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Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

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Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#61

Post by LoganCale »

TechNewb wrote: post #52
snowwrestler wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Foul play is always a possibility, but it takes evidence to make it real. All we have now is a car crash, a reporter working on a story, and an email. There are lots of car crashes, and lots of reporters working on big stories--many on the same stories Hastings was pursuing. We can't rule out foul play but I'm not ready, personally, to rule it in either. There's just not enough there.

Is it known what story he was pursuing?

The subject of his email was "FBI Investigation, re: NSA". Don't know if the investigation is the same as his big story, however.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#62

Post by mindcrime »

wyck wrote: post #14
corresation wrote: post #5

Another possibility is that he had a nervous breakdown or substance abuse episode, leading to both the paranoid emails and the irrational vehicle operations. Obviously I'm not saying that's the case, but the extremely irrational driving goes fits a theory of paranoid delusions (brought on by any number of mechanisms), just as the hacked car system goes with about to uncover something big.

This first question that comes to mind is what was he doing driving at 4:30 in the morning. His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before? Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

There was a lot of discussion about various aspects of how cars behave when they crash, in a previous thread. But, speaking as a former firefighter, the tl/dr; is "cars do sometimes catch fire and burn when they crash". Hollywood style explosions don't normally happen, and car fires resulting from wrecks don't always happen, or even happen terribly often at all in my experience, but they are far from unheard of.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#63

Post by [deleted] »

tcdent wrote: post #28
wyck wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This first question that comes to mind is what was he doing driving at 4:30 in the morning. His friends describe him as a "grandma diver" so why was he driving so fast and blowing red lights on a residential street? Did he ever display this type of behaviour before? Another question is.. how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly.

> how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly? I always wonder about this, it's not like a car fire is anything like hollywood makes it out to be.

[deleted]

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#64

Post by beedogs »

eridius wrote: post #53
glasz wrote: post #19

while this story is about a week old and got lost in all this nsa nonsense, listen to what mr. hastings said before his death. even on tv. i am german and i can tell you that a mercedes benz DOES NOT just blow up and spit its engine 100yd down the street. the car wasn't even really against the tree... sometimes you just need to apply a little grain of common sense, ppl.

I never even heard of Michael Hasting's death before today, so I don't have an opinion yet, but I find it hilarious that someone who is implying that a conspiracy is at work here is telling everyone to "apply a little grain of common sense". Conspiracy theories are not common sense.

... says who?

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#65

Post by cloverich »

DigitalSea wrote: post #46
snowwrestler wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how conspiracy theories are promulgated: propose an preposterous alternate reality and then find real facts wanting in comparison. In this case the alternate reality is that it is "impossible" to crash recent model year Mercedes unless you intend to. This is obviously preposterous since it's not hard to find reports of such crashes with 5 minutes on Google.

It's not impossible to crash any car, the alternate reality here is that a brand new car with more safety features than a padded cell crashed by itself at 4:30am in the morning into a tree and exploded on impact. The point is these cars are built to try and avoid these kind of accidents at all cost, the plethora of safety features cars like these have makes it a lot more difficult than say an early 00's vehicle crash…

So I know almost nothing of the circumstances of the crash, but I think there is more to consider. For instance, how fast was he going? My 2006 accord is much safer than some car from the 1950's. But also, I get 260-hp out of a 3 liter engine, and its faster than a Mustang GT from the 90's. If you hit a tree going 90mph, there's little a bunch of airbags will do for you. People dying, things exploding, parts flying - how strange that is really depends on the circumstances of the crash I'd argue.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#66

Post by wavefunction »

jlgreco wrote: post #48
tcdent wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how does a well made car burst into flames so quickly? I always wonder about this, it's not like a car fire is anything like hollywood makes it out to be.

Cars can catch fire in real life: http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=54e_1333912420 See also: Ryan Dunn's 911, post-tree. Hollywood may exaggerate the rate at which that happens, but not much more.

Ryan Dunn was driving at 130mph when he hit that tree. Not a great example for your position...

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#67

Post by dchuk »

DigitalSea wrote: post #46
snowwrestler wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how conspiracy theories are promulgated: propose an preposterous alternate reality and then find real facts wanting in comparison. In this case the alternate reality is that it is "impossible" to crash recent model year Mercedes unless you intend to. This is obviously preposterous since it's not hard to find reports of such crashes with 5 minutes on Google.

It's not impossible to crash any car, the alternate reality here is that a brand new car with more safety features than a padded cell crashed by itself at 4:30am in the morning into a tree and exploded on impact. The point is these cars are built to try and avoid these kind of accidents at all cost, the plethora of safety features cars like these have makes it a lot more difficult than say an early 00's vehicle crash…

How can you possibly assert that the car "crashed by itself" and not because the driver did any number of things to yank the steering wheel and throw the car out of control?

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#68

Post by unclebucknasty »

skwirl wrote: post #44
sage_joch wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, we really don't know. But I'm extremely uncomfortable by the fact that foul play is a real possibility. We already know that the federal government is operating largely in secret and without regard to the law (their insistence that are indeed following their own secret set of laws doesn't provide me much solace). We already know that various press organizations have been wiretapped. I feel like I've woken up in…

It is a huge leap from the revelations of late and a world where the government goes around killing journalists. When your parents confided to you that Santa Claus wasn't real, you didn't suddenly become adopted too. Chill out and reacquaint with reality.

Reality? To which reality are you referring? How are you so certain what the reality here is or is not? How is your version of reality any more or less likely to be the truth?

So, no one has proven what happened. That cuts both ways. And that's the point: there are unanswered questions. No one is stating for a fact that foul play was involved. People are merely asking questions. And, given the plausibility of foul play and the incredibly mind-blowing implications if there was foul play, it is much more rational to ask questions than to summarily dismiss out of hand that it is worth asking questions, or to ridicule those who do.

Your post doesn't come off as clever. It just seems thoughtless and unserious.

Re: Michael Hastings Sent Panicked Email Hours Before Car Crash

#70

Post by ScottBurson »

DigitalSea wrote: post #18

How does a 2013 model Mercedes Benz with a five star ANCAP safety rating (the highest rating you can get) scoring 35.51 points scored out of 37 (an Australian car safety rating for reference) with more airbags than wheels (8 airbags for those of you playing at home including a curtain airbag that drops in-front of the passenger and driver protecting the head and upper-body from impacting anything) crash into a tree w…

The engine came out of the car and was thrown some distance along the sidewalk.

I don't know how fast you'd have to be going to make that happen, but I would guess 70 or 80 mph.

One possibility suggested upthread is that he fell asleep while driving, and given that it was 4:30am I think we have to admit that that is entirely plausible. The weight of his leg could have pressed the accelerator, and in a car like that he could have been doing 70 pretty quickly.

Of course it's not hard to come up with darker possibilities if you want to. He was drugged... his car was tampered with... whatever. I can't rule these out entirely, and under the circumstances I agree that skepticism and further investigation are warranted, but if I had to bet right now, I'd wager he just fell asleep.

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