THINKING ABOUT "CONSPIRACY THEORIES": 9/11 and JFK

[Obwon]

This is the new penultimate draft of a chapter that
will appear in THE 9/11 CONSPIRACY (Chicago, IL:
Catfeet Press/Open Court, forthcoming), which I am
editing. Comments and criticism are welcome. Email
jfe...@d.umn.edu.

THINKING ABOUT "CONSPIRACY THEORIES": 9/11 and JFK

James H. Fetzer, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

The phrase "conspiracy theory" harbors an ambiguity,
since conspiracies are widespread and theories about
them need not be mere speculations. The application of
scientific reasoning in the form of inference to the
best explanation, applied to the relevant evidence,
establishes that the official account of the events of
9/11 cannot be sustained. Likelihood measures of
evidential support establish that the WTC was brought
down through the use of controlled demolition and that
the Pentagon was not hit by a Boeing 757. Since these
hypotheses have high likelihoods and the only
alternatives have likelihoods that range from zero to
null (because they are not even physically possible),
assuming that sufficient evidence has become available
and "settled down", these conclusions not only provide
better explanations for the data but are proven beyond
reasonable doubt.

1. "Conspiracy Theories"

We need to come to grips with conspiracies.
Conspiracies are as American as apple pie. All they
require is that two or more persons collaborate in
actions to bring about illegal ends. When two guys
knock off a 7/11 store, they are engaged in a
conspiracy. Most conspiracies in our country are
economic, such as Enron, WorldCom, and now Halliburton
as it exploits the opportunities for amassing profits
in Iraq. Insider trading is a simple example, since
investors and brokers collaborate to benefit from
privileged information. Ordinarily, however, the media
does not describe them as "conspiracies".1 The two
most important conspiracies in our history are surely
those involving JFK and 9/11.

One fascinating aspect of 9/11 is that the official
story involves collaboration between some nineteen
persons in order to bring about illegal ends and thus
obviously qualifies as a "conspiracy theory". When
critics of the government offer an alternative account
that implicates key figures of the government in 9/11,
that obviously qualifies as a "conspiracy theory", too.
But what matters now is that we are confronted by
alternative accounts of what happened on 9/11, both of
which qualify as "conspiracy theories". It is
therefore no longer rational to dismiss one of them as
a "conspiracy theory" in favor of the other. The
question becomes, Which of two "conspiracy theories" is
more defensible?

There is a certain ingenuity in combining "conspiracy"
with "theory", because the word "theory" can be used in
the weak sense of a speculation, conjecture, or guess
to denigrate one account or another for political or
ideological reasons without acknowledging that "theory"
can also be used in the stronger sense of an
empirically testable, explanatory hypothesis. Consider
Newton's theory of gravitation or Einstein's theory of
relativity as instances. The psychological ploy is to
speak as though all "theories" were guesses, none of
which ought to be taken seriously. Various different
cases, however, can present very different problems.
Evidence can be scarce, for example, or alternatives
might be difficult to imagine.

Moreover, there are several reasons why different
persons might arrive at very different conclusions in a
given case. These include that they are not
considering the same set of alternative explanations or
that they are not employing the same rules of
reasoning. The objectivity of science derives, not
from transcending our human frailties, but from its
inter-subjectivity.2 Different scientists confronting
the same alternatives, the same evidence, and the same
rules of reasoning should arrive at all and only the
same conclusions about which hypotheses are acceptable,
which are rejectable, and which should be held in
suspense. And, in the search for truth, scientific
reasoning must be based upon all the available relevant
evidence, a condition called the requirement of total
evidence, and is otherwise fallacious.3

2. Scientific Reasoning

Scientific reasoning characterizes a systematic pattern
of thought involving four stages or steps, namely:
puzzlement, speculation, adaptation, and explanation.4
Something occurs that does not fit comfortably into our
background knowledge and expectations and thus becomes
a source of puzzlement. Alternative theories that
might possibly explain that occurrence are advanced for
consideration. The available relevant evidence is
brought to bear upon those hypotheses and their
measures of evidential support are ascertained, where
additional evidence may be obtained on the basis of
observation, measurement, and experiment. The weight
of the evidence is assessed, where the hypothesis with
the strongest support is the preferable hypothesis.
When sufficient evidence becomes available, the
preferable hypothesis also becomes acceptable in the
tentative and fallible fashion of science.5

Among the most important distinctions that need to be
drawn in reasoning about alternative scenarios for
historical events of the kind that matter here are
those between different kinds of necessity, possibility
and impossibility.6 Our language imposes some
constraints upon the possible as functions of grammar
and meaning. In ordinary English, for example, a
freshman is a student, necessarily, because to be a
freshman is to be a student in the first year of a
four-year curriculum. By the same token, it is
impossible to be a freshman and not be a student. The
first is a logical necessity, the second a logical
impossibility. Since a conspiracy requires at least
two conspirators, if there were not at least two
conspirators, it is not logically possible that a
conspiracy was involved; if there were, then
necessarily there was.

More interesting than logical necessities,
possibilities and impossibilities, however, are
physical necessities, possibilities and
impossibilities.7 These are determined in relation to
the laws of nature, which, unlike laws of society,
cannot be violated, cannot be changed, and require no
enforcement. If (pure) water freezes at 32° F at sea
level atmospheric pressure, for example, then it is
physically necessary for a sample of (pure) water to
freeze when its temperature falls below 32° F at that
pressure. Analogously, under those same conditions,
that a sample of (pure) water would not freeze when its
temperature falls below 32° F is physically impossible.
And when a sample of (pure) water is not frozen at that
pressure, it is justifiable to infer that it is
therefore not at a temperature below its freezing point
of 32° F.8

Laws of nature are the core of science and provide the
principles on the basis of which the occurrence of
events can be systematically explained, predicted, and
retrodicted.9 They therefore have an important role
to play in reasoning about specific cases in which
those principles make a difference. In legal
reasoning, for example, the phrase, "beyond a
reasonable doubt", means a standard of proof that
requires subjective conviction that is equal to "moral
certainty".10 In the context of scientific reasoning,
the meaning of that same phrase is better captured by
the objective standard that an explanation is "beyond a
reasonable doubt" when no alternative is reasonable.
Notice that the falsity of hypotheses that describe the
occurrence of events that are physically impossible is
beyond a reasonable doubt.11

3. Probabilities and Likelihoods

An appropriate measure of the weight of the evidence is
provided by likelihoods, where the likelihood of an
hypothesis h, given evidence e, is determined by the
probability of evidence e, if that hypothesis were
true.12 Hypotheses should be tested in pairs, h1 and
h2, where the relationship between the hypotheses and
the evidence may be regarded as that between possible
causes and effects. Thus, suppose in a game of chance,
you were confronted with a long series of outcomes that
would have been highly improbable if the coin were
symmetrical (if the dice were fair, or if the deck was
normal). If such a run would be far more probable if
the coin were bent (if the dice were loaded, if the
deck was stacked), then the likelihood that the coin is
bent (the dice are loaded, the deck is stacked) is much
higher than the likelihood the coin is symmetrical
(dice are fair, deck is normal).

A better grasp of probabilistic reasoning follows from
distinguishing between two kinds of probabilities as
properties of the world. The first is relative
frequencies, which simply represent "how often" things
of one kind occur in relation to things of another
kind. This includes averages of many different
varieties, such as the average grade on a philosophy
exam in a course on critical thinking. The second is
causal propensities, which reflect "how strong" the
tendencies are for outcomes of a certain kind to be
brought about under specific conditions.13 Frequencies
are brought about by propensities, which may differ
from one case to another. When the class averages 85
on the first exam, that does not mean every student
scored 85 on the exam. It might even be the case that
no student actually had that score. But each students'
own score was an effect of his propensity to score on
that exam.

It can be easy to confuse "how often" with "how
strong", but some examples help to bring their
difference home. Canoeing on the Brule River in
Wisconsin is not a hazardous pastime, but a 76-year old
woman was killed on 15 July 1993 when a tree that had
been gnawed by a beaver fell and landed on her. The
tree fell and hit the woman on the head, as she and her
daughter paddled past it.14 The tree was about 18
inches in diameter and 30 to 40 feet tall and stood
about 10 to 20 feet up the river bank. So while
hundreds and hundreds of canoeists had paddled down the
Brule River before and escaped completely unscathed,
this woman had the misfortune to be killed during "a
freak accident". It was improbable in terms of its
relative frequency of occurrence yet, given those
particular conditions, the causal propensity for death
to result as an effect of that specific event was
great.

When the same causally relevant conditions are subject
to replication, then the relative frequencies that
result tend to be reliable evidence of the strength of
the causal propensity that produced them. But when
those conditions can vary, how often an outcome occurs
may not indicate the strength of that tendency on any
specific trial. We commonly assume smoking diminishes
life spans, which is usually true. But a 21-year old
man was confronted by three thugs who, when he failed
to respond quickly enough, shot him. He might have
been killed, but a metal cigarette lighter deflected
the .25-caliber bullet and he lived.15 Once you
appreciate the difference, three principles that relate
probabilities of these kinds become apparent, namely:
that propensities cause frequencies; that frequencies
are evidence for propensities; and that propensities
can explain frequencies. But it depends on the
constancy of the relevant conditions from one trial to
another.16

4. The Case of JFK

Conspiracy theories have to be assessed using
principles of scientific reasoning. In the case of JFK,
the difficulty has not been a dearth of evidence but
sorting through the superabundance of conflicting and
even contradictory physical, medical, witness, and
photographic "evidence" to ascertain which is authentic
and which is not. Something qualifies as evidence in
relation to an hypothesis just in case its presence or
absence or its truth or falsity makes a difference to
the truth or falsity of that hypothesis. But
"evidence" can be planted, faked, or fabricated to
provide a false foundation for reasoning.17 That has
proven to be true here. Once the task of sorting
things out has been performed, it becomes relatively
simple to draw appropriate inferences about the general
character of the assassination on the basis of what we
have learned about the cover-up,

Early studies by Harold Weisberg, Mark Lane, and Sylvia
Meagher, for example, were instrumental in establishing
that The Warren Report (1964) could not be sustained on
the basis of evidence available even then (Weisberg
1965, Lane 1966, Meagher 1967). According to the
official account, a lone assassin fired three shots
from the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depositor
Building, scoring two hits. One of those hits is
supposed to have entered at the base of the President's
neck, passed through without hitting any bony
structures and exited just above his tie. It then
entered the back of Governor John Connally, who was
seated in front of him, shattered a rib, exited his
chest and injured his right wrist before being
deflected into his left thigh. The bullet alleged to
have followed this trajectory was later "found" in
virtually pristine condition.

This sequence of events appears so improbable that the
missile that caused all of this damage has come to be
known as the "magic bullet".18 The jacket and the
shirt JFK was wearing both have holes about 5 1/2
inches below the collar. An autopsy diagram verified
by the President's personal physician shows a wound at
that same location. A second diagram prepared by an
FBI observer shows the wound to the back below the
wound to the throat. The death certificate executed by
the President's personal physician also places that
wound at the level of the third thoracic vertebra,
about 5 1/2 inches below the collar. Even photographs
taken during re-enactments of the shooting show patches
on stand-ins for the President at that location.19

Although The Warren Report tries to imply that the
"magic bullet" theory is not indispensable to its
conclusions, that is a gross misrepresentation. No
less an authority than Michael Baden, M.D., who chaired
the forensic panel that reviewed the medical evidence
when the case was reinvestigated by the House Select
Committee on Assassinations in 1977-78, has remarked
that, if the "magic bullet" theory is false, then there
had to have been at least six shots from three
different directions.20 An especially disturbing aspect
of this situation is that all the evidence described
here was not only available to the HSCA in 1977-78 but
had been discussed quite extensively in those early
books by Weisberg, Lane, and Meagher (Weisberg 1965,
Lane 1966, Meagher 1967). The government has simply
ignored their discoveries.21

5. Recent Scientific Studies

Since the release of Oliver Stone's film, "JFK", in
1992, research on the assassination evidence (conducted
by the best qualified persons who have ever studied the
case)22 has revealed that the autopsy X-rays have been
altered in several ways, that another brain was
substituted for that of JFK during its examination, and
that the home movie ostensibly taken by a spectator
named Abraham Zapruder has not only been extensively
edited but actually recreated by reshooting each of its
frames (Fetzer 1998, 2002, 2003).23 The film was
redone using techniques of optical printing and special
effects, which allow combining any background with any
foreground to create any impression that one desires,
which included removing series of frames that would
have given the plot away, such as that the driver
pulled the limousine to the left and stopped after
shots began to be fired.24

The alterations of the medical evidence include
"patching" a massive defect in the back of the head
caused by a shot from in front, in the case of the
lateral cranial X-ray, and adding a 6.5 mm metallic
slice to the anterior/posterior X-ray, in an evident
attempt to implicate a 6.5 mm weapon in the
assassination, which have been exposed by means of
optical density studies.25 Adapting a simple technique
from physics, David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., on the
basis of objective measurements and repeatable
experiments, has been able to prove that the JFK
autopsy X-rays are not authentic. And, by even simpler
comparisons between descriptions from experienced and
professional physicians at Parkland Hospital describing
extensive damage to the brain of JFK, Robert
Livingston, M.D., a world authority on the human brain,
has concluded that the diagrams and photographs of a
brain that are stored in the National Archives must be
of a brain other than that of John Fitzgerald
Kennedy.26

The evidence establishing the recreation of the
Zapruder film comes from diverse sources, including
that frame 232 was published in LIFE with physically
impossible features; that a mistake was made in
introducing the Stemmons Freeway sign into the
recreated version; that the "blob" and blood spray was
added on to frame 313; that the driver's head turns
occur too rapidly to even be humanly possible; that the
Governor's left turn has been edited out of the film;
that Erwin Swartz, an associate of Abraham Zapruder,
reported having observed blood and brains blown out to
the back and left when he viewed the original film;
that several Secret Service agents observed brains and
blood on the trunk of the limousine; that others have
viewed another and more complete version of the film;
and that Homer McMahon, an expert at the National
Photographic Interpretation Center, studied a very
different film on that very night.27

Other evidence that has long been available to serious
students of the death of JFK includes multiple
indications of Secret Service complicity in setting him
up for the hit.28 There was no welding of the manhole
covers; no coverage of open windows; the motorcycles
were placed in a non-protective formation; agents did
not ride on the limousine; an improper route,
including a turn of more than 90°, was utilized; the
vehicles were in an improper sequence; the limousine
slowed nearly to a halt at Houston and Elm; the
limousine was actually brought to a stop after bullets
began to be fired; the agents were non-responsive;
brains and blood were washed from the limousine at
Parkland before the President was even pronounced dead;
the autopsy X-rays and photographs were taken from the
morgue; and the limousine was sent to Ford Motor
Company, stripped down and completely rebuilt, on 25
September 1963.29

6. Patterns of Reasoning

Records released by the ARRB have shown that Gerald
Ford (R-MI), a member of the commission, had the
description of the wound changed from "his uppermost
back", which was already an exaggeration, to "the base
of the back of his neck" to make the "magic bullet"
theory more plausible (Fetzer 1998, p. 177). And
Mantik has now proven that no bullet could have taken
the trajectory ascribed to the "magic bullet" because
cervical vertebrae intervene (Fetzer 2000, pp. 3-4).
So the vastly influential accounts of the death of JFK
that take it for granted as their foundation— The
Warren Report, The House Select Committee on
Assassinations Report, and Gerald Posner's Case
Closed—are not only false but provably false and not
even anatomically possible.

The wound to his throat and the wounds to Connally have
to be explained on the basis of other shots and other
shooters. We now know that JFK was hit four times—in
the throat from in front; in the back from behind; and
twice in the head: in the back of the head from behind
and then in the right temple from in front.30 We know
Connally was hit at least once and another shot missed
and injured a bystander. It thus turns out that Michael
Baden, M.D., was correct when he observed that, if the
"magic bullet" theory is false, then there had to have
been at least six shots from at least three different
directions. The theory is not even anatomically
possible and, with at least one to Connally and one
miss, there had to have been at least six shots.31

Anatomical impossibility, of course, is one kind of
physical impossibility, insofar as human are
vertebrates with vertebrae, including those of the
cervical variety. The wound observations of the
attending physicians at Parkland and at Bethesda were
cleverly concealed by Arlen Specter, now a United
States Senator from Pennsylvania, but then a junior
counsel to the Warren Commission. Specter did not ask
the doctors what they had observed or what they had
inferred from what they had observed, but instead posed
a hypothetical question: "If we assume that the bullet
entered the base of the back of the neck, traversed the
neck without impacting any bony structures, and came
out just above the level of the tie", he asked, "would
that be consistent with describing the neck wound as a
wound of exit?" In response to this trivial question,
they dutifully replied that it would be, but Malcolm
Perry, M.D., who had performed a tracheostomy through
the wound and had described it three times as a wound
of entry during a press conference, added that he was
not in the position to vouch for or to verify the
assumptions he had been asked to make, which of course
was true.32

The discoveries about the X-rays, the brain, and the
Zapruder film are also powerful. What makes these
discoveries so significant as evidence is that none of
these things could possibly have been done by Lee
Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin, who was either
incarcerated or already dead. Other theories,
moreover, can be rejected on similar grounds. The
Mafia, for example, could not have extended its reach
into the Bethesda Naval Hospital to alter X-rays under
the control of agents of the Secret Service, medical
officers of the United States Navy, and the President's
personal physician. Neither pro nor anti-Castro Cubans
could have substituted one brain for another. Nor could
the KGB, which probably had the same ability as
Hollywood and the CIA to fabricate movies, have been
able to gain possession of the Zapruder film to subject
it to alteration. Which raises the question, Who had
the power to make these things happen? Given what we
know now, the answer is no longer difficult to discern.
It required involvement at the highest levels of the
American government.

Insofar as the "magic bullet" theory describes the
occurrence of events that are not only provably false
but actually physically impossible, that it cannot
possibly be true is beyond reasonable doubt. Moreover,
the discovery that the autopsy X-rays have been
altered, that another brain has been substituted, and
that the Zapruder film has been recreated imply a very
meticulous and carefully planned cover-up in which the
alleged assassin could not have been involved. The
identification of more than a dozen indications of
Secret Service complicity means that the evidence has
"settled down".33 The probability of the evidence on
the lone-assassin hypothesis does not even rise to
zero, since it posits a physically impossible sequence,
whose value is better set at null.34 The probability
of the evidence on a conspiracy scenario, by
comparison, is extremely high, depending upon the
competence and the power of those who carried it out.
There is in fact no reasonable alternative to a fairly
large-scale conspiracy in the death of our 35th
President, which means that it has been established
beyond a reasonable doubt.35

7. The Case of 9/11

It has taken nearly 40 years for the deception to have
been decisively settled on the basis of objective
scientific evidence. In the case of 9/11, however, we
are vastly more fortunate. As a consequence of
inquiries by Nafeez Ahmed (2002), Thierry Meyssan
(2002), Paul Thompson (2004), Michael Ruppert (2004),
and David Ray Griffin (2004, 2005), among others, we
already know that the official account of 9/11 cannot
possibly be correct. That account contends that 19
Arabs, with feeble ability to pilot aircraft, hijacked
four airliners and then executed demanding maneuvers in
order to impact the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon;36 that the damage created by their impact
combined with the heat from burning jet fuel brought
down WTC1 and WTC2; that WTC7 was the first building in
history to be brought down by fire alone; and that the
Pentagon was struck by United Flight 77, which was a
Boeing 757.37 The basic problem with this "conspiracy
theory", as in the case of JFK, is that its truth would
violate laws of physics and engineering that cannot be
transgressed.

The extremely high melting point of structural steel
(about 2,800° F) is far above the maximum (around
1,700° F) that could have been produced by jet fuel
under optimal conditions. Underwriters Laboratories
had certified the steel used in the World Trade Center
to 2,000° F for up to six hours.38 Even lower maximum
temperatures result after factoring in insulation, such
as asbestos, and the availability of oxygen.39 Since
steel is a good conductor, any heat applied to one part
of the structure would have been dissipated to other
parts. WTC1, the North Tower, was hit first at 8:46
AM/ET and collapsed at 10:29 AM/ET, whereas the South
Tower, hit second at 9:03 AM/ET, collapsed at 9:59
AM/ET. They were exposed to fires for roughly an hour
and a half and an hour, respectively. Insofar as most
of the fuel was burned off in the gigantic fireballs
that accompanied the initial impacts, that these towers
were brought down by fuel fires that melted the steel
is not just improbable but physically impossible.40

Most Americans may not realize that no steel-structure
high-rise building has ever collapsed from fire in the
history of civil engineering, either before or after
9/11. If we assume that those fires have occurred in a
wide variety of buildings under a broad range of
conditions, that evidence suggests that these buildings
do not have a propensity to collapse as an effect of
fire. That makes an alternative explanation,
especially the use of powerful explosives in a
controlled demolition, an hypothesis that must be taken
seriously. Indeed, there appear to be at least ten
features of the collapse of the Twin Towers that are
expectable effects of controlled demolitions but not
from fires following aircraft impacts.41 They include
that the buildings fell about the rate of free fall;
that they both collapsed virtually straight down (and
into their own "footprints"); that almost all the
concrete was turned into very fine dust; that the
collapses were complete, leaving virtually no steel
support columns standing; that photographic records of
their collapse show "demolition waves" occurring just
ahead of the collapsing floors; that most of the beams
and columns fell in sections of 30' to 40' in length;
that firemen reported hearing sequences of explosions
as they took place; that seismological events were
recorded immediately prior to collapse; and that pools
of molten metal were observed in the subbasements for
weeks after.42

The situation here is analogous to what we encountered
with multiple indications of Secret Service complicity
in setting up JFK for the hit. Suppose, as before, we
adopt a value of 1 time in 10 for any one of these
features to occur as a causal consequence of an
aircraft impact and ensuing fire. We know that is a
fantastically high number, since this has never
occurred before or since. But, for the sake of
argument, let us assume it. Then if we treat these
features as having propensities that are independent
and equal, for those ten features to have occurred on
any single event of this kind would have a propensity
equal to 1 over 1 followed by ten zeros, that is,
1/10,000,000,000, which is one chance in ten billion!
Of course, since there were two such events—given TWC1
and TWC2—the probability that they would both display
these same ten features on the very same occasion is
equal to the product of one in ten billion times one in
ten billion, which is 1 over 1 followed by twenty
zeros, or 1/100,000,000,000,000,000,000. This is a
very small number. And these calculations assume
values that are far too high.43

8. 9/11: The Pentagon

The Pentagon case should be the most accessible to
study, since it only depends upon observations and
measurements, which are the most basic elements
available for any scientific investigation. Indeed,
photos taken prior to the collapse of the Pentagon's
upper floors supply evidence that, whatever hit the
Pentagon, it cannot possibly have been a Boeing 757.44
The plane was 155' long, with a wing span of 125' and
stood 36' high with its wheels retracted. The initial
point of impact (prior to the collapse of the floors
above) was only about 10' high and 16-17' wide, about
the size of the double-doors on a mansion. A
meticulous engineering study with careful measurements
has been conducted that offers powerful evidence that
the official story cannot possibly be correct. The
damage done appears to have been inflicted by a smaller
aircraft, such as an F-16, or by the impact of a cruise
missile, as an alternative possibility.45 The amount
of damage is simply not consistent with what would have
occurred had the building been hit by a plane with the
mass and the dimensions of a Boeing 757.

Unofficial variations on the official account include
that the Boeing 757 first hit the ground and then
bounced into the building, that the plane's engines
plowed across the lawn before it entered the building,
or that its right wing-tip hit and caused it to
"cartwheel" into the Pentagon.46 None of these
accounts is remotely consistent with the smooth, green,
and unblemished lawn. It is all the more remarkable,
therefore, that the Secretary of Defense had the lawn
resurfaced as though it had been damaged during the
attack. Photographs of the lawn were taken immediately
after the attack that demonstrate it was not damaged at
all.47 Anyone who only viewed the lawn after its
reconstruction, however, would be more likely to accept
the official account. And it is of more than passing
interest that far more damage could have been caused by
less demanding maneuvers if the plane had been crashed
through the roof of the building as opposed to hitting
a newly reconstructed wing that was largely bereft of
personnel and records—as though the "terrorists" wanted
to inflict minimal damage.

Had a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon, it would have left
massive debris from the wings, the fuselage, the
engines, the seats, the luggage, the bodies, and the
tail. Take a look at photographs taken shortly after
the impact before the upper floors fell, however, and
you will observe none of the above: no wings, no
engines, no seats, no luggage, no bodies, no tail. It
does not require rocket science—or even the calculation
of any probabilities—to recognize that something that
large cannot possibly have fit through an opening that
small and left no remnants in the form of wings sheered
off, debris scattered about, and so on. One piece of
fuselage alleged to have come from the plane appears to
have been planted evidence, which was moved around and
photographed in more than one location.48 But if
massive debris from the fuselage, wings, engines,
seats, luggage, bodies, and tail were not present at
the scene, the scene cannot have been of the crash of a
757. The argument involved is about as simple as they
come.

The principle of logic involved is known as modus
tollens, which states that, if p then q, but not q,
then not p. If q must be true when p is true, but q is
not true, then p is not true, either. This is an
elementary rule of deductive reasoning, employment of
which is fundamental to scientific investigations. If
you want to test an hypothesis, deduce what must be
true if that hypothesis is true and attempt to
ascertain whether those consequences are true. If they
are not true, then the hypothesis is false. Q.E.D. If
a Boeing 757 had hit the Pentagon, as the government
has alleged, it would have left debris of specific
kinds and quantities. Photographs and measurements
show no debris of those kinds and quantities. As long
as these photographs are authentic and those
measurements are correct—which concerns the quality of
the evidence for not q and appears to be rather
difficult to dispute—then no Boeing 757 hit the
Pentagon.49 Q.E.D.

9. What really happened?

The remnants of the single engine found inside offer
clues as to what actually hit the Pentagon. Boeing
757s are powered by two Pratt & Whitney turbofan
engines, with front-rotor elements about 42" in
diameter and high-pressure rear stages that are less
than 21" in diameter. The part found was less than 24"
in diameter and, it turns out, actually matches, not
the turbofan engine, but the front-hub assembly of the
front compressor for the JT8D turbojet engine used in
the A-3 Sky Warrior jet fighter.50 Since cruise
missiles have a 20" diameter, moreover, they appear to
be too small to accommodate this component. It follows
that the Pentagon was not hit by a Boeing 757 or by a
cruise missile but, given this evidence, was probably
struck by an A-3 Sky Warrior instead. The available
relevant evidence is not even consistent with the
government's official account, which deserves to be
rejected. Its likelihood given the evidence is
actually null, while the alternative A-3 hypothesis
makes the relevant evidence highly probable and has
high likelihood as a clearly preferable explanation.

This conjecture, which the evidence suggests, receives
additional support from other sources. Two civilian
defense contract employees, for example, have reported
that A-3 Sky Warriors were covertly retrofitted with
remote control systems and missile-firing systems at
the Ft. Collins-Loveland Municipal Airport, a small
civilian airport in Colorado, during the months prior
to 9/11. According to information they supplied,
"separate military contractors—working independently at
different times—retrofitted Douglas A-3 Sky Warriors
with updated missiles, Raytheon's Global Hawk unmanned
aerial vehicle (UAV) remote control systems, new
engines and fire control systems, transponders, and
radio-radar-navigation systems—a total
makeover—seemingly for an operation more important than
their use as a simple missile testing platform for
defense contractor Hughes-Raytheon."51 These reports
substantiate the alternative.

If a small fighter jet rather than a Boeing 757 had hit
the Pentagon, that would tend to explain the small
impact point, the lack of massive external debris, and
a hole in the inner ring of the building, which the
fragile nose of a Boeing 757 could not have created.
It would also suggest why parts of a plane were carried
off by servicemen, since they might have made the
identification of the aircraft by type apparent and
falsified the official account.52 A small fighter also
accommodates the report from Danielle O'Brien, an air
traffic controller, who said of the aircraft that hit,
"Its speed, maneuverability, the way that it turned, we
all thought in the radar room—all of us experienced air
traffic controllers—that it was a military plane".53
Nothing moves or maneuvers more like a military plane,
such as a jet fighter, than a military plane or a jet
fighter, which could also explain how it was able to
penetrate some of the most strongly defended air space
in the world—by emitting a friendly transponder signal.

Another line of argument suggests that the evidence has
"settled down". Confirming that the engine found at the
Pentagon was indeed a JT8D, Jon Carlson has proposed
that the plane used in the attack must have been a
Boeing 737, which also uses them. 54 That contradicts
the use of a 757, of course, but it would also be
vulnerable to a parallel argument about the absence of
debris of the right kinds and quantities.
Interestingly, both are incompatible with the smooth
and unblemished landscape, which should have been
massively disrupted by the wake turbulence that would
have been generated by any plane of those dimensions at
that low height, a phenomenon even known to rip tiles
off roofs at ordinary altitudes. 55 These and still
other lines of argument establish that, whatever hit
the Pentagon, it cannot have been a Boeing 757 (or a
737). It may be that controversy over this specific
point has been so strenuous because it offers such a
clear and obvious indication of the government's
complicity.

10. Preferability vs. Acceptability

New York events require only slightly more
sophisticated analysis. We know that the government's
account posits a physically impossible sequence of
events whose probability is null. So a probability of
zero is merely a close approximation to null. If the
buildings were brought down by controlled demolition,
by contrast, then the steel would not have had to have
melted or to be significantly weakened from heat, but
would have been blown apart by the precise placement of
explosives. And the propensity that the building would
have collapsed at about the rate of free fall and that
there would have been enough energy to pulverize
concrete would have been very high. Since the
buildings did fall at approximately the rate of free
fall and there was enough energy to convert concrete
into fine dust, the evidential support for this
alternative is very high. It would have been quite
easily confirmed by metallurgical study of what
remained of the structural steel, but it was rapidly
removed and sent to China by an extremely efficient
company that's named "Controlled Demolition, Inc."

The measure of evidential support here can be captured
more precisely by the use of likelihoods. The
likelihood of an hypothesis (h1), the official account,
on the basis of the available evidence e, is equal to
the probability of e, if that hypothesis were true.
The probability of the evidence as an effect of the
official account of the cause, we have found, is
approximately zero. The likelihood of the alternative,
(h2), the demolition hypothesis, on the available
evidence e, by contrast, is extremely high. One
hypothesis is preferable to another when the likelihood
of that hypothesis on the available evidence is higher
than the likelihood of its alternative. Insofar as the
likelihood of (h1) on e is very low, while the
likelihood of (h2) on e is very high, the demolition
hypothesis (h2) is obviously preferable to alternative
(h1), based upon e.

A preferable hypothesis is not acceptable until
sufficient evidence becomes available, which occurs
when the evidence "settles down" or points in the same
direction. Any concerns on this score are resolvable
by adding that there were vast pools of molten metal in
the sub-basements of WTC1 and WTC2 for weeks after
their collapse.56 This would be inexplicable on (h1)
but highly probable on (h2). If any more proof were
necessary, we know that Larry Silverstein, who leased
the WTC, said that WTC7 was "pulled", which means it
was brought down using explosives.57 This occurred
hours after the other buildings came down. No plane
ever hit WTC7 and its collapse was perfectly
symmetrical and again occurred at virtually free-fall
speed. The building could not have been "pulled"
without prior placement of explosives. The collapses
of WTC1 and of WTC2 were very similar and equally
suggestive of controlled demolition.

A new documentary, "Loose Change", includes a
photographic record that offers very powerful
substantiation of the controlled demolition of WTC1 and
WTC2 by providing additional evidence that explosives
were used to bring them down. The videotape includes
eyewitness reports of firemen and other first
responders, who heard what they reported to be the
sounds of sequences of explosions in rapid sequence
("Boom! Boom! Boom!").58 It displays the effects of
massive explosions that occurred at the subbasement
level, moreover, which appear to have been captured on
seismological recordings from Columbia University,
which reflected concurrent earthquake-style events of
magnitudes of 2.1 and 2.3 on the Richter scale.59 And
it also explores a remarkable, odd series of "security
related" interruptions of security cameras and other
safeguards, which involved vacating large portions of
WTC1 and of WTC2 for intervals that would have allowed
for the placement of explosives to have occurred. This
remarkable documentary dramatically contradicts the
government's account.

11. "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt"

A conclusion may be described as having been
established "beyond a reasonable doubt" when no
alternative conclusion is reasonable. In this case,
hypothesis (h2), controlled demolition, can explain the
available evidence with high probability and
consequently possesses a corresponding high
likelihood.60 But hypothesis (h1), the government's
account, can explain virtually none of the available
evidence and has an extremely low likelihood. Indeed,
strictly speaking, given that it even requires
violations of laws of physics and engineering, the
likelihood of (h1) is actually null. When seismic,
molten metal, and eyewitness evidence—and especially
the collapse of WTC7, which was never hit by any
plane—are taken into account, the evidence also appears
to have "settled down". Thus, a scientific analysis of
the alternatives on the basis of the available evidence
demonstrates that the government's account of the
collapse due to heat from fires cannot be sustained and
that the alternative of a controlled demolition has
been objectively established beyond a reasonable doubt.

This conclusion receives support from other directions,
moreover, since the project manager who was responsible
for supervising the construction of these buildings has
observed that they were constructed to withstand the
impact from the largest commercial airplanes then
available—namely, Boeing 707s—and that the structural
design was so sophisticated airplane crashes would have
been analogous to sticking pencils through mosquito
netting.61 It's not as though the possibility of
events of this kind had never been given consideration
in the construction of 110 story buildings! This
observation reinforces the conclusion that the
government's account is not just "less defensible" than
the alternative. The likelihood of the demolition
hypothesis is very high, while the likelihood of the
government's account is actually null, which is a value
that is less than zero. This means that the official
story cannot possibly be true.

It follows that, when these "theories" are subject to
the kinds of systematic appraisal appropriate to
empirically testable alternative explanations, one of
them turns out to be overwhelmingly preferable to the
other. Since they are both "conspiracy theories",
however, we have discovered that at least some
"conspiracy theories" are subject to empirical test and
that, based upon likelihood measures of evidential
support, one of them is strongly confirmed while the
other is decisively disproven. Indeed, strictly
speaking, the inconsistency of the government's account
with natural laws makes it physically impossible, a
nice example of the falsification of a theory on the
basis of its incompatibility with scientific knowledge.
So some "conspiracy theories" are not only subject to
empirical test but have actually been falsified by the
available evidence.62

The fact that the government's "conspiracy theory"
cannot be sustained needs to be widely disseminated to
the American people. Not all "theories" are mere
guesses and many of them are empirically testable. In
this case, elementary considerations have proven that
one "conspiracy theory" is false (indeed, as we have
discovered, it cannot possibly be true), while the
alternative appears to be true (on the basis of
measures of probability and likelihood). Since the
(h1) alternative to (h2) is unreasonable and no other
alternative appears remotely plausible, the demolition
hypothesis (h2) has actually been established beyond a
reasonable doubt. That, I believe, is something that
the American people need to understand. With only
slight exaggeration, this government makes a practice
of lying to us all the time. It has lied about tax
cuts, minimized the threat of global warming, offered a
series of lies about the reasons for going to war in
Iraq, and on dozens of other major issues. Some lies
are bigger than others. This one—about the causes and
the effects of 9/11—counts as a monstrosity!

12. Who had the Power?

The observation that the government's official account
cannot be sustained and that the alternative has been
established beyond a reasonable doubt is not tantamount
to an assertion of omniscience. Scientific reasoning
in the form of inference to the best explanation
applied to the available relevant evidence yields the
result that, in the case of JFK, the official account
of Lee Harvey Oswald as a lone assassin is not even
physically possible, which means that it has null
probability. It cannot possibly be true. And, in the
case of 9/11, the same principles applied to the
available relevant evidence yields the result that the
official account of the events of that day are not even
physically possible, which means that they have null
probabilities, too. These conclusions are objective
discoveries that anyone using the same rules of
reasoning applied to the same evidence and considering
the same alternatives would reach.63

Conclusions in science are always tentative and
fallible, which means the discovery of new evidence or
new alternatives may require reconsideration of the
inferential situation. The suggestion could be made,
for example, that the South Tower fell first because it
was hit on a lower floor and to one side of the
building, where the lack of symmetry caused it to fall.
But that ignores the load-redistribution capabilities
built into the towers, which would have precluded that
outcome. The claim has also been advanced that the
steel only had to weaken, not melt. But the heat
generated by the fuel fires never reached temperatures
that would weaken the steel and, if it had, the
buildings would have sagged asymmetrically, not
completely collapsed all at once, as in fact was the
case. The buildings both fell abruptly, completely,
and symmetrically into their own footprints, which is
explicable on the controlled demolition hypothesis but
not on the official account. Similar considerations
apply to the Pentagon hit. Even if the wings had been
shorn off, a Boeing 757—which weighed 100 tons!—cannot
have entered the building through that tiny opening
and not have left massive debris. Both the government's
"explanations" violate laws of nature. They cannot
possibly be true.

Which raises the question, Who had the power to make
these things happen and to cover it up? Once the
evidence has been sorted out and appropriately
appraised, the answer is no longer very difficult to
find. Like the assassination of JFK, the events of
9/11 required involvement at the highest levels of the
American government. This conclusion, moreover,
receives confirmation from the conduct of our highest
elected officials, who took extraordinary steps to
prevent any formal investigation of 9/11 and, when it
was forced upon them by tremendous political pressure,
especially from the survivors of victims of these
crimes, they did whatever they could to subvert them.
There are good reasons for viewing The 9/11 Commission
Report (2004) as the historical successor to and
functional equivalent of The Warren Report (1964).64

I therefore believe that those of us who care about the
truth and the restoration of responsible government in
the United States have an obligation to make use of
every possible media venue from talk radio and the
internet to newspapers and television whenever
possible. The American people can act wisely only when
they know the truth. So, while the truth is said to
"make us free", the truth only matters when the
American people are able to discover what is true.
Obstacles here that are posed by the
government-dominated mass media, including the use of
stooge "reporters" and of prepackaged "news releases",
only make matters that much more difficult. As John
Dean asks in Worse than Watergate (2004), If there has
ever been an administration more prone to deceiving the
American people in our history, which one could it be?

13. Ubiquitous Conspiracies

Moreover, we must overcome the inhibition to talk
openly about conspiracies. That the United States is
now engaged in a conspiracy to control the world's oil
in relation to Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, and Venezuela
comes as no surprise.65 Read John Perkins' Confessions
of an Economic Hitman (2004) or Robert Barnett's The
Pentagon's New Map (2004) for modern extensions of the
predominant attitudes of the recent past elaborated by
Peter Dale Scott in Deep Politics and the Death of JFK
(1993). But not all conspiracies are global in
character and many are more limited in scope, such as
the effort to keep an Italian journalist from returning
to Italy from her captivity in Iraq, which seems to
have been deliberately contrived to contain information
about war crimes committed by American forces in
Falluja.66

If anyone doubts the ubiquitous presence of
conspiracies, let them take a look at any newspaper of
substance and evaluate the stories that are reported
there. During an appearance on Black Op Radio, for
example, I went through a single issue of The New York
Times (Wednesday, 18 March 2005), which I chose as
suitable for a case study. Multiple conspiracies are
addressed throughout, including the WorldCom scandal,
atrocities in Iraq and in Afghanistan (involving the
murder of at least twenty-six inmates), the
assassination of Refik Hariri in Lebanon, the use of
counterfeit news by our own government, an SEC suit
against Qwest for fraud, the 125 bank accounts of
Augusto Pinochet, on and on.67

Efforts to promote the view that "conspiracy theories"
must never be taken seriously continue unabated. A
recent example of my acquaintance appears in the
December 2004 issue of Scientific American Mind
(December 2004), its "premiere issue". This issue
features an article, "Secret Powers Everywhere", whose
author is identified as Thomas Gruter of the University
of Munster in Germany. 68 Its theme is that, while
"most individuals who revel in tales of conspiracies
are sane", they tend to "border on delusion". This is
a very unscientific article for a publication that,
like its sibling, Scientific American, focuses on
science. We have discovered that conspiracies are
ubiquitous and amenable to scientific investigation.
This article thus appears to be only the latest in an
ongoing series of propagandistic assaults upon our
rationality.69

Although it ought to go without saying, no "conspiracy
theory" should be accepted or rejected without
research. Each case of a possible conspiracy has to
be evaluated independently based on the principles of
logic and the available relevant evidence.
Conspiracies flourish and time is fleeting. We lack
the resources to confront them all. But we need the
intelligence and the courage to promote truth in
matters of the highest importance to our country and to
the world at large. We must do whatever we can to
uncover and publish the truth and to expose the
techniques so skillfully deployed to defeat us.
History cannot be understood—even remotely!—without
grasping the prevalence of conspiracies. And American
history is no exception.

NOTES

1 The recent indictment of former Speaker of the House
Tom DeLay for money laundering and the investigation of
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist for insider trading
are even being referred to as "conspiracies". See "Big
money, big influence, big trouble", Duluth News Tribune
(4 December 2005). See also Section 13 below.

2 Properties whose presence or absence depends upon
and varies with different observers or thinkers are
said to be "subjective" (Fetzer and Almeder 1993, p.
99). Beliefs are "rational" when they satisfy suitable
standards of evidential support with regard to
acceptance, rejection, and suspension (Fetzer and
Almeder 1993, pp. 13-14).

3 Some relevant evidence may not be available and some
available evidence may not be relevant (Fetzer and
Almeder 1993, p. 133). The fallacy that results from
picking and choosing your evidence (call it "selection
and elimination") is known as "special pleading", a
common practice by editorial writers, politicians, and
used-car salesmen.

4 Some alternative models of science include
Inductivism, Deductivism, Hypothetico-Deductivism,
Bayesianism (which comes in many different variations),
and Abductivism, whose alternative strengths and
weaknesses are assessed in Fetzer (1981), (1993), and
(2002). The most defensible appears to be Abductivism,
which is adopted here.

5 Acceptance within scientific contexts is "tentative
and fallible" because new evidence or new hypotheses
may require reconsideration of inferential situations.
Conclusions that were once accepted as true may have to
be rejected as false and conclusions once rejected as
false may have to be accepted as true, as the history
of science progresses.

6 In philosophical discourse, differences like these
are known as "modal" distinctions.

7 And an event is historically possible (relative to
time t) when its occurrence does not violate the
history of the world (relative to t). Historical
possibility implies both physical and logical, and
physical implies logical, but not conversely. See
Fetzer and Almeder (1993). For a detailed technical
elaboration, see Fetzer (1981), pp. 54-55.

8 The example ignores the phenomena of supercooling.
Some natural laws are causal and others are non-causal,
while causal laws can be deterministic or
indeterministic (or probabilistic). On the differences
between kinds of laws, see Fetzer (1981), (1993), and
(2002). Laws of society, such as speed limits on
highways, of course, can be violated, can be changed,
and require enforcement.

9 Scientific explanations of specific events explain
why those events occur through their subsumption by
means of covering laws. Predictions and retrodictions
offer a basis for inferring that an event will occur or
has occurred but, depending upon their specific form,
may or may not explain why. See Fetzer (1981), (1993),
and (2002).

10 The term "proof" sometimes simply refers to
specific evidence or an illustration of a principle or
theorem, as in the case of a laboratory experiment.
For a discussion of the meaning of "proof" in legal
contexts, abstract contexts, and scientific contexts,
see James H. Fetzer, "Assassination Science and the
Language of Proof", in Fetzer (1998).

11 Thus, the stage of adaptation (of hypotheses to
evidence) entails the exclusion of hypotheses that are
inconsistent with the evidence. Like acceptance,
rejection in science is also tentative and fallible,
since the discovery of new alternatives or new evidence
may require rejecting previously accepted alternatives,
and conversely.

12 Formally, L(h/e) = P(e/h), that is, the likelihood
of h, given e, is equal to the probability of e, given
h. For propensities as opposed to frequencies, the
formula may be expressed as NL(h/e) = NP(e/h), that
is, the nomic likelihood of h, given e, equals the
nomic probability of e, given h. See Fetzer (1981),
(1993), and (2002).

13 Strictly speaking, relative frequencies are
collective properties that do not belong to its
individual members, while propensities are distributive
properties that belong to each of its members, but may
not be the same for every member in the collective.
Under constant conditions, relative frequencies are
evidence for causal propensities.

14 "Woman canoeing Brule River is killed in freak
accident", Duluth News Tribune (16 July 1993), p. 1A.
If those same unusual conditions were to be replicated
over and over, of course, the relative frequency for
death while canoeing would become extremely high.
Enthusiasm for paddling the Brule River would no doubt
diminish.

15 "Cigarette lighter saves man from a bullet",
National Enquirer (6 July 1993), p. 21. In another
case, a man who walked away unharmed after his truck
hit a utility pole was killed as he left the crash
scene, stepped on two downed power lines, and was
electrocuted. His luck had run out. Duluth News
Tribune (11 October 1993), p. 2D.

16 The sequences of cases that make up collectives
are properly envisioned as sets of single cases, where
the cause of each single case is the propensity that
was present on that occasion. Laws of nature describe
what would happen for any single case of the kind to
which it applies up to the values of its propensities
(Fetzer 1982, 1991, 2002).

17 The discovery that the autopsy X-rays have been
altered, that someone else's brain was substituted for
that of JFK, and that the Zapruder film has been
recreated thus afford striking examples of the
tentative and fallible status of scientific knowledge,
where conclusions previously regarded as true must be
rejected as false. See below.

18 Rather like the beaver on the Brule River, it seems
to have been responsible for what would otherwise have
appeared to have been a most improbable outcome. The
difference, however, is that the Brule River incident
actually occurred, while the "magic bullet" phenomenon
cannot have occurred. It is not physically possible.

19 Warren Commission drawings of the alleged path of
the "magic bullet" along with photographs of the holes
in the jacket and shirt, the autopsy diagram, the death
certificate, and some re-enactment photographs may be
found in Galanor (1998), which presents available and
relevant evidence contradicting The Warren Report.

20 Baden no doubt meant to imply that, since it would
be absurd to suppose there had been as many as six
shots from three directions, the "magic bullet" theory
must be true. Recent scientific research has not only
established that the "magic bullet" theory is
physically impossible but that there had to have been
at least six shots.

21 When the available relevant evidence proves that The
Warren Report, which is the official government account
of the assassination of JFK, the 35th President of
United States, is false, yet the government refuses to
revise its phony "explanation" of the cause of his
death, it is abusive to demean the serious
investigators as "buffs".

22 These include Robert B. Livingston, M.D., a world
authority on the human brain, who was also an expert on
wound ballistics; David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., a Ph.D.
in physics who is also an M.D. and board-certified in
radiation oncology; and John P. Costella, Ph.D., an
expert in electromagnetism and the physics of moving
objects.

23 The authenticity of the Zapruder film has dedicated
proponents, such as Josiah Thompson, the author of an
early study (Thompson 1967), and David Wrone, the
author of a recent study (Wrone 2003). For a critique
of the critics' arguments, go to "The Great Zapruder
Film Hoax Debate", http://www.assassinationscience.com.
Some of their arguments were already refuted by the
"Preface" to Fetzer (2003).

24 The witnesses to the limousine stop range from Roy
Truly, Oswald's supervisor in the Texas School Book
Depository, to Richard DellaRosa, who has viewed
another and more complete film that includes the limo
stop. See, for example, David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.,
"How the Film of the Century was Edited", in Fetzer
(1998), pp. 274-275; Vince Palamara, "59 Witnesses:
Delay on Elm Street", in Fetzer (2000), pp. 119-128;
and Richard DellaRosa, "The DellaRosa Report", in
Fetzer (2003), Appendix E. This was such an obvious
indication of Secret Service complicity that it had to
be taken out.

25 With respect to the medical evidence, see David W.
Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., "The JFK Assassination: Cause for
Doubt", with its "Postscript: The President John F.
Kennedy Skull X-Rays", in Fetzer (1998), pp. 93-139;
and Robert Livingston, M.D., "Statement 18 November
1993", in Fetzer (1998), pp. 161-166. See also Fetzer
(2000), (2003). Blunders were committed along the way.
For example, while the 6.5 mm metallic slice was
intended to implicate an obscure 6.5 mm weapon, the
weapon itself only has a muzzle velocity of 2,000 fps
and is not a high-velocity weapon. So if JFK was
killed by the impact of high-velocity bullets, as his
death certificates, the Warren Commission and the HSCA
supposed, then he was not killed by Lee Harvey Oswald.
See Weisberg (1965), Model and Groden (1976), and
Groden and Livingstone (1989).

26 Livingston's conclusion has now been reinforced by
the recent discovery that two supplemental brain
examinations were conducted, one with the real brain,
the other with the substitute. See Douglas Horne,
"Evidence of a Government Cover-Up: Two Different
Brain Specimens in President Kennedy's Autopsy", Fetzer
(2000), pp. 299-310.

27 A summary of evidence for alteration may be found
in James H. Fetzer, "Fraud and Fabrication in the
Death of JFK", in Fetzer (2003), pp. 1-28. See
especially John P. Costella, Ph.D., "A Scientist's
Verdict: The Film is a Fabrication", in Fetzer (2003),
pp. 145-238. It had to be recreated by reshooting the
frames for technical reasons related to sprocket hole
images that have the effect of linking one frame to
another. That the cinematic techniques for recreating
the film were available in 1963 has been established by
David Healy, "Technical Aspects of Film Alteration", in
Fetzer (2003), pp. 113-144. The Disney film, "Mary
Poppins", for example, with its elaborate special
effects, was completed in 1963 and released in 1964.
For easy access to the evidence, see John P. Costella,
"The JFK Assassination Film Hoax: An Introduction", at
http://www.assassinationscience.com.

28 See, for example, Vincent Palamara, "Secret Service
Agents who believed there was a conspiracy",
http://www.geocities.com/zzzmail/palamara.htm?20054;
Vincent Palamara, "The Secret Service: On the Job in
Dallas", in Fetzer (2000); and Vincent Palamara,
Survivor's Guilt: The Secret Service and the Failure to
Protect the President (1995); Lifton (1980); Marrs
(1989); Livingstone (1992); and Fetzer (1998, 2003).

29 When the Assassination Records Review Board
(ARRB),­­­­ which was established by Congress to
declassify documents and records held by the CIA, the
FBI, the NSA, and other agencies in the wake of the
surge of interest generated by Oliver Stone's "JFK",
was drafting requests for copies of its presidential
protection reports for some of his trips during 1963,
the Secret Service destroyed them. See Fetzer (2000),
pp. 12-13.

30 Even the mortician observed that the deceased had a
massive defect to the back of his head, a small entry
wound to the right temple, several small puncture
wounds to the face, and a wound to the back about five
to six inches below the collar. (See, for example,
Fetzer (2003), pp. 8-9.) This information should have
been easily available. Even The Warren Report describes
the holes in the shirt and jacket he was wearing as "5
3/8 inches below the top of the collar" in the jacket
and as "5 3/4 inches below the top of the collar" in
the shirt, contradicting its own declared conclusions
(Warren 1964, p. 92). David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D.,
believes that the small puncture wounds were caused by
shards of glass when the bullet that hit his throat
passed through the windshield.

31 There appear to have been eight, nine, or ten shots
from six locations. See, for example, Richard F.
Sprague, “The Assassination of President John F.
Kennedy”, Computers and Automation (May 1970), pp.
29-60; James H. Fetzer, "Assassination Science and the
Language of Proof", in Fetzer (1998), pp. 349-372; and
David W. Mantik, M.D., Ph.D., "Paradoxes of the JFK
Assassination: The Medical Evidence Decoded", in
Fetzer (2000), pp. 219-297.

32 Lane already noticed this deceptive performance
(Lane 1966, "The Hypothetical Medical Questions",
Appendix II). Perry, who had performed the
tracheostomy, was not in the position to vouch for or
to verify the assumptions that he had been asked to
make, because he knew they were false! The press
conference transcript, where he described the wound
three times as a wound of entry, was not provided to
the Warren Commission, but has been published in Fetzer
(1998) as Appendix C.

33 There were others, including that the crowd was
allowed to spill into the street, the 112th Military
Intelligence Group was ordered to "stand down", and a
flatbed truck that would normally precede the limo for
camermen to film was cancelled. Even on the
unreasonable assumption that, say, one time in ten, the
Secret Service "forgets" to weld the manhole covers, to
cover the open windows, and such, then the probability
that there would be a dozen independent events of this
kind is equal to 1 over 1 followed by a dozen zeros,
1/1,000,000,000,000, or one in a trillion. Even if we
arbitrarily discount half of them, the probability that
there would be a half-dozen independent events of this
kind is equal to 1 over 1 followed by a half-dozen
zeros, 1/1,000,000, or one in a million. Since
hypotheses in science are rejected when they have
improbabilities of 1 in twenty or more, these
alternatives must be rejected.

34 The difference is that between events that, while
extremely rare, can in fact occur and those that are
impossible because their occurrence would violate laws
of nature. The accidental death of the woman canoeing
on the Brule River had a probability of zero, but it
was not physically impossible or it could never have
occurred. The prime numbers occur with diminishing
relative frequency among the natural numbers and have a
limiting frequency of zero, but there are infinitely
many of them, nonetheless. It is therefore important,
as a point of logic, to distinguish between "zero" and
"null".

35 Those who make a last-ditch stand on behalf of the
government's position often insist that, if there had a
been a large-scale conspiracy, then some of those
involved would have talked—and no one has talked!
Proof that they don't know what they are talking about
may be found in many places, including Noel Twyman's
Bloody Treason (1997), where on a single page he lists
eight prominent figures who talked (page 285)! None of
this inhibits late night MSNBC-show hosts from fawning
over Gerald Posners.

36 The identity of the alleged hijackers remains very
much in doubt. Nila Sagadevan, "9/11—The Real Report"
(forthcoming), has observed that none of the names of
the Arabs who are supposed to have committed these
crimes are included in the flight manifests for any of
the planes. Others, such as Griffin (2004, 2005), have
observed that not only were fifteen of the nineteen
from Saudi Arabia and none from Iraq, where at least
six of those alleged to have been involved have turned
up alive and well and living in Saudi Arabia. The FBI
has not bothered to revise its list, but it should be
apparent that the probability that they died in the
crash, yet are still alive, is null.

37 A French human-rights activist and an investigative
journalist, Thierry Meyssan, was among the first to
observe that the government's account of the attack
upon the Pentagon did not comport with the evidence.
He published two of the earliest books on 9/11,
Pentagate (2002a) and 9/11: The Big Lie (2002b).
Meyssan has been the target of many attacks, including
by James S. Robbins, "9/11 Denial" (2002), whose
rebuttal consists of two assertions, "I was there. I
saw it." Whatever he may have thought he saw does not
affect the evidence Meyssan emphasizes. See, for
example, the web site
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentaone/erreurs_en.htm.

38 Notice that the magnitude of the differences that
are involved here is very large
(http://reopen911.org/Core.htm). The melting point of
iron is 2795° F, but steel as a mixture has a melting
point dependent upon its composition. Thus, typical
structural steel has a melting point of about 2,750° F.
The maximum temperature of air-aspirated, hydrocarbon
fires without pre-heating or pressurization is about
1,700° F. Even if the temperatures of those fires had
reached as high as 1,700-2,000° F, as FEMA suggests,
there was not enough time for sufficient heat to have
been produced to have caused the steel to melt
(Hufschmid 2002, pp. 32-40). Underwriters Laboratories
had in fact certified that the steel used in
construction could withstand temperatures of 2,000° F
several hours before even any significant softening
would have occurred.
(http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104.easilywithstood.htm)

39 It certainly would not have melted at the lower
temperatures of around 500° F to which, UL estimated,
they were exposed, given the conditions present in the
towers.
(http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104.easilywithstood.htm)
Nor would they have melted at temperatures as high as
1,200° or 1,300° F, as other estimates suggest (Griffin
2004, p. 13). The hottest temperatures measured in the
South Tower was about 1,375° F, far too low to cause
the steel to melt, even if the exposure time had been
much longer than 56 minutes. (See below.)

40 In the case of 9/11, as in the case of JFK, physical
impossibilities lie at the core of the cover-up. What
is impossible cannot happen, but many people are able
to believe impossible things, especially when they are
unaware of the laws that are involved and the specific
conditions that were present. Gullibility tends to be
a function of ignorance.

41 Griffin (2004), pp. 26-27. Griffin's latest study,
"The Destruction of the World Trade Center: A
Christian Theologian's Analysis" (forthcoming), adds
even more. As Frank A. DeMartini, who was project
manager for the construction of World Trade Center,
during an interview recorded in January 2001,
explained, "The building was designed to have a fully
loaded 707 crash into it—that was the largest plane at
the time. I believe that the building could probably
sustain multiple impacts of jet liners because this
structure is like mosquito netting on your screen
door—this intense grid—and the plane is just a pencil
puncturing that screen netting. It really does nothing
to the screen netting"
(http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104designedtotake.htm).
Three other engineers involved in the project—Lee
Robertson, Aaron Swirski, and Hyman Brown—offered
similar opinions (http://www.rense.com/
general17/eyewitnessreportspersist.htm). DeMartini
died at the towers on 9/11.

42 Peter Tully, President of Tully Construction, who
was involved in the process of clearing the site,
reported seeing pools of "molten steel", an observation
that was confirmed by Mark Loizeaux, President of
Controlled Demolition, Inc., who said they had been
found at the subbasement level as low as seven levels
down. Moreover, those pools remained "three, four, and
five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed"
(http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_03_02/NEW_SEISMIC_/new_seis-mic_.html).
These extreme temperatures would not result from either
burning fuel or collapse due to the "pancake effect",
which would have propensities of zero or null, but
would be expectable effects of the use of powerful
explosives to bring them down.

43 Indeed, most of these features would have a null
propensity on the official account. Suppose, for
example, that the collapse was brought about by a
"pancake" effect, with one floor falling and
overwhelming the capacity of the lower floor to support
it. Suppose, further, that the collapse of one floor
onto another occurred at an average speed of 1/2 second
per floor. (Try dropping a set of keys from various
heights and measure the time!) Even if the initial
collapse occurred more slowly and increased with the
increase in falling mass, an assumption that is not
unreasonable, for all 110 floors to collapse—using
averages, it would not matter which collapsed first or
where the planes hit!—would have taken about 55
seconds. The buildings actually fell in about 10
seconds, as even The 9/11 Report itself concedes
(Zelikow 2004, p. 305). That, however, is about the
speed of free fall through air for objects encountering
no resistance at all. If these assumptions are even
remotely correct, then that the buildings should have
collapsed so much faster than 55 seconds would appear
to be physically impossible on a "pancake" account.
Eric Hufschmid, "Painful Deceptions" (2003), a video he
produced, has shown that seismic data has confirmed
that towers came down in about 10 seconds.

44 See, for example,
http://www.assassinationscience.com/911links.html.
This site includes many important studies of the
Pentagon crash, such as a set of PowerPoint studies by
Jack White. It also includes the links to many of the
reports cited in this chapter, including "Hunt the
Boeing!", which presents Meyssan's analysis in a series
of photographs. I have found that links to evidence
that tends to contradict the government's account do
not always work normally, however, and sometimes just
simply disappear. Similar photographs are found in
Meyssan (2002a), color photo section, pp. VI-VII. The
same conclusion is drawn by Eric Hufschmid (Hufschmid
2002).

45 A photograph is archived at
http://www.assassinationscience.com/911links.html.
The opening appears to be about 10 feet high and
roughly 16 or 17 feet wide, or not much larger than the
double-doors on a mansion. Another photograph suggests
that the width may even be considerably less than 16-17
feet, perhaps much closer to 10 feet, but it appears to
be of two windows that were blown out of the second
floor instead
(http://www.serendipity.li/wot/crash_site.htm). Notice
several unbroken windows in the impact area and the
lack of collateral damage. According to A. K. Dewdney
and G. W. Longspaugh, the maximum diameter of the
fuselage is about 12 feet, 4 inches, with a wingspan of
125 feet (http://www.physics911.net/missingwings.htm).
They found, "The initial (pre-collapse) hole made by
the alleged impact on the ground floor of Wedge One of
the building is too small to admit an entire Boeing
757"" and "Wings that should have been sheered off by
the impact are entirely absent. There is also
substantial debris from a much smaller jet-powered
aircraft inside the building." They conclude with a
"high degree" of certainty that no Boeing 757 struck
the Pentagon and with a "substantial degree" of
certainty that it was struck by a small jet, like an
F-16.

46 Bloggers observed the proliferation of inconsistent
stories about what happened at the Pentagon, where some
were saying that the wing hit the grass and it
"cartwheeled" into the Pentagon, others saying that it
"nose dived" into the Pentagon, others saying that it
flew "straight into" the Pentagon, others saying that
it hit the helicopter pad and the wreckage flew into
the Pentagon: "Why so many different stories? Are these
people seeing different things?"
(http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread71124/pg11).
The Pentagon said the crew of a C-130 had watched the
attack take place while circling Washington, D.C.
(http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/linkscopy/C130sawF772P.html).

47 Go to
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
for a photograph of the construction. Compare it with
other photographs of the lawn, which can be found at
http://www.assassinationscience.com/911links.html,
including in the PowerPoint studies of Jack White. The
lawn seems to be as smooth as a putting green.

48 Slide 20 of Jack White's PowerPoint studies
displays two photographs of the same piece of "aircraft
debris" with two different backgrounds
(http://www.assassination-science.com/911links.html).
Another study supporting the impossibility of a Boeing
757 having passed through that entry point includes
photos not only of the same piece of alleged debris but
others showing two men in suits carrying what appears
to be the same or similar pieces and, interestingly, an
enormous box being carried from the site by six or
eight servicemen, who have covered it up completely by
using blue and white plastic tarps
(http://www.geocities.com/s911surprise3b/american_airlines_flight_77/).

49 Hufschmid (Hufschmid 2002, Chapter 9), concludes
that the building may have been hit by a Predator
drone, which could have been painted to resemble an
American Airlines aircraft. Most arguments for the
official government account tend to emphasize
eyewitnesses who said that they saw a Boeing 757 hit
the Pentagon. (See note 37 above.) But the physical
evidence overwhelmingly outweighs the contrary
eyewitness evidence, since it is not physically
possible that an aircraft of those dimensions hit the
building at that location and left no evidence. Think
of driving a car through your front door for a
comparison. The air controller's report, by contrast,
was a group response by professional experts.

50 See
http://www.simmeringfrogs.com/articles/jt8d.html, which
includes photos of a JT8D turbojet engine and the
remnant found at the crash site. A similar conclusion
is drawn by
http://www.physics911.net/missingwings.htm., which
concludes that this part cannot have come from a Boeing
757 but was probably from a small fighter jet, such as
an F-16. The F-16 and the A-3 Sky Warrior are both
small fighter jets. Both pages are also accessible
from http://www.assassinationscience.com/911links.html.

51 The workers' reports about these activities may be
read at "Secret Global Hawk Refit for Sky Warrior!"
(http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/05/318250.shtml).

52 See
http://www.geocities.com/s911surprise3b/american_airlines_flight_77/.

53 She is quoted by Meyssan (2002a) on p. I and on pp.
96-97. The original source is
http://www.abcnews.go.com/sections/2020/2020/2020_011014_atc.feature.htm.

54 Jon Carlson, "FBI Hides 85 Pentagon Videos and 9/11
Truth", http://

www.rense.com/general69/91185.htm. This article also
relates that "the Power Hour has found that Pentagon
9/11 'witnesses' were given prepared written statements
to say that a commercial airliner hit the Pentagon."

A link,
http://www.arcticbeacon.com/articles/article/1518131/39024.htm,

offered in support does not work. Why am I not
surprised? As a former Marine Corps officer, I can
confirm that it would have been effortless to acquire
the testimony of any number of enlisted that they
personally observed Bruce Wayne drive the Batmobile
into the Pentagon that morning. I wonder how many of
us could tell the difference between a 767, a 757, or a
737, for example, especially when whatever hit was only
observable for a brief span of time? AA Flight 77 left
the radar screen in the vicinity of the Kentucky/Ohio
border. One possible explanation for what became of it
is that it went down there and the bodies were
transported back to a make-shift morgue in Washington,
D.C., an hypothesis that may merit further
investigation.

55 Wake turbulence occurs as an unavoidable effect of
aircraft operation and "is generated when the
difference in air pressure above and below the wings of
an aircraft causes the air to spiral at the aircraft's
wing tips." It dissipates rapidly in windy conditions,
but in still conditions, "the spirals sink toward the
ground and degrade slowly"
(http://www.aeru.com/au/pages/page189.asp). Pilots are
offered instructions for avoiding the problem (see "FAA
Advisory Circular, AC-90-23E: CAUTION WAKE
TURBULANCE",
http://www.fcitraining.com/article14_fci_training_jul04.htm).
The effects can be substantial, which gives rise to the
following dilemma: if a 757 was flying low enough to
impact the hit point on the ground floor with the
official trajectory, then it should have massively
disrupted the grass and lawn; but the grass and law
were not massively disrupted. And if it was not flying
low enough to massively disrupt the grass and lawn,
then it was not flying low enough on that trajectory to
hit that point on the ground floor. Indeed, at heights
low enough to impact the ground floor, the engines or
even fuselage would have been expected to plow the
ground, which clearly did not occur.

56 See note 42 above and the discussion of this
important point that may be found at
http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_03_02/NEW_SEISMIC_/new_seis-mic_.html.

57 During a PBS documentary, "America Rebuilds",
broadcast 10 September 2002, Larry Silverstein
remarks, "I remember getting a call from the, er, fire
department commander, telling me that they were not
sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I
said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the
smartest thing to do is pull it.' They made that
decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."
(http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/pullit.html).
That, however, could not have occurred unless the
building contained prepositioned explosives. If WTC7
had prepositioned explosives, that strongly suggests
WTC1 and WTC2 had them as well.

58 In this respect, "Loose Change" corroborates
earlier reports from eyewitnesses to explosions, such
as
http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029
and
http://www.resne.com/general17/eyewitnessreortspersist.htm.
See also note 21.

59 See, for example,
http://www.americanfreepress.net/09_03_02/NEW_SEISMIC
_/new_seismic_.html and
http://www.democraticunderground.com/duforum/DC
ForumID43/5189.html, which include the seismic record
of Columbia's observatory.

60 For additional discussion, including many more
links, see, for example, http://.
www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/july2005/060705controlleddemolition.htm.

61 See note 41. The properties of Boeing 707s and
Boeing 767s are very similar.

62 United Flight 93, which went down in Pennsylvania,
may be an easy case. Persons living in the area at the
time have contacted me and told me they heard an
explosion before the plane crashed, but the FBI would
not record it. Others told me that they had been taken
to an area far larger than the official crash scene to
search for debris and body parts, but the Sheriff who
accompanied them told them that, if they were to repeat
this, he would deny he had said that. A former
Inspector General who used to supervise air crashes for
the Air Force told me that, if the plane had crashed as
it was officially described, it should have occupied an
area about the size of a city block; but the debris is
actually scattered over an area of some eight square
miles. There is also a report the plane was shot down
by a "Happy Hooligans" Air National Guard officer, one
Major Rick Gibney, at
http://www.letsroll911.org/articles/flight93shotdown.html.

63 On the objectivity of scientific reasoning, see
Fetzer (1981), (1993), and (2002).

64 For more discussion and evidence, see Ahmed (2002),
Meyssan (2002), Griffin (2004), Thompson (2004),
Ruppert (2004), and Griffin (2005) and (forthcoming).

65 See "Mission Accomplished: Big Oil's Occupation of
Iraq", BUZZFLASH.COM (2 December 2005),
http;//www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/12/con05464.html.

66 See "Hostage's shooting 'no accident'"
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/fr/-/2/hi/
europe/4323361.stm) and "Dead Messengers: How the U.S.
Military Threatens Journalists"
(http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030605.shtml). The
New York Times has recently lost one of its own,
"Reporter Working for Times Abducted and Slain in
Iraq", The New York Times (20 September 2005), although
The Times has not suggested that he was deliberately
targeted by the American military. See, for example,
"The Twilight World of the Iraqi News Stringer", The
New York Times (25 September 2005). For another
troubling report, see "US forces 'out of control', says
Reuters chief",
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1580244,00.html.

67 The discussion is archived at
http://www.blackopradio.com/. Go to "archived shows
2005" and scroll down to Part 2, Archived Show #213.
Other examples of probable conspiracies making their
way into the national media include financing
propaganda in Iraqi ("U.S. Is Said to Pay to Plant
Articles in Iraq Papers", The New York Times, 1
December 2005) and the DeLay-inspired G.O.P.
redistricting of Texas ("Lawyer's Voting Rights Memo
Overruled", The New York Times, 3 December

2005).

68 I have received an email from “Dr. med. Thomas
Gruter” (25 January 2005) in which he advises me that
he has not been a member of the faculty at Munster for
nearly 20 years and never was a professor. He is a
medical doctor and journalist writing on scientific
subjects. He asked Scientific American Mind to correct
this, but it never did. He faulted the magazine’s
translation of his German, which, he wrote, should have
said, “Most conspiracy believers are certainly sane,
even if the dividing line to a delusional disorder of
thinking may be ill-defined (or fluent).” So the
problem could have arisen from an editor’s decision to
publish an English translation without verification
from the author.

69 A distinction must be drawn between rationality of
belief and rationality of action. Rationality of belief
involves accepting, rejecting, and holding beliefs in
suspense on the basis of the available relevant
evidence and appropriate principles of reasoning.
Rationality of action involves adopting means that are
efficient, effective, or reliable to attain your aims,
objective, or goals. Lying about tax cuts (global
warming, Iraq) can be a rational act if it is an
efficient, effective, or reliable means to attaining
goals, which may be political, economic, or personal.
And they can attain their aims even if they are
ultimately discovered. Assessments of comparative
rationality with respect to belief must take into
account that persons are rational in their beliefs when
they incorporate the principles that define it. Since
the "community of scientists" can be

littered with phonys, charlatans, and frauds,
"scientists" are those who adhere to the principles of
science. Analogously, "rational persons" are those who
adhere to the principles of rationality. They tend to
converge. See Fetzer (1981), (1993), (2002).

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JAMES H. FETZER, McKnight University Professor of
Philosophy at the University of Minnesota, teaches on
its Duluth campus. He has authored or edited more than
twenty books in the philosophy of science and on the
theoretical foundations of computer science, artificial
intelligence, cognitive science, and the evolution of
mentality. He has also published widely on the death
of JFK. Fetzer has received many honors and awards for
distinguished research in the philosophy of science.

James H. Fetzer

McKnight Professor

University of Minnesota

Duluth, MN 5581

(218) 726-7269 (office)

(218) 724-2706 (home)

(218) 726-7119 (fax)

http://www.d.umn.edu/~jfetzer/

(c) 2005 James H. Fetzer

0[ZZ-reading in nyc.politics-ZZZZZZZZ]0
Liars share with those they deceive
the desire not to be deceived.
--Sissela Bok
0[ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ]0