The probability of being fed disinformation

[Phil Carter]

No answers, just thoughts-

The reality is that we have eleven murders, in the official Whitechapel murders files, all of which were (and are) unsolved.

Ergo, no killer, or common killer, is known to have perpetrated any of these unsolved murders.

All else is speculation and personal opinion (and always will be).

Hello Stewart,

Indeed. The point of this thread was discuss possibility/probability of disinformation, deliberate or otherwise. Of course such a discussion is speculatory, but in discussing the probability, one can, if one is forunate, see areas of assessment from contempories that may be worthy of individual consideration or not. It may not give answers, but may be thought provoking for some. Some will deem the possibility non-existant, which is fine. Some are not so dismissive. That is the meaning of the thread, to simply discuss the probability when looking at the overall picture presented.


Thanks for contributing. Appreciated.


Phil

[Monty]

Wise words Stewart.


Monty

[Stewart P Evans]

The Reality

The reality is that we have eleven murders, in the official Whitechapel murders files, all of which were (and are) unsolved.

Ergo, no killer, or common killer, is known to have perpetrated any of these unsolved murders.

All else is speculation and personal opinion (and always will be).

[Monty]

You are entitled to your opinion. I, however, am not going to use the word arrogance, nor any other word, nor describe any individual in any way. The request of the meaning of this thread was spelt out in the first posting. Let us try to stick to the non-personal opinions of other posters.
Thank you.



Phil

The opening post, and this thread, is all about personal opinion. No evidence has been laid

I'm merely following suit.

However, as you wish.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

Nor was the hot potato line in any official comment, thus indicating personal opinion not Police/HO opinion.

There is no need to remind 'This Poster' of Stephen Knights work as he was bought up on it.

To state Knight refined research (I assume the above poster means indirectly, as Knights research methods and execution left a lot to be desired) confuses, what evidence is there of this?

It humours me that the above poster feels we believe what is being fed us rather than doing our own research and assessment, drawing our own conclusions as we do so. In fact this assumption smacks of the typical arrogance shown by some. They always know a little more than we do yet they never quite provide that link which turns a leap of blind faith in their bold statements into a step of certainty.

Much easier to talk and talk and brainwash than provide solid, that's solid not misinterpreted, evidence.

Yeah, horses and courses.....and Donkeys and beaches.

Monty

You are entitled to your opinion. I, however, am not going to use the word arrogance, nor any other word, nor describe any individual in any way. The request of the meaning of this thread was spelt out in the first posting. Let us try to stick to the non-personal opinions of other posters.
Thank you.



Phil

[Monty]

Nor was the hot potato line in any official comment, thus indicating personal opinion not Police/HO opinion.

There is no need to remind 'This Poster' of Stephen Knights work as he was bought up on it.

To state Knight refined research (I assume the above poster means indirectly, as Knights research methods and execution left a lot to be desired) confuses, what evidence is there of this?

It humours me that the above poster feels we believe what is being fed us rather than doing our own research and assessment, drawing our own conclusions as we do so. In fact this assumption smacks of the typical arrogance shown by some. They always know a little more than we do yet they never quite provide that link which turns a leap of blind faith in their bold statements into a step of certainty.

Much easier to talk and talk and brainwash than provide solid, that's solid not misinterpreted, evidence.

Yeah, horses and courses.....and Donkeys and beaches.

Monty

[Phil Carter]

"When you get a bunch of people looking over the same data coming up with such disparate statements...." an ascertained fact"...."no-one knew"...."hot potato"....it would seem that some of the police either lied or some speculated without identifying their remarks as such."

You need to find where these quotes appear, and maybe assess why such sensational words were used.

Clearly some are so naïve that they take any word written as gospel without realising sensation sells, whereas others are so cynical that if any contradictory evidence seems to show these words as false they are accused of deliberately lying to us.


Monty

Dealing with this one highlighted line, and in accordance with asked for assessment area, "hot potato" was not said in sensationalism, nor to sell diddly squat. That is a quote from a descendant of Monro, quoting said man. "No-one knew", a referall to Edmund Reid, wasn't done for sensationalism either, nor did it earn him money in terms of large book sales. It was a newspaper quote. Only Anderson's "ascertained fact" was widely used both in newspaper and book form. His comment has been assesssed individually elsewhere. Littlechild's comments were also not for sensationl value, as they were written in a private letter, not for publication intention, to a journalist. His comments about Anderson only thinking he knew, and his mention of Tumblety, are not for the sake of monetary value either. Then you have those who did comment in books for sales purposes, yes. But the overall opinion changing is widespread for mostly non-sales and non-sensationalist reason. But they all, almost all, disagreed with each other.

I will also remind this poster that Stephen Knight, who is referred to and has been referred to previously, actually did some good things in his work. Had it not been for Knight, the discipline of research would not have been refined, for example. Ask Simon Wood. It was his refusal to accept what he was told that led him to uncover the Knight scenario.

That is exactly what Mr. Wood, amongst others, is still doing, refusing to believe what we have been handed down the years. Some of us agree with this. Some, apparently, do not. Horses for courses.



Phil

[DVV]

Hello Dave,
Hang on a minute my friend...it is fine for you and me and Mr. A.N.Other to "think we know" or "pretend to know"...that is, as you say, human nature.

But, here we are talking of in the first instances, police officers that were heavily involved either in the immediate investigation, the political connection to the Home Office, or those working in the aftermath of ther investigation. If the case files were not closed until 1896, then we have a problem, in the sense that the police working up to and including that time would have still been involved in the investigation.

These people aren't supposed to "pretend to know"...that really is very unprofessional. They are not supposed to "think they know" either. They either do or they do not. And here, Edmund Reid is being the most professional person of rank in the force from those times. He actually said, that the police had no idea...

Phil

Phil,

Reid was right, they had no idea.

All they had were theories and reasonings.
Just like what you call the public, and today's ripperologists.

Look : Abberline was influenced by Phillips. He thought the Ripper must have had some medical knowledge. Then when Godley caught Chapman, he said "why not ?"

Moore, on the contrary, thought he was a local dosser. (Then years later appeared to suspect a sailor.)

Again, Anderson's Jew is basically a theory. The reasoning precedes the individual suspect, I mean. He thought : "1 :somebody has to know something. 2 : there are many Jews in Whitechapel. 3 : Jews don't trust us and therefore a Jewish family must have protected one of its member whom they suspected to be the Ripper."

The more they differ, the less conspiraries are possible.

Cheers

[Monty]

"When you get a bunch of people looking over the same data coming up with such disparate statements...." an ascertained fact"...."no-one knew"...."hot potato"....it would seem that some of the police either lied or some speculated without identifying their remarks as such."

You need to find where these quotes appear, and maybe assess why such sensational words were used.

Clearly some are so naïve that they take any word written as gospel without realising sensation sells, whereas others are so cynical that if any contradictory evidence seems to show these words as false they are accused of deliberately lying to us.

This anti-establishment accusation interests me. It has no foundation as such, just assessment of selected writings made outside what remains the official case file, and a rather lazy conclusion drawn with no answer as to why? provided. So we just have a questioning of selected passages and a press release added together to make 5, and that's it.

At least Knight gave us an exciting story.

Monty

[Michael W Richards]

When you get a bunch of people looking over the same data coming up with such disparate statements...." an ascertained fact"...."no-one knew"...."hot potato"....it would seem that some of the police either lied or some speculated without identifying their remarks as such.

When students start with the assumption that they are looking for the killer of the five women in the Canonical Group, instead of the far more reality based, looking for answers concerning a group of unsolved homicides, you get some of what we see from the investigators.

When you start with the conclusion instead of the evidence that leads to a conclusion you get a bunch of answers that have more to do with internal belief than they do with anything resembling truth.

So...maybe they lied,... maybe they, like so many students today still do...assumed too much, or maybe they had information that they needed to protect under some secrecy.

Its hard to know who actually really knew what....but I wonder about Monro most of all.

Cheers

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil,

since the case was both unsolved and famous, it's no wonder that they differed and were inclined to talk too much.
Some thought they knew (just as I think I do).
Some pretended to know more.
Some admitted they had no idea.
Isn't that just human ?

Cheers Phil

Hello Dave,

Hang on a minute my friend...it is fine for you and me and Mr. A.N.Other to "think we know" or "pretend to know"...that is, as you say, human nature.

But, here we are talking of in the first instances, police officers that were heavily involved either in the immediate investigation, the political connection to the Home Office, or those working in the aftermath of ther investigation. If the case files were not closed until 1896, then we have a problem, in the sense that the police working up to and including that time would have still been involved in the investigation.

These people aren't supposed to "pretend to know"...that really is very unprofessional. They are not supposed to "think they know" either. They either do or they do not. And here, Edmund Reid is being the most professional person of rank in the force from those times. He actually said, that the police had no idea...

So why in heavens name would High Ranking Policeman A, B, C, D, E and F say things totally in contradiction to such a comment?

Littlechild
Anderson
MacNagthen
Abberline
Reid
Arnold

thats before we have reminiscences from ex-policemen by the bucket load, and even ex-chiefs who were hardly out of their primary schools in 1888.


Surely, uninamity is the key to a uniformed force. This list of contradictions is seemingly loud and clear showing a lack of uninamity. That is when the question of spreading disinformastion arises.

They can't all have been saying what they said or writing what they wrote for the sake of ego....that is human nature gone barmy. For if it is, my goodness we have the prospect of one heck of a bunch of egos working together... something we do not have from the time of the murder investigation, from what I can see, with the odd exception.




Phil

[DVV]

"We the public" is defined by those outside the Police Force who have been fed, (in) amongst other ways, a diet of differing "answers" through autobiographies bought by the general public, in some cases serialised in newspaper form.
Phil

Hi Phil,

since the case was both unsolved and famous, it's no wonder that they differed and were inclined to talk too much.
Some thought they knew (just as I think I do).
Some pretended to know more.
Some admitted they had no idea.
Isn't that just human ?

Cheers Phil

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil.
I think I'm not too clear on what is meant by "we the public" being fed misinformation.

Hello there,

"We the public" is defined by those outside the Police Force who have been fed, (in) amongst other ways, a diet of differing "answers" through autobiographies bought by the general public, in some cases serialised in newspaper form.

This is just one of the ways I refer to. Another, for example, is the releasing of material pertinent to the case from retired sources, i.e. the Swanson family and the Aberconway family.

"We the public" refers to those outside the loop of standard internal police knowledge. Even after their retirement.



Phil

[Cogidubnus]

Hi CF

To be really analytical, we need to know just what OTHER murders occured during the Ripper period that were NEVER considered Ripper crimes by the Press/Public/Police and why not. Each of the gropus had their own conception/-s as to what was going on, and the Police would have had the best information in the modern sense. It's their purpose to do so.

For example there's an interesting question implied in (among others) the Karyo Magellan book...The Polly Nicholls killing was so effectively done it can't have been tha first...If the first isn't Martha Tabram, then the killer must've practised elsewhere first...wonder where?

Magellan postulates the possibility of the killer being a soldier (or ex soldier) and practising during his various postings...almost impossible to follow up at this distance in time though...

Still, we're heading off topic here and I suppose we ought to return to our muttons...

All the best

Dave

[Phil Carter]

Hi Phil

Are you counting "retired" high ranking policemen's views as Official sources?

What are the "written rules" of the WM series?

Hello Jon,

To answer the first question, I refer back to my first posting, starting the thread..

Here I am talking from 1888 onwards, and many will have noted with some dfegree of surprise the constant "changing" of "retired" high ranking policemen's views down the years, some claiming the truth, some claiming that the truth will never be known, some claiming that previous high ranking policemen did not tell the truth, etc etc etc.

For obvious reasons, as there has been no change from the "nothing to add" comment from any current Police source at any one time in the last 125 years, except via the keepers of the Met police Museum, then "offocoaø" sources refers to retired policemen of high rank commenting upon, either after involvement in the case at the time or afterwards, having studied the case and wrote of it.


Ther "written rules" of the case I refer to are, to show one example, the so-called C5, initially presented by a Dr, and accepted by Anderson, (although he seemed to change his list of victims) to Sir Melville MacNaghten, initially in the Memoranda, dated 1894 and refered to in part in his autobiography "Days of my Years". It is also noted that Anderson's own autobiography, The Lighter Side Of My Official Life, 1910, conflicts in the main, with the aforermentioned 1894 missive from Sir MM, which in turn conflicts with Anderson's TLSOMOL, mentioned above. Reid, mentioned by Simon Wood earlier, has views conflicting with both of these people. Then we have more comments from high ranking, and some of lower rtank, which conflict with the above three mentioned.

The simple answer is that they cannot all be correct in their "knowledge". The question that one automatically asdks, is why there was seemingly so much conflict when the force itself is trying to present itself as a bonded unit.

Therefore, one can reasonably suggest the possibility of the spreading of misinformation. For what reason, is another matter. I only ask about the possibility/probability of this happening.


Phil