Everyone loves conspiracy theories

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-08 05:53pm

Wtf?

I'm not going to provide any editorial on this one whatsoever.

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2004-09-08 06:52pm

color me unimpressed and skeptical. there's a considerable number of holes in that 'theory' of theirs.

who are these so-called witnesses testifying? what times were the images they took photographed at? i see no solid reports, only a shiny flash animation.

another example is when someone mentioned it smelled like an explosion. no shit sherlock, what else is a plane ramming into a bit building going to smell like? unless they have an actual report with detailed findings, it doesn't strike me as that big a concern.

Elheru Aran · Post by **Elheru Aran** » 2004-09-08 07:37pm

Been aired before. They neglect to mention that when planes crash, generally they go into very small itty-bitty pieces...

Plus, a fact that not so many know: aluminum BURNS. it's not too surprising that there wasn't much of the plane left, really.

most of the stuff here is easily eliminated by simple science. As for the more unexplainable stuff like the people thinking that the plane was a fighter jet-- well... simple little thing called relativity at work. Long thing moving at very high speed relative to observer (who only glimpses it for a short time in this case) may very well appear to be a short thing moving at high speed.

And the thing about the hijackers of the Pentagon plane being lousy pilots? Well now, no shit... like a GOOD pilot would have been coming in at low level, choppin' off the lamp posts of the parking lot? No-- he would've come in at a more vertical angle, and smeared the whole side of the Pentagon, not just a chunk of a few rings!!!

Really...

mauldooku · Post by **mauldooku** » 2004-09-08 07:54pm

Damn, you beat me to it. I've been having a fairly lengthy debate at another forum on this very topic, and the video came up. I blasted it for 4 main reasons:

1. Flash Videos being a poor medium for serious argumentation.

2. Atrocious argumentation + appealing to ignorance. This includes the silly comparison between the picture of the 757 and the security camera (as if you can make out anything in such a highly pixelated, zoomed in image), not finishing arguments (all of the 'suspicious activities' which the video notes, without saying what this ultimately proves), and generally bad science.

3. Things that only seem to support their argument. The massive amounts of eyewitness quotes (which they don't source) that state that there was 'a sound like a missile'. What does that prove?

4. Refusal to explain why the 'coverup' theory is better, and failing to explain huge holes. Like what happened to the 757, for example.

Bugsby · Post by **Bugsby** » 2004-09-08 07:58pm

Conspiracy theories abound. Ah, the misplaced burden of proof.

Master of Ossus · Post by **Master of Ossus** » 2004-09-09 12:21am

I love the fact that they talk about the aircraft actually being a missile, and then show a frickin' picture of an airplane crashing into the building. Which is it? A missile or a plane? The video uses the "shot-gun" method of debating (the one DarkStar accused me of using). In fact, it takes it to the next level up. You have to read so quickly through their bullshit quotes and such that you can only comprehend the meaning of each individual snippet of information, rather than spotting that the whole is simply a mess of lies and distortions.

Note the contradictory claims: it was a small aircraft, not a 757 (and, incidentally, the security camera image they post to try and place doubt in someone's mind looks precisely the way that their "comparison shot" of the 757 looks). Now it was a missile. Now it was a UFO (not actually in the video). The website I looked at earlier about this conspiracy "theory" (which may or may not be the same one the video's peddling) often contradicted itself about the skill of the terrorists. "These guys were so well trained, yet they picked the Pentagon as a target?" "These guys were inept. How could they fly a plane that low that fast?"

Incidentally, the official position is that the aircraft hit the Pentagon while flying very fast and very low. That is true. However, it's ridiculous to claim this as some sort of proof that the terrorists couldn't have done it.

Their claims about how aircraft leave wreckage is totally ridiculous, since most first-responders who aren't trained in air-disaster responses find virtually no significant debris, and often come to the conclusion that a small plane crashed. One came to the conclusion that a small plane carrying NEWSPAPER crashed, to help explain the tiny scraps of aircraft left over. The wreckage strewn about the crash sites tends to be fairly obvious from the air, but not from the ground where the thing pieces don't capture the eye, and I would imagine that if an aircraft crashed into a building then it would be even more difficult to discern aircraft remains since the debris would mostly be inside the buildings and since the fuel would be in the same place as the wreckage and so incinerate it. Incidentally, since the fuel is stored in the frickin' wings, they would be the most likely to combust. Indeed, NTSB investigators almost never find significant material from the wings, so that absence is not surprising.

It is also not surprising that an aircraft would leave undamaged cables nearby (which, incidentally, disproves the claim that the aircraft was flying two feet off the ground-- the spools were higher than two feet), but it WOULD be surprising in the case of a missile packed with high-explosives, since that would send debris more or less omni-directionally, and would explode much more violently than burning fuel.

In short, the video uses the scatter-gun technique to fire eye-witness reports and "forensic evidence" (both terms used loosely) that we would actually EXPECT in the case of an airliner crashing into the Pentagon, and claims that this is somehow proof that the government's trying to cover something up. Typical.

Kamakazie Sith · Post by **Kamakazie Sith** » 2004-09-09 12:30am

I like the part claiming "no hole" then no more than a minute later they showed a collapsed section of the building. These people might be really good at making flash sites but that's all they're good at. This is simply a new all time low for conspiracy theorists everywhere.

Rogue 9 · Post by **Rogue 9** » 2004-09-09 02:02am

Here, have an even more long-winded one. I haven't watched it yet; it's almost an hour long, but I'm pretty sure I can predict the general gist.