John Barnett had worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement in 2017.

In the days before his death, he had been giving evidence in a whistleblower lawsuit against the company.

Boeing said it was saddened to hear of Mr Barnett’s passing. The Charleston County coroner confirmed his death to the BBC on Monday.

It said the 62-year-old had died from a “self-inflicted” wound on 9 March and police were investigating.

    • agent_flounder@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Not sure what to make of this chart except that a few items are misplaced imo and I agree conspiracy shit is an alt right pipeline in most cases. Maybe it wasn’t always but whatever.

      Anyhow.

      I haven’t followed up on the news. But there sure wasn’t much available yesterday. So as far as actual reliable evidence we the public have little.

      The guy being dead with an apparent self inflicted wound (as BBC and others said) or gunshot (as Corp Crime Reporter said) during whistleblower court proceedings against a giant company is consistent with suicide from:

      • Stress of the case or from blackmail
      • Stress from something totally unrelated.
      • Some other cause (depression, terminal illness…)

      It is also consistent with:

      • murder made to look like suicide to silence his further testimony and dissuade others

      Any of these is certainly plausible at least. As is Epstein being murdered. Actually, that one is more plausible, given the few suspicious coincidences and the sheer number of people who wanted his secrets to stay that way. Whereas extra-terrestrial UFOs aren’t all that plausible based on our current body of scientific knowledge.

      • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        I agree with pretty much everything you’ve written. The only point I would like to make is that the section where the UFOs sits is the “We Have Questions” section, which is between the “Things That Actually Happened” and “Unequivocally False But Mostly Harmless” sections. I interpret this section as containing things that cannot (as of 2021) be conclusively shown to be true or false. Also note that they’re not even saying ET UFOs, but just UFOs. I think the flying saucer is just for visual flair. If I recall correctly, the person who designed this is/was an actual graphic designer.

        • gila@lemm.ee
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          9 months ago

          Lol, they mustn’t be a great one, because their design seems to have led at least one of y’all to interpret the labels as denoting for the category below, rather than upper/lower bounds between two categories. i.e. things in the blue category above the “speculation line” label are speculative but not yet “leaving reality”

    • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Epstein didn’t kill himself though. The circumstances where above the level of questioning, there were cameras turned off and he was supposedly on suicide watch.

      • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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        9 months ago

        As I much as I also believe that, there is no hard evidence (that we know of) that he didn’t kill himself. I think that’s why it’s in that section. The suspiciousness of it is through the roof, but we can’t prove it.

          • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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            9 months ago

            Right, the chart is far from perfect, but they just grouped them both under the “we have questions” section. We have lots of unresolved questions about Epstein’s death, we have lots of unresolved questions about UFO sightings.

            • Cosmicomical@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              No, I understand we have questions but explaining epstein requires a couple of details, while UFOs require new laws of physics.

              • xapr [he/him]@lemmy.sdf.org
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                9 months ago

                You definitely have a good point. I don’t think the designer probably meant much by it though. It’s only a casual classification.