My Really, Really Bad Judy Wood Experience
by Reprehensor
(With the recent publication of Jeremy Baker’s essay, “Three Amigos: Reynolds, Wood and Fetzer’s assault on 9/11 Truth”, I think it is important for people to know that Baker is not the only person to have serious reservations about this particular trio. Especially since Judy Wood’s ideas have cropped up again, and have been circulated in a Draft Bill that does not have the unanimous support of 9/11 Truthers, but has already been presented to a few members of Congress. Specifically, this blog entry is about an on-air attack on Steven Jones that occurred in 2006, that reveals planning, and forethought on behalf of the “Three Amigos”. -rep.)
“(How is a tower like a tree?)
Judy, Judy, Judy, Judy would
(Where was the hidden energy?)
La la la la la la la la la la la la
(Can we solve this mystery?)
Judy Wood”
– lyrics from “Judy Would” by Ace Baker.
In the beginning…
In 2005, Dr. Judy Wood joined the DemocraticUnderground.com (DU) message board where I had already been a member for a couple of years. She used the handle “janedoe” and would engage in back and forth posting battles with the resident 9/11 trolls and debunkers, with varying degrees of success. Wood seemed a natural ally, and I engaged in some friendly correspondence with janedoe, via the DU message board, which later moved to email communications…
When Steven Jones publicly posted his paper, “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?” in late 2005, he attracted the attention of James Fetzer, and they co-founded the original Scholars for 9/11 Truth group. By the time that Jones did his first major public lecture in Utah, in February of 2006, Wood had established contact with Jones, looking to join the Scholars. Soon, Morgan Reynolds would also be a member. Wood’s participation at DU dropped off considerably.
In the space of a few short months, the original Scholars group was building up a large membership, and by June of 2006, Jones had become popular enough within the 9/11 Truth community that he was delivering the Keynote address at the Chicago 9/11 Truth conference, and it really seemed that the Scholars had some serious momentum.
By the beginning of August, 2006, Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds had decided to put a halt to Steven Jones’ momentum.
Seeds of Doubt
In mid-July of 2006, Wood began to insinuate to me via email that Jones’ research was rife with omissions, distortions, and scientific errors, but did not cite what the specific problems were. Understanding that Jones was arguably the most high-profile 9/11 activist in the U.S. (and probably the world) in 2006, this did cause me some worry. After all, if, as Wood would later claim, Jones was “100% bogus”, then this would result in a massive discrediting in the public eye of 9/11 activists in general.
Wood’s insinuations continued through her denial of tenure from Clemson University, in early August, 2006. I offered her my work number in Dallas, so I could try and get a better handle on her problems with Jones’ research. She did call, on August 7th, 2006, and we discussed her problems with Jones, her duties at Scholars for 9/11 Truth, and her future plans for Jones.
It turned out that there was more to Wood’s problems with Jones than just allegations about his scientific method. Wood claimed that Jones showed no special sympathy toward her regarding the violent death of Michael Zebuhr. She said that instead of a long note of sympathy, Jones was more interested in adamantly defending his experiments which proved that aluminum melts long before it glows brightly in daylight conditions. She also said that Jones used this phrase in an email sent to her, “we’ve done it before and we will do it again if need be”.
Jones was no doubt speaking of the melting aluminum experiments, which he indeed “did again” in late August of 2006;
http://911review.com/articles/jones/experiments_NIST_orange_glow_hypothesis.html
However, Wood repeated Jones’ comments after a long diatribe about Zebuhr, and it’s clear that Wood was consciously conflating the murder of Zebuhr with Jones’ words, “we’ve done it before and we will do it again if need be”. The phrase is posted in a similar context on Wood’s website, but the sender is not identified;
Following this bizarre non sequitur, Wood then revealed to me that she and Morgan Reynolds were working on a paper that would challenge Jones’ work, and then she said in reference to Jones, “We’re taking him out.” I was asked if I would be a party to this process, and would I post the information on 911blogger.com, where I had only been Team Member for a couple of months.
After being bombarded with Wood’s various accusations about Jones, I have to admit to being a bit shocked. I was not willing to post this paper without a careful review first, at the very least. This led Wood to state, “So you are going to remain loyal to Steven Jones?”
This left me speechless. I have sworn no loyalty oath to Jones or any other 9/11 researcher. Research must stand on its own two legs, no matter who the author or scientist is who promotes it. It’s true that I have been covering Jones’ research for as long as anybody else, and I even traveled to Utah in February of 2006 to see his first major public lecture, which I covered at gnn.tv and democraticunderground.com, but this does not constitute a loyalty oath.
The “Three Amigos” v. Steven Jones
After Wood’s attempt to recruit me for operations against Jones on August 7th, she contacted me again a couple of days later, and I was advised that Jones would be appearing on Jim Fetzer’s radio program, “Non-Random Thoughts”, on August 10th, which was being broadcast at the time on RBNlive.com. I was invited again to help to expose the “truth” about Steven Jones by calling in to the show. I did not reply to this invitation.
I did however, tune in to the broadcast, and downloaded the archived show for posterity. You can download it here for review purposes;
Non-Random Thoughts – Professor Steven E. Jones Interview
(Interview no longer available. If you can find it, please contact me!)
The shows are intact with commercials (and the first, unrelated guest) which you will have to fast forward past on your media player. The Jones interview begins at the 23:30 mark in the first hour. (I considered trimming out the non-essentials, but I did not want to stand accused of editing the source material.) In the first hour of the interview, Jim Fetzer is fairly eager to present three theories of Controlled Demolition with equal weight; CD by a Thermite derivative and other explosives, CD by fission/fusion devices (aka ‘mini nukes’), and CD by unknown “exotic weaponry”. Fetzer seems to be softening up Jones for the sandbagging that takes place in the second hour.
Jones relates a short refutation of the mini-nuke hypothesis, then Fetzer and Jones toss the ball around about other subjects dealing with 9/11. (I will be following this blog entry with a more specific blog on the mini-nuke hypothesis in the near future.)
It is in the second hour, at the 42:08 minute mark where Fetzer gives away the game. Over night, or perhaps early in the morning of August 10th, 2006, Wood and Fetzer posted a paper attributed to Judy Wood and the deceased Michael Zebuhr, called “Aluminum Glows”, on the front page of the original Scholars for 9/11 Truth website. (Wood’s methodology is strongly challenged in this piece by Brian Vasquez: Glowing Aluminum Disinformation – Feb 8, 2007)
You can see the archived version of the Scholars front page, in the “S9/11T FEATURED ARTICLES” section, (lower left-side), archived on August 11, 2006 here;
http://web.archive.org/web/20060811184542/http://www.scholarsfor911truth…
As you can see from the version cached on August 4, 2006, the article was not there;
http://web.archive.org/web/20060804000507/http://scholarsfor911truth.org…
Jones (co-founder of the Scholars!) was not advised that this article would be published on the Scholars website. Jones found out when Fetzer sandbagged him with the news, live on the air: “In fact a piece that he (Zebuhr) did with Judy Wood we put on the site just for those who want to look at it.” So, Fetzer admits to being party to posting the article. (Wood had previously advised me that she had administrative access for editing the content of the Scholars site.)
At the 45:51 mark in the 2nd hour, we find out who Wood was able to get to call in to the show to “expose” Steven Jones. None other than Morgan Reynolds himself, with whom Wood was covertly writing her hit piece on Jones, a piece which remains posted on Reynolds’ website (Arabesque writes about it here). Reynolds proceeds to attack Jones’ credibility as a scientist live on the air, even though he, as an economist, would have no grounds to make an assessment of Jones’ abilities as a scientist, certainly not in a professional capacity.
Fetzer doesn’t seem to be all that “surprised” by Reynolds’ call. He shouldn’t be. He admits foreknowledge about posting the “Aluminum Glows” piece, which suggests very strongly that he should be expecting a call from “somebody” to challenge Jones, as Wood had planned for someone to call in as part of the attempted discrediting of Jones.
Why Drag This Out Now?
Because apparently, there are a number of people who take Judy Wood’s idea that Directed Energy Weapons, or “Space Beams” demolished the WTC seriously. Indeed, seriously enough to include her prominently in a Draft Bill that has been circulated to a few members of Congress, and written about at OpEdNews.com.
This, even after Wood and Reynolds were practically laughed out of the (Federal) Southern District Court of New York this past June. I strongly encourage anyone who has not read this memo detailing the decision on their case to do so;
http://reynoldslitigation.googlepages.com/100Judgment-Dismissedwithpreju…
(More here: http://reynoldslitigation.googlepages.com/ )
These junk lawsuits filed by Wood and her cohorts seem designed to fail. Certainly, the consequences of the lawsuit filed in Judge Daniels’ Southern District Court are plain: he rejected the claims “with prejudice”, which puts and end to Wood’s claim in his court, but there can be little doubt that Judge Daniels will forget this matter any time soon.
This means that any future cases about alternative explanations about the collapses of the towers, filed in the Southern District Court which “has jurisdiction over and summons jurors from the counties of New York, Bronx, Westchester, Rockland, Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Sullivan” could be tainted by junk science and ideas that have no way of being tested, and thus, no way of being a viable hypothesis.
Apparently, repetition is the key here, so I will now provide the links to the letters and papers which strongly refute the Space Beams concept once again. They are available for download from the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and it is a very good idea to read them all, if you have not already done so;
Articles:
In Volume 8 – February 2007:
The Overwhelming Implausibility of Using Directed Energy Beams to Demolish the World Trade Center
Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins
In Volume 16 – October 2007:
Solving The Great Steel Caper: DEW-Demolition Contrary Evidence
Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins
Supplemental: DEW-Demolition Contrary Evidence
Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins
Letters:
INTERVIEW WITH DR. JUDY WOOD AND DR. GREG JENKINS (May 15, 2007)
Analysis by Dr. Greg Jenkins and Arabesque
“Scientific Critique of Judy Wood’s Paper “The Star Wars Beam Weapon” (January 9, 2007)
James Gourley
Why the damage to WTC Bldgs. 3 and 6 does not support the beam weapon hypothesis and some correspondence with Dr. James Fetzer about it (Updated March 20, 2007)
Tony Szamboti
“Introduction to and Interview with Dr. Judy Wood conducted at the National Press Club in Washington D.C. regarding the use of Directed Energy Beams in the Demolition of the World Trade Center Towers” (Febuary 9, 2007)
Dr. Greg Jenkins
Finally, you should watch this interview with Dr. Greg Jenkins and Dr. Judy Wood, if you haven’t yet:
There was a preplanned, coordinated attack on the most prominent 9/11 activist at the apex of his popularity in August of 2006. Arguably, this was also the apex of the nascent Scholars for 9/11 Truth. The Scholars would ultimately split into two groups. (Divide and conquer, anyone?)
The Scholars’ greatest threat came from within the group itself. Possibly the greatest problem was that there was no vetting of co-founder Jim Fetzer. Had some research been done on his conduct within the JFK research community, perhaps Jones would have come across information like this, “Jim Fetzer’s Campaign of Disinformation” posted at Clint Bradford’s website. (An early critique of the initial makeup of the Scholars was penned by Michael Green: The Company We Keep.)
Why did I not share this information earlier? Because I honestly thought that the papers at the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and the video by Greg Jenkins had reduced Wood’s ideas about 9/11 into an inert gas. However, as we can see, the ideas live on.
In my opinion, the DEW concept was not born out of scientific need. It was born out of an intent to discredit the thermite-based hypothesis, to date, the only hypothesis to exhibit any hard evidence to back it up. Perhaps, in the future, a hypothesis accompanied by physical evidence, that does not rely on thermite derivatives will be in the vanguard of CD theories. But it hasn’t happened yet.
See also: On Disinformation and Damaging Associations
