The Manchester Arena Incident: A disaster killing 22 and injuring 1,037 - or an elaborate hoax? !! NOW INCLUDES EXTRACTS FROM NEW BOOK by Iain Davis !!

I feel sad Rich believes that it never happened,he was so meticulous 
on the Maddie case,did a brilliant series and I think he proved without 
doubt that Maddie was not abducted but died in that apartment.

Which is probably why this has more to do with Madeleine than Manchester.

The BBC had to discredit him somehow, without bringing the McCann Case back up to the surface.

Iain Davis's book, "Manchester Arena Attack", is now out, and I have a pdf. of the whole book.


Iain takes a slightly different approach from Richard, focusing on the hard evidence that the Manchester Arena hoax was an elaborate, meticulously planned hoax. 


I will try and publish here as many extracts as I can, beginning with Chapter 13, 'Fabrication'.      










MANCHESTER AIRPORT ATTACK


by Iain Davis [copyright - always acknowledge Iain Davies if copying elsewhere



Chapter 13: Fabrication


Think of a hoaxed false flag attack as the set of an action movie. The “bombs” that go off on the set look and sound terrifying, but they’re just pyrotechnic devices. Likewise, the deaths and injuries look real, but they’re created by applying moulds or casts—called moulage—to crisis actors. In other words, a hoaxed attack is pure fabrication.
“Fabrication” means[1] “the act of inventing false information in order to deceive someone.” The objective of inventing a fabricated event is to sell a story to the public. The official account that’s presented is what the epistemic authorities call “disinformation”—information purposely designed to deceive the audience. Biased pluralist states are well-versed in staging hoaxed terror attacks. That is, in peddling disinformation.
We’ve already mentioned the fake suicide bombing in Manchester’s Trafford Shopping centre on 10th May 2016. Reporting that training exercise, The Telegraph noted: [2] 800 volunteers [were] recruited to play the dead and wounded. Victims smeared in fake blood were seen running for their lives during the mock-up, while scores more were forced to play dead. As the Trafford exercise approached, Rebekah Sutcliffe, the Assistant Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police (GMP), warned the public about what they could expect to see and hear:
“This exercise is part of a national programme that has been planned extensively for five months. [. . .] Residents in the area may hear loud noises and see emergency services activity around the Trafford Centre during the exercise and I can reassure people that there is no cause for concern.”
In January 2024, the local legacy media in York, a city in the north of England, reported another frightening terror attack: [3]
“As the government minister stepped from his official car outside York Minster [. . .] the scene turned to one of horror, shock and panic. [. . .] A terrorist launched an acid and knife attack. [. . .] As part of what was clearly a coordinated attack, a lorry had been driven into a group of people walking along the Minster piazza. The victims lay crying in agony under the wheels of the HGV. [. . .] The terrorists were already inside York Minster — starting a siege in which all 300 people gathered inside for a candlelit concert were taken hostage.”
The newspaper account then added: “None of this was real. Instead,]it was ‘Exercise Obtundity’, a multiagency operation to test the joint response of the emergency services to a series of terrorist incidents. But often it felt real enough. The gunfire, the screams, the limbless figures under the wheels of the lorry were all too close to reality.”
The hoaxed terrorist attack in York certainly was “all too close to reality,” but not for the reasons suggested by this newspaper journalist. The York journalist suggested the training exercise was “too close to reality” because he thought it convincingly emulated a “real-life” terror attack.


In actuality, some so-called “real” terrorist attacks are hoaxes. The Manchester Arena bombing is an example of a hoaxed false flag terror attack. Such hoaxed attacks are indistinguishable from training exercises like the York terror drill—Exercise Obtundity. Therefore, the York training exercise was even closer to the alleged “reality” of some terror attacks than the journalist realised.


The 2017 Manchester attack was fake through and through, but the state has insisted from day one—from minute one—that it was real. That the deaths arising from the event were real. That the injuries suffered were real.
When a hoaxed false flag is reported as a real terrorist attack it stirs up public panic, just as any reported terrorist attack would. It is as much a psychological operation—psyop—as are MIHOP and LIHOP false flags.
The strategy of tension engendered by a hoaxed false flag is used, just like MIHOPs and LIHOPs, to convince the public to seek refuge in the arms of the state. In the case of a hoax, the only thing required to achieve that end is that the people “believe” the attack to be real.


Ironically, even attacks that are openly reported as drills, or “training exercises,” can be used to generate a similar degree of tension, if to a lesser extent than the tension created by a full-blown hoaxed false flag. Unlike the City of Manchester, which suffered a genuine terrorist attack[4] in
1996, the City of York has never experienced a “real” terrorist attack. So, when it was announced in 2022 that a counter-terrorism urban control and surveillance system was going to be permanent, the people of York expressed their angry disapproval. [5]
But, in the absence of any reason to fear terrorism, this year’s “Exercise Obtundity” overrode those objections and served as a timely reminder to York citizens of why they must accept the state’s restrictions and intrusions.


According to the state, the names for terror training exercises are largely chosen at random. If that is the case, then, given that the people of York were so resistant to the surveillance and urban control “counter-terrorism” measures foisted upon them, the naming of the York terror training drill two
years after the protests began is “ironic.” Obtundity, a word rarely used in the modern English, means[6] “the state of having the senses numbed.”


During a hoaxed terror attack, witnesses taken by surprise are naturally terrified and automatically assume it is real. Undoubtedly, many of “the screams” in Manchester Arena on 22nd May 2017 were uttered by defenceless people who were taken off guard and who panicked. They were petrified by everything they saw, heard, felt, and smelled outside the City Room. The loud bang, the panic, the stampede, the blood, the smoke, the sirens and alarming messages broadcast, and the armed figures roaming around all contributed to convince them that they were under attack by actual terrorists.


But inside the City Room it was a different story. The crisis actors who were operational in the City Room knew there was no bomb. They knew the suicide bombing was a fabrication from start to finish. The subsequent investigation and inquiry not only fabricated evidence but meticulously maintained the illusion of being actual evidence. Even now, seven years later, the legacy media and other members of the epistemic authorities insist that the fabricated, illusory evidence concocted by the state reveals what actually happened. The state continues to make it very clear that no one is allowed to question any of the very sad stories of the victims and witnesses.


Challenging the authenticity of what the victims and their families and eyewitnesses say they experienced is deemed heartless, disloyal, and thus unacceptable. Of course, real terrorist attacks can and do happen. During his investigation, Richard D. Hall highlighted the real Omagh bombing and the real Admiral Duncan pub bombing for reference.


Counter-terrorism preparedness training exercises make perfect sense. Drilling the security services, law enforcement, and emergency services so they can prevent or at least respond effectively to terrorist attacks—in the hope of saving lives—is a sensible precautionary measure. But those same training drills can also be used by the state to practice and execute false flag attacks, whether MIHOPs, LIHOPs, or hoaxes. As we have already discussed, we can’t be sure about the extent to which elements within the state are complicit in terrorist attacks.


For example, the terrorists who conducted the 1993 World Trade Center bombing were so heavily infiltrated by the FBI and the CIA that the CIA later admitted it was “partly culpable” for killing six innocent people, including a seven-months pregnant woman. [7] Counting the unborn baby, many would argue that seven innocent people were killed in that bombing.
The mere fact that biased pluralist states have used hoaxed attacks in the past does not imply that Manchester was also a hoax. But it does mean that suspecting it of being a hoax is by no means “fantastical.”


In fact, as we have seen in the previous chapters, the observable physical evidence confirms our suspicions that Manchester was indeed a hoaxed false flag. Going a step further, what the state and the epistemic authorities produced as physical evidence substantiating a suicide bombing inside the
City Room is so unbelievable that it only further confirms our conclusion that the state is lying.


The state’s alleged evidence was explored, in exacting detail, at the Saunders Inquiry. All the ostensible facts laid out in that inquiry were provided as a result of Operation Manteline, which was the official police investigation into the Manchester suicide bombing. As we shall see, there is
no reason to believe a single piece of so-called evidence produced by Operation Manteline.
The Operation Manteline investigation provided most of the evidence used in the trial of Salman’s younger brother, Hashem Abedi. It consisted primarily of written investigation reports, forensic analysis, and photographic evidence of bomb-making paraphernalia “found” at the flats
supposedly used by Salman and his accomplices.


At the Saunders Inquiry it was said that the Nissan Micra car allegedly used to transport bombmaking materials was “key in the investigation.” A tiny Nissan Micra is a strange choice for transporting anything, let alone drums packed with triacetone triperoxide (TATP). Yet the Micra is
apparently a popular vehicle among terrorists. The 7/7 alleged bombers also supposedly used a Nissan Micra to transport their explosives. [8]


The odd vehicle selection isn’t the only surprising similarity investigators found in these two separate large-scale terrorist attacks in the UK.During the 7/7 investigation, for example, the driving licence and bank card of one of the alleged 7/7 terrorists, Hasib Hussain, were “found” at
Tavistock Square after he was said to have blown himself up on a bus. Likewise, all the other reported 7/7 bombers who supposedly blew themselves up were quickly identified by the personal documents said to have been found among their remains. The devices they used were
generally reported to be massive TATP suicide bombs, though the official
story about the explosive used in the 7/7 attack changed over time.


To give readers a sense of just how ludicrous the 7/7 investigation was, the ID papers of suicide bomber Mohammad Sidique Khan were “found” in three separate locations: Aldgate, Edgware Road, and Tavistock Square. Shehzad Tanweer’s documents were “found” in his wallet at Aldgate. The driving licence, passport, and a certificate of phone insurance all identifying Germaine Maurice Lindsay (aka Abdullah Shaheed Jamal) were “found” at or near the scene of the Piccadilly Line explosion. (Aside: Similar identification documents of suspected terrorists were “found” during the investigation of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the Twin Towers. The New York Times quoted Barry W. Mawn, head of the FBI’s New York office, as saying [9] that “the passport of one hijacker was found today several blocks from the World Trade Center.”)


Back to Manchester: Regardless of the fact that Salman Abedi’s TATP suicide bomb was supposedly so powerful it blew him apart and tossed his entire upper body hundreds of feet through the air, it did not entirely destroy his plastic bank card, which was legible enough for investigators to identify him as the culprit. In fact, during the Saunders Inquiry, an animation[10] presenting Operation Manteline “evidence” showed Salman Abedi’s bank card—badly damaged but displaying his name and Halifax bank account number—resting “close to his body.” Well, close to his torso—specifically, in a corner of the City Room, between the box office and the doors to the concourse. So, while the precise location of the Abedi’s torso—entire upper body—has never been clarified, the Manteline video comports with other reports that attest to the scale of the purported detonation.
Needless to say, the on-the-spot identification of Salman Abedi and his financial details made it a snap for Operation Manteline to “investigate” and “prove” Abedi’s involvement.


The Manteline findings bring into question his terrorist training, showing him to have been neither well-versed in operational tradecraft [11] nor possessing any common sense. Abedi allegedly made other incautious decisions—all of which would have risked his being detected before he even reached the Arena. For instance, he supposedly enticed his cousin to try to buy a large quantity of hydrogen peroxide online through Amazon. Salman’s cousin apparently tried to do so, using an Amazon account in his own name.


As we discussed in Chapter 11, on Day 44 of the Saunders Inquiry, [12] testimony was provided by Mr Robert Gallagher, the forensic and digital investigation manager for the North-West Counter−Terrorism Police. Upon his arrival at approximately 01:35 on 23rd May, Mr Gallagher took over as crime scene manager from the lead investigator at the scene, Detective
Chief Superintendent Simon Barraaclough. We know from his testimony and
CCTV evidence that Mr Gallagher entered the City Room at 01:50.


In his testimony, he said Salman Abedi was formally identified by police at 10.35 hours on 23rd May based on fingerprints taken from the left hand. Mr Gallagher also testified that the blast was enormous and that it shattered the glass ceiling panels some 10 meters above the epicentre of
the blast. He said that one of the panels collapsed on the morning of the 23rd and that the City Room had to be made safe before investigators could continue. His testimony was “confirmed” in numerous legacy media reports, such as this one: [13]
£”When the device was detonated it was so powerful it caused a crater in the arena’s concrete floor and a 23 sq metre (250 sq ft) glass skylight shattered. Repairs to the Arena were able to begin only after Operation Manteline had concluded its investigation of physical evidence at the scene. More than a year later, in July 2018, “significant works” to repair the damage were still supposedly underway.” [14]


Yet photographs published on 23rd May, the day after the Manchester Arena attack, showed completely undamaged glass panel doors leading directly from the City Room. It seems the reportedly immense blast wasn’t capable of cracking even a single pane of glass. [15] Indeed, a few weeks after the bombing, drone footage of the City Room glass ceiling confirmed no evidence of any shattered or missing glass ceiling panels or any sign of repairs having been made.


Though Hall did not consider it significant at the time, during his initial investigation he was contacted by a Manchester resident who told him: “The Manchester Arena event was fake. I have visited the Arena numerous times and still no blast damage to be seen, no tradesmen and skips on site [. . .] and the council cannot tell us who won the contract to repair a blast damaged building. Physical evidence is missing.”


At the Saunders Inquiry, images were presented purporting to show a shrapnel-strewn floor, blast-damaged doors, and other signs of structural damage consistent with a shrapnel bombing. The inquiry accepted these images as evidence that a TATP suicide bomb had blown up inside the City
Room. The inexplicable discrepancy between the official evidence and reality only emerges when we realise that none of the claimed damage is observable in either the Parker photo or the Barr footage. [16]


The Parker photo and the Barr footage both show the immediate aftermath of the alleged Manchester Arena bombing. They provide an indisputable record of the observable physical evidence inside the City Room no more than five minutes after the “bomb” supposedly exploded. They show—within the field of view—all the structural damage that can possibly be
attributed to a shrapnel bomb detonated by Salman Abedi.


When we look at the Parker photo and the Barr footage it is abundantly clear that there is no observable structural damage. There are eight key aspects of the physical evidence which collectively prove that a TATP bomb did not detonate inside the City Room.


(1) A bright bank of lights is observable over the doors between the City Room and the concourse. The physical evidence shows that the lights closest to the so-called epicentre of the blast were still working after the bang. In fact, all the lights were still working. This would make no sense if a
massive, shrapnel-laden TATP suicide bomb had exploded about ten metres away from those lights. After all, what bomb of this size and type cannot damage a single light no more than ten metres away in an enclosed room?
(2) The Operation Manteline cartoon doesn’t show the merchandise stall located near the wall opposite the City Room mezzanine. Perhaps the animators thought it was damaged in the blast? If so, they were misled by someone. In the Barr footage, the flimsy merchandise stall—probably made from lightweight aluminium or some other insubstantial construction material—is clearly visible and entirely intact.
This merchandise stall was supposedly just six to eight metres from the epicentre of a devastating shrapnel bomb blast—that is, even closer than the bank of lights. Abedi’s suicide bomb should have blown the stall to smithereens four or five minutes before Mr Barr videoed the scene. One has to wonder why the merchandise stall is depicted as missing or destroyed in the Operation Manteline cartoon.


Please take a look for yourself. In the image above—recorded by Mr Barr—we can see an objective fact: The merchandise stall was not struck by any shrapnel or blast from a bomb. All its cardboard and paper presentation boards and bags and T-shirts lie undisturbed, neatly folded and lined up on
their little pin fixings, still attached to pristine presentation stands on the feeble merchandise stall.
This frame is proof that, after the bang, the merchandise stall was as intact as it was prior to the bang. The merchandise stall was within the ten-metre blast radius, where destruction from the reported bomb should have been most devastating. No shrapnel bomb capable of killing 22 people and seriously injuring at least another thirty-eight could have gone off anywhere near this merchandise stall.


It is curious why City Room eyewitness David Lambert said of the scene: [16] “As we were going out, we looked to our left, and we saw half a body, or a torso or something. [. . .] We walked past where the merchandise stand had been earlier on [. . .] and as we walked out there was police
and ambulances.” In an interview recorded by the BBC, Mr Lambert spoke about how he and
his son were among the last to leave the main Arena and head toward the exits. He gave account of people leaving the main Arena, going on to the concourse and seeing “body parts everywhere.”


If that were true, as all bomb damage was confined to the City Room, then it meant that people
lost body parts in the stampede. But there is no CCTV evidence of any body parts on the concourse.
According to Mr Lambert, he entered the City Room from the concourse shortly after the “bomb” had exploded. At that time the merchandise stall was still in situ and completely undamaged. Thus, regardless of what Mr Lambert thinks he saw, the observable physical evidence thoroughly
disproves his account.


It is notable that Mr Lambert also said he saw “a torso or something.” The location of these remains would later become a highly contentious issue. We’ll discuss it in a moment.


Similarly, Josie Howarth—sixty-one years old at the time—was said to have suffered multiple shrapnel injuries and reportedly spent five weeks in hospital following the attack. She recounted:
“We’d been sat waiting for the concert to end on some steps near the entrance. When the music stopped we stood up and went towards the foyer. Then the next thing I know, there was an explosion and the merchandise stand blew to pieces.”


Evidently, like David Lambert’s, her account cannot possibly be true either. (3) In the Barr footage, we see no notable volume of shrapnel debris visible anywhere. Had a shrapnel bomb gone off, a considerable proportion of Abedi’s 29.26kg of metal nuts and 1.47kg of screws and cross dowels
would have been evident. Nothing of the sort is observable in Mr Barr’s video. What looks like scraps of black cloth can be seen in the Barr footage, possibly from a shredded rucksack. This material is as consistent with a large pyrotechnic device exploding in said rucksack as it is with a shrapnel bomb exploding in the same black rucksack.


While we cannot see the whole of the City Room, the view in both the Parker photo and the Barr footage is directed toward the epicentre of the “blast.” The entirety of the ten-metre blast radius is observable. We should see within that radius the most significant proportion of the damage caused
by the alleged bomb. But we don’t see any. (4)


In the BBC “Manchester: The Night of the Bang” documentary, a witness named Darren Buckley spoke of seeing Abedi’s lower body in the City Room: “We seen the bomber he were just erm literally ripped in two cos I remember seeing his guts on the floor and stuff, do you know what I
mean, but there was no top part of a body.” The grisly details Buckley described are what we would expect to see in the Parker photo and the Barr footage. But no gruesome carnage fitting his
description can be seen in either. Granted, the BBC footage, while blurred, looks a bit like a bomb scene, in that there is certainly some visible debris. However, the same debris is not present in the Barr footage. This additional debris suggests that the BBC footage was shot shortly after the Barr footage. (5)


There are large undisturbed posters hanging on the walls shown in the Barr footage. Whether they are made of thin plastic or perhaps even paper, they are frail. Yet none of them have been damaged or even disturbed—not a single mark or an inch of movement is evident. (6) Since there is no observable physical evidence of any structural damage—to the lighting or to the lightweight merchandise stall or to the thin posters or to the floor or to anything else—in either the Parker photo or the Barr footage, how is it possible that Mr Gallagher told the Saunders Inquiry that he recollected having seen apparent shrapnel damage on a box office window?


Mr Gallagher was asked, “[T]o your eye, it bore the resemblance of gunshots?” To which he replied, “[From] experience in other crime scenes that I’ve attended over my career, it looked like gunshots had hit that window because of the fragmentation and the view of it.” This is an
interesting observation, considering we know from all the observable physical evidence that there could not have been a TATP shrapnel bomb detonated by Salman Abedi. (7) In the Barr footage, taken less than five minutes after the bang, the white double doors with the blue kick plate that lead to the hospitality suite can clearly be seen. They had sustained no damage and looked as pristine as
as the merchandise stall, the lights, the floor, the walls, and the posters—all captured by Mr Barr’s video camera.


Yet, as you can see in the image below, by the time we got to the Saunders Inquiry, the same doors to the hospitality suite were, according to Operation Manteline investigators, somehow peppered with holes allegedly caused by shrapnel. How is this possible? This proves that evidence of a shrapnel bombing was fabricated. No more than five minutes after the alleged “blast” there was no primary evidence of any damage sustained to the hospitality suite doors. That “damage” was manufactured at a later stage and then presented to the official inquiry as if it were caused by a TATP shrapnel bomb. (8)
Similarly, physical evidence of shrapnel-damaged walls was entered into evidence at the Saunders Inquiry. Yet none of that damage—to the same walls—can be seen in either the Parker photo or the Barr footage. Again, this constitutes observable physical proof of the fabrication of evidence.
Taking these eight points into consideration, we don’t know how or when all of the apparent structural damage occurred. But one thing we can say with certainty is that none of it was present within the first five minutes after the bang.


Thus, we can confidently deduce that the so-called observable physical evidence that supposedly proves the biased pluralist state’s official account of the Manchester Arena bombing is fake. We can further deduce that someone (or several someones) had the task of creating the false impression that a shrapnel bomb had exploded inside the City Room. We can say, too, based on what the real observable physical evidence reveals, the pretend damage was manufactured sometime after the bang. In sum, what the Operation Manteline evidence actually shows is that the Manchester Arena bombing was fabricated—proof of a hoaxed false flag that was planned, executed, and covered up by the elements within the state.


Many witnesses reported smoke and a bad smell in the arena near the City Room. Jordan Kenney was among those who noted, “[T]here was smoke from a bomb, a bomb creates smoke and mess.” Certainly, if you want to convince people that a bomb has exploded, then you need to provide the
smoke they would expect to see. Never mind that the TATP explosive allegedly used at the scene doesn’t create any smoke! But that’s not the point. Smoke was probably considered necessary to complete the illusion.


Hall later identified where that smoke was apparently coming from. And another excellent independent researcher, the pseudonymous Pighooey, conducted some further analysis[18] of said “smoke.” Both Hall and Pighooey noted, using solely the official CCTV record presented at the inquiry, the “smoke” was evidently not emanating from the so-called blast site. Something on the opposite side of the City Room, near the mezzanine stairs—unerringly redacted from every relevant CCTV frame shown at the inquiry—appears to be the single source of the “smoke.” Whether it was smoke or not, something was continually emitting fumes of what looked to be smoke for more than two hours. Needless to say, the source of this fake “smoke” (from a fake “bomb”) is not mentioned
anywhere in the official account.


It is plausible, even likely, that a smoke machine or similar device was placed in the City Room to artificially create the impression of smoke from a bomb. Once more, the observable physical evidence is more consistent with a hoax than a real bomb. One of the reported victims of the hoax, Ruth Murrell, said she experienced the “horrible smell of fireworks.” This was reminiscent of Mr Kenney’s observation of a “bad smell.” For the record, TATP smells nothing like fireworks. It has a fruity, acetone like smell. Pyrotechnic devices, on the other hand, often do smell like fireworks.


That said, it is entirely possible that the same machine emitting some vapour that looked like smoke was also emitted a nasty smell. The physical evidence that Operation Manteline investigators provided of a bombing inside the City Room must have been fabricated after the “bomb” had supposedly exploded. Therefore, there is no observable physical evidence of any TATP explosion. Explosive samples taken later and subsequently analysed, along with alleged discoveries of bomb-making equipment in the following days, are all utterly irrelevant, not to mention
suspicious.


These discoveries and forensic analysis reports do not confirm that a TATP shrapnel bomb exploded inside the City Room. Even so, plenty of alleged secondary evidence was discussed at the inquiry. It supposedly revealed that Salman Abedi had participated in the manufacture of the said TATP shrapnel bomb. But this secondary evidence did not comport with any of the observable primary evidence at the scene. Instead, the primary evidence shows a large pyrotechnic device was used.
Expert witness testimony was provided by Ms Lorna Philp, the principal case officer at the UK forensic explosive laboratory. She said that Abedi’s alleged suicide bomb caused “a large explosion." Ms Philp, who also testified in the Hashem Abedi trial, said in no uncertain terms:
[19] “TATP [. . .] was the explosive used at the Manchester Arena.”


Ultimately, Ms Philps testimony was immaterial. Not only was the bombing fabricated but the primary observable physical evidence demonstrates that the explosive used was not TATP. Verified dash cam footage taken from a vehicle parked nearby shows the bright flash[20] of a device exploding. Bright flashes are wholly inconsistent with a TATP explosion. TATP is an entropic explosive[21] that emits no heat, light, or smoke when it explodes. Nearly all its energy is converted into a loud shock wave. This is confirmed by Ehud Keinan, [22] professor of chemistry at Haifa Technion, Israel: “Although TATP does burn when it is set alight, releasing large volumes
of [colourless] carbon dioxide and water, it appears that very little heat is created when it explosively decomposes.”


Not only do we have primary observable physical evidence of the bright flash, we also have numerous witness accounts describing blinding light, intense heat, fireballs, smoke, and many other aspects of an explosion—all of which rule out the possibility that TATP was used. Here are just a few of the witness testimonies, some of which were provided at the Saunders Inquiry: [23]


“And then, a massive flash of light. And I mean, it was like, you knowm sheet lightening? It was like that. Filled the whole room. [. . .]”
“And the heat, was just unbelievable. [. . .]”
“I just remember feeling really hot. All of a sudden, I was like really, really hot and I felt loads of heat. [. . .]”
“This warm gush of air hit me and I remember that it just felt really warm. [. . .]”
“I could only see orange in my field of sight. It felt like a flash. [. . .]”
“A crack bang, and a flash, and of course the impact and the energy, gave you a knock. And smoke, like a pinky smoke. [. . .]
“I would describe it, if you seen the film Backdraught, it was a big white flash. [. . .]”
“The first thing I remember was a bright flash, really bright. [. . .]”
“A bang, the loudest I have ever heard and a flash. [. . .]”
“The brightest flash I have ever seen in my life. [. . .]”
“An orange flash, like a firework gives off, a bit like a firework kind of colour. [. . .]”
“A wash of orange light, surrounding the room. [. . .]”
“Flames, rolled. [. . .]”
“Thick black smoke. [. . .]”
“WMy initial thought was that it was a thunderflash, which is a pyrotechnic device used in the army to simulate explosions.”


All these descriptions of the explosion are consistent with the observable physical evidence seen in the dash cam video. They all largely corroborate each other. They all describe what you might expect to see and feel if a large “pyrotechnic device” was set off. None of these corroborated witness accounts are consistent with the use of TATP. As the shrapnel damage was fabricated, it is a practical certainty that the TATP samples were fabricated too. There is no physical evidence of a TATP shrapnel bomb exploding inside the City Room at 22:31:00 on 22^nd May 2017. Even the official timestamp for the bang is contradicted by the observable physical evidence. In short, the idea—promoted in official written accounts and inquiry reports and legacy media stories and by the claims of witnesses—that a massive TATP shrapnel bomb exploded inside the City Room—is not only unsupported by any primary evidence but all the primary evidence refutes it.
It is possible that the compartmentalized, hierarchical nature of this state conspiracy prevented the majority of Operation Manteline investigators from knowing they were participating in a hoax. After all, there were an estimated 1,000 police officers, National Crime Agency officers, and other
staff working on Manteline. A small number of people must have been involved in the conspiracy—and must have planted the fabricated evidence within the first hour or so after the bang. But we have no idea exactly when that was done—or by whom.


We can surmise that since the shrapnel damage was fabricated, every other piece of evidence reportedly “found” in the City Room that night was probably planted at the same time. We may even be talking about planted human remains, for all we know. Think about it: After the “victims” were removed from the scene, the investigators who entered the City Room could have encountered what looked to them like bomb damage, even if it was surprisingly minimaldamage. Similarly, the investigators who “discovered” the flats where the bomb was allegedly manufactured and who “found” the Nissan Micra could only assume that the evidence they “found” was related to terrorist activity. The bomb factory evidence was probably planted by another agency of the
state.


Another possibility is that the terrorists themselves were state assets and were party to the fabrication of evidence. Certainly, Abedi knew he wasn’t going to be detonating a TATP shrapnel bomb at the Arena. He and his fellow terrorists could have agreed to create a mock bomb factory for
investigators to find. For all these reasons we can safely reject the Operation Manteline
evidence. As secondary evidence, it was wrong. It contradicted the most important evidence—the primary evidence, the crime scene evidence. The subsequent “crime scene” evidence discussed at the inquiry was obviously fabricated. Thus, the entire Operation Manteline investigation was
fundamentally flawed from the outset. But that fact in no way suggests the majority of investigators involved were “in on” the hoaxed false flag conspiracy.


In the course of his investigation, Hall received a “leaked” audio recording of police ommunications. [24] This primary audio evidence covers from approximately 22:44 on 22nd May to around 00:02 on 23rd May. We’ll call this leaked audio the “police chatter” recording. At approximately 23:06—22 minutes into the police chatter—Inspector Mike Smith, who arrived in the City Room at 22:47, said:
“I think we may well have found our er, our, er bomber. [. . .] He’s very dead, completely er, complete explosion on his body. There’s plenty of bolts and nuts and things around where he was. So, he’s actually outside Block 106 in the Arena foyer. [. . .] I’ll seal the doors that are open, that’s probably where the explosion has gone in to there.”


How does the police chatter compare with other evidence? If we look at the
CCTV camera stills provided at the inquiry, we can see that each image was accompanied by text that was written by investigators. The CCTV image captured at 22:49 in the concourse, close to the City Room doors, is accompanied by the following text:


“A large number of people have gathered at one of the entrances/exits from the Arena concourse into the City Room. This is the location GMP Insp Michael Smith was seen walking towards a few moments ago. “


The “large number of people” the text refers to were stood at the precise location where Insp Smith claims he found Abedi’s disembodied torso. The CCTV image describes Smith approaching that location at least seventeen minutes before he reported finding Abedi’s alleged remains. Here is where the apparent confusion about Abedi’s body placement begins. We heard Insp Smith state in the leaked audio that the torso was in the Arena foyer, i.e., inside the City Room. But in that same audio he said the body was outside Block 106. His second statement places the body in
the concourse, suggesting it was blasted through the doors between the City Room and the concourse.


It is possible that Smith was incorrectly referring to the concourse as “the Arena foyer.” The other possibility is that he was suggesting that Abedi’s upper body was lying in an open doorway, still inside the City Room (foyer) but opposite Block 106. Either way, Insp Smith’s account is not supported by the observable physical evidence. The image above is of the City Room doors that were referenced by Insp Smith in the leaked audio. It was captured on CCTV from the concourse at
22:42—approximately eleven minutes after the bang and around twenty- four minutes before Insp Smith reported finding Abedi’s mangled torso. The area where the remains were said to have been found is highlighted with the oval white line. As you can see, there is no sign of Abedi’s upper body at that spot.


Let's compare it to a second image—taken of the opposite side of the same doors—captured by the BBC footage[25] below. This BBC image was taken inside the City Room shortly after the bang. Granted, the video still image quality is poor but, again, there is no sign of Abedi’s torso. Other witnesses, such as Darron Coster, a former military policeman with 22 years of service behind him, claimed to have seen Abedi’s torso lying in or near the same doorway.


A few months before Mr Coster lost his life in a motorcycle accident, he told the Saunders Inquiry:
“I tried to close the doors because I could see the suicide bomber’s body. I didn’t want anyone seeing that. [. . .] His torso was through the doors and he had no legs. I couldn’t see a rucksack.”


Imagine the gore and blood splatter caused by a disembodied human torso being hurled through the air, being spun through a doorway, and landing in a gruesome, bloody heap of flesh. And as you picture it, remember the witness testimony of Darren Buckley, who said that when Abedi was ripped apart, his innards flew out. One would think, based on the statement of Insp Smith, the CCTV footage, the BBC footage, and Darren Buckley’s remark, that blood splatter would
be observable where the torso was reportedly found. Yet there is not a drop of blood to be seen in that spot. The doors are clean, sans splatter or smears.


Moreover, if a mangled human head and torso were lying outside Block 106 or, more precisely perhaps, in the open doorway opposite Block 106, the people queuing for the bar at Block 108 and the people wandering along the concourse outside Block 106 (as seen in the Bickerstaff video[26]) would have noticed. The passers-by would have reacted visibly and volubly to the presence of a
bloody torso. If the original intention was to maintain both the alleged discovery location of Abedi’s torso and the story of Mr Bickerstaff filming himself after the bang, a mutually exclusive contradiction would have been inserted in the official account.


This may perhaps explain why Mr Bickerstaff’s video has been all but ignored by the biased pluralist state. It should be key evidence. Mr Bickerstaff is a crucial eyewitness. Yet, as with the evidence provided by he Barr photos, no state official or investigator has ever shown any notable
interest either in Mr Bickerstaff’s testimony or in the observable physical evidence he captured on video.


As we discussed in Chapter 11, a number of legacy media outlets, perhaps most notably The New York Times, also reported Abedi’s body being blown through the doors. It seems feasible the police chatter was also “leaked” to them. According to the official account, some of the white doors with the blue kick plates were already open. Concert-goers—Mr Hibbert for example—were said to have passed through the doors either immediately before or at the time of the explosion. However, there are credible witness testimonies contradicting the official account and saying that people were stopped from going through those doors before the bang. It seems these eyewitness accounts were deliberately ignored in the Kerslake Report.


Nevertheless, according to Insp Smith and others, Abedi’s torso was found either in or near an open doorway. Later, the reported location for the discovery of Abedi’s torso seemed to shift around quite a lot, but let’s stick with Smith’s earliest account for a moment. The UK biased pluralist state was acutely sensitive on the subject of the stated location of the torso. After The New York Times article reported Insp Smith’s claims[27] and wrote that Abedi’s “upper torso was heaved outside,” that article—along with the release of other evidence reportedly “found” at the scene—caused a diplomatic spat. The UK legacy media said there was “fury in Whitehall” over the revelation from the US-based newspaper—a revelation that was picked up and churned by some UK outlets.
The kerfuffle caused the UK National Counter Terrorism Policing organisation to issue a statement:
[28]
“We greatly value the important relationships we have with our trusted intelligence, law enforcement and security partners around the world. [. . .] When that trust is breached it undermines these relationships, and undermines our investigations and the confidence of victims,
witnesses and their families.”


UK Home Secretary Amber Rudd was reportedly furious. Prime Minister Theresa May, too, expressed her anger. It appeared the “leak” could only have come from UK investigators at the
scene—unless US intelligence agencies were involved and were the source of the “leak.” The statement issued by the UK National Counter Terrorism Policing organisation seems to suggest that possibility. Why else would the “leak” have been considered a breach of trust between UK and
US intelligence agencies? President Trump felt the need to apologise for the breach. He attacked the
reports of the evidence of a “leak,” calling them a “grave threat to national
security” and adding: [29]


“Innocent little girls and so many others were horribly murdered and badly injured whilst attending a concert. [. . .] It was a barbaric and vicious attack upon our civilisation. [. . .] All people who cherish life must unite in finding, exposing and removing these killers and extremists.”


Like Rudd, May, and UK media, Trump’s responses didn’t confront the actual evidence. Instead, he deployed the propaganda technique of appeal to emotion. He even alluded to Samuel P. Huntington’s[30] “clash of civilisations” theory. The message came through loud and clear: everyone “must unite,” wholeheartedly embrace the narrative, identify the “enemy” and never question the “barbaric and vicious attack” story. All the leaked evidence that was supposedly so upsetting to the UK state was later presented by Operation Manteline during the official inquiry. Even the possibility of a remote detonator was discussed. The only aspect of The
New York Times’ initial report that was completely excluded—and later obfuscated—from the official inquiry, was Insp Smith’s report on the location of Abedi’s torso.


Despite being the first police officer to purportedly find and precisely locate Abedi’s upper body remains, Insp Smith’s account wasn’t mentioned even once during the inquiry. Instead, details of the body’s alleged placement came from Mr Gallagher. [31] And that was only a question, not a statement. Mr Gallagher was asked to confirm the Abedi's lower body was found “near to the seat of the explosion” and his torso and head “close to the arena box office.”


The leak may well have been issued by the state in the early stages in the hope of strengthening the official account. If so, it appears, at least in retrospect, to have been a genuine “mistake.” In truth, the notion that Abedi’s body was blown outside of the City Room or landed in an open
doorway was extremely inconvenient for the state’s narrative. If Abedi’s torso lay where Insp Smith said he found it, as the crowd fled the Arena, many hundreds of people would also have seen it. There would have been, at a minimum, tens, possibly hundreds, of eyewitnesses instead of the tiny handful who claimed to have witnessed it. Smith’s body placement story could not be maintained as a credible component of the official account. Hence, the significant muddying of the waters on the issue. The reported diplomatic debacle looks like hasty backtracking and a cover story


Following an unusual coronial inquest process—we’ll cover this in Chapter 16—the Saunders Inquiry concluded: [32]
“The deceased [Salman Abedi] died at 22:31 on 22/05/2017 in the City Room of the Manchester Arena in the Victoria Exchange Complex in Manchester. The deceased died near to the entrance doors to the Manchester Arena.”


A final thought on the torso. It is highly likely the alleged initial discovery of Abedi’s body by Insp Smith was another element of the fabricated story. There is no reason to rule out the possibility that a human torso was later planted at the scene for investigators to find. But evidently those remains
were not where Insp Smith said they were when he made his report. This obviously raises questions about whether Salman Abedi intended to commit suicide.


Once we realise that the evidence provided by the Operation Manteline investigation is wholly untrustworthy and cannot be considered remotely reliable, there is no remaining evidence to suggest
Abedi tried to kill himself—or that he succeeded!


There is considerable evidence, on the other hand, suggesting that the City Room was a tightly controlled space for at least an hour following the bang. It appeared that the emergency response to the so-called disaster scene was extremely limited. Even the legacy media described the minimal
response as “bizarre.”


Hall diligently pieced together Abedi’s movements and found highly suspicious anomalies and contradictions in the evidence offered by the state. These anomalies and contradictions point to the near certainty that Abedi did not kill himself but instead fled the scene. As ever, the only way to know what happened is to examine the evidence.