III 911 Update… Normalcy Bias versus the Null Hypothesis
September 11, 2026 marked the 25th Anniversary of “911” – another horrific event that the American people have never been told the truth about. The 911 attack led to the unconstitutional Patriot Act, the Iraq War, the Afghan War, the Ukraine War and even the current Iran War – all huge losses for the American people of trillions of dollars but huge financial gains for the War Machine of trillions of dollars. Since 911, the US National Debt has skyrocketed from under $6 trillion to over $40 trillion. Of the $34 trillion increase, more than $20 trillion has gone to the War Machine. We are not only swimming in an ocean of lies, we are swimming in an ocean of war-related debt.
If the truth is ever told about the Iran War, September 11, 2026 will also be remembered as the day the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve (aka SPR) died. To be more precise, the week of September 11, 2026 was the week that oil traders became aware that releases from the SPR fell so low that they could no longer be used to rig oil prices. On September 8, the DOE announced that the SPR level as of September 4 fell only 1 million barrels in the preceding week bringing the SPR down to 285.4 MB. Then on September 14, the DOE announced that the SPR level as of September 11 fell less than half a million barrels to 285 MB.
This leaves only 2 MB left until the Spring 2026 Contracts are completed – at which time the SPR will be officially dead. But more important, because there is about a one week delay from the time the oil contracts are issued to the time they are used to rig the market, oil traders learned on Tuesday September 8 that SPR oil paper contract price rigging was no longer a threat. One million barrels in SPR paper contracts per week is not nearly enough to hold oil prices down.
Thus, the end of the SPR price rigging led to an immediate 20% rise in the price of both Brent and West Texas Crude oil in just a little over a week to nearly $110 per barrel.
The end of SPR oil price rigging is only the beginning of a return to the real price of oil – which almost certainly will go much higher in the coming months – and directly affect the coming US election. Currently, the actual price of physical barrels of oil is much higher than the paper price. Amos Hochstein, TWG Global Managing Partner, stated on CNBC that:
“The paper price for Brent may be $108. But you can not actually buy Brent for that price. The price for actual physical barrels is between $120 to $150 right now. The actual price is significantly higher than the paper price.”
On September 11, both diesel and gasoline prices hit historic highs as Trump finally admitted the US is at war with Iran and that the war will not end until after the midterm elections. According to AAA, on September 14, the price rose even more. Regular Gas hit $5.01 and Diesel rose to $6.23. By the time the US elections actually happen in November, the price of diesel is likely to be above $7 a gallon - more than double the historic average price of $3.50 a gallon. In California, diesel hit $10 a gallon.
Andy Lipow, president of Lipow Oil Associates, said, “Gasoline prices in the USA are the highest ever for this time of year. Consumers are effectively paying about $177 a barrel for gasoline and $250 a barrel for diesel on a crude-equivalent basis, showing how much faster refined fuel prices have risen than crude oil.”
The Saudi Finance Minister, Qasem Al-Ali, also said that paper prices had no relationship to the actual prices at which physical barrels of oil were changing hands. Here is a quote he posted on X:
“You see $90 on the screen… good luck buying a barrel at that price. Real price? $120–$160/barrel. The biggest gap between perception and reality in energy markets — ever.”
The Financial Times also posted an article noting the huge difference between the paper contract price for oil and the actual price paid for physical barrels of oil by refineries:
“ While the futures price hovered around $100 per barrel during the most intense kinetic action, actual cargoes were changing hands at levels 80 to 100 per cent higher - $180 to $200 a barrel for actual barrels of oil.”
Here is a quote from Ron Unz of the Unz Review: “The Strait normally carried 20% of global oil supplies, so once the Iranians closed it, there was a widespread belief that prices would skyrocket to $150 per barrel. This was supported by recent history. For example, after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Western countries banned the import of Russian oil, and as a result Brent oil prices soon hit $140 per barrel. But Russian oil only accounted for about 10% of the global supply. If the temporary reduction of 10 million barrels a day of Russian crude caused such a large price shock, it seemed obvious that the actual loss of most Persian Gulf oil would have a far greater impact on market prices.”
In early July, 2026, an economist named Philip Pilkington gave a pair of interviews in which he sketched out the alleged manipulation of our oil markets. Pilkington discussed the implications of the “crack spread,” the term for the difference between the paper price of crude oil and that of the refined petroleum products extracted from real barrels of oil. The crack spread was at absolutely unprecedented levels of $80 a barrel (when the historical average was only $20 a barrel). One possibility was that refineries were enjoying record profit margins. But Pilkington believed it was much more likely that the price they were actually paying for real barrels of oil was much higher than the paper price.
Although oil inventories are at record lows, we were seeing the largest volume of oil short contracts in history. Such a combination made absolutely no sense, and suggests massive market manipulation.
A few weeks after the Iran War began, there was a very high ratio of long positions on oil to short ones since there were widespread expectations that the price of oil would rise as the Strait remained closed. But by late June, this paper market reversed, and the ratio of short to long positions on Brent oil was the highest it had ever been. Because the war was getting worse rather than better, this reversal was evidence that the paper oil contracts market was being manipulated.
What was being used to manipulate the paper oil market? In this report, we provide evidence that it was the millions of paper oil contracts created by giving away more than 100 million barrels of oil from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Now that there are no more SPR barrels left to give away, there will soon be no more SPR paper contracts used to artificially depress the price of oil. This is why there are likely to be huge increases in even the paper price of oil in the coming weeks.
September 11 price rises due to SPR Doomsday or Houthi missiles?
To be fair, the week ending September 11, 2026 was also the week that the Iran War rapidly expanded to include not just the Strait of Hormuz but also the Red Sea. On September 5, 2026, Iran fired a “warning missile” over the US nuclear aircraft carrier USS George Washington (CVN-73) at a range of 500 kilometers (300 miles). After that, not a single US warship remained in the Persian Gulf, down from around 30, with all US vessels now holding at least 400 kilometers (250 miles) off the Iranian coast. The Iranian Qasem Basir medium-range anti-ship ballistic missile used against the carrier on September 5 has a range of about 1,200 kilometers (700 miles).
On September 9, after the US destroyed 5 or 6 Iranian tankers, Iran struck the US destroyers USS Delbert D. Black (DDG-119) and USS John Paul Jones (DDG-53) with ballistic missiles, saying both warships were carrying cruise missiles and that the attack caused significant damage to these vessels. Also on September 9, Iran destroyed the CIA headquarters in Saudi Arabia. Also US Navy Secretary Hung Cao has confirmed that Iranian forces "blew the hell out of" the U.S. naval base confirms destruction of Bahrain Base the headquarters of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Iran also captured the most advanced and expensive US under water drone submarine called the Andrurif Industries Dive – LD automomous underwater vehicle or AUV. It had been used to detect underwater mines. The high tech submarine is reported to cost up to a billion dollars to develop. Iran will share the technology with Russia and China allowing both to reverse engineer it.
Iran also attacked US bases in Jordan and did not encounter a single US Patriot missile intercepter – indicating that all of them had been used and US bases were no longer protected.
On September 10, 2026, Yemen's Houthis seized the Red Sea port city of Mocha, Dhubab and Zuqar Island in a series of rapid gains along the Bab el-Mandeb Strait and are attacking Perim Island inside the strait itself. Satellite imagery shows a pumping station on Saudi Arabia's East-West crude oil pipeline near Al Mesba'ah burned out, the entire station footprint blackened with fire damage.
In addition, satellite images confirm that the Saudi East – West pipeline has been severely damaged in at least 8 locations. It will take at least 5 weeks to repair the damage.
On September 11, the Houthis seized Mayyun Island in the middle of the Red Sea choke point, take millions of US Military hardware and cementing total control over the Bab al-Mandeb Strait. The Houthis are acting in full coordination with Iran, which asked them to strengthen their grip on Bab el-Mandeb as a complement to Tehran's closure of the Strait of Hormuz. There are currently hundreds of IRGC officers in Yemen working alongside the Houthis with the goal of shutting the strait down completely. Houthi leaders have discussed a toll fee system modeled on Iran's at Hormuz. Gulf crude oil reaches Asia by sea through Hormuz or, by pipeline to the Red Sea, through Bab el-Mandeb. Iran holds the first and Houthis are taking the second.
Normalcy Bias versus the Null Hypothesis
The US is now engaged in at least three wars… the US proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, the US and Israel war against Iran and now the US and Saudi war against Yemen. Despite spending over a trillion dollars a year on the War Machine, the US is losing all three wars. All three of these outcomes were easily predictable. Yet there are still people in the US that continue to believe the corrupt corporate media narrative that the “US is winning all three wars.” Why is this?
Part of the problem is that the mainstream media is an echo chamber for the US government. People hear a lie over and over again and eventually they assume the lie must be true. But the underlying problem is that we all suffer from normalcy bias. We tell the truth and so we assume that other people – and especially our political leaders also are telling the truth.
For months, I have been attempting to get the word out that we are being lied to about the amount of accessible oil left in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
Despite me providing more than links to more than 100 source documents on the terrible condition of the 60 salt caverns and 120 wells that make up the Strategic Reserve, countless “experts” have responded that I can not possibly be right – because our political leaders have all stated that the SPR is fine. The most important evidence that the SPR is dead is the fact that no additional contracts have been issued for the remaining 39 million barrels that were not awarded in the Spring Contracts. This is despite the fact that on June 29, 2026, Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC that the US would proceed with its planned release of the entire 172 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.
The Energy Department said it has 39 million barrels remaining to offer and will soon be awarding contracts for this 39 million barrels. Yet it is now September 11, 2026 and no contracts have been issued.
My claim, backed by a mountain of evidence, is that the SPR is in such bad shape that no contracts can be issued. The SPR is dead. Yet, because of normalcy bias, even the experts have a hard time believing that things can be this bad. In only six months, gasoline has risen more than 50%, diesel has risen more than 70%, and 130 million barrels have been drawn from America’s strategic petroleum reserve. What do the remaining 284 million barrels in the SPR represent?
The so-called oil experts claim that at our current consumption rate of 20 million barrels of oil per day, the 284 million barrels still in the SPR represent 14 days of oil that give us a “cushion” if we need it.
But in fact, there is not a single barrel of accessible oil left in the SPR… So what the 284 million barrels of oil left in the SPR really represents is the biggest lie ever told to the American people! There is no cushion left.
The combined inventory of the “Big Four” (which includes crude oil including the SPR and Gasoline and Diesel Fuel and Jet Fuel) has reached an all time low of about 1 million barrels.
But this estimate assumes that there are 284 million barrels of oil left in the SPR. What will happen to energy prices when the truth comes out that the SPR is really dead and that there is no way to get the remaining 284 million barrels of oil out of the SPR due to broken well pipes and collapsing salt caverns?
This truth about this horrible condition of the SPR is going to eventually come out. When it does, the combined inventory will immediately fall from a million barrels down to 700,000 barrels. This may sound like a lot. But it is a drop in the bucket when you consider that this is the entire reserve for the entire United States. Divide this amount by 350 million people and you get 2,000 barrels for one million people or 2 barrels per 1000 people or 1 barrel for 500 people or about a gallon of gas for each person.
This gas and diesel shortage comes at the worst possible time. The Shale Oil boom in the US ended two years ago and in the next two years, US oil production is likely to fall off a cliff. But we will not have to wait two years to see the outcome of our reliance on corrupt politicians. There is already a fertilizer shortage – related to the wars against Russia and Iran. With less fertilizer, farmers are already planting few crops which will lead to less food and higher food prices in the Spring and Summer of 2027.
We all want to believe that everything will turn out OK – even as we plunge off an economic cliff. We want to believe that our future will be the same as our past. We want to believe that things will remain normal. But our normalcy bias prevents us from seeing the connection between oil price rigging and the skyrocketing national debt – both of which will push us off the economic cliff.
Finally, we all want to believe that the US military is the most powerful military in the world. So of course we will eventually win the wars we are currently in. We can not possibly be defeated by Russians, Iranians and Houthis. But the evidence that we have already lost all three wars is staring us in the face. We just refuse to believe it.
Critical Thinking and the Null Hypothesis
If we are to have any hope of solving the economic mess we are about to face, we will need to break free from normalcy bias. I have proposed one way to break free is to simply assume that everything you hear from our political leaders and everything you read in the corporate media is a lie. This can be difficult to do. So here are a couple of other ways to break free from our natural normalcy bias.
First, use “critical thinking” skills. Critical thinking is the ability to analyze, evaluate, and interpret facts and information logically to make a sound judgment or decision. Do not accept information at face value; ask how and why an outcome will come to pass.
When politicians say that the wars will be over in a couple of days or a couple of months, ask how will this happen? What will change to make it happen? What is the evidence and what will be the changes that will bring about peace?
Remember that the best predictor of future behavior is past behaviour. It politicians have lied to us in the past, it is likely that they will also lie to us in the future.
Second, whenever anyone makes a claim about anything, use the Null Hypothesis. While many people have never heard of the Null Hypothesis, it is actually the foundation of the Scientific Method. The Null Hypothesis states that “all claims are false” and it is up to the person making the claim to provide evidence that the claim is true.
So if a politician or the corporate media says we are winning the war and it will be over soon, ask yourself – did they provide any evidence to support their claim? If they say that the SPR is fine and they can always get more oil from it, ask yourself – did they provide any evidence to support their claim?
The reason I provide so many links to source documents in this report is that I realize I am making many hard-to-believe claims. I am not expecting you to take my word for it. I realize it is up to me to provide you with hard evidence that the claims in this report are true.
But learning the truth also requires that you be open to learning the truth. Just because what I am saying is radically different from what the oil experts and politicians are saying does not mean I am wrong. I am including the source documents with the hope that you will read at least some of these source documents. If you take the time to look into it, you will see that the evidence does support my claims.
And hopefully, you will join me in getting the word out about Mega Corruption and the coming economic crisis. Our future and the future of our children depends on it.