Dr Greg Jenkins' "Directed Debunking-Energy" and Prof. Judy Wood
Scholarly Questions and Inquiry, or Badgering, Misrepresentation and Harassment?
Andrew Johnson,
March 1st 2007
Limited Hangouts
Recently, I wrote how I thought, based on some personal experiences as well as other recent events, aspects of the 9/11 Truth Movement had been hijacked by groups of people connected with the perpetrators of the 9/11 Crimes. The purpose of this hijacking seems to be to encourage a “limited hangout” position about what really happened on that date, which would keep certain groups or interests “off the radar screen” of criminal prosecution and possibly just single out current members of the “Neocon Clan” and the Bush Administration to bear the brunt of prosecution. For example, some people are unwilling to consider how elements on the Clinton Administration must also have been complicit in setting up aspects of the 9/11 Black Operation. Additionally, people who financially benefited such as “lucky” Larry Silverstein remain at the edges of perception as being one of a group of people who should be prosecuted for criminal activity prior to and following 9/11.
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I also wrote about pernicious debunking and personal attacks, which whilst people like Prof Steve Jones claim to be a victim of, the evidence suggests that people like Prof Judy Wood have ended up in a rather worse situation, with the mysterious death of one of her students and the loss of her job. As a result of an event in January 2007, it seems that, once again, she has been placed directly in the firing line of 9/11 research – Dr Greg Jenkins set up an ambush interview, in a side room at the National Press Club, Washington DC.
The Interview Setup
There are quite a few facts that need to be taken into account, and some questions that need to be considered, before the video can be fairly reviewed.
Why did Greg Jenkins plan this interview without telling anyone who knows Judy? Why did he bring at least two professional video cameras, recording equipment, special lighting, and a camera crew to the National Press Club that evening and not attend Jim Fetzer's presentation? Jim Fetzer was giving a presentation to discuss the data presented by Profs Wood and Reynolds, but Greg Jenkins and crew did not attend Jim Fetzer's talk, nor did they ask any questions following the talk itself.
Jenkins and/or his group tried to talk Judy out of going to the restroom, saying the "interview" would only take 2-3 minutes. But, Judy felt she couldn't wait. She saw the cameras for the first time after she came back from the restroom.
Judy insisted on switching seats with Greg Jenkins because there were other people in the room who were watching the interview and Judy did not wish to be forced to sit with her back to them, as she thought they may ask questions too, which would then have involved her looking around and behind her. The people helping Jenkins felt they needed to change the lighting and camera positions. As you can see in the video, Jenkins is well lit and Judy is half in shadow for most (if not all) of the interview.
They set up their "ambush" two rooms away, out of sight of the Fetzer presentation – it is not clear how they got access to these rooms as the doors seem to have been locked before they were there. How did Jenkins know Judy would be there - who told him? Judy did not make a presentation on that day – she had attended to support Jim Fetzer. She was a member of the audience on her way to the rest room when they asked her to answer the questions. And why did Jenkins keep his plans of this "surprise interview" a secret? Why did Greg Jenkins present his ambush interview as if Judy were the invited speaker at the National Press Club?
Judy had no idea she was going to be interviewed, much less filmed. But, she did agree to sit down for one or two questions, on the condition that no permission would be granted until she had authorized the final product. Jenkins did not obtain a notarized signature and no preview was ever offered by him or anyone connected to him before he posted the video on Google, though he had agreed to do so, sharing an email and phone number. But, both the number and the email address turned out to be fraudulent. (In any case, it was surely up to Jenkins to be polite and contact Judy, who was the subject of the interview. He did not do this.)
The Video Itself
Much of the discussion in the video centres round a picture which Judy is shown of debris falling from the tower. Indeed, most of the first 2 minutes of the video is taken up with developing an acute focus on this issue. Even if one concludes Judy is incorrect about the exact nature and movement of this debris (which cannot be accurately concluded from the video interview alone), it must be realised that this is not the only point of data that Judy is concerned with. (She also discusses lack of damage to the Bathtub, subway trains and sub-basement mall stores. She discusses the highly anomalous “toasted cars”, seismic data and small debris piles.)
Jenkins homes in on the “falling debris” issue without really addressing the subtlety of what Judy is saying. He tries to get her to say “no debris is falling” – in essence, what she is really saying is that the debris that is falling is largely dust, not large steel girders and slabs of concrete. She points out the very fine nature of the dust, Jenkins reacts by adopting a number of blank and confused and sheepish looks, and the discussion essentially goes nowhere. The photos of a “carpet of dust”, with unburned paper mixed in, essentially highlight Judy’s point, but Jenkins skirts around the issue by continually focusing attention on a single photograph and not allowing or encouraging discussion of the other related evidence. Judy also questions the use of the word “collapse” and Jenkins does not really explore this proposition thoroughly. A simple building collapse, again, would not cause ankle-deep layers of fine dust and even finer dust which spread into the upper atmosphere. Readers who think Judy might be wrong about the nature of the debris should consider these pictures [1] [2] [3]. Is ALL the debris falling? Is the airborne debris ALL smoke? Does it look to be the right colour for smoke (i.e. is it the same colour as that seen near the flames from the towers)? Looking at the vertical in the picture below, and the people climbing down into the basement of WTC 2, the question has to be asked – where did the rest of the building go?
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The Image Judy Wood was shown
It must also be noted that Judy was not shown an identical image to the one that Greg Jenkins inserted into the video he posted. Judy was shown a low-quality black and white "snowball" photo, while the photo flashed up in the video was in color and possibly of higher resolution. The labelling shown on the color image inserted in the video also does not seem to be present on the black and white printed version – a further difference. This is perhaps why Judy said, "I can't see that without a magnifying glass" and then commented that she could not see "pennies falling" because the resolution was not up to the job. (Also see comments above.) Additionally, Judy has described how she thought the black and white picture might have been photoshopped. You'll notice at the end that Jenkins insisted on taking back the sheet with the image on it.
The tactics seem to be, here, to get people to react to “eye-rolling” and theatrics (with Jenkins playing the “interested scientist” who just needs things “explaining to him”). In reality, all that anyone, including Jenkins, has to do – and all that Judy Wood wants them to do - is look at the data.
The End of the Interview
At the end of the interview, on the one hand Jenkins is apparently polite - thanking Judy for her time in answering the questions. Someone then asks him (off camera) a question along the lines of “what interests are you protecting?” Jenkins answers “I am not protecting any interests, I was just trying to find out what kind of Scientific basis this was in – and um, I think I found out.” So, rather than a detailed review of the data and the anomalous aspects of it, Jenkins resorts to a rather sarcastic remark, inferring that what Judy said is “silly” or has no validity.
This "ambush interview" was suddenly stopped because security guards came to escort Greg Jenkins and crew out of the building - he probably didn't want that recorded. Jenkins and his helpers were not authorized to be there and were trespassing. They had not rented a room in accord with NPC rules. The security guard's voice can only just be heard in the version Jenkins used.
Tactics and Techniques
There are no links shown in Jenkins’ video to Judy’s actual paper. However, a statement that Judy made as a retort, tinged with sarcasm, is posted in a separate caption in the video (someone has clearly taken the time to do this). This is psychology and debunking, not scholarly analysis of facts, evidence and data.
If Prof Wood had refused the interview, no doubt that fact would have been plastered on various message boards as evidence that she was avoiding questions (but it seems that people are more reluctant to say this sort of thing about other 9/11 researchers than Prof Wood).
Some people who have watched the video think that Judy Wood is dodging questions, or not answering them well. I would suggest that this is exactly the impression the video was set up to give. Additionally, techniques have been used to suggest that Prof Wood’s view should not be taken seriously – an off the cuff remark she made about “pennies falling” is used as the theme for the closing “song”. This isn’t a scientific analysis or discussion – it’s a piece intended to ridicule Prof Wood and divert attention from the data.
If Jenkins had been so unhappy with Judy’s explanations and he had been genuinely interested in exploring the hypothesis, he could have requested another interview, under more suitable circumstances, rather than posting what he had.
A “Scientific” Method?
If anyone thinks that an ambush video, conducted close to midnight and posted on the internet, without final agreement of the person concerned, is a valid usage of the “Scientific Method”, then there may be wider range of data available for usage in Scientific Papers and peer review than has been in general usage up to now. (Also, the interview was conducted by people who trespassed within private property. The time stamp on a still picture of Judy's group with Judy's camera shows a date of January 11, so - it probably was after midnight.)
This video is included in a link in Greg Jenkins’ paper entitled “The Overwhelming Implausibility of
Using Directed Energy Beams to Demolish the World Trade Center Towers" on Steve Jones’ Journal of 9/11 Studies. The title of this paper is already loaded, and suggests a conclusion to the reader before it has even discussed any of the data. This is not a Scholarly or Scientific approach to the problem. Perhaps a title of “Could Directed Energy Weapons have been used to Demolish the World Trade Center Towers?” would have been less loaded. The video and paper seem to have been posted on the internet within 3 weeks of the Ambush interview. In any case, Prof Wood has repeatedly stated the Beam Weapon paper is not yet finished.
In Part 1 of his paper, Dr Jenkins states (about the debris) “This means that, within error, all of the debris in the WTC complex can be accounted for within the sublevel collapses." If this statement is correct, then how did the goods in the Mall Stores survive? How is it that the subway station has only a relatively small amount of debris and the train is not badly crushed and damaged? If the sub levels were indeed filled with debris as Jenkins suggests, then how can rescue workers have been walking around in the sub-basement levels so easily? Also, why does the reference for the data Jenkins has used come from The New York Times and not some more directly scholarly or scientific work from FEMA or NIST or the EPA? (Prof Steve Jones also repeatedly referenced the New York Times when discussing damage to the Bathtub). The New York Times does not seem to be a publication which has an accurate track record in publishing facts about what happened on 9/11.
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Additionally (as of Mar 02 2007), though there is a link in this paper to Judy’s homepage (http://janedoe0911.tripod.com) and there is a link to a critique of Steve Jones, there is no direct link to the Beam Weapon pages themselves. Why?
A look at the Letters Section on Journal of 9/11 Studies (as of 02 Mar 07) shows 3 articles specifically about the Beam Weapon hypothesis (in addition to the one above) and then another which describes Judy Wood’s discussion of molten aluminium as “disinformation”. If the hard evidence Judy is presenting is nonsense, why is so much time and energy being spent in attacking it?
Conclusion
It seems that Judy's only mistake was to agree to answer a few questions. It was a "failure" based on Judy's honesty and sincerity, trust in a fellow human being to do right by her, as well as from not having any sleep for almost 48 hours. Judy has no "campaign manager" like Karl Rove. If it wasn’t for the media blackout on 9/11 Truth, there is a likelihood she would have been attacked or smeared on the mainstream media – as it is, the alternative media have been used in a similar fashion and willing bloggers seem happy to add their own smearing into the mix.
Perhaps as supporters of Judy Wood, we should organise a team to operate 2 cameras and lighting, and in secret, ambush interview Dr Greg Jenkins at a conference where he was a member of the audience. Perhaps we might ask him as to the nature of the source of funding he has received from projects funded by the NSA. Now there’s an interview I would like to see posted on google video. Do you think he’d consent to the interview under those terms, and then graciously give permission for it to be posted, without approving the “final cut”?
Further comments about the interview can be found here. From this selection, I found this comment to be one of the most pertinent.
So, the DEW theory has a huge uphill climb in order to be perceived for what it is; namely: A clear, direct, frontal confrontation on whether or not the USA is a free republic or an entity being run by secret forces having the general label of Military-Industrial-Complex? That is the underlying question that DEW theory presents and very few people want to deal with it. Small wonder the reaction to it is so visceral. So, challenges to DEW are primed to be successful based on an "anything but that" predilection among people of all persuasions, even among what might be called plain-vanilla truthers.
I hope 9/11 Truthers – and everyone else - will consider these thoughts, ideas and data in a fair and balanced manner.
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