One might question why such a title is being placed on a blog which is entitled 'cost of war'.
It's a fair question and one which can be easily explained.
Since this site is not really about the Monetary 'cost' of war, but the Human costs, which are of much more importance than mere material expenditure, this fits in very well because...
Every time we are Lied To about how 'things are' and Believe the lie being told we are further removed from the way 'Reality' actually is. Remember the saying "Ye shall find the Truth, and the Truth shall set you Free"? Well, how 'free' can any of us be if we are being bombarded with all sorts of prapaganda and dis-info on a continual basis - by the Psychopaths who rule the majority of the world, have enormous wealth and power under their control, and use it in a prolific way to distort and obfuscate our 'view of reality'?
A recent series of articles illustrates how these people use vast resources to control how everyone thinks.
Here is an article recently posted at
Signs of the Times which debunks the idea of a commercial jetliner causing the damage to the Pentagon:
Evidence That a Frozen Fish Didn't Impact the Pentagon on
9/11
and Neither Did a Boeing 757
by Joe Quinn
After
the release of the QFG Pentagon Strike Flash Animation on August
23rd, 2004, a veritable onslaught of new articles were published that
sought to dismiss the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory. One such article, that is frequently referenced by certain
'9/11 researchers' was authored by a member of the forum at the "Above
Top Secret" (ATS) website. Interestingly, the article was written just
a few weeks after the release of the Pentagon Strike Flash
animation, which by then, was winging its way around the world and into
the inboxes of millions of ordinary citizens. Perhaps you were one of
them...
The
claim that promoters of the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory were
doing immense damage to the truth/accountability movement was raised in
Mike Ruppert's book Crossing the Rubicon. In a stunning piece
of warped logic, Ruppert claimed that, while he is quite convinced that
it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, he chose not to talk about
or deal with the subject as part of his overall case for conspiracy
because of the "implications". According to Ruppert, the "implications"
are that anyone that suggests that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon,
is then forced to answer the question as to what actually happened to
Flight 77. If that's the case, then we better just wrap up the whole
9/11 Truth Movement and go home and have a beer.
Ruppert
balks at the idea of offering an answer to this question to his readers
because, he claims, most people would be unable to accept it, and, he
suggests, 9/11 researchers serve only to alienate the public support
that they wish to attract by stretching the boundaries of the
collective belief system. What Ruppert doesn't explain is why any
member of the public would happily accept that U.S. government
officials participated in the slaughter of the passengers on Flights 11
and 175 and the occupants of the WTC towers (as he details in his book)
yet would be unable to accept the idea that the same
government officials played a part in disposing of the passengers of
Flight 77 in a much less imaginative way. Let's be honest here, in the
context of 9/11 being the work of a faction of the US government and
military, the answer to the question as to what happened to Flight 77
if it didn't hit the Pentagon is quite obvious - Flight 77 and its
occupants were flown to a specific destination and “disposed of” by the
conspirators. That's pretty simple; cut and dried; no need for much
stretching there! But, for some reason, Ruppert (and others affected by
this paramoralism) seems to think that killing thousands of citizens by
crashing airplanes is easier to accept than cold bloodedly murdering
them "in person," as it were.
Since
Ruppert's declaration about the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory, many
other "9/11 researchers", such as Mark Rabinowitz and Jim Hoffman, have seized upon Ruppert's idea and
even expanded upon it by suggesting that the "no planers" are actually
government agents trying to discredit the REAL 9/11 researchers with
the 'kooky' "no plane" theory.
In order
to really understand the insidiousness of this patronising claim that
the public could not accept the implications of the idea that a Boeing
757 did not hit the Pentagon, let's look at the "evidence" as presented
by the ATS member that it really was Flight 77 that impacted the
Pentagon that bright September morn.
First,
however, I would like to make a few observations about 9/11 research in
general.
Anyone
who takes on the formidable task of digging into the events of 9/11 is
immediately at a disadvantage because the US government has already
declared the case closed. The government knows how it happened and who
did it and have informed the entire world. As a result, there is no
possibility of access to the raw data, to the crime scene or analyses
of same. Here is where we meet the major obstacle: since the US
government is the prime suspect, we cannot simply take as truth
everything - or anything - that they say in relation to the case.
Investigation
of the 9/11 attacks should be approached like any murder investigation.
When confronted with a murder case (like 9/11) and a suspect that has a
history of deceit and murder (like the US government and its agencies)
and who had an opportunity and a motive to commit the murder, do you
take as fact any claims by the suspect that he did not commit the
murder? Do you seek to fit the facts around his claim that he did not
commit the murder? When you confront evidence that suggests that the
suspect is lying about his account of where he was and what he was
doing, or you find inconsistencies and logistically impossible
scenarios in his account, do you ignore these and focus only on the
fact that he said he did not commit the murder and try to find and
present evidence that backs up his claim to innocence?
The fact
is that researchers coming to the 9/11 investigation after the fact,
and after the case has been officially closed, are not only confronted
with the task of trying to find out what actually happened - they also
face the already well established public belief, by which they
themselves are also influenced, that the official story is the truth.
The best approach for any 9/11 researcher with honest intentions is to,
if possible, wipe from their minds the official version of events and
take the attitude of someone who has just returned from a 5 year trip
to the outer reaches of the solar system, during which time they had no
communication with planet earth. Start with a beginner's mind, turn off
the sound of all the conflicting voices and their claims, and just LOOK
at the evidence without prejudice.
Now, if
the person with a truly open mind is given all of the publicly
available evidence and has been additionally furnished with knowledge
of the effects of airplane crashes and that of missile impacts, what
would such a person conclude about the most likely cause of the
Pentagon damage? Of course, not all of the evidence was made available
to the public, but there is still sufficient visual evidence from
"ground zero" (both in terms of place and TIME), to form a pretty good
"best guess". For a definitive conclusion to be reached, the "private"
evidence, like the video tapes of the event that the FBI confiscated,
would have to be released, and we don't expect that to happen any time
soon. Of course, the fact that the definitive evidence of the videos
has not been released is in itself a key piece of evidence
that suggests that the official story of what hit the Pentagon is not
the real story.
The
purpose of this small introduction is to prepare the reader for the
fact that, in his attempted rebuttal of the no 757 at the Pentagon
theory, the ATS article author, CatHerder, appears to have succumbed to
the influence of the mainstream media shills that have incessantly
parroted the official government story about what happened on 9/11 for
the three years prior to the writing of the article. As such, he has
failed to don the mantle of objective observer of the available
evidence that is so crucial to finding the truth, and instead exerts a
lot of effort to make the available evidence fit the government claim
that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th 2001.
Either that, or he/she is part of the "official government cover-up."
After you read everything below, you can make a call on that one
yourself.
Here is
the ATS article as it appears on the ATS site with my comments
interspersed in blue text.
Evidence
That A Boeing 757 Really Did Impact the
Pentagon on 9/11
by
"CatHerder", Member,
AboveTopSecret.com/forum
September
11th, 2004
Did a 757 hit the Pentagon on
9-11
First let's start with the factual
information available on hand.
The 757-200
As we can see from the freely available
information for the Boeing 757 (from the Boeing website). The 757 is a
midsized commercial airliner designed for short haul and medium haul
routes (Medium Range Transport (MR-TR)), although since its release,
and the subsequent discovery of the Wake Vortex it leaves behind the
FAA has classified the 757 as a "Heavy" aircraft; the FAA places the
757 in the Geometric Design Classification IV, and an ATC Operation
Class C. (source)
The 757-200 dimensions:
Tail Height: 44 ft 6 in (13.6m)
Length: 155 ft 3 in (47.32m)
Wingspan: 124 ft 10 in (38.05m)
Body Exterior Width: 12 ft 4 in (3.7m)
Fuel Capacity: 11,489 us gal (43,490l / 43,490kg)
Maximum Takeoff weight: 255,000lb (115,680kg)
Typical Cruise Speed: 0.80 Mach (573.6mph / 956kmh)
Engines used on a 757: Two 166.4kN (37,400lb) Rolls-Royce
RB211-535C turbofans, or 178.8kN (40,200lb) RB211-535E4s, or 193.5kN
(43,500lb) RB211-535E4-Bs, or 162.8kN (36,600lb) Pratt & Whitney
PW2037s, or two 178.4kN (40,100lb) PW2040s, or 189.5kN (42,600lb)
PW2043s. (source1) (source2)
Auxiliary Power Unit: Honeywell GTCP331-200
left portion: source1
right portion: source2 (height and width notation to graphic
added by me)
Next, let's look at the Pentagon.
The Pentagon
The Pentagon was designed in the early 40's and was completed in only
16 months on Jan 14, 1943. The shortages of materials required for war
production raised many design and construction problems. The use of
reinforced concrete in lieu of formed steel for the building made
possible a saving of 43,000 tons of steel, more than enough to build a
battleship. The use of concrete ramps rather than elevators further
reduced steel requirements. Drainage pipes were concrete; ducts were
fiber, interior doors were wood. An unusual wall design - concrete
spandrels carried to window sill level - eliminated many miles of
through-wall copper flashing.(Source1) (Source2)
Recent renovations and upgrades to the building were nearing completion on the side hit on 9-11 and
performed reasonably well considering they were not designed to
withstand aircraft impact. On September 11, when an American Airlines
Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, home of the U.S. Department of
Defense (DoD),
about 20,000 people were at work in this, the largest office building
in the world. Yet according to the DoD casualty update on October 1, only 125
Pentagon employees were killed along with the 64 from the fated
airliner. (source - Architecture Week)
The exterior walls had been reinforced
with steel beams and columns, bolted where they met at each floor. Some
of these reinforced walls very near the point of impact remained in
place for a half hour before collapsing, allowing uncounted hundreds to
escape. "Had we not undertaken this effort," said Evey
at a press briefing on September 15, "this could have
been much, much worse."
Now, I'm sure everyone can agree that the above information is a matter
of public record, and none of it is incorrect, altered, or misquoted in
any way to support either side of the case. It is all merely factual
information that we will refer to in the following sections.
[Note: I was unintentionally misleading in a previous post
when I said the Pentagon didn't use a steel beam construction - while
that is still true for the original design, it was reinforced
in various areas during the upgrades to include steel beams and columns
in some areas of the renovations.]
Quoted from ArchitectureWeek.com :
In addition to major overhauls of the mechanical and electrical
systems, the Wedge One renovation included the fire sprinklers,
automatic fire doors, and the steel which saved many lives on the day
of the attack.
The blast-resistant windows were nearly two inches (5 centimeters)
thick. Some of them remain remarkably intact and in place adjacent the
point of impact. Some were popped out of their frames by the force of
the exploding jet fuel, but they fell without breaking or splintering.
Also on the exterior walls, between the steel columns, the renovation
crew had placed Kevlar cloth, similar to the material used for
bullet-proof vests. This had the effect of holding together building
materials so they wouldn't become deadly projectiles in an explosion.
Looking At the Big Picture
From facts contained above, we can all agree that:
·
The length of the outside wall on any side of the pentagon is
921 feet.
·
The wingspan of a 757 is 124 feet 10 inches.
·
Now, everyone can agree that 921/125= roughly 7.4 right?
Given the size of the 757, and the size of the Pentagon, the damaged
area fits in perfectly with the dimensions
of both the aircraft and the building.
The above "opening gambit" is very telling since it delivers
hard facts, one after the other, all of which are accurate. It is in
this last statement that the twisting begins. The fact that the length
of the Pentagon is equivalent to 7.4 757's wing to wing, or that the
width of one 757 equals 13.5% of the facade of the Pentagon has no
bearing on the actual damage done. Indeed, given the weight and speed
of the 757 that is alleged to have impacted the building, the actual
damage done to the Pentagon is entirely inconsistent with an aircraft
of the size, weight, and speed of a 757. In other words, the argument
actually supports the "no-Boeing" theory better than it supports
"Flight 77 hit the Pentagon."
Look at the hole in the building
Here is the hole in the building - it's been reported by at least a
dozen different sources (including conspiracy theory sites) to be a 16
to 20 foot hole. That is really interesting when you take into account
the fact that the 757 body is 12 ft 4in wide and 13 ft 6in
high. (Here is where I was mistaken in the past, like so very many
others I was led astray by the HEIGHT of the aircraft, which is
actually the measurement from the wheels-down to the tip of the
tail. That measurement is for aircraft hangar clearance, not the
SIZE of the aircraft.) The 757 is basically a cylinder that is 13 feet
across. It then should not be surprising that it would create something
around a thirteen foot hole in the side of the building.
Here is the next twist. The Boeing 757 is not simply a 13ft
wide cylinder; if it were, then the damage to the Pentagon might be
more plausible. The reality, however, is that a Boeing 757 is a 13ft
wide, 155 ft long cylinder with a tail fin that extends 45 ft into the
air. Add to that the fact that there are two 6 ton steel engines
slung under each wing about 6 feet to each side of the cylinder body.
The wings extend out on each side for 50ft + making for a total
aircraft width of 125 feet, a total length of 155 ft and a maximum
height of 45 ft. It comes as no surprise then that this large
commercial aircraft weighs in at over 90 tons fully loaded. On
take off from Washington Dulles airport, Flight 77 weighed
approximately 82 tons.
The above nonsensical argument would have you believe that
the only thing to consider is a "13 ft wide cylinder" that just
magically lost everything else, or that everything else just "folded
up" and flew inside the building plastered to the side of that 13 ft
cylinder. Even if the wings could do that, we are still left with the
two 6 ton engines that were NOT dropped off on the lawn, and which,
together, are as wide as the cylinder body!
Look at the nose-on view of a 757 - you can see the body
is slightly less than 1/3 the size of the height of the aircraft. The
tail certainly isn't going to punch a hole through a reinforced
concrete wall; that is why there is no 40 foot hole in the front of the
Pentagon in any photos. A 40 foot object didn't hit it, a 13 foot
object did.
Again, this is not JUST a "13ft object" by any stretch of the
imagination. By now it should be obvious that the author is attempting
to subtly manipulate the reader by reducing a large, 82 ton passenger
aircraft to "a 13ft object".
Think about this.
Is "a 13ft object" a reasonable description of a Boeing 757?
Is it reasonable for the author to reduce a large plane that can carry
up to 200 adult human beings to "a 13ft object"? We could take this
unreasonable definition one step further and flesh out the image that
our author is trying to plant in our heads and say that, according to
our author, the Boeing 757 that he/she alleges hit the Pentagon, was
comparable to a large SUV, or a similar "13ft object".
While it is reasonable to state that the tail of a 757 may
not necessarily have punched a hole through the facade of the Pentagon,
can we expect to at least see some evidence of the tail
having hit the facade? More than that, we must consider the forward
momentum of those two, inescapable, 6 TON steel engines that were
neither dropped on the lawn, nor were they smashed like pancakes
against the side of the "13 ft cylinder." If I struck the facade of the
Pentagon with a sledge hammer, is it reasonable that I would be able to
cause some observable damage? The outer 6 inches of the facade of the
Pentagon is made of soft limestone, yet our author sees no problem with
claiming that such a soft surface, when struck by a piece of aircraft
weighing SIX TONS and traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, would in
no way leave any significant and observable damage.
While the "cylinder body" that our author keeps referring to
is indeed 13ft 6in high, he omits the fact that the engines extend 5
feet below the body and over six feet to either side, meaning
that, if the aircraft were actually able to successfully fly at just 1
inch above the ground (highly unlikely), the height of the "cylinder
body" above the ground would be at least 18 ft 6 inches! Let us
repeat that: if a Boeing 757 were actually able to fly at just 1
inch above the ground, the height of the "13 ft cylinder
body" would be at least 18 feet 6 inches! Now, add to that the fact
that the plane also includes those two bothersome 6 TON engines, AND a
tail fin that protrudes 25 feet above the top of the cylinder body
making for a total aircraft height of just less than 40 feet with
wheels up. Obviously then, we can reasonably expect that the damage
to the facade of the Pentagon would have extended up to this height IF
it was a 757 that hit the building.
However, according to the official Pentagon report:
"The height
of the damage to the facade of the building was much less than the
height of the aircraft’s tail. At approximately 45 ft, the tail height
was nearly as tall as the first four floors of the building. Obvious
visible damage extended only over the lowest two floors, to
approximately 25 ft above grade."
Look at this
close up of the above photo:
The top of the
hole in the middle of the white box is at the same level as the top of
the windows of the second floor, or about 23-25 feet from ground. The
three windows above this are the windows of the third floor. The foam
covered window to the top right is the fourth floor. As noted by the
Pentagon report, this area (above the center hole) is where the
tail should have struck, but there is no evidence of any
damage that we would expect from such an impact. What's more, the tail
fin was definitely not dropped on the lawn along with the two 6 TON
engines.
Conclusion? The
tail fin of a Boeing 757 did not strike this area.
What does that
suggest? That a Boeing 757 was not involved in the attack.
Is that logical
enough?
However, from
the point of view of the author on the ATS forum and the U.S.
government, we are not allowed to use such logic. Instead, we must give
in to emotional blackmail and then engage in implausible mental
gymnastics to try to explain how a 757 really could have been
involved in the Pentagon attack; and all because the US government
says so - a government that has made lies the core aspect of its
domestic and foreign policy from day one.
In terms of the
damage that should have been caused by the other parts of a 757 (you
know, the large aircraft that our author has reduced to a mere 12ft 4
in wide cylinder), the official Pentagon Building Performance Report stated that:
"The projected width
[of damage to the facade] was approximately 90 ft, which is
substantially less than the 125 ft wingspan of the aircraft"
Indeed, but there is no explanation of why there is no
damage to the facade where the wings should logically have struck.
Could it be that an aircraft with the wingspan of a 757 was not
involved?
Conspiracy theory?
No, just the most obvious and logical
explanation.
The Pentagon report also made note of the fact that:
"With the possible exception of the immediate vicinity of the
fuselage’s entry point at column line 14, essentially all interior
impact damage was inflicted in the first story: The aircraft seems for
the most part to have slipped between the first-floor slab on grade
and the second floor."
That is impossible as the following graphic will show. Note
the pink line, where the "13 ft cylinder" is supposed to have slipped
"under."
Another 9/11 researcher, who is naturally
skeptical about the claim that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, produced the
above graphic and posed some obvious and logical questions about the
feasibility of the official story quoted above. Given the height of just
the fuselage (leaving out the 25 feet of tail fin), how is it
possible that the immediate damage and the debris of the plane were
"largely confined to the first floor"? And remember, we are talking
here about a scenario where the plane is flying at just one inch
above the ground!
What is more, evidence
from photos of the site show cable spools that were clearly untouched
by any incoming aircraft, suggesting that the aircraft would have to
have been flying above the maximum height of the spools (some
6 feet) when it hit the Pentagon. In this case, the damage should have
been almost entirely to the second floor!
Of course, this is not
the case, which leaves us with the logical deduction that it is highly
improbable that a 757 was involved in the attack on the Pentagon, and
that a much smaller and more nimble aircraft was used.
Among those 9/11 researchers that claim that a 757 hit the
Pentagon, much is made of the fact that the Pentagon facade was built
with "steel reinforced concrete walls". This fact is used to explain
the extremely limited immediate damage to the Pentagon facade. But how
much credit are we going to give to brick and concrete that has been
reinforced with relatively thin steel bars? Is such a wall
indestructible? If the tail fin and wings of a Boeing 757 traveling at
400mph+ hit such a wall, could we at least expect them to leave a dent?
A little scrape even?
Not at the Pentagon apparently.
Consider the picture below showing the impact hole at the WTC
North Tower:
The facade of the WTC Towers were made of prefabricated steel
yet as we can see from the imprint of the plane, these steel lattices
were in no way strong enough to stop the massive kinetic energy of the
entire aircraft impacting the building, including the wings
and tail fin and leaving a roughly 757-shaped hole in the facade.
To provide a scale reference, a survivor of the initial
impact has been circled in the above photo (click the picture for a
close up).
Given that I am no structural engineer, however, I cannot
make any claims as to the comparative strength of the steel reinforced
brick and concrete walls of the Pentagon versus the steel facade of the
WTC towers and will allow for the idea that the wall of the Pentagon was
stronger than that of the WTC. We can even theorize that it is due to
this comparative strength difference that there is not a similar
757-shaped gaping hole at the Pentagon. However, as noted, the facade
of the Pentagon was made of soft limestone 6 inches thick. Can anyone
explain why a similar shape as that in the picture above does not
appear in the soft limestone facade of the Pentagon?
In fact, there appear to be no pictures of
the Pentagon facade immediately after the attack that show a clear
picture of the exact extent of the damage. That's because all press
personnel were restricted. We only have photos because a civilian
managed to take them in spite of the "cordon sanitaire." What IS clear
is that, as the Pentagon report noted, the Pentagon facade bears NO
evidence of damage from parts of a 757 at ALL. One notable explanation
for this mysterious lack of damage offered by official government story
enthusiasts is that by some mysterious force of nature, the wings and
tail must have sheared off before impact. Of course, in such
a case, we would expect to see at least some recognisable debris of the
wings and tail section outside the building. Yet, as anyone who has
carefully inspected the evidence at the scene can attest, there is no
such debris.
According to official
story enthusiasts, the complete lack of any debris from the wings that
we are told somehow sheared off, is not a problem: they simply
disintegrated on impact and were rendered little more than confetti
that blew away in the breeze (I kid you not; this was actually
suggested by several "researchers"). But in
this unlikely case, how do we explain that the 125 feet long wings of a
757 disintegrated, yet a fairly slender tree standing just a few feet
from the front of the Pentagon - and in the direct path of the alleged
757 - was still standing, albeit severely charred? (Charred tree
branches visible in center of image) What's more, this explanation
completely omits mention of the two six TON engines attached to said
wings.
Can we now at least accept as a possibility the
idea that a 757 was not involved in the attack on the
Pentagon?
Why is it so difficult for our author to accept this? The
answer would seem to be that since the official government story does
not allow for such a scenario, like all good and obedient citizens, our
author feels compelled to believe what the government says, regardless
of the massive historical evidence showing that, on several occasions
in the past, the U.S. government has allowed, facilitated, or actually
carried out, attacks on its own citizens and interests in order to
achieve some specific goal, usually associated with waging war on other
nations - wars like the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was a direct result
of the 9/11 attacks, including the attack on the Pentagon. Either the
ATS author is such a "good and obedient" citizen, or we must conclude
that said author is an agent of said government.
If we peruse other postings made by the ATS author on the
subject of 9/11 in general, it seems that he/she accepts the idea that
there was some level of complicity in the 9/11 attacks on the part of
the US government. Yet he/she appears to have no problem with using the
claims of the same U.S. government to back up his argument that Flight
77 hit the Pentagon.
For the record, I have nothing against the US government per
se, and have no desire to accuse the Bush administration or anyone else
unjustly. But in the case of the 911 attacks, there is significant and
compelling evidence to suggest that something is not right with the
official version of events and that members of the US government are
lying about the true nature of those events. In this case, there is a
case to answer, and my sole aim is to get at the truth, whatever that
truth may turn out to be. In pursuing this objective, I will look at
the facts and the facts alone and draw conclusions based on what those
facts suggest, alone.
At this point, we are approaching the paradox that is at the
heart of the argument of the "no 757 " debunkers. They clearly are well
aware that there is a serious problem with the lack of damage and
debris at the Pentagon, yet that does not deter them from continuing
with their increasingly unbelievable theories in an attempt to prove
that the official government story is correct. At the same time, after
coming up with bizarre explanations for the lack of damage and debris,
they are then forced to deal with the fact that, while the damage to
the Pentagon facade is not consistent with the impact of a large
commercial airliner, the damage to the interior of the Pentagon is even
less so.
Now, let's return to the ATS forum post.
Also, as I showed earlier: Here is an L1011 (it's a larger plane than a
757 - but the basic design of how a plane body is built is the same)
being scrapped, you can see that almost ALL of the support structure is
in the bottom 2/5 of the plane. This is the part that punched the hole
in the Pentagon, the rest of the thin, hollow, top of the plane just
shredded into chunks, some of which are laying
on the lawn and around the rescue vehicles. Most of a commercial
airliner is just a thin aluminum shell, insulation, a thin plastic
inner liner, some carpet and seats. They're designed to be as light as
possible so they can carry more cargo and more people while using less
fuel and at the same time remain "safe".
It is a given that the majority of mass is going to be in the bottom
half of the aircraft - the primary structure and heaviest parts are all
located there, as is the luggage and any freight.
But lets reinforce this as fact with a
photo of a 757-300 being built. (Remember, the only difference
between a 757-200 and a 757-300 is the length of the body, and the
wings on the 757-300 are reinforced and slightly deeper - the height
and width and wingspan remain identical.)
Indeed, aircraft like the 757 are made of aluminium, for the
most part, yet that does not take away from the fact that the 757 that
is alleged to have hit the Pentagon was over 80 tons and flying at over
400mph, with two six TON steel engines flanking.
(source) We should also
make a note of the yellow primer used on the interior of the
rear section.
This image shows the light green primer used on the primary
structure components in the 757 (Boeing uses the same yellow primer and
the same green primer on almost every single part of every single 757
and 767 built).
What does the green or yellow primer have to do with
anything? Well, we'll take a look at the aircraft parts from the
Pentagon wreckage photos below.
Are we to assume that Boeing is the only aircraft
manufacturer to use green primer on the shells of its aircraft? Is it
possible that this primer is an aircraft industry standard and that
other aircraft manufactures also use green primer? If so, can the fact
that some small pieces of debris that were found inside the Pentagon be
reasonably touted as evidence that it had to be a Boeing 757
that impacted the building?
Here, I direct your attention to the fact that Epoxy Primer
37035A is just exactly that shade of yucky yellow/green. It is
available from Aerospace Coatings Akzo Nobel and is designated
as "Epoxy Primer 37035A (green)" or "Epoxy Primer 37052 (green)". It is
apparently widely used on many types of aircraft.
Again, we should note that the entire argument of the ATS
author seems to be based on the premise that the official US government
story about what hit the Pentagon MUST BE correct, despite the fact
that he/she ALSO accepts the idea that there was some level of
complicity in the 9/11 attacks on the part of the US government. Again,
that is similar to taking the word of a suspected murderer about the
very murder he is suspected of having committed. It's just not logical.
Could it be that the posts on the ATS forum where "CatHerder" claims to
believe that the government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks are
examples of what is known in psychology as "malignant
pseudo-identification"?
Malignant
pseudo-identification is the process by which a COINTELPRO agent
consciously imitates or simulates certain behaviors or beliefs in order
to foster the sincere activist's "identification" with him/her, thus
increasing the activist's vulnerability to exploitation.
Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are
most vulnerable to malignant pseudo-identification especially during
work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to
their competency, autonomy, or knowledge. The goal of the agent is to
increase the activist's general empathy for the agent and ideas the
agent wishes to "plant" through pseudo-identification with the
activist's self-concepts. The most common example of this is the agent
who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or
value to the movement. Another is to declare identification with many
of the ideas of the activist, and then diverge on the one idea that
they have been sent in to debunk. And certainly we can see that the
issue of whether or not Flight 77 struck the Pentagon is just such an
idea that would necessitate major debunking.
Ok, but how did a hollow tube, made of mostly aluminium, manage to
punch through the Pentagon? I'm happy to try to help explain it
with the aid of the good folks at Perdue University . We'll get to
that in a moment.
This is a very good question. So which is it? You can make
the argument that a 757 was so flimsy that the Pentagon facade was
relatively undamaged by the impact, or you argue that the weight and
speed of the aircraft was such that it penetrated 3 rings of
the building, but you can't have it both ways! Any theory that attempts
to reconcile these irreconcilable claims is untenable. But that does
not seem to bother our fearless debunker. He/she has already made two
assertions (13 ft cylinder and paint color) that in no way whatsoever
"prove" any case at all, and now, with the help of the "good folks at
Perdue University", our agent - uh, excuse me, author - comes up with a
seriously far out theory to explain how a 757 could have caused the
damage to the interior of the Pentagon in spite of the fact that most
of it "just shredded into chunks" and was scattered all over the lawn.
Examining Ground
Debris
Landing Gear Evidence
Rim photographed in the Pentagon wreckage. You can clearly see it is a
double bead design as required by the NTSB, and you can also see it has
had 90% of the rim edge smashed off in the crash.
Some people have tried to claim that the rims are different from a 757
rim - well here (bottom) is a 757-200 rim from an American Airlines
757, I've outlined the exact same symmetrical holes. I think perhaps
some people are thrown off by the balancing led weights attached on the
rims in the bottom photo? Have you never taken your car in for a wheel
alignment and tire balancing? This is clearly the same kind of rim
found on a 757. (The hub-covers/grease-covers are not present for
obvious reasons - to remove one you pop it off with a flathead screw
driver... so how would you expect it to stay on in a 400mph impact with
a reinforced concrete wall?)
While we agree that the wheel rim from the Pentagon appears
to be the same as that of a Boeing 757, we need to look at the "wheel
rim" evidence firstly in the context of a massive government conspiracy
on 9/11, and secondly in context of the other - overwhelming - evidence
that points to something other than a 757 having hit the
Pentagon.
Taking these facts into consideration and the evidence for a
general 9/11 government conspiracy, is it not plausible that the
conspirators just might have "planted" evidence at some point in the
operation? After all, if CatHerder grants the possibility of a
government conspiracy and cover-up, why does he/she draw the line at
the planting of evidence?
Keep in mind that there are very few available photos of
aircraft debris inside the Pentagon: a wheel rim and a landing gear
strut, and an engine combustion chamber. The wheel rim was in the non-renovated
Wedge 2 by the AE drive hole. And despite the assertions of the
author of the ATS post, without expert analysis, no one can say that
the few recognizable airplane parts are unequivocally from a 757.
Landing gear strut - appears to be from the nose gear -
note how charred the area around it is.
This landing gear strut is inadmissible as evidence given the
fact that the CatHerder does not claim to be an expert on landing gear
and cannot verify from which aircraft this landing gear comes. As such,
it could be the landing gear strut from any number of aircraft.
The next photo is from the cover from one of the conspiracy sites
that demands "where is the plane?"- they
must not have looked very hard, there are 2 obvious chunks of it in the
photo. Another rim from the airplane on the right,
and a large chunk of bulkhead on the left.
Again the alleged "evidence" of debris from a Boeing 757 in
the above pictured debris is inconclusive. The fact that the ATS author
claims categorically that there is "a large chunk
of bulkhead on the left" is somewhat comical given his/her
admitted lack of expertise in positively identifying charred remains of
any aircraft let alone a Boeing 757. We should note that we
are not saying that "no plane" hit the Pentagon, we are simply saying
that the damage and debris is inconsistent with a Boeing 757.
Below: More parts from inside the 757 - note the Boeing green
primer on 3 parts in this photo - two circled.
Again, for anyone, let alone an amateur like CatHerder, to
claim that they can positively identify debris from a Boeing 757 from
these mangled pieces of material raises questions about the integrity
and impartiality of said individual. Can "CatHerder" be sure that these
greenish pieces of material are not from some part of the inside of the
Pentagon or from another type of aircraft? The very fact that all of
these parts and bits of "evidence" were NOT trotted out by the
government and put on display for the public and experts to examine is
more indication that if they had been, someone would have recognized
them as something else entirely.
No official explanation for the above hole in ring C has ever
been put forward, and the ATS author studiously ignores this fact. The
official Pentagon building performance report simply states that:
"There
was a hole in the east wall of ring C, emerging into AE Drive, between
column lines 5 and 7 in Wedge 2. The wall failure was approximately 310
ft from where the fuselage of the aircraft entered the west wall of the
building..."
That's it. The fact that whatever came out through this hole
is essentially the object that hit the Pentagon and did the major part
of the damage is apparently not deemed important enough, either by the
US government or CatHerder, to deserve comment.
The fact is that the above image showing the round hole that
was left in ring C is one of the most intriguing aspects of the
Pentagon attack. While we might assume that it is unofficially claimed
that one of the engines of Flight 77 made this hole (the engine being
the only part of a 757 that could possibly be strong enough to pass
through three rings of the Pentagon, never mind that it left no
evidence of its entry on the exterior of the building), as we have
seen, a disk that is verifiably part of the engine of the aircraft that
hit the Pentagon was found at the front of the building, not
in the third ring. This fact strongly suggests that the engine that the
disk came from was destroyed in the initial blast at the front of
the building. It is highly unlikely therefore that an engine of
the plane that hit the Pentagon punched out this hole. Whatever the
object was, it had enough force to breach the main reinforced steel
concrete outer wall and then travel some 250 feet, passing through
five other double-brick walls on the way. Terry Mitchell, Chief of
the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) was
one of the first on the scene at this “punch out” point. In a DOD
news briefing about the reconstruction of the Pentagon he stated:
“This
is a hole in -- there was a punch-out. They suspect that this was where
a part of the aircraft came through this hole, although I didn’t
see any evidence of the aircraft down there.”
Indeed, it just must have been where part of the
aircraft came out, yet there was no evidence of any part of
an aircraft that could have made the hole! Never mind that CatHerder
has just told us about all the evidence of the aircraft that is just
laying all around! Later in the same briefing when referring to the
same hole Mitchell must have realised his mistake and stated:
“This
pile here is all Pentagon metal. None of that is aircraft whatsoever.
As you can see, they’ve punched a hole in here. This was punched by the
rescue workers to clean it out”.
So which was it? Was the hole punched out by some part of the
aircraft or by rescue workers? Was the pile of stuff aircraft debris,
as CatHerder claims, or was it "all Pentagon metal" as Terry Mitchell
says? Look again at the picture of the hole. We don’t need the
contradictory statements of Mr. Mitchell to conclude that, due to the
fact that the debris is on the outside of the building, the hole was
punched out from the inside, yet how could it have been “punched out”
by rescue workers when there are scorch marks at the top of the hole on
the outside? Did the rescue workers punch out this hole when the fire
was still raging inside? Hardly likely. Limiting air flow is part of
fighting a fire. You don’t make holes to let in more air while you are
trying to extinguish a fire.
Dare we suggest that the OASD chief was lying that day? That
he changed his story because the “official” version of events did not
include the idea that part of the aircraft made that hole, because it
is inconceivable that any part of a 757 could have done so?
If so, then a government official is on record as having lied about the
events at the Pentagon, yet such does not dissuade CatHerder from
trying to convince the public that the official government story about
the strike on the Pentagon is correct.
Below, another photo of a tire with the same
pattern as ones used on a 757, found in the Pentagon wreckage.
Again, for anyone to present a grainy picture of something
that vaguely resembles a tyre and then claim that this is a positive
ID of the wheel of a Boeing 757 simply gives us further cause to
believe that CatHerder either has an agenda about which he/she is not
being honest, or is so invested in his/her need to prove the government
story correct that he/she has lost any hope of being objective about
his/her analysis of the evidence.
Engine Evidence
Let’s take a look at some of the ground debris that appears to be
related to an aircraft engine. Many different sites and posts have
reported that the 757 uses Rolls-Royce engines [RB211-535E4B] - however
it should be noted, for the sake of thoroughness
(ibid), that American Airlines also use Pratt & Witney engines [PW2037] in many of their 757
fleet. You can also view this information on their website. (The 757
fleets around the world actually use over six different kinds of
engines.) The 757 that is reported to have hit the Pentagon was using
RB211-535E4B engines.
Here is are photos of some apparent engine
parts from the Pentagon crash site.
Image portion cropped from (source) - Another View
What is seen in this photo is most likely the APU (Aux Power Unit) used
in a 757 that is equipped with Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. The APU
(Honeywell GTCP331-200) is located in the tail section of the aircraft
(that's what the large vent that looks like a 3rd jet engine is) as edvidenced (ibid) on this technical rescue reference aid from Boeing. Boeing 757 reference website. These small turbine engines are quite common on
modern turbine & turbofan passenger aircraft, and are used to
furnish ground auxillary power while the
main engines are shut down during ground operations. An
online training aid lets you Play around with the controls on a
757/767 instrument pannel (ibid).
The reader will notice in the above something that CatHerder
does repeatedly throughout his/her analysis. When presenting his/her
argument he/she pads out the point being made with additional
information that is often irrelevant to the point being made,
but which is included, it seems, to create the impression that the
point being made is well-researched or "factual". For example, what
does a link to an online pilot training aid that lets you play around
with a 757 instrument panel have to do with identifying the disk in the
above picture?
There have been some people who claim that a Global Hawk
was what hit the Pentagon. Here is what John W. Brown, spokesman for
Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), had to say about the part in the photo
above 'It is not a part from any Rolls
Royce engine that I'm familiar with, and certainly
not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.'
(Of course it wouldn't be anything he's familiar with, it's a powerplant made by Honeywell.) The AE 3007
engines are used in small commuter jets such as the Cessna Citation; the
AE 3007H is also used in the military's
unmanned aircraft, the Global Hawk. The Global Hawk is manufactured
by Northrop Grumman's subsidiary Ryan
Aeronautical, which it acquired from Teledyne, Inc. in July 1999. A detailed view of what the turbofan that powers the
Global Hawk looks like - I'm sure you can see it's too small
to be anything in the pictures contained here or anywhere else in the
Pentagon crash evidence. Also visible in this photo, one of the
757's blue passenger seats to the left of the turbine, and possibly a
2nd seat above the other seat.
Again CatHerder reveals his/her possible agenda by selective
quoting (and without references) in the above paragraph. First of all,
the comments by Rolls Royce spokesman John Brown are taken from an American
Free Press article written by Christopher Bollyn.
Bollyn undertook the task of trying to find out what exactly
the disk in the above photo was. He called Honeywell’s Aerospace
division in Phoenix, Ariz., where the GTCP331-200 APU used on the 757
aircraft is made: “There’s no way that’s an APU wheel”, an expert at
Honeywell told AFP. The expert, who cannot be named, added: “That
turbine disc—there’s no way in the world that came out of an APU”
The first point then is that an expert form Honeywell
that makes the APU for the 757 has stated categorically that the APU
wheel in the photo is not from a 757.
As mentioned by CatHerder, Bollyn then contacted John W.
Brown, spokesman for Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), asking if the disk was
from a Rolls Royce manufactured engine, perhaps the AE3007H used in the
Global Hawk. Brown’s response was:
“It is
not a part from any Rolls Royce engine that I’m familiar with, and
certainly not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.”
Next Bollyn called Pratt & Whitney who manufactures
parts of the 757’s turbofan jet engines:
“If
the aircraft that struck the Pentagon was a Boeing 757-200 owned by
American Airlines, then it would have to be a Rolls Royce engine”, Mark
Sullivan, spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, told AFP.
So we have another spokesman for Pratt and Whitney, who,
along with Rolls Royce, manufacture parts of the 757s main engines (not
the APU), who has contradicted John Brown of Rolls Royce by saying that
the part MUST be from a Rolls Royce engine, which includes the
possibility that it was the AE 3007H which is the engine in a Global
Hawk, yet it is NOT the GTCP331-200 which is the APU used on the Boeing
757 as stated by the Honeywell expert.
Bollyn then contacted John W. Brown, spokesman for Rolls
Royce once more, to inform him that the Pratt & Whitney
spokesperson had stated that it must be a piece of a Rolls Royce
engine. At this point Brown balked and asked who at Pratt & Whitney
had provided the information.
Asked again if the disc in the photo was a piece of a Rolls
Royce RB211-535, or from the AE 3007 series, Brown said he could not
answer.
Bollyn then asked Brown if he was actually familiar with the
parts of an AE 3007H, which is made at the Indiana plant: “No”, Brown
said. “I don’t build the engines. I am a spokesman for the company. I
speak for the company.”
So the Rolls Royce spokesman that CatHerder quotes as an expert on the
evidence that the disk in the photo cannot be from a Global Hawk has
stated that he is not familiar with the parts of the Global Hawk engine
and is therefore not qualified to make any statement about the origins
of the the wheel in the photo.
We are left then with the likelihood that the disk in the
photo IS from a Rolls Royce engine, but NOT from the APU of the 757 as
stated by the Honeywell expert. Could it then be a part of one of the
main engines of a 757? By all accounts it is far too small to be the
disk from one of the 757's main engines, given that they are between 6
and 7 ft in diameter. The disk on the AE 3007H however is a little over
3 ft in diameter, and despite what CatHerder says, the disk in the
photo is a very good match for that of a AE 3007H, the engine used on a
Global Hawk but never on a Boeing 757.
Bollyn states:
Rolls
Royce produces the RB211-535 (main) engines for American Airlines
757-200 aircraft at a plant in Derby, England. Martin Johnson, head of
communications at Rolls Royce in Derby, said he had followed the story
closely in American Free Press and had also been notified in advance by
Rolls Royce offices in Seattle and Indianapolis. However, rather than
address the question of the unidentified disc, Johnson launched a
verbal attack on this reporter for questioning the government version
of events at the Pentagon on 9-11. ‘You are the only person in the
world who does not believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon’, Johnson said.
‘The idea that we can have a reasonable conversation is beyond your
wildest dreams’, Johnson said and hung up the phone.
While there can be no definitive statements made on the
matter, the available evidence would seem to suggest that the engine
disk in the FEMA photos is probably too small to be part of a 757
engine and, contrary to what CatHerder states, according to the
Honeywell expert that makes the APU for the 757, it is definitely not
a part of a 757’s APU. So what is it? It could very well be part of a
Global Hawk AE3007H engine.
Back to our ATS author:
Below is a significant portion of a badly smashed RB211 engine in
the Pentagon wreckage - what appears to be the diffusor
section of the compressor, one of the pumps remains partially attached,
some hoses and the familiar webbed wire wraps (to the right of the main
ring) and some of the Boeing yellow primed support structure is lying
beside it (left, with rivets - again: note the yellow primer, we'll
cover that further down). Reference: Image of the engine used on the
757 (it's the rightmost one, top row) Rolls-Royce
Yet again our non-expert author presents photographs of
mangled pieces of debris and asserts categorically that they are parts
from a 757 engine.
In this case, we are provided with a link to a picture of a
757 engine without its casing from which our author can apparently
quite easily identify things like the "diffusor
section of the compressor" and "one of the pumps" and "some hoses and
the familiar webbed wire wraps".
Ah yes! Those familiar webbed wire wraps, known and loved in
every household across the country! The photo below is the reference
that our author has used to positively match the mangled and burnt
debris above. Well? Can't you see it?! It's right there!! Clearly
the debris above is the very same 757 engine in the photo
below!
No? Well, obviously you just don't trust enough in the word
of the US government and its agent, CatHerder. If you did, you would be
able to see the truth straight away. (End sarcasm.)
Another engine part, bottom right.
Again, for the author, in his/her non-expert opinion, to
declare that the circular piece of debris in the above photo is
"another engine part" is either evidence of extreme subjectivity or a
deliberate attempt to mislead the reader. We are beginning to think it
is the latter.
Below: Evidence of the right engine impact on the side of
the building is evident on the large pillar being sprayed with fire
retardant. (click photo for huge version)
At this point, CatHerder's sweeping statements about damage
to the Pentagon and what caused it are getting to be somewhat farcical.
In this case, as in almost every statement made by the him/her so far,
the claim is spurious to say the least.
Click on the link to view a larger version of the photo. You
will see that the chunk of masonry that is missing is a the level of
the second floor windows in the Pentagon. If, as CatHerder states, the
engine of a 757 did this damage then the nose of the plane would have
impacted several feet higher around the middle of the second floor. Yet
CatHerder sees no problem with making such a claim while at the same
time presenting photographs that show clearly that whatever hit the
Pentagon struck the facade at the level of the first floor!
Again, we realize that we have been dazzled with more photos
and more unsubstantiated claims.
The hit lightpoles, and
damaged vehicles in the flightpath
(click for larger images)
Indeed, damaged light poles, but was it a 757 that did this
damage or another type of craft? We aren't saying that a plane did not
hit the Pentagon. Hardly anyone IS saying that. The only thing at issue
is what KIND of plane was it?
The debris field of small chunks of plane
witnesses said debris "rained down for minutes after the crash". (click
for larger images)
Again, (and we are sure you are getting tired of this by now)
the debris in the upper photos is extremely small and most likely to be
masonry from the facade of the Pentagon rather than "small chunks of
plane" as CatHerder states. Note yet again that he (or she) is making
sweeping assertions without providing any evidence at all for any of
his/her claims! Somehow, probably due to the abundance of photos and
the authoritative writing style that has very little content, many
people actually accept this bit of what can only be called "yellow
journalism" as a serious debunking of the "No Boeing" idea!
As noted by Thierry Meyssan in his book Pentagate,
even the American government has refused to recognise that the infamous
piece of debris in the lower photo on the left above is a part of the
Flight 77, yet CatHerder sagely affirms that it is, without doubt, a
piece of Flight 77. As for the "eyewitnesses" statements that debris
"rained down for minutes after the crash", we do not doubt that it did,
but that has little or no bearing on our investigation into whether
Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, or whether it was something else.
[Deleted part of CatHerder's analysis of the size of the
infamous "piece of plane" given that the point has already been made
that the US government officially disowns this as a part of Flight 77.]
Even the black boxes have been recovered, the reason given
for not playing the flight voice recorder for the media was that it
wouldn't serve any use other than to cause more emotional pain to
family members (I agree with them frankly).
Well, again CatHerder is being disingenuous.
Flight data recorders were found at the Pentagon on September
14th 2001. On Feb. 25, 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller stated that
Flight 77's data recorder provided altitude, speed, headings and other
information, but the voice recorder contained nothing useful. [CBS]
Later, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that the data
on the cockpit voice data recorder was unrecoverable. No further
explanation was given for these contradictory statements.
If the
cockpit voice data really was unrecoverable, it would be the first time
in aviation history a solid-state data recorder (the type used on
Flight 77) was unrecoverable after a crash.
From a
Scientific American feature article lauding the "Better
Black Box" in their [WWW] September 2000 issue:
Nearly
100,000 flight recorders have been installed in commercial aircraft
over the past four decades. The prices of the latest models generally
range from $10,000 to $20,000. Their survival rate has greatly improved
in recent years as the FAA has raised the certification requirements.
Although older recorders using magnetic tape were susceptible to fire
damage, no solid-state device has been destroyed in an accident to
date.
Lawyers
representing 9/11 victim families are attempting to use the Freedom of
Information Act to obtain transcripts of the black-box data. See [WWW] 9/11 Lawyers Seek Black-Box Data on Saudi Hijackers
by Tom Flocco, which indicates the FBI are obstructing the NTSB review
of the black box data. [Flight 77 Black Boxes]
So we see it was not the case that only the public
did not get to hear what was on the data recorders, the families of the
victims have been left out in the cold too.
So much for wanting to prevent emotional pain!
Of
course, as Flight 77 was not the plane involved in the Pentagon Attack,
its black boxes would presumably show that, and the government would be
very reluctant to allow the data to be examined, or allow the NTSB to
carry out the investigation of the crash that is required by law. [Flight 77 Black Boxes]
As an interesting aside on the black boxes, Allyn E.
Kilsheimer is the CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, the company
responsible for rebuilding the Pentagon under the Phoenix Project. He
was the head structural engineer on the rebuilding project and the
first structural engineer to arrive at the scene (at the request of the
DOD by the way). He stated:
"I
saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked
up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my
hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box."
Kilsheimer's eyewitness account is backed up by photos of plane
wreckage inside and outside the building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held
parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts.
Okay?"
Of course, the idea that we should give any credit to the
words of someone who was immediately called by the Pentagon to come and
"assess the damage" and who went on to make millions from the
reconstruction project is laughable. Kilsheimer was also the
"government's man" at the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing and the
first WTC bombing. Coincidence?
But it doesn't end there.
Kilsheimer claimed that he "found the black box" on the afternoon of
9/11. The only problem with this statement is that it is an out and out
lie, and verifiably so.
From MSNBC:
"Carlton
Burkhammer was at work at Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Station 14
when he heard about the World Trade Center crashes. Part of Fairfax
County’s elite urban search and rescue team, Burkhammer prepared to
suit up and head to New York City. One of the nation’s most experienced
rescue teams, the squad had been deployed in disasters all over the
world: Oklahoma City, embassy bombings, the Turkey earthquake. [...]
Early Friday morning, shortly before 4 a.m., Burkhammer and another
firefighter, Brian Moravitz, were combing through debris near the
impact site. Peering at the wreckage with their helmet lights, the two
spotted an intact seat from the plane’s cockpit with a chunk of the
floor still attached. Then they saw two odd-shaped dark boxes, about
1.5 by 2 feet long."
Yet again we have a government agent openly and PROVABLY
lying about the events surrounding the attack on the Pentagon, but
that again does not give CatHerder any pause for thought before
trumpeting the official story as the truth.
Area of fence to the right of the impact area
partially flattened by the right engine of the plane. Note how a
couple of the poles are bent right over, some are sheered off at the
top, yet the pole and fence portion on the left is untouched (obviously
the right engine took out the fence to the right of those poles) and
the entire back side of the fence has been torn away. The generator was
hit by the right wing and engine before the 757 hit the building - the
damage is evidenced by other photos
of the crash area.
Closeup of generator smashed in the front
and gouged on the top - hard to image a missile accomplishing both of
these. But if the right engine of a 757 hit the front of the generator,
part of the wing could gouge the top. At the very least, something very
large, and very heavy smashed into this
extremely heavy desil generator.
Click the image on the left to view a large top-down image of the
impact area, including the large desil
(sic) generator which is visibly damaged, and actually spun ~45 degrees
from the impact! Most importantly it is spun ~45 degrees towards
the building - if this was a missile or a bomb, the explosion could
ONLY have spun it away from the building.
In the immediate aftermath of the Pentagon attack, the
Associated Press reported that a truck bomb had exploded at the Pentagon. There
were other reports that a helicopter had exploded. It certainly seems likely
then that something exploded in the vicinity of the Pentagon
before the main impact. As noted by CatHerder, there was a diesel
generator stationed just to the right of the impact point in front of
the Pentagon that was part of the Pentagon refurbishment project.
Diesel generators usually have a large fuel tank located somewhere
nearby to power them. Photos taken moments after the impact show an
already burning fire to the right of the main impact site that is
emitting a dense cloud of black smoke.
This black smoke is
consistent with burning fuel (diesel), which continued to burn long
after the flames and smoke from the main impact had died down.
If Flight 77 impacted the Pentagon, we would expect there to
be a major and prolonged fire from the thousands of gallons of aircraft
fuel that Flight 77 was carrying. But in the case that another smaller
aircraft was used, the lack of burning aircraft fuel would be evident.
It is our contention therefore that the conspirators detonated a bomb
near the generator just before or at the moment of impact in order to
augment the aircraft explosion claim (complete with thousands of
gallons of fuel) and also to provide a literal smoke screen in an
attempt to hide the fact that Flight 77 was not involved in the attack.
The Gate Camera
Some people don't seem to see perspective correctly. I've zoomed in,
and compared the two frames over and over - here is what I see as the
airplane. I will repeat, however, that this is terrible evidence due to
the horrible quality of the original images. I do believe, however,
that the white smoke in the images is caused by one or more damaged
engine from the impact with the multiple light poles on the way in (as
seen in the above image).
I stuck in a 757 that was at relatively the same angle - except it's
banking slightly to starboard instead of to
port - hence the ONE wing is out of place. If it was banking slightly
to port it would fit perfectly... However, once again - this is
entirely subjective and the image quality from the released
surveillance camera is not good enough to form a factual opinion.
The author's comment that "if it was banking slightly to port
it (a 757) would fit perfectly" is really quite humorous. The fact is
that you could "stick in" a tank or a bus or a large two-storey house
and they would also "fit perfectly".
The facts are as follows:
There were at least four video cameras capable of
recording the attack on the Pentagon. One was on the roof of the
Sheraton Hotel, a second was at a gas station across the road from the
Pentagon itself, the third belonged to the Virginia Department of
Transportation and was stationed on route 27, which the aircraft flew
over. The fourth was the Pentagon’s security camera stationed at the
opposite one end of the façade from where the plane struck.
The footage from the cameras at the Sheraton, the gas station
and on route 27 were confiscated by the FBI and have never been
released. The only footage made available to the public was that
recorded by the Pentagon’s security camera. According to the Washington
Times however, both the DOJ and the FBI denied responsibility for
releasing the footage from the Pentagon's security camera:
"The
Pentagon has not released any video or any photos from security cameras
from the terrorist attack of Sept. 11," said Pentagon spokeswoman
Cheryl Irwin. A spokeswoman at the Department of Justice, which reviews
taped and photographed evidence obtained by federal security cameras,
said she could not comment on whether the photos are legitimate, adding
that the photos "were not disseminated by the FBI or the Department of
Justice."
Of course, a simple denial does not mean that someone within
the DOJ or the DOD or the FBI did not release the footage to
the public - after all, we are dealing with a massive 9/11
conspiracy and the footage is from the Pentagon's very own
security camera. We can assume with a reasonable degree of certainty
therefore, that someone within one of the arms of the American
military/ political/ industrial complex released the footage and then
denied that they did so, and for a very specific reason.
The above photo is the first still from the only video
footage of the Pentagon attack that has been made available. It is
alleged that it shows an approaching Boeing 757 in the upper right hand
corner. Do you see a Boeing 757-200 in this picture?
If we think back to the images and video footage of Flight 11
and Flight 175 hitting the WTC towers, we remember that we all saw both
large Boeing airplanes, as clear as day, even though they were flying
at over 500 mph and were over 1,000 feet up in the air when they struck
the WTC Towers. This provides us with an excellent guide on how such
commercial aircraft appear at that distance. The side of the Pentagon
is 971 feet long and the plane in the footage is no more than 750 feet
(250 yards) from the camera that is stationed near the opposite end of
the Pentagon. Remember the indelible images of those huge planes flying
into the World Trade Center towers? Even at that distance, even with
the size of the WTC towers, the image and size of the aircraft that was
burned into our minds from having seen the tapes replayed endlessly, is
awe-inspiring.
Now, look again at the above image from the Pentagon Security
camera of the plane approaching the building. Ask yourself the
question: where is the Boeing 757-200 in this image?
Next time you are at an airport, take five minutes and go and
look at some planes on the runway. Pick out a large passenger jet that
is approximately 750 feet away, preferably one in the process of taking
off or landing. Take a picture of it. Then look at this image from the
Pentagon Security camera again and ask yourself. Where is
that Boeing 757?!
The fact is that if a Boeing 757 really did hit the Pentagon,
it would stick out like, well… like a Boeing 757 in this footage, but
the simple and obvious fact is that there is no Boeing 757 there. In
fact, there is no plane of any description in the footage released by
the Pentagon.
Note that the time stamp displays a date and time of
September 12th at 5.37:19 pm. The DOD has offered no reason for this
discrepancy, which is understandable since they claim to have no
knowledge about who released the images. In the footage, the
progression of seconds jumps from 19, where it starts, to 21 and then
on to 22 and 23 where it ends, meaning that one second and an
undetermined number of frames have been cut from the film. No
explanation has ever been offered by any official sources as to why
this video footage has clearly been “doctored”, why one second and
several frames have been removed – frames that would likely show just
what it was that struck the Pentagon. Of course, this is very
convenient for exponents of the official story. The footage shows something
flying into the Pentagon and exploding, and since we were all
immediately told that that "something" was a 757, the case is closed,
right?
Not really.
Quite apart from the fact that the doctoring of the video
strongly suggests that someone released this footage in an attempt to
provide "evidence" to the public that a 757 hit the Pentagon, while at
the same time removing the incriminating frames and denying the public
the right to actually see what it was, in the images above we
see a stream of white smoke that is entirely inconsistent with a
commercial jet aircraft at ground level and much more in line with the
trail left by a missile launch. Please note however that I am not
saying that only a “missile” struck the Pentagon.
Note also the picture of actual impact and explosion.
Have you ever burned oil, or car gas or diesel? It burns with
a dense black smoke, as does oil (see above picture of claimed truck
bomb). The flame is predominantly red, which, I am told, is due to the
low burn temperature of oil-based fuel (see picture of flames from
plane explosions at WTC). While there are few bomb or explosive experts
willing to weigh in, there have been a few who claim to know about bomb
detonations who affirm that this white flame is clear evidence of
explosives detonating. In fact, several eyewitnesses to the attack made
it very clear that they knew that the explosion involved explosives, not
a mere aircraft full of fuel.
Eyewitness
to the Pentagon attack and Pentagon worker Don Perkal, was on the scene within minutes:
“Even before stepping outside I could smell the cordite. Then I knew
explosives had been set off somewhere.”
He also stated:
“Hundreds
of F.B.I., Secret Service and Defense Department plainclothes
investigators were deployed in the parking lot, recording witness
statements.”
Another eyewitness, Gilah Goldsmith said:
“We
saw a huge black cloud of smoke”, adding that it smelled like cordite,
or gun smoke.
Witnesses
inside the Pentagon, mostly military men, described a shockwave and
a blast.
The Washington Post ran a story where it was stated:
Air
Force Lt. Col. Marc Abshire, 40, a speechwriter for Air Force Secretary
James Roche, was working on several speeches this morning when he felt
the blast of the explosion at the Pentagon. His office is on the D
ring, near the eighth corridor, he said. “It shot me back in my chair.
There was a huge blast. I could feel the air shock wave of
it”, Abshire said. “I didn’t know exactly what it was. It didn’t
rumble. It was more of a direct smack.”
Donald R. Bouchoux, 53, a retired Naval officer, a Great Falls
resident, a Vietnam veteran and former commanding officer of a Navy
fighter squadron, was driving west from Tysons Corner to the Pentagon
for a 10am meeting. He wrote:
“At
9:40 a.m. I was driving down Washington Boulevard (Route 27) along the
side of the Pentagon when the aircraft crossed about 200 yards (should
be more than 150 yards from the impact) in front of me and impacted the
side of the building. There was an enormous fireball, followed about
two seconds later by debris raining down. The car moved about a foot to
the right when the shock wave hit.”
John Bowman, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel
and a contractor, was in his office in Corridor Two near the main
entrance to the south parking lot.
“Everything
was calm”, Bowman said. “Most people knew it was a bomb.
Everyone evacuated smartly. We have a good sprinkling of military
people who have been shot at.”
Stars
and Stripes reporter Lisa Burgess was walking on the Pentagon’s
innermost corridor, across the courtyard, when the incident happened.
“I
heard two loud booms - one large, one smaller, and the shock wave
threw me against the wall”, she said.
Anger
and guilt still sear Lieutenant Colonel Michael Beans who shakes his
head ruefully and asks himself why he survived: "Why you, not them? Who
made that decision?" (…) Inside the Pentagon, the blast lifted Beans
off the floor as he crossed a huge open office toward his desk. "You
heard this huge concussion, then the room filled with this real
bright light, just like everything was encompassed within this bright
light," said Beans. "As soon as I hit the floor, all the lights
went out, there was a small fire starting to burn."
So we see that several witnesses, both inside and outside the
building, described a shockwave that knocked them to the
ground. Several described it as a concussion. Such a shockwave cannot
be explained by the impact of an aircraft or the combustion of jet
fuel, and indicates the detonation of an explosive. Explosive
detonations produce blast pressures thousands of times stronger than
hydrocarbon fireballs because explosives are oxidized by chemicals
intrinsic to them whereas hydrocarbons rely on oxygen in ambient air
for combustion. Consequently the chemical reaction proceeds at a much
higher rate in an explosive.
Hydrocarbon fireballs can produce detonation waves if the
fuel and air are mixed prior to ignition, but such detonation waves are
comparatively weak. The violence of most plane crashes precludes such
pre-mixing. In the Twin Tower jet collisions, the columns of the
curtain walls diced the fuel tanks in the wings, assuring fuel and air
mixing about as optimally as could be imagined in a collision, and yet
there were no reports of detonation shockwaves from any
survivors from the floors below the impact point.
Cordite is an explosive compound used in aircraft gun
ammunition. Several witnesses with the benefit of military experience
recognized the smell of this compound. Cordite N consists of three main
explosive compounds: nitroguanidine, nitrocellulose, and nitroglycerin.
It is cool-burning, and produces little smoke and no flash, but, like
other explosives, produces a strong detonation wave.
Back to ATS forum post:
Lets look at the physics involved
Here CatHerder takes us off on a tangent that is wholly
irrelevant to the task of analysing the likely physical impact of 80
tons of metal and other solid matter on the Pentagon and therefore to
answering the question of whether or not Flight 77 hit the Pentagon,
because, despite the above heading, the only physics that is employed
by the people at Purdue University is that pertaining to the physics of
liquid, i.e. the fuel in the wings of the plane and its hypothesised
effect on the Pentagon facade and interior. It therefore has little to
do with the job of ironing out the problems of the claim that an 80 ton
Boeing aircraft hit the Pentagon. We can only assume that it is an
attempt to confuse the reader and detract from the main issue - that
the totality of evidence at the Pentagon crash site is entirely inconsistent
with a Boeing 757 having hit the Pentagon that day.
Engineers, computer scientists and graphics technology experts at
Purdue University have created the first publicly available simulation
that uses scientific principles to study in detail what
theoretically happened when the Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon
last Sept. 11
Using simulation software called LS-Dyna, the smart
folks use the physically accurate simulation results as input to
animations and visualizations to produce a vivid reenactment of the
impact of the aircraft on the Pentagon building and provide the larger
team with the necessary data to construct these using 3D Studio Max,
AutoCAD, and research tools.
Again the author is being less that transparent and omits to
specify that the referenced research looks at the impact of the liquid
in the fuel tanks and its effect on the Pentagon. In fact it
is a testimony to the fact that even those that hold to the official
version of events have had to resort to the idea that, in their own
words:
"a
basic hypothesis, informally confirmed with engineers knowledgeable in
this subject, is that the bulk of the impact damage is due to the body
of fuel in the wing and center tanks."
And why? Because the damage to the Pentagon, including the 8
feet wide circular hole punched out in ring C is ENTIRELY inconsistent
with the impact of an 80 ton 757 jetliner.
The Purdue folks further state that:
"The
purpose of this simulation is to understand the response of a
reinforced concrete column subjected to high-speed impact of the fuel
in the aircraft tanks."
But CatHerder conveniently leaves the details out.
Now we can see, through a very competent and valid
simulator, what happened in the attack on the Pentagon.
Click
here to view a video generated by the simulator. Or, click here to read the white paper.
Again, this simulation does not show us "what happened in the
attack on the Pentagon"; it shows us the
hypothesised effect of the FUEL in the wings on the Pentagon and is an
example of the desperate attempts to find an explanation, ANY
explanation, for why the impact damage is NOT consistent with the
impact of a 757 when the government says it was a 757. In fact, the
study above is contradictory if one wants to stick with the "13 ft
cylinder" and "confetti-ized" wings theory. You can't have it both
ways.
In layman's terms the crash
dynamics worked like so: A large hollow tube, with a belly full of
luggage, a passenger bay with 60 people, and wings full of fuel smashed
into the side of an almost solid object while moving at a tremendous
speed (somewhere around 350-400mph). When the 225,000lb+ plane hit, it
smashed apart with such force from the crash that it became like one
massive column of liquid (no, the plane didn't melt or turn into
liquid, it just acted like one physically - mountainslides
act the same way, a million tons of rock acts like a large field of
liquid during a landslide even if no water is present). All the small
parts, luggage, people, seats, and all the tens of thousands of pounds
of fuel acting like a massive river came crashing into the wall of the
Pentagon. This force burst through the outside wall and flowed through
the inside to the next wall, and momentum carried this mass until it
finally ran out of inertia at the 3rd ring.
Plane hitting WTC (another example of crash fluid
dynamics) - RealAudio Required - note how
the 767 "liquifies" and flows through the
WTC tower.
Please do read the information on the Perdue website yourself - I don't
do it justice with my one paragraph of paraphrasing!
Indeed, not only does the author's paraphrasing and selective
use of data not tell the truth about the real nature and reason for
this "simulation", it attempts to distract and confuse the reader by
suggesting that an 80 ton solid aircraft was little more than a column
of liquid! Again, you can't have it both ways. If you are going to
include the wings and fuel tanks, and twin 6 TON engines, then the hole
is way too small for all of this together to have created it.
For anyone to try and compare the effects of an 80 ton
aircraft crashing into a building at 400mph to the effects of a
landslide of rocks and soil is far-fetched at best, yet it is testimony
to the extreme lengths that CatHerder must go to to try and prove that
a 757 hit the Pentagon when there is simply no evidence to stand on.
If a 757 really did hit the Pentagon then there should be no
need for outlandish theories about columns of water. The evidence
SHOULD be all there, and it should be a breeze to present facts that
would quickly dismiss any attempts to suggest otherwise.
But we see that this is not the case - in fact the exact
opposite is true! CatHerder is finding it very difficult to prove
something that should be easily provable if the evidence was there for
ALL to see.
Please read again his/her claim that the plane:
"smashed apart
with such force from the crash that it became like one massive column
of liquid (no, the plane didn't melt or turn into liquid, it just acted
like one physically) [....] all the small parts, luggage, people,
seats, and all the tens of thousands of pounds of fuel acting like a
massive river came crashing into the wall of the Pentagon. This force
burst through the outside wall and flowed through the inside to the
next wall, and momentum carried this mass until it finally ran out of
inertia at the 3rd ring"
It is amazing to observe CatHerder suggesting that, on impact with
the Pentagon, all of the parts of a 757 broke into pieces - flew
everywhere as confetti - then somehow formed themselves into a 9 foot
wide 20 feet tall concentrated column of energy (or water-like
substance) that broke through 5 walls of the Pentagon leaving a neat 8
ft by 12 ft round hole in the final 6th wall. Understand also that it
is to such outlandish lengths that anyone, not just CatHerder, must go
to if they want to make a 757 "fit" as the object that struck the
Pentagon on September 11th 2001.
(Removed two aerial images of Pentagon before and
after impact due to a lack of any stated reason for inclusion. See ATS
website to view them.)
Eye Witness Testimony
Lets look at some eye witness testimony sticking only to people
who saw a plane hit the building, and not look at people who saw an
airliner, but didn't see an airplane hit the building because they
looked away or were too far away (behind a hill, behind a building,
etc) to see it actually hit the building.
"Aydan Kizildrgli,
an English language student who is a native of Turkey, saw the jetliner
bank slightly then strike a western wall of the huge five-sided
building that is the headquarters of the nation's military. 'There was
a big boom,' he said. 'Everybody was in shock. I turned around to the
car behind me and yelled "Did you see that?" Nobody could believe it.'"
- "Bush Vows Retaliation for 'Evil Acts'." USA
Today, 11 Sep 2001
Note that in the above, the statement that this eyewitness
saw an "airliner" is made by the USA reporter who wrote the story, not
by the eyewitness himself who only heard a "big boom".
"Frank Probst, an information
management specialist for the Pentagon Renovation Program, left his
office trailer near the Pentagon's south parking lot at 9:36 a.m. Sept.
11. Walking north beside Route 27, he suddenly saw a commercial
airliner crest the hilltop Navy Annex. American Airlines Flight 77
reached him so fast and flew so low that Probst
dropped to the ground, fearing he'd lose his head to its right engine."
- "A Defiant Recovery." The Retired
Officer Magazine, January 2002
Again, the comment that this eyewitness saw a "commercial
airliner" is made by the reporter, not the eyewitness. In any case, an
information management specialist working on the Pentagon Renovation
Program is hardly a credible witness.
"Omar Campo, a Salvadorean,
was cutting the grass on the other side of the road when the plane flew
over his head. 'It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways
plane,' Mr Campo said. 'I was cutting the
grass and it came in screaming over my head. I felt the impact. The
whole ground shook and the whole area was full of fire. I could never
imagine I would see anything like that here.'"- "Pentagon Eyewitness Accounts."The Guardian, 12
Sep 2001
As I have said,
I am not suggesting that no plane hit the Pentagon, I am suggesting
that no 757 hit the Pentagon. I believe a plane did hit the Pentagon,
because there is evidence of aircraft debris, (however scant that
debris might be) and that it was dressed up in American Airline colors,
complete with fake windows, in which case, it is possible that
eyewitnesses may have concluded it was a passenger plane. Of course, a
passenger plane is also the description of an aircraft the size of a
twelve or twenty seat private jet, or something about the size of such
a jet painted with AA colors.
"Afework Hagos, a computer programmer, was on his way to work but
stuck in a traffic jam near the Pentagon when the plane flew
over.'There was a huge screaming noise and I got out of the car as the
plane came over. Everybody was running away in different directions. It
was tilting its wings up and down like it was trying to balance. It hit
some lampposts on the way in.'"- "Pentagon Eyewitness Accounts." The Guardian,
12 Sep 2001
This testimony is consistent with an aircraft hitting the
Pentagon, but not necessarily a 757. The comment that a "huge screaming
noise" was heard is contradicted by other testimonies (below)
"Henry Ticknor, intern minister at the Unitarian
Universalist Church of Arlington, Virginia, was driving to church that
Tuesday morning when American Airlines Flight 77 came in fast and low
over his car and struck the Pentagon. 'There was a puff of white smoke
and then a huge billowing black cloud,' he said." -
"Hell on Earth." UU World
This eyewitness
did not explicitly say that he saw AA Flight 77. His actual testimony
is prefaced with the comment by the reporter that "American Airlines
Flight 77 came in fast and low over his car". What the eyewitness
actually saw was a "puff of white smoke", which is very interesting.
One naturally wonders why the reporter did not quote the witness
entirely instead of putting words in his mouth that he may never have
said.
"We were the only people, we think, who saw it live," Dan
Creed said. He and two colleagues from Oracle software were
stopped in a car near the Naval Annex, next to the Pentagon, when they
saw the plane dive down and level off. "It was no more than 30 feet off
the ground, and it was screaming. It was just screaming. It was nothing
more than a guided missile at that point," Creed said. "I can still see
the plane. I can still see it right now. It's just the most frightening
thing in the world, going full speed, going full throttle, its wheels
up," - Ahwatukee Foothill News
If this testimony is truthful, then there is little doubt
that this eyewitness saw a plane, but was it a 757? Notice that he
never says that it was a Boeing 757. More "selective quoting."
Gary Bauer former Presidential candidate, "I looked at the
woman sitting in the car next to me. She had this startled look on her
face. We were all thinking the same thing. We looked out the front of
our windows to try to see the plane, and it wasn't
until a few seconds later that we realized the jet was coming up behind
us on that major highway. And it veered to the right into the Pentagon.
The blast literally rocked all of our cars. It was an incredible
moment." Massachusetts News
If this testimony is truthful, then there is little doubt
that this eyewitness saw a plane, but was it a 757? Having said that,
we note that Gary Bauer was a presidential candidate in 2000 and is an
avowed right-winger and Bush supporter, for what it's worth.
Sean Boger, Air Traffic Controller
and Pentagon tower chief - "I just looked up and I saw the big nose and
the wings of the aircraft coming right at us and I just watched it hit
the building," Air Traffic Controller and Pentagon tower chief Sean Boger said. "It exploded. I fell to the ground
and covered my head. I could actually hear the metal going through the
building." dcmilitary.com November 16, 2001
CatHerder must be completely unaware of what constitutes a
credible witness. Perhaps it escaped him/her that we are dealing with a
government conspiracy to murder and the testimony of a Pentagon
official can hardly be called impartial.
"The only way you could tell that an aircraft was inside was that
we saw pieces of the nose gear. The devastation was horrific. It was
obvious that some of the victims we found had no time to react. The
distance the firefighters had to travel down corridors to reach the
fires was a problem. With only a good 25 minutes of air in their SCBA
bottles, to save air they left off their face pieces as they walked and
took in a lot of smoke," Captain Defina
said. Captain Defina was the shift
commander [of an aircraft rescue firefighters crew.] NFPA Journal November 1, 2001
Captain Defina may well have seen pieces of a nose gear, or
some aircraft part that looked like a nose gear, but to which aircraft
did these pieces belong? Having said that, it is somewhat surprising
that the nose gear from any aircraft would be visible inside the
Pentagon if we are to believe that the nosegear took the full force of
the initial impact. After all, the nose gear is one of the most fragile
parts of a Boeing aircraft, being made out of carbon rather than
aluminium, and would undoubtedly be destroyed beyond recognition by the
time it reached the interior of the building. Of course, if the nose
gear of the plane that struck the Pentagon was not the first
thing to impact, then it is possible that some nose gear debris might
be found inside.
That's just a small smattering of people who have
gone on record as seeing the plane, and the plane hit the Pentagon. I
could have included the dozens of people who saw the plane, but didn't
see it hit (because it went behind a bridge, a hill, or some trees),
but I choose only to post the ones that sounded the most valid and
actually saw the plane hit the building. (I included the one firechief who states he saw some plane wreckage
during firefighting/rescue attempts.) There are most likely twenty
times more that either haven't been publicly recorded as seeing the
crash, or simply don't want the attention. You can't honeslty sit there and deny the witnesses, the
photographs, the facts, the science, and the reality that there was a
terrorist attack on the Pentagon if you look at everything available
and not one single tidbit of information at a time.
If that's the best CatHerder can do in assembling testimony,
it simply proves our point about the overly anxious and desperate
efforts being made to prove something that, if it were true, would not
require such efforts.
Notice the subtle suggestion that CatHerder's analysis
includes "everything available". Notice also that the two testimonies
from Pentagon employees are included in those that CatHerder believes
to be the "most valid". Also, having presented us with some dubious and
inconclusive eyewitness testimonies, we are told that we cannot deny
that these testimonies are proof conclusive that a 757 really did hit
the Pentagon! What is true, as CatHerder states, is that there are
indeed many more eyewitness testimonies that he/she could have
included. However, once you read some of them, you will understand why
he/she did not include them.
For example:
Lon Rains, an editor of Space.com, was also an eyewitness to the
Pentagon attack. He commented:
“In light
traffic the drive up Interstate 395 from Springfield to downtown
Washington takes no more than 20 minutes. But that morning, like many
others, the traffic slowed to a crawl just in front of the Pentagon.
With the Pentagon to the left of my van at about 10 o’clock on the dial
of a clock, I glanced at my watch to see if I was going to be late for
my appointment. At that moment I heard a very loud, quick whooshing
sound that began behind me and stopped suddenly in front of me and to
my left. In fractions of a second I heard the impact and an explosion.
The next thing I saw was the fireball. I was convinced it was a
missile. It came in so fast it sounded nothing like an airplane.”
Allen Cleveland
of Woodbridge Virginia looked out from a Metro train going to National
Airport, to see a jet heading down toward the Pentagon. "I thought,
'There's no landing strip on that side of the subway tracks,' " Before
he could process that thought, he saw "a huge mushroom cloud. The lady
next to me was in absolute hysterics."" . . a silver passenger jet, mid
sized"
Steve Patterson, 43, said he was watching
television reports of the World Trade Center being hit when he saw a
silver commuter jet fly past the window of his 14th-floor apartment in
Pentagon City:
“The plane was
about 150 yards away, approaching from the west about 20 feet off the
ground, Patterson said. He said the plane, which sounded like the
high-pitched squeal of a fighter jet, flew over Arlington cemetery so
low that he thought it was going to land on I-395. It was flying so
fast that he couldn’t read any writing on the side. The plane, which
appeared to hold about eight to 12 people, headed straight for the
Pentagon but was flying as if coming in for a landing on a nonexistent
runway"
“I was right
underneath the plane”, said Kirk Milburn, a construction supervisor for
Atlantis Co., who was on the Arlington National Cemetery exit of
Interstate 395 when he said he saw the plane heading for the Pentagon.
“I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying.”
Kirk Milburn - who was driving his vehicle at the time - said
he saw the plane heading for the Pentagon, and because he saw
it he also said, “I heard a plane. I saw it. I saw debris flying”.
What he said next, however, is not in keeping with a 757:
“I guess it was
hitting light poles”, said Milburn. “It was like a whoosh whoosh, then
there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second explosion.”
Notice that the witness says, “I guess it was hitting the
light poles”. One suspects that he couldn’t see it if he was
guessing. What is most interesting is that he said, “It was like a
WHOOOSH whoosh, then there was fire and smoke, then I heard a second
explosion”. No doubt he saw something, but since he was also
driving at the time, it is not certain exactly what he saw.
Two early, primary witnesses have described a sound of a
“whoosh”! The second one, when he couldn’t see it, said it was like a
“WHOOSH whoosh”, just like the other man who couldn’t see it, but then
he has also told us that he saw a plane and heard a plane. But what he
described was most definitely not a 757 flying low over his head.
A 757, under no circumstances makes a sound of “whoosh”, and
if the “whoosh” sound was being made by the hitting of light poles, it
is a certainty that if a 757 was doing it, you would not hear the
“whoosh” of hitting light poles over the roar of the jet engines. If
there’s a 757 right overhead that’s hitting light poles, and it’s going
460 mph, it would not be “whooshing”! Anyone that has ever spent any
time at the end of an international airport runway knows that the sound
of a large commercial jet flying low overhead would be more accurately
described as a deafening ROAR!
It is true that
eyewitness testimonies are notoriously unreliable. Take ten witnesses
to an event and it is likely that you will get ten responses that will
differ from each other in one aspect or another.
Memory Conformity: Disentangling the Steps towards
Influence during a Discussion
(Amina Memon & Fiona Gabbert, Aberdeen and Dan Wright, Sussex
University).
It is human nature for people to discuss their shared experiences,
especially of extraordinary events such as witnessing a crime. Recent
studies of several high profile cases have shown that even a single
erroneous eyewitness can have a significant negative influence on the
accuracy of another eyewitness’s testimony if the witnesses come into
contact with one another and discuss the criminal event. Although it is
natural for people to discuss their experiences, it is highly
problematic for the legal professionals, and our system of justice, if
evidence – in the form of witness statements – becomes contaminated.
Our previous research (funded by the Economic & Social Research
Council) investigated how peoples’ memories can become influenced
during a discussion about a mutually experienced event under controlled
laboratory-based conditions. When people discuss an event what one
person says is often adversely incorporated into the other person’s
report. ...
Having said
that, given the nature of the events that are alleged to have occurred
at the Pentagon on 9/11 - a large commercial airliner crashing into a
large building, we might expect most people to concur at least on the
basic details. But, as we have seen, that is not the case with the
Pentagon attack.
I am of the opinion therefore that the very conflicting
nature of the testimonies of the eyewitnesses to the Pentagon
attack are important clues revealing the true nature of what happened
that day. Imagine that a significant number of people are witness to a
large commercial airliner flying extremely low and at high speed over
an urban area and crashing into a building. Imagine also that, not long
thereafter, all eyewitnesses to the event are told by authorities and
the media that it was indeed a large commercial airliner that flew into
the building. Now ask yourself: in such a case, how likely is it that
there would be any serious discrepancies between the
testimonies of those eyewitnesses? How likely is that any of
the eyewitnesses would report that what they actually saw was a small
aircraft or something that sounded like a missile? Unlikely, I would
suggest.
Now imagine that
a significant number of people are witness to a drone aircraft like the
Global Hawk for example, which also flies very low and very fast over
an urban area. While the wingspan of this drone craft is quite large,
it is much smaller in overall size to a large commercial aircraft.
Imagine also that this drone is painted with the colors and logo of a
well-known airline that are only ever seen on large commercial
aircraft. Imagine that there are even “windows” painted on the side to
make the illusion all the more convincing. Imagine that, not long after
witnessing the incident, all eyewitnesses to the event are told by
authorities and the media that what they saw was a large commercial
airliner flying into the building. Now ask yourself: in such a case,
what are the chances that there would be seriously conflicting reports
between eyewitness accounts of the incident? Very good, I would
suggest.
Eyewitness
accounts are indeed useless when one must rely on them as the sole
evidence. This is not, however, the case with the Pentagon attack.
There is already much evidence - the facts on the ground - to
suggest that it was not a Boeing 757 that hit the Pentagon on
9/11. The fact that there are serious conflicts in eyewitness accounts
merely serves to back up this other evidence that it was NOT a Boeing
757 that hit the Pentagon. We might also
wonder why there are no conflicting WITNESS reports of what hit the WTC
towers? All eyewitnesses to the event in New York concurred that two
large passenger plane hit the North and South towers. Of course, we
were all treated to ad nauseam repeats of the video footage of that
event, leaving no one in any doubt about what happened. So why not
treat us all to the video evidence from the Pentagon?
There is one very obvious answer to this question: the video
footage, held by the US government, would disprove the official story.
911 Tape of EMV responding to the Pentagon -
includes video outside and inside the building in some areas. (Real
Audio Required)
The above video
and audio of EMV responding is completely inconsequential to the
investigation at hand, and I can think of no reason why CatHerder would
include it, other than to attempt in some subtle way to drive home the
official claim that a 757 hit the Pentagon.
Conclusion
I highly doubt that local firefighters would be involved in any
sort of a coverup. I highly doubt
that local police officers would be involved in any sort of a
government cover up. Cops and firemen are just average Joes like you
and me, who go home to the wife and kids, and just try to make a living
and have a good life for their families (I have many friends in both
professions - of course the firemen are usually more stable
marriage-wise because of their job but that doesn't make the cops any
less human than you or I). The men and women who pulled over a hundred
people (dead and alive) out of that building would more likely than not
have noticed somebody carrying over 60 bodies into the middle of the
fire they were fighting. To say that the plane that hit the Pentagon
was not filled with every single person who died in this terrorist
attack (not counting the unfortunate people inside the building) is one
thing and one thing only - ignorant.
Oh, LORD! Not the dreaded "malignant pseudo-identification"
again! You know, the process by
which a COINTELPRO agent consciously imitates or simulates certain
behaviors or beliefs in order to foster "identification" with him/her,
thus increasing the vulnerability to exploitation. Yes indeed,
CatHerder is just an "average Joe" like "you and me." And just to make
it hit home, the emotional hooks of "family," a "good life," "making a
living," and "stable marriages" are tossed in there followed by the
final tear jerker, an outrageous reference to the people who died that
day. It is outrageous because it is finally clear that CatHerder is,
indeed, an agent of disinformation and using such emotional ploys, as
this is truly malignant pseudo-identification.
Having said that, let's return to the fact that the point is
not that firefighters or police officers were involved in the cover up
as CatHerder slickly suggests is the claim of anyone who says that
Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, but rather that any of them that
saw something they were not meant to, could have been easily silenced.
The most obvious way to silence the "average Joe" who is honest,
hard-working and normally patriotic, is to impress on such a person
that they must not talk about something due to "national security". If
they were to persist in wanting to talk about what they saw, more
persuasive methods can be used like threats to their livelihood etc.,
up to and including murder. But murder is seldom required. A simple
letter with details of family and friends and an order to "keep your
mouth shut" is more than enough for most people. As CatHerder says:
"cops and firemen are just average Joes like you and me, who go home to
the wife and kids, and just try to make a living and have a good life
for their families." They are not likely to risk their livelihood, or
the lives of their children for 5 minutes of fame on national TV. They
keep their mouths shut. And that's a tragedy that CatHerder doesn't
seem to be able to understand.
As regards the
"carrying of 60 bodies into the middle of the fire". This is simply
more evidence of CatHerder's attempts to confuse and manipulate the
reader. I know of no site that suggests that the bodies of the
passengers on Flight 77 were carried into or out of the Pentagon after
the attack. The identification of the bodies was carried out off site
by the state pathologist. We were never shown footage nor did we hear
reports about anyone picking up pieces of passengers from Flight 77
from the attack site, we were simply told that all passengers were
identified from their DNA from body parts that were in the possession
of the state pathologist. It is simply assumed that the state
pathologist got the bodies parts from the Pentagon site, because of
course, the government told us that Flight 77 crashed there - where
else would the body parts come from!? But as I have shown, it is
extremely unlikely that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, which
makes the question of how the state pathologist got hold of body parts
from the passengers a very interesting question.
Of course, we have not even touched on that most bizarre
aspect of the Pentagon strike - the alleged final approach of Flight
77. Think about this:
The hijackers are a few thousand feet up in the air, they spot the
distinctive shape of the Pentagon and decide, "that's our target". What
do they do next?
Well, logic would suggest that they take the easy and most effective
option and nose-dive the plane towards the center of the Pentagon,
thereby maximising the chances of actually hitting the building at such
high speed and also causing the most damage.
But no, our
intrepid "Arab terrorists" have a much more complicated plan:
They are going to fly the airliner at maximum speed just a few feet off
the ground into the facade of the Pentagon; but not just any part of
the facade. No indeed, these guys have a plan. Their specifically
chosen "bull's eye" is the section of the facade of the Pentagon that
had recently been reinforced and, due to the ongoing internal work, had
a significantly reduced number of people in it. These nutty hijackers,
consumed with rage and anger at America, its government, its military
and its citizens, and determined to inflict as much carnage as
possible, had somehow chosen the strongest part of the Pentagon which
at the same time had the lowest concentration of people!
Now how's that for bad luck!
To carry out their bizarre plan, which appears designed to minimise
death and destruction at the Pentagon rather than maximise it, and
given that they realise that they are very poor pilots, failing to possess the skills to
master the controls of a single-engined cessna, our intrepid
"terrorists" decide that they will execute a difficult fast descent
from 7,000 feet combined with a 270 degree turn.
This done, they are now at a few hundred feet and in "line of sight" of
the Pentagon up ahead of them. The only problem is that they are now
confronted with a veritable obstacle course of cars, roads, bridges,
buildings, trees etc between them and their target. Not to worry - they
have Allah on their side after all. By some miracle they manage to
navigate the massive hulk of the 757 through down town Washington while
flying at 500 mph and just a few dozen feet off the ground, getting
lower all the time. They make just a little booboo and clip a couple of
light poles on the way in, but despite this and the fact that their
massive manual missile is just feet of the ground, they politely avoid
messing up the Pentagon lawn and finally slam into their target at
ground floor level.
Now that is one fantastical magical mystery of a story,
worthy of inclusion in any children's fairy tale.
Review the facts
·
Size of 757 matches the initial size of hole in the building -
somewhere between 13 and 16 feet (757 is 13 feet wide/high)
Initial hole only fits the size of a 757 if you subtract the
wings, twin 6 TON engines, and tail fin which somehow did not hit the
building. Even then the fuselage would have had to slip into the
building leaving a round hole that exactly conformed to the diameter
and height of the cylindrical tube. In short, highly unlikely, not to
mention the fact that the two 50 feet long wings with twin 6 TON steel
engines somehow disappeared and could not be found in the wreckage
outside the building.
·
Rims found in building match those of a 757
Rims - IF they were 757 rims - were quite possibly planted or
were the rims from another type of aircraft.
·
Small turbine engine outside is an APU
Indeed, it may well be an APU. But as noted previously, a
Boeing spokesman has confirmed that the APU was NOT the APU from a 757.
·
Same engine has been clearly stated to not match a Global Hawk
engine
This is simply not true. No one has come forward to confirm
or deny that the disk seen in photos from outside the Pentagon could
have come from a Global Hawk. Given the small size of the disk, it is
likely that it did not come from a large 757 engine but rather a
smaller-engined aircraft. Like a Global Hawk.
·
Blue seats from 757 laying on ground in photos
The mangled blue
debris could be anything and is inadmissible as conclusive "evidence"
of any part of any aircraft.
·
Part of "American" fuselage logo visible in more than 1 photo
The only piece of debris showing part of lettering that appears
similar to lettering on American airlines craft is pristine, no
smoke or explosion damage and has not been accepted by US government as
coming from Flight 77. It seems that CatHerder is not only pushing the
government line but is going so far as to accept evidence that even the
US government wont touch due to its obviously suspect nature.
·
Engine parts photographed inside match a Rolls-Royce RB211
Our author is a self-proclaimed non-expert in such matters
yet sees fit to pronounce conclusively that mangled pieces of aircraft
material are definitely parts of a specific aircraft engine. This alone
should make any reader of this fine piece of disinformation wary.
·
Structural components photographed in wreckage match Boeing
paint primer schemes
The primer is used on many aircraft.
·
Large deisel (sic) generator in
front of building hit by a large heavy object
Diesel generator was probably moved by initial explosion as
reported in early news releases.
·
Large deisel (sic) engine outside
is spun towards the building - could not be result of bomb
blast or missile explosion
Nonsense. See previous comment.
·
Multiple eye witnesses say they saw an airliner
Multiple eyewitnesses say they saw a private jet sized
aircraft, others said it sounded like a missile.
·
Multiple eye witnesses say they saw an airliner hit the Pentagon
Multiple eye
witnesses who announced that they saw an American airliners passenger
jet were also government and mainstream media employees and their
testimonies are therefore unacceptable.
·
60+ bodies, matching the passenger list and flight crew roster
identified and returned to families from Pentagon wreckage
60+ bodies were
not identified. DNA from all of the passengers was identified, which is
actually an interesting point. How can it be that the impact and fire
were allegedly so intense that they shredded into tiny pieces and
disintegrated much of the plane, although not all of it, yet body parts
from all passengers were recovered and identified?
Conclusion:
It is unlikely that Flight 77 struck the Pentagon because the
available evidence is not consistent with the impact of a 757 airliner.
As I have already stated, the best approach for any 9/11
researcher with honest intentions would be to wipe from their minds the
official version of events and take the attitude of someone who has
just returned from a 5 year trip to the outer reaches of the solar
system, during which time they had no communication with planet earth.
If such a person were given all of the publicly available evidence and
furnished with knowledge of the effects of airplane crashes and that of
missile impacts, it is highly improbable that such a person would
conclude that a 757 caused the damage at the Pentagon.
Why?
Because the evidence suggests otherwise.
Again I will state that it is only because of the claim by
the government and the media that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon that anyone
would ever try and suggest that a 757 did the damage. The evidence that
Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon is so abundant that we continue to
be amazed that apparently intelligent people are nevertheless very
capable of ignoring facts and concocting elaborate (and often absurd)
theories to avoid having to accept that which is right under their noses.
In the months
that followed the 9/11 attacks, it was web sites like Signs
of the Times that took on the job of debunking the clearly false
official story about 9/11, in particular the attack on the Pentagon.
While we certainly expected a response to our efforts from mainstream
newspapers and other government shills, it came as somewhat of a shock
and disappointment to realise that other alleged 9/11 researchers
joined the attack and attempted to debunk our debunking of the official
story. The result is that many honest 9/11 researchers are having to
engage in the type of "third level" debunking that I have presented
above - a debunking of a debunking of a debunking as it were.
Of course, over
the course of the past 4 years, we have become much more familiar with
the disinformation tactics of government CoIntelPro. In modern day
Iraq, it is generally understood that one of the main roles of US and
Israeli intelligence agencies is to foment ethnic strife among the
Iraqi people. The logic behind this is that if the Iraqis are fighting
themselves, they have less time and energy to fight American soldiers.
It should come as no surprise then that the same tactics have been used
by US intelligence agencies to deal with honest 9/11 research. But the
task of getting honest people who share a common goal to fight with
each other is not easy. It requires infiltration over a long periods of
time coupled with subtle manipulation of the parties involved.
Thankfully for the intelligence agencies, there is another much easier
way: you simply have one of your own operatives pose as a Sunni
Insurgent or an honest 9/11 researcher and have him attack his fellow
insurgents/researchers. Hey presto! You've just created "division" and
"infighting" which distracts and confuses the enemy. In the case of
9/11 the "enemy" are the honest 9/11 researchers and the members of the
public who look to them for information.
The question then is: are we dealing with such a
manufactured group in the Above Top Secret website and forum?
It's hard to tell. There are without doubt many sincere U.S.
and other citizens and web site owners who promote the official story
about 9/11 because they believe (or perhaps need to believe) that the
government is telling the truth. Equally certain is the fact that there
are many US citizens and website owners who know for sure that the
government story is false, yet have been consciously recruited to push
this story on the public. Members of the latter group are simply doing
their job, but their influence is most directly felt among members of
the former group who want to believe the official story.
Having said that, after reading through the long ATS thread
that followed the posting of "CatHerders" article, I have come to the
tentative conclusion that the ATS website is just one more
government-funded damage control operation, albeit a very subtle one. I
will explain why I came to this conclusion.
CatHerders article was received with much fanfare on the ATS
forum, and much debate and analysis ensued with the thread finally
reaching 125 pages. As the discussion and debate raged, it became
apparent that many were convinced by CatHerder's article, but just as
many were not. On the 8th page of the thread, two of the three owners of
the ATS website weighed in and attempted to silence the naysayers with
some large fonts and guilt trips. For example, "SkepticOverlord", "one
of the three ATS amigos and co-owner of Abovetopsecret.com" wrote:
"It's very disappointing to see ignorance embraced like this
[referring to those who were not embracing Catherders article as "the
truth"]
Why? Because the real information is not wrapped up in an exciting
Flash animation with angry metal grind? [referring, undoubtedly, to our
Pentagonstrike Flash]
Shall we change our motto?
Ignorance Embraced [the ATS motto is "deny ignorance" which seems to be
a twist on the QFG motto: Knowledge Protects, Ignorance Endangers.]
I still remember speaking to my brother (who was on the highway at the
time) calling me that evening, haunted by the memory of a brief glimpse
of faces in the windows of the 757. Especially when he discovered his
friend was on the flight later that day.
This is a sad moment for ATS. I feel like I now see faces."
Very moving. Very manipulative, too. "Springer", another
Co-owner, then added the following:
PITIFUL... "CH" (Catherder) has proven his/her POINT beyond
much of anything that even comes close to logic... But ALAS, as S.O.
(other ATS co-owner) Points out, it is NOT wrapped up in a pretty flash
animation filled with BUNK so it must NOT be beleived... [another
obvious reference to the Pentagon Flash.]
Sad Day for ATS indeed..."
Yes indeed, there's nothing like subjecting your subscribers
to a little guilt trip to get them in line.
What is clear from reading the thread is that the owners of
the ATS site and the author of the article in question are of the
opinion that Arab terrorists, as they are presented by the US
government, are real and that a group of them hijacked four planes and
attacked the US on 9/11. The only "9/11 conspiracy" that these people
hold to then is that the US government may have let 9/11
happen, and the fact is that there are many self-described 9/11
investigators who promote the same idea. You could call it "9/11
conspiracy lite", designed for those who lack the stomach for the
unsavory reality of what 9/11 actually meant and where it is taking us.
The problem with such an explanation is that it subtly
suggests that, in 9/11, what we are dealing with is nothing more than
corrupt government or a few corrupt men, and we all know governments
are often a little corrupt, right? The obvious solution, of course, is
to simply remove the corrupt government or the few men and we can then
get on with the job of fighting those damn "terrorists".
What is missing, however, is the awareness that the
"terrorist threat" that came front and center after 9/11 is crucial to
the entire conspiracy. It is Bush's "war on terror" that plagues the
world to this day, long after 9/11 has lost its edge and drifted to the
back of the collective consciousness. It is the threat from "Islamic
terrorists" that has led the US military to massacre 100,000 Iraqi
civilians over the past two years, and you can be sure they are only
getting started. Proponents of such a theory expect us to believe that
the fact that terrorist hijackers gifted the Neocons with the
justification to accomplish their long-held goals is just a matter of
good luck!
Anyone that
researches the 9/11 event and, most importantly, the background to
American and Israeli plans for the Middle East and Israeli government
penetration of the American political system, cannot but come to the
conclusion that the 9/11 attacks, in their entirety, must
have been stage-managed by those who stood to benefit most from the
attacks. The fact is, if your goal is to sell the lie that 'Arab
terrorists' hijacked planes and flew them into buildings, you don't
need to involve real Arab terrorists or real hijacked planes. Indeed,
it would not even be advisable to do so given the logistics of getting
Arab hijackers, or people masquerading as Arab hijackers, to give their
lives in service to your plot and avoid the distinct possibility that
details of the plot would be leaked. No, all you need to do is to make
it appear that way with some well placed evidence and then
claim that it is so.
We notice that very few items of so-called "conspiracy
theory" have rattled the "Bushes" quite like our Pentagon
Strike Flash did. The Pentagon Strike video came out on August 23rd
2004. Probably nobody really noticed it at that point, but it hit a
chord of response in the hearts of millions of people around the world.
They began to madly download and forward it to their friends and
relatives. Latest stats on how many people have viewed it to date are
500 million!
Apparently it
even landed in the email box of the Editor of the Washington Post,
which is why Carol Morello sent us an email asking for an interview. Or
so she said. My suspicion was that the Post was instructed to
do "damage control", albeit oh, so gently!
Now, look at this mini-timeline:
August 23rd 2004: Pentagon
Strike Video which propagates wildly for a month.
September 11,
2004: CatHerder post to Above Top Secret forum.
September 21st 2004: First contact by Carol Morello of
the Washington Post
October 7th 2004: Washington Post article
It was an interesting feeling to know that if they hadn't
seen the Pentagon Strike before, certainly George and Dick, Karl and
the gang were watching it after the Washington Post wrote an
article about it.
October 19th 2004: George Bush visits New Port Richey - a previously
unscheduled "whistle-stop" on his campaign trail. NPR is very small,
not likely to be a major target of any presidential candidate, but it
just happens to be Laura Knight-Jadczyk's hometown. It was our initial
reaction that Dubya's visit to Laura's little home town - certainly of
no importance on the campaign trail - was deliberately done to send a
message to her. Fact is, her daughter's ex-boyfriend wrote to tell her
that he had been among those selected to shake the hand of George W.
himself! Now, how's that for a coincidence?
As to exactly what Carol Morello of the Washington Post
wrote to Laura, here is the pertinent passage which is actually quite
revealing:
A couple of
editors here saw the video/film, and I was asked to find out what I
could about it. As you can imagine, we continue to have an intense
interest on the attack on the Pentagon and the people who were
affected.
I've just begun
reporting, so it would be premature to tell you what "perspective" my
story would have.
My initial
impressions are that the questions and theories expressed in the video
got a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best
selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now
they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of
this video on the Internet.
The 911
Commission report appears to have done little to dampen the
controversy. I hoped to speak to you about how and why you posted it on
your web site, what kind of response you've received and what you think
about it. […]
Notice that she attributes the resurgence of interest in the
"Pentagate" problem to the Pentagon Strike video. Can we say "damage
control"?
And if there is damage control, then that means there is
damage.
Up to this point in time, the only acknowledgement the
administration ever gave to such issues was to refer vaguely and
dismissively to "conspiracy theories". Now, suddenly, it seems that
dealing with the "conspiracy theories" in a direct manner was seen to
be imperative. "9/11: Debunking the Myths" came out in Popular
Mechanics Magazine in March of 2005, just five months after
the Washington Post article. That's pretty fast work.
Under the tutelage of Editor in Chief Jim "Oh look, a tank!"
Meigs, Popular Mechanics assembled a team of researchers,
including "professional fact checkers" (impressive eh?) to debunk the
16 most common claims made by conspiracy theorists about 9/11.
Unsurprisingly, the PM editors claim that, in the end:
"we were able to
debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose
of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something
as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the
byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and
animosity into public debate."
In fact, a careful analysis of the article shows that at
most, just three of the sixteen claims could have been the result of
"reporting error", forcing us to assume that, in the razor-like,
emotionally unclouded cerebrum of Jim Meigs, at least 13 of the
conspiracy claims about 9/11 are the result of "cynical imaginations
aiming to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate".
The sad fact is that, while Popular Mechanics claims
to be interested in understanding what really happened that day, their
rebuttal of sixteen of the most common claims by so-called "conspiracy
theorists" about 9/11 isn't worth the $3.57 of server space that it has
so far cost them to publish it.
If there is one glaring hole in the arguments put forward by
9/11 conspiracy "debunkers", it is the fact that such people have never
come up with a reasonable argument to explain why, in the wake of 9/11,
so many obviously intelligent citizens became gripped by the
uncontrollable urge to continually waste their time recklessly and
fecklessly "injecting suspicion and animosity into public debate" for
no apparent reason. It really is a mystery. Maybe they're trying to
take over the world or something.
On the other hand, it doesn't take a degree in psychology to
understand the primary motivations of the conspiracy debunkers. You
see, the very last thing that many Americans (and others) want to
believe is that their government would attack its own people. For 9/11
"debunkers", logic and intellect have no part to play in investigating
the question of what really happened on 9/11. It's pure emotion all the
way.
In the beginning, on the morning of September 11, 2001 we
were all united in our emotional reactions: shock, horror, grief - (and
not to forget: jubilation from a bunch of Israeli Mossad agents).
As the emotion subsided, most went on with their lives, but a few stood
on, brows furrowed, scratching their heads. After considerable digging
and research, it became obvious that the official story did not
satisfactorily answer all of the questions, and the fact that officials
were refusing to answer those outstanding questions, gave rise,
logically enough, to a "conspiracy theory".
Not long thereafter, the debunkers stepped in, not because
they had the answers to the outstanding questions, but because they had
their emotional buttons severely poked by the fact that someone was
saying that their government was lying! Sadly, the editors at PM are no
different, and their little fear-inspired rebuttal of 9/11 conspiracy
theories is of little actual use to anyone, least of all to those who
really do want to know the truth of 9/11. Far from approaching the
matter with an open mind (which is crucial in any attempt to find the
truth), it is clear that Popular Mechanics' "professional
fact checkers" began with the premise that the US government was not
lying about the main events of 9/11, despite all of the evidence to the
contrary. From there, the objectivity and integrity of their research
went sharply downhill as they busied themselves with hunting down the
very same sources that provided the official story to confirm that the
official story was in fact correct. Apparently, in "debunkerland", it
is completely reasonable to ask U.S. government representatives to
testify that the U.S. government is squeaky clean and then present that
evidence as "fact". It is also kosher, we assume, to have a murder
suspect double as a credible court's witness in a murder trial.
For those of you who have looked unemotionally at the events
of 9/11, it is not unusual to be left wondering how those members of
the US government who were clearly complicit in the murder of 3,000 of
their own citizens can remain so smug and seemingly self-assured. To
find the answer we need look no further than the Jim Meigs' of this
world. You see, it is people like Meigs who lack any love or
appreciation for the truth and worship only their subjective view of
the world that make it so easy for big government to commit big crime.
At present there are millions of Americans and others around
the world who, aided by the years of social conditioning and media mind
programming, drew a very clear line around what they would and would
not believe about their government and country. Most of what was inside
the line was "feel good" stuff about "greatest democracy on earth" and
other jingoistic nonsense, with perhaps a few admissions that
"sometimes bad things happen" and "not everyone is a saint". This
mindset provided (and continues to provide) a perfect opportunity for
unscrupulous US politicians to literally get away with the murder of
which most of the US public refuse to believe they were, and are,
capable.
The result is that, for all intents and purposes, today there
are two Americas:
- The America of the average American citizen which is little
more than a government-provided dream world.
- The real America of the corrupt politicians and the select
few who run the country, and much of the rest of the world.
Luckily for the select few, this second, real America just
happens to lie outside of what many ordinary Americans are willing or
able to believe is possible. Lest anyone think otherwise, the setting
up of any accusation against government as being the domain of
"conspiracy nuts" is not the result of pure coincidence. Conspiracy
theories are as old as the first lie ever told and the subsequent
attempts by the liar to avoid exposure.
Most people think that "conspiracy theories" are made up by
"conspiracy theorists", but the term "conspiracy theory" is most often
used by those people who have most to gain from the ridicule of the
allegations that are directed at them. The tactic has been used to such
great effect over the years that certain high crimes committed by
government have become the touchstone by which all other "conspiracies"
are measured.
Take the folks at Popular Mechanics. In dealing with
9/11 they simply couldn't resist referencing that other most despicable
crime committed by a US government - but of course, to them it's just
another "theory":
"Don't get me wrong: Healthy skepticism is a good
thing. Nobody should take everything they hear--from the government,
the media or anybody else--at face value. But in a culture shaped by
Oliver Stone movies and "X-Files" episodes, it is apparently getting
harder for simple, hard facts to hold their own against elaborate,
shadowy theorizing."
Did you catch it? The reference to Oliver Stone can mean only
one thing: Jim's "fact checkers" contacted the CIA, and they told him
straight up that some bullets really can do magic things.
So far, we have been generous to the people at Popular
Mechanics. We have assumed that they are simply well-intentioned
but misguided souls. However, it appears that there is a more sinister,
and dare we say it, "conspiratorial" side to Popular Mechanics'
"innocent" debunking of 9/11 conspiracy theories. You see, it
turns out that one of the main contributors to the article is one
Benjamin Chertoff, a cousin of the new Dept. of Homeland Security Chief
Michael Chertoff.
American Free Press' Christopher Bollyn, who dug up
the information, also claims that Ben Chertoff's mother was a Mossad agent. While there
is, as of yet, no evidence of any working relationship between the two,
it is certainly noteworthy that the cousin of the current Homeland
Security Chief, (who, in his previous incarnation as head of the
Justice Department's criminal division was instrumental in the release
of obvious Israeli spies before and after 9/11), happens to be behind a
high-profile attempt to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories.
So if you happen to stop by the sorry article in question,
don't be fooled or intimidated by the word "science" in big bold
letters on the Popular Mechanics page. In Europe, McDonald's
drink cups have the words "I'm loving it" emblazoned across them in
various languages, regardless of what you put in them. Credit by
association or juxtaposition is one of the oldest tricks in the book of
mass mind programming. Just because "they" say it, doesn't make it so.
This simple, logical statement is a salient lesson for us all in these
heady days where disinformation masquerades as truth and even
"innocent" fun-loving "boys with toys" have become obedient workers in
the lie factory.
According to another 9/11
researcher:
"The editors of Scientific American followed in
the footsteps of Popular Mechanics in exploiting a trusted
brand in order to protect the perpetrators of the mass murder of
9/11/01. The column by Michael Shermer in the June, 2005 issue
of Scientific American, titled Fahrenheit 2777, is an
attempt to deceive the magazine's readers into dismissing the
overwhelming evidence that 9/11 was an inside job without ever looking
at that evidence. More specifically, Shermer attempts to inoculate
readers against looking at the decidedly scientific refutation of the
official story… […]
Shermer's column exhibits many of the same propaganda
techniques as the ambitious feature article in the March issue of Popular
Mechanics by Benjamin Chertoff, for which Shermer professes
admiration:
'The single best debunking of this conspiratorial
codswallop is in the March issue of Popular Mechanics, which
provides an exhaustive point-by-point analysis of the most prevalent
claims.'
Comparing the two attack pieces is instructive. Both
pieces mention a similar range of issues, with Shermer adding
Jewish conspiracy rumors and UFOlogists to the mix...
This last is undoubtedly a direct
reference to Signs of The Times, while avoiding giving a direct
link to our website out of fear that the reader might be influenced.
Shermer uses an array of deceptive methods to persuade the
reader that challenges to the official story of the 9/11 attack are
worthy only of ridicule and should not be scrutinized. His primary
technique is to use hoaxes and unscientific ideas to "bracket" the
valid ideas that he seeks to shield the reader from.
That Shermer went to such great lengths to thoroughly
misrepresent the painstaking, scientific, evidence-based work of many
researchers is a testament to the success of the Pentagon Strike Video!
It really stepped on a sore toe. And that tells us something important,
the same thing Carol Morello of the Washington Post wrote:
"…the questions and theories expressed in the video got
a spurt of attention in early 2002, after the publication of a best
selling book in France, then the furor died down for a while, and now
they have re-emerged with the extraordinarily wide dissemination of
this video on the Internet."
We notice that
never, in any of the two major "debunking" articles that followed fast
on the heels of the Pentagon Strike video, was the video ever even
mentioned by name, nor was our
website mentioned. Other books, other researchers, other web sites
were mentioned, but the deliberate avoidance of Signs
of The Times - the origin of the Pentagon Strike, was conspicuous.
We notice the same trend in the Above Top Secret forum.
Again we point out: debunkers are sent in only when damage
control is needed. And damage control is only needed when it is thought
that there might be damage. That means that the Pentagon Strike is
understood clearly, in the minds of the perpetrators, to be the weak
link in their chain of lies.
Debunkers are sent in not to give answers to the outstanding
questions, but to push the emotional buttons of the public, to reassure
people who really want "a reason to believe" that their government is
not lying to them.
It should be clear by now that I am suggesting that there is
much more to the 9/11 attacks than most people are aware and what
really happened is very, very different from the official story.
Now we get to the interesting part.
If Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon what did, and how?
Two emails received by Signs
of the Times about one year ago, (identities concealed to protect
the correspondents) are quite informative:
Email #1
Greetings, I
have stayed out of this arena for a reason, but can no longer. I am a
Maintenence Mechanic here in the assembly plant in [XXX] where we build
these great aircraft. 747's-757's and 767's.
Lets do some
math for a minute, because those who believe a 757 hit the pentagon,
must also believe in the tooth fairy.
The melting temp
for brake shoes on a 757 is about 3000 degs., the landing gear struts
are solid cast aluminum; the center shafts for the engines are solid
titanium. The flame temp for low grade kerosene, (jet fuel) is around
800 degs.
If the 757 was
full of fuel, thats 14 pounds of aircraft per one gallon of fuel. Its
impossible to "completely incinerate" a 757 at that fuel-to-material
ratio. It would be the first time in history it did, and would defy the
laws of physics, period.
No 757 hit the
pentagon. Where's the engines, landing gears, APU's, stringers, fuel
cell walls, wing join assemblies? These are impervious to fire,
and, all have survived the worst fires ever seen on aircraft, and I've
seen them all.
Oh by the way,
if the 757 was "completely incinerated" as the gov't would have the
lemming masses believe, how did they come up with DNA from the ashes
for every passenger on board. DNA from ASHES!!!?? What a crock of shit.
Once you do the math, you'll quickly know that no 757 hit that
building, those who say one did, are liars, or have been told to be
liars lest they end up like Vince Foster and a few hundred others like
him.
Email #2
[...] I am
probably one of the most qualified people that you will meet to judge
some of the info about the Pentagon attack. I have served in the U.S.
Army for a number of years now, I have not only dealt with weapons of
every type you can imagine, I have also had a great deal of experience
with aircraft, not to mention my brother is an analyst for the military
who deals with a great many things.
First of all I
can guarantee that no missile did this (damage to the
Pentagon), none of the patterns add up for such a thing to work, damage
ratio is wrong, flight path is wrong, style of impact is wrong. Also
think of the item it was hitting, a hardened building made of concrete
and steal, all reinforced. Also I can tell you no large aircraft
did this [...]
I'm starting to
think that maybe it was a TL AM type 2 block 4, better known as a
tomahawk type 2 bunker buster with booster and hardened warhead.
While most would
say this is absurd because a weapon like that would have completely
leveled the Pentagon and a good deal around it, I am however still
inclined to believe that this might possibly be what did it. This is my
thinking on the matter: the new TLAMs are programmable to pick
entry point and detonation point, the hardened warhead on them
allows them to penetrate the hardest of buildings and they hit going
much faster than the old type 1s that are commonly seen in war footage
and test footage.
I think that
somehow one of our new type 2s found itself set on a guided path to the
Pentagon with a side impact and center detonation programming,
but for some reason the warhead didn't go off. That would give it the
energy to do the damage and drive through the walls like it did, but by
never exploding, it would still leave most of the building perfectly
intact like what was seen at the pentagon. The only problem I can see
with this scenario is there would have been no fire had this happened,
unless something inside the building started burning.
Now they could
have just mounted a much weaker warhead on the thing for the sole
purpose of starting the fire. If this is what happened though, then
someone wanted it to happen like this, to mount a type 2 with a weak
warhead not to mention set it on a path with the parameters that would
be needed for this. For no one to use the "safety" and blow it up mid
flight, it would have to be pretty damn deliberate.
Also the type 2
matches closer to the size proportions of the object that was captured
on video. I'm still only going on speculation here as are most of the
people who know that they are being lied to.
To tell you the
truth, I don't even think that the fire was at the low burning temp of
800 degrees, a fire that hot would have gone farther to bursting the
windows and distorting the structure of the building. The more I look
into and use my knowledge of missiles, the more I'm starting to think
that maybe it was something we haven't seen before and to not take the
risk of disclosing to the public that a test project went wrong or that
someone did this with something new of ours. They made up the
entire pentagon part of 911, at the very least, and went through a
whole lot of trouble doing it.
From the
evidence presented, we can propose that, due to its suitability for the
task in hand, it was a global hawk-type craft complete with a payload
of one missile with a shaped charge hardened war head and secondary war
head that struck the Pentagon on September 11th 2001. The first shaped
charge war head opened the main hole in the Pentagon facade, the second
war head detonated inside doing the rest of the damage and creating the
'T bar' of the final inverted T shape in the facade. The global hawk
was swallowed by the hole and the war head explosion. The hardened war
head continued on through the other 5 walls coming to rest in Ring C,
leaving that neat 8ft wide hole. The war head was then confiscated,
much like the various tapes that were witness to the event.
For its part, Flight 77 landed, probably at a military
airfield in Ohio around the same time that the Global Hawk and missile
struck the Pentagon. All passengers and crew on board Flight 77 were
dead by that time, except for one, two or three people. The bodies were
"disposed of", and some of the remains were used for identification by
the state pathologist.
Shocked? Outraged? You have every right to be, but not at us,
or anyone else that points out the logical explanation of the problem.
There exists overwhelming evidence to show that, as a general rule,
corrupt people in positions of great power do not flinch at murdering
their own citizens if it serves their purposes to do so. In some cases,
they will murder their citizens - and others - because it gives them
pleasure. Such people also, historically, are advocates and
practitioners of torture. If you disagree then you disagree with
historical fact. Welcome to the real world.
As Laura Knight-Jadczyk notes
in her book 9/11:The Ultimate Secret, the attack on the
Pentagon is the Achilles Heel of the entire 9/11 coverup, and for one
very good reason: while we all saw repeated footage of Flight 11 and
Flight 175 crash into the WTC towers, and we all saw the wreckage of
Flight 93 and have hundreds of eyewitness testimonies that a commercial
airliner did indeed crash in Pennsylvania, there is no
reliable evidence that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on September 11th
2001. No one has seen any footage that shows Flight 77
hitting the Pentagon, and the tapes that actually exist that could
easily and immediately prove what did hit that day, have been
confiscated by the FBI and the U.S. government studiously refuses to
release them.
The US government claims that
a Boeing 757 impacted the Pentagon on 9/11, many people dispute this,
yet the same American government refuses to release video tapes that
would put the matter to rest and show once and for all what hit the
Pentagon. Use your head and ask yourself, "why?"
There is one very obvious
answer.
I realise that this theory presents more questions than
answers. But since the complete answers to what really happened on 9/11
(and much more) are contained in the book "9/11: The Ultimate Truth", it would be remiss of
me to present them here. Suffice to say that Truth is much
stranger than fiction.
