Maybe NYCEMT86 can help me

[hellaeon]

Killtown....uh! good luck

'Argue with fools and soon no one can tell the difference'

 

[twinstead]

'Argue with fools and soon no one can tell the difference'

Wow. I like that.

 

[ktesibios]

You can get an "angle on the bow" for the south tower, i.e., the angle between a line perpendicular to the south face passing through the tower's center and a line from the vantage point through the tower's center, from the ratio of the apparent widths of the faces. Call that angle a.

The projected width of the south face will vary as cos(a) while the projected width of the east face will vary as sin(a). IOW, W_s= k₁*cos(a) and W_e= k₂*sin(a), where
W_s = apparent width of the south face
W_e = apparent width of the east face
k₁ = scaling constant which accounts for the actual width of the south face, the distance and the angular width of one pixel in the photo
k₂ = scaling constant for actual width of east face, distance and pixel size.

Since the tower had a square cross-section, the angular width of the pixels recording each face is the same and the distance to the camera is much greater than the width of each face, k₁ = k₂ for practical purposes. Then we have

(W_e/W_s) = (sin(a)/cos(a))
(W_e/W_s) = tan(a)
a = arctan(W_e/W_s)

Take your measurements of each face as close to ground level as possible to minimize errors due to foreshortening. Now that you have a, find a map which shows the WTC complex as it was before the attacks and draw a line from the center of WTC2 at an angle a with respect to a perpendicular to the south face.

The camera will have been located on that line. Now, if you can derive an "angle on the bow" for another landmark in the picture, you can draw another line from it at the appropriate angle; where these lines intersect will be the approximate location of the camera.

It might also be possible to use the way in which one building occludes another behind it, e.g., the way that the south tower partially hides the north tower or the way that the round building on the right partially hides the building behind it to derive viewing angles to those buildings.

Not that a loon like Killtown is worth the effort, but de gustibus...

 

[leftysergeant]

Thank you for that formula, ktesibios. I have no freaking idea what it means, but someone else might use it later to verify my work.

The occlusion of one building by another did work out better for me, though. I work better from visual or verbal evidence than from math. (Had to take high school algebra twice to get a D, but got As in Latin, biology and history.)

The best I could figure, it looks like it was taken somewhere near this yellow sticky. When I posted this, it was pointed out to me that NIST has it listed as being taken near a location referred to as "Castle Clinton." Okay, New Yorkers. Could somebody tell me where that is in relation too my marker?

 

[ktesibios]

You're not too far off. Take a look at this picture, from the Wikipedia article on Castle Clinton and compare the view to the pic you just posted.

Now here's a picture of Castle Clinton:

from the Battery Conservancy's Web site, to help you identify it in an aerial pic.

When I did the trig thing with the still from the Hezarkhani video included in the NIST report, I came out with a camera sightline about 11 degrees east of a line perpendicular to the south face of WTC2. I printed out a copy of this map large enough to fill an 8 1/2" x 11" sheet, found the center of WTC2 and constructed the perpendicular line with a ruler and pencil and then drew the sightline using a protractor.

Now here's a screenshot of a satellite image of the Battery Park area:

In plotting lines on my paper map, I found that my sightline lay right along the east edge of the building marked with a red "X". When you extend that line into Battery Park (the thick red line), look at what it passes right next to- why, it's Castle Clinton.

The thin yellow lines approximate a + or - 5 degree error band. Projective geometry isn't my strong suit; when I take the uncertainties of measuring the projected widths of the faces as seen from ground level into account along with likely errors in my pencil-and-paper work, that seems like a fair allowance.

No matter how you slice it, the preponderance of evidence seems to be that the camera sight line is entirely consistent with a location in Battery Park, somewhere in the vicinity of Castle Clinton.

 

[Gravy]

Ktesibios is correct. The video is taken from the area where tourists board the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry, which is just southeast of Castle Clinton. It could be from one of the decks of a docked ferry. I have no idea what Killtown's issue with it is, but then I never do.

 

[leftysergeant]

I have no idea what Killtown's issue with it is, but then I never do.

I'm not sure Killtown knows. He seems to just move his mouth and let out his head noises.

Thanks a lot, ktesibios. I did see another boat in this area on the video KT used to fake his response.
Does that boy think we are all as dumb as he is?

 

[Gravy]

Here's a shot from a similar angle, from about 1/4 mile out in the harbor, in 2004. The blue and white boats are the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferries. Castle Clinton is just visible between the left and center ferries.

 

[ktesibios]

Ktesibios is correct. The video is taken from the area where tourists board the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island ferry, which is just southeast of Castle Clinton. It could be from one of the decks of a docked ferry. I have no idea what Killtown's issue with it is, but then I never do.

I think that this is his issue: he has committed himself to promoting no-planes claims. The existence of even one item of photographic or video evidence showing one of the hijacked planes hitting one of the towers utterly explodes the no-planers' claims. Therefore he has no alternative but to contend that all such evidence is faked.

That's his issue with this video- the fact that it exists. To avoid the collapse of his entire little world, he has to cobble up any reason he can think of to reject it, which in this case is that the person who filmed it didn't feel like telling his pet crank-caller the details of how he came to capture the impact on tape.

I noticed that in the recent History Channel doco about 9/11 CTs they managed to include the fact that Val McClatchy has been harrassed by troofers without mentioning Killtown by name. That must have been awfully galling to him. It's no surprise that he'd be prompted into making another bid for attention.

 

[ktesibios]

But wait, there's more!

Doing a little Googling around, looking for a copy of the Hezarkhani clip that isn't on a CT site, I ran across a discussion of the video on a rather woo-ish board. In that discussion there was something reposted from the PfT forum.

It seems that someone who posts there took the time to identify various buildings in the video and used that to construct a set of sightlines on a bigger aerial photo than I had. You can see the image here.

It turns out that one of his lines is identical to the one I constructed using the view of WTC2 and the lines all converge right where Gravy said the camera was located- the place where the ferries load.

So, we have three different methods- a debunker using math, paper and pencil, a CTer using landmarks and a visual ID from a guy whose business involves being familiar with NYC tourist attractions- and they all give the same result: Battery Park, near Castle Clinton, exactly as stated in NCSTAR 1-2.

That ought to be more than enough material to put the Big Smackdown on Killtown.

 

[leftysergeant]

That looks pretty close to what I finally put up over at the Randi Rhodes Show board. Great work, guys. This is what happens when you lift your head up out of the box and ask someone who knows what on earth they are talking about to fill in the blanks in your own knowledge.

 

[leftysergeant]

As an after thought, it seems that the tide and which deck of the ferry would make a slight difference if Hezarkhani was actually on board, at least concerning the height of the trees relative to the buildings.