Loose Change/Upper East Side: Part III - Suspicious Timing

(Note: This is the third in a series of posts about 9/11 conspiracy theorists and their reaction to the Cory Lidle tragedy last week. Earlier parts can be found here and here.)

A bang. A screech. A crash. A roar.

Sounds like that cause the average person to turn towards the source to see what is happening. A special few, however, turn the other way, thinking the action is a distraction from what must really be going on. After watching too many Hollywood movies, they are convinced things never just happen.

Can there ever be just a car crash, just an accident, just a coincidence? If not, when do actual accidents happen? You know, where someone is going too fast and skids, slips on ice and falls, over estimates his own abilities and crashes. Are they all hidden away someplace else in another conspiracy, leaving the public’s “capacity for accidents” left to be filled by the nefarious plots of the powers that be?

With regards to the Cory Lidle crash, there was a significant period of time before it was known who was on the plane. Before then, talk about head fakes and the like, while silly, was slightly more tolerable. After it was known, however, to think that this was still some secret government mission is, well, a bit batty.

Let’s turn again to the message board. Right in the beginning, moments after the news hit, people were awfully sure of themselves:

"this is deliberate, mark my words.
it takes attention away from the real issues."

Consider your words marked. Another poster had an even more dire prediction:

"The Martial Law bill will be signed right now."

Of course, when none of these things came to pass, there were certainly no apologies being offered. Other people are to be held accountable, not necessarily these guys.

Well after it was clear that it was Cory Lidle on the plane, board posters were still claiming devious plans:

"Kansas City Shuffle, my friend. Look the other way, see what has been obscured by this smoke screen. Maybe there's something behind this."

Oh, and don’t forget about the President:

"Bush sabotaged the plane so you would all get side tracked to the real matter at hand."

The great part about all of these, of course, is that there is no way to disprove them, and those who offer such predictions don’t even pretend to try to provide evidence themselves. It’s similar to many of the tactics used by conspiracy aficionados: all they are doing is “raising questions” - who can be against that?

For the record, I haven’t found anything that happened on Wednesday, October 11th that received inadequate attention because two individuals crashed a plane in New York. With all the conspiracy guys right on top of it, you’d think they would have found out what the real story was by now.

Up next, a look at some of the physics of the conspiracy claims, and specifically the issue of finding passports at crash sites.

(Note: I’ve left quotes from the message board as they appeared, and haven’t corrected spelling, etc. Also, Loose Change has upgraded their site over the past few days, and the message boards appear to be down as a result. I’ve left the link to them intact, assuming they will be back up at some point.)

UPDATE: Loose Change now has a new forum (registration required) that doesn't seem to contain the old threads. I've left the link to the old message board up, although it isn't working now. If I find a new link to the old threads, I will post it.