THE VIDEO RECORD {masterlist}

The reason the attack on the Pentagon has been able to be such a magnet for controversy and speculation, since the day of 9/11, is that unlike the vividly witnessed New York leg of the assault, this one happened out of public view. There was no video of the plane hitting. Of course there are those for whom even such an image is insufficient proof of an attack by a real hijacked airliner, but without such a single piece of undeniable evidence, even reasonable people have been led to let the mystery take hold and turn their imaginations loose.

Note: this is NOT a frame from any video - it's a collage I made from three or four different frames to say "hey, here's the video section!"

Of course there is the physical evidence and the eyewitness accounts to draw on in piecing the scene together, but in a surveillance age, it seems there had to be some video or at least still images we'd been allowed to see of the moment of impact. Indeed there is a video record, though it's been kept remarkably tightly sealed from 2001-2006 as the various Hunt The Boeing arguments unfurled their vines of speculation and obfuscation. Last year, however, the pool of evidence began opening up and expanding what we can learn from. This masterlist will direct you to posts here, both up and upcoming, dealing with the emerging video record of that mysterious attack.
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History of the Video Record:
> Nothing to see here: The initial catalog of unseen video
> The 2002 Stills: From ??? with love.
> The FOIA Wars: Farrell vs DoD vs Bingham vs DoJ - the tangle of lawsuits in search of the hidden videos.
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Pentagon CCTV Video, released Feb 2002/May 2006
Left, camera two, from which five frames were release in 2002. Right, comparable frame from camera one. Both were released as one frame/second "video" in 2006 after lawsuits (see above).
What They Saw: Understanding the field of vision - the cameras were located side-by-side at the secuity gate guarding access to the north parking lot. Their field of view was 90 degrees, with fisheye lenses, south across the access road, the Pentagon's west face, and the west lawn and heliport.
- Update, 2/15: I just updated the blocked view field - my previous one was too narrow and too close to the building. this one is based on four sample lines approximating widths across the field of view as based on landmarks like the crook in the foreground walkway, the heliport, and the app. base of the building and shadow line. All the measurement lined up failry well,indicating that this almost the precise angle, location, and width of that which would be hidden from the view of camera 2, and I feel confident in this as my final take on the matter.
- Update, 7/25: I also fixed the mislabeling of the plane positions (cams 1 and 2 had been switched), and narrowd down the camera 2 position in the top left box to the same pylon as the security bar.
> The White Blur: Of smoke and Mirrored Surfaces - an analysis of moving vs. stationary objects in the five frames, with "black tailfin" and 2006 "nosecone" included.
> Correcting for the fisheye effect
> Measuring the Crime Scene
> Distance/Speed, frame rate and camera offset analysis and exploring the possibility of one or three frames missing: Flight 77's Home Stretch
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Citgo Video, released September 2006
> - External link: Loose Change Forum Russell Pickering explains the Citgo video and what it shows to Loose Changers – including eventual Pentagon forum moderator Lyte Trip. Excellent read, and based on his massive research and on-site inspections - with Lyte (aka Craig Ranke) and Merc (Aldo Marquis) of the north of the Citgo flight path-promoting PentaCon.
- Citgo Video Analysis: station and camera layout, embedded videos of the shadow and two flashes and some initial analysis - a bit dated now.
- How the Citgo Video Contradicts the North-Side Claim: An Analysis of... Flight 77's Shadow? Some excellent clues say yes, and it's south of the station.
- Who is Person #1?
- Citgo camera mystery and mystery camera
- Proof that CIT was manipulated? - on manager Barbara's 'proof' that the video was altered.
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Doubletree video, released December 2006
> The Doubletree video: analysis forthcoming. Some see a plane wing or tailfin there, but I don't think they undesrstand what they're looking at. It shows the explosion but neither the plane nor the Pentagon itself. This camera just didn't have the field of view to give us what we're looking for.
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Other Videos, not released yet
> Total FBI-confiscated videos remaining unreleased: 83.
> Pentagon security cameras unreleased, Number unknown. All but the two gate cameras But for example, one camera I'd like to see the video from.
> "Details Regarding the Confiscated Security Videos Of Pentagon Attack." An excellent thread at Above Top Secret.com started by Craig Ranke (Jack Tripper) based on on-site investigations with Russell Pickering. There are some interesting photos and facts in there about confiscated video, removed cameras, and other suspicious secrecy. Will help fill the gap 'till I get something more up.
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A Reason for the Secrecy Besides Hiding the anti-757
> Bees Around Honey, Flies Aroud Sh*t: Is it getting sticky in here, or is that just me?

PROOF THAT CIT WAS MANIPULATED?

PROOF THAT CIT WAS MANIPULATED?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
April 21 2008
[rough ]

Criminal manipulation of the Citgo security video became a necessary charge for CIT as soon as the video was released on September 15 2006. It was quickly noticed that their 'star witness' Robert Turcios, first announced just five days earlier, was not visible in the video reacting as he said he did. While he had claimed to run out of view to a raised mound to see the plane on a north path and perform a pull-up before apparently impacting, Russell Pickering felt the only person that could be the witness is seen under the canopy at impact and running inside the store after. This is indeed what the video shows. Video contradicts this witness account = video is wrong, wrong, wrong.

CIT of course has zero evidence, aside from this conflict, that Robert was edited out, that another person who runs inside was edited in, or that the shadow of Flight 77 on the road behind that person was painted in south of the station. They also have no absolute proof the video is manipulated at all, but they do have the findings of others that seem to indicate this. They’ve cited John Farmer, who protests, and who has found no signs of tampering. They’ve cited a guy called “Interpol” at the Loose Change Forum. And most importantly, the manipulation that proves the evidence disproving Turcios was proven by Russell Pickering himself, who denied that this is what he proved, and his suspicious behavior vis-à-vis the video and Turcios eventually led Aldo at least to suspect that Pickering himself was involved in the alteration - that he had just proven. As Ranke summed up more soberly:

“Strangely; Russell has been virtually silent about some of the most important, and in my opinion, best work that he has ever done. Ultimately his research proves evidence tampering which is a Federal crime within itself. [… Russell found that the FBI] removed this critical camera a couple of hours after the event: Because THEY MANIPULATED THE DATA TO REMOVE THE VIEW OF THE CAMERAS THAT HAD A VIEW OF THE PENTAGON THAT RUSSELL HAD JUST PROVEN WERE REMOVED AFTER THE ATTACK!”

All he really did to that end was write this, and a few other posts like it, regarding I believe his first visit to the Citgo station during their joint-venture, on August 22 2006:

"According to the manager of the Citgo [...] They were evacuated for about two hours from the Citgo and minutes after they reopened the camera was taken. She never viewed the video herself. [...] The Citgo manager physically took me out under the canopy and showed me the location of the removed camera. It was pointed at pump 2. [...] The manager described this one as having had a clear view of the Pentagon wall and quite a bit north as well." [source]

Three things about this camera were found out by Pickering, all via the manager, whose name has been given only as Barbara. The first two key to making the alteration case, the third helpful for making the first two work:
1) The location of the camera and confirmation that it had a view of the Pentagon, as seen in the passage above.
2) The camera was on-line and recording on 9/11, so it's not being in the final video proves alteration. I don’t have Russell’s explanation handy but Ranke said “They [...] manipulated these views from the data […] We know this because the manager of the citgo TOLD US that the views were online.”
3) The camera was physically taken – for no reason I can fathom – and never replaced, which is why it was not there when she pointed to it. “I’m not making it up! The FBI took it!”

THERE IS NO OTHER EVIDENCE WHATSOEVER THAT THE VIDEO WAS MANIPULATED in any meaningful way.

True, there is no such view in the video, and there is a remarkable asymmetry in the known video camera set-up. IF a camera were at that spot on 9/11 and pointed the right direction, it’s arguably possible it could have captured valuable clues of a possible north flight path (although unlikely IMO comparing to other views that are included).

Also, one must wonder how many managers they needed, when all the old stories cite Jose Velasquez, a Costa Rican native, as in charge at the time. He’s the one who said in 2001 that "I've never seen what the pictures looked like. The FBI was here within minutes and took the film," but it may have shown the impact. I’m sure someone has talked about this situation somewhere, but I couldn’t find it easily enough. Barbara’s account of evacuation and video seizure minutes after returning fits with Velasquez fine and makes perfect sense. her knowledge of these details indicate she was in the know and on the premesis on that day of the attack, or at least had been informed enough to seem that way. Anyway, let’s presume she was there, but that does not prove that she was being truthful about what happened when she talked to Pickering and later to Marquis and Ranke. 

So… in essence, “some of the most important, and in my opinion, best work” that Pickering ever did was… to pass on the words of the Citgo manager. That’s it. Barbara provided the 'proof,' all on her own free will for whatever reason, weeks before the video was even released. Is this suspicious in itself? Not really, but what it it were part of a larger pattern? All throughout the discussion is a presumption by CIT that there’s no way the word of the CITGO MANAGER who actually TOLD them something could ever be suspect. As manager of a military facility she might well be part of a military deception to support the official story, but any clues that counter it must by default be honest slips from someone not up-to-date enough on the details.

And did she ever slip and keep slipping; this helpful manager is of course the same person who two days later freely offered the account of Robert Turcios, an employee of hers she was “90% sure” could verify a north path (perhaps she hadn’t asked him yet if he would?). Is it possible she knew what the video showed, and so in proving the video manipulated offered this evidentiary escape clause, for anyone who chose to use it, as cover for the witness? She was careful to echo Velasquez in claiming not to have seen the video, so this would seem unlikely. But of course things are not always as they seem.

I’m guessing she was also the one who approved the on-site interviews with Turcios, Lagasse, and Brooks two months later as the north path just congealed all around her head, apparently humming away oblivious to the implications. I’m not concerned at the moment with exactly why Barbara proved so helpful to the emergence of this meme, but is it not curious how much all of this hinges on that one woman? A need to protect the witness she and she alone provided, using evidence that she provided. And for failing to embrace this loop as CIT has enthusiastically done, there’s something wrong with the movement at large. As craig ranke put it:

“You see this is EXACTLY why Aldo and I get frustrated with the "movement".

Russell Pickering should have freaked out when this video was released and used all of his connections to get people to realize how incredibly important it is that the government released data that we KNOW was manipulated and can prove it with simple testimony from the Citgo manager. [emph mine]

This is HUGE! But instead it's ignored and used by Russell, John Farmer, Caustic Logic, and even Dylan Avery to support the government story! This is how bad some people out there want CIT to be wrong and the official story to be right.

CIT will continue to scream loud about this and all evidence that proves a 9/11 military deception and cover-up but it does no good falling on deaf ears.”
[source - is craig really unaware aware that excessive screaming is a prime cause of deafness?]

Anyway, so there’s your best proof from CIT that the video is manipulated somehow, and whether or not actual view information was altered, which was always the point, all such questions are rendered moot and the evidence is to be ignored altogether, except in the fact that it further implicates the perps via the absolutely proven manipulation. Now I would never claim to have proven anything here, but looking at all this, it's clearly worth noting how entirely well this manager managed the situation; even before Craig and Aldo put the CIT in Citgo, Barbara had already added the Go.

CITGO CAMERA MYSTERY

CITGO CAMERA MYSTERIES AND MYSTERY CAMERA
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
First draft - April 6 2008
edits 4/8

Recently I started looking again into the layout of the surveillance cameras at the Citgo station/Navy Exchange, first using as a base John Farmer's graphic made after on-site inspection in 2007 [left - figure 4 in his Citgo video overview PDF, an informative read]. The green circles represent views present in the multiplexed video released in September 2006 [see below]. The yellow circle is the area lit up at about the moment of impact. Red circles indicate cameras there or said to have been but whose views were not included. These will be the main focus of this article.

The numbering for the cameras is based on multiplexer slot labeling and verified by the view shown from each (see sample screen below). Cameras 5, 6, and 7 watched the inside of the store, while 3 and 4 looked from its outside walls over the canopy/pump areas. The #1 label is somewhat arbitrary since its view is not represented, but there is a slot for it on the final screen - labeled '1 ICE' [upper left corner in the screen below]. That spot is filled by the composite screen in miniature, which means, to Farmer, that the camera was offline at the time of recording. His site photos confirm an ice machine at the south/east entrance, so this is the best guess for camera 1.

The main focus of this article will be on the two camera positions on the north canopy's west edge. These were left unnumbered in Farmer's graphic, since there was no spaces for them in the multiplexed image as released. For reference, I chose to call them 8 and 9, with 9 at the corner and 8 closer to the store. Below is Russell Pickering's drawing after on-site investigation in August 2006 [source], labeled by view title, not camera number. The one I've called 9 is labeled here 'missing camera.' Indeed, its place in these graphics is honorary; no camera has ever been photographed in that spot to my knowledge.

Pickering explained the reason this spot was included with such a label, at the Loose Change Forum in September 2006:

"According to the manager of the Citgo [...] They were evacuated for about two hours from the Citgo and minutes after they reopened the camera was taken. She never viewed the video herself. [...] The Citgo manager physically took me out under the canopy and showed me the location of the removed camera. It was pointed at pump 2. [...] The manager described this one as having had a clear view of the Pentagon wall and quite a bit north as well." [emph. mine] [source]
Previously most researchers had believed the video, not the actual camera, was seized 'within minutes' of the attack. But Pickering found out on the pivotal group-research trip that it was actually taken hours afterward, along with one of the actual cameras, for uncertain reasons. In this Pickering photo (above, pink labels by me, black and red by him) we can see the indicated location of the one said to have been taken by the FBI, as I've labeled it, camera 9. Camera 3 is also visible here, labeled but not important, and camera 8 is nestled at the pillar with its own view that was also not present in the final. Note the position of this camera when looking at the photo below, also by Pickering [source]. In this view, again, pink is mine, we can clearly see another camera even closer to the store (labeled by me "?"). It's featured in neither Farmer's nor Pickering's layouts. Also no view present in the video, of course.


This opens up new possibilities; the removed camera was later replaced but in a different spot - it was never taken at all, just moved over prior to August 2006 - it was not even moved, with the manager yanking Pickering's chains pointing to an empty spot where they never had a camera. Although it seems a prime spot to have one.

There are obvious time line issues and no certainty that the video set-up was the same from 9/11 to 2006 or 2006 to 2007, or till now. All we have is three contended camera positions along the north canopy's west edge, two cameras in 2006, and no views from any of these three locations in the Citgo video (only cam 3 covered the north canopy). This is admittedly a bit odd. Considering all photographed and alleged camera positions, however many were there and online on that morning, this is the slate as I see it (below). There is a definite asymmetry here. (red camera angles rough, based on above photos, black line deduced as a logical angle for the missing camera).


In this context I can see why people would suspect views were removed; the alternative seems to be that on September 11 as Flight 77 flew by on whatever side, all the camera views towards the Pentagon and/or the north path were just off-line, like the VDOT's cameras are said to have been. Considering field of view and resolution issues I doubt any of them would catch anything that was much above the ground or any more than a few hundred feet away. Thus little was likely missed, but it looks kind of like they're fostering mystery here.

But then again camera 4 was left in, or painted in, whichever you prefer... and it shows what's almost certainly the shadow of Flight 77 following the ground south of the station.

FARMER LEGAL ACTIONS - UPDATE

I'd been meaning to do a piece on John Farmer's continued FOIA follow-up and recent legal actions to get ahold of the non-truncated serial bit stream original FDR file from Flight 77. He had previously found up to six seconds of data missing, and my humble math in fact shows something closer to eight seconds gone, both of which are well beyond normal, expected data loss. For whatever reason, it sniffs of willful deletion, and his previous requests had the NTSB insisting to original data these incomplete interpretations were made from DOES NOT EXIST, indicating it was perhaps destroyed, in violation of federal law. So without any further confused commentary, here is the news I just received via e-mail:
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For Immediate Release
Memphis , Tennessee
January 29, 2008

Important 9/11 Court Action

Memphis , TN - On January 29, 2008, a Complaint for Injunctive Relief was filed with the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee located in Memphis , Tennessee against the following defendants:

NATIONAL TRANSPORTATION
SAFETY BOARD
490 L’Enfant Plaza, SW
Washington , DC 20594-0001

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington , DC 20530-0001

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
1200 New Jersey Ave, SE
Washington , DC 20590 .

The complaint seeks records pertaining to the recovery and custody of the flight data recorder from American Airlines Flight 77 from the NTSB and FBI, and a copy of the original serial bit stream (binary 1’s and 0’s) in waveform format. It further seeks the radar data from Andrews AFB, Dulles and Reagan International Airports in the custody of the FAA.

In the complaint, John Farmer states that he “believes that the defendants are purposely delaying and avoiding the release of these records to the public.” The full text of the complaint may be viewed at www.aal77.com.

Blue Collar Republican
bcr@bluecollarrepublican.com
www.bluecollarrepublican.com
901-848-9194
---
complaint PDF download link.

CITGO VIDEO ANALYSIS

CITGO VIDEO ANALYSIS
(working version posted June 28 2007)
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last Updated September 9 late pm


The Nexcom/Citgo gas station was the last real building near 77's flightpath before the Pentagon. Its security video was confiscated by the FBI on September 11 2001 (apparently NOT within minutes of the attack but rather a few hours later). It was held for five years and then released pursuant to FOIA requests on September 15 2006 to Judicial Watch.

The station had multiple cameras multiplexed together onto one screen. Some of the best views were NOT included in this compressed multi-camera screen. Whether this constitutes manipulation/forgery or some more inoccuous explanation I can't say for sure. But it is suspicious, and some of the cameras themselves seem to have been removed since then.


Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJvFjsl6zk&mode=related&search= An analysis of what the remaining low-resolution screens show is in the works. Previously I'd said it showed "more nothing than anything yet," but in fact there are good clues in there. Of special interest are three camera views, mapped out on the model below.

Dual-Pump Camera and the Canopy Flash
Just looking at the view from the "dual pump side" camera (the north end of the station) we see a flash at 4:44 in the video, or 9:40:38 by the video's internal clock (app. set about 3 minutes ahead). The white car there most of the time at the pump is Sgt. Lagasse's. The sequence here: a black and white patrol car pulls in and sends the flash of light, reflected from somewhere else apparently to the south, onto the underside of the canopy, at which point the patrol car speeds away, possibly towards the Pentagon

My video - part 1 of the Citgo analysis, just the canopy flash.

Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ChV5gxYfrc#GU5U2spHI_4

Here is a photo of the station's north end - parking, hedges, canopy and pumps - with the Pentagon visible in the background. Compare to the camera view above.
Before getting to angles, I must note that some north-path proponents contend this flash is either from the plane but glancing off the car's roof, or simple sunlight reflected in a flash as the patrol car started rolling (see comments at the Youtube link for my video). It does seem to start inching forward just just a hair early - too subtly it seems to account for a sudden flash, but enough to make this interpretation seem feasible. The angle the light is coming from seems about the same as the angle of natural sunlight at that time, but a different part of the car also catches sunlight a few frames later in a different position. (I intend a fuller anlysis on the timeline of all these events). John Farmer's rebuttal and my counter-rebuttal: link.

However, as I will expand on in this space and with further short videos, there was also a noticable flash of light on the south side of the station a split-second earlier, clearly not reflected from the south side of a car on the north side of the station. There's also employee/customer reactions indicating something happening to the south, and a large shadow also visible on a roadway south of the Pentagon. These will be explained and even if the canopy flash is just sunlight, it somehow seems to show the same thing the other clues do: something other than the sun was sending light to /blocking light from the Citgo, from the south and southeast just before people started gawking towards the Pentagon. A high-speed, low-flying silver AA 757 is one possible culprit for at least one of these clues...

East Entrance (south) View and the Double Flash
This "East Entrance" camera is at the southern edge of the southeast canopy looking back at the store to monitor customers coming and going. Note at left the lightening on the left-hand side, on the narrow east-facing edge of a wall there. This "flash" seen at 9:40:37 is longer in duration than the one off the patrol car half-a-second later, and perhaps better described as a "double-pulse." In slow-motion (video coming) there is an intial pulse just before the canopy flash, which washes in top-to-bottom and fades just as another pulse of light blankets the spot and then fades. Duration: unsure at the moment but seems to be about one second. The light source is roughlly to the east, and could be from either a plane heading from the north or the south.


Below is the video of this flash. Sorry for the glitch - it hangs up just before "slow-motion." Maybe I'll re-post it.


The Shadow
Thanks to John Farmer's interesting work, I can see the shadow now. It's visible in the south-side "Single Pump" camera, and cast on the roadway behind the station (South Joyce Street), divided in two by some invisible obstruction (possibly a median/divider). It appears at 9:40:35 (about 2 seconds before the flashes) by the video's clock and remains for about 8 frames, 1/4 of a second (though it appears stationary, apparently a still frame taken at 4 fps). All-in;all it's a large shadow. A 757 is one possibility.

I know this is crap quality to be blowing it up so big, but hey,
it's there. It can be (roughly) measured.
Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF-GcL8hR68

General Thoughts
Quotes from north path/no plane supporters: would these researchers talk about this key evidence like this if they thought it supported their theory or was irrelevant? (most from the inital Loose Change thread spurred by Russell Pickering's analysis)
John Doe X: "Talk about chasing shadows...lol." link
Aldo Marquis/Merc: "I believe the Citgo video was released SPECIFICALLY because of the Citgo witness and his account. I no longer believe this as a possibility, but as an unforunate reality. A counter chess move if you will. [...] This is a clever trick in response to the Citgo employee's account. Simply more bad video with a few editing/graphic/lighting tricks, just like the others." link
Undertow: "You know, I started to analyze that flash 4:44 (mov time) but it's just worthless in all its pixelated compressed crappyness. I don't know what anyone can possible get out of this video besides a migrane." link
(John Farmer's quote removed - I'm not so sure now he belongs on this list)
Craig Ranke (Lyte Trip): "No serious 9/11 researcher would take this video at face value. It makes zero sense." link
Craig Ranke to me: "Evidence tampering is a Federal offense and if you insist on supporting this dubious data that is supplied from the very individuals that you accuse of this crime you are just as guilty as they are." link

So naysayers aside, and all concerns of legitimacy vs. fakery taken into account (the grain of salt one must take this with), the analysis continues.

PUNCH-OUT HOLE “EXPLAINED” BY OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS

PUNCH-OUT HOLE “EXPLAINED” BY OFFICIAL ACCOUNTS
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
July 22 2007
Last updated/edited July 25

Official Dodginess:
How exactly Flight 77's trajectory through the building wound up giving us the exit hole we’ve seen is left a bit vague in the official record. The American Society of Civil Engineers' Pentagon Building Performance Report shows a photo of the hole but gives no adequate explanation. Its terse summary: "there was a hole in the east wall of Ring C, emerging into AE Drive, between column lines 5 and 7 in Wedge 2. The wall failure was approximately 310 ft from where the fuselage of the aircraft entered the west wall of the building," [1] The Arlington County After Action Report noted “the damage extended all the way through the inner wall of the C Ring, a distance of approximately 285 feet,” and showed a photo of the hole captioned “penetration through the inner wall of the Pentagon’s C Ring.” [2] An account of FEMA Urban Search and Rescue shoring/bracing of the building is the most detailed of these three reports. It explains that "a nine foot diameter exit hole was created in the wall of C ring and the remainder of the debris from the impact ended up in the alley between C ring and B ring known as A & E Drive," and elsewhere shows a photo of the "'exit wound' where the plane debris exited the C ring." [3]

These three reports, a few early press conferences, published eyewitness accounts, and a handful of photos constitutes the body of evidence on this hole. While it’s been widely seen and commented on, it has not yet been explained with any useful precision, and contradictory theories dominate to an unsettling degree.

Impact Energy Waves?
In October 2004, the National Geographic Channel program Seconds from Disaster proposed a novel theory by which shockwave pressure from the impact cause the punch-out hole. By this model, plane debris and heavy, exploding jet fuel, perhaps along with explosions of things in the building, gave off shockwaves that reverberated and crossed through the building’s first floor. Having no other exit point, these somehow directed themselves and whatever was in front of them to focus on that precise spot, punching the neat 9x11’ hole we’ve seen. [4] While this explains both the improvised exit and the lack of any major evident airplane parts, the official story has generally maintained it was physically caused by the plane, or some part of it, though which part has been widely contested.

Engine?
Military District of Washington’s news service reported two weeks after the attack, mentioning that “an aircraft engine punched the hole out […] on the inside wall of the second ring of the Pentagon." [5] Though the quote has been widely republished, no other official sources support this claim. No debris seen there looks like engine debris.The piece’s author got the “second ring” part wrong (whether one counts A-E or E-A, C is the third ring), so maybe identifying an engine was an error as well.

Fuselage/Nosecone?
As widely noted, Pentagon renovation spokesman Lee Evey explained implausibly during a September 15 press conference “the nose of the plane just barely broke through the inside of the C ring, so it was extending into A-E Drive a little bit. So that's the extent of penetration of the aircraft." [6] As Killtown wondered “how could the fragile nose of Flight 77 penetrate all the way through 3 reinforced concrete/steel hardened rings and punched out a hole through the inside wall of Ring C and leave no evidence of itself outside the punch-out hole?” [7] This seems unlikely, even given that the “hardened” walls from impact to exit really totaled only 22” of unreinforced brick and limestone [link forthcoming], but spanned between by about fifty damaged support columns and only one plane fuselage to absorb the other end of these blows.

What survived this was not precisely the nose cone, but more likely some element(s) of the nosecone assembly – landing gear, landing gear door, cockpit panel or cargo door – some tattered portion of the forward fuselage. As Jim Hoffman explained, in such an impact, “only the parts of the aircraft with the greatest density and total mass, such as the lower third of the fuselage, could be expected to penetrate far into the building. That part also has a small frontal profile - approximately the size of the punch-out hole.” [8] Of course there is no piece of debris anywhere near the size of the hole seen in any of the available photos, but the illustration is helpful. The fuselage had a lot of mass, tens of tons, and though it was under great stress, it didn’t simply disappear on impact.

Landing Gear?
It stands to reason that as the plane disintegrated, the densest parts of aircraft wound up at the deepest point of penetration. For example, the flight data recorder from the tail end of the plane was reportedly found just inside the punch-out hole. [9] The heavier elements from the front end would also come to rest around this point. The book Debunking 9/11 Myths identified the landing gear. The book cited Paul F. Mlakar, ASCE team leader and lead author of the Performance Report, who “saw the landing gear with his own eyes” during his early onsite inspections, for its explanation that:

“The hole was not made by an engine or the nose of Flight 77 pushing through the building’s interior - or a missile - but by the crashing jet’s landing gear, which was ejected beyond the bulk of the wreckage. […] As one of the heaviest and most dense parts of the plane, the landing gear flew farther than any other item in the wreckage and was responsible for puncturing the wall in Ring C.” [10]

Other photos and accounts seem to back this up by recalling or even showing a wheel, a tire, and even a massive landing gear strut, near the hole. But there are some serious problems with this theory as well, like the ASCE’s own Performance Report not identifying this alleged hole-puncher as such, which noted that "the landing gear" (all three sets?) were in fact found inside the building, hardly the best place to be after exiting through the hole into the AE Drive. [13] These questions will be summarized more fully in a [separate post].

ASCE and FBI Secrecy
Mlakar's ASCE study team “went to great lengths of detail down to individual columns” in the plane’s path, Russell Pickering noted, providing their own photos and personal damage assessment of nearly all of them. Yet they danced around the cause of the punch-out, as Pickering wrote, offering “not a single explanation for the exit hole.” [14] The three columns nearest the breeched wall - 1N-North, 3N-North, and 5N-North - remained un-photographed and listed in the report as “damaged per FBI.” [15] Pickering suspects falsification of the status of these three columns to hide inexplicably severe impairment. [16]

He speculated that “the building team […] weren't allowed back at the exit hole for some reason," and noted how "they indicated in the report why they didn't have photos of those columns and who gave them the damage report on the columns - the FBI.” The one photo they published of the exit hole itself was not one of their own, but also credited to the FBI, further indicating this area had special investigative significance to the bureau, although this could have many possible reasons. [17]photo of the hole used by the ASCE, credited to the FBI (lower right, very small print.) [18]
---
Sources: forthcoming
[1] Mlakar, Paul F., Donald O. Dusenberry, James R. Harris, Gerald Haynes, Long T. Phan, and Mete Sozen. “The Pentagon Building Performance Report.” American Society of Civil Engineers. January 2003. ISBN 0-7844-0638-3. Page 28. PDF download link
[2] Arlington County After-Action Report. on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. PDF downloaded from http://www.arlingtonva.us/Departments/Fire/edu/about/FireEduAboutAfterReport.aspx. The report bears no publisher or copyright info – it was compiled by Arlington County and Titan Systems Corporation, and released July 2002 according to this story: Weiger, Pam. “Pentagon report: After-action.” NFPA Journal. Nov/Dec 2002. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3737/is_200211/ai_n9114927/pg_1
[3] Titus, Leo J. Jr., P.E./Virginia Task Force One Urban Search & Rescue Team. “A Review of the Temporary Shoring Used to Stabilize the Pentagon After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11th, 2001.” May 3, 2002. Pages 9, 12. PDF download link: http://www.aesvn.org/resources/Pentagon-Shoring.pdf
[4] Seconds From Disaster – season one episode 12 “Pentagon 9-11.” National Geographic Channel. First Aired October 26 2004 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seconds_From_Disaster
http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/seconds/episodes.html
[5] Military District of Washington. Press Release. (9/26/01) original url: http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Commentary-Remembering_the_honored_dead.html. Accessed at: http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
[6]

FDR 1: THE EVIDENCE TRAIL

FDR 1: THE EVIDENCE TRAIL
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Updated 5/23/07

Researchers curious about the Flight data recorder from the Pentagon attack plane, from 9/11 to mid-2006 anyway, were frustrated by an uncooperative government. The National Transporatation Safety Board (NTSB) Web site announced “the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 are under the jurisdiction of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Safety Board provided requested technical assistance to the FBI, and any material generated by the NTSB is under the control of the FBI. The Safety Board does not plan to issue a report or open a public docket." The FBI of course released nothing as its PENTTBOM investigation ground on, and so the data the NTSB had gleaned remained behind closed doors for years.

The data did form a partial basis of the 9/11 Commission’s work. The path for Flight 77 the Commission published in mid-2004 was based on this, not that they ever explicitly said so, and reflected the official story. Oddly, the Commission never mentioned anything about Flight Data Recorder from any flight but 93, neither confirming nor denying the existence of the other three in its Final Report, even in the footnotes.

FOIA lawsuits for the entire NTSB record of 9/11 planes were finally successful in the wake of the Moussaoui trial’s conclusion in mid-2006. The National Security Archive at George Washington University announced on august 11 “the documents were released in their entirety to the National Security Archive and were received directly from the NTSB.” The “entire” catalog of info posted online at the Archive’ site that day included three types of reports:

1) Air Traffic Control recording logs: presented for all four flights
2) Flight path and altitude studies for flights 11, 175, and 77, the first two with complete paths and altitudes based on radar returns, 77’s path partially drawn-in due to a radar gap, but showing the final grand loop over Washington, as seen on Dulles radar, over a topographic map in close detail.
3) A detailed report on the Flight Data Recorder of Flight 93.

Regarding the third category of one, the archive’s announcement read in part: “in addition to the Flight Path Studies and Air Traffic Control Recording transcripts, the NTSB released a February 2002 “specialist’s factual report of investigation” on United Airlines Flight 93 based on the flight's recovered digital data recorder.” Since its cockpit Voice Recorder, the only one recovered and readable, is still under wraps, this clearly means the FDR. “According to the report, the flight recorder functioned normally,” and provided investigator with “graphic analysis of the data recovered from Flight 93.” But oddly, this release made a claim I’ve never heard explicitly elsewhere: Flight 93’s was “the only surviving recorder from the hijacked planes on 9/11.”

Wow! I knew the Black Boxes and CVRs in New York, while three of four were allegedly found but were buried and never admitted to having survived. But I had always heard that the Black Boxes were found at both Shanksville and at the Pentagon and had yielded data in both cases. But after seeing this and seeing no mention of such a study in the 9/11 commission’s report, it almost seems reasonable to ask if the FDR even survived at all.

But of course that’s not where it stands, and this is clearly just a mistake, perhaps by an intern asked to write up apiece beyond her understanding, taking Flight 77’s FDR study not being included as a sign it didn’t have one. That still doesn’t explain [i]why[/i] it wasn’t included, of course, and it is still telling.

The evidence of the recorder surviving is thick enough. Just after the 9/11 attacks, the FBI took over the crime scene, and brought in the NTSB to help locate plane parts and especially the black boxes. By about 4:00 am on September 14, the cockpit voice recorder and the FDR were found, according to CNN and other sources. According to the ASCE's Pentagon building performance Report, the FDR at least was found near the end of the plane's trajectory in ring C (see above). The recorders were turned over to the NTSB laboratory in Washington that same day, where technicians set to summoning the data within. The CVR was found to be useless, and so we had no audio directly from inside the plane, but on the 15th FBI Diretor Mueller said useful information was gleaned from the data recorder.

The 9/11 Commission had referenced this data indirectly, via the NTSB flight path study. As with the same for Flights 11 and 175, it included an altitude mapping, but while those were based on radar returns (with no FDRs “found”), flight 77’s altitude chart is listed as a readin from the FDR. Finally, I just found, the NTSB does have a site for downloading the once-elusive Specialist's Study for Flight 77 in PDF format: "Frequently Requested Items." That's one part of the story made less mysterious. [direct PDF download link]

Back to FDR Masterlist

THE FOIA WARS

FARRELL VS DOD VS BINGHAM VS DOJ
IN SEARCH OF THE HIDDEN VIDEOS
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic/The Frustrating Fraud
December 17 2006

Enter Judicial Watch (JW), a conservative/libertarian grouping of lawyers who target government/judicial/legal corruption. They’ve been harsh on the Clintons and their various scandals, and were instrumental in House of Representatives impeachment efforts in the 1990s. But they have also proven willing to tackle the Bush administration to some extent – after all they’re supposed to be watchdogs. Representing FBI special agent Robert Wright, Judicial Watch charges pre 9/11 incompetence at the FBI’s counter-terrorism division (over both the Clinton and Bush years, from Freeh to Mueller). Most pointedly, they summed up that Wright “accuses the FBI of obstructing investigative efforts that might have prevented some of the September 11 attacks.” [1] Although it apparently wasn’t intended to such ends, the lawsuit has been used by many as evidence of a LIHOP theory of the attacks based in the dubious line that “softness” on “the Saudis” was to blame.

Now Judicial Watch is making moves towards pulling a leading leg from beneath the MIHOP no-plane-at-the-Pentagon crowd. In February 2006 they filed a lawsuit against Alberto Gonzales’ Justice Department to release some video of the attack captured by Pentagon cameras. They have also announced plans to sue the FBI to release the 84 videos from surrounding cameras seized and kept under wraps. “Our experience has been that whenever the government takes extraordinary measures to keep the lid on documents,” their announcement of intent read, “it is worth investigating.” [2] JW clarified they were seeking video release “in part to help put to rest conspiracy theories that a government drone or missile hit the Pentagon,” clearly something the government should be eager to cooperate with. [3] Earlier JW suits to this end had been denied, with the government saying they needed to keep the tapes secret on account of the pending trial of Zaccarias Moussaoui.

Whatever logic there may have been in that refusal, it fell flat after the trial’s conclusion in early May 2006. On May 16, Judicial Watch posted the first two videos handed over to them by the Justice Department - one of them is simply the video from the Pentagon's security cameras from which the five stills were extracted in 2002, and the video is no better than the stills. The other was from a camera just a few inches away at the same checkpoint, and equally worthless as evidence for either side. These were not much, but were hoped to be the first in a series of releases. [4] This was big news on May 16; JW President Tom Fitton was interviewed by Bill O’Reilly in his “Impact Segment:” Fitton explained “we wanted to help put to rest conspiracy theories out there that were suggesting that a cruise missile hit the Pentagon, that the government murdered the passengers on Flight 77, and other outrageous stuff. Just having the videos released is one more leg of the conspiracy theory that has been knocked out. This also reminds Americans of the evil we are facing.” [5] Fox News in general also ran the story [6] along with several wire services. Fitton was quoted in a May 16 CNN story as saying “we fought hard to obtain this video because we felt that it was very important to complete the public record with respect to the terrorist attacks of September 11.” [7]

Despite the watchdog group’s public relations coup, there is in fact some contention over who is responsible for these releases. Scott Bingham, administrator of the site Flight77.info, claims it was he, not Judicial Watch, that “forced the release of the recent flight 77 video.” He pointed to his FOIA lawsuit, Scott Bingham vs. DoJ et al., with Bingham posting letters sent to the DoJ and responses sent to his attorney Scott Hode. The reason for the request was summed up by the department: “tired of what plaintiff’s complaint calls “outlandish conspiracy theories” about the crash […] plaintiff seeks to correct what he describes as a veritable culture of misinformation.” Their opinion, issued August 1 2005, was that “this information should not be released until the risk to the Moussaoui prosecution has passed. Defendant therefore seeks summary judgment in favor of its assertion of Exepmtion 7(A) and dismissal of plaintiff’s lawsuit with prejudice.” [8] Perhaps it’s no coincidence, but unlike JW, Bingham is a 9/11 Truther, just one fed up with the Fraudsters. He seems to believe neither Loose Change nor the government.

The judge agreed to the exemption and and blocked the release, but as the Moussaoui case was decided, on May 5, Judge Friedman set a deadline date of May 26th, giving the government three weeks to either let the videos go or “show cause” to hold them longer. Bingham explains it was this date, not JW’s actions, that got them released in May. [9] According to a timeline of all this litigation, Bingham was indeed well ahead of JW. (thanks to Jim Hoffman at 9-11 Research for compiling this). It was back on October 14, 2004 that Scott Hodes, on behalf of Bingham, sent a Freedom of Information Act request to David Hardy of the FBI for any videos “that may have captured the impact of Flight 77 into the Pentagon.” On November 3: The FBI replies that their search “revealed no record responsive to your FOIA request,” and on the 17th Hodes appealed, citing evidence that the videotapes indeed did exist. [10]

Finally on December 15 Judicial Watch’s Director of Investigations & Research Chris Farrrell first asks for the same videos. Farrell’s request bypassed the DoJ and instead was put on a fast track via the Defense Department, though the request covered files from the FBI and Homeland Security as well. Both Hodes and Farrell received early-2005 responses that the evidence needed to be kept secret to protect ongoing legal cases. On September 9, 2005, a FBI Counterterrorism special agent filed a declaration admitting to 85 videotapes in the FBI's possession that were “potentially responsive” to Hodes’ and Bingham’s request; the agent further declared that she watched 29 of them before she found one that actually showed the impact. On September 26, Hodes filed a request seeking all 85 videos. [11]

On February 22, 2006 Judicial Watch filed a further lawsuit against the DoD for its refusal to release the videos, and on May 16 they finally obtained them, although the actual handover was by the Justice Department. They immediately posted the clips on the Judicial Watch website. Hoffman noted “the site is down for about half of the day due to demand” for the brand new footage. The high-profile lawyers thus were able to break the story first despite entering the race late and thus eclipsed Bingham and his site which, unlike JW, seeks to prove a MIHOP scenario with remote controlled airliners. It seems possible Rumsfeld and his lawyers helped JW steal Bingham’s thunder by approving the video first to Farrell - indicating that their days of letting secrecy feed the wing nuts were perhaps nearing an end.

Disc sent by Hardy at FBI to Hodes and Bingham, 3/16/06

Yet back on March 16, exactly two months earlier, David M. Hardy, section Chief of Records/Information dissemination at the FBI sent Hodes a disc with the same two time lapse videos later received by JW, labeled with a fancy cursive font “Flight 77 CD-ROM”. Bingham seems not to have posted them at this time – or if he did it seemed to generate no buzz. The first news my internet searches are showing was on and after May 16. On the 17th, Alex Jones’ Infowars site did a piece on the videos that mentioned the Bingham case, but this seems to be the biggest story on Bingham’s pivotal role, which remains absent from the mainstream news.

sources:
[1] Klayman, Larry, Chairman, Judicial Watch Schippers, David, Counsel, Schippers and Bailey, Judicial Watch. Wright, Robert, Special Agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation. “Judicial Watch News Conference: FBI Whistle-Blower.” May 30 2002. National Press Club, Washington, D.C. http://www.infowars.com/jw_transcript.htm
[2] Judicial Watch Files Lawsuit Against Defense Department for Withholding Video of 9/11 Attack on PentagonDOD has "no legal basis" to refuse release of videotapeMarch 1 2006http://www.judicialwatch.org/5724.shtml
[3] See [2].
[4] “First video of Pentagon 9/11 attack released: Watchdog group says video will end 'conspiracy theories.'” CNN. May 16, 2006. http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/05/16/pentagon.video/index.html
[5] The O’Reilly Factor Flash. Tuesday, May 16 2006. http://www.billoreilly.com/show?action=viewTVShow&showID=807
[6] "Pentagon releases video of plane Hitting Building on 9/11" Fox News. May 16 2006. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,195702,00.html (Conspiracy theorists may or may not be disappointed Tuesday when they see footage released from the Pentagon showing two angles of American Flight 77 hitting the western wall of the building on Sept. 11, 2001...)
[7] See [4].
[8] Case 1:05-cv-00475-PLF Document 13 page 5 of 23. Filed 08/01/05. Accessed November 8 2006 at: http://www.flight77.info/documents.htm
[9] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[10] Hoffman, Jim. “Pentagon Attack Footage: The Suppression of Video Footage of the Pentagon Attack.” http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/evidence/footage.html
[11] See [10].
[12] See [10].
[13] Accessed November 8 2006 at: www.flight77.info
[14] Watson, Steve. “FBI Withholding 84 More Tapes of Pentagon on 9/11: Magically Only 1 shows impact so why not release the rest?” Infowars. May 17 2006. http://infowars.net/articles/may2006/170506Pentagon_videos.htm

ON THE 737 WTC ATTACK THEORY

A SMOKING GUN AND THE BULLETS DON'T MATCH

Jon Carlson's Smoking gun, found in the photo record, of the plane that he alleges was wiped from the photo record real-time on 9/11

In his drive to expose the truth about the 9/11 attacks, oddball presidential candidate Karl W.B. Schwarz has cited articles by a "Jon Carlson" (thought by some to be Schwarz himself though Schwarz denies it) posted at Rense.com. Carlson analyzed photos of engine and landing gear parts found at Ground Zero in Manhattan. By looking at undamaged parts, he was able to match some parts to those from a CFM56 engine from a Boeing 737, not the 767s that allegedly hit the towers. [1] Carlson later claimed he received an e-mail from an anonymous “Boeing 767 airliner mechanic” that agreed with his fingering a CFM56 engine, and insisted “THOSE ENGINES ON THE STREET IN NEW YORK DID NOT COME OFF A 767.” [2]

To back up Carlson's charge, Schwarz located “a piece of obscure video footage which will conclusively show that the government lied about what type of plane struck the South Tower of the WTC,” as campaign manager Jack Allis explained. It was pure luck that he ran across video footage proving this in a French film, unrelated to 9/11, called "The Barbarian Invasion." Allis’ piece explained: “Contained in the film […] is a 1:52 second video segment, shot by an unknown amateur photographer at the WTC, which Schwartz says clearly shows a 737 airliner striking the south Tower [...] he has had the tape analyzed by experts proving it’s not a fake. "We are tracking down the original photographer and want to get to him before the government does in order to prove its authenticity.” [3]

Schwarz seems to believe the video “should be the smoking gun, which proves the whole story given to us by the government about 9/11 is untrue." [4] If the “Barbarians” video shows a 737, it truly does differ from what we’ve all seen time and again – which is of course the point of tracking down a special unedited video. Just to clarify this point, I did the graphic analysis myself. Here is the famous shot of Flight 175 as it impacted the South Tower, the sides of which are 208 feet wide.

My math is based on my red line, and only approximate. If anything the green numbers are a bit high due to the fact that the plane was slightly closer to the camera and thus would look slightly larger. Wingspan, app. 163 feet. The width of the “penetrating core,” the engines and the chassis between them, looks to be about 61 feet wide.

- 767-200, the plane the “govmint” claims hit the tower: 156 foot wingspan, app. 62 foot penetrating core.
- 737-400, a sample model of 737 (not for sure the same exact make KWS cites): 94 foot wingspan, 40 foot core width.
You do the math - which one fits?

Did they only doctor pictures of the actual impact, of which there were only so many, or of all the aftermath pictures as well? Here again, with a width of 208 feet, I’ve superimposed the (app.) wingspans of a 737 and 767. The analysis here is a little less clear due to the smoke. You be the judge. Is this real evidence of a real 737 strike, doctored evidence for a 767 to cover up for such, or real evidence for a real 767?

The tower fell at just about exactly 10:00 am – so for nearly an hour, Schwarz says, the tower sat naked and exposed, its 737 wound pouring smoke in the single-most watched spectacle that moment – and either the extra damage was blown out by carefully placed charges, or everything from all these hundreds of cameras was doctored before hitting our eyes, as the impact shots obviously were. And recall much of this footage was broadcast live. If the evidence here is doctored then Carlson’s photos and that lone French video are just as suspect and we can trust nothing. A funny thing about Carlson's photo we saw at the top o' the post - if all film was seized to erase the 737, such a job may be tasked to the FBI, but this one magic photo of the telltale engine was snapped just as a uniformed FBI agent was walking by (see uncropped version below) and yet - miraculously? - it escaped the dragnet.


If one is unwiilling to swallow the video erasure theory, we are left with holographics. The cameras saw what the eyes did, but the shield ended with impact and the engine was visible for what it was. Oh, and the extra-wide damage pattern must've been blown out by bombs to make it look like a 767's profile. If one is unwilling to buy either of these, then what hit the South Tower really did have a body matching a 767, NOT a 737. Somehow this makes more sense to me.

I was considering getting ambitious and looking closer at Carlson’s engine, do some manual scouring. But for the time being I’ll let it lie. I’ve not seen anyone argue it was a 767 body equipped for some reason with piddly 737 engines, and so I see I see no need to look into the engine claims. Carlson’s anonymous airliner mechanic in fact insisted “no 767 in existence uses CFM56's. Not enough power to lift a '67.” [5] The only way this makes sense is by the holograph theory that the attack plane was masked to look bigger.

But if his partner Schwarz’s video shows a 737 - and IT can be proved undoctored itself – that would disprove the holographics possibility (unless it was shot with a special hologram-proof camera), and indicate again the erasure theory that the government managed to silently drop a net around all imagery of the WTC before it collapsed. Again, they intercepted, seized, altered and doctored all photos and video - all but this magical one - and then had them broadcast, sometimes live – to show a different attack plane all because they were too stupid to simply use the right model in the first place. That possibility, remote as it is, has gotten Schwarz attention and some diehard followers – but it remains an enormous IF. The video has still not been released. He’s apparently waiting for just the right moment because his case hinges on this - well this and the A3 Skywarrior theory. So who feels like voting Schwarz in '08? I can just feel the revolution ready to break. It's... exhilarating.

Sources:
[1] Carlson, Jon. "Is Popular Mechanics Hiding 911 NYC Engine In Street Photo?" Rense.com. March 7 2005. http://www.rense.com/general63/hiding.htm
[2] Carlson, Jon. “WTC Jet Engine Confirmed NOT From Boeing 767.” Rense.com. April 4 2005. http://www.rense.com/general63/wtcc.htm
[3] Szymanski, Greg. “Former RNC Insider and Bush Strategist Says He Has 9/11 'Smoking Gun,' Proving Government Complicity.” Arctic Beacon. April 16 2005. http://www.arcticbeacon.citymaker.com/articles/article/1518131/24248.htm
[4] "Articles: Pop Goes the Bush mythology bubble, Part 6." KarlSchwarz.com. Undated. http://www.karlschwarz.com/pop-goes-6.html
[5] See [2].

NOTHING TO SEE HERE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PLANE PARTS part III

THE SCRAP OVER THE SCRAPS

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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