Only Conspiracy Theorists Rely on Eyewitness Testimony

Impeach Photos and Videos With Witness Testimony?

Yes, that's what conspiracy theorists will try to do. Faced with photos and videos showing that no real Boeing 767-200 hit the WTC, they will marshal witnesses whose accounts conflict with the photos and videos. They will then insist that the photos and videos show a real Boeing 767 when that simply is not the case.

How reliable is witness testimony?

Recently, an expert spoke. As the chief staff person for the Board of Review, he had an intimate familiarity with the World Trade Center attack witnesses, many of whom he had interviewed. His conclusion about witness testimony was as follows:

The last thing I wanted to mention, just in terms of how we understand the evidence and how we deal with what we have is what I will call is the profound underscore profound unreliability of eyewitness testimony. You just cannot believe it. And I can tell you something else that is even worse than eyewitness testimony and that is 5 year old eyewitness testimony.

I have taken the depositions of several people who were involved in phases of the ground zero clean up who witnessed various things and they are profoundly unreliable.

Likewise, a recent report stressed the problems with witness testimony:

Finally, a significant problem that is well known to trial lawyers, judges, and psychologists, is the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. Witnesses frequently, and inaccurately, believe that they have a vivid recollection of events. Psychologists and scholars have long-since demonstrated the serious unreliability of people's recollections of what they hear and see. One illustration of this was an interview statement made by one of the firemen who went to the Trade center on 9/11. He explained that he was witnessed the 2nd plane hit the south tower. Of course, he was only watching it on TV, like most Americans. The inaccuracy of his recollection probably says little about the quality of his memory, but it is revealing of how the mind works and how cautious one must be when attempting to evaluate eyewitness testimony.

The deposition transcripts and other video evidence that were released by the Review Board should be evaluated cautiously by the public. Often the witnesses contradict not only each other, but sometimes themselves. For events that transpired over 5 years ago, all persons are likely to have failures of memory. It would be more prudent to weigh all of the evidence, with due concern for human error, rather than take single statements as "proof" for one theory or another.

Modified from the original here.