MARIA'S MEMORIES

CIT EYEWITNESS VERIFICATION, PART VI
MARIA'S MEMORIES
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
October 9 2008
2am - minor edits

Maria De La Cerda is one of Citizen Investigation Team’s thirteen touted north-of-the Citgo witnesses, proving the flyover they all "simultaneously hallucinated" the opposite of. A member of an Army band who was at Arlington National Cemetery, (about where the eye is in the graphic below), she had been interviewed by the Army’s Center for Military History in February 2002 as NEIT 567. She first became known to the public by this name after John Farmer secured the release of many of these hundreds of CMH interviews in 2007.

CIT had initially found her “one of the most compelling accounts," and had her supporting both a north path (she described the plane as “directly up” and “over my head”) and set to be their second “flyover witness,” on the strength of her statement that the plane “seemed like it struck on the other side” from the one where she later observed the damage. Early in their analysis Aldo of CIT had gushed that NEIT 567 “thought that it flew over the Pentagon and crashed on the other side!!!" which, of course, "sounds like a flyover account to me.” Except that what was missing was always the "flew over and" part.

Later on, they managed to find her name and phone number, and in mid-2008, seven years after the event, verified Maria De La Cerda's account in their usual style, and featured the audio in their ambitiously self-destructive new video, at about 24:00 into part 2. Thankfully, they seem to have scratched the flyover witness plan and only decided to brand one (that Joker Roosevelt) with that distinction. But they did continue to hint at pull-up or flyover clues. They also dropped the “over” aspect, as this would place the plane too far north to support their other NoC witnesses. But they did find another reason to take her as a north path witness in their new video and companion article.

"Admittedly Maria is one of the weaker witnesses in support of the north side evidence because she could not see the gas station at the time of the attack and because of her hazy memory in regards to the plane in general."

Indeed, she had “tree cover” and thick - the Citgo station was invisible, as was most of the Pentagon, and all she saw of impact itself was the fireball rising high over the trees. When talking to CIT, she gives the impression this is the first thing she saw, and her memory being of high fire meant she thought it hit “on top” of the building, a memory that seems to have replaced “other side” (which she no longer recalls saying - see video, 31:10). That is, a high hit memory has nothing to do with the altitude of the plane; as CIT fairly summed up the point:

"[S]he initially thought that it "seemed like it hit the other side"! [...] She confirmed this to us in our interview but at this point her memory turned it into the fact that she initially thought the impact was "on top". She ended up reconciling this in her mind by the fact that this is "where the fireball was" so this is what likely caught her eye."

On that "hazy memory of the plane," at several points in her CIT verification she seems confused about whether or not she saw the plane at all before the crash, but Craig asked where it was in relation to the Citgo anyway. She said, with a bit of prodding, that it seemed to be “over Arlington Cemetery,” [32:00] but this can only be some sort of deduction, and of roughly no value. It’s this useless guess that is their reason to claim her as one of 13 NoC witnesses, aside from their bogus contention that “she likely would not have seen it at all from her location if it was on the official flight path.”

So this verification doesn’t do much to support the north side, nor to help us understand what her “other side” claim meant, since she can’t even recall making it. Now if she had seen the plane, this may have meant something - a deduction based on witnesses trajectory. If anything significant had faded by 2008, it may have still been fresh in 2002 when she actually recalled the “other side” impression as well as:

"I saw something really fast going to the Pentagon with the swoosh and I'll never forget it, it was so fast, and then a huge fire ball, explosion and smoke.”

Well, she forgot it, but Maria apparently saw the plane in flight, at least a glimpse, so she’d have some clue of its trajectory. Having seen this, she’d had to actually deduce a hit, behind the trees, to some side other than the one that was impacted. Apologies for the confusing graphic, presuming different path origins, including ones directly over her.

There are only four choices for the other side, and the only one that makes much sense caused me to place her on my own short list of SOUTH OF THE CITGO witnesses. Not the strongest, since she couldn’t actually see the station… but at least it fits her fresher memories, rather than the useless thing where the plane was maybe nearer the ANC than the Annex, at some point when she maybe saw it. But the fact that she recalls it “hitting on top” rather than “flying over the top,” as she must have actually seen, makes her memories “a prime example,” CIT announced, of “the power of illusion/deception in contrast to the vulnerability of the human mind.”

Try the power of the plane hitting the Pentagon, not flying over, and her view being blocked, and most of a decade having passed. This is the kind of crap they say when they know they don't have any real evidence to present. "Well she doesn't help much, but that's because she was maybe fooled, which shows how everyone else must've been fooled, which makes her a whatever... north, y'know... deception... witness... thing."

A MAN MISREAD, AGAIN

A MAN MISREAD, AGAIN
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
October 6 2008
Updated 10/7 1pm

Among the 13 north-of-Citgo witnesses recently published by CIT, is one I finally looked into a bit, an Arlington National Cemetery Facility Manager named George Aman. Like so many of the others, he was previously documented by the Center for Military History [all relevant cases catalogued and available here], and CIT says verified again by them. Unlike ANC witnesses Middleton, Prather, Stafford, and Carter, they do not offer a photo, any video, a drawn flight path, or any recordings or direct quotes. He's as "off the record" as anyone else. However, CIT will have the public know that:

"In both the CMH interview and in our interview George is clearly describing the plane north of the gas station and right over the parking lot in front of the maintenance buildings where he was in his office. […] In fact you can see how on page 19 of his CMH interview he specifically describes the plane as "turning and gliding" which instantly supports the north of the gas station bank as described by all the other ANC workers."

Planes can only "turn" and "glide' north of the Citgo? That's certainly news to me! What else do they have? Nothing new that they shared, just his old interview for reference. They cite him as NEIT 420, so I checked my files and although an ANC employee, it didn't seem a match for Aman. This one is interesting for its own reason, however. It would seem the audio tape had gaps far worse than those plaguing the recording of officer Roberts [all not in [square brackets] is as transcribed by CMH.].

“[…] I’m walking in this direction and ___. . . (20 seconds) and this is just about on top of the building, scraping the building […] And he ____ the building, he appeared that ___+ direction ___ . . . (95 seconds) and it went by, right passed out [sic] and went over there […]”

Damn, that’s a lot of evidence lost, more than remained, it would seem, leaving us a jumbled pile of loose words. In fact, this is perfect CIT mystery material, full of holes to fill in and “verify.” Will we see NEIT 420 appear on the NoC or whatever acronym list in the near future? Luckily the actual 420 link provided in CIT’s big essay connected instead to NEIT 419, which seems to be the correct transcript for the witness they cite and identify as Aman. Among the key passages:

[p 5] “[...] I open up my things here and I’m looking out and I see this big, large airplane and it looks like, I thought it was going to hit the building here […] coming down here and I thought it was coming, going to hit this building. […] The plane flies right over the parking lot here”
[p 19] "[...] When I seen he was kind of turning and gliding when he came across here, across the parking lot but when he got out right in front here, it sounded like he poured the coals on it."

If it were literally "over the parking lot," rather than "across" a line in the distance over the lot in his FoV, the plane would probably be invisible to him inside the building looking up at it out the window. His window faced south, so it had to be some distance south of his building. His impression that it might hit his building alos jibes with a heading towards it, rather than parallel. This does not sound like a purely west-east path like NoC, but rather with a north trend (towards him) like SoC.

And, sweet Jesus, he's a light pole impact witness like I've never seen before! Page 20, right between his "gliding" bit and the "honest embellishment" of seeing passengers' faces inside - how is this consistent with an "automatic" north path?

"When I was looking over here and I seen things fly up in there, not knowing really what the hell they were but come to find out they were street lights. So the plane was clipping the tops of the streetlights off."

Looking forward to publication of this verification interview. Want list: the part where he actually says anything about the plane being north of anything - the part where you got him to explain he was just told about the light poles and deduced the actual flying things he remembered seeing - the part where he describes it banking hard right - the part where he sees it pull up rather than hit low - anything.
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ETA: Craig of CIT informs me that the audio interview with Aman IS in the new video. My bad, as I only skimmed it. I'll report back now that they've released it, like a while ago. Also, 420 is Darrell Stafford, one of their ANC witnesses. Perfect CIT material is I guess recognized by CIT without prompting from me. And he paid off big time. (see comments below - a rare acceptance of a Craig comment).
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update on Aman's testimony: My fault was in not noticing the video had two parts. Geroge’s interview is the first one in part 2, app 3:00 in. He doesn’t remember the color of the plane, seeing the C-130, or doing the CMH interview at all. What he does remember is the noise, and how it seemed to come in directly over the navy Annex when he first saw it. This proves nothing, however - from his PoV north of the scene, either path could well seem that way. He repeats “I thought it was going to smash into our building,” and this too can support either path – one was headed from southwest to northeast, and turning slightly north (towards them) along the way, The NoC path would only be coming right towards him only while over the Navy Annex, so when he first saw it, it would already be turning sharply away from them (right, south) and towards the pentagon.

He was asked about the parking lot and at 4:08 said “yeah, yeah” in response to “it was directly over the top of that?” At 5:05 he calls the plane “right over the parking lot,” and repeats it at 5:30. Again, unless it was very low, he likely wouldn’t really see it from inside if it were directly over. In fact it was further south, as it would have to be. At 5:14 he’s asked north or south of the citgo, he responds in I think an odd tone “it was right in between, in BETWEEN, the citgo gas station, AND – and the, the, the maintenance complex.” Below is a field of View analysis if he were outside the windowand in the parking lot he had the plane “over.” Note the inherent curve of the view, a natural “fisheye” effect of panoramic views that could warp one’s perception of the plane’s actual movements – the natural bias here would be to suggest a right turn, with it looking furthest north (closest/largest) as it passed them.
[right-click, new window for larger view]

What’s visible from inside would be a cropped version of this, set back to the north about 50 feet and behind a mid-height wrought-iron fence, and some number of vehicles, leaving an uncertain view of points of reference like the Citgo. I for one could probably not tell from here with any accuracy, whether it was north or south. Clearly we’re down to the range of reasonable perspective issues as explanation for his NoC testimony. But whatever the case, there it is - it’s certainly not their strongest case, but he said it was north, like the others did.

Oh, and of all the light pole witnesses to NOT ask if he just deduced that part, I didn’t hear Craig mention the light poles. The image above shows what a clear view he had of the first two, and though the fence may have obscured them, he remembers seeing the “things flying.” Obviously another deduction, too obvious to even bother asking I suppose?

LIKE TWO BULLDOZERS

NEIT 749 PHOTO SHEDS LIGHT ON DAMAGE PATH
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
July 27 2008

Whatever I think of some of John Farmer’s propositions, I have always appreciated his unparalleled use of FOIA and other channels to increase the body of available data about the Pentagon attack. Among the three dozen plus Center for Military History witnesses he’s obtained so far, one at least brought additional material aside from testimony. This witness is designated NEIT 749, a Helicopter Pilot with the Fairfax County Police Dept. He was not a witness to the event, and only saw the aftermath from the air. When he was interviewed by CMH in late April 2002,they also collected at least some of the officer’s photos, which Farmer was able to retrieve copies of, in mid-resolution, and share them at his site. He does ask that they be cited to Center for Military History / Fairfax County Police.

As far as I can see, these are all-new, never-before published images, 24 of them, most aerial long-shots of the damage and recovery staging areas. There is really nothing much revolutionary in the images that jumps out at me, but perhaps I’m just worn out on all this. One, image #100-0008, shows a new view of the downed light poles, partially assembled at the guardrail. I’m not sure yet if there are any new clues in that pile, that’s for later. For now I’m struck more by image #100-0028 (above), an early aerial shot from just north of the impact area and looking across the pre-building damage area at a unique angle.

“Obstacles” of note labeled are in this enlarged crop, most previously identified in my “obstacle dodge post. For some stupid reason, a lot of entities have latched onto the cable spools as evidence against a large plane strike. I’ll look at that a bit below. The diesel-powered generator trailer and fence are of course widely noted as evidence for the right engine’s passage through that corner of the construction area. The ‘mystery debris’ I had previously thought perhaps part of the generator, but here we can see right behind it a concrete footprint (parked’ behind the van), to which something had apparently been attached. I looked at the vent structure in detail later, Its corner was famously nicked by the ground-level left engine, but hardly anyone has looked at the inside elements of this recessed structure. ‘Vault 1’ as I’ve labeled here was apparently scraped over, its hinged door pushed back and warped (see above post for closer side-photos) What I’ve here labeled vault 2 is probably the original resting place of the propped-open door assembly dented and hurled back. This is visible as a tent-like shape in many photos (here only half-visible). A tipped over Bobcat tractor as previously seen is even further behind that.

Without reference it seems a chaotic scene. But I have reference, and this photo also allows us a unique view of the area where I can line up the column lines and the “official” plane profile relative to them, and trace this back.

The tipped fuselage would have a clearance of perhaps ten feet at the right, and perhaps five at the wall. Its right side/wing faring a bit higher than the left. The famously non-tipped, non-damaged 6-foot cable spools furthest from the building were thus likely passed just over, and the one at center likely rolled a bit from the right – probably on wake just after the plane passed. The two further in seem to be spread away from the others right along the fuselage path as it descended, and tellingly, it’s these two that are tipped over and of course singed/burnt from the intense deflagration at impact, which they were in the range of.

Otherwise, the fuselage had little real effect prior to the building, and it’s the engine paths that are interesting here. All evidence puts their impact points roughly at column lines 11 and 17, the left engine at ground level and right engine a bit higher, These I traced back from impact in orange, along the ground (width app, slight perspective skew). Refer to the above graphic where the objects were highlighted and compare to these areas. The general excellent fit stands out, as framed by the fence damage and vent corner nick, and as everyone has noticed. What pops out here, aside from the curious lack of clutter in the actual engine troughs, is the precision of the lines marking their paths. The trailer and mystery debris on the right, both seem pushed aside just far enough to let pass a barreling multi-ton RB211 engine. On the left, the lid from vault 1, the lid assembly from vault 2 or wherever, and the Bobcat’s direction of tip all clearly follow the rough outer edge of the left engine’s swathe. Forward (on the plane’s path) and to the right or left, depending. Like two low-flying aerial bulldozers came in on the “official path” to fake us all out.

That is what some “investigators” would call a suspiciously precise forensic clue – like so much else about the attack, it just lines-up a little too “cookie cutter.” Would a real airliner fake an airliner’s damage so perfectly? Short answer: yes, it would, and it probably did.