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Author Topic:   Conspiracy Theories: It's all in your mind!
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 5 of 137 (699896)
05-28-2013 1:49 AM
Reply to: Message 1 by Percy
05-27-2013 10:23 AM


How can you tell?
The problem is that with so many ridiculous conspiracy theories floating around it has become much easier to actually get away with a conspiracy.
As soon as you say 'It's a conspiracy!' about 98% of your audience completely tunes you out. So even if you have a valid point like 'why can't I see a picture of a jetliner flying into the pentagon?' it can be dismissed as just part of a crazy conspiracy theory.
How is it that they can identify the Boston bombers in a matter of hours and they can not produce a single picture of jet plane colliding with the pentagon? The pentagon has to be one of the most heavily CCTV'd buildings in the world. How is that possible?
Take roxrcool's suggestion,
The Feds are intercepting cellular and online communications
What is so hard to believe about that? There is certainly a motive for the gov't to monitor the people. There is certainly the capacity to do so. What would it take...$50M/yr and a couple of warehouses? $150M? Pocket change.
The world used to change every generation or so. Now it is changing a couple of times a year. I mean....the army has invisibility cloaks ffs. Real ones that really work. Laser beam weapons and quantum computers. Do you really think that you know about all of the machinations that are underway? I know that I don't have nearly a clue.
How do you spot the real conspiracies? How hard would it be for 20 billionaires to get together and influence the world?

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 6 by caffeine, posted 05-28-2013 6:35 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 7 by Straggler, posted 05-28-2013 7:38 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 9 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 9:55 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 10 by NoNukes, posted 05-28-2013 10:30 AM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 20 by New Cat's Eye, posted 05-28-2013 4:03 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 11 of 137 (699933)
05-28-2013 1:02 PM
Reply to: Message 6 by caffeine
05-28-2013 6:35 AM


Re: How can you tell?
It seems to be presented as some kind of sinister room full of spies who know everything about everyone, but the fact remains that not all data can be intercepted, and the vast majority of intercepted data can never be read, from a simple logistics point of view.
They don't have to read all of it as most of it is innocuous chatter. The challenge is catching the bits that they want to read and to do that you just record everything. So the vast majority of information will never be read but any bit of it could be read. Record everything and keep it for future reference. At $2/GB it is not even hard or expensive. See here. How many of the worlds communications do not go through a satellite?
So a great many outlandish sounding things are actually quite simple to do if you are a billionaire or a shadowy gov't agency. The technology gap between a middle class citizen and the spy agency of his govt is vast. The ability is there and the fact that it is likely happening gets thrown out with the notion that it is some kind of elaborate conspiracy. I find it harder to believe that they are not doing it. If you were charged with protecting the people wouldn't you do it?

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


(2)
Message 12 of 137 (699934)
05-28-2013 1:04 PM
Reply to: Message 7 by Straggler
05-28-2013 7:38 AM


Re: Conspiratorial Conspiracy Theory
My head is spinning.
I think that they are on to you man. Its the confusion beam. Quick, down to the store and get some organically grown tin foil.

This message is a reply to:
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 13 of 137 (699936)
05-28-2013 1:05 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Dr Adequate
05-28-2013 9:55 AM


Re: How can you tell?
But they did produce the pictures. They were exhibit P200022 in the Moussaoui trial, consisting of footage of of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon as taken by two security cameras in the Pentagon parking lot.
This is exactly what I mean. There is no airplane in those videos.
So how is this a "valid point"? A false premise is being used to support a version of the conspiracy theory which is patently ridiculous.
It is a valid point because there is no airplane in those pictures.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 9 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 9:55 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 17 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 1:57 PM Dogmafood has replied
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 14 of 137 (699937)
05-28-2013 1:17 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by NoNukes
05-28-2013 10:30 AM


Re: How can you tell?
It's not the implausible that there weren't any undestroyed video cameras to capture the crash.
I don't know but it seems like a stretch to me. It is like saying that all of the bank cameras were coincidentally down for repair when the robbers came in.
The answer offered as to why there is no picture of a plane colliding with the pentagon is far more patently ridiculous than the question.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 18 of 137 (699944)
05-28-2013 2:53 PM
Reply to: Message 17 by Dr Adequate
05-28-2013 1:57 PM


Re: How can you tell?

This message is a reply to:
 Message 17 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 1:57 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 21 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 4:28 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 25 of 137 (699969)
05-28-2013 9:08 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by New Cat's Eye
05-28-2013 4:03 PM


Re: How can you tell?
The FBI confiscated the videos from the hotel and gas station that were near the Pentagon and have refused to let us see them. They could produce those pictures but they won't for some reason.
If that is true, what possible scenario can you imagine that would justify the FBI's refusal to release that footage? Why didn't the NTSB investigate the crash? Why was all of the debris removed even before the appointed investigators arrived? Where are the flight data and voice recorders from the 4 planes? Why on earth should that info be kept secret?
It just seems to me that if a plane did crash there that it should be easy as pie to prove it and that there should be no doubt whatsoever. The Pennsylvania crash had lots of anomalies as well.
My only point is that we shouldn't dismiss cries of conspiracy just because the whole thing is incredibly brazen and unbelievable or because most cries of conspiracy are ridiculous.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 20 by New Cat's Eye, posted 05-28-2013 4:03 PM New Cat's Eye has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by New Cat's Eye, posted 05-29-2013 8:25 AM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 26 of 137 (699970)
05-28-2013 9:10 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Dr Adequate
05-28-2013 4:28 PM


Re: How can you tell?
Thanks for the 404 error, I shall cherish it.
Hang on. Are you saying that there is nothing at the link that you provided as evidence when you said
But they did produce the pictures. They were exhibit P200022 in the Moussaoui trial, consisting of footage of of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon as taken by two security cameras in the Pentagon parking lot.
Personally, I am not at all surprised that there is nothing there . Thankfully, the video is available on Youtube as CS points out. Can you see a plane in the video?
I am not a conspiracy type of person. That is to say that I am usually one of the 98% that tunes out when I hear the word conspiracy. However, asking to see a picture of that plane strikes me as a legitimate request that should be easy to fill. It seems very odd that there would be no picture.
My point is simply to ask what would a conspiracy actually look like? It is as though once you pass a certain threshold of audacity then no one will believe that you tried to do such a thing even if you get caught.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-28-2013 4:28 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 27 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-29-2013 12:52 AM Dogmafood has replied
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 28 of 137 (699979)
05-29-2013 7:59 AM
Reply to: Message 27 by Dr Adequate
05-29-2013 12:52 AM


Re: How can you tell?
Why?
A plane travelling at 500mph moves 733 feet/sec. The average video camera takes at least 24 pictures/second. That is a picture every 30.5 ft of travel. There should be a clearly visible plane in those videos.
Sure there can be missing pieces to the puzzle but pieces that don't fit are another issue.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-29-2013 12:52 AM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by New Cat's Eye, posted 05-29-2013 8:30 AM Dogmafood has not replied
 Message 34 by PaulK, posted 05-29-2013 1:43 PM Dogmafood has replied
 Message 35 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-29-2013 1:44 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 44 of 137 (700176)
05-30-2013 6:45 PM
Reply to: Message 29 by New Cat's Eye
05-29-2013 8:25 AM


Re: How can you tell?
CS writes:
Well we know that people, businesses, and governments do conspire. Part of the issue is that if you want to get away with it, then the plans tend to get awfully convoluted, and that makes them look less plausible.
Sure it is implausible to you and me. My point is that you and me can have only the vaguest clue about how hard it would be for a bunch of ideologues at the height of power to start a war and blame it on the other guy. All that we have is the highly filtered evidence fed to us. The complete lack of transparency does nothing to alleviate the tendency for people to imagine alternative explanations. It took a court case to get the confiscated tape from the hotel released and what did it show? Nothing apart from a cloud of smoke. WTF?
Video was also seized from a gas station close by. The attendant reported,
quote:
"Velasquez says the gas station's security cameras are close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact. 'I've never seen what the pictures looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took the film.'"
So if I raise the point that it seems unlikely that the scratchy video offered as evidence is the best that the pentagon can do you really cant just wave it away and say 'don't be ridiculous'.
Read this summary about flight 77 and tell me that they don't raise any legitimate issues.
My point is only that there are legitimate questions surrounding the events of 9/11 and you can not attribute them to some sort of paranoia caused by the fact that I am a nobody with an over active amygdale. I have not reached the conclusion that there was some sort of conspiracy but I have reached the conclusion that there are many unanswered questions that should be able to be answered.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 45 of 137 (700177)
05-30-2013 6:47 PM
Reply to: Message 32 by Percy
05-29-2013 9:14 AM


Re: How can you tell?
Percy writes:
What is the interpretation of the long, skinny silvery object entering from the extreme right at 24 seconds:
When I stop the video at 24 sec I see a white streak on the right and something that could be the tail of an aircraft immediately above the right hand yellow box. A tail with no plane in front of it. The streak looks to me like smoke or dust and if you stop the video at 25 sec you see the streak runs from the right side of the picture all the way to the building.
At 33 sec I thought that I saw the bright flash from the Men in Black memory wiper so that may be why I can't seem to recall actually seeing a plane.

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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 46 of 137 (700179)
05-30-2013 6:55 PM
Reply to: Message 35 by Dr Adequate
05-29-2013 1:44 PM


Re: How can you tell?
How plausible is it that;
- the released video from the pentagon is the best that they could do. The FBI admits to having 83 videos that captured the event.
- the FBI would arrive at a gas station across from the pentagon to confiscate video within minutes of the impact. (edit; I don't know how many minutes.)
- a 124ft wide commercial airplane fit through the 50ft hole in the pentagon
- there is absolutely no wing debris outside of the building
- there are intact windows where a wing should have impacted
- a training exercise that simulated an attack on the country was underway that morning
- it was the first day on the job for the head of the FAA
- a non pilot managed to execute a manoeuvre that even skilled pilots describe as nearly impossible.
There certainly may be legitimate explanations to all of these questions and coincidents happen all the time but I don't see how these concerns could be classified as signs of delusion or paranoia.
Again, I am not convinced that there is or was a conspiracy underway but I am convinced that there are answerable questions that remain unanswered.
Edited by Prototypical, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 35 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-29-2013 1:44 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 54 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-31-2013 1:34 PM Dogmafood has replied

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 47 of 137 (700181)
05-30-2013 7:03 PM
Reply to: Message 34 by PaulK
05-29-2013 1:43 PM


Re: How can you tell?
PaulK writes:
Want to explain how you can look at that video and think that it's running at 24 frames a second ?
Obviously it is not. In fact it is running at a rate below the average CCTV camera that one would expect to find anywhere else in the world.
Look at these shots from a CCTV down by the Hudson river in New York at some loading dock. Odd that they should be vastly superior to the cameras at the most guarded building in the world. Not impossible but odd.
Edit Yes it is ten yrs later but still, one is the pentagon and the other is a loading dock down by the river.
Edited by Prototypical, : No reason given.

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Replies to this message:
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Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 48 of 137 (700183)
05-30-2013 7:58 PM


Which facts are in fact factual?
It really becomes clear that you have to be scrupulous about which 'facts' you allow yourself to accept as fact.
This applies to both those who are predisposed to believe in conspiracies and those who are not. The confirmation bias works in both directions.

  
Dogmafood
Member (Idle past 350 days)
Posts: 1815
From: Ontario Canada
Joined: 08-04-2010


Message 57 of 137 (700289)
05-31-2013 10:38 PM
Reply to: Message 54 by Dr Adequate
05-31-2013 1:34 PM


Re: How can you tell?
That is, if memory serves, how many videos they collected from the Pentagon, they don't claim that every such video captured the event.
You are correct. They don't claim that.
quote:
Special Agent Jacqueline Maguire of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division files a DECLARATION describing her search for records responsive to Bingham's FOIA request. Maguire admits to determining that 85 videotapes in the FBI's possession are "potentially responsive" the request, that she personally viewed 29 of the tapes, and that she located only one videotape that showed the impact of Flight 77 into the Pentagon.
Source
I guess 29 out of 85 is not too bad.
How come I was born within minutes of the extinction of the dinosaurs.
Well I suspected that you were wizened but... wow.
I am presuming that the gas station owner would have a finer sense of the appropriate words to use. It would be interesting to know how many minutes. I suppose if everything wasn't such a threat to national security we could find out.
We know what should have happened by looking at other plane crashes, for example the one that hit the Empire State Building in 1945. The hole was 20ft in diameter, the wingspan of a B-52 is 185ft.
The Mitchell 25D that hit the Empire state building had a wingspan of 67'7" and had a maximum take off weight of 35,000 lbs and cruises at about 180mph. The 757 has a wingspan of 124'10", has a max take off weight of 255,000lbs and cruises at about 500mph.
Here's some debris on the Pentagon lawn.
Well spotted!
Here is a picture of the wall that a 757 has just passed through at 500mph. (edit remember that the tail of the plane is 40ft tall.)
Don't you find it even a little odd for that glass to be there right in the middle of the impact hole?
Except that back in reality Jane Garvey was appointed head of the FAA in 1997.
My mistake. I meant to refer to Ben Sliney.
quote:
Ben Sliney, the national operations manager at the FAA's command center in Herndon, Va., was on duty at the center on Sept. 11.
And yes who cares if it was his first day in the position, he did an excellent job.
... who received his commercial pilot certificate in 1999 ...
If you read your source you will see that he was never a pilot.
I was taking my info from this NYT article.
quote:
Mr. Hanjour, who investigators contend piloted the airliner that crashed into the Pentagon, was reported to the aviation agency in February 2001 after instructors at his flight school in Phoenix had found his piloting skills so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine.
Crashing?
No Doc. Very obviously not crashing. Instead it is placing your 500 mph 757 precisely where you intend it to be. Remember, 1500ft is 2.046 seconds at 500mph.
It can't be harder to do that than to set it down so gently that you don't even jolt the passengers on a target one-tenth the size.
Any chance that you are failing to consider the difference between a professional landing after a smooth approach and radical manoeuvres at more than twice the speed? Again if you read about Mr Hanjour you might also conclude that he had never flown a jet plane in his life.
But they have been answered
Answers certainly have been offered.
You're like a creationist saying:
Have I insulted you?
But let's hear from you. According to your version of the CT.....
I don't have a version. Just a few questions.
Germane to the thread then, are your beliefs less influenced by your amygdale than mine are?
Edited by Prototypical, : No reason given.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 54 by Dr Adequate, posted 05-31-2013 1:34 PM Dr Adequate has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 59 by Dr Adequate, posted 06-01-2013 1:04 AM Dogmafood has replied
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