Tuesday, February 26, 2008

THE FORTUITOUS DEBUNKER

LAGASSE AND EASTMAN PART 2: THE FORTUITOUS DEBUNKER
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 28 2008 3pm
slight edits 2/28 11pm


Note: I've improved grammar and spelling to compensate for limited English proficiency of Lagasse, Eastmann, Desmoulins, and myself, correcting all text as if it was my own. No meanings changed.

Left Hanging
Part one of this series broke down in painful detail Richard “Dick” Eastman’s “Killer Jet” Theory of the Pentagon attack, published in early 2003 by American Patriot Friends Network (APFN). The piece is obviously fraudulent, a fabric of selective manipulation supporting a ridiculous premise, and additionally undermined by irrelevant but inexplicable blunders like his north-south mix up of the crime scene (while still reading E-W right), which he eventually caught. In June 2004 he lashed out at fellow no-planer John Kaminski who, in criticizing Eastman, “gives the first rough formulation that is two years old - which was hastily sent to Ken Vardan at A.P.F.N. (it even has “north” and “south” wrong (switched) in the diagram and some of the discussions of the wall!!!)” He also mentions that he had been “unable to get Vardan to remove that old piece or to at least add a note” regarding updates like this [1]. He of course offers no apologies for the abuse of eyewitness evidence, for the idiocy of arguing air vortices could crimp five light poles to the breaking point, or for inventing both a second and implausible aircraft and a second imaginary flight path north of the ‘official’ one, at the wrong angle for the building damage and light poles and proving a fly over of the decoy 757.

The killer jet theory was always given far more credit than it deserved, but still was not universally well-received in the 9/11 Truth community. For example, Jim Hoffman of WTC7.net fame gave Eastman’s “Two Plane Theory” at least as fair a hearing as it deserved, focusing on the decoy aspect at least as much as the unsupported killer jet. “It is conceivable,” Hoffman admitted, “that some witnesses could have been fooled into thinking that a jetliner had crashed into the Pentagon by a pyrotechnic display concealing the plane's overflight, “ and even did some math to support the possibility of a landing at Reagan National (if the plane were computer-controlled anyway). But all things considered, he concluded “it is difficult to imagine that such a trick could have fooled all of the witnesses.” [2]

Hoffman aptly noted of the theory’s place in the larger no-plane-in-the-building mega-meme – Eastman’s ambitious attempt to reconcile eyewitness evidence with his misreading of the physical. “If the overflight element of the two-plane theory seems bizarre, it illustrates the difficulty in reconciling the eyewitness evidence with the conclusion that no 757 crashed at the Pentagon.” Hoffman dismissed the theory as “vocally promoted only by Eastman,” as striking most others as “absurd,” and as “relatively sidelined.” [2]

But Eastman was either oblivious or whatever, and barreled ahead with his new info-weapon. After the Killer Jet piece’s release and shortly before reinforcement arrived, on May 25 2003, he posted another message on the APFN website, a missive titled Jews, specifically Zionists did 9-11. [3] In this, he summarized his previous conclusions as “the Pentagon was attacked by a remote-controlled jet fighter flying low and fast that fired a missile into the Pentagon target immediately ahead of its own crash there while at the same moment a Boeing 757 with American Airlines markings approached the same target at slower speed and from a different angle and overflew the target at the exact moment of the crash explosion.”

More to the point, he noted “if it can be shown” that this is true, then “Rumsfeld (Sec. of Defense., Jew, Zionist), Wolfowitz (Deputy Sec. Of Defense., Jew, Zionist), Gen. Meyer (Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Jew, Zionist), the CIA (working black operations jointly with Mossad and MI6 related to terrorism prior to and leading up to 9-11)” were “guilty for 9/11.” ”Decide now,” Eastman encouraged his readers, “whether men like me are your mortal enemy or men like Ariel Sharon, Richard Perle, Donald Rumsefeld, Bush, Rice, Gen. Meyer and Paul Wolfowitz. The future depends on the decision you make. I'll know by your responses to this message how you have chosen.” [3]

Dear Sir Rest Assured / The Unknown
About a month after this ultimatum, but presumably unrelated to it, Sgt. William Lagsse chose to let Eastman have a piece of his mind. As a civilian employee of the Pentagon (Defense Protective Services officer) who witnessed the 757 attack and explosion, he was miffed at the crazy missile-fighter-flyover scenario. He was there. He saw what happened. There was no killer jet, no fly-over. He sent a stern e-mail to Vardan at APFN, who passed it on to Eastman [7], certainly not the first he ever got. It read in part:

“Dear Sir rest assured it was a Boeing 757 that flew into the building that day. I was on duty as a pentagon police sgt.. I was refueling my vehicle at the barracks k gas station that day [b]adjacent to the aircraft’s flight path.[/b] It was close enough that I could see the windows had the shades pulled down, it struck several light poles next to rt 27 and struck a trailer used to store construction equipment for the renovation of the pentagon that was to the right of the fuselage impact point. 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 know that this will make no difference to you because to even have a website like this you are obviously a different sort of thinker.”
[emphasis mine] [4]


Thus Eastman, diligent truth-seeker he proclaimed himself, was offered a chance to learn more about what actually happened. While we can’t know what was in his mind, Eastman was quite possibly aware that his theory was utter bullshit. Did he fear what this debunker might say if probed publicly? Was he concerned Lagasse would weaken his tenuous construct? Perhaps. He may have wondered if he should just do the simple thing and ignore the message as if it never happened. No one would have known but Lagasse, who’d just say ‘ah well, I said my piece…’ and Eastman, and whoever’s watching the Internet behind the scenes I suppose. A little nothing. An unseen blip.

Again, we can’t know what he was thinking, or what exactly he knew and when. But just with what was previously published of Lagasse’s account some troublingly vague clues were available. Most accessible was an ABC News Nightline interview, aired on the one-year anniversary, which Eastman was apparently only hipped to later:

"I read American Airlines on it. […] I didn't hear anything, but I saw the aircraft above my head about 80 feet above the ground, 400 miles an hour. The reason, I have some experience as a pilot and I looked at the plane. Didn't see any landing gear. Didn't see any flaps down. I realized it wasn't going to land. I realized what it was doing." [5]

The apparent silence of the plane both fits Eastman’s take on the gliding decoy, but also mitigates against the noisy killer jet which would also pass quite near Lagasse. In fact he eventually clarified this was only a momentary silence caused by the Doppler effect – he heard it fine but with a delay.

“Before I could really think, I had my door open, and the [air?] off the wing pushed me kinda into my car," he also told Nightline. This statement which would come back to haunt him [see part III] and was also described in an even earlier audio interview for the Library of Congress, recorded in December 2001. [6] In this other clue available to Eastman, he also places himself at Barracks K, AKA the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, for Pentagon personnel only, now in defiance of Venezuela’s regime, simply the Navy Exchange. From there he saw the plane “approximately 100 feet above the ground level, maybe 60 feet in front of me.” [emph mine]
Collectively, Lagasse’s description of the plane clearly fits the characteristics of the AA-style decoy airliner, which would almost have to have flown north of the Citgo to deny the physical evidence path. Considering the station is aligned roughly north-south and has pumps at both ends, Lagasse could have been facing either north or south when the plane passed in front of him. There is nothing in his early accounts to specify which. Therefore, this graphic compares Riskus’ ‘100-foot’ north path with the damage path and a literal reading of Lagasse’s 2001 account, with both a NoC and SoC variant. Both these yellow paths are closer to ‘official’ damage path than to the existing north path - dangerous territory to be finding the decoy in. The officer seemed a remarkable witness who was observant and detailed, and ‘adjacent to the flight path.’ That last part was for good or ill; he was on the fault line. North or south? Left or right? Eastman, it would seem, was faced with the abyss of the unknown.

Faith Repaid With Fortune
For whatever reason, Eastman decided to fearlessly embrace the opportunity. The first thing he did was post The Statement of William Lagasse at the APFN message boards. Of all the angry e-mails with ambiguous repercussions, this one seems worth sharing with all and was so on June 24, 2003, at 1:11 pm. [6] Thus a critical e-mail became the opening line with which Lagasse was introduced to the 9/11 Truth community, and it would be too late for Eastman to turn back without people noticing.

One clue to Eastman’s thinking is revealed in an e-mail to Gerard Holmgren the same day about this debunker. “I am not so much hoping to discredit this man, as to use everything he says to support the small-plane thesis -- as Riskus, when carefully questioned, ended up supporting it.” He offered clues to his fellow 757-denier Holmgren; “He has not said he saw the collision or saw the Boeing mowing down poles - his statements are worded more like deductions. In the end he may, all by himself, end up supporting the thesis that the trick was done in such a way that witnesses would be fooled into deducing just what he is deducing.” [7] [emph mine]

Curiously confident that he would find such treasure, Eastman responded To Lagasse immediately. For those familiar with the more recent works of Citizen Investigative Team, Eastman’s questions from mid-2003 will ring familiar.

“Ken Varden considers your letter important enough to forward to several people interested in what REALLY happened. Your statement indicates that you are a very good witnesses who knows planes and knows who what to look for. Before passing on your letter to others who can't make up their minds what to believe, could you describe further all that you witnessed […]I'd like to locate you on the map.”
[…] “Where did the plane come in, in relation to the Naval Annex and the Columbia Pike?
[…] Were you able to see what part of the Boeing hit the lamp posts and at what height the posts were "clipped"? (Or did you notice the downed poles afterwards?)
[…] were you looking at the port (left) or starboard side?
[…] Did you see the trailer being struck or is this based on your later observation of the damage?
[…] How did the plane descend as it approached the Pentagon at the bottom of the hill?”
[7]

Now we know that Lagasse had read at least the main APFN article, and whatever other supporting pieces he may have, and knew ANC, Riskus, etc. meant north path and no impact, compared to the mapped-out ‘killer jet’ path up to and into the building. He had seen all this, was well familiar with the area, and in apparent blissful ignorance of the implications offered these clues:

"It was not over Arlington National Cemetery but closer to Columbia pike itself […] I identified it as American Airlines almost as soon as I saw it and radioed that it had struck the building. I was on the Starboard side of the aircraft. There was very little wake turbulence that I can recall, which was surprising to me. The aircraft DID NOT have its landing gear or flaps extended." [8]

These clues allowed our anti-hero to summarize the next day, with clear implications, “Sgt. Lagasse from the gas station saw the "starboard" of the plane as it passed him.” He saw its right side, so it was north of him. “This would place the Boeing over the Annex, in fact over the northern end of the Annex.” He cited it 'splitting the distance,' or halfway between, the ANC and the Annex, north of Columbia Pike and north of Lagasse at the Citgo – and thus the now-familiar north of-the-Citgo path was born in mid-2003.

Witness Steve Riskus had earlier seemed to imply a decoy flight path over the southern part of Arlington National Cemetery with no difference split. This path would have a compass heading of about 140° to intersect a point ‘100 feet in front of’ Riskus to the impact-flyover point, something Eastman had previously taken as his embryonic north path. But 100 feet eventually proved too close for even Eastman’s construct. He later wrote that Riskus’ measurement “can't be taken literally or else the plane would have come from over the cemetery and not over the Annex.” Since numerous other witnesses place the plane over the Navy Annex (more or less, though it actually passed just south of it), these north-pointing clues proved problematic.
This 2004 graphic by Desmoulins shows the approximate “official path” in solid pink, Lagasse’s described path in dashed pink and the severed light poles as the five yellow dots. Riskus north was untenable, but Lagasse’s improvement allowed a track that both involved the Annex, passing just north of it, and contradicted the official story clearly enough to fit the bill of Eastman’s fantasy flyover plane. Interestingly, Lagasse even passed along these tidbits to help discredit Riskus’ account:
"Because of the Doppler effect no one could have heard the plane if they were on route 27 until it was already in the building, so identifying its position and trajectory from that angle would have been difficult if not impossible...it was not over Arlington National Cemetery but closer to Columbia pike itself, and there is a small grove of trees that would have shielded anyone [southbound -ed] on 27 from seeing the aircraft [on the path he describes -ed] until it was literally on top of them ... again not much time to make the assessment.” [8]

The Witness in Use: Proving the Path
Just as he’d hoped, with Lagasse’s pivotal assistance, Eastman was now able to describe with previously undreamed-of precision how the decoy operation worked: “the killer jet came to the wall from behind Lagasse as he was watching the Boeing, hitting the poles to his right (west) and behind him (south) as he watched Flight 77 fly past overhead and slightly north of him.” Extrapolating this line back from “over the Sheraton Hotel, over the Naval Annex, over the gas station (and actually to the north of Sgt. William Lagasse who was pumping gas there!” he clearly traces a path that “is north of the from-the-southwest path of the killer jet as indicated by the physical damage evidence”

Cementing Flight 77’s role as the decoy flyover, Eastman iterated that “Lagasse did not see the Boeing hit the poles and neither did ANY of the other witnesses!” [9] This merging of Lagasse in with the general witness pool finally leads to an extrapolation that all witnesses saw what Lagasse says he saw.The witnesses saw the Boeing 757 come […] over the gas station (and actually to the north of Sgt. William Lagasse who was pumping gas there!)” More specifically, a confident Eastman stated on Sept. 3 2003, more than three years before we’d all be hearing the same arguments from CIT: “the other path, the path described by nearly every witness who watched the Boeing approach the Pentagon [...] over the gas station (and actually north of Lagasse) […] which establishes that the Boeing could not have been the plane that knocked down those poles and hit the wall at approx. a 55-dregree angle.” [10]

In mid-2004 Eastman reiterated “The first lamppost that was knocked down […] was too far south of any point on the path of the approach of the Boeing which witnesses overwhelmingly agree came in on a line that took it directly over the Sheraton, directly over the Naval Annex and directly over (or North of!!!) the Citgo gas station where Sgt. William Lagasse (whose statements I have been offering for a year now) states that the Boeing passed north of him.” [1] It all worked out remarkably well; now everyone saw the plane north of the station, even though no one else at the time specifically backed Lagasse up on this, and as we’ve seen Eastman hardly missed a chance to remind people of his star witness that made his otherwise implausible ‘killer jet’ start to seem necessary.

Others copied his messages in every forum available and the decoy theory wormed into the collective mind of the 9/11 Truth movement. It wasn’t just Eastman who expressed hopes that this new evidence would bust the case wide open and bring concrete moves to restore whatever was lost on 9/11. Eastman however was the clearest voice affirming the killer jet construct as “the critical evidence, ample to convince any impartial grand jury,” [11] and the evidence “that can convince the broad public and convince any jury or war crimes tribunal or crimes against humanity Nuremburg-type trial.” [12]

A Doubter: Desmoulins
While Jean Pierre Desmoulins (seen here in mid-2004) takes pride in being born in the Dauphiné province of Southern France, he thinks of himself as an “Earth Citizen,” transcending boundaries in contrast to Eastman’s populist nationalism. [13] The former electrical engineer, licenced pilot, and college professor first garnered some attention as a no-757 theorist inspired by fellow Frenchman Thierry Meyssan, and looking at a single-engine fighter jet impact himself at one point. But eventually Desmoulins turned into a serious scholar of the Pentagon attack, which he still believed “a fraud,” if one involving a Boeing impact. He then did some of the best early analysis of the available evidence, as well as tackling disinformation (the 'noise' to the 'signal,'), notably criticizing Meyssan, who "made a huge error when writing that ‘no plane crashed at the Pentagon." [source: presentation - frame 0051]

An incisive Eastman critic, Desmoulins stated in 2004 “Sgt Lagasse's account that he saw the starboard side of the Boeing is the only solid argument for this [Killer Jet] theory.” But contrasting Dick’s assertions, Jean-Pierre noted “of course, it is in complete contradiction with all other witness accounts of the trajectory of this Boeing.” [14] He seemed almost alarmed at the emergence of Lagasse’s explicitly aberrant account, but open-mindedly explored the various possible explanations and the pros and cons of each. Memory problems were one possible reason, for example a "logical reconstruction made by his brain, where some oddity changes the side of the plane that he saw from port to starboard.” Also possible was a simple terminology mix-up to the same effect, or manipulation of the message by Eastman himself to create that mix-up. Barring these, Lagasse was truly stating it was north of him, which Desmoulins knew raised very serious problems – if not for the ‘official story,’ then for Lagasse’s testimony.

“Does anyone buy what he is selling you?” Desmoulins asked pointedly to Eastman’s APFN readership on June 28 2004. Mimicking his opponent's bombastic stylings, he subtitled the missive “Conclusive Proof insane bullshiter Eastman guilty of 911 investigation fraud.” [15] In harsh and not entirely correct terms Desmoulins declared:

“the phrase '"I was on the starboard side of the plane" is faked. Lagasse could only be on the port side of the plane. This fakery proves that Eastman is not a serious and honest researcher, but just an insane person who wants, by all means, "prove" his "killer jet theory."”

The conclusion is sound but the reasoning faulty. Eastman, as “Senhor San,” responded the following day, lashing out at Desmoulins’ “garbage accusations:” “Lagasse wrote and told me on the phone” all the evidence that he then presented as-is. “This is straight-forward and simple. Desmoulins is trying to make it confusing. I spoke to Lagasse. I even provided Desmoulins with Lagasse's address, way back when Desmoulins was pretending to be a friendly fellow-seeker of the truth who merely happened to disagree on certain points etc.”

This exchange was posted by Eastman with the heading “someone judge this debate.” In my assessment, despite being essentially correct, in this case a seemingly confused Desmoulins lost to a collected Eastman, who was making sense for once, thanks to Lagasse’s clarity. To the charge “all the witnesses, including Lagasse, saw a Boeing, and they saw it flying on a trajectory which places it south of the gas station.” Eastman responded “absolutely false. Lagasse places it north.” He’s right, if we’re taking words for reality. When Desmoulins tried to cite a south-of-Citgo witness account, Eastman snapped back “Penny Elgas did not say the plane passed south of the gas station, she said "to the side of " not "south of." There is nothing in her statement to contradict Lagasse – the "side" she is referring to must be the north side - or else one of them is not telling the truth.”[emph mine] [15]

A Psy-Op?
This is the crux of it, as would become clear later; Lagasse himself - explicitly - placed the Boeing’s passage to his north, clipping light poles, a trailer, and impacting the building, even though it couldn’t possibly fly north and do any of these things. Perhaps Eastman did insert the first ‘starboard’ hints himself but if so Lagasse (as seen in a second e-mail) played into it immediately and by the time of this debate was an autonomous NoC-generator who never in the process or later moved to clear his name or set anything straight, and of course would later meet the second generation of flyover researchers to confirm the north-path aspect [see next installment]. Thus any textual dishonesty by Eastman seems insufficient to explain Lagasse’s north-side claims. Of course Desmoulins was also aware of this and elsewhere noted:

“Sgt Lagasse has a good sense of observation and some knowledge of flight and aircrafts. We are thus probably facing a fraud. Either it is a fraud from Sgt Lagasse, pushed to do it by some authorities, and Dick Eastman is the poster boy in this operation, or it is a fraud by Dick Eastman who massaged the email of Sgt Lagasse.” [14]

In examining alternative explanations to Lagasse’s claim being true, most provocatively I think, Desmoulins offered as a possibility “Sgt Lagasse has been pushed by the pentagon psy-op organizers to give this account, to give credit to the "killer jet" theory and bring confusion among the researchers on the 9/11 case.” In support of this last point, which he admitted “could seem rather odd and paranoid,” he explained “I must say that I'm amazed by the tremendous efforts, on a world wide basis, to promote the "No Boeing in the Pentagon" theses. As a consequence, the statement on command of Sgt Lagasse, as a part of this "disinformation,” sounds acceptable to me.” [14]

This reflects my own gut feeling upon seeing the “fine officer” confirm the point on video years later and with only a dim awareness of this earlier chapter. But then, I’m a little paranoid, which is how I first got into all this. Considering this possibility, some other things start to make more sense; Eastman’s early embrace of Lagasse may have been more than blind faith repaid with blind luck, for one. His intuition may have been supplemented, either with a previous e-mail we’ve never seen, or in some other way. Nothing is provable in this murky realm, but little also is disprovable so all options must remain open.

Whatever was going on behind the scenes, Lagasse via Eastman only went so far. By late 2004 and early 2005 many people were hip to the no-757 psyop: Hofmman, Pickering, Bingham, Salter, Rivero, Bart, Desmoulins, et al, built on earlier works by Judge, Roberts, Harvey, etc. and a slightly larger body of evidence, to conclude that by whatever means, and despite the noise to the contrary, it seemed an airliner was crashed into there. Dennis Behreandt, for example, wrote an expose on the disturbingly prevalent no-757 BS campaign that was printed in the JBS-published The New American in August 2004. The embrace of such unsubstantiated nonsense, Behreandt concluded, “exposes patriotic Americans to the possibility of being misled and marginalized, an outcome to be avoided if the tide toward collectivism is to be reversed.” [16]

Eastman responded to this article in June 2005 with the same story, two years old now; “Sgt. William Lagasse was pumping gas at the gas station between the Annex and the Pentagon when the Boeing flew by him headed east, and it passed north of him, so that he could see the row of windows on the starboard side - which also means that this plane could not have been the plane that hit the pole the broke the taxi windshield, the southwestern-most pole that was hit.” [17] For some reason Eastman had largely fizzled from the scene by then, if still posting on-again-off-again up to the present time, and eventually the debunkers would get to him in his darkest hour and actually leave him momentarily doubting his absolute convictions.

Lagasse faded back with him, not forgotten but dormant. In fact it’s curious how quiet it got, even after the officer’s effort to shut up the killer jet lunacy backfired, his rebuttal having been co-opted as its prime support, there was no retraction, no published disclaimers, no lawsuit, nothing to clear his name. He seemed content with the situation. But imagining him restless as Eastman mentioned him again in mid-2005, I’d like to send him an e-mail back in time: “Dear sir rest assured, you’ll get a chance to come out of retirement as it were, but not for another year and a half. Just hang tight.” [part III].

Sources [full formating later]:
[1] Eastman, Dick. “Russian Fatalism meets Sucker Credulity in John Kaminski by Dick Eastman.” Fri, 9 Jul 2004 10:33:22 –0700 http://talk.mailarchive.ca/politics.mideast/2004-07/2076.html
[2] Hoffman, Jim. The Two-Plane Theory: Surgical Strike by Fighter Combined with Overflight by Flight 77. 911Research.wtc7.net http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/analysis/theories/eastman.html
[3] Eastman, Dick. "Jews, specifically Zionists did 9-11."
[4] Lagasse 1
[5] Lagasse ABC
[6] LoC interview
[7] Eastman, Dick. “re: Pentagon witness Lagasse NEW RESPONSES.” E-mail to Gerard Holmgren. Wed Jun 25 07:59:42
http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-27-03/discussion.cgi.58.html
[8] http://www.911-strike.com/lagasse.htm
[9] Undated piece "The Proof that the Rumsfeld Pentagon was involved in the frame-up attack upon the Pentagon, September 11 2001" http://www.bedoper.com/eastman/rumsfeld.htm
[10] “Senhor San” “Re: No, No, No! It FLEW OVER THE PENTAGON was Re: The Pentagon Fraud Explained In Simple Terms.” September 3 2003 http://www.usenet.com/newsgroups/sci.military/msg00028.html
[11] http://www.mail-archive.com/political-research@yahoogroups.com/msg02578.html
[12] http://www.groupsrv.com/science/about46250.html
[13] http://www.earth-citizens.net/pages-en/his-whoiam.html
[14] http://pagesperso-orange.fr/jpdesm/pentagon/pages-en/npp-lagas.html
[15] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/terrorinamerica2001/message/37704
Also: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/terrorinamerica2001/message/37705
[16] http://www.propagandamatrix.com/articles/august2004/110804factsstraight.htm
[17] http://www.homediscussion.com/showthread.php?t=127877

Monday, February 25, 2008

"PENTACAR" UPDATE

"PENTACAR" UPDATE
The Frustrating Fraud
February 25 2008 2am
update 2/29 12am


Previously I had decided, based on a lead first offered by a fellow LCF member, that the mysterious “Pentacar” photo was probably taken just a ways north of the Pentagon. I became curious after seeingthis damaged car supposedly near the Pentagon on 9/11, as presented by Mark Roberts (aka Gravy), whom I asked about source and info to no immediate avail. About a week ago I received an e-mail from fellow JREFfer “Mangoose” alerting me:

“I know the source of the "Pentacar" photo. Gravy must have found it at the Here is New York site (http://hereisnewyork.org/index2.asp), just type "8029" in the search box. My copy of the photo was downloaded in 2002, so it has been at the site for at least that long.”

I immediately checked and there it is. No recent hoax it would seem, but a legit and long-available piece of evidence I’d just never seen before. There are no credits or info attached, just a tag number - 8029. But at least now I know who I can ask for more info, though it seems they’re understaffed, so I’ll just look at what’s there for any corroboration. There are precious few clues to help us confirm the suspected location of the damaged car. Mangoose suggested:

“Also, check out #8026-8028. The HINY site often lumps together photos from the same photographer, and these three photos are clearly from the same person, and they immediately precede the photo in question. They are also from the area on Rt. 27 north of the Pentagon, as suspected in the blog, but #8028 appears to have been further away from the building than #8029 (if the identification of the location in the blog is correct). If it was taken by the same photographer on the same walk down Rt. 27, it also would have been taken within the first hour after the attack -- as the other photos were taken then as well.”

I’m done for now with analyzing this stash for clues to the Pentacar’s location, and it seems more complex than that. There is some kind of pattern at work but I can’t discern it. Several pictures from the 7000s also seem to fit the general area of north of the Pentagon, including the two closest to the location I've tagged. Some in the 8000s seem out-of-order and some others seem to be missing from the sequence. Among the photos of interest, which can be found also by entering their numbers:

7717 – Nearest view – south end of the bridge the car may be just south of, looking south. Unfortunately it’s panned off to the left and the area in question is just off-frame.
7774 –Near view – north end of the same bridge in 7717. Not entirely clear at this resolution but promising - see below.
8026 - entrance to north parking lot – no clues.
8027 – entrance to north parking lot – no clues.
8028 – near an underpass/bridge nearly a mile north of impact. No direct clues.

Here are many of the shots mapped out by my reckoning:
And here is a crop of 8029 compared to a crop of 7774 (contrast and saturation adjusted), with a highlighted area across the bridge. Is that the Pentacar? Actually I think not. Perspective is tricky here, but I think the spot I'm looking for is just a bit further back than that car. I'd say I'm done here, but did get an additional excellent lead from an anonymous commenter. I have a possible name now (previously published, indirectly, but barely mentioned) for the owner of that car, and since this is an interesting case, I'll be looking a bit deeper. The commentary seemed not to want the info published, and I relish the idea of a secret here, so that lead is secret at the moment.

Thursday, February 21, 2008

CHAD BROOKS, 2001: LEFT? BEHIND?

CHAD BROOKS, 2001: LEFT? BEHIND?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 5 2008
video added 2/21 3am
final update 2/22 3am


2006 vs 2001: The Left Hand Knows Not…
One of The PentaCon’s two uniformed witnesses to the North-of-the-Citgo flight path is Sergeant Chadwick Brooks, video-verified on location at FOB lot 6, where he saw the plane approach the Pentagon from the west. I agree with CIT’s assessment that we can’t pinpoint an exact parking spot, but I think it’s safe to say he’s in the right row – having driven west from the Citgo station, he parked in the westernmost row of the main part of the lot. He is facing west when he affirms that ‘this exactly where you were standing when you got out of the car, after you saw the plane coming.” From there, Brooks tells CIT “we were able to see everything,” indicating a flight path originating above, ahead, and to the right, traced with his finger descending back and to his right. The path he describes is entirely north of the station, if barely. This looked good for the case, and even better when he drew a different line further north later on.

This graphic then depicts the account presented verbally in the PentaCon:
However, both stories seem to conflict with what Brooks described two months after the event, when both he and officer Lagasse were interviewed for a US Library of Congress project. Brooks gave a 14-minute audio interview, recorded November 25, 2001, apparently by the Utah State University folklore archive, on behalf of the LoC. [MP3 listen/download link] One of officer Brooks’ more interesting revalations is this, at 01:22: “One of our assignments that day was at 11:00 we were supposed to be at the heliport, the actual crash site, for, uh.. a dignitary coming in.” This can only be President Bush, scheduled to arrive at the Pentagon via helicopter at 12:00, after returning to the Capitol from Florida. This was of course cancelled after the 9:38 crash of Flight 77.

The interview shows a very real human, nervous on his recollection; I counted at least nineteen instances of the word ‘literally.’ He spoke of dealing with the injured, and of “sheer terror.” “It felt like a lifetime,” he said, and “it felt like everything was in slow motion. My mind just didn’t register.” Indeed, his description of the plane’s approach includes several periods of “a few seconds later” and the like; read literally, the whole attack would have taken perhaps a couple of minutes. In reality it took only 2-3 seconds from his position to impact, plus however long he saw it in the distance first. Almost poetically, he noted the poignant feeling of “knowing that there were people on the plane at the time just literally flying over me. What were they thinking? I know they had to see us.”

And what side of the plane would he himself have been visible from (if the shades weren’t pulled)? It’s less specific than his 2006 interview, and I can’t make a 100% assertion at this point. However, he places himself in a parking lot near the Citgo, and at 02:12 he says:

“I just happened to look up to my left up in the air and just seeing a plane. A few seconds shortly after that I heard what seemed to be a tractor trailer coming behind me […] I looked to my left and lo and behold I notice that the plane was going awfully low […] I saw the plane just go nose dive into the Pentagon.”

1) He ‘happened to look up’ and to his left to see the plane at some distance
2) Then he heard a sound that seemed to come from behind him
3) Then he saw it again on his left, descending. Ahead or behind unclear.
4) At some point in this process he also mentions getting out of the car.
5) Then he saw the impact, which was about 2.5 seconds after passing over him.


Now, everything so far indicates that he had driven into the parking spot, not backed in, and saw the plane ahead of him in the distance. If this were indeed the case, the sound coming from behind him could be the 757's roar bouncing back off the Pentagon's west wall. For the plane to be ahead of him to his left, remain on his left, descend and move west-east as all evidence suggests it did, it could only be on a line south of the Citgo and more-or-less on the official path, where all the poles and columns and people were damaged. This would be a big problem for his later north side claim that helps rule out the impact he thinks happened anyway.

The Case For East
Craig Ranke has left several comments below, along with a few craters I deleted, and my responses. It almost seems he was trying to confuse/intimidate the story into submission. “Up is down, north is south, left is right in Caustic Illogic's world. Anything to cast doubt and confuse. […] He describes the plane on the north side in both interviews. This is 100% clear. You are losing all grip on reality.” You don’t draw flak unless you’re over the target, some say.

Ranke seems to feel Brooks backed in to the spot, facing east towards the Pentagon before the plane approached, and a flight on his left means a north path coming in from behind him, left of the station just like he said. “Dummy...... If the plane came from "behind" him as he said then to his left is north, right? If he did not back in to the space then why would he describe the plane as coming from behind him? How do you not understand this?” I do understand this scenario, which is why I anticipated that would be his answer and even offered it myself as his best bet.
What was his basic starting direction before he got out of the car, when he first saw a plane to the west and on his left? His 2006 interview does not help clarify this question at all; CIT only asks him about his position after getting out of the car; by then he was clearly facing towards the plane, which is west unless he only got out after it passed him. In fact they don’t ask him any details about his first sighting, and the impression one gets watching the video is that it just appeared unannounced over the trees about 100 feet from him. This is just as well since Brooks was clearly mistaken about the north path and might have screwed up the other parts too.
Considering CIT’s take, to be fair, it is entirely possible he backed in, and as a cop that makes some sense, to be prepared to pull out. He’d be facing east as the plane snuck up from the west, and he does mention a sound behind him. It’s possible he saw the plane behind him at a distance before hearing it behind him. Compared to some other assertions CIT has wrung out by twisting the evidence hard enough, this seems a reasonable possibility.

And this is the only interpretation open if we believe his 2006 testimony which clearly places it north.

A Clarification

My previously take, which is reflected in this video version [Youtube page link] and the original posting of this article, included this clever but not entirely applicable observation:

“If this is the case, that Brooks was facing east at the time, then at the least we have a case of him placing himself backwards in the scene in his ‘06 recreation, where he is generally facing west and trying to remember it that way, having to switch hands and basic bodily directions to accommodate the twist. What odd witness behavior when CIT originally touted six reasons to believe their witness' North-side claims, including point 2: "The simple right or left nature of their claim"

I’d like to amend this point without fully retracting it; as noted above he never actually re-enacts this first sighting at all. This is all after he saw the plane either ahead or behind and got out to watch it. For that time he’s facing the right way, just in some kind of error when he puts up his right hand and describes it north. Therefore, I would not necessarily believe it even if CIT tracked him down and got him to confirm he was backed in. I’m curious only in the clues offered by the original Chad Brooks of 2001.

The Case for West
1) That he would happen to look back over his shoulder, from inside the car, with no prior cues he mentions, makes less sense than his ‘happening’ to just glance up, or catch a subtle glint, if facing towards the approach. From this angle, west makes more sense.

2) The sound coming from behind him is not problematic for a west direction. It could either be the 757 having passed that far, on his left, or more likely reverb. Consider this from Terry Morin’s account, facing south at the Navy Annex just before the plane came in from the west:

“I started to hear an increasingly loud rumbling behind me and to my left. As I turned to my left, I immediately realized the noise was bouncing off the 4-story structure that was Wing 5. One to two seconds later the airliner came into my field of view.”

This case is clear; the sound to his left and behind was off the building, and the plane came in from his right. Less clearly Brooks says “shortly after [first seeing the plane] I heard what seemed to be a tractor trailer coming behind me. Well, it felt like it was coming from behind me,” he added. This last indicates the actual plane was coming from ahead. As in Morin’s case, this could well be sound deflection off something behind him, like the Pentagon, or perhaps something smaller and closer, and his qualifier indicates as much.

3) Again, as I just found out via stumbling, I’m needlessly replicating the works of Pickering.

They Knew
Russell Pickering is of course the trailblazing PentagonResearch.com proprietor who won the ear of the Loose Change guys and near single-handedly persuaded them to at least entertain the obvious. Back in the pre-PentaCon era, as a moderator at the Loose Change Forum, he posted this observation to fellow mod Ranke (as Lyte Trip) on September 10 2006, in response to their growing fascination with north-side Lagasse and a then-unnamed Citgo employee:

“We also have Brooks who was in the parking lot across the street from the Citgo (and Lagasse and the employee) who puts the plane on his left or in the mechanical damage path to the south. He was the only one between the Annex and 27 that was not under a canopy and claims to have had a clear view.”

Pickering was drawing on the 2001 interview, and admitted that Brooks “does not indicate which way he was facing.” But all things considered, the conclusion was clear enough that he offered this difference between Brooks and Lagasse: “Brooks placed the aircraft to the south of the Citgo hitting the poles," whereas "Lagasse said, "I was on the Starboard side of the aircraft" but claims he saw it hit the poles too.”

So Russell felt Brooks’ pre-PentaCon story matched a south path, which Pickering championed and Ranke disparaged. Three days later he added, almost as a taunt, “you have an officer who was only 300 feet away from the Citgo who was not under a canopy and facing the approach path in one manner or another you have totally discounted.” [emph mine]

So was he always a north path witness, or was Chad Brooks 2001 left behind when, less than two months after the post above, he met Ranke and/or Marquis and their camera? What were the Citizen Investigators thinking as they stood in front of him, and enthusiastically absorbed his ‘didn’t actually see the poles clipped,’ plane-on-the-right story without any question? I was unable to find any post-November dialog about the irony of this twist, either from Pickering or the CIT side.

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

C-130 FLIGHT PATH VIDEO

C-130 FLIGHT PATH VIDEO:
NO CONTRADICTION EXCEPT WITH CIT
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 12 2008
update 9/8/08


I posted this at Youtube a wile back, my most ambitious video yet, almost a mini-documentary in itself. I've been hazy on the details of the C-130 at the Pentagon, but now that Citizen Investigation Team is pushing an interpretation of it to bolster their overflight path construct, I felt a need to dig in to the available data to see what truly contradicted what. Craig and Aldo believe pilot Steve O'Brien's verbal accounts contradict the radar data (fraudulent, of course) and support their witness-compilation flight path for 77, as explained at this LCF thread (comments from "Deleted User" are from me - I asked to have my LCF account closed, not realizing how drastic it would look). To understand my reasons for assembling this, it might help to read the CIT link at top and/or this post at my blog. See also this attempted discussion thread at Above Top Secret.com.

This is the result so far: a collage of all the mutually-supporting evidence of where that plane flew and where and how it interacted with Flight 77 on its way to its fate and in its pass near the Pentagon after that. I'm able to incorporate on-the-ground witness accounts, on-site video, radar animation, and O'Brien's own words and gestures, as well as some of Aldo's own spoken words. Nothing in this video contradicts the other parts.

Online Videos by Veoh.com
Page link - Veoh

To understand the video itself, especially regarding its lower-than-hoped resolution, refer to these graphics and additional notes:
This is the radar screen labeled, which is unreadable in the video. The raw radar data was released to US researcher John Farmer, and this animation created by Italian researcher Marco Bolletino, downloaded from Farmer's AAL77.com.
first frames of Anthony Tribby's amateur video of the post-attack scene, taken almost due south of impact. The smoke has not reached the top of the screen, putting this at somewhere from, say, 10-30 seconds after impact. The "UFO" I think is the C-130 emerges from behind the plume one minute and 45 seconds after this frame. It barely comes through at all in my video, and doesn't even look too good in the higher res original. The frame below is the clearest of the object, zooming in on it as 2:04.

The object is filmed from a moving position in the range shown below, ESE of the impact point, judging by passing landmarks. After being visible for 23 seconds, it disappears again behind the plume. Its overall direction of movement seems to be left-to-right (S-N) at first, curving away and departing along the rough line of sight from there (WNW). The red arc below shows the rough direction of flight, but does not attempt to re-create the exact placement or scale of the flight path. [update: any idiot who takes this as evidence of the location of the plane or the size of the arc is... an idiot. The ANC witnesses are READ as placing it right over the cemetery doing the same curve the radar shows but a few hundred feet off, and that this coincides with my curve here means nothing. I wasn't even trying to decide what it was over.
I haven't bothered downloading the special software and figuring out the raw data, but by Bolletino's animation, this is about what radar shows the C-130 doing approximately two minutes after the attack.

The departure from Andrews shown on radar is said by CIT to fatally contradict what O'Brien himself says; he flew "north and west" and had "a beautiful view" of the Capitol Mall as they crossed the Potomac on "the south side of the mall." [see links above] The departure on radar has him taking off north and then nearly west, crossing the river well south of but probably within visual range of the mall. Close enough for me. The departure shown is also a match for one of the standard patterns used at Andrews, the "Camp Springs One" departure. [explained by Boondoggled]

That wasn't even in the video, nor was this bonus, for folks marveling over the mystery plane (left) with lopsided engines captured in a photo from 9/11 and previously passed off as the C-130. Here is that plane compared to a 4-engine C-130. Like a low-resolution mirror.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

SGT BROOKS DRAWS A LINE

SGT BROOKS DRAWS A LINE
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 10 2008
edits Feb 11 3pm


Brooks carefully surveying the scenery before committing his “memory” to paper
The Path He Describes
It was a chilly November morning in Arlington, not long after sunrise, when Defense Protective Services Sgt. Chadwick Brooks met with Craig Ranke of Citizen Investigation Team at the Navy Exchange/former Citgo station just west of the Pentagon. After some initial discussion next to two bright yellow traffic barriers at the station’s northwest corner interviewer Craig Ranke asks Brooks to move the interview to the location he was actually at when he saw “Flight 77” fly over or near the station just 62 months earlier.

At 34:20 in the video they are at the spot, and Ranke has Brooks confirm “this is exactly where you were standing when you got out of the car.” As Ranke later explained for those who take this too literally, “there is no reason to expect Brooks himself to remember the exact parking space," but I think all are in agreement he picked the right general area. "From that vantage point," Ranke feels, "north or south of the Citgo would be clear as day.” Indeed, it would be as clear as left or right.

Brooks said at 34:50 “we were able to see everything” indicating the plane coming from above, ahead, and to the right. At right here is the area Brooks first saw the plane passing from, over ("the middle") of some trees at the lot’s west edge. I’ve identified the fork-like structure in that space as an Air Force Memorial just finished before the interview was given.

His path description is fragmentary, but it seems that from over these trees, the plane passed via “the front of the station” over the ‘Jersey barriers’ where the interview started. But Brooks is also clear when questioned that it was not actually over the canopy - or the barriers - but more to the left, and entirely north of the station. “It was going on a straight line, a straight line towards the Pentagon,” he says at one point, and emphasizes again “it was a straight line” on which it “flew directly in front of the building” followed by “a great ball of fire [that] just goes straight up in the air.”

So he describes a straight path that came over the trees and the barrier, visual clues he recalls and has now had a chance to see, that takes it just north of the north canopy. Therefore his path described is something quite like this:

Note that a straight line between those points comes nowhere near matching a straight line to the impact point; a severe right turn would be required. In comparison, Lagasse's path originated further north and took a much straighter line to the impact/flyover point. This is shown in the video after Brooks’ description but before Brooks drew his own path. I had to re-construct this one from the video interview, since he wasn’t asked to draw out this path right after he described it. When asked by Loose Change Forum member bileduct, Ranke explained “I simply forgot to get him to draw the flight path” at that time, which is perhaps understandable, with so many aspects to keep track of when doing this kind of work.

Back But with a Sharpie
Luckily, however, Ranke “had both officers [Brooks and Lagasse] booked on the same morning.” So after Brooks finished and left, he interviewed Lagasse, and apparently seeing his flight path reminded him; “after Lagasse's interview I realized that I forgot to ask Brooks to draw the flight path and called him on his cell phone. He agreed to come back and draw it so Lagasse stuck around to see what he would draw out of pure curiosity. That is what led to the segment with both of them.” [source] Some might wonder if this dynamic introduced some distortion to Brooks’ second recollection. “I suppose I should have taken Brooks across the street again,” Craig confessed, “but to be honest it didn't cross my mind as I knew he had already explained in detail how he saw the plane on the north side.” So he stayed on with Lagasse watching nearby.

At 58:43 in the video Brooks is back, pad in hand, under the north canopy again. Craig announces “okay, Sgt. Brooks is gonna draw for me on the image where he saw the plane fly.” As the subject faces north and scans left right perhaps over-much, Ranke explains “now he’s trying to assess the area again, recollect where he saw it, and then draw right there on that piece of paper for me.” At 59:07 Brooks decides he’s not in the right spot to draw it and walks north, with Craig commenting “he’s going over here to the north side from where he remembers it flying.” The camera follows with a calming “no pressure, no pressure.” and films the drawing action. Funky music fades in oddly repeating the word “time,” as Ranke urges the Sgt. To “make that nice and thick for me.”
At about 1:01:30, Sgt. Lagasse walks over and peeks at it, and exclaims

Lagasse: “That's damn near perfect from what I saw. And we've never -- for the record we never talked to each other about this.”
Brooks: “Yeah, for the record, we never -- we've never discussed it at all.”
Ranke: “So you guys, neither of you guys have really talked about this with each other? Never in all these five years, and you both independently drew the flight path line pretty much exact.”
Lagasse: “I know, I was -- the way this has been going -- who knew what he was going to put down there because he was in a different location. But it's right there, which makes me feel good about the way I remembered it.”
Ranke: “So you're both pretty much 100% certain that that's what you remember the flight path being?”
Brooks: “But from different locations, yes.”

About a minute later they both chuckle strangely when asked if there was any chance it was south of the station. Of course not; however it happened, they both drew the same flight path, so it’s pretty well 100% proven. “Again,” Brooks affirms, “we never discussed this, that’s what I seen with my own eyes [...] "I know what I've seen with my own eyes. I know I was here, and I don't have to go around saying I was here.”

LCF member Bileduct (who was banned right after me) asked Ranke, after confirming the original described path and comparing it to the later drawn one, “is it fair to say that there is an inconsistency with what Sgt Brooks said he saw, and what he drew?” “No,” Ranke responded, “unless you expect humans to be computers. They only need to be correct about the approximate placement of the plane and this is all we should expect them to be correct about.” As Craig pointed out “You can't forget how these guys are all at the Navy Exchange/former citgo EVERY DAY […] They know the area.” So he happened to draw Lagasse’s flight path despite his own recalled memory and a visual review of an area he’s very familiar with, and CIT somehow feels this makes the discrepancy less suspicious.

An Ace or a Joker?
The chuckles might be telling; Brooks’ account Is studded with clues the he might just be having fun with these guys. While discussing the altitude, he directs Ranke’s view to the left; “you see where that telephone pole is?” pointing. The camera follows and zooms in expectantly just before he yoinks the point, saying “it was up higher – it was up way higher than that. It was just – it was just unbelievable.” Sounding confused and with muted disappointment, Ranke responds “oh, okay.” At another time, he points to “the Pentagon, which is currently located over there.” Not so much ha-ha funny is where, while facing west, he indicates a flight path to his right, or north, whereas his previous account from 2001 had the plane coming up on his left. This means either a south of the Citgo path, or a 2006 interview done with him standing backwards in the scene, switching his directions to compensate. This is silly witness behavior; he may as well have been wearing his uniform backwards to flesh out the discrepancy.

But perhaps the biggest prank of them all, one with once fatal-seeming implications, has been brilliantly capitalized on by CIT. He described a “United Airlines” 737, with blue lettering on a white (actually ‘champagne’) paint job. United didn’t even use a blue-on-white standard until 2004, at the time using white letters on gray and dark blue. It almost seems Brooks did a quick Google image search just before the 2006 interview in order to yank his interviewers around, or to sabotage his account. Brooks at first seemed the odd man out compared to Lagasse’s clear description of a silver AA 757 with red letters, matching the most the widely reported clues, Turcios’ gray then silver plane with unsure markings, and Paik’s ‘black wings’ seen from below. Obviously he didn’t really see a UA plane, but CIT later turned the tables, making Brooks’ account a pivotal point of the ‘white plane’ construct, which they feel is pretty well proven. He saw a white drone airliner with a single blue stripe, and simply morphed it in his memory to something familiar. Now this leaves Lagasse’s, Turcios’, and Paik’s descriptions - and much of the rest of the body of evidence - the odd men out.

Likewise, it can’t be ruled out that Brooks was simply amusing himself when he later told the Citizen researchers that their documentary based on his testimony was an “eye-opener.” I’ve still not seen the direct quote from Brooks to this effect, but am relying on CIT’s insistence, first aired when Aldo Marquis asked Arabesque at the LCF on August 9 2007 “did you know that Sgt. Brooks already said our film was an "eye-opener" and "anything is possible" when it came to him being fooled? […] He said it was possible he was fooled, are you saying that you know for a fact that he wasn't?” [source] He repeated the same paragraph word-for-word in the same forum two days later, and Craig pasted it another two days later at JREF, again repeating Aldo’s awkward sentences; “is it possible he missed the impact because he too went to radio it in. Did Sgt. Brooks detail the impact? Or did he say "and what seemed to be a quick second the plane went in front of the building and a big boom, fireball explosion went off.". He said it was possible he was fooled, are you saying that you know for a fact that he wasn't?”

Sure, anything is possible, including that he was fooled by the fakery. It's also at least as possible that he saw what actually happened and rather than being fooled, was just fooling around when he talked to the camera in 2006.

THE LADIES OF 13th AND POE

CIT WITNESS VERIFICATION PART II: THE LADIES OF 13th AND POE
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 3 2008
update 2/11 2am


Note: Thanks to LCF member bileduct for starting me seeing these patterns. This here is the “Convoluted manipulative disinfo” version of the article, which explains all my points adequately. For those with less patience, see also my “despicable scumbag” summary version.

Northern Redezvous / Southern Anchor
Craig Ranke, the argumentative co-founder of Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) announced back on December 10 2007 the release of their new video "Flight 77" The White Plane: “CIT further exposes the mainstream media cover-up with this extremely important new 37 minute short revealing what the people of Arlington REALLY saw on 9/11.” [source] Their early 2007 video The PentaCon had already set the damning flight path from the Pentagon, north of the Citgo, and back to the Navy Annex (see graphic below). This follow up is centered on four witnesses further back along the flight path, and their main finding, as the title implies, is that “the plane people saw tree top level over Arlington timed perfectly with the explosion at the Pentagon was white.” They speak of a “media cover-up of this white jet” to be confused with and erased by the E4B that circled the capitol shortly afterwards. [source] The PentaCon witnesses had disagreed on the color but that didn’t matter; it was all about the flight path then. Now that four people used the word 'white,' this is reported as the most significant aspect and the flight path clues are ignored. For this reason I will first, in this piece, ignore the color issue and focus on what CIT has downplayed – what the plane was remembere to have actually done with its whiteness, according to these witnesses.

This new eyewitness data, in addition to the old, gave CIT as an inescapable reality this yellow swerve (red labels and arrows mine), what Craig has elsewhere described as “the flight path that has been getting established for us by the people of Arlington.” While the curves are extreme for an aircraft that size, I’d guess this path is entirely possible for a 757. However I cannot visualize it happening without two very sharp turns with accompanying steep wing banks - one turn left, with right wing pointed up towards the sun, a rapid leveling and straightening on a more northerly heading, then an even sharper turn to the right, during which its right wing would need to be dipped quite low over the Navy Annex. Keep this in mind when looking at this as it has been re-created in the graphics below, yellow each time. The southern portion of this path, from the Navy Annex down, is what The White Plane and its witnesses are said to illustrate.

Here is the video itself for reference: If you want to watch the whole thing, I recommend reading this full piece first.

The White Plane begins with Jamal El Kournayti, a caddy or something at the Army Navy Country Club on 9/11; as narrator A. Marquis puts it, “Jamal’s account gives us a strong starting point for our flight path.” This it does, by placing the plane well south of the previous accounts, which might seem ironic, since their original path was north of the official one. But this is also the only account of the four that, on its own considered merits, even seems to contradict the official path. El Kournayti's is the most specifically illustrated stretch, referenced to specific trees at either end of the range, which he says the plane flew directly over. The path and location they draw for their video is accurate to what El Kournayti describes and is the better part of a half-mile off the ‘official path,’ but with about the same heading.
So if we’re starting out well south of the North-of-Citgo path, the attack plane had to connect to PentaCon witness Edward Paik, at the west end of the Navy Annex NNE of the end of the driving range. Both men would be near the hinge points where heading changed and should have reported a turn or at least the accompanying bank. However Paik was never asked about any turn, and gave clues only indicating a straight path. Likewise El Kournayti is never asked about and never mentions any bank of the wings or turn in the flight path. His gestures indicate a straight sweep across the sky on a bearing I map out at approximately 65°. So somewhere between Jamal and Edward the plane would need to shift to the north and do all its remarkable turning, banking, and leveling; it’s clear at this point that a lot was riding on the witnesses of south Arlington who occupied that span.

Canvassing / Mrs. Hubbard
In between Jamal and Edward there were neighborhoods to screen for “additional previously unknown witnesses,” neighborhoods like the one they call 13th and Poe, which is probably what the locals call it too, since it has such an uncanny – if unlucky - ring to it. Canvassing the few long streets of this mini-borough Nestled between I-395 and Washington Blvd, south of the Navy Annex, and north of Hoffman Boston Elementary School, Ranke found it, “painfully clear that the people on the street report something different than the suspect witness accounts reported by the mainstream media.” The PentaCon’s four North-of-Citgo witnesses had their four flight paths, hand drawn over aerial images of the attack; here again we have four witnesses but oddly not a single drawn flight path among them. Craig explained to me “I didn't have images prepared for people I did not know I would randomly find from canvassing. Only for the pre-arranged interviews.” Granted, aerial long-views of every possible POV cannot be prepared, but a satellite map the witness could read relative to their view might work. Something could have, should have, been improvised to get some graphic confirmation. And wouldn’t you know it… Jamal and then at least three new witnesses found and interviewed around 13th and Poe, all supporting the logical extension of their previous groundbreaking findings we’re told, but not a pen-stroke of that good stuff to show for it.

The first witness presented after Jamal is Mrs. Hubbard, who was interviewed on the porch of her home on the west side of S Poe st just off 13th. Ranke did confirm for me that her window points on Poe street, which would offer a view to the east. Not only is there no flight path drawn by her, but no visual clues shared whatsoever; she declined to be videotaped and talks unseen, mentioning ‘numerous clues indicating some flight path:

“It came right between these two houses […] I saw the tip of it going that way [...] It came this way. It came across here. And it went between the house with the gray roof […] and the big house. It pulled up so that it would miss those trees and then the next thing I saw was the puff of smoke.”

Which houses? Which trees? I’ve scanned satellite photos for what she might mean but don’t feel comfortable settling on a path and with CIT being and helpful as they have with their verification, the best I have to go on is the facts that she saw it, and “I thought it had hit the highway,” meaning the raised curving portion of I-395 northeast of her east-facing den window. But CIT’s yellow composite squiggle passes entirely behind her house and out of view. She’s included as a witness to this path’s middle stretch, but for Mrs. Hubbard to have actually seen this path, it would have to curve at least somewhat to the east of her den window, then almost due north to the corner of the Navy Annex, complicating the required turn to the right to rendezvous with Ed Paik’s line. I think I know why they fudged it back behind her, (see below) but it’s just fudging, CIT would say, and probably not a sign that she’s a plant. She clearly, literally “saw the "tail" of the plane,” Craig explains, “headed towards Edward Paik coming from Jamal.” In reality, she never mentioned either man in her account and it’s not even clear if the three know each other.

Before we can go any further then we must revise the middle portion – to pass in front of her house, which will in turn effect the remaining two witnesses. To connect the accounts of El Kourtayni and Paik while offering Hubbard a view, it would have to fly a bit further east than CIT shows, then turn near north, a heading of about 15-20° from true north, running entirely parallel to I-395. While her directional clues are still vague, I would offer the magenta line as at least better fitted to her thinking it crashed into the freeway somewhere in the distance. This is very different from what CIT decided she saw, even once it’s adjusted to be possible.


The Cousins With A Bathroom View

Veronica (first name only) was interviewed apparently in the August 2006 elite research foray, since Russell Pickering is visible and actually doing most of the questioning. She seems to be standing on 13th street, between S Poe and S Pierce streets, facing north and away from the camera for her entire interview. The segment starts out with her pointing out the plane’s flight path, having been apparently asked about it right before. She also points about the same direction to her location at the time, her cousin’s house on the north side of the street, from a window in the back facing north. “We were at my cousin’s house over here; she’s got a window in the back ‘cause she was in the bathroom,” Veronica explained. This makes it sound as if she herself didn’t see it, but was merely passing along her cousin’s account. But the rest of her account makes it indeed seem that she herself, if unclearly, saw "the white go by." However she learned of it, she seems pretty sure of the plane’s general trajectory, her repeated arm gestures clearly indicating east-northeast, inconsistent with CIT’s yellow composite path and far inconsistent with my corrected yellow-green path from east of Mrs. Hubbard’s window. She also describes no kind of turn or associated wing bank of a plane swooping north and arcing east over the Navy Annex, repeatedly tracing a straight line across the sky, the only conclusive visual clue offered by any of the ladies of 13th and Poe that actually got through to the viewers of The White Plane.
All this is ignored by CIT, and Veronica’s account is used primarily to corroborate the plane as white, and as an introduction to her cousin, Cindy Reyes, “who got a better look at the airplane” and did an even better job with setting the color trend. Reyes showed her face and spoke candidly after letting the interviewers in to stand in her bathroom and see what her view was like, a panoramic one looking almost due north, revealing the Sheraton hotel in the distance and the Navy Annex just out of view to the northeast. Her descriptions and gestures against that window indicate a descent to what seemed treetop level. For its lateral direction, she gestures from left to right, but it’s unclear if she’s trying to indicate three-dimensional movement, or just tracing across the window pane like one might a TV screen. There is some obvious confusion in the interview about left vs. behind (her left then or their behind now?), which leaves her directional and perspective clues vague.

When challenged, CIT has refused to draw the path they think she saw on a map anywhere, so I decided to try my own from clues she freely offered. There was a predominantly left-right (west-to-east) motion, but it was not purely seen from the side but “at an angle.” I’d like to emphasize an angle, as in singular. Nowhere does she mention or is she asked about seeing any change of angle, any turn of the airplane. Whether they knew it at the time or not, this is the spot where it would have to turn sharply to a more easterly heading. And of course such a sharp turn, coming in from Mrs. Hubbard’s FoV, would require a pronounced wing bank, which she also does not mention and is not asked about.

In attempting a guess of her flight path, remember that she and Veronica supposedly saw the same thing from about the same location, and that Veronica’s gestures seemed to indicate ENE. Both paths in the graphic above agree on general distance from the window, but angle and turn are in question. This double-corroborated testimony of Cindy and Veronica seems to more strongly support the purple line, which is in fact the precise “official path” of Flight 77, or something quite similar.

Constructing the Flight Path
Among the 13th and Poe witnesses there are clearly no direct clues for the middle stretch of the yellow CIT squiggle, and in fact some serious points against it. The Citizen Investigators tacitly admit this in discussions by downplaying flight path evidence altogether. After the revolutionary flight path up north, it's all about the color and the location of - something. The issue of plane direction is clearly back-burner now:

“We KNOW that none of their accounts are perfect. […] They only need to be approximately correct. […] there is no need to determine the exact placement of the plane or a flight path at all. […] It is unreasonable to suggest that it is even possible to determine the exact placement of the plane from witness statements.” [source]

Craig in fact started a whole new thread at the new LCF in response to this piece, titled "No witness can accurately depict a flight path (The plane moved too fast)." This is a bad sign; they never admit something if there isn’t a way to twist it into appearing to support the thesis. Instead they fall back on presenting false dichotomies, like this one, that are getting falser the deeper I look:

“If you believe the official story you have to accept that virtually all of them are completely lying. […] So do you trust real people or do you trust the government? Is it more likely that they have a reasonable margin of error in their accounts or is it more likely that they are all completely lying and that the drastically different official story is true? That is pretty much your choice here.” [source - emph mine]

Clearly CIT doesn’t trust ‘their own’ people, taking the approach to flight path construction of “Draw a line from where Jamal saw the plane to where the citgo witnesses saw the plane. […] That's what we did. That is scientific, logical, and the most accurate way to interpret this data.” So long as both placements are truly accurate and there’s supporting data in between, or at least no contradictory facts, this is certainly true. Unfortunately that is not the case here.

The explanation was also a challenge; “draw a line from where Jamal saw the plane to where the citgo witnesses saw the plane. […] Think of all of their placements as being approximate and create the best estimation you can using ALL of their accounts. Go ahead, do it and show me what you come up with.” Okay so here are some versions: CIT’s scientifical yellow swerve and the ‘official’ path, more or less, in purple for reference in each: and my readings of the White Plane witnesses read with three different sets of assumptions explained on each:



”Flight 77” The White Plane”, an “extremely important “ video “revealing what the people of Arlington REALLY saw on 9/11.” Hardly. As Asshole Marquis recently asked a fellow LCF member, and as I now deflect back to them:

“Are you so sick and demented that [the Ladies of 13th and Poe] are just values in a logic equation? Do they represent actual witnesses and human beings who are scared about what they saw or are they just names and statements that you can play circle games with because you think you understand "logic"?”

Friday, February 8, 2008

RIGHT WING DAMAGE CONTINUITY

RIGHT WING DAMAGE CONTINUITY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
February 10 2008


Citizen Investigative Team’s number one claim to fame is of course their trailblazing eyewitness account verification, proving a north-of-the-Citgo flyover of the Pentagon. But garnering less attention is their groundbreaking work on exploring the ‘smoking gun’ physical evidence there was no impact from any airliner. Besides the witnesses, and before they were known of at all, CIT felt they had a strong anti-crash case, based on research into the ‘anomolous’ physical evidence at the site of the anomalous (alleged) impact of a 757 into the Pentagon.

Among the prime points they have made and that I’ve so far addressed is the presence of Column 14AA on the second floor, and the lack of foundation damage. The next claim I will examine and answer to the best of my ability is “why is there no continuity to the "wing damage" when it tilted up its right wing? It looks as if the facade simply fell off in this section.” This question was posted along with the two above and several others at Above Top Secret.com, and illustrated with these two high-res Jason Ingersoll photos:
The area shown here is just south of the main impact hole, the first and second floors of the section just upgraded to withstand bomb blasts. In the middle span there is much visible damage: a windowless panel recently backed with 10” of steel-reinforce concrete, intact but missing most facing and partially scooped-out. Perhaps most odd is another panel of presumably the same type right below it entirely gone, along with two weaker window/door panels just to the right of these. Some limestone facing is removed from the frame to the right of that, but at the left and right are areas of little or no visible damage, labeled in red “no wing.” On first blush this might seem like pretty anomalous damage, considering the alleged wing impact angle (see below); put simply, there’s too much damage on the first floor, and apparently not enough on the second.

The photo below is overlaid with a light grid representing the intact structural frame. Intact panels within the grid are lightened as well, whereas removed or intensely damaged panels are left un-tinted. The partial plane outline is based on the ASCE’s graphics, layered to scale and outlined. Areas shaded red are where the problem is, those marked ‘no wing’ above.
Considering how much continuity of damage there should be, we need to consider many factors, like these:
1) The strength of the wing at various point in optimal conditions
2) Actual wings strength/integrity after impacting light poles, generator, etc.
3) The mass and speed behind the wing (with the fuselage already shredding inside)
4) By the alleged impact angle, the entire right wing would have impacted near-simultaneously
4) Portions of the building impacted – horizontal resistance (floor slab) vs. vertical resistance (columns, wall panels, windows)
5) The possibility of other projectiles (cargo trailers, equipment, etc) and/or the deflagration plume of a pre-impact wing explosion contributing to the extra damage on the ground floor.

Considering these, one red area is near the wing’s mid-point just over and south of the engine. This is a very strong part of the wing, but it met the floor slab at a shallow angle – near parallel - with at least ten feet of it hitting edgewise either the slab or the very bases of the columns anchored to it above. At this point, the building wins and shows no immediately visible scars. The other problem area is nearer the wing’s tip, a weaker point, meeting ordinary columns and façade, if the outer wing was even still attached at that point. The wall south of CL 20 shows nary a sign of impact, so apparently building wins there as well, which somehow doesn’t surprise me.

But further in on the wing, which was after all attached to a barreling 90-ton jetliner at about 460 kts, there should have been some instant damage to the frame. Countering this CIT point at the forums, I’ve previously used the following two images of the damaged panel between columns 18 and 19, cropped from Jocelyn Agustino hish-res photos taken – yes, I’m aware - about a week after the event: The missing brick has a linear edge with a certain slope relative to horizontal. The concrete backing damage has its own similar overall slope. The slab and column damage as well exhibit a similar but shallower slope. The damage is manifested at different heights due to the nature of the materials, their order in layering, etc., but all share a moderate right-high slope that is consistent with the alleged wing tilt of the 757 at impact.
Seen from something of a side view, as above, it’s clearly visible that the columns are disjointed, with the upper floor’s lower ends apparently buckled inward, or the lower ones outward, it’s not entirely clear. Referring to this area of damage, the ASCE’s Pentagon Building Performance Report noted:

“Just above the second-floor slab, the exterior columns on column lines 18 and 19 exhibited aligning gashes that seem to indicate impact by the right wing of the aircraft [...] An area of broken limestone of the facade over the exterior column on column line 20 also aligned with these gashes.” [p 27/28 - emph mine]

Referring to these photos presented as evidence, and apparently missing the majority of information in them, Ranke said “the damage does NOT match a "wing". […] A single broken column does not match a "wing" and does not have to have been fabricated on purpose to match a wing.” He decided I was “incorrectly or deceptively trying to attribute damage to the "plane" that did not exist immediately after the violent event,” rather than to the collapse or some other later event. [source]

In fact, noting the lack of all this damage visible before the collapse, I attribute it to a chain of events unlocked by the plane’s impact. Let’s look at a different kind of continuity of wing damage - continuity through time. At impact the initial damage would be done in a tiny fraction of a second. Some of this – the missing and damaged panels - was externally visible. There would also be damage, especially along the stronger frame, that would be internal and less visible.

Considering both obvious and possibly latent damage, let’s look at a sequence of pictures from the morning of 9/11, at different points between 9:38 and 10:15 or so. In Steve Riskus’ photo at left, taken about one minute after impact, CL18 is framed by magenta markers and a line of fire just to its right. This long-shot is too unclear on its own, but compared to the Darryl Donley photo at center and taken at least five minutes after, it shows a flaming seam at its far right that matches, if more dimly. The Ingersoll shot at right was taken several minutes later and after a coating of fire retardant foam. While the facing is broken fairly clean on the column edge, the “no plane” damage area to the left of that remains unchanged; the column and its facing remain - counter-intuitively - intact.

At lower left in the top photo below, note a major crack in the horizontal frame just to the left of column 18. I speculate that at this point, the area there is holding together by weight and habit, but ready to shear, crumble, and scatter along the fault lines introduced by the big thud at 9:38, waiting for a further violent event to trigger the fractures into rifts.
Then the collapse, immediately after which the bottom shot was taken. The facing around the damaged panel has fallen away, but the brick and concrete backing remain about the same. Below that, something has left the whole corner of the frame above and left of column 18 missing, presumably in the pile large of rubble that formed at the foot of the collapsed zone. Perhaps it was some massive pressure that has stripped away the top of that column, exposing re-bar. Although the separation came after the collapse, the point of give is right about there in the red zone of ‘no plane damage.’ And I’m pretty sure column 19 on the right also shows its later damage at this point, and even before collapse, though that’s less clear. Coincidence? If there was no continuity of wing damage, then why is there no continuity of the column here?


Referring to Augustino's post-shoring photos of the alleged wing gash, Ranke told Above Top Secret.com member Dark Blue Sky, in no uncertain terms:

“You can't use a post collapse photo if you are trying to assert it was from the alleged impact. Catherder used the same image for the same reason and it's deceived many 10's of thousands of people. Please don't help. There is nothing possible about the damage to the Pentagon in relation to a 757 impact.” [source]

Referring to a blurrier version of the bottom post-collapse shot above that clearly shows the breach of column 18, Ranke furter explained “it's quite clear that even after the collapse the left column was not completely breeched as it was after supports were added days later.” [source] Wrong. It might have been worse by the time of Augustino's photos, but it could only be less clear here due to being a head-on shot. The top of the column’s casing is gone, the corner of the frame is gone, lengths of rebar are exposed, and column 19 seems to have its damage as well, visible even before the collapse.

In summary then, all things considered, the answer to CIT’s original question is that there is about as much continuity to the right wing damage as there should be, which is little that was plainly visible after impact, but more that revealed itself after the collapse. And again I'm only left wondering if they really misread the evidence this wrong or are just pretending to have done so.