Talk:Oklahoma City bombing

Partin

Looking up Partin - only referenced 1 time ( in the footnotes). The ANFO angle is a hoax per Partin - an expert in spades. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.105.80.92 (talk • contribs) on 20th November 2006

The Partin report is at the core of the additional explosives conspiracy theories but his assumptions have a fatal flaw easily exposed by some very basic math. I'll refer to one of the many copies of Parin's report available on the internet;

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/RANCHO/POLITICS/OK/PARTIN/okm.htm

The maximum possible yield from 4800 pounds of ammonium nitrate would be obtained if it were in a compressed sphere and detonated from the center. That would produce a 4.4 foot diameter sphere of detonation products at about 500,000 pounds per square inch. By the time the blast wave hits the closest column, the pressure would have fallen off to about 375 pounds per square inch. That would be far below the 3500 pound compressive yield strength of the concrete. Any column or beam failure from the truck bomb would therefore have been from blast wave structural loading and not from any wave of deformation in the concrete.

The crux of Partin's argument is that an overpressure of 375 PSI on the closest column (G20) could not have failed it because 375 PSI is less than the concrete's compressive strength of 3500 PSI. The column would not fail in compression though - it would fail from tremendous side loads. Failure in compression would be like putting a one inch square of concrete in a hydraulic press, 3500PSI concrete would require 3500 PSI of pressure to fail in compression. But construct a column of concrete one inch square and say ten feet long. Support the ends and load the middle, will it take 3500 PSI to fail it in bending? Of course not. This illustrates the difference of failure in compression and failure because of side load. Column G20 was 36" x 20" and over 20 feet tall. Lets talk about the 20" side being exposed to 375 PSI overpressure. At 375 PSI overpressure each foot of column G20 would have a side loading of 90,000 pounds. This means a ten foot section of column G20 would have a side load of 900,000 pounds. That is an instant side loading of 450 tons on a ten foot section of column G20, now consider the column is over 20 feet long. Do you think it would collapse from this kind of side loading? What totally destroys Partin's analysis is using a 1457 PSI overpressure on column G20, something one of his own illustrations shows. This means the side loading on the same ten foot section of column G20 would be 3,540,000 pounds or 1770 tons of instant side loading.

There are other oversights in Partin's analysis like the fact the Murrah bomb was ANNM (ammonium nitrate / nitromathane) not ANFO (ammonium nitrate / fuel oil) plus it was shaped. Shaping the charge can radically change the blast effect because of converging shockwaves (Munroe effect).

For more reasonable and logical analysis of the Murrah building failure mode see this link;

Blast Loading and Response of the Murrah Building http://www.terrorisminfo.mipt.org/pdf/forensicengineering2.pdf

In conclusion seems clear that the truck bomb alone was easily capable of doing the damage done at the Murrah building.

JesseLackman 18:52, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

ANNM not ANFO - okay you get twice the power. Shaped - by McVeigh by himself with a canoe paddle, come on. AN bought with a receipt from the local grain store - okay. Still wouldn't work. Are they really going to keep Nichols in prison till he dies? ( By now, after this time in solitary, he may not ever be able to leave anyway. )159.105.80.141 19:42, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Excuse me, but I have watched General Partin's analysis of the bombing several times and I find it much more credible than the reference you provide. Where is the proof that this was an ANNM bomb and not ANFO? Furthermore, you are misinterpreting General Partin's explanation of why the compressive yield stress of 3500 pounds is important. Here is what he really says:

"By the time the blast wave hits the closest column, the pressure would have fallen off to about 375 pounds per square inch. That would be far below the 3500 pound compressive yield strength of the concrete. Any column or beam failure from the truck bomb would therefore have been from blast wave structural loading and not from any wave of deformation in the concrete."

General Partin's point this:

"When a reinforced concrete structure is damaged through air shock coupling and the pressure is below the compressive yield strength of the concrete, the failure mode is generally compressive structural fracture on one side and tensile fracture on the other, both characterized by cracks and rough fracture surfaces. Such a surface texture is very different from the relatively smooth granular surface resulting from contact explosives."

In short, the characteristics of the column damage where not consistent with a 375 pound blast but rather something much higher. This means the truck bomb did not cause it.

http://physics911.net/generalpartinreport

Bofors7715 (talk) 03:50, 27 December 2007 (UTC)

Bofors7715, you are making the same mistake Partin did, confusing compressive strength with bending strength. 3500 PSI compressive strength means it would take 3500 lbs force to crush a square inch of concrete. Now imagine a 1" square piece of concrete 4 feet long - with both ends braced will it take 3500 lbs force in the middle to bend it to failure? Of course not. That is the difference between compressive strength and bending strength. Re-read my comment and follow the math you should understand Partin's mistake.

Thanks, Jesse —Preceding unsigned comment added by JesseLackman (talk • contribs) 04:08, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Rohrabacher

At the outset, members of Congress were met with a startling development. On March 31, 2005, the FBI was alerted that a second stash of explosives was missed by the FBI in their first search of Terry Nichols’ house after the Oklahoma City bombing. The tip-off included instructions on how to find the explosives which were, according to the tipster, still underneath the floorboards of Terry Nichols’ small wooden framed structure. Instead of immediately checking this lead, the FBI waited. It was not until members of Congress were alerted and began to investigate that the FBI rushed forward only to discover explosives that had eluded them in their first search. This episode was serious enough to precipitate an investigation to determine what else may have been missed or mis-analyzed in the original bombing probe.

• http://rohrabacher.house.gov/UploadedFiles/Chairman's%20Report.pdfgoogle cache

re: 3 months later

• See: #3 months later

14:08, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

On October 8th, Sloane removed this dispute tag, without any explanation (to my knowledge). I'm putting it back. I still think the article should mention the local TV news reports (which some believe to have been in error, in haste) regarding additional explosived being found and defused after the bombing. — Xiutwel (talk)

Dispute resolution

Personally, I do not feel this article would be benefited by the addition of any of the disputed news reports. However, I totally disagree with the arbitrary deletion of {{dispute}} tags. Perhaps we should follow the policy on dispute resolution (which -interestingly enough- says in bold on the first line, "Do not simply revert changes in a dispute") rather than just deleting them within ten minutes of their addition. --Kralizec! (talk) 14:56, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Thank you Kralizec! (See also: User_talk:Tom_harrison#re:_Oklahoma_City_bombing — there *is* an explanation over there.) — Xiutwel (talk) 00:21, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

on flag removal

I will agree to leave the flag away for a few days: maybe in the meanwhile we can reach consensus on a balanced text! (see below.) However, I am not very happy with the removing of dispute flags without discussion FIRST on the talk page. It make sense to me that when a user puts up a dispute flag, and you think you have a solution for it, you discuss the solution instead of claiming there to be no dispute at all.

• dispute resolution

— Xiutwel (talk) 22:33, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

what is the nature of the dispute?

Update: the {{dispute}} tag was now deleted by User:Hipocrite. A general policy is not to revert, but to improve, so if anyone thinks I've selected the wrong flag, please put a better flag. No flag is not an option. — Xiutwel (talk)

• I vote for {{dispute}} as I believe that the fact that TV reported on additional explosives is:
  • relevant for the factual accuracy (completeness) of the article
  • unchallenged
  • never revoked

— Xiutwel (talk) 05:37, 4 January 2007 (UTC) (putting both flags up now, to suit everybody's needs)

---

• Sorry Hipocrite, I initially missed your simultaneous insertion of this section:

{{content}} There are a small number of conspiracy theorists, who, drawing from inaccurate early news reports as well as Governor Frank Keating's preliminary, inaccurate statements, believe there is a large conspiracy covering up the existence of additional, planted explosives.

• I am not very happy with this, because:
  • I admit there is a conspiracy theory in my head (as an option — parallel to the mainstream version), but I'm not trying to get the theory into the article. Just the facts.
  • Can you please provide us with reliable sources for the fact that the early statements were inaccurate? Since some gov't officials are suspect, I need not just a statement but also a credible explanation how these 'inaccurate' early statements have arisen. — Xiutwel E.g.: newspaper articles, videoclips, stating explicitly that the reports were wrong (not merely implying)(talk) 06:04, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

summary

There are now three proposed ways to indicate that there is a dispute; we could also try and resolve the dispute itsself. — Xiutwel (talk) 06:08, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you propose a substantiative, sourced, neutral section to the article. I doubt there is any dispute at all. Hipocrite - «Talk» 11:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

Hipocrite, good suggestion. As a matter of fact, I have made an attempt to do so at: #draft section:. I would now propose to include sourced info such as Weregerbil's. Anyone want to have a go? (It might be a few days till I have sufficient time.) — Xiutwel (talk) 22:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Your draft section is neither substantive, neutral nor sourced ("assumed that the truck bomb was the only bomb" - not neutral, "debate exists on whether there actually ever were in fact additional explosives inside the building" not sourced, and "Paradoxically however" not substantive). Including information about the refutation of absurd minority conspiracy nonsense is crufty. The article is fine. Hipocrite - «Talk» 21:47, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

bomb scares explained

There were indeed two bomb scares after the explosion. They were caused by the discovery of a shoulder-mounted missile and what appeared to be bombs. The missile was not in operational order and the "bombs" were practice devices used for training dogs. All the devices belonged to law enforcement agencies whose offices occupied a part of the building. The longer of the bomb scares lasted nearly an hour. This would be what the local TV station reported. 11+ years and conspiracy theorists have not yet discovered this? Of course real knowledge makes it harder to sell Truther books so they need to keep quiet about it. [1][2][3] Weregerbil 15:01, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Weregerbil, thank you very much for this contribution. I finally got time to look at it, interesting ! — Xiutwel (talk) 19:58, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
  • However, suppose, for the sake of argument, that there were real additional explosives that failed to go off: then it would be a piece of cake to come up with a story like this, wouldn't it? See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWwrEEP8EBk — Xiutwel (talk) 21:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

The footnote references for the above claim are not adequate. Please site to news sources or cooberating documentation indicating that the bomb squad identified the ordnance which was removed from the structure. Furthermore, why were missles and bombs stored in a building where children were located for daycare? ;peterbadgely (Peterbadgely (talk) 12:42, 22 April 2009 (UTC))

additional bombs dispute

I would like to call for a "vote" on this: please vote:

• include
• leave out
• neutral
• link to another article

I feel strongly that

we should present all relevant facts.

1. Additional bomb scares have been reported.
2. Reports have appeared that explain the additional scares as "false alarms".
3. These reports are either not believed or ignored by some Americans, since they still claim there were multiple bombs.

Wikipedia should not take sides in this. We should just present the facts so that our readers can make their own judgements. Taking sides would be OR, since what could be a WP:RS when the government is accused of complicity? I remember seeing a witness who heard two explosions, which seems odd if there just was a single truck bomb. So I am still open for the possibility of multiple explosive devices. Please vote/discuss below, preferably giving arguments. — Xiutwel (talk) 15:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

• include — Xiutwel (talk) 15:23, 20 June 2007 (UTC)
• minimal include Whatever other relevant information you can find that is supported by several reliable sources, then I'm sure the information could be added to the conspiracy theories section. I don't think that we should have too much information on it, but enough to accurately represent what some witnesses heard/saw. --Nehrams2020 17:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

New evidence/government supported conspiracies emerge about OKC

Some new stuff came up making the government wishing they didn't kill McVeigh so soon or at all. 1) Did McVeigh meet a German white supremacist living in OKC? 2) They now think that islamism had a part in it (not saying McVeigh or Nichols were Islamists, but could be) Abu Sayyaf Group, some palestinian organizations, and even al-qaeda linked groups could have helped with the bombing (well duh! Nichols was in the Philipines!) 3)Some Palestine people were at OKC before bombing having a conference and some pro-palestine guys were miffed and said they'd target th AP Murrah building and other places in the near future. 4) there may have been other federal buildings McV could've targeted in Albuquerque, Omaha, and Dallas (if not more) 5) McVeigh didn't have much of a job, but always had lots of money on him (now where did he get that?)

Now the gov accepts the fact they shouldn't have rushed to kill McV.

What do you think? 131.158.237.205 15:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, they now believe John Doe #2 was real and they are looking to see if Jose Padilla was involved and if he was JD2 131.158.237.205 15:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

MSM source please? ( not Conspiracy Theorist Laurie Mylroie ) Thanks. - Fairness And Accuracy For All 23:52, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

This issue is the topic of the documentary film "Terror From Within". I'd ask that someone familliar with the film add it's information to this page, as I think it's very well sourced and relatively new information. You can find the official site of the film here -

http://www.terrorfromwithin.com/film.html Punisher777 11:37, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

That's not new. Nor is it really reliable.IvoShandor 12:05, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

IvoShandor, can you tell me what's been deemed unreliable about the documentary I mentioned above? I'm not disputing your claim, but I'd be interested to read information that disproves the link the movie makes between McVeigh and his connections to the CSA and Elohim City. Punisher777 13:03, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

First, there's nothing really there. I haven't seen the video, and I don't feel very compelled to buy it either. If you can find me a link of a review of the film or a synopsis of it, we can evaluate it then. But note: we don't have to give it anymore weight than it is due. WP:WEIGHT --Otheus 20:16, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The government is sad they didn't delay the execution? If they thought he was going to give out any info he wouldn't have gotten to trial.159.105.80.141 19:44, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Reactions and Conspiracy Theories

I'm sure that many people familar with the bombing are aware that some Americans, even politicians like Helen Chenoweth, rationalized or even defended the Oklahoma City Bombing, but were you aware that some even blamed the US Gov for a terrorist attack on its own people?

'Oklahoma City was an American Reichstag event'

"Oklahoma City was a masterfully (albeit atrocious and horrific) planned Riechstag that had the direct effect of resulting in the passage of draconian Anti-Terror legislation that had been, to that date, completely stalled in Congress." [www.freerepublic.com/forum/a37d082617d76.htm Claims that the US Gov 'did' OKC]

I think we should include a summary of the notable reactions, and notable conspiracy theories - important but as-now ignored aspects (in this article) of this horrific terrorist attack. - Fairness And Accuracy For All 23:46, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

• Not sure...

1. when a "theory" is "notable", should it be in this article? Or should we link to another article?

2. I feel I would like to concentrate on portraying the facts, known and disputed, about the incident, in stead of speculating in this article...? — Xiutwel (talk) 19:37, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I agree with FAAFA, we have all sorts of conspiracies; think that this one is notable and should be presented as such. Lovelight 20:35, 27 January 2007 (UTC)

Good article potential

I believe that this article has the potential to reach Good Article status once proper citations are added with some cleanup. I'll start adding sources as I find them, and if anybody has any books that have information in the article, please properly source it. --Nehrams2020 02:03, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Does anyone know if we can use the image from this site of the fireman holding the baby? It's mentioned in the article and I remember it to be one of the most important images of the aftermath of the bombing. If we are able to upload it what license would it fall under? --Nehrams2020 04:51, 26 January 2007 (UTC)

I added the image and nominated the article for GA consideration. --Nehrams2020 07:49, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Good article review

I am conducting a good article review for Oklahoma City bombing. There are some issue I feel the primary editors can address so thus I am not going to fail the article, instead I will put it on hold and wait for the editors to address the issues.

• Lead: Doesn't really do the article justice as far size goes. See Wikipedia:Lead
• Grammar/Copy edit: There are several minor grammatical errors which were quite noticeable at first read through. Make sure this article gets a thorough copy edit.
• POV: Watch for unsourced clear POV such as: "Many of the 9/11 victims' families received hundreds of thousands of dollars or more of federal assistance (in exchange for the agreement not to hold airlines legally responsible for the security breech)." Statements of this ilk are definite POV. They make the article seem critical towards the government. State the facts and let the reader interpret them for themselves.
• Clarity: This is an example of something that is unclear: "The victims ranged in age from three months to seventy-three years old (including three unborn children of pregnant women)." Now I am confused, was there 168/169 victims or was their 171/172 victims. Who is a victim according to the official casualty count, no reason to ignite the abortion debate in this article.
• References: Though seemingly well-cited it is hard to tell how often individual sources are used because the refs aren't combined. Try giving the refs names like you did with some of them. The first seven or eight were from the same source, albeit different pages, but it was only a 30 page section of the book, I wouldn't call that too ambiguous to combine.
• Added minor note: So what ever happened with the whole John Doe #2 thing?

The "On Hold" status will be good for 7 days after which, if these concerns aren't met I will be forced to fail the GA nomination. Thanks for all your work so far. --A mcmurray 22:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I have done some work on the lead and overall copy-editing. I'll try to get more done by tonight and upload a new version by tomorrow morning. --Otheus 11:47, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

---

Woo! Article upgraded to GA status. Thanks everyone for the continuing excellent work!!

New information

Can someone please add information recently revealed by Terry Nichols? It can be found here. 69.182.79.53 19:33, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If you can find more sources with more credible newspapers/websites, I'll look it over to see if it should be added. --Nehrams2020 21:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Substantial Edits

I have made substantial edits i hopes of getting the article into "GA status". Please note, this was a fine article to begin with, but it had accumulated many minor problems, as noted above. My purpose was not to significantly change text, but to improve organization, sentence flow, fix up garden-path sentences and dangling modifiers, etc. Several things were left on the /cutting room floor, and if you note something missing in the article, please take a look at there and my rational for cutting it out. Often, pieces were cut out simply because they did not fit into the existing organizational structure, and there was not enough material to add to the structure. I made the edits all at once, and then divided them up into sections so that it was easier to see the diffs.

I am still not 100% happy with it. For instance, the Oklahoma City bombing#Tenth anniversary section needs, well, cutting. It was two years ago and is no longer very interesting. However, it's well written and a big cut to make unilaterally. Also, the Oklahoma City bombing#Media involvement section seems out of place; those details could be "redistributed". I suspect it would be better to have a small section on the reaction against the Arab-Muslim community, as well as an expanded section of the decline of American Militias.

Nevertheless, I addressed all of User:A_mcmurray's comments.

I welcome your comments. --Otheus 13:44, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Review comments

First of, great article on an important topic. As a native of Oklahoma, I'm glad to see this article getting the attention it deserves. The article is very thorough, well cited, and its layout is very well done. A couple issues I have is I do not like seeing one-to-two sentence paragraphs and one paragraph sections. Sentences like "Oklahoma City, being the first major American city to suffer a mass-casualty terrorist attack, and its response to the bombing have been carefully scrutinized for valuable lessons to security experts and law enforcement." could be combined with another paragraph and sections like Terry Nichols, Michael Fortier, and Others could be combined to one section. I'll allow for some more reviews before promoting to GA but this article is well on its way to FA.↔NMajdan•talk 18:50, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree on your comment about too-short paragraphs. The problem here is flow. I don't want to abut two unrelated sentences together, just to avert having two separate paragraphs. What we really need is some carefully selected, relevant material to augment these sentences. Or, conversely, to take them out altogether. However, I'm done making major edits for now, (my personal policy, via WP:OWN) --Otheus 19:57, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Also, I propose to cut the 10th Anniversary section, seeing as we're close to the 12th. It is a pretty picture, however, (thanks to User:Kralizec!) and I don't mean to disparage his, or anyone else's work. But I think it's simply dated. Perhaps it can be updated every year. --Otheus 21:23, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

No offense taken; I could not take a picture that good if my life depended on it! (The photo is a work of the Federal government that was uploaded by Darwinek (talk · contribs).) Given the perceived importance of anniversary dates divisible by five- and ten-year increments, I always presumed the Anniversary section would be completely replaced every five years regardless. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:58, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for looking it over Nmajdan, but A mcmurray is already reviewing the article for passing for GA, so we should defer to him unless he does not want to keep reviewing it for GA status. For the article, I mainly went through adding as many sources as I could find for much of the information within the article, rarely removing any information. If you want to remove the tenth anniversary section that's fine. Perhaps it should be renamed to memorial services, with a paragraph about the tenth anniversary along with common remembrance traditions and memorial services. I have just recently bought a few books on Amazon to contribute more information and continue to expand on parts of the article that may be limited. However, the one thing that I would really like to expand or mention somewhere is the international reaction or assistance to the U.S. for the bombing. I have not been able to find any information about this, so if somebody has something, that would be excellent to add to the article. --Nehrams2020 22:17, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

I like your suggestion of renaming the section to "Remembrance" or something. I'd also like to see more information on the impact of the OK City bombing on US Militias and far-right groups. I remember that after Waco, people (including myself) were really not too happy with the US Govt and Reno. --Otheus 23:56, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

McVeigh trial unsourced information

I moved this information from the page that needs sources before it should be readded. --Nehrams2020 06:56, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

McVeigh wanted Jones to present a "necessity defense", that his bombing was intended to prevent future "crimes" by the government, such as the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. Jones, certain this approach would fail, refused to present it. He believed McVeigh was the self-sacrificial "fall guy" for a larger conspiracy. However, Judge Matsch ruled that the evidence supporting the larger conspiracy was insufficiently substantial to be admitted. Jones then attempted to raise reasonable doubt through arguing that no one had seen McVeigh near the scene of the crime; that the investigation into the bombing lasted a mere two weeks; and that the bombing could not have been accomplished by merely two men, but by a larger conspiracy of people that McVeigh was hiding.

To Nehrams2020 and NYScholar, starting from the following diff, it was claimed that these statements were "unsourced" or that the source is "self published". In fact, most of the statements came from the "self published" material (the "TMT reference, Douglas O. Linder, "The Oklahoma City Bombing & The Trial of Timothy McVeigh", [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mcveigh/mcveightrial.htmlonline Famous Trials) which is used extensively throughout the article, and appears to amount to a scholarly article on the McVeigh bombing. It is, after all, under the project portion of the UMKC Law School, and is dated and titled, unlike a running blog. It also lists its references, which are source materials. It appears to be a valid secondary source. NYScholar, what exactly is your beef with this source?

-Otheus 07:22, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps a message should be left on his talk page, since he may not be watching this article. --Nehrams2020 08:05, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Otheus 10:54, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

I reverted his changes (minus the spelling correction). Second message left. --Otheus 20:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I was away from home when this reference to my change occurred and not able to respond to messages about this article due to other work. Previous editors to this article did not provide a Wikipedia:Citing sources "full citation" for the self-published source, and much material put directly into this article on the bombing relating to McVeigh particularly repeated the POV of this source, words from the source, without quotation marks, and without a full citation indicating the self-published nature of the source (there was also some apparent plagiarism from this source in the article that I noticed when I edited it out; I provided a full citation in a better format than had previously been provided). I added the full citation, and I deleted some of the POV phrasing. I explained my editing change in the editing history. There is no mystery about my reasons for making the change. Non-disclosure and insufficient attribution of a self-published source that injects its writer's own POV into the article is not in keeping with Wikipedia:Neutral point of view and WP:POV and Wikipedia:Citing sources. This article is a controversial article and Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles pertain. --NYScholar 20:30, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Okay, thanks for responding and making your changes clear and updating the source with a better reference. Later, I will take time to review your comments concerning POV, plagarism and self-published sources. --Otheus 20:42, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Wack in general - the failure of the Wikipedia concept to manage controversial content

Was it terrorism?

The distinction between terrorism and aggresive war is unclear to nonexistent in wikipedia's "terorism" entry. The "right-wing / left-wing" distinction in the "terrorism" article is in itself a fairly substantial bias towards the american "two-party" system, and against most countries' form of governance. And for that matter, the whole "terrorism" article reads as though the only incidents that matter are directed towards Americans and sympathizers. The entire last century of South American history, for example, is rife with terrorism (torture, mainly) provided, funded, and trained by the US and corporations. No mention of that at all, and the article is written in a tone such that inserting any mention would seem grossly out of place.

So, the assertion that it was the "most deadly" depends highly on one's exact definiton of "terrorism".

You have a good point here. In fact, the definition of "terrorism" has been battled around in the UN long before 9/11. Further, I would argue that any personal crime, whether it be petty theft or serial murder, implicitly creates fear, and hence terror. Here in Austria, recent drug-related activities has sparked fear in the community -- despite being one of the safest countries in Europe, Austrians are now fearing to go into the streets (according to what a friend tells me is in the papers). So what we have to do is make a distinction on the one hand between terror and terrorism, and on the other, terrorism and war.

Out of this, I personally draw the conclusion that terrorism is an undeclared war between agitators (which may be an individual, group, sect, or country) and against targets under the governance of some legally recognized entity.

It could thus be claimed that the attack on Pearl Harbor was an act of terror. But historians note that Japan had in fact declared war, and though it was a sneak attack, was not a surprise attack.

Further, the footnote that I include makes it clear that "most deadly" is heavily caveated.

This article is about the Oklahoma city bombing, not about terrorism. So, it seems valid to exclude references such as allegations of US-sponsored terror that seems unrelated to this incident.

On to your next point. --Otheus 18:46, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Conspiracy theories?

In general, [Conspiracy theories] is a smear term, with the subtext "this needn't be taken seriously, regardless of the evidence. Current authorities' ACCEPTANCE of evidence is the important criteria". The NSA spying on US citizens is a conspiracy theory. The dosing of American citizens with LSD, and the providing of it and other drugs to psychiatrists during the 1950's and 1960's in the USA is a conspiracy theory. The use of the HAARP apparatus to modify weather is a conspiracy theory. The infiltration of the 1970's feminist movement in America by agent provocateurs is a conspiracy theory. The notion that Lee Harvey Oswald was a lone lunatic is a conspiracy theory, as is the notion that he was NOT acting alone, albiet conflicting ones.

And for some odd reason, the only "conspiracy theories" cited are ones which allege incorrectly or without evidence that other individuals were involved in the actual bombing. McVeigh's history of involvement in anti-government/survivalist/libertarian/gun advocacy groups goes without mention. Does anyone in their right mind imagine this would be the case if he had a long history with, say, Earth First!, Greenpeace, and other "leftist" American groups?

First, this article is not about conspiracy theories in general, or politics and conspiracy theories. If you think Green anarchy groups are not referred to, check out the Unabomber article. I will also add that to my "watchlist" and we can discuss these points there.

Second, when I did my "major recision" to the article last month, I left the "conspiracy section" alone. Why? Because it might have attracted too much attention and editorializing and might have resulted in decades before bringing the article to consensus.

Third, I partially agree with your assessment about the term conspiracy theory, since conspirators were charged and found guilty of the crimes. There was a conspiracy to destroy the building. I think the question is: did the government fully explore and prosecute it? There is suspicion that there was, but this is handled in the section labeled "Others". The judge was pretty definitive that there was no legally admissable evidence at the time to indict anyone else, and except for Padilla (which is a very spurious claim, imho), there has never been a reliable source to report on more evidence. If I am mistaken, please comment here so we can discuss it.

--Otheus 19:22, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I strongly suggest that the title "Conspiracy Theories" in the article be changed to "A wider conspiracy?" or something like that. McVeigh and Nichols were found guilty of a conspiracy, and I don't think many "conspiracy theorists" (which I agree has essentially become a smear term, despite the ubiquity of smaller and larger conspiracies throughout history) consider them not guilty. Ergo, it is primarily a question of whether the conspiracy extended beyond those convicted of it, and the title should reflect that. The current title is in that sense both misleading and pejorative. Vesku (talk) 10:50, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

• proposal "Conspiracy theories involving additional perpetrators" — Xiutwel ♫☺♥♪ (talk) 14:37, 4 February 2008 (UTC)

That doesn't sound bad: I suggest it be kept, at least for now. However, the expressions "conspiracy theorists" and "conspiracists" are used several times in the section. In the case of many people, the word "theorist" may be unnecessarily lofty, as the degree of theorizing (or theoretical sophistication) varies. But more importantly, as pointed out above, the bombing *was* a conspiracy, no matter if one believes in additional perpetrators and/or explosives or not, which - coupled with the pejorative connotations of the terms in question - makes me want to recommend at least reducing their number in the section. For example: "Many conspiracy theorists believe that a conpiracy is..." => "Some people believe that a conspiracy is..." Vesku (talk) 17:14, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

Law Enforcement since the attack

Law enforcement has *foiled* over fifty domestic terrorism plots? Sounds more like an advertisement that a factual statement, and reading the reference does nothing to change this impression, it being a domestic newspaper opinion piece (hardly a reliable reference by most standards).

I remember this well. Originally, before my edits, this mentioning was loosely organized and poorly referenced. I think I searched for an hour to find a suitable source quotation. This is in the aftermath section, and in a sense, it is an advertisement: after the OK City bombing, our government did X Y and Z to make people feel safer, and the result from X, Y, and Z is that the government has foiled these attacks. I could have dropped it altogether, but I think it is relevant and notable that the government did do something after the attacks. (Though what they did and how they did it is not clear; how many attacks were foiled beforehand?) If you want to "balance" this "ad", perhaps you can find some citations from reliable sources that note that the government's efforts were really not that notable.

--Otheus 19:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

"The attacks were prevented due to measures established by the local and federal government to increase security of high-priority targets and following-up on hate groups within the United States."

This statement is conjecture. While I don't doubt the Federal goverment actually broke up plots, I do doubt whether any would have succeeded otherwise. Indeed, it is not clear to me how many terrorist attempts are substaintial, let alone feasible, and how many were just chat room fantasies that never made it past the message board before the G stepped in.

At the very least, the statement should be removed until more solid, independent sources can be cited. Better still, it should be expanded into a substantial paragraph, so it isn't just some dangling idea. Perhaps linked to a seperate page analyzing domestic terrorism success rates and surrounding factors.

Woerkilt 13:19, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Extraneous citations

Cross-referencing "buckets" and "scale" appear transparently obvious attempts to make the article look more scholarly that it is, or just pathetically dumb, depending... Actually there are a LOT of unnecessary citings - "legislation" but not "government"? "Block"? Just saying "city block" would eliminate the need for a citation there.

*laugh* you're right. I removed the "buckets", "scale", "block" wikilinks. The US government is wikilinked in the first paragraph of the article, so no need to do it again. But you raise a good point here, because eventually, *every* word will have an entry. I need to re-read the guidelines about this kind of thing. Thanks for drawing my attention to it. --Otheus 19:40, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

The Wikipedia manual of style and WP:CONTEXT speak to this. --Otheus 01:12, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Wording

"incidentally situated under the building's day-care center" - the word wanted is CO-incedentally, as in "irrelevant". If McVeigh was actively involved in the abortion/anti-abortion controversy and acting out of THOSE beliefs, it would be relevant. As is, it admittedly had nothing to do with his intentions or plans, and therefore seems emotionally inflammatory to no good end.

You are incidentally incorrect about that. :) incidentally refers to accidentally or not on purpose. coincidentally would refer to two things that are jointly incidental. If McVeigh had intended to park the truck there, it would be neither incidental nor coincidental. If he had parked the truck there and the day care center happened to be closed that day, then it would be coincidentall that the children were not killed. But as it is, McVeigh parked the truck there, incidentally where the Day care center happened to be. I may be splitting hairs here, but my point is that "co" is not needed here. --Otheus 19:47, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

children

"Unborn children" is a term exclusively used by anti-abortion activists. The medical terms are "embryo" or "fetus", and in any case are simply irrelevant. No one, as far as I know, (though I won't rule out conspiracy theorists) has asserted that he was targeting pregnant women or children, or had any reason to. The only reason for including the reference at all would be to support the fundamentalist assertion that "unborn" children are free of original sin, and therefore "better" or "more valuable" than the living, who are destined for hell anyway.

Alas, "unborn child" is also used by the state legislature of Oklahoma in relating to crimes in which the expectant mother is killed. This is the context in which it is used. See the reference/footnote which states:

In Terry Nichols state trial, he was charged with 162 counts of murder; this number includes one of the unborn.

-Otheus 19:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Likewise the inclusion of the business name "America's Kids Day Care", which just *coincidentally* sounds like a political slogan. Would it be included if it were a "The Learning Experience" franchise?

I kept it in because of the irony of the name juxtaposed to the situation. You are right; if it had been "The Learning Experience" franchise, I would not have kept it in that way -- maybe would have put it in the Aftermath section (playing on the word experience or learning). There's something to be said for good prose now and then.

--Otheus 19:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

And again later, a whole section about the "innocent children". The only way this would be true or relevant if it were also true that every adult working in the building was guilty of some crime that JUSTIFIED the bombing. Otherwise EVERYONE was innocent, equally.

Ugh, that's been suggested before, and no consensus has been reached. I really don't like that section either. It also feels like a campaign for Hillary for Prez. But at the same time, I don't feel compelled one way or the other. One of the rules is to Assume Good Faith about another editor's edits. There is a tension between that rule and the keeping an article concise and to-the-point. This one falls on the boundary, but it's on that boundary, not outside of it.

--Otheus 19:55, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

moved to conspiracy theories section

Conclusion

If this is a "good" article, it speaks little for the future of Wikipedia as a reference. It appears MUCH more biased in a "mob democracy" manner than traditional encyclopedias. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.17.180.126 (talk) 18:23, 19 March 2007 (UTC).

I would like to respond to this, seeing as how I'm a major recent contributor to the article. I would point you to a response I wrote to a critic of Wikipedia, here: User:Otheus/Vaknin. For a collective response from the community, you should look here: Wikipedia:Responses.

I intend to respond to you point-by-point, but I have another crisis at some other pages, where I am suspected to be the dissident / voice of dissent. So I understand where you are coming from, and hope to reply soon. Feel free to remind me if I don't. --Otheus 14:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I trust you will consider all my above responses rationally and civilly.

--Otheus 19:56, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Tags

I added the talkheader and the "controversial article" tag. Scroll up to my other comment posted today. ---NYScholar 20:34, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Date of the bombing

[moved from embedded ed. comments in article due to typographical problems w/ it; it created problems of spacing; users who wrote the comments need to provide signatures below. --NYScholar 21:12, 23 March 2007 (UTC)]

[--the following needs to be put back in --]

• The date of the bombing, April 19, might have been intentionally chosen as it coincides with the Patriot's Day marking the beginning of the American Revolutionary War and with the final attack on the Branch Davidians at Waco.

  [It's well established that it was chosen to coincide with the Waco attack, but also with Patriot's Day? I'd need a better reference. Also, this would really belong in the article's first section--]—Preceding unsigned comment added by Otheus (talk • contribs)

See Todo list at top of talk page

OK City bombing todo

[moved here from my talk page. --NYScholar 22:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)] I liked your idea of the TODO list! Did you get all my "todo" comments out of the article, or should I sweep throught it again? --Otheus 22:52, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I did not know who posted the "todo" comments in the article; please add your signature to the unsigned templates w/ the date and UTC that you originally posted them in the article (you can find them in editing history). In answer to your question: no, I didn't get them all out of the article; I suggest that you copy and paste your comments w/ appropriate section headings in this talk page and/or add to the todo list. (Usually todo lists post at the top of a talk page, but I didn't know how to do that w/o disrupting the contents posting. If you do, you may want to edit the todo list to include your other suggestions and to move the todo list to the header position (at end of tags) but in a way that doesn't disrupt the t of contents. Please don't post comments about editing this article on my user talk page; please post them in this talk page. Thanks. --NYScholar 22:59, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

I moved the todo list up to the top of the talk page. Unfortunately, I don't know how to keep the table of contents of the talk page from posting as part of that box. There may be a needed additional code in the template: the "todo" message doesn't post completely either for some reason. Sorry for the typographical glitch; but it's clear enough to follow. --NYScholar 04:28, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Citations format needs cleanup throughout

I began, but I do not have the time to do more. Some ed. or editors reversed the titles of articles (and/or books) and the titles of the publications in which they are published (or left those out) throughout the use of citations templates in this article. There is also a group of references missing a source (posts only as multiple letters around [current] note 21); that and the reversed names in notes need fixing. In notes format, authors' names are posted in normal order. They are last name first in alphabetical lists like References lists. There is no need for reversal of last name, first name in Notes. In notes that read like sentences especially normal order is required for legibility. Dates of publications can follow the publisher in references. They do not have to follow APA format. The inconsistency comes from several editors inserting notes and references at different times in different formats. The format needs to be consistent throughout the article. Citations templates in Wikipedia tend to introduce odd punctuation in notes; commas are used, not periods in a note format. The periods are used in bibliographical format in References. All references and notes need to end with a period. (They function as a whole sentence.) --NYScholar 00:45, 24 March 2007 (UTC)[updated in bracket --NYScholar 01:22, 24 March 2007 (UTC)] [Updated: I found and corrected the error re: note 21 on (actually note 20 on): someone had mistyped "INT" instead of "ITN" (In Their Name) in ref. coding. (The typo. corr. shows how often this source is actually being used in the article; if the book is an edited collection of essays, as it appears to be, then each author and each title of each essay used for information should be cited individually as a source and page numbers given throughout.)] --NYScholar 02:06, 24 March 2007 (UTC)]

Ok, I'd call this nitpicking, but one man's nit is another man's ... er. What is a nit, anyway? Seriously, I'm really weak in this area. Do you know of a handy web reference or tutorial for making citations (I don't know what APA format means, for instance)? --Otheus 01:14, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

If one doesn't know how to compose citations, please consult Wikipedia:Manual of Style, especially Wikipedia:Citations and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. The format is extremely confusing in this article and some important parts of what Wikipedia calls "full citations" (Wikipedia:Guidelines for controversial articles and Wikipedia:Citations) are omitted throughout. Beginning with note 21 there is a missing source. [Updated: I corrected this; see my first paragraph of this section above: "INT" should have been typed as "ITN" by editors throughout.] All sources used in the articles in Wikipedia need to be notable, reliable, verified, and checked for accuracy. Every reader needs to be able to verify them as such. [APA is American Psychological Association; MLA (which I am using) is Modern Language Association (MLA Style Manual); these formats are taught throughout the United States in college and university elementary composition courses and the websites of the organizations are references in Wikipedia:Citations. Citation templates in Wikipedia are based on them and other identifiable citation formats. See the linked pages. I do not have time to correct the rest of the errors in the article. The entire article needs source-checking in order to verify accuracy of the citations and to provide "full citations." --NYScholar 01:20, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the links I will review them soon. I did source-check the article w.r.t. the online sources that were cited. I verified everything that was not in a book (because I'm no longer in the US, access to a library on such books is fairly impossible). Since my primary role was copy-editing and fact-checking, I generally left alone statements that came from a book. --Otheus 17:30, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

April 19th 2007 article vandalism

Thanks to whomever just repaired the article by removing the 1.9MB of "derka derka derka..." (I was in the middle of trying to fix it when someone else beat me to it) Would it be a wise precaution to temporarily lock the article for edits in case the current anniversary tempts some other idiot? Throbert McGee 02:11, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

What happend to the conspiracy theories page?

What happend to the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories page??????????? WHY WAS IT REMOVED???? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.42.84.172 (talk • contribs) 00:50, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

See my reply to this question at Talk:Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories. --Kralizec! (talk) 05:59, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories — Xiutwel (talk) 09:01, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

All the discussions on the conspiracy page and even ANFO etc have been erased it appears. WHY WAS IT REMOVED - pretty obvious. The government and independent experts have updated/changed some of their ideas and probably hate to see this stuff hanging around, I would. It appears Terry Nischols etc were far more advanced explosive experts than we dared dream. They used exotic materials ( Terry's receipt for fertilizer has just been upgrade to some methane stuff - his local farm store must be surprised )and created shaped charges in the back of a truck on a cool lake front using a canoe paddle, all in a jiffy. The new official story has all the signs of being a winner too.159.105.80.141 18:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Trivia to add to the article - Samuel Cohen ( the inventor of the neutron bomb ) concurred with General Partin that ANFO would not work . It seems that several other experts concurred - as a matter of fact it was very hard - impossible - to get an explosive expert to support the ANFO or any air blast scenario. Partin et al agreed that not only would an ANFO bomb not have done the job, no bomb relying on air blast would do it. Later efforts to rehabilitate the ANFO bomb by claiming it really was made of more powerful materials etc still don't produce the damage required to match what happened. It isn't the amount of damage it is what damage - hard concept for many in congress etc to grasp. One piece above has some merit - a weak bomb and lousy construction might work but the construction faults would have to be asymmetrical ( one bad pillar here, skip with two good pillars, another bad one, let's do all the ones on the right correct but not that one there - sounds farfetched but better than the government's story.159.105.80.141 19:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Nichols has recently said he and McVeigh didn't make the bomb, instead they got Tovex. Getting Tovex makes more sense seeing as how neither of them could make a bomb and they couldn't get all the materials anyway ( the prosecutor should use the fertilizer receipt for toilet paper ). The only problem is that some of the Tovex would have to be inside the building - which Nichols claims that someone - who he didn't know - must have done. No amount of Tovex, ANFO,ANNM, dynamite, atomic bomb,... would have done the damage produced ( you could do more, you could do less, but you couldn't recreate wjat actually happened from one spot from the street ). ANFO,ANNM, Tovex..... this argument goes nowhere - how did McVeigh get explosives inside the building al by himself ( in front of guards )- that's the trick. ( National Geographic will probably have an article out soon explaining it all to us.)159.105.80.141 19:57, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

A conspircy page was here: Oklahoma_City_bombing_conspiracy_theory. You can still view the history. Fvdham 19:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The conspiracy article was deleted due to lack of proper citations. Include enough sources to support the article and try again. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 161.28.175.4 (talk) 01:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Victims

Is there a site, an article or a section of an article with information about the victims of the Oklahoma bombing?Maziotis 09:38, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Air Force report

Thank you for contacting The John Birch Society. We do have available the document you requested. It is available in PDF format for $25.00. If you make your request at csummers@jbs.org our customer service representative can take your order.

Anyone know how to get this report for free? Shouldn't an Air Force report be public domain? — Xiutwel (talk) 17:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Maybe there is no such report. Tom Harrison ^Talk 18:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Until it can be shown to come directly from the government, Tom's is the only logical conclusion. --Golbez 22:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Tom and Golbez, may I suggest you continue the discussion on the existence of the report here: Non-existent report conspiracy theory. Update: the hardcopy is 25 dollars, the PDF file only 10 dollars. When you care to elaborate on your theories: here's a thought: maybe the Air Force is not advertising this report since it is so damaging to this other theory, namely that there was a single bomb? Just guessing, of course. — Xiutwel (talk) 20:43, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Or maybe The John Birch Society is nuts. Which could it be? Tom Harrison ^Talk 20:48, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

Are you kidding?!? The John Birch Society selling a report that exists in the public domain shows that they are the smartest human beings alive! Their business acumen staggers the imagination!! --Kralizec! (talk) 22:41, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

It is important to mention the experiments and conclusions of the Eglin Air Force Base blast effects study, as it is of the numerous reports in local news broadcasts of unexploded devices being found and removed from the building.

The purpose of Wikipedia cannot be the bolstering of official truths at the cost of dismissing any and all the evidence to the contrary. That would be not only ahistorical (in light of the numerous conspiracies proven by history) but would also amount to the deception of readers. Vesku 16:40, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

See the info removed section above as to why we have not included the initial, incorrect reports of additional explosives. Likewise, as the Air Force's study was discredited by both the official investigation and by the National Geographic Society, adding it to the article would serve as little more than conspiracy theory bait. If you feel really strongly about including information from the Air Force report, I would not object to including one or two sentences about it under the Conspiracy theories section as long as they are properly cited and referenced to reliable, published sources. However please note that just because I would not object does not mean other editors will feel the same way. After all, as a Good Article, Oklahoma City bombing has high standards, especially in regards to being factually accurate and verifiable. --Kralizec! (talk) 16:58, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

Please provide links to the precise sources that, according to you, discredited the Air Force blast effects study, as well as sources that show that the numerous local media reports of the additional explosives found were in fact incorrect. Furthermore, I want to see a photograph showing the claimed crater. I haven't been able to see any kind of crater in any of the pictures showing the building and its immediate environment after the bombing.Vesku 11:49, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Please search for the section "bomb scares explained" on this talk page. Rescue efforts were indeed halted twice as suspicious devices were found. On closer inspection, the devices were found to be an inactive missile used in a police operation and stored on the premises, and a device used for training bomb-sniffing dogs and which, while purposefully designed to look like a bomb, contained no real explosives whatsoever. Live TV news on the scene have no time to check what they say. A rational person should take this into consideration when looking at heat-of-the-moment TV news reports. Weregerbil 14:41, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

In addition to what Weregerbil said, I would recommend that you read the official report on the bombing. It states quote clearly that "the explosion came from the detonation of a 4,800-pound ammonium nitrate fuel oil bomb carried in a truck that was parked at the north entrance of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The force of the explosion destroyed the Murrah Building, collapsing most of the north front into a pile of rubble." This pretty much debunks the entire Air Force report. --Kralizec! (talk) 14:54, 4 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you for the comments. Kralizec! - the official report states what you quote quite clearly; the Air Force report states the opposite quite clearly. That, in itself, in no way debunks the Air Force report. The two reports, as well as General Partin's analysis, need to be judged on their own merits. However, I agree that the Air Force Report can be mentioned in the Conspiracy theories section, at least pro tem.

I re-request a photograph or photograps showing the crater after the blast. In my rather extensive web search, I haven't come across any.

I'd also like to read your views of the importance of the extensive "Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building April 19, 1995" by the Oklahoma City Bombing Investigation Committee, headed up by former Oklahoma state representative Charles Key. See, for example,

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24056

Vesku 20:28, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure that WorldNetDaily meets the criteria for being a reliable source. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:05, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

Someone I know has the report, so I'll be able to check the actual source. And surely information about the report can be found elsewhere on the net as well. The question of reliability is not a simple or unambiguous one. (Were The New York Times and Washington Post reliable when they uncritically hyped about Saddam's non-existing weapons of mass destruction?) Vesku 23:04, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

let us know...as a query...do you know if the report discusses ray guns, a man-made earthquake, or overly hungry steel and concrete eating termites?--MONGO 06:54, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

Can we please keep the discussion civil, reasonable, and to the point?

I had added the following to the conspiracy theory section, but it was removed without explanation. I would like to know precisely why it would not be relevant information in that section.

Conspiracy theorists say there are several discrepancies, such as a retired U.S. explosives expert, Brigadier General Benton K. Partin, stating that the size of the blast was not consistent with the bomb used by McVeigh.[84] Some critics of the official explanation point to a blast effects study published in 1997 by the Eglin Air Force Base, which concluded that the damage to the Murrah building was "not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself".[85] Vesku 22:40, 7 November 2007 (UTC)

It was not removed without explanation. Did you read the edit summary [4]? As I noted above, while I cannot speak for other editors, if you feel that strongly on the topic, I would not object to your including one or two sentences as long as your additions are properly cited and referenced to reliable, published sources. --Kralizec! (talk) 15:58, 8 November 2007 (UTC)

I return to this topic after a longish pause. The last time I quoted the Eglin Air Force Base report, the quotation was removed based on the argument that the actual existence of such a report is uncertain. I was asked to inform other editors of how the report can be acquired. I do that below.

The report can be obtained, either in PDF or paper format, from American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54912, by sending a 25-dollar payment. For more information, please contact Carol A. Summers (csummers at jbs dot org). The main title of the report is

"Case Study Relating Blast Effects Tests to the Events of April 19, 1995

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma".

Together with the two appendices, the length of the document is 74 pages. I ordered and received a copy of the report in PDF format.

In the conclusion of the report it does read (I enlarge my original quotation a bit here):

"Due to these conditions it is impossible to ascribe the damage that occurred on April, 1995 to a single truck bomb containing 4,800 lbs. of ANFO. In fact the maximum predicted damage to the floor panels of the Murrah Federal building is equal to approximately 1% of the total floor area of the building. Furthermore due to the lack of symmetrical damage pattern at the Murrah Building it would be inconsistent with the results of the ETS test one to state that all of the damage to the Murrah Building is the result of the truck bomb. [...]

It must be concluded that the damage at the Murrah Federal Building is not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself. As can be seen from the tests conducted at Eglin Air Force Base under known conditions producing damage to reinforced concrete structures is difficult. Reinforced Concrete exhibits damage resistance that is far above other types of construction including precast concrete and masonry.

The procedures used to cause the damage to the Murrah building are therefore more involved and complex than simply parking a truck and leaving. Additional study beyond the scope of this case study will be required in order to properly interpret the damage, describe the actual chain of events and fix the cause of the damage which occurred there on April 19, 1995."

So, I now have a copy of the interesting report and I have provided instructions on how to get one or ask for further information. The U.S. army report concluding that the bombing conspiracy encompassed more actors than those convicted of it merits being mentioned in the article. I will later proceed to mention it following the advice given by Kralizec! above. Vesku (talk) 22:17, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(de-indent)Your addition to the article looks good to me! --Kralizec! (talk) 17:51, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks! Vesku (talk) 11:27, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

FAC

I'd like to take this article to FAC, but are there any major problems or things that need to be fixed before it is taken there? I would appreciate any help with people who work on this article, as I have little experience with FAC, and would like any assistance possible. I'm also going to initiate another peer review, although the last one didn't receive any feedback. --Nehrams2020 21:50, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Crater

I have yet to see a picture showing any kind of crater in front of the building after the explosions. The picture linked to the article surely does not show one. Vesku 23:09, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Some throughts from an Oklahoman

I currently live in Oklahoma City and was here on the day of the bombing and all throughout. I still remember the horrible sound the explosion made even though I was almost 15 miles north in a suburb at work when it happened. I thought that I might be able to add a few things to this discussion. This is from my memory, but I will try to come up with some sources in time. Perhaps some of these comments may one day even make the wiki article.

First, on the subject of TV reports of multiple bombs.... I watched hours and hours of footage live as it aired. Literally every television station in this city went to news 24/7 for months after the bombing. In the moments after the bombing there was mass confusion. Rescue teams and TV crews arrived at the scene almost immediately, before anyone had any idea about what was going on. As the day progressed multiple theories were said live on air unsubstantiated just due to the nature of the event. For example, for the first few hours after the bombing I clearly remember nearly every news station reporting the event as a natural gas line explosion, and the location of the explosion as being the US Federal Court House (across the street from the Murrah Building). As time went on, this was realized to be incorrect and the reports changed. Many of you folks that are talking about the "multiple bombs" theory and showing these old video news clips of KFOR, KOCO, and KWTV are taking things out of context -- think about what was going on at the time and consider the examples I just gave you. Yes the TV stations reported multiple bombs at one point. This was because as police officers were trying to evacuate survivors from the area one of them stumbled across a device that looked like a bomb and ordered an evacuation. Yes the bomb squad did come in and attempt to defuse it because they believed it was a bomb. But what did they find? What are the later news reports that you guys are completely ignoring? They found that the devices in question were training devices used by federal agents in the building. Training devices used by bomb defusing people and other federal agencies. There were also heavy arms stored in the building (it was a federal building after all). Occasionally I will see a report about this taken out of context as well. The bottom line is that when the building exploded there were some things inside that building used by agencies whose job it is to investigate incidents like this that got scattered around the area. In the aftermath, they were misidentified as bombs.

On the issue of the structure of the building... there was a great show produced by The Discovery Channel years ago that reconstructed everything from blueprints and the like. The company that did it, I forget their name but they are a well known and highly respected company, something like "Accident Associates" I just don't remember. Anyway they concluded that the large horizontal beam at the front of the building on the second floor collapsed downward and basically ripped through the building, taking everything with it. I haven't seen the National Geographic Channel special on this, but it sounds like they are basically saying the same thing. Local investigators concluded the same thing. I think an article may appear somewhere in the Daily Oklahoman newspaper articles.

There is a statement above about all of the rubble being horded away and taken to some secret site. This is border-line conspiracy stuff. The reality is that many people in the Oklahoma City area have chunks of debris in their posession. After recovery operations ended many small pieces of the building were freely given away to people as sad soveigneers of the event. Some large pieces remain at the site of the National Memorial.

Above someone has a problem with the statement that "1/3 of Oklahoma City knew someone effected by the bombing." This was actually reported and repeated by the local media many, many times. Although somewhat anecdotal, it is actually fairly accurate. Oklahoma City is an interesting place. Someone once called it "America's biggest small town." In a lot of ways that is true -- even though the city is around 500k in size and the metropolitan area is 1.2 million, people here really do seem to know each other. I was in college when the bombing occurred and just from discussions in class at the time it was amazing the vast number of people who were either directly affected or had a friend or relative who was effected.

Once again the "there was no crater" myth has surfaced. To finally put this to rest a few years ago an aerial photo was finally released. It showed a large crater in front of the building that was almost completely filled with debris. For unknown reasons some people continue to be in denial about this. I think they think that the debris was just lying on an unblemished street, but if you look closely at the photos you can see there is a massive crater that just happens to be filled in with collapsed junk.

Finally, there is one aspect of the bombing that I would like to mention here that has never been written down as far as I know, that I think is significant. Almost immediately after the bombing, and four months after the bombing, literally every single TV and radio station in the city regardless of format (e.g. even rock and roll stations) became news and/or call-in talk shows 24/7. It was at the same time very sad and also very therapeutic. At 2 a.m. you could turn the local rock radio station on and they would have their DJs on answering open phone lines. People would call in, sometimes asking "why did this happen"... sometimes just wanting to talk... and sometimes just crying. I've never seen anything like it before. Other good things that happened included media calls for blood donations the day of the bombing due to a shortage. Within hours there were literally lines of people wrapping around blood banks all over town. There were calls for food and water donations for the rescue workers who were working non-stop at the site, many of whom were from out of town. Within hours people were bringing large quantities of bottled water and other items to the State Fairgrounds for later distribution downtown. I was there. People also donated money and found other ways to help. One last memory that is still quite vivid is that the US and Oklahoma Flags flew at half staff everywhere in this state following the bombing for a long, long time. It wasn't until July 4th of that year that they were raised back up to their full level.

I'm sorry if this post was long or rambling, it's just so frustrating sometimes to be from this city and see so many nonsensical things written about it. I have read so many books on the subject of the bombing, and repeatedly I find that the conspiracy people can't even get basic facts correct -- the number of times I have seen buildings misidentified, streets described going one way when in fact they go another, or supposed company names in my downtown that do not even exist is just astounding. If these guys can't even get the basics right, why on earth should anyone believe them on their more advanced theories? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Okguy (talk • contribs) 17:44, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Unreferenced details added

Crysis1883 today added details about the barrels being arranged for a shaped charge effect which I could not find in the references which follow the passage. Some of the other material, like where the barrels were bought, do not seem to be the sort of thing which needs to be in an encyclopedia article about it. Thoughts? Edison (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Sweeps

This article has been reviewed as part of Wikipedia:WikiProject Good articles/Project quality task force. I believe the article currently meets the criteria and should remain listed as a Good article. The article history has been updated to reflect this review. Regards, OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 18:30, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

Misnumbering the victims

This article stated that 160 people were killed inside the Murrah building, and that the remaining 8 were killed outside or in other buildings. This is not true, and the article referenced a very old article with erroneous information that has since been changed through the investigations that followed the bombing.

The truth is, I work at the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, and have been required to do extensive research to understand the event, the facts, and the impact. Here are the correct stats regarding those killed outside the Murrah building, per the official record of the bombing, the Memorial, and the investigation.

FIVE people were killed outside the Murrah building, NOT 8. TWO were in the Oklahoma Water Resources Building, ONE was in the Athenian building, ONE was outside nearby the building, and ONE was nurse Rebecca Anderson, killed in the recovery. This is the official count as supported by the record of the bombing, and is additionally supported by the fact that the westernmost column of empty chairs at the Memorial is a column of 5, bearing the names of the 5 killed outside the building and intentionally grouped together.

I hope this clears that up.68.12.91.92 (talk) 07:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for fixing that. If possible, do you know of a more reliable/current source that documents this so that we can cite the information in the article? I've always wanted to visit the Museum, but haven't been to Oklahoma since '97. Hopefully I can visit one day and learn more about the event. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:17, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

I'll check next time I'm at work; (I'm on vacation right now). I'm sure it's either in the Final Report or the Official Record.68.12.91.92 (talk) 21:26, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

Dispute over date of McVeigh's execution

Someone changed the date of the execution from June 11, 2001 to May 16, 2001. However, that is not correct. It had been scheduled for May 16, but he ended up being executed on June 11. If you have any questions regarding this, feel free to ask.68.12.91.92 (talk) 21:27, 10 June 2008 (UTC)

OMG

The USA hit itself according to documentry Zeitgeist. XD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.227.56.44 (talk) 04:57, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Sub-heading names

What is the meaning of having the first sub-heading called "Terror"? It doesnt make grammatical sense. I'm not disputing that the act was terrorism, but having the heading called "terror" is like having a heading of simply "bullet" or "gun" or something. The heading shold be changed to something meaningful, like "Incident" or "Occurance". Fig (talk) 09:00, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

Content, references removed

The content and references added [5] by Uruk2008 (talk · contribs), removed by me, subsequently re-added [6] and then expanded [7] by MessiahBenDavid (talk · contribs) have all been removed. Detailed justification of the removals are listed below, sentence by sentence:

• "The highly focused and unusually large blast pattern left on the Murrah building had the characteristics of an advanced shaped charge known as a Voitenko compressor," referenced to http://history.nasa.gov/SP-440/ch6-15.htm - This excellent NASA article on Voitenko compressors makes no mention of bombs, terrorism, McVeigh, or Oklahoma, and as such is an inappropriate source for this article as per WP:VER.
• "or supercompressed detonation," http://www.wipo.int/pctdb/images4/PCT-PAGES/2006/102006/06024137/06024137.pdf - This link to the World Intellectual Property Organization web site does not work, but even if it did, it would no doubt tell us about supercompressed detonations, rather than their relation to the OKC bombing.
• "This was due to the bombers using the aluminum side panels of the truck as flyer plates to compress secondary blast products.This explains the massive blast pattern compared to the relatively small charge size,as well as the characteristic indentation of the compression chamber on the left side of the building." - Without citations, this claim is little more than WP:OR.
• "The highly focused and unusually large blast pattern left on the Murrah building had the characteristics of an advanced shaped charge," http://www.worldnetdaily.com/images/mcveighsketch1.jpg - Regardless of the fact that anyone could have drawn this picture and claimed it was a trial document, the WorldNetDaily web site is not a third party, reliable, published source.
• "known as a Voitenko compressor," http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/systems/munitions/bullets2-shaped-charge.htm - Again, a great article on shaped charges that makes no mention of the OKC bombing.
• "the secondary blast products in what is known as a thermobaric reaction," http://secondsightresearch.tripod.com/id77.html - The edit summary claims this is a reference from the Ottawa Citizen but the link is to a WP:SPS-failing tripod.com page.

As one of Wikipedia's Good Articles, Oklahoma City bombing has high standards when it comes to sources and references. Extraordinary claims need to be backed up with extraordinary references, or they should not be included. --Kralizec! (talk) 01:17, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Good call. --Golbez (talk) 12:28, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The http://secondsightresearch.tripod.com/id77.html piece is an excerpt from an original Ottawa Citizen article. The defense expert clearly states that the bomb was "similar" to a thermobaric weapon. This is due to secondary gases being driven and compressed through metal cylinders,as explained in this MIT article http://www-tech.mit.edu/V115/N21/mcveigh.21w.html. This gave an afterburn explosion similar if not identical to a Voitenko compressor,which is technically thermobaric.--MessiahBenDavid (talk) 2:09, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

As noted above, web pages on Tripod fail WP:SPS and as such are inappropriate for use as sources on Wikipedia. Likewise the MIT article makes no mention of the "secondary blast products" or "thermobaric reaction" you claim it is referencing. --Kralizec! (talk) 21:33, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

MIT article explains gases(secondary blast products) were used to enhance the afterburn of the bomb. A thermobaric reaction is really just an afterburning of said gases or metals. --MessiahBenDavid (User talk:MessiahBenDavid) 2:46, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

But that is exactly our issue here. The MIT article states "to increase the fireball and burning power associated with the blast, the bombers placed metal cylinders full of hydrogen or possibly acetylene within the explosive package," however you are citing this as the source for "this was due to the bombers using the aluminum side panels of the truck as flyer plates to compress the secondary blast products in what is known as a thermobaric reaction" in the article. As the MIT article makes no mention of "aluminum side panels" that were used as "flyer plates" in order to "compress the secondary blast products" making "a thermobaric reaction," you cannot claim that the MIT article is the cited source for this sentence. Without a source, this sentence is little more than verboten original research. --Kralizec! (talk) 22:02, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

However I should add that if you did want to use the MIT article as a source, the text could go something like this: "Adding to the blast's burning power and fireball were gas cylinders filled with hydrogen gas or acetylene." This would be a valid use for the McVeigh Held in Conjunction with Oklahoma City Bombing citation, as the sourced article actually discusses the exact items mentioned in this sample sentence. --Kralizec! (talk) 22:14, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

The following addition [8] to the article:

“ The barrels of explosive were placed in a V-shaped pattern, with the base of the V pointing towards the building as an improvised shaped charge. Three empty steel barrels were also left at the back of the charge. ”

These two lines have serious issues because of the following:

• "The barrels of explosive were placed in a V-shaped pattern" is directly contradicted by the second source which states ""Then the barrels were grouped around a 50-pound case of Tovex." That's 50 pounds of these sausages in the middle of the barrels." If the sources cannot agree, we should not include these details in the article as they might be wrong.
• "towards the building as an improvised shaped charge" - the court transcript quotes another witness as saying "He explained to me how he would arrange the barrels,55-gallon drums in the back of that truck to form something hewas calling a "shape charge"." A witness claim is not the same thing as referencing a statement to a reliable, third-party, published source. While the current text is unacceptably definitive, it could be re-written to say "during court testimony, witnesses stated that McVeigh claimed to have arranged the barrels to form a shape charge."
• Three empty steel barrels were also left at the back of the charge" does not appear to be substantiated in either source, but even if it were, it would have the same issue as the above statement: un-proven claims presented as fact.

As such, I have removed both lines. --Kralizec! (talk) 14:40, 30 July 2008 (UTC)

Bot report : Found duplicate references !

In the last revision I edited, I found duplicate named references, i.e. references sharing the same name, but not having the same content. Please check them, as I am not able to fix them automatically :)

• "MichelHerbeck" :
  • Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, ''[[American Terrorist|American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing]]'' (New York: ReganBooks, 2001): 209-231; ISBN 0-06-039407-2.
  • Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, ''[[American Terrorist|American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing]]'' (New York: ReganBooks, 2001): 234; ISBN 0-06-039407-2.

DumZiBoT (talk) 04:40, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

That ought to have fixed it. —/Mendaliv/^2¢/_Δ's/ 19:14, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

Overlap between this article and Timothy McVeigh article

How should we deal with the overlap between this article and Timothy McVeigh article? I have basically put most of the information about the specific plans and preparations for the bombing as well as the trials in this article. EVCM (talk) 06:14, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Call for reopening of the investigation

The FBI man in charge of collecting evidence from the government building destroyed by the Oklahoma bomb has called for the case to be reopened. Best wishes. Universalsuffrage (talk) 00:21, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

College Tuition for children involved in bombing stolen?

My son and other children that experienced the tragic Bombing in OKC were told that some of the Hundreds of millions of dollars donated by public and private citizens, from all over the world a portion of which would be allocated to pay for their college education. Oklahoma is known for it's corruption, political, and otherwise, however spending the childrens "PROMISED" college tuition on salaries, bonuses, Oklahoma City's beautification efforts, and other frivilous expenditures is completely outrageous!

I would like for someone to tell the parents of these young, strong, and brave survivors where the "PROMISED" college tuition money, for "ALL" of the children that were "DIRECTLY" affected by this terrorist act, that survived this tragic event, where did their college tuition went?

Sincerely, jimhack3@aol.com —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.138.63.69 (talk) 05:52, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

Neutrality Dispute: Conspiracy theories involving more perpetrators

I noticed that just yesterday a new section named "conspiracy theories..." was added to this page. Perhaps the fact that these conspiracies still persist is something to be mentioned... but I can't help but feel that the posting of this information is very one-sided. Everything posted in the section identifies conspiracy ideas and offers a brief defense of them; however, there is nothing identifying the voluminous counter-opinions that have held up in court and in the greater scientific community and why these conspiracy opinions are considered the minority opinion. I think this needs to be resolved. -- Okguy (talk) 05:42, 15 January 2009 (UTC)

Does this article have any similarities to reality?

It's like the author(s) of this article take at face value any action conducted by our government. What? So, Timothy McVeigh is convicted in federal court; therefore, everything those government prosecutors had contended at trial must be true and suitable for inclusion Wikipedia? Come on, grow up. How many times do you have to be beat over the head (or maybe that's where it goes, over the head) before there is a consensus that our government is totally corrupt? Are we there yet? I think we should be. So why do I see a Wiki article like this which presents our government's fabricated fairy tale as if it were a respectable representation of truth? Anyone familiar with this case knows that McVeigh was railroaded toward conviction. So why isn't that the first thing you read? But then if Wiki is run and supported by the CIA then, as they say, "my bad". Great job. 66.74.34.51 (talk) 13:22, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

One of Wikipedia's most important policies is Verifiability. It states that "the threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source, not whether we think it is true." If you are looking for an encyclopedia based on reality as seen by the likes of WorldNetDaily or Newsmax, you might want to try Conservapedia instead. --Kralizec! (talk) 01:36, 5 February 2009 (UTC)

I'm tired of the conspiracy nuts. Here's a hard fact for you: McVeigh confessed, even bragged about his actions during interviews in the book "American Terrorist." In his own words he explains why he did it. He was hardly railroaded; I find the concept rather insulting. Okguy (talk) 18:21, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

You folks have a damning article above which officially questions official narrative, someone worked very hard to free that information and call for reopening of any investigation is not conspiracy nuttery by any measure. Please be mindful of the terminology while threading on wiki, poor terminology may cause a lot of harm. Some would judge that tinfoil's belong to those who witness controlled demolition and say it was thermal expansion, either way, this is a world wide effort, if Americans have strange terminology so be it, they'll get over it, eventually. I'd say that section about doubts and calls for new investigation is warranted here, I'd go with different title though. DawnisuponUS (talk) 00:20, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

CNN Coverage

I recall watching glued to the TV minutes after this happened. To this day I remember watching CNN do an interview of a female survivor who stated that she worked in the FBI's office in the Murrah building. She stated that "it was strange that only she and one other man showed up on time for work that morning". I never saw the repeat of her clip the way cable news outfits usually run them. To this day no one remembers seeing it either... but I swear it is true!12.237.110.2 (talk) 10:04, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

A-class review

I am nominating this article for A-class review with WikiProject Oklahoma. I'm welcoming all comments on how to improve the article further, with the future goal of making the article a FA at some point. Since the project doesn't have a formal A-class review, I've looked to the guidelines of the A-class criteria. For the article to reach A-class, two uninvolved editors need to support the nomination. I'd be happy to take as many reviews as possible as each one could help to improve the article further. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 08:55, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'd suggest exclusion of the well referenced information surrounding physical improbability of the damage with regards to the officially reported bomb strength from section about conspiracies and its inclusion in the section about the bombing. This information is based on factually accurate scientific study and it can be included in the article without alleging anything. This is imo, as ever. Any thoughts? DawnisuponUS (talk) 22:02, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I'm not following your first sentence. Could you elaborate on what you mean? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 23:13, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

Certainly, I'm suggesting that the test results from the Eglin Air Force Base be included into section about bombing, rather than in the section about conspiracies. If possible? DawnisuponUS (talk) 23:46, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

I believe that it would be best for the information to remain within that section as it allows for the explanation of the thoughts of the theorists who disagree with the official position of the bombing. In addition, the section about the bombing generally covers how the bombing occurred and the effects of the blast. I'm not asserting that the report is a conspiracy theory, but that it be used here to illustrate to readers that officials did investigate the matter and reported their results (which covered one conspiracy that theorists were trying to point out). Leaving the information where it is will help to assist the claim being made by theorists. I've done my best to make that section neutral and was fortunate to find some reliable sources for that section. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:20, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

All right then, I'd be more happy if that section about conspiracy would be named Call for reopening of investigation or something along those lines, but as stated earlier and elsewhere, I think you've done some remarkable work. DawnisuponUS (talk) 00:24, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

The fact that the section covers other conspiracy theories is the reason that it's named as it is. If there was more information (I'll look harder later) on the aftermath of reopening the investigation perhaps it can be split off. Thanks for your comments, I appreciate it. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 00:37, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Andreas Strassmeir implication?

I was wondering if anyone could verify the claims made that Andreas "Andy the German" Strassmeir had a role in the bombing? There are some sites that paint a convincing image that implicate Strassmeir had a hand in the bombing along with McVeigh. I don't know if it's verifiable, however.

One site in particular: http://eyeonhate.com/mcveigh/mcveigh5.html 66.153.225.243 (talk) 02:05, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for mentioning this on the talk page. I wouldn't consider that site reliable (my opinion), but you could probably learn more about the claims about Strassmeir's alleged contributions to the bombing by searching Google news. I would be cautious reading some sites, as although they can be convincing, sometimes details are stretched or details are added (I'm not declaring that this is occurring here, but to always consider multiple sources on questionable issues). No official report or information from the trial stated that Strassmeir had a role in the bombing (similar to others that were mentioned as possible accomplices), though McVeigh's lawyer wrote a book on possible accomplices (and mentioned Strassmeir as a possibility). Since it has not been verified that Strassmeir had involvement in the bombing, it isn't mentioned in the article. Let me know if you have other questions or if you need further clarification. Happy editing! --Nehrams2020 (talk) 02:30, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

Photographs and movie

I added the following information to the "external links" section: (the edit)

• Coverup in Oklahoma - A documentary that explores a lot of the evidence and also much of the credible witness testimony that was videotaped during the day of the bombing. This evidence severely contradicts the Governments official story surrounding the Oklahoma City bombing and is critical to know while doing research into the conspiracy theory surrounding this event.

Photographs

• grahamphoto5ca.jpg - Taken shortly after the blast.

Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building demolition photos

This is a series of photos from Oklahoma State University showing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building before and during its demolition.

• impl1_lg.jpg
• impl2_lg.jpg
• impl3_lg.jpg
• impl4_lg.jpg
• impl5_lg.jpg
• impl6_lg.jpg
• impl7_lg.jpg
• impl8_lg.jpg
• impl9_lg.jpg
• imp10_lg.jpg

My argument for keeping these photos and video linked in the article:

(Note: These photos only seem to be available through archive.org. The original page and the entire server where these photos were located is no longer available.)

Aside from the historical value of the images I linked, the images and movie provide strong and compelling evidence to support the conspiracy theory concerning this subject. Specifically, they provide evidence that severely contradicts the official story that says a single bomb caused the extreme amount of damage to the building through lack of a crater of sufficient size that would correlate to the explosive force required to do the damage to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

As you can see from these photos from Oklahoma State University that I linked above, there seems to be a spot where the crater created by the vehicle bomb was located. The spot where the crater was has obviously been filled in, however, the outline of this spot can clearly be seen against the unbroken road surface. What makes these photos so important, is that the area of this crater spot is rather small compared to the size of the giant crater that was left by a known truck bomb. See this photo and this photo of the giant crater left after the Pakistan hotel truck bombing for comparison. Also, the size of the truck in the Pakistan bombing can clearly be seen from the hotel surveillance video camera. If you compare the size of the crater in these two photos of the pakistan hotel bombing to the outline of the crater from one of the first images of the demolition photographs, you can easily see the huge discrepancy in the size between the two.

Since Wikipedia is an reference encyclopedia, I strongly feel that these photographs and the link to the video should be included so that people doing research into the conspiracy theory surrounding this event will easily be able to find this information.

(Note: This information I provided above is not my original research, it is merely a summation of some of the evidence that I have seen in the movie that I linked and from other articles that I have read. Wisepiglet (talk) 13:05, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for your addition, I haven't seen those images. I've been weighing this for the last few days, and want to ask what others think. Should the conspiracy theories section be split off to its own article, Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories? The article was deleted back in 2006 due to no reliable sources, but we now have several that covers multiple theories. I know that other theories could be covered or the ones in the article elaborated on, but I have tried to keep it brief due to the length of the article. By moving the information, it could be expanded on the other page, and leave a brief summary in this article. This article is getting very large, and would benefit from splitting off this section, similar to the 9/11 conspiracy theories article. I would recommend still keeping a link to the Coverup in Oklahoma video in the external links in this article but move the images added by Wisepiglet to the new article. What do you guys think? --Nehrams2020 (talk) 18:12, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

As long as its contents were properly sourced and cited, I would not object to the re-creation of the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories article (a la the -IMO- nicely done 9/11 conspiracy theories article). — Kralizec! (talk) 19:42, 7 April 2009 (UTC)

I cut down the size of the conspiracy theories section and re-created the article. Feel free to expand on that article since I'm sure it can benefit from additional sources or covering other theories since there is plenty of room. --Nehrams2020 (talk) 01:54, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

News media reports three bombs had been placed

Would there be objections to placing information regarding these local television stations?

The information concerning other ordnance was confirmed by the State Department according to one report. If that confirmation is documented with the appropriate footage (and perhaps transcript), I believe the information would be very sound.

Furthermore, there are court documents which further develop the reasons why no license plate was on the vehicle of one of the perpetrators of the crime. I welcome input before adding the crucial information.

Also, as noted above, a contributor explained the existence of a "missle" and a "bomb" for dog training in the structure with inadequate sources for the proclaimation, and without answering the most important of questions: If the presence of such ordnance was known to be present, why were children allowed to be present (and in daycare) in a government structure where dangerous ordnance was stored? (Peterbadgely (talk) 12:49, 22 April 2009 (UTC)) peterbadgely

In the confusion of a crisis situation, inaccurate or incorrect reports are often made, especially by news media. During the Sago Mine disaster, the on-site reporter from Fox News Channel stated live on the air that a dozen survivors had been rescued, when in fact there was only one. During the first Gulf War, a CNN journalist in Israel said on live television that one of the Al Hussein missiles to hit that country was loaded with chemical weapons, however later analysis showed the warhead was actually a conventional weapon. Since the official OKC bombing investigation -as well as analysis by outside organizations like the National Geographic Society- determined that the initial reports of multiple bombs were wrong, I do not see how the article would be benefited by adding these mistaken news reports to it. — Kralizec! (talk) 13:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

The fact that the "initial stories" were confirmed by the State Department certainly adds to the story. Additionally, the fact that conventional weapons were purposefully stored in the vicinity of a child care center by the Untied States Government certainly would add crucial information to the story. These factors are factual and verifiable. The stored ordnance near children is certainly an area that should be explored and written about here.peterbadgely {68.14.146.78 (talk) 17:19, 22 April 2009 (UTC))