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Tags Lockerbie bombing , Pan Am 103

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Old 24th September 2009, 02:25 PM   #201
Rolfe
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Originally Posted by LONGTABBER PE View Post
Thats not an excuse I accept

Thats not destructive testing and what harm can a wipe do or UV scan?

Also, there is microscopic examination for pitting, heat etc

Even if theres no identification of the explosive by trace- theres other physical evidence of being at the heart of an explosion.

Two different versions of this. One says the fragment was too small, however it's known that the RAERDE lab tested smaller samples in other cases. The other (put forward in Lockerbie Revisited) is that there was insufficient funding to do the test. This has also been ridiculed, for obvious reasons.

Rolfe.
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Old 24th September 2009, 02:54 PM   #202
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Two different versions of this. One says the fragment was too small, however it's known that the RAERDE lab tested smaller samples in other cases. The other (put forward in Lockerbie Revisited) is that there was insufficient funding to do the test. This has also been ridiculed, for obvious reasons.

Rolfe.
All that tells you is that the real reason is hidden- thats also more sauce for the goose to support planting

They have enough money for everything else but not what amounts to $500 for chemical tests. ( thats as todays cost)

If they were that strapped, I would have put it on my Amex for them

poor devils
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Old 24th September 2009, 02:57 PM   #203
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101 LIDS it seems to say on that fragment. Looks like the dosage label for a chunk of swiss-made super-hashish. Lol. Actually looks more like LIOS. But seriously, I'm watching the video now, and this is cited as the smoking gun proof implicating Libya and this photo shown (30:10)

There's the Thurman video... Bam, there he is showing a photograph at 30:45. Looks like the same squarish thing we've been looking at, with a different comparison model, like that shown on the Mebo site with a single angled scratch off the "1." Lol, "when you look at it in a microscope it jut jumps right out at you." It's always surprising the first time you look in one, idn' it? Got screen grabs, will be back later.
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Old 24th September 2009, 02:59 PM   #204
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Briefly on my color confusion: It does seem the second site linked by Rolfe shows a different Mebo MST-13, intact and it's quite blue. It's next to the equally blue PT35(b) - a different, blurrier photo - hich is again described as green. I guess Swiss green circuit boards in the 1980s were just called green but actually blue?

Anyway, there are also issues between the clear side-by-side photo ad this blurry close-up - the latter has scratches, the "letter M" and a broad sribble patch (labeled "scratches by Lumpert) in German, the former does not (visibly anyway). Why would these be on one photo but not the other? Obviously added later, unless sanded off later. I'll be back too with comparisons of that.

The colouring of these pictures is just bizarre. I haven't read all the primary sources yet, but here's what I gather about the timers.

Somebody (Libya? The GDR?) commissioned the manufacture of these things from MeBo in 1985, as a special order. Lumpert designed the item to order in spring/summer, using brown circuit board to make three prototypes by hand. The first item had a fault, and as a result of this he both made a new one and repaired the faulty one to give to Bollier for a demonstration. These two items found their way to East Germany, to a research institute known to be a front for the Stasi. He originally said the third circuit board was faulty and he threw it away.

The PFLP-GC were in contact with the Stasi, and it would have been perfectly feasible for one or both of the two brown boards to have made their way into Jibril/Khreeset's hands.

Once the design was perfected, the blueprint was sent to a different firm for 20 production pieces to be manufactured, in August 1985. These looked quite different, being much smoother and neater, green rather than brown, and 0.4mm larger. These were supplied to Libya.

Last year, Lumpert "confessed" that he did not throw away the third, non-functional prototype, but instead gave it on 22nd June 1990 to someone connected with the Lockerbie enquiry.

Hayes and Feraday consistently maintained that the fragment they were looking at in 1989 was green. Bollier is protesting that what he was shown at some point in the story was brown. There's more about whether or not there was evidence of solder and so on.

The controversy seems to be whether the exhibit has actually been the same item consistently throughout the saga, and whether it is one of the green ones supplied to Libya (which still could have ended up practically anywhere two years and more later), or one of the two given to the Stasi, or the third prototype Lumpert is now saying he gave directly to one of the investigators.

I'd love to see the orginal polaroid Feraday sent to Williamson, and to know the dates of the photographs we've seen. I'm really interested to know if there is in fact any evidence that this item really did exist before June 1990.

Rolfe.
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Old 24th September 2009, 03:56 PM   #205
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Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
the "finger photo" is Toshiba and the circuit board is beige, it's one of the images in the first few minutes of the Al Jazeera film.

There were off the top of head 16 such bits of Toshiba circuit board, all similar in size.

One was found on a pallet, one was found within the folded/torn metal of the fuselage near the explosion.

Hey, is that all that was ever found of the Toshiba? Just a few bits of circuit board?

Serves me right for believing Bollier - it was him who declared that these other bits of debris in the shirt photo with the MST-13 fragment were bits of Toshiba. I need to read those primary sources more....

If all that remained of the Toshiba was 16 bits of circuit board, that might be relevant to the question of how close it could have been to the explosion - a point for the other thread.

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Old 24th September 2009, 03:58 PM   #206
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
"when you look at it in a microscope it jut jumps right out at you." It's always surprising the first time you look in one, idn' it? Got screen grabs, will be back later.

Yeah, he did say that, didn't he? But we know he wasn't sent the fragment, he was only sent a photograph. If he was looking at anything down a microscope, it would have been the intact board that he had acquired from the Libyan agent.

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Old 24th September 2009, 05:56 PM   #207
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Hey, is that all that was ever found of the Toshiba? Just a few bits of circuit board?

Serves me right for believing Bollier - it was him who declared that these other bits of debris in the shirt photo with the MST-13 fragment were bits of Toshiba. I need to read those primary sources more....

If all that remained of the Toshiba was 16 bits of circuit board, that might be relevant to the question of how close it could have been to the explosion - a point for the other thread.

Rolfe.

Strike that. Bollier was right. According to the court judgement, quite a few bits of Toshiba were found, including bits of plastic case. The other debris in the shirt collar was said to be bits of Toshiba.

Quote:
According to his notes, this item was examined, initially on 12 May 1989, by Dr Hayes. His notes show that it was found to be part of the neckband of a grey shirt, and when the control sample was obtained it appeared similar in all respects to the neckband of a Slalom shirt. It was severely explosion damaged with localised penetration holes and blackening consistent with explosive involvement. Embedded within some of the penetration holes there were found nine fragments of black plastic, a small fragment of metal, a small fragment of wire, and a multi-layered fragment of white paper (subsequently ascertained to be fragments from a Toshiba RT-SF 16 and its manual). There was also found embedded a fragment of green coloured circuit board.

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Old 24th September 2009, 06:13 PM   #208
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Longtabber, No I cant see how this fragment survived, but I have no knowledge of explosives.

What I am seeing is what looks to me like a fragment of board that has never been operational

This an unpopulated MST board. The fragment area shows what looks to be a number 1 but this is a solder pad to attach a component to

todd_385213_1[674786].jpg

This is a finished board (not very clear) and Shows all the components in place.At the bottom some IC's (intergrated circuits or chips) the backs of switches (Red) at the sides, and directly over the fragment area a rectangular object which looks to me to be a relay. I think the relay would have been attached here at the number 1 pad and also to the rectangular pad below it and also to the pad top left
MST 13.jpeg
Here's the fragment. I wish I could find a clearer image. I would expect to see more damage where the component had been ripped off . If you pulled the component of by hand you would rip off a good portion of the pad itself. its only a very thin layer of copper laminated to the board. I dont think anything has been attached to this pad. and it wouldnt be there for no reason

todd_385213_1[674789].jpg

Longtabber what kind of temp would you expect this board to be subjected to if it was at close proximity to the explosives?

The picture of the complete MST timer was found here

(wont let me post link, not 15 posts old yet!!!!)

Search Charles M Byers the pictures are there. Be warned the page is a bit CT ish !

David
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Old 24th September 2009, 07:04 PM   #209
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This From Robert Black QC blog


Thursday, 24 September 2009
Crown challenged to prove semtex link to Pan Am 103

[This is the headline over an article published today on the website of the Scottish lawyers' magazine The Firm. The following are excerpts.]

[A] campaign initiated by the Lockerbie Justice Group ... challenges the Lord Advocate to openly demonstrate that Pan Am 103 could have been brought down by a semtex bomb, under controlled laboratory conditions.

The group state that fabric and circuit board fragments cannot survive a semtex explosion, and accordingly the entire Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi falls. In 2007 Ulrich Lumpert of timer company MEBO released an affidavit stating he had manufactured the circuit board “evidence” relied upon by the Crown at the Zeist trial. Earlier this year a report by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer concluded that the Crown’s case was “scientifically implausible”.

“The Crown theory utterly depended upon Judges believing that this white-hot sphere with a temperature of 6,800F, travelling in all available directions at 20,000mph did not scorch, never mind totally annihilate, a printed circuit board and a fabric label, which it was able to wholly detach from the shirt. Our group finds this utterly incredible,” the group said.

“We, as members of the concerned Scottish public, invite the Crown to openly demonstrate their theory under controlled laboratory conditions. Either the circuit board survives with its legible ID and soft solder, or it is annihilated in a white-hot gas. In the event of PCB annihilation, we demand a proper and independent committee of inquiry into ‘What brought this plane down?’ Will you please publicly demonstrate your theory, ... Lord Advocate?”

The challenge has been backed by Dr Hans Koechler, who observed the trial [as a UN-appointed observer] and called for a full public inquiry afterwards.

“It is highly important to address this question to the Scottish prosecutor’s office and I shall add my name to such an initiative,” he said.

“It is equally important that an explosives expert with impeccable academic credentials, ideally a University professor from a European country, endorses this initiative or confirms the basic physical facts in writing. Under this condition I can join the initiative.”

De Braeckeleer and researchers at the Centre of Explosives Technology Research in Socorro, New Mexico estimated that up to thirty pounds of explosive was needed to destroy a Boeing 747, if the explosion had occurred in the hold as the Crown claimed

“As the explosion of one pound of Semtex H inside the luggage container does not generate a blast wave sufficiently powerful to fracture the skin of the fuselage, we have little choice but to conclude that the verdict appears scientifically very implausible,” they said.

The group’s initiative is bolstered by the new testimony of former Ferranti electrical engineer Aitken Brotherston, experienced in testing circuitry for use in military applications.

“Although no doubt there have been some advances in the construction of circuit boards the predominance of boards in current use are the same as those I tested. In most cases the boards would happily catch light with a flame source similar to that of a Swan Vesta (...)

“While we did not test them to the 3000 plus degrees C temperatures of a Semtex explosion bright spot, even as an apprentice electronics engineer with Ferranti, my experience at much lower temperatures would persuade me that nothing of the circuit boards would survive that environment.

“The proposal that fragments of the board, of sufficient size to permit identification, packed with the bomb had survived a temperature environment of more than 3000 degree C in the explosion is to me just not credible.

“What it does demonstrate is the extent to which anyone promulgating that theory believes us out here in the real world to be completely stupid.”
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Old 24th September 2009, 11:13 PM   #210
Caustic Logic
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realdon, if that's a copyrighted work quoted in its whole, you'll want to take out part before a mod does and censures you. Minor rule around here. Some of that might fit better at the newer thread, I'm not sure what exactly that one's covering...

ETA: looking closer, it's already an excerpt and I'm sure Dr. Black has fair use ideas so I'm sure it's cool.

The link is this:
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...mtex-link.html
I'd tell you you can insert spaces to circumvent the URL rule, and that's usually allowed. But you'll be past 15 anytime anyway. On first blush, I feel that questioning whether Semtex could do it seems silly. If not, then why did the crown and FBI ever decide on an impossible story? What they seem to be saying is a Semtex bomb would be too strong for the timer to survive but too weak for the plane to die, an alleged epic double-fail of the comedic proportions regularly proposed by 9/11 Truther types. Seems like a wrong track, but the finer points could be argued and should, outside of this thread.

Originally Posted by realdon
Here's the fragment. I wish I could find a clearer image. I would expect to see more damage where the component had been ripped off . If you pulled the component of by hand you would rip off a good portion of the pad itself. its only a very thin layer of copper laminated to the board. I dont think anything has been attached to this pad. and it wouldnt be there for no reason
That definitely makes sense to me, from the very little I know. AFAIK that is the best image, and indeed that pad is intact. It does however seem torn or folded a bit in the upper right, and a little uneven all across... Hmmm. Weak glue?

I've always wondered about the right-angled scoring, the bold scratches that meet in the "1" lower right. Somewhere I read about solder traces, or something, not filled so prototypical, non-operational. Is this what they're talking about do you think, or is this some alleged bomb damage, or what?

ETA: and also that second one you posted, finally a green one. It's so annpying to see these blue boards and eberyone else calling them green. So is that a yellow Mebo timer, the green one there? I've never heard of those, just green(blue) and brown(mystery).

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Old 24th September 2009, 11:37 PM   #211
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hi realdon

Welcome to the forums.

I don't have any time to spend on this at the moment, but I'll be back on Monday/Tuesday.

Here's a quick overlay of the "populated MST-13" board and the top edge where the fragment is located I knocked up with GIMP.



The photo of the populated board is poor, as already noted. You can just about see though that the solder pad "1" is in fact visible in the finished item and doesn't have a relay stuck on top of it, right next to it yes, on top no.
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Old 25th September 2009, 12:34 AM   #212
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Hmmm.... that does look off. It could be a scaling issue, where the green one is squished a bit. Took my own photo-fu to it and found if proportioned right they seem internally consistent. The outline again is from the green(blue) confiscated model board. I tried to fit the photo beneath it in its original scale but no go, so I wound up stretching it. Do they match up right? Anyone see any problems where the flupappitator meets the cylanoid inverter or anything else?


Now I won't have time, or much, after tonight. Had some other points and address some of Rolfe's, next post.
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Old 25th September 2009, 12:42 AM   #213
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Caustic. Not up to speed on the ins and out of posting here but Robert Blacks blog is licenced under a "creative common licence" and is free to copy.
What does ETA stand for? and how do I quote sections from otherposts as you have done from mine?

Sorry but I have not done much posting on web forums

David
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Old 25th September 2009, 12:58 AM   #214
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Ambrosia mentioned the Dutch film "Lockerbie Revisited", and I watched it last night. This is obviously very recent, as it ends with a couple of impromptu interviews conducted at the 20-year memorial service for the crash, which would have been just before Christmas last year. So the film itself must be no older than early 2009.
An amazing film I think. I'll have t re-watch parts where, as you explain pretty well, it gets about bizarre with the evident disconnect between, most visibly, Thurman and Marquise.

Quote:
The interviews degenerate into a huge row about the provenance of the timer fragment. Thurman, who has by that time been quite thoroughly discredited so far as his professional competence and ethics are concerned, states quite categorically that he did not make his identification from a photograph, but from the actual exhibit. He says the finger in an apparently iconic photo of the fragment I hadn't seen before (and which apparently shows the reverse side of the thing) is his. And the photo was taken in America.
Actually what I saw was the editors placing that photo while mentioning the timer, agent Whitehurst saying that know-nothing Thurman had it on his finger, and Levy asking Thurman about how he had it "on your finger." He didn't confirm this but ignored the question, I don't think he understood it. (Dutch figure for "in your hands"?) He mentioned side-by-side analysis like we've seen, and showed photos of the fragment we've seen, so THIS part is a misunderstanding I think. But the weird part...

Quote:
At the same time (literally - this is all happening with grieving relatives in the background) Marquise and a guy who identifies himself as Henderson, a senior Scottish police officer in charge of the investigation, declare absolutely categorically that the fragment never left Britain.
Yep, and didn't Marquise earlier, casually, say that Feraday had flown it over to Thurman? Then later "no, I never said that..." "he never said that..." Henderson? Was he on the original investigation or some new one related to it? He seems pretty "active" in demeanor. "No hidden holes." Hmmm...

Quote:
I'm not sure we can determine what was in the system before Thurman came up with the "it's part of a MeBo timer!" breakthrough in June 1990. I've never seen this polaroid that Feraday was supposed to have sent to Williamson the previous September, for example.
Maybe... The one at the weird site with anthem MP3s... isn't that a totally different photo from the clear one? It's blurry... need to compare those next.

Quote:
I need to dig around a bit more and see just what's alleged to have gone on between the Feraday polaroid and the Thurman breakthrough. Williamson is supposed to have spent months trying to figure out what it was, but this is all pretty hazy.

Rolfe.
Primary sources are something I'd like more of too. The court didn't seem to publish much, except thru the BBC. Their site currently tells people to get the hell off their site and check the BBC.
Quote:
Quote:
"when you look at it in a microscope it jut jumps right out at you." It's always surprising the first time you look in one, idn' it? Got screen grabs, will be back later.
Yeah, he did say that, didn't he? But we know he wasn't sent the fragment, he was only sent a photograph. If he was looking at anything down a microscope, it would have been the intact board that he had acquired from the Libyan agent.

Rolfe.
I don't know that we know that. However, I had wondered if a photo of a photo next to the model timer would explain the tinting issues. Something for sure doesn't add up here, but I'm not ready to call it. I doubt he looked at anything under a microscope. That was probably just a staged "look at me I'm sciencey" moment. Yeah. Political science. How ironic is that anyway?
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Old 25th September 2009, 01:02 AM   #215
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by realdon View Post
Caustic. Not up to speed on the ins and out of posting here but Robert Blacks blog is licenced under a "creative common licence" and is free to copy.
What does ETA stand for? and how do I quote sections from otherposts as you have done from mine?

Sorry but I have not done much posting on web forums

David
Hit the quote button for the post you want to quote. It brings it up in quote tags. Quotes within quotes don't show up tho. You can also copy and paste text in between tags QUOTE in caps within [ ] brackets, same at end but a / before QUOTE.

Edit To Add, so people know why you added something later. Actually I just didn't wanna retype my first sentence.
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Old 25th September 2009, 01:54 AM   #216
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
Hmmm.... that does look off. It could be a scaling issue, where the green one is squished a bit.
??

The photo overlay I did above is meant to show that the solder pad that looks like a "1" doesn't have anything mounted on it.

I took the pic of the populated board, scaled it to match the size of the pic of the bare MST-13 board, and then moved it down a cm or so to allow you to closely compare the area with the "1" in it.

It's not an overlay showing the top bit of the bare board sticking out to say "these don't match" or anything like that, I probably should have made it more clear in my post.

The proportions of the two boards appear to match, but the pic of the populated board is too poor quality to draw many conclusions from. Lots of detail is missing from the pic due to things like resolution, film grain, shadow effects etc.

Look at your overlay outline and it shows the same thing. The "1" is not obscured by any components. This is all of course assuming that each photo shows a board of the same design.
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Old 25th September 2009, 02:21 AM   #217
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[quote=Ambrosia;5140484]??

The photo overlay I did above is meant to show that the solder pad that looks like a "1" doesn't have anything mounted on it.

Ambrosia I understand what you are getting at but the component would be placed beside the pads, if it was ontop you would have no access to actually
make the solder joint.

The photo is not clear and the area is in shadow but it looks like there are
two tabs protruding from the relay on its right side the top one seems to line up with the right angled section of the 1

Caustic. The two lines on the board are a bit odd. I am not sure if they are pencil marks or lines scored into the board. If they are scores they appear to cut through the two tracks, this is sometimes done to modifiy the circuit.
My first thought was that they were pencil marks made by some one who was going to cut a piece of the board off, maybe forensics ? But surely cutting up bits of evidence would not be allowed
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Old 25th September 2009, 02:26 AM   #218
Caustic Logic
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Originally Posted by Ambrosia View Post
??

The photo overlay I did above is meant to show that the solder pad that looks like a "1" doesn't have anything mounted on it.

I took the pic of the populated board, scaled it to match the size of the pic of the bare MST-13 board, and then moved it down a cm or so to allow you to closely compare the area with the "1" in it.

It's not an overlay showing the top bit of the bare board sticking out to say "these don't match" or anything like that, I probably should have made it more clear in my post.

The proportions of the two boards appear to match, but the pic of the populated board is too poor quality to draw many conclusions from. Lots of detail is missing from the pic due to things like resolution, film grain, shadow effects etc.

Look at your overlay outline and it shows the same thing. The "1" is not obscured by any components. This is all of course assuming that each photo shows a board of the same design.
Got it, sorry. I just have a thing for proportions now. As it turns out it was off a bit in prop. I did want to mention that it looks to me like the element at top might be touching the horizontal bar part of it.

Quote:
The controversy seems to be whether the exhibit has actually been the same item consistently throughout the saga, and whether it is one of the green ones supplied to Libya (which still could have ended up practically anywhere two years and more later), or one of the two given to the Stasi, or the third prototype Lumpert is now saying he gave directly to one of the investigators.

I'd love to see the orginal polaroid Feraday sent to Williamson, and to know the dates of the photographs we've seen. I'm really interested to know if there is in fact any evidence that this item really did exist before June 1990.

Rolfe.
And the coup d'grace of the photo fu: The the picture from the German poster, within outlines of both the confiscated board, and the exhibit PT35b. What the hell is going on here?


ETA: I just verified this poster image as an accurate blowup of this exhibit photo. So unless someone's altered one of these pictures or the fragment was mauled during the process. Poster says the photo is by T Hayes, Sept. 12 1989.

Last edited by Caustic Logic; 25th September 2009 at 02:50 AM.
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Old 25th September 2009, 02:47 AM   #219
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This link will remain pointed to the September archive.

http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...1_archive.html

Realdon, you can also use the quote function to make Black's text appear in a quote box.

However, you also want to watch what Black does with his blog. He re-posts freely from other people's articles, and it's not always obvious, though he does give links. You can find yourself re-posting something that is copyright to a page you haven't even visited. Sometimes his sources are questionable - he's only posting the stuff for discussion. One day he posted a paragraph from an article which turned out, in its full version, to be banging on about nano-thermite in the Twin Towers.

I like to use him, as a source, but to check out where he got today's little gem from before getting too excited.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 04:09 AM   #220
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Originally Posted by realdon View Post
Caustic. The two lines on the board are a bit odd. I am not sure if they are pencil marks or lines scored into the board. If they are scores they appear to cut through the two tracks, this is sometimes done to modifiy the circuit.
My first thought was that they were pencil marks made by some one who was going to cut a piece of the board off, maybe forensics ? But surely cutting up bits of evidence would not be allowed
This makes it look even more like cuts - the middle shot is a screen grab of Thurman's photo he had in '91 for the TV news. It's the same as the trial one mostly, but without the labels and in perhaps slightly different shape. The portion above the cut line, upper right here, is darker. Looks almost like a different plane, catching light different, meaning a deep cut and slight bent there. ??

Note the missing top portion between Sept 12 (presumably the photo Faraday sent to Williamson) and when Thurman had it. This is something. That ALSO is not supposed to happen, right?

ETA: The bleedin' obvious HACKS!


Unless, I got somethin' wrong...

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Old 25th September 2009, 05:24 AM   #221
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I'm faint, but pursuing. This is beginning to sound something like the case Bollier is making. The problem is that Bollier is a slippery customer with a dubious past in the arms/electronics industry, and his web site on the issue is just one step down from the Time Cube. Some of it is probably translation issues, but the screaming hyperbole, the bright colours and the big bold and capitalised fonts aren't.

First, I think any label that identifies a photograph as being the polaroid taken on 12th September 1989 has to be verified. The narrative says that photo was taken by Feraday, so any label that attributes it to Hayes has to be questionable. I'm still looking for clear evidence the fragment as exhibited actually existed in the system prior to June 1990, as opposed to a trail of evidence being fabricated in retrospect.

In fact, looking at it now, that first picture of the three is a blow-up from the picture we often see of the shirt collar, the bits of plastic (allegedly Toshiba case) and the mystery fragment. The fragment is circled in every version of the picture I've seen.

I don't know the detailed provenance of this picture, when it was supposed to be taken, when it first verifiably appeared in the evidence and so on. I'm not clear that it's the famous 12-9-89 polaroid.

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Old 25th September 2009, 05:40 AM   #222
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Exactly. The ID on that IS just from the caption on the poster, and unltimately I'm only comparing digital info from the internet. But at the very least we have a discrepancy in the versions we can see. Not sure where you know from it had to be Ferraday - the 9/15 letter just says "here are some polaroids." The date Sept 12 is interesting - either based on specific info or some kind of guess...

Another two things about the circled photo is that no scoring/lines are visible. Resolution's not great but I thin lines this bold would show up.The scratches are there not present in the later shots. The top's there. And it's not a blue-tinted photo, and the board looks not so much blue as near black. Brown? More similar to the color I got correcting the PT35b photo to natural paper color - dark dull reddish brown - than to either Thurman's or the trial photo as presented by deBrackeleer, where it look pretty green in the Mebo sense...
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Old 25th September 2009, 05:59 AM   #223
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OK, discrepancies.

The first picture is a detail from the larger shot, with the shirt and the other fragments and the "mystery fragment". I still don't know that this is the actual Feraday polaroid (it's Foot who says Feraday took the polaroid in September because Hayes hadn't photographed it in May), but let's assume it is. I take photographs for possible evidential use all the time, and I agree I'd definitely have taken one like that with all the elements visible, but I'd also try to get a close-up of the interesting fragment itself.

The presence of the circle, apparently drawing attention to which piece is the interesting bit (if it's original), kind of suggests that might not have been done. Also, the narrative always refers to "a" polaroid. It could be because the Polaroid camera didn't have a macro lens and couldn't go in any closer than this. Oh dear. Dammit, how long does it take to scare up a photographer to get this done properly, and then develop the shots? In a place like RAERDE? This is extremely peculiar. It had been lying there for four months, allegedly, since Hayes logged it in May. Would another couple of days make so much difference?

I'm theorising a conspiracy here, between Williams and Thurman, with the active co-operation of Hayes and Feraday, to seed the evidence trail retrospectively with indications that the fragment, actually introduced in June 1990, had been sitting there for a lot longer. You understand I'm not accusing anyone, just trying to see if this hypothesis might fly at all.

If this is the famous polaroid, then I guess the "I didn't have time to do any better" might be a handy cover for not having too sharp a shot. On the other hand, if this was fabricated at a later date, presumably when the fabricated fragment became available, I don't see any special reason for keeping it fuzzy. Odd.

As you say, what's going on at the top of the shot? The fragment seems to have lost an appreciable bit of height by the second and third photos, and the shape of the "1" is also different. It looks more like the third than the second picture, so I suppose it could just be a feature of the angle of the light so far as that goes.

However, if that's the case, and we're picking up the relatively faint detail at the top visible in the third picture, why is there no sign at all of the two quite deep straight cuts visible lower down in the other pictures? Just another trick of the light? Dammit, that's why you take more than one picture from more than one angle, even if all you have is a cruddy Polaroid! And what are those extra lines at the bottom right?

Even just the shape of the top of the fragment, seems to show that they're not exactly the same thing. Could it have been so much diminished while in custody? Where did the cuts/scores come from?

And by the way, the photo with the fragment circled does not appear to be a straight vertical shot of the thing. It's slightly angled. That would actually obscure the discrepancy in height rather than create it.

Very curious.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 06:58 AM   #224
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Second picture, allegedly taken by Thurman in America.

Remember, at the end of Lockerbie Revisited the cops were absolutely adamant that the actual fragment had never left Britain. Except that earlier, Marquise just casually said it had. I note Foot also says the fragment went to America, taken there by Williamson, though I did wonder if he had misunderstood. I note the Court judgement does not state the fragment was taken to the USA.

The Official Story seems to be that someone (Feraday? Williamson?) at some point sent a picture of the fragment to Thurman, who recognised it in June 1990 as part of an MST-13 timer similar to one he had in his possession, recovered from a Libyan agent, and informed Williamson. Williamson and Feraday then went to the USA to examine Thurman's timer board, and agreed it was the same. However, we're being told they did not take the actual fragment with them. Any picture Thurman showed of the fragment would have had to have been the (or a) picture sent to him, not one he took himself, unless he took one when he travelled to England, as I think he did at a later date.

If that picture wasn't shown publicly until 1991, I don't think it can prove anything about what they had in June 1990, quite honestly. If it was a picture dating from June 1990, then if the Official Story is correct, Thurman didn't take it.

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Old 25th September 2009, 07:12 AM   #225
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Originally Posted by realdon View Post
Longtabber, No I cant see how this fragment survived, but I have no knowledge of explosives.

Longtabber what kind of temp would you expect this board to be subjected to if it was at close proximity to the explosives?


David
This is why I love having another electronics guy here.

I dont know if the temp of the bubble has ever been measured but we judge it by what it takes to cut steel ( one of the main demolition uses of these type explosives) so its a close guess but I cant swear its dead on accurate.

The white temp of this family is between 5000 and 7000 degrees F.

In theory ( according to the state) this board has the semtex packed all around it so not only was it in direct contact with this heat but was mechanically held in place and packed inside another case ( which is polystyrene itself)

Its like hitting it and the case with a plasma cutter- thats why my mind wont allow me to accept it.

Even if it did get blown apart- they STILL are in the bubble and totally enveloped, picking up velocity ( melting as they go) so if anything, all you should find is globs of goo

The pieces of that board and radio show no physical evidence of being exposed to such temperature and pressure.

They should of at LEAST been charred, all edges/angles melted, discolored, ashed and all screening and fixturing on the board ripped off.
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Old 25th September 2009, 07:19 AM   #226
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Third picture, the trial exhibit. Is it the same thing as the second picture?

It's certainly a lot more similar than the first and second pictures are to each other. The straight-line scores look identical. However, the top of the pictures show quite striking discrepancies - in some ways, the third picture is more like the first than the second in that particular area. There's also something a bit funny going on at the right-hand side, lower half, as well.

This is extremely confusing. It's difficult to convince myself that it's definitely the same thing. It's possible the discrepancies are caused by different lighting of a reflective surface, but it seems to be a stretch. On the other hand, the similarities are also striking. It could be a very good copy, concentrating on the two straight-line scores, but not quite making it in other respects.

I'm inclined to give lighting the benefit of the doubt here, and day it's the same thing. I wish, though, that we could see the colours properly.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 07:37 AM   #227
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How does all this fit with what Bollier is saying?

Quote:
The crucial evidence for the indictement of Libya, Megrahi and Fhimah; the MST-13 timer planted in Lockerbie originates from Eng. Lumpert's handmade prototype MST-13 timer printed circuit board (PC-board) given via the Swiss police, without Bollier's knowing, to the Scottish police. This handmade brown coloured prototype timer circuit board was not yet operable because no electronic parts were soldered on!

When the Scottish police noticed, after Bollier's personal interview, that they had planted a brown coloured timer (not delivered to Libya), they exchanged one part of Lumpert's MST-13 timer fragment by a fragment fabricated from a machine made green coloured Thüring board, confiscated in Zurich at Thüring. Thüring had delivered green coloured MST-13 timer circuit boards to MEBO which were later installed in the MST-13 timers sold to Libya. All these manipulations can be traced back and are provable beyond any doubt by MEBO, the manufacturer of MST-13 timers.

He's barking, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

ETA: However, the rest of what he says carries on into the "placed charge" theory, which in the other thread, most of us are finding hard to swallow.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 08:12 AM   #228
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
How does all this fit with what Bollier is saying?

He's barking, but that doesn't mean he's wrong.

ETA: However, the rest of what he says carries on into the "placed charge" theory, which in the other thread, most of us are finding hard to swallow.

Rolfe.
Heres the thing ( part of how you set up a review of an expert opinion to start)

There are in fact elements of both present.

The problem here obviously is the lack of the physical evidence to independantly review and the actual tests and their results so you are forced to "wing it". I can assure you that "pictures" ( no matter how good they are) are all but worthless when it comes to examining physical remains unless all you need it a "yeah, thats what it looks like" confirmation.

There are other possibilities as well.

This "hole" could be an anomoly as a result of a solid object ( like maybe a fire extinguisher) becoming a projectile and physically punching thru.

The technology exists now ( and then) to confirm or eliminate both possibilities. I see no indication it was fully utilized. ( yet anyway but still reading)

Then when I read further- things alarm me. Those comments on the comparison tests and the completely ignoring the MS effect ( which is present in every explosion- its not a rogue theory- I used it many times in the Chemical Corps as an instructor in the Nuclear phase doing blast assessments and determining fallout patterns and plotting effects)
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Old 25th September 2009, 08:18 AM   #229
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Originally Posted by realdon View Post
This From Robert Black QC blog


Thursday, 24 September 2009
Crown challenged to prove semtex link to Pan Am 103



[A] campaign initiated by the Lockerbie Justice Group ... challenges the Lord Advocate to openly demonstrate that Pan Am 103 could have been brought down by a semtex bomb, under controlled laboratory conditions.

The group state that fabric and circuit board fragments cannot survive a semtex explosion, and accordingly the entire Crown case against Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi falls. In 2007 Ulrich Lumpert of timer company MEBO released an affidavit stating he had manufactured the circuit board “evidence” relied upon by the Crown at the Zeist trial. Earlier this year a report by Dr Ludwig de Braeckeleer concluded that the Crown’s case was “scientifically implausible”.

“The Crown theory utterly depended upon Judges believing that this white-hot sphere with a temperature of 6,800F, travelling in all available directions at 20,000mph did not scorch, never mind totally annihilate, a printed circuit board and a fabric label, which it was able to wholly detach from the shirt. Our group finds this utterly incredible,” the group said.
“We, as members of the concerned Scottish public, invite the Crown to openly demonstrate their theory under controlled laboratory conditions. Either the circuit board survives with its legible ID and soft solder, or it is annihilated in a white-hot gas. In the event of PCB annihilation, we demand a proper and independent committee of inquiry into ‘What brought this plane down?’ Will you please publicly demonstrate your theory, ... Lord Advocate?”

The challenge has been backed by Dr Hans Koechler, who observed the trial [as a UN-appointed observer] and called for a full public inquiry afterwards.

“It is highly important to address this question to the Scottish prosecutor’s office and I shall add my name to such an initiative,” he said.

“It is equally important that an explosives expert with impeccable academic credentials, ideally a University professor from a European country, endorses this initiative or confirms the basic physical facts in writing. Under this condition I can join the initiative.”

De Braeckeleer and researchers at the Centre of Explosives Technology Research in Socorro, New Mexico estimated that up to thirty pounds of explosive was needed to destroy a Boeing 747, if the explosion had occurred in the hold as the Crown claimed

“As the explosion of one pound of Semtex H inside the luggage container does not generate a blast wave sufficiently powerful to fracture the skin of the fuselage, we have little choice but to conclude that the verdict appears scientifically very implausible,” they said.

The group’s initiative is bolstered by the new testimony of former Ferranti electrical engineer Aitken Brotherston, experienced in testing circuitry for use in military applications.

“Although no doubt there have been some advances in the construction of circuit boards the predominance of boards in current use are the same as those I tested. In most cases the boards would happily catch light with a flame source similar to that of a Swan Vesta (...)

“While we did not test them to the 3000 plus degrees C temperatures of a Semtex explosion bright spot, even as an apprentice electronics engineer with Ferranti, my experience at much lower temperatures would persuade me that nothing of the circuit boards would survive that environment.

“The proposal that fragments of the board, of sufficient size to permit identification, packed with the bomb had survived a temperature environment of more than 3000 degree C in the explosion is to me just not credible.

“What it does demonstrate is the extent to which anyone promulgating that theory believes us out here in the real world to be completely stupid.
I agree 100%
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Old 25th September 2009, 08:55 AM   #230
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Originally Posted by Caustic Logic View Post
The link is this:
http://lockerbiecase.blogspot.com/20...mtex-link.html
I'd tell you you can insert spaces to circumvent the URL rule, and that's usually allowed. But you'll be past 15 anytime anyway. On first blush, I feel that questioning whether Semtex could do it seems silly. If not, then why did the crown and FBI ever decide on an impossible story? What they seem to be saying is a Semtex bomb would be too strong for the timer to survive but too weak for the plane to die, an alleged epic double-fail of the comedic proportions regularly proposed by 9/11 Truther types. Seems like a wrong track, but the finer points could be argued and should, outside of this thread.
Sadly, it happens all the time for various reasons.

Let me reword the bolded part regarding what they are saying.

They arent saying it wouldnt take the plane out- they are saying the amount and type of explosive believed to be used wouldnt take it out in the manner of all the physical evidence suggests and the state is trying to sell.

Thats a totally different animal.
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Old 25th September 2009, 09:20 AM   #231
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Could we take this to the other thread? I realise it's all linked, but doubts about the suitcase bomb in the baggage container are really best discussed in the other thread.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 12:58 PM   #232
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It was a brief derail. On Bollier's story, he said it was the photo Thurman showed onTV that made it clear it was Lumpert's brown prototype, and we an see that's "green." And it has solder in it (that is the light stuff in the lines, right?) But, the original circled photo is more brownish/black it seems. Maybe this was shown too in the whole program? BUT, it's the same exact shape as the later shots, AFAICT, other than the hacked top and scores and tint. I know just enough there to be confused, perhaps will sort that out...

As for the circle photo angle, yeah it had to be perspectived and skewed multiple times to fit into the outline. I'm going on the presumption that so long as it's a planar surface, once the corners match up the internal details should too, or vice-versa, so I'm quite confident it's got more at the top than later shots, and a bit less sure the scoring isn't there.

Your theory seems like a good explanation all-in-all. For this part, I wonder if someone investigating realized what a sham this was (unauthorized private swab reveals no residue, etc.) and cut a piece off and hid it away for blackmail. Perhaps scored the corner, pre-perforated to go next 'if you bring this POS back to me again...' They couldn't find an adequate replacement so just shot it like that and hoped no one would notice. That's a pretty wild line of though, just tossing it out there.

I think that's all I'll have time for today. Too bad, tis is sooo interesting now, but I must be good. Family gathering tomorrow and much prep today. Someone Punch me if I come back on here today.
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Old 25th September 2009, 04:21 PM   #233
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Originally Posted by realdon View Post
Longtabber, No I cant see how this fragment survived, but I have no knowledge of explosives.


David
David, let me put this into a different perspective

This board is roughly 7cm square- thats roughly 2.750 inches for us metrically challenged people.

A 1lb better bar stick is about the same mass as 1lb of butter at the grocery store.( little bit more)

The explosive was packed in the back of the radio allegedly so its totally reasonable for this board ( assuming it was back up so you didnt pack all in the components soldered to it) was not only covered 100% in physical contact with it but actually enveloped as it was packed in. ( puts it partially INSIDE the whole of the detonation)

Now- in what amounts to 1-2 milli seconds of time at 100% force at all points it was subjected to a fireball between 5000 to 7000 degreesF and engulfed.

Then it expanded at a speed in excess of 20,000 miles per hour.

you tell me
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Old 25th September 2009, 04:52 PM   #234
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Originally Posted by LONGTABBER PE View Post
David, let me put this into a different perspective

This board is roughly 7cm square- thats roughly 2.750 inches for us metrically challenged people.

A 1lb better bar stick is about the same mass as 1lb of butter at the grocery store.( little bit more)

The explosive was packed in the back of the radio allegedly so its totally reasonable for this board ( assuming it was back up so you didnt pack all in the components soldered to it) was not only covered 100% in physical contact with it but actually enveloped as it was packed in. ( puts it partially INSIDE the whole of the detonation)

Now- in what amounts to 1-2 milli seconds of time at 100% force at all points it was subjected to a fireball between 5000 to 7000 degreesF and engulfed.

Then it expanded at a speed in excess of 20,000 miles per hour.

you tell me

This does lend weight to the suspicion that the bloody thing was a plant. (It's only when the same reasoning starts to declare that there should have been no trace of the Toshiba either that I feel we should be in the other thread.)

Remember the OP? We know Jibril's group have a bunch of ice-cube timers that were (for whatever reason) pre-set to go bang about 38 minutes after a plane took off. So assuming he doesn't really care whether or not he totals Sherwood Crescent, and he's prepared to take the risk that something traceable might be found in the wreckage, it's a logical scenario. At least the barometric portion will ensure that the device will be airborne at cruising altitude when it goes off, regardless of any delays.

However, switch that to a scenario where the perpetrator, whoever he is, finds himself in possession of an MST-13. Completely variable time within about a six-week window. However, no barometric component that we know about.

The target flight is transatlantic. About 8 hours in the air. By the end of the first hour it will just be clearing the British Isles. It then has (guessing here) four or five hours over the Atlantic before again passing over land, and seven before landing. You've lost the barometric component, so you have to be smart with the timer. Planes are never early - or no more than perhaps half an hour they might pick up with a favourable wind. They're often late, especially in winter, and at the rush hour.

The plane is set to leave the stand at 6 o'clock. Might actually take off at ten past. When do you set the timer to go off? Seven o'clock? When it has a foreseeable chance of still being on the ground! Really?

Or maybe you've retained the barometer in the device, so you can at least be sure the plane will be airborne? Would you still fail to take advantage of the possibility of having the plane and all the evidence vanish into the briny, by exploiting the longer time available to you with the digital timer? Oops, that's a moot point if we're still going with the Official Version, because you just exploded the thing over the Med, or maybe Italy, and it's Air Malta who are all upset.

Unless you're getting stupidly complicated, a barometric device must have been loaded at Heathrow, which blows the Official Verson out of the water immediately. And anyone with half a brain using a timer-only device (which could in fact be loaded in Malta or Frankfurt) would set it for several hours later than 7pm, to allow for delays which are far from unlikely.

Which is why that bloody timer fragment simply should not be there.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 05:12 PM   #235
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
This does lend weight to the suspicion that the bloody thing was a plant. (It's only when the same reasoning starts to declare that there should have been no trace of the Toshiba either that I feel we should be in the other thread.)

Remember the OP? We know Jibril's group have a bunch of ice-cube timers that were (for whatever reason) pre-set to go bang about 38 minutes after a plane took off. So assuming he doesn't really care whether or not he totals Sherwood Crescent, and he's prepared to take the risk that something traceable might be found in the wreckage, it's a logical scenario. At least the barometric portion will ensure that the device will be airborne at cruising altitude when it goes off, regardless of any delays.

However, switch that to a scenario where the perpetrator, whoever he is, finds himself in possession of an MST-13. Completely variable time within about a six-week window. However, no barometric component that we know about.

The target flight is transatlantic. About 8 hours in the air. By the end of the first hour it will just be clearing the British Isles. It then has (guessing here) four or five hours over the Atlantic before again passing over land, and seven before landing. You've lost the barometric component, so you have to be smart with the timer. Planes are never early - or no more than perhaps half an hour they might pick up with a favourable wind. They're often late, especially in winter, and at the rush hour.

The plane is set to leave the stand at 6 o'clock. Might actually take off at ten past. When do you set the timer to go off? Seven o'clock? When it has a foreseeable chance of still being on the ground! Really?

Or maybe you've retained the barometer in the device, so you can at least be sure the plane will be airborne? Would you still fail to take advantage of the possibility of having the plane and all the evidence vanish into the briny, by exploiting the longer time available to you with the digital timer? Oops, that's a moot point if we're still going with the Official Version, because you just exploded the thing over the Med, or maybe Italy, and it's Air Malta who are all upset.

Unless you're getting stupidly complicated, a barometric device must have been loaded at Heathrow, which blows the Official Verson out of the water immediately. And anyone with half a brain using a timer-only device (which could in fact be loaded in Malta or Frankfurt) would set it for several hours later than 7pm, to allow for delays which are far from unlikely.

Which is why that bloody timer fragment simply should not be there.

Rolfe.
Here is a question I hit on earlier but I think the significance was overlooked by those who dont work in electronics. I'm going to be a little vague here as not to give workable instructions on how to build such a device so dont call my hand on that part.

First, a timer is just a timer- the entire term is a colloquial inaccuracy


Timers just time- nothing more. You need a timer CIRCUIT to do anything.

That would HAVE to include an INPUT to tell it when to start ( be it an on/off switch, sensor of any kind)- then you have to tell it when to TIME OUT. ( it has to know to do "something" as some setpoint or it will time to infinity) then you have to have some kind of trigger relay the timer sends the output signal to to trigger detonation voltate to the detonator. ( usually 1.5 VDC min)

Thats the detonation circuit whish is usually much higher voltate/current than the control circuit. ( it usually throws full voltage as its DC to account for resistance over run to ensure the detonator fires)

I want to know ( preferably the builder print or schematic) of this board to know EXACTLY what its DESIGN purpose was and inputs/outputs were.

The electronics people here know what I'm asking and why. I dont see the complete circuit in that picture or enough I/O. ( dont hold me to that because the pic is very fuzzy)

Whats this talk of an "icecube" timer? this device is NOT an icecube device. ( google icecube relay or timer and see- those are normally analog deviced with contact points and sometimes pots)

This whole board theory could be a red herring IF this complete circuit wasnt capable of all that. I want to know what that EPROM chip was or was it hard coded.

Certainly this information was requested by the experts to substantiate the device in question was even capable of doing what its claimed without extreme modification.

If it required so much modification ( other side of the coin)- it wouldnt have been used in the first place. ( too much effort to result ratio when simpler an untracable devices are everywhere)
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Old 25th September 2009, 05:50 PM   #236
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Originally Posted by Rolfe View Post
Also, the narrative always refers to "a" polaroid. [....] why is there no sign at all of the two quite deep straight cuts visible lower down in the other pictures? Just another trick of the light? Dammit, that's why you take more than one picture from more than one angle, even if all you have is a cruddy Polaroid!

OK, I've read the primary memo now. He does say "some polaroids".

Even assuming the photo with the shirt collar and other debris is one of them, I wish we could see the others to ascertain if there is any evidence of these scores, and if the top of the "1" really is so different from the later pictures.

I note that Feraday is very clear that the item is GREEN, at the time of the polaroids. The Court judgement also implies that Hayes recorded it as being green on that infamous page 51, back in May.

However, that's the picture Caustic Logic thinks actually shows a brown board. Bollier and Lumpert both insist that the original planted version was brown. They also say the edges of the cut-out corners were rougher than in the green versions.

I'm not too concerned by the detail in Bollier's accounts, which picture he thinks he saw first and so on. However, is there any mileage in the claim that the fragment was substituted at some stage? I'm honestly not sure.

Here's de Braeckeleer's account of what Lumpert is alleging. Here's another of his articles, which goes into more detail about what Bollier thinks he saw.

My head hurts. There's evidence suggestive in both directions. And Bollier is not a reliable witness.

Rolfe.
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Old 25th September 2009, 05:59 PM   #237
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Originally Posted by LONGTABBER PE View Post
Whats this talk of an "icecube" timer? this device is NOT an icecube device. ( google icecube relay or timer and see- those are normally analog deviced with contact points and sometimes pots)

I'm sorry I haven't made myself clear about the ice cube timer. Of course that device is not an ice cube timer. That is the actual point.

I'm not sure I can make myself any clearer. Perhaps it would be worth while your reading the other commentary sources who have explained why, if any timing device were (perhaps miraculously) to be recovered from this explosion, it would have been expected to be an ice-cube timer connected to an aneroid barometer, set to trigger the bomb 30 minutes after the atmospheric pressure had dropped to 940Mb, and not an MST-13.

You are saying the presence of the MST-13 is anomalous because you would have expected the entire board to have been vaporised. I am saying the presence of an MST-13 is anomalous because the timing of the explosion (and other pieces of information) would lead one to expect any fragment of timer which miraculously survived to have been an ice-cube device, not an MST-13.

ETA: OK, it's de Braeckeleer again, I couldn't find the picture I was originally looking for (the one in Paul Foot's report), but it's the same thing.



This is the sort of device which would have triggered the bomb if the attack had been carried out by Jibril's group. This would have incorporated a barometer, to ensure that the countdown didn't start until the plane had reached cruising altitude (so eliminating problems relating to late take-offs), but then it would have exploded about 30 minutes later.

The timing of the crash makes sense within this scenario. However, an ice-cube device was not found (perhaps unsurprisingly, given the nature of the explosion). An MST-13 was, however. The timing of the crash does not make sense within the scenario of the bombers having used an MST-13.

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Old 25th September 2009, 08:48 PM   #238
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From what I can see of the relay shown on the MST-13, it looks like a little version of a standard coil and plate relay. This is not something I would expect any terrorist into self preservation would use. It wouldn't take much shock at all to close the contacts. Maybe it's just a poor photo of a much better relay.


Someone asked about the inputs/outputs of the MST-13: That "1" pad and the horizontal pad under it are the NO and NC contacts on the relay. The horizontal bar on the left is the common terminal. One side of the relay coil connects to the small pad just right of the common pad. The other side of the coil is the right most pad in the group of three directly below. Power input to the board is on the heavy traces below the slide switch on the right. Of interest though, one side of the relay doesn't connect directly to the timer but goes to an isolated pad. This would be where a safety device such as a barometric switch could be installed without telling the manufacturer what the intended use would be. This would then connect to the switched power on the left of the set of three pads.
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Old 26th September 2009, 01:06 AM   #239
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To explain the condition of the fragment, it may have been folded against the body of the relay by the initial blast wave. The relay body would then protect the face of the chip during the blast while the heat rises enough to melt the solder. When the chip releases from the relay leads, the subsequent sudden deceleration upon impact with other objects would dislocate any solder remaining on the pad.

As for those scratches mysteriously appearing on the chip after the initial photo, these are much deeper than you have imagined. In order to examine the cross section of the piece for identification of the material, it must be cleanly cut through a good part of the board. They need to make two cuts at right angles to map the orientation of the fibers in the epoxy board. Obviously some of the documentation for this chip is not present or this would have been explained.

BTW, Here's a book that might be usefull for the class: Forensic Investigation of Explosions By Alexander Beveridge (Especially chapter 13: "Evidence of Explosive Damage to Materials in Air Crash Investigations")
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Old 26th September 2009, 03:08 AM   #240
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Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
From what I can see of the relay shown on the MST-13, it looks like a little version of a standard coil and plate relay. This is not something I would expect any terrorist into self preservation would use. It wouldn't take much shock at all to close the contacts. Maybe it's just a poor photo of a much better relay.

Um, you realise the photo of the complete board all made up with components (and its corners still on) is just a similar board from somewhere else being shown for comparison? I don't think we know what might or might not have been soldered to the board recovered at Lockerbie.

Originally Posted by Dan O. View Post
Someone asked about the inputs/outputs of the MST-13: That "1" pad and the horizontal pad under it are the NO and NC contacts on the relay. The horizontal bar on the left is the common terminal. One side of the relay coil connects to the small pad just right of the common pad. The other side of the coil is the right most pad in the group of three directly below. Power input to the board is on the heavy traces below the slide switch on the right. Of interest though, one side of the relay doesn't connect directly to the timer but goes to an isolated pad. This would be where a safety device such as a barometric switch could be installed without telling the manufacturer what the intended use would be. This would then connect to the switched power on the left of the set of three pads.

So it would have been possible to have incorporated a barometer if the bombers had wanted to do that? Incorporation of a barometer would solve one problem (timing of the explosion) but create another (point of entry into the baggage handling system).

If the complete device had a barometer (and we're not surprised nobody found one because it's a miracle that fragment of circuit board survived), then the time of detonation isn't senseless. It wouldn't have mattered how long the plane was delayed, it woudln't have exploded until it was airborne. (We know that's the game Jibril's group were playing, because a number of their devices were seized.)

However, if it had a barometer, it's almost inescapable that the device was introduced to the system at Heathrow. Otherwise, it would simply have exploded at the pre-set time after the Air Malta flight left Luqa.

OK, I'm sure someone can figure out some way it might be possible to rig a device to remain inert during the first two legs of the flight, and only to be activated after the take-off from Heathrow. A BBC article which seems to be entirely mistaken and operating from a number of wrong premises does postulate a barometric device which can count how many times it has taken off, however such a modus operandi has never been postulated by anyone investigating Lockerbie, and I'm not aware of any record of a terrorist group possessing or using such a device.

I can't get past the logic. Timer-only device, may have been introduced anywhere in the system, with any number of preliminary legs, but would have been set to explode much later than 7pm. Barometric device (irrespective of the model of timer used), may have been set to explode early in the flight, but almost inevitably would have had to be introduced at Heathrow.

Rolfe.
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