PENTAGON FOUNDATION DAMAGE?

PENTAGON FOUNDATION DAMAGE?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
January 1 2008

The Foundations of the No-Impact Theory
Among the clues tht led Citizen Investigative Team (CIT) to start digging into eyewitness accounts of the Pentagon attack is the 'anomalous physical evidence' that doesn't match a 757 strike. Drawing on analysis largely worked out by his cohort Aldo Marquis, CIT’s Craig Ranke posted as AboveTopSecret.com Conspiracy Master “Jack Tripper” seven physical clues of massive deception of the no-plane impact variety. Among these was the lack of discernable damage to the Pentagon’s first floor slab/foundation, where the left engine was said to have hit at about ground level:

“Why is the floor undamaged, if a 757 just tilted it's left wing, dropped down on the ground, and skidded under the first floor? If the left wing/engine allegedly tilted and went through/under the first floor. Why is the foundation, the shoring is resting upon, still intact????"
He showed four high resolution photos with spans of the foundation on the left side disturbingly smooth and intact. This shot shows an area to the left of the engine impact point, a fact hidden by the compressing term “wing/engine.” Other than some minor chipping, there is no damage, not that I’d expect any there.

Looking at the four photos they used for the point, and noting that only one spot really matters to me (explained below), that spot is off-frame in the shot above, too far away to see in another, buried by debris in the photo below (red additions mine), and in the fourth… we’ll get back to that one. The bend of column 9aa I marked for my hypothetical wing placement, which puts the engine over near column line 11 and just about the right level to barely hit or barely miss the foundation edge.

The Left-Wing Underground
In this graphic by the American Society of Civil Engineers was used in their 2002 Pentagon Building Performance Report to illustrate how the plane impacted the building, the left engine is centered just right of column 11aa (aa meaning outermost row on a column line) with columns 10, 9, and 8aa visible in black to its left. The main problem with this picture, as I have highlighted in green, is that the engine appears to be about halfway underground at point of impact. CIT of course have not passed up the chance to comment on this, as Ranke points out in a more recent thread, “in fact this image from the ASCE report actually depicts the left engine at least half way burrowed into the foundation. But the perpetrators forgot to simulate any damage to the foundation. OOPS!”

This is indeed too low to have simply nicked and partly sheared the ground-level vent structure as seen, and too low to have entered the building as said. In the pictured scenario, it would have exhausted and buried itself, but not before smashing up the reinforced concrete foundation/first floor slab (in reality almost certainly a floor above basement levels, not on dirt). This did not happen, and neither was the left wing edge that low, judging by the bend of column 9aa. My opinion is this graphic is simply wrong on that spot, due to an imprecise modeling that ignored crash dynamics where the intact profile seen here breaks up in stages. But judging by the damage to the vent structure retaining wall, a glancing blow at least with this horizontal concrete structure seems likely. As the plane was generally above the ground by all accounts at impact, no other spots right at or shortly after impact should be similarly damaged – only this one spot, if even that, should be expected to bear a mark.

H ere is a simplified rendition of the post-collapse left-side overhang, shored with wooden structures. Columns 9 and 8aa are apparently still intact, while 10 and 11 are obliterated. The missing columns flanking the expansion joint at CL 11 would roughly mark the entry point of the 757's left engine, somewhere in or quite near that oval. To the immediate right of that is the section that collapsed before it could be shored. Keep these basic locations in mind below.

Muddying The Issue: Mud
Clearly this is the best and prime spot to look for ground level damage at the impact point, but for a moment let’s step back and realize this is only one small part of the floor passed over by the plane. In a 757 impact scenario, initially the massive plane’s trajectory would keep most of it traveling forward just above the floor, but exploding, scattering remnants would move in all directions averaged together with their diminishing forward velocity. So I’d suspect some slab damage under the whole plane and beyond, angled at about 39 degrees, and showing up especially further in as its fragments started grinding to a halt. Though they do generally ignore the issue, the ASCE does mention "effective frictional and impact forces on the first-floor slab" as one of the counter-forces responsible for "the short stopping distance for the aircraft." [p 40]

However I’d expect this damage in any one spot to be fairly minor, glancing. Some parts of differing mass would leave scrapes, cracks, and chips that cleared concrete might show. After looking at hundreds of photos by Jocelyn Augustino, I haven't seen any conclusive damage yet, and precious little cleared concrete. Instead we get a less than clear view prevailing: dirt, grit and tiny debris wetted down by fire hoses, broken water mains, whatever. Photos from further in shows this buildup as uneven, wet in spots and dry in others, and apparently an inch or more deep in places.

This shot shows such mud and puddles extending to just behind the area we’ve been looking at. Note the tire tracks of the bulldozers, which regularly drove in and out to dump debris large and small over that edge and form that sloping pile we’ve been looking at.

Noting the clean-scraped surface of CIT’s smooth foundation shots, it seems likely this area was cleared by the shovel of a small bulldozer like this one. These were seen all around the Pentagon during the cleanup


This scraping over the muddy surface would fill in the minimal damage to be expected there, leaving it nearly as smooth as fresh concrete and probably a similar color, but perhaps darker with burnt material. Note scrape marks parallel to the straight edge of the cleared space across this dark, sludgy surface. Of all things, this is to be the key evidence that 'puts to rest' the 757 impact theory and prove 9/11 an inside job. It does look counter-intuitive, smooth enough some debunkers have speculated on fresh concrete, but that's about it.


Foundation Damage Found?

So seeing how little there is to be seen of this alleged smooth concrete, and returning to he best photo for seeing the apparent smoothness CIT offered, this also shows us the clearest shot of the areawhere we might see real damage simply grime couldn’t mask; we see the wooden box placed to the left of column 11aa's onetime position - where the column's base and surrounding foundation had been. Right there, at the engine’s low-pass point, still a pile of rubble just above – no wait, at? Below? - ground level.

A small pile of broken concrete? curved rebar? At the edge of the otherwise cleared floor and marked like some unavoidable obstruction? (magnified and enhanced) Is that the foundation itself, damaged, right where that low engine is said to have passed?
Some point out that the rubble pile is halfway outside the building, but the other half is of course inside, where the foundation should be. Admittedly the resolution isn't good enough to tell exactly what's going on here. It could be a pile of debris again obscuring the floor just at that spot, pouring over the edge of an intact foundation, or a pile of rubble that had been the foundation. (see below for more detailed analysis)

Coulumn Remnants?

This area of engine impact is supposed to be right-centered on column line 11. On the right side of this area can be seen it seems five very long, curving bars, protruding from a damaged area, with a riveted metal scrap hanging off one. Although essentially horizontal, these curving bars are too long to be from the floor slab which ends right there, and the clustering is similar to that of a support column, perhaps 12aa. These have at core typically six bars wrapped with a spiraling seventh, here stripped down to the bottom of their concrete infill/casing. Craig’s panned out photo usefully captures the tip of another such set to the right, with the outer spiral still partly in place:
Despite that these are not vertical, it’s not a good clue for ‘columns blown out,’ another CIT clue of explosives inside, since there is no other evidence for that. Additionally these photos are all post-collapse and post-cleanup so can say nothing much about the initial event.

The Wooden ‘Lip’
Foundation damage started seeming less likely compared to Craig's debris pile interpretation when I saw the curb-like structure visible in higher resolution shots (just to the left of the solid plywood shoring). This apparently intact lip covers most of the small area I’d thought was perhaps scraped out, and seems to be under the shoring as well, though missing a small portion right there (note the small traffic cone visible). Craig says this “looks more like a simple construction flaw or normal progressive damage that typically happens over decades to foundations as buildings settle etc.” This seemed right until I found another high resolution photo showing this spot from another angle that shows this object is not part of the building at all, but a broken beam of wood set back at least a foot from the edge.
The Slope: More Photos
This photo also gives us valuable clues about what is going on with this contentious spot. Compared to a previously analyzed view and establishing correlary objects, we can get a better idea of the perspective and forehortening involved. Damage to the edge is still unclear, but very minor is present and possibly from cleanup activities. Note also the custered rebar from column 11 (circled in yellow), pushed forward, one bar wrapped in cloth, and others pinned down under rubble.



Not so promising for my case: Russel Pickering, at one point anyway, looked at this photo and noted "I don't see any devastation here." link

The photo below, also by Augustino, shows the pile catching rays of early morning light. It still looks beneath floor level to me. In fact considering that little dozers were driving in and out from somewhere, it almost seems feasible that this spot would be chosen as an access ramp because the low left engine carved it out for them. It's too-cluttered to seem that's what happened, and rather it looks like the excavation was used as a mini-debris chute, or perhaps an unofficial walk-up ramp like those improvised by 'gofers' on any complex site like this one. Either way, it's a special spot, the only one not scraped clean, and it's right at the spot it should be.

THE BERNARD BROWNS SEAM

ONE UNWISE MOVE AVOIDED BY THE LOOSE CHANGE CREW

Loose Change director Dylan Avery’s sometimes flippant attitude is one lightning rod for controversy, and emblematic of a deeper problem (or perceived problem) in the Truth movement’s approach. There is an over-simplified perception that the "tinfoil hat" revisionists are young, naive, brash and disrespectful. They have their facts wrong and are causing real pain by bringing these arguments up, facts they fail to recognize due to their youth, naiveté, and the brainwashing administered by the leaders of the 9/11 moonbat cult.

The most relevant such controversy for our study of the Pentagon evidence is the odd case of the Bernard Browns, which I only just now learned of. Brown the younger, age 11, of Washington DC,, was headed on a field trip to California, hosted by the National Geographic Society and the kids wound up on AA Flight 77. His dad, Bernard sr. happens to work not just at the Pentagon, but in the Navy wing that was then hit by the very plane carrying his son - specifically, some reports claim, in the Naval Command Center, the very target the plane seems to have been aiming for as it plowed through the building.

This is odd enough to start with – and tragic of course – but odder yet, Brown sr. reportedly told his son on Monday night "don't be afraid to die because we all are going to die someday." [1] This discussion was taken by many as evidence of the father's foreknowledge, but is at least as likely just spurred by his son's general fear of flight. But then oddest of all, Brown sr. may well have died himself when the plane hit but for the fact that he took that day off to play golf, reportedly an anomaly for this hardworking and attentive man.

In November 2004, just as the original cut of Loose Change was being finished, Avery was asked about this bizarre confluence of events in an interview with WING TV. He explained the case, clearly hinting that Brown sr. had foreknowledge of the attack and sent his son into it. He thought about contacting Brown;

“Me and Phil [Jayhan I presume] were actually considering tracking him down and getting him on the phone just to get him to talk about 9/11 and see if anything slips, but I think he was either deeply involved with it and talking to him on the phone about it might not be such a hot idea, or I think talking to him about sending his son to die might be a bad idea.” [2]

Mary Katharine Ham, managing editor of Townhall.com doubted Avery’s accusation that Brown “put his 11-year-old son on Flight 77 that morning knowing that it was destined to take him to his death while he took the day off to go golfing as the carnage unfolded.” [3] From the point of view of an inside job of such a scale, this is really not too far-fetched, but Ham’s and others’ emotional gut reaction to this accusation is telling. “Capitalistic Pig” posted on the Ace of Spades forum “Bernard Brown Sr. and others should drag these sons of bitches into court by the scruff of their fucking necks.” [4] Their video was bad enough, but now their patience is wearing thin and I can hear old ropes being broken out for the lynching party. Pursuing the Bernard Browns seam, just to add yet one more to the list of hundreds still unresolved, was not a wise as far as winning converts. Maybe that’s why they apparently abandoned it before they even made their movie (one of the few wise moves they made) and this had to be dug up in an old interview instead of seen on-screen.

Still, this seam seems well beyond the realm of coincidence, and if I have to risk a lawsuit or a lynching to maintain that, so be it. But I can’t say what precisely to make of it. Did Brown sr. buy his way into the ranks of the post-coup elite by placing a special beacon on his desk as he left work on Monday, then slapping a homing device in his son’s luggage to guide the remote control system and then went golfing in the morning so he wouldn’t die? Avery seems to have been making such a claim, but it must be remembered that he thinks there was no Flight 77. Perhaps a planner or enabler of the attacks, aware that Brown jr. would die in the morning, orchestrated an enticing invite for his dad to a game of golf, to transform a brewing son’s-plane-kills-dad tragedy into a dad-in-on-9/11 conspiracy that would appear undeniably odd and intriguing to 9/11 Truthers. But if this was a seam left lying out, the backlash was built right in, and it may not be alone in that regard.

Sources:
[1] MSNBC, Sept. 25 2001. Found via "Killtown's 9/11 Coincidences and Oddities Page!" http://killtown.911review.org/oddities/911.html
[2] 2004-11-01 Dylan Avery Interview: M3U, RAM, MP3 http://911underground.com/wingtv/
[3] Ham, Mary Kataharine. "Beware the Truthers. Don't Ignore Them." Townhall.com September 11, 2006 http://www.townhall.com/columnists/column.aspx?UrlTitle=beware_the_truthers_dont_ignore_them&ns=MaryKatharineHam&dt=09/11/2006&page=1
[4] Posted by: Capitalistic Pig on September 13, 2006 01:43 AM comment on: “Speaking of Flaming Pieces of Shit...” Ace of Spades HQ. September 13, 2006. http://ace.mu.nu/archives/196495.php

TERROR IN STILL LIFE: THE 2002 FRAMES

Eyewitness accounts of the 757 strike on the Pentagon apparently didn’t carry the same weight as the real time video we saw at the World Trade Center, and secrecy and speculation ruled the day. Only after Meyssan’s no-plane arguments hit the news did somebody finally release five badly compressed stills from cameras on the Pentagon’s grounds that were said to show the plane and the first few seconds after its impact. These were published on March 7, 2002 by the Washington Post and on the 8th by all other major media outlets, clearly in response to Meyssan’s weeks-old inflammatory charges. The American media widely pushed these as confirmation of the official story, if still curiously weak. But strangely, no one would vouch for the pictures; according to the Post:

“Officials from the Pentagon said the photos were not released officially by the Department of Defense. […] “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.” [1]

Wherever they came from, the stills attracted quite a lot of buzz and served to remind everyone what the “War on Terrorism” would be all about in the dawning year 2002 and beyond. Indeed, they offered no evidence toward any theory, predicting the continued “trust us” mentality the Bush regime had been fostering as it pushed ahead into Iraq and other adventures regardless of evidence.

The pictures I had found back in 2004, I thought from CNN, had time stamps and frame labels at the bottom, whereas the ones I just found on the same CNN website have these Cropped off. (link to images on page: http://archives.cnn.com/2002/US/03/07/gen.pentagon.pictures/)
Maybe I just used a different link from the source I got them from. Anyway, I have older copies of frames one and two with the original time and title stamps and superimposed those on the cropped versions of these frames – the other three are left unlabeled. Then I found a full uncropped set on a 757-denier page, but I liked this unique set and I don’t think anything worthwhile was cropped from the other three.


Frame one was the only one that, according to its title, showed the plane itself, a blob of about 100 whitish pixels of uncertain shape and size mostly hidden behind an unknown boxy object (far right in the shot above, just below the horizon line). With the label “plane” cropped off – as well as half of the pivotal “plane’ itself in an inexplicable right-crop – this seems almost designed to show as much nothing as possible. In its entirety, as the ASCE noted, this frame “captured an image of the aircraft when it was approximately 320 ft (approximately 0.42 second) from impact with the west wall of the Pentagon. […] the top of the fuselage of the aircraft was no more than approximately 20 ft above the ground when the first photograph of this series was taken.” [2]


Frame 2: “impact.” Its brightness and contrast are different from the others, and some have noted the aqua blue optic distortion on the left side of this frame, the worst of which has recently been cropped off. This is probably an effect of the exceptionally brilliant flash. Oddly, with nothing at on the far right to show, this frame actually has less cropped than the first.


Frame three: Here we see an explosion rolling forward with the plane’s trajectory and hurling debris away at other angles, possibly having deflected off the façade.


Frame four: The Pentagon Building Performance Report explained these apparently continuous frames were “taken approximately one second apart.” [3]


Frame Five: Now large debris hurtling forward, explosion dimmed down – plane’s smoke trail dissipating. As for what’s with the smoke trail, I’m working on two posts dealing with this: one to sort out what was object and what vapor in that first still, then one to explain the obvious smoke trail in the other four frames which ordinarily should not be there in an airliner attack.

As for the cropping of these new photos: while likely innocent and irrelevant, the reason the excised stamps are significant is the time and date: September 12, 2001, 5:37 pm. It’s got the wrong date and time on it - it’s clearly shot at the time of impact from the angle of the sun and the facts that the first frames show an intact wall that ended on 9/11 and that nobody recalls a staged explosion on 9/12. Of course no one believes it was shot on 9/12, but some have taken this as evidence of tampering. I never got that – and take this as a sign that the video was analyzed repeatedly and finally finalized, official story decided, then had it catalogued at 5:37 pm on the 12th. It may have been doctored then, or earlier, or later, or never at all. The timestamp reveals nothing, but rather than simply explain this - which they have never done to my knowledge - the stamps have been removed from newer postings, I suspect to “quell conspiracy theories.” It should be no surprise if it has the opposite effect.

sources:
[1] Pino-Marina, Christina. “New Photos Show Attack on Pentagon.” Washington Post. March 7, 2002. Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56670-2002Mar7¬Found=true
[2], [3] Pentagon Building Report – p. 14

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

THE SECRET IMAGES OF THE PENTAGON ATTACK
Adam Larson / caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last updated 6/26/07

Back in 2002, at the Fraud’s genesis and amid loud and deserved rebuttals of the no-plane-at-the-Pentagon theory, some took the opportunity to point out that we had no convincing evidence to disprove the crazy construct. French Sociologist Pierre Lagrange aptly noted just after the release of Thierry Meyssan’s book “9/11: L’Effroyable Imposture,” which he dismissed, “there is no official account of the crash [...] the lack of information is feeding the rumor.” [1] There were serious questions about how the plane could do what it was alleged to have done and leave so little physical evidence, and these questions were compounded by continuing secrecy and evasiveness from the Pentagon’s leadership and the government in general. It was “move along folks, nothing to see here” from minute one.

Some footage went quickly from private to Federal custody, the two famous cases being from the camera at an unnamed hotel (originally thought to be the Sheraton National, but probably the Doubletree) and from the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station open only to Department of Defense personnel. The hotel's employees, according to a 9/21/01 report in the Washington Times, had time to “watch the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation.” [2] On the other hand, Jose Velasquez, owner of the Citgo station, famously told National geographic that his security cameras were "close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact.” But he said “I’ve never seen what the pictures looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took the film.” [3]

V-DOT Cam 740 view, cropped with Flight 77's alleged attack path inserted.

Other videos were reportedly seized from the Virginia Highway Department’s cameras, which may have captured the plane’s flight over I-395 and Washington Blvd. At trafficLand.com I was able to verify the view of a few likely cameras, most notable V-DOT traffic camera 740, which has a clear view of the Pentagon’s west wall and Washington Blvd from well above and a few hundred yards south. The plane's line of attack should have been in view for at least a few hundred feet. [4] At almost any frame rate, this should yield some views of the attack craft, whatever it was.

There were an unknown number of other tapes seized from State and private owners by the FBI and kept under wraps, and yet more that began in Federal hands. The Pentagon itself clearly sports a few surveillance cameras, but nothing was forthcoming from their trove. No photographic evidence of the plane had been seen at all as late as six months after the attack, leaving all sides endlessly grappling to argue their cases. Doubts were growing much stronger as it seemed Rumsfeld’s people were covering up something; in the presence of so much bovine manure, conspiracy theories mushroomed on a worldwide scale, and Meyssan sold many books.

So did the Pentagon yield and quell the mental mutiny by releasing proof that Flight 77 did hit their building? No. Somebody finally released what appeared to be such footage: five badly compressed stills supposedly showing the plane’s impact. These were published on March 7, 2002 by the Washington Post and on the 8th by all other major media outlets, clearly in response to Meyssan’s weeks-old inflammatory charges. The American media widely pushed these as confirmation of the official story, if still curiously weak. But strangely, no one would vouch for the pictures, with both DoD and DoJ (who responsible for evidence of federal crimes) denied any knowledge of the stills' source. [5]

Wherever they came from, they attracted quite a lot of buzz and served to remind everyone what the “War on Terrorism” would be all about in the dawning year 2002 and beyond. Indeed, they offered no evidence toward any theory, predicting the continued “trust us” mentality the Bush regime had been fostering as it pushed ahead into Iraq and other adventures regardless of evidence. The stills have served more as a Rorschach test than evidence; many have looked closely (as I'm starting to) to find evidence of a hijacked Boeing 757, a Cruise missile, an A-3 Skywarrior or Global Hawk drone, even a simple hologram to cover for the bombs placed inside the building or in a truck nearby.

After the white blur stills, there was nothing new for four years as Pentagon Strike, IPS, and Loose Change tore up the Truth scene with their no-757 claims. Then after years of badgering and lawsuits on at least two fronts, two actual videos were released in May 2006 by the DoJ and Dod via Judicial Watch, one of which is simply the video from the Pentagon camera from which the five stills were extracted in 2002, and the video adds nothing to the stills - they really were just frames from the video. [6] The other video, listed as #1, was from a camera just a few feet away - actually it seems to be inside the unknown box from the 2002 stills - two cameras right by each other pointed the same way. Before we'd seen a white blur with no shape, apparently partly hidden behind the second camera. Now we can see what the second camera saw through its horrible glare - no obstruction, but still onlya liver ever visible - it's clearly the edge, the missing piece of the white blur that gives it its shape - it looks like the nosecone of a jet, or prhaps a wingtip, or perhaps something else - but its the same color as the blur, meaning this is indeed a large white/silver object flying fast on a sunny day. [Watch the video here - Youtube]

On the five-year anniversary of the attack, the DoJ also released the video seized from the Citgo gas station. It showed low-resolution views from the station’s six security cameras together on one screen with the lower half blurred out to conceal identities of the pixilated customers. After a few minutes of nothing in particular, the attendant, Velasquez, steps outside at 4:45 to join a small, agitated crowd outside to view the aftermath. [7] Despite Valasquez’s optimism, we see nothing at all, since these cameras were aimed to observe the gas pumps and the customers, not the Pentagon across the Highway. Another video reportedly from the Doubletree hotel was due to be released on or around November 9, after the mid-term elections; despite the “horror” the employees felt watching it, this video does not contain the impact either, according to the FBI. [8] The release date for this was later pushed up to December 21, supposedly because the FBI was moving its FOIA function to Winchester, Virginia and its video equipment was being reassembled there. [9]
Update: The Citgo video shows a distinct flash in the window "dual pump side.' Look under the canopy at 4:44 in the the video. There are other clues as well that seem to indicate a silver object passing by just to the south of that location. Analysis forthcoming)

Update, 1/27/07: That video too has been released - Flight 77.info: "The FBI has sent us 10 Doubletree hotel DVDs. Only two show sky. The DVD of camera 1 is about 8 hours long, and we've clipped it down to 15 mins in the best quality." it actually does show the skyline in the direction of the Pentagon - I haven't analyzed it carefully myself, but Scott Bingham's got it up as of Christmas 2006. He thinks it shows a helicopter going by towards the Pentagon at 9:23 am - 14 minutes before Flight 77's impact. I think he may be right and it may be relevant.
Update: This video shows the explosion, but the building itself and the plane are invisible, a half-mile away behind a cluster of raised highway lanes. Analysis fortcoming

Sources:
[1] “French lap up Pentagon crash 'fraud'.” BBC News. April 2 2002. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/1907955.stm
[2] “Reverse Psychology and the hidden Pentagon videotapes: seizing the videos proves foreknowledge, NOT "no plane"
blurry images published May 16, 2006 intended to fuel "no plane" hoaxes.” http://www.oilempire.us/pentagon-video.html
[3] McKelway,Bill. “Three Months On, Tension Lingers Near the Pentagon.” Richmond Times-Dispatch. December 11 2001. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/12/1211_wirepentagon.html
[4] Trafficland. http://www.trafficland.com/findacamera/findacamera.php?city=WAS
[5] Pino-Marina, Christina. “New Photos Show Attack on Pentagon.” Washington Post. March 7, 2002. Accessed November 5, 2005 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A56670-2002Mar7¬Found=true
[6] First video of Pentagon 9/11 attack released Tuesday, May 16, 2006 http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html
[7], [8] 9/11 Gas Station Video Released - Does not show Flight 77
Prisonplanet | September 15 2006
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/September2006/150906_b_Video.htm
[9] Flight77.info Forces Release of Doubletree Hotel Video http://www.flight77.info/

FROM THE BLIND SPOT TO THE EMPTY SIDE

Curiously, among the 266 people on board the attack planes, defense contractor Raytheon lost a remarkable four employees, three of them on Flight 11 alone. But I mention this because of the fourth Raytheon casualty: Stanley Hall, 68-year-old Director of Program Management for Electronic Warfare, perished on Flight 77 on his way to the company's operations in Goleta, California. He had been described by colleagues as “our dean of electronic warfare,” and had been instrumental in their development of anti-radar technology. [1]

Strange then that the plane carrying Raytheon’s anti-radar expert also proved the most effective of the four attack planes at evading radar tracking. As American 77 bore down on Washington, it crossed Ohio and West Virginia unseen by civilian controllers, who thought perhaps it had crashed. For some reason, we’re told, there was no radar at all here, with tracking done only by transponder in a system falsely called “secondary radar.” [2] And the hijacked plane had one of those stupid transponders – as they all seem to – that can be easily disabled by hijackers, as all hijacked flights were on 9/11.

While the other three weaponized airliners were tracked by radar despite the transponder invisibility, Flight 77 was unseen for over half an hour after the hijackers killed its transponder signal. At about 9:25, it entered Washington airspace, which did have radar that picked it up to everyone’s worry. Vice-President Cheney was informed immediately, but twelve minutes later it hit the Pentagon with, allegedly, no warning at all. [3] A spokesman said “the Pentagon was simply not aware that this aircraft was coming our way,” and so obviously had implemented no defense and no evacuation. [4] This despite the just-established protocols for an airliner hit on the building that resulted from a series of drills over the year before 9/11.

And then there’s the Pentagon renovation project (PENREN), a years-long program of updating and remodeling the massive building one wedge, or section, at a time. It just happens that of the five sections, Wedge One, the Navy Wing and home of the US Naval Command, was the first up. Work had begun back in 1998, and a few select tenants moved in as early as February 2001. The grand opening for the wedge was held on March 8, and the first Naval tenants were handed their key a week later, eventually running their Naval Command Center in its brand new office space. [5]

Damage to the Pentagon’s West side, penetrating the outermost E, D, and C rings

But six months later as the sixty-year anniversary of the Pentagon’s original ground-breaking approached, work was still underway on at least the telecommunications systems, hence the giant spools of cable out front; the area was still a fenced-off construction zone when it came under air attack on September 11. The wedge had supposedly been upgraded with fire-suppressing sprinklers, blast-resistant windows, and more support columns in the off chance terrorists should strike at the very heart of America’s military. Renovation officials have cited their upgrades as slowing the plane’s impact and minimizing death, though it plowed through roughly 300 feet of these improvements.

Due to the incomplete nature of the work space, only about 800 people were in the entire wedge one, where there would normally have been about 5,000, further minimizing the death that day. [6] In fact the plane struck just south of the dividing line with wedge two, and pushed fires well into that section; Civil Engineering magazine noted "far less damage and loss of life than the terrorists might have anticipated," and for this credited "the facts that renovation of Wedge 1—an undertaking that substantially fortified that segment—was within days of completion, and that Wedge 2, about to undergo renovation, had been vacated." [7]

Russell Pickering aptly noted of these oddities:

“It's the fact that they hit "near the middle" of the only section that had been "renovated and reinforced with blast resistant windows" where the "staffing levels were lower than usual" on the "other side" of the building from "the top-level military brass, including U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld" one day before the completion of the renovation on "Wednesday, September 12th, 2001" that has generated some suspicion about the "well-coordinated" attacks.” [8]

For good or ill, this is precisely true.

Sources:
[1] Lecacy.com Tribute: Stan Hall. Tribute submitted by Jane Weiger. Accessed October 9, 2005 at: http://www.legacy.com/Sept11.asp?Page=TributeStory&PersonId=91767
[2] Phillips, Don. “Pentagon Crash Highlights a Radar Gap.” Washington Post. November 3, 2001. Page A06. Accessed November 12, 2004 at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A32597-2001Nov2
[3] Thompson, Paul. The Terror Timeline. New York Regan Books. 2004. Page 416.
[4] Newsday, 9/23/01, New York Times, 10/16/01. Via: http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up10pg
[5] Pentagon renovation details. Accessed November 12, 2005 at: http://renovation.pentagon.mil/projects-W1.htm
[6] See [3]. Page 422
[7] Powell, Ann Elizabeth. “September Eleventh: The days After, the Days Ahead.” Civil Engineering Magazine. November 2001. http://www.pubs.asce.org/ceonline/ceonline01/0111feat.html
[8] Pickering, Russell. "The Pentagon." Pentagon research. http://www.pentagonresearch.com/pentagon.html

PLANE PARTS part III

THE SCRAP OVER THE SCRAPS

Eyewitnesses to the Pentagon attack’s aftermath have repeatedly cited nothing left of the plane but scraps small enough that you could pick up in your hands, as we’d expect. Loose change-types simply adore repeating CNN reporter Jamie McIntyre’s initial reporting of this observation, much to his dismay, seeing in it an honest no-plane testimony before he was “gotten to.” The HTB skeptics love the hand-size bits because they can then turn this around and contend that the scraps are just as easy to plant by hand.

"Spooked" at Humint Events Online, likely a parody site but possibly sincere, suggested in October 2006 a "Flight 77" decoy flyover coupled with a small "beam weapon” to "knock down the lamp poles and fry the generator and create the hole in the building." the plane parts we've seen "were pre-planted and also sprinkled from an over-flying plane a la Operation Northwoods.” He explained this “it's rather tempting to wonder if this C-130,” which is verified as flying over the Pentagon just after the attack and then scoping out Shanksville, “was packed with 757 fuselage pieces (in American and United colors) to sprinkle from above.” [1] Of course it was planted if it doesn’t fit your theory. Never suspect your own theory was planted, always keep the attention elsewhere…
Other no-757 skeptics do raise some relevant questions about the characteristics of the scraps found on the lawn, especially the piece seen above, which is here located to the north (left) of impact, famously captured by Mark Faram. This scrap is clearly from the main chassis, given the red paint generally taken as part of the ‘n’ in “American,” which is painted near the front of the fuselage. Some note the pristine quality of the metal as a clue it was planted. I wouldn’t call this pristine by a long shot, but it does look a bit nice and neat. If they’re right, these scraps may have been planted, but with this inexplicable special effects snafu built in.

The other thing some have noted is that if the main chassis entered the building intact as alleged, and was only blown up, torn up, and burned up as it pierced 300 feet deep, it would be highly odd that such scraps would be outside. It must be noted the tail section also has a giant red "A" on the tailfin, which more than the chassis should be expected outside, but other photos likethe "c" shown below are clearly from the front lettering.

As for the unpainted wings widely cited as "disappearing" upon impact since they weren't found sheared off whole: They would have exploded, as the place the fuel was stored, and been left outside in small peces. The tailfin is more likely to have survived intact, but has not been seen, and may heve blow up into pieces as well in te general explosion. I would look in the field of shiny metal scraps for the possible remains of these silver appendages:



Here are two more shots from the same general area showing three more fuselage sections with parts of an AA paint job. The building in the background on the right is the heliport, where pieces are apparently being gathered and then taken elsewhere by FBI agents for some kind of investigative work.

As to precisely where they were first picked up it’s hard to say. That they would be being fished out of the flaming wreckage inside the building before singeing is clearly not the case – they were obviously outside the building. Were they scraped off by the second floor slab as the cockpit and upper fuselage entered? If so I’d expect deeper crumpling than that.

And yet another aluminum scrap, bearing distinctive airliner-proportioned rivets and an edge of red paint. Russell Pickering noted the “obvious smooth cut trimmed by rivets (at the bottom left) which indicated to me it was on the corner of a door or window.” He located the red paint sans white outline on the big red stripe down the side, and decided it was from the edge of either the forward or aft cargo doors on the right side of the aircraft.” [?] These are on the lower half, and could not be accounted for by the upper part’s collision with the second floor slab. It also seems to have torn off neatly and early on. I have a hypothesis this cleanly torn metal outside the bunker walls may play into, so I’ll end it there with this still a bit of a mystery I need to look into more

So we’ve seen what may well be parts from a Rolls Royce RB 211 engine or engines, landing gear matching a B757’s in size, scale, and design, metal scraps marked like wing, chassis, and/or tail sections from an AA commercial jetliner and we’re down to the scraps. But the HTB people may still be holding out for yet further proof. Indeed, much remains to be seen: The nosecone, cockpit control panels, seats, passengers (or have we seen these?), oxygen masks, box cutters, plane tickets, official American Airlines napkins, etc. And of course all of those can be planted too.

SUICIDE BY SAM DANNER: PART I

SUICIDE BY SAM DANNER: A TRAGEDY IN FOUR PARTS
Part I: The Interview
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 19 2007

I’m an erratic researcher. I’ll confess that now. Late last year I started looking at this evidence surrounding the Pentagon attack and the various fraudsters pushing various no-757 theories. So why I only just now decided to look into the Sam Danner story I don’t know. For insiders this old news, for anyone else, read on. It’s a telling little episode, which I’ll relate in four parts.

I heard a little about this case, something about an eyewitness admitting he’d lied about seeing something hit the Pentagon, and there was some kind of fallout - Chris Bollyn was involved - something. But I decided to start my search at the beginning and look first at Sam Danner’s first entry into brief stardom. I’m not sure how the hook-up came to be, but this happened via an interview with Eric Hufschmid recorded for his website on June 29 2006. I only actually listened to the first few minutes, but he sounds like he’s still trying to convince himself.. “When I got down uh... close to the Pentagon - well I’m gonna call it the southeast – southeast location of the interstate highway 395 parallel to the Pentagon – parallel to the actual alleged impact that had supposedly taken place…” Listen to it here if you like (mp3 – right-click – new window). My favorite spot: His wife called him just before the impact, at about 9:35 he thinks to tell him about another issue at "Shanksville." !!! There's no reason for anyone to have known about that tiny town before we started hearing about Flight 93 well after it crashed there at about 10:06. Eric apparently didn't catch this minor point - or didn't think his listeners would.

So I just switched over and read Eric’s summation from there. I entered knowing the interviewer’s obsession with the "Zionist criminal network" that owned the media and was behind the attack, his unusual emphasis on the Pentagon cleanup crew – a deputized phalanx of ordinary people scanning the Pentagon’s lawn soon after the attack for any tiny evidence - officially for the investigation, but Hufschmid suspects for the cover-up. I’m also aware of Eric’s obsession with suggesting the tiny, big-brained spy drone Global Hawk was the precise attack craft. Both of these are clear enough to anyone who’s watched his 2005 video Painful Deceptions, as I just did the other day. That said, here’s a summarization of Hufschmid’s summarization, with some of my own thoughts inserted.

Danner saw first plane coming, then a second one with four engines [presumably the C-130 control plane?]. When the first plane passed him, he saw it was a small white craft with no windows. “The front was like a humpback whale,” Eric related. “It was flying very low to the ground. There was only one engine, and it was in the tail” [Wow! Clearly Global Hawk, just like Eric’s always said! What’re the chances this guy could be so perfect?]

“He saw some of the light poles that had been hit by the aircraft,” Eric says, “but they seem to have fallen in the wrong direction, as if explosives knocked them down.” [???] Luckily Danner was an EMT and “walked onto the Pentagon property to help the survivors, but he didn't find any bodies or luggage.” [I’m not sure why he was looking for injured luggage to help]. He was then recruited into the search teams Eric is so fascinated with, and was closely followed and overseen, even “intimidated,” by “a mysterious agent with a name like "Erkstein" who was directing the destruction of evidence.” As for what that was, “He saw tiny bits of aluminum, a few large pieces, and only one engine.” [the engine was outside the building on the lawn?]

Danner knew all the right things to say; as Eric further related, “the people who appeared to be official government agents did not seem interested in rescuing victims.” [wearing their heartlessness on their sleeves – Zionist scum]. “Are you aware that prior to the collapse of Building 7 at the World Trade Center, the people in the area were told to move away because the building might collapse? Well, Danner said that after a while they were told to move away from the Pentagon. Some of the people in the area obviously knew that a portion of the building was about to collapse.” [Almost as if the structural damage had been evaluated and the inevitable foreseen. Or evidence of a controlled demolition at the Pentagon to hide the tiny hole. Whichever fits your theory].

“Danner's testimony shows that there must be thousands of people who know that the official story is a lie, but they don't realize that their information is important, or they are too frightened to talk." Yet despite on-site intimidation, Danner found the gumption to make “a sarcastic remark to a government agent about how there was a tremendous loss of life from the airplane crash but he couldn't see any of it. Danner's final conclusion was that there was no 757; the official story is a lie.” Incredible. In-credible.

Clearly impressed, Eric told Sam something to the effect of “Alex Jones, Dylan Avery, and most other "truth seekers" and the media are part of the criminal network! They are deceiving us by covering up the role of Zionists. […] Mike Rivero of whatreallyhappened writes that "government shills are working hard to trick web sites into running the claim that a passenger jet did not really hit the Pentagon." Well, that makes me a government shill. Do you trust Rivero? Have you noticed that Rivero promotes Alex Jones and other liars?”

Good thing Eric was there to help Danner pass on the truth – as he’d always said, a Global Hawk hit the Pentagon and finally someone who had seen it happen had the guts to come forward to him. Not just one part but all of it. He saw the craft clearly enough, the light poles, the one and only engine, the “Steins” bossing people around, and the controlled demolition of the embarrassing impacted segment. Man this Danner had some balls, and his life was clearly in danger for his ability to expose the criminal network’s whole scam. He would soon be patched in to two hard truth warriors of the anti-Zionist patriot movement, who would work hard to get Danner on the record just in case anything unfortunate should happen to him.

Source: Hufschmid, Eric. “Sam Danner; An Eyewitness to the Crash at the Pentagon!” Based on an interview Recorded 29 June 2006. http://www.erichufschmid.net/EyewitnessToFlight77.html
mp3 audio of the interview: http://www.erichufschmid.net/Sam_EyewitnessToFlight77_hour1.mp3

ONE RING DAMAGED: EARLY ARGUMENTS

To understand the dry humor with which I take the following arguments, it helps to understand the depth of Flight 77’s penetration of the Pentagon. The world'slargest office building consists of 5 sides with five corners and five concentric rings, labeled A-E; Each ring, when viewed from above, is separated by a space for light and air. The massive Flight 77 hit the outermost E ring, on the southwest-facing side at a 45 degree angle from the south and disappeared inside the building, according to the official account burying itself over 300 feet into the building through rings E, D, and C, terminating between the C and B rings, in a ground-level roadway known as the "A-E Drive." (just about dead center in the picture above)

One evident mistake on the original Meyssan-produced Hunt The Boeing site that has reverberated through the works of others is the contention that since only the E ring showed signs of damage when viewed from above (see right - and 'damage' seems to mean total collapse), “it is clear that the aircraft only hit the first ring. The four interior rings remain intact. They were only fire-damaged after the initial explosion." The younger Meyssan asked his readers "how a Boeing 757-200, weighing nearly 100 tons and traveling at a minimum speed of 250 miles an hour only damaged the outside of the Pentagon?”

Likewise, Australian 9/11 Truther Gerard Holmgren looked at this building layout and decided less than two months after the attack “I have estimated the depth of the ring itself to be about 32 feet [note his use of the singular “ring”] and the open space behind it, about the same.” I estimated closer to 45-foot rings and 30-foot spaces, but he may be closer. Whatever. The point is, his contention that “the outer ring collapsed, leaving a total depth of about 65 ft that the plane could potentially have fitted into, considering that the second ring of the building was intact.” Indeed, many skeptics, especially early on, saw only one ring collapse and presumed only one ring was damaged. Raphael Meyssan said precisely that, and an intrepid few no-planers pained themselves to look on the ground between the rings and saw no debris or damage there. The ground there is clear, so the attack object never entered the other rings and never left the outer E ring.

Likewise, Zionist-JFK assassination obsessed Eric Hufschmid has made this same exact case (in at least one exception to the Franco-German War construct). This I found in his intensely researched and richly illustrated book Painful Questions, released September 2002. The "Flight 77 Hits the Pentagon?" section of his book also carried headings like "the airplane was larger than one floor," "where is the airplane debris?" "Two pieces of the airplane were discovered," "where is the aircraft debris?" "the terrorists were the world's best pilots," "the CIA drones," and "if it looks and acts like a drone..." He also cites two explosions, one from "the missile," and the other from "a bomb inside the Pentagon." The illustration at right is a scan right from the book, where he too sees only one ring penetrated, clearly nowhere near enough space to fit the missing plane. He did show the punch-out hole inside the C-Ring, but mistakenly cited it as on the inside of the impacted, outer E-Ring. Such a gaffe is noteworthy, in that any place for the plane to hide is "squeezed inside the red area of figure 9-10" and inside the red-flag area of worse-than-worthless 9/11 theories.

This is the punch-out hole Hufschmid cited on the inside of the E-ring. By 2004-05 most people had figured out it was actually on the inside wall of the C Ring, right on the A-E drive (hence the no parking sign next to it). But for the plane to get there, they still saw six walls’ worth of the stuff smashed through in the "E" and "C" rings. But this ignores another key fact – that it only had the two heavy walls to contend with (explained in my “nine feet of steel reinforced idiocy” post). Meyssan, Hufschmid, and Holmgren at that time could not see that the spaces between the rings wasn’t ground but roof over the second floor, and the plane pierced the building at the first-floor level. There is no ground-level exit on the inside of the E-ring. The spot Hufschmid showed does not exist on this building.

But that was 2002 - I checked on the current status of Hufschmid's argument in Painful Deceptions, his video first released in February 2005. He no longer shows his red area of the E-ring, but still says “the passengers and debris from Flight 77 were confined to a very tiny area” and implies neither was present at all, arguing forcibly for a Global Hawk drone strike. At 17:53 his narrator says "it is obvious that whatever hit the Pentagon was not big enough to be a Boeing 757." He showed a location shot described as “the corridor between rings. There is nothing in this rubble that looks like Flight 77 or pieces of luggage.” All that’s there is broken glass and intact (reinforced) windows that fell from their moorings. But that’s to be expected. It’s the back side of the E-ring’s third floor, which was badly shaken but never entered by the plane. What he seemed in 2005 to take as the ground level between rings is actually the roof of the second floor, well above the plane’s massive damage. He seems to think this photo is of a spot near his misplaced punch-out hole, which he then shows and points out again no plane wreckage, but no longer specifies just where it is in the building’s ring structure.

Despite the slight back-off on this embarrassing gaffe, Hufschmid still clearly qualifies as a Frustrating Fraudster of the first order. His case at the Pentagon at least is stupid and flat wrong, and I will cover it more in-depth in an upcoming post reviewing Painful Deceptions' take on that evidence in total. If you'd like the review to seem more relevant, feel free to watch the video yourself first. I haven't looked into Holmgren's current take, but from the way all these guys operate, once they've staked out an argument, it becomes their trademark and their turf, and they never abandon it no matter what. I'd bet money he hasn't modified anything significantly either.

THE FRAUD FIGHTERS {namebase}

IF THERE’S NO EVIDENCE OF A 757, THEN WHAT ARE ALL THESE PEOPLE SEEING?

This is to list and organize sub-posts dealing with the specific people mentioned in my many posts here who have taken a stand against the Frustraing Fraud. The post is a work in progress, and will be updated as needed.

I'm in a small but growing minority that almost seem to be laying out - or discovering, pick one - a conspiracy of disinfo almost as vast as the alleged 9/11 conspiracy itself - how could all these people conciously buy into and promote what is clearly untrue? We must be off our rockers, you'll say. That's just about every member of the "9/11 Truth Movement" that's implicated on the Fruad namebase. But just go back and check my arguments, examine the evidence for yourself, and look again at these peoples' claims.

I'd like to officially open the post up to readers to submit their own nominees for examination as effectively taking on the no-plane/small-plane theories, your opinions on the list so far, etc. in the comments sections below. Any new personalities warranting mention here will be pulled up and added to the masterlist. I do try to be fair. This is basically anyone who's taken an explicit stand on the Pentagon attack, official or unofficial. Any new facts or opinions about those on the list I deem fit will be incorporated as well. Although it may seem odd, I’m including both people in the mainstream (at least the most relevant or entertaining) and in the 9/11 Truth movement. Anybody from anywhere that’s gone on the record in a noteworthy way. The list originally mixed in with 757 deniers as well, but was way too long, and so far my list of fraud fighters is too short to split up into two posts, though I will sort them into Defenders and opponents of the official story. Their motives differ almost like night and day, but their methods and words are all worth looking at.

Defending the Official Story:
- "James B.": The "Chief" of Screw Loose Change, a site dedicated to de-bunking the video Loose Change. They and their readers seem largely dedicated to bolstering the official story, and James B is a Chief Warrant Officer in the Army National Guard. The comments section on the page features numerous fans, detractors, critics, and interesting back-and-forth. Pretty liberally moderated.
- - Loose Change vs. Tight Continuity
- - James B. on the bodies at the Pentagon

- Alexander Cockburn: A prime example of what many call “Left Gatekeepers,” though he strongly criticizes Bush and the “War on terror,” Cockburn denies 9/11 as an inside job in any respect, including blaming the failed air defense on a simple and expected series of screw-ups. November 28 2006, he described conspiracy theorists as "torturing the data [...] like mad Inquisitors [...] till the data confess." For example, "there are some photos of the impact of the "object" - i.e. the Boeing 757, flight 77 - that seem to show the sort of hole a missile might make. Ergo, 757 didn't hit the Pentagon. It WAS a missile. It wasn't smoke in some photographs obscuring a larger rupture in the fortified Pentagon wall.”

- Guillaume Dasquié: Authored the 2003 book "The Big Lie: Theses and Nonsense about September 11" in an attempt to de-bunk Thierry Meyssan's works, even to the extent of stealing the name. It must be noted he is neither a Bush ally nor devoid of his own conspracy theorizing: That same year Dasquié co-authored "Forbidden Truth" with Jean-Charles Brisard, accusing Bush of complicity in 9/11 by being too soft on the Saudis, who have been trying to take over the world since the 1800s. He takes on the fraud but not from my angle. He's a War on Terror propagandist.

- Chris Farrell: Director of investigations, Judicial Watch - conservative legal watchdog group defending the official story by debunking the Frustrating Fraud. JW is also suing FBI for pre-9/11 counter-terror negligence.

- Tom Fitton: President of judicial Watch in 2006 when they started releasing Pentagon attack videos: "we wanted to help put to rest conspiracy theories out there that were suggesting that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon, that the government murdered the passengers on Flight 77, and other outrageous stuff. Just having the videos released is one more leg of the conspiracy theory that has been knocked out. This also reminds Americans of the evil we are facing.”

- Mark Iradian: Producer of the video Screw Loose Change. Has to have made some specific and useful argument about the Pentagon attack tho I haven't watched it yet. “When you try to label the government for being a butcher and slaughtering 3000 of his own people, you better provide concrete evidence to back that up."

- Sgt. William Lagasse: pentagon police officer and Pentagon attack eyewitness. In a 2003 letter to 757 flyover proponent Dick Eastman: "Dear Sir rest assured it was a Boeing 757 that flew into the building that day [...] The fact that you are insinuating that this was staged and a fraud is unbelievable. You ask were the debris is...well it was in the building..I saw it everywhere. I swear to god you people piss me off to no end. I invite you and you come down and I will walk you through it step by step." Lagasse tricked into bolstering another overflight theory (The PentaCon, 2007) with his recollections, now found curiously inconsistent with the official story.

- James Meigs/the editors of Popular Mechanics: "Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories: The Pentagon was struck by a missile; the World Trade Center was razed by demolition-style bombs; Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet. As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States."

- Mark Roberts: Author of a sharp debunking of Loose Change. Responding to the video's assertion "the two engines should have been found relatively intact at the Pentagon," Roberts quipped "You must be thinking of the old Pentagon, which was made of balsa wood and marshmallows. What sort of schooling have you received that's led you to believe that an airplane striking a reinforced concrete building at over 500 mph isn't going to break into small pieces? That's a serious question, by the way." He also penned "Loose Change Creators Speak," which spurred another Iradian video of the same name.

- Sarah Roberts: In late 2002 she bucked the trend of showing the lawn with so little plane wreckage, and instead compiled and released exclusive photos from inside the building that did show what she felt were parts from a 757. These photos, among the most telling used as evidence on this site, she summed up, "clearly show pieces of landing gears, a large turbofan engine, and fuselage. The evidence inside the building is consistent with the evidence of plane wreckage outside - indicating that a commercial airliner flew into the Pentagon on September 11th."

- Michael Shermer: Publisher of Skeptic and lead author of Scientific American's mid-2005 anti-9/11 conspiracy theory article "Fahrenheit 2777." Closing quote from that: "All the 9/11 conspiracy claims are this easily refuted. On the Pentagon "missile strike," for example, I queried the would-be filmmaker about what happened to Flight 77, which disappeared at the same time. "The plane was destroyed, and the passengers were murdered by Bush operatives," he solemnly revealed. "Do you mean to tell me that not one of the thousands of conspirators needed to pull all this off," I retorted, "is a whistle-blower who would go on TV or write a tell-all book?" My rejoinder was met with the same grim response I get from UFOlogists when I ask them for concrete evidence: Men in Black silence witnesses, and dead men tell no tales."

- Matt Taibbi - Authot of "The Idiocy Behind the '9/11 Truth' Movement," (Rolling Stone, Sept. 2006). Imagined planning session:
"CHENEY: And the Pentagon crash -- we'll have to do it in broad daylight and say it was a plane, even though it'll really be a cruise missile.
BUSH: Wait, why do we have to use a missile?
CHENEY: Because it's much easier to shoot a missile and say it was a plane. It's not easy to steer a real passenger plane into the Pentagon. Planes are hard to come by.
BUSH: But aren't we using two planes for the Twin Towers?
CHENEY: Mr. President, you're missing the point. With the Pentagon, we use a missile, and say it was a plane.
BUSH: Right, but I'm saying, why don't we just use a plane and say it was a plane? We'll be doing that with the Twin Towers, right?
CHENEY: Right, but in this case, we use a missile. (Throws hands up in frustration) Don, can you help me out here?
RUMSFELD: Mr. President, in Washington, we use a missile because it's sneakier that way. Using an actual plane would be too obvious, even though we'll be doing just that in New York.
BUSH: Oh, okay.
RUMSFELD: The other good thing about saying that it was a passenger jet is that that way, we have to invent a few hundred fictional victims and account for a nonexistent missing crew and plane. It's always better when you leave more cover story to invent, more legwork to do, and more possible holes to investigate. Doubt, legwork, and possible exposure -- you can't pull off any good conspiracy without them."
Summarizing the "movement:"
"[I]f there were any conspiracy here, I'd be far more inclined to believe that this whole movement was cooked up by Karl Rove as a kind of mass cyber-provocation, along the lines of Gordon Liddy hiring hippie peace protesters to piss in the lobbies of hotels where campaign reporters were staying."

- Mike J Wilson: Creator of an excellent animated Pentagon attack sequence that explains all the major evidence in confomity with a 757 strike. The video is viewable at You Tube.

Opposing the Official 9/11 Story but Accepting the 757 Evidence:
- Arabesque: Talented 9/11 truth blogger - in a massive and thoroughly detailed critical review of the PentaCon, my favorite passage so far is: "Even more significant is that the structural damage inside of the Pentagon aligns perfectly with the flight path as suggested by the light pole damage and generator as shown above. The filmmakers even acknowledge this point when they claim that the plane could not have caused the structural damage inside of the Pentagon if it approached from north of the CITGO gas station. This is very strong evidence that the PentaCon eyewitnesses are wrong." Exactly!

- Scott Bingham: 9/11 skeptic, against the HTB case. Seems to believe a real 757 was flown in by remote control. Bingham is the site administrator for Flight77.info to document his lawsuits against the FBI and DoJ to get the video of the Pentagon attack released, but his role has been eclipsed by similar but later lawsuits by Judicial Watch. Bingham believes Hani Hanjour was not the agent of the Pentagon attack, but “if you believe that Hanjour was not flying the plane because there was no plane, you've been suckered into the myth that something other than a 757 hit the pentagon - which happens to be most people now that the virus known as 'loose change' has infected so many.”

- Margie Burns: I'm unaware of her stand on 9/11 directly, but she's focused on drawing attention to the Bush family’s possible role in the attacks, notably Marvin's work on WTC security. Author of "Foolish no-planers getting all the attention; could that be the idea?" August 10 2006.

- Jean-Pierre Desmoulins: Author of site "Pentagon 2001 / 9 / 11 : the fraud !" Initially a Meyssan supporter posulating a Fighter jet attack, he later back off from this after looking closer at the evidence. Later said in mid-2004 Meyssan's theory was "technically incoherent and contradicts all the witness accounts." and also noted: "The efforts to promote the MIHOP 1 and MIHOP 2 theories [lead] the public to think that the official thesis are opposed only some wild "conspiracy nuts" theories which can be easily debunked by a technical analysis. This "noise" injected into the the system masks the "signal", i.e. that the truth is probably somewhere beetween the LIHOP and the MIHOP 3 theory. Obviously, deliberately or not, this is disinformation."

- Finatan Dunne: Irish multimedia activist - administrator of Break for News.com, formerly Wagnews, etc. Focusing on many issues - on 9/11 he's about exposing what he thinks are psychological operations (psyops) and discarding the tinfoil theories - like the Frustrating Fraud. He's gone so far as to call several activists, including Mike ruppert, "CIA bitches," and to dismiss 9/11 Truth itself as part of the 9/11 psyop campaign.
- -On the Pentagon attack as the "honeytrap" of 9/11
- -On the bodies found at the Pentagon

- Jamie Hecht: From the Wilderness, led the charge against the fraud there. Hecht called Robinowitz’ “Identifying Misinformation” as “one of the most effective teaching tools about America’s Reichstag Fire and the perpetual cover-up it launched.”

- Jim Hoffman: 9-11 Research.com, 9-11 Review.com, wtc7.net. Primarily a specialist in the WTC demolition, Hoffman's solid evidence analysis points to a 757 but probably not piloted by Hani Hanjour. His research is cited in numerous posts here. "Many working on social justice causes like 9/11 are reluctant to admit that there are saboteurs in their midst. The idea that the struggle to expose the crime is just a contest between the official story and alternatives is comforting in its simplicity. Recognizing that the struggle is a two-or-more-front war of ideas can be intimidating or even overwhelming."

- Alex Jones: Radio host, multimedia activist, "mr megaphone" in Richard Linklater's movies. Jones is an invaluable ally but not my spokesman by a long shot. He's generally a populist but a bit brash and too "Conservative Christian" for me, and he exagerrates and sometimes distorts facts. But to his credit he's gone on the record against both the Frustrating Fraud and the official story. As far as this site's mandate, he should be clean, but whether by 9/11 shock jock instinct or whatever, he's at least passively pushed the fraud in the past. (see Fraud namebase).

- Steven Jones: BYU professor and Scholars for 9/11 Truth member who famously has claimed the WTC was felled by thermate demolition. He doesn't buy the fraud, but has remained somewhat vague on it. Joe R says compared to fellow st911 member Jim Fetzer, Jones "is much more reasonable and thinks the no-757 evidence is no good, but also thinks we need more data."

- John Judge: Coalition on Political Assassinations, saw the fraud right away. In October 2002 Judge released "Flight of Fantasy: Flight 77 Didn't Hit the Pentagon." A VERY interesting read with some early info that has since been contradicted by the official story (the radar tracking part was interesting), it warned "there is no question that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Remaining agnostic on this point also gives ammunition to the perpetrators of the stand-down and serves to discredit the other good work that continues to be done about the reality of what happened that day. It is my feeling that this thesis was actually part of an intentional disinformation campaign that spreads red herrings to discredit the real findings. [...] Let's discover and present the hard facts and force the coincidence theorists to come up with plausible explanations instead of spewing out speculations we cannot back up and leaving ourselves on the defensive."

- Russell Pickering: PentagonResearch.com - Seattle Area firefighter. 9/11 Skeptic specializing in analysis of the Pentagon attack. Though he seems open to different theories, his careful ly compiled evidence seems to point to a 757.
- -The Blue TarpSmuggling Op Exposed.
- -The A3 Skywarrior Theory
He's been working with the Loose Change forum on an ad hoc investigation, and on air with Micael Collins Piper Aug 14 2006 he sounded I thought a bit vague and questionable. But when Piper seemed to corner his site as debunking the 757 theory, Pickering stood his ground perfectly, reiterating that a 757 could well be responsible and does not make or break the case - there's still remote control as a possibility.

- Joël van der Reijden, AKA Joe R. - Has done an excellent analysisof the plane's damage to the Pentagon and the Fraudsters' to the search for 9/11 Truth. Dismissing logicless debates, he has said: "Forget all those discussions. They never solve anything as there's usually at least one side that defends a certain interest (or is just plain stupid) and is not interested in the truth. Do your homework; give other people your opinion and sources when they ask for it; then go do something useful."

- Mike Rivero: Whatreallyhappened.com. "Government shills are working hard to trick web sites into running the claim that a passenger jet did not really hit the Pentagon." Wrote "The “Pod People” And The Plane That Crashed Into the Pentagon." Quote: "Only in Warner Brothers cartoons does the Coyote leave a cookie-cutter outline of himself as he crashes into the rock face. In the real world (someplace that the "pod people" need to spend more time in) collisions are more complex. Airplanes do not make clean outline holes in buildings they collide with any more than cars make clean outline holes in walls they collide with. [...] At some point in the near future, photographs, or video will be "discovered" clearly showing the impact, and the mainstream media will have a field day ridiculing those "kooky Internet web sites" and their "silly conspiracy theories", all based on a silly theory the government is itself planting on the web."

- Mark Robinowitz: Creator of Oil Empire websites, a “follow the money” type 9/11 Skeptic, inspired by the best of the Ruppert tradition. Long-time denier of the no-757 Pentagon theories since late 2004 at least, and formative in my own growing doubts.

- Ruppert, Michael C: From the Wilderness. He has warned fellow 9/11 truthers to look out for discrediting disinfo, primarily urged not getting tangled in the physical evidence. In December 2005 From the Wilderness published Robinowitz’s concerns that “Meyssan and Rumsfeld manufacture[d] the missile hoax” that was "is the most important and widespread 9/11 hoax.” This was more Jamie Hecht’s work though, and Ruppert had already revealed he believed it was not a 757 (see Fraud namebase).

- Emmanuel Sferios: 9/11 Visibility Project. Most notably in a September 11 2006 piece, he warned that the Frustrating fraud was wrong and harming the credibility of the Truth movement. "“[T]o prove that agents are among us, and that they have succeeded in taking over the bulk of the movement, one needs to go no further than compare the number of people who believe no plane hit the Pentagon with the number of people who know about the simultaneous wargames that were taking place on the morning of 9/11, and that prevented NORAD from intercepting the planes before they hit their targets. The former claim, widely believed, is perhaps the most successful and sophisticated disinformation campaign injected into the 9/11 Truth Movement. Supported by doctored video footage released by the Pentagon itself, it has almost single-handedly made the movement the laughing stock of Washington DC residents, hundreds of whom saw the plane hit the building, and thousands of whom have relatives or friends who did. And this was likely its intention, for it has successfully alienated from the movement precisely those DC professionals (senators, congressmen, federal judges, prosecutors, etc.) who hold enough power to effectively investigate and prosecute the crime. It has also been the primary wedge used to divide the movement from itself.” - Sferios on Disinfo and Cointelpro and the Pentagon

- Joe Vialls: Enigmatic and eceentric researcher, died mid-2005. He's not a credible source, but has railed against the Fraud. March 2002: "In what appears to be a major disinformation exercise, a French web site has caused a minor storm on the Internet by claiming American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon on September 11." He called the theory a "sick joke," and noted "Captain Charles Burlingame’s widow is unlikely to appreciate the humor." Vialls' alternate remote control theory would be considered by many a sicker joke yet, but it does at least make more sense.

- Jeff Wells: Rigorous Intuition: "I think there's a grave problem of "sexing up" the truth with spectacular yet specious arguments. For instance, some of the splashiest and attractive 9/11 material is devoted to supporting the "Pentagon Missile." Sure, it gets people's attention - in fact, it dominates the public perception of alternative theories of the attacks - but is it right? Well, no; as I've said, I don't think so. And truth will suffer again and again when those who fell for the missile "hook" come to the same conclusion and chuck the whole thing, and those who were turned off the "missile" refuse to look any further."
"There is simply too much to counter the fantastic claim for the 9/11 truth movement to be squandering its integrity on such speculation."
"There was no guided missile, but I believe control of the aircraft was taken from Hanjour in flight so Flight 77 would behave as a guided missile."

9/11 Beliefs unsure:
- Ron Harvey: An early 9/11 theory debunker from the UK focused on the Pentagon attack and evidence for a 757 strike. His most noted achievements are assembling the early 2002 witness compilation website “They Saw The Aircraft” and for first plotting the five downed light poles.

- "Cat Herder": ATS member, author of the classic thread "9/11: A Boeing 757 Struck the Pentagon" – accused by Joe Quinn of disinformaion – possibly so – a number of major errors, like seeing the impact damage on the second floor - have allowed no-757 theorists to dismiss the work and continue their charade – seems less revelation in retrospect than limited platform for “debunkers” and almost part of the game… http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread79655/pg1

- Penny Schoner – compiled eyewitness accounts supporting a 757 strike in response to Meyssan et al.

PRECISION LOW-RIDER

PRECISION LOW-RIDER
THE UNLIKELY FINAL ALTITUDE
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last updated July 21 2007

Perhaps the strongest point still worth considering in the no-plane/Pentagon overflight argument is the suicide pilot’s precise attack, a feat of piloting some have flat-out called impossible for a jetliner, which would crash or fall apart or something under the pressure of what the expoerts call ground effect. Nila Segadevan, for example, found it evident "that it is physically impossible to fly a 200,000-lb airliner 20 feet above the ground at 400 MPH," and presumably even tougher to handle one as low as five feet or less and at speeds topping out at 575, as recorded in the FDR.

The attack craft’s performance as seen by the Washington controllers immediately raised eyebrows of suspicion. As the Washington Post reported the day after the attack how “just as the plane seemed to be on a suicide mission into the White House, the unidentified pilot executed a pivot so tight that it reminded observers of a fighter jet maneuver. The plane circled 270 degrees to the right to approach the Pentagon from the west, whereupon Flight 77 fell below radar level, vanishing from controllers’ screens.” Danielle O'Brien, an air controller at Dulles airport, told ABC News “the speed, the maneuverability, the way that he turned, we all thought in the radar room, all of us experienced air traffic controllers, that that was a military plane. You don't fly a 757 in that manner. It's unsafe.”

But safety apparently wasn’t the top concern; as he closed in, Hani Hanjour (we’re told) got even more bold and decided not to simply nose-dive his missile into the upper part of the fairly squat building (77 feet high in total) but to skim the ground like a hot rod even though it meant clipping light poles as he crossed a freeway (luckily no tall trucks there). In the last couple of hundred yards, he was reportedly flying only a few feet above the crew-cut lawn, and that with the wings wobbling under a deadly combo of high speed and atmospheric pressure, before slamming into the ground floor when he had five to choose from. Coming in so low means the engines would be nearly touching the ground, and any slight banking or upward irregularity in the surface would cause an engine to hit dirt and send the whole thing cart-wheeling into the lawn. Thus in addition to excellent control, Mr. Hanjour must have spent some time studying the exact topography of the Pentagon’s lawn to be sure it wouldn’t foil his daring precision approach with any pesky hillocks.

The ASCE's Pentagon Building Performace Report, for example, reproduced the five frames of security camera footage made public in 2002, seeing in them the approaching aircraft with its top about 20 feet above ground, "so low to the ground that it reportedly clipped an antenna on a vehicle on an adjacent road and severed light posts." Indeed, five poles a few hundred feet from the building were clipped and knocked over, their placement indicating the same wingspan and trajectory reported, as well as the plane's remarkably low altitude. On its path across Pentagon’s lawn, the plane banked with its right wing higher; about 100 feet before impact, the right wing struck a construction generator and the left engine was so low it impacted a “ground-level, external vent structure,” the report notes. These may have led to a pre-impact explosion in which “portions of the wings might have been separated from the fuselage before the aircraft struck the building.”

So while the final approach may not be as perfect as widely believed, it is remrkable, and looks a bit like the work of a precision-guided missile. But after a look at the physical evidence and eyewitness accounts, it looks like a projectile the exact shape, size, weight, paint job, etc. of an American Airlines 757 or similar model. The plane may have had a long life of peaceful flights until re-rigged in its final days, and may well have been filled with the very people we were told it was. Captain Burlingame may well have been running the plane normally at takeoff as we’re told, but lost control as the plane turned around over Ohio, dropped its transponder signal, and closed communications with the outside world. This is far from provable, but well within the realm of possibility. Hani Hanjour, to put it mildly, is not the only pilot in the world who could pull all this off, and whoever or whatever was at the controls, it seems, knew the target very well.

THE PENTAGON PILOT'S PENCHANT FOR PARALLELISM

THE BURLINGAME SEAM
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 11 2007
edited 1/21

"One of the true ironies of this crash is that it was into the Pentagon, where he worked for many years as a naval reserve officer. The people that perished in that crash could very well have been friends and colleagues of his."
– Brad Burlingame, brother of the deceased Flight 77 pilot.

The Pentagon was not unprepared for a hijacked 757 strike – though there was no warning and thus no time to implement them, in fact a new set of procedures had apparently just been approved. This was based on the findings of a series of at least two drills. Beginning with a MASCAL in October 2000 that posited a small passenger plane crashing into the building’s courtyard, followed by a reported exercise in May based on a hijacked Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon as an “ersatz guided missile.” Strange but true, they prepared for the 9/11 scenario just months before it came crushingly true, at least according to two reputable Pentagon-connected news sources. But sadly due to the radar blind spot we’re told, there was never any awareness of the plane and no time to put the new plan into motion so it became useless, another part of the tragedy of un-preparedness we’d need to “set right” after the attacks.

According to numerous 9/11 Truthers, one of the prime movers in the formation of this new and failed plan was Navy Captain Charles “Chic” Burlingame; Barbara Honegger specified as far back as late 2002 that Burlingame had “recently […] been part of a Task Force that drafted the Pentagon's emergency response plan on what to do in case a plane hit the building.” [1] Burlingame was also a pilot for American Airlines, who famously went on to be the very pilot assigned to Flight 77 – a Boeing 757 - before he lost control of it to the hijackers who crashed it into the Pentagon, fulfilling the terms of the second drill. If we think about this just a second, we see that this seems well beyond the realm of coincidence and “irony” as any official story that acknowledged all this would argue.

But there are problems with this construct, although it does seem more substantiated than the no-757 claims. The only “reputable” source I’ve seen indicating this is even worth considering is an early Washington Post piece stating that Burlingame had been “a Navy F-4 pilot and once worked on anti-terrorism strategies in the Pentagon.” [2] It would then be undeniably ironic – which is not always the same as relevant - that he should die in a terror attack on the Pentagon. Note that he worked in the Pentagon on countering terrorism in general, not countering or preparing for terrorist strikes against the Pentagon.

Loose Change, where I first heard of this seam, gives no source for his MASCAL involvement, but claims as evidence that Burlingame retired the Navy and went to work for American Airlines less than a year before the attack, or just after the drill. In actuality, he started flying for them in 1979, and retired from his reserve status in the Navy in 1996 to focus full-time on flying. [3] Another bitter irony! He was nearing retirement age at that job too, before his life stream was cut short one day from his 52nd birthday - September 12, 2001. (Later on and after a long battle, his special death earned him and his wife status to be buried at Arlington cemetery, normally reserved for service members who managed to live to 60.) [4]

The source Loose Change was citing seems to be Barbara Honegger, who sa Chic in on the plane preparations. It doesn’t help her tentative late 2002 case here that she then finds it “extremely likely, if not certain - that this 'task force' that Flight 77 pilot ‘Chick’ Burlingame was part of was the Cheney counterterrorism preparedness task force, and that the Pentagon plane pilot, therefore, directly knew and even worked with/for Cheney.” [5] That’s quite a leap, but the timing seems possible; he retired in 1996 and was allegedly involved with MASCAL in late 2000, possibly as a private-sector advisor. Cheney’s task force was created by President Bush in May 2001, to make the nation’s responses to a WMD attack “seamlessly integrated” under Cheney’s eye to “do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm.” [6] It had nothing to do with air defense, hijackings, or non-WMD terror threats as far as I've seen, but was directly headed by another recent Navy retiree and ace pilot, Admiral Steven Abbott. So Burlingame seems a likely candidate to come on board as well, but that he’d be working from the cockpit of a plane rather than an office at the White House seems a bit odd.

It’s hard to know if Burlingame was involved with this, shrouded as it is in secrecy. The effort’s staff director was in fact Col. John Fenzel III, director of Cheney’s energy task force, until then the prime model of Bush administration secrecy and apparent malevolence. But with unexplained certainty Loose Change has Burlingame in on MASCAL and Honegger has him in on Cheney's ‘effort’ with his questionable plane-into-Pentagon resumé. Though the clustering of coincidences here is stuning, especially when we factor in circumstantial cases like his only daughter dying in a suspicious apartment fire in Deember 2006, we're left with a tangled knot of unresolved mystery centered in the cockpit of a doomed airliner five years ago. If this Burlingame seam is indeed a scripted part of the master story, it would serve no practical purpose I can see in the event itself. But by making sure it was his plane that hit the Pentagon, as a follow-up psychological operation it could serve to draw attention via its oddities and suck energy into a seam that ultimately is probably irrelevant even though it seems a tempting window onto the true mechanics.

Or is this all just coincidence after all?

Sources:
[1], [5] Honegger, Barbara. "Feature: The U.S. Government, Not the Hijackers, 'Chose' the Date of the 9-11 Attacks"
Barbara Honegger. December 13 2002. http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/12-14-02/discussion.cgi.28.shtml
[2] September 11, 2001 By David Maraniss Washington Post. September 16 2001. Page A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A38407-2001Sep15
[3] Loose Change. Second Edition. 4:07
[4] http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/cfburling3.htm
[6] Ruppert. Crossing the Rubicon. Page 412.
[9] Congressional Quarterly. April 15, 2004.Accessed August 5, 2005 at: http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/2004/congressionalquarterly041504.html