Race played a role in what happened to Mohamed Noor – a cross-country race.

Noor, a top runner for Lewiston High School, allegedly had sand or household cleaner tossed into his face during the New England regional championships in Cumberland last weekend. The unknown assailant was said to have been distributing religious materials before the race, and had asked for Noor by name.

Under other circumstances, this tale would seem straight from pulp fiction. But after experiencing the racist hijinks of the World Church of the Creator, improbable flying pig’s heads and a media-concocted ham sandwich, no further examples of intolerant idiocy can be considered outlandish. We haven’t seen it all.

Yet it’s still premature to label Noor the victim of a racial attack. He was targeted for reasons unknown; ethnicity and religion are suspects, but so are competitiveness and sheer malice. Whipping the froth of discrimination around this incident can obscure what’s truly important – finding the perpetrator and uncovering his motives.

If this person exists. He has yet to be found, and the lone description is basic: a white male with glasses, perhaps wearing a green jacket. Some witnesses claim seeing this person throw material twice at Noor, missing the first time. Fellow runners also say they were hit with debris.

We believe Noor and others are telling the truth. Something happened on that trail, and it wasn’t the inadvertent kicking of dust from the ground. Noor’s plummet through the standings and post-race maladies and treatments indicate something much more malevolent occurred.

What we fear, though, is others spreading their “truths” about this incident. It has already started – pundits and advocates from across the nation, including Somalis, are moving too quickly to introduce racial overtones into this incident, despite the overwhelming need and prevailing sentiment to reserve judgment.

If what happened to Noor stemmed from his ethnicity and religion, it elevates into perhaps the most disgraceful display of racial intolerance ever to degrade modern Maine. An innocent teen, participating in the highlight of his athletic life, blindsided by a hateful troll with evil in his heart, and nothing in his head.

But if unconnected to Noor’s background, this attack becomes a nightmare scenario for school officials, student-athletes and parents. It raises the prospect of kids becoming targets for random attacks from spectators, which is an unprecedented security concern for school-sponsored athletics and their participants.

For these reasons, it’s critical that this incident is vetted thoroughly, to discover what happened and why.

The racial angle is low-hanging fruit; it’s easy to assert what happened to Noor as the premeditated action of a diseased, hateful mind. Sadly, given past events, this explanation has become most likely.

It’s too dangerous, however, to disregard other frightening possibilities.