Barabar Olson made no cell phone calls

December 23, 2009 8:15 AM

For more than three decades The Fifth Estate has been Canada's premier investigative documentary program. In a recent piece called The Unofficial Story, the program explored some of the discrepancies surrounding the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. In this clip, David Ray Griffin claims that the alleged cell phone calls made by Barbara Olson on Flight 77 couldn't have happened. Additionally he claims that the FBI has changed it's official story 4 times, and now holds the same position, that those calls were never made. To confuse the issue even further this site lists many other calls that were supposedly made, and in some cases audio of those calls.
posted by Mr_Zero (27 comments total)

I swear this is a deleted double
posted by leotrotsky at 8:21 AM on December 23, 2009

The first one was deleted for a bad link and no context. This one at least has context
posted by Think_Long at 8:23 AM on December 23, 2009

David Ray Griffin is not a credible source. Where is the external evidence outside of his presentation that 1) these calls were not made and 2) this is the FBI's position?
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:26 AM on December 23, 2009

Then who was Ted Olson talking to?
posted by jgirl at 8:27 AM on December 23, 2009

Then who was Ted Olson talking to?

FRIEND, HE HAD A DIRECT LINE TO THE SPIRIT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE
posted by Sticherbeast at 8:28 AM on December 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

Yeah, I don't understand why you insisted this get posted, since there are a lot of obvious WTF moments about it:

1) Some professor of theology has a beef with one tiny aspect of the 9/11 story. He is not a scientist, he is not presenting evidence, he's just a talking head making claims.

2) If one person's cell phone calls were not actually made or made on the airplane phone instead, why is that a big deal? Why does any of this matter?

3) You have some crappy shaky video clip of a TV with a guy just pontificating on how he thinks one part of the 9/11 story may not be true and you propped it up with half a dozen wikipedia links. It's still a crappy almost content-free video.
posted by mathowie at 8:30 AM on December 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

Then who was Ted Olson talking to?

I gather his position is that Ted Olson may have been talking to no one at all and that therefore if the call from his wife did not occur, the box cutters detail originated in Ted Olson's head.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:30 AM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Barbara was not one to mess with in life.
posted by jgirl at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2009

Who would ever suspect a theologian of believing crazy, unprovable theories? It boggles the mind.
posted by dortmunder at 8:33 AM on December 23, 2009 [11 favorites]

Conspiracies requiring the silent cooperation and coordination of hundreds of people do not happen.
posted by davebush at 8:35 AM on December 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

It's true that Barabar Olson made no cell phone calls
posted by lukemeister at 8:35 AM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Fundamentally, the 9/11 & 7/7 cults have a pernicious effect on political discourse. By focussing primarily on a small group of decision-makers in a predominantly ahistorical way, they serve to trivialise, and disempower, the very popular masses that are ultimately the agents of radical social change--if that is to happen. As the excellent Schnews article says "World power is not a neat pyramidal structure with aliens, Jews or a cabal of men with a secret handshake at the top...There is one conspiracy that doesn't lurk in smoky rooms behind closed doors--its called global capitalism".

911cultwatch.org.uk 9/11 Cultwatch blog
posted by Abiezer at 8:39 AM on December 23, 2009

It doesn't matter if there is a conspiracy, because the ones in charge at the time were and are above the law in this and so many other ways.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:44 AM on December 23, 2009

You forgot the "sheeple" tag.
posted by bondcliff at 8:46 AM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

What is it about philosophy professors that predisposes many of them towards conspiracy theories?

Just flipping though the "this site lists many other calls" link does little to garner any amount of credibility for the WTC CT.

(and why a wiki link to the WTC?)

and uh, yeah the whole cell phones on high altitude planes don't work is a faulty leg to build a CT on. In fact cell phones may well intermittently work at moderately high altitude, it depends on many factors including where the plane is, i.e much more likely on the dense Eastern seaboard than in the middle of N Dakota. But, I guess people need their convoluted views of the world, only problem is it makes it hard to take people seriously when there might be a real conspiracy.

I wish as much due diligence was done prior to the Iraq war
posted by edgeways at 8:47 AM on December 23, 2009

The 9/11 metatruther conspiracy theory may or may not be relevant here.
posted by Skorgu at 8:50 AM on December 23, 2009

Conspiracies requiring the silent cooperation and coordination of hundreds of people do not happen.

THE CONSPIRACY HAS INFILTRATED THE BLU{`+#$%{`&+#{@$`%+++NO CARRIER+++
posted by codswallop at 8:50 AM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

Maybe Babar made the phone calls.
posted by kirkaracha at 8:54 AM on December 23, 2009 [2 favorites]

watching the whole episode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLSutZj1F0o (4 parts on youtube) may help as it speaks to some of the questions people have raised here.

no judgment
posted by offtheroad at 8:56 AM on December 23, 2009

If it's set up right, even a very large (seeming) conspiracy doesn't require coordination of hundreds of people. For an example, look at the *terrorists* on 9/11.
posted by DU at 8:58 AM on December 23, 2009

wait so did this get posted so we can trash it or what
posted by silby at 8:58 AM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Now a lot of people don't like a lot of Ted Olsen's legal positions. But amongst attorneys, especially in DC his word is about as respected as you can get.
posted by Ironmouth at 8:59 AM on December 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

I think the clip shows quite clearly how David believes the story of 9/11 was propped up by fake details created by Ted Olson for the benefit of the administration. Whether or not that's true, the changes in the official story about Barbara Olson's calls are quite shocking to me. I see how this 'truther' thing got started.
posted by gonna get a dog at 9:04 AM on December 23, 2009

I watched the Fifth Estate piece when it aired because I have a weird fascination with this particular little corner of crazytown, and I just felt it wasn't very good overall. It wasn't memorable, and all it did was make me ask why they didn't do more objective work. Why are they relying on old studies to see whether cell phones work on planes, couldn't we just try it? Maybe people have and the results are out there, but that program didn't show it. And there was a lot of talk about the towers coming down due to planned demolition and planted explosives, and they countered it with a very short talk with a demolitions expert who basically says it would be a huge undertaking since they have to cut through support columns and place explosives all over. It seemed like he was pretty definitive that doing it covertly would be pretty much impossible, but they didn't give him much time to talk about it. I don't know, I just felt like it wasn't their best effort.
posted by dnesan at 9:18 AM on December 23, 2009

blast and damnation.

The sinister plan to deceive the world would only make sense if you believe that if hijackers flew several planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon, thereby killing several thousand people, George Bush's US would just chill and deal with it judicially, but if the hijackers used boxcutters to take over the aircraft, well fuck it we're going to war.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:23 AM on December 23, 2009

Worst part about this thread is that the picture of Babar wouldn't load. Which is really the only thing worth clicking on here. Babar. Ahh, much better.
posted by stevil at 9:30 AM on December 23, 2009

If one person's cell phone calls were not actually made or made on the airplane phone instead, why is that a big deal? Why does any of this matter?

In this case, apparently because the airplane did not have airphones. And if there were no airphones and the official story is that cell phones would not work, then one way or another, there is a lie involved. One more shitty little lie to add to the lifetime supply.

Some professor of theology has a beef with one tiny aspect of the 9/11 story. He is not a scientist, he is not presenting evidence, he's just a talking head making claims.

Yes, there is a whole lot of crazy involved in the criticisms of the official account, but crazy and wrong are not the same thing. It is one of the first things people learn in studying rhetoric: the competence of a speaker has nothing to do with the accuracy or inaccuracy of what he says. The biggest fool in the world can say it is raining but that doesn't mean the sun is shining.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 9:31 AM on December 23, 2009