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Occams Razor

I'd like to turn 'occams razor' on the CBS documents for just a second and ask a simple questsion:

"What evidence is there that can clearly verify that they ARE what CBS says they are?"

From the top of the document to the bottom we have every indication that the documents are frauds and bad ones at that. I'd like someone, anyone, anywhere to give me one thing on these documents that will help me say "ok, I cant get around that one - they must be real".

I can take one or maybe two things that seem odd, but the preponderance of evidence presented shows that they can only be fruads. For me, the PO BOX of '34567' makes my 'baloney detector' peg all the way over into the red. I guess '1212 boogieboogie Ave.' was just too over the top, even for them.

This is like someone throwing a pie plate in the air, taking a picture, and then insisting that I believe its a real spaceship from Tau Ceti, 'proof at last' of life in outerspace!

It's not that I don't want to believe in life on Tau Ceti, and if presented with evidence that shows it, that I wouldn't believe it when presented with it. However, when you are reduced to tossing pie plates into the sky, it makes me think that you really don't have a case, and maybe you should go home to your apartment over your parents garage and read your comic books. To make matters worse, it makes me think that you think I'm stupid, which is a really good way to make sure I don't listen to you ever again, even if you do get real pictures of Tau Ceti Spaceships.

There's an old saying that applies here that says 'extraordinary claims require extraordinary proofs". If you want me to believe your case, that Bush was a malingering patrician familiy advantage pusher, I'm willing to accept that, if given evidence that says it's so.

But when the evidence that has been put in front of me shows:

- A clearly faked PO BOX

- Is not on paper of the type used in military documents ( onion skin)

- Uses the wrong letterhead, and appears to be referencing the wrong group in relation to the Squadron.

- Has the wrong referenced regulation

- Uses nomenclature not used in military documents of the same era

- Cannot be sourced to the location where these little gems have resided for the past 35 years

- Does not contain distribution notes at the bottom for filing.

- Is not based on originals only on copies not in possesion by those performing authentication

- Facts purported are in direct opposition to all other known documentation of the subject.

I'm not going to even get into the fact that the presented documents are clearly not produced by a typewriter. If CBS is correct then any other document available from the same organization at the same vintage should look similar. Simple answer, They dont - or we would see side by side comparisons.

I wonder if CBS had the good sense to go to the secretarial pool of their vast enterprise and ask one of the grand old ladies who surely work there what they thought about the documents or if they could replicate such a thing.

Update: What I think we got here kids is a good old fashioned case of what we pilots call "get-there-itis". "Get-there-itis" affects otherwise smart and capable pilots who put an overriding priority on the need to "get there" and as a result, overlook the basic safety practices in flying. "Get-there-itis" is why year after year, pilots of great acclaim manage to stuff their aircraft into mountains, land downwind during thunderstorms and crash in flames, run out of gas, or simply get lost; Ameila Earhart serves as but one 'poster child' for this disease.

CBS is an organization with a great history of solid journalism. The producer of this piece on GWB's military history is also the producer who found the abu girab story, she is obviously good at her job. Dan Rather is most certainly a good journalist. So what happened? How did people so smart and professional allow themselves to 'fly into a mountain'?.

What I think happened here is that they needed "the story" to be true, so much so that they left themselves open to the suggestion that the information in the documents proffered were in point of fact true, when nearly all objective observers outside of "the bubble" see the information for the clear fraud that it surely is.

The 'fever swamp' that opposes President Bush also needs the story to be true. They need it so much that there are many websites that are offering real cash money for any and all documents the 'prove' that bush was a malingering drunk while in service.

Enter,stage left - the producer, eager to continue her trend of headline breaking ( hopefully president breaking ) "news". Enter stage right - thousands of people only too willing to provide documentation for something they all know is true anyway( so what could be the harm in just making it up?) and you have all the makings of a full sized self-hallucinatory 'endulgence'.

Hey-presto-chango-hey-diddle-diddle and out pops a fraud. No one did it on purpose, no one involved thinks thats what they are doing, but that is in fact, what has happened. There are times when a hoax just takes on a life of its own, and this is one of those times.

I have lots of friends who really REALLY believe in UFO's. I don't, because frankly I've seen too many of them. One trick I love to play on them is to take them out at night into an area of good darkness and get them to talk openly about UFOs and what they believe about UFO's. A couple of beers helps. All the while I keep an eye on my watch, because before we left for this little trip, I managed to look up when the next 'iridium flare' would occur in the area.

When the flare occurs, (always like clockwork), I act shocked and then I let the victim go on and on to exclaim how that "it must've been a UFO- Theres no other explanation! ". They go on to tell me that I must agree with them now, after all I've just seen one with my own eyes! They can't wait to take me back to civilization, one of the newly converted to the great cause.

When we return to the car, I pull out the printed copy ofthe 'iridium flare' prediction. At that point, they know they have been had.

Interestingly enough, there is still a large percentage of people who when presented with the facts, still insist that it mustve been something more exotic, it just HAD to be a UFO!

So, what do I think we have with the CBS documents? What we have is the need to tell a story overriding the basic 'safety factors' of good journalism. The result is that a whole series of good journalists convinced themselves that they could 'scud-run' around the low clouds of a dangerous story, because, well, they were long time professionals who had taken chances like this thousands of times before and could get away with it again.

This is very similar to what is often the last thing that otherwise good pilots say on the last flights of their lives.

The real shame of this story isnt that a promising producer will take the fall for a poorly executed story, but an entire organization, made up of many good people who are truly innocent in this affair will suffer because of one persons overriding desire to 'get home'.

UPDATE I: The boys at Wizbang are on the case of who the actual forger is.

UPDATE II: A good breakdown by a good ( e.g. not a bush supporter) source can be found here.

Posted @ September 11, 2004 02:32 PM | Election 2004

Comments

The P.O. Box may sound fishy, but here's another document whose veracity I don't believe has been challenged that uses the same address:

http://users.cis.net/coldfeet/doc2.gif

Doesn't mean the CBS documents are not hoaxes but perhaps the PO box is legitimate.

Posted by: Kirk at September 11, 2004 10:50 PM

No one who I know, no document I've ever seen, no book of military history I've ever read refers to Lieutenant level ranks by spelling it out as "First Lieutenant", its always Lt., or 1/Lt. or 1st Lt. Good thing he wasnt in the Navy, or the poor hoaxer would have spelled out 'Lieutenant Junior Grade'.

Even Captains and Majors and Colonels abbreviate their ranks.

This - makes me even more suspicious, and perhaps points back to a single author for both sets of documents.

The thing is, the post office that supports that zip code will know if there is or ever was a PO BOX 34567, and who was the owner. It's not something to speculate over, its just a matter of going to Austin and finding out.

Posted by: Frank Martin at September 11, 2004 11:41 PM

When it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Posted by: Mike at September 12, 2004 07:07 AM

Too bad they couldn't find a forger who had ever been in the military.

1) USAF (and, by extension, TANG) protocol in official paperwork is to abbreviate grade. First Lieutenant is commonly written as 1LT, especially when used by First Lieutenants.

2) I can't believe that ANY military aviator would identify a flying unit's location with a PO BOX NUMBER! He would identify it by the official name of the station, such as "Maxwell AFB" and if giving the address, it would be "187th TRG, MAFB AL 36015" -- all mail for an Air Force Base goes to a central delivery point, which then distributes it to the end users, and NOT to a PO BOX!

3) The date would be written 5 SEP 72.

4) The signature would be his full name. Remember, this is supposedly a request for a temporary reassignment, an official record.

5) This looks like a proportional typeface.

6) The whole thing would be on an official AF Form.

Nice try, Mr. Moore.

Posted by: Keith R. Wood at September 12, 2004 05:30 PM

I'm glad to see Occam's Razor referenced. It seems to have taken a couple days to see it on websites, but I'm glad it's arrived.

The only 1972 device that could possibly recreate the documents would require astounding preparation (to get the text centered correctly and the line-wrapping just right), astonishing typing (since there don't appear to be any strike-throughs or type-overs), and a willingness to leave this device in a closet for months at a time and use a normal typewriter for all non-Bush-related documents.

Or, you can create a near perfect replica of the questionable documents straight out of Microsoft Word with default settings.

"If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the solution." -From Star Trek VI, from Sherlock Holmes

Since they can't be fake (Dan told me so) then they must be the product of some strange alignment of unlikelihoods, no matter how low the probability.

Posted by: RJ Bruce at September 12, 2004 06:21 PM