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foiac.org Freedom of Information Advocacy Coalition |
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Redefining reality: "Up is Down and Down is Up" if you can believe the CIA
The government’s theory did not fit what the witnesses consistently reported. To fit their preferred theory that no one saw a missile, the CIA simply had to redefine “up” as “down” and “down” as “up”.
There were some awkward problems with this very tidy solution however. Like about 730 of them; eyewitnesses. And not one of those witnesses said the smashed and broken aircraft went up. Hundreds of them specifically said “down”. Some of the official FBI statements on the subject referred to this as “the witness problem.” Having too many witnesses who all substantially agree is not normally considered a problem by law enforcement authorities or safety investigators.
Years later when the FBI was forced to release the details, it became apparent that hundreds of the witnesses reported that two large flaming objects had “fallen” “downwards” toward “the surface”. Many with their views too distant or too fleeting did not even know that it was a 747 that was tumbling out of the sky. The FBI is on record as prohibiting the NTSB from interviewing them so that the evidentiary record would be neat and tidy and restricted as a criminal investigation. ( Well actually despite that ruling, they did allow the NTSB to interview about half a dozen witnesses.) The FBI also sent a letter to the NTSB prohibiting any of the witnesses from testifying at the NTSB’s public hearing in 1998. Even after the FBI investigation had ended. ( Well actually FBI James Kallstrom’s letter allowed that any witnesses who agreed with the FBI would be acceptable to testify. )
All of the above is meticulously documented at www.flight800.org and various other web sites that looked into the witness evidence carefully.
Not one of the 730 witnesses reported seeing the crippled 747 ascending. Many of those witnesses saw the front third of the aircraft break off and both halves “falling” in flames to the sea. “Below.” They said one part (the nose) fell quicker than the other half. Salvage locations later proved them to be reliable. Despite their distribution from every direction around the event and some professional aviators from airborne vantage points, it is possible that all of the witnesses were fooled. But most people have a pretty good sense of where “up” and “down” are. And when you calculate the odds that they could all be disoriented or fooled, it is millions to one against that they could all get it wrong.
That is because knowing “up” from “down” is quite fundamental to having your feet on the ground and having any assurance of surviving with long term viability. As much for an individual and for a nation. It is not a confusing or ambiguous distinction.
Based on their empirical experience many professional aviators and various aeronautical engineers were quite certain that a broken-in-half 747 definitely could not continue to fly for almost 20 more seconds nor could it possibly ascend a few thousand feet. When they did the aeronautical calculations their seat-of-the-pants guesses and flying experience were validated.
One of the aeronautical engineers with a lifetime of professional flying who found that the CIA and the FBI and the NTSB had somehow totally miscalculated was Ray Lahr. Lahr is also a retired United Airlines captain who started his flying career in World War II where he trained as a Navy fighter pilot. After the war he served an additional 13 years as a “weekend warrior”.
He made a few trips from his California home to Washington DC in an attempt to help the government check and correct their calculations, but the government agencies all declined his offer. Eventually Lahr sued the NTSB, the FBI and the CIA to obtain the assumptions and the calculations that allowed them to propose the mathematical and physical impossibility. The consensus of those capable of doing the calculation is that the noseless aircraft did not have any possibility of climbing thousands of feet.
The details of Lahr’s quest for accurate peer-reviewed mathematical rigor and scientific integrity can be traced at his web site: www.raylahr.com/
In the four years since he requested the actual computations, the CIA and the NTSB have not been able to produce any actual calculations for their otherwise very carefully crafted simulations of that flying ruin.
In this perhaps scientists, mathematicians and engineers are like fundamentalists.
The government’s image of a half a jumbo jet ascending heavenwards for almost 20 seconds is more than just an aberrant piece of physics. To the attentive scientist it burns like a dangerous heresy against the laws of physics and natural science that we are ruled by. But whether you view the CIA’s whopper as heresy or dumb error, its scary success and longevity as a theory conjures up a perilous benchmark for national veracity and reality. The CIA’s whopper can still be seen redefining reality at: CNN Video Clips of the CIA animation If the video had looked amateurish or if the dialogue had used poor grammar and illogical sentence arrangements the media would have probably critiqued it severely. But the media naturally has minimal mathematical literacy and little motivation to call in aeronautical experts. It was a fairly slick animation and because it was introduced during an FBI press conference, it had credibility in its total packaging. It just happens to be a physical impossibility. And it was contradicted by many of the 730 eyewitness interview records, and corroborated by none. In the video, the CIA claims it is based on careful evaluation of witness evidence. It is not. It also claims that Boeing provided help and information. They explicitly denied that claim. It also claimed that aeronautical science was involved in the animation and its assumptions. In responding to Ray Lahr's lawsuit the CIA has produced no evidence of that scientific analysis. These characteristics make the animation propaganda rather than an effort to honestly inform. Since it is illegal for the CIA to propagandize or deceive the American public directly or intentionally, producing that animation for national TV was very likely a federal crime.
Graeme Sephton December 2004
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