Dave Greer

The 911 Commission report makes a single reference to a pancake collapse. While they were doing so, the North tower began its pancake collapse But the purpose of the 911 Commission wasn't to investigate the probable causes of the collapses of any of the buildings, that was NIST. From the 911 Commission preface:- The law directed us to investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001,” including those relating to intelligence agencies, law enforcement agencies, diplomacy, immigration issues and border control, the flow of assets to terrorist organizations, commercial aviation, the role of congressional oversight and resource allocation, and other areas determined relevant by the Commission. Do you agree that it makes more sense to refer to the NIST report when characterising the nature of the "official position" of the collapses, rather than a single line in the 9/11 Commission report? I'm not presenting arguments. I'm pointing out areas where I believe you've incorrectly represented the "offical position". You can only attack the "official position" if it is correctly represented, rather than a strawman. Much of it collapsed into the basement levels, some of it was clearly visible above "ground floor". I digress. The main thrust of my post was to try and point out where I think you've mis-represented the "offical position", in the hope that you will do so more accurately. Take the claim that Flight 93 crashed into a mine-shaft. I've shown that the official position is that it crashed into a field (on the edge of a reclaimed strip mine). Do you agree that you haven't correctly stated the official position? If not, do you have a source for Flight 93 crashing into a mine-shaft? (I realise that probably isn't one of your main arguments, but it's useful to illustrate what I'm getting at). Thanks.

If that's Jim's position, then maybe needs to re-frame his argument more precisely. As it stands, there are several areas where he seems to be questioning the "official position", but what he states to be the "official position" just isn't the case. Flight 93 crashing into a mine-shaft for example. Or the point about temperatures not going above the melting point of steel (NIST specifically states that the temperature doesn't go that high). I don't think it's unreasonable to point these issues out and ask for clarification.

You've misunderstood what I've said. Jim has made a series of claims. For example, he says the twin towers were not capable of a "pancake collapse". But the NIST report states quite clearly there was no "pancake collapse". So why has this issue been raised by Jim? If NIST says "No pancake", and Jim says "No pancake", where is the discrepancy? How does he refute the official NIST position (no pancake collapse), by saying there should not have been a pancake collapse?

Jim, if you want to prove that the offical version of events is wrong, then do you not agree that you should at least accurately represent what the offical position is? Your list of points (below) is riddled with inaccuracies. Firstly, this is circular reasoning. One might as well argue that Titanic never sank, since it was designed to be unsinkable. Regardless, that isn't even the "official version". According to the NIST investigation: NIST concluded that the WTC towers collapsed because: (1) the impact of the planes severed and damaged support columns, dislodged fireproofing insulation coating the steel floor trusses and steel columns, and widely dispersed jet fuel over multiple floors; and (2) the subsequent unusually large jet-fuel ignited multi-floor fires (which reached temperatures as high as 1,000 degrees Celsius) significantly weakened the floors and columns with dislodged fireproofing to the point where floors sagged and pulled inward on the perimeter columns. This led to the inward bowing of the perimeter columns and failure of the south face of WTC 1 and the east face of WTC 2, initiating the collapse of each of the towers. Both photographic and video evidence—as well as accounts from the New York Police Department aviation unit during a half-hour period prior to collapse—support this sequence for each tower. Source (section 2) Most of the jet fuel may indeed have burned off relatively quickly, but the resultant fires occurred where there was sufficient combustibles, oxygen and an ignition source. Some heat may have been conducted away from the fire zones by the steel frame. Are there any published papers that demonstrate how much heat was conducted away, and how it affected the temperature of steel beams in the affected floors? The official position is not that any steel reached its melting point. In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires. The melting point of steel is about 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,800 degrees Fahrenheit). Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36). Source (section 7) According to NIST there was no "pancake collapse". NIST’s findings do not support the “pancake theory” of collapse, which is premised on a progressive failure of the floor systems in the WTC towers (the composite floor system—that connected the core columns and the perimeter columns—consisted of a grid of steel “trusses” integrated with a concrete slab; see diagram below). Instead, the NIST investigation showed conclusively that the failure of the inwardly bowed perimeter columns initiated collapse and that the occurrence of this inward bowing required the sagging floors to remain connected to the columns and pull the columns inwards. Thus, the floors did not fail progressively to cause a pancaking phenomenon. Source (Section 2) That's not an accurate appraisal of the "official" position. NIST estimated the elapsed times for the first exterior panels to strike the ground after the collapse initiated in each of the towers to be approximately 11 seconds for WTC 1 and approximately 9 seconds for WTC 2. These elapsed times were based on: (1) precise timing of the initiation of collapse from video evidence, and (2) ground motion (seismic) signals recorded at Palisades, N.Y., that also were precisely time-calibrated for wave transmission times from lower Manhattan (see NCSTAR 1-5A). As documented in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, these collapse times show that: “… the structure below the level of collapse initiation offered minimal resistance to the falling building mass at and above the impact zone. The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation. Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos. As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass.” In other words, the momentum (which equals mass times velocity) of the 12 to 28 stories (WTC 1 and WTC 2, respectively) falling on the supporting structure below (which was designed to support only the static weight of the floors above and not any dynamic effects due to the downward momentum) so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that it (the structure below) was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass. The downward momentum felt by each successive lower floor was even larger due to the increasing mass. From video evidence, significant portions of the cores of both buildings (roughly 60 stories of WTC 1 and 40 stories of WTC 2) are known to have stood 15 to 25 seconds after collapse initiation before they, too, began to collapse. Neither the duration of the seismic records nor video evidence (due to obstruction of view caused by debris clouds) are reliable indicators of the total time it took for each building to collapse completely. Source (Section 6) See above (also, didn't much of the WTC1&2 debris collapse into the basement levels?) There is something visible which looks compatible with a large, passenger jet. Impossible to be sure exactly due to poor resolution of the image. This animated GIF shows the frames prior to when the plane comes into view, followed by the one with the plane in it, annotated to show main features as I see them. The "official position" is not that Flight 93 crashed into an abandoned mine shaft. The official position is that it crashed into an empty field near Shankville, PA (Source). More accurately, it crashed into the edge of a reclaimed strip-mine, at high-speed, nose-down. There was absolutely no chance of any survivors. I haven't addressed all your points. I just want to highlight where I think you've misrepresented (by accident or oversight, I'm sure) the "official position". Thanks.

As a non-American, I must admit to being slightly mystified by all the fuss about whether Obama was born in the US or not. I have no opinion either way on the veracity of his place of birth. I just can't see why it matters. Granted, I'm making the assumption that the US Constitution says that a president must have been born in America. If so, it smacks of constitutionalized racism to me (I'm not referring to the colour of his skin here, just the issue of whether he was born in America). Does it really matter? I care little about where my Prime Minister was born. I do care about what he can do to drag my country out of the seemingly endless mire we're in. To be frank, if the person capable of rescuing my country was a Little-Green-Man from Mars, then sign me up to the Little-Green-Men party. Maybe it's something to do with being English, which by definition means mixed race. The puzzling thing is, I thought you Yanks (sic) were of more mixed race than we Brits? So why the xenophobia when it comes to the nationality of your leader? If a foreigner is good enough to be governor of California, why not president? (Please don't get side-tracked into whether the Governator himself is suitable president material!) Puzzled!

You shouldn't expect those shadows to appear parallel from the point of view of the camera, in the same way as you wouldn't expect parallel railway lines to appear parallel when you're looking down them (they appear to converge). If you have a camera, it's very easy indeed to take photos that show apparently non-parallel shadows. If you don't have a camera, a simple Google image search will reveal hundreds or thousands of such images, see below for an example.

This was my previous response to Jack's altered study the Craig has addressed, alongside his original claim. Hopefully this particular claim can be laid to rest.

As you pointed out William, this is the JFK sub-forum. If Jack has any more Apollo related studies he wants to present, I'm sure he'll post them in the correct sub-forum, and I'll quite happily debate him over any issues raised. If he wants to talk about JFK, this is the right forum. Given that I don't have a huge interest in the JFK conspiracy, surely you'd interpret any input from me as Jack-bashing? You can't have it both ways. Fight? What fight? The only fight Jack has started is accusing me of continually making attacks on him. I think he's going to have a problem proving that one. His Apollo studies, on the other hand, are fair game as far as I'm concerned. Jack shouldn't interpret refutations of his studies as personal attacks. If he's prepared to put those studies into the public domain, he should be prepared for people to examine them and demonstrate why they are flawed. If Jack believed Oswald was a lone nut and posted 30 or 40 studies supporting his theory, would I be correct in calling you a "Jack basher" for falsifying his claims? I'll answer that one for you: no, I wouldn't be correct. Yet for pointing out the flaws in his Apollo studies I'm labelled a "Jack basher".

Please point out where I continually attack you, rather than your studies. I don't think he was leaping to your defence.

I suspect you are right. How can you possibly know my level of interest and knowledge of the Apollo programme? Why do you care? Why should it matter to you? Why are you complaining that some people choose to focus on what is important to them, rather than you? Then complain to the people with radical beliefs who aren't posting, rather than a "harmless believer" like me who knows "nothing of importance". I made no such claim. I said I was a space geek. We geeks are far cooler than buffs. It was clearly said in a jocular manner to show that I'm more interested both in Apollo and the hoax theories surrounding it, rather than the perilous state of the US Constitution. Not all humour travels well across the pond so it may not have come over that way. That said, this is indeed the JFK forum (albeit Jack posted the link to the interview on another sub-forum, which was closed, hence I posted here). You obviously feel as if my presence here is threatening the future of your country, so I shall leave you to rattle the cages of the silent radicals as you see fit.

I can't speak for Jack, but it certainly matters to me. I respect your commitment to your cause, but the Constitution of your nation just doesn't tug at my emotional heartstrings as much as Apollo does. What can I say? I'm not an American, but I am a space-geek! I tried to answer this earlier but was hacked mid-stream by Shamoon Code3r and Real Coder. Was the forum hacked or was it just me? In any case, it's not just my cause or my Constitution or my nation, the emotional heartstrings of Apollo are directly tied to what happened at Dealey Plaza though the NASA instances of foreknowledge, the use of Paperclip scientists to develop rockets and the NSAM that President Kennedy issued shortly before his death that was totally ignored. If you are a real Space Geek, which I doubt, you would know these things and be interested in them. http://educationforum.ipbhost.com/index.ph...hl=NSAM+Ignored My point being that your interest and Jack White's intertest in the moon landings and proving that they did or did not take place are just interesting opinions, while determing the truth about the assassination of the President is a matter of not only America's national security, but the security of every politician and person who can be assassinated. You're not a space geek, you just want to debate people like Jack White because you don't think they can win the debate, but they won't debate you. I talked with a women who didn't believe hijacked airplanes hit the Pentagon and WTCs and after listening to her for awhile and trying to tell her about the witnesses I talked to, she dismissed my witnesses and maintains her belief like a true believer who you can not persuade with facts, logic, reason or witnesses. And it's okay because its harmless for people to believe such things, and only a small percentage of people do. But it is not harmless for people to believe that the President was killed by a deranged lone nut when we now know better, especially people in sensitive positions in law enforcement, government and security, because until the assassinations of the sixties are fully resolved, such political assassinations will remain a viable option for the assassins. The topic of your interest - moon landing reality, is just interesting talk, while political assassination is the most important political issue of the day, even though most people don't realize it until after it happens. Jack White and Dave Greer are harmless true belivers in their cause who can believe whatever they want and know nothing of importance. Bill Kelly Then maybe you should get back to the moral high ground and continue spreading the message about Oswald, rather than wasting your time on a pointless exercise telling me how unimportant my own views and opinions are.

I can't speak for Jack, but it certainly matters to me. I respect your commitment to your cause, but the Constitution of your nation just doesn't tug at my emotional heartstrings as much as Apollo does. What can I say? I'm not an American, but I am a space-geek!

People can believe whatever they like about Oswald, or about any matter discussed on this forum. That's democracy. Different things matter to different people. You clearly think the JFK assassination is more important than whether Apollo was faked. That's your personal choice and I'm fine with that. Personally, I'm more interested in Apollo. It annoys the heck out of me that people seek to undermine that achievement for personal gain, notoriety, or other motivation. When I see false information about Apollo being propagated, I choose to investigate the claims and where possible show why they are wrong. I make no apology for this, and without being rude, have absolutely no intention of letting you or anyone else decide what should be important to me, and what issues I should be talking about. As for Oswald, I haven't delved into the JFK conspiracy in anywhere near as much detail as I have Apollo. I always used to think Oswald was probably a lone nut. I've since changed my mind, I now suspect that Lyndon B Johnson was behind it, but don't know enough to argue a convincing case. Feel free to discuss whatever theories on whatever issues you choose to, but kindly allow me the same consideration.

In the first couple of sentences of that interview, we read: With photos my expertise is better than the average person. I notice things which the average person may not. While you may or may not be better at taking photos than the average person, the Apollo studies you've presented on this forum only demonstrate that you simply aren't capable of analysing them properly. A simple search of this forum will show a few links for any interested followers of the thread, who are more than welcome to come to their own opinion about your abilities as a photographic analyst. Why is it important to show why your studies are wrong? It's not so much about getting you to admit an error and withdraw a claim (although that would make a pleasant surprise). It's certainly not about bashing an old man for daring to question authority. Most of your studies are hosted at Aulis, David Percy's website. Many hoax believers use this site as part of their evidence that Apollo was faked. The same arguments get wheeled out time and again by various people on different forums, so instead of wasting time going over old ground again, it's easier to point them in the direction of refutations to your individual studies. If they choose to side with you once they've been shown why your studies are false, that's democracy. You can lead a horse to water...

Sadly, the moon landing deniers among us would claim that Apollo was a real and provable conspiracy, and that anyone who disagrees is a blind, lying fool. Of course it was a conspiracy. President Kennedy conspired with other members of his administration to set as official policy of the Kennedy administration, landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to earth. Then they brought congress into the conspiracy by requesting and receiving several billion dollars to fund the project. Kennedy then conspired with media to trumpet the benefits of such a large scientific undertaking. Lastly Kennedy conspired with the American public selling them on the idea that space travel was a critical part of advancing science and technology for the good of the human race. Kennedy uplifted every single American citizen with this space exploration conspiracy. He made them look to the stars and plan for a better future for all. Kennedy was also planning to colonize mars using the moon as the launch point. It was a giant conspiracy launched by John F. Kennedy and his supporters/advisors. Kennedy's enemies then conspired to kill him and shut down his NASA moon landing project. Everything is a conspiracy. That's how human beings get things done. An interesting slant! I think you're over-egging the pudding suggesting that everything is a conspiracy, unless you have some loose definition of conspiracy I'm not aware of. My understanding that it is a group of people who join together to plot to commit an illegal act. Going to the moon isn't illegal AFAIK so I don't see how selling a future of space exploration to the US public (for whatever motives) could be considered a conspiracy, unless there was some deliberate fraud enacted in the way it was financed. Or were you being ironic? Agreed!

Sadly, the moon landing deniers among us would claim that Apollo was a real and provable conspiracy, and that anyone who disagrees is a blind, lying fool.

Ahem. Photoshop. (Grabs coat and runs off down to the pub).

It's beyond me how those foreign papers even considered this to be a serious article, regardless of whether they knew the Onion was a satirical site or not. It's swimming with sarcasm. I guess it doesn't translate too well: either that or it was an exceedingly slow news day in India.

You old bugger! And many congratulations of course...

In the interests of accuracy. The section you've marked as the "Lunar Module" is called the "ascent stage". The section you've labelled "landing legs" is the "descent stage" (that's the part that is casting the shadow in the LRO pictures). Add the ascent stage and the descent stage together and you get the Lunar Module (or LM).

No, they're already claiming they're fake. Which means they should be able to put names to the people who must be "in on it", since the images would have to be received and witnessed in their virgin format before evil NASA henchmen had time to accurately photoshop in some artefacts and tracks. The principle investigator of the LRO LROC team is Mark Robinson, of the School of Earth and Space Exploration, Arizona State University. His email address is mrobinson@asu.edu. (This is all available on the LROC website, http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/lroc.html) So, does anyone who believes Apollo was faked (and by extension, the LRO images), have the balls to confront someone who must be "in on it"? How about some of these? http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/team.html If not, perhaps you'd like to visit the LROC team? Give them a call. LROC Science Operations Center Interdisciplinary A Arizona State University Tempe, Arizona 85281-3603 If you're an educator or community group you could always arrange a tour. http://lroc.sese.asu.edu/EPO/Tours/tourform.php So how exactly are NASA faking these images without anyone finding out?

Jack The rationale behind my rebuttal of your first study goes a long way to explaining why your second is flawed. Your latest study is based on a false assumption, that the size of the over-exposed glare equates to the size of the sun. This has already been discussed in great detail in this thread back in Nov 2007, and in this thread from May of the same year. I think this study I did some time ago puts the whole "wrong sun size" claim to rest, unless anyone can explain why it's wrong.

I don't think this explanation explains this image from Apollo 14 very well.

It's hard to tell with so few pixels, but it appears to be in his right hand, held up near his visor. You know the cameras were not always chest mounted, they were detachable. I disagree with you on that one Kevin. See my explanation to Jack above.

Clearly he is turned away from the other astronaut in the shot, as he is at the extreme LHS of the image. IIRC the FOV of the lens is approx 56 degrees. Difficult to be certain due the lack of pixels and the compaction of the image, but we can make an educated guess based on the evidence. Look at this image again. Pay particular attention to the brightly lit EVA notepad, and the side of the camera housing above it. Now, see what those two items look like in each of the 3 images in this study. Finally, compare the location of the camera in the 3rd image from the left, to the RHS image (which is the reflection in the visor), and you can see where I believe the camera housing is. Phony study? Please show where I made an error and I'll happily look at it again. Just saying 'it's phony' doesn't cut much ice. I think most people should be able to follow the study and understand what I'm getting at.