Port Arthur massacre
From Encyc
The Port Arthur massacre is the name given to a series of 35 deaths and 37 serious injuries between approx 10.30 pm on 27 April 1996 and 6.30 am on 29 April 1996, in and around the town of Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia, which ended with Martin Bryant being imprisoned for the murders in extremely controversial fashion. The nature of the murders, the impossibility of the official story, and the manner with which Martin Bryant was convicted has led to this being the most controversial case in Australian history, with a wide range of conspiracy theories and a small minority believing the official story. The 32 murders on 28 April 1996 represent the largest single day murder spree in Australian history, easily beating the next best of 15. The murders are often falsely regarded as a single day murder spree. None of the other previous murder sprees led to arrests as all of the others ended in either suicide or being killed by police, as is the norm with such events.
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Known facts
The first 2 murders were Noelene and David Martin, at the Seascape Lodge at about 10.30 pm on 27 April 1996.
At approx midday on 28 April 1996, a man with long blonde hair, who nobody at the scene had ever seen before, sat down, ordered a meal, and took out a sports bag at the Broad Arrow Cafe in Port Arthur. He said "Lots of Wasps about today", took out some form of fully automatic weapon, and began shooting at people inside the cafe, killing in a military fashion with levels of accuracy that had otherwise been unheard of world wide (although, since this time, the sniper serial killer in USA proved to have close to the same level of accuracy). His first 22 shots, fired in a 30 second period, killed 25 people, with no misses. Whilst the shots were from close range, the fact that a number of the people who died were professional martial artists who were trained to disarm people from short distance suggests that in fact being at such short range may have made it more difficult. In spite of there being over 50 people in the cafe, and several people trying to disarm him, nobody got close to succeeding.
After a brief pause, he reloaded with 1 bullet left in his charge, and proceeded to the adjoining gift shop. He again shot at people, killing all that he aimed at. According to eye witness reports, people dropped to the floor to pretend to be dead. He kicked them when he went through, to try to see if anyone was alive.
He then proceeded into the car park, opened a bus door, and shot into the bus.
He then got into a car, drove along a little way, then got out to ask directions of a woman with 2 small children. He then shot and killed her after she had given him the information, also shooting the 2 small children, while their husband, who was hiding in a shop nearby, watched on in horror. The husband had not been aware of the initial interaction, only turning when the shots rang out, and then hid to save his own life. He was not able to identify the gunman. That man's name is Walter Mikac, who was the only person who was there that has publicly claimed that the shooter was Martin Bryant. He was falsely regarded by police as an eye witness.
He then drove a bit further, asked another man for directions, then put that man into the boot of his car, before driving to Seascape Lodge.
4 hours after arriving at Seascape Lodge, police came to the scene. Police did not actually know where he was, but were tipped off by anonymous callers. Dozens of people had known that the massacre was going to occur that day, and also knew that he was to go to the Seascape Lodge. Police insist that they had not received any tips before the massacre began, in spite of evidence that they had.
Police arrived 4 hours later, and began negotiations. They spoke to a man who was later identified as probably being Martin Bryant, although he said that his name was Jamie. He made ludicrous requests to police and was laughing as he spoke. While speaking to police, several shots rang out, which police attributed to Martin Bryant having several assistants - they had at the time thought that David and Noelene Martin plus the hostage in the car were assisting. As it later turned out that David and Noelene had died the night before and the hostage had died before he got to Seascape and was found dead in the burned out car when police got there, police have been unable to explain who the other 3 people were, or how they got out. Nor has any explanation been given as to how Martin Bryant was able to fire from 3 spots at the same time. Trip wires were suggested, alongside motion detectors. Whilst this is hypothetically possible, it would have taken a long time to set up, and it is hard to imagine it being able to be done by one person from all parts of the lodge at once. No evidence of either wires or a motion detection system were found amongst the burned out remains of the lodge.
At about 5 am on 29 April 1996, the Seascape Lodge caught fire, by self-exploding cartridges from one of the automatic weapons. While the weapons were exploding, police moved further away from the house, as they could hear the shots and were expecting a large explosion to follow. It would have been very easy for a person or multiple people to have escaped while police were at a distance.
At 6.20 am on 29 April 1996 a man ran out of Seascape Lodge, fully clothed, and then was lost amongst the smoke. The man was not identified.
At 6.30 am on 29 April 1996, Martin Bryant walked out of Seascape Lodge, completely naked, with half of his body burned, as if he had been sleeping there all night. He had his hands up and was calling out "Don't shoot! I am the hostage!". He was arrested and charged with the murders.
Why it couldn't have been Martin Bryant
Martin Bryant, as it turned out, was not a weapon's expert. He was not trained with the CIA or FBI. He was not in the military. He had not gone to Iraq or Vietnam or any major war zone. Not only was he not an expert, but he wasn't even trained. He had never been to a gun club anywhere in the world. Indeed, he did not even know how to fire a gun. He had purchased a couple of guns, illegally, and these were found in the boot of the car that was outside - in other words, his guns had not been taken to the Seascape Lodge. There was no way to forensically prove which set of guns had been used in the massacre, as the guns had been exploded in such a way that they could not be used for identification purposes.
Martin Bryant also did not own a car, nor did he have a car license. He claimed during the interview that, again, he had illegally purchased a car, but that same car was shown for sale in a local newspaper weeks afterwards.
Martin Bryant had an IQ of 66, which puts him in the bottom 0.2% of the population. His specific mental illness is up for debate, although both schizophrenia and Asperger's syndrome are suggested. Alternatively, he might have simply been a slow learner with no specific mental illness. Certainly, Martin Bryant could not function in society. He could only concentrate for short periods of time. He had no level of focus. He could perform short tasks briefly, but kept getting distracted. He had indeed been banned from a wide range of places for singing or doing other things that distracted people. Indeed, Martin Bryant was banned from the Broad Arrow cafe. They had a photo of him on the wall to say that he should not be allowed entry. Yet somehow none of the staff recognised him. Staff members that survived, that knew him before, didn't recognise him. Martin Bryant was also banned from Redline coaches, and a wide variety of other places, because of his lack of concentration.
Someone who cannot concentrate for more than 20 minutes at a time could not possible have performed this massacre. Whilst they could have potentially done the first killings, how did he manage to concentrate so much as to hold off police for so long? He would have had to have been awake for at least 36 hours, yet was still able to hold off elite level police until the end.
Only a handful of people in the world know how to make an automatic weapon explode so as to start a fire. If you do it wrong, your whole arm is blown off. You cannot learn such a thing by yourself - it is something only used in elite circles, and generally only taught to secret service agents, and only a few of them. The technique had never been mentioned on TV prior to this massacre.
Motivations
The suggested motivation for Martin Bryant to have performed this massacre was because he wanted to buy land from Noelene and David Martin, and they refused to sell it to him.
Whilst this might be enough reason to murder them, why did he murder the others? It is also a bit of a stretch to suggest that he would have murdered them, given that they were his employers, in the only job he had ever held in his life. Noelene and David Martin were Martin Bryant's closest friends, the closest thing to family that he had besides his mother. Why would someone who was hated in the nearby towns, laughed at constantly, teased and picked on (certainly ample motivation for murder) then want to kill the only people that had been kind to him?
If this was a random shooting, why didn't it follow the normal pattern? Most random shootings that begin like this one did end with the gunman either committing suicide or else being shot by police. Why didn't this happen?
Whilst shooting up a place and then going home is a reasonably common occurrence for such incidents, why didn't he run off? He had 4 hours to run off, with no police anywhere near. Why not run off, catch a plane, and go elsewhere? Why give himself up? After doing so many amazing things for the previous 36 hours, he just walks out and gives himself up? Why do that? Even with police everywhere, once the fire started, he had ample chance to get away. At the scene itself there were only a dozen or so police and perhaps 50 people total there. There was enough undergrowth and smoke to hide and to run off, especially once the shots were firing out and the police backed off. Why give yourself up?
The motivation suggested for him to give himself up was playing the fool, trying to suggest that he couldn't possibly have done it. But why wouldn't he realise that over such a major case they were never going to just let him go?
Disinformation - the most popular conspiracy theory
The most popular conspiracy theory in relation to this case is variations of the theory that was presented by Joe Vialls which suggested, ultimately, that the government had killed the people themselves, and then blamed Martin Bryant because he was too intellectually disabled to be able to defend himself properly. This theory suggests that the main reason for this was to try to take guns from Australians - which was the end result of this massacre. As a result, Prime Minister John Howard introduced new laws to take away automatic and semi-automatic guns from Australians - even though there had never before this been any major gun-related massacres in Australia and most people with guns were farmers who used them to kill animals coming to their properties and eating their produce.
This theory was pushed by the Australian federal government, through ASIO, as the only theory, as disinformation to hide the real truth. Whilst the facts that supported this conspiracy theory were sound, the conclusions were ludicrous. No government would kill its own people.
Small groups of people, including eye witnesses to the murders, have pushed forward a more believable story, which was that the Australian police force knew about this prior to it happening, but failed to do a thing, that they knew who did it, but refused to prosecute them, and that, as with the case of Azaria Chamberlain and others, they simply prosecuted Martin Bryant so that they would look good, because the real killer was far too clever and actually got away.
As with any case of disinformation, people see the facts and accept the facts of the situation, but then see the conclusion and henceforth ignore the facts and instead accept the only alternative, which is the official story. Even though the official story doesn't make any sense at all, people have accepted this.
The real story
The Port Arthur massacre was actually the first 3 days of a year-long serial killing spree. Several of the victims at Port Arthur were targets as part of the serial killing, whilst the others were killed simply so that there would be no witnesses. Martin Bryant assisted to help to make these murders happen, as did several other people, but there was only 1 murderer, which was not Martin Bryant. Martin Bryant's role was to be so obviously not responsible that he would be freed. His role was as a red herring to help to let the real perpetrator of the crimes get away with it and continue on with the other murders.
The person who did these murders did it for his own reason, and also to support various friends of his, including Martin Bryant, who hated some people and wanted them dead, but didn't want to do it themselves. Instead, they helped him to do it. The targets were meant to represent the worst people in the world, and the aim was meant to be to make the world a better place. The ultimate purpose of it was revenge of his former girlfriend, who he had met on 27 April 1991 and who broke up with him on 27 April 1992, on their 1 year anniversary, at 10.30 pm. Both the date and the time were important with regards to the massacre occurring.
Many more murders happened in Australia over the following 12 months. Several of these murders were done in a similar way to the Port Arthur massacre murders, and hence were regarded as copycat murders. Some of the people who did the murders had gone to school with Martin Bryant or otherwise knew him. Overall, Australia wide, there were about 100 more murders for the year than the average, which meant that there were 3 times the normal annual average. This is a significant difference, which cannot be put down purely to the massacre. Whilst copycat murders is a possibility, it is equally as plausible that the same person that did the Port Arthur massacre also did some of the other murders.
The many people who called in to say to go to Seascape indicate that what was going to happen was well known prior to the incident.
The cover up
Martin Bryant did not have a trial, in one of the oddest cases in world history. Martin Bryant had fired his lawyer because his lawyer wanted him to plead guilty, and, after telling police who had done the killings, Martin Bryant's lawyer had asked police (who agreed) to strip 3 pages from their interview, to hide the name of the person who Martin Bryant said had done it. If Martin Bryant was making it up, why would police want it taken from the record? Because it libels him? Libel is not an issue in criminal prosecution and Martin Bryant couldn't be prosecuted for it if he was making it up. It seems odd that it was taken out, a very unusual decision. Why would Martin Bryant retract it when it was something that could have saved him? Unless he was afraid that then he would be released, but would be killed, and would be betraying his friend?
After pleading not guilty the whole time, and going to lengths to try to plead his innocence, in the trial proper, Martin Bryant plead guilty, while representing himself. Why do this? Actually, he didn't. The judge had actually said to him "Do you plead guilty or not guilty?" and Martin Bryant had asked what that meant. The judge then told him to plead guilty, which he did. Did he plead guilty because he was guilty or because he didn't understand what it meant? It could comfortably be argued that Martin Bryant wasn't given a fair trial, because of this. Yet nobody has tried to argue this legally. Perhaps this is because of some of the terms of the suppression order.
In the most extreme suppression order in Australian history, Martin Bryant is forbidden from having any visitors at all. Press is forbidden. Lawyers are forbidden. Anyone who wants to come to see him must get approval from the court first. His mother has been the only person who has come. On top of that, he is not allowed to read any newspaper, listen to any radio or watch any TV. Anyone who talks to him, whether it is his mother, an inmate, or anyone else, is forbidden from talking about anything that is going on in the real world, in particular they are not allowed to talk about anything to do with his case.
The suppression order also involves everyone else. Nobody is permitted to publish any book, TV show, newspaper article, movie or any other form of media, for profit, in relation to this, without first getting explicit permission in a court of law. In other words, it is required by law that absolutely everything published about this supports the official point of view. People can say what they like on the internet about it, which isn't covered because it isn't for profit. This is probably why, at least until 2002, over 95% of the internet discussion about this related to disputing the official point of view. However, with the advent of Wikipedia, Wikipedia has engaged in truth changing over this incident, such that today only 80% of discussion of this incident disputes the official point of view. Wikipedia not only presents the minority perspective, but pretends that the majority perspective doesn't exist.
Australia introduced a new law in the wake of this case, and the fact that Martin Bryant had approximately AU $26 million from his inheritance from friend Helen Harvey, the heir of the Tattersalls fortune (who controls Australia's lottery and various other gambling-related ventures, as well as some hotels and newsagents). Martin Bryant, a multi-millionaire in charge of one of Australia's largest companies, was stripped of all of his money, because of a law that was introduced a year after the Port Arthur massacre, indeed it was implemented after he was already imprisoned for life for the crime. The law said that any person with money who was convicted of a capital offence could have all of their money taken from them.
The stated reason for all of this cover up was because, according to the Australian government, the only reason that Martin Bryant did this horrible crime was because he wanted fame and publicity. Therefore they claimed that by forbidding anyone from talking honestly about it, and taking all of his money from him, they would be able to stop him from getting any fame. The problem is that he gets fame regardless, and he never actually said that he wanted fame.
The new law was introduced after Martin Bryant was imprisoned for life, and applied retrospectively, which is illegal per the Australian constitution. In order for this to be allowed, it required permission from the Queen of England herself. Queen Elizabeth II accepted this, in this unique case, and hence this normally illegal action was permitted. It was nonetheless argued in many legal sections that it set a bad precedent. In effect, you could now be convicted of a crime which, as at when you committed it, was not illegal, something which is obviously unfair.
Truth changing of this article on Wikipedia
The major truth changing with regards to this incident has been on Wikipedia. Because this case has so many suppression orders surrounding it, the only reliable, independent, information about it has been on the internet. Whilst most of this information is contained within various conspiracy theories and the like, in this individual case it contains the most reliable information. Even though the authors may not be reliable, some of their evidence is.
Unfortunately, Wikipedia decided to write an article that was wholly fictional in relation to this incident, with no references whatsoever. Afterwards, they added in references that were not supported in the text - for example making false statements about his mental state with an external link to the psychiatric report, which actually stated the opposite. They also made false statements with regards to the popularity of the official story, falsely claiming that it was accepted by 99.99% of people - even though, to this day over 50% of edits to the article have been to try to dispute the official story.
As a result of this, at the Port Arthur massacre's 10 year anniversary, in 2006, a number of Australian newspapers used Wikipedia's false article as a reference source. Following this, Wikipedia now were able to use these false newspaper reports as references in their own article! In other words, Wikipedia was using itself as a reference for its own lies. They had succeeded in changing truth.
Thanks to Wikipedia's false article on this topic, the internet comments on this topic has changed from less than 5% of the population supporting the official point of view in 2002 to now, in 2008, over 20% of the population supporting the official point of view, per the Google test.
This article represents not only one of Wikipedia's worst and most dangerous articles, but also one which has been guilty of truth changing.
