created a minor furor on social media, coming just days after Harvard President Claudine Gay and other university leaders were called to Congress to be grilled on their responses to claims of antisemitism on school campuses.

And the plane's strange appearance comes during Hanukkah, when many in the Jewish community are feeling uneasy about reports of rising antisemitism amid the war in Gaza.

Simmons said his company, Simmons Aviation Services, has been in business for 25 years. But he's usually pulling signs with birthday greetings, congratulations or marriage proposals, he said. He's been getting angry calls the past couple days, he said, but he's not sorry.

"We're just getting the message out," he said. "I am on the right side of history with this message." His company does create the banner on behalf of the client.

An email sent to a number of media organizations last week claimed that Jewish students were responsible for the flying banner. But that seems unlikely, according to Simmons.

Rabbi Getzel Davis of Harvard in an email said he also doubts Jewish students are behind the banner.

"I have no knowledge of who arranged the plane flying over Harvard’s campus and the surrounding area," he wrote. "It was not Harvard Hillel."

There does not appear to be a public place to learn who's paying for the banner. The Federal Aviation Administration requires banner-towing operators to file a certificate of waiver, and the FAA must provide a sign-off for pilots and aircraft. But a spokesman said the FAA "does not regulate banner messaging."

The plane flew over Harvard again Saturday, according to FlightAware data and Simmons. He said it also was expected to fly over fans pre-gaming at Gillette Stadium before the Army-Navy game.

The superintendent of Brookline public schools sent a message to the community last week saying some children had seen the plane and its banner during recess and some were upset by it.

In response to a WBUR inquiry about children having seen the banner, Simmons said, "We as adults need to protect the little kids from that." However he continued to have the banner flown through Saturday.

A group that calls itself Healthcare Workers for Palestine on Friday issued a statement condemning the banner, saying the message, coupled with an image of the Palestinian flag, "is a hateful subterfuge." The group said the messaging feeds "a backlash against the movement to protect Palestinian human rights at Harvard and other universities by equating any attempt to speak up for Palestinian rights to a matter of 'Jew hatred.' ”

Messages left for Harvard's spokespeople went unreturned.

Simmons would not say how much he charges for his banner-towing flights. Prices listed online by similar companies range from $375 per hour to several thousand dollars per flight. Asked whether he's asking extra for this highly charged job, he said he wouldn't do that.

“I’m just a messenger, like a mailman who brings you a letter," he said. "I’m just bringing it in a grand format.”

With additional reporting from WBUR's Max Larkin.

This story was updated to include new information on Saturday, Dec. 9.