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TOTAL 911 INFOTuesday, December 12, 20069/11 'hard science' group linked to archaeology hoax On Thursday, December 7, the Founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, Dr. James Fetzer, posted a notice to its website indicating that a cabal had seized the Scholars' mailing list in an attempt to recruit members to a competing research group. It turns out that the cabal in question is being led by Dr. Steven E. Jones, formerly the co-chair of the group. In the invitation letter, Jones attacks Dr. Fetzer, denounces certain hypotheses as anathema, and proclaims himself the standard-bearer of the "scientific method." Though some observers expected Jones to name his group "Scholars for 9/11 Thermite," he has gone instead for the far more derivative moniker "Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice," as we can see in the link he provided to the prototype website for his proposed research group: http://www.taulbee.us/stj911/ A quick WHOIS check of www.stj911.org (derivative of www.st911.org) reveals the following registration information: Domain Name:STJ911.ORGAnd tracking down this "Whyte Eagle" fellow is a piece of cake. He runs something called the Ancient Historical Research Foundation. His name is Shawn Davies and his AHRF organization lists Dr. Steven Jones as an advisor. So, what were STJ911 founders Jones and Davies up to at the AHRF? Though the stated mission of the organization is outre American archaeology generally, the focus (judging, for instance, on AHRF forum activity) seems to be on something called the Burrows Caves. The Burrows Caves have a rich history. It seems a conman named Russ Burrows claimed in the early 1980s that he was walking along minding his own business in Illinois one day when he fell into a cave! And it was full of treasure. And even moreso, full of mysterious carved stones of indeterminate origin. He claimed the location of the cave had to be kept secret, but went ahead and promoted his alleged artifacts widely; chiefly through a man named Frank Joseph.  Who is Frank Joseph? It seems that Burrows met Joseph when Burrows was working as a prison guard. Frank Joseph was in prison. For child molestation. It turns out that before he was Frank Joseph, a Jewish man convicted of child molestation; Frank went by the name Frank Collin, a neonazi who got a lot of airtime during the fight for his right to stage a Nazi parade through the streets of the predominately Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois. Oy, vey.So the two con men worked together for several years promoting Burrows' dubious "artifacts," mostly through a magazine published by Joseph. But even those engaged in the legitimate study of pre-Colombian visitors to the Americas should be able to find the Burrows claims outlandish and almost certainly a hoax. As a review of Burrows Cave by CriticalEnquiry.org concludes: "The major problem with Burrows Cave is that the more one examines the story, the more hoax-like and fabricated it begins to sound. At first glance it sounds plausible--a hiker falls into a cave and finds a trove of potentially-important artifacts. Then we are told the artifacts are not from only one culture, but are Egyptian, Etruscan, Greek, Scandinavian, Roman, Vedic (from India/Pakistan), Hebrew, and so forth. Suspicion naturally grows since it's highly unlikely that all these cultures would've been interacting with the same native American tribes, much less at the same time... If it is indeed a hoax, then the reason the location of the cave (if one even exists) is being kept secret becomes obvious--a close examination would reveal the lie."Nevertheless, Burrows stuck by his tale and ladled on heavy bits if drama: claiming he would never go back because men in black had scared him away ; announcing he had dynamited shut the entrance to the cave forever; saying he would never speak of the caves again; then publishing a book anyway. By the mid 1990s, the story was looking increasingly played out. But then he announced something that would get a whole new group more interested in his research than ever before --rocks with Jesus on them! Any hint, no matter how fraudulent, of Jesus wandering the Americas is sure to bring out apologists for Mormon theology - which hinges heavily on just such a visit. This is where the AHRF (later STJ911) cast of characters appears on the scene. Rick Flavin, a Harvard student and dedicated critic of the Burrows cave hoax, describes AHRF less than charitably, saying "AHRF is an online organization of Mormons, treasure hunters, historical revisionists and pseudo-scientists who have embraced the Dark Side of Darth Burrows and believe his lies and the claimed provenance for the carved stones." Ouch. Flavin thoughtfully archived much of AHRF's work on Burrows Cave, which is extremely useful, since the administrator of AHRF's associated online forum (the same "Whyte Eagle," registrar of www.stj911.org) decided to place all discussion of the Burrows Cave behind a "members-only" firewall. (Interestingly, one of the complaints of the Scholars' rebel cabal preceding the schism was that research should be restricted to secretive, closed forums rather than discussed openly.) Reconstructing the AHRF/Burrows Cave history via FlavinsCorner.com we see that Brigham Young University held a symposium in May 2005 featuring Russ Burrows and BYU Professor Steven Jones. Burrows brought along many of his special stones for this media event and left them with Jones. Burrows reports that Jones "found nothing wrong with those artifacts that I am aware of or that he told me of." Despite the overwhelming evidence that Burrows is a con man and his carved rocks a hoax, the hard scientist Jones just wasn't able to prove it in a lab. But again, thanks to Flavin, we can examine some of the work Jones did do with the rocks. From Flavin's archive of Jones(HardEvidence)' now-hidden forum posts: HardEvidence (6/9/05 2:00 pm)Now look carefully at that photo. Look at the coin, the coppery-colored coin provided for size comparison. That's FDR, not Abe Lincoln on there. It's a dime! Apparently the color balance of the photo has been altered -- "orangified" for lack of a better word. Other photos posted by Dr. Jones to the AHRF forum show a penny and a dime of the correct colors when paired with other rocks. Could it be that the "tan-colored" rock is so rare because it is, in fact, not tan at all and instead rather grayish? Here's what the rock might look like, once the color of the dime has been corrected:  ([updated 12/12] Alternate and explanatory files for photo correction: [1 2 3 | A B C D E F] alpha by bradTeam8) It is beyond this editor what reason Jones might have had for "orangifying" his rock photos, but it should be noted this appears to be a pattern in Jones' work. Dr. Judy Wood noticed that the photo below of what appears to be Ground Zero rescue workers peering at a searchlight was "orangified" in Dr. Jones' paper to make the case for the presence of thermite. Dr. Wood and Dr. Morgan Reynolds have also noted that Jones used an "orangified" photo provided by NIST to make a point elsewhere in his thermite-theory paper.   With polls indicating upwards of 100 million Americans believe the Offical Government Conspiracy Theory of 9/11 to be little more than a fairy tale, there is more than enough room for two major scholarly organizations to look in the matter. The original Scholars for 9/11 Truth takes a multidisciplinary approach guided by Socratic inquiry and the scientific process as recognized by Western civilization dating back to at least the ancient Greeks. The new spin-off organization is positioning itself as a "hard science" group, where nothing can be truly known until it is verified in a laboratory by folks in priestly white coats. This is the kind of "science" that has given us such horrors as the modern pharmaceutical industry; but there is an argument to be made that this kind of narrow, government-approved science is more politically and legally palatable. However, if the "hard science" wing of the 9/11 movement is to be built upon promoters of an infamous archaeological hoax (not to mention an unfortunate tendency to alter photographs), it is destined to crash and burn before it can ever take off. .....| Posted by Total at 1:49 PM | PERMA-LINK |
Well, this is shocking stuff but at the same time I surprisingly find myself able to integrate it. I have been a follower of Steven Jones' work and both saw & promoted his video presentation recorded at the 2006 Chicago Symposium.
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I went to a Jehovah's Witness public talk this Sunday last and the subject was exactly this sort of matter. The talk was entitled something like "Giving science due respect but remembering God & truth". There is a conflict going on in the world between the high and mighty claims of the scientific community; of it's emergent elite, as to privileges that these pharisaic like 'men in white coats' assume they have in the wake of that community's otherwise notable scientific discoveries. Discoveries that it is assumed have to come to benefit us in many ways. We should know about the fraudulent claims made by the evolutionary camp based on 'synthetic evidence' that are the fabricated "fossilised remains" of the so-called 'missing link' and which are from time to time passed off through the main stream media as credible proof of mankind's entirely bio-logical evolutionary heritage. These entrenched pseudo scientific camps cannot be relied upon. Even Richard Dawkins, evolutionary biologist & author of 'The selfish Gene' has admitted something like 'There is a place for God, in the evolutionary model'. Unthinkable! Indeed, and there is also a place for the evolutionary process in God's word. So don't let divisions within your movement condemn it outright to failure. Keep a dialogue going and an open mind if you wish to proceed rationally. I am not surprised to hear of allegations of divisions within the 911-truth movement if scientists representing the core investigations into the events of The Two Towers are taking contrary stances. The JW's have been talking of a thing called 'The Truth' for years, decades & even a century ago when it meant the message of "The Word"; the word being a name for Jesus Christ and his message being that the truth will set mankind free eventually, if we will persevere through trouble and strife. Truth cannot become a relative term, especially when we seek to reveal any corruption or massive conspiracy that was allegedly perpetrated on that fateful day of 9/11. If the 911 truth movement should become evangelical in its motivation as a means to preserve its existence against all odds then it clearly needs to be vigilant, so as not to become schizophrenic and divided upon itself, as battle weary legions turn inwards on each other in some archetypical battle of men’s' wills. This would inevitably cause many to be 'switched-off' from the movement. This story is indeed, on the face of it, a description of the ever tiring and demoralising work of men and their ongoing work in the alienation of God & God’s people. Those of us who have committed ourselves to diligent and exacting study on matters religious and secular, of faith and of ‘the world’ insist on discretion and integrity. A debate is a tradition in so-called ‘democracy’ but division and antagonism will do nothing to enhance the cause of investigations into which Junta and which emergent rogue grouping within the Military Industrial Complex were behind the alleged controlled demolition and staged/permitted terror attacks in the WTC. The movement cannot afford to loose its centre of gravity. Once it falls, then if a conspiracy remains hidden from us, it may remain as unsolvable as did the alleged JFK conspiracy. That was 43 years ago and still it remains unresolved. No! The Jehovah's witnesses are not perfect. Hence, I am not one!(sic). Far from it, I can tell you. They are burdened with the shortcomings of men and women and children. We all, I believe, are. But if that sort of neither unreasonable nor unclear thinking is good enough for the celebrity previously (& currently) known as "Prince" who became a JW a few years back, and who then went on to sing of: "9/11 turned all that around, So began the mass illusion, War on terror alibi." on his 2004 'Musicology' Album, then it's good enough occasionally even for me. End of! “For evil to succeed, all it takes is for a few good men to do nothing”… or I would add, ‘to do entirely the wrong thing’. Peace! Out!  |
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