Genre: Forum

Here's something to ponder on. If the Naudet brothers really did film a passenger jet flying into the north tower, they and the NYPD crew they were filming knew immediately what had happened, yet even though they headed straight to the towers and continued making their documentary, it seems they never informed anybody in command what they had seen and filmed, otherwise why would everyone on the ground not have been told it wasn't a bomb and why wasn't the footage of the North Tower's moment of impact passed to the newsrooms until, as the guy points out in his video, midnight that evening? Wouldn't the authorities on the ground tasked with dealing with this major emergency have had at least some interest in looking at that footage, to confirm whether or not it seemed deliberate? I know 10 minutes or so later the task force leader viewing it would be getting something else to worry about than what he was actually seeing in the Naudet's film, but the Naudet's seem to have been very selfish with their scoop from where I'm sat, and didn't even give anyone that opportunity. Here's something to ponder on. If the Naudet brothers really did film a passenger jet flying into the north tower, they and the NYPD crew they were filming knew immediately what had happened, yet even though they headed straight to the towers and continued making their documentary, it seems they never informed anybody in command what they had seen and filmed, otherwise why would everyone on the ground not have been told it wasn't a bomb and why wasn't the footage of the North Tower's moment of impact passed to the newsrooms until, as the guy points out in his video, midnight that evening? Wouldn't the authorities on the ground tasked with dealing with this major emergency have had at least some interest in looking at that footage, to confirm whether or not it seemed deliberate? If you haven't read Leslie Raphael's excellent piece exposing the Naudets and the FDNY as being complicit (and the OEM and Guiliani), it's a must read. If you haven't bought the DVD "9/11", buy it and use Raphael's piece as a study guide. At 8.46 a.m. on September 11, 2001, at the intersection of Church and Lispenard Streets in Manhattan, one of two French film-making brothers, 28-year-old Jules Naudet, was filming a group of firemen from Ladder 1/Engine 7 at 100 Duane Street, checking for an alleged suspected gas leak, when he captured what was thought to be unique film of American Airlines Flight 11 from Boston flying into the North Tower of the World Trade Center, three quarters of a mile away. Two years later ? the delay still not satisfactorily explained ? a Czech immigrant called Pavel Hlava produced his own video film of the event, shot from south-east of the tower and much further away, at the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel ? the plane impact unseen, on the far side. It now turns out ? although virtually no-one seems to have noticed at the time ? that the plane had a third photographer all along, a German artist, Wolfgang Staehle, whose single still picture showed the plane heading towards the tower. No credible explanation has been offered as to why the Naudet shot was universally, for two years and more, described as the only existent image of the plane. It is still in many ways unique, however, with its almost straight-ahead view of the plane actually hitting the tower, followed by close-up, and far superior to its two competitors. Jules Naudet claims his film exists only because of pure luck ? as would seem to be logical, given that this was the first attack of the whole "9/11" sequence, and was totally unexpected. When United Airlines Flight 175 flew into the South Tower sixteen minutes later, it was captured by several photographers ? including Jules Naudet's brother Gdon ? who were filming the aftermath of the attack on its neighbour, but who had not, of course, filmed that attack itself. After the first attack, the second one was easy to film ? but how else could the first one have been captured than by luck? There is an answer to that question, but an extremely disturbing one. I believe the Naudet film of Flight 11 is a charade, staged to appear accidental. However bizarre that claim may appear to be, the evidence that justifies it is there in the film (the DVD version, issued in September 2002, titled "9/11 ? The Filmmakers' Commemorative Edition" (Paramount PHE 8276)), and I challenge anyone watching it and following my arguments to reach any other conclusion. No-one can dispute that this is an extraordinary piece of film ? because of its uniqueness as well as its content ? and that there must therefore be an equally extraordinary explanation for how it came to be captured. I believe, for the reasons in this essay, that those who had both the motive and the effrontery to carry out these attacks also had the motive and effrontery to film the first one for propaganda purposes, passing it off as the product of luck, complete with a contrived cover story, the one told in the Naudet film. The second plane would have been filmed anyway, but having "accidental" film of the first one as well was obviously too good to resist. It was too important an event not to somehow record on film and, perhaps with the help of professionals from the industry, which has had a long and close relationship with the intelligence agencies (Richard Sorge, Sir William Stephenson, the Korda brothers, etc), it would not be too difficult to disguise the fact that the scene was arranged ? the film equivalent of the (long-outdated, but similar) steganographic technique of hiding a coded message in a microdot, where it would not even be suspected. [The absence of film from the Pentagon that morning, where security surveillance appears ? if only to the chronically credulous ? to be limited to the one car park camera that allegedly got stills of the explosion, with the wrong date and time, must have some other explanation.] Unfortunately ? for them ? the people behind this disguise operation were anything but professional, and it does not take a genius to deconstruct the whole thing, when the joins holding it together are so obvious, to anyone who can see not only what is in the film, but ? just as important ? what is not. A single still photograph from the DVD ? Picture 1d in Appendix 4 ? raises a whole host of questions. Where, for example, in a Manhattan street scene at about 8.45 am on a working Tuesday, is the moving traffic? This is not the busiest area of the city, but there are vehicles in the shot: they are all stationary, however, and given that two of them belong to the Fire Department and are displaying emergency lights, it would be illegal to overtake them, or park behind them in the same block. Anyone, professional or amateur, who has tried filming street scenes knows about the problems moving vehicles can cause, and that the best solution is filming when there are none ? but that normally means waiting for traffic lights to change. Or, even better, the situation in the Naudet film ? a junction blocked by authority of the Fire Department, whether traffic lights change or not; a trick not available, it has to be said, to most ordinary photographers ? one so unusual, in fact, that it immediately attracts suspicion. Furthermore, this photographer is not only filming at an officially blocked junction, he is filming the firemen who blocked it, as their guest ? a 28-year-old beginner, treated the way a documentary film legend like Fred Wiseman might be; the suspicions multiply. At the scene of a potential emergency, a photographer without credentials from the Fire Department would have been told to stand well clear, along with other pedestrians: he would not get the kind of privileged access Naudet gets. And if the white mail van parked at the south-east corner in this film had been turning right up Lispenard Street, between Naudet and the North Tower, just as the plane flew into it, not only ? since he is standing in the road ? would he have had to get out of the way rather fast, the plane's impact might have been missed. How very convenient that, at the appropriate time, the van was still parked at that corner, the only other vehicles that could have caused problems belonged to the Fire Department and Naudet's view of the tower was unimpeded by either vehicles or people ? including the firemen, all conveniently standing well away from the film action to the south. How many firemen, precisely? According to Firehouse magazine (April 2002), three units responded to the gas leak call ? Duane Street, Engine 6 from Beekman Street and Ladder 8 from North Moore Street ? and co-director James Hanlon's commentary tells us there were thirteen men on duty just at Duane Street alone that day, with only probationary Tony Benetatos left in charge of the firehouse when the call came in. There must have been at least twenty firemen at this intersection, yet no more than five are ever in shot at any one time. Where are the rest of them? All hiding behind Naudet, camera-shy? And where are the police at this emergency roadblock? The First NYPD Precinct's HQ is at 16 Ericsson Place, just across West Broadway from Lispenard, and one block north of Ladder 8. Why did no-one contact the police? Why did the brothers choose Duane Street, out of the 224 firehouses in New York, or the 51 in Manhattan? Because their "old friend" James Hanlon worked in that one. How did they become "old friends"? We don?t know: they met only a couple of years after the brothers moved (1989) to New York, before Hanlon the actor became a fireman as well (1994) and before the brothers graduated (1995). How does Antonios "Tony" Benetatos fit into this? Because the brothers had followed the progress of 99 Fire Academy* students, decided Benetatos was the one they wanted and, explains Hanlon, "We got Tony assigned to my firehouse, one of the biggest in the city" (06:35 into the DVD). * Based at Randall's Island in the East River ? which, ironically, is hired out by the Fire Department as a film location (fire trucks and equipment also available). How did they manage that ? an ordinary firefighter and two French film-makers? We don't know. How long were the brothers going to be allowed to film at Duane Street, under their arrangement with the Department ? for a fixed period, or as long as they liked? We don't know. A two-month contract would obviously have had them out of Duane Street before 9/11 happened, if they started in June ? so it would have be long enough to have them still there in September ? but not just starting, and not there since January. Why were they still there in September? Waiting for a big fire, we are told ? again and again: ah, that would explain it. But does it? Doesn't this begin to look like the construction of a fiction? The Naudets linked to Hanlon and Duane Street ? how, we don't know ? linked to Benetatos ? how, we don't know ? with a film deal for how long? ? we don't know ? but we can't have the film without the links. Ironically, or not, Benetatos' mother, Rev. Patricia Ray Moore, a Presbyterian pastor, says she is convinced the Naudet film was scripted, and "I think it was my boss" ? presumably a reference to God. I agree about the scripting, but not the writer: I would suggest someone rather less exalted, possibly in the pay of some branch of the US Government. How can I make such an outrageous accusation against public figures? Surely if the Naudet film was so obviously incriminating, it would have been exposed long before now, and all those behind the 9/11 plot would have been brought to justice? Why would those responsible even risk having public figures so openly involved in it? The short answer to that is that the Naudets are no longer public figures. Since the brothers were the honorees at the 2nd annual United Firefighters' Association celebrity golf benefit at Lake Success on Long Island on 23 June 2003 (with Evander Holyfield, the late Jerry Orbach, Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others), there have been, to my knowledge, only three pieces of evidence of the Naudets still being alive: 1. In November 2004, Variety magazine carried news of a follow-up to "9/11," a feature film written and directed by the Naudet/Hanlon team, and produced by Daniel Bigel, called "Seamus"; two years later, this project has yet to appear as an actual film. 2. On 26 September 2005, the New York Daily News reported that the brothers had been special guests at the Department's centenary party for the Duane Street firehouse ? their "second home" ? the day before, also attended by Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta. 3. In May 2006, lawyers for the Naudets and Hanlon (Frankfurt, Kurnit, Klein and Selz PC) forced the removal, under copyright law, of footage from "9/11" from Dylan Avery's film "Loose Change" (due to be given a special screening at the UK Houses of Parliament on 14 June until its sponsor, former Cabinet Minister Michael Meacher, bottled out and withdrew it.) None of these involved the brothers making a public appearance, being photographed or interviewed at any length, and with these sole exceptions ? and their 2006 update to the "9/11" film, for which see Appendix 3 ? they have effectively dropped off the radar. The Emmy and Peabody laureates have gone back to private obscurity ? and the world of journalism seems not to have noticed, or cared. If the Naudets are perfectly innocent, where are they, and what have they been doing for four years, apart from the above? They have, like James Hanlon, no website, no Blog, no presence on the internet, apart from what other folk contribute; nor does their production company, Goldfish ? but then with virtually no product to advertise, why would it need one? I originally wrote this because virtually no-one else was saying it, and I was amazed ? and appalled ? that that was the case. Why wasn't every professional investigative journalist in the USA and elsewhere on to the Naudets from Day One, when it should have been obvious to anyone who knew the Flight 11 shot was unique that it must have been contrived? Were they blind? What was wrong with these people? I still don't know the answer, and most still refuse to touch it, as if afraid their careers might be contaminated by anything with the word "conspiracy" attached: a lethal combination of cowardice and stupidity. Even among those who refuse to believe the official story, the Naudet angle is still, six years later, a minority view, although a growing one. I could blame a general failure of imagination ? the fact that most people, even conspiracists and skeptics, have fixed patterns of thinking, and are looking for the same kind of clues that might have helped explain the Kennedy assassination four decades ago (with which 9/11 does indeed have many similarities). Sometimes the truth is just too obvious for folk obsessed with the fine detail, or with using scientific terminology to make their case sound more impressive, whether it actually is or not. Sometimes the truth can stare us in the face for years before someone looks at it the right way and sees it for what it is. If other people don't want to accuse the Naudets and their associates, for whatever reason ? shortsightedness? ? intellectual laziness? ? in some cases, just plain dishonesty? ? that is up to them, and they can and will be judged by it. There are libel laws, and that can perfectly understandably affect some people's attitudes, if they have too much to lose ? and don't have enough confidence in their case. I have 99.9% confidence in the case, and nothing to lose ? and unlike some, I have no interest in making one penny out of 9/11, in sales of books, films or anything else. To me, the case for the Naudet film being fraudulent stands on its merits: you don't need degrees in physics, engineering or anything else to follow my arguments, and I am a non-graduate myself. Anyone applying an open, common-sense, rational mind to the facts presented here should reach the same conclusions I did. And these are mostly facts: there is nothing speculative in my list of 69 conveniences in the Flight 11 shot ? they are all solid, concrete factual observations. The speculation is in trying to construct an explanation for them ? a perfectly valid exercise, as long as fact and conjecture are distinguished Did they even get asked why, when they knew what they had recorded, they didn't ensure a copy got to those who needed it before they carried on filming their exciting new project? Do photo-journalists get a pass on withholding evidence when they get caught up in the heat of the moment? It's almost as if they wanted the world to get a good repeated viewing of the second tower attack before they released their own. Here's something to ponder on. If the Naudet brothers really did film a passenger jet flying into the north tower, they and the NYPD crew they were filming knew immediately what had happened, yet even though they headed straight to the towers and continued making their documentary, it seems they never informed anybody in command what they had seen and filmed, otherwise why would everyone on the ground not have been told it wasn't a bomb and why wasn't the footage of the North Tower's moment of impact passed to the newsrooms until, as the guy points out in his video, midnight that evening? Wouldn't the authorities on the ground tasked with dealing with this major emergency have had at least some interest in looking at that footage, to confirm whether or not it seemed deliberate? I know 10 minutes or so later the task force leader viewing it would be getting something else to worry about than what he was actually seeing in the Naudet's film, but the Naudet's seem to have been very selfish with their scoop from where I'm sat, and didn't even give anyone that opportunity. Indeed, good points. Also, while on the subject of the naudets, why is their film of the 2nd 'hit' cut in 3 places ? Did they even get asked why, when they knew what they had recorded, they didn't ensure a copy got to those who needed it before they carried on filming their exciting new project? Do photo-journalists get a pass on withholding evidence when they get caught up in the heat of the moment? It's almost as if they wanted the world to get a good repeated viewing of the second tower attack before they released their own. That's what Holmgren mentioned - the power of suggestion. The first news casts about the first strike stated they didn't know what caused it, but after the second strike was shown "live", everyone assumed the first strike was a jet too. I've watched the "first strike" sequence so many times I think I know how he did it. He was using a tripod so he could get a "before" shot and a "during" shot - then it would be a simple matter of using video-layering with the square towers silhouetted against the blue sky to "green screen" out anything that didn't look like a plane. You can even see where he removed the camera from the tripod just before he hops into the truck to speed to the WTC - anyone who's kept a video camera running while trying to take it off a tripod can recognize the shaking of the screen. One of my projects is to work on a Power Point presentation about the Naudet film...hope to have it done in time for next Sept. 11. Here's an article I wrote about the green screen technology and how easy it would be to retouch the Naudet flight 11 sequence: I've watched the "first strike" sequence so many times I think I know how he did it. He was using a tripod so he could get a "before" shot and a "during" shot - then it would be a simple matter of using video-layering with the square towers silhouetted against the blue sky to "green screen" out anything that didn't look like a plane. You can even see where he removed the camera from the tripod just before he hops into the truck to speed to the WTC - anyone who's kept a video camera running while trying to take it off a tripod can recognize the shaking of the screen. One of my projects is to work on a Power Point presentation about the Naudet film...hope to have it done in time for next Sept. 11. Don't forget to include analysis of the 'rip of flames' forming the plane-shaped hole 7 seconds after the 'plane' hits the north tower.. Quote: Originally Posted by yankee451 Here's an article I wrote about the green screen technology and how easy it would be to retouch the Naudet flight 11 sequence: yeah that CGI promo reel has been posted on here a couple of times and some of the reaction has been of astonishment - not that in this day and age such affects should particularly astonish but to see it broken down in such simplicity is impressive. Now, if only more people could start to join up some dots.. That's what Holmgren mentioned - the power of suggestion. The first news casts about the first strike stated they didn't know what caused it, but after the second strike was shown "live", everyone assumed the first strike was a jet too. Okay, let's pretend the Naudet's were caught up in the journalistic thrill of going from filming a mundane call-out to a major news story - that still leaves an entire fire crew that doesn't seem to have recognised the importance of what their guests had filmed and who also didn't seem to pass on the information they had to someone in authority, or at least by my remembering of the documentary they didn't. Don't forget to include analysis of the 'rip of flames' forming the plane-shaped hole 7 seconds after the 'plane' hits the north tower.. yeah that CGI promo reel has been posted on here a couple of times and some of the reaction has been of astonishment - not that in this day and age such affects should particularly astonish but to see it broken down in such simplicity is impressive. Now, if only more people could start to join up some dots.. That "rip of flames" is what got me to realize how they created the gashes - I was defending the shaped-charges hypothesis on another forum and had been studying the impact for some time. I realized shaped-charges couldn't account for the bends in the steel, that they could only use missiles to bend and cut-through that much steel; and that to create the "shock and awe" fireball they needed to have secondary incendiaries planted in the building. So that "rip of flames" is simply the planted incendiary (napalm) bursting through a gash made by one of several JASSM missiles' 12x60-inch penetrating warheads which struck at a shallow, glancing angle. I hope to explain it all thoroughly in a video which may or may not be out by next Sept. 11., money permitting. Graphic animations are very expensive. Okay, let's pretend the Naudet's were caught up in the journalistic thrill of going from filming a mundane call-out to a major news story - that still leaves an entire fire crew that doesn't seem to have recognised the importance of what their guests had filmed and who also didn't seem to pass on the information they had to someone in authority, or at least by my remembering of the documentary they didn't. Okay, let's pretend the Naudet's were caught up in the journalistic thrill of going from filming a mundane call-out to a major news story - that still leaves an entire fire crew that doesn't seem to have recognised the importance of what their guests had filmed and who also didn't seem to pass on the information they had to someone in authority, or at least by my remembering of the documentary they didn't. Am I recalling it incorrectly? I took the liberty of adding some bookmarks and converting Raphael's article into a PDF: