'The Falling Man'

The Esquire Magazine article from September 2003, by Tom Junod that was the basis of this 2006 documentary video of the same name, is further evidence that all who participated in the narrative of 9/11 are co-conspirators to the central crime of the Big Lie. Tasked with the production, simulation, and dissemination of a fearful product, upon which their lizard masters sup and feast, it is now coming into focus that there are no elements outside the paradigm---no light for any contrast or highlighting. It is time we form ranks in opposition to this inhuman agenda of ritualistic and sacrificial murder, and shine the light of truth on these abysmal scenes.
*

*
No other rational begins to make sense of the depravity afoot in the 9/11 drama, and in its aftermath--with a million dead in the illegal and immoral wars that stemmed from it, when two of the western world's religions ganged up on an innocent third shoot of Abraham. Fear and torture are now leading us into the threat of famine and pestilence---all of it in the name of a politics not of this planet.

There are many names associated with this film, a list ripe for the tumbrels, for the dockets, and for the tribunals---so let them be warned. Are they NSA or CIA, FEMA, or maybe Mossad? We know them as merely good enough for government work; soft in the belly. It is a center that will not hold.

Unbelievable for me personally is Eric Lipton from the New York Times revealing his shadow government allegiances, and his bias for the official story, a version which any third-grader could easily debunk at this stage. He attempts to lend his company's stature to the story, much like Popular Mechanics did some time ago. He and the Times can expect to be brought down low by this. Is Lipton Jewish? Is his heart really in Zion? Listen to the tone of his voice as he explicates some of "the physics" from that day

"The plane hit the North tower in a very central way, resulting in the fuel from the wings pouring into the building itself. The fuel, and the fire that was created in the instant that it hit, spread so far that the people standing in the lobby were burned from the fireball that came out of the elevator shaft. And you can see the smoke coming out from all the way up above Windows on the World within minutes of the impact."

"The fire continued to spread, burning up the furniture, and office papers and the combustible materials throughout the buildings and, and, the tower itself became like a chimney, sending the smoke up towards the top of the tower. And as time passed the, the situation became desperate."

"There was a long period of time when people were, you know, just hanging out by the windows, waving things. You saw one man just, you know, waving a long white---is it a tablecloth?---it's not clear."

Every bit of it is synthetic nonsense: the magical properties of fuel-filled jet wings slicing like a hot knife through the butter of the trade tower's heavy structural steel exterior facades, then pouring down non-continuous shafts, to puddle explosively at the base.

This story began with Richard Drew of the Associated Press, part of the corrupt crew of image makers found over at The Digital Journalist, where Nemesis, the goddess of divine retribution is soon to stalk. Drew took what is truly an iconic shot of a man serving as a missile. For all the grave talk of symbolism in this film, nobody grasps what the image really is representing---that our world was being turned upside down that morning.

I tried to keep an open, if skeptical, mind as I watched the video, but late in the show I felt an epiphany--- as the manipulation of watching the entire descent of the Falling Man---27 seconds worth of twisting and turning, from the 1:06:58 mark, where we first see him make his appearance somewhere from within the level of charred floors, to the 1:07:25 mark, when his landing is hidden behind the screen that dissolves into white light. What the good-looking researcher, Andrew Chaikivsky, has are contacts in high places with their hands on the film. The necrophiliacs will have their prurient interests indulged with this one.

I still can't get the horse before the cart though, and it was probably designed that way. Were these jumpers planned and anticipated? Did anyone actually jump from the buildings that day, or did they use video trickery for that purpose too? The families are clearly on board, sold out to the God of Seven Figures. Were their qualifying victims rendered, or double-crossed and murdered elsewhere? Were they voluntary suicides perhaps, like the Hasidim dressed up like Palestinians dressed up like Hasidim acting as suicide bombers?

Meeting many of these players here for the first time, like Michael Lomonaco, Executive Chef of Widows on the World, who "would have been there, but he was running late because he stopped at an opticians," or Melissa Trumbull, restaurant director, and Glenn Vogt, general manager of Windows on the World, defines the parameters of those overtly chosen and spared. Listening to their artificial and false sentiment, the cost of participation is clear, it's dear---lost shades wandering morbidly in the vale from here on.

The narrator's voice-over, by the professional English actor, Steven Mackintosh, is eminently suited for the lugubrious pace of the work. Throw in some piano and a solitary violin and you could have a holocaust documentary. But hearing the first words out of his mouth be the tired canard, "it was the most photographed and videotaped day in history," did not endear him to me or the truth. If so Mr. Mackintosh, since we're on the subject of the jumpers, show me a single image depicting jumping from the south tower. The narrow slice of reality we were given is made suspect by your guile and deceit.

The filmmakers invent a plot hook, "someone who provided justification for his mission [Junod's explication of the jumper's identities.] Someone who had found comfort and peace by accepting that his loved one may have jumped"---Richard Pecorella. His story in his own words

"It had to be so intense up there and there was no other way out, that it was either burn alive, or go quickly. I envisioned that it had to be The Towering Inferno, and from the photos I saw, it obviously was. Who knows how much smoke was in there---do you suffocate to death, or do you jump? I think it was brave to do that. When the media started posting photographs then I started searching to see if Karen was one of those jumpers. After awhile it just became an obsession with me. I was so intense on just finding something. I found some photos in my search that I think was Karen jumping. I know it's her because of the clothes, the shape---I would know her from her shadow. She had a blue sweater-top on, sleeveless, and cream-colored pants. If you look at the pictures that I have, I mean, that's what I see. It wasn't painful for some reason. It really wasn't. I finally have, you know, something to hold to you. This is where she was and this is how she died---she jumped. She didn't burn up, she didn't become dust. Nothing is more painful than losing her, but not knowing how I lost her was even more painful. So now, that I believe, that's what took place, it's not painful for me to talk about it. And if she jumped, she jumped."

"Karen Pecorella" is not listed in any of the many list's of victims of that day, so if she went by a different last name, Richard is being remiss, if not outright deceitful here. But my real problem with Pecorella's story is that the woman he identifies as his wife, is a central figure, whom we see in the most common photographs showing workers gathered in the windows in the north face of the north tower. A large woman standing fully in and partly outside of a window, wearing white pants and a dark blue sleeveless top, she occupies the fourth position from the right in the top row. It would not take an obsessive search to find her in the public record by any stretch of the imagination, Details like this matter a great deal in my book.

Another protagonist in the film is Jack Gentul, whose wife was found in the street outside of the south tower. If that is a trustworthy statement (and the forensic evidence, on average, is NOT to be trusted,) it may mean the Gentul's are legitimate victims of that day. Everyone seems so "media ready," and "on" that it's hard to take them seriously. It doesn't help to determine what the status is of Richard and Karen Pecorella, we can just know that his story is not the truth.

Jack Gentul's story has more of a ring of truth to it, mainly because it doesn't serve to push a narrative agenda along. Apparently, his wife thought there had been an explosion underneath her floor in the south tower, a detail Jack offers up apologetically, which helps build a case that no one inside the building saw a plane approach, and they had the best seats in the house.

The phone rang and it was my friend Bill, and he said, um, do you know what's going on at the World Trade Center, and I said no. He knew that Elaine worked there---we'd been friends for many years. He said, well, a plane hit the north tower, and I knew Elaine worked in the south tower, so I said, well, you know, that's horrible, but let me see what I can find out. My secretary came in and told me that Elaine was on the phone. The first thing I said was, "well, thank God you're OK," and she said, "well, not really." And she told me that smoke was coming into the room, it was coming through the vents, and that, um, there had been an explosion beneath them---she didn't know a plane had hit.

I know that Elaine was found on the street. in front of the building across from hers. So, whether she jumped or fell, I don't know. I believe she was alive when it happened because of that phone call. I hoped that she had succumbed to the smoke but it doesn't seem likely. It's something I can't know. In some ways it might just be the last element of control that you have. Everything around you is happening and you can't stop it. But this is something that you can do. And to be out of the smoke and the heat, and to be out in the air---it must have felt like, fine.

The main body of the video consists of identifying the Falling Man from within the crew of restaurant workers working that morning at Windows on the World. We are told that 170 people died there on 9/11---79 of those were employees.

A long false lead introduces us to the Hernandez family, the head of which, Norberto, had worked for 14 years as a pastry chef at Windows, alongside executive chef, Michael Lomonaco. This fact alone makes me believe Norberto is a rendered survivor, whether his family knows this or not---they definitely know something is up.

The widow and three daughters of Norberto Hernandez greet news of the search for the identity of the man in the famous image with disdain. Apparently, they hold strongly felt religious beliefs that would relegate any hint of a "suicide" into eternal damnation.

"It was more than grief that fueled the Hernandez's denial. It was something more fundamental." The editorial use of the word "fundamental" leads me to believe this is all playing to the gallery.

Why the producers didn't hire a psychologist to consult with the family as to what constitutes suiciding in these situations --- which does not include the forced exit from inside a burning building---is easy to understand, since it would spoil what passes for a plot. We are told that jumping "flew in the face of their family motto "together forever"---and their faith." Are they suggesting they should join him on the 107th floor?

The thought that her father could have jumped had a profound [negative] psychological effect on Norberto's youngest daughter, Tatiana, 13 years old at the time.

Norborto's widow doesn't bother with logic

"We were together for nearly 30 years and I can put myself in his situation. There's a fire. I'm on the 107 floor. I'm not going to jump through the window, because I'm thinking, and I know what he was thinking. He was thinking of me, his daughters, his grandchildren, and his mother. I'm not going to jump. I'm going to try to escape anyway possible. Down the staircase---anyway. But the last thing I would do is jump out of the window."

While his daughter, Catherine's position is equally script written rather than heartfelt,

"He would never put us aside for anybody, I mean, he was, he was our main guy---my father."

"I'll say it like this: once a person has committed suicide their soul automatically goes to hell, no questioning. We weren't the most religious family, but we had our beliefs and we went to church, and so, by your calling him the jumper, you're kind of saying his soul is damned. You're telling me he's in hell. I think that's mostly what got to my mom. That's what got to me too."

This is all for naught as, as soon as the family agrees to actually look at the images they determine categorically that the man depicted falling in them could not be Norberto. So much for plot development.

In keeping with the secret organizational structure of many of those participating in the events of 9/11, even the restaurant worker's union was special. The narrator tells us

"Many of them had worked there for years, which created an unusual camaraderie. That family had been devastated on September 11th when 79 of its members had perished."

The narrator, Steven Mackintosh, heightens the drama, telling us that after five years of refusing to participate, the executive chef relents.

"Then---a breakthrough. The chef, Michael Lomonaco agreed to look at the photos. A few days later, over lunch, he met with the researcher who had with him the pictures, and the names that refused to go away."

The researcher, Andrew Chaikivsky, is CIA handsome, and he doesn't take Lomonaco to a dump for lunch. Lomonaco looks at the pictures, with Chaikivsky saying

"No, it can't be Charlie Moore; it can't be Wilber; ah, what about junior---no, it can't be junior; um, what about Jonathan? And he stopped. Michael took a real close look---it took awhile for him to be ready for him to speak with me about that."

Jonathan Briley, was a sound engineer who looked after conferences and functions at the restaurant. Lomonaco, the chef says

"Jonathan fit the body type, the size, coloration, of the person in that photograph, and it left the door open for me that there was a possibility that it really was Jonathan. Which having known Jonathan, and really admired and liked him, and I just thought he was a terrific person---a good, a good guy. A hardworking, dedicated, good guy, with a great sense of humor and a person who embodied...an individual that I, I could call a friend and respect---offered me no comfort to think, "oh, that's Jonathan.

Lomonaco's sentiments sound disembodied. He can sound even more like a fraudster

"If it is Jonathan, I can only feel so bad, for him having to have suffered the way he did, and um, you know, I...I miss him. He, he was somebody that I would have liked to have known forever."

Well, you can feel bad if he suffered, but you would know if he suffered or not.

Likewise, "Deacon" Jonathan Eric Briley, born March 5, 1958--may have died on September 11, 2001, or not. His father, the Reverend Briley, did not want to appear on camera, but he "suggested that Junod talk with Jonathan's older sister, Gwendolyn. She'd been especially close to Jonathan." Strange that the filmmakers didn't speak with his widow instead, but Gwendolyn said

"When I first looked at it, [the photographs] it was almost like touching a hot stove...you just...your mind just co..ah...I looked at the figure, and I saw that it was a man, tall, slim. Wow. I looked at it and said, if I didn't know any better---that could be Jonathan."

We never learn Gwendolyn's last name in the film, but the Internet Movie Database helpfully tells us she is Gwendolyn Briley-Strand, and she can be subconsciously in very poor taste

"Jonathan---Jonathan Eric Briley was this person that just loved life, and it was contagious, so that when you were around him you couldn't help but smiling
and laughing. Every time that Jonathan comes to mind, he's walking and he's talking, and he's smiling, and he had this bounce in his step. He was one of these special people who could spread himself around the whole family, and we all got, our piece of Jonathan.

Is this another freakish religious cult-family who ritualistically handled a family member. Was Jonathan wayward I wonder?

Narrator Steven Mackintosh:

"In the days after the attack, the Briley's waited for his return. A phone call, anything. As the days past, their hopes of finding him alive faded. Reverend Briley gathered the family together in prayer."

Gwendolyn Briley-Strand, talking about her father, the reverend

"He talked to God like someone who absolutely knew that he existed, he said, I believe you can create a miracle. I want my miracle. I have loved you, I do love you, I believe you, I have served you, I want to know where my son is. The next day we got a phone call from the coroner, said to come down---they found Jonathan. We knew where he was. That was a gift. That was a gift from God.

But then the narrator spoils everything with an errant detail:

"The coroner's office identified Jonathan through DNA and dental analysis. Jonathan's younger brother Timothy had the painful experience of confirming the identification."

How any visual identification could be made of the remains is a gross misreading of evnts. Gwendolyn Briley-Strand elaborates

"Timothy recognized his shoes and his hands, he said, he said, 'I would know my brothers hands and his feet.' He took one of his shoes and he kept it. They were black tennis shoes, lace up and then they had that Velcro thing around the ankle. I didn't remember anything about an orange tee-shirt, but when I talked with Timothy, he did. He talked about how Jonathan had this orange tee-shirt and they would tease him because he wore it all the time."

But again, a major detail is at odds in the narrative. In Tom Junod's September 2003, Esquire article, "Falling Man," we are told it was the FBI who called with news--not the coroner's office. Put yourself in their shoes---wouldn't you remember it was the FBI who called?

"Jonathan Briley's father is a preacher, a man who has devoted his whole life to serving the Lord. After September 11, he gathered his family together to ask God to tell him where his son was. No: He demanded it. He used these words: "Lord, I demand to know where my son is." For three hours straight, he prayed in his deep voice, until he spent the grace he had accumulated over a lifetime in the insistence of his appeal.

"The next day, the FBI called. They'd found his son's body. It was, miraculously, intact.

"The preacher's youngest son, Timothy, went to identify his brother. He recognized him by his shoes: He was wearing black high-tops. Timothy removed one of them and took it home and put it in his garage, as a kind of memorial."

It is highly doubtful that Jonathan's body would survive intact an 100-story fall. Nor could it, I should think, be identified by DNA testing in so short a time frame. Maybe Timothy can make an identification based a snickers, if he stays current with his married brother's footwear, but it seems odd for him to be so assured.

Gwendolyn Briley-Strand waxes philosophic

"I never thought of the Falling Man as Jonathan. I thought of him as a man who just took his life in his hands for just that second. Did that person have so much faith that he knew that God would catch him, or was he so afraid to experience the end up there? That's something I'll never know because that happened to him. I hope we're not trying to figure out who he is, and figure out more who we are through watching that."

The narrator's summation is about knowing what you don't know

"Tom Junod could never be certain that Jonathan Briley was the Falling Man, but he'd learned something far more important from Gwendolyn. The man's identity didn't matter. The power of the image came not because the man could be identified, but because he couldn't."

This is a terrible thing to say about "the most photographed and videotaped day in history." An event with an almost complete dearth of captions identifying victims and rescuers, which is the normal job of action photo-journalism. So wwhy wasn't 9/11 normal?

If the images of jumpers represents "the only visible fatalities in a day that claimed thousands," could that not mean that the claim of thousands might be false?

If the film's point was that the images of jumpers were somehow suppressed, so that "the images that came to symbolize the day were of the heroic rescuers working in the rubble," might I point out that there are no images of anyone doing any real work at ground zero. They are all of fraudulent, stage managed "bucket brigades"and other poses of a featherbedding kind.
Part of the endless lies of 9/11.

In a September 2001 interview in the highly credible Fire Engineering magazine, New York City Fire Department Chief Daniel Nigro said that no one jumped from the South Tower.

9/11: The Falling Man is a 2006 documentary film.
It was made by American filmmaker Henry Singer,
and filmed by Richard Numeroff, a New York-based director of photography.
The film is loosely based on Tom Junod's September 2003, Esquire story.
It also drew its material from photographer Lyle Owerko's pictures of falling people.
It debuted on March 16, 2006, on the British television channel Channel 4.
It later made its North American premiere on Canada's CBC Newsworld on September 6, 2006,
The U.S. premiere was September 10, 2007, on the Discovery Times Channel.
Plays a part in the book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer.
Lyle Owerko shot the cover photograph of Time on September 11, 2001.
Howe, Peter (2001). "Richard Drew". The Digital Journalist
Cauchon, Dennis and Martha Moore (September 2, 2002). "Desperation forced a horrific decision". USATODAY.
Junod, Tom (September 2003). "Falling Man". Esquire.
Interview with Esquire magazine writer Tom Junod by NPR's Melissa Block, August 21, 2003
Esquire article on search for the identity of the Falling Man
The Falling Man at the Internet Movie Database [very helpful]



Archive
Richard Drew
Andrea Booher/FEMA News Photo
APTN
Bergen County Record
CNN ImageSource
David Model
Dennis Van Ire
Edward Hillel
EMPICS/AP
FEMA
GETTY IMAGES
*
ITN Archive
Kitchen Sisters Production
Lyle Owerko
NYPD
Reuters/ Jeff Christiansen
The Camera Planet Archive
Time & Life Pictures/Getty Images
U.S. National Archives
1010 WINS Radio

Darlow Smithson Productions
Associate Producer Andrew Chaikivsky
Produced by Sue Bourne executive producer
Co-producer Lisa Guidetti
Producer Henry Singer
Executive producer John Smithson
Julian Ware
Camera and Electrical Department
Still photographer Lyle Owerko
Visual Effects Coordinator Rosanna Jon
Location Coordinator Katie Doering
Production Coordinator Grisha Nikolsky
Production Manager Jenny Mauthe
Film Editors
Alan Mackay
Ben Stark
Other crew
Katie Doering location coordinator
Paul Gardner archive researcher
Margaret Beckett
Director of Photography Richard Numeroff
Music Dario Marianelli
Sound Sean O'Neil
Post Production at Envy
Jonathan Leib
Adam Grant
Matt Skilton
Tom O'Pray
Head of Operations
Ulla Streib
Production Accountant
Tim Antill
with thanks to
William Pitts, NIST
Thomas Dallal
Andrew Blackman