In the promotion for an updated version of Debunking 9/11 Debunking, David Ray Griffin expands on his theory that the phone calls received from passengers on the 9/11 flights were somehow faked:

“Stronger evidence that the alleged cell phone calls were faked: The most famous of these were the four calls that Deena Burnett reported receiving from her husband, Tom Burnett. She knows that they came from his cell phone, she said, because she saw his Caller ID number. According to the FBI’s report at the Moussaoui trial, however, there were only two cell phone calls from United 93, and they were made at 9:58, shortly before the plane crashed, when it was down to 5,000 feet. The FBI refused to support, therefore, the claim (e.g., by Popular Mechanics) that high-altitude cell phone calls were possible in 2001. Deena Burnett must have been duped.”

Was Deena Burnett duped? Or have we, in the truth movement, been duped into believing that these calls were made by cell phones, when in fact they were made by airphones? Have we been manipulated into turning our attention away from a body of evidence that would lead us to the real perpetrators of the attacks?

The following is a quote from the original Debunking 9/11 Debunking:

“For our present purposes, the main implication is that the government has covertly admitted that most of the alleged cellphone calls on Flight 93 could not have occurred. This admission implies that these calls must have been fabricated. And if those calls were fabricated, why should we not assume that the Airfone calls, in which the same kinds of things were said, were also fabricated?”

No, David, the government has not covertly admitted that the calls could not have occurred; it has only admitted that they did not occur using cell phones, and that they were thus made by airphones. Even if we assume that the calls alleged to have been made by cell phones were fabricated, it does not logically follow that the airphone calls were therefore also fabricated. There is no reason that some of the calls, such as the one allegedly made by Todd Beumer to a complete stranger– incidentally, a call that validates the official story on all accounts– may have been fabricated, while other calls, such as those by Tom Burnett on FL93 and Betty Ong on FL11– calls that contain information damning to the official story– were authentic and made on airphones.

If we are to believe that the calls were fabricated, then we must believe that someone faked Tom Burnett’s calls to his wife in which he reported guns in the possession of the hijackers. When questioned about her husband’s report of guns, which contradict the official story of knife-wielding Arab fanatics, Deena Burnett replied:

“He told me one of the hijackers had a gun. He wouldn’t have made it up. Tom grew up around guns. He was an avid hunter and we have guns in our home. If he said there was a gun on board, there was.”

This is an extremely important piece of evidence for us. It shows how the hijackers were able to subdue eight pilots on four flights with only one of them (supposedly) being able to communicate to ATC a distress signal. The evidence of guns on the flights is also reflected in an FAA report filed the day of the attacks, in which it was reported that a passenger had been shot. That report was based on the phone call from flight attendant Betty Ong on AAL11. On that phone call she also reported the seat numbers of the hijackers, one of which was assigned to a former Israeli commando named Daniel Lewin (seat 9B), another of which was assigned to a one Edmund Glazer (10B), whose background has yet to be investigated. Part of Ong’s call can be heard on the internet; the remainder of the recording has been kept from our ears. What else did she say on the recording? Do we really believe someone faked this call, then went through all the trouble of covering most of it up?

Griffin’s logic is that since the calls were said to be cell calls, and that cell calls are impossible from higher altitudes, therefore all the calls were fabricated. He doesn’t, however, deal with the full implications of such reasoning. According to him, something like the following scenario occurred:

The perpetrators decide to bolster their story of an al-Qaeda hijacking by making phony calls to various loved ones of the passengers. They are able to voice-morph Tom Burnett’s voice so masterfully that they are able to fool his wife not once, not twice, but on at least three and maybe four calls. Despite their brilliance with voice-morphing, however, they are so stupid as to make their fake call appear to come from a cell phone, which is known to be impossible at the altitude UAL93 was at when Tom called his wife. Griffin believes the calls were made by cell phones because Deena supposedly said she looked at the caller ID. So the perpetrators They were able to make the call seem to come from Tom’s own cell phone– did they pickpocket his cell phone before the flight, and the phones of various others? In addition to the stupidity of making their fake calls from cell phones, the perpetrators inexplicably decide to throw in a report from the fake Tom of the hijackers having guns, which the FBI and media later go through great lengths to cover up and/or ignore.......

Can we believe this preposterous scenario?

Let me propose an alternate scenario:

The perpetrators decide to frame their Arab enemies by allowing real passengers to make real phone calls relaying their false impression of an Arab hijacking. This false impression is created on the planes by having some hijackers disguise themselves as Arabs– with red headbands, dark skin, etc.– while committing heinous acts like knifing female passengers. The idea is brilliant, but they are too smart by half. Some “bad” information is transmitted via the phone calls as well, such as Burnett’s and Ong’s reports of guns, and the seat numbers given by Ong as well as Madeline Sweeney on AAL11.

Knowing that the phone calls contain devastating information contradicting their official story, those charged with covering up the whole thing commence a campaign of disinformation regarding these phone calls. Led, perhaps, by Mr. Chertoff from his perch in the Justice Department, they utilize friendly contacts within the FBI and media to perpetrate the myth that the phone calls were (impossibly) made by cell phones, not airphones. FBI agents whisper “cell phones” to reporters who dutifully spread the word in innumerable media stories. Those FBI agents, however, never get around to producing evidence of any cell phone calls.

Later, a 21 year old makes a film called Loose Change that strongly implies that since cell phone calls are impossible from airplanes, therefore all the calls are fake. The film is promoted quite successfully by parties unknown, and the youthful 9/11 truth movement buys off on the whole thing hook, line and sinker....

Now I ask you, which scenario is more likely? What is easier to accomplish, voice morphing numerous calls to spouses and loved ones; or a disinfo campaign bamboozling everyone into believing that a handful of airphone calls were actually made by cell phones?

I firmly believe that the cell phone myth has been a great disaster for the truth movement. The successful disinfo campaign that the calls were made by cell phones has led us to deny the validity of a body of evidence that would, in my opinion, quickly lead us to the real perpetrators. If we could get over the cell phone myth, here are the kind of questions we would be asking:

1. What kind of conspiracy is able to smuggle guns onto four airplanes? Does any Arab group have this kind of sophistication. And why did they choose to have knives if they also had guns? Were the knives just props?

2. What else did Betty Ong say on her phone call? Where is the rest of the recording? Why has it been withheld from us? Who is Edmund Glazer, the man sitting in the seat reported by Ong as belonging to a hijacker? What is his background?

3. What did Madeline Sweeney really say on her call? Why have the airline employees who received her call been ordered to be silent? One report says she reported three seat numbers of hijacker; another says she reported four, and that the fourth was from row 9. We know three of the seat numbers she allegedly reported; what was the fourth?

4. What caused the white smoke and explosion reported by Edward Felt from UAL93? What else did he say? Why has the person who took his call been ordered to remain silent?

These are the questions we should be asking. Sadly, though, many truth activists hold the no-phone-calls theory as some kind of religion. For the rest of you, though, who have an open mind, I suggest you throw away your copy of Loose Change– except for the controlled demolition and still-alive hijacker segments, which are pretty good. Instead, go to the Cooperative Research site and examine the records of the phone calls one by one.

As for you, Dr. Griffin, if you are reading this, please reconsider your stance on the phone calls. By denying their existence you are digging us deeper into a hole that we may never may never be able to dig out of.