May 14, 2013

There are a number of additional questions raised by the photo evidence that I feel compelled to address here. But first, let’s take another look at one image that was presented at the tail end of my last post. You know the one I’m talking about – the one that features two apparently dead people and two guys who have had one or both of their legs blown off.

After further review, I have a number of questions about this shot, beginning with why, given that the media establishment was clearly on a mission to traumatize us with the most graphic images available, do we have only one shot of this particular scene – and an out-of-focus, poorly exposed one at that? And why is this the only view we have of the hollowed-out leg guy, who we can’t even recognize from this angle and distance? Given the numerous graphic, very bloody images we have of Jeff, why didn’t this guy get equal time? Were his prosthetics and make-up not as convincing as Jeff’s? Where are the close-up shots of him lying in a pool of his own blood? And where is his iconic wheelchair shot?

What is up, by the way, with the strawberry blond gal in the red top? Why is she still there? She doesn’t have any visible injuries that would prevent her from leaving, or at least moving, yet she seems very reluctant to give up her position. Even when Carlos pinned her under the fence, she remained unfazed, just as she is unfazed by the two guys just behind her with mutilated legs who are presumably howling in pain, and by the dead woman and the nearly dead woman just behind her, and by the large pools of blood all around her. She also doesn’t seem concerned with the fact that she is clearly impeding the progress of the responder trying to work on the girl behind her. And speaking of responders, you gotta love that there is one walking right between Jeff and the hollow-leg guy while offering help to neither of them. I’m guessing that if we had audio with this pic we’d hear him saying, “Anyone here need any help? Anyone? Anyone at all?”

And what are we to make of the two women in the foreground? Are they both dead? If so, how exactly did they die? They don’t have a mark on their faces or upper bodies, and as Jeff’s saga has taught us, the human body can withstand an incredible amount of trauma to the lower extremities. You can have your legs blown clean off and then bleed out unattended for a considerable amount of time and yet still remain conscious and fully alert and even have enough strength left to sit upright in a wheelchair while holding your stump aloft. So what was it that killed these two women so quickly? Not far away, Jeff is still able to sit up entirely on his own and he doesn’t have any legs at all!

The frail old runner who was knocked over by the blast was, as best it can be determined from available videotape, just on the other side of the temporary barricade from these women. And yet, by his own account, he was uninjured and was able to complete the race. So how exactly is it possible that a healthy young woman was hit with lethal force but a guy who looked like he was already half dead was just 10-15 feet further away from the explosion and directly in the line of fire and yet he walked away without a scratch on him? In what alternative reality could that actually happen?

Another very obvious question raised here is: if these women are in fact dead, then why are they not included in the official victim tally? As the story goes, there were only three deaths that day and two of the fallen were an eight-year-old boy and a young Asian woman. That only leaves one spot to fill and yet we have two bodies. Why then are we being shown women who we are clearly supposed to assume are dead when the official story holds that at least one of them can’t possibly be?

According to email I have received from a couple of incensed readers, the two women pictured are Krystle Campbell and her friend, Karen Rand. According to the official story, Ms Campbell was killed by the blast but her friend was not, though she was severely injured. Fair enough, I suppose … except that there are serious problems with the Campbell/Rand story as reported by our illustrious ‘free’ press. On the left below is a pic of the two women that was supposedly taken just hours before they were struck down. Beside that is a widely circulated photo of Ms Campbell, and beside that is a cropped and rotated version of the previous image.

Given the quality of the image, it is impossible to determine with any certainty whether the two women lying near the finish line are the same women depicted in the ‘before’ image, though it certainly seems quite possible that they are. Unfortunately though, that ‘before’ photo is wildly at odds with photos that have been released that purport to depict Ms Rand recuperating in her hospital bed. And while the gal in the image to the left above could conceivably be the woman in black in the crime scene image, the woman below most certainly could not be.

It’s amazing how much difference just a few days can make, isn’t it? Ms Rand clearly let herself go while in the hospital. The rather fit, shapely, youthful young lady in the before pic has been replaced by a decidedly heavyset, middle-aged woman. The official narrative holds that Rand is fifty-two years old, which is clearly about twice the apparent age of the woman in the middle photo above. The official story also holds that Campbell was initially listed as injured but alive, with the mix-up being attributed to a case of mistaken identity. For reasons that have never been explained, Rand was supposedly carrying Campbell’s identification rather than her own. And doctors, despite having the woman to the left above fully exposed on the operating table, did not realize that she wasn’t a rather petite, 29-year-old blond woman. I’m sure that kind of thing happens all the time. And it is also probably fairly common to pose someone cheek-to-cheek with their deceased friend. But since the woman in black clearly isn’t the Karen Rand pictured in the hospital bed, then apparently it is actually a stranger posed cheek-to-cheek with the deceased Ms Campbell. And that, I have to say, is pretty bizarre.

In other news, the guy who is a living embodiment of “Boston Strong,” Mr. Jeff Bauman, is back in the news with an interesting account of his ordeal. And by “interesting account,” I mean a version of events that bears no resemblance at all to either previously published accounts or to the photographic record. In the earlier version of events, it will be recalled, Bauman “woke up under so much drugs, asked for a paper and pen and wrote, ‘bag, saw the guy, looked right at me.'” And that drug-addled tip, of course, is what led the FBI to crack the case.

In the new and improved version of events, Jeff was telling anyone who would listen that he knew who was responsible within moments of the blasts. Swiftly carted off to a waiting ambulance, “Bauman told the man attending to him that he knew who had set off the bomb. Although he was somewhat delirious and in shock, Bauman remembered what he’d seen. When he was unloaded from the ambulance, he told an officer the same thing. But he was rushed into the emergency room and into surgery so quickly that he didn’t have time to share the details. When Bauman woke up, FBI agents were outside his door, ready to hear what he had to say. He started talking, and a sketch artist started drawing.”

Close enough, I guess. But his account of his encounter with the alleged bomber is completely different as well. When the tale was first told, “Bauman was waiting among the crowd for his girlfriend to cross the finish line at the Boston Marathon. A man wearing a cap, sunglasses and a black jacket over a hooded sweatshirt looked at Jeff, 27, and dropped a bag at his feet … Two and a half minutes later, the bag exploded, tearing Jeff’s legs apart.”

The new story has a few minor variations: “When Jeff Bauman looked Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the face, he knew something wasn’t quite right. Tsarnaev, then an anonymous man in a cap, sunglasses and backpack, seemed out of place … Bauman was at the marathon to watch his girlfriend, along with her two roommates. One of them, Michele Mahoney, was also badly injured and is now recovering in the next room over from Bauman at Spaulding. Just before Bauman saw Tsarnaev, he was looking for Mahoney so they could move farther down, just in case they’d missed his girlfriend crossing the finish line. The weird feeling Tsarnaev gave him made his desire to move more urgent. As he was looking for Mahoney, he saw a black backpack alone on the ground – the same one he’d seen on the suspicious man. Then, that pop.”

So, uhmm, the bag wasn’t dropped at his feet after all? He just had some kind of superhuman ability to identify one particular black backpack to the exclusion of all other black backpacks? Meaning that, even if we choose to believe Bauman’s ever-evolving story, we are left to conclude that he couldn’t actually connect Tsarnaev, or anyone else for that matter, to the alleged backpack?

Bauman also provided a new account of the supposedly very brief time that he lay on the ground awaiting help: “Bauman lay on the ground, first thinking someone had lit a firework in the street. He propped himself up and saw people screaming and running amid rubble. At first, he couldn’t feel the pain. He remembers lying back, trying to move and touch his legs. He yelled out. He looked for Mahoney, who had been taken away. He felt around grasping for his cell phone. He felt like he’d been lying there forever. ‘I was just laying there and I was just like, ‘Oh I’m gonna die,’ so I was looking for my cell phone to call people, and I couldn’t find it,’ he said. That’s when Carlos Arredondo, the cowboy-hat hero made famous from the now-iconic photograph of the two men together, came to his side. ‘He’s gotta go!’ Arredondo was yelling, and before Bauman knew it Arredondo hoisted him up by his T-shirt, threw him in a wheelchair and took off – over the finish line, through the medical tent and right into the ambulance.”

That’s a very touching story and all, but it is completely at odds with all the photographic evidence. In the moments after the blast, he didn’t prop himself up to see people running and screaming; he was on his back with his attention focused on the people directly in front of him. And where exactly was the “rubble”? I’ve reviewed a lot of images and I have yet to see anything resembling rubble. As for lying back and attempting to move and touch his legs, they were sticking straight up in the air; he could not only touch them, he could see them! His girlfriend’s roommate was apparently whisked away immediately, but by whom? There were no responders on the scene that quickly. It’s funny how Jeff, hoody and Nicole all claim to have been waiting with companions when the bomb detonated, but none of those companions can actually be seen in any of the available images.

I could also comment on the claim that Arredondo quickly came to his rescue, but that story has already been so thoroughly discredited that it hardly seems worth the effort.

One question that really needs to be asked here is: what the hell is up with all the leg amputations? Exactly what kind of bomb was this supposed to be? Because the last time I checked, crude pressure-cooker bombs weren’t directional. They’ll pretty much damage or destroy everything within a given radius. But this appears to have been a very special kind of bomb that only targeted things within 2-3 feet of the ground. I’ve lost count of how many media stories I’ve read that have featured amputated legs, but I have yet to read a story about someone who lost an arm. Or even a hand. How could that be? A post on the Washington Post website contains the stories of a sampling of the Boston victims. By my count, this group lost a total of 12 legs that day, plus an additional foot, and a number of other legs were saved only by the heroic efforts of responders and doctors. Not a single person though lost an arm, or a hand, or even a finger. Unless a whole lot of people had formed huddles around the bombs just before they went off, I’m at a loss for any sort of rational explanation for that.

ABC News has boldly proclaimed that more than 25 people lost limbs that day. Some of the explosive amputation stories told by the media have been ridiculously over-the-top in their absurdity. Take, for example, the case of the guy calling himself Jarrod Clowery, who told the Washington Post that no fewer than three of his companions had their legs blown off: “Three of Clowery’s buddies who were with him each lost limbs in the bombings … Clowery believes he already was in the air, clearing the metal guardrail, when the explosion hit, which may have saved his legs. His friends still were grounded. ‘They’re all big guys. I think they spared some other people when they took that impact.'”

If everyone in the blast zone had been walking on stilts, it appears, there wouldn’t have been any injuries at all. The next best thing, I guess, would have been to stand behind some really big guys. Those are important things to remember if you ever find yourself in a crowded public space in the future.

Amazingly enough, Clowery isn’t the only one claiming to have had three companions fall victim to the leg-severing bombs. Our old friend Shrapnel Man has made the very same claim. The media would like us to believe that Shrapnel Man, whose name is allegedly James “Bim” Costello, was seriously injured by the bombings, to such an extent that he was initially unsure if he would make it out alive. And that, of course, makes me feel just terrible for having previously mocked the image below.

Costello’s body was “so burned that he was left needing pig skin grafts on most of his right arm and right leg. Costello had plucked two rusty roofing nails from his stomach and was trying to walk toward any help he could find following the explosions, his ears ringing, his body pebbled with shrapnel, and his mind reeling from the thought moments earlier that he might be dying … Three of the friends who were with Costello on race day each lost a leg.”

So he walked away from his three friends who were bleeding out on the pavement? I guess he had a photo shoot to get to. If his body is ‘pebbled’ with shrapnel, by the way, then why do you suppose it is that he doesn’t seem to have so much as a drop of blood on his shirt? Even if he had received no injuries himself, how is it possible to have been alongside three guys who literally had their legs blown off and not be covered with blood? Of course, the same question can be asked of just about everyone who was within the blast zones.

I shouldn’t really need to point out here that when a couple dozen legs are blown asunder, all that blood, bone and flesh goes somewhere. Actually, what I should say is that all of that blood and tissue goes everywhere. The reality is that, as bloody as some of the pictures we were assaulted with were, they were not actually nearly bloody enough to lend any credence at all to the official story. Below is a fairly high resolution shot taken almost immediately after the first detonation (note that most of the people in the foreground are still holding their ears). Countless legs have just been explosively amputated, covering the scene in hundreds of pounds of blood and gore, as if someone had fed a dozen human legs into an industrial wood chipper. Take a look for yourself.

Did you see all the blood and chunks of meat? On all the people? And all over the ground? And on the flags? And on everything else? You saw it all … right? Because it has to be there. There’s really no way around it. If the official story is true, and if all the media reports of explosively amputated legs are true, and if all the photos we have seen of people recovering in hospital beds are real, then it has to be there. I personally haven’t been able to find it, but maybe you’ll have better luck.

Did you also notice, by the way, that while the guy in the center of the scene apparently uses the same ultra-trendy tailor as Shrapnel Man, no one else in the frame has so much as lost a button? Their clothing is fully intact and soot-free – the sole exception being The Running Man, who we will take a closer look at in the next installment. For now, we’ll just take note of the fact that this was some very high-tech shrapnel, with the amazing ability to weave through the crowd and selectively target one guy’s clothes and several other people’s legs while leaving everyone else untouched. I really hope that the FBI is diligently investigating this case to determine how the ‘terrorists’ obtained such cutting-edge technology.

Let’s return now to Shrapnel Man, who we are told is still in the hospital nearly a full month after suffering his injuries. The photo below was purportedly taken on May 10, three-and-a-half weeks after the bombing. Beside it is Shrapnel Man’s left leg as of April 15. It only looks slightly worse now than it did then, so I guess his doctors have things under control.

Now let’s take a look at some of the overlooked victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. These images haven’t been widely distributed so you likely haven’t seen them before. Notice that, despite the gravity of their wounds, this seems to be a good-natured group of survivors. But that is because they aren’t really injured. And the images weren’t captured in Boston. These people are, in reality, actors hired by the Pennsylvania National Guard to portray victims of a fake ‘dirty bomb’ attack in the fall of 2011. Our government, you see, has been practicing this kind of thing for quite some time now.

Returning now to the topic of severed legs, we all know, of course, that all those legs were taken off by shrapnel. But was there really any shrapnel in that device? Shrapnel ejected with enough force to literally tear someone’s legs off would travel a very long way. So was there some kind of special, invisible shrapnel guard between the sidewalk and the street? Or was it all magically held back by that rickety picket fence? Because we know that none of the runners out in the street were injured. Even the old guy who was knocked over, as previously noted, got up, dusted himself off and crossed the finish line. And I don’t recall reading about the bleachers across the street getting peppered with shrapnel. But it is perfectly obvious that not all of the ejected shrapnel would have found a nearby target. Much of it would have continued on out into the street and beyond. So where did it go? And how did it avoid hitting any of the runners or spectators?

Shortly after the Boston bombings, the thoughtful folks over at CNN put on a little demonstration of the destructive power of a pressure-cooker bomb. In the linked video, the reporter on the scene explains how, “for safety reasons, we’ve had to retreat to this mountaintop here. We are now over a quarter of a mile away from where we left that pressure cooker. But that’s still not far enough to avoid flying shrapnel, so we’re watching from inside a bunker.”

To recap then, a quarter mile is not a safe distance to be from a real pressure-cooker bomb, but people standing just a few feet away from the Boston bombs walked away without a scratch on them. And no one beyond the flimsy temporary barrier, which was maybe ten yards from the detonation site, was affected at all. Why, by the way, haven’t we seen any of the alleged shrapnel (described at various times as consisting of nails, BBs, ball bearings, or rusty roofing nails)? Does anyone remember seeing the police display any shrapnel they recovered at the scene? Or any reporters walking their cameramen over to take a look at the shrapnel embedded in the building facades and in trees? Anyone seen any Facebook photos or Youtube videos of curiosity seekers visiting the site to look for shrapnel? Or the divots that would have definitely been left by real shrapnel?

We will return to the subject of shrapnel in the next installment, after I have had time to sort through and organize all the images I have collected. I’ll leave off for now with another painfully obvious question that is begged by the photo evidence: where exactly are all the alleged victims of this attack? Last I heard, the count stood at 267, with three dead and 264 wounded. But even if we take a worst-case scenario approach to analyzing the available images, maybe 10% of those victims can be accounted for. And that is being very generous. So where are all the rest? And why did the count magically grow from the relatively modest numbers that were initially reported, likely based on the number of victims reporters saw being carted away, to the ridiculous final count that we now have?

“But wait a minute,” you’re probably thinking, “what about the second blast site? Maybe the other 250 or so victims were over there.” Maybe … but that, as it turns out, is impossible to determine.

Wouldn’t it be really weird if a bomb went off at a major event in a major American city and afterwards there wasn’t a single photograph in the public domain documenting that fact? Not a single photo of the site of the explosion, or of any victims lying on the ground, or of any responders either on the scene or even headed to the scene, or of any of the victims being carried away from the scene? Almost as if the event never even took place at all, except that the explosion itself was captured on video, so it clearly did happen? Wouldn’t that seem really bizarre?

That is, nevertheless, exactly what happened, and yet no one seems to find it unusual at all. There were obviously reporters and camera crews on the scene and yet no one appears to have bothered to stroll down the street to take a look at the second bombing site. Why? Was there nothing to see there? The first site was, in fairly short order, swarming with police, military personnel, medical responders, Good Samaritans, news crews, ambulances, etc. Shouldn’t there have been a similar scene at the second site? Actually, since the vast majority of the victims necessarily had to come from the second site, shouldn’t there have been an even larger and more chaotic scene going on there? But if so, then why did we see none of that? Why did we not even catch a passing glimpse of it?

All I have been able to come up with is a few seconds of video footage which appears to have been clipped from a European newscast. It’s difficult to determine much of anything from the very brief clip, and the narration added to it is ridiculous, but there really doesn’t appear to have been a whole lot going on and we are shown only a couple of apparent casualties. So we are still well short of accounting for 267 victims. And how about that survival rate? 267 struck down, many with very grave injuries, and yet we lost just three? Nearly a 99% survival rate? That, my friends, is what ‘Boston Strong’ is all about.

One final note (for now at least): I have read in several accounts of the bombings that the explosive charges were placed so as to maximize the amount of damage they would do. That hardly seems to be the case. To the contrary, they seem to have been placed to minimize the damage. And that, I have to say, doesn’t really seem like something a ‘terrorist’ would do.