Flight 93 crash photo target of conspiracy theorists

[bushatbooker]

Published: September 08, 2006

Flight 93 crash photo target of conspiracy theorists

By KIRK SWAUGER
THE TRIBUNE-DEMOCRAT (Johnstown, Pa.)

SHANKSVILLE, Pa. — If a picture’s worth a thousand words, Val McClatchey’s is the Da Vinci Code.

Her surreal photograph of a mushroom cloud of gray smoke rising above the bucolic countryside – snapped just moments after the crash of Flight 93 – has become a target for 9/11 conspiracy theorists.

Five years later, the 50-year-old Indian Lake, Pa., woman is frustrated by allegations that the photo is a masterful hoax.

“It’s extremely disturbing,” said McClatchey, owner of Mountain Lakes Realty near Indian Lake.

“My main focus,” she added, “is to protect the integrity of the photo.”

Conspiracy theorists, specifically the blog Killtown, contend the photo is an elaborate fraud that starts with McClatchey and serpentines up to the highest levels of the federal government.

Killtown suggests the photograph is a fake, claiming the gray smoke looks more like a plume from an ordnance blast than the black cloud from a jet crash.

“If it really was an ordnance blast not too far beyond the white barn and white farm house, then this would be a true smoking gun and one of the clearest examples of complicity in the 9/11 attacks by the U.S. government because what else could have caused such a large explosion and who else would have been behind it?” Killtown wrote.


http://www.tribune-democrat.com/statenews/cnhinsall_story_251131209.html

Large copy of plume photo here:

http://www.cnhins.com/homepage/editorspicks_story_251131209.html

[BootinUp]

1. Didn't eyewitnesses report seeing a mushroom shaped cloud

of smoke?

[bushatbooker]

3. good question, don't know

but if KT's calculations are right about the plume width (700yrds wide), this plume should have been seen by thousands!

[BootinUp]

4. Well one described it that way.

So whats the mystery? Why do people have a hard time grasping the physics of large vehicles traveling near 500 mph and colliding with stationary and substantially immovable objects?


------

Eric Peterson, 28, was working in his shop in the Somerset County village of Lambertsville yesterday morning when he heard a plane, looked up and saw one fly over unusually low.

The plane continued on beyond a nearby hill, then dropped out of sight behind a tree line. As it did so, Peterson said it seemed to be turning end-over-end.

Then Peterson said he saw a fireball, heard an explosion and saw a mushroom cloud of smoke rise into the sky.
http://www.post-gazette.com/headlines/20010912crashnat2p2.asp

http://www.flight93crash.com/flight93_eyewitness.html

[bushatbooker]

5. So a 700 yrd wide plume is only seen by 2 people

with one of them being the only one taking a photo of it. Riiiiiiight.

[BootinUp]

7. I'm sorry but I think

you just put words in my mouth. pttueeee!

Whare did I say no one else saw it?

[bushatbooker]

8. The plume was 7 football fields wide

why aren't there thousands of witnesses who say they saw it and more than one photo proving it?

[BootinUp]

9. Were there thousands walkin around out there?

How many even went to the scene immediately after? What do you think the cloud was from? Not the airplane they saw spiralling down obviously. lol.

[bushatbooker]

10. You'd think with a 700yrd plume high up in the air

more and 1 person would take a photo of it. Plus, it's impossible of 93 to cause that big of plume.

See for yourself...

http://flight93photo.blogspot.com/

[BootinUp]

11. I really don't see what the problem is

They even show a B52 crash photo that has similar characteristics a the conspiracy site you gave a link too. I can't speak to the authenticity of the photo, but that website does a piss poor job of discrediting it.

[bushatbooker]

14. You didn't look at the analysis page, did you?

Here, I'll direct you to it just in case you couldn't find it:

http://flight93photo.blogspot.com/2006/07/plume-analysis.html

[BootinUp]

16. Yes I did.

I don't find the analysis persuasive as far as discrediting the photo and the smoke plume from a plane that burrowed into the ground 580 mph.

[bushatbooker]

17. did the plane make a 7 football field wide plume?

all the while it "burrowed" underground and didn't burn the grass around the crater?

[FoxOnTheRun]

2. killtown, webfairy and Co.?

[bushatbooker]

6. did you have a point?

[greyl]

12. Yes, he is. nt

[greyl]

13. It's a non-issue. How many threads will it take?

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=61633

[bushatbooker]

15. What do you mean "non-issue"?

[Will Scoffield]

18. I think it's shameful

the way that killtown person has treated the woman who took the photo.

[bushatbooker]

19. By reporting her story?

did you even read her story?

[Will Scoffield]

20. By insinuating that she's lying without any evidence at all,

by posting her personal information on his crappy conspiracy theory website, by insinuating that she was doing something untoward financially even though she was donating money from the photograph to charitable organizations, by encouraging conspiracy theory believers to hound the poor woman, for starters. Whoever that killtown person is, he or she is obviously a moron, and a nasty moron at that.

[Nozebro]

21. Are you saying that she lies WITH evidence? Either way, that's not good.

N/T