This morning I heard an excellent commentary on the eyewitness accounts of "who they think they saw" and who was really there.

The commentator focused on several aspects of the unreliability of eyewitnesses who are under extreme stress, especially in those situations where the possibility of being killed may be imminent. Psychological defense mechanisms come into play that often severely alter perceptions. Usually these defense mechanisms will attempt to create a vision of something much less harmful, even harmless. The commentator said, "Hell, someone in that room may have even seen Santa Claus handing out Christmas candy canes and teddy bears." Yep, the term "scared shitless" is a real world experience.

On the other hand, perceptions of others may have taken a different route. They may have perceived the threat to be much greater, much larger, than it really was. They may have seen great hairy giants with flamethrowers coming at them. In other words, the terrified mind processes the sensory data the eye receives very differently than when watching a movie or looking at a bouquet of flowers.

Now, let's put some perspective on this: the terrorists (whether there were two or three has not yet been definitely established) were all dressed in black, head to foot--they were hooded in black, their tactical suits were black, their boots were black, their guns were black, and, damn, even their freaking vehicle was black.

And yet, Lord have mercy, someone saw WHITE. Somewhere in that mind bending chaos, someone perceived a mass of WHITE, a complete 180 from what was there.

Now let's take a look at this guy, Chirs Nwadike.

He says he "received a phone call from an unknown person around 7 p.m., on the evening of the shooting, who told him that he must say that Sayd (sic) Farook was the shooter."

"You read that right, he says that he was called and told to change his story and say that Farook carried out the attacks with his wife, even though that is very different than what he witnessed."

In spite of the fact that the Obama regime and the MSM are adamant about never connecting an act of terrorism with anything Islam and would severely chastise any one of their employees or representatives for doing so, what payne, the insane, is trying to imply here is that a government thug (or some other pro-Islam leftist) threatened old Nwadike, coerced him into admitting he saw MUSLIMS doing the dirty deed.

See, the thing is, in an absolutely frightening circumstance, a person may experience a kind of temporary psychosis, an altered reality that will pass sooner or later. But, what we are seeing in payne (and others here) are the exhibitions of a chronic psychosis that is unable to view and perceive the real world. That's how the conspiracy theory (and terrorism) works. That is what unbridled hate can do. People see things that just aren't there.

A final note: Those of us who choose a dangerous profession, sport or pursuit--such as military combat, police, firefighters, mountain climbers, parachutists, etc.,--train, study, practice, and train some more to deal with the fear, the psychological perceptions under stress, to "keep our heads", stay "squared away" during the calculated risks we take. Most people are not so trained, they have no mental and emotional resources with which to sustain a real world perspective.