Hoax-Promoting Videos
Of all the media used to disseminate misinformation and disinformation
videos are perhaps the most effective.
Whereas
websites with disinformation
can be critiqued by other websites which are easily
located using the Web's search capabilities,
a video is unlikely to occupy a shelf with another video critiquing it.
This page reviews three of the '9/11 videos' that have received
some of the most extensive promotion.
The description of videos listed here as "hoax-promoting"
asserts that they promote ideas which function as hoaxes,
not necessarily that the creators of these documentaries
knowingly make false or misleading claims.
Hoaxes are designed to fool people,
and a well-crafted hoax can motivate sincere dedicated people to promote it.
Of the four reviewed videos, Loose Change
shows a willingness by its creators to reject hoax claims,
the film's third edition having far fewer errors than its earlier editions.
In Plane Site
Following the first 9/11 International Inquiry in San Francisco in 2004,
a new video packaged as a sensational exposé of evidence that the
9/11 attack was an inside job burst on the scene.
In Plane Site,
a production of The Power Hour,
features Dave Von Kleist
sitting in front of a wall of computer monitors
and pretending to expose shocking anomalies in footage
from the day of the attack.
The vast majority of Von Kleist's claims are nonsensical,
debunked in the
Parade of Errors section.
Von Kleist's video functions to marginalize the case that the
attack was an inside job by associating that idea with
sensationalism and lack of critical thinking.
The video got top billing in the
Popular Mechanics
attack piece,
which used several of its ill-founded claims to
smear the entire 9/11 Truth community.
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"In Plane Site"
a film pretending to expose 9/11 that is mostly disinformation
(mixed with plagiarism)
a Karl Rove style dirty trick that takes a real conclusion
(9/11 was an inside job)
and uses phony evidence
(pods, dust clouds, flashes, no planes, no windows and other hoaxes)
a few parts of the film are true, but that also discredits by association
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The photo on the cover of "Plane Site"
uses the exact same photo of a 757 that
was posted in early May 2004 to the "911 Truth Alliance" email list
by a member who was debunking the "missile pod" claim, showing that it
is just the normal "fairing" between the wings and fuselage.
Is it a coincidence that the film uses the exact same photo, or is it just
a bad joke hidden "in plain sight?"
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Some people in the 9/11 truth community have promoted
In Plane Site
even while acknowledging that promotes false claims,
saying that it's beneficial because it
"brings people into the movement".
It's certainly true that IPS motivates some people
to get involved.
However, the claim that the video is beneficial to the movement
overlooks three facts:
- Many people are turned away by seeing a video such as IPS,
especially people whose rational sensibilities are offended
by the video's patently ludicrous claims and sensationalism.
- As a tool for motivating involvement, IPS selects
for people who tend to undervalue critical thinking skills
and scientific evaluation of evidence.
Such people will tend to promote IPS and other flawed materials,
playing into the stereotype of 9/11 conspiracists as lunatics.
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IPS is, by itself, a powerful tool for smearing the movement,
as the Popular Mechanics piece illustrates.
Any promotion reinforces the case of the movement's detractors.
One of the movement's greatest assets is a physics professor at
Brigham Young University, Steven Jones, who persuasively articulates
the case for the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and Building 7
in a
scientific paper.
Because of Jones' credentials, he addresses the criticism that the
demolition thesis lacks the support of experts.
In a slide presentation Jones has shown to scores of academics,
he states:
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Watching the "In Plane Site" video turned me (and many others)
away from 9-11 "theories" initially -- until I found serious researchers,
scientists looking at hard evidences, and avoiding tenuous speculations.
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Loose Change
In 2005, almost a year after In Plane Site was released,
a second video began to be promoted on websites such as
TvNewsLIES.org
:
Loose Change,
a video whose first edition pushed
most of the same hoaxes as In Plane Site,
but in a different style.
Whereas the Von Kleist video,
coming from the right-wing PowerHour,
seemed designed to appeal to people in the "red states",
Dylan Avery's video seems more suited for audiences in the "blue states".
The cover of the first edition of Loose Change
contains the following text:
What if:
The Twin Towers were not hit by commercial airliners?
The World Trade Center was brought down in a controlled demolition?
The Pentagon was not hit by a 757?
Flight 93 was shot down?
What if?
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This promotion and the video itself,
are suggestive of a classic method of disinformation:
sandwiching valid claims between nonsensical ones.
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In this essay,
Michael B. Green, Ph.D.,
dissects the claims of Loose Change
that missile strikes preceded the crashes of the planes into the Towers,
that the planes were not commercial jetliners,
and that the crash of a jetliner into the Pentagon was faked.
Green draws parallels between Loose Change and In Plane Site,
and shows how they function to discredit challenges to the official story.
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The producers of Loose Change are young
and were relatively new to the 9/11 Truth Movement
when they created the film's first edition.
The film draws on a broad array of websites focused on 9/11 for information.
Given how well-established and expertly marketed the no-jetliners theories are,
it is entirely plausible that Loose Change, first edition,
represents a well-intentioned but undiscerning effort to expose the 9/11 coverup.
It is less likely that some of the people who agressively promoted
early editions of Loose Change
have only the best intentions.
Articles in the
Village Voice
and
San Francisco Chronicle
pull out the stops to promote Loose Change,
apparently as a way of eclipsing more credible work
exposing the attack as an inside job.
Because Loose Change endorses the vacuous
no-jetliner theories,
it invites attack for its insensitivity to the victims.
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“Loose Change” doesn’t present a plausible case for conspiracy,
only a collection of innuendoes. And when those insidious suggestions
are strung together, they imply that nobody actually died in the planes
that hit the Pentagon or plunged into a field in Pennsylvania,
and maybe not even in the planes that hit the trade-center towers.
Somehow, those passengers were all part of a conspiracy, too.
No wonder the film ends with an apologia offering insipid sympathy
(and, incredibly, a free DVD of the movie) to the families
of those who were killed. And no wonder many of those families are bitter
about the filmmakers’ trivialization of their and the nation’s tragedy.
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To the contrary, Loose Change does provide
sufficient evidence to undermine the official conspiracy theory
that the attack was the work of
19 suicide hijackers.
However, it includes so many red herrings
and transparently flawed arguments
that it is unlikely to persuade a great many people of its conclusions
beyond the audience already inclined to accept them.
Because Loose Change, Second Edition is a mixture of
true, false, and unverifiable claims,
it suggests an exercise:
read the film's transcript and guess which claims are valid.
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This interactive review contains the entire transcript of
LOOSE CHANGE 2ND EDITION.
The transcript is broken into points,
and illustrated with graphics from the film.
Each point is ranked using a coin or slug, and commented on.
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The makers of Loose Change
have finished the third edition of their film, Final Cut.
The Second Edition was significantly different than the first,
but Final Cut is an even more significant departure still.
Although it has far fewer errors than Second Edtion,
it has received far less publicity.
9/11 Eyewitness
The DVD 9/11 Eyewitness was rolled out in 2005
with its own website, 911eyewitness.com.
The DVD features footage by Richard Siegel,
who set up his camera across the Hudson and captured most of the attack --
including the collapse of
Building 7,
of which Siegel admits he was warned.
Instead of letting the footage speak for itself,
or providing a credible analysis of the events,
9/11 Eyewitness wraps the idea that the Towers were demolished
in a series of absurd claims.
The DVD:
- Tracks helicopters circling the Towers,
and repeatedly labels one with the caption "mission accomplished".
- Asserts that the destruction of the buildings was a "nuclear attack".
- Claims that numerous explosions preceded the collapses of the
Towers by more than a minute in each case --
explosions that Siegel's microphone alone captured.
- Makes a series of transparently fallacious claims
about the seismic, acoustic, and visual records of the events
in the format of a 'science lesson'.
The review
Rick Siegel's 9/11 Eyewitness: Sensationalism and Pseudo Science
provides a rundown of the film's contents and evaluates its claims.
PentaCon
This film, released in February, 2007,
resurrects Dick Eastman's
Pentagon flyover theory.
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A Critical Review of ‘The PentaCon - Smoking Gun Version’
Pentagon Flyover or “Left/Right” Straw-man Argument?
By Arabesque
Updated: 28/05/07 with revisions.
Abstract:
The purpose of this review is to examine the claims made in the film the
PentaCon.The eyewitness statements in the PentaCon will be examined and
compared with other testimony based on my original research.Although
this analysis is primarily an examination of the eyewitness statements
in the film, some issues pertaining to the physical evidence will also
be briefly examined. It will be shown that although the eyewitness
statements in the PentaCon are largely corroborated by other testimony,
the conclusions of the PentaCon are not supported by their own—or any
other credible eyewitness testimony.
The PentaCon – Smoking Gun Version
The film begins with two scenarios and accompanying visuals
1.
The PentaCon Hypothesis
A commercial plane approaches the Pentagon from NORTH of the CITGO
gas station on 9/11,
and then flies over it
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2.
The ‘Official Story’
A commercial plane approaches from SOUTH of the CITGO gas station on
9/11, knocks over light poles, hits a generator, and crashes into the
bottom floors of the Pentagon.
The first scenario would imply that the Pentagon attack was staged;
lamp pole damage was faked, damage to the generator was faked,
explosives were used to fake the hole damage
(speculation by the PentaCon),
the plane flew over the Pentagon,
and that plane debris was planted.
All of these claims will be examined.
The PentaCon claims that
four eyewitness statements
are “smoking gun proof”
that the entire official story is a “farce.”
The Flight 77 NSTB report study by Pilots for 9/11 Truth
is briefly mentioned and deserves separate study by 9/11 researchers.
[3]
The film tries to make the case that four eyewitness statements are enough
evidence to counter all other physical evidence
(and implicitly, all other
contradictory eyewitness statements).
[4]
One of the main defects of the PentaCon
is that it only considers four eyewitness statements—ignoring a very
large body of eyewitness statements and previous research into the testimony.
Why is this significant?
"Citing only evidence that is favorable
to one side as if no contrary evidence exists is known as
SPECIAL PLEADING."
[5]
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page last modified: 2008-01-25
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