A Probabilist s View of Some 911 Events, or, an Introduction to Conditional Probability by: Theodore Micceri, Ph.D. "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds the most discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' (I found it!) but 'That's funny...'" Isaac Asimov And what Isamov speaks about, a situation that s funny, is precisely what stimulated this paper. Statisticians tend to view the world using different eyes than most, since ours tends to be the view of probability: What is the chance of a given event occurring? Perhaps the simplest example is a coin flip, where the chance of a coin falling heads or tails is equal, or a 50% (!) probability. Any time you flip a coin (e.g. before football games or other contests), each side has a 50% chance of winning the flip (e.g. heads). Now, conditional probability deals with the chances associating with multiple flips of a coin, say across the 11 games of a college football season. In a two flip situation, the chance of a coin turning up heads twice in a row is one in four ("), or, the chances of an event (heads) at flip one, times the chances of the event (heads) at flip two (! X! = ";.50 X.50 =.25). Across an 11 game college football season, the likelihood of 11 heads or tails is one in every 2,048 sets of 11 coin flips. Not impossible, but unlikely. Given this background, let us now turn to a few of the events that occurred on 911 and get some idea of the probabilities that might associate when several highly unlikely events all occur on the same day. An Amazing Series of Improbable Events First, I am not going to attempt to come up with specific numbers for these events as one can with coin flips, because one s ability to determine specific probabilities for such complex phenomena appears pretty unlikely to this probabilist. Instead, I will estimate conservative low probabilities for each event using the criterion of unreasonableness. Usually, when estimating probability, one uses the reasonableness criterion, this appears reasonable. However, due to the highly charged nature of the topic, in this case, I choose to use unreasonable, which means absurdly low estimates. Thus, if a reasonable estimate of a chance is one in 1,000, I will use perhaps one in 10, or a similar ridiculuously low estimate. Second, when looking at the 911 events, I will consider only six of the many rather strange events that occurred that day and will consider only one post-hoc phenomenon (the utter failure of commercial airline crash protected flight recorders). The six are: 1. Three steel reinforced concrete skyscrapers being weakened enough to fall due to fire 2. Three modern skyscrapers collapsing straight down rather than falling in a typical lopsided fashion after being weakened on one side 3. Almost all surveillance cameras around the most secure building on earth (the Pentagon) failing on the same day with the result being only a few frames of film showing some unidentifiable object hurtling toward and hitting the Pentagon. 4. Amateur pilots who have never flown a large aircraft precisely hitting targets hundreds of miles from their starting point. 5. NORAD s failure to following standard operating procedures four different times on the same day.
6. The complete failure of all eight crash protected flight recorders (black boxes) on the four hijacked airlines (There are two on each plane to make sure what happened on September 11th never happens on even one plane.). Steel Reinforced Concrete Skyscrapers being Weakened Enough by Fire to Collapse According to every record I have been able to find (and, I am very skilled at finding records of odd events), this has never happened anywhere in the world either prior to or after 911; not even at the massive hotel Madrid fire that burned white hot for 18 hours (http://tinyurl.com/p8z8g). It is not surprising that steel reinforced concrete buildings don t collapse, because their internal support structure consists of a lattice or web of tightly linked steel rods. As you know, when a few local sections of a web fail, the web itself does not collapse. However, for some strange reason this amazing web collapse occurred not once, but three times on that fateful day. apparently as a result of very small, low heat and local fires that burned for between one hour and about eight hours, in Building 7. Several explanations regarding how the specific design of the twin towers may somehow have led to collapse have appeared in seemingly reputable publications. I am not a mechanical engineering and therefore will not attempt to judge the validity of their arguments, however, from my knowledge of physics and architectural design, and the natural overall intregity of webs or nets, as well as the laws of physics, I simply find it difficult to believe that buildings with a core of 47 7-foot thick steel columns in their root would completely collapse so readily, and further, Building 7 was a different structure than the twin towers. In any event, I think that the extremely low probabilities associated with these events more than covers any possibility that such suggestions in fact have validity. Steel Reinforced Concrete Skyscrapers Collapsing into their own Footprints Assuming that the heat from the low heat, short term fires of 911 somehow weakened the steel supports on the side where they were hit by the airplanes and where the fires burned, physics tells us that the weakening should have been localized and the collapse should have started on that side. This would, of course, cause a lopsided collapse, at least of the floors above, rather than the straight down into a footprint collapse that occurred all three times. This strange event almost never happens, except in cases of controlled demolition. However, it occurred not once, but three times on September 11: North Tower, South Tower, Building 7. Failure of Surveillance Cameras Around the Pentagon Now the Pentagon is almost surely the most thoroughly protected building anywhere in the world, and it is simply loaded with surveillance cameras both within and without. The fact that only a few frames of film from one camera managed to pick up the incoming plane, or whatever it was that hit the Pentagon, appears rather strange and highly unlikely. I will not get into the reports that government officials confiscated video cameras from several commercial establishments that might have recorded the event, because that might make the simple minded incorrectly think either that a conspiracy was afoot or that the government was trying to hide something. Amateur Pilots Accurately Hitting Targets Hundreds of Miles from Takeoff From all reports I have seen, the pilots who supposedly flew the planes were at best inadequate even at piloting small planes, much less the mighty jets that caused the damage. Admittedly, the twin towers are pretty unmistakable if one can find New York, however, apparently the plane that hit the Pentagon flew a few feet above ground level for quite a distance before striking the Pentagon. Also, apparently something very strange also Ted Micceri 9/3/06 2
happened to one plane in Pennsylvania, so there are only three cases of this. It is certainly not as unlikely as the other phenomena in this list. Airline Crash Protected Flight Recorders (Black Boxes) Failure All of the eight crash protected flight recorders (black boxes) on the hijacked planes failed to survive the crashes. These are specifically designed to withstand enormous heat and pressure. The Black Boxes on Commercial Airliners cost between $10,000 and $15,000 each. They are designed to withstand heat of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit for one hour, salt water for at least 30 days, immersion in a variety of liquids such as jet fuel and lubricants, and an impact of 3,400 G's. Further, each plane has two separate Black Boxes, which are designed to be indestructible in the event of a tragedy, so that makes a total of eight black boxes. It is interesting that the two planes that hit the twin towers appear to be the only major jetliner crashes in which the flight recorders were never located (they are, by the way, orange color to make them easy to find, since almost nothing in either cities or nature is orange and rectangular). NORAD Failure to Respond on Four Occasions The North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), which has been around since 1958, and scrambles planes hundreds of times each year will usually have a jet on the wingtips of an off-course airliner within perhaps 10 to 20 minutes of the planes going off course. Despite having roughly an hour to respond to the shortest jet crash timeline, NORAD failed to respond four times on September 11, 2001. Because it was designed to deal with such a vital issue as Soviet Bombers over U.S. or Canadian territory, NORAD s standard operating procedures are well tested, and there are at least four bases within range of New York or Washington given the hour to respond. Apparently, for some unknown reason, at least two and possibly as many as five mock drills, impeded NORAD s ability to successfully, intercept. Nonetheless, several examples of extreme incompetence occurred on that day, and apparently, not a single reprimand was issued. Now, I am not going to get into the strange fact that apparently Ossama bin Laden picked this day, with all of these mock drills going on, to send his amateur pilots. God, or Allah must clearly have been on his side for this to have occurred. In any event, NORAD s failure to respond to four hijackings given somewhere near an hour for the fastest appears highly unlikely to this probabilist. I know of no case in history where NORAD failed to respond adequately to a hijacking within a very short time. Perhaps it was not just luck that bin Laden happened to select that day. If he had surreptituous control over some key personnel in the NORAD command chain, he might be the reason that all of those drills occurred on the same day. That they did, on the face of it, is both unlikely and a seemingly dangerous thing for the group responsible for U.S. air security to have arranged without seditious influences. Developing Reasonable, but Highly Conservative Probabilities The primary reason I want to use highly conservative estimates is to avoid the label: "Conspiracy Theorist," a term that was rarely heard prior to 911 but that has became so widely used after that as to become a common part of everyday parlance. I am a scientist, not a conspiracy theorist, and I apply scientific, not NEWSroom, conspiracy, or political approaches to the analysis of issues. The reader must realize that the final probability estimates in this document are very likely to be considerably smaller than reality due to the unreasonableness criterion I have chosen to use So, let us attempt to define some unreasonably conservative probabilities for the several unlikely evens documented above. First, as I noted, no steel reinforced concrete skyscraper Ted Micceri 9/3/06 3
has ever fallen because of fire damage on any day except September 11. So, let us apply a ridiculously low probability to this, let us say maybe one in twenty rather than the one in a million that it probably. Second, re a skyscraper that is damaged on only one side falling in its footprint, one would think that this is nearly impossible due to the laws of physics. But let us say that this event would also occur say once in every 20 times rather than the perhaps once in one thousand that it may be. Third, the failure of surveillance cameras is probably a more likely event, but my bet is that they have at least 20 cameras covering every inch of the Pentagon. Let us say that a camera will fail once in every five days, which I am sure is quite low, and let us say that there were only five cameras that should have recorded the events. Regarding the rather incredible piloting job these amateurs accomplished, let us give that a one in five also, although it is probably more like one in 100, if not 1,000. Regarding the black boxes failure to either be recoverable or found, again, an almost impossible circumstance that has never happened before for any crash on land, but let us say, to be conservative, that it might occur once in every 20 crashes. Finally, for NORAD to fail to respond to hijackings is another almost impossible event. Now, if I were to publicly say that this would occur once in every 10 hijackings, I may face prosecution by the Pentagon: HOW DARE YOU SUGGEST THAT WE WOULD EVER FAIL TO DEFEND OUR COUNTRY!!. However, since it did happen, not once, but four times on September 11, let us stick with the ridiculously unreasonably low one in ten. So, now we can compute a likelihood that all of these strange events should all occur on the same day by simply multiplying our probabilities for each event times each other. Suffice it to say that the conditional probability of all these events occurring together is one in 25,000,000,000,000,000. Now this seems pretty unlikely to this probabilist, and the true probability is likely more than 10 trillion times as great, but let us stick with our ridiculously low estimate. Let us now try to compare this rather large number to something we all understand to better put the unlikelihood in perspective. Scientists estimate that the age of the Earth is some 4.55 billion yeas, while some religious individuals contend that the world is no more than about 4,500 years old. Now, 4.55 billion years is about 1.6 trillion days, and 4,500 is about 1.6 million years. To give one an idea of just how improbable this series of events was, the earth would have to experience 15,221 of those 4.55 billion year lives for it to occur once. Of course, with the 4,500-year lives it would take about 15 billion Earth lives for it to occur once. You may note that I left out several other highly unlikely events in these computations, first to keep this as short as possible, and second because a likelihood of one in 15,221 Earth lives of 4.55 billion years is already larger than anyone in their right minds can possibly believe actually occurred. A few unlikely events that I didn t include, but are truly strange include, but are not limited to the following: (1) George Bush, a very likely target, who was in a low protection public place that could probably have been completely destroyed by a small airplane loaded with explosives, was not moved and hidden by his bodyguards, although both Cheney and Rice went to the bunkered basement of the White House very quickly. (2) How on Earth did such a large plane make such a small hole in the Pentagon wall. (3) How did Ossama bin Laden pick a day when NORAD was running multiple drills. (4) How did millions of tons of 40-year old concrete turn into the dust that burst from the towers. Concrete cures (gains strength) for about 160 years after being set, and after 40 years, is incredibly strong. If you have ever tried to crush old concrete with a mallet, as I have, you know how difficult it is to turn that stuff to dust. (5) Why were so many puts taken in the stock market on the airlines involved in the crashes. Ohh, wait, maybe it was Saudis, after all, Ted Micceri 9/3/06 4
Ossama bin Laden is Saudi, not Afghani or Iraqui, and most of his relatives still live there with their incredible wealth. I do not contend that improbable events never occur. In fact, they occur with amazing frequency given reasonable likelihoods. However, as a probabilist, it appears almost impossible that so many highly unlikely events all coincidentally occurred on September 11, 2001. This improbability, plus the afteraffects, for example, the amazingly fast and freedomcrippling Patriot Act and the two wars of aggression we have been engaged in almost since that day, must make anyone with the capacity of reasoning think that there is something really fishy about all of this. Ted Micceri 9/3/06 5