Wow, stop checking for the weekend and the thread gains over a hundred posts. Either way, I'm going to re-raise something jammonius brought up a while back.
It would appear that people have an interest in discussing this topic. It is also to be noted that we have not even reached the 20th video segment of the
ALL 43 video database that forms the main subject matter of this thread.
We apparently have a long way to go.
The remainder of your post is much appreciated for its substantive quality and its objective tone. I do wish more posters would post in that manner. It would make the quality of the thread better, I think.
Now onto the substantive part of your thread, which, as indicated, is much appreciated:
I'll grant this is possible. I myself mostly relied on the media for information about 9/11. However, even if the television reports were manipulated, there are still the eyewitnesses who saw a plane. In fact, my statement (which provoked the response I quoted above) was mainly addressed at trusting their eyewitness reports as opposed to the eyewitness reports which jammonius claims supports a no plane theory. The television reports would have had no impact on their claims.
I think there's only a tenuous connection between the acknowledgment of the suggestive nature of teevee, not to mention the jingoistic and xenophobic aspects, on the one hand, and then continue with attribution of credibility to PLANE SPOTTING, on the other.
Furthermore, the one thing I think I have actually succeeded in doing is showing just how many NO PLANE witnesses there are and just how few legitimate PLANE SPOTTING witnesses there are.
In response, posters here have merely taken to posting up
faith-based, belief statements. I grasp that posters believe there are 1000s of witnesses. I wonder, however, if posters grasp that they cannot and will not be able to find a source that contains 1000s of witness accounts.
In just the last two pages, since you last checked, as you start out by saying, you may have noticed that I posted up actual police dispatches.
See:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5960896&postcount=451
Like the Dick Oliver videos, those are the raw data, the first impression reports that were unaffected by the suggestion implanted by teevee.
Almost no one reported a plane crash; and, in point of actual fact, almost everyone reported an explosion.
Check this out for yourself.
In addition, we had discussion in the last couple of pages concerning a couple of debunker videos, one of which included acutal interviews and re-enactments. In not one of the interviews and not even in the re-enactments, did anyone claim a plane crash had occurred.
See:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5959281&postcount=381
So, references to PLANE SPOTTERS are, in fact, largely unproven. They are thought to exist, and certainly they are believed to, but the fact remains, the eyewitnesses did not see a plane, by and large. Seeing an explosion was the norm, Lyrander, could more people but begin to realize it.
Let me repeat that:
Seeing an explosion was the norm, Lyrander, could more people but begin to realize it.
Even if I choose to believe differently from them, if I choose to believe that there was no plane, then that still leaves the question: why did those eyewitness reports claim that a plane was present? While jammonius does not acknowledge the claim by other posters that there are thousands of these people, I think enough people have posted their own eyewitness accounts and eyewitness accounts from their friends to support the claim that there is a significant number. By "significant", I mean that we cannot simply dismiss it as a few delusional or suborned people. That may account for some, but not for all. Why then did they see, or think they saw, a plane?
Here is the most complete recent eyewitness from one of our very own posters, BillyRayValentine:
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5923435&postcount=651
11th May 2010, 09:52 PM #651
BillyRayValentine vbmenu_register("postmenu_5923435", true);
Critical Thinker
Join Date: Jun 2007
Posts: 270
Originally Posted by Oystein
To make this crystal clear and leave no wiggling room for jammonius: Are you saying you were in New York City that day, and you saw the second plane directly, with your own eyes?
Where in NYC were you?
Did you see it crash?
Did you hear it or the crash?
Yes, I was here. I've lived in the West Village for 20 years. I saw the first hole from Greenwich St., apparently moments after it happened, and ran across the Westside Highway (I had been on my way out for a run) to Pier 40. Not long after getting there and walking out a bit, my eye caught the plane coming in over the harbor. You had to happen to be looking at the right time- it was fairly easy to miss against the horizon.
I didn't see the actual impact or or have a direct view of the affected area of the building. I was almost a mile away, so I heard very little - sirens were screaming steadily at that point, so whatever sound might have reached me from a mile away would have been drowned out.
I did see parts of the resulting fireball and loads of smoke. And since I saw the plane and its path beforehand, and I'm a sane person, I was quite certain that the fireball and smoke I saw were the results of the plane crashing into the building."
That statement speaks for itself and our thread benefits greatly by having it. Our BillyRayValentine neither saw nor heard a jetliner hit the North Tower. Our BillyRayValentine did not hear a jetliner in connection with the South Tower. Our BillyRayValentine describes a sighting of the shadow thingy that speaks for itself. Our BillyRayValentine saw an explosion.
I here assert that a person 1 mile away from a Boeing 767 screaming along at 550mph would have heard it had it been there. It might not have been ear splittingly loud, so as to damage ear drums at that distance, but it would have been unmistakable; and, Our BillyRayValentine accurately and honestly reports hearing not a darn thing when it comes to a jetliner.
Am I right about that, Lyrander?
I have already posted some failure points I can think of - too far away to see accurately, didn't see for long enough to get a good look. In either case, they would then be merely assuming they saw a plane. I also already posted my opinion of those failure points - unlikely. I cannot think of any other major ones, I'm afraid.
Lyrander, I don't really know why you mention the above as it is completely negated by the following, accurate observation that you also make:
Granted, the plane theory must go through the same test.
You then continue:
Why did the eyewitnesses that do not mention a plane not see anything? jammonius has posted some examples of people that do not mention a plane. To the failure points from my previous post, again already mentioned, I will add one more: Those people may not have had complete information at the time of their accounts. They may not have seen the plane - looking in the wrong place or distracted by other events. They reported what they knew, which is not actually inconsistent with a plane crash. Again, I already posted my opinion of these failure points - certainly possible, at least, even for members of the various emergency services that responded and their reports.
The above is speculative. I note, too, that if I were to engage in that process with respect to PLANE SPOTTER accounts, I would be subject to a lot of vitriole. Do you acknowledge that to be true Lyrander? Even if you look at posts on this page, you will see that if I question PLANE SPOTTER accounts, even solely on the basis of what they actually say and the actual meaning of the words they use, people "get their dander up" so to speak.
Yet, that same standard may not apply when it comes to NO PLANER accounts. Their competence gets questioned, their angle of observation comes under scrutiny, just to name some examples.
The fact is, all witness accounts are subject to such limitations.
To reiterate - and in case the above was too long - I still believe the eyewitnesses who saw a plane are more likely to be correct than the eyewitnesses who did not.
I do not question people's beliefs.
Just for good measure, I'll repeat the point from above. This still does nothing to explain why other people look at the same thing and see something entirely consistent with a jetliner crash, or the eyewitness reports that call it a jetliner crash. Assuming your account is correct, this would require all those people to have some type of failure point that accounts for their incorrect analysis. I can't think of anything that widespread, myself.
Once again, the problem is you have not shown the existence of very many PLANE SPOTTER accounts. The norm involves reporting an explosion and thinking, maybe, possibily, could be,
I just might have seen a plane, maybe, only to then realize, as David Stollick(sp) said,
it was jist an explosion.
And, therein lies the explanation that was the norm amongst actual witnesses, unaffected by teevee and by psychological pressure to conform.
