This issue isn't going away...

[Don Hudson]

No worries, Mitch - it's a subtle, large topic. I'm trying to understand deductive logic and am making no headway at all, so I have my own hands full!

[Mitch Cronin]

Now, where were we.....

Don, ..... Don, Don, Don.... Captain Hudson, Sir....

I could quote a bunch of lines in your post, and respond to each (sortalike; I don't believe anyone is suggesting the towers were intentionally weakened over time. The suggestion is controlled demolition) , or I could simply offer; Watch some of these videos I've posted links to?.... Why not, after all? They don't hurt to watch. Yes, you'll find errors, and idiocy... you'll find some obvious prejudice in some cases (not all), ...but I highly suspect that you would also find some very interesting and compelling questions.

Never mind the "conspiracy theory" malarky. It's all a hype that comes from a fear that maybe the theorists are right, or something... hell, I don't know, but it sure does serve to discourage conversation about a subject. Why is any set of questions ever a bad thing to look at?

Yes, one will see what one believes, and one will believe what one sees... But if you don't know what's going on right under your nose, because the mainstream press won't cover it, what harm is there in seeing what else there might be to learn? (do you want the red pill, or the blue pill? )

There are, of course, other ways to find out, for instance, which FBI chief, fired for asking too many questions, amazingly got a job as head of security at the WTC and on his first day at work, Sept. 11, 2001, was killed.... but this is one way to find a wide variety of information, that various people have already compiled, all relating to the subject...anyway... when you get some time to be bored, just for a laugh even.... ?

Cheers,

I don't like it Billy. It's rotten. It stinks Billy, it's dirty I tell ya! The whole thing stinks! We gotta get Outa heah!

[Kip Powick]

Mitch..

Did Billy leave

[John S.]

Mitch,

Pretty sure you have seen this already, but just in case you haven't:

Strange Planes

[Kip Powick]

Mitch,

Pretty sure you have seen this already, but just in case you haven't:

Strange Planes

[J.O.]

I was gonna go with

but that will do!

[Moon The Loon]

Where has all the subtlety gone?

[J.O.]

Where has all the subtlety gone?    

You mean something like this?

[Canus Chinookus]

Now imagine the view of the fuselage fairings if the plane was banking away from you... Sorry, don't buy it.

[Mitch Cronin]

Y'all are doin' a good job of proving one point; It's a topic that one ought not to discuss, lest he be shunned. For my part, it's obviously not a risk, since I've already convinced a number of you that I'm a nutbar, but for others...

I'd like to know why? Did you guys watch that video he linked, or did you shut it down as soon as you saw enough that you "knew where it was going"?

I don't know what those flashes were, but they were there.

[Canus Chinookus]

I watched the entire video. Compelling to be sure, as there IS a flash just prior to the planes contacting the tower. The flashes, especially the north tower flash they show last did not look like an explosion, rather it could have been the sun reflecting off the windshield reflecting off the glass of the building. What was the position of the sun in the various angles of video? Here's another far fetched possibility, and even though it's far fetched, it's no less far fetched than a bomb strapped onto an american airlines 767 fuselage... What about a static discharge from aircraft to the building just a couple feet from contact?

As to what type of aircraft it really was, I have no doubt it was a commercial airliner. Instead of getting eyewitness accounts from panicked uneducated bystanders, why don't they get eyewitness information from the pilots that narrowly avoided colliding with that flight as it was inbound the tower?

From Wiki:

At around this time, the flight had a near midair collision with Delta Air Lines Flight 2315, reportedly missing the plane by only 200 feet, as air traffic controller Dave Bottiglia frantically tried to tell the Delta pilot to take evasive action. Bottiglia was the first person in the control center to realize that Flight 175 was hijacked when he gave directions for a turn. Flight 175 did not respond, it instead accelerated and headed toward Delta Air Lines Flight 2315. The controller commanded the Delta pilot, "Take any evasive action necessary. We have an airplane that we don't know what he's doing. Any action at all."[14][15] Moments before Flight 175 crashed, it avoided a near collision with Midwest Express Flight 7.[16]

And what about the victims of the flight? The 'government' took them off their commercial airliner, stuffed them on some military, windowless grey airplane with bombs strapped to it, flew it into a WTC tower and then magically hid the commercial airliner they stole? Talk about far fetched, and truly improbable!

[J.O.]

I wasn't referring to you Mitch. I was referring to the guy in the video.

[Moon The Loon]

I wasn't referring to you Mitch. I was referring to the guy in the video.

Oh. Our mistake.

Just kidding Mitch. This is all very good discussion. It has raised some questions that I have no idea the answer. It has also clarified some misconceptions and misunderstandings I've had since I saw the NOVA program about 5 years ago which explained the physics of the two main buildings collapses.

But once again, and you just said it best in your last post: "I don't know what those flashes were, but they were there," the quantum leap made by a lot of people from what they don't know to what it was is a characteristic of human behaviour that goes back hundreds of thousands of years.

[Kip Powick]

Jumping In..

The pre-crash flash = radome exploding..electronics frying as dome crushes

The "belly " missile...obviously never looked closely at a 767 in flight and never took notice of the bulges and burps on an aircraft ...until he put up his lame photos of Mil planes.

Woman saying> "That is not American Airlines"...what she said was That is not American airline..(believing that AA pilots would not do that and the aircraft could not be an airline originating in the good ole USA)

The nutbar makes no mention of how the aircraft was tracked from point of departure and the gullibility of all the pax getting on an aircraft with no windows etc etc...the guy is a crackpot and not one thing he pointed out can be proven.....pure speculation,...I wonder how he sleeps at night

The last comment from GWB.????.M'God he can hardly string a recognizable sentence together.....,that he said he saw the 1st aircraft hit the tower would be his dim minded way of meaning he saw the second aircraft hit the tower....

Mitch, you ask if we watched the video or turned it off as soon as it started.......I watched it all, after all there isn't much going on after midnight in my casa

Jumping out........

[Lakelad]

I don't know what those flashes were, but they were there.

static discharge between aircraft and grounded aluminum clad building?

[Mitch Cronin]

static discharge between aircraft and grounded aluminum clad building?

I wondered about that as well... I wouldn't expect static discharges to be so large. Having put a ground wire or three on aircraft in my time, I've seen lots of sparks.... I've never seen one like that. ....mind you, I've never grounded an aircraft in flight...

[Canus Chinookus]

static discharge between aircraft and grounded aluminum clad building?

you could have just quoted me!

What about a static discharge from aircraft to the building just a couple feet from contact?

[Lakelad]

you could have just quoted me!

Right you are, musta missed it.

I wondered about that as well... I wouldn't expect static discharges to be so large.

Not sure about airborne charge either. Maybe a helo guy can speak more to it, but I think they treat the hoist cable with considerable respect in regard to static.

[Mitch Cronin]

I agree with you Don. I only regret it was that film you chose to watch. I don't recall having seen that before, but after seeing it a few times now, I certainly can't draw any conclusions from it. And with respect to the super slow speed? I have no idea.

I didn't think anyone had questioned that they were indeed hi-jacked 767's that hit the building. I haven't heard that suggestion in most of the films I've watched (and linked here).

And I know it wasn't personal, but that doesn't change the overall effect. Anyone lurking has no doubt that if they come forward as one who questions the story, they'll be labelled nutbars, fuitcakes and whacko's. It's that bit that really gets the hair on my neck standing up... Good people, with good questions, are inclined to shut up. Or, when they don't, they're up-staged by the nutbars.

[Canus Chinookus]

Asking questions is healthy. Disregarding reason and common sense is another issue altogether. I have seen both sides of the conspiracy argument, and the logical story is the one I agree with. If you want to talk conspiracy, then ask how these people could have gotten on board the planes to begin with

[Don Hudson]

Mitch;

I don't see this as any intent to "stop the questioning" or offer the cold shoulder to anyone who insists on asking the question. You have raised the question legitimately and other posters are responding to the question, not to you. I know this isn't a sacred cow with you; I know that asking the question is the intention, not necessarily the conclusions. Let me deal with the question on that basis.

I watched the 16:30 film to which John S. kindly provided the link. For me, there are so many holes and unsubstantiated, even imaginative assumptions and even conclusions on the slimmest of "evidence" that it is very hard to examine what is said and shown in the film and accept it all as a serious basis for further questions. That something is possible does not make it probable.

Let's establish that this was the United B767-200 that flew into WTC2 and not a phantom gray airplane with no windows as a Fox news reporter states, a video manipulation or a figment of someone's imagination. Here is why I say this:

compared to:

It stretches credulity to adopt the view of the Fox reporter, given the color scheme of the airplane. That windows "could not be seen" is not surprising given the angles of view, the bright, reflective surface of the aircraft and the absence of witness expertise in observation of details of the aircraft as well as the time and circumstances of observation.

I want to ask first about frame rates: With the kind of ordinary video cameras that captured the second aircraft hitting the building, their frame rates are typically around 30 frames per second. So in the linked video, where does the "super-slow-motion" capability come from? Thirty-frames-per-second is not capable of the super-slow-motion capture exhibited in this video which at the same time maintains the same clarity. I want to know if this assumption is incorrect, or, if not, how the "super-slow-motion" was done, and by who.

The "flash" theory is defended by the host of the film by describing it as a sort of "match" (source of ignition) which was intended to ignite, what?...the fuel?, an explosive on the airplane?, not sure. The fuel bomb that is the airplane certainly isn't going to need any help exploding. This is not a very bright theory but it seems to have caught the imagination of many.

Many insist (and have made similar "contributions" to You-tube) that the videos were manufactured; one such site is at: No Plane Shadow which, notwithstanding the mangled English at the end of the video, claims "scientifically" that the shadows of the second airplane false.

A couple of other videos assume exactly the opposite and ask the viewer to examine the shadows of the first airplane to "see" that the flash occurs before the shadow of the airplane reaches the building. I've looked at that video many times and it is simply not clear enough to accurately determine when the nose of the B757 first hits the building and the emergence of the white flash seen in the video. Here is the frame from the video before any indication of the white flash begins:

I defy anyone to state definitively, that the shadown of the aircraft demonstrates conclusivey that the nose of the B757 has not yet struck the building.

To me, this film, like the Zapruder film, works on the basis of the credulity of the viewer and a widespread ignorance about airplanes, aviation and how things work and happen. But let's look at the "flash" for a second.

First, there are two different videographers or theorists making opposite claims about shadows; - the theories can't have it both ways.

Next, in the second aircraft, the flash does not occur before the aircraft strikes the building. An enlarged view in this You-Tube videotaken from the video, "Why the Towers Fell", of the second airplane just as it hits the building shows a B767 with United Airlines colors, (grey and blue) just meters from the building, followed by the moment of impact - the three frames are sequential.

Using two frames, we can measure the distance between the nose and another known point, in this case the right engine, and compare that distance with the distance in the frame in which the flash appears. The distance places the nose at, and possibly already inside the building. To demonstrate:

then,

No "match" would be needed to ignite fuel in such a violent collision so the flash needs another explanation. If it emanates from inside the building, how was that location determined before impact, (they damn near missed the building)? If it came from the airplane, why?

There is the claim in the film that the United B767 was carrying something on its belly, the implication from the various, irrelevant but edited-in images of missles, weapons, USAF AWACS 707's and other such aircraft with various huge appendages on their belly making all of it out to be "evidence" that there was indeed "something" on the bottom of the United B767 and that it was some kind of explosive device.

Such a claim fails first of all to acknowledge the kind of bomb a transport aircraft is with even half a load of fuel on board, making the need to carry, let alone arrange for same, of a large explosive device redundant and more trouble than it was worth.

The claim then fails on the photographic evidence, relying on the capacity of the human mind to create "meaningful" images out of amorphous, meaningless shapes. The "devil in the smoke", posted earlier, is an obvious example, but there are many such images in religious as well as secular life, the most ridiculous being the claim that the face of Christ or the Virgin Mary was seen in a piece of toast, (can be found on Wiki, if anyone desires). The phenomenon is known as "simulcrae", the notion being closely related to the notion of the "metaphor", or "likeness"; Semiotics examines such phenomena but none of us are unfamiliar with the encounter of something we thought familiar but discover it is an illusion. "Looks like..." is a powerful human "tool" of thought and perception for reasons of survival alone, (alertness and safety in re-cognition of friend or foe). The pattern-making capacity of the mind is virtually unlimited.

Cont'd next post...

[Don Hudson]

Returning to the bottom of the United B767, there is the film's claim that the aircraft is carrying a weapon. This is made possible by the notion of "simulcrae" - we cannot make out what the shapes are, what they are made of or how they attend the structure of the airplane, if at all, so the author and/or editor(s) of the film feel free, with no hesitation, to tell us what they are.

First, examine the image of the United B767 above, for the pattern of paint on the belly and the substantial wing fillet fairings which, to the uneducated eye, can, in poor lighting or ill-defined photographs from video capture, look like "bombs", etc:

First, a photo of a United B767-200 in roughly the same attitude:

And then the 9/11 aircraft bottom:

In fact, one site goes to great lengths in putting the bottom of two B767's side-by-side, one being the 9/11 B767, the other being a "regular" B767. The key however is the paint job, not the fibreglass wing-fillets - the bottom of the United aircraft is painted a dark blue with the exception of a long, silver or white stripe - this is plainly evident in any photograph of that paint job on a United B767 from Aviation.net.

So I think that to claim the wing and gear fairings is "mounted weaponry" is unsupportable. I think that this claim relies instead upon the credulity of the viewer and a high degree of ignorance rather than direct evidence. That it is possible does not make it probable.

I don't know what the flash is but I think it is easy to posit alternative views which may be equally claimed and equally challenged. In the F4 Phantom planned collision with the cement wall, one can see an instantaneous orange flash as the nose is striking the concrete. Given the tremendous forces involved, this may be local heating to the point where light is emitted. It is more solid than any notion of a pre-planned explosion either on the aircraft or, even more ridiculous, an explosion inside the WTC, for the reasons already given.

The same techniques have been applied for centuries that are being applied here, from what I have seen in the videos I've watched so far. To me, I haven't yet seen a substantive basis for questions of the kind being asked here but in fairness and because I have chosen to engage this, I'll take a further look at the videos you suggest, Mitch.

Cheers!

Don

[GDR]

Hi Don

I've been involved in these discussions before and I had no desire to go around this whole subject again, but the work and analysis that you have done is as good as anything else I've seen done to refute these (sorry Mitch) far fetched claims.

Cheers

Greg

[Don Hudson]

Mods, if the two posts take up too much bandwidth, please request a deletion, no problem. I'm experimenting with linked images, - Don.

Mitch, I think CC has placed his finger on the nexus of the issue. For as many questions as there are about conspiracies, there are equal number of questions regarding the reasonableness of the theory. Again, to ask does not confirm or deny a thing.

Regarding the notion of "nutbar", while perhaps blunt, (and it certainly doesn't exist in formal discussions which require far higher standards of proof than any claims I have viewed, heard or seen), I think it is a not-unexpected response given the quality of the presentations, (and I promise to view those you suggested, and comment). In fact the commentary here is quite benign when compared with the boxing ring that is called PPRuNe; anonymity does have its "characteristics".

Bristling notwithstanding, the nature of the questions asked of such theories has not thus far been matched by the quality of the justifications. I think while most believe that the US screwed up big-time and that it hasn't changed much given the Christmas bombing attempt, most think that not only did the US not have anything to do with this but that they're not that good to be able to pull such a thing off and keep it secret. What keeps some people going is the absence of evidence to the contrary, the mistake in logical thinking being that such absence confirms, rather than just being what it is: absence of evidence.

Be back at ya, m'friend - when I've done some viewin'.

Don

[Mitch Cronin]

Hi Don

I've been involved in these discussions before and I had no desire to go around this whole subject again, but the work and analysis that you have done is as good as anything else I've seen done to refute these (sorry Mitch) far fetched claims.

Cheers

Greg

Greg, please make no apologies to me for your honest opinion. I'd have it no other way.

I agree completely regarding the matter of the airplanes hitting the two towers. I personally have no doubt that they were indeed plain old 67's (as I tried to tell a crew recently, we wanted to bring you a real airplane, but this one was all we had. ) hi-jacked, and flown by murderous swine.

I'm not convinced that their plan wasn't allowed to take place with full knowlege though. ...and the falling building business ...three times in one day steel frame skyscrapers falling, just as if they'd been felled intentionally, by fire, we're told. Never before that day, or since, has a steel framed building collapsed by fire.... When people want them to fall like that, they pay big money to experts to make it happen.

Why all the lengthy evacs and security shut downs in the twin towers in the few weeks prior?

Why was the head of Pakistan's ISI (their version of the CIA) in NY that day? Why had he given one of the pigs (Mohamed Atta) $100k two weeks prior?

How was Juliani warned?

How was the third building reported to have fallen almost half an hour before it fell? (on CNN and a Briitish broadcast as well) What reason was there to think it would fall? How would it fall straight down if indeed it fell due to damage? It wasn't even a symetrical structure.

How did molten iron appear at the bottoms of all three rubble piles?

What did Cheney mean "the order still stands"? Why, if they were watching the aircraft approach the Pentagon, didn't a fighter get it first?

etc...

.....