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The Real Number of Protesters at the 9/12

Washington D.C. March

Because there is so much skepticism following the march on 12 September 2009, I decided to

draw it out for you guys. Arriving to Washington, D.C. from the Indianapolis-D.C. flight on Friday,

marching from 13th and Pennsylvania at 9:00 in the morning, until finally leaving the Capitol Building at

2:30 in the afternoon, I’m appalled at 1) the lack of coverage for this protest and 2) the amount of

(taking Obama’s own words) “misinformation” being thrown out there about the march. Apparently,

video, hundreds of pictures and eye-witness reports are not enough for the general public. You take

your CNN report of 10,000 people and denounce any other number as conservative and Republican

slander. There is your first mistake.

Before I get to numbers, this was not a Republican or conservative-only thing. Yes,

Freedomworks and Glenn Beck did play a huge part, I, nor anyone else, is going to argue that because

it’s true. I want to stick to facts here and make this as unbiased as possible.

In the crowd there were independents, moderates, conservatives, democrats, former democrats,

and even people who didn’t affiliate with a party. As the 9-12 Project mission statement reads:

The 9-12 Project is designed to bring us all back to the place we were on September 12, 2001. The day after America was attacked we were not obsessed with Red States, Blue States or political parties. We were united as Americans, standing together to protect the values and principles of the greatest nation ever created. You can take that at face value. I’m not here to convince you who marched or not. As a witness

myself, I saw posters and slogans depicting both Bush and Obama as the Joker, denouncing Congress,

Pelosi, Liberals, big government, high taxes, the war in Afghanistan, gun control, abortion… the list goes

on and on. From Florida to Alaska, all walks of life were here. But, once again, believe what you will. I’m

here to show you hard evidence about the amount of people, not the kind of people.

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Comparison #1: Obama’s Inauguration

For comparison, I will use an inauguration and a protest at D.C. so that you can get a feel of how

many people can actually fit into the North, West and South fields of the Capitol building, the

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surrounding areas (including the street, statue area, and everywhere around the water right in front of

the National Mall) and other parts of D.C.

Obama Inauguration as seen from Google-Eye Fig.1a

http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/01/20/pictures-president-obamas-inauguration-as-seen-from-space/

Inauguration Crowd Estimate Schematic Fig.2a

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm

With the 2009 Inauguration for President Obama, following this schematic we see that the

North, West, and South seating areas are completely full. The standing area behind the reflecting pool

and official mall standing area are not. Theoretically, this entire ticketed area would hold 240,000

people. Judging that the field area is about half of that number, we can make a rough estimate that

probably 170,000 were in this ticketed portion (120,000 coming out of the half that makes up the field

ticketing area, and the other 50,000 in the ticketed standing area). Like I said, I’m estimating here. If you

have an exact count, great, but I’m guessing this is a reasonable number judging by the picture.

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Obama Inauguration as seen by Google-Eye Fig.1b

http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/01/20/pictures-president-obamas-inauguration-as-seen-from-space/

Inauguration Crowd Estimate Schematic Fig.2a

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm

Here is the mall and monument area. Comparing the Google image to the schematic, having

filled the entire highlighted strip would complete more than three-quarters of the National Mall. It’s

obvious that the highlighted area is not nearly as full as it would need to be to satisfy the theoretical

amount, but you have to take into account the huge crowd around the monument. With this, we can

safely say that there are at least 800,000 people there if you were to fill the monument crowd into the

public access area highlighted above, leaving about one ‘block’ of the field empty. There may be plus or

minus a few thousand, but that seems like a good estimate.

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http://www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/news/news/archive/obamaevent.htm

So, for the Obama inauguration, almost a million people were in attendance. In fact, according

to our estimated numbers, 970,000 people were there. That is a huge crowd.

However, as you can see from this photo of a previous inauguration, the area in front of the

Capitol is nicely organized with seats, rows and designated walkways. The statue area is empty, and if

you were to assume that all inaugurations are set up like the above photo, nobody is on the marble-

white statue area, the roundabouts, or the streets alongside the reflecting pool. Being an inauguration,

it is very organized, allowing traffic, both vehicular and foot, to pass through.

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In conclusion, in the 2009 Obama Inauguration we see that there are almost a million people in

attendance. That is undeniable. Through crowd-estimate schematics and satellite pictures, a number

like that is not at all hard to believe.

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Comparison #2: March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

If you’re up to date on your history, you’ll know that the March on Washington in 1963 was held

at the Lincoln Memorial, and not at the Capitol Building. Although it occurred on the opposite side of the

previous inauguration, it was still a large crowd, numbering more than 200,000 people.

March on Washington, 1963

http://www.spsmw.org/WoodsUp/Justice/Beastarcitizen/Loveofcountry/tabid/825/Default.aspx

Although it’s nowhere close to a Google satellite shot, this picture is still very telling of the

number of people that attended. As you can see, the East side of the memorial is packed, from the steps

to the front of the reflecting pool. Also, the strip of people running down the length of the reflecting

pool does not stop until it hits the monument. Side by side, Figure 2b shows that the area of the March

on Washington is a lot smaller than that of the National Mall. It may look big in the picture, but the

Inauguration Crowd Estimate Schematic Fig.2a Fig.2b

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schematic shows that the small strip of land between the pool and the trees isn’t even half, let alone a

quarter of the width of the highlighted National Mall area. As stated earlier, the pictures make it seem

like a lot more than 200,000 people, but, theoretically, the entire March on Washington could fit in the

first inaugural ticketed area in Figure 2a.

It’s small compared to the 2009 inauguration, but the March on Washington was a huge,

energetic crowd. Still, it is described as “thousands of people,” and not “hundreds of thousands.”

This protest shows that pictures can, in fact, be deceiving. I wouldn’t be surprised that the

majority of those asked about this particular photo would say that a million of people had to have been

there. “Just look at the never-ending sea of bodies.”

In conclusion, the 1963 March is one of the largest, well recorded protests in Washington D.C.

However, it is only 200,000-300,000 depending on your source.

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Comparison #3: The Promise Keepers Rally

Searching through a multitude of photo galleries and documents, it seemed as if other Capitol protests

lacked a good overhead shot of the National Mall and field areas. There is, however, one other event

that should be brought to light. As a warning, I want to be sure and inform you that I cannot claim that

these are in fact real photos. I do believe they are, but it’s proving difficult to find official information on

the Promise Keepers Rally in D.C.

Promise Keepers Rally

http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message879501/pg1

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Promise Keepers Rally

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2174736/posts

The previous photo is from an online forum, and the estimated numbers have ranged from one-

million and up to four-million according to an article at the website shown above-PublicEye.org. If this is

in fact a real event, which I’m not saying it is or isn’t, I just cannot find sufficient information on the topic

to make a “for sure” comparison, then according to the previous inaugural schematics than that would

put this rally at well over a million people. Matching the picture with the highlighted areas in Figure 2a,

the standing ticketed area is completely full, as well as every portion of the mall leading up to the road.

This alone, would be around 1,066,000 (120,000 for half of the ticketed area plus the complete 946,000

public access), not including the Washington Monument field, where, by looking at the picture, I was

able to make a rough estimate and create Figure 2c (shown on page eight). In the article and forum

Fig.2a

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Estimated Location of People at PKR Fig.2c

posts, it’s stated that traffic was not stopped by the Promise Keepers Rally, so it is safe to assume that

around the monument, as well as the mall, the marchers did not get off the grassy area. Using the red in

Figure 2c, we can equate that to be about the size of the Capitol Building seated ticketed section,

making the crowd around the monument to be around 120,000. Add this to the above calculated

1,066,000, and we get 1,186,000 people. That would mark the greatest amount of people at the Capitol

Building in this report so far.

In conclusion, if there was any more information on the Promise Keepers Rally, this would make

one heck of a better comparison. Forums, obscure blogs and non-official photographs are hard to grasp,

I understand that. But, if this is fact true and not some PhotoShopped imaged (once again, I’m not

saying that it is), then look at the numbers. Look at the pictures. Look at the facts. This is what over a

million people looks like.

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The 9-12 Project

Once again, whether you agree on what the protest stands for or not, put your preconceptions

aside. I’m not here to debate that. I’m here to, not only learn for myself how many people were in fact

at this protest, but to hopefully shed light on a subject that the media can’t even get right.

14th and E ST NW Street Camera in D.C. http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109628

Actual Photo Taken From What Looks Like 13th ST

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By now I’m sure everyone has seen the street camera above 14th Street. I’ll let the author do (9/12 Protest Washington DC Time Lapse Footage 0800 – 1130 by N37BU6; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sjvc6baor8)

the talking in order to explain how long each second of the video actually translates to real time.

The shortest time span between frames here is 60 seconds despite the source being updated every 2

seconds. All frames were captured manually by me as .PNG files, extended to 1/3 second long and

stitched together at 30FPS… So... framerate = 30 to satisfy YouTube's algorithms, visible framerate = 1/3

of that as 10FPS is taken up displaying the same image. Total running time approx 40 sec, total time

represented = 3.5 hours.

Figure 3a-c (located on pages 12 and 13) will be your visual aid for this next part. Bear with me

in having to go between page nine, ten and eleven in order to see the graphic. I feel as if it needs to be

as big as possible so everyone can understand and see clearly what exactly is going on. (Map courtesy of

Google Earth).

1) The yellow tack is about where the street camera is: 1401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW. According

to the video and the time designated to it by the author, the first 13 seconds are a time-

lapse of people gathering. Also, according to the protest, meeting to start the march would

be at Freedom Plaza. You can see that the plaza extends past the camera picture. I will only

be using what we see in the calculations so that nothing can be seen as bias or “assumed”

data later on. At 14 seconds you can start to see people moving from the plaza. The author

states that the gathering was sped up, so that section of the video is faster than the rest.

And although the march was scheduled to start at 11:00 AM, the crowd got so large that we

had to start early, around 10:00 AM. We can assume this is when the time lapse march

starts.

2) To calculate the number of people on Pennsylvania Ave. at one time, we must wait until the

time lapse shows that the beginning group of the march has reached the Capitol. Still, as

mentioned by both skeptics and marchers alike, the validity of this video is of course going

to be in question as we are assuming that someone did in fact take screenshots of the time

lapse for the entire march. Once again, take that at face value. If you believe it, you believe

it. If you don’t, you don’t. I’m assuming it’s pretty accurate. On that note, it should be

known that at the 16-second mark, the crowd is one-third of the way down the street; 17-

seconds they are two-thirds; 18-seconds it appears they have reached the Capitol. According

to the video, it took three seconds on the sped up camera for the protesters to fill up the

entire length of Pennsylvania Ave. from the intersection at 13th ST, down eight blocks to the

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Capitol. This means that every three seconds, a new “street” of marchers would pass from

beginning to end.

3) Now, to measure the amount of people there, I used the Google Earth ruler and laid it over

Pennsylvania, showing the distance to be about 4,654 feet. Comparatively, the distance

from the start, not including the street or pool but the beginning of the grass, to the end of

the mall measures out to be about 4,875 feet. Almost the same length.

4) Also, you must take into account the width of the mall, 177.2 ft, and the width of

Pennsylvania, 94.1 ft. This means that the mall is approximately 1.88 (177.2 divided by 94.1

= 1.88) times wider than Pennsylvania. This means that every 3 seconds of video after the

15-second mark on the YouTube time-lapse video, a “National Mall-sized” group of people

have marched through Pennsylvania. This would mean that the 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33 and 36

one “Mall” passes through. However, it’s obvious that the street is not packed this entire

time. Judging on the crowd in the video, as well as being an eye-witness, I know there were

some parts that were more open than others during the march. So let’s remove half of

those streets, making the march span three and a half (3.5) Pennsylvania Avenue’s, which

would then in turn be 1.86 National Malls (3.5 divided by 1.88).

5) Remember Figure 2a; the Mall, making sure to add the seated ticketed area of 120,000

people, can hold around 1,066,000 people (120,000 ticketed plus 946,000 public). Since

1.875 National Malls walked through Pennsylvania, all we do is multiply 1,066,000 by 1.86

and we have our projected 9-12 Project protesters.

1,982,760.

Now, taking into account of sidewalks, parked cars, wheelchairs, old people being distracted by

statues, police—whatever somebody might use as an excuse for this number, let’s subtract a hundred

thousand or two.

With that, we get 1,782,760 estimated protesters marched in the 9-12 Project.

In conclusion, this number surprised me. I knew there were a lot of people, but researching this,

looking at the map and actually crunching the numbers, it makes sense. I’m sure not all of these

marchers stayed at the Capitol, the fields surrounding it, or even the mall. But that’s not what we have

aerial footage of. Because of this time-lapse street cam, it’s easy to see that in the course of around two

hours almost two million people marched up Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol Building.

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Also, if anybody has a problem with the numbers I used, I used them uniformly throughout my

research. This means that if you think only 100,000 people fit in the standing ticketed section of the

National Mall, then you can apply it to every comparison I made and come out with just a slightly

smaller number.

In addition, I have heard from multiple sources that once at the Capitol, the march did not flow

over into the Mall area, since the 9-12 Project did not have a permit for that area. That is partially true.

The 9-12 Project did not have a permit for the National Mall, however, because of the mass numbers of

people, as an issue of housekeeping, the protesters were sent behind the fountain and to the Mall when

the North, West and South fields were full. I have uploaded a video on YouTube which is taken from 4th

ST and Madison, on towards the reflecting pool.

Walking Through the 9-12 Protesters http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbIhnP0PeKs

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In closing, I hope this was informative and unbiased. I did march on September 12, and I believe

that this was more than a “Right Wing Nut-Job” thing. As I’ve said throughout my report, I wanted only

facts, photos, numbers, and data below the opening paragraph of what the 9-12 Project supposedly

stood for. Whether you agree with that or not, once again, please look at the numbers of people in the

previous rallies in comparison to this one, and not the kind of people. That is not what I am arguing.

As of 17 September 2009, 8:32 AM, I have updated this report. In this revised edition, I have settled the following discrepancies:

In Comparison #1, the inauguration photo taken from the podium was misrepresented as picturing the Obama

Inauguration.

Updated previous Google Map graphics with new Google Earth ones.

The length of Pennsylvania Avenue and the National Mall were incorrect due to misreading a measurement. Both of

them have been fixed with help of Google Earth.

The estimated numbers based on these lengths have been updated to coincide with the correct lengths.

A link showing protesters at the National Mall area behind the fountain has been posted so that skeptics can see that

although the 9-12 Project did not have a permit for the area people had to fill in there due to housekeeping issues.

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Pennsylvania Avenue Length Fig.3b National Mall Length Fig.3c

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References

"Look at a picture of 1 million people and stop lyin about the 912 rally." Godlike Productions - Conspiracy

Forum. Web. <http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message879501/pg1>.

Michelle Malkin. Web. <http://michellemalkin.com/>.

"News." Carnegie Mellon University. Web.

<http://www.cmu.edu/cfa/drama/news/news/archive/obamaevent.htm>.

"Park service changes course, plans to offer crowd estimate - USATODAY.com." News, Travel, Weather,

Entertainment, Sports, Technology, U.S. & World - USATODAY.com. Web.

<http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2009-01-19-crowd_N.htm>.

"Pictures: President Obama&#8217;s inauguration, as seen from space | VentureBeat." DigitalBeat |

VentureBeat. Web. <http://digital.venturebeat.com/2009/01/20/pictures-president-obamas-

inauguration-as-seen-from-space/>.

"President Hussein's 2012 Resignation : A historical Prediction." Latest Articles. Web.

<http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2174736/posts>.

"PublicEye.org - Promise Keepers' march motivated by fundamentalist beliefs." PublicEye.org - The

Website of Political Research Associates. Web.

<http://www.publiceye.org/theocrat/FC_prom.html>.

"Sisters of Providence - WoodsUp - Justice - Patriotism part 1: Love of country." Sisters of Providence of

Saint Mary-of-the-Woods. Web.

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References

<http://www.spsmw.org/WoodsUp/Justice/Beastarcitizen/Loveofcountry/tabid/825/Default.as

px>.

"Tea partiers march on U.S. Capitol." A Free Press for a Free People. Web.

<http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=109628>.

"YouTube - 9/12 Protest Washington DC Time Lapse Footage 0800 - 1130." YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

Web. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_sjvc6baor8>.