Richard D. Hall's "Bizarre Observation"
How stable is a smokescreen?
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Transcript with links to critiqued material available at: http://www.pighooey.co.uk/rdhbizarreobservation.html
Disclaimer: Everything in this article is stated as honestly held opinion, not an assertion of fact.
Manchester On Trial
“Fumes of some sort”
My curiosity about the strange phenomenon captured on CCTV on the night of 22nd May 2017 in the “City Room” of Manchester Arena was piqued by the RichPlanet film “Manchester on Trial”. The whole film is riveting, but it was these 2 minutes towards the end that stayed with me for a long time afterwards. Here’s the voiceover from the film (starting at 1hr 21 and 37 secs):
“I’ll finish with this very bizarre observation. The inquiry produced lots of redacted still images of the City Room after the blast. Here is a sequence of images from a period starting at 22:48 and going on until 1a.m. where we see fumes of some sort being given off by something. The fumes are being produced for over two hours without receding. Is it a smoke machine? There might be a rational explanation for this, but again, to my knowledge, the issue was not addressed at the Public Inquiry”
RDH is rightly cautious in his choice of words to describe this observation, and although I agree with him that the images do appear to show “fumes of some sort”, I’ve chosen to be even more cautious by describing it as “the phenomenon”.
A cautionary tale: Fire without smoke
On the afternoon of 28th December 2023, a video was posted on X which appeared to show that the upper level of Blackpool Tower was ablaze. The footage quickly went viral, and was picked up by the mainstream media.
Here’s how the story unfolded on the BBC News website that afternoon, which I have been able to recreate thanks to the Wayback Machine:
Time of Report: 15:18:29
Headline: Blackpool Tower fire: Fire crews called to iconic landmark
Flames were spotted in a metal section close to the top of the Lancashire seaside resort's iconic landmark.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) have six fire engines at the scene, while Lancashire Police are also in attendance.
People have been told to stay away from the area.
It was around this time that I myself picked up this story from the BBC, and duly sought out videos of the spectacle on X - it sure looked like fire to me. And although I was a bit doubtful about the story because there was only one video doing the rounds when there should’ve been loads of people filming and posting footage, it didn’t occur to ask myself: “Is it really fire? If so, where’s the smoke?”
A short while later, the BBC gave a detailed update, along with a photo:
Time of Report: 15:49:40
Blackpool Tower fire: Fire crews called to iconic landmark
Firefighters have been called to a blaze at Blackpool Tower.
Flames were seen emerging from a metal section close to the top of the seaside resort's iconic landmark.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) have deployed six fire engines and a "rope rescue" team. Lancashire Police officers are also in attendance.
People have been told to stay away from the area and ordered not to fly drones since doing so may obstruct emergency operations.
In a statement, LFRS said: "We have 6 fire engines, the drone team and the rope rescue team currently in attendance at a fire on Promenade, Blackpool.
"Please stay away from the area.
"The drone team are in operation so please do not fly drones in the area."
So…at that time, the “Blackpool-Tower-On-Fire” story was being reported unquestioningly by the BBC without any caveats such as “appears to be” or “unverified”. But then…
Time of Report: 17:24:12
Headline: Blackpool Tower 'fire' was fluttering orange netting
Firefighters called to an apparent blaze at Blackpool Tower said it was actually orange netting that was seen.
Witnesses spotted "flames" coming from a metal section near the top of the famous landmark at about 14:15 GMT.
Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service (LFRS) deployed six fire engines and a "rope rescue" team to the scene.
Staff were evacuated from the 129-year-old tower but LFRS said a specialist team gained access to the area and confirmed there had been no fire.
A statement posted on X, formerly Twitter, read: "Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service were called to Promenade, Blackpool today by concerned members of the public, due to a combination of factors that led them to believe it was a fire.
"The area where the fire was suspected is generally inaccessible, therefore access to this area is difficult.
"A specialist team from Lancashire Fire and Rescue Service gained access and confirmed that there was no fire.
"This incident was supported by the National Police Air Service, who used thermal imaging which provided further assurance."
Lancashire Police said the top of the tower was currently closed for renovation and difficult to access.
"Our helicopter has flown over the tower and there is no fire," it said.
The force confirmed what could be seen was "orange netting".
It added: "What looked like a fire from a distance was in fact lights on a reflective netting surface at the top of the tower."
The force said one man was arrested on suspicion of breach of the peace near the scene.
So, it wasn’t a fire… nor even anything remotely like a fire.
I’m not relaying this story to take pleasure in the BBC’s humiliating climb-down (would I?) but rather to illustrate the point that it’s easy to come a cropper when interpreting images on a screen. In this case, if you are told it’s fire, and it looks like fire, you will see fire… until someone tells you different. And then, you look again and say: “Oh yeah! Wotatwitami?”
A word about the Manchester Arena CCTV images
The images shown in the RichPlanet TV “Manchester on Trial” film were extracted from publicly accessible documents published by the Manchester Arena Inquiry (MAI).
“The CCTV images and the public inquiry video testimonies provide a treasure chest of clues about the true nature of this incident. A Manchester Arena CCTV Viewing Tool accompanies this film, which allows anyone to view the still images in time order and allows the user to use filters to select what images to display. The viewing tool provides for the first time the ability to make use of the CCTV images, which have been extracted from hundreds of PDF documents. Some of the findings in the images are very intriguing, and there may be more anomalies which viewers with a keen eye will find. Instructions on how to use the online tool are contained within the film.”
It’s worth pointing out that the phenomenon captured on Cam 14 Unit 3, does not appear in ANY of the footage before the time of the incident (10.31pm) and it appears in ALL of the footage after that time. You can check this out for yourselves using the RichPlanet Manchester Arena CCTV Viewing Tool, and I encourage you to do so. It’s easy to select and run the Cam 14 Unit 3 images (“City Room 1”) in sequence to see when the phenomenon first appears.
What could it be?
As part of my investigation, I sought out witness accounts of “smoke” and “fire” from mainstream media reports and MAI documents. I use quotation marks around “smoke” and “fire” for the cautionary reasons explained above – just because a witness reports smoke or fire, doesn’t mean it is smoke or fire.
First of all, there is the MAI witness testimony of Miriam Stone, covered in some detail in my short film. Of note from her witness statement, she states that ALL the cameras in the City Room “went white” with “smoke” (presumably at the moment when the incident happened). The City Room is a huge area to so suddenly fill with dense smoke, but her testimony suggests that whatever was obscuring the cameras, it cleared fairly quickly. This is all the more puzzling if Richard D Hall is right in his assertion that a TATP explosion is all blast, and doesn’t produce much, if any, smoke or flames.
Next, I scoured media accounts from people who were there on the night. There are many instances of witnesses using the word “smoke”, and several of them are from people who did not enter the City Room. Some talk about “smoke in the corridor”, which I take to be the concourse surrounding the auditorium of the arena.
Here are a few examples:
“As we got out, everybody was screaming and crying and then the corridor was full of – it smelled of burning and there was quite a lot of smoke as we were leaving.”
Isabel Hodgins, Entertainment Daily UK, 23 May 2017
“I was inside Ariana Grande's concert in Manchester Arena. Right at the end a (sic) explosion was heard. Smoke on the corridors and blood”
Ivo Delgado, Twitter 11.01pm 22 May 2017
“Other witnesses described the panic that followed. There were bodies and blood in the arena, and smoke filled a corridor and a stairway.”
ABC News 22 May 2017 11.54pm EDT
Most of these witnesses are describing their experiences of escaping the building in the minutes after the incident occurred, they did not linger. And so, I wanted to know if there were any accounts of “smoke” during the hour or so following the incident when injured patients were being taken out of the City Room to the Casualty Clearing Station.
And I found a very interesting snippet from the Manchester Arena Inquiry (MAI) testimony from HART paramedic, Lea Vaughan, who entered the City Room (along with a colleague) at 11.15pm. On giving her evidence to the inquiry on 8 June 2021, she said...
"We’d come over the bridge where it was very bright and we’d gone into the City Room, and it was immediately darker. And there was also (pause) quite a HAZY ATMOSPHERE FROM (erm) DUST OR SMOKE."
The barrister then asked... "did that complicate the identification of injuries and which injuries were bleeding?"
To which she replied "yes."
So, after 45 minutes, the "atmosphere" was so hazy with "dust or smoke" that it impaired visibility, and yet, she was not asked the question I would've asked...
"was it dust? Or smoke?"
If it was smoke... where was it coming from? Was something smouldering? Had the fire service been informed?
If it was dust... was it causing breathing difficulties for the people in there?
(An aside: I have searched for reports of respiratory distress caused by inhaling smoke or dust in the City Room that night. We all know how it feels to breathe in a lungful of smoke or dust - not pleasant - and some of the victims were in that room for over an hour. I didn’t find anything.)
Lea Vaughan was then asked...
"Would it be a good idea for you to have some sort of lighting attached to your helmets?"
A. "We did, sir. As HART operatives, we have a head torch, but I didn’t turn it on. It didn’t enter my mind."
SIR JOHN SAUNDERS: Would it have helped if you had?
A. I wouldn’t say so because in hazy atmospheres it just kind of makes a beam, rather than brightening up the place."
So, we have a "hazy atmosphere" of "smoke or dust" in which a torch "makes a beam, rather than brightening up the place", but I have not found any reports of victims or witnesses describing breathing difficulties, choking, coughing or stinging eyes.
What could that be? Did the phenomenon caught on Cam 14, Unit 3 have anything to do with it?
I wonder…
could it be dust of some sort ? dust on warm air ??