is. tonight on "nightline," vanished. she was last seen working on her home computer. now rescuers race against time to find an 11-year-old girl who disappeared from her house. a special fbi unit joins the effort tonight and authorities say, every second counts. >>wol and dangerous. police arrest a soldier with bomb making materials and jihadi it wiliterature rigig outside as base already scarred by massacre. but did the military almost miss it? and recession therapy. with the economy in crisis, inner peace may seem like a pipe dream. but we'll show you one thing you can do for free to cut stress and boost happiness. >> announcer: from the global resources of abc news, with

terry moran, cynthia mcfadden and bill weir in new york city, this is "nightline," july 28th, 2011. >> good evening, i'm bill weir. of the hundreds of thousands of children reported missing each year, only a tiny percentage, around 11 or less, are taken by complete strangers. that is one reality on the minds of the fbi child abduction specialists who have joined tonight's search for a missing 11-year-old girl in a small new hampshire town right near the canadian border. they also know that time is of thes sense. celina cass is her name, and abc's ron claiborne as her story. >> reporter: tonight, police were back at selencelina cass' hunting for any shreded of evidence that might lead them to the missing 11-year-old. it's the latest in the search for the young girl that allegedly went missing just over 72 hours ago. her parents say they last saw

her around 9:00 monday night at the family computer. the next morning when they went to wake her up, she was gone. by that afternoon, the search was under way. police joined by border patrol agents combed the thickly wooded field. on wednesday, 36 hours after her disappearance, the family gathered on a side porch. they are not the only ones in this community of about 900 who are shaken by her disappearance. is there a mood of fear not knowing what happened? >> very, very much. i miss her a lot. everybody misses her. everybody's scared. the only thing we can do is pray for her. wish everybody would do that for us. >> reporter: wednesday night, several hundred people gathered in a small park to hold a vigil. the anguish was overwhelming. her mother confined to a wheelchair was consoled bid her husband. they never spoke.

today, in the same park, a shrine of sorts is taking shape. cand candles, stuffed animals and moments for the missing 11-year-old. this afternoon, a friend spoke for the familyfamily. >> this is a young goirl who is afraid an needs to be home with her family and her friends. we are pleading with anyone that has any anything to please contact the police. >> reporter: nearly 100 law enforcement officers are now on the case, including the fbi. not just agents, experts in ductions. >> i mentioned yesterday the fbi has deployed its child abduction rapid deployment team. we are using advance techniques from aviation to canines and the like and we are hopeful that a positive outcome could still result. >> reporter: it has been three full day of searching, but the mystery has only deepened. it seems celina's home has become the focus of the investigation. tonight, the family home looks

like a crime scene. in cases like this,, missing persons cases, investigators always begin close to home, with friends and with family. >> statistically, when children disappear many times it has something to do with the fafaly. it's either a runaway, because of isssss within the family or a family member could have done something to a child. all behavior is relevant in a family when you're looking for a missing person and if you have a parent, for example, someone who has a history of domestic abuse or violence, i would want to know everything there is to know about that. >> reporter: these court documents reveal that her step-father, wendell knows, has a checkered past. he was committed to a mental hospital in 2003 with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. abc nene contact eed noyes, bute and the family said they wanted absolute privacy. the step-father has not been charged or declared a suspect by police. in fact, at this time, there are

no known suspects in her disappearance. >> we continue to investigate all aspects of this disappearance. we are looking at computers, we are looking at phones. >> reporter: and celina's facebook friends could be a key to finding her, filling in information about her daily life. >> the right way to do this is, you take every friend iner circle, probably going to be 10, 11, 12-year-old, and with their parents you interview them and figure out what was going on with her. because if children disappear by their own making, in other words, they hooked up with something over the internet, they leeft with a boyfriend, whatever it might be, there will be a trail of that. >> everybody knows everybody, everybody takes care of everybody. this is not supposed to happen. >> reporter: this community may be shaken, bubu its still determined to do everything i can to find her. they don't want this to be the last image they have of celina. >> i don't care, if it starts to rain, i'm going to be out here. >> reporter: and you'll be here

tomorrow? >> we will be here as long as it takes. >> reporter: ron claiborne for "nightline" in west stewartstown, new hampshire. >> good luck to the searchesear. and tomorrow on "good morning america," abc contributor elizabeth smart will share her thoughts on this case. coming up, an awol soldier and a weapons stockpile. thorities trying to get to the bottom of what has the makings of another military base rampage.

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>> announcer: "nightline" continues from new york city with bill weir. >> it was the same texas gun store where major nidal hasan stocked up in 200 before killing 13 and wounds 32 on his ft. hootd rampage. this time, when a 21-year-old walked in, the clerk grew suspicious, called police and today they arrested the man. turned out to be an awol soldier, a muslim, who is mad at the army. here's abc's pierre thomas. >> reporter: tonight, the u.s. military must deal with a horrible thought. one of its own soldiers was apparently planning to kill his

comrades in cold blood. a nightmare scenario again. army private naser abdo, who the army says was obsessed with the ft. hood massacre, was allegedly on his way there to resurrect the day of carnage. >> we have interviewed him and we have the information that leads us to believe that milita military personnel was targeted. i can tell you that we probably would be here today giving you t been stopped. >> reporter: the plot to bomb a restaurant frequented by soldiers and to shoot any survivors. and if it was true he was targeting ft. hood, the warning signs were there. his life has been unraveling publicly. he was charged with having child pornography on his computer at ft. campbell in kentucky. he was facing court-martial. and abdo was struggling with his role as soldier. he wanted out of the military, because he apparently had issues

with killing muslims in the afghanistan war. last year, abdo took the unusual step of complaining to tv networks. among them, al jazeera. >> i do not think the afghanistan or the iraq war is justified islamicly. and i do not ink, and believe, that i can participate in any war that the u.s. army partakes or involves itself in. >> reporter: sources tell abc news, military officials were concerned about so-called radical same, abdo has been overheard making. he was also known to talk about anwar al awlaki, who is hiding in yemen and believed to be plotting attacks against the u.s. many consider awlaki america's number one enemy. still, despipi those suspicions, abdo disappeared and went awol on the fourth of july. police now know that he came here to killeen, texas, and checked into this hotel. and tuesday, he took a dtaxi to

this gun shop, guns galore, the same store where the alleged shooter bought his weapons in 2009. about beau bought six canisters of gun powder, three boxes of shotgun ammunition and a mag sooeb for a semiautomatic pistol. >> he arrives in a taxi, okay? that's -- that's flag number one. he purr chachases a product tha has little of no knowledge of. that's flag number two. and three, he whips out a handle of cash and doesn't wait for his change. he takes his bag and out the door. would you question that? >> reporter: the employees and owner did question it and took action. >> i have a bad habit of looking at folklk especially when they act a little off-cue. and i ask myself, you know, what is the potential for a problem? and if i'm uncomfortable i'm not

bashful. i have no compunction whatever about calling the police and saying, hey, you need to look at this guy. i thought it was prudent to a a least notify the authorities because i had no idea what this kid's intentions might be. >> reporter: a ahorities arrested abdo wednesday at his texas hotel. police say after searching his room, they discovered in addition to the items purchased at the gun store, materials that cocod be used to make two bombs. they found and article from al qaeda's online magazine "inspire" entitled, how to make a bomb in your kitchen. the magazine's goal, sources say, is to radicalize by remote. no direct ties to potential terrorists required. tonight, the employees of the gun store which sold the weapon used in the massacre two years ago are thankful for a different outcome. >> i think it's important for any community in america to be mindful of what's going on in your surroundings and when you see something that's out of the ordinary, make sure that you report that to the local law

enforcement. every national event starts at a local level. >> i'm only pleased that an imbalanced individual is not out where he can do harm to the public. i'm grateful for that and i pray to god that anybody like him will give the same indicators so that we can get them off the street, as well. >> reporter: the plot was imminent, sources say. another catastrophe narrowly averted. for "nightline," i'm pierre thomas in washington. ♪ i may be mud, but i have standards. mops? please. some of them have bacteria. ♪ and they try to pick me up? ew. i'm really hard to get. uh! ♪ what about love?! [ male announcer ] swiffer attracts dirt. used mops can grow bacteria. swiffer wetjet's antibacterial solution eliminates 99.9% of bacteria that mops can spread around. i like your pad! [ male announcer ] swiffer cleans better than a mop or your money back.

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so if tonight was any indication, our elected leaders in washington might just set out a financial meltdown next week. what better time to becomene of the universe? because meditation is not just for yogis anymore. scientists have proven its positive effects on the brain and abc's dan harris has the tips and facts to make you go ohm for tonight's "sign of the times." >> reporter: it's intimate and intense. it can be done solo or with others. and 20 million americans are trying it. including shock jock howard stern, actors richard gere, goldie hawn and heather graham and the lead singer of the rock band weezer. what do these people know about that we don't?

meditation. are you saying that we can rewire our brains to be happier and nicer, basically? >> we can rewire our brains to be happier and nicer. >> reporter: if i meditation, i might get nicer? >> yes. >> reporter: at the university of wisconsin madison where they have one of the most cutting edge neuroscience labs on earth, the dalai lama himself granted permission for his monks, master med day or thes, to have their brains studied. lead researcher richie davidson and his colleagues were amazed by what they found. this is pretty wild. this is the activity in your brain when you're sitting there doing nothing and when you meditate -- >> there's dramatic change. >> reporter: but you don't have to be a monk or a buddhist, for that matter, to benefit from meditation. one study that came out earlier this year looked at regular people that took an eight-week course in meditation. after just eight weeks, the parts of their brain associated

with compassion and self-awareness grew and the p t parts associated with stress shrunk. chuck raison did at emery hat university in atlanta. he hooked up these microphones to people taught may sick meditation and recorded them at random times throughout the day. he found that the newly trained med day or thes were much less likely to be saying mean thing than -- >> they talked about deeper things about other people. they laugh more. l these things, they didn't use the i as much, they used "we" more. >> reporter: meditation is not complicated. anybody can do it. remember rivers cuomo, the lead singer of weezer the guy whose hits include "butddy holly" and "beverly hills?" he meditates every day. we asked him for a 30-second lesson. >> step one, sit down in a comfortable place. i can meditation in a

comfortable chair. step two, bring your attention to the breath, as it goes in and out of your nose. as your mind starts to wander and you start thinking about what's happening tomorrow, what happened yesterday, step three is, bring your attention back. >> reporter: cuomo used meditation to cure stage fright. i traveled all over the country and met people meditating at fortune 500 companies like t target and general mills and at elementary schools. do you like it? >> i do. it calms my mind. >> reporter: it's not a silver bullet, however. and when we sat down with the dalai lama himself, he admitted as much. is your mind always calm? >> hopefully. >> reporter: you never lose your temper? >> no, no, occasionally lose my temper. >> reporter: you do? >> oh, yes. if someone is never lose temper, it doesn't come from another space.

>> reporter: so, while this new science is quite literally mind altering, you should know two things. it's still really in its infancy and if you take it up expecting to be enlightened, the dalai lama says do not expect immediate results. would you say that you are enlightened? >> no. >> reporter: okay, so, that if you, if the dally lam mall ever get enlightened?how can i >> enlightenment not depend on rank. it depend on practice. >> reporter: so, you shouldn't be looking for instant tran essential dance, but a few minutes a day of sitting quietly could literally change your brain and your life. nice to meet you. for "nightline," this is dan harris. >> and for some simple tips on how to meditate, go to abcnews.com/nightline. i'm going to try it on the subway h