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RMS Titanic

Now that one hundred years have passed since the sinking of the Titanic, conspiracy theories relating to it have been rife. Some are rather crazy.

An example comes from one webpage. It said that there are only two people who were aboard the ship who survive to this day and both “claim” to have been babies and therefore too young to remember the event. How convenient, it says. It says that although some of the richest and most famous people in the world were aboard, no video was made of the sinking. How convenient, it says, although perhaps no video from 1912 is not so suspicious. It says that Abe Lincoln died on the same day, 47 years before, and the Titanic could carry 2,547 people. The webpage asks when “sheeple” will realize that they are being lied to. Hang about, that one was a joke. But it sets the mood. During an interview with Online Tonight, James Cameron remarked of a cartoon called Oliver Stone’s Titanic which said there was a second iceberg.

Survivor Emily Richards wrote in a letter that immediately before the Titanic’s rendezvous with an iceberg at 10:20p.m. on April 14, 1912: “The Captain was down in the saloon drinking and gave charge to some-one else to stare (sic) the ship. It was the Captan (sic) fault.” The 24 year-old Richards and her two sons survived the sinking, but her brother was lost.

The letter was written on the notepaper of the Carpathia, which rescued survivors of the Titanic. It and another letter Richards wrote was expected to be sold at auction for $32,000. First person accounts on the notepaper of the Carpathia are exceedingly rare, so the items aroused considerable interest.

No other witness is known to have made the same claim, making Richard’s version inconsistent with dozens of others. She did not repeat the accusation in interviews or at the British or American inquiries into the sinking.

The statue of Captain Edward Smith

Captain Edward Smith was held to have died like an Englishman, going down with his ship. He was mostly exonerated by the British inquiry. He was glorified, and a statue of him stands in his home town in England.

Who sank the Titanic? Astronomer Donald Olson of Texas State University-San Marcos said in Sky & Telescope magazine that the moon did it. Three months prior to the sinking, there was a full moon which could have created abnormally strong tides which propelled a series of icebergs. The moon was closer than at any point since the year 796 and closer than it will ever be again until 2257. The earth, moon, and sun were aligned, a very rare occurrence, which intensified the gravitational pull of the latter two on the Earth.

Geza Gyuk, director of the Department of Astronomy at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, said the effect would have made no more than five percent of difference. Olson countered that this would have been sufficient. John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, said, “A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others. They haven’t found anything significant at all.”

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it.

Who sank the Titanic? G-d did it. The ship was said to be unsinkable, which was a direct challenge to G-d: people were saying not even G-d could sink the ship. The story goes that the area where Titanic sank was not one that featured many icebergs, so the coincidence of the presence of an iceberg was uncanny. The Titanic represented excessive wealth, and perhaps G-d also took exception to cutting-edge technology. It was the same as John Lennon, who was murdered after saying the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

Multiple iceberg warnings had been received by the Titanic, and it is doubtful that the area was not known for icebergs. At the time, Shipbuilder magazine had said that the Titanic was “practically unsinkable,” and this only became “unsinkable” with the passage of time. There is also the small matter of whether G-d exists.

It has been rumored that the body of one worker had been built into the hull of the Titanic. No evidence substantiates this, although one worker died in hospital after an accident shortly before the ship was launched. The same was said of the Great Eastern, the largest ship ever at the time of its launch in 1858, and the Hoover Dam, which was built from 1931 to 1936.

The team behind a television documentary about the Titanic said it sank because of the design of the keel.

A team made a television documentary about the Titanic and studied the keel. They found that the ship was doomed by a design flaw which accelerated the rate at which it sank, although the sinking took longer than predicted by the managing director of the company which built the ship, who was aboard at iceberg time.

The flaw made the ship vulnerable to rough seas. The team said the stern snapped when it reached an angle of 10 degrees, where previously it had been thought that the angle was 45 degrees. This could have occurred during a strong storm even if there had been no iceberg.

One of the Titanic’s sister ships, the Olympic, was built to essentially the same design as the Titanic virtually alongside it and using the same materials. It once encountered a storm so strong that a hatch cover was torn from the forecastle and hurled to a forward area of the ship, and it sailed through an undersea earthquake off the Grand Banks in 1929. No catastrophic damage was suffered. While the expansion joints of the third sister, the Britannic, were strengthened, according to the Daily Telegraph, the Olympic was not the subject of such work.

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons

A discussion thread at the website of renowned lunatic, David Icke, suggested that the sinking of the Titanic was mass murder for occult reasons: the Titanic was a giant, floating, metallic wicker man. One has to admit that the bit in James Cameron’s film where Kate Winslet mimics crucifixion is quite creepy. The sinking took place around the time of the Blood Sacrifice to the Beast, when practitioners of the Left Hand Path customarily make human sacrifices. The body of John Jacob Astor, possibly then the richest man in the world, was found to be mangled, and this could have been due to ritual mutilation. Merely the timing of the sinking and the condition of Astor’s corpse do not make this theory very plausible.

It has been claimed that, as with 911, the Titanic’s end was caused by explosions. 2nd Class survivor Imanita Shelley was one who reported hearing explosions. An expedition which examined the wreck of the Titanic found a hole at the front of the wreck which appeared to have been caused by an explosion. Cold water entering a hot, pressurized boiler could cause an explosion and overheated boilers can act similarly. And then there was all that coal dust.

The Titanic has been compared to the Costa Concordia. The Titanic sank between April 14 and April 15, 1912, while the Costa Concordia ran aground between January 13 and 14, 2012 – exactly 99 years and 9 months later. Turn this upside down, and you get 666, the number of the Beast. This number is also said to be of significance to the Freemasons, although not by any source that would be regarded as authoritative. The Costa Concordia ran aground off the Tuscan island of Giglio, which is Italian for “lily flower,” one of the most recurrent symbols in masonry. Concordia was also the name of the first masonic lodge in Florence. Both ships had the most luxurious facilities currently available. The Titanic was the largest ship ever built, and the Costa Concordia the largest ever built in Italy and – wait for it! – it had the largest spa center ever to feature on a cruise ship. The Titanic took three hours to sink, while the Costa Concordia was on its side within around three hours. Many passengers also likened the Costa Concordia to the Titanic, with 31 year-old schoolteacher, Valeria Ananias of Los Angeles, saying, “Have you seen Titanic? That’s exactly what it was.” Some survivors said Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On was playing when the ship hit the rocks. One survivor of the Costa Concordia, Valentina Capuano, was the granddaughter of a survivor of the Titanic.

MS Costa Concordia

There are differences. The Titanic was doomed by hubris and the Costa Concordia by human error. While Captain Smith went down with the Titanic, Captain Francesco Schettino was one of the first off, causing him to be christened Captain Coward by the British newspaper, the Daily Hate, and leading to the creation of a Facebook page entitled “Francesco Schettino Captain of Costa Concordia is a Coward.” The Titanic hit something on the starboard side while the Cost Concordia hit to port. The Titanic sank in 12,460 feet of water while the Costa Concordia experienced misfortune where the water was 26 feet deep. 1,514 people from the Titanic died, compared to only 32 from the Costa Concordia. The Titanic was in water so cold that anyone immersed in it succumbed to hypothermia within half an hour, while the Cost Concordia was in quite warm water. The evacuation of the Titanic was orderly and third class passengers did not wish to be parted from their possessions, while on the Costa Concordia, one passenger said, “It was every man for himself,” with some crew members reportedly beating passengers to the lifeboats. Perhaps any Masonic connections can be ignored.

Perhaps the funkiest lunatic Titanic conspiracy theory is that people are alive to this day within the sunken ship. Video has shown that the wreck is in two pieces which will still be water-tight. Survivors could have employed the legendary British ingenuity to construct a mechanism for air filtration. There had been 2,200 people aboard, and if only a few survived, there would have been enough food for a very long time. It is alleged that ships received a transmission where the Titanic sank, saying, “We are the survivors of RMS Titanic, trapped aboard the ship on the ocean bed – if anybody can here us, for God’s sake help us.” This line gets only three hits on Google, so it is not widely alleged.

This suggestion post-dates Goliath Awakes, a television film from 1981 in which people survived on a sunken ship for 40 years, and The Watch Below, a science fiction novel from 1966 which told the same story. The food on the Titanic was mostly fresh and in cold storage.

And there we have it. We have birthers and truthers. Those who insist on subscribing to the theory that the Titanic met its end due to collision with an iceberg could be termed icebergers. Based on the overwhelming evidence presented here, might the accepted story of the Titanic be no less than a conspiracy to provoke anti-iceberg sentiment worldwide?

Bibliography

“Salvagers Suggest Titanic Exploded.” New York Times. 22 September 1987. 20 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/1987/09/22/science/salvagers-suggest-titanic-exploded.html.>
“Still not convinced?” The Best Page in the Universe. n.d. 20 April 2012. <http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=af07.>
“The Titanic and God — Possibly the Greatest Conspiracy Theory of All” Common Sense Conspiracy. 14 April 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://commonsenseconspiracy.com/2012/04/the-titanic-and-god-possibly-the-greatest-conspiracy-theory-of-all/.>
“Titanic Conspiracy.” Fortean Times. 15 June 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=727691.>
“Titanic Madness!!” Fortean Times. 12 January 2007. 20 April 2012. <http://www.forteantimes.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28893&highlight=titanic.>
“Titanic Sinking Was An Occult Mass Murder?” DavidIcke.com. 16 October 2008. 20 April 2012. <http://forum.davidicke.com/showthread.php?t=39263.>
Gayle, Damien. “Was the captain of the Titanic drunk on the night the ship struck an iceberg?” Daily Mail. 9 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2112124/Letter-claims-Titanics-captain-Edward-Smith-drunk-night-ship-sank.html.>
Jones, Melanie. “Costa Concordia, Titanic 2012: Why Did the Italian Ship Sink?” International Business News. 15 January 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/281986/20120115/costa-concordia-why-cruise-ship-sink-titanic.htm.>
Lovett, Richard. “Titanic Sunk by ‘Supermoon’ and Celestial Alignment?” National Geographic. 6 March 2012. 20 April 2012. <http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/03/120306-titanic-supermoon-moon-science-iceberg-sky-sink/.>
Pappas, Stephanie. “Five of the biggest myths about the moon debunked.” MSNBC. 4 May 2012. 4 May 2012. <http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/47296397/ns/technology_and_science-science/#.T6QwmcV8GOk.>

Related posts:

1. Downright Titanic Conspiracy Theories
2. Wacko Jacko Conspiracy Theories
3. Top 10 Conspiracy Theories of All Time

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

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RMS Titanic

The ill-fated ship, Titanic, was the result of fervent competition between the shipping lines, the White Star Line and Cunard. Cunard’s Mauretania performed the fastest-ever transatlantic crossing when it entered service in 1907. Cunard’s other masterpiece, the Lusitania, was launched the same year and much-praised for its spectacular interiors. Its sinking by a German U-boat on May 7, 1915 helped rope the United States into the First World War.

The full title of the ship was RMS Titanic. RMS stands for “Royal Mail Ship,” indicating that the vessel carried goods for the British Royal Mail. The ships of the Olympic class to which Titanic belonged were 882 feet long and a maximum of 92.5 feet wide, and were the largest ships and the largest movable, man-made objects of the time. It is said that the ship was thought to be unsinkable, but in reality, Shipbuilder magazine had said that it was “practically unsinkable.”

The ship left Southampton in England and proceeded to Cherbourg in France and then Queenstown in Ireland, before setting off for New York. First class tickets cost between $2,500 and $4,500, or $43,860 to $78,950 at today’s prices. Third-class tickets cost around $35, or $620 today. Several members of the team that had designed the ship were aboard, including the Chief Draughtsman responsible for the lifeboats.

A boarding pass for the Titanic. Photo: daveparker

Below decks were immigrants from 28 countries, of whom some had never previously encountered indoor plumbing. There were over 700 third-class passengers, more than the other two classes combined. Third-class was the largest source of profit for shipping lines. Many had sold all their possessions to afford a ticket to start a new life in the United States. Third-class accommodation was fairly luxurious and superior to that of other ships of the time: third-class rooms were enclosed and held four people who were generally strangers, and the mattresses were real as opposed to the straw-filled pallets of other ships. There were, however, only two bathtubs between all the third-class passengers. The ship’s enormous engines could be felt and heard in their rooms.

Around noon on April 14, 1912, the first of a minimum of four warnings of icebergs was received by wireless. Another came at 5:35 p.m., reporting three icebergs 19 miles north of the Titanic. Late in the evening, one hour before the Titanic’s date with destiny, another ship, the Californian, signaled: “We are stopped and surrounded by ice.” According to the Titanic Inquiry Project, the response received was: “Shut up. I am busy. I am working Cape Race.”

The iceberg which is thought to have hit the Titanic

It was a moonless and freezing Sunday night. Shortly before midnight, lookouts Reginald Lee and Fredrick Fleet neared the end of their shift when they saw the most famous iceberg in history. It has been estimated at 50 to 100 feet high and 200 to 400 feet long. They sounded an alarm. 37 seconds later, First Officer William M. Murdoch put the engines into reverse and turned the ship. Stopping would have taken half a mile.

At first, it seemed that the maneuver had worked. The ship appeared to not have touched the iceberg. Below the surface, however, ice had scraped the starboard hull. Rivets popped, steel plates buckled, and openings were made. At the time, it was estimated there was a 300 foot gash, but in reality there were openings of around 3.2 square feet each in six places. The liner had 16 watertight compartments, but they were open at the top. Water spilled from one to the next. Some Cunard ships were designed to avoid this situation.

Captain Edward Smith

Most of the people aboard were asleep, although a tumultuous game of bridge was afoot in the First Class Smoking room. Many people were not woken by the noise. Captain Edward Smith, a highly-popular individual who was due to retire at the end of this trip, called for Thomas Andrews, the managing director of Harland and Wolff of Belfast in Northern Ireland, the company which had built the ship. They went below together and were horrified to find that the squash court and mail room had flooded. Titanic’s bow began to sink. Andrews estimated that the ship would be afloat for only one-and-a-half hours more. Smith ordered the wireless operators to send distress calls. It was the first time the signal, “SOS,” had ever been used.

The Carpathia was 58 miles away and at great risk, traveled at top speed to reach the Titanic. The Californian was close enough to save everyone, but the wireless operator had gone to bed. At 12:25 a.m., Captain Smith ordered that lifeboats be lowered. Lifeboats were regarded as unsightly, so the Titanic carried only 20, sufficient for half those aboard. There were, at least, enough cork-filled life jackets for all. Many third-class passengers had seen little of what lay beyond their cabins, and got lost in the labyrinthine corridors of the ship.

The band played to comfort the passengers. The legend perpetuated by films is that their last tune was the hymn, Nearer, My God, To Thee. This was the tune most commonly-cited and a colleague of the bandmaster, Wallace Hartley, said that Wallace had said it is what he would have played if he were on the deck of a sinking ship. Some accounts say the bang played popular music. James Cameron could not resist sticking with the hymn, saying, “I stole that entirely and put that into my film, because I loved it, it was such a strong part of the story.”

Survivors recounted that the stars were reflected by the sea. They said the sound of hundreds of people in the freezing water was unearthly. John B. ‘Jack’ Thayer III, the 17-year-old heir to a Pennsylvania railroad fortune, said, “It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night in the woods. This terrible cry lasted for 20 or 30 minutes, gradually dying away, as one after another could no longer withstand the cold and exposure.”

RMS Carpathia

The Titanic exceeded Andrews’ prediction and was not underwater until 2:20 a.m., sundering in two beneath the surface. Lifeboats did not return to collect people from the water, fearing they would be overloaded. The Carpathia arrived at 4 a.m. and began to take on what would eventually by 706 human and three canine survivors.

Which brings us on to the conspiracy theories.

The Titanic conspiracy theory put forward by Physics World blames poor engineering. The ship was rushed into service when it was difficult to obtain sufficient iron. The steel and wrought iron fasteners which held metal plates together had been inserted unevenly and by hand rather than mechanically because hydraulic presses could not be used at the bow and stern where the curve of the hull was too great. Weak rivets burst open under pressure.

The theory was based on analysis by science writer, Dr. Richard Corfield, who cited the work of U.S. metallurgists, Jennifer Hooper McCarty and Tim Foecke. McCarty and Foecke tested 48 rivets taken from the wreck and found them to contain a high level of slag, which makes iron brittle and more likely to splinter. So many rivets popped that a fifth compartment flooded, while the Titanic could have survived the flooding of four. Dr. Corfield claims that James Cameron agrees with him: around 100 minutes into his film is a scene where rivets pop a la champagne corks.

Dr. Corfield also said that the Titanic sank where the Gulf Stream intersects with the glacier-carrying Labrador Current. The Gulf Stream was abnormally warm due to the intensity of the summer. This, he said, concentrated icebergs “as if they were tank traps.”

British historian, Tim Maltin, also put the Gulf Stream/Labrador Current intersection in the frame in his book, A Very Deceiving Night. He said it caused a thermal inversion which distorts vision. This prevented the Titanic’s lookouts from seeing the iceberg in time. A study by the British government in 1992 suggested super refraction as the cause, and Maltin referred to survivors’ testimony, ships’ logs, and weather records.

Winston Churchill, who was voted the greatest Briton ever and has been accused of being responsible for the sinking of the Titanic

Winston Churchill was voted the greatest ever Briton in a poll by the BBC. He was blamed for the sinking of the Titanic in a book by Robert Strange, Who Sank The Titanic? The Final Verdict.

Churchill had been entered the British cabinet as President of the Board of Trade, giving him responsibility for maritime safety when the Titanic was built. Strange said that Churchill failed in his duties as he was distracted by “burning political ambition, wounded pride and the pursuit of his future wife Clementine.” “Metaphorically speaking,” said Strange, Churchill sank the Titanic.

Strange studied century-old files in the National Archives of the United States and United Kingdom. He said the Board of Trade should have revised the outdated laws governing how many lifeboats were carried. The 1894 Merchant Shipping Act dictated that the number of lifeboats was proportional to the size of the ship, but did not recognize that ships could be more than 10,000 tons. Churchill had been warned repeatedly that these regulations were out of date.

Churchill must have realized that his department for maritime safety was undermanned, badly-trained and poorly managed after the public embarrassment resulting from its handling of an inquiry into a shipping accident. He made the poorly-trained and underpaid engineer, Francis Carruthers, the supervisor of Titanic’s construction, and he failed to identify flaws. Strange also lambasted J.P. Morgan for pressuring the Harland and Wolff shipyard to build the Titanic at a cut price which led to inadequate materials, poor workmanship, and insufficient lifeboats.

J. Bruce Ismay, who was vilified as a coward for his actions during the sinking of the Titanic

The sinking of the Titanic made J. Bruce Ismay, head of the White Star Line, one of the greatest cowards ever known. Some survivors said he was on the first lifeboat, but the ship’s barber said he only entered a lifeboat when ordered to by the Chief Officer. Lord Mersey, who led the 1912 British inquiry into the sinking, said Ismay helped other passengers before leaving on the last lifeboat. Strange said, “It gave him the perfect excuse to stay close by the boats and save himself.”

The 1943 German film, Titanic, the 1958 film, A Night to Remember, and James Cameron’s 1997 epic all portrayed Ismay as a villain. Paul Louden-Brown of the Titanic Historical Society worked as a consultant for Cameron and objected to Ismay’s depiction, to be told: “This is what the public expect to see.” Ismay’s infamy was largely prompted by a campaign – a conspiracy, no less – by the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst, with whom Ismay had a vendetta. The newspapers labeled him J. Brute Ismay.

Another theory was recently put forward in Good as Gold, a novel by Lady Louise Patten. She is the wife of Lord Patten, the last governor of Hong Kong, former chairman of the British Conservative Party, European Commissioner, and Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and current Chairman of the BBC Trust. She is also the granddaughter of the Titanic’s Second Officer Charles Lightoller.

At the time of Titanic’s sinking, the maritime industry was in upheaval as steam ships were replacing those of the sail variety. Each had its own steering system. Some of the crew were familiar with the Tiller Orders of sailing ships, while the Titanic used the Rudder Orders of steam ships. Under the Tiller system, pushing the tiller left resulted in a rightward turn, while under the Rudder system, turns were made in the direction of intended travel. An iceberg was sighted two miles distance and “Hard a starbr’d” was ordered. The helmsman, Quartermaster Robert Hitchins, panicked and mistakenly acted under Tiller orders, which led to impact with an iceberg.

Charles Lightoller, Second Officer of the Titanic

Lightoller was in his cabin at the time, but heard of the error at a conference of four senior officers in the First Officer’s cabin after the impact. Ismay persuaded Captain Smith to continue to sail to avoid reputationally damaging delay, which caused a hundredfold increase in the quantity of water taken on. Lightoller said this was a “criminal” decision. If the Titanic had stopped, Patten said that the Titanic’s passengers could have been saved.

Lightoller was the most senior officer to survive and the only survivor aware of what had really caused the sinking. He did not reveal what he knew at the British and American inquiries because he feared for the job of himself and his colleagues. The only person he told was his wife, Patten’s grandmother, who told Patten when she was 10 years-old and lived with her. Her mother believed the story should not be told because the reputation of the twice-decorated Lightoller was at stake, but Patten decided to use it in her second novel because her mother and grandmother were both long dead and “I felt as if I owed it to the world to share the secret. If I died tomorrow then it would die with me.”

Sally Neillson, great-granddaughter of Hitchins, said he had 10 years of experience, with seven as quartermaster, and had been guiding the Titanic for four days, alternating between four hours of duty and four of rest. He would not, therefore, have been unfamiliar with the prevailing system.

The Olympic, sister ship of the Titanic

One Titanic conspiracy theory which has been much-trumpeted was put forward in The Riddle of the Titanic by Robin Gardiner and Dan van der Vat. They say it was not the Titanic which sank, but its sister ship, the Olympic. The ships appeared almost identical. The Olympic had collided with the British warship, HMS Hawke, on September 20, 1911, but was at fault and so received no compensation. So the names on the ships were changed, and the Olympic was sent into an area of sea which contained many icebergs and many other ships, to deliberately ram an iceberg and have all the passengers rescued. The most common maritime insurance fraud involves changing the identity of ships. The ship which sank broke in two at the point where the Olympic had collided with HMS Hawke.

The theory is obviously, transparently, indubitably a load of B.S. The theory is that the ship sank faster than was foreseen, when in fact it took longer. Parts of the ship, including the propeller, were found to be stamped with the Titanic’s hull number of 400 whereas the Olympic was 401.

Ray Boston, who has devoted 20 years of his life to research of the Titanic’s sinking, put forward the theory that the ship was traveling at such a high speed because of an “uncontrollable” fire in a coal bunker which began during speed trials 10 days prior to the ship departing Southampton. Coal fires were not uncommon. The inquiry was told the ship had been traveling at “high speed” – 22 knots – in iceberg-filled waters, which the inquiry declared to be “excessive” and called for additional lookouts. Ismay told the 1912 British inquiry that John Pierpont Morgan, the owner of the White Star Line, had instructed him to cross the Atlantic at full speed. Boston said this was because Morgan was aware of the fire. Morgan was set to sail on the Titanic but canceled his ticket.

J. Dilley, a stoker on the Titanic who gave evidence to the inquiry said that the fire had not been extinguished, and that there was talk among his colleagues that after passengers had disembarked at New York, fireboats would have to be summoned.

One popular story is that the Titanic sank because it was carrying a mummy.

Some people blame the Pharaohs for the sinking of the Titanic. One passenger, Lord Canterville, was transporting a sarcophagus containing the mummy of the Princess Amen-Ra. The mysterious powers of the mummy disturbed the reasoning of Captain Smith, who ignored warnings of icebergs. Again, people’s B.S. detectors will be sounding so very loudly, as Charles Haas, president of a society devoted to the Titanic, obtained the ship’s cargo manifest. While the Titanic carried refrigerating apparatus, hair nets, elastics, rabbit hair, leather, auto parts, hatter’s fur, straw, linen, and raw feathers, there was no mummy.

Another theory explaining the Titanic’s high speed is that Captain Smith was attempting to win the Blue Riband for the fastest crossing of the North Atlantic. The theory is refuted by the fact that the Titanic was incapable of achieving the 26 knots necessary to win the prize. The record stood for 10 years after the Titanic sank.

John Jacob Astor, who was possibly the richest man in the world and was aboard the Titanic when it sank

Some Titanic conspiracy theories are pretty silly. One, which features heavily online, is that the Jesuits wished to create the Federal Reserve to control the world’s money and therefore politics. John Jacob Astor, Isidor Strauss, owner of Macy’s, and industrialist Benjamin Guggenheim were opposed to the idea. Astor is thought to have been the richest man in the world at the time, and Strauss and Guggenheim were also rolling in it. They were coaxed into traveling on the Titanic by means which have never been explained. Father Francis Brown, the most powerful Jesuit in Ireland, was aboard but alighted at Queenstown. Captain Smith is said by rumor-mongers to have been a Jesuit, which explains why he speeded into IceBerg City despite 26 years of experience of Atlantic crossings.

Another conspiracy theory which appeared in the Ballard News Tribune goes that the iceberg was a U-boat in disguise, which was collecting information on shipping. A variant says that the Titanic was torpedoed by a German U-boat to collect insurance money, but nobody aboard the Titanic saw the trail of a torpedo.

100 years later, interest in the Titanic is unabated. Harvard historian, Steven Biel, said, “Only Jesus and the Civil War have been written about more.” Maritime specialist and Titanic researcher, Michael McCaughan said, “People are still fascinated by Titanic because it’s like a parable of the human condition: it’s a story of profit, pleasure and memorialization.” Richard Howells, Reader in Culture, Media and Creative Industries at King’s College London, said, “If a man in his pride builds an unsinkable ship like Prometheus stealing the fire from the gods, it makes perfect mythical sense that God would be so angry at such an affront that he would sink the ship on its maiden outing.” The story is worth telling.

Bibliography

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Byers, Paul. “Titanic: 100 years of conspiracy theories.” Ballard News Tribune. 4 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.ballardnewstribune.com/2012/04/04/opinion/titanic-100-years-conspiracy-theories.>
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Lorenzi, Rossella. “Steering error sunk the Titanic.” Discovery News. 22 September 2010. 8 April 2012. <http://news.discovery.com/history/steering-error-sunk-the-titanic-says-author.html.>
Maltin, Tim. “Did the Titanic Sink Because of an Optical Illusion?” Smithsonian Magazine. 1 March 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/Did-the-Titanic-Sink-Because-of-an-Optical-Illusion.html.>
Sinmaz, Emine. “’It sounded like locusts on a midsummer night’: Titanic survivor reveals the horrifying cries of the luxury liner’s dying victims.” Daily Mail. 8 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2126944/Titanic-survivor-John-B-Jack-Thayer-III-reveals-horrifying-cries-dying-victims.html.>
Waites, Rosie. “Five Titanic myths spread by films.” BBC. 5 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17515305.>
Waugh, Rob. “Did poor workmanship sink the Titanic?” Daily Mail. 2 April 2012. 8 April 2012. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2124038/Did-poor-workmanship-sink-Titanic-Physicist-claims-missing-rivets-crucial-cascade-events-sank-liner.html.>

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by Timothy Chilman

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Elvis Presley is the King of Rock ‘n Roll. Rapper Mos Def said he was the white man who stole the black man’s sound. He also broke ground by introducing sex to the equation, specifically when he sang Hound Dog on the Milton Berle Show. His suggestive hip movements stupefied television critics, who lambasted him for his “animalism,” “vulgarity,” and “appalling lack of musicality.” He made more than 110 appearances in the top 40, with 18 number ones, and starred in 31 films. No other rock star has come close to equaling his amazing record.

The last photograph ever taken of Elvis, driving his 1973 Stuz Blackhawk through the gates of Graceland. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

At Graceland, his 18-room mansion in Memphis, Elvis entertained friends by playing a piano and singing the night before his death. The next morning, he played raquetball. It is commonly said that, like King George II of Great Britain, he died on the toilet. The truth is that at 2:30p.m. on August 16, 1977, Elvis was found by his girlfriend, Ginger Alden, lying face down on the floor of a bathroom. A copy of The Scientific Search for the Face of Jesus, by Frank Adams, was present. An ambulance was summoned from Engine House 29 of the Memphis Fire Department.

Shelby County medical examiner, Dr. Jerry Francisco, said that Elvis was stricken by a heart attack while astride the john, crawled a short distance, and vomited. Some sources say he was nekkid, but newspapers reported that he was wearing blue pajamas and his pants were around his ankles. He was pronounced dead at the Baptist Memorial Hospital roughly an hour after being discovered.

Other causes of death have been suggested. An autopsy performed by Dr. Eric Muirhead found 14 drugs in Elvis’ system, including ten times the normal dosage of codeine and toxic amounts of ‘ludes. It has been suggested that this caused the death of the King. Another finding of the autopsy was that Elvis’ colon was five or six inches wide, almost twice as wide as that of a normal person, and at nearly eight or nine feet, it was also nearly twice as long. Dr. George “Nick” Nichopoulos was Elvis’ physician for 12 years and attempted to resuscitate Elvis when he was found in his bathroom. He said that some stool had been in Elvis’ colon for four or five months. Elvis was known to suffer from constipation, but the extent did not become apparent until his autopsy. Elvis had been advised to have a colostomy, but his ego prevented him from accepting. Nichopoulos said constipation killed Elvis: “If they had done the colostomy then, he’d probably still be here.”

The suggestion that Elvis did not die on that day is a classic conspiracy theory, and a common example used by people seeking to portray conspiracy theories as lunatic. It is indeed disturbing that, at first glance, a strong case can be made for Elvis not having died when he was said to.

Gail Brewer-Giorgio’s book, The Elvis Files, says that two hours after Elvis’ death was announced, a man “bearing a slight resemblance” to Elvis and going by the name of John Burrows purchased a one-way air ticket to Buenos Aires at Memphis airport, and paid in cash. The name was used by Elvis when making hotel reservations. Lucy de Barbon, a former lover of Presley, said that the day after the King’s supposed death, she received a single rose by mail, with a card saying it was from El Lancelot, her pet name for him.

The funeral of Elvis Presley on August 18, 1977. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Elvis’ funeral took place two days after his death, to make it difficult for his biggest fans to come, as they would doubtless recognize that the wax dummy said to be his body was not their idol. Elvis’ casket weighed some 900 pounds and required nine pallbearers, and it has been suggested it contained air conditioning equipment to lower the temperature of the wax dummy inside. Funeral attendants said the air around the casket was very cool. Joe Esposito, long a friend of Elvis after meeting him in the military and later his road manager and bodyguard, said that beads of sweat were seen on the body: the wax dummy was melting. The figure in the casket was photographed, and the photograph made public, leading people to note that the figure in the casket had a nose, eyebrows, and hands unlike Elvis’.

Elvis is not buried next to his mother, as he had requested. His gravestone misspells his middle name as Aaron, when it was actually Aron, signifying that it was not the King who lay beneath. An insurance policy he took out with Lloyds of London was never cashed, as this would have been fraud.

One motive for faking his death was that Elvis had given testimony against Mafia-connected parties, and there might have been retaliation. Another is that his hair was going gray, his voice weakening, and his girth expanding, and he did not wish his fans to see him in such a state. A third is that perhaps he just wanted to walk down a street unmolested, and not be bothered by death threats.

These points shall be examined in turn.

Gail Brewer-Giorgio’s book, The Elvis Files, rose to number eight on the New York Times Bestseller List. It sold more than a million copies, and is one of the biggest-selling Elvis books ever. The book said that the “John Burrows” who purchased a ticket at Memphis airport bore a slight resemblance to Elvis. When the story is retold, the “slight” resemblance often becomes “startling.” According to Patrick Lacy’s book, Elvis Decoded, no international tickets were sold at Memphis airport in August, 1977. Had Elvis entered Witness protection, as it has been suggested Tupac Shakur did, it would have been immensely bad practice for him to use a name that could be connected to him.

Lucy de Barbon made her claim in a book which is presented as a romance novel and lacks facts capable of corroboration. She also claimed that Elvis fathered her daughter, Desiree, and her motives are suspect.

The suggestion that a wax dummy replaced Elvis when his body lay in state was made most powerfully by the Presley Commission, which was formed in 1992. It did not name its members, but said that some were skilled in law enforcement and medicine, which has been questioned due to the Commission’s findings. The Commission released The Presley Report in 1995, which was praised by journalists for its structured, bureaucratic style and inclusion of documentary evidence.

The Report said that before Elvis’ death, a wax dummy had been purchased by a member of his family. While the purpose intended for the dummy was not revealed, comments were made which “raised eyebrows.” The Commission claimed to have interviewed a person present at the time of the sale. The place of purchase and the witness were never identified, and there is nothing to distinguish the claim from pure BS. The Commission also said that Elvis was present at the wedding of Elvis’ daughter, Lisa Marie, to Wacko Jacko.

Elvis' casket was so damned heavy because it was made of copper. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Elvis’ $8,000 casket was heavy because it was made of copper. It was the same kind of casket as was used for his mother. The “beads of sweat” could have been embalming fluid. This and the body are supposed to be frozen, but sometimes funeral homes do not do this properly, and some fluid leaks. There have been several instances of this elsewhere, causing legal issues for the funeral homes. According to the not-wholly-reliable Brewer-Giorgio, the air conditioning of the funeral home used by Elvis prior to his incarceration at Forest Hill Midtown Cemetery was broken that day, and it was abnormally hot. Findadeath.com was contacted by a person claiming to be a former employee of Memphis disk jockey, Sam Phillips, who said that he knew a man who had worked at the funeral home. When asked if Elvis was really dead, this man replied, “Absolutely. I shoved the cotton balls up his ass when he was embalmed.”

The photograph of Elvis in his casket clad in a white suit and blue shirt was obtained by the National Enquirer, which bribed Elvis’ third cousin, Billy Mann, at least $18,000 to take photographs with a miniature Minox spy camera. The picture appeared on the Enquirer‘s front page on 6 September, 1977, and that issue set a record by selling 6.5 million copies. The Enquirer made at least 1,000 percent profit on its bribery.

It has been said that the supposed body of Elvis had a pug nose and arched eyebrows, which Elvis did not, and the hands were soft and pudgy, while Elvis’ were calloused. Differences in the nose can be explained by his body lying face down for four hours prior to its discovery. A fat person would be expected to have soft, pudgy hands. And the eyebrows? He was, like, dead, and his brain and other organs had been removed. Any oddities of Elvis’ appearance can be explained by this and that fact that the Enquirer photograph was heavily re-touched.

Elvis at rest in the Meditation Garden at Graceland

Elvis is indeed not buried next to his mother, per his wishes, but between his father and grandmother, in the Meditation Garden at Graceland. He was first interred next to his mother, Gladys, in a crypt at the Forest Hill Cemetery on 1661 Elvis Presley Boulevard, but was moved after an attempted break-in by graverobbers. In 1999, Lisa Marie Presley also stated that she was bothered by the number of tourists who visited the site daily, and wished her father to be moved to a new location.

Elvis was given the name Elvis Aron Presley to mark his stillborn identical twin brother, Jesse Garon Presley. Elvis’ name was misspelled on his birth certificate, and his father, Vernon, made a considerable effort to have it corrected. Later in life, however, Elvis decided to change his middle name to the more Biblical Aaron. On 15 August, 1972, Elvis signed a property settlement agreement as Aaron. This is the spelling used by his estate. Similar confusion exists over the spelling of the name of his stillborn twin, which is usually spelled Jesse but was spelled Jessie on a memorial stone near the graves of Elvis, his parents, and grandmother.

Elvis applied for a million dollar life insurance policy in 1976, but did not purchase it. Alivers stumbled upon this application, but did not learn (or possibly did not mention) that it was never purchased. Elvis had three life insurance policies, and claims were made against two of them and a death benefit check received from the United States Treasury on February 21, 1978.

In 1976, Elvis had lost millions of dollars on a deal with a Mafia-connected organization known as the Fraternity involving one of his three airplanes, a JetStar. It has been said that his collaboration with the government on the investigation, Operation Fountain Pen, would have caused the Mob to retaliate and so he took advantage of witness protection. Elvis gave a deposition. It was his father, Vernon, who had power of attorney for Elvis and actually had contact with the criminals. Vernon gave more damaging evidence and actually testified against the Fraternity, but did not enter Witness Protection.

Flowers for Elvis. Photo: KozyKitten68.

Elvis’ funeral was a massive media event. In the days after his death, thousands of fans flocked to Memphis, causing President Carter to call out the National Guard. On the morning of the funeral, it took 100 vans five hours to transfer the assembled flowers from Graceland to Forest Hill Cemetery. 80,000 fans passed Elvis’ casket by the time Forest Hill closed at 6:30p.m.

On his final tour, Elvis supposedly joked repeatedly that although he did not look good at the time, he would look good in his casket. It has also been reported that Elvis made a number of night-time visits to funeral homes shortly before he died, with the customary lack of a source. Elvis’ most prized possessions included a bible, pharmaceutical books, books about death, and copies of Chiro’s Book of Numbers and Paramahansa Yogananda’s The Autobiography of Yogi. These books are said to have disappeared after his demise, although as with the previous factoids, it is not clear how this is known.

Elvis days before his final appearance on June 26, 1977.

It has been widely reported, based on no known source, that Elvis ordered no new suits for his upcoming tour of the United States, despite having supposedly put on 50 pounds since the last one. Although he had a predilection for grilled peanut butter, bacon, and banana sandwiches, 50 pounds is rather too much to believe and photographs of him at his final concert, on June 26, are not so horrifying. If we ignore that it is unproven that he ordered no new suits or put on 50 pounds, Elvis’ jumpsuits were not form-fitting, or they would have restricted his movement. He used few jumpsuits in his final years, and did not order a new one for the last tour he performed.

Elvis signed a lucrative deal with CBS to televise this tour, and was paid an unprecedented amount up front. RCA amassed an ungodly amount of Elvis recordings and merchandise, which is standard practice in the event of an act which is about to tour, but many people say not to the extent that prevailed. It would, however, be a crap conspiracy if the record company knew Elvis was going to fake his death.

Ellen Marie Foster had met Elvis outside the gates of Graceland in March, 1977 (or possibly some other time). She said he was attracted by her marked resemblance to his mother. Steve Chanzes’ 1981 book, Elvis, Where Are You?, included transcripts of her conversations with Elvis two days before he apparently died. Elvis allegedly said that he would not be going on tour as planned, that his troubles would soon be over, and that Foster should not believe everything she read if the tour did not proceed. Chanzes said that Foster passed a polygraph test, although R. Serge Denisoff and George Plasketes said in their book, True Disbelievers: The Elvis Contagion, that her account contained chronological inaccuracies and contradictions and polygraph tests are as reliable as reading animal entrails. Foster died in 1983, and nobody has suggested that she faked it.

Fans of Elvis are more likely to exhibit low self-esteem, a greater need for control, and more rationalization and cognitive dissonance than fans of the Beatles. Photo: Jreedtattooer.

Since then, Elvis has been sighted thousands of times, and other singers have been said to sound exactly like him. A conspiracy to fake his death would have required the participation of his family, friends, and business associates, medical personnel, and funeral home employees. A study of musical fans which was published late in the 1970s found that compared to fans of the Beatles, fans of Elvis were more likely to exhibit low self-esteem, a greater need for control, and more rationalization and cognitive dissonance. These factors would appear to be at work here. Elvis did not fake his death. He was obviously abducted by aliens.

Bibliography

“Aaron Spelling – The Final Word.” Elvis Decoded. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvisdecoded.com/.>
“Author Patrick Lacy talks to EIN.” Elvis Information Network. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvisinfonet.com/interview_patricklacy.html.>
“Did Elvis Presley Fake His Own Death?” Security-FAQs. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.security-faqs.com/did-elvis-presley-fake-his-own-death.html.>
“Elvis Presley.” Findadeath.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.findadeath.com/Deceased/p/Elvis%20Presley/elvis_presley.htm.>
“Frequently Asked Questions.” Elvis Presley – the Official Website. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvis.com/about-the-king/faq.aspx.>
“Is Elvid dead or alive?” Webspawner. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.webspawner.com/users/elviselvis/.>
“Phil Aitcheson (The Presley Commission) Talks To EIN.” Elvis Information Network. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.linkydinky.com/graceland/elvisalive.shtml.>
“Story Behind the Elvis Presley in his Coffin Picture.” Elvis Presley News. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvispresleynews.com/ElvisCoffinPicture.html.>
“The case for Elvis’s being alive or dead.” About Facts Net. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://aboutfacts.net/Mysterious7.htm.>
“The King isn’t dead.” CriticalBelievers. 8 June, 2010. 28 January 2012. <http://criticalbelievers.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=legends&action=print&thread=5318.>
“Top Ten Famous Toilets.” Time Magazine. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2016258_2016259_2016261,00.html.>
DeReno, Matt. “Elvis.” CoverUps.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.coverups.com/greatcoverups/elvis.htm.>
Fontenot, Robert. “What were the details of Elvis Presley’s funeral?.” About.com. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://oldies.about.com/od/elvisdeathfaq/f/elvisfuneral.htm.>
Lacy, Patrick. “There’s No Debate: Elvis Is Not Alive.” The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/theres_no_debate_elvis_is_not_alive/.>
Sheridan, Michael. “Chronic constipation killed Elvis Presley, claims his personal physician, Dr. George Nichopoulos.” New York Daily News. 6 May 2010. 28 January 2012. <http://articles.nydailynews.com/2010-05-06/gossip/27063697_1_constipation-george-nichopoulos-elvis-presley.>
Taylor, Dave. “Why was Elvis Presley called the King of Rock ‘n Roll?” Ask Dave Taylor. n.d. 28 January 2012. <http://www.askdavetaylor.com/why_was_elvis_presley_called_the_king_of_rock_n_roll.html.>
Troedson, David. “The Death Of Elvis Presley – August 16, 1977.” Elvis.com.au. 16 August 2009. 28 January 2012. <http://www.elvis.com.au/presley/biography/the_death_of_elvis_presley_august_16_1977.shtml.>

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email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

The foreskin is the hood of skin which covers the head of the penis. When penises are discussed in formal circles, and let’s have more of that, the foreskin is called the prepuce and the penis head is the glans. Circumcision sees the removal of this piece of skin. According to the Canadian Pediatric Society, between 69 and 97 percent of males in the United States were circumcised in 1970. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, circumcision was carried out upon 56 percent of boys in 2006 but only 32.5 percent in 2009. These numbers do not include procedures performed outwith hospitals, and so do not include Jewish rituals or circumcision not covered by insurance.

Racially, circumcision in the United States is more common among white males than black, and more common in black males than Hispanic ones. Geographically, it is most common in the north central regions of the United States and least common in the western states.

A circumcision being performed in Central Asia, possibly Turkmenisatan

The procedure is uncommon in Canada, Europe, the Middle East, South America, and Asia. Circumcision was little-known in South Korea prior to the Korean War, but after the country hosted so many GIs, half of males are now circumcised. In Africa, things are a little more complicated.

In Kenya, it is estimated that 85 percent of men are circumcised, but it is less common in other countries: 70 percent in Tanzania, 35 percent in South Africa, 25 percent in Uganda, 13 percent in Zambia, 8 percent in Swaziland, and 4.5 percent in Rwanda.

Uncircumcised Xhosa males cannot inherit a father’s wealth,

Xhosa males are circumcised

preside over ritual ceremonies or marry. An uncircumcised male past the standard age of 18 could be overpowered by others and circumcised against his will. The Ndebele are similar. Legend has it that when an uncircumcised man was elevated to the cabinet, Ndebele men circumcised him against his wishes. The Abagishu people of Eastern Uganda circumcise males as late as in their twenties. The operation is very painful, which is considered an ideal preparation for marriage as it demonstrates courage. Among the neighboring Bukusu people, a man cannot be buried unless he is circumcised, and the operation will be carried out post mortem, if necessary.

Many males have died or lost their penises in botched circumcision operations in Africa, mostly in impoverished communities. Unregistered surgeons often carry out circumcision to make money. One with a dreadful safety record was given a suspended jail sentence of three years, but carried on chopping. In the last five years he killed almost 20 males and obliged another 15 to have their penises amputated. In 2009, there were 91 deaths from circumcision just in the Eastern Cape Province of Seth Effrika.

Circumcision in Africa is performed at initiation schools. Often, blunt and unsterilized knives are used. Severe beatings are given as punishment for forgetting parts of rituals, from which deaths have resulted. In 2004, officials met with traditional leaders to discuss the alarming number of deaths and injuries from circumcision-gone-wrong. The chairman of the National House of Traditional Leaders said, “We cannot just sit back and fold our arms.”

Are there any medical benefits from circumcision?

It is often claimed that cut dicks are cleaner, but an uncircumcised glans is more moist and sensitive. It has nature’s own lubricant, and this is not a dirty thing.

Circumcision lessens the risk of urinary tract infection (UTI) tenfold. Four percent of boys suffer from this condition, mostly in the first year of life, and 55 percent of these are hospitalized. According to the Australasian Academy of Physicians, 111 circumcisions would be required to prevent one case of UTI, which is a lot of penis. Circumcision has been shown to reduce the incidence of penile cancer, but this affects less than one man in 100,000. Surveys in the United States, United Kingdom, and Australia found circumcision to have no effect on the risk of sexually-transmitted infection. Some studies found that circumcision reduced the risk of prostate cancer, but the relationship was not consistent and was not confirmed by further review. There were widely publicized reports that uncircumcised males were 1.5 times more likely to acquire human papillomavirus (HPV), but the relevant studies examined only the glans, and ignored those sites which are associated with the greatest chance of infection. These studies also failed to take account of the greater risk of infection during recovery from circumcision. Researchers at the University of Washington found no connection between circumcision and HPV infection.

HIV up close

Circumcision does, however, provide protection against HIV. The World Health Organization stated so in 2007, based on three randomized clinical trials in Africa which found that circumcised men were 60 percent less likely to have HIV. The WHO panel charged with dealing with the matter said, “research evidence is compelling.”

Anaerobic bacteria are abundant in an uncircumcised penis, but almost non-existent in a circumcised one. It is thought that these bacteria can provoke inflammation in the genitalia, attracting Langerhans cells – immune cells – which can be infected by the HIV virus. Targeted antibiotics or antiseptics could be developed to afford protection in this case.

Ronald Gray, one of circumcision’s most forceful advocates, said that part of the protective effect of circumcision upon HIV is that, without a foreskin, a penis grows extra layers of skin, which reduces the amount of cells which can be infected with HIV. What effect will these extra layers of skin have upon sexual sensitivity?

Two of the most common anaerobic organisms found in uncircumcised penises are prevotellaceae and clostridiales. These are associated with bacterial vaginosis, an uncomfortable condition which is the most common vaginal infection in women of child-bearing age. Rather than cut away a section of somebody’s penis, it might be considered preferable for a woman to avoid the condition by not being a skanky ho: douching reduces the risk of this condition, while multiple sex partners increase it.

It is accepted that complications arise in between 0.2 and three percent of circumcisions, usually minor bleeding and local infection. One of these was two year-old Jamaal Coleson, Jr., who died at Manhattan’s Beth Israel Hospital in 2011. The boy awoke from anesthesia, and asked for food and a drink before complaining of stomach pain. He died ten hours later. The boy’s uncle told the New York Post that he had been given a general analgesic instead of a local one.

Jewish ritual circumcision

Some Orthodox Jews practice metzitzah b’peh, the suction of blood from the cut penis by the mohel who performs circumcision. In 2003 and 2004, a boy in Staten island and twins in Brooklyn contracted Type 1 herpes after being subjected to the practice. One of the twins died. Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, the mohel in all three cases, was the subject of a court order to not perform the ritual in New York City.

Rabbi David Niederman of the United Jewish Organization said the Orthodox community would continue to use the technique and there has been a clamor that it is a “commandment from G-D!” It is thought that metzitzah b’peh is performed more than 2,000 times every year in New York City. Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a professor of Talmud and a microbiologist, countered that one of the foremost rules of the Torah is that a risk to health cannot knowingly be taken unless it is truly justified.

Dr. Phillip Leveque, the medical adviser of the Salem News newspaper, told of an incident of electric cautery where the machine was inadvertently set to “high” rather than “low,” and fried the penis of one young male. He said if he undertook circumcision in this manner, he would have to be extremely careful, “…or some young man in about twenty years would be looking for me with fire in his eyes.”

Chubby boys who are circumcised experience the phenomenon of "hidden penis." Photo: FBellon

One alarming drawback of circumcision is the phenomenon of the “hidden penis.” It is normal for chubby baby boys to have a roll of fat above their genitals, which causes a circumcised penis to be sucked in. The condition disappears with age, but is greatly disconcerting to parents until then.

While chopping off the foreskin has been put on a par with female circumcision, this is something of an exaggeration. Douglas Diekema, director of education for the Treuman Katz Center for Pediatric Bioethics at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said, “The anatomic female equivalent of the male foreskin is the clitoral hood.” Who would obey if they were instructed to cut off their daughter’s clitoral hood? Diekema continued: “Most forms of female genital cutting involve excision or far more than the clitoral hood, often excising the clitoris with or without portions of the labia. The male equivalent of those would be removal of the penis with or without the scrotum.”

But circumcision is still genital mutilation, and that is plenty bad. It desensitizes the penis. The study, Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis, published in the British Journal of Urology, used a device known as a Semmes-Weinstein monofilament touch-test sensory evaluator, which yields the most accurate, non-invasive evaluation of skin sensation. 163 subjects were studied, both circumcised and not, all 18 years-old or more. The most sensitive parts of the penis were found to be the tip and the inside surface of the prepuce, parts which are lost to circumcision.

Another study published by the British Journal of Urology in 1996 stated: “The foreskin contains 85% of the sexually receptive nerve endings of the penis.” It also said that the end of the foreskin, the preputial sphincter, is the most sensitive point of an unmutilated male’s body, holding 20,000 Meisner’s corpuscle nerve endings, the nerve endings which sense light touch, and are found in the anus or lips. They also occur in very concentrated patterns on the the sole of the foot and the palm of the hand and. The study said that the difference in feeling between an uncircumcised and a circumcised penis was like gently sliding a finger over the palm and the back of the hand.

Another study was conducted in South Korea by JoongAng University professor Bang Myeong-geol and Seoul National University professor Kim Dae-sik. Bang said, “We can make the conclusion that circumcision poses a negative impact on [enjoyment of] sex by damaging peripheral nerves.” It has been proven that circumcised men last longer in bed, and this is surely because they experience less pleasure.

Circumcision is the result of a conspiracy by the plutarchical rulers of the United States to reduce male sexual pleasure. As the otherwise lunatic conservative website, henrymakow.com, put it, thanks to circumcision: “The minds of men would be free to study the law or learn war.” America’s ruling class is attempting to protect itself because it knows just how many politicos got into trouble because they were thinking with their cocks.

Think of the dozens of political sex scandals there have been in the last decade. Philip Giordano, the mayor of Waterbury, Conn., was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls of eight and ten years-old.

Herman Cain was a frontrunner to be the Republican presidential candidate, but got into trouble for thinking with his cock. Photo: johntrainor

Sen. Larry Craig was arrested by an undercover police officer during an investigation of salacious goings-on in the men’s restroom of Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. It was humorously suggested by the cartoon strip, Doonesbury, that this was a ploy by the right-wing to either unalterably associate homosexuality with public sex, or to show that the GOP was the only place for self-hating homosexuals. Sen. John Ensign and Gov. Mark Sanford both called for Bill Clinton to resign in 1998 over his extra-marital naughtiness, but declined to do so when their own came to light. Senate candidate Jack Ryan’s former wife, Jeri, alleged that he compelled her to attend sex clubs and have public sex with him, although the allegations have not been corroborated. After his little bastard was revealed, Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger proved as impervious as his various screen personae would suggest. Herman Cain was a frontrunner for the Republican nomination to president until four wimmen claimed that he sexually harassed them during his time at the helm of the National Restaurant Association in the late 1990s. His fate was sealed when a further woman came forward to tell of her 13 year affair with Cain. He “suspended” his run for the Republican nomination.

The circumcision conspiracy is not only the work of politicians anxious not to lose colleagues. The medical profession is in on it, purveying an unnecessary surgical procedure to rake in more cash now that “elective tonsillectomies” have been outlawed. The lawyers are in on it, too. A measure to criminalize the severance of part of an unconsenting baby’s penis was present on a ballot in San Francisco after resident Lloyd Schofield and a group of “intactivists” collected the required 12,000 signatures. The measure was removed because it would violate a Californian law which leaves regulation of medical procedures a state, and not a city, matter. In Sacramento, Calif., Governor Moonbeam signed bill AB768, a bill which prevented local governments from banning male circumcision.

The association of circumcision with Judaism goes back several millennia, to Genesis 17:10: “This is my covenant with you and your descendants after you, the covenant you are to keep: Every male among you shall be circumcised.” Rabbi Moses Maimonides (1135-1204), known to Jews as רמב“ם, the Rambam, was a Torah scholar who is one of the key figures of Jewish history. He revealed the reason for circumcision: it reduces sexual pleasure and hence masturbation.

This torch was picked up in the West at the end of the 19^th century. In 1891, the Royal College of Surgeons of England released On Circumcision as Preventive of Masturbation. It was said that as well as masturbation, the foreskin caused incontinence, epilepsy, and hysteria. Another doctor, P.C. Remondino, said that ‘Circumcision is like a substantial and well-secured life annuity …it insures better health, greater capacity for labor, longer life, less nervousness, sickness, loss of time, and less doctor bills.” Female masturbators were given cliterodectomies. This was still recommended as late as 1936 by L.E. Holt, author of pediatric textbooks.

William Kellogg, who gave us cornflakes, was all for circumcision.

In the United States, William Kellogg of Cornflake fame made the case for circumcision to reduce masturbation. He was a major philanthropist, and very powerful. He said that circumcision would leave the skin covering the penis tight, which would hamper or even eradicate masturbation. He recommended that the operation be performed without anesthetic “so that pain during an operation may affect the mind.” In the real world, this would cause post-traumatic stress disorder. He advised that clitorises be cauterized with carbolic acid so that women could “combat the perverted ways of getting sexual pleasure.” He also said that eating Kellogg’s Cornflakes would reduce the dreadful toll of self-pleasuring.

Circumcision is described as elective surgery, but baby boys do not give consent. As a result, KNMG, the Royal Dutch Medical Association, called circumcision “a violation of human rights,” and encouraged the country’s parliament to ban it.

If a man has been circumcised, all is not lost. Ron Miller is a

People protesting against circumcision

member of the National Organization for Restoring Men. He said, “I’m pissed off about the 40 years of wasted sex I’ve had,” and addresses meetings of the increasingly popular Organization. One of the most popular methods of foreskin restoration propounded by the group is known as T-tape. Tape and paper are employed to create a sleeve which covers the end of the penis. The sleeve is secured to the middle of the penis shaft using around an inch of surgical tape. The sleeve’s open end if closed with the clip of a suspender belt. Tension is applied to the penis to stretch it. The procedure should be discontinued if the penis changes color or temperature. Further down the line, weights can be used. Surgical procedures are available, but are not popular.

Miller took an interest in foreskin restoration when he felt he had lost all sensation during intercourse. Viagra was no help. He said circumcised versus uncircumcised sex is as different as an old black and white television set is from HDTV.

Dr. Leo McCafferty, a plastic surgeon at the UPMC Shadyside hospital in Pittburgh, said, “One snowflake doesn’t make a winter. It’s hard to draw conclusions from anecdotal experiences” – although anecdotes can be highly persuasive, as in this case. He also said that the matter was subjective, as pleasure cannot be measured – although as has been seen, sensation can, and circumcision reduces it. Dr. Carl Bruning, a urologist in Monroeville, near Pittsburgh, said that erectile dysfunction is usually caused by pelvic surgery, diabetes, and artherosclerosis rather than by loss of sensation.

The truth of the matter is that circumcision reduces a penis to a dried, insensate husk. It is not needed by men who do not reside in Swaziland, with the world highest rate and HIV, and who steer clear of intravenous drug-using ladies of negotiable affections.

Bibliography

“’We want answers’: Devastated parents accuse hospital of botching simple circumcision which led to two-year-old son’s death.” Daily Mail. 5 May 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1383844/Jamaal-Coleson-Jrs-parents-accuse-Manhattan-hospital-fatal-botched-circumcision.html.>
“AFRICA: Tracking the male circumcision rollout.” United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=88286.>
“Circumcision in Africa.” Economy News. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.economynews.us/economy/circumcision-in-africa/.>
“Circumcision of Infant Males.” Royal College of Australasian Physicians. 1 September 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.kids.vic.gov.au/downloads/male_circumcision.pdf.>

“Circumcision reduces sexual satisfaction: study.” Hankyoreh. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/180947.html.>
“Circumcisions kill 20 boys in South Africa.” BBC. 18 June 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10350471.>
“In Sex Scandals, GOP Trumpts Democrats.” The Daily Beast. 29 March 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2010/03/30/which-party-has-more-sex-scandals.html.>
“Mass circumcision: cornflakes magnate vs. masturbation.” Pravda. 27 March 2006. 31 October 2011. <http://english.pravda.ru/health/27-03-2006/77873-circumcision-0/.>
“Ridged Band.” Doctors’ Medical Opinion. n.d. 31 October 2011. <http://www.doctorsmedicalopinion.com/wiki/Ridged_band.>
“South Africa circumcision deaths.” BBC. 15 July 2003. 31 October 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3069491.stm.>
Conley, Mikaela. “Proposed Circumcision Ban Struck From San Francisco Ballot.” ABC News. 28 July 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://abcnews.go.com/Health/san-francisco-circumcision-ban-striken/story?id=14179024.>
Esman, Abigail R. “Circumcision Makes You Crazy. So Holland Moves To Stop It.” Forbes Magazine. 19 September 2011. 31 October 2011. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/abigailesman/2011/09/19/circumcision-makes-you-crazy-so-holland-moves-to-stop-it/.>
King, Tim. “Circumcision is a Real Killer in America.” Salem News. 17 October 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october172010/circumcision-madness.php.>
Newman, Andy. “City Questions Circumcision Ritual After Baby Dies.” New York Times. 26 August 2005. 31 October 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/26/nyregion/26circumcise.html.>
Pheneth, Victoria. “SA considers circumcision dangers.” BBC. 25 May 2004. 31 October 2011. <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/3745513.stm.>
Snowbeck, Christopher. “Local men restoring their foreskins.” Post Gazette. 25 April 2000. 31 October 2011. <http://www.post-gazette.com/healthscience/20000425hnorm2.asp.>
Sorrells, Morris L., Snyder, James L., Reiss, Mark D. Eden, Christopher, Milos, Marilyn F., Wilcox, Norma, and Van Howe, Robert S. “Fine-touch pressure thresholds in the adult penis.” National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers. 22 October 2006. 31 October 2011. <http://www.nocirc.org/touch-test/bju_6685.pdf.>
Storrs, Carina. “Clean-Cut: Study Finds Circumcision Helps Prevent HIV and Other Infections.” Scientific American. 13 January 2010. 31 October 2011. <http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=circumcision-penis-microbiome-hiv-infection.>

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Mr. Stubblebine claims to have extensive experience in intelligence operations, and used his analyzing skills to determine it was no plane:

I was responsible for all of the Army’s Strategic Intelligence forces around the world… I had responsibility for the signals intelligence, photo intelligence, counter-intelligence, human intelligence… They all belonged to me.

…I don’t know exactly what hit it, but I do know, from the photographs that I have analyzed and looked at very, very carefully, it was not an airplane.

Where were the wing marks?

Stubblebine supports his claim by the fact that no airplane wing marks were found on the Pentagon.  “The nose penetrated far enough that there should have been wing marks on the wall of the Pentagon…  Did this vessel, vehicle, or whatever it was, have wings?  Apparently not, because if it had had wings, it would have made marks on the side of the Pentagon.”

What if the plane’s tilt accounted for the missing wing marks?

His theory is challenged by the possibility the plane hit the Pentagon at a tilt, which would account for the missing wing marks.  But if that’s the case, where was the wing that would have broken off on collision with the ground, and the other wing that would have broken off and projected in the air?

I accepted what was being said [before I saw the photographs] after I looked at it, no way.

Related posts:

1. Reviewing facts about 9/11 Conspiracy Theory
2. This Year is Phantom Time, 1714
3. TWA Flight 800: No, it Wasn’t an Electrical Spark Caused by a Short Circuit

"Japan Apocalypse" attraction at the Adobe of Chaos

The Fukushima disaster released more radiation than reported by the Japanese government.  A study was carried out that combined radioactivity data from across the world and concluded that the amount released in March was much greater than what the Japanese government had said.

Comparison of Radiation Release Estimates

Xenon-133:

• Japanese government:  1.1 x 1019 Bq
• New study:                          1.7 x 1019 Bq

Caesium-137:

• Japanese government:  1.5 x 1016 Bq
• New study:                          3.5 x 1016 Bq

In addition to reporting these low radiation release estimates, TEPCO’s failure to take prompt action following the accident resulted in the unnecessary release of long-lasting contaminant caesium-137.  This is a big safety concern because caesium-137 is absorbed by the body, and remains in the environment for decades.

Tokyo Spared from Disaster

The new study also shows that Tokyo could have suffered far worse if the wind was blowing a different direction after the accident.  In the first few days the wind was blowing out to sea, but on the afternoon of March 14th the wind turned inland and blew radioactive caesium-137 rain clouds into the country.  Japan’s central mountain regions and the area Northwest of the Fukushima plant received radioactive rain, while Tokyo was lucky enough to escape the fallout.

The study is available online as a PDF link.

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In an eery foreshadowing of what would be the fate of the twin towers on September 11th, a person on November 30th, 2000 wrote the following in an Internet forum:

When the two towers that make up the World Trade Center were built, they were designed to withstand the impact of the largest airliner of the day, the Boeing 707 Intercontinental.  The Empire State Building survived a B-25 medium bomber crashing into it on a very foggy day.  It was during the weekend when most people weren’t there, but still, 14 people died.

Anyone wanna bet that the World Trade Center could survive an 767-300 impact?

As everyone is aware, the towers did not withstand the impact of a Boeing 707.  The forum poster was sure that the towers could absorb a huge amount of damage without falling over, but it did anyways.  This could be proof for some that bombs were planted inside the buildings to destroy the support structures that would have kept the towers standing in the air.

Games and TV Shows Predict Terror Attacks

Some other foreshadowing regarding the fate of the Twin Towers is also included in video games and TV shows.  In the 2000 PC game Deus Ex, the towers were absent from New York, because according to the story they were destroyed by a terrorist attack (in reality, they were absent from the game because the graphical computing power was not there).

The pilot episode of the TV show “The Lone Gunmen” centered on a plot by terrorists to fly a hijacked airplane into the Word Trade Center.  In the story, the attack was actually coordinated by an American weapons manufacturer, intending to start a war that would lead to increased weapon sales.  The episode first aired March 4th, 2001.

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2. TWA Flight 800: No, it Wasn’t an Electrical Spark Caused by a Short Circuit
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email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

Part of Terminal 5 of John F. Kennedy Airport, from which TWA Flight 800 departed

Around 2019 eastern daylight time on July 17, 1996, Trans World Airlines, Inc (TWA) Flight 800, a Boeing 747-131 airliner with tail number N93119, was delayed for just over one hour at John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK) in New York because there was a mismatch between passengers and baggage. This resolved, the aircraft took off bound for Charles de Gaulle International Airport in Paris. Aboard were two pilots, two flight engineers, 14 flight attendants, and 212 passengers. At 2031, when at a height of 13,760 feet 8 miles from East Moriches, New York, TWA 800 exploded and its remains landed in the Atlantic Ocean 30 seconds later.

The 230 souls on board were most likely killed by what is described by medical examiners as “phenomenal whiplash,” caused by impact with objects inside the cabin or deceleration. Although many of the bodies were burned, it is believed this occurred after death.

The captain, Steven Snyder, had completed over 17,000 flying hours and was so famed for his conservation of fuel that flying an airplane efficiently came to be known as “Snyderizing.” It would have been co-pilot Ralph Kevorkian’s final flight before being certified as a captain. The aircraft had left the factory on July 15, 1971, the day before flight engineer Oliver Krick was born. Andy Krukar had a diamond ring in his pocket, which he planned to place upon the finger of his fiancée, Julie Stuart, at the Eiffel Tower. Stuart wears the ring to this day. Joe Lychner of Austin, Texas, missed the flight due to a last-minute business appointment, and was not killed with his wife Pam and daughters 10 year-old Shannon and 8 year-old Katie.

Montoursville Area High School

16 students from the Montoursville High School French club and five chaperones were killed. One was Rance Hettler, a 6’3” track star who planned to attend Northeastern University’s School of Criminal Justice and desired to become an FBI agent. The FBI posthumously made him an honorary FBI agent, and gave an FBI baseball cap to his parents, which was buried with him. The Montoursville children were described as “the best of the best,” and they had toiled all year to fund the trip, selling candy, cookies, pizza, and hoagies, and performing car washes. One resident remarked, “This is not a wealthy community.”

Ana Maria Shorter was the wife of jazz saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, whom she was traveling with her niece to meet in Italy, where he was touring. Michel Breistroff, 25, was a member of the French national hockey team who was expected to participate in the 1998 Winter Olympics. Edwin B. and Ruth D. Brooks has been married for more than 56 years and spent a minimum of four months of every year traveling.

11 year-old Ludovic Chanson from a small town near Versailles had just completed his second summer as an exchange student. He had acquired a collection of New York Knicks and Chicago Bulls memorabilia and was particularly fond of pistachio ice cream with sprinkles. Flight attendants Melinda Tucker and Ray Lang were engaged to be married.

The first recorded witness to the explosion was Captain David McClaine, flying an Eastwind Airlines Boeing 737 near the coast of Long Island. At 2032.01, he was recorded saying, “We just saw an explosion up ahead of us here something [like] about sixteen thousand feet [altitude] or something like that. It just went down—to the water.”

The official explanation is that one center wing fuel tank exploded because of an electrical spark caused by a short circuit in an undetermined component. It is the only time a fuel tank ever exploded without a clear cause during flight, and, strangely, aircraft survive lightning strikes. There are other explanations. An article co-authored by Ian Goddard and JFK’s press secretary, Pierre Salinger, suggested that the aircraft was destroyed by a missile from a U.S. Navy ship, which would have required the silence of an untold number of people for more than a decade-and-a-half. Goddard later described his actions as “reckless and a mistake,” a product of his desire to inflict a “black eye” upon the government. He said that “TWA 800 was just a vehicle for my larger agenda.” Salinger died in 2004 after suffering from dementia, but he is survived by “Pierre Salinger Syndrome,” the belief that everything found on the internet is true.

A P3 Orion airplane was in the vicinity of Flight 800 when it exploded.

Another possibility is electromagnetic interference from nearby U.S. military elements: a P3 Orion, a C-130, a Black Hawk helicopter, a C-141, a C-10, the Coast Guard cutter Adak, and the warships Normandy, Trepany, Albuquerque, and Wyoming. NASA and the Joint Spectrum Center investigated and dismissed the idea. The Joint Spectrum Center solves problems arising from the electromagnetic spectrum. On the internet can be found the case for the explosion having been caused by a particle beam, but a better proposition is that responsibility falls to a man-portable air defense system (MANPAD) – a shoulder-fired surface-to-air missile (SAM).

Terrorist possession of a MANPAD is not inconceivable. In January 2010, authorities seized a cargo airplane in Bangkok which contained 35 tons of North Korean weapons. Amongst the weapons were Chinese HN-5 MANPADs, less capable than the MANPAD Iran manufactures itself. A sound explanation is that the MANPADs were to be given to terrorists, allowing Iran plausible deniability. TWA 800 was lost on July 17, which was the Iraqi National Liberation Day, the day the Ba’ath party took power. This date could have been chosen to implicate the government of Saddam Hussein.

Since 1973, 30 civilian aircraft have been brought down and 920 civilians killed by MANPADs, which are cheap and relatively small. Many U.S. Stingers were given to Afghans fighting the Soviets and several are known to be in the possession of Iran. Stinger’s operation has been likened to that of a point-and-shoot camera. On the open market, a low-end MANPAD costs $5,000 while the most capable, the Chinese Vanguard, costs $50,000. The Vanguard is based in part on the Stinger but has a superior range and better tracking. In 1994, a French Mistral MANPAD on a tripod was found by Maryland State Police beneath a busy air corridor near Westminster, Maryland.

Bill Clinton levied trade sanctions against Iran in 1995. The Iranians termed the Iran/Libya Sanctions Act an act of war. Shortly after, Iranian proxies bombed U.S. troops at Khobar Towers in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Eye witnesses to the destruction of TWA Flight 800 spoke of a streak of light.

96 eye-witnesses saw the explosion from the Long Island shore, boats, and a nearby helicopter and jet. Interviewed by the FBI, they told of a streak of light that traveled from the Earth to the aircraft, which exploded. Many at first thought it was a firework, except the explosion was too large. An FBI agent documented that one witness saw “what he thought was a shooting star traveling west to east, coming from the south shore, over Fire Island.” The object seen moved faster than an aircraft.

Another witness said she saw what she thought was a contrail travel from the ocean to the aircraft. Other witnesses agreed that the light stream originated from a boat. To a news camera, Lou Desepoli said he saw something that was “a bright, reddish orange color” which looked like a flare. The light seen by witnesses lasted for around six seconds, approximately as long as a MANPAD’s rocket burns.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) claims these witnesses saw burning jet fuel released as TWA 800, still featuring wings, climbed 3,000 feet after the nose detached and weight was lost. It is widely believed that this contravenes the laws of physics and nobody saw the airplane climbing, including pilots who saw it from above. The CIA produced a video to explain the theory, an unusual step to take after a commercial air disaster. It was shown by many news channels. It was made after the CIA received only 244 of 755 accounts. While data from various satellites and radars was employed, it largely used only one eye-witness. This witness had at first maintained that the streak of light originated from ground level, and only gave the version used by the CIA during his third interview. FBI Assistant Director James Kallstrom said the video was “conjecture, based on a lot of evidence.” The NTSB Witness Group said the streak of light seen by so many did not match the flight path of TWA 800, and highlighted the CIA’s divergence from the account of so many people.

On March 15, 1999, the train Spirit of New Orleans derailed after hitting a steel truck on a railroad crossing in Bourbonnaise, IL. In order to prove that the truck had driven around a safety gate, the NTSB called for witnesses, whom it chose to believe on this occasion.

The FAA said that pilots who saw a missile when Flight 800 went down saw the launch of a Trident from a submarine - 2000 miles away.

Pilots of US Airways, Delta, and Northwest flights all reported what they believed to be missile sightings. The FAA claims that they saw two D-5 Trident missiles launched from the submarine USS West Virginia off the coast of Florida on a night of clear visibility, leading Navy Captain Michael Doubleday to comment that “It stretches the imagination that anybody could see 1,900 to 2,000 miles, no matter what altitude they are flying at.”

The Associated Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP) was created early in June 1997 to independently investigate the crash of TWA Flight 800. Some members were experienced crash investigators, including ARAP’s head, who was employed by the Navy. Assistance was received from people within the NTSB investigation. The organization claims to have testimony to the effect that Bill Clinton called an FBI command post concerned with the Olympics and told them the airplane was shot down with a MANPAD. It also says there are witnesses prepared to testify that George Gabrial, a senior FBI agent, said he believed he had observed a missile.

It was reported by the Free Republic and ARAP that a Freedom of Information Act petition by retired United Airline captain Ray Lahr revealed a document dated six days after the crash:

“On Tuesday, July 23, 1996, a representative from the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) advised [the FBI] that after a visual analysis of both the videotape as well as a number of still photographs taken from various portions of the tape, the phenomenon captured by [redacted] appeared to be consistent with the exhaust plume from a MANPAD missile.”

Ray Lahr can be contacted through www.findagrave.com.

TWA 800 had been carrying a shipment of small, pet turtles, corneas for transplant and 800 pounds of glitter. First responders found the glitter coating the calm surface of the Atlantic. The fumes from burning jet fuel made it difficult to breathe. There were thousands of pieces of yellow insulation, some the size of a palm and some as large as car doors. There was a postcard of the Statue of Liberty, a piece of unchewed gum, a box of Cheerios, a woman’s black leather jacket, and a white teddy bear. 39,600 items of personal effects were eventually recovered.

A flight data recorder and cockpit voice recorder

Officially, the aircraft black box flight recorders were found at 2330 on 24 July, one week after TWA 800 crashed, by divers Chief Petty Officer Kevin Oelhafen and Petty Officer Douglas Irish of the USS Grasp.

ARAP says the official account of the discovery of the black boxes contradict divers ARAP interviewed, who put it more than 24 hours earlier. The boxes ought to have been found in the tail cone section of the aircraft, or at least within its debris, but instead they were found 30 feet apart away from any debris – just as if they had been dropped from a boat. This would have allowed NTSB/FBI officials to examine the boxes earlier, and withhold them if they showed evidence of a missile attack. Although polygraph tests are as reliable as reading animal entrails, they impress the U.S. government. A witness who has passed one and sworn an affidavit says an NTSB manager informed him that the black boxes were found by 20 July.

The voice recording of the black boxes revealed 11-and-a-half minutes of routine conversation. Immediately before the silence was a “brief, fraction-of-a-second sound” very similar to those heard on the recorder of two airplanes downed by bombs, an Air India flight off Ireland and Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie. Usually, a structural break-up causes several seconds of immense noise as metal is torn. An airplane has never, ever been destroyed instantaneously. There would have been unusual changes to other variables.

The FBI conducted a dredging operation from November 1996 to April 1997. Team members found two commercial fishing vessels had picked up and then discarded what appeared to be the first stage of a MANPAD, the missile’s ejector-motor can. This is roughly as large as a Coke can, and separates from the main unit when the second stage booster ignites.

A soldier with an SA18 MANPAD

A crewmember of the Alpha Omega had found one such can early in October while trawling for scallops approximately two nautical miles from where TWA 800 exploded. FBI agents showed the crewman photographs of three Stinger parts, which elicited the reply that one had been found and disposed of. The most obvious features the found item had in common with that photographed were two distinctive ignition wires connected to the can. Special Agents Otto and Bongardt then took a live Stinger ejector-motor can to show the crewman, and during hours of interrogation the crewman insisted his find was similar yet somehow different to one photograph. This suggests the component the crewman obtained was for the Russian SA16/18 missiles or the Vanguard.

Data supplied to the FBI by China Lake Naval Air Weapons Facility indicated that a MANPAD launched from a low forward direction would head for the three air pack exhaust ports, directly beneath the center wing tank.

Jet fuel is 700 times as dense as air. The fragments of a MANPAD warhead would be brought to a halt by a few feet of fuel, avoiding damage to aircraft components by high velocity fragments. Fragments of this nature are what alerted investigators to the likelihood that Pan Am 103 was brought down by a bomb in December 1988: pieces of the radio-cassette player containing the bomb had impacted upon the cargo container carrying it, with a force that could only be explained by a bomb explosion. When Kalstrom announced the results of the FBI’s investigation into the explosion of TWA 800, he said the lack of these fragments showed that a missile strike did not bring down the airplane. James Kalstrom is fulloshit.

Kalstrom shut down the criminal investigation into TWA 800 from November 1997. A fast-moving boat captured on radar a mere 2.9 nautical miles from where the airplane had exploded was never identified, as Kalstrom’s successor Lewis Schiliro told Congressman Traficant. After retiring, Kalstrom was recorded saying this boat was actually a helicopter, but since the object was tracked at a speed under 35 knots for 35 minutes, even FBI agents find this inconceivable.

A 93 foot section of TWA Flight 800 was reassembled.

Almost a million pieces of TWA 800 were recovered – 96 percent of the aircraft. A 93 foot section of the airplane was reassembled in a hangar in Calverton, N.Y. which formerly produced shining Grumman fighters. It was the largest and most complex jigsaw puzzle in the world, taking 100,000 work hours and $500,000. Christened the “jetosaurus rex,” it now resides at the new NTSB Academy in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, where it is used in the teaching of crash investigations. Only three other reconstructions of this kind have ever been carried out, of which one was a 65 foot section of Pan Am 103.

In rows 17-19 of the cabin was a reddish-orange trail. Independent investigator James Sanders says it became a hot topic for investigators after the FBI took samples but declined to share the results with NTSB staff. Sanders had a sample analyzed by the Los Angeles commercial laboratory West Coast Analytical Services, whereupon the substance was, according to Sanders, found to be the exhaust residue of a solid fuel missile. The headline of California’s Riverside Press-Enterprise bellowed “New Data Show Missile May Have Nailed TWA 800.” The FBI countered that the substance was adhesive. Proceedings against Sanders were initiated for the theft of evidence, under a Federal law to deter scavengers that was instituted in 1996 after a Floridan truck driver was accused of removing a fragment from the wreckage of the May 1996 Valujet crash.

TWA 800 clearly fell victim to a man-portable SAM. Iran has shown an apparent willingness to pass these onto terrorists, and certainly had the motivation. Responsibility for the attack was never claimed by Iran or assigned by the United States because war would ensue.

The investigation into TWA 800 was, according to FBI Deputy Director Shirillo, the largest in the history of the FBI and the aviation industry. More than 1,000 agents were deployed. It took four years and cost $50-60 million. It’s something of a shame that it was quite so wrong.

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Negroni, Christine. “Turtles, Terrorists and TWA Flight 800.” The Huffington Post. 19 July 2010. 21 April 2011. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-negroni/turtles-terrorists-and-tw_b_649590.html.>
Reid, Jeffery. “’Pierre Salinger Syndrome’ and the TWA 800 conspiracies.” CNN. 17 July 2006. 21 April 2011. <http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/07/12/twa.conspiracy/index.html.>
Revkin, Andrew C. “Rebuilt T.W.A. 800 Fuselage Shows Limits of Sleuthing.” The New York Times. 20 November 1997. 21 April 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/20/nyregion/rebuilt-twa-800-fuselage-shows-limits-of-sleuthing.html.>
Ruppe, David. “TWA 800: Remember the Missile Theory?” ABC News. July 17 2001. 20 April 2011. <http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=96488&page=1.>
Scarry, Elaine. “TWA 800 and Electromagnetic Interference: Work Already Completed and Work that Still Needs to be Done.” The New York Review of Books. n.d. 22 April 2011. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/oct/05/twa-800-and-electromagnetic-interference-work-alre/.>
Schultz, Gwyneth J. “Accusations ‘reckless and a mistake,’ says co-author.” U.S. Navy. n.d. 21 April 2011. <http://www.navy.mil/navydata/navy_legacy_hr.asp?id=284.>
Usborne, David and Weir, Andrew. “Mystery of TWA flight 800.” The Independent. 28 July 1996. 21 April 2011. <http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/mystery-of-twa-flight-800-1330856.html.>
Van Natta Jr., Don. “Reconstructing T.W.A. 800.” The New York Times. 11 May 1997. 21 April 2011. <http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/magazine/reconstructing-twa-800.html.>

Related posts:

1. The Libyan Guy Didn’t Do It – the Story of Lockerbie
2. The Circumcision Conspiracy
3. What Really Went on at Roswell

email: timothychilman@yahoo.com

At 7:03pm on the bitterly cold evening of 21 December 1988, a bomb detonated aboard Pan Am Flight 103, almost directly below the “P” in “Pan Am,” as it flew over Scotland. The aircraft splintered into thousands of pieces, many aflame, which rained onto the town of Lockerbie below. Debris was strewn for miles around. Burning fuel was spread over a divided highway, incinerating autos. One wing plowed through the village, killing everyone in one street. All 259 passengers and crew and eleven of the town’s residents were killed. 66 of the dead were children. The victims included 189 Americans returning to the United States for Christmas.

An investigation published in 2007 by The Firm, Scotland’s independent law journal, found evidence that the airliner had been destroyed by the accidental detonation of illegally carried explosives on the aircraft. Others have speculated that the cause was an electrical fault, as with other crashes of Boeing 747s. On television on 22nd December 1988, Scottish Secretary Malcolm Rifkind described Lockerbie as an “accident,” but let’s not go there.

No organization took responsibility for the blast, but the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Federal Aviation Authority eventually came up with the names of Abdelbaset Ali Al Megrahi and Lamin Khalifah Fhimah, two Libyan intelligence officers, as the guilty men. Megrahi had been chief of security for Libyan Arab Airlines, putting him in a position to carry out the bombing. For eleven years, Colonel Qaddafi resisted all entreaties to turn the men over, and faced United Nations trade sanctions as a result. In addition to the $48 billion dollar cost of these, Libyans were prevented from traveling abroad, overseas Libyan bank accounts were frozen, and the import of spare parts required by the nation’s oil industry was forbidden.

Then, on 5 April 1999, after extensive backroom diplomacy involving South African president Nelson Mandela, Qaddafi agreed that Libya would pay $2.7 billion without admitting guilt and surrender the men to be tried under Scottish law in a neutral country – Holland. The money amounted to $10 million for each victim, with the final payment made in 2008. Lawyers took a third of it. In February 2004, the Libyan prime minister said $2.7 billion was the “price of peace.” After a trial that lasted 18 months and cost $80 million, Fhimah was found innocent and Megrahi, guilty. Was Megrahi truly guilty?

In July 1988, the USS Vincennes had shot down Iran Air Flight 655, believing it to be a suicidal Iranian F-14, although no records justify this. 254 people died and crew-members received Combat Action Ribbons. Two days later, Iranian minister of the interior Ali Akbar Mostashemi said that “blood would rain down from the skies” in retaliation. The threat was less than idle given that Mostashemi had been ambassador to Damascus from 1982-84 and had established close relations with terrorists, particularly Abu Nidal of the Fatah Revolutionary Council and Ahmed Jibril of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command.

The CIA acknowledged that it possessed intelligence stating that Ahmad Jibril, leader of the Syrian-based PFLP-GC, had met with Iranian government officials and proffered his services in the gaining of revenge. Since the 1970s, the methodology of the PFLP-GC had been the planting on airplanes of bombs cleverly concealed in transistor radios which were triggered by a barometric pressure switch. In 1986, Jibril had declared “There will be no safety for any traveler on an Israeli or US airliner”.

CIA Middle Eastern specialist Robert Bauer worked on the early stages of the Lockerbie investigation. He said in the press and on television that “Grade A intelligence” showed Iran requesting and funding a bombing: Ahmad Behbahani, a former member of the Iranian National Revolutionary Guard, personally admitted to meeting with Hafez Dalkamoni, Jibril’s right hand. A retired CIA agent said on record that two days after the bombing, a bank transfer of $11 million from Iran to the PFLP-GC occurred.

On 27 October 1988 in the course of what Germany’s internal security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, called Operation Herbstlaub (Autumn Leaves) arrests were made of PFLP-GC cell-members. Dalkamoni and known IED-maker Marween Khreesat were arrested as they visited electrical shops in Frankfurt. In the trunk of Dalkamoni’s car was a Toshiba cassette recorder containing Semtex connected to a time delay and barometric switch mechanism. U.S. Intelligence officials later confirmed that group members had been observing Pan Am’s facilities at Frankfurt airport. Dalkamoni admitted that bombs had also been built into a second Toshiba unit, a TV monitor and two radio tuners, and the last three of these devices were recovered in German police raids four months after Lockerbie. Dalkamoni was sentenced to 15 years in jail, of which he served eight. Startlingly, Khreesat was released, ostensibly for lack of evidence. Later it was revealed that he was acting for both the CIA and the Jordanian GID.

Interpol distributed warnings of the PFLP-GC bombs on 9 November 1988. Heathrow Airport issued a warning telling security staff that it was “imperative that when screening or searching radios, radio cassette players and other electrical equipment, staff are to be extra vigilant.”

Warnings were received ahead of the bombing. One read “team of Palestinians not associated with PLO intends to attack US targets in Europe. Time frame is present. Targets specified are Pan Am Airlines and US military bases.” The PFLP-GC is not associated with the PLO.

The U.S. Air Force warned its civilian contractors that Iran was expected to strike “in a tit for tat fashion” in such a way as to inflict “mass casualties.” The warning said Europe was the most likely target because there were so many Americans and “established terrorist infrastructures.”

Sixteen days before the bombing, a man telephoned the U.S. embassy in Helsinki, Finland, to deliver a coded warning of a bomb on a Pan Am airplane flying from Frankfurt to the US. The 1990 U.S. President’s Commission report on aviation security stated that “thousands of US government employees saw the Helsinki threat.” Many staff of the U.S. embassy in Moscow customarily traveled by Pan Am to return to the States for Christmas. Per the British Guardian newspaper, every single one canceled their booking after a note was posted warning of a terrorist threat. Flora Swire, traveling to New York to spend Christmas with her boyfriend, found it unusually easy to obtain a ticket, as did 32 students of New York’s University of Syracuse.

The German newspaper Die Zeit reported that South Africa’s foreign minister, Pik Botha, had intended to fly on Pan Am 103 but was warned off and flew on an earlier flight. Die Zeit’s story has never been proven wrong or right, but Botha called it “absurd and far-fetched”. Bengt Carlsson, UN negotiator for Angola, was not warned, possibly because Washington disliked him.

At the scene of the crash, funny business was afoot. On the night of the disaster, volunteers searching the area found a large object beneath a red tarpaulin. Upon approaching it, there were warned off by a gunman in the doorway of a hovering, unmarked helicopter, one of a number to be observed.

The day after the crash, two coach-loads of American personnel arrived at the scene, many of whom were in plain clothes and knew little of Pan Am or aircraft. Among their baggage was a coffin which has never been explained. A local doctor had identified and labeled 59 bodies but the Americans had re-labeled and tagged only 58. US agents removed items found.

Farmer Innes Graham was warned by US investigators to stay away from a small, wooded area several miles east of the crash site.

Farmer Jim Wilson discovered amongst the debris in his fields a suitcase jam-packed with cellophane packets of white powder. A local police officer told him it was undoubtedly heroin. He surrendered the suitcase but never received an official explanation. It later transpired that the name seen on the suitcase by Mr. Wilson was not present on Flight 103′s passenger list. More heroin was reportedly found on Lockerbie’s golf course. Officially, no drugs turned up, beyond a small amount of cannabis.

Major Charles McKee was one of four CIA operatives returning to the United States from an abortive hostage rescue mission. He was vehemently anti-drugs. Time magazine, newspapers including the British Daily Telegraph and Guardian and Toronto’s Sunday Star, and the New York corporate investigative company Interfor reported that McKee and another CIA operative, Matthew Gannon, the deputy CIA station chief for Beirut in Lebanon, were going to report that legitimate or rogue elements of the CIA were permitting drug smuggling from Europe to the United States in exchange for help in releasing U.S. hostages. The Star’s article was informed by ten unnamed sources from the intelligence organs of four governments.

The undertaking was named Operation Corea. The leading Pan Am investigator, ex-Mossad agent Juval Aviv, claimed the CIA protected certain suitcases from airport security, allowing the bomb to get on board. Gannon’s suitcase was in the same baggage holder – 4041 – as the bomb.

McKee’s suitcase was found to have had a hole cut in its side after the crash, and the clothes within showed no trace of explosives. Months later, reports emanated from Lebanon to the effect that McKee’s travel plans had been passed to terrorists. McKee’s mother’s final conversation with him convinced her that his superiors were not aware of his return.

At least four large quantities of U.S. Dollars were discovered, and it has been suggested that McKee’s team – himself, Gannon and two bodyguards – would have possessed large cash amounts to pay informants. When barnstorming Member of Parliament Tam Dalyell asked a parliamentary question about the cash in 1995, Lord James Douglas-Hamilton, a government minister, told him that only “what might ordinarily be regarded as personal money” had been found.

Two PFLP-GC personnel and a great number of western intelligence sources claim the bomb was in the baggage of Khalid Jaafar, a Lebanese-American. Ten days after the disaster, the story found its way onto the front page of the British Daily Express newspaper, citing “FBI and Scotland Yard” sources. The Interfor report also identified Jaafar as the bomb’s carrier. Jaafar, 20, was said to have been a member of a drug-producing family in the Bekaa Valley who was instructed by Hezbollah to carry heroin to the United States. This would explain the Hezbollah T-shirt allegedly found at the crash scene. One theory holds that the PFLP-GC swapped his suitcase for the one with the bomb.

In March 1989, less than three months later, the British Secretary or State for Transport, Paul Channon, lunched with five journos at the Garrick club. Indiscreetly, he revealed that expert detective work by Britain’s smallest police force, Dumfries and Galloway, would shortly lead to arrests for the Lockerbie bombing. The next day’s newspapers spoke of “a cabinet minister” who had said that the identity of those who perpetrated the bombing had been determined and they could look forward to imminent arrest.

It was reported by the Washington Post that at exactly the same time, US President George I had discussed Lockerbie with Margaret Thatcher and advised her to keep the matter “low-key,” to avoid hindering negotiations with Iranian and Syrian-backed groups which held Western hostages in Lebanon.

Three months following the bombing, Dumfries and Galloway police published a report which concluded that is was the work of the PFLP-GC.

The families of victims established UK Families Flight 103, which clamored for a genuine inquiry into the bombing. The group met with Channon’s immediate replacement, Cecil Parkinson, who promised a full judicial inquiry. As he went out the door, as an afterthought, he added, “Just one thing. I must clear permission for a public inquiry with colleagues”. He was overruled by Thatcher, and returned shame-facedly two weeks later to tell of it, as he recounted in a television interview five years later. Instead of a judicial inquiry, there was a Fatal Accident Inquiry lacking the power to subpoena, which declined to address how the bomb made its way onto the aircraft on the grounds that it would interfere with police efforts.

Toward the end of 1989, an arrest again appeared imminent. The British Sunday Times newspaper is known to be close to police and the security service. It reported that “the net was closing” on the Lockerbie bombers and said definitively that the bombing was committed by the PFLP-GC cell in Germany.

The guilty party was Abu Talb, a member of Dalkamoni’s PFLP-GC cell who was then awaiting trial for other offenses in Sweden. The Sunday Times predicted his extradition. This report was the first to say the bomb was put aboard in Malta, where Flight 103 originated, rather than Frankfurt. Clothes made in Malta had been in the suitcase where it was believed the bomb was planted, and a search of Talb’s home found Maltese clothes in his possession. The Sunday Times said two documents had been recovered: a breakdown of the process of automated baggage handling for Flight 103 in Frankfurt, and a handwritten page from one of the stations from which baggage entered the system. Being official information, journalists must have obtained it from investigators.

An NBC news report of October 30 1990 said that Pan Am flights from Frankfurt had been used previously and repeatedly by the Drug Enforcement Agency as part of a sting operation to apprehend dealers in Detroit. The report said that the DEA was looking into the possibility that a young man who resided in the United States and regularly visited the US – Khalid Jaafar, sort of thing – had unknowingly brought the bomb aboard Flight 103.

For a while, Iranian and PFLP-GC responsibility for Lockerbie accorded well with US and UK Middle East foreign policy. The two countries had broken ties with Syria for its persistent sponsorship of terrorism and both had supported Iraq in its war with Iran. Things changed, however, in August 1990, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and threatened Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Sheikhdoms. Nearly 10 percent of U.S. oil supplies were endangered. The Syrians had to be brought on board, which was accomplished: Syrians joined Western Troops in the retaking of Kuwait. Libya, meanwhile, was the only country to support Iraq.

The trial took place at Camp Zeist, a disused U.S. Air Force base. Forensic scientists determined that the 20lb bomb had been in a black, single-speaker Toshiba Bombeat 453 radio/cassette player in a brown Samsonite briefcase containing a pair of men’s checked, brown trousers whose label was that of Mary’s House, a small shop in a narrow street close to the seaside in Sliema, Malta. A central pillar of the prosecution case was the identification of Megrahi by Tony Gauci, who managed the shop in conjunction with his brother and had sold a shirt whose remnants were found at Lockerbie.

Gauci was interviewed 17 times by Scottish and Maltese police and often gave conflicting testimony: he said Megrahi “had been to the shop before and after”; “had been there only once’; that he ‘saw him in a bar months later.” Gauci said the man he saw was 6’0” and 50 years old, when Megrahi was 5’8” and 37. At first, Gauci did not recognize a photograph of Megrahi, but later pointed him out and said he was “similar” but “younger” to the man he saw. During a line-up at Camp Zeist immediately before the trial, Gauci pointed to Megrahi and said, “Not exactly the man I saw in the shop…”

Gauci said Megrahi was “perhaps like him but not fully like him,” “similar but not identical,” and most alarmingly, “like the man in the Sunday Times.” That man was Mohammed Abu Talb, the Palestinian terrorist whom the defense claimed was the real bomber and whose photograph Gauci’s brother had shown him. Gauci told police that Talb “looks like him” (the clothes-buyer). The CIA traced a payment of $500,000 to Talb on April 1989. Talb testified that he was in Sweden on 7 December but could not prove that he was also there on 23 November. He was given lifelong immunity from prosecution in return for his testimony at Camp Zeist.

Police transcripts show Gauci’s brother, Paul, recalling to investigators that the probable date of purchase of the clothes was November 23. He remembered staying home in the evening to watch a soccer game between Dresden and Rome, which occurred on that date. Giving testimony, Gauci said the clothing was purchased on either 23 November or 7 December. The prosecution insisted on 7 December. Gauci testified that Megrahi had purchased clothes before Christmas decorations were mounted, but the then-Tourist Minister, Michael Refalo, said he switched the lights on one day before the alleged purchase. Gauci said it was raining heavily at the time of the purchase and the clothes-buyer had also bought an umbrella. The defense called nearby Luqa airport’s chief meteorologist to say there was no rain on 7 December but there was on 23 November. Megrahi was outside Malta on 23 November.

On 23 October 2005, Lord Peter Fraser, then Scotland’s Solicitor General, the chief law officer, said “Gauci was not quite the full shilling. I think even his family would say (that he) was an apple short of a picnic. He was quite a tricky guy, I don’t think he was deliberately lying but if you asked him the same question three times he would just get irritated and refuse to answer.”

A Strathclyde Police Witness Protection Report of June 10 1999 said Gauci had “a clear desire to gain financial benefit from the position he and his brother are in.” On October 3 2007, the Guardian reported that Gauci was offered $2 million in advance by U.S. authorities for his testimony This is supported by the diary of police officer Detective Chief Inspector Harry Bell. A letter of April 19 2002 spoke of a meeting with the U.S. Department of Justice where a $2 million reward was again mentioned. When considering an appeal by Megrahi, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission said that both Gaucis were paid under the DoJ’s “Rewards for Justice” program. The brothers are now believed to have been re-settled in Australia.

The other central feature of the prosecution was the bomb’s timer. It was manufactured by MEBO, a Swiss company which claimed it sold them only to Libya. MEBO shared offices in Zurich with the Libyan company, ABH, and the two were closely involved. Edwin Bollier, the manager of MEBO, was called to state that such boards had only been sold to Libya. Sales to other parties were uncovered. The defense described Bollier as an “illegitimate arms dealer with morals to match.” He was connected to many intelligence services, including those of Libya and the United States. The judges declared that Bollier’s testimony was “self-contradictory” and “inconsistent.”

After the trial, evidence emerged which would have been used in an appeal by Megrahi: a former MEBO employee who testified, Ulrich Lumpert, told a Swiss court that in 1989 he stole a timing board from MEBO and passed it to a person involved in the Lockerbie investigation. He said he was offered $4 million if he could link the timer to Libya.

Bollier confirmed Lumpert’s story in an interview with RFI in 2007. He added that that particular timing device was not sold to any customers as it was defective. In 2005, a former Scottish police chief signed an affidavit claiming that the timer fragments had been planted by the CIA.

A fragment of a circuit board was found in a piece of shirt collar and analyzed by Thomas Thurman of the FBI. This was from the bomb’s timer. Thurman boasted of his role on television on 15 November 1991, one day after indictments against the two Libyans were issued.

The expert quality of Thurman’s testimony is attested to by his disbarment from work as an expert witness: a review of a generous number of criminal investigations by Michael Bromwich, the US inspector general, found that Thurman possessed no formal scientific qualifications, had circumvented procedures, had fabricated evidence, and had testified in areas of expertise for which he was unqualified.

A barometric timer has the advantage that it will not operate if the airplane is delayed. Seven or eight minutes would elapse before air pressure dropped sufficiently for the device to operate. The Toshiba bomb of the Frankfurt PFLP-GC cell, when tested, ran for 30 minutes after initiation. Flight 103′s bomb exploded 38 minutes after take-off. It is unlikely that terrorists would risk a premature explosion by putting the package onto an Air Malta flight.

Thomas Hayes, a scientist from the Royal Armament Research and Development Establishment, did not perform the standard test for explosive on the timer fragment or make the customary drawings. At first he said the bomb had been on the second layer of a luggage container within the airplane, and so must have come from Frankfurt. This was supported by the testimony of Heathrow’s chief baggage handler, John Bedford, but Hayes revised his opinion at the trial. Hayes had been prominent in high profile trials for IRA bombings that resulted in wrongful convictions. When the first parliamentary investigation into RARDE’s conduct at these trials was announced, Hayes became a chiropodist. The results of these investigations were published in 1992 and 1996. In the case of the Maguire Seven, it was found that Hayes deliberately withheld a notebook from the court and was involved in the ignoring of forensic tests showing the Maguires’ innocence, In the case of Judith Ward, data was withheld or misrepresented to create “a false and distorted picture.”

The judges found it proven that the suitcase with the bomb came from Malta and escaped detection at three airports. The British Granada television company broadcast a documentary asserting this as fact, showing a dramatic reconstruction where a bag was loaded onto an Air Malta airplane by a suitably evil-looking Arab. Air Malta litigated. Granada settled out of court.

Another prosecution witness was Abdulmajid Gialka, formerly a colleague of the accused pair, who testified that he had seen them handling the bomb. He also said he had seen Semtex in a desk drawer in Megrahi’s office, but only disclosed this to the CIA after two-and-a-half years. The prosecution could present no evidence to substantiate his claims. At the time of the trial, Gialka was living under witness protection in the United States. He had already been paid $320,000 by his American keepers and stood to gain $4 million in the event of a conviction. His CIA connections went back to earlier than 1988. His evidence was dismissed.

The judges accepted the identification of Megrahi by Gauci, although they considered it “not absolute.” When Megrahi was found guilty, Dr. Hans Köchler, the United Nations observer, called the verdict “incomprehensible.” Köchler said the verdict was ‘arbitrary, even irrational’ and that it carried an “air of international power politics.”

MP Tam Dalyell said, “My deep conviction, as a ‘professor of Lockerbie studies’ over a 20-year period is that neither al-Megrahi nor Libya had any role in the destruction of Pan Am 103.” He thought, instead, that the U.S. Government wished to avoid complications with Iran and Syria. Another high-profile MP, George Galloway, said, “I’ve always been close to the Palestinian cause, so I know what I’m talking about when I say the Pan Am airliner was downed by a Palestinian splinter-group, the PFLP.”

The highly-esteemed Professor Robert Black, QC, emeritus professor of Scots Law at Edinburgh University and the man who concocted the trial at Camp Zeist, called the conviction “an absolute and utter outrage.” He said that it was extremely hard to believe a Scottish judge would convict anybody, “even a Libyan,” on the basis of “a very, very weak circumstantial case.”

On February 4, the Scottish Sunday Herald newspaper said, “Last week you would have been hard-pressed to find an Edinburgh lawyer willing to bet on any guilty verdict being reached at Camp Zeist. The same belief was evident, it is reported, in Whitehall.”

Michael Scharf, a law professor at the New England School of Law, is quoted in the New York Times of 2 February saying, “It sure does look like they bent over backwards to find a way to convict, and you have to assume the political context of the case influenced them.”

UK Families Flight 103 chairman Jim Swire, whose daughter Flora died in the bombing, said, “I don’t believe for a moment that this man was involved.”

An appeal on behalf of Megrahi in 2001 claimed that a newly-revealed break-in at Heathrow Airport the night before the bombing allowed for the possibility of planting a bomb. The appeal was rejected. When the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission referred Megrahi’s second appeal to the High Court, the grounds were Gauci’s identification, the prosecution’s failure to disclose certain information, and issues concerning the forensic evidence. A second appeal would have included the information that no trace of explosive had been found on the bomb’s timer.

While it is highly incongruous to find the words “Libya” and “innocent” in the same sentence, it would appear that the guy from Libya was innocent.

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Related posts:

1. The Guy on the One Dollar Bill Smoked Pot
2. TWA Flight 800: No, it Wasn’t an Electrical Spark Caused by a Short Circuit
3. The Circumcision Conspiracy

Oil Spill Halliburton Conspiracy

Only 11 days before the disaster, the Halliburton company bought an oil-spill cleanup business that made hundreds of thousands of dollars cleaning and assisting oil recovery sites. It is believed by a large number of people that the Deepwater oil rig was purposefully sabotaged by Halliburton in order to scoop up profit from the dirty seas. Even as early as the construction phase of the rig was in development, Halliburton could have had a hand in its future demise. The company was responsible for doing cement work on the well, which then busted when a strong gusher came up from below the depths seafloor.

If Halliburton is a company that wants to make money, it knows how to do it. Not only did it make money constructing the well, but it also made money with its destruction. Halliburton could have sought to maximize profits by building a weak structure that was sure to break under any amount of significant stress, and then get paid to clean up the spill when it happened.

Knowing the history of Halliburton, one would not be surprised that such a company could be involved in such a plot. It is a tragedy when 11 people die and thousands of animals are killed. It is murder when preventions are intentionally ignored to seek earnings.

Sabotage of US Shrimping Industry

A former worker at Halliburton was interviewed shortly after the events took place and gave some damaging evidence that suggests the company was in on the spill for financial gain. “They could have stopped it the first day”, he stated. He was concerned a gripe between Halliburton and the shrimping industry caused the disregard of all shrimp farmers and marine life in the region. In regard to the oil spill, priority was maximizing revenue, not cleaning and restoring the area to its former status.

Record Revenue and Profits

Facts speak for themselves. Halliburton’s profit soared during the spill, jumping an unbelievable 83% in second quarter alone. Revenue increased 26% from the year before. While the rest of the world was in mourning over the disruption and destruction of wildlife in the area, Halliburton was laughing all the way to the bank.

Who is to blame?

Depending on the news source, responsibility of the accident falls on everyone from BP executives to North Korean operatives. We may never who is really to blame for the oil rig blast, but perhaps the higher-ups at Halliburton do..

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