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SALTER DEBATES -- Part 1 Begin forwarded message: From: Date: April 7, 2004 8:36:05 AM GMT+07:00 To: consortium Subject: Re: [consortium]A Valuable Update of 9/11 Info! On Apr 6, 2004, at 10:42 PM, Eric Salter wrote: Pondo, I come out of the woods once again to play the debunker. I was reading this post and feeling pretty good about it until I came across the video "analysis" which claimed evidence that no 767s hit the WTC. I'm livid. This is all pure hokum. Another embarrassment which will end up discrediting the 9/11 truth movement. Amateurs pouring over freeze frames from highly compressed mpeg movies on the internet is bound to get you into trouble. Did any of these folks interview the thousands of witnesses and ask them what they saw? (Salter quotes excerpt from evidence compilation ) 2.3 What hit WTC towers? (end excerpt) the claim of a missile at this link: http://home.earthlink.net/~whatzit/ is ridiculous. What I see in the frames is a defect in the video tape we call a "drop-out". you can see that the "missile" is aligned along a horizontal distortion in the image. It's hard to see the dropout because of the data compression of mpeg movies which blurs edges and creates what we call "artifacts". going further: http://thewebfairy.com/whatzit/index2.html makes another bad analysis of the 1st strike from the firefighter documentary footage. Here's some of it: (Salter quotes WF ) "Notice this object divebombing the building. It is not a plane." (End WF quote) No, it's not "divebombing" the WTC. The camera is looking up, creating the illusion that the horizontal path of the airplane is vertical. Video does not have good resolution, and moreover it does not handle edges well, so something as tiny in the frame as the airplane is going to look distorted and unrecognizable. I've been working with freeze frames of video for 10 years, and what I see in these frames is pretty much what I would expect an airplane to look like. (Salter quotes excerpt from evidence kit ) (end excerpt) from the above link: (Salter quotes Loughrey ) "Strangely, UA 175 is also not affected by the Sun. For example, sometime during the day of 9/11/01 CNN broadcast more "amateur" footage of UA 175 from a position east of the WTC. In this footage we see the jet arriving in silhouette. It remains in shadow until it disappears into the South Tower." (End Loughrey quote) duh!! the plane is passing through the shadow of the smoke. (Salter quotes Loughrey) Why did all of these amateur videographers risk losing their subject zoom-out just as UA 175 arrives? Didn't they feel that the subject matter was already of intense interest to them? Surely this scene didn't need dramatic embellishment added. (End Loughery quote ) Idiot. Zooming out helps to ensure that you keep your subject in frame and capture all the action. Zooming in is where you risk losing the subject. Besides, you can't prove anything about the source of the footage from the behavior of the camera operator. (Salter quotes excerpt from evidence kit )
(End excerpt) There is not enough information here on how the technology works to conclude whether it could have been used. Besides, just interview the thousands of witnesses and see if they saw a plane or not. (Salter quotes evidence kit) (End excerpt) Typical presumptuous arrogance. Nothing has been demonstrated whatsoever. I think there are anomalies in the video record that are interesting, but nothing that suggests that there were not airliners that struck the WTC. Sorry for the angry tone of this, but this crap can't be tolerated. Eric This was my reply. April 7. The text in the double brackets indicates a quote from Salter to which I am responding. Deconstruction below. [[Amateurs]] Already a sign of desperation, when one chooses to play the man (or woman) instead of the ball. We are all amateurs at this. Perhaps Eric prefers the "professional" analysis from people like Purdue, and the pentagon and WTC ASCE reports, and people like Prof Eagar who talk about jet fuel melting steel. Perhaps he prefers the "professional analysis " of those who pontificate over "intelligence failures". Quit the name calling and stick to the facts. [[Pouring over freeze frames]] Really ! Well, we wouldn't want to actually *look* at what's on the videos would we we? How "amateur" can one get ? Freeze frame analysis ! What a hopeless way to deconstruct video evidence! Who ever heard of examining frames of video individually, in order to more closely determine what they show ? [[from highly compressed mpeg movies on the internet is bound to get you into trouble.]] Ah, the internet ! It must be crap if its on the internet! Perhaps Eric can suggest a more appropriate medium for the publication of the research? A book ? A photograph album to be sold on street corners? TV ? (Fine , lets just get hold of a few billion somewhere and set up our own network). What would Eric suggest as a more rigorous form of analysis? Simply watching it on the TV news at full speed and believing that its what the newsreader tells us it is, because its too fast to really see it properly anyway? That's real analysis is it ? So lets deconstruct the above sentence. Eric believes that no frame by frame analysis of the video should be conducted - certainly not by people who aren't being paid for it - and that any analysis which might be conducted should not be published on the internet. Hmmm... a riveting and powerful argument that it was 767s which hit the towers. Or if this is not what Eric is saying, then perhaps he can kindly unscramble the gobildygook filler for us, and tell us what he actually meant to say - in plain English, please. [[What I see in the frames is a defect in the video tape we call a "drop-out". you can see that the "missile" is aligned along a horizontal distortion in the image. It's hard to see the dropout because of the data compression of mpeg movies which blurs edges and creates what we call "artifacts".]] Is that so? Now this is new to me. Video doesn't really show what it filmed! Remarkable ! Now since the "artifact" phenomena is so common, perhaps Eric can give us another five examples of planes captured in flight, and not looking like planes because of the easily recognizable"artifact " effect. After all, planes are caught on video all the time, so there should be thousands of such examples available. I await the supply of other examples. Furthermore, at what point does the "plane" reappear out of the "horizontal distortion" ? Ah, I get it ! It miraculously stays right along the "horizontal distortion line' for the entire clip. So we never get to actually see it. Now this really is a novel way of analyzing video. " I can't see a 767 in the video. But because I know there's one there (because the govt told me, so it must be true), then there must be a horizontal distortion line in the video which has swallowed up its image - well, not swallowed it up, just made it a completely different size and shape. " [[ Blurs edges ]] If it "blurred edges" then we would see what looked like a plane with blurred edges. We wouldn't see a squat triangular shaped object, less than half the size it should be. Neither does video selectively compress. The plane is hiding between the pixels ! Compressed out of existence ! [[ no, it's not "divebombing" the WTC. The camera is looking up, creating the illusion that the horizontal path of the airplane is vertical. Video does not have good resolution, and moreover it does not handle edges well, so something as tiny in the frame as the airplane is going to look distorted and unrecognizable. I've been working with freeze frames of video for 10 years, and what I see in these frames is pretty much what I would expect an airplane to look like.]] Which means that Eric should be able to supply thousands of such examples of planes filmed from the ground which a) don't look like planes, and b) appear to be divebombing, when they're flying more or less level. BTW Eric, if [[. the camera is looking up, creating the illusion that the horizontal path of the airplane is vertical. ]] Then why doesn't the second "plane" also look like it's divebombing, since that's what we "expect"? Ah - well you see, sometimes video shows what's really there, and sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes it distorts altitudes and directions and sometimes it doesn't. And how do we we know which is which? When it doesn't show what we expect. So if video doesn't show what we expect it to show, then we know that the "artifact " effect has set in, and if it does show what we expect, then we know we know that the artifact effect is not present. Is it possible that video behaves consistently and just shows what's there? What a radical concept! [[video does not have good resolution, and moreover it does not handle edges well, so something as tiny in the frame as the airplane is going to look distorted and unrecognizable. ]] Yes , Eric is right - it really is quite impossible to get a clear video of a plane which actually looks like a plane. Its never been done! Video technologists have been agonizing over this problem for years. "When we will be able to invent a video camera that enables a plane to actually look like a plane? " cry the distressed executives to their technological development teams. "Why is this so difficult?" And just to reinforce his point, Eric will doubtless send us a heap of other "whatzits" filmed at airports, from news video footage, planespotters stuff posted on the web, etc. Whatztits are everywhere! This is what planes actually look like when one videos them ! If Eric is claiming that "whatzits" are what we would "expect" planes to appear like on video, then he must supply the historical evidence for that. If there isn't any, then he must explain why something which has never been observed to occur has suddenly become what we 'expect". Once again I must point out that poor resolution does not change the fundamental size and shape of objects. A poor resolution of a plane will simply look like a poor resolution of a plane, and when the resolution gets bad enough, it won"t look like anything. A poor resolution shot of a bus doesn't look like a horse, a poor resolution shot of an apartment block doesn't look like a teepee. The object is many times smaller than it should be, and is completely the wrong shape. [[Duh!! the plane is passing through the shadow of the smoke.]] Sorry, no it isn't. Take a look at the beginning of the footage. There is no smoke anywhere near. Or maybe - since video resolution is so notoriously poor - we just can't can't see the smoke. Its along a horizontal distortion line, hiding between the pixels, just like the "plane" in the first impact. So in the second video, that notoriously hard to film object - the plane - has suddenly become very recognizable, and now its the smoke that's disappearing into the black hole of the our horribly primitive photographic technology - which it seems, just can't perform the simple act of showing what's there. [[There is not enough information here on how the technology works to conclude whether it could have been used.]] Yes there is. It even gives a description of the speed at which the pixel manipulation can be conducted and describes the tracking technology used to lock onto a moving object, and the method by which a nonexistent object can be edited in. At the very least, it demonstrates that live video manipulation is well and truly here, so that one can not use the fact that it was a live broadcast to claim that manipulation is impossible. Eric's attitude is quite irresponsible. He shows no interest in this information, and no interest in exploring the possibility. Clearly he's only just become aware of it - which is strange for a video "professional". ( Or is he an amateur? If so, then why not has he followed his own advice and excluded himself from the debate?) So I have a question for Eric. Do you work professionally with video? If so, in what capacity ? If so, why were you not already aware of the development of live video animation? If "amateur" can dig this up, why was a professional unaware? If you are not a professional, then what qualifies you to sneer at other amateurs, and claim to be an amateur expert on the subject? But back to live video animation. I have little respect for those who make up their minds in such reckless, cavalier fashion, without study or consideration. Eric, having been informed of the important revelation of live video manipulation shows no interest whatsoever in its implications, but simply dismisses it as "not enough information". How about thinking? How about looking for more? I've been studying this WTC planes question for over a year, and its only in the last few months that I've become confident enough that I've worked through every possibility and every possible counter argument, that I now aggressively push the conclusion that I've come to over that period. When I first became aware of the video material posted by Webfairy, the very first questions I asked her was "could this video be a hoax" "could it be just poor resolution?" Does Eric seriously think that we just took one cavalier look at the video and immediately started aggressively publishing hard opinions on it? He probably does, because its clearly the way he works. From his tone, he's given no thought to this, just made a snap decision that 767s must have hit the tower (after all, the govt tells us, so it must be true !) and then proceeds to reinvent the laws of video, just as the proponents of the govt stories on the pentagon and the WTC demolition have found it necessary to reinvent the laws of physics. Never before have I heard anything about how "poor resolution" or "horizontal distortion" makes planes so damned difficult to film ( but only sometimes it seems, sometimes its smoke that's the problem), and all of a sudden complete new theories miraculously appear to try to explain why the videos don't show what the govt tells us they should show. The possibility that the govt might be lying seems to be beyond the pale for people like Eric. [[Besides, just interview the thousands of witnesses and see if they saw a plane or not.]] Now this really takes the cake. What "thousands of witnesses"? Perhaps Eric can find some? I've looked hard and can't find any witnesses to a big plane. This is circular delusion at at its worst. "We know that there were 767s. Because we know there were 767s, then there must be thousands of witnesses. Aha, because there must have been thousands of witnesses to such an event, then we know there *are * thousands. And because there's thousands of witnesses, that proves the planes." You can't just blindly assume that there are witnesses. You have to find them. Its called research. Let me introduce you to the concept, Eric. Here's one of your treasured witness reports. http://www.likeanorb.com/wtc/index.php?Number=5 "until the second explosion happened. We couldn't see that there'd been a plane, and figured some debris from the first tower had set off a gas line in the second." Evan Fairbanks, one of the videographers of the second hit is quoted as saying "It looked like a cheap miniature model. It disappeared into the building like a bad special effect" If Eric has studied the reports of the first strike, he will know that there is not a single witness to a large plane. All witnesses said that it was something small. All early media reports had it as a small plane. It didn't become a large plane until after the second strike - and only when AA issued a statement saying that it had lost AA 11 into the WTC - a flight which didn't exist according to official records. So lets look at Eric's research and reasoning standards. The official documentation confirms that AA 11 didn't fly and that UA 175 didn't crash. Eric describes a search of official databases to dig this up as [[ typical presumptuous arrogance. ]] Typical of what, Eric ? Please refrain from this kind of meaningless filler and use plain English. Are you saying that people who take the trouble to search official databases and report the findings are typically arrogant and presumptuous? Or are you disputing the results of the searches ? Please make you position clear. Then, the witness reports support the official documentation by their absence of large plane assertions in combination with positive statements that it was something other than a large plane. In response to which Eric wildly and irresponsibly asserts thousands of mythical witnesses that support the govt story - but can't/won't produce any. Then the video evidence corroborates the combination of official documentation and witness reports by showing clearly that neither object is a 767, and Eric invents new properties of video to creatively assert that the fact that we can't see any 767s on the video actually proves that they were there, because 767s on video never actually look like 767s. And then vaguely shrugs off things such a plane melting away into nothing without leaving a hole in the building, as "anomalies" and as "interesting", while appearing to actually show no interest whatsoever. Now I would like Eric to produce some actual evidence for the unsubstantiated assumption that 767s hit the towers. Since there are allegedly "thousands" of witnesses to a large plane, I am asking Eric to produce 50 of them. Less than 5% of those available -which is not an unreasonable proportion to ask for (unless of course, Eric was exaggerating a little with the " thousands" claim - in which case I seek an acknowledgment and retraction) I would also like Eric to produce 5 examples of verifiable footage of any kind of large Boeing passenger jet (even 737s and 707s will do) which look anything like the object going into the Nth Tower. After all, it is, according to Eric, what we would "expect" a video of a plane in flight to look like, so such examples shouldn't be too hard to find. I would also like Eric address the question of why the Sth tower "plane" melts away into nothing without leaving a hole in the building. Since this "anomaly" is so "interesting", then lets get interested. What caused this Eric? It struck a patch of "horizontal distortion" did it, and hid between the pixels, just like the Nth tower plane managed to do for its entire flight path? Eric's reply . He has included all of my text, around which I have added double brackets. Subject:Re: [consortium]A Valuable Update of 9/11 Info! [[Deconstruction below. "Amateurs " Already a sign of desperation, when one chooses to play the man (or woman) instead of the ball. We are all amateurs at this. Perhaps Eric prefers the "professional" analysis from people like Purdue, and the pentagon and WTC ASCE reports, and people like Prof Eagar who talk about jet fuel melting steel. Perhaps he prefers the "professional analysis " of those who pontificate over "intelligence failures". Quit the name calling and stick to the facts.]] I'm not an amateur. I've been a video professional for 11 years. I said nothing about intelligence failures. I don't believe in intelligence failures, I believe that the wtc was demolished. [[Pouring over freeze frames Really ! Well, we wouldn't want to actually *look* at what's on the videos would we we. How "amateur" can one get ? Freeze frame analysis ! What a hopeless way to deconstruct video evidence! Who ever heard of examining frames of video individually, in order to more closely determine what they show ? from highly compressed mpeg movies on the internet is bound to get you into trouble." Ah, the internet ! It must be crap if its on the internet! Perhaps Eric can suggest a more appropriate medium for the publication of the research? A book ? A photograph album to be sold on street corners? TV ? (Fine, lets just get hold of a few billion somewhere and set up our own network).]] What a bunch of hysterical ranting. The problem is not with freeze frame analysis, nor with the internet, but with using freeze frames from mpeg movies. Mpeg movies, as I explained in my post, introduce what are called "artifacts" because of the compression process which reduces the movies to a fraction of their size, both in terms of resolution and bandwidth. I believe that analysis should be done, but on the full quality original video, not mpeg movies. Do a search and learn about mpeg compression if you think my explanation is gobbledygook. [[What I see in the frames is a defect in the video tape we call a "drop-out". you can see that the "missile" is aligned along a horizontal distortion in the image. It's hard to see the dropout because of the data compression of mpeg movies which blurs edges and creates what we call "artifacts". Is that so? Now this is new to me. Video doesn't really show what it filmed! Remarkable ! Now since the "artifact" phenomena is so common, perhaps Eric can give us another five examples of planes captured in flight, and not looking like planes because of the easily recognizable"artifact " effect. After all, planes are caught on video all the time, so there should be thousands of such examples available. I await the supply of other examples. Furthermore, at what point does the "plane" reappear out of the "horizontal distortion" ? Ah, I get it ! It miraculously stays right along the "horizontal distortion line' for the entire clip. So we never get to actually see it. Now this really is a novel way of analyzing video.]] The link I gave for the example of the drop out shows a close-up of the top of the wtc. The images shown don't show the impact of the plane, only what is mistakenly interpreted as a "missile". anyone like myself who has seen enough dropouts from editing for years would tell you the same thing about this analysis. [[" I can't see a 767 in the video. But Because I know there's one there (because the govt told me, so it must be true), then here must be a horizontal distortion line in the video which has swallowed up its image - well, not swallowed it up, just made it a completely different size and shape. "]] Again, the stills at the top of the page I referenced don't show the impact, so one wouldn't see a 767 in those frames. This is only in regards to the "missile" analysis. [[ Blurs edges If it "blurred edges" then we would see what looked like a plane with blurred edges. We wouldn't see a squat triangular shaped object, less than half the size it should be. Neither does video selectively compress. The plane is hiding between the pixels! Compressed out of existence!]] I admit that blurred edges is not an accurate description of what I was trying to describe. [[[[No, it's not "divebombing" the wtc. The camera is looking up, creating the illusion that the horizontal path of the airplane is vertical. Video does not have good resolution, and moreover it does not handle edges well, so something as tiny in the frame as the airplane is going to look distorted and unrecognizable. I've been working with freeze frames of video for 10 years, and what I see in these frames is pretty much what I would expect an airplane to look like.]]]]
This is crap. My analysis stands. The firefighter video shows an aircraft flying on a more or less horizontal path, certainly nowhere near "divebombing". the second plane was shot at a different angle. [[ And how do we we know which is which? When it doesn't show what we expect. So if video doesn't show what we expect it to show, then we know that the "artifact " effect has set in, and if it does show what we expect, then we know we know that the artifact effect is not present. Is it possible that video behaves consistently and just shows what's there? ]] Again, the way the plane looks in the video is how you would expect it to look, given what video does to small details. This ranting and raving about things you know nothing about is very revealing. [[Once again I must point out that poor resolution does not change the fundamental size and shape of objects. A poor resolution of a plane will simply look like a poor resolution of a plane, and when the resolution gets bad enough, it won"t look like anything. A poor resolution shot of a bus doesn't look like a horse, a poor resolution shot of an apartment block doesn't look like a teepee. The object is many times smaller than it should be, and is completely the wrong shape. Duh!! the plane is passing through the shadow of the smoke.]] [[Sorry, no it isn't. Take a look at the beginning of the footage. There is no smoke anywhere near. Or maybe - since video resolution is so notoriously poor - we just can't can't see the smoke. Its along a horizontal distortion line, hiding between the pixels, just like the "plane" in the first impact. So in the second video, that notoriously hard to film object, the plane has suddenly become very recognizable, and now its the smoke that's disappearing into the black hole of the our horribly primitive photographic technology - which it seems, just can't perform the simple act of showing what's there.]] The smoke is out of frame, above the top of the picture. Sorry! [[there is not enough information here on how the technology works to conclude whether it could have been used. ]] 11 years of experience in video editing and motion graphics. http://www.ericsalter.tv
given the ridiculous "missile" analysis, I'm not impressed by this chest beating. [[Does Eric seriously think that we just took one cavalier look at the video and immediately started aggressively publishing hard opinions on it? He probably does, because its clearly the way he works. From his tone, he's given no thought to this, just made a snap decision that 767s must have hit the tower (after all, the govt tells us, so it must be true !) and then proceeds to reinvent the laws of video, just as the proponents of the govt stories on the pentagon and the WTC demolition have found it necessary to reinvent the laws of physics. Never before have I heard anything about how "poor resolution" or "horizontal distortion" makes planes so damned difficult to film ( but only sometimes it seems, sometimes its smoke that's the problem), and all of a sudden complete new theories miraculously appear to try to explain why the videos don't show what the govt tells us they should show. The possibility that the govt might be lying seems to be beyond the pale for people like Eric.]] You need to take the original full-quality footage to labs with experience with analyzing video footage. Then maybe you'll listen to what I'm saying. [[ Besides, just interview the thousands of witnesses and see if they saw a plane or not.]]Now this really takes the cake. What "thousands of witnesses"? Perhaps Eric can find some? I've looked hard and can't find any witnesses to a big plane. This is circular delusion at at its worst. "We know that there were 767s. Because we know there were 767s, then there must be thousands of witnesses. Aha, because there must have been thousands of witnesses to such an event, then we know there *are * thousands. And because there's thousands of witnesses, that proves the planes." You can't just blindly assume that there are witnesses. You have to find them. Its called research. Let me introduce you to the concept Eric. Here's one of your treasured witness reports. http://www.likeanorb.com/wtc/index.php?Number=5 [[Evan Fairbanks, one of the videographers of the second hit is quoted as saying "It looked like a cheap miniature model. It disappeared into the building like a bad special effect" If Eric has studied the reports of the first strike, he will know that there is not a single witness to a large plane. All witnesses said that it was something small. All early media reports had it as a small plane. It didn't become a large plane until after the second strike - and only when AA issued a statement saying that it had lost AA 11 into the WTC - a flight which didn't exist according to official records. ]] I'm not opposed to the idea that the planes that hit the wtc were not the ones that the govt claims. What I'm opposed to is the idea that on the second hit, the plane was superimposed electronically. If it was superimposed, you would not have seen the second plane pass into a shadow and then back into the sun. a computer generated object would have computer generated lighting and shading. Why would they program the cg plane to pass through a shadow? it makes no sense at all. [[So lets look at Eric's research and reasoning standards. The official documentation confirms that AA 11 didn't fly and that UA 175 didn't crash. Eric describes a search of official databases to dig this up as]] I would want to know of numerous witnesses who complained that what they say in person did not match the video that was played over and over again on TV. there should be an uproar from the thousands of people who were there in person. It's safe to say they've nearly all seen the event replayed on TV [[[["typical presumptuous This line was only in regards to the claim that it had been conclusively demonstrated that no 767s had hit the wtc. [[Typical of what, Eric? Please refrain from this kind of meaningless filler and use plain English. Are you saying that people who take the trouble to search official databases and report the findings are typically arrogant and presumptuous? Or are you disputing the results of the searches ? Please make you position clear.]] I think the burden of proof is on you, Gerald, to provide an professional analysis of the full quality video by trained experts before expecting the rest of the 9/11 community to go out on a limb. [[Since there are allegedly "thousands" of witnesses to a large plane, I am asking Eric to produce 50 of them. Less than 5% of those available - which is not an unreasonable proportion to ask for (Unless of course Eric was exaggerating a little with the " thousands" claim - in which case I seek an acknowledgment and retraction) I would also like Eric to produce 5 examples of verifiable footage of any kind of large Boeing passenger jet (even 737s and 707s will do) which look anything like the object going into the Nth Tower. After all, it is, according to Eric what we would "expect" a video of a plane in flight to look like, so such examples shouldn't be too hard to find.]] Show me a photo of the south tower after the impact without a hole. I can see smoke coming out of the impact site in the video of the 2nd hit after the plane has entered the building. As far as the "melting" goes, I would venture that the skin of the wtc was thin and wouldn't offer much resistance to the plane at all. Someone experienced in materials science should be consulted on this point. Eric ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- COMMENTS: There were many aspects of this reply which I could have taken apart, but I felt it important to focus the debate along some clearly defined methodical lines. So I focused on the two major points raised by Eric in amongst all the verbal jousting. Witnesses: In his first post Eric claimed on two occasions that there were thousands of witnesses to large planes hitting the towers. [[Did any of these folks interview the thousands of witnesses and ask them what they saw?]] However, he failed to back this up with a single example. So in my reply post I asked him to provide 50 - less than 5% of the number of alleged reports he was claiming. He ignored this request. The other important question was in relation to Eric's claim that the small fuzzy non plane looking thing, seen approaching the Nth tower was in fact what we would expect a 767 to look like. So in my reply I asked him to provide similar examples. This request was also ignored. This was my question.
This is what passed for an answer from Eric [[Again, the way the plane looks in the video is how you would expect it to look, given what video does to small details. This ranting and raving about things you know nothing about is very revealing. ]] Simply restating the original claim is not the same thing as providing an example of this allegedly common phenomenon. Was it too much to ask for five examples if its something which happens all the time ? Was it too much to ask for 50 witness reports if there are thousands? So in my next mail, I decided to pursue these two aspects, as well as seeking a clarification from Eric about exactly how he perceived the appearance of the object in flight towards the Nth Tower. I wrote this on August 8. Now that the dust has settled from the initial skirmish about the WTC objects, I think that the discussion is better served by examining each strike as a separate issue. They were two separate events with two separate objects and two quite different looking videos. So I'm going to focus the discussion more, by confining this mail to the issue of the Nth Tower strike (the first one). There is only one piece of footage of this. The debate concerns the question of what the object on the video is. Eric says its a 767. WF and I say we're not sure what it is, but we are sure what its not. Lets review the three main areas of evidence which can help to establish the truth. 1) Video evidence 2) Witness evidence 3) Documentation evidence. As far as 1) is concerned, there's not much point in having an "is so ! " "is not ! " shouting match over whether the object looks like a 767. Each person has their own eyes and their own brain. I simply invite everyone to take a good look at that object, and then search the web for other footage and photos of 767s and see if they can reconcile the two. I also remind people that the 159 ft wingspan of Boeing 767 is about 2/3 the width of the tower that the alleged 767 is approaching. Please take those dimensions into consideration as well. However, I will ask Eric to clarify his position on this, because he hasn't made it exactly clear. Is Eric claiming a) That - in the absence of any other evidence or considerations, the object on the video is clearly recognizable as a Boeing 767 and can't be anything else. ? Or b) That the resolution of the video is so poor, that we can't really tell what it is, and that its plausible to suggest that - amongst other possibilities - it could be a Boeing 767. ? Its difficult to debate Eric any further on this question until he makes it clear exactly what he is claiming. In relation to 2), I reiterate that every witness report and every early media report described the Nth Tower object as a small plane/object. Eric has claimed that there are "thousands" of witnesses to a large jet hitting the Nth tower. In the light of this dramatic claim, I am - for the third time - asking Eric to produce 50 of them. Not an unreasonable proportion of the alleged number. Why has he not done so? In relation to 3). As contained in the evidence compilation I put together, official records from the Bureau of Transportation state that there was no such flight as AA 11 on Sept 11 2001. Now lets review who's making what claims, and the evidence for them. I am making no claims about what the object was, only what it was not - any kind of large passenger jet. Thus I have nothing to prove in terms of claims about what it is. Eric, on the other hand is making a very specific claim about exactly what the object is, and thus faces a more onerous burden of proof. Lets look at the evidence for my claim. a) The video shows an object far too small, of the wrong shape, following a flight path which appears to be of dubious plausibility for such a craft. b) all witness reports and early media reports are consistent with the object we see on the video - a small object. Lets look at the evidence for Eric's claim. The govt and the media tells us that it was AA11 ( A Boeing 767) - a claim debunked by official aviation records. Even if AA11 existed, that wouldn't prove anything about whether it hit the tower. But given that the alleged existence and alleged fate of the nonexistent AA 11 is the *only* "evidence" (and I use the word loosely) that the object in question is a Boeing 767 - then where's the evidence for a 767 ? What's left of the official story? COMMENTS :As we'll see, Eric decided at this stage that he had enough and backed off. After claiming thousands of witnesses, he refused repeated requests to supply even one. After claiming that the object approaching the Nth tower looked exactly like what we would expect a 767 to look like, he refused repeated requests to supply even one supporting example of this alleged normalcy. And he also refused a request to even clarify his position about the appearance of the object. Was he admitting that it looked nothing like a large plane, and trying to provide an explanation for this, or was he saying that it actually looked like a large plane and that any reasonable person would easily identify it as such in the absence of other considerations ? He appeared to be hedging his bets on this distinction. Surely we have a right to know exactly what position he is arguing ? But Eric was less than keen to clarify his position. I forwarded this exchange to WF. She said that it was such a good example of 767 debunking that she would like to post it various groups. Although I also thought that it would be beneficial to the cause to distribute the exchange, being the ethical type I am, I thought that I should ask Eric first, before blasting what had been only a semi public exchange out across the net - an exchange which could seriously embarrass him. I felt he should be given a chance to reflect on his hasty outburst So, via Pondo, my original contact, I asked Eric if he had a problem with the exchange being circulated. Not surprisingly, he did. This was his reply. From: Eric Salter <ericsalter@mindspring.com> Date: April 8, 2004 7:36:09 AM GMT+07:00 To: Subject: Re: For Eric (Pondo relaying my request to Eric ) Dear Eric, Webfairy via Gerard directly below asks permission to send our comments to a wider audience. It's fine with me. Okay with you also? ---- Pondo Begin forwarded message: Given the tone of the debate, I feel hesitant. The last thing I need right now is to be involved in a flame war. My original postings were worded casually for the consortium, and I request that they not be forwarded. I'm working on another response which will be okay to post responses to. -e I replied April 8 Convey to him that I respect his hesitancy, and will tell WF not to distribute the initial exchange at this stage. COMMENTS: This becomes important later. Note the final line of Eric's mail [[I'm working on another response which will be okay to post responses to.]] Quite clearly Eric was saying that he intended to continue the debate - after thinking things through more carefully -and that he felt uncomfortable with the outcome of the exchange so far. I had every right to distribute that exchange, and thus displayed a high standard of ethics in even asking Eric, let alone giving him the right to veto it. Later we'll see how Eric repaid this generous gesture - one designed to reduce the tone of animosity in the debate and also to give him a graceful exit, if that's what he was looking for. Then Eric wrote to me privately. April 8 2004. Gerard, I'm working on a longer response, but it will have to wait until I'm satisfied with my research. One thing: can you give me a link to a complete listing of the WTC impact witnesses that you used? My reply. April 9, 2004. I'll post that stuff to the group, when I'm ready. I would appreciate a cooperative and respectful approach on this, Eric I understand that your initial harsh words may have been provoked by anxiety caused by a strong challenge to something fairly central to your paradigm, and that you lashed out at the messenger. I understand how this can happen, and bear you no ill will for it. Having said that, you now need to earn some trust with me by taking a more serious, respectful and less adversarial approach. When I'm satisfied that this process is under way, then I'll be more trusting, but at this stage its a little early to ask me to start treating you like a trusted colleague and feed you the fruits of my research at the risk that you'll throw it back in my face, with twistings,misrepresentations and insults. I'll await your longer response. I'm glad to see that you're taking it more seriously now. COMMENTS : Once again, I 've tried to reduce the level of heat. And my meaning is quite clear here. I'm telling Eric that when he continues the public debate (as he's indicated he will ), that I will post my witness reports to the group discussion, but given his attitude, I'm not going to feed them to him in private. Especially as he was refusing to answer the three direct questions I had asked him in relation to his previously made comments. It was presumptuous in the extreme to make such reckless claims as "thousands of witnesses " - then repeatedly refuse requests to supply any - then run away from the debate without admitting that he didn't actually have any witnesses - and then ask that I become his private research assistant for whatever purposes he might choose to use it for. Lets continue the witness debate in front of the list - where he had started it. So the weeks went by, as I waited for Eric to rejoin the debate with his "response which will be okay to post responses to." So, given the ethical manner in which I had dealt with our first exchange, in agreeing not to broadcast it, it was with some surprise and annoyance, that the next I heard of Eric was this - forwarded to me by Pondo. Continued in Part 2 http://www.911closeup.com/index.shtml?ID=68 |
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DID BIG PLANES REALLY HIT THE WTC
It may be helpful for those who are trying to sort their way through the maze of claim and counter claim to know the events which precipitated the posting of the above page.
Some of the recipients mailed it out to their lists. One of these indirect recipients was Eric Salter, someone whom I had never met before. He was upset by the section promoting the no WTC planes evidence and wrote a rebuke to it, which was forwarded back to me by my original recipient. This precipitated a debate between Eric and myself, which then precipitated the posting of his webpage linked above. Later, there was another debate between myself and the two Salters. I have removed the email addresses of everyone concerned except myself, the Salters and Webfairy.