The probability of being fed disinformation

[Errata]

What I don't understand is why people believe that one of these men actually knew who the Ripper was, and did nothing about it. Clearly, not all cases are solved. And there are also ways of identifying the Ripper without a conviction. They never even arrested this man. They never brought him in for questioning. No one leaked his identity to the press, no one made an announcement that the guy was off the streets. No one acted as though the Ripper was under some kind of control. Despite the biographies and the interviews 15 years or so later, I don't think they had any idea who the Ripper was. Surely out of all of these public servants, one of them would have thought that the public deserved to know who this guy was, and damn the consequences. But what really doesn't make sense in the idea that someone like Anderson or McNaughton knew the identity of the Ripper, but never told the investigators they could stop looking. Certainly Abberline never really abandoned the case. Even if Anderson didn't tell someone like Abberline who the Ripper was, surely he would have told the man that they had him so he could sleep at night. Why waste resources? The identity of the Ripper may have had to remain a secret, but who is harmed by the knowledge that whoever the guy is, he won't be hurting anyone else? Isn't that what you do when you really believe you know the truth?

[Hunter]

Abberline was reassigned to other duties in March of '89 and may not have been privy to details of the investigation after that. However, your point is well taken. Instead of convoluted theories about deceit and conspiracy, it was simply a string of unsolved murders that some involved had to come up with what they thought was a solution in their own individual minds.

Too simple for some it seems. Not that other unsolved mysteries haven't followed the same pattern.

[Colin Roberts]

I note that there is a wave of people today reluctant to change one thing, or indeed, accept as a possibility any new idea that may change things.

That is unadulterated bullshit, Phil, and you know it!

The reality is that you and your friends, Messrs. Wood, Marriott, and Richards constitute a wave of upstarts that believe that contrarian thinking is by definition, enlightened thinking. It's not!

[Rob Clack]

That is unadulterated bullshit, Phil, and you know it!

The reality is that you and your friends, Messrs. Wood, Marriott, and Richards constitute a wave of upstarts that believe that contrarian thinking is by definition, enlightened thinking. It's not!

Couldn't have put it better myself Colin.
It seems to me that if anyone doesn't except a new idea they are living in the past and won't adapt. Doesn't matter that the new idea is usually a load of codswallop in the first place. I'm open to new ideas if they are based in reality.

Rob

[Monty]

That is unadulterated bullshit, Phil, and you know it!

The reality is that you and your friends, Messrs. Wood, Marriott, and Richards constitute a wave of upstarts that believe that contrarian thinking is by definition, enlightened thinking. It's not!

Worth reepeating.

The irony is Rob, that the majority isn't that new at all.

Its just Knights theory in a different dress.

Monty

[Rob Clack]

Worth reepeating.

The irony is Rob, that the majority isn't that new at all.

Its just Knights theory in a different dress.

Monty

Conspiracy by any other name.

[Errata]

I'm a big fan of accepting new ideas without buying into them.

Just as I accept that there are people out there who truly and wholeheartedly believe that the CIA killed JFK. I get it. I see the reasoning. I accept that theory. I just think that surly the CIA knew that he had a life threatening condition he was keeping secret, and a simple pill switch would kill him and look like natural causes.

But I get the CIA theory. It's a good theory. I just don't adopt it as my own.

[C. F. Leon]

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.

[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

[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.
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

[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,

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

[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

[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