This web site was started on November 22, 2001 to keep track of facts related to the anthrax attacks which had become a major news event during the previous month.  I found that most people only wanted to discuss beliefs, opinions and conspiracy theories.  I wanted to see what the facts said.  Plus, news stories were appearing and then being deleted, and I needed a place to retain the articles which contained new information.  So, for the next seven years I accumulated facts and references and analyzed all the data I could find.  In March of 2005, I even self-published a book describing what the first three years of my analysis had found. 

On August 1, 2008, the news broke that the person the FBI believed to be the anthrax mailer had committed suicide.  His name was Dr. Bruce Ivins, and he worked at the USAMRIID labs at Ft. Detrick, MD.

The conspiracy theorists and True Believers who had argued their beliefs and opinions for the prior seven years were not persuaded by the FBI's evidence.  They continue to argue their beliefs and opinions, claiming that the FBI cannot prove Dr. Ivins was guilty.  After all, if the FBI was right, that would mean they have been wrong for seven years.  And that couldn't be, even though they don't even agree with each other about key facts:

Some still believe al Qaeda was behind the attacks.
Some still believe Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks
Some still believe a vast Jewish conspiracy was behind the attacks.
Some still believe the Bush administration was behind the attacks.
Some still believe the CIA was behind the attacks.
Some still believe pharmaceutical companies were behind the attacks.
Some still believe a writer was behind the attacks in order to sell books.
Some still believe Dr. Steven Hatfill was behind the attacks.
Some still believe a different scientist was behind the attacks.
Some still believe that a military person was behind the attacks.
Some still believe their next door neighbor was behind the attacks.

Some still believe the attack spores were "weaponized" with silica or silicon and that anyone who says otherwise is either lying or incompetent.  They still believe there must be some vast criminal conspiracy to cover up the real facts, because they simply do not believe anything the government - and particularly the FBI - says.

Some still believe that Dr. Ivins did not have the ability to make the attack anthrax. 

And, perhaps most bizarre of all, some still believe that there is some similarity between the "investigation" of Dr. Hatfill (who was eventually exonerated) and the investigation of Dr. Ivins.  The facts show that the two cases could not be more different.  The Hatfill "investigation" was purely political and based upon "tips" from conspiracy theorist scientists who claimed the FBI was "covering up" for Dr. Hatfill when the FBI's investigation found nothing to tie him to the mailings.  The Ivins investigation, on the other hand, was the result of years of detailed scientific analysis followed by an equally detailed criminal investigation.

The Case Against Dr. Ivins

The facts say that Dr. Ivins was the anthrax mailer:

1.  He was in charge of the RMR-1029 flask containing the "mother" spores which produced the attack anthrax "daughter" spores.

2.  The FBI investigated everyone else who had access to the RMR-1029 flask and eliminated all of them as suspects.  Eliminating potential suspects is routine police procedure.

3.  He had worked with Bacillus anthracis for over 20 years and had all the necessary expertise and equipment to prepare the spores in the anthrax letters.

4.  He accessed the locked room (lab B3) where the RMR-1029 flask of spores was stored at the times the attack anthrax would have been prepared.

5.  He worked alone and unsupervised in his lab for long hours at night and on weekends during the time the attack anthrax would have been prepared.

6.  He had no scientific reason or verifiable explanation for working those hours or at those times.

7.  In December of 2001, Dr. Ivins secretly swabbed and bleached more than 20 areas in his lab that he said he suspected were contaminated by a sloppy lab technician. 

8.  Investigators examined another flask of Ames anthrax spores created by Dr. Ivins for his own use in his work and found that a percentage of the spores in flask RMR-1030 contained silicon just like what was in the attack spores.

9.  It was not commonplace for him to work long evening hours in lab B3 before the anthrax attacks or in the months after the anthrax attacks.  His long hours in B3 at that time broke his normal work pattern.

10.  He had multiple motives for sending the anthrax letters.

11.  He tried various ways to mislead investigators when they started to suspect him.

12.  He had no verifiable alibi for the times when he could have driven to New Jersey to mail the letters.

13.  He was known to drive long distances and to use various methods to mail letters and packages so they could not be traced back to him.

14.  He had various connections to the New Jersey area where the anthrax letters were mailed.

15.  He had serious mental problems, which appear to include murderous impulses.

16.  The pre-stamped envelopes which were used in the attacks had print defects, and one of the post offices which sold those envelopes was a post office which Dr. Ivins used.

17.  His wife ran a day care center at the time of the attacks, Ivins had many contacts with children, and the facts indicate that a child of about 6 was used to do the actual writing on the anthrax letters.

18.  Investigations found no evidence that someone other than Dr. Ivins sent the letters.

19.  There is no evidence that Dr. Ivins could not possibly have sent the anthrax letters.

20.  People commit suicide to escape justice.  People who are unfairly accused sue their tormenters.

There may also be other facts pointing to Dr. Iving which have not yet been disclosed by the FBI.  The case has not been officially closed.   It is expected to be closed early in 2010.

Meanwhile, those who cannot accept the FBI's findings continue to use every tactic they can to cast doubt upon the FBI's findings.  They have no proof of Dr. Ivins' innocence, so all they can do is try to make it appear that if there is any doubt - reasonable or not - about Dr. Ivins' guilt, then he must be innocent.

Conspiracy Theorists and True Believers 

Because they often support each other in opposing the FBI's official findings, it is sometimes difficult to tell a Conspiracy Theorist from a True Believer.  But, there is really are very distinct differences:

Conspiracy theorists often do not know or care who sent the anthrax letters, they only know that "the government" cannot be trusted, "the goverment" is lying about something, and they want to expose it.

True Believers feel they know beyond any doubt who sent the anthrax letters, and anyone who does not believe as they believe - including the FBI - is just not looking at the right facts.

Both will do anything and everything they can to get the undecided and uncertain to join with their cause.  And there are differences in their tactics as the go about their recruiting: 

There's really no point to arguing with a True Believer.  Back in 1951, Eric Hoffer published his landmark book "The True Believer" in which he stated that the only way to change a True Believer's mind is to convert him to a different belief.  So, unless you are prepared to do that, it's best to just avoid them.  They will bury you in irrelevant facts if you don't avoid them, they'll claim that if you do not read everything they read and interpret everything the way they interpret them, then you are ill-informed and your opinion is worthless.

Conspiracy theorists, however, appear ready to debate some of the relevant facts of the case.  They just move on to different facts if they are proven wrong about their first set of facts.  Example:

The initial theory about the anthrax being "weaponized" was that the attack spores were coated with bentonite and the government was covering up that fact.  That theory was quickly shown to be false.  When the next theory that the attack spores were coated with fumed silica was also disproven, they moved on to a new theory that the attack spores had tiny particles of silica glued to them to defeat van der Waals forces.  When that was shown to be nonsense, they moved on to a theory that the spores were treated with a waterproofing substance that would coat the spore coat without leaving any trace on the exosporium.