Frank Legge Begging For Peer Reviewers For Pentagon Paper, gets deleted at 911Blogger, LOL Options

[A. Syed]

Hello all,

This smacks of "theatre of the absurd."

For those who don't know who Frank Legge is, he is an Australian researcher whose name appears as one of the authors of the nanothermite paper. However, his name is known not so much for this as he is known for aggressively promoting the official view (physical evidence wise) that AA77 crashed into the Pentagon. Very shortly after CIT's National Security Alert came out in the summer of 2009, along came Legge. He began presenting himself as an intellectual scholar on the Pentagon attack, writing a paper that was published in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, in which, in a nutshell, he believes we should accept the official Pentagon story by default (he uses the double-negative hypothesis that there's no proof a 757 did not crash there), and that we should focus chiefly on the demolition of the WTC. He believes that if ever critical mass is ever achieved, whereby the masses of Americans are out in the streets by the millions, demanding a new investigation, the govt will release a video clearly showing AA77 hitting the building, and Frank claims that this would be a death blow to the movement and turn people away from looking at the WTC demolition. (I couldn't disagree with him more, but in the interests of space I'll move on.)

Back on May 16 of this year (2011), during an e-mail discussion between key members of Richard Gage's AE team, David Chandler (who, along with Jon Cole, authored a hit piece against CIT; you can see the CIT's super in depth rebuttal here) said the following words (boldface mine):

Space beams are not just an alternative theory: they're certifiably baloney. See http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/...stStudies44.pdf

The same can be said about the CIT flight path. (Frank Legge and I have a paper in peer review right now that establishes this fact.)

A similar analysis needs to be done on the mini-nukes, but I have little doubt that it falls into the same category.

If AE has actual expertise and not just mailorder degrees, we need to be doing some actual research, whether theoretical, experimental, or whatever. We need to do active sifting of wheat from chaff.

--David Chandler

Legge and Chandler submitted the original version of their paper to the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and Kevin Ryan passed the paper to Pilots for 9/11 Truth for peer review. Rob Balsamo tasked Lt. Col. Shelton Lankford (a Marines fighter pilot) with reviewing it. When I inquired to Shelton as to the quality of the paper, his reply to me was:

About as dreadful as you imagine. A hit piece to take its place among their other hit pieces.

That above quote was on June 8.

Fast forward to just recently, August 18, more than two months since Shelton's above response to me, and more than three months since I first learned by way of Chandler's email that such a paper was in the works. On 8/18, at 911Blogger, Frank Legge submitted a blog entry in which he practically pleaded with the 911blogger community to contact him and volunteer to "peer review" his and Chandler's paper. About 24 hours later, this blog entry was deleted. However, a colleague was wise enough to keep a cached version of the text on his hard drive. Here is the content of Legge's deleted blog entry (just the blog, not the comments, which I will reproduce later on in this post):

Its time to bite the bullet on the Pentagon

Submitted by Frank Legge on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 10:39am

citgo NOC overfly pentagon



There are two papers in need of review for submission to the Journal of 9/11 Studies.

One is by David Chandler and myself. It provides evidence that the witnesses to the path of the plane approaching the Pentagon, who stated that it passed north of the Citgo service station, must have been mistaken. The paper concludes that the only plausible description of the approach is that the plane did not deviate round the service station but flew virtually straight and hit the Pentagon, as described by the vast majority of eye witnesses.

The other is by John Wyndham. Here is the abstract of his paper:
Abstract: The widespread belief among those who question the official account of 9/11, that a large plane did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11, is unsupported by the evidence. The failure of the 9/11 truth movement to reach consensus on this issue after almost a decade is largely due to a failure to rigorously apply the scientific method to the evidence as a whole. This paper, by so applying the evidence to each proposed theory, shows that a large plane hitting the Pentagon is by far the most plausible theory.

As this is a very touchy subject it has proved difficult to locate people who are willing to review these papers. These papers are based on straightforward logic and thus no aviation expertise is required. Aviation expertise would however be helpful in deflecting some types of arguments.

This is a call for volunteers to review the papers. If anyone is interested a response would be greatly appreciated. You won't find the papers boring. Contact me by posting here or by email to flegge@iinet.net.au.

Frank Legge's blog
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I noticed that in particular, it is clear how desperate Legge and Chandler are for their paper to receive some pats on the back by having to resort to "You won't find the papers boring." He also did not tell the 911blogger readers that the paper has already been reviewed by Shelton Lankford who found the paper to be "dreadful."

Now, I am a participant on the e-mail list serve entitled "911telecon," which is what we now call what was formerly known as the "9/11 Truth Leaders Teleconference." Quite a few well known people in the movement are on this list serve. I wrote Frank Legge and CC'd the telecon, alerting everyone to the points I just made in my above paragraph. I also gave him permission to post my e-mail publicly at 911blogger since I (and dozens of others) am banned there and can not address him publicly. Frank very selectively posted only 3 sentences of my rather lengthy and in depth e-mail to him. Frank then responded to my point about Lankford's negative review of the paper with a bald faced lie. Have a look, now, at the comments in that now-deleted blog entry. I'm posting all comments for the sake of posterity, but the relevant ones appear starting with the one from Frank whose subject heading (boldface) is "Adam Syed." (The number of votes a comment received appear above its subject heading.)

5 votes

The more important question

is why the Pentagon was allowed to be damaged at all almost an hour after the first plane impact took place?
Submitted by scubadiver on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 2:05pm.
»


3 votes

thanks

Thanks Frank. I hope you get some responses. I'm glad to see John W has done a paper as well.

The topic here is important because having a peer reviewed resolution to this formerly highly divisive issue is helpful in moving forward.

I think many agree that in moving forward, there are many important questions that have been eclipsed for years by the "no Boeing" debate. Shoestring has done an excellent job at writing focused well-researched pieces on many of those questions.

http://www.shoestring911.blogspot.com/
Submitted by Victronix on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 2:56pm.
»


4 votes

There are even people

who have done their very best in the comment section. But the comment section, is transitive and inconsequential, isn't it? I hope Jimd3100 gets his due, that is, he will get credit for being right all along.
Submitted by SnowCrash on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:52pm.
»

1 vote

Yes, he's done a lot of

Yes, he's done a lot of debunking comments. Just as much as being right all along are those who were unsure or misled, who then looked closer at things, for whatever reason, and decided they were going down the wrong path. That's a lot harder then being "right" in the first place!
Submitted by Victronix on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 1:32am.
»


-4 votes

The Grass is Greener Where I Come From

Don't walk over my green grass.
Submitted by nausea7543 on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 10:36pm.
»


3 votes

Adam Syed

gets full marks for persistence but little else. He has sent me a long essay on why I must be a deliberate provider of disinformation and therefore a supporter of the official narrative. How he equates this with my contributions on the collapse of all three WTC buildings by controlled demolition is a mystery - apparently logic is not his strong point. He asserts that I "came out of nowhere in 2009", but I have been publishing on the subject since June 2006.
http://www.journalof911studies.com/article...molition_20.pdf

Adam is frustrated at being barred on 9/11Blogger and hopes I will copy his essay here. I will provide a portion:

"Back on June 21, I called you out, Frank, in front of the 9/11 Truth Leaders Teleconference (911telecon). At that time, you had already submitted your paper for peer review to Pilots for 9/11 Truth, and Rob Balsamo tasked ________ with reviewing it. The fact that two months later, the paper has not passed peer review and you are begging for non-aviation experts to "peer review" it, is a pathetic grasp at straws."

Apparently he is unaware that a member of Pilots for 9/11 Truth has reviewed the paper and found it satisfactory. Here is what he said:

"After a review of the final version, the paper by Frank Legge and David Chandler is acceptable to me. They have been good to work with in resolving all issues."

"The article is much improved and balanced. I also think you make your case very well, and I can now endorse it."

As the Pentagon attack has been such a contoversial issue it is not surprising that I should be looking for more endorsements. The reason for making this request for reviewers was to hurry the process in the hope that the paper could be published before the Toronto Hearings.

That is still my hope. I would like to see several volunteers as every endorsement will strengthen the paper.
Submitted by Frank Legge on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 10:44pm.
»


2 votes

Alright

Look, Rob Balsamo will lie. So will his peers. This is custom. Some people will see this as unthinkable; lying for whatever reason. Yet it does happen, and it's painful. Credit to those who put the pursuit of truth beyond personal gain and beyond the defense of favored theories which do not pass the evidence test.

Adam is an intelligent man who has put his skill to work defending theories he knows are wrong. Expect skillful subterfuge and artful dodging; the truth is the truth, it's as simple as that.
Submitted by SnowCrash on Thu, 08/18/2011 - 11:59pm.
»


0 votes

Open minds are best until there is proof

I do not think there is proof that Adam Syed is lying. His lengthy posts appear to be sincere. The alternative hypothesis must be borne in mind that he is simply deluded, deceived. Of course he has not read the final version of the paper. One can hope that when he does he will see the light. He has the energy to be a powerful speaker for the truth if he would grasp it.
Submitted by Frank Legge on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 2:15am.
»


0 votes

Frank: See Your Inbox

Because you have donated generous time reviewing 2 of my publications at the "Journal of 9/11 Studies", I want to offer my time in return to review the referred-to draft. Although my views on this matter may differ from yours in some respects, critical input would benefit any final product.
Submitted by Aidan Monaghan on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 4:52am.
»

0 votes

The other side

We have received another review of the paper by a member of P4T and an email accusing me of lying when I say a member of P4T has approved the paper. They want me to tell the truth. Here is the email:

"Hey Legge,

instead of lying to your minions, why not tell them the truth about the review done by a P4T member.

"There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure." "

Out of courtesy I have deleted the name of the author of this email, a member of P4T.

Both sides are now shown. That should be fair enough.
Submitted by Frank Legge on Fri, 08/19/2011 - 9:37am.

For the record, here is the defunct URL of the blog entry that exists no longer:

http://911blogger-bans-truth.com/news/2011...bullet-pentagon

[ETA upon looking at the preview of my post: LMAO Rob! "911blogger-bans-truth.com!" (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cheers.gif) ]

Okay, so, for a bit of chronology. Frank first posted the excerpt from my email, and when I saw him say this I knew he was lying:

Apparently [Syed] is unaware that a member of Pilots for 9/11 Truth has reviewed the paper and found it satisfactory. Here is what he said:

"After a review of the final version, the paper by Frank Legge and David Chandler is acceptable to me. They have been good to work with in resolving all issues."

"The article is much improved and balanced. I also think you make your case very well, and I can now endorse it."

I knew this was a lie, because on that very day, Shelton Lankford told me privately (when I inquired as to the quality of their second/revised version of the paper) he said this:

I finished the second review today and sent it back to Kevin. I don't think they will like it any better than the first one. I don't want to send out a copy right now, because I don't think it has been released to the wild, and it isn't my place to put out copies of their paper, but when I can I will put it on line. I will share one line with you from my review that kind of sums it up.

“There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure.”

Now, I received this email BEFORE Legge's attempt to try and discredit me in the eyes of the rigged environment of 911blogger, so I knew immediately that Legge was lying through his teeth. After Legge had posted his comment, I was not the only person to notice the lie. Rob Balsamo immediately wrote Frank, CC'ing the 911telecon list serve (which, remember, contains a decent number of well known scholars within the movement):

Hey Legge,

instead of lying to your minions, why not tell them the truth about the review done by a P4T member.

"There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure."

Perhaps because he realized he was getting called out on a bald faced lie in front of quite a few people via email, Frank then tried to neutralize the situation by posting "both sides" at 911blogger:

We have received another review of the paper by a member of P4T and an email accusing me of lying when I say a member of P4T has approved the paper. They want me to tell the truth. Here is the email:

"Hey Legge,

instead of lying to your minions, why not tell them the truth about the review done by a P4T member.

"There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure." "

Out of courtesy I have deleted the name of the author of this email, a member of P4T.

Both sides are now shown. That should be fair enough.

He basically tries to squirm out of it by acknowledging that "another" member of Pilots found the paper terrible. However, at that stage (and, I believe still), Shelton was the only person tasked with reviewing it whereby the reviewer would be speaking officially on behalf of Pilots for 9/11 Truth. Rob Balsamo ascertained this in an email:

I emailed some of our active core members to see who might have endorsed Legge's claims, as Legge alleged at Blogger....

Here are just some of the replies...

"Not me. That would have been a shocker if he had asked me."

"Absolutely not! I have received no emails from Frank Legge , nor have I sent him any."

"Hi Rob:

I was asked to review it and definitely did not endorse it!"

"No, not asked and I haven't seen any such paper. I know that Legge is a problem child here and would have let you know."

and of course from Shelton...

""There is nothing wrong with this paper that a trip through a shredder, and a sincere apology to CIT and the 9/11 Truth community could not cure."

there are many more who i spoke with on the phone. Their first reply was laughter when i asked if they endorsed anything from Legge.

If Legge did get a P4T member to endorse his claims, either A) The person is not a pilot and will no longer be with our organization, or B) is not familiar with all the counter arguments to Legge's garbage.

I'll go for C... Legge is talking out his ass as usual...lol

Rob"

And, for more entertainment, Rob put forth to the list serve a few more lines from Shelton Lankford's review of the current version of the paper:

quote this too Legge....

"The efforts to marginalize CIT and Pilots continue unabated, and it is difficult to see any daylight
between the instant paper and those efforts. Far from letting the CIT evidence stand or fall on its
own merits, the instant paper attempts to build a case where there is none, and throw jet fuel on
the fire that they, themselves started, all the while decrying the “divisiveness” allegedly caused
by CIT. The hypocrisy is breathtaking. One is reminded of the boy who killed his parents, then
appealed to the court for mercy on the grounds he was an orphan."

and thats just part of the conclusion after many pages of analysis.

The best part is, I had nothing to do with the above review.

Rob

Now, here is where things REALLY turn to the "theatre of the absurd."

As pointed out at the top of this thread, the ENTIRE blog entry was deleted at 911blogger roughly 24 hours (maybe a bit less) after it was first posted. I pointed this out to the telecon list serve. Legge responded to myself and the telecon, and he said this:

Finally, you may be interested to hear that the main reason my recent blog was removed from 9/11Blogger was that I had criticised you. This was seen as unfair, as you are barred from responding there.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif) (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

Given the mass bannings of P49T, CIT and their closest and most articulate and knowledgeable supporters at 911blogger, not to mention the vitriol that is allowed to be leveled at these individuals, Frank's statement is laughable. I responded with this:

Sorry Frank, no dice. I know how 911blogger works. If what you say is true, they would have simply deleted your comment in which my name was brought up, not the entire blog entry and non-Syed-related comments within the comment thread. Also, your argument holds no water, because since my being barred from commenting there in May 2010, there have been numerous comments that have attacked me and my pro-CIT position. Also, it's no secret that the moderators of 911blogger do not have one iota of good will in their hearts towards CIT, P4T (they even removed the P4T link on their left column) and anyone who dares support them. Comments calling Craig Ranke, Rob Balsamo and Kevin Barrett "paid disinfo agents" not only are allowed to stand, but receive plenty of up votes, and none of us are able to respond. So frankly your argument holds no water.

The real reason I think they deleted it is:

Number one: because of what Keogh, Larson and Ashley probably noticed as an embarrassing double standard with regard to the concept of "endorsements" --- after all, haven't Chandler, Ryan and Gage essentially condemned CIT for "seeking endorsements" because they say it's "divisive" and "puts people into camps" and that their endorsements are a weak substitute for writing a paper that would pass "peer review" in a scholarly journal??? And there you were, Frank, practically pleading for the community to endorse your paper, and yes, you flat out used the word "endorsements." And you did in the full knowledge, but without (initially) telling the community, that the person to whom you had submitted the paper several months ago finds the paper to be absolutely terrible! In other words, you weren't really seeking true review, you were seeking uncritical pats on the back (admitting you wanted to hurry the process so it could be published before the anniversary and the Hearings), the exact sin of which you and yours accuse CIT of being so guilty!

Number two: Perhaps because you were being called out behind the scenes, you got scared and decided that maybe the safe thing to do IS admit that "another" member of P4T wrote a harshly critical review, and provided the Lankford quote as proof that you're showing all sides. The fact that this quote said that the paper deserves to be shredded and that CIT and the truth community are owed a huge apology, probably caused Larson's, Keogh's and Ashley's blood pressure to go through the roof. Fearing that the blog entry might blow up in their faces (outside the controlled environment of the site), they figured the safest thing to do was flush it down the memory hole.

Things have been quiet as crickets since then. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/whistle.gif)

Legge's dishonesty is yet another piece of evidence to show how 911blogger, as (what was once) the most vigorous and active 9/11 news site, has been co-opted by people shilling for the official account, or significant aspects thereof. The Rock Creek Free Press was right on the money!
PS: Regarding my comment about Frank "coming out of nowhere in 2009" when he was actually publishing at the Journal of 9/11 Studies as far back as 2006: While this is true, he did not start becoming significantly well known within the online community until his paper "What Hit the Pentagon?" paper was published, to great fanfare at 911blogger, in the summer of 2009, not so coincidentally, very shortly after CIT's "National Security Alert" video was released to the public amid glowing blurbs of praise from many notable figures in the movement for the presentation.

PPS: Maybe Rob can pick it up from here (it's taken me a few hours to create this thread) regarding the laughable, and likely fabricated, "flight plan" that Frank Legge showed the telecon as "proof" that he is a pilot and has some aviation expertise.

PPPS: The issue of infiltration in the 9/11 truth movement was discussed on tonight's bi-monthly teleconference call.

This post has been edited by A. Syed: Aug 25 2011, 02:34 AM

[A. Syed]

Thank you.