Seeking Review of 9/11 Video Composite Treatise

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

That wacky guy Ace Baker is at it again. He's come up with a book length treatise on 9/11 video composites, and has been posting around asking for review and criticism, like here (http://z15.invisionfree.com/911taboo/index.php?showtopic=727).


Baker claims to bring 22 data sets testing two competing hypotheses:

• The real airplane hypothesis – A real Boeing 767 airplane flew into WTC2 on 9/11.

• The video composite hypothesis – The jet crash was faked by inserting airplane images into otherwise authentic video footage.

He claims all 22 support video compositing and rule out real airplanes.

Maybe the scientists here can comment.

Download the treatise here (http://www.psy-opera.com/Papers/Composites-1-8.pdf).

[Reality Believer]

Two words debunk video fakery: Eye Witnesses.

See that was easy.

[fullflavormenthol]

I have nothing to say. I mean I read this book, and what I can tell you is that this individual has only a superficial knowledge of video compositing techniques. He can discuss issues such as the use of a luma key, but...

Okay what he writes is in a word...nonsense. He based his research off of low quality versions of the footage. He doesn't seem to understand that helicopters drift, and don't hover completely still. He doesn't really understand the inherent complications of compositing live video, and why it is only done in a controlled environment (like a studio). All this paper is is his opinion disguished as "research".

I can't fully explain why. All I can say is that years of video compositing and using a computer like the NewTek will pretty much clue you into what is wrong with his conclusion.

First off there would have to be live motion tracking to match the plane with the movement of the camera. Even a slight movement would be noticable. Motion tracking is an expensive process on time. To have a computer that could do instant motion tracking is impossible, you need a start and finish position to motion track to. And it would take a lot of computing power to do it.

Can you insert effects onto live video? Yes...the Opening Ceremony for one, BUT it has to be something quick and you would have to be able to compensate for the movement of the camera. And though it may not seem like it, there is a world of difference between poorly faking fireworks; and fooling digital effects artists with images of planes crashing into buildings. Also keep in mind it is easy to put something in the foreground than it is to put it in the background.

Hell he ends up writing about AVID computers being onboard the helicopters, and....well just skip ahead to page 76. He doesn't really understand the concepts he is writing about or at least nothing beyond what he has read. He obviously has no practical knowledge of these systems.

And like Reality wrote...there are always the eye witnesses.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I
First off there would have to be live motion tracking to match the plane with the movement of the camera. Even a slight movement would be noticable.


Not disagreeing with you fullflav, but wouldn't this mean that the airplane motion becomes more stable after you stabilize the footage? Baker claims the opposite.

This seems testable. If the helicopters shots were too unstable to composite onto, then the motion of the real airplane should look unstable on the unstabilized shot.

Am I wrong here?

[Dave Rogers]

I've got as far as the discussion of what Ace rather tastelessly terms "Pinocchio's Nose", and I see he's conveniently forgotten that the plane would have had to slow down, on the video used for compositing, by about a factor of four as it passed through the region overlaid by the tower in the live video. Since I posted this analysis in a thread he participated in, and it was his inability to come up with a convincing counter-argument that led to his more detailed camera shake analysis, I'm absolutely certain that he is not only aware that this analysis has been done, but also knows that he has no response to it. He is therefore being deliberately dishonest when he says, on page 32, "Therefore Pinocchio’s Nose is perfectly consistent with the compositing hypothesis, and impossible under the real plane hypothesis." If all his other points are convincing, why is he deliberately lying about this one?

I really can't be bothered to read any more. Ace is mentally ill, incompetent at his subject and a liar pretending to seek the truth. I've wasted enough of my life on him already.

Dave

[fullflavormenthol]

Not disagreeing with you fullflav, but wouldn't this mean that the airplane motion becomes more stable after you stabilize the footage? Baker claims the opposite.

This seems testable. If the helicopters shots were too unstable to composite onto, then the motion of the real airplane should look unstable on the unstabilized shot.

Am I wrong here?
Not wrong, just mistaken as to how motion tracking actually works. You need to look to the full explanation of motion tracking and not just a snip. You can't do live motion tracking, or at least not with any computer that would fit onto a helicopter. You would need an entire render farm dedicated specifically to tracking the motion of an object. Stabilizing the shot live through the Avid Symphony is just impossible, and not necessary for motion tracking to begin with.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Not wrong, just mistaken as to how motion tracking actually works. You need to look to the full explanation of motion tracking and not just a snip. You can't do live motion tracking, or at least not with any computer that would fit onto a helicopter. You would need an entire render farm dedicated specifically to tracking the motion of an object. Stabilizing the shot live through the Avid Symphony is just impossible, and not necessary for motion tracking to begin with.

But Baker specifically says Motion Tracking was NOT used. My question for you, again was:

If the live helicopter shot was too unstable to composite into, wouldn't that mean that the real airplane motion would also be just as unstable? And then when you stabilized the footage later, the airplane motion would have to become more stable, right?

And Baker says it's just the opposite. He says when you stabilize the footage, the motion of the airplane becomes less stable.

This seems testable.

Have you looked at the footage? Is there any camera motion you can point to that shows the helicopter shot is too unstable to do live compositing, without motion tracking?

[Reality Believer]

I have a question for those addressing Ace's "work". When does a hypothesis become so fundamentally absurd that it doesn't deserve a response? This seems to be one.

The premise of the charge that there were no planes and all the live shots were faked, and all the eye witnesses were deceived somehow is on the level of Godzilla did it, or Space Ghost did it.

What possible purpose does it serve to address this stupidity other than to keep it bumped to the top of message boards? Personal entertainment? :confused:

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

It should then be very easy to just point out the errors in Ace Baker's treatise. To me it looks well written, and I was looking for help in spotting the mistakes.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I've got as far as the discussion of what Ace rather tastelessly terms "Pinocchio's Nose", and I see he's conveniently forgotten that the plane would have had to slow down, on the video used for compositing, by about a factor of four as it passed through the region overlaid by the tower in the live video.

Evidently Baker answered that point already. I found this:


Since the airplane will be disappearing into a layer mask, there is a danger that the plane might run too long, travel too far, and escape out the back side of the mask. One safeguard against this is to have the plane slow down significantly after it has traveled far enough to enter the mask, and before it exits the mask. After doing test shots, it is possible to know the position of the tower within approximately 20 pixels.



http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/05/theory-of-live-911-airplane-composites.html

[Dave Rogers]

Evidently Baker answered that point already. I found this:

But that's a stupid way to try to make sure the plane doesn't exit the far side of the tower. Taking two compositing streams, one with the airplane and the other without, and simply putting the join line within the outline of the tower, is much simpler to do and utterly foolproof. And this is the problem with Ace's entire analysis: when faced with a criticism, he increases the level of complication of his initial analysis, claims that his latest sub-hypothesis must be correct, and doesn't bother to examine whether it's actually a viable way to produce the effect he wants. He has thrown any semblance of parsimony out of the window, and is instead trying to produce a theory, however complex, that cannot be falsified from the data he already knows to be available.

And the ultimate argument, that Baker can only counter by accusations of deliberate lying on the part of enormous numbers of people who have no reason to do so, is that people saw the airplanes. This alone falsifies his entire hypothesis. He talks of deliberate disinformation, and the tendency of people to believe what the media tell them to believe, but when faced with the testimony, here on JREF, of people who had actually seen flight 175 hit the North Tower, he ran away.

By trying to debunk Baker's description of how the videos could have been faked, anyway, we're missing the point. Anyone can propose an implausible hypothesis that nevertheless can't be falsified, particularly if they're able to invoke non-existent technology that they can claim is secretly possessed by the conspirators. The side of the picture to address is his claims, not about how it could have been done, but about why there is anything implausible about the videos depicting the impacts as they actually happened. I'll take a look through the file and see if there's anything there that holds water; so far, I'm up to page 11 and have seen nothing but simple arguments from incredulity.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

By trying to debunk Baker's description of how the videos could have been faked, anyway, we're missing the point. Anyone can propose an implausible hypothesis that nevertheless can't be falsified, particularly if they're able to invoke non-existent technology that they can claim is secretly possessed by the conspirators.

Dave

But Baker's claiming they used off-the-shelf technology. He says it was an Avid system for the live composites. If we're going to debunk Ace Baker, we should not strawman the man.

[fullflavormenthol]

But Baker specifically says Motion Tracking was NOT used. My question for you, again was:

If the live helicopter shot was too unstable to composite into, wouldn't that mean that the real airplane motion would also be just as unstable? And then when you stabilized the footage later, the airplane motion would have to become more stable, right?

And Baker says it's just the opposite. He says when you stabilize the footage, the motion of the airplane becomes less stable.

This seems testable.

Have you looked at the footage? Is there any camera motion you can point to that shows the helicopter shot is too unstable to do live compositing, without motion tracking?
Okay let me explain it this way. If you composite an image of an airplane moving across a live shot; than the result would be that the plane would stay in the same place while the rest of the footage moved. The end result would be the plane moving up and down and around in such a way that would both be physically impossible and be completely obvious. As in the plane would always be completely centered or tied to the movement of the camera.

So in order to tie a moving object to the motion of other objects in the shot; meaning to allow it to appear as a natural object that isn't moving with the camera you would have to motion track. As of this date...there is no software I know of that allows the production of live motion tracking a stabilization. You can set the camera to stabilize, but that doesn't help for the purpose of live compositing.

Avid Symphony cannot do what Ace is saying it can. I am familiar with this system as well of the New Tek Tricaster. Neither system is capable of this, and to do anything close to real time stabilization and motion tracking you would need a small render farm. Meaning that you would need an Avid Symphony and a series of blade servers loaded onto serveral news helicopters as well as multiple graphics technicians.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Ace Baker is not saying Avid does real time motion tracking. I've read his work, don't strawman him. He is saying the shot was stable enough to composite without motion tracking. I'm saying this appears to be a testable claim.

You claim the Chopper 5 footage was too unstable to composite without motion tracking. If a real airplane flies across this unstable shot, then the real airplane will automatically follow the camera motion, because it's real.

Therefore, if the Chopper 5 shot was too unstable to composite without motion tracking, and the airplane is real, then the apparent motion of the airplane would become more stable if you went and stabilized the footage afterwards, correct?

Also, if you took the raw unstabilized footage, and attempted to match the motion of the airplane with a constant speed, you would not be able to match it, correct?

But you WOULD be able to match the motion of the airplane with a constant speed once you went and stabilized the footage, correct?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

In fact, if I read him correctly, Baker is using the impossibility of real-time motion tracking to support his claim that there were no flying objects of any kind.

[Hokulele]

In fact, if I read him correctly, Baker is using the impossibility of real-time motion tracking to support his claim that there were no flying objects of any kind.


And everyone else is using the impossibility of fooling or faking hundreds of eyewitnesses to support the claim that Ace is full of it.

[Slayhamlet]

Steven, what exactly is your relationship with Mr. Baker again?

[fullflavormenthol]

Okay. It is completely obvious to me that you are not paying attention to what I am actually writing. What I am telling you is. YOU CANNOT STABILIZE FOOTAGE IN AVID, NEW TEK TRICASTER, FCP, AE, VEGAS WITHOUT USING A MOTION TRACKER.

It doesn't matter that he doesn't say they used motion tracking! Trying to separate the concepts too much just goes to show that his work is not thoroughly researched, beyond reading the Avid website. OKAY?!? So in order to stabilize footage (which is done by motion tracking) the system must be able to analyze a piece of footage from start to finish. You can't do it live.

Placing a plane image over Luma keyed footage wouldn't fool anyone (if it were being seen live) for two obvious reasons. 1...the Luma Key would be constantly changing due to unstable light conditions. (I would recommend any number of free tutorials on the subject available from any number of websites.) The flux of pixels would be seen by everyone watching the footage. Chroma and Luma keys are used in studio conditions, or in an editing room...if you want to remove sky from outdoor shots, but it takes more than a few seconds. 2. The plane would always stick to the movements of the camera. This doesn't happen in real life. If the plane is going on a set movement and the camera tilts up, then the plane shows up lower in the shot. If live composited without tying it to a motion tracker it would move up as the camera tilts up. Stabilizing the footage (motion tracking) could help...but the minute you destabilized the footage the plane would return to unrealistic movements. FACT. The only way to make the plane look natural with the camera would be to tie it directly to a motion tracked/stabilized layer. NONE OF THIS COULD BE DONE LIVE.

Hence...unless you find some live footage taped on the day of 9-11-01 that shows a plane moving forward and then straight up and then backwards, etc. Chances are what was there was really there.

I don't know how much more simple I can make this for you? Motion tracking/Stabilization are the same process. Stabilization deals with the footage layer, and motion tracking deals with the compostiting layer. Either they cannot be made seperate.

Ace Baker doesn't know video editing, and playing the agnostic selectively quoting people isn't going to help the cause. Even if I can't dumb it down enough for the average person to understand...the fact is you cannot do what he is attempting to claim.

[fullflavormenthol]

Ace Baker is not saying Avid does real time motion tracking. I've read his work, don't strawman him. He is saying the shot was stable enough to composite without motion tracking. I'm saying this appears to be a testable claim.

See above statement.

You claim the Chopper 5 footage was too unstable to composite without motion tracking. If a real airplane flies across this unstable shot, then the real airplane will automatically follow the camera motion, because it's real.

Um...no. If a real airplane flys across any shot it moves independentely of the motion of the camera.

Therefore, if the Chopper 5 shot was too unstable to composite without motion tracking, and the airplane is real, then the apparent motion of the airplane would become more stable if you went and stabilized the footage afterwards, correct?


Also, if you took the raw unstabilized footage, and attempted to match the motion of the airplane with a constant speed, you would not be able to match it, correct?

But you WOULD be able to match the motion of the airplane with a constant speed once you went and stabilized the footage, correct?

Sure..why not? Anything can be done in a post edit. Unfortunately Baker's entire argument is that these shots were faked live and in real time. Hence it is incorrect. There is no computer or software in the known production world that can accomplish live stabilization (motion tracking), so his argument is null. Unless he is able to point out where this highly advanced and secret technology rests.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Fullflav,

Real objects in a real video are not independent of camera motion, they are dependent on camera motion. If the camera moves down, the object will appear to move up. If the camera moves left, the object will appear to move right.

I'm trying to test your claim against Baker's claim. You've convinced me, and I think Baker agrees, that real time motion tracking is not possible.

For the third time, Ace Baker does not claim that real time motion tracking was used. He is saying that the shot was steady enough to composite on without motion tracking. Evidently the camera was mechanically stabilized with a gyroscopic mounting system.

You are claiming the shot was NOT stable enough to composite on.

Using the AVAILABLE Chopper 5 footage, as it exists, this would seem to be a testable claim, one way or another.

Have you done any study of the footage, to see whether or not is too unstable to composite?

Aren't there measurements that could be made to show what you're talking about? If the shot was unsteady to begin with, as you claim, that would mean that the apparent motion of the airplane would be unsteady, exactly corresponding to the camera shakes, right?

Right?

When the camera moved up, the plane (and everything else in the picture) would move down, correct?

And you could measure this instability, on the existing Chopper 5 footage, right?

And you could point it out to us, right?

Will you please do so.

[fullflavormenthol]

Fullflav,

Real objects in a real video are not independent of camera motion, they are dependent on camera motion. If the camera moves down, the object will appear to move up. If the camera moves left, the object will appear to move right.

Which would mean that the object is independent of the camera motion. Dependent would mean that it follows the camera motion. You are not actually reading what I am writing.

I'm trying to test your claim against Baker's claim. You've convinced me, and I think Baker agrees, that real time motion tracking is not possible.

Hence computer stabilization of the footage in real time is impossible. Okay so we agree.

For the third time, Ace Baker does not claim that real time motion tracking was used. He is saying that the shot was steady enough to composite on without motion tracking. Evidently the camera was mechanically stabilized with a gyroscopic mounting system.

And for the last time it wouldn't work that way even with a gyroscopic mounting system. You see the channel 5 strip and logo, well given that it doesn't stay steady with the rest of the footage is the best indicator that the footage wasn't stable enough to composite unto.

You are claiming the shot was NOT stable enough to composite on.

Not in an effective or believable way...no.

Using the AVAILABLE Chopper 5 footage, as it exists, this would seem to be a testable claim, one way or another.

Sure. Take the footage and put a picture of a flower in it. You see how it moves all around. Well that is what happens without motion tracking.

Have you done any study of the footage, to see whether or not is too unstable to composite?

Yeah. By the way...how many years experience do you have in video editing/compositing? How many years experience do you have working with Avid systems? Do you notice how you made one claim at the start and are now backing away from it? You were at once claiming computer stabilization was used until such time as I pointed out that it was dependent on motion tracking?

Aren't there measurements that could be made to show what you're talking about? If the shot was unsteady to begin with, as you claim, that would mean that the apparent motion of the airplane would be unsteady, exactly corresponding to the camera shakes, right?

Everything in the shot would be unsteady. So when zooming in and measuring it would all move slightly with the motion of the helicopter...yes.

Right?

I said yes. Or are you trying to puff yourself up while pretending to be stern?

When the camera moved up, the plane (and everything else in the picture) would move down, correct?

And you could measure this instability, on the existing Chopper 5 footage, right?

And you could point it out to us, right?

Will you please do so.


Your questions could be answered by simply doing some independent study, you know actually looking into Video Compositing and not just reading one paper that discounts eye witnesses and claims that there was an Avid computer with the ability to stabilize and then destabilize the shots on the fly without using motion tracking even though you have to to stabilize a shot through the programs.

And I could give you my professional opinion based on the footage, and I already have. I have 4 years experience in video compositing, including graphics and digital effects. That isn't hobbyist experience either. I mean you don't even have a clue about any of this, that was obvious the moment you claimed that an object like the plane is dependent on the camera. I mean that is just silly.

No matter what I say you will claim it isn't good enough. You will continue to play the agnostic card. If you have already made up your mind than that is fine, admit it. If you refuse to do any research on your own than that is fine, admit it. But don't expect me to sit here and explain digital video compositing to you while you hold up the opinion (excuse me...unfounded speculation) of someone with no experience in this subject. Anyone with any Avid experience could quickly point out the flaws in his logic.

Whatever. All I am saying is you can't do what he is saying with any known software or computer. Unless the CIA has some super secret special effects program we don't know about.

Analyzing the footage would show that the camera moves left and then shifts back the right, and does a small bump; it does this several times as the plane moves in. Now when I composite in an object moving on the same path as the plane it doesn't move at all with the other objects, meaning it is tied to the position of the camera. This is evidence of a fakery, since we can rule out motion tracking/computer stabilization; it would seem by all evidence the plane seen in the video is actually there. You see the image composited in by me has a little bounce when compared to other objects. Like the WTC buildings. Again remember a dependent camera object is tied to the camera, while independent objects will appear to move down when the camera tilts up, will appear to move left with the camera pans right, etc.

I could do better if I had access to a higher quality version, but my basic observation is the same. If the shot was live, than it is an actual plane hitting an actual building. Could it be faked? Not live, but yeah I did a good job of it for my test, but another artist would easily spot the fake.

BTW...spell my name right.

[Dave Rogers]

This is all a waste of time anyway. It's not necessary to address Ace's claims about how the video compositing could have been done; even if it turns out to be possible, it's irrelevant. It's only necessary to address his claims as to why he thinks there could not have been real airplanes. If these can be rejected, then the rest is pointless speculation, given that many eyewitnesses report seeing the real planes.

Dave

[jhunter1163]

And everyone else is using the impossibility of fooling or faking hundreds thousands of eyewitnesses to support the claim that Ace is full of it.

Fixed that for you, Hoku. ;)

[Hokulele]

Fixed that for you, Hoku. ;)


:)

I was originally going to use "thousands", but was afraid of being accused of hyperbole. Which actually leads to an interesting question, how many people really were eyewitnesses to the second tower strike? I know that more than one person on this board saw it happen right in front of them, and I have met someone personally who claims to have watched it happen from an office window, but could some people be mistaken? Were some people watching, but not at the critical moment?

It reminds me a bit of asking the residents of Boston whether or not they were watching in 1986 when that ball rolled between Bill Buckner's legs. After seeing the clip on TV so many times, there are many people who truly believe they were watching when it happened, many more than can be accounted for by ticket sales and TV ratings.

[jhunter1163]

After the first plane hit, the eyes of lower Manhattan were riveted on the WTC. There were probably tens of thousands of eyewitnesses to the second plane.

And I didn't see Buckner's error live... just about 10,000 times on tape. ;)

[Hokulele]

After the first plane hit, the eyes of lower Manhattan were riveted on the WTC. There were probably tens of thousands of eyewitnesses to the second plane.


Thousands it is.

Every now and then, I forget the scale of New York. Living on an island whose entire population could probably fit in one Manhattan block, it is easy to lose perspective. It doesn't help much that everything happened before 4 am our local time, so the only possible way for me to have seen anything was on film.

And I didn't see Buckner's error live... just about 10,000 times on tape. ;)


As did I, my heart breaking each time. Although the *%&$*! Sox still had a chance to win the game even after that error.


[/derail]

[jhunter1163]

Not to mention, there was still game 7... #$%^%^#$!!!

[Hokulele]

Not to mention, there was still game 7... #$%^%^#$!!!


Ah well, at least it made 2004 all the sweeter.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Which would mean that the object is independent of the camera motion. Dependent would mean that it follows the camera motion. You are not actually reading what I am writing.



A semantic problem.

The real-world position of a real object is independent of camera movement.
The apparent position of a real object is dependent on camera movement.

There is a ball over there. I shoot it with a camera. Does the ball appear on the left of the picture, or on the right?

Answer: It depends on where I point the camera. Therefore the apparent position of the object is dependent on camera motion.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Analyzing the footage would show that the camera moves left and then shifts back the right, and does a small bump; it does this several times as the plane moves in. Now when I composite in an object moving on the same path as the plane it doesn't move at all with the other objects, meaning it is tied to the position of the camera. This is evidence of a fakery, since we can rule out motion tracking/computer stabilization; it would seem by all evidence the plane seen in the video is actually there. You see the image composited in by me has a little bounce when compared to other objects. Like the WTC buildings. Again remember a dependent camera object is tied to the camera, while independent objects will appear to move down when the camera tilts up, will appear to move left with the camera pans right, etc.

I could do better if I had access to a higher quality version, but my basic observation is the same. If the shot was live, than it is an actual plane hitting an actual building. Could it be faked? Not live, but yeah I did a good job of it for my test, but another artist would easily spot the fake.

BTW...spell my name right.


Did you do this analysis, or are you just speculating? It's not clear from your post.

If you did it, please post your results somewhere and let's have a look.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Moderators, would you please move the discussion of Buckner's error to an appropriate thread. Thank you.

[funk de fino]

Ace baker was destroyed on hardfire recently by a real expert and has not taken it too well

Thousands of eyewitness negate the need to discuss his fantasy further as do the plane parts which rained down on Manhattan

[16.5]

Steven Lupo Grossi:

Well, I've scanned through Ace's work. He does not bother much with evidence now does he? "Real news helicopters would not do this" Please Ace.

Anyhow, here is Ace being dismantled by a real expert

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=hardfire+ace+baker&hl=en&emb=0&aq=f#

The other Hardfire clips with Ace the No Planer are on that site as well.

Enjoy!

[fullflavormenthol]

Did you do this analysis, or are you just speculating? It's not clear from your post.

If you did it, please post your results somewhere and let's have a look.
Yes I analyzed it. Why post anything though? Like I said you are not going to accept it anyway. Besides...http://video.google.com/videosearch?...en&emb=0&aq=f# is a lot better than anything I could post. Steven Wright has more experience and if you don't acknowledge that then you are not the slightest bit serious about finding a review.

I answered the OP, and I can force you to take an honest look at anything.

Besides the entire theory fails on the basis of thousands of people witnessing the event.

AGAIN...I reviewed it. It is crap for the reasons listed. You don't like it than fine. No point in spending a week debating every lunatic theory.

[fullflavormenthol]

A semantic problem.

The real-world position of a real object is independent of camera movement.
The apparent position of a real object is dependent on camera movement.

There is a ball over there. I shoot it with a camera. Does the ball appear on the left of the picture, or on the right?

Answer: It depends on where I point the camera. Therefore the apparent position of the object is dependent on camera motion.

http://video.google.com/videosearch?...en&emb=0&aq=f#

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2432158918700622833

Done. This is the better explaination, it still holds with what I was getting at; but he does a better job, and explains other issues at work. If you are serious than view the link.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I've seen the Hardfire. Steve Wright only analyzes the stabilized footage. He makes the same assertion as you, that the raw footage would be too shaky to composite on.

I know Ace Baker did the exact same type of tracking test, on both the stabilized and raw footage. He was able to track the airplane in the raw footage just fine with a constant velocity outline.

That's why I was asking you the questions you avoid.

I started out thinking and saying Ace Baker was a complete lunatic. I know him because I published a different work of his on a different subject. But I can tell when questions are being avoided.

I find his compositing book very interesting. Seems all you guys want to do is ignore it.

[Mangoose]

I looked through it but couldn't find any discussion of how those "real" massive gaping holes in both towers were created, with those massive structural columns mostly ending up inside the building than outside (as would be expected in a blast). C'mon Ace, surely that's relevant to comparing both "hypotheses".

On p. 47, he says: "We know that at some point in time, an airplane-shaped hole appeared in the side of the tower." So please tell us: HOW!?!?!

On p. 51, he says: "A jet fuel explosion cannot possibly break steel. High explosives which can cut steel, do so by moving air very fast, from 10,000 feet to 30,000 feet per second. Whatever sort of explosions took place within the twin towers, the orange fireball was moving air no more than about 100 feet per second. This is 2 orders of magnitude too weak. Ask any explosives expert. The idea of cutting steel box columns with kerosene is ridiculous." So HOW?!?!? were the columns cut? Where were the high explosives placed, if that was what caused the hole? Were the explosives outside of the building?

[fullflavormenthol]

I've seen the Hardfire. Steve Wright only analyzes the stabilized footage. He makes the same assertion as you, that the raw footage would be too shaky to composite on.

I know Ace Baker did the exact same type of tracking test, on both the stabilized and raw footage. He was able to track the airplane in the raw footage just fine with a constant velocity outline.

That's why I was asking you the questions you avoid.

I started out thinking and saying Ace Baker was a complete lunatic. I know him because I published a different work of his on a different subject. But I can tell when questions are being avoided.

I find his compositing book very interesting. Seems all you guys want to do is ignore it.
Your has been answered. You just refuse to acknowledge the answers. Because you have come into this thread being completely misleading already having the conclusion that Baker is correct. Fine. Than there is not point to the discussion; and I have avoid nothing. You merely have moved the goal posts so that you can retroactively claim that I have avoided a question.

Whatever. Copy and paste this to you favorite no-planer forum and claim a victory. Ace Baker has been refuted. Fact.

I gave my review of his work, and that is done.

[funk de fino]

I find his compositing book very interesting. Seems all you guys want to do is ignore it.

ignore this

Thousands of eyewitness negate the need to discuss his fantasy further as do the plane parts which rained down on Manhattan

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Ok, we'll move on.

Unstable motion is point 8 out of 22. Let's discuss point 10, what Baker calls Magically Healing Columns.

In the Hardifre show, Steve Wright admits there is enough video resolution to see the broken wall, and admits that the wall is not broken after the right wing passes.

Wright claims the jet fuel explosion enlarged the hole.

In other words, Wright claims that kerosene breaks steel. Ace Baker says kerosene cannot break steel. Who's right?

[funk de fino]

Ok, we'll move on.

Unstable motion is point 8 out of 22. Let's discuss point 10, what Baker calls Magically Healing Columns.

In the Hardifre show, Steve Wright admits there is enough video resolution to see the broken wall, and admits that the wall is not broken after the right wing passes.

Wright claims the jet fuel explosion enlarged the hole.

In other words, Wright claims that kerosene breaks steel. Ace Baker says kerosene cannot break steel. Who's right?


Thousands of eyewitness negate the need to discuss his fantasy further as do the plane parts which rained down on Manhattan

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

But can a kerosene explosion cut steel? Steve Wright the expert says yes, and Ace Baker the nutjob says no.

Who's right?

[pomeroo]

It should then be very easy to just point out the errors in Ace Baker's treatise. To me it looks well written, and I was looking for help in spotting the mistakes.


Why not review Ace's two 'Hardfire' debates with video compositing expert Steven Wright? Trust me, anything Ace asserted last April that got totally refuted by Wright will be recycled in his book--minus the refutations, of course. Ace never advances a single step. His massive, incurable delusion has destroyed his life.

[pomeroo]

But can a kerosene explosion cut steel? Steve Wright the expert says yes, and Ace Baker the nutjob says no.

Who's right?


Ace's mad canard has been destroyed by Ryan Mackey, among others. See if you can find where Wright actually makes this claim.

[pomeroo]

At my request, Ryan Mackey graciously sent me his comments on several of Ace's lunatic romps through Bizarro World. I present them in no particular order:

Ron
The only "physics" I could find in that nonsense was a reference to the "wake vortex." The vortices in question are not actually the wake vortex but instead the wingtip vortices, which create two parallel vortex tubes behind the aircraft as the (higher pressure) air underneath the wings attempts to spill around the wingtip to equalize with the (lower pressure) air above the wings.
Wingtip vortices can be strong, but they are strongest at low speeds and close to the ground. Neither aircraft was slow or close to the ground.
Furthermore, these vortices would also interfere with the structure, being not parallel to the wall hit, but perpendicular. Finally, there are numerous other sources of vorticity, such as the impact itself and the release of thermal energy. Convection also creates vorticity, and the smoke would be convected in that much larger vortex ring preferentially.
We do not expect to see the wingtip vortices dominate the smoke after impact.
Finally, for the coup de grace -- there ARE photographs of wake effects.
First, turn to NCSTAR1-5A, figure 6-2 to begin. You will note two distinct smoke plumes, but this is only a few seconds after the first aircraft impact. There's only one source of smoke. The second smoke plume defines a vortex core created by the aircraft's overall motion washing around WTC 1, and then drifting away from the structure. This actually is the "wake vortex," not a wingtip vortex, though most of the actual vorticity comes from shear around the sides of WTC 1. This would not have happened if there had not been a massive and fast-moving object immediately prior to impact. The wake vortex increases with speed and is not affected by altitude, thus we expect it to be much stronger than the wingtip vortices.
Figure 6-3 shows the same situation from another angle a few seconds later. The vortex core created by the impact has moved further away and extended towards the ground, probably entrained downward by falling debris as heat also convects it upwards. However, since vorticity is conserved (this is the fluid equivalent of "conservation of angular momentum"), this means since it gets taller, the vortex core also has to get tighter.
Perfectly ordinary behavior if you know what to look for.
Something similar happened at WTC 2, but it's not as clear because the air is filled with smoke from WTC 1. In Figure 7-10 you can see three distinct plumes, with the left-most and lightest plume (midway between WTC 2 and the
bridge) being similar to the wake vortex core shown in Figs. 6-2 and 6-3.
WTC 2 also punched through much more than WTC 1 so the fireball at impact was more dramatic, and thus the thermal convection was more dominant.
Figure 7-9 clearly shows the strength of the convection in the white plume just to the left of the building. However, this plume is also extending downward, as the smoke again fills the vortex core created by the aircraft's wake rolling around the structure.
In other words, Mr. Baker and Dr. Reynolds don't know what they're talking about. These photographs -- which they probably are not even aware of -- clearly demonstrate very large-scale fluid phenomena that could only have been created by a large aircraft. These are the "wake vortices" that they claim are not there. The wingtip vortices that they are thinking of and incorrectly identifying are small by comparison, and it's no surprise at all that they are not seen.
Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

[pomeroo]

Ryan Mackey wrote:

I don't remember a specific thread to that effect. There probably was one, but I put Ace on Ignore so long ago that if I made any such commentary, it was probably in 2006.
It's not a good argument either way, however. As we all know, there were large, billowing fireballs after the impacts -- very fuel-rich deflagrations as an estimated 25,000 pounds of fuel cooked off in a few seconds. There is plenty of energy, but it's not likely that much of this was directed at structure.
Because they are deflagrations (poorly mixed, randomly ignited, and uncontained) the maximum pressure pulse was probably in the 1-3 PSI range. We know this because there were survivors from the impact floors. Along lines of dynamic pressure, i.e. in the path of the momentum vector, felt pressure would have been much higher, but the fireballs would contribute only slightly. The blast is surely enough to enlarge the holes through breaking windows and such, but I don't believe the fireballs caused any meaningful structural damage. This is true of the other fuel explosions as well, viz. Willie Rodriguez's basement explosions, which did destroy windows and doors and things but didn't damage the structure, and didn't actually kill anyone.

Additionally, NCSTAR1-2B spends some time looking at the edges of the holes. Every structural failure on the impact faces is labelled according to failure mode -- failure between sections, weld failure within a section, brittle fracture, and necking failure -- and this was used as one of the validation criteria for the impact models. None of the structural failures are consistent with overpressure from within, as would be expected had the fireball contributed to enlarging the hole. All are due to impact. This is not necessarily true for the much smaller holes made opposite the impacts, but in those cases separating debris impacts from dynamic pressure is splitting hairs.

Cliff's Notes version: The jet fuel explosions blew out some windows, but they were too low pressure to damage steel structure.

Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

[pomeroo]

Baker states his case and Mackey responds (I hope I'm not violating the MA here, but it is helpful to read the argument in Baker's own words):

> The CNN airplane video shows the right wing of UA175 past the wall,
> yet no damage to the wall is seen. The video resolution is more than
> enough to see the hole, is present at that time. This is because a
> later frame of the same video, at the same resolution shows the hole.
> Steve Wright agrees with that, and claims the hole must have been
> "enlarged" by the jet fuel explosion.
>
> I believe that enlarging the hole with a kerosene explosion is not
> possible. I'm pretty sure the air in such an explosion only moves
> around 100 feet per second, and that high explosives capable of
> breaking steel move air at 10,000 to 30,000 feet per second.
>
> Of course the third hypothesis is that it is simply a video composite
> airplane.
>
> Is there a fourth hypothesis I've missed?

Yes, there are numerous other hypotheses. Let me state, however, that I agree with you that the pressure caused by kerosene deflagration is not likely to be very high, probably in the range of a few PSI. The force of the blast will be almost negligible compared to the inertia of the aircraft and the fuel, and this is one of the reasons why NIST didn't estimate any blast damage at all, instead modeling the impacts as inert but frangible objects.
But there are other hypotheses. First, a great deal of the fluid's momentum could be turned back towards the outer wall. NIST's models predict that the fluid would exert a huge force on the floors, both above and below the impact, enough to smash holes in them near the impact. This is because the fluid, once freed of the fuel tanks, behaves as a turbulent jet. At impact a large amount of its momentum will be converted to vorticity, and some of this will "splash" towards the hole. That would cause the damaged wall sections to blast outward in a few tenths of a second.
However, there isn't much blast seen. The hypothesis I favor is different. Instead, think of what happens to the wall segments right after the aircraft passes. The perimeter columns are severed, and no longer tied to the floors above. The floor connections to the side may still be there, but the floor itself is heavily damaged. Large sections of the floor, however, would still be attached, and would also still be experiencing a burst load as the aircraft debris worked its way through the structure.
This would introduce a sudden and very large inward pull on the damaged column sections -- sections that are now only attached at one end, and the spandrels. These columns have virtually no strength to resist this, and are likely to fail inward, in a matter of tenths of seconds.
There is also perspective to think about. As shown in Figure 7-9 of NCSTAR1-2B, the right wing of AA175 did not destroy panels outboard of the engine. This is partly due to the fact that the aircraft had been violently maneuvering, and was rolled to the left, thus the wingtips and especially the raised wing contained relatively little fuel. Additionally, the rolled right side appears to be "above" the fuselage, and perspective may lead to the impression that the wing did not leave a distinct lobe in the hole. The other wing hole looks larger, even though it's simply a difference of geometry.
I don't know if this resolves the physics problem, but it should illustrate that there are many plausible mechanisms for this behavior, even assuming what we see on the video is accurate. There is also much more than resolution in the video to consider -- among the factors, contrast.
Right after impact, local destruction could fill the hole with dust and fuel vapor, for instance, enough to create the illusion of a filled or partially filled hole. There's far too many possibilities to consider this potential anomaly as definitive.

Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

[pomeroo]

The Conclusion of the Debate (again, it is necessary to know what Mackey is responding to):

> Mackey,
>
> Thanks for a reply. Thank you for agreeing with the obvious and proven
> fact that the video resolution is more than sufficient to see a gaping
> hole. I must have said that 100 times on JREF, and posted the evidence
> and reasoning to support it. With Wright in the game now, I suppose
> you have to back him up. It would have been nice for you to have said
> that a year ago, instead of allowing the cast of agents to prevaricate
> indefinitely.

Actually, Ace, I did not. I have no idea what video you are looking at, and cannot -- and did not -- speculate about its resolution. Presumably some hole would be visible, but who knows how much. You also would need to define "gaping" more precisely before your statement could be evaluated.

> The plane interacts with the perimeter for about 6 video fields, or
> 1/10 sec. So. . . the plane broke the columns, not at the welds,
> rather severing the columns in the exact shape of the plane so you
> can't see a hole. The remaining columns stayed exactly where they
> were, the force that was enough to break them, was not enough to move
> them inward. The airplane which was strong enough to slice through the
> columns perfectly, also disintegrated, but we don't see any damage
> occurring to the plane because . . . I must have missed that part.

I'm perplexed at you claim that "you don't see any damage occuring to the plane." The plane would be inside the structure after impact, and presumably no longer visible on the video.
This is leading me to wonder if, perhaps, what you assume is initial contact is in fact a shadow, cast by the airplane before impact, and the hole that appears later isn't the actual damage.
There are lots of possibilities.

> Study Fairbanks. After the plane goes in, thee is a pause and then the
> south, east, and north faces all explode. The east and north faces
> have a big orange and black fireball. But the south face explodes into
> mostly white dust. It looks strangely like what happens to the entire
> tower an hour later. Why does the south face explode anyway? And why
> does all the concrete powder wait so long to come out, if it is from
> the airplane impact?

What makes you think the "dust" is concrete? Why not glass, aluminum panels, and/or drywall?
Needless to say, this line of inquiry will get you nowhere. You do not have proper controls to do more than speculate. Your speculation seems to be quite limited in scope. This does not rise to the level of interest.

Thanks,
Ryan Mackey

[pomeroo]

Normally I would apologize for posting such a profusion of material. Ryan Mackey's work is simply too important to share only with a group of no-planers, It deserves the widest audience possible. I hope everyone reading his responses appreciates the depth of knowledge and the analytical mastery that undergird them.

[Arus808]

Dont know how many times this must be said:


Thousands of eyewitness negate the need to discuss his fantasy further as do the plane parts which rained down on Manhattan

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Pomeroo,

I searched and I don't find your quotes in the treatise. ALso, Mackey doesn't seem to know which video was being discussed, and speculates about shadows and whatnot.

Thanks for the post though, wherever it may have come from.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Seems there is general agreement that kerosene cannot break steel, let's move on.

Another interesting item in the treatise is Baker's claim that both live videos share nine compositional characteristics.

• Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.
• High contrast between sky and tower edge
• Plane path is across sky only.
• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.
• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.
• Actual impact point is hidden.
• Exploding walls are hidden.
• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.
• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


He says that these are precisely the characteristics required for live compositing. Absent any one, live compositing becomes impossible. Given all nine, live compositing is feasible, according to Baker.

Baker claims that it is extremely unlikely that all of these happened by chance. True or false?

[R.Mackey]

Those were e-mails, and technically one is not supposed to post e-mails without the author's consent, which I hereby give to deflect any "rules lawyers" from causing trouble.

The point is that we have photographic evidence of large-scale vortex phenomena. Even assuming some magical technology existed to create special effects TV programming of the aircraft, and even if the thousands of people who saw AA 11 hit WTC 1 and the hundreds of thousands who saw UA 175 hit WTC 2 are all bought, liars, or holograms, we nonetheless have irrefutable, independent evidence of the hits.

Not to mention the Naudet video, words of those like Stanley Praimnath, the debris from the aircraft, remains of passengers, calculations that match the impact damage to aircraft hits very well, etc. etc...

Unless Ace presents an entire hypothesis, he cannot challenge the existing theory. He doesn't even try. Plus, he's mad. Let's not consider him anymore.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The point is that we have photographic evidence of large-scale vortex phenomena. Even assuming some magical technology existed to create special effects TV programming of the aircraft, and even if the thousands of people who saw AA 11 hit WTC 1 and the hundreds of thousands who saw UA 175 hit WTC 2 are all bought, liars, or holograms, we nonetheless have irrefutable, independent evidence of the hits.

Not to mention the Naudet video, words of those like Stanley Praimnath, the debris from the aircraft, remains of passengers, calculations that match the impact damage to aircraft hits very well, etc. etc...

Unless Ace presents an entire hypothesis, he cannot challenge the existing theory. He doesn't even try. Plus, he's mad. Let's not consider him anymore.

Magical? We know there is real-time compositing, don't we? What would it take to falsify your belief that real-time compositing is not possible?

[R.Mackey]

What are you even talking about?

My "belief" is that the TV news was not fabricated. My evidence is that those events actually happened. Whether or not it is possible to fake those events digitally, no matter what the technique, doesn't even enter into the discussion.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

What are you even talking about?



I was talking about what you said. You said " even assuming magical technology existed to create special effects TV programming of the aircraft. . ."

[R.Mackey]

You're nit-picking. My refutation of Ace's hypothesis stands, regardless of how video compositing is done.

I have no expertise with video. I leave that to experts. Besides, it doesn't matter. There is no hypothesis, no technology, that makes a no-planer argument valid. End of story.

[pomeroo]

Magical? We know there is real-time compositing, don't we? What would it take to falsify your belief that real-time compositing is not possible?


Steve Wright is a video compositing expert with many years of experience. Ace Baker is a musician. He is also delusional and ineducable.

What do you know that Wright doesn't? How did you learn it?

Wright refuted all of Baker's absurd claims.

[gumboot]

Ace Baker's entire process can be undermined very simply by three small words:

margin of error

Ace Baker does not account for Margin of Error, and his entire analysis requires that he ignore it. The allowable margin of error easily undermines his entire theory as I have demonstrated numerous times.

Of course all of this is moot.

As Ryan points out, the impacts of AA11 and UA175 happened. This is undeniable fact, supported by a myriad of evidence. Whether compositing of the impact of UA175 is possible is irrelevant. In fact, even if the shot was faked, the impact still happened.

[pomeroo]

Seems there is general agreement that kerosene cannot break steel, let's move on.

Another interesting item in the treatise is Baker's claim that both live videos share nine compositional characteristics.

• Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.
• High contrast between sky and tower edge
• Plane path is across sky only.
• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.
• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.
• Actual impact point is hidden.
• Exploding walls are hidden.
• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.
• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


He says that these are precisely the characteristics required for live compositing. Absent any one, live compositing becomes impossible. Given all nine, live compositing is feasible, according to Baker.

Baker claims that it is extremely unlikely that all of these happened by chance. True or false?


Did you attempt to read Mackey's comments on wake vortex? Do you understand that Ace Baker has had his head handed to him many times on this and related subjects? Do you understand that Ace knows nothing about physics, but he will always try to howl down real scientists and engineers? Do you get the idea that Ace's madness has been laid bare a thousand times, but he keeps trotting out the same lunacy as though it were the first day of creation.

Please--accept the fruits of my discouraging experiences with Baker. He cannot learn. Period. He is a slave to his illness. NOTHING can ever move him off square one. Following his drubbing at Steve Wright's hands, he announced that he was rethinking his position. In a matter of days, he was screeching that Wright, Greening, and I were all "liars." Can you suggest a reason why a video compositing expert would willingly accept complicity in a mass murder? Are there any video compositing experts who are not in on it? Is Ace capable of conning any of them?

[gumboot]

Seems there is general agreement that kerosene cannot break steel, let's move on.

Another interesting item in the treatise is Baker's claim that both live videos share nine compositional characteristics.

• Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.
• High contrast between sky and tower edge
• Plane path is across sky only.
• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.
• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.
• Actual impact point is hidden.
• Exploding walls are hidden.
• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.
• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


He says that these are precisely the characteristics required for live compositing. Absent any one, live compositing becomes impossible. Given all nine, live compositing is feasible, according to Baker.

Baker claims that it is extremely unlikely that all of these happened by chance. True or false?


This is a classic example of the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. He has arbitrarily selected 9 features and declared them "characteristics required for live compositing".

[Dave Rogers]

Seems there is general agreement that kerosene cannot break steel, let's move on.

Let's not. One question hasn't been answered. Ace's analysis is based on a single frame from a compressed video, that shows features he claims are incompatible with a plane impacting the wall. Notwithstanding that the spatial resolution may be great enough to show such effects, what about the effects of compression? We don't know whether this is an I frame, P frame or B frame, or how much information loss would be expected from compression and reconstruction. Quite simply, Ace is assuming that this video still is a photograph, and it isn't.

Another interesting item in the treatise is Baker's claim that both live videos share nine compositional characteristics.

• Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.
• High contrast between sky and tower edge
• Plane path is across sky only.
• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.
• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.
• Actual impact point is hidden.
• Exploding walls are hidden.
• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.
• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


He says that these are precisely the characteristics required for live compositing. Absent any one, live compositing becomes impossible. Given all nine, live compositing is feasible, according to Baker.

Baker claims that it is extremely unlikely that all of these happened by chance. True or false?

As Gumboot rightly says, this is the Texas Sharpshooter fallacy. In a little more detail, not all of these features necessarily aid video compositing, not all are in fact true, and there are other features of the shot which make video compositing more difficult, and which Ace has ignored. Let's look at a few examples.

First of all, the very brief appearance on screen of the airplane doesn't make things any easier at all. If the airplane were on screen for a longer period, that would imply a larger field of vision, which would make any errors in the plane's position smaller and hence harder to detect. Therefore, arguably, the very brief appearance on screen actually makes video compositing harder.

The plane path across sky only is an interesting one. It was, of course, not necessary for the pilot to fly low enough to cross other buildings from a vantage point at or below the airplane's altitude, because the Twin Towers were so much higher than any other structures in New York. Therefore, the best way to ensure that the shot was suitable for video compositing would be to shoot from lower down, from another building rather than from a helicopter. Since the conspirators were able to site cameras wherever they chose in Ace's hypothesis, choosing a helicopter shot actually makes things more difficult. This is also reflected in point 8; the helicopter motion is another factor that would complicate the compositing of the shot.

Baker says that both the impact wall and the exploding wall are hidden, which is geometrically impossible and actually contradicted by one of his later assertions, that the shadow of the emerging debris is not seen on the exploding wall. He says that all surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden, but what such surfaces were there? He can only be talking about the impact face. Therefore, his nine points are actually reduced to seven, because he's claimed the impact point as hidden twice, and the exploding face isn't hidden.

Now let's look at panning, tilting and zooming. The absence of these from the one second of footage that shows the actual plane is hardly surprising, as both the cameraman and the helicopter pilot would have wanted to keep the shot as stable as possible. This point is therefore meaningless. But the point that really speaks against Ace's analysis is the fact that the shot zooms in from a wider angle shot just before the appearance of the plane. The plane, in fact, enters shot about one frame after the zoom finishes. Why make things harder in this way? It requires the beginning of the composited video segment to be timed to an unnecessarily high level of precision, and the absence of a visible airplane from the preceding wide angle shot is one of Baker's own arguments in favour of video compositing. Both of these problems could have been avoided by simply zooming in a few seconds sooner, so that the timing was easier and the plane would not have been expected to appear on the wide angle shot.

And finally, the Chopper 7 video, Ace's other candidate for a composited video, doesn't share these characteristics. Why set up the perfect shot for one camera when the other one is simply left to give the game away? As usual, Ace's conspiracy requires the conspirators to show a mixture of complex foresight and fatal negligence.

So the question "true or false" has to be answered "false, and irrelevant". To summarise, the characteristics chosen are not necessarily beneficial as Ace claims, other desirable beneficial characteristics are absent, and the set of characteristics are not shared between the two videos Ace claims as evidence.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy occurs when something ordinary is claimed to be extraordinary, by invoking arbitrary rules after the fact.

The classic example is shooting at the broad side of a barn. If you shoot first, then go and paint a small target around wherever the bullet hit, after the fact, that's the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy. If you draw the target first, and can shoot a bull's eye, that is not the Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy.

Are the principles of video compositing arbitrarily constructed by Baker? No, they are what they are, separate from 9/11 and separate from Baker. Were they created after the fact? No, the principles of video compositing existed prior to 9/11.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

And finally, the Chopper 7 video, Ace's other candidate for a composited video, doesn't share these characteristics.

Dave

Baker says it does. Which characteristics from the list do you claim are absent from Chopper 7?

[funk de fino]

Baker says it does. Which characteristics from the list do you claim are absent from Chopper 7?

Thousands of eyewitness negate the need to discuss his fantasy further as do the plane parts which rained down on Manhattan

[Dave Rogers]

The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy occurs when something ordinary is claimed to be extraordinary, by invoking arbitrary rules after the fact.

Agreed.

Are the principles of video compositing arbitrarily constructed by Baker?

That depends what you mean by "the principles of video compositing". What we are discussing here is not a set of principles that were well-known before 9/11 and can be referenced in some independent form. What we are discussing is a set of nine (or in fact, as I pointed out, seven) observations about the Chopper 5 video which Baker has made, after the fact, and chosen to use as the basis for constructing a scenario. Having constructed his scenario to be consistent with these observations, he then points out that in order for his scenario to be consistent with these observations, all his observations need to be true. This is a circular argument, but it is masked by Baker by his use of the words "principles of video compositing" to describe what is in fact no such thing, but a simple set of observations.

No, they are what they are, separate from 9/11 and separate from Baker. Were they created after the fact? No, the principles of video compositing existed prior to 9/11.

If this is true, then please provide evidence from some document created prior to 9/11 which states a set of "principles of video compositing" sufficiently close to the none observations listed by Baker to be considered the same principles.

Baker says it does. Which characteristics from the list do you claim are absent from Chopper 7?

Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.
Exploding walls are hidden.

Dave

[8den]

Seems there is general agreement that kerosene cannot break steel, let's move on.

Another interesting item in the treatise is Baker's claim that both live videos share nine compositional characteristics.

• Very brief (<1 second) appearance and disappearance of plane.


Bollocks. NTSC video runs at 29.97 fps. I would consider the disappearance of the plane for a frame to be suspicious. And considering Ace is consistently using streamed internet video we have to consider the compression method to turn NTSC to either .avi .mov .mpeg or similar
and then the further compression to create a flash video.


• High contrast between sky and tower edge

The sky is bright, it has the sun in it.

• Plane path is across sky only.

Because the WTC are considerably the tallest buildings in NY?

• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.

Doesn't happen

• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.

No.

• Actual impact point is hidden.

Nein.


• Exploding walls are hidden.

Incorrectamundo.

• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.

Your point caller?

• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


So?

[/quote]


He says that these are precisely the characteristics required for live compositing. Absent any one, live compositing becomes impossible. Given all nine, live compositing is feasible, according to Baker.
And Baker is staggeringly wrong.


Baker claims that it is extremely unlikely that all of these happened by chance. True or false?Baker is an idiot. oh and


PS WHAT ABOUT ALL THE FREAKING EYEWITNESSES?

[ktesibios]

Something that might be worth pointing out with regard to "no-planer" claims: as part of their study of what happened to the wtc towers, NIST constructed detailed models of a 767 and the impact zones of each tower and used computer simulation to predict the damage that would be done by a plane hitting each tower at speeds and angles derived from the available photo and video record. You can read about how these models were built up and validated, piece by piece, in NCSTAR 1-2.

The results were that the predicted damage to the exterior walls tallied nicely with the actual damage observable in photos of each tower post-impact. See pages 269 & 277 of NCSTAR 1-2.

They also modeled the expected damage to an engine and compared it to the engine found at Church and Murray Streets, again with good results. See p. 287 of NCSTAR 1-2.

Researchers at Purdue University have done their own independent modeling of the crashes and their results also tally with the observed damage. See this page (http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/cmh/simulation/phase3/index.html) for more.

So, if Baker is correct, the eevil gummint conspiracy faked the videos of UA175 hitting the South tower live and on the fly. But that's not all they had to do. They had to come up with a way to produce plane-shaped holes in the facades of both buildings- holes that were bashed in, not blown out, implying that they can make bombs that suck inwards instead of blowing outwards. They also had to do all this fakery in such a way that when speed and trajectory information derived from their faked videos was used in setting up initial conditions for an impact simulation, the results would closely correspond with the actual damage done by their magic implosion bombs. This had to be done so well that more than one team doing independent simulations would obtain the same results.

While they were at it, they also had to arrange for pieces of the planes and the people on them to fall onto the streets of Manhattan and the roofs of nearby buildings.

A conspiracy smart enough to accomplish that deserves to rule the world, because they would be the only people on the planet competent to do it intelligently.

If Christophera taught us anything, it's that crazy people can construct remarkably rich post hoc rationalizations of absurd delusional beliefs. Baker appears to be doing much the same thing.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Bollocks. NTSC video runs at 29.97 fps. I would consider the disappearance of the plane for a frame to be suspicious. And considering Ace is consistently using streamed internet video we have to consider the compression method to turn NTSC to either .avi .mov .mpeg or similar
and then the further compression to create a flash video.

According to the treatise, Baker has interlaced .mov files made from a VHS source. They are not streamed internet videos, and they are not flash.

By "Disappearance", I believe Baker is referring to the entrance and exit of the airplane in the picture. In both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7, the plane enters from the right, and goes across right to left, and "disappears" behind the edge of the tower.





• High contrast between sky and tower edge

The sky is bright, it has the sun in it.



Yes, but Baker is pointing out the contrast between the sky and tower - bright sky, dark tower. This is what makes for a consistent and easy luma key mask. If the shot was from the other side, the tower face would also be bright, and it would be difficult or impossible to pull a key.


• Plane path is across sky only.

Because the WTC are considerably the tallest buildings in NY?


Yes, but it depends on camera angle. Some 9/11 shots look downwards and see smaller buildings in the background. Other shots look upwards, and see smaller buildings in the foreground. The Park Foreman shot, for example. The plane passes behind other buildings on the way.


• Plane disappears across straight vertical edge.

Doesn't happen


Um, what? Of course it does. Whether you think the plane was real, both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7 show a plane disappearing behind the vertical edge of a tower.


• All surfaces requiring airplane shadows are hidden.

No.


Um, what? Can you please point to an airplane shadow visible in either Chopper 5 or Chopper 7? I have looked, I can't find one. I'd have to say Baker is right about this.


• Actual impact point is hidden.

Nein.


Um, what? UA175 impacted the south face of WTC2. This is not visible in either Chopper 5 or Chopper 7.


• Exploding walls are hidden.

Incorrectamundo.


Based on the other videos, I think it was mostly the south and east faces of WTC2 which had the big fireball. Those are the hidden faces in Chopper 5. In Chopper 7, I don't believe you can see WTC2 at all.


• Camera is as stable as possible, helicopter drifts very slowly to the left.

Your point caller?


I think Baker's point is that compositing on an unstable shot is not possible in real-time.


• No panning, tilting, zooming or focusing while airplane is on screen


So?


I think Baker's point is that real-time compositing is not possible on a panning, tilting, zooming or focusing shot.

8Den, your post is exactly the type of thing that has me wondering about this whole deal. You've just gone and said a bunch of things that aren't true at all. If there was nothing to this compositing idea, you wouldn't have to do that.

[pomeroo]

According to the treatise, Baker has interlaced .mov files made from a VHS source. They are not streamed internet videos, and they are not flash.

By "Disappearance", I believe Baker is referring to the entrance and exit of the airplane in the picture. In both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7, the plane enters from the right, and goes across right to left, and "disappears" behind the edge of the tower.





Yes, but Baker is pointing out the contrast between the sky and tower - bright sky, dark tower. This is what makes for a consistent and easy luma key mask. If the shot was from the other side, the tower face would also be bright, and it would be difficult or impossible to pull a key.



Yes, but it depends on camera angle. Some 9/11 shots look downwards and see smaller buildings in the background. Other shots look upwards, and see smaller buildings in the foreground. The Park Foreman shot, for example. The plane passes behind other buildings on the way.



Um, what? Of course it does. Whether you think the plane was real, both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7 show a plane disappearing behind the vertical edge of a tower.



Um, what? Can you please point to an airplane shadow visible in either Chopper 5 or Chopper 7? I have looked, I can't find one. I'd have to say Baker is right about this.



Um, what? UA175 impacted the south face of WTC2. This is not visible in either Chopper 5 or Chopper 7.



Based on the other videos, I think it was mostly the south and east faces of WTC2 which had the big fireball. Those are the hidden faces in Chopper 5. In Chopper 7, I don't believe you can see WTC2 at all.



I think Baker's point is that compositing on an unstable shot is not possible in real-time.



I think Baker's point is that real-time compositing is not possible on a panning, tilting, zooming or focusing shot.

8Den, your post is exactly the type of thing that has me wondering about this whole deal. You've just gone and said a bunch of things that aren't true at all. If there was nothing to this compositing idea, you wouldn't have to do that.


Baker was exposed by Steven Wright. Is there a video compositing expert who Baker is capable of conning?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

That depends what you mean by "the principles of video compositing". What we are discussing here is not a set of principles that were well-known before 9/11 and can be referenced in some independent form.

If this [a set of principles of compositing] is true, then please provide evidence from some document created prior to 9/11 which states a set of "principles of video compositing" sufficiently close to the none observations listed by Baker to be considered the same principles.



Steve Wright is mentioned in Baker's treatise often. I found his website, and he has written a book on the principles of video compositing. Wright says:

"Another important feature [of ‘Digital Compositing for Film and Video’] is that all of the [compositing] techniques described are "software independent" - they are general principles that can be done in any software package. They even work in Adobe Photoshop."

[emphasis added]

http://www.swdfx.com/about/author.php

So we establish that there is, in fact, a set of general principles to video compositing. What remains is to show that these principles support Baker's claims.

Here (http://books.google.com/books?id=oA7CRxUV5bEC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16&dq=principle+of+luma+key&source=web&ots=yk2-yu5VvS&sig=QbOn0MK7CZfwwiUWk1NU8RoWN7U&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result#PPA13,M1) is Wright's book on Google.

Read the section on "Luma Key". Luma key works by identifying which pixels are brighter than a certain threshold. Everything brighter is made transparent. It is quite obvious that high contrast between one object and another is exactly what is needed for an effective luma key.

Shadows? Isn't it true that adding correct shadows is very difficult? It requires knowing the 3D geometry of every surface which is to have a shadow. Wouldn't it be easier to compose a shot that required no shadows?

Zoom, tilt, pan, focus? Doesn't a composited image have to follow the background image in every zoom, tilt, pan and focus? At the beginning of the thread, I think we already agreed that real-time motion tracking is not possible, or not reliable. Wouldn't any of these camera moves make a real-time composite impossible?

Short duration? Isn't it true that the longer the composited image, the more chance for error? You couldn't have the airplane on screen for a long time, because the natural reaction would be for the camera op to follow the airplane (i.e. pan, tilt and zoom). Right? So leaving a camera still with no panning, tilting or zooming while there is an airplane onscreen for a long time would look stupid.

[8den]

According to the treatise, Baker has interlaced .mov files made from a VHS source. They are not streamed internet videos, and they are not flash.


As someone who works in news media Baker made a patronising demand that I provide him with copies of the source material; this was last year. If Baker wasn't capable in half a decade to get a beta of the tapes, I'm skeptical that he somehow got a VHS now. Christ VHS? In 2008? Would a studio even do that?


By "Disappearance", I believe Baker is referring to the entrance and exit of the airplane in the picture. In both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7, the plane enters from the right, and goes across right to left, and "disappears" behind the edge of the tower.


Corresponding to Bakers low grade flash video.




Yes, but Baker is pointing out the contrast between the sky and tower - bright sky, dark tower. This is what makes for a consistent and easy luma key mask. If the shot was from the other side, the tower face would also be bright, and it would be difficult or impossible to pull a key.


And you understand the Luma Key limitations of real time graphics software in 2001?


Yes, but it depends on camera angle. Some 9/11 shots look downwards and see smaller buildings in the background. Other shots look upwards, and see smaller buildings in the foreground. The Park Foreman shot, for example. The plane passes behind other buildings on the way.


WHAT ABOUT THE FREAKING EYE WITNESSES?


Um, what? Of course it does. Whether you think the plane was real, both Chopper 5 and Chopper 7 show a plane disappearing behind the vertical edge of a tower.


No it doesn't Baker is using substandard video to prove his claim. Ever seen the JFK was killed by his driver internet movie?


Um, what? Can you please point to an airplane shadow visible in either Chopper 5 or Chopper 7? I have looked, I can't find one. I'd have to say Baker is right about this.


Shadow on what?




I think Baker's point is that compositing on an unstable shot is not possible in real-time.



I think Baker's point is that real-time compositing is not possible on a panning, tilting, zooming or focusing shot.


I think Baker wouldn't know anything about real time compositing if I beat it into him over the head using a Avid DNA box.


8Den, your post is exactly the type of thing that has me wondering about this whole deal. You've just gone and said a bunch of things that aren't true at all. If there was nothing to this compositing idea, you wouldn't have to do that.


EYES WITNESSES YOU, CRETIN, EXPLAIN HOW THIS WAS PULLED OFF IN BROADDAYLIGHT IN MANHATTAN.

Or just admit you are ace.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Next then would be to try to get some sort of statistical approximation on these characteristics.

What percentage of the time does a typical news helicopter drift as slowly as possible?

What percentage of the time does the camera hold with no tilting, panning, zooming or focusing?

What percentage of 9/11 tower shots excluded any surfaces requiring airplane shadows?

What percentage of 9/11 tower shots excluded all but the last 1.5 second of airplane flight?

What percentage of them excluded the south (impact) face of WTC2?

What percentage of them were shot from the silhouette side?

[Hokulele]

What percentage of the people in Manhattan saw a plane?

[Reality Believer]

Steven:

Eyewitnesses. What about eyewitnesses?

Time for you to address the very obvious question.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

As someone who works in news media Baker made a patronising demand that I provide him with copies of the source material; this was last year. If Baker wasn't capable in half a decade to get a beta of the tapes, I'm skeptical that he somehow got a VHS now. Christ VHS? In 2008? Would a studio even do that?


Baker demanded you provide him with copies, eh? Do you have a broadcast-quality copy of Chopper 5?

I note on Baker's blog that he is offering $100,000 to WNYW (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/08/100000-wnyw-chopper-5-challenge.html) for a broadcast-quality copy of Chopper 5 .

If you will read the treatise, Baker explains the sources of the Chopper 5 footage. He says there are only 2 known copies in existence, "Salter" and "Lawson". "Salter" was recorded off of television, on VHS, by persons unknown. Later it was digitized by Salter, and brightened considerably, for reasons unknown.

The other copy is "Lawson", that too was recorded on VHS from television by person unknown. It was digitized as mp4 with frame blending.

[PhantomWolf]

Are the principles of video compositing arbitrarily constructed by Baker? No, they are what they are, separate from 9/11 and separate from Baker. Were they created after the fact? No, the principles of video compositing existed prior to 9/11.

Actually this is only true if you can show that indeed these princples are generated as principles previously and not by Baker. Can you do this?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Actually this is only true if you can show that indeed these princples are generated as principles previously and not by Baker. Can you do this?

Yes. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4074084#post4074084)

[pomeroo]

Actually this is only true if you can show that indeed these princples are generated as principles previously and not by Baker. Can you do this?


Steven Wright now regards Ace Baker as a "bumbling psychotic." In their debates, on what points did Baker prove Wright wrong?

[ktesibios]

Actually this is only true if you can show that indeed these princples are generated as principles previously and not by Baker. Can you do this?

Good point. One thing I've learned from the BAUT forum and Apollohoax.net is that the 'net is positively lousy with people calling themselves image analysts and using ad hoc methods which they made up themselves without actually studying the subject. The "proofs" of popular CTs which result are invariably not worth the electrons they're printed on. This exercise in "THINKIN- UR DOIN IT RONG" is most commonly done with still photos, but video analysis is a nice fertile field for the art of making **** up.

But, to get to the crux of the biscuit, if UA175 did hit the South Tower, then Ace's claims, which distill to the "no-planes" fantasy, are inherently falsified. The pile of evidence that UA175 did hit the tower is so mountainous that it could be developed as a ski resort. Therefore it is 110% pointless to spend time niggling over any of his specific claims. The term "barking mad" doesn't quite do him justice, but it will serve until a more colorful one turns up.

[PhantomWolf]

Yes. (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=4074084#post4074084)

I already read your post on Wright's book, you quote him talking about general principles, but you don't quote him saying what theose priniciples are, nor did you show that Wright's general priniciples are the same as those that Baker claims. Now if you can do that you might start getting somewhere, though not far as even if the shots could have been created, the fact that thousands of people saw the planes negates the claim they were just footage on TV.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Thank you all for the responses to the compositional characteristics. Very educational. Let's move on.

Another claim made by Baker he calls "Down the Memory Hole".

Baker claims that the Chopper 5 airplane was never replayed. The only attempted replay was on CNN, and a logo covered up the plane. He claims the footage was replaced with completely different footage on the official archives.

And to continue with what 8den brought up, Baker claims that broadcast-quality CHopper 5 is unavailable. Baker has evidently made a $100,000 challenge to WNYW if they will license him Chopper 5.

To me, it seems Baker has a point. Isn't it strange they wouldn't replay it? Why not? They replayed footage that wasn't nearly as dramatic.

And why can nobody license the footage? Is that normal?

[PhantomWolf]

This one is a little like claiming that the live footage of Armstrong descending the ladder of Apollo 11 to the moon was different to what they now have as achived footage and asking why that is. It's up to Baker to actually prove that the achive footage is different to the original.

[R.Mackey]

To me, it seems Baker has a point. Isn't it strange they wouldn't replay it? Why not? They replayed footage that wasn't nearly as dramatic.

And why can nobody license the footage? Is that normal?

Let's suppose it is strange. (And true. You have yet to show it's even true, but ignore that for now.) So what? What would that mean?



Answer: NOTHING!

[Reality Believer]

..... Let's move on....

To the question you have been avoiding. You demand answers from the rest of us, but how about you answer ONE QUESTION. just one:

Why did the eye witnesses see Boeing Planes impact the buildings and where are the planes and people you accuse of being "imaginary"?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Let's suppose it [the failure to replay Chopper 5 and the deleting it from the archives] is strange. (And true. You have yet to show it's even true, but ignore that for now.) So what? What would that mean?


To me it would mean they are hiding something.

[R.Mackey]

Yes, but what? What could they possibly hide that makes any difference at all??

Think!

[Slayhamlet]

Anyone else catching a whiff of smelly socks?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

If anyone has anything more to add on "Down the Memory Hole", feel free. Otherwise, let's move on.

Next up is "No Plane in the Wide Shot".

Baker goes to great lengths to calculate where the plane would be in the Chopper 5 opening sequence. On Hardfire, Steve Wright agreed with those calculations, but said that the plane is simply too small to be seen.

Baker offers a control case he says is comparable to Chopper 5. He shot a plane in the early morning, against a bright sky, from 6 1/2 miles, zoomed out. The plane is small and blurry, but it is there in every frame, according to Baker.

I'm not aware of any other test case comparable to Chopper 5.

At least Baker is attempting to back his claim with evidence. Is there any evidence that supports Wright's counter-claim?

[gumboot]

If anyone has anything more to add on "Down the Memory Hole", feel free. Otherwise, let's move on.

The reason these particular impact videos haven't been repeatedly broadcast is quite simple - there's a black out in the middle of the shot which completely ruins it. When there are so many clear quality videos of UA175's impact, it is senseless to use a poor video instead.

Ace Baker's argument is deeply flawed, however. He claims it has only ever been shown again once. I struggle to accept that Ace Baker has watched every single news broadcast in the world since September 11. To claim with any authority that it has never been shown again is total nonsense. He cannot know that.



Next up is "No Plane in the Wide Shot".

Baker goes to great lengths to calculate where the plane would be in the Chopper 5 opening sequence. On Hardfire, Steve Wright agreed with those calculations, but said that the plane is simply too small to be seen.

Baker offers a control case he says is comparable to Chopper 5. He shot a plane in the early morning, against a bright sky, from 6 1/2 miles, zoomed out. The plane is small and blurry, but it is there in every frame, according to Baker.

I'm not aware of any other test case comparable to Chopper 5.

At least Baker is attempting to back his claim with evidence. Is there any evidence that supports Wright's counter-claim?


The explanation for this is pedestrian, and obvious to anyone who has even the most basic understanding of how video cameras work. The fact that Ace Baker thinks his "control case" has any merit demonstrates that he does not have the most basic understanding of how video cameras work.

Simply put, in the wide shot UA175 is too small to be resolved in the frame.

There's also deep flaws in his proposed flight path as UA175 was descending rapidly until moments before impact whereas he shows a smooth more gradual descent towards the target. I haven't looked over UA175's flight path in enough detail to apply it to the video, but I would feel confident saying that Ace Baker's estimated positioning is too low, and it's quite possible UA175 would be above the top edge of the frame entirely.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The reason these particular impact videos haven't been repeatedly broadcast is quite simple - there's a black out in the middle of the shot which completely ruins it. When there are so many clear quality videos of UA175's impact, it is senseless to use a poor video instead.



Which brings up another of Baker's points, the blackouts. Baker says that 2 different network news broadcasts (FOX and CNN) plus one documentary film (Naudet) all have blackouts within 1/4 second of each other.

He wonders, "What are the odds of that happening by chance?"

He also wonders as to the cause of all the blackouts. In Chopper 5, Baker goes through the various claims - Auto Gain Control, Signal Interruption, and Lens Extender. Baker claims these 3 explanations all must be false.

Comments welcome.

[8den]

He also wonders as to the cause of all the blackouts. In Chopper 5, Baker goes through the various claims - Auto Gain Control, Signal Interruption, and Lens Extender. Baker claims these 3 explanations all must be false.

Comments welcome.

a) THOUSANDS OF EYEWITNESSES. Miss that bit.

b) Explain how "all these explanations must be false."

c) There is no blackout in the naudet brothers footage.

Seriously Steven are you Ace Baker?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I am not Ace Baker.

I agree about the eyewitnesses, there's nothing about the eyewitnesses in Baker's treatise. I'm interested in review and comment about the claims made by Baker.

Have you read the work? Baker explains that the Naudet footage of the 2nd plane has an edit, where about 1 second of time is missing. This is at the same time as the Chopper 5 blackout, and the CNN blackout. They all 3 occur within 1/4 second of each other, according to Baker.

Baker also gives reasons for why the different explanations of the blackouts must be false. It's Item #7 beginning on page 34.

[dtugg]

Steven, why do you even care what Ace Baker says? He is obviously insane and has no idea what he was talking about. I know he is wrong without wasting my time reading his crap because I saw it happen in real life and it was exactly as is seen in video.

You agree that a large jet flew into the South Tower even without the video evidence since there were probably hundreds of thousands of eyewitnesses (myself being one of them), right? That means that Ace is wrong about this TV fakery bs. After all, why they hell would they fake video of something that really happened only to be exposed by genius amateur video analysts like Ace? Even if 9/11 was an inside job, large commercial jets flew into the WTC and all the videos and images of that happening are real.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I became interested in Baker's work (I actually know him as Alex Baker) when some surgeons were threatening to sue him for publishing research on another subject.

Despite my respect for that other research, I thought he was crazy on 9/11. But I started reading some of his work, and reading what others were saying to him. It seemed a lot of people were just calling him names, while avoiding his points. Not 100% of the time, but often.

So he comes up with this treatise on 9/11 video compositing. I want very much to believe that Ace Baker is wrong about this. But I can tell when people answer the points, and when they don't.

So I'm determined to raise all of the points Baker makes in his book, and learn what the answers are, if any. If I can get good answers, I will feel much better.

[ktesibios]

Baker has somehow convinced himself that the South Tower wasn't hit by a plane. Now, trapped between an insupportable belief which he cannot permit to be falsified and reality, he's trying to escape by digging a hole in reality.

To maintain his delusional belief, he must somehow deny all the evidence of the airplane impact. But he can't negate the eyewitnesses, nor the aircraft parts and body parts on the streets and rooftops, nor the engineering studies that show the observed damage is consistent with an airplane impact. This leaves him stuck with trying to "prove" that the entire visual record, still and video, is the product of forgery.

The South Tower was hit by a plane. The evidence for this is overwhelming. Since the burning North Tower would have been the cynosure of all eyes (and cameras) within visual range, we expect the impact of UA175 to have been captured on film or video. We are not, however, obligated also to expect that this visual record must fulfill all of the uninformed expectations of an ignorant amateur with a lunatic einredenish to cling to.

Arguing about the fine points of Baker's claims serves exactly as much useful purpose as performing CPR on a bleached skeleton.

Why can you not comprehend this?

[dtugg]

I became interested in Baker's work (I actually know him as Alex Baker) when some surgeons were threatening to sue him for publishing research on another subject.

Despite my respect for that other research, I thought he was crazy on 9/11. But I started reading some of his work, and reading what others were saying to him. It seemed a lot of people were just calling him names, while avoiding his points. Not 100% of the time, but often.

So he comes up with this treatise on 9/11 video compositing. I want very much to believe that Ace Baker is wrong about this. But I can tell when people answer the points, and when they don't.

So I'm determined to raise all of the points Baker makes in his book, and learn what the answers are, if any. If I can get good answers, I will feel much better.

Basically it boils down to this:

Either (A) The US government and the media faked the videos showing the impact of the South Tower impact, perpetrating the greatest, most elaborate hoax ever. This also implies that it didn't really happen despite the vast amount of other evidence to the contrary because it makes no sense to fake video of an event that really happened. Or (B) Ace Baker is totally incorrect in his amateur video analysis.

Which do you think is more likely? If you an even a remotely reasonable person, the answer is glaringly obvious. That is why people here generally don't waste time debunking Ace's delusions and just dismiss him as crazy.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

OK. Here's a YouTube video that shows the FOX5, CNN and Naudet videos side by side at the same time. There appears to be a blackout in each one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISxrR0x3_Mw

Seems there should be an explanation. Baker keeps harping about how the blackout time would show the fate of Pinocchio's Nose.

[Mancman]

Thank you all for the responses to the compositional characteristics. Very educational. Let's move on.

Another claim made by Baker he calls "Down the Memory Hole".

Baker claims that the Chopper 5 airplane was never replayed. The only attempted replay was on CNN, and a logo covered up the plane. He claims the footage was replaced with completely different footage on the official archives.

And to continue with what 8den brought up, Baker claims that broadcast-quality CHopper 5 is unavailable. Baker has evidently made a $100,000 challenge to WNYW if they will license him Chopper 5.

To me, it seems Baker has a point. Isn't it strange they wouldn't replay it? Why not? They replayed footage that wasn't nearly as dramatic.

And why can nobody license the footage? Is that normal?

It was replayed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTpftQBbRrg

[Mancman]

OK. Here's a YouTube video that shows the FOX5, CNN and Naudet videos side by side at the same time. There appears to be a blackout in each one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISxrR0x3_Mw

Seems there should be an explanation. Baker keeps harping about how the blackout time would show the fate of Pinocchio's Nose.

The FOX video comes from WNYW, and the CNN one from WABC. Both are listed as tenants atop WTC1, so signal interruption seems the obvious candidate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tenants_in_One_World_Trade_Center

The Naudet video does not contain a blackout, but simple editing.

[8den]

OK. Here's a YouTube video that shows the FOX5, CNN and Naudet videos side by side at the same time. There appears to be a blackout in each one of them.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISxrR0x3_Mw


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7U6KBtzoxp8

See this video slightly longer, and more of the build up. SEE THE HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE STARING UP AT THE TOWERS.

HOW DO YOU EXPLAIN THAT?


Seems there should be an explanation. Baker keeps harping about how the blackout time would show the fate of Pinocchio's Nose.


The moment of impact is captured. Baker is fecking insane.

[dtugg]

Obviously you don't get it. Just because that is hard to explain (I am sure it has a very rational explanation but I honestly don't care at all), it in no way indicates Ace's TV fakery crap.

There is a reason that people dismiss him as delusional.

[DC]

The FOX video comes from WNYW, and the CNN one from WABC. Both are listed as tenants atop WTC1, so signal interruption seems the obvious candidate: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tenants_in_One_World_Trade_Center

The Naudet video does not contain a blackout, but simple editing.

yes i just saw the same, i didnt remember a blackout in the DVD so i took a look, and no blackout, but it is indeed cut at the point where the blackout is on the Youtube video.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Baker clearly indicates that it is an edit in the Naudet video. I believe he synchronized the 3 videos, and inserted black to hold the missing time.

My question is still the same as Baker's: What are the odds that 2 networks and a documentary all lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?

Why would Naudet edit out 1 second right at that time? After the Naudet edit, the fireball is in picture.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The FOX video comes from WNYW, and the CNN one from WABC. Both are listed as tenants atop WTC1, so signal interruption seems the obvious candidate

Baker claims that in video, "black" is a picture. He says "video sync" was never lost. He says on a signal interruption, the "scan lines" would not maintain coherence.

I don't know . . .

I was hoping for some technical comment.

[DC]

Baker clearly indicates that it is an edit in the Naudet video. I believe he synchronized the 3 videos, and inserted black to hold the missing time.

My question is still the same as Baker's: What are the odds that 2 networks and a documentary all lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?

Why would Naudet edit out 1 second right at that time? After the Naudet edit, the fireball is in picture.

i have the impression in the Naudet video it is from the shaking of the camera, there is another interuption after it, while running.

[pomeroo]

I have been attempting to persuade Steve Wright to do another two shows with me, presenting the material he prepared for the debates with Ace Baker but wasn't able to use. Wright, an extremely genial guy, is understandably reluctant to subject himself to the harassment that attends dealing with twoofers (after Wright permitted Ace to visit him at his home and receive a free seminar in video compositing, Ace repaid the hospitality by calling him a "traitor" and a "liar"). I'd like to know if JREFers would welcome a two-part lecture by Wright. To those posters who have knowledge of video compositing, do you have specific criticisms of Wright's performance last April? Are there issues you want him to address?

[8den]

Baker clearly indicates that it is an edit in the Naudet video. I believe he synchronized the 3 videos, and inserted black to hold the missing time.

He synchronised them did he? Based on what was this synchronism calibrated on ?

Furthermore you're admitting that baker altered the original video, video which he cannot, or cannot be arsed getting the original source.

So what you are saying is the video you have been basing your/ Ace's theories on, have been artificially manipulated.

The sheer idiocy of this claim is obvious to any soul with a modicum of understanding of video formats. US tv works at 29.97fps, Secam/PAL runs at 25 fps, the frame rate that the naudet brothers. So ergo synchronizing the Naudet brothers and CNN footage is just absurd.

Or is this running too far ahead from you, because it seems to escape Ace.

Simply put, you can not synchronize three pieces of footage if one of them is running slower than the other two.

This is just one example of Ace's basic ignorance of the subject matter.
I'm not going to get educated on video composition from a delusional idiot wearing a poodle on his head, and "peace symbol" round his neck who sang "judy judy wood would"

My question is still the same as Baker's: What are the odds that 2 networks and a documentary all lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?

Why would Naudet edit out 1 second right at that time? After the Naudet edit, the fireball is in picture.[/quote]

[DC]

hey, peoples on PAL TV's are not walking slower or faster :)

you can syncronise it, not per frame, but per time

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

He synchronised them did he? Based on what was this synchronism calibrated on ?

Furthermore you're admitting that baker altered the original video, video which he cannot, or cannot be arsed getting the original source.

So what you are saying is the video you have been basing your/ Ace's theories on, have been artificially manipulated.

The sheer idiocy of this claim is obvious to any soul with a modicum of understanding of video formats. US tv works at 29.97fps, Secam/PAL runs at 25 fps, the frame rate that the naudet brothers. So ergo synchronizing the Naudet brothers and CNN footage is just absurd.

Or is this running too far ahead from you, because it seems to escape Ace.

Simply put, you can not synchronize three pieces of footage if one of them is running slower than the other two.


Baker took his Naudet from NTSC source DVD.

• Naudet 2nd explosion. Videographer Jules Naudet. Original video/film format unknown. Interlaced NTSC footage ripped from DVD “ 9/11 – Filmmaker’s Commemorative Edition”.

[8den]

hey, peoples on PAL TV's are not walking slower or faster :)

you can syncronise it, not per frame, but per time


Hey Dic can you point out four electronic devices in your house that are synchronised to the same clock?

You're falling into the same idiotic ideal that 7/7 theorists latch onto, they are shocked that every internal clock on every CCTV camera are all synch'd.

In short DC you're suggesting that the cameras from three crews from three stations should have been synch'd to same clock, and match perfectly. It's one of the basic flaws in CT arguments. Why should these three cameras have perfectly synchronised timecode?

Why DC? Go one gissus a go.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

By the way, have you guys seen this (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/07/theory-of-edited-non-live-911-airplane.html)?

Seems to me Ace Baker demonstrates a pretty fair amount of expertise in compositing.

[DC]

Hey Dic can you point out four electronic devices in your house that are synchronised to the same clock?

You're falling into the same idiotic ideal that 7/7 theorists latch onto, they are shocked that every internal clock on every CCTV camera are all synch'd.

In short DC you're suggesting that the cameras from three crews from three stations should have been synch'd to same clock, and match perfectly. It's one of the basic flaws in CT arguments. Why should these three cameras have perfectly synchronised timecode?

Why DC? Go one gissus a go.

4 Radio Clocks and around 200 Computers in this network are synced with a clock in Prangins Switzerland.

but you are right about this videos, the naudet video comes without a time reference, you have to sync it by the impact, and that is not precise.

[Grizzly Bear]

By the way, have you guys seen this (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/07/theory-of-edited-non-live-911-airplane.html)?

Seems to me Ace Baker demonstrates a pretty fair amount of expertise in compositing.

Second,
There were many people on the ground during the event and the planes were photographed from every single angle, how can all these photos lie?
Ace Baker responds with:

2. All the photos and videos can lie exactly the same as one photo can lie. A single flightpath is created in a 3D program like Lightwave 3D. Then you can easily render that path from any virtual camera angle.

Uh... i think video editing capabilities of today are demonstrated, what's not demonstrated are the capabilities of then, and of coarse the fact that he never addresses how thousands of people were fooled into seeing a supposedly doctored event in person...

A good portion of Manhattan saw the planes hit just by virtue of being there in peron

[fullflavormenthol]

I think the main issue sort of being ignored by Ace is the ability of these things to be done live. Ace seems to cling to the notion that you could simply rehearse said shots, but anyone who has worked in these fields knows that shots are never completely identical out in the field. You can't just rehearse it.

Oh and the fact that there are thousands of eye witnesses to the event.

[ktesibios]

Another thing: the ability to use a tool does not necessarily imply that the user understands how it works well enough to create a truly valid comparison case.

Perhaps video editors (and hobbyist wankers like Ace) are uniformly well-versed in the real nitty-gritty of video signal processing and picture analysis, but my experience in the field of professional audio production is quite different.

I work in a couple of high-end recording studios. Our clientele includes some of the most sought-after and expensive mix engineers in the industry. These guys are artists- capable of flying a console anywhere you might want to go, but they typically have no clue whatsoever about what's going on 1/8" behind the front panel. This makes the ability to create suitably simple explanations of just how, say, an LA-3A and an 1176LN work on completely different principles and can't be expected to sound similar a very useful job skill.

One of the regulars at one of my workplaces earned a B.S. in electrical engineering before getting into the music industry. When he's in, we often wind up talking tech stuff, but I can't assume a given explanation will make sense to him. Once, when I started explaining the working of the gain control element in a Neve compressor with "if you start with the ideal diode equation, rearrange it to give voltage as a function of current and then differentiate that, you'll see that the diode's dynamic resistance is inversely proportional to the bias current" I got a blank look and "Ten years ago I would have understood that".


The fact that Ace could use today's editing tools to create something that resembles the genuine Hezarkhani video should not be taken as meaning that he actually knows what he's talking about.

Anyway, there's no good reason to pick apart his "video fakery" claims. Ace is a "no-planer", trying to support his delusion that there were no plane impacts at the WTC.

He is trying to prove a falsehood. He is wrong right from the outset.

Time spent on the minutiae of his claims is simply time wasted.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

One curious bit in the Baker treatise he credits to someone called Rasga Saias.
Baker claims a contradiction between the CNN Ghostplane video, and the Evan Fairbanks video. Seems there is a particular "puffball" that is below the left wing in CNN, but above the wing in Fairbanks.

Here (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/06/rasgas-over-under-puffball.html) is Baker's study, and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0pP9pNBBlI&feature=email) is a new one.

[beachnut]

One curious bit in the Baker treatise he credits to someone called Rasga Saias.
Baker claims a contradiction between the CNN Ghostplane video, and the Evan Fairbanks video. Seems there is a particular "puffball" that is below the left wing in CNN, but above the wing in Fairbanks.

Here (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/06/rasgas-over-under-puffball.html) is Baker's study, and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0pP9pNBBlI&feature=email) is a new one.
That is pure insanity. This is one pure stupid quest. It is cool when you can dismiss idiot ideas with zero expertise in what they are using purely based on the conclusion.

The arrogance to ignore thousands of eye witnesses, pure insanity. But who has not said this. What a waste of energy. But that sums up the entire truth movement, but at least commenting on the truth movement lets you review:
Energy equals ½ mass time velocity squared;
I reviewed the other day geometry to brush off a squared plus b squared equals c squared as I was studying p4t Balsamo's most obtuse circular motion equations;
All sorts of flying information
Navigation
Variation
INS operation
DME accuracy and use
Physics
Math
The list goes on as you study how stupid truthers are and what specific educational tidbit they missed…

People actually believe this. The terrorist must be laughing at this pitiful group of idiots.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

So what's wrong with the puffballs? A puffball can't be both above and below the wing at the same time, can it?

[pomeroo]

So what's wrong with the puffballs? A puffball can't be both above and below the wing at the same time, can it?


Two questions:

Where in their debate did Ace Baker refute Steve Wright?

Do you understand that Ace Baker is seriously ill?

[pomeroo]

One curious bit in the Baker treatise he credits to someone called Rasga Saias.
Baker claims a contradiction between the CNN Ghostplane video, and the Evan Fairbanks video. Seems there is a particular "puffball" that is below the left wing in CNN, but above the wing in Fairbanks.

Here (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/06/rasgas-over-under-puffball.html) is Baker's study, and here (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0pP9pNBBlI&feature=email) is a new one.


I notice you tend to you ignore everything I write. Rasga Saias is every bit as mad as Ace Baker, and less intelligent--a breathtaking combination of irrationality, sheer stupidity, all-encompassing ignorance, and total ineducability.

He has claimed, among other truly inspired bits of lunacy, that his imaginary conspiracy planted a piece of metal in the street near Ground Zero. Now, no one ever suggested that this piece of metal was part of an aircraft. It has never appeared in the various photo collections of aircraft wreckage. Probably, it is a piece of aluminum cladding. But, Saias believes that the imaginary super-villains planted it to persuade people, many of whom saw Flight 175 crash into the South Tower, that the planes witnessed by tens of thousands of people were real. Asked why the evildoers didn't bother to use to use, uh, an actual aircraft part, Saias replied that they didn't think it was necessary.

Saias came to my attention when he posted a lunatic video on YouTube claiming that shadows on the buildings prove the nonexistence of the planes. Initially, Ace disagreed, but his illness requires him to embrace any insanity that promotes the fantasy movement's mythical take on 9/11. Various video compositing experts, including Steve Wright and Gumboot, tried explaining that the sky itself is a secondary light source, but Saias, of course, knows better.

You can't make up stuff like this. And Rasga Saias is the deranged jackass you are citing?!?! Truly, you have reached the bottom of the barrel.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

My purpose here is to collect feedback on the points raised in Baker's book. What about the puffballs?

[pomeroo]

My purpose here is to collect feedback on the points raised in Baker's book. What about the puffballs?


Why is that your purpose? Ace Baker is mentally ill. Tens of thousands of people saw Flight 175 crash into the South Tower.

Has it ever occurred to you why the no-planers are regarded as too crazy even for some of the dumbest, most irrational cranks in the world? Think about this:

Everyone must agree that well over a hundred thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on the WTC complex after the first plane hit. People were watching from their office windows, as did the wife of one of my closest friends; from rooftops across the river; from their cars on bridges leading into lower Manhattan; from the streets below. Let's pretend that everyone who provided an account of the crash was hallucinating or was employed by the Impossibly Vast Conspiracy. We are left with, oh, maybe 150,000 people who did not flood newspapers with letters or phone-in to talk radio stations to protest that there was no plane.

That doesn't trouble you at all? As Arlene, my friend's wife, puts it: "So when we all screamed at the plane hitting the building, we were really screaming that nothing was happening. How interesting!" In other words, for seven years, the imaginary super-villains have promoted a myth that perhaps a quarter-million people KNOW is untrue?!?!

And absolutely NOBODY ever says anything about it???

Do you have any sense of how totally deranged this no-plane fantasy is?

[Reality Believer]

It is obvious that Steven is here to preach and promote Ace and his craziness. There is no conversation.

Steven, If you want true video experts to weigh in, beyond what has been presented here, then take your questions to a video technical forum somewhere.

You are arguing primarily with logicians here, and you fail completely on this aspect.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Why is that your purpose? Ace Baker is mentally ill. Tens of thousands of people saw Flight 175 crash into the South Tower.

Has it ever occurred to you why the no-planers are regarded as too crazy even for some of the dumbest, most irrational cranks in the world? Think about this:

Everyone must agree that well over a hundred thousand pairs of eyes were fixed on the WTC complex after the first plane hit. People were watching from their office windows, as did the wife of one of my closest friends; from rooftops across the river; from their cars on bridges leading into lower Manhattan; from the streets below. Let's pretend that everyone who provided an account of the crash was hallucinating or was employed by the Impossibly Vast Conspiracy. We are left with, oh, maybe 150,000 people who did not flood newspapers with letters or phone-in to talk radio stations to protest that there was no plane.

That doesn't trouble you at all? As Arlene, my friend's wife, puts it: "So when we all screamed at the plane hitting the building, we were really screaming that nothing was happening. How interesting!" In other words, for seven years, the imaginary super-villains have promoted a myth that perhaps a quarter-million people KNOW is untrue?!?!

And absolutely NOBODY ever says anything about it???

Do you have any sense of how totally deranged this no-plane fantasy is?

I know. What you say makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the inability to respond to Baker's points. I'm smart enough to know when people are just blabbering.

I don't care how insane you think the guy is. I want my own peace of mind. To get peace of mind, I need these points of Baker's refuted.

We were on "puffballs". I see exactly what these guys are talking about. There's a white smoke ball, and it's below the wing in one video, and it's above the wing in another video. That weirds me out.

[pomeroo]

I know. What you say makes sense. What doesn't make sense is the inability to respond to Baker's points. I'm smart enough to know when people are just blabbering.

I don't care how insane you think the guy is. I want my own peace of mind. To get peace of mind, I need these points of Baker's refuted.

We were on "puffballs". I see exactly what these guys are talking about. There's a white smoke ball, and it's below the wing in one video, and it's above the wing in another video. That weirds me out.


I'm not suggesting that you're as crazy as Ace. But, why do you care about "puffballs"? Ace's insanity manifests itself in his eagerness to jettison all logic. He posits a group of super-villains who have faked every video showing Flight 175 hitting the South Tower. All of these different videos, taken by media professionals and amateurs alike, share a common feature: all of them contain flaws that are not discernible by video experts, but are obvious to a studio musician. The evildoers are sufficiently careful to slow down the plane as it passes through the building, but they are careless enough to leave in the nose cone as it emerges out the other side. To Ace--and everybody else!--it is obvious that the nose would not have survived the crash. When informed that the debris bursting out the building is certainly not the nose cone, Ace waves his hands and moves on to another fantasy.

[fullflavormenthol]

Well the easiest refutation is the fact that there are eye witnesses to the event. There are a diverse grouping of videos, by both professionals and amateurs. Case closed. Planes hit the towers. Wasn't that easy?

Beyond that it seems obvious that no explanation would suffice for those who believe that every single video was composed by an elite cadre of video compositing/special effects experts; using technology that no one seems to be able to get their hands on. Most of the "mystery" seems to rest on the fact that a news station doesn't want to hand over their video to a no-planer. Which is their right. It might just be that they don't want their stations good name further associated with someone who is a non-expert that will only "find" a reason to accuse them of a conspiracy all the while claiming that those thousands of eye witnesses are liars.

Ace himself seems to be under the belief that no one really saw the planes hit, he even says this in the Hardfire program. There seriously is no reason to debate this further, as absolutely nothing would fly through the ever changing goal posts. No matter how many people with video compositing/special effects experience say that it could not be done live you will inevitably come up with a reason to argue that it could.

[jhunter1163]

I wonder if Ace Baker would mind telling Stanley Praimnath just what it was that flew through his window and killed all his co-workers.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

So there's no answer for the inconsistent puffballs. Let's move on.

There appears to be a missing shadow in Chopper 5. Whether the nose-out is supposed to be the nose, or an engine, or a landing gear, or dust, there is no shadow crossing the face of WTC2.

The Naudet video, plus the Gamma Press video, show the nose-out event, and they each have a dark shadow going diagonally across the face.

Baker claims that shadows do not take a day off. What is the response to "missing shadow"?

[jhunter1163]

I wonder if Ace Baker would mind telling Stanley Praimnath just what it was that flew through his window and killed all his co-workers.

I guess there's no answer to this question either.

[ktesibios]

Here's a suggestion: seek out a board or newsgroup where video pros hang out and inquire there. (don't ask me where- I'm an audio guy so TV people are my natural enemies.)

While you're at it, why not also visit a theology board and demand a point-by-point refutation of the gomer standing on the street corner with a cardboard "THE END IS NIGH" sign. It would be just as worthwhile an activity.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

But I thought 8den, FullFlav and Gumboot are video pros?

They hang out here!

[fullflavormenthol]

But I thought 8den, FullFlav and Gumboot are video pros?

They hang out here!
Yeah, and nothing anyone says will convince you. So we are done here. Good day.

[Slayhamlet]

So there's no answer for the inconsistent puffballs. Let's move on.

There appears to be a missing shadow in Chopper 5. Whether the nose-out is supposed to be the nose, or an engine, or a landing gear, or dust, there is no shadow crossing the face of WTC2.

The Naudet video, plus the Gamma Press video, show the nose-out event, and they each have a dark shadow going diagonally across the face.

Baker claims that shadows do not take a day off. What is the response to "missing shadow"?

No one here is the least bit interested in entertaining your pernicious nonsense, Ace. Just give up and leave.

[Dave Rogers]

So there's no answer for the inconsistent puffballs. Let's move on.

Please stop doing this. Just because nobody has produced an answer that meets your requirements, that doesn't mean that (a) there is no answer or (b) the discussion can be closed on this point. I note that Ace's puffball analysis is based on frames from blurred videos, and so is highly subjective; the features he's claiming are by no means as clear as he wants you to believe. The still from the Fairbanks video that, Ace claims, shows the puffball emerging above the left wing, is clearly from an instant after the left wing has penetrated the building, so it's impossible to determine whether the feature is above or below the wing at this moment. Its absence from the previous shot suggests that either it's occluded by the wing, which is consistent with Ace's theory that it's above the wing, or it hasn't appeared yet because this still slightly precedes the still from the Naudet video in which the puffball is first seen. The second interpretation is reasonable, because the wing is clearly visible in the first Fairbanks still, vanishing into the wall in the second Naudet still, and invisible in the second Fairbanks still. Therefore, the whole puffball analysis rests on accepting a subjective interpretation of a poor-quality picture, and rejecting other equally plausible interpretations. It's a non-issue.

The Naudet video, plus the Gamma Press video, show the nose-out event, and they each have a dark shadow going diagonally across the face.

Baker claims that shadows do not take a day off. What is the response to "missing shadow"?

The shadow is visible in the Chopper 5 video. I can't upload it because it exceeds a limit, but I can see it perfectly clearly. Because of the geometry of the shot it appears nearly vertical, but it's really very obvious. I can't think of any other response to this one; apparently Ace honestly believes he can't see a shadow, and apparently you agree with him, but there's a clearly visible dark band across the supposedly shadow-free picture. Have another look.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Chopper5MissShad.gif

Naudet (L), CHopper 5 (R). Flashing shadow added to Chopper 5.

What shadow?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Over-Under-Puffball.gif

Note that in Fairbanks, you can see exactly where the alleged left wing entered, after it has entered, and the puffball is well above it.

[funk de fino]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Over-Under-Puffball.gif

Note that in Fairbanks, you can see exactly where the alleged left wing entered, after it has entered, and the puffball is well above it.

perspective is not your friend

the puffballs to me (as an ex jet aircraft tech) look like the engines coughing as they are destroyed

then again

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

perspective is not your friend

the puffballs to me (as an ex jet aircraft tech) look like the engines coughing as they are destroyed

then again

So what?

The point is not WHAT the puffball is, the point is WHERE the puffball is.

It's in different places in different videos.

[Corsair 115]

Considering the obvious amount of pixelation in the linked videos in posts #136 and #137, trying to make any definitive conclusions about what exactly is transpiring and what details are or are not visible strikes me as a fool's errand.

The linked videos do not have sufficient resolution to do any sort of meaningful analysis!

[Drudgewire]

The linked videos do not have sufficient resolution to do any sort of meaningful analysis!

Why is this so hard for them to grasp??? :hb:

[Corsair 115]

Why is this so hard for them to grasp???I honestly don't know. And I'm not a video expert; my experience with the importance of resolution comes from the publishing/printing field. You can't reproduce a photo on a high-quality magazine page using a 72 dpi source image. Heck, even a store flyer printed on relatively low quality newsprint uses high resolution source images.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The linked videos do not have sufficient resolution to do any sort of meaningful analysis!

Then how do you know it's an airplane? It could be a bird, or a butterfly. Or a piece of paper.

You know it's an airplane because it looks like one. It's the right size, and the right shape. That's meaningful analysis. And there is plenty enough resolution to see that it is an airplane.

How do we know there's a shadow in the Naudet nose-out? Because we see it. Baker has drawn the shadow as it would appear in Chopper 5. It's not there.

The way you guys avoid questions has convinced me, more than anything.

[Corsair 115]

You know it's an airplane because it looks like one. It's the right size, and the right shape. That's meaningful analysis. And there is plenty enough resolution to see that it is an airplane. But that's not what you're looking for. You are looking for fine details in a coarse image! How on earth can you not grasp this essential basic fact?!?

The way you guys avoid questions has convinced me, more than anything.Because no planers are demonstrably nuts. If you think their arguments have any weight whatsoever, then you might as well subscribe to the theory that the Apollo moon landings were faked, because that conspiracy uses the same basic kind of imagery "proof" that the 9/11 no planers use.

Were the moon landings faked?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The shadow in Naudet is not a fine detail, it goes all the way across the tower. That shadow would appear in Chopper 5, going across the tower. There is at least 16 x the amount of pixels to resolve that shadow.

Shrink Naudet down to 1/4 size. Does the shadow disappear? No, it's still there. How small do you have to make Naudet before the shadow is unrecognizable?

Is Chopper 5 anywhere near that small?

No, it's around the same size as Naudet.

So, there's more than enough resolution to see the shadow, if present. It's not there.

[Drudgewire]

The way you guys avoid questions has convinced me, more than anything.


No it hasn't. You couldn't be more convinced than you already were. :rolleyes:

[Corsair 115]

The shadow in Naudet is not a fine detail, it goes all the way across the tower. That shadow would appear in Chopper 5, going across the tower. There is at least 16 x the amount of pixels to resolve that shadow.

Shrink Naudet down to 1/4 size. Does the shadow disappear? No, it's still there. How small do you have to make Naudet before the shadow is unrecognizable?

Is Chopper 5 anywhere near that small?

No, it's around the same size as Naudet.

So, there's more than enough resolution to see the shadow, if present. It's not there.Wow, you really have no idea at all how image resolution works do you? (And this is quite apart from the issues of converting from one media type to another.)

What happens when you take an image in Photoshop and reduce it from, say, 600x600 pixels to 300x300? You are throwing out pixels from the image. You are deleting elements of the original image. Conversely, if you increase the image size in Photoshop from, say, 600x600 pixels to 1,200x1,200 you are adding pixels to the image which did not exist previously. You don't think either of these actions might change aspects of how the image looks?

Do you find the fact that the colours and lighting between the different images aren't precisely the same troubling as well?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Wow, you have no idea how to comprehend standard English, do you?

Of course reducing the size "throws away pixels". That was precisely the point. You can reduce the Naudet video to a tiny size, and still see the shadow.

This was exactly the type of thing that convinced me Baker was right. All of you guys just deliberately twist what is said.

In other words, you're a liar.

[Corsair 115]

Of course reducing the size "throws away pixels". That was precisely the point. You can reduce the Naudet video to a tiny size, and still see the shadow. Let me get this straight: you use a smaller image that deletes image data and still think you can do meaningfull fine detail analysis on the image? Not only have you reduced the visual size of the image, thus making it harder to examine fine details, but you actually eliminated from the image data that contains data on same fine details. And you see no problems there?

You seriously—seriously!—need to learn about image file resolution, image display resolution, how video works, how digital imagery works, what codecs are, how cameras work, and how lenses work, just for starters.

This was exactly the type of thing that convinced me Baker was right. Congratulations, you've hitched your cart to a crazy horse. You can now move on to demonstrating to the world how the Apollo moon landings were faked using your and his expert understanding of film, video, photography, cameras, lenses, perspective, and special visual effects.

The sad thing is you and him don't realize how utterly crazy your position is.

In other words, you're a liar.Then prove it. What have I got wrong so far about image resolution?

[pomeroo]

Wow, you have no idea how to comprehend standard English, do you?

Of course reducing the size "throws away pixels". That was precisely the point. You can reduce the Naudet video to a tiny size, and still see the shadow.

This was exactly the type of thing that convinced me Baker was right. All of you guys just deliberately twist what is said.

In other words, you're a liar.


Why do video compositing experts regard Baker as an incompentent mental case?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

What you have wrong about image resolution is as follows.

1. You claim there is insufficient resolution in Chopper 5 to see a shadow.
2. There is plenty enough resolution in Naudet to see a shadow.
3. Even reducing Naudet, thus worsening the resolution, still plainly shows a shadow.
4. Therefore there is MORE than enough resolution in Naudet to show a shadow.
5. The airplane in Chopper 5 is larger than the airplane in Naudet.
6. The nose out event is larger in Chopper 5 than in Naudet.
7. Therefore, in light of 5 and 6, the resolution on the shadow area is better in Chopper 5 than in Naudet.
8. Therefore, there is MORE than enough resolution to show the shadow in CHopper 5, by a greater factor even than in Naudet, which is already proven in 3 to have MORE than enough resolution.
9. The nose out is smaller than the shadow would have to be.
10.Therefore we should see the large shadow, more easily than we see the small nose.

Perhaps you're just an idiot Corsair, but I doubt it. You know perfectly well the point that is shown by REDUCING Naudet, and observing the still-present shadow.

[pomeroo]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Over-Under-Puffball.gif

Note that in Fairbanks, you can see exactly where the alleged left wing entered, after it has entered, and the puffball is well above it.


Instead of using the term "puffballs," what happens if we talk about "glints of sun" or "reflections"?

[mchapman]

Why do video compositing experts regard Baker as an incompentent mental case?

Appeal to authority. And an ad hom.

[Corsair 115]

1. You claim there is insufficient resolution in Chopper 5 to see a shadow. 1) Never said that.

2. There is plenty enough resolution in Naudet to see a shadow. 2) And what does a shadow prove? What details can you see in this shadow?

3. Even reducing Naudet, thus worsening the resolution, still plainly shows a shadow. 3) See #2.

4. Therefore there is MORE than enough resolution in Naudet to show a shadow. 4) See #2.

5. The airplane in Chopper 5 is larger than the airplane in Naudet. 5) What is the significance of this? Do you understand what different focal length lenses do to the apparent size of objects in an image frame?

6. The nose out event is larger in Chopper 5 than in Naudet. 6) See #5.

7. Therefore, in light of 5 and 6, the resolution on the shadow area is better in Chopper 5 than in Naudet. 7) See #5. Also, see #2.

8. Therefore, there is MORE than enough resolution to show the shadow in CHopper 5, by a greater factor even than in Naudet, which is already proven in 3 to have MORE than enough resolution. 8) See #5. You are using words without understanding their technical meaning. And that meaning is of vital importance.

9. The nose out is smaller than the shadow would have to be. 9) No, it looks like it is. But given that you are using low resolution, pixellated imagery for this analysis (and without offering any technical details on the videos), determing such fine details as which is larger is completely illegitimate.

10.Therefore we should see the large shadow, more easily than we see the small nose. 10) Your conclusion is based upon a faulty premise. See #5.

You know perfectly well the point that is shown by REDUCING Naudet, and observing the still-present shadow. See #2. What is this fascination for a shadow?


Perhaps we should begin at the beginning. Why don't you offer up what you think resolution means when referring to a still or moving image. Hint: resolution actually has more than one meaning, depending on the context used.

[beachnut]

Appeal to authority. And an ad hom.
In lieu of evidence, make a post of nothing.

If you think Ace is a rational person on the video junk, you lack knowledge, experience and sound judgment. Easy to prove me wrong, post some evidence to support Ace's insane ideas.

I know you have no evidence to support Ace, you have no evidence to support anything 9/11 truth says. So you post tripe.

Ace is refuted with thousands of eyes, over 7 years ago.

[Grizzly Bear]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Over-Under-Puffball.gif

Note that in Fairbanks, you can see exactly where the alleged left wing entered, after it has entered, and the puffball is well above it.

Okay people I guess we started with tower 2 now? The one that was caught on live television and in front of thousands of onlookers. Holy jebus :\
Did somebody forget that there were THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE in that district? Why in blue hell do they even bother to try editing it in the first place?

[Corsair 115]

Ace is refuted with thousands of eyes, over 7 years ago.That is the most obvious refutation. There is also the refutation involved in the fact that there are some forty different shots of the second aircraft impact taken from different locations, with various camera types, and by different people, some of whom were professional news camera persons and others private citizens using their personal video cameras.

Then there are all the still photos of the second impact. I don't know exactly how many of those there are, but I would expect it's a signficant number.

No planers also have to explain away ALL the video evidence (some forty different videos) and ALL the still photos, in addition to the eyewitnesses and physical evidence. Good luck with that.


P.S. — Beachnut, your "take no prisoners" approach to dealing with 9/11 conspiracists I always find quite enjoyable. :)

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

So why is there no shadow in Chopper 5 Nose Out?

Why is the puffball in the wrong place on Fairbanks?

What are the odds that two networks and one documentary lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?

Why is there no plane in the CHopper 5 wide shot?

How can a dust explosion become a size and shape indistinguishable from the nose of a 767?

What are the odds that both live shots had all 9 of the characteristics needed for live compositing?

If Ace Baker is not an expert in compositing, how then was he able to do this (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/07/theory-of-edited-non-live-911-airplane.html)?

[fullflavormenthol]

So why is there no shadow in Chopper 5 Nose Out?

Fine details in Chopper 5, and the arguments about them are pointless given the low quality of the footage made even worse by youtube compression.

Why is the puffball in the wrong place on Fairbanks?

Perspective. It would actually be pervocative if the shot was from the same angle, but it is from a different angle.

What are the odds that two networks and one documentary lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?

Very good if all those cameras are focused on an explosion, and they were all set to an auto iris.

Why is there no plane in the CHopper 5 wide shot?

The Chopper 5 camera was low res, and couldn't pick up such a fine detail in the wide shot. (You never even watched the Hardfire interview did you? This was sufficantly covered.)

How can a dust explosion become a size and shape indistinguishable from the nose of a 767?

You mean debris in a low res shot, compressed into flv format and being judged by a non-expert?

What are the odds that both live shots had all 9 of the characteristics needed for live compositing?

This has been covered, and these 9 are merely Baker's subjective little list.

If Ace Baker is not an expert in compositing, how then was he able to do this (http://acebaker.blogspot.com/2008/07/theory-of-edited-non-live-911-airplane.html)?

Lets see him do it completely live. Oh...before I get ahead of myself. The ability to create a special effect Final Cut pro does not mean you are an expert. Expert is a whole different ball park. Again Motion is not a live program, and so Baker even using it as an example is just dumb.

Ace can talk about live compositing, but he seems to have no concept of how it would be done.

Here is one for you.

WHAT ABOUT THE THOUSANDS OF EYE WITNESSES?

&

WHY ARE YOU A LIAR?

[Arus808]

WHY is this thread continuing? Ace Baker's claims FAIL because of this GLARING oversight



THOUSANDS OF WITNESSES SAW THOSE PLANES HIT THOSE BUILDINGS ON 9/11/2001


why has our new troll not addressed this that has been posted to him SEVERAL times in this thread.

[Corsair 115]

What are the odds that two networks and one documentary lost picture within 1/4 second of each other?What were the odds of winning a Super7 lottery draw? About 21 million to 1. And yet, one week, there were two winning tickets. The probability of a given event is not evidence of anything in and of itself. This is where corroborating evidence comes in.

Also, there are some forty camera angles of the second impact, plus many still photos. Where can I find articles which painstakingly prove all of these are fakes as well?

How can a dust explosion become a size and shape indistinguishable from the nose of a 767? Indistinguishable? Really? I trust you're relying on something more than a pixellated, low resolution YouTube video for your comparison here.

By the way, can you offer up what you think is meant by resolution?

What are the odds that both live shots had all 9 of the characteristics needed for live compositing?I suggest you call up some of the foremost special effects companies in the world and ask them if they could create such effects live (unless, of course, you're going to claim that they're all in on it too).

It takes many months and tens of millions of dollars for a company like Industrial Light & Magic to create the visual effects for feature films like Revenge of the Sith or War of the Worlds. The idea that such effects could be composited on the fly strains credulity past the breaking point.

[funk de fino]

So what?

The point is not WHAT the puffball is, the point is WHERE the puffball is.

It's in different places in different videos.

No, they are not

[Dave Rogers]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Chopper5MissShad.gif

Naudet (L), CHopper 5 (R). Flashing shadow added to Chopper 5.

What shadow?

Interesting. You see how the region that's lighter in the Naudet still, is darker in the Chopper 5 still? See how there's a trace of shadow above and below it? Do you think it's possible that light reflects differently in different directions, and that as a result the contrast of shadows is greater or lesser from different viewing angles, and on different surfaces? Or is it simpler, in your world, to imagine vast conspiracies involving virtually everyone in the world except you?

Optics vs. paranoia. As a physicist, I prefer optics.

Dave

[Dave Rogers]

Note that in Fairbanks, you can see exactly where the alleged left wing entered, after it has entered, and the puffball is well above it.

There's a vague blurred image of a diffuse object, and you think you can determine its distance that accurately? You're deciding what to see, then insisting to yourself that you see it.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Interesting. You see how the region that's lighter in the Naudet still, is darker in the Chopper 5 still? See how there's a trace of shadow above and below it? Do you think it's possible that light reflects differently in different directions, and that as a result the contrast of shadows is greater or lesser from different viewing angles, and on different surfaces? Or is it simpler, in your world, to imagine vast conspiracies involving virtually everyone in the world except you?

Optics vs. paranoia. As a physicist, I prefer optics.

Dave

Of course it's possible that a surface reflects more or less light to the camera depending on the angle. Indeed, the mechanical area of the tower reflects relatively less light to the camera in Chopper 5 than in Naudet. So it appears darker.

But the areas above and below the mechanical area are quite bright. They reflect a lot of light to the camera. For the shadow to disappear, would mean that light (from somewhere) is reflecting off of that surface to the camera. But most of the light is coming from direct sunlight. Sunlight is blocked from reaching that shadow area, because (allegedly) there is a dust explosion in the way.

So where does the light come from to wash out the shadow in Chopper 5, but leave such a dark one in Naudet?

The areas above and below the mechanical area are quite bright in Naudet also. If there was some source of light that washed out the shadow in Chopper 5, why does it not also wash out the shadow in Naudet, since that surface is evidently able to reflect a lot of light from both angles?

Dave, is there any optical explanation for your claim?

[Dave Rogers]

Of course it's possible that a surface reflects more or less light to the camera depending on the angle. Indeed, the mechanical area of the tower reflects relatively less light to the camera in Chopper 5 than in Naudet. So it appears darker.

But the areas above and below the mechanical area are quite bright. They reflect a lot of light to the camera. For the shadow to disappear, would mean that light (from somewhere) is reflecting off of that surface to the camera. But most of the light is coming from direct sunlight. Sunlight is blocked from reaching that shadow area, because (allegedly) there is a dust explosion in the way.

So where does the light come from to wash out the shadow in Chopper 5, but leave such a dark one in Naudet?

The areas above and below the mechanical area are quite bright in Naudet also. If there was some source of light that washed out the shadow in Chopper 5, why does it not also wash out the shadow in Naudet, since that surface is evidently able to reflect a lot of light from both angles?

Dave, is there any optical explanation for your claim?

Actually, there's a perfectly good reason why the shadow should be very much more visible in Naudet than Chopper 5. Looking at the Naudet still, the light is coming from the left hand side of the picture, casting a shadow to the right. There will therefore be a visible shadow on all surfaces that point to the left, away from the direction of view of the chopper 5 video, and on all surfaces that face outwards, seen only at glancing angles on the chopper 5 video. Remember that the wall of WTC1 wasn't a smooth face, but had raised columns with square edges. Look at the image below, if it's clear enough.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1476448e39df728d66.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13970)

The Naudet view is from the left, and sees the strongly lit left hand edges of the columns, where a strong shadow is produced, and the less well-lit outer faces, where a weaker shadow is cast. The Chopper 5 video is from a glancing angle to the right, and sees only the right hand facing edges of the columns; since these are facing away from the sun, there isn't a shadow on them. The overall brightness of the image in Chopper 5 is misleading, as the absolute brightness depends only on the sensitivity and contrast of the camera, and it's very common for video to give highly misleading appearances of overall brightness.

So I was wrong, it's not just optics; it's a combination of optics and geometry. We wouldn't expect to see a shadow on the Chopper 5 video.

Dave

[Corsair 115]

So I was wrong, it's not just optics; it's a combination of optics and geometry. We wouldn't expect to see a shadow on the Chopper 5 video.Anyone familiar with photography and perspective would understand that.

In terms of other general photographic knowledge, I wonder if Mr. Grossi is familiar with the foreshortening effect that long focal length lenses create in an image. Or how lenses and aperature settings affect depth-of-field.

[DC]

Actually, there's a perfectly good reason why the shadow should be very much more visible in Naudet than Chopper 5. Looking at the Naudet still, the light is coming from the left hand side of the picture, casting a shadow to the right. There will therefore be a visible shadow on all surfaces that point to the left, away from the direction of view of the chopper 5 video, and on all surfaces that face outwards, seen only at glancing angles on the chopper 5 video. Remember that the wall of WTC1 wasn't a smooth face, but had raised columns with square edges. Look at the image below, if it's clear enough.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1476448e39df728d66.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13970)

The Naudet view is from the left, and sees the strongly lit left hand edges of the columns, where a strong shadow is produced, and the less well-lit outer faces, where a weaker shadow is cast. The Chopper 5 video is from a glancing angle to the right, and sees only the right hand facing edges of the columns; since these are facing away from the sun, there isn't a shadow on them. The overall brightness of the image in Chopper 5 is misleading, as the absolute brightness depends only on the sensitivity and contrast of the camera, and it's very common for video to give highly misleading appearances of overall brightness.

So I was wrong, it's not just optics; it's a combination of optics and geometry. We wouldn't expect to see a shadow on the Chopper 5 video.

Dave

nice drawing, i thought the same when i saw the picture.

[pleitegeier]

Regarding the eyewitnesses:
In "September Clues", we see a lot of people claiming that they saw a "small plane", and then we see a missile that is smaller than a 767, but seems to look roughly the same as a big passenger plane.
At least, they try to find an explanation.

On one side, some of the no-planers claims seem interesting to me, on the other hand I wonder:

- How much eyewitnesses claim to have seen a big plane, how many a small?
(September Clues provides a link to a website which contains a statistic on that, but the site is down)

- What if just a single person made a video without a plane, and published it?
I mean, come on, it's not like New York is a small city, and I don't see how the evildoers could possibly confiscate every video.

Any no planer here to comment?

[Dave Rogers]

In "September Clues", we see a lot of people claiming that they saw a "small plane", and then we see a missile that is smaller than a 767, but seems to look roughly the same as a big passenger plane.

Two of the witnesses furthest from the Pentagon also claimed they saw a small airliner. I'm reminded of a scene from Father Ted, where Ted shows Dougal some toy sheep, then points out of the window, saying, "Now, remember, Dougal: these are small; those are far away."

Dave

[pomeroo]

Appeal to authority. And an ad hom.

Ah, perhaps you can teach me something about formal logic. You will, of course, have to resign from the fantasy movement, but it's dead anyway.

By the way, why do video compositing experts regard Ace Baker as an incompetent and a mental case? They do, you know, and I know why they do.

[Dave Rogers]

Let's take a look, now, at Ace's video motion analysis. His claim is that there are four "noise factors that can influence the apparent motion of a moving airplane on video" are atmospherics, video resolution, camera motion and measurement error. His claim is that, if he can eliminate one of these four sources of error, the motion should become more stable. I note that this is a much weaker claim than Ace's original assertion on this forum that stabilisation of the shot should remove all random noise from the apparent movement of the plane; it seems he's realised that atmospheric distortion is a perfectly reasonable cause for the random errors seen in the plane's motion, which is at least a step forward for him. Therefore, the entire analysis stands or falls on the assertion that stabilising the video should reduce the random errors in the motion.

OK, so let's look at his procedure. And here's where the house of cards starts to fall apart, because his first step is to "Stabilize the video to subpixel accuracy". What he doesn't state is how he's doing that. At this point, it would be reasonable to provisionally reject the remainder of this analysis pending his description of how he performed the stabilisation, because his methods are not open to scrutiny.

In the interests of being a little more constructive in this debate, let's see how he could possibly have stabilised the video. In this context, "stabilised" means "corrected for camera motion", therefore the procedure for stabilisation should be to measure the position of a known fixed object, and correct the video frame position so that this object remains fixed. Straight away we run into a problem; the only fixed objects in the frames of interest are WTC1 and WTC2. I'm quite familiar with these frames, having done some analysis on them myself, and the salient feature of both towers in this shot is that they are visible as blocks of colour with vertical edges. These edges therefore have a minimum pixellation error of plus-or-minus half a pixel. Ace's wireframe technique for measuring positions to sub-pixel accuracy can only work where there are edges at angles significantly different to horizontal or vertical, and there are no such structures to work from in these videos. Therefore, his data for stabilisation actually introduce a new error.

The explanation for Ace's observation that the "stabilised" videos exhibit more random motion than the raw videos is therefore trivially simple. Ace's stabilisation procedure has done nothing significant to stabilise the motion of the camera on a frame-by-frame level; all it has done is to add the pixellation error of the edge positions of WTC1 and WTC2 to the existing errors. Therefore, Ace's failure to understand the mechanics of random error analysis has led him to a false conclusion, and we can reject the random motion analysis.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Actually, there's a perfectly good reason why the shadow should be very much more visible in Naudet than Chopper 5. Looking at the Naudet still, the light is coming from the left hand side of the picture, casting a shadow to the right. There will therefore be a visible shadow on all surfaces that point to the left, away from the direction of view of the chopper 5 video, and on all surfaces that face outwards, seen only at glancing angles on the chopper 5 video. Remember that the wall of WTC1 wasn't a smooth face, but had raised columns with square edges. Look at the image below, if it's clear enough.

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/1476448e39df728d66.bmp (http://forums.randi.org/vbimghost.php?do=displayimg&imgid=13970)

The Naudet view is from the left, and sees the strongly lit left hand edges of the columns, where a strong shadow is produced, and the less well-lit outer faces, where a weaker shadow is cast. The Chopper 5 video is from a glancing angle to the right, and sees only the right hand facing edges of the columns; since these are facing away from the sun, there isn't a shadow on them. The overall brightness of the image in Chopper 5 is misleading, as the absolute brightness depends only on the sensitivity and contrast of the camera, and it's very common for video to give highly misleading appearances of overall brightness.

So I was wrong, it's not just optics; it's a combination of optics and geometry. We wouldn't expect to see a shadow on the Chopper 5 video.

Dave

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/TopView.png

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/NaudetView.png

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Chop5View.png

[beachnut]

Looks like you perspective on 9/11 is as messed up as your perspective on this simple problem.

[Dave Rogers]

As you can see, the contrast in the latter case is significantly weaker. What you can also see, though, is that the absolute intensity in the latter case is weaker. Yet, in the Chopper 5 video, the wall appears almost white. That suggests that the gain of the camera is much higher in the Chopper 5 shot than in the Naudet shot, and therefore the contrast must be reduced to compensate. Therefore we have a lower contrast shadow seen at a lower contrast setting; hardly surprising that it only shows up as a couple of odd scattered pixels.

Dave

[DC]

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/TopView.png

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/NaudetView.png

http://i265.photobucket.com/albums/ii211/CollinAlexander/Chop5View.png

ok i must say, this is the best i ever saw from a noplaner.

can you use a sligtly reflecting aluminium surface and glass, this would advance your renderings, as the reflection of light might play a role, also takecare you use ambient lightning (not sure if that is the correct name in english) a tool like Mental Ray. This will make the shadows and light far more realistic because this will include the light reflected from the surface which is not the case in your renders now. Did you use Maya? Mental Ray runs on alot diffrent render programs, but will increase render times significantly.

[DC]

Looks like you perspective on 9/11 is as messed up as your perspective on this simple problem.

what a helpfull answer, impressive mister teacher :)

[DC]

http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/index?siteID=123112&id=6837573

here a link to Mental Ray

[beachnut]

what a helpfull answer, impressive mister teacher :)
Why can't you correct his error?

I would think his error is obvious, I was wrong you have no clue or you would tell him what he did wrong. At least your sig is correct.

I am not here to fix truther errors. Just pointing them out, seeing them for myself is good enough, let him, or you figure out the error.

I thought he was modeling the shadow on the building from something; he modeled it wrong. I think it is funny to analyze pure insanity, but then I am not mystified by shadows and trying to prove insane stuff has merit.

I know many people witnessed the impact with eyes. Making this study of an insanity study, ironic and a waste; save someone is learning something.

[DC]

Why can't you correct his error?

I would think his error is obvious, I was wrong you have no clue or you would tell him what he did wrong. At least your sig is correct.

I am not here to fix truther errors. Just pointing them out, seeing them for myself is good enough, let him, or you figure out the error.

I thought he was modeling the shadow on the building from something; he modeled it wrong. I think it is funny to analyze pure insanity, but then I am not mystified by shadows and trying to prove insane stuff has merit.

I know many people witnessed the impact with eyes. Making this study of an insanity study, ironic and a waste; save someone is learning something.

because i see no use in ranting at people and jelling, you lack knowledge, you lack education, you lack whatever, you are an idiot etc

I gave him some tipps how he can increase the quality of his renders so it will be far more realistic. Because , Raytracing programm or renderers and modeling software are a hobby of mine.
He will be far more convinced when he will do new improved renderings himself and will see an increasment of the diffrences in the shadows in the diffrent perspectives.

do you think when i tell him "Looks like you perspective on 9/11 is as messed up as your perspective on this simple problem." he will be convinced?

Beachnut, you lack communication skills and proper behavior.

have a nice day.

ETA: btw, i told him what he did wrong (IMHO) in his renderings.

[Corsair 115]

I'm still waiting for Mr. Grossi to post up what he thinks resolution means. I'm also waiting for him to explain away the approximately forty other videos there are of the aircraft impacts, and explain away all the still photos of the impacts.

Not to mention explaining away all the eyewitnesses and physical evidence.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Let's take a look, now, at Ace's video motion analysis. His claim is that there are four "noise factors that can influence the apparent motion of a moving airplane on video" are atmospherics, video resolution, camera motion and measurement error. His claim is that, if he can eliminate one of these four sources of error, the motion should become more stable. I note that this is a much weaker claim than Ace's original assertion on this forum that stabilisation of the shot should remove all random noise from the apparent movement of the plane; it seems he's realised that atmospheric distortion is a perfectly reasonable cause for the random errors seen in the plane's motion, which is at least a step forward for him. Therefore, the entire analysis stands or falls on the assertion that stabilising the video should reduce the random errors in the motion.

OK, so let's look at his procedure. And here's where the house of cards starts to fall apart, because his first step is to "Stabilize the video to subpixel accuracy". What he doesn't state is how he's doing that. At this point, it would be reasonable to provisionally reject the remainder of this analysis pending his description of how he performed the stabilisation, because his methods are not open to scrutiny.

In the interests of being a little more constructive in this debate, let's see how he could possibly have stabilised the video. In this context, "stabilised" means "corrected for camera motion", therefore the procedure for stabilisation should be to measure the position of a known fixed object, and correct the video frame position so that this object remains fixed. Straight away we run into a problem; the only fixed objects in the frames of interest are WTC1 and WTC2. I'm quite familiar with these frames, having done some analysis on them myself, and the salient feature of both towers in this shot is that they are visible as blocks of colour with vertical edges. These edges therefore have a minimum pixellation error of plus-or-minus half a pixel. Ace's wireframe technique for measuring positions to sub-pixel accuracy can only work where there are edges at angles significantly different to horizontal or vertical, and there are no such structures to work from in these videos. Therefore, his data for stabilisation actually introduce a new error.

The explanation for Ace's observation that the "stabilised" videos exhibit more random motion than the raw videos is therefore trivially simple. Ace's stabilisation procedure has done nothing significant to stabilise the motion of the camera on a frame-by-frame level; all it has done is to add the pixellation error of the edge positions of WTC1 and WTC2 to the existing errors. Therefore, Ace's failure to understand the mechanics of random error analysis has led him to a false conclusion, and we can reject the random motion analysis.

Dave


I got a message from Ace:

Edit to remove content from banned member.

[Arus808]

Please do not use this forum to post emails from BANNED members.

[A W Smith]

Ace Baker;
I know you are reading this, here is a partial list of flight 175 live on the scene witnesses and their testimony, If you fail to make an attempt to contact them or hand-wave off their testimony. then we know for a FACT you are delusional and therefore, mentally ill. If only for the sake of your wife and family and the shame you are putting them through. please seek professional help.


from
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/whattheysaw%3Aeyewitnessaccountsofthenycai

UA Flight 175 Impact


"I just happened to raise my head watching the Statue of Liberty and as I watched I saw this giant aircraft ... coming in slow motion towards me -- eye level, eye contact. And I just froze."

United Airlines Flight 175 slammed into the building, smashing through walls, bringing down the ceiling, breaking computers and overturning every desk -- except the one Praimnath had ducked under.

"I'm trembling and I'm crying, 'Lord, don't leave me here to die!' And I realize that I'm covered with debris when I try to get up," he said. "Peeking through the rubble, all I could see was the plane wing wedged at my office door, 20 feet from where I was." Stanley Praimnath Source (http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/09/09/ar911.last.ones.out/index.html)


"...I sat down with this guy who became my "buddy." Tim's story was that he was on the 86th floor of the second tower, when the plane hit the first tower. They started to evacuate, but after going down a dozen flights they were instructed that it was only the first tower that had been hit and that they could go back. So he was opening the door on the 74th floor at the exact moment that the second plane crashed into the 74th floor. He actually saw the wing before the explosion. He was splashed with jet fuel, but the explosion blew him back into the stairwell, saving his life. With other people helping him, because he was blinded by the jet fuel, he ran down 74 flights of stairs. A medic was lavaging his eyes when the first building fell. Source (http://www.episcopal-dso.org/pages/int2001/0110jim.htm)


At some point after our arrival and after we had moved to the west side of West Street, I heard a loud roar of a jet, looked up and saw the second plane impact the south tower. At that point it was clear to me it was a terrorist attack. We stepped over small airplane aviation parts, on Vesey, continued west, continued looking at the building. FDNY Chief Daniel Nigro


At that time, I started walking towards Engine 3. Engine 3 drove south to the south pedestrian bridge to make a U turn to come back and as I'm walking towards the Engine to find out what Lieutenant Walsh wanted us to do, I heard the sound of a jet plane. I looked up and saw it pretty close and I was like holy ****. What's going on with the with the flight patterns. All of a sudden, the wings turned and it dove right into the building and it was screwed up.

At that time Chief Ganci was behind me and he thought there was another explosion in the north tower and that's when I turned around and said Chief, listen, there is a second plane that hit the other tower. He was like no no no no, we have another explosion. I said no, Chief, I witnessed it. I watched the plane hit the other tower. He is like are you sure. I said Chief, I'm 100 hundred percent positive I watched the second plane hit the other tower. FDNY firefighter Scott Holowach


Upon that time I heard a plane roar. I had my window down and on my side we saw a plane flying very low come right across us and with a loud, you know, the engines revved up, and I had mentioned to him, I had no idea that it was heading towards that way, and I just said like where is this guy going, you know, he was extremely low, not realizing it was another plane heading towards the World Trade, and we saw it struck the building, we saw a big mushroom of flame, of fire coming up, and it was like disbelief, and he had gotten on the radio and notified the dispatcher another plane had struck the World Trade Center. FDNY firefighter Stephen Zasa


"While assisting a female burn victim, I observed PO Rivero look up towards the WTC tower #2. At this time the undersigned heard the sound of jet engines and observed an aircraft with a blue color tail fly directly into the south face of WTC Tower #2. Following the impact an enormous explosion occurred causing debris to begin to fall down all around the WTC complex." PAPD PO James Hall Source (http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/pa-transcripts/pa-police-reports01.pdf) (pg. 5)


Boatswain's Mate 1st Class Robin Shipley, at the helm of a Station New York rigid-hull inflatable, took up station at the mouth of the East River between Governors Island and Manhattan's Battery Park. "We understood that a Cessna had accidentally collided into a tower of the WTC," Shipley said. "Shortly after our arrival on-scene we saw a large commercial jetliner approaching from Staten Island at a very low altitude.

"It was hard to believe what we were seeing," she continued, "but it took only fractions of a moment to realize what we were about to see. The plane veered to our right, crossed Governors Island, turned left-crossing over our boat-- and turned into a vertical position as it flew into the tower." The reaction of her three-man crew was, "My God, we are under attack." Source (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3738/is_200209/ai_n9141469)

While scores of boats and small craft were moving toward lower Manhattan, the Coast Guard's VTS center for New York harbor shifted into high gear. Cdr. Daniel Ronan, chief of the center's Waterways Management Division, was told there was "a lot of smoke" coming from Manhattan. He arrived at the VTS site within moments. Using radio transmissions from vessels in the harbor and the center's own surveillance cameras, he quickly evaluated the situation. "We saw the second plane hit the South Tower," he said. "There was a mood of disbelief and anger. Every person in the room knew that this was not an accident-and that it was time to go into emergency mode. Source (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3738/is_200209/ai_n9141469)


"We were standing with the chief and we heard somebody yell, 'There's another plane!'" Mosiello recalled. "Then it came into the range of my hearing. And it sounded louder and louder and louder and there it was ... it went right into the building, into (the south tower). Now we have a real problem on our hands. We have two buildings hit by planes. Thousands and thousands of people trapped." –FDNY Chief's assistant Steve Mosiello Source (http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/survivors/profile.html)


After the first plane hit the World Trade Center, New York City firefighter Craig Gutkes was part of a ladder company in Brooklyn that was called in to Manhattan. When he was still on the Brooklyn side, his company saw the second plane roar over their heads, "It sounded like a freight train," he said. They watched that plane plow into Tower No. 2. Source (http://www.pulitzer.org/year/2002/breaking-news-reporting/works/wsj1.html)


We were going on the first alarm to the staging area by the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. En route to the staging area, we were going down Columbia Street, saw the second plane strike the building and we went from being a, quote, good job or a rough job, or we were going to earn our money today. FDNY firefighter Joseph Sullivan


Right before the tolls on the Brooklyn side heading towards Manhattan at the Battery Tunnel, we were sitting in traffic and we watched United Flight 175 hit tower two, which was the south tower of the World Trade Center.

At that time everybody was just in shock. The firefighters and I were just really trying to get through the traffic when the plane hit, and we were just standing there in like awe of what was happening. FDNY paramedic Kevin Darnowski


"I looked over my shoulder and saw the United Airlines plane coming. It came over the Statute of Liberty. It was just like a movie. It just directly was guided into the second tower." Lakshman Achuthan Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/12/nyregion/12VIGN.html?ex=1192766400&en=990f09a40f324af3&ei=5070)

No sooner did I run downstairs and look up, than I saw the second plane strike the south tower. FDNY lieutanent Murray Murad


Just then out of the corner of my eye I could see this plane. Just remember it was dark in the shadow. It looked low. I thought, what the heck is the guy doing? I watched it, watched him turn and crash right into the south tower. FDNY Battalion Chief Brian O'Flaherty


After that I ran up to the roof on the third floor with me and Eric Bernsten. We were watching it. We could see it from here. We have an unobstructed view. The other guys came up too. All six of us were on the roof.

Then we saw the second one come up. It looked like it was coming up the East River from here. I guess it was coming from the south. I thought it banked over the East River, which is what it looked like. I thought it made a left over the East River and went right into it going from east to west. But as it turns out, it came from the south. Then we saw it just go right into the building and explode.

I remember talking to Eric. I remember Eric saying something, "Oh, my God, there's another plane." I was saying to him, "That plane is closer to us. It's really not a big plane going towards the building." Two seconds later it rammed into the building. FDNY firefighter James Murphy


The second plane came in. It was the biggest noise I ever heard in my life.
Q. Did you see the plane?
A. Yeah. We saw it, we heard it, we felt the heat from it, the debris. FDNY EMT Sean Cunniffe


And all of a sudden, it was like it just took off across the bay. I couldn't believe how fast it went. At first, I thought it was just somebody trying to take a look at Manhattan. And it just went right across right into the building. FDNY Battalion Chief Tom Vallebuona Source (http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/911/magazine/gz/vallebunoa.html)

I was looking up to see if I could do a little more initial size up. That is when I saw the second plane hit the building. I just watched it coming in. FDNY EMS Captain Mark Stone


I stood there staring and then watched eventually the second plane. I saw it, It looked like it was circling coming south then came back north striking the south side of tower No. 2. FDNY paramedic Joel Pierce


It was at that time when I saw the second plane hit the building. I called a mayday. I told them the second plane hit the south tower of the building. I wasn't sure which floors it was, but I knew it hit the upper floors of the south tower. Debris was falling, body parts were falling. We ducked for cover inside Engine 7, but the rig was getting bombarded with debris from the building, debris from the plane. We saw bodies crash landing right next to the rig. So we couldn't stay there. FDNY firefighter Joseph Casaliggi


A man who was standing on the Brooklyn side of the Brooklyn Bridge, Nicholas Gasper, who works for the New York City Transit Department, said he saw a four-engine plane ``doing a tilt into the building. From what I saw it looked like the place sliced into the tower,'' referring to the second impact. He said he heard the building shake. ``I am still shaking,'' he added. Source (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/national/11WIRE-PLAN2.html?ex=1192766400&en=7225a35bf33c7d23&ei=5070)



A second man who was three or four blocks away from the tower, Terrance Phillips, 35, from New Jersey, said he was looking at the fire. ``Then I saw a 747 or some kind of plane. It crashed in and exploded. People were watching and then they started stampeding away.'' Source
(http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/11/national/11WIRE-PLAN2.html?ex=1192766400&en=7225a35bf33c7d23&ei=5070)

Rich Bautista, 56, a construction consultant, was headed to a 9 a.m. appointment on 59 Maiden Lane, two blocks away from the World Trade Center, when he heard the first blast. "It was so fast, it was so loud," he recalls. "I just came out of the Fulton Street subway when I heard this terrifying explosion. I looked up and saw smoke surrounding the World Trade Center. People started running. There was mass hysteria." Bautista's co-worker Ernie Kneuer, 29, saw flames pouring out of the building. They went up to the 40th floor of their building just in time to see the second plane collide. Source (http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/sept11/features/5183)




About when we got to Chambers Street, by the college, we saw the second plane hit the World Trade Center. I told my partner slow down and wait to see if the building was going to collapse right away, because you could see it swaying. After a couple of minutes of waiting, we didn't see it collapse, so we started heading in further. FDNY EMT Charles Gshlecht, from a few blocks north.


After the first plane hit, we were here, actually. We could see the towers actually from here. So after the first plane hit, we saw it on the news. So we came up here to look out the window, and we saw it. We watched the second plane hit. Just as the second plane hit, that's when we received the alarm. FDNY firefighter Joseph Galasso


Q. The second plane?
A. I saw it coming in, I heard it, and bang, it hit. FDNY Firefighter Thomas Gaby


By this time, staff were filing into Ray’s office, because it provided the best view of the Twin Towers. They stood there, watching the fire, watching the people jump. It was barely after 9 a.m. Another co-worker shrieked: "I see another plane!" United Airlines Flight 175 struck the South Tower — just as American Airlines Flight 11 had struck the North Tower minutes before — this time in full view of all those who were watching. The impact shook Ray’s office building. Almost instantaneously, Ray "saw a huge piece of the plane shoot out from the second tower, heading in a decline curve" right in the direction of his building. "It’s gonna hit us!," he hollered. Ray, in 100 Church Street Source (http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/040911-sciabarra-911tribute.php)


I was watching, we were watching the first WTC building, watching the people fall and the flames burn when I saw a plane, a passenger size plane, come out of the sky, arc around and crash DIRECTLY into the other tower!! It left a huge hole and smoke and flames. People in the office were shouting and crying. –Andy, in the Woolworth Building Source (http://www.andyschest.com/WTC_Diary.html)

I was going to get my car tuned in New Jersey and saw one of the World Trade Center's towers on fire. I pulled off the road into Liberty State Park, sat on a bench there and then saw a plane fly low over the harbor and crash into the other tower. Photographer Bob Gruen,who photographed the explosion Source (http://www.bobgruen.com/potda/0901/Worldtradepage/Worldtradephotos.html)


At this moment hearing a coming sound I raised my head. No! This is not happening. A big passenger jet was right above me. It was a blink of an eye. A fraction of second later the airplane disappeared inside WTC tower. I was standing at the base of the building that was the target of terrorist attack. There was no place take the cover. It was to late to run away. All I could do was just to cover my head with my bare hands and wait for the miracle. Parts of the building and from the airplane were falling on the street around me. Maciej Swulinski Source (http://www.swulinski.com/9-11/My911.html)


In the distance we saw another jet flying directly for the Towers. We could not believe our eyes - with a huge fireball, the jet flew directly into the South tower. Daryl Bryant (http://ezinearticles.com/?9/11---We-Will-Never-Forget&id=295956)


Then someone pointed and said "look." It was at that point that I saw another plane. We were all wondering where it was going. In horror, we all watched as it hit the second tower. I will never get that sound or that vision out of my head. Bonnie Source (http://tomorrowisanother.blogspot.com/2007/09/never-forget.html)


Ted Campanello '85 worked on the 29th floor of WTC Building 7 (the smaller, third building to collapse) as a vice president for Salomon Smith Barney. He was on his way to the building and looking up at the smoke coming from the first tower when he saw the second plane coming out of the corner of his eye. When it hit, he ran into the basement of the Hilton Millennium Hotel but after about five minutes went back outside and headed east... Source (http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/w2001-02/9-11survive.html)




Bob Borski, 32, a financial director at the AIG insurance organization, with offices six blocks from the World Trade Center, was standing on the 15th floor with his boss, watching as the first tower burned. Then he saw United Airlines Flight 175 heading for the second tower.

It just doesn't fit into your mind -- I'm used to seeing planes and helicopters disappear behind the building. And then they come out the other side. But this was so low and it literally disappeared into the building. You think, well, what would that look like? Would it bounce off? But it's like the building swallowed up the plane. It was a swift explosion, it wasn't resounding. It was boom -- like a door shutting. Quick and loud. That silvery shiny plane, just going right into the building -- I'll replay it in my mind over and over. Source (http://www.greatdreams.com/trade_day2.htm)

I looked out my bedroom window and saw the second plane hurtling full power across New York harbor, flying low, tilted almost sideways, apparently coming right for me. When it passed over my building to pierce the South Tower, my reaction became a tiny piece of NBC News's coverage of the day. Eliott Walker, Today Show producer Source (http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archive/category/1178.aspx)



Police guided us across the West Side Highway, then we heard a loud roar and looked up to see a second jet headed right for the south tower. We heard the engines speed up as it turned sideways and hit the corner of the building head on. It looked like it melted into a fireball. –Carl Cuneff Source (http://web.archive.org/web/20010914230246/http://people.aol.com/people/special/0,11859,174592-3,00.html)



One of the officers behind me said, "Oh my God, Tracey, another airplane is coming!" I could hear the plane just coming and coming, and the engine was getting louder and louder. Then I heard it hit the South Tower. There was a shower of debris and parts of the plane... Airplane parts were falling and crushing police cars...–NYPD Officer Tracey Donahoo Source (http://www.amazon.com/Women-Ground-Zero-Stories-Compassion/dp/0028644220)



I work at St Vincent's hospital in downtown Manhattan. ...Our patients were asking us to turn their stretchers around so that they could look out the window (They later would be sorry as they had a clear view of the second plane's impact). Michael Dempsey Source (http://old.911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/435)


I walked over to the office areas facing Lower Manhattan. We saw the second plane hit the other Tower. We all knew this was no accident!!! Michael Anthony Nardiello Source (http://old.911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/43)


I watched the plane coming in and it looked it was going to turn right into our building. I hit the floor and the explosion of second plane rocked our building. I could feel the ripple of the explosion right through my stomach. It was powerful. Pete J. Source (http://old.911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/5410)


I was early for a meeting in Weehawken,NJ that morning. I parked behind the hotel I was to have the meeting in and looked across the Hudson to see a plane hit the tower. Smoke and flames appeared as I struggled to comprehend what had just happened. A few minutes later, the second plane hit. Craig Wielkotz Source (http://old.911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/57)



This time, a lot of people saw the plane coming. George A. Buckley III Source (http://old.911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/156)


All of a sudden we began to hear what sounded like a freight train going over our building. It looked more like a missile until the last second when the plane banked on its side and we saw the two wings as it plunged right into the 2nd tower. The building swayed on impact and we felt the heat and the blast shock like it was a slap in the face. Kevin J. Dabulis Source (http://911digitalarchive.org/smithsonian/details/6853)



I was standing with my colleagues, staring in horror at the smoke and fire coming out of the south side of 1 World Trade Center, when, with a roar, a huge Boeing 767 flew low over my left shoulder and slipped into the second tower (see CNN video link below, you'll hear roar and understand what I mean by slipped). Screaming, I fled away, not conscious of the explosion or the fireball that resulted.

...Until such time as I see "the Drogin evidence" blogged and linked and debated as much as the reconstructions using videogame technology by these idiots, I suggest that any readers of this consider that the 9/11 "truth" movement is merely another stupid variation on Holocaust denial. Barry Drogin: My Personal September 11 Page (http://www.geocities.com/bdrogin/war.html)



This has been a small sample of hundreds of published eyewitness accounts.

[pomeroo]

Ace Baker;
I know you are reading this, here is a partial list of flight 175 live on the scene witnesses and their testimony, If you fail to make an attempt to contact them or hand-wave off their testimony. then we know for a FACT you are delusional and therefore, mentally ill. If only for the sake of your wife and family and the shame you are putting them through. please seek professional help.


from
http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/whattheysaw%3Aeyewitnessaccountsofthenycai
[/left]
[/left]


I can assure you that any attempt by Ace to "interview" an eyewitness to the crash of United Flight 175 would start and end with him screaming that the person was a liar and a traitor. Ace is seriously ill--far more so than I imagined.

[ktesibios]

So, Mr. Grossi, given the enormous weight of evidence that the towers really were hit by airliners, why are you still pretending that Ace Baker's lunatic "analysis" has anything vaguely resembling credibility?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I started the thread to get review of the points in Baker's book. Most of them have been ignored.

Dave Rogers has contributed and I appreciate that.

I'd like Mr. Rogers to agree that what he says about the velocity analysis also means that the Chopper 5 shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking.

Which means that Rogers completely disagrees with fullflavormenthol. Fullflav claimed to have done an analysis that showed the motion was too unstable to composite on without motion tracking.

This will be a nice test of Dave Rogers' honesty.

Dave?

[Corsair 115]

I'd like Mr. Rogers to agree that what he says about the velocity analysis also means that the Chopper 5 shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking.I can only assume you missed the relevant posts previously. Let me restate with added emphasis:

What about the approximately FORTY other videos of the aircraft impacts? All of which were taken by different people, in different locations, with different cameras.

What about all the still photos taken of the impacts?

What about all the supporting physical evidence?

What about all the eyewitness evidence?

Ask yourself this: does Mr. Baker even attempt to address the points outlined above? Can he offer any sort of even remotely plausible rebuttal to the aforementioned points?

Remember, it is the totality of the evidence which points to the utter absurdity of the no plane argument.

[fullflavormenthol]

Lup> answer Corsair 115

[chillzero]

Do not address questions to banned members, when you know they cannot respond here legitimately. Discuss things amongst yourselves here, or go to other forums to discuss with the person in question. Do not allow banned members to post by proxy.

[Dave Rogers]

I'd like Mr. Rogers to agree that what he says about the velocity analysis also means that the Chopper 5 shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking.

I have absolutely no idea how stable a video would need to be in order to composite on it without motion tracking. You're asking me to comment on an analysis I've never read without knowing the basis of that analysis, and this is supposed to be a test of my honesty? You're deliberately trying to set traps. Argue the evidence or nothing.

I got a quick look at Ace's comment before it was removed, and as I suspected it doesn't address the issue. The stabilising approach used is a differential technique, and like any other differential technique it eliminates a systematic error at the cost of introducing an additional measurement error. Ace has not quantified that additional measurement error, he's simply asserted that it's small. Until he can produce some evidence that he's able to perform a frame-by-frame measurement with sub-pixel accuracy - and that means multiple data sets compiled by independent operators measuring the object positions by a specified technique, to eliminate subjectivity, with statistical analysis of the variation between different measurements - then all he's got is an estimate of his own measurement error. And his stabilised results look exactly as I'd expect if that's the only additional source of error; a small, random variation on a one-pixel level.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I have absolutely no idea how stable a video would need to be in order to composite on it without motion tracking.
Dave

Dave, here are your claims:

1. You claim to know that the measurement error is too large to support Baker's claim.
2. You claim to have studied Chopper 5.
3. You claim that you do not detect motion instability in Chopper 5.

If Chopper 5 was too unstable to composite on, then your study, which you claim to have done, would show that the motion of the airplane becomes more stable after you stabilize the video.

If random errors prevent us from showing that the motion of the plane becomes LESS stable (as Baker claims) then they also prevent us from showing that the motion becomes MORE stable (as fullflavormenthol claims).

Since you say we can't measure any problems with the motion (one way or the other), then the shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking.

[Dave Rogers]

Dave, here are your claims:

1. You claim to know that the measurement error is too large to support Baker's claim.

I claim nothing of the sort. I claim that Baker has not determined the measurement error, and that therefore his claim (that additional noise on the apparent motion of the airplane can only arise from compositing) is unproven.

2. You claim to have studied Chopper 5.

Look for a thread called "Debunking Pinnochio's Nose", or something similar.

3. You claim that you do not detect motion instability in Chopper 5.

I claim nothing of the sort.

If Chopper 5 was too unstable to composite on, then your study, which you claim to have done, would show that the motion of the airplane becomes more stable after you stabilize the video.

If random errors prevent us from showing that the motion of the plane becomes LESS stable (as Baker claims) then they also prevent us from showing that the motion becomes MORE stable (as fullflavormenthol claims).

These two paragraphs suggest that you have too little background knowledge of random error analysis to understand the issues here. If the motion of the plane were to become more stable, that would imply that a systematic error was being removed by a process with a random error smaller than the systematic error. If the motion becomes less stable, we can't determine whether this is due to measurement error without determining the expected measurement error.

Since you say we can't measure any problems with the motion (one way or the other), then the shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking.

If I'd said that, you might draw that conclusion. Since I said nothing of the sort, please stop attributing to me views that I don't hold.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

OK, Dave, let me see if I have this straight.

You have studied the motion of the airplane in Chopper 5.

After studying it, and taking your best measurements, you have no idea whether the motion is stable on the unstabilized shot, you have no idea whether the the motion is stable on the stablized shot, you have no idea whether the motion of the airplane becomes more stable or less stable after stabilizing the shot, and you have no idea whether the original shot was stable enough to composite on, or not.

Are those your positions?

[Corsair 115]

This fixation upon one video is beyond ludicrous when there are forty other videos awaiting proof of fakery, still photos awaiting proof of fakery, physical evidence awaiting proof of fakery, and eyewitness evidence awaiting proof of fakery.

It's not as if there are only one or two pieces of evidence that need to be shown as frauds; there is a mountain of it.

[pomeroo]

OK, Dave, let me see if I have this straight.

You have studied the motion of the airplane in Chopper 5.

After studying it, and taking your best measurements, you have no idea whether the motion is stable on the unstabilized shot, you have no idea whether the the motion is stable on the stablized shot, you have no idea whether the motion of the airplane becomes more stable or less stable after stabilizing the shot, and you have no idea whether the original shot was stable enough to composite on, or not.

Are those your positions?


What is your position on the 'Hardfire' debate in which video compositing expert Steve Wright exposed Ace Baker's pretensions?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

This fixation upon one video is beyond ludicrous when there are forty other videos awaiting proof of fakery, still photos awaiting proof of fakery, physical evidence awaiting proof of fakery, and eyewitness evidence awaiting proof of fakery.

It's not as if there are only one or two pieces of evidence that need to be shown as frauds; there is a mountain of it.

You're suggesting that Chopper 5 could be a fake, but there was a real airplane anyway?

[Corsair 115]

You're suggesting that Chopper 5 could be a fake, but there was a real airplane anyway?I am suggesting the footage in question is far less likely to be fake due to the mountain of other supporting evidence.

It's not as if this alleged 9/11 conspiracy had to fake only one or two videos to trick the public. They had to fake some forty videos, not to mention still photos, all the physical evidence, and all the eyewitness evidence.

How likely a prospect does that seem to you?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Any number of videos and photos could be faked. Pick a number.

I believe Baker's "fixation" on Chopper 5 is that this is one which has mistakes in it. His "fixation" on CNN Ghostplane is that it is the clearest view of the penetration.

There are a number of videos referenced in the treatise. He points out what appear to be a number of inconsistencies between them.

[Tomblvd]

Any number of videos and photos could be faked. Pick a number.

I believe Baker's "fixation" on Chopper 5 is that this is one which has mistakes in it. His "fixation" on CNN Ghostplane is that it is the clearest view of the penetration.

There are a number of videos referenced in the treatise. He points out what appear to be a number of inconsistencies between them.


To what end?

I've spent years on the Apollo Hoax forums explaining "inconsistencies" in photos and videos. As a photographer myself I've learned that film and digital media are far from perfect formats for recording visual information.

But what is missing from your side of the equation is a narrative explaining away every photo, video, eyewitness account and physical evidence. Nobody is under any obligation, other than a perverse desire for entertainment, to give you the answers you demand, especially when you ignore questions put to you.

Moon hoax proponents approach their endeavor exactly as you do. Pick a number of issues that, to you and your ilk, don't "look right". No matter how insignificant the issue is, you hang on for dear life, insisting these anomalies somehow speak to a larger truth. Only, when queried, you cannot begin to articulate just what that truth is. If all your questions were to turn out to be true anomalies, it wouldn't get you a millimeter closer to a specific story that explains 9-11 in any other terms.

IOW, you are engaged in an exercise of mental masturbation. Nothing more.

[pleitegeier]

What is your position on the 'Hardfire' debate in which video compositing expert Steve Wright exposed Ace Baker's pretensions?
I have to disagree.
Yes, the show was quite interesting, but not very long.
Of course it's nit possible to do it better in this short time period, so don't take this as an offense, but Baker was not "exposed".
What's with this "fade-to-black" business? In other shots there is also a "fade-to-black" which can't be explained by this. So it appears to me that the "signal interuption" is the more plausible explanation.

I don't know this for a fact. All I can say is that the show didn't debunk Ace on some points... Ace shows his evidence, Steve Wright comments it, and then you skip to the next point.

Nope, no complete debunking here at all.
Steve Wright doesn't even adress Ace's response to the "no contant speed" but simply ommits it. This doesn't mean he is lying or anything, but clearly he isn't responding Ace's comment, which doesn't seem to stupid to me (although it raises the question why they didn't simply made the plane disappear, why slow it down, this would only make the risk higher to get busted...)

Wright may be right and I'm sure he knows a lot more about video editing than Ace does, but I repeat - In the show, you *don't* completely destroy Ace's theory, sorry.

Disclaimer: I'm not a no-planer, and I don't believe in this "nose-out" and "miracle zoom" and "ghost plane" (WTF?! You simply cannot see if there's a hole in the tower, the smoke obscures anything! And to me it looks as if the building is indeed showing reaction to the plane hit in the "ghost-plane" video, when looking at this frame-by-frame).
But it doesn't help anybody to claim something that simply isn't the case.

I look forward to a more constructive, text debate between the too in which Steve really debates with Ace's, I'm sure he is capable of debunking him totally, but he clearly doesn't in the show.

Heck, I understand that it couldn't be done better in one hour, so no offense again and please don't bash me ;)

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

The fade to black cannot possibly be a signal interruption. Video sync is maintained, the coherence of the scan lines is maintained, picture fades down to black. Black is a picture.

pleitegeier, I think you should read Baker's book. Various explanations are covered.

[Corsair 115]

Any number of videos and photos could be faked. Pick a number. And maybe it was a cloaked Godzilla which destroyed the WTC towers.

Shall we limit ourselves to realistic possibilities, or shall we indulge in any and all manner of fantasy options?

The fade to black cannot possibly be a signal interruption. Video sync is maintained, the coherence of the scan lines is maintained, picture fades down to black. Black is a picture.Really? And your technical background and expertise which allows you to make this unequivocal statement is...?

[fullflavormenthol]

Really? And your technical background and expertise which allows you to make this unequivocal statement is...?

Didn't you know reading an ebook by Ace Baker qualifies one has being an expert in this field? I mean he was able to create an animation in Apple Motion, which totally is the same thing as live video compositing.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

A

Really? And your technical background and expertise which allows you to make this unequivocal statement [fade to black cannot be a signal interruption] is...?

Actually on that one point, we're just agreeing with Steve Wright.

[Arus808]

GUYS, ACE baker needs to be ignored and anyone WHO argues on his behalf.

slg - YOU HAVE only one more post after this to explain in YOUR own words;




EVERYONE ELSE, please DO NOT RESPOND




SLG - Explain how YOU HAVE IGNORED several times in this thread, that WITNESSES SAW THESE PLANES CRASH INTO THOSE TOWERS.


NO video
NO photographs

REAL LIVE witnesses.


AND GUESS WHAT?

MY aunt and uncle were THERE that day and SAW both planes crash into those towers! THEY were minutes away from entering the WTC complex, when they heard the first plane over head and crash into WTC 1


EXPLAIN why I would trust video of ANYTHING that happened that day over the EXPERIENCES of my Aunt and Uncle?


TAke your video fakery BS out of the question and LOOK at the BIG pictures

THOUSANDS OF WITNESSES SAW THOSE PLANE CRASH, INTO THOSE BUILDINGS WITHOUT BEING GLUED TO THE Tv!



You explain that

YOU've ignored it several times now, and its getting tiresome.


YOU EXPLAIN WHY MY AUNT AND UNCLE SAW THOSE PLANES; YOU TELL ME WHY THEY DIDN'T SEE WHAT THEY SAW.

[Dave Rogers]

OK, Dave, let me see if I have this straight.

You have studied the motion of the airplane in Chopper 5.

After studying it, and taking your best measurements, you have no idea whether the motion is stable on the unstabilized shot, you have no idea whether the the motion is stable on the stablized shot, you have no idea whether the motion of the airplane becomes more stable or less stable after stabilizing the shot, and you have no idea whether the original shot was stable enough to composite on, or not.

Are those your positions?

No. But please pretend they are if it makes you feel better.

Dave

ETA: Sorry, Arus, missed your post. SLG, please don't respond to this one until you've responded to Arus.

[Arus808]

And can someone find that video where that guy (i think a photographer) had set up his camera while North Tower was burning, and it caught the 2nd plane hitting the south tower.

(found it http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgIZri5lT68 )

Ace is a coward for not using that video in his piss poor analysis.

why is that?


And yes, Steve needs to address why he will not address EYE WITNESSES, since my aunt and uncle WERE WITNESSES to BOTH planes.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

GUYS, ACE baker needs to be ignored and anyone WHO argues on his behalf.

slg - YOU HAVE only one more post after this to explain in YOUR own words;




EVERYONE ELSE, please DO NOT RESPOND




SLG - Explain how YOU HAVE IGNORED several times in this thread, that WITNESSES SAW THESE PLANES CRASH INTO THOSE TOWERS.


NO video
NO photographs

REAL LIVE witnesses.


AND GUESS WHAT?

MY aunt and uncle were THERE that day and SAW both planes crash into those towers! THEY were minutes away from entering the WTC complex, when they heard the first plane over head and crash into WTC 1


EXPLAIN why I would trust video of ANYTHING that happened that day over the EXPERIENCES of my Aunt and Uncle?


TAke your video fakery BS out of the question and LOOK at the BIG pictures

THOUSANDS OF WITNESSES SAW THOSE PLANE CRASH, INTO THOSE BUILDINGS WITHOUT BEING GLUED TO THE Tv!



You explain that

YOU've ignored it several times now, and its getting tiresome.


YOU EXPLAIN WHY MY AUNT AND UNCLE SAW THOSE PLANES; YOU TELL ME WHY THEY DIDN'T SEE WHAT THEY SAW.

The point of my thread is to elicit criticism of each point raised by Baker in his book. Baker ignores the eyewitnesses in his book. I have seen the Hardfire shows, and I know Baker played several clips of eyewitnesses who said things like "I didn't see a plane, that just exploded" and so forth. It seemed like he was going to play more of those, when Ron Wieck interrupted. So there appears to be some conflicting witness reports.

If the airplane witnesses are correct, then there must be mistakes in all of what Ace Baker claims in his book. I think you guys should address his claims, head on.

[Arus808]

I think you guys should address his claims, head on.


Point is, HIS POINTS WERE Addressed. HE has ignored them. He went head to head with a professional and HE STILL ignores what that PROFESSIONAL told him

THERE is nothing in his claims to address, BECAUSE HE IGNORES THE MOST obvious thing that BLOWS EVERYTHING he claims out of the WATER:


THERE WERE THOUSANDS OF WITNESSES to the planes crashing into those towers.



THAT, is the point we are trying to make. ALL of his analysis, all of his trying to prove the videos were FAKED is POINTLESS, because he IGNORES the WITNESSES.



SO arguing about meeting his CLAIMS is an EXERCISE in futility. He went up against A PROFESSIONAL and his claims were torn to shreds.

HE is not well. HE is a coward and HE is not to be believed.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

I said:

OK, Dave, let me see if I have this straight.

You have studied the motion of the airplane in Chopper 5.

After studying it, and taking your best measurements, you have no idea whether the motion is stable on the unstabilized shot, you have no idea whether the the motion is stable on the stablized shot, you have no idea whether the motion of the airplane becomes more stable or less stable after stabilizing the shot, and you have no idea whether the original shot was stable enough to composite on, or not.
Are those your positions?



And Dave said:

No.

Dave


No what?

I guess I'll have to be pedantically methodical.

1. Have you studied the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

2. If yes in 1, were you able to make a determination about the stability of the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

3. If yes in 2, did you determine that the motion of the airplane is stable?

4. If yes in 1, did your study include any effort to analyze the camera motion present in the video?

5. If yes in 4, were you able to reach any conclusion about how much effect (if any) the camera motion has on the apparent motion stability of the airplane?

6. If yes in 5, did you determine that the camera motion makes the apparent motion of the airplane less stable?

[Arus808]

SLG - Until you can explain what the WITNESSES SAW, anything that you argue at this point in time is meaningless.


Address the witnesses.

[gumboot]

The fade to black cannot possibly be a signal interruption. Video sync is maintained, the coherence of the scan lines is maintained, picture fades down to black. Black is a picture.

pleitegeier, I think you should read Baker's book. Various explanations are covered.


This is only true of analogue transmission. Not digital. Digital transmission loss does not result in noise, but a "blank" screen which will be whatever the system's default no-signal screen is. This is typically either black or blue.

[gumboot]

I said:



And Dave said:



No what?

I guess I'll have to be pedantically methodical.

1. Have you studied the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

2. If yes in 1, were you able to make a determination about the stability of the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

3. If yes in 2, did you determine that the motion of the airplane is stable?

4. If yes in 1, did your study include any effort to analyze the camera motion present in the video?

5. If yes in 4, were you able to reach any conclusion about how much effect (if any) the camera motion has on the apparent motion stability of the airplane?

6. If yes in 5, did you determine that the camera motion makes the apparent motion of the airplane less stable?


Ace Baker's analysis fails to take into account the not unsubstantial margin of error. As such his analysis is fundamentally flawed from the outset and therefore worthless.

I have mentioned this repeatedly, both to you and to Ace Baker. You both seem impressively incapable of accepting this rather basic fact.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

This is only true of analogue transmission. Not digital. Digital transmission loss does not result in noise, but a "blank" screen which will be whatever the system's default no-signal screen is. This is typically either black or blue.

We've all seen digital transmissions break up. They don't go to black, they usually freeze frame. Or freeze part of a frame.

We are dealing with a FADE to black in Chopper 5, not a cut to black.

Other news helicopters on 9/11 had signal interruptions, and they feature noise.

The cameraman on board Chopper 5 (who happens to be an expert in video compositing) was Kai Simonsen. He says the fade to black happened because he was engaging a 2X lens extender.

But the focus and zoom don't change when he "engages" it. So that seems wrong. What do you think about that? Simonsen was there, and he's an expert. Why would he say it was a lens extender?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Ace Baker's analysis fails to take into account the not unsubstantial margin of error. As such his analysis is fundamentally flawed from the outset and therefore worthless.

I have mentioned this repeatedly, both to you and to Ace Baker. You both seem impressively incapable of accepting this rather basic fact.

If that's true, then the camera shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking, right?

If the shot was too shaky, then you could measure and demonstrate that shakiness, in the erratic motion of the airplane (and everything else), right?

This is a crucial question that Gumboot, Dave Rogers, Fullflavormenthol, and everyone else is avoiding.

[fullflavormenthol]

No body has avoided the question...you are simply ignoring any answers that don't fit you preconceived belief that Ace Baker is correct.

Now the question you are avoiding is WHAT ABOUT THE EYE WITNESSES?

[Arus808]

We've all seen digital transmissions break up. They don't go to black, they usually freeze frame. Or freeze part of a frame.

We are dealing with a FADE to black in Chopper 5, not a cut to black.

false.

its whatever is set on the machine to go to.

instead of second guessing on a forum , why dont you call your local tv news station and ask them what happens when their digital video feed is interrupted.

\

now, please ADDRESS Teh witnesess.

ALL of this discussion about video fakery (which wasn't possible on 9/11/2001 and not even possible today, since what required to be done on 9/11/2001 , the technology doesn't EVEN exist today) is infantile at best.


ADDRESS the witnesses

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

false.

its whatever is set on the machine to go to.

instead of second guessing on a forum , why dont you call your local tv news station and ask them what happens when their digital video feed is interrupted.

\

now, please ADDRESS Teh witnesess.

ALL of this discussion about video fakery (which wasn't possible on 9/11/2001 and not even possible today, since what required to be done on 9/11/2001 , the technology doesn't EVEN exist today) is infantile at best.


ADDRESS the witnesses

I believe Ace Baker is willing to bet $100,000 that he can do live compositing. Specifically, Baker claims that an Avid system can do a convincing airplane composite passing behind a building wall, in real time.

I believe Baker is willing to put the challenge in writing. Is anyone on JREF up for it?

[Arus808]

He already HADd his chance against a PROFESSIONAL. and the PROFESSIONAL shot down his claims like the turd they were.

No, an AVID system cannot do on the fly video composition that would have been needed on 9/11/2001 ( I worked with AVID throughout my high school and into college, until we moved into using Media 100 - I know the capabilities of what AVID can do, in its many configurations. I also interned at a tv news station for a year, and know what can be done as video is fed live to the station).


AGAIN,

NO challenge here. YOU'VE avoided it constantly and will not address it. ALL of ACE's claims rely on YOU AND EVERYONE TO IGNORE THE WITNESSES.

SO AGAIN< arguing this is pointless. ACE has to explain the WITNESSES before he can claim fakery.


SO, IF HE WANTS A CHALLENGE, TELL HIM OUR CHALLENGE IS TO TELL US WHAT THE THOUSANDS OF WITNESSES SAW THAT DAY, INCLUDING WHAT MY AUNT AND UNCLE SAW.



TELL me, what they saw. TELL us what they saw. all the VIDEO footage in the world (faked or not), YOU still have to explain the eye witnesses.

[fullflavormenthol]

SLG> Why are you avoiding the simple question about the witnesses?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

$100,000 challenge, and no takers?

Let's see about that.

Does anyone agree or disagree with the claim that there exists live video compositing sufficient to insert an airplane into a stable shot with a building against a bright sky?

$100,000, in writing. Baker has balls, you can say that.

[Corsair 115]

SLG> Why are you avoiding the simple question about the witnesses?Because to acknowledge it is to acknowledge the no plane position is pure fantasy.

Personally, I'd argue that the sheer number of videos of the impact plus the still photos plus the eyewitnesses plus the physical evidence all work hand-in-hand to render the no plane proposition incredibly ludicrous.

After all, it's one thing to fake one video. That would only involve getting a few people to co-operate with the conspiracy. But when you move to some forty videos, that's forty different angles, forty different pieces of hardware, and forty different backstories of the people who took those videos to fill in. The scale and complexity of the conspiracy has just increased enormously, and consequently, the likelihood of it being a realistic possibility has decreased enormously. Then you add in the still photos, eyewitnesses, and physical evidence, and the no plane conspiracy likelihood has dropped to zero.

It's the same thing the Apollo moon landing conspiracists don't grasp. There wasn't just one landing on the moon to have to fake, there were six. With each more complex and longer than the last. The more times you put out a fake, the more likely you are to be discovered, the more likely there is that something will go wrong and the conspiracy will be exposed. Would any attempt at faking a lunar landing mission do so six times? No, if you're going to do a fake, you do it once and hope no one notices.

The totality of the evidence is what counts. And that totality, just as it does with the Apollo moon landing conspiracists, renders the 9/11 no plane conspiracy a complete and utterly insane fantasy.

[Corsair 115]

Does anyone agree or disagree with the claim that there exists live video compositing sufficient to insert an airplane into a stable shot with a building against a bright sky?No, the question is really this:

Does anyone agree or disagree with the claim that there exists live video compositing sufficient to insert an airplane into a stable shot with a building against a bright sky such that it can fool the best video and special effects experts in the world, that it was technically possible to do in 2001, and that it is possible to rationally and plausibly explain away the totality of the evidence?

If you're going to ask a question, you should ask the right one.


By the way, I'll stack up my eyes against anyone else's when it comes to spotting visual effects. I can spot effects probably about nine times out of ten on the first viewing, and with additional viewings I can usually spot that remaining one. I saw the events of 9/11 on a good-sized television in broadcast quality as the images were first shown on the news reports of numerous channels (both inside and outside the United States). There was no video fakery of any shots.

The first time I watched The Matrix Reloaded I was able to spot the vehicles in the highway chase were entirely CGI creations and not actually present when the sequence was filmed. There was no fakery in the various images from 9/11.

[Dave Rogers]

The point of my thread is to elicit criticism of each point raised by Baker in his book.

Strange, because you've once or twice tried to stifle discussion before any criticisms acceptable to you had been posted. You seem more interested in stirring up imaginary disagreements between Baker's critics.

I guess I'll have to be pedantically methodical.

1. Have you studied the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

Asked and answered.

2. If yes in 1, were you able to make a determination about the stability of the airplane motion in Chopper 5?

3. If yes in 2, did you determine that the motion of the airplane is stable?

The motion of the airplane is not stable on a pixel level, as Baker agrees.

4. If yes in 1, did your study include any effort to analyze the camera motion present in the video?

No, I only took differential measurements of the airplane motion. I haven't got any comments, therefore, on fullflavormenthol's analysis, however much you want to start an argument over it.

I don't dispute Baker's data, or his finding that removal of the camera motion yelded a data set for the motion of the airplane with greater random variations than the unstabilised data. I note that the difference between the data sets is on a much smaller scale than the random variations in apparent motion of the airplane. Based on Baker's own results, I disagree with his interpretation that the only explanation of the greater random motions in the stabilised data is that the video was composited. There is inevitably an additional measurement error because two, not one, measurements are being made, and Baker's assertion that this error is negligible is unsupported and therefore worthless. That, if you like, is his mistake in this section: the assumption that measurement error on a pixellated image is very much less than one pixel.

If that's true, then the camera shot was stable enough to composite on without motion tracking, right?

If the shot was too shaky, then you could measure and demonstrate that shakiness, in the erratic motion of the airplane (and everything else), right?

This is a crucial question that Gumboot, Dave Rogers, Fullflavormenthol, and everyone else is avoiding.

That's because it isn't a crucial question, because the burden of proof is too great for a mere demonstration of feasibility to be of any value. Even if Baker could prove that it was possible on 9/11 to have composited shots which reproduce the live footage in every respect, he would not have negated the overwhelming evidence that flights 11 and 175 impacted the Twin Towers. Only if he could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the shots could not have been produced in any other way would he have any grounds for claiming that further investigation was required, and the quality of the footage he's working with makes any such proof essentially impossible. It would be nice to point out his errors in every section, but ultimately the only real answer is that he's engaged in a highly subjective quest to read more information into poor-quality pictures than is really there.

Dave

[pomeroo]

The point of my thread is to elicit criticism of each point raised by Baker in his book. Baker ignores the eyewitnesses in his book. I have seen the Hardfire shows, and I know Baker played several clips of eyewitnesses who said things like "I didn't see a plane, that just exploded" and so forth. It seemed like he was going to play more of those, when Ron Wieck interrupted. So there appears to be some conflicting witness reports.

If the airplane witnesses are correct, then there must be mistakes in all of what Ace Baker claims in his book. I think you guys should address his claims, head on.


I interrupted because Baker did something he wasn't supposed to do. I decided that using eyewitness testimony in a debate about video fakery was inappropriate. Accordingly, I asked the debaters to stick to the subject. Baker, having seen his bogus arguments crushed by someone who knows vastly more about video compositing than he does, trotted out irrelevant clips in pure desperation. We all get the idea that of the tens of thousands of people whose eyes were riveted on the spectacle unfolding at the WTC complex there were some who missed seeing the plane hit the building. Nobody who failed to catch a glimpse of the plane believes that there was no plane. Ace is quite mad, but he is also unscrupulous and deceptive.

[Dave Rogers]

We all get the idea that of the tens of thousands of people whose eyes were riveted on the spectacle unfolding at the WTC complex there were some who missed seeing the plane hit the building.

This would include, for example, anyone standing on the opposite side of the building. Anyone in that location, looking up, would have not seen a plane, just seen the building explode. How the no-planers can be dishonest or deluded enough to use that sort of account as evidence, I find it hard to fathom.

Dave

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Well, there is David Handschuh. He was right at the foot of the South Tower, on the south side. He shot a picture of the tower exploding.

He didn't see a plane, and it would have flown right above and in front of him.

I was looking at the tower, I had my camera in my hand, I heard the noise, I never saw the airplane.

-David Handschuh.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lmMZQFRzFY

[beachnut]

Well, there is David Handschuh. He was right at the foot of the South Tower, on the south side. He shot a picture of the tower exploding.

He didn't see a plane, and it would have flown right above and in front of him.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lmMZQFRzFY
So, other people did see the Planes. You video junk is refuted by real eyes.

[TexasJack]

Well, there is David Handschuh. He was right at the foot of the South Tower, on the south side. He shot a picture of the tower exploding.

He didn't see a plane, and it would have flown right above and in front of him.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lmMZQFRzFY

But he said he heard the plane. Oh, that must have been government manufactured airplane noise.

[dtugg]

Hey Steven. I saw plane hit the South Tower with my own eyes. I was standing across the Hudson and had about the best view possible. It was without a doubt, a large twin engine commercial jet. Am I a liar, a government shill? Maybe I really saw a hologram? Or maybe Ace Baker is a crazy person and planes really did hit the towers and his TV fakery work is nonsense.

[Arus808]

But he said he heard the plane. Oh, that must have been government manufactured airplane noise.

if he was standign directly under the tower, on the south side, why would he have seen the plane? Traveling at 400 mph, between the sound of hearing it, by the time he "looked" up thge explosion happened.

this is where troofers, like Steve, fail to understand that light travels faster than sound.

[A W Smith]

Well, there is David Handschuh. He was right at the foot of the South Tower, on the south side. He shot a picture of the tower exploding.

He didn't see a plane, and it would have flown right above and in front of him.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9lmMZQFRzFY


sorry you fail. Reality and the thousands of witnesses trump your no plane fantasy. Steven. Send me the $100,000.00 dollars since I have already proved pages ago that because of the thousands of live eye witnesses the video fakery is a non starter. I will only accept a bank check. But don't mail it. I will meet you at the WFC marina to pick it up. Just give me an hour and a half notice. Your handful of witnesses one of which (above) had their back to the plane as they stood in the canyon of the WTC complex with the Deutsche Bank building behind them heard the plane overhead.

[R.Mackey]

$100,000 challenge, and no takers?

Let's see about that.

Does anyone agree or disagree with the claim that there exists live video compositing sufficient to insert an airplane into a stable shot with a building against a bright sky?

$100,000, in writing. Baker has balls, you can say that.

Actually, we can say conclusively that he is a welcher (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=64596).

Nice attempt at distraction, though. I still haven't seen any address of the thousands of witnesses, among other problems.

[Corsair 115]

this is where troofers, like Steve, fail to understand that light travels faster than sound.This is probably caused in part by Hollywood movies and TV shows where event image and event sound are always simultaneous. An explosion can happen far away from a character, and yet the sound of the explosion is simultaneous with the visual of the explosion.

[Arus808]

This is probably caused in part by Hollywood movies and TV shows where event image and event sound are always simultaneous. An explosion can happen far away from a character, and yet the sound of the explosion is simultaneous with the visual of the explosion.


which shows that none of them have ever been to a fireworks display (on New years or Fourth of July) or a rock concert.

[ktesibios]

Something else to add to the consilience pointed out by Corsair115:

What about the impact studies carried out by, among others, NIST and researchers at Purdue University?

Not only do simulations of a 767 crashing into each of the towers produce results which tally nicely when compared to the actual exterior damage shown by the photographic record, but...

To do those simulations in the first place a set of initial conditions had to be defined- velocity, impact location, direction of motion, pitch angle and bank angle. Change those initial conditions and the results change.

NIST derived much of the information they used in defining those initial conditions by analyzing the available videos of the impacts- the very same videos that must, for the no-planers to be correct, be the products of forgery.

That means that for the faked videos to be visually plausible is nowhere near enough. They had to be faked in such a way that when they were used as a source of information in setting up detailed computer models of the non-existent airplane impacts, the results of those models would accurately reproduce the damage created by the NWO's Hush-a-Moob silent implosives sucking the broken external columns inward.

Our conspiracy is now not merely impossibly vast- it also has to have predictive powers verging on omniscience.

Demanding that Ace Baker's fantasy be disproved in detail when the enormous weight of evidence is that he is simply cobbling together "anomalies" to avoid the collapse of a delusional belief is either crazy or dishonest- I can't tell which.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

What about the impact studies carried out by, among others, NIST and researchers at Purdue University?

Not only do simulations of a 767 crashing into each of the towers produce results which tally nicely when compared to the actual exterior damage shown by the photographic record, but...

To do those simulations in the first place a set of initial conditions had to be defined- velocity, impact location, direction of motion, pitch angle and bank angle. Change those initial conditions and the results change.
.

Actually, Ace Baker went to Purdue and interviewed the gentlemen who produced the simulations - Mete Sozen and Voicu Popescu.

Baker questioned Mr. Popescu about several impossible events in the Purdue animation, for example a floor assembly that is undamaged after a large piece of shrapnel slices right through it.

Remember, the Purdue animations were allegedly based entirely on an engineering simulation.

Popescu produced a version of the animaton that had that particular sequence edited out, and pretended not to know what Baker was talking about. He pretended not to know how to step through the animation one frame at a time. Baker showed Popescu, who is a professor of computer science, the arrow keys on his keyboard. Eventually Baker showed Popescu the longer version, and Popescu was unable to explain the anomalies.

Sozen agreed to release to Baker his simulation data. Thusfar, he has not done so. The Purdue simulation data appears unavailable. Requests for a full resolution copy of the complete video were also ignored.

What evidence do we have that the Purdue animation is anything more than a cartoon?

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

Send me the $100,000.00 dollars since I have already proved pages ago that because of the thousands of live eye witnesses the video fakery is a non starter.

It's not me, it's Baker. I don't know all the details of the challenge. I know that Baker is very confident that live video compositing is routine.

A W Smith, do you claim that live compositing is not possible?

[A W Smith]

It's not me, it's Baker. I don't know all the details of the challenge. I know that Baker is very confident that live video compositing is routine.

A W Smith, do you claim that live compositing is not possible?

I claim that live composting that matches what thousands of people see live at the exact same moment is impossible. yes

[R.Mackey]

Actually, Ace Baker went to Purdue and interviewed the gentlemen who produced the simulations - Mete Sozen and Voicu Popescu.

Swell. Mr. Baker Goes to Washington.

Let me see if the reality filter casts a more rational light on these events.


Baker questioned Mr. Popescu about several impossible events in the Purdue animation, for example a floor assembly that is undamaged after a large piece of shrapnel slices right through it.

Remember, the Purdue animations were allegedly based entirely on an engineering simulation.

Mr. Baker talks to the professors in charge of the project, rather than the grad students who actually executed the visualization. And, in the best traditions of the Truth Movement, rather than ask technically relevant questions, he focuses on anomalies.

Popescu produced a version of the animaton that had that particular sequence edited out, and pretended not to know what Baker was talking about. He pretended not to know how to step through the animation one frame at a time. Baker showed Popescu, who is a professor of computer science, the arrow keys on his keyboard. Eventually Baker showed Popescu the longer version, and Popescu was unable to explain the anomalies.

Ace has an early or slightly different run than Dr. Popescu was thinking of. Maybe it's an update or an edit, maybe there are boundary conditions late in the run that are different for some reason, maybe Dr. Popescu doesn't have the final cut, who knows? But rather than try to figure this out, he decides that Dr. Popescu is lying to him. There are any number of reasons why whatever run Ace has may be flawed or misinterpreted, but that's not important. As long as there are "anomalies," Ace is happy.


Sozen agreed to release to Baker his simulation data. Thusfar, he has not done so. The Purdue simulation data appears unavailable. Requests for a full resolution copy of the complete video were also ignored.

What evidence do we have that the Purdue animation is anything more than a cartoon?

The faculty of Purdue, now realizing what kind of person they're dealing with, allegedly decides to blow Ace off. From this, one can only conclude that Ace has gotten dangerously close to a secret! Either Purdue is just making pretty pictures and somehow fooling the IEEE, or maybe they're IN ON IT! :boggled:

What evidence do we have? Well, for starters, have you actually read their papers? Their method is clearly defined. It would be easier to actually do it than to set everything up and then produce a video through an entirely separate process. There is more, of course, but that should be sufficient.

Honestly, this inflates (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2320446#post2320446) paranoia to a new level of stupidity. You are flirting with the limiting case (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2323813#post2323813).

[A W Smith]

Popescu produced a version of the animaton that had that particular sequence edited out, and pretended not to know what Baker was talking about. He pretended not to know how to step through the animation one frame at a time. Baker showed Popescu, who is a professor of computer science, the arrow keys on his keyboard. Eventually Baker showed Popescu the longer version, and Popescu was unable to explain the anomalies.



this does not surprise me at all. My neighbor Dave for the past several days has been trying to remove a virus from his PC. His job is data entry at a file storage facility. his brother is a systems administrator on mainframes for fed Ex. They both share this PC at home. I found out last night that Dave has a masters in computer science. yet I (a building contractor) had to walk him though how to remove a virus from his PC. I don't have a degree. But often is the case i wonder that when they throw their tassels to the other side of their mortarboard upon their graduation. they throw off the switch for common sense at the same time.

[Corsair 115]

I know that Baker is very confident that live video compositing is routine.Of course variants of that are possible—one can argue the 'virtual ads' displayed during MLB games, or the 'virtual down markers' used in NFL broadcasts are a form of live video compositing.

But it is a huge leap to go from something like those to saying an aircraft can be pasted into a scene with such accuracy and realism that not even the guys down at ILM would have seen something suspicious. And if anyone's going to know about special effects tricks, it's going to be the folks at ILM (not to mention any other top-notch effects house).

And, of course, there's the totality of the evidence which works strongly against video fakery. I keep pointing this out. And I get rather distressed at how easily this point gets ignored by the fakery proponents.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

RMackey - Is the Purdue data available or not?

Is complete version of the Purdue animation available in high resolution, or not?

If not, why not?

If so, where?

[Arus808]

SLG -0 why dont you contact Purdue to find out? why must we do YOUR work?

and until ACE meets our challenge of explaining the witnesses, AGAIN all this arguing about video fakery is moot.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

RMackey offers an Axiom

The Inflationary Limit of Conspiracy Theories is reached when it requires those questioning the conspiracy theory to be a part of the conspiracy. This final excuse occurs because any alternate hypothesis, no matter how well it fits the known facts, is viewed as a threat to the conspiracy hypothesis. No further inflation is possible because, when this point is reached, any criticism is considered suspect -- thus encompassing the entire world outside the conspiracy hypothesis.

Conversely, reaching the Inflationary Limit logically implies that any alternate hypothesis is superior to the conspiracy hypothesis.

Therefore, a conspiracy theory that reaches the Inflationary Limit is by definition the worst of all possible hypotheses.

Let's test Mackey's idea.

In this case (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-terror9-2008sep09,0,7060837.story) 3 Britons were accused of conspiracy to use liquid bombs on planes. Prosecutors thus were offering a "conspiracy theory". The accused denied their guilt. Therefore they were among "those who question the conspiracy theory". The prosecution theory thus "requires those questioning the conspiracy theory to be a part of the conspiracy".

Other hypotheses exist in the matter, e.g., "they were framed".

Therefore the "inflationary limit" was reached in the prosecution theory, and so was the "worst of all possible" hypotheses.

[dtugg]

Steven, what you fail to understand is that there is a difference between a conspiracy and a conspiracy theory.

A conspiracy is just two or more people working together for a common goal, usually a crime.

This is what wikipedia says about conspiracy theories:

A conspiracy theory attributes the ultimate cause of an event or chain of events (usually political, social or historical events), or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge, to a secret and often deceptive plot by a group of powerful or influential people or organizations.

I would say that it is pretty accurate, except for they neglect to say that there is never any evidence for conspiracy theories.

[Steven Lupo Grossi]

A conspiracy theory attributes the ultimate cause of an event [liquid bombing plot] or chain of events (usually political, social or historical events), or the concealment of such causes from public knowledge[liquid bombers did not advertise], to a secret and often deceptive plot by a group of powerful or influential people or organizations [liquid bombs are powerful, therefore liquid bombers are powerful, also allegedly belong to an organization].

Therefore liquid bombing plot meets Wikinition of conspiracy theory.

[dtugg]

How exactly were the liquid bombers powerful or influential people? They are just some wannabes that came up with with a failed terrorist plot. Anybody can do that.

[pomeroo]

It's not me, it's Baker. I don't know all the details of the challenge. I know that Baker is very confident that live video compositing is routine.

A W Smith, do you claim that live compositing is not possible?


Ace's "confidence" is a symptom of his illness. Steve Wright explained to him as I drove them back to their hotel why the sort of real time compositing Ace requires for his fantasy is impossible.