Newtown hero beseiged by hate mail

[Duelist925]

Na, thinking up possible conspiracy theories isn't nutty. What's nutty is assuming that your conspiracy theory is correct and trying to convince the world despite having questionable evidence.

Hell, thinking up conspiracies and trying to justify them in some way is a damn fun storytelling tool.

[TheHuckster]

Oh, said she, it's the same as 9/11 -- they never really existed.

Yeah, I mean, hey, I hadn't seen the Twin Towers before 9/11... how can I be sure that they were real?

[Panacea]

Does it count if, on hearing about the occurrence, you thought of the whole setup/conspiracy thing on your own but dismissed the idea as nonsense?

No, because that kind of impulse thinking is normal. Reason and rational thought quickly brings sane people to their senses.

Yeah, I mean, hey, I hadn't seen the Twin Towers before 9/11... how can I be sure that they were real?

Sad thing is there are a lot of people who won't believe in anything outside of their own experiences.

In other words, unless they visited New York City prior to 9/11/01 (as I did, many times), and then afterwards (which I have not done) they would not realize that the skyline was missing two big honkin' skyscrapers.

However, I watched both towers come down that day. There is no question in my mind that I witnessed a real event: the sudden, horrible deaths of several thousand people. I almost threw up watching it because I knew there were terrified people in both those towers.

[TheHuckster]

Sad thing is there are a lot of people who won't believe in anything outside of their own experiences.

In other words, unless they visited New York City prior to 9/11/01 (as I did, many times), and then afterwards (which I have not done) they would not realize that the skyline was missing two big honkin' skyscrapers.

However, I watched both towers come down that day. There is no question in my mind that I witnessed a real event: the sudden, horrible deaths of several thousand people. I almost threw up watching it because I knew there were terrified people in both those towers.

Indeed. And worst of all, your testimony will not even make them flinch. Their response will either be you saw holograms crash into the towers with synchronized detonations, or you were among the millions of people in manhatten who were in on the conspiracy.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

Indeed. And worst of all, your testimony will not even make them flinch. Their response will either be you saw holograms crash into the towers with synchronized detonations, or you were among the millions of people in manhatten who were in on the conspiracy.

Synchronized detonations of alien technology explosives that our government has access to. Yup. Because they were proven wrong on their original idea, so they kept escalating into "ALIEN TECHNOLOGY LEVEL THERMITE" or something.

[protege]

However, I watched both towers come down that day. There is no question in my mind that I witnessed a real event: the sudden, horrible deaths of several thousand people. I almost threw up watching it because I knew there were terrified people in both those towers.

I didn't see the towers come down that day. Well, unless you count the footage on TV. No, I was at work when 9/11 happened. I too saw the horror unfold on TV. I also saw the towers collapse on TV. There's no question in my mind that it was real. Even so, I simply couldn't believe that several thousand people were killed. There's no conspiracy here, folks.

How do I know this? Simple. I knew people who were killed on 9/11. One of the planes crashed into their office, wiping them out instantly They're not on some "vacation" nor are they in "witness protection" like some of the nuts have claimed. They're dead.

Again, there's no conspiracy. Too many people involved, and I really doubt that millions would have not only participated...but kept their mouths shut about it. Too much planning involved as well. Think about it, one of my coworkers was actually on the phone with someone in that office. Our phone went dead at the instant the plane hit. If someone was in charge of making sure the phones were cut worldwide...do you think that it wouldn't have been delayed?

Also, we weren't the only ones on the phone with them. Turns out that the squawk box (which is basically an intercom between that office and the stock exchange trading floor) actually caught the sounds--explosions, screams, things falling, etc. Those communications systems are heavily monitored. Any attempts at hacking or tapping into would have surely been revealed. There's no way someone could have gotten in and not been caught.

[HYHYBT]

Even setting aside the impossibility of faking an event that big, much less keeping it secret all this time later, and even though I believe Bush to have been, to put it politely, a poor choice for the office of president, I cannot believe he would have done all that just to get to have a war. Likewise, I cannot believe Roosevelt or any other president would have intentionally allowed Japan to destroy so much of our navy just to be able to say "they attacked us first" rather than "here's proof that they're planning to attack us."

That one's my favorite, by the way.

[s_stabeler]

actually, only two ships were destroyed at Pearl Harbour. The rest were refloated, with one sinking while being towed to the US for repairs. ( The Arizona was a total loss at Pearl Harbour, the Oklahoma sank while being towed.) One of the ships was actually a target ship, ( the Utah) and was mainly used for AA training.

Further, all but 5 of the 15 ships that would eventually return to service were repaired within 6 months.

Further to that, it was actually a massive strategic failure. The attack on Pearl Harbour was designed to prevent the Americans from 'çharging' across the pacific to attack Japan or the Phillipines... tactics which had been abandoned in 1935, but after Pearl Harbour... Had the Japanese NOT attacked Pearl Harbour they could well have done better. ( until America had to rely on aircraft carriers, conventional wisdom said battleships were more important. had the Pacific Theater been battleship based, Japan would have had a significant advantage. While they would have eventually lost, it could have lasted much longer.)

[Ginger Tea]

As we had an Enigma machine long before WWII (granted we had not cracked it at this point) I often wonder what coded messages we intercepted and chose to ignore, for if we acted on every big planned event then surely they would know their system had been compromised and we would be back to square one.
Sometimes I do wonder if Churchill was given a decoded transmission about an event such as pearl harbour and just destroyed it with a cigar letting it happen, preventing Pearl Harbour delays American involvement and all that jazz.

I just am not that up to American history and more specifically pre WWII, so I don't know if any pre warnings would do any good or not.

Then I also have to remind myself that the Japanese Enigma users would be transmitting in Japanese and just might not be transmitting anything to Germany for permission to do anything, so Germany might not have been as in the loop at the time either.

[s_stabeler]

actually, it's more complicated than that. The Enigma code had been cracked prior to WW2, but it got changed. IIRC, it wasn't broken again until the Battle of Britain. Plus, the mots important messages didn't use enigma, they used a tougher system ( which we also cracked)

As for deciding not to act upon intel, it happened all the time. Most coded messages are actually more along the lines of a shopping list than valuable intelligence. ( obviously not literally a shopping list, but you get the idea) it's a matter for analysts to figure out what is worth passing on.