WALTER, PICKERING, LAGASSE ON CIT

August 15 2008

Oh man, I can't just ignore this new little article from the OC Weekly - journalist Nick Schou wants Orange County residents to know "If you believe a passenger jet hit the Pentagon on 9/11, then these local ‘citizen investigators’ say you’ve been . . .
PentaConned!"

I note that he misspells Lagasse (unless I have been) and gets CIT's name wrong (Citizens Investigative Team, rather than Citizen's Investigation-ish Thing, or Comedy Improv Team). Otherwise, a great piece. Among the new things is someone else's take on the idiocy I've been dwelling on for too long, and interviews with three people who've dealt with the CIT - Mike Walter, Russell Pickering, and DPS/PFPS Sgt (now Lt I hear!) William Lagasse.

Those interviews made Walter probably the most well-known eyewitness to what happened at the Pentagon on 9/11, which is why, a little more than five years later, in November 2006, he found himself hosting a barbecue for a group of eager young men who were making Loose Change, a documentary about the terrorist attacks. After getting a telephone call from a self-described 9/11 researcher named Russell Pickering, Walter invited Pickering and Dylan Avery, the film’s director, to his house in Fairfax, Virginia.

They showed up with a couple of other people Walter had never spoken with: Craig Ranke, a fast talker with wild eyes, and Aldo Marquis, a heavyset guy who didn’t talk much. The two said they were helping Avery and Pickering with research for their film. Walter chatted casually with the pair, and at one point, he realized that Ranke was surreptitiously tape-recording the conversation.

That was weird, he thought. And increasingly, so was the conversation itself. Although Pickering and Avery seemed relatively normal, Ranke and Marquis appeared to be on a mission to prove that the Pentagon plane crash never happened. They wouldn’t listen to anything that contradicted this notion.

“I understand why people have certain feelings about this government,” Walter says. “There are things this administration did that I’m not pleased with, but facts are facts. I was on the road that day and saw what I saw. The plane was in my line of sight. You could see the ‘AA’ on the tail. You knew it was American Airlines.”

Marquis and Ranke simply refused to believe Walter saw what he saw. “They were saying things like, ‘Are you sure the plane didn’t land [at Reagan airport] and they set off a bomb?’ They kept coming up with all these scenarios.

“Some of those guys [at the party] were young and nice and disaffected [about] their government,” Walter concludes. “And some of them were crazy.”

After noticing Ranke’s not-so-subtle effort to secretly tape-record their conversation—and realizing that Ranke and Marquis weren’t interested in hearing anything that contradicted their notion that a plane didn’t actually hit the building—he refused to submit to an interview.

“They thought they were really going to uncover this thing, and I tried to set them straight,” Walter says. “The next day, I told them I wasn’t going to talk to them, and later, I found out they were really hammering on me on the Internet.”

Walter’s friend Troy Hanford, who was also at the barbecue, says that Pickering and Avery seemed like “opportunists” who were just trying to make it in Hollywood. “They wanted to be the next Michael Moore team,” he said. “The other guys”—Marquis and Ranke—“their objective was to unseat the U.S. government.”

[Russell] Pickering, who now runs an antiques store in Washington, recently told the Weekly he’s aware Ranke and Marquis consider him to be a government operative. “They firmly believe that about me,” he says, adding that his experience with Marquis and Ranke motivated him to drop out of the conspiracy movement. He still believes that 9/11 was an inside job, but Pickering strongly disagrees with Ranke and Marquis’ fly-over theory, which isn’t supported by a single eyewitness. “Nobody looked up and saw a plane fly over the Pentagon and fly away. Nobody reported a fly-over.”

When reached at the Pentagon Force Protection Agency (PFPA)—the official name of the Pentagon police agency, where he’s now a lieutenant—Legasse groaned when he heard the names Craig Ranke and Aldo Marquis and said he couldn’t comment without permission from a press officer.

Oops! Damage control! Oddly enough, Chad Brooks' corroboration was not even mentioned in the piece, but Pentagon Force Protection Service tells Schou:

Chris Layman, a PFPA spokesman, said the agency now prohibits officers from speaking directly to the media, but he sent the Weekly a brief, written statement saying the Pentagon “was hit by American Airlines Flight 77 at 9:37 a.m., killing all 64 passengers and crew and 15 Pentagon employees,” that the event was “witnessed by hundreds of people,” and while some “have their own theories,” the “facts have been verified and are clear.”

That's not the whole article, so go ahead and read it.

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.

ANOTHER LAGASSE/THE SECOND GENERATION

LAGASSE AND EASTMAN PART III
ANOTHER LAGASSE/THE SECOND GENERATION
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
April 23 2008
edits - 4/24 4am

Pentagon Paradigm Shifts
Following the delirious euphoria of no-757-impact certainty in much of the 9/11 Truth movement, there was a strong backlash in 2005 and after as Hoffman, Pickering, Desmoulins, Rivero, Sferios, Salter, etc. tackled the evidence at the Pentagon and found the prevailing meme sorely lacking. Debunkers from outside the movement made gains as well on all fronts, especially regarding the Pentagon issues, made as they were almost exclusively of straw. In general people started noticing the size and consistency of the eyewitness record and of the impact hole. It was looking bad for the anything-but-a-757 meme passed of from Meyssan to Pentagon Strike and 911 In Plane Site and all over the Internet.

Dick Eastman and his Zionist-engineered south-path-killer-jet-with-weaponized-air- vortices insanity, and its north-path-decoy-flyover, as covered in part 1, was among those looking staler every day. as seen in part 2, his star witness Sgt. Willaim Lagasse was at the time the only witness who clearly described the airliner as passing north of him at the Citgo station, ruling out all the impact damage, which happened on a different path (taken by the F-16 killer jet). So Lagasse had rescued Eastman’s theory with his testimony in mid-2003 (accidentally it would seem), but as Eastman faded into obscurity, Lagasse too saw his moment in the spotlight pass. By early 2006, no one much cared what side of the Citgo the 'decoy' plane flew on, but the idea was out there, floating around among those who wondered what really happened at the Pentagon.

The Louder Than Words guys (Dylan Avery, Korey Rowe, and Jason Bermas) were among those who seem to have missed the no-757-is-bs memo. In their massively successful 2005 Loose Change second edition, they showed how the light poles ‘just popped out of the ground’ undamaged, spoke of a single JT8D engine found inside a single 16-foot hole, and speculated that a cruise missile had hit the Pentagon. They also started their own Loose Change discussion forum in February 2006, to which several aspiring researchers signed on in its early months, impressed by the sudden high profile of the video and hoping to add to future editions.

Among those who signed up were Aldo Marquis (as Merc) in April, and Craig Ranke (as Lyte Trip) in June, two cats from Southern California who would later of course form Citizen Investigation Team. Russell Pickering of PentagonReasearch.com, a Seattle native, also joined in May under his own name, and shared his knowledge of the evidence, which had been leading him to posit the impact of a remote-controlled 757. As Pickering proceeded with reconciling his ‘mechanical damage path’ and witness analysis, Lyte and Merc held out against this trend with their own research showing again no such crash was possible. All three impressed the LTW guys into the summer, with Pickering being made a moderator and Merc proposing a brilliant plan.

A Gem From Arlington
According to Merc, it was he who first suggested, some time in the summer, a research trip to the Pentagon to gather clues about this increasingly contentious aspect. Avery and his partners agreed it was a good idea, and all three decided to go along, and decided to bring Pickering in as well to form a six-man “elite Pentagon research team.” The team sprang into action and, aside from Merc and Lyte, assembled in Arlington on Monday, August 21. On Tuesday morning, Pickering was at the Citgo making first contact there as Marquis and Ranke arrived. Ranke later summarized “This turned out to be very good because he established contacts making it easier for us to return and talk with people there later.”
L-R: Bermas, Rowe, Avery, Pickering, Marquis. Photo by Craig Ranke (app), Arlington VA August 22 2006 word balloons by Marquis, a mood clearly communicated by his pose for the camera here.

The team's few days there were filled with witness interviews, area photography, meetings with various bureaucrats, and a wee bit of partying at night. On Thursday afternoon Merc and Lyte caught their plane back to California, but not before first visiting the pivotal Citgo station with the full team. They filmed the area until they were briefly detained and had most of their photos/video deleted. As I understand it was this same day that, as Merc later summarized:

“We talk to the manager of the Citgo station in person in 2006 and she tells us about her employee Robert Turcios who saw the plane. SHE told us that Robert saw the plane on the north side and that this has always been his story. We instantly thought about Lagasse's email to Dick Eastman and red flags went off like crazy.” [source]

These were the good kind of red flags, of course, the kind you charge at. And he had Eastman and Lagasse to thank for the insight to know the value of this gem freely offered by that manager of a military facility. As he explained to me on the phone, “the only thing that ever gave me a clue to the north side approach was Lagasse’s account through Dick Eastman. When we went there […] it wasn’t like we were looking for any – or being led to any specific witnesses,” [3:30] but admits “Lagasse and the north side were in the back of my mind during that entire first trip,” and especially right after they were led to a specific witness that reminded him of that. [source – 3:30 and 4:50]

Shift Change - August 25 2006
Across the country in Washington State, that distant guru was apparently unaware that his findings were setting off alarms as they met, in Merc’s mind, with the elusive corroboration Eastman himself never received. In fact, it was a different mood entirely in Yakima, and it would seem old Dick had reached the end of his decoy flyover rope. At 3pm on August 25 he wrote on the subject of [frameup] “I am wrong about Flight 77 Pentagon. Outstanding video simulation of attack on the Pentagon using Boeing 757,” he noted, too weary to even type complete sentences. [source]

He was referring to Mike Wilson and Integrated Consultants’ computer generated 3-D animation showing how the impact likely happened. This accurate but imprecise recreation, posted in video form at Youtube back in late June, “shows poles, smoke trail” in a convincing enough manner that Eastman was forced to surrender; “I now believe that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon - that this explanation best fits the data. Please pass this around - I don't want to hold up the search for truth any more than I already have.” [source]

I thank JP Desmoulins for alerting me to this truly odd memorandum, which seems to roughly mark the end point of his tracking of Eastman and Lagasse. Reading of his unexpected surrender, I suspected sarcasm at first; nothing from the laws of physics, of logic, of any evidence, had altered his course before. But his language is quite clear – he asks the movement to continue without him. Note also how he says “I am wrong,” not ‘was wrong.' He was still there, just stripped down by the persistence of the debunkers, but until whenever, Eastman had announced his resignation from the case, at 3pm on August 25, news he had asked his readers to spread. Two interlocked theories, the F-16 impact one and the north-path airliner flyover one, lost a champion that evening. But it would seem it gets darkest before dawn, and just then, a whole lot happened at once to revive one of those, if not the other.

At the very moment Eastman hit the submit button on his resignation, the next generation of north-path flyover champions were typing up their proposal to replace him. There is no evidence Eastman followed these developments, or that he didn’t, but having returned to the west coast the previous evening, Merc was typing up his notes. Just two hours after Eastman’s pessimistic plea, he posted the first report on their findings at the LCF, entitled “There Was A Plane!” “Hey guys, I'm back and have some interesting news for you all. THERE WAS A LARGE PLANE SEEN DIVING TOWARDS THE PENTAGON! We have interviewed several eyewitnesses who saw it.” Does this mean he too had seen the light and was now promoting a 757 impact? Hardly. He offered a brief synopsis of their general witness findings, to be elaborated later, and closed with this more mysterious revelation regarding the pivotal Citgo gas station the official path passed south/east of (read 'west' here as 'north'):

“The Citgo manager said her employee places the plane on the OTHER SIDE of the Citgo, the left side or west side (blue line), she is "90% sure", there is a follow-up due on this... So spread the word. There was a plane at least as far back as the Sheraton, Navy Annex, and Citgo gas (WRONG SIDE!!) Flyover anyone? [emoticon – waving a white flag] There is more to come! Stay tuned.”
Above is the graphic that had its first airing as describing the yet-unnamed witness' account. And THIS in turn tied in with the NTSB’s own animation, just posted at Youtube on the 24th by Pilots For 9/11 Truth, which of course also showed the plane flying almost where Eastman, Lagasse, and now this employee had placed it, as well as too high to hit anything relevant. A major shitstorm was set to blow in within a remarkably short time, and more than any other moment, the evening of August 25th marks both the terminus of the old north-path insanity and the birth of the new, with curiously precise timing suggesting a shift change at a gas station.

Chess Moves Around CIT’s Lagasse
Indeed there was more to come, with two different words on the same subject being spread through the night and following weeks. As Eastman receded, reports came in from Pickering and Lyte Trip on the removed cameras, their tour of the Virginia Dept. of Transportation, more interview details (Walter, England, Zackem, McGraw, Paik, Pugh, etc.), and lively discussion of the implications. All parties agreed there was a large silver or white airliner in the evidence and no missile or killer F-16. But from there they disagreed; Lyte posted a pivotal thread on September 9 titled “We've Narrowed It Down To 2 Possible Scenarios... Impact or Fly-over?”

The next day the bomb was dropped by his partner declaring which one made more sense; Merc titled the thread “Citgo Witness I Spoke W/ Breaks The Case Wide Open, Flyover?” The announcement was big news at the LCF, perhaps a cause, and definitely a beneficiary, of the mass of users online the next day, (1,225 at 3:27 pm, a forum record), to mark the five year anniversary of the attacks.

In the published details of phone discussions with this still-unnamed employee, conducted on the 5th and after, we can see glimpses of a highly curious account; aside from the north path testimony, he also described the plane as gray and very unlike an American Airlines style, and he was the first to report any kind of pull-up of the plane, which for once directly indicated a possible fly-over. This added to his obvious value to the scenario in the ‘back’ of Merc’s mind, but not apparently enough at once to trip his overkill sensors.

They would not get to keep this witness without a fight. Just five days later, on September 15, Judicial Watch released to the public the Citgo station security video, obtained through lawsuits, and with no forewarning. Avery chimed in “I'd hate to say we caused any part of this, but our team sure caused a stir at the gas station....” Merc added immediately “I'd hate to say it had anything to do with our star witness, but what timing.” Pickering took a look at the multiplexed video and decided the only person that could be Turcios can be seen running into the store after the impact, contrary to his story given to Merc (this was quite a while before John Farmer or myself decided the same). Naturally, a massive fight ensued. On October 5 Merc said “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 unfortunate reality. A counter chess move if you will.”

The video must be altered, CIT has argued in defense of their witness, and Pickering’s work was said to have proven this, even though he denied it. Eventually this debate expanded to the point where Pickering asked Merc to clarify some hints: “do you believe I am a government agent and was involved in the alteration and release of the Citgo video to sabotage your work? Yes or no?" Merc responded quite reasonably “your behavior and actions indicate to me this is a possibility. But I do not know for sure one way or the other," hoping to cast some blanket doubt over his fellow researcher whose ability to communicate the truth threatened their endeavor.

Things had clearly devolved among the elite research team, and opinions differed strongly whether it was Russel’s stubborn and “deceptive” adherence to “the official story” that was to blame, or the absurd beliefs, belligerent antics and tactical accusations coming from the other side. As the LTW core guys worked out their anticipated Loose Change Final Cut on into 2007, they seemed to favor Pickering’s even hand while repeatedly banning and re-admitting Merc and Lyte. Much bitterness prevailed and harsh words were exchanged. Pickering later professed his pleasure with the final cut of Loose Change, once it was released in late 2007, while CIT had to comfort themselves with bit parts and being listed in the credits as in the “Arlington Crew.”

Not ones to keep all their eggs in one basket, by that time the duo had pursued their own avenue, which transformed them into the hard truth warriors known as Citizen Investigation Team. Their calling took them back to Arlingon, back to the Citgo, to their Lagasse and of course to Eastman’s original, and even further. They would “irrefutably” establish the flight path of the plane people saw with no reference at all to any mechanical damage or any other clue that the plane actually hit anything but air. As for the physical evidence, this would still be 'the crime,' but all faked by… some… means. Doesn’t matter. A “military deception” would soon be ‘100% proven’ by CIT and Sgt. Lagasse would, again, help unquestioningly establish it [no, that wasn't a typo].

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.

THE TROUBLE WITH TURCIOS

THE TROUBLE WITH TURCIOS
VIDEO AND COMMENTARY
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Initial posting: March 13 2008
last update: 3/15 12 am

This is a partial post for now, to which I'll add later. Primarily it's to alert anyone who cares of my new video, following off my previous analysis Who is Person #1? I'm not confident saying it is Robert Turcios, but it's the only person who could be him, given his stated (general) location and (pre-plane) activities.

Online Videos by Veoh.com
Veoh page

Among some other points and spiffy music, the core of it is the conflict between the 2006 account of Robert Turcios and this possible Turcios recorded supposedly on 9/11. This panoramic patchwork demonstrates the basic idea.

I should have done it with the lower earthen mound as it was on 9/11 but that didn't occur to me. There aren't many good photos of that. Here's one that shows it - earthen, unseeded, and looking to the stupid eye like a plywood wall. Note that this photo is taken from a high point and would have an obscured view if at ground level as Turcios was.
Also, Turcios' or anyone's north-of-the-Citgo claim is contradicted by this same camera view, which also captures a large shadow on the road behind (south of) person 1. This shadow is consistent for size, shape, location, and timing with a Boeing 757 on the damage path, and traveling at 530 mph about 110 feet off the ground. Dead serious. All this is explained at this post. I invite anyone to find fault with that analysis other than 'the video is fake!'

Citizen Investigation Team's approach to this conflict of evidence is, of course, ignore the video. They insist it was altered to discredit Turcios, and disparage anyone who dares look at this as valid evidence. They do make a compelling case for removal of key views, which would prove some type of alteration. I'm doing some analysis on that at the moment, and reviewing the findings of others and will finally have something to say on it soon.

Regarding the circumstantial case for alteration, Aldo Marquis recently reminded the viewers of the person 1 video "What he failed to mention in his youtube is that the CITGO video was released 10 days after we obtained Robert's very important account and 5 days after announcing it publically”
I will mention that here and now. Here is the proof - collected posts CIT love to brandish:

And now this timing 'coincidence' in a fuller context:
Tucios and Video Timeline convergence
Dec. 15 2004 – To counter growing secrecy-fueled conspiracy theories, Judicial Watch files a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Defense Dept. requesting the release of several videos including from “the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station.”
Jan 2005 - DoD admits to Judicial Watch it had a video of the impact but it must remain secret for the duration of the long-running Moussaoui trial.
Sept. 9 2005 – Scott Bingham/Flight77.info lawsuit against the DoJ yields the Maguire declaration announcing 85 videos in possession of DoJ and at least one showing the impact.
Feb. 22 2006 – Judicial Watch files suit to the DoD to release this “video that allegedly shows United Flight 77 striking the Pentagon.”
April 6 2006 - Aldo Marquis joins the Loose Change forum as Merc, gains respect with research threads like "A 757 Does Not Fit, Photographic analysis and Irregularities" (May 15).
May 4 2006 - Moussaui is sentenced to life, the trial is over, and the old reason for refusing disclosure evaporates. Video release seems more likely after this date.
May 16 - Confirming that impression, JW releases its first new video – the gate cameras we saw stills from back in 2002.
June 22 – Perhaps inspired by their success with the DoD, Judicial Watch files a lawsuit against the FBI for video release.
June 23 - Marquis/Merc is joined at the LC Forum by his future CIT cohort Ranke (as Lyte Trip), and both quickly become moderators of the Pentagon forum. At some point after this, Merc suggests a research trip to Arlington; "It was my idea. Craig and I decided to go. I mentioned it to Dylan and Russell, and Dylan asked if they could make it a joint research trip that included Russell, since Dylan was going to be in DC around the same time we planned our trip." [source]
July 31 – Moussaoui trial exhibits released in their entirety, an unprecedented move in a federal case. Could videos be far behind?
August 21-25 2006 – Marquis, Ranke, Pickering, Avery, Bermas, and Rowe conduct their research trip to Arlington to gather clues about the Pentagon attack.
August 22 – Pickering is at the Citgo making first contact as Marquis and Ranke arrive. Ranke later summarized “This turned out to be very good because he established contacts making it easier for us to return and talk with people there later.”
Aug 24 – The ‘elite research team’ visits the Citgo again to film the area, are detained and have most of their photos/video deleted. Ranke and Marquis depart on a 3:00 flight to California. (pre-planned, not a hasty retreat).
Aug 25 - Merc posts a quick synopsis solidifying his role as a stellar researcher: "Hey guys, I'm back and have some interesting news for you all. THERE WAS A LARGE PLANE SEEN DIVING TOWARDS THE PENTAGON!" There was still debate about whether the witnesses indicated an impact or a fly-over of course...
August 31 – The first full post-trip analysis, very detailed and with many photos, is posted by Lyte Trip at the LCF.
September 5 – Marquis, after following-up with the station’s manager, has his first phone discussion with a Citgo employee (Robert Turcios) who saw a gray plane pull-up on the north path. He speaks to Turcios a second time before the 10th and a third time shortly after.
September 10: Merc first posts at the forum about this witness who “breaks the case wide open” and indicates a flyover.. This is the graphic that gets its first airing as describing the yet-unnamed witness' account. September 11: the five year anniversary of the attacks arrives – a propitious time to release any held videos. It passes with nothing still. But due to previous actions mentioned above, discs of the video containing that witness are probably in the mail.
September 14: Ranke/Lyte emphasizes at the LCF the importance of Turcios: “The witness 100% refutes the mechanical flight path. No other witness account is as significant.”
September15 – After receiving a copy from the FBI, Judicial Watch releases the Citgo station security video for public viewing at Youtube. The big news about it was how it still didn’t show the actual impact but JW president Tom Fitton says “Now that it has been released to the public, there is no reason for further speculation about what it does or does not show." Hardly!
---
The Response
September 15: Dylan Avery: “i'd hate to say we caused any part of this, but our team sure caused a stir at the gas station....” Merc: “I'd hate to say it had anything to do with our star witness, but what timing.” [source] Note the curious use of 'hate' by both.
September 16 and after - analysis by some and reasons for denial from others, endless debate over what the video shows. It doesn't show what Robert says, that much is clear.
Oct 5: Marquis posts: “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. I have more reason to believe this now but can't elaborate on it at this point. But I will in the near future. [...] 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. Perhaps something more complex. Look at the date of my Citgo Witness thread ( My first phone call was the week of labor day), and then look at the date of the Citgo video release. As stated earlier, "Not coincidence"."
[So they read the old LCF that closely, eh? "Quick! They're talking to that witness we forgot to kill... let's edit the video to discredit him, then let these guys interview him on the premesis on video anyway, after we still forget to kill him." ???]
Nov 6? 2006: Marquis and Ranke are on a CIT-only research trip and meet with Turcios (as well as Paik, Lagasse, and Brooks) and get him to affirm his pre-video-release story on camera for the ages. He complies but his performance is awkward and not terribly believable.
Feb 28 2007: Pickering to Merc: "The question is - do you believe I am a government agent and was involved in the alteration and release of the Citgo video to sabatoge your work? Yes or no?" Merc to Pickering: "You behavior and actions indicate to me this is a possibility. But I do not know for sure one way or the other." [source]
Mid-2007? - Joh Farmer posts his first findings of a person who may be Turcios visible in the security video.
Aug 30 2007: Ranke 8/30/07: "The release of the proven manipulated video data was done to discredit Robert Turcios since he is not visible in the video." Method for deducing this- the video shows no one doing what Robert says he did and where. So no Robert. Which is a problem for... the video.

more forthcoming ...

and stuff
also to come.

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.

THE LIGHT POLES

Clipped or Staged?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Last Updated Jan. 7 2008

In denying a 757 impact at the Pentagon on 9/11, Loose Change looked at, among other things, the five light poles said to have been shorn by the wings of Flight 77 just before impact. The video cited previous problems when planes hit light poles - pole left damaged but standing, wing comes off, plane crahes. “And yet Flight 77 managed to tear five light poles completely out of the ground,” Avery continued, “without damaging either the wings or the light poles themselves.” How precisely he knows that the wings were undamaged on the plane he believes doesn't exists is left unexplained, but to prove the poles were untouched, they had hard proof - actual photographs, including those at left. A look at the very photos they used proves the assertion flat wrong. If these light poles aren’t damaged, why don’t they have lights on them? [at left: pole 1, pol 4, and pole 1 again. below right, pole 5.]

Clearly if a Boeing 757 with its 125 feet of wings came swooping in over the highway, it’d cut some poles – but since they insist on seeing no plane, the Loose Change people summarize that the undamaged poles “seem to have just popped out of the ground.” The only implication I can see in this is of a covert Pentagon system of specially designed poppable light-poles to fake a cruise missile/drone strike out to look like an airliner attack. I guess it’s possible, but the photos show that this system also seems to mangle the tops of the poles on the way down, which they would have to to effectively fake an airliner attack, thereby proving fallacious the whole issue which started by insisting there was no such damage.

This is perhaps the most-widely-cited graphic analysis of the light pole arrangement, which of course aso coincides with the 'official' flight path. This graphic was made in 2002 or so by UK 'debunker' Ron Harvey. Another researcher, Dick Eastman, first doubted the poles' existence: "Ron Harvey says that 5 poles were downed. Ever hear that from any other source? I saw eye witness testimony that one pole was "clipped."" [link] Later he admitted their existence; "The poles not a question that is in dispute. I have long acknowledged the existence of the poles as soon as I finally got my hands on an actual picture of one (Ron Harvey was not forthcoming with me at the time) -- in fact it was the pole data in contrast to the witness accounts that first suggested the presense of two converging aircraft paths." [link.] One had a swooping 125 foot wingspan backed by 100 tons of force - and flew well above the poles, which were knocked down by air vortices off the wingtips of his F-16 killer jet.


Russel Pickering's analysis at PentagonResearch.com found that they were 27.66 feet high, made of .188 inch-thick aluminum, 8 inches in diameter at the base and 4.5 inches at the top and topped with 70 pound lampheads. The reason the wings wouldn't be damaged is because the use of a "breakaway style" pole design. As Pickering explains: "this limited damage factor is why the FAA requires these type of poles in the "safety zones" around airports and helipads. They recognize that this type of pole minimizes damage to aircraft." He cited the FAA's rules: "any structure located within 250 feet of runway centerline has to be frangible, which means the structure needs to break away when hit by an aircraft to minimize damages to the aircraft and its pilot."

I have done my own anlysis now on poles 1 and 2 (pole 1 being the one that allegedly speared Lloyd England's windshield). I deduced a slightly different pole height than Pickering, although he's probably right and, along with tree damage and a slight mark high on a camera pole, have mapped out a rough outline of the plane's apparent bank at that moment - right-high, like the witnesses all have said.


If these were faked, they were faked well, The PentaCon video in 2007 made the case that the light poles were staged to fake the official attack path, and poorly so at that, bearing dozens of effects errors. Largely a rehash of Eastman's early theory sans the killer jet and beefed up with better witness pool, the video and its makers propose the poles were cut down, crimped, and in one case curved, some point perhaps weeks in advance, hidden in the bushes unnoticed, and dragged out for the attack in the morning. Or something to that effect. The one that hit Lloyd England's taxi was trickier, and they go to great length to explain the conspiracy behind this, or at least to argue there must be one. As PentaCon producer Craig Ranke (aka Jack Tripper) explained:

"If you accept that the plane flew on the north of the station you MUST accept that ALL the physical damage was staged/simulated/fabricated. Therefore, because the light poles line up perfectly with all the physical damage to the building there is no reason to suggest that any natural force [...] or projectile at all brought them down. They were simply removed and planted BEFORE the event."

That's of course one of the many reasons I do not accept the north side flight theory.

"OLD" 270° LOOP EXPLAINED [FINAL]

THE 270° LOOP AROUND RUMSFELD
WHERE DID THAT COME FROM?
Adam Larson / Caustic Logic
The Frustrating Fraud
Posted July 25 2007
last updated 12/9/07

Note: This article deals with Steve Koeppel's loop map only. Arabesque has also posted an excellent post partly on this article, related with the three planes-confusion (FL77, a C-130, and an E-4B "doomsday plane," all verified in the area at the time), later expanded to cover other areas.
Note 12/9: Steve Koeppel himself (I presume) has popped in here to help explain some things (see comments below). "I did state that I had been an Air Force and Reserve navigator (I am NOT pilot in the military! Would somebody clear that up?!?)" Yes. Koeppel was not an Air Force Pilot as cited by The Power Hour. He was an Air Force navigator. "AT THAT TIME (early 2002) my intent was get suggestions on why there weren't any tourist photos (of Flight 77) [...] I made no claim to creating the unimpeachable analysis," he clarifies, "nor was that my intent; that's why I put so many qualifiers in my post." Good. Among the scant evidence he called on to create his path, one escaped my detectors and still does: "after disappearing from the radar scope the aircraft had had reappeared approaching D.C. from the north and was thought to have been aiming at the White House..." See below for full comment.
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For years after 9/11, as controversy swirled over the details of the Pentagon attack, a working draft of the highly suspicious reported 3/4-circle loop in the flight path became widely used to cast doubt on the official story. This grand loop over Washington became one of the unifying points of agreement between Hunt The Boeing Pentagon no-planers and remote control-757 advocating “plane-huggers.” The general gist was eloquently summed up by Nila Sagadevan in early 2006:

“[T]his fanatic Muslim kamikaze pilot […] found that his “missile” was heading towards one of the most densely populated wings of the Pentagon—and one occupied by top military brass, including the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfeld. Presumably in order to save these men’s lives, he then executes a sweeping 270-degree turn and approaches the building from the opposite direction and aligns himself with the only wing of the Pentagon that was virtually uninhabited due to extensive renovations that were underway” [1]

While this sounds compelling, the flight path he’s talking about never existed. It was bolstered and seeded in the movement, above all, by this map:Those who cite this precise angle of turn, point out the lack of White House defensive fire as the plane passed within a mile or two of it, or of the plane going out of its way to avoid Rumsfeld’s office, for which it was headed, are probably referring to this map, if to anything specific. Russell Pickering’s Pentagon Research.com used it to illustrate; “you can see where the White House was passed.” He also carefully cited the map’s originator, which makes it easy enough to look up and double-check. Author: Former Air Force Pilot Steve Koeppel, Palm Springs, CA [2]

This led me to Koeppel’s undated piece, from way back, some time in 2002 it seems (it was mentioned by Hufschmid in Painful Questions, released 2002). The map and explanation of it were hosted originally by The Power Hour, producers of 911 In Plane Site, which is among the worst 9/11 videos ever, often dismissed as a too-long joke on the Truth Movement. Whatever the merits of his hosts, Koeppel's piece there explained how he reasoned out the map; none too promising is how he starts out with (apparent) inexplicable ignorance over the general contours of the flight:

“It was fairly simple to find the WTC routes, but I have yet to see a map showing the route flown by the aircraft that was said to have hit the Pentagon. So I read some of the reports and put together the attached maps. […] I'm surprised that I haven't seen this map — or ANY map — of the Pentagon airplane's approach. Given all the information that we were deluged with in the weeks after the attacks, it surprises me that this graphic was omitted.” [3]

The flight path of Flight 77 was not omitted by any measure, and it was not hard to find – even I knew the general outline of the flight, as : first published in Time, Newsweek, etc in the days after the attacks. Yes, the return path was a dotted line back then, estimated obviously, and too vague yet to show 77’s final loop, which was apparently his main question. But all these paths have proven broadly accurate in that the 757 headed west, turned south over the WV-KY-OH border area, lost transponder, and returned, heading east straight to the Pentagon. “Guardian” was one of the few that noted of Koeppel’s path “that this is a very strange flight path for an aircraft coming from the east and planning to crash into the Pentagon.” [4] It’s at least as odd for Flight 77, which was coming in from the southwest and finally impacted from the southwest, to wind up swooping down on the Pentagon from the northeast as in Koeppel’s map.

As an ill-fated aside before explaining his sources, Koeppel pointed out “what's surprising is how many news sources got the information wrong. For example, look at this graphic from Reuters, which has the attack on the wrong side of the Pentagon:”
Above is the graphic he used [right-click, new wiindow to enlarge], labeled “The Pentagon Attack” and featuring a six-point timeline of events, along with a grossly incorrect impact point shown. What’s at least as surprising, in my opinion, is where Koeppel explains “I based my map of the attack path on a description of the attack (see Pentagon Attack) which said the plane was initially picked up on radar east-southeast of Dulles heading at high speed toward Washington.” [5] Red flag! He introduces the erred Reuters graphic, and then tells us his whole analysis is based on a single account, and it’s this same graphic.

Another wrong point in it he (understandably) failed to catch was its understatement of the loop by 60° – it was indeed to the right (south) but was actually 330°, nearly full circle, a descriptor widely used outside of the source he chose. As for how he came up with the southward swoop, Koeppel explained it as starting from “the 270 degree right turn” leaving him “puzzled.” A “near-circular” turn to the right, off an approach from the west, to hit the Pentagon at the final angle he gave no clue of being aware of, Koeppel might’ve guessed something like the official and logical connecting loop (here in yellow). Instead, he decided to bring it in from the north; “I realized that [the 3/4 loop] would provide a simple set of landmarks for the pilot. Just intercept the Potomac River north of town, follow it south until you see the Washington Monument or Capitol,” and then, as the Reuters guy said, make a 270 degree right turn and hit the far north edge of the west wall at the fourth-floor level. So thinking like a novice pilot, he found an arbitrary 270° line of landmarks in that area that might guide one to the target, and then presumed that to be the most logical flight path that he felt “meets all the conditions in the description.” Below is a map that helps clarify that his entire red arc is indeed east-southeast of Dulles, barely, and this seems to be a plausible path – if we disregard the official and logical flight path up till then (blue).

If the final loop Koeppel arrived at (red) was to be connected with the official story path (blue), that would necessitate the purple arc, or something similar, to connect the two. Since he was generally aware of the plane's position before turning (blue asterisk in the center of my map, actually pretty close to the official flight path, and nowhere near "the Potomac river north of town"), he in fact was implying the purple arc. However, he fails to explain or illustrate this turn to the left/north around and over DC, which is nowhere in his Reuter’s graphic or any other account. He made no mention of the full implied loop of roughly 400° from there needed for his loop to work.

In short, despite his ignorance of “ANY map of the Pentagon airplane's approach,” Koeppel was able to place the plane properly before its turn, but then invented the wild purple and red maneuver and only explained and illustrated the second half of it. He called this analysis and map “my contribution to the effort to try to make sense of an insane event. I don't know if it adds clarity or static, but it seems a part of the puzzle that has been missing.” [6] Looking at the method that gave us that half-map, it was clearly static he added. What’s surprising is that no one apparently caught on and this map became almost gospel. It was so widely used and believed to explain the oddity of the Pentagon attack (which is still odd enough) that it was interpreted by “Guardian” as possibly official; “the claimed flight path of flight 77 over Washington. […] In reality, flight 77 never existed.” [7]

The real loop, 330° to the south off an easterly approach, was new to some of the top 9/11 Pentagon researchers in mid-August 2006. At the Loose Change forum, Killtown showed the NTSB yellow-line loop map, seen in the just-released Flight Path Study. He labeled this as “new,” compared to Koeppel’s map, labeled “old.” Pickering, who had promoted the “old” map by featuring it on his site and working it into his other material, responded “the new flight path data does not change everything,” but it did help indicate to him that “I have a lot of re-writing to do these days!” Another member noted Pickering’s reliance on Koeppel’s map, and wondered of Koeppel “what he based his information on?” The question was not answered there, but I hope this analysis helps shed some light on the subject. [8]
---
More people who had fallen for it at some point (besides me, not that I even looked close until now): Jim Hoffman at one point used Koeppel's map to illustrate how a "Spiral Attack Maneuver Avoids Top Brass."
The bastards at Judicialinc captioned the map "NORAD's story that Hani Hanjour flew a 757 doing 600 MPH at 7000' and went into a 270 degree decending turn and hit the Pentagon, is absurd."
---

Sources:
[1] Segadevan, Nila.“The Impossibility of Flying Heavy Aircraft Without Training.” Looking Glass News. Feb 20, 2006
http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php? storyid=5115
[2] Pickering, Russell. “Analysis of Flight 77 Flight Path” Pentagon Research.com. http://www.pentagonresearch.com/017.html
[3], [5], [6] [Koeppel, Steve. Analysis of Flight 77: Flight Path by a Former Air Force Pilot.” The Power Hour. Undated. http://www.thepowerhour.com/911_analysis/steves-analysis.htm
[4], [7] Guardian. “Flight 77 and the Pentagon. What Really Happened?” Undated. http://guardian.150m.com/pentagon/small/911-flights.htm
[8] Pickering, Russell, Terry Zarzoff, and Killtown. Comments posted August 12 2006. Loose Change Forum -> The Pentagon -> "New Flight 77 Path Different (of Course)." http://s15.invisionfree.com/Loose_Change_Forum/ar/t10366.htm

PLANE PARTS part II: LANDING GEAR

WHERE 757 MEETS GROUND, EVIDENCE MATCHES OFFICIAL PLANE
Adam Larson
Caustic Logic / The Frustrating Fraud
January 8 2007
last updated 12/9/07

The TLC Wheel
The picture at left was taken by an unknown photographer on September 12 and shown in a The Learning Channel documentary. The location is in the Pentagon’s A-E Drive, at the far end of the plane’s trajectory between rinds B and C, just outside the curious 'punch-out' exit hole. It’s of a wheel rim generally thought to be from Flight 77. No missile I know of uses landing gear with wheels, but smaller planes do, and debate has raged over whether or not this is the precisely and verifiably a 757’s wheel or from something smaller.

Karl Schwarz, among his information that was “hand-delivered to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer,” decided the wheel is “the type made by B.F. Goodrich in their aerospace division. They also made the wheels for the 757 but a simple proportional check of width versus diameter will easily show that the below photo is not of a wheel hub from a 757 [...] This radius being about the same as the width of the wheel hub is also another clue that the 757 story is a Bush Lie." To clue us in on the truth, he noted that this looks like an A3 Skywarrior wheel - if it had the wrong wheels. "This is the type of wheel hub one would expect to find as one of the two rear wheels on an A-3 refitted with current equipment rather than equipment that is no longer being manufactured." [source]

Schwarz’s radius/width wheel analysis was apparently passed on by Dylan Avery in Loose Change first edition and then misinterpreted by the debunkers at “Internet Detectives” as radius/diameter: “I'm not sure what [Avery] means by this, as all circular objects have a diameter twice their radius.” [2] Anyway, in comparing the same images Avery used, which the Detectives considered good enough, we see clearly that the rim width/hub radius at left (red/blue) is about exactly the tire width/hub radius at right - the radius/width of the C Ring rim matches that of a 757.

Another point I recall seeing made at LetsRoll 911 was the difference in the holes placed radially around the center mount. Both seem to have a symmetrical arrangement but a differing number – the Pentagon rim with eight, the intact gear sporting ten, it seems. This is not so odd though, as Russell Pickering found out with some research, the 757-200 series (which Flight 77 was) uses precisely two different types interchangably - "one with 10 slots and one with 8." It's hard to say which type FLight 77 was equipped with, since, as Pickering found, "airlines are not obligated to use the same rim and gear manufacturer on a particular aircraft.” [source] My guess is it had eight holes. In fact the debunkers at Aerospaceweb.org found a photo showing the very craft in question - tail number N644AA - sporting main gear wheels with eight slots, just like the one that wound up in the drive. If it was planted, it was done right. But where are the other seven main gear wheels? Or the two nose gear wheels?

More Wheels

Above is a photo first published back in September. I first found it at the Loose Change Forum (halfway down page), posted by LCF member Digest, who had just re-deployed, to Iraq I would guess. Additional details remain hazy, but it would seem to be in the A-E Drive as well, and shows some apparent engine parts as well as a glimpse of the main gear strut (which I'll discuss in a moment) and a main gear wheel assembly with two battered wheels attached that seem to match the TLC wheel. Compare this with the main gear seen on a 757 (left).





The Strut(s)

Then we can see what had once attached this wheel to the plane, a massive hydraullic leg found in the C Ring just inside the exit hole – not far from the wheel. This appears to be one of two main landing gear struts. Pickering wasn’t at first sure of the size of this clearly hydraulic artifact. He speculated it might be something from inside the building, like “the cylinder from a trash compactor,” but noted “if it could be proven that it was from an aircraft other than a 757 [that] would obviously be significant.” The inset is from the photo above - it bears the same hallmarks, and could be either the same strut or its counterpart.
Then he located another photo that clarified the scale of the thing, filling much of a room, as seen above, and compared this shot with a photo of a 757 landing gear in the shop, which Pickering obtained and I’ve superimposed for human scale. Taken together, these led Pickering to conclude “it must be a landing gear,” and its trunion link layout and other clues strongly suggesting a 757's. [source] Some scientists interviewed for the Dutch TV program Zembla were shown these photos [video link - 1:50 mark] and decided it was likely from a 757.

Whatever the merits of the too-small wheel analysis, after reviewing this massive, fundamental, and highly likely 757 part buried in the wreckage, any further discussion of the precise type of wheel at the end of it would now seem doubly ludicrous. All the HTB people have left now is the contention that these photos were stage-managed, the parts planted, or complete CGI forgeries. And they probably will make that case, if they bother acknowledging this evidence at all, as well as that the wheel in the forgeries is far too small. But for those who rely exclusively on evidence like Loose Change, Pentagon Strike, In Plane Site, or Painful Deceptions, the solution is simple - they will never be confronted with the landing gear photo, which was excluded from all these in-depth videos for some reason.

The Tire/Gear At Impact

Additionally, a single large tire - or at least half of one - was seen in the A-E Drive, in close proximity to the wheel found there. It is not pristine, but relatively intact for having passed through 300 feet of building. Perhaps this has to with being shielded by the rest of the plane. Of all eyewitness reports, only Noel Sepulveda recalls the landing gear down before the plane impacted. Other witnesses specifically report the landig gear was NOT extended at impact. William Lagasse: "The 757’s flaps were not deployed and the landing gear was retracted." [fifteen corroborating accounts compiled by Arabesque], and so remained safely tucked within the plane's underside, presumably until the fusealge came apart around it.

What We've Seen

What we've seen is actuall a decent percentage of the landing gear, mostly just inside and outside the 'punch-out' hole which was semi-officially caused by some unspecified part of the Landing gear. One massive main strut apparently came to rest inside this opening, perhaps the same one was later photographed outside in the drive, along with the two wheel segment, which may well have been pulled out from inside. All of the gear we can identify as likely exiting the building on its own is that lone piddly wheel and tire, photographed from the beginning on the pile of rubble fanning out from the hole. The rest of the gear not shown on this page, if it was there at all, was buried somewhere inside that high-security installation and not publicly shown yet to my knowledge. One sobering possibility that should be considered is whether perhaps the smaller, unseen nose gear had detached early on, in its folded and dense postion, and buried itself nearly intact in a victim's torso. Would this photo be released if so? I actually hope not.


Sources:
[1] Schwarz, Karl W. B. “Pop goes the Bush mythology bubble Part 5: Exploding the myth of the Bushes as an all-American family.” Online Journal, via www.karlschwarz.com/02-02-05_Schwarz.pdf
[2] “Loose Change, section two: The Wheel Hub.” Internet Detectives. http://internetdetectives.biz/case/loose-change-2#the-wheel-hub