How can seemingly intelligent people dismiss the eyewitness accounts of hearing explosives?

I'm a member of another forum and recently debated another poster who claims he's an engineer.

The backbone of my case was a video montage of World Trade Center survivors who were in various locations in both the North and South Towers and witnesses saying they heard explosive devices go off. One man says he even saw a series of flashes between the 10th-15th floors of one of the towers.

My position is that 30 people all saying the same thing is credible evidence that explosive devices were planted in the towers.

Mind you, we were only debating the North and South Towers; I hope to engage him in a debate of Building 7, which I believe is the key that all is not as the federal government says it is.

Why can't people see that the official story is full of holes?

Sorry for the rant. I just had to get that off my chest.

You mean like the levees in NO?

People disregard all this because its easier to be in denial. People in denial let things happen around them and its so much easier not to talk about things that are somewhat obscure and of a dark conspirational nature. It takes effort.

Any FBI agent, Police detective, etc.. can tell you ''eyewitnesses'' accounts are not the most accurate form of information. Infact they often can turn out to be very unreliable.

The problem with eyewitnesses

Yes, BIG BROTHER cameras are much better at detecting what it is that big brother wants you to see and hear and smell.

Right.

In a court of law I would believe a $50 dollar black and white security camera over any "eye witness" account

This isnt a court of law. I have faith in the Americans and what they hear.
They are not the enemy, you know...

You guys make good points, but 30, 40 people saying the same thing cannot be dismissed.

It's not that don't I believe the eye witnesses who claim to have heard explosions. I do believe that they heard noises. A building falling down makes a lot of noise. There is no proof that those sounds were actually explosions and not caused by the collapse of the building.

The problem is that people tend to put things into perspectives by saying things like "it sounded like an explosion." This doesn't mean that it was an explosion, it is just what it sounded like.

About 8 years ago, I was in a former industrial building that was undergoing extensive renovation into apartment units. As part of this renovation, the workers were cutting openings in the exterior walls for the balconies. At one point, there was a portion of an exterior wall that had some hidden damage. When the workers went to cut the opening, a 15 foot wide section broke loose and fell about 30 feet to the roof of the adjacent low rise portion of the building. Fortunately, no one was hurt. But all everyone on the job site talked about that day was how it sounded like a bomb had gone off when the wall hit the roof. I was there and it did sound like a bomb from a hollywood movie, a loud reverberating boom.

I have also witnessed a number of intentional building implosions using explosives. In all of these cases I did hear the explosives go off. The sound was quite distinctive. Loud, sharp bangs that, if you are within a few hundred yards or so, you can even feel in your chest cavity as the pressure wave hits you. The sound carries pretty well. In one case, I was almost a half mile away, and I could still distinctly hear the explosives.

Think of how far away you can hear fireworks shows on the fourth of July. You can usually hear them from a fiar distance off, even if you are not at the show.

In another thread on this board are some comments from a demolition/explosives expert. What the conspiracy theorists have conveniently ignored are his comments on how loud these explosives can be.

If there were explosives in the building, there would be a lot more than a handful of eyewitnesses, there would be tens of thousands. Everyone within a half mile of the WTC on 9/11 would have heard them.

Given the vast number of news and private camcorders, video and audio feeds, recorded radio transmissions, etc. How come none of these explosives can be heard on these?

Powermac said:

You guys make good points, but 30, 40 people saying the same thing cannot be dismissed

Yes, yes, they jolly well can.

McMartin trial: fantastic example of why multiple eyewitness accounts are absolutely not irrefutable proof that something did, or did not, happen.

For those 50 who swear they heard an explosive device going off, I'd bet there are just as many who say they didn't - or, simply said they heard an explosion (there does seem to be a difference).

Sorry, but no. There's just far too much evidence (much of it relating to "false memory syndrome", but much of it relating to other instances) to support the notion that "An eyewitness account, even when shared, is not necessarily proof of an event".

Though this article focuses on (of all things) insurance claims, if you scroll down there's some great (and independently verifiable - the info is accurate) bits relating to the problem of eyewitnesses and memory.

And from this article

In 1999, the APA's Div. 41 (American Psychology-Law Society) reviewed a number of cases that were later overturned, and found an eyewitness error rate of an astonishing 90%.

90%.

Ninety percent.

We're human beings, not robots - and we're prone to errors.



[edit on 10-9-2005 by Tinkleflower]

Howard, you make a relatively good point that they could be mistaken in what they heard. However, you do fail to understand the following:

Hundreds of people saw and heard what they thought were explosions -- many said like bombs were placed. Now I don't know about you, but I was always taught what looks like a duck and sounds like a duck is probably a damn duck.

Could they have been mistaken? Certainly. But it would be unreasonable to dismiss this many eyewitnesses -- especially when your basic logic behind it would be their ignorance.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
It's not that don't I believe the eye witnesses who claim to have heard explosions. I do believe that they heard noises. A building falling down makes a lot of noise. There is no proof that those sounds were actually explosions and not caused by the collapse of the building.

A lot of these testimonies report the explosions going off way before collapse. Like, right after the impacts, or during the fires. The people who heard explosions during the collapses said things like hearing the floors being blown out one by one, and then three big explosions, etc. But those weren't the only times that explosions were reported.

Originally posted by Tinkleflower
Sorry, but no. There's just far too much evidence (much of it relating to "false memory syndrome", but much of it relating to other instances) to support the notion that "An eyewitness account, even when shared, is not necessarily proof of an event".
[edit on 10-9-2005 by Tinkleflower]

Yes, but these eyewittness were recording saying this on this spot. Many reporters said it as the collapses were happening.

I remember one reporter as the building was collapsing saying something along the lines of "I heard a series of explosions, we think there may have been bombs in the building".

These are the original thoughts of the people on the scene before the official story came out. If any thoughts would be planted, it would the official story.

Ok, let me turn this around then. How can the people that don't believe a plane hit the Pentagon not believe the eyewitness accounts? I found a website with dozens of eyewitness accounts from people on the freeway, to Pentagon workers claiming they saw an American Airlines 757, no doubt whatsoever in their minds, but people are still arguing that it wasn't even an airplane, and conveniently ignore them.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Ok, let me turn this around then. How can the people that don't believe a plane hit the Pentagon not believe the eyewitness accounts? I found a website with dozens of eyewitness accounts from people on the freeway, to Pentagon workers claiming they saw an American Airlines 757, no doubt whatsoever in their minds, but people are still arguing that it wasn't even an airplane, and conveniently ignore them.

Well that's quite a strawman defense there. The easy explaination is because these are people who are looking for a truth in an ocean of lies.

There are eyewittneses that say both they saw a plane and a few that say they saw a missile.

I personally do not buy the missile hit the pentagon theory, but idea is a whole different topic than this.

Why is it different? Both are talking about people not believing eyewitnesses. And I wasn't using it as a defense, I was asking an honest question. I get told that I'm sheeple and an idiot for not believing there were explosives in the WTC, but the people that don't believe it was a plane are told they're seeking the truth. I have heard many explanations for explosions in the WTC, and I have yet to see evidence of either of them that convinced me.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Why is it different?

Because you have no people claiming there were no explosions
Everyone heard them (everyone besides howard), we just don't know what caused them.
The eye-witnesses from the pentagon are somewhat evenly distributed between big plane/small plane. So it's hard to know who to believe.

I heard lots of people saying SOUNDED LIKE explosives. That doesn't mean they WERE explosives though. Like it was pointed out, if there were explosives going off in the WTC they would have been heard for quite a distance. There were plenty of other things in the buildings that would cause explosions, and explosive like sounds. You had miles of gas pipes with gas in them, you had electrical transformers, etc.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Ok, let me turn this around then. How can the people that don't believe a plane hit the Pentagon not believe the eyewitness accounts? I found a website with dozens of eyewitness accounts from people on the freeway, to Pentagon workers claiming they saw an American Airlines 757, no doubt whatsoever in their minds, but people are still arguing that it wasn't even an airplane, and conveniently ignore them.

I think this is a good point. Like someone else brought up, though, a lot of people said a lot of different things regarding what they saw at the Pentagon. Hearing explosions seems a little more straightforward and easily remembered than identifying a plane as it zooms over head at hundreds of miles per hour and explodes into a building, especially if that plane happened to be painted up like a commercial 757.

If you hear an explosion, there's not much more you can make out of that, though. Maybe some people here would argue that these people heard no explosions, and only think they did when remembering back, sort of like how Winston only thinks he remembers that Oceania was at war with their current ally, but I don't think I would buy 30 or so people all imagining the exact same things in retrospect.

Oh, I doubt they were imagining hearing explosions. I am just saying that there are other possibilities than just explosives for the cause of them.

Originally posted by Zaphod58
Oh, I doubt they were imagining hearing explosions. I am just saying that there are other possibilities than just explosives for the cause of them.

Ah, yeah, I guess. One would think that it would be hard to mistake an explosion for something else, and I think that some of the testimonies were obviously explosions (like the firefighter hearing an explosion and then having his helmet blown off), but then again, one's memory would be a lot easier to fuzzy on how loud a sound was or exactly what it sounded like. Maybe some of the testimony is based on something other than an explosion, but I think there are some testimonies that are too detailed to throw out, though.