9/11 Pentagon Video finally released...

2. Observe the following Associated Press photograph with the model facade viewed from the same position and distance.

The real and modelled facades correspond well. The coloured areas on the model facade are just there to show approximately the damaged areas observed on 9/11. See the key to the colour codes on Mike Wilson's videos.

3. The model has a built-in tape measure; I recommend you use it. I measured the bottom of the 4th floor window (3rd floor in UK parlance) as 39' 7" from the base of the facade at the window I was looking at.

4. Mike Wilson apparently forgot to colour the topmost area in one video, but you can see it in the other. And in any case you can see where the top of the vertical stabiliser is in both videos and in the model itself.

5. You are forgetting some things. The tail of a 757-200 is 44' 6" high with the undercarriage down, but the undercarriage was not down. The underneath of the engines were virtually at ground level at the point of impact - watch the video 'Close-Up Pentagon Animation'. You can pause the video and manually move the plane backwards and forwards to study its approximate trajectory better. You will see that the top of the vertical stabiliser is a little above the bottom of the sill of a 4th floor window. You can measure it in the model (not the video) with the tape measure. But apparently you and the model do not take another factor into account: by the time the aircraft tail end has reached the facade - before, actually - the aircraft is not flying and the tail end of the aircraft may have dropped further. Coupled with buckling downwards of the rear fuselage (see Purdue University modelling), I believe it was not as high as the sill of the 4th floor. Watch the video of the Purdue University simulation study. The top of the tip of the vertical stabiliser appears lower than on Mike Wilson's model. The tail could have been dragged into the cavity, bending in different ways. It's not inconceivable.

6. Mike Wilson's model is a spatial simulaton, nothing more. Thus forces causing rotation, twisting and crumpling are not simulated. It nevertheless enables a first-level comparison of the aircraft profile and observed damage area on the facade. Which happens to be very good actually, especially when then taking into account the airframe and building damage modelling by Perdue University. To me it looks credible that a 757 could have caused this damage profile.

8. Regarding Professor Sozen's comment on one wing hitting the ground, as far as I am aware he himself did not witness the crash. The 757 engines are mounted on forward-extending under-wing pylons. The damage to the portable generator in the path of the starboard engine, and the segment knocked out of the concrete wall before the facade by the port engine, are modelled in accordance with the observed damage/movement. Thus, to me, it appears that by "wing" Professor Sozen could mean the complete wing, viz. aerofoil, engine and pylon. But I am speculating, so you are welcome to write to him, telephone him or e-mail him if you wish to clarify his meaning. All contact details for Professor Sozen are available here:

9. The size of the debris inside and outside was consistent with a 757 crashing into the building. High speed impact of a jetliner with a concrete building can produce plenty of small debris. Furthermore the wreckage inside the building was broken up as illustrated by the Perdue University modelling study, and the pattern of damage to the columns and the shredding of the wings (fuel tanks) and resulting fuel spillage was also illustrated in the Perdue University modelling study.

Mark:

You say, “Yes, you're right. It is completely different. Those images on the WTC are public domain, the Pentagon images are not, they're government property.”  Horsehockey!  The images that the FBI confiscated were the property of the hotel, the gas station, the supermarket, etc.  Those venues were forced to hand them over.  Tell me by what right the FBI confiscated them.  National security?  Poppycock!

Bill:

You say, “You have no physical evidence.  What you have are hypotheses, and conjectures. We have debris.”  Yes, debris that is not only consistent with aircraft other than a 757, but was somehow providentially strategically placed around the lawn – which had no damage whatsoever.  “We have DNA.  The media, which I would trust to do the best they could to report the truth, agrees with the official story.”  Bolderdash!  Show me a single article in any reputable publication that states this categorically. “We have video evidence. We have experts who agree with us.”  So do we.  Tit-for-tat again.

You say, “Parts from the interior of the plane were found.”  As GeckO points out, you make this statement with not one shred of supporting evidence, either from an official report or any article or other media output.  And you do not provide the source for the quote you provided, so I have no way of knowing how reliable that quote is, or even from whom it came.

You say, “The dotted line depicts the path of planes landing at Ronald Regan Airport, an extremely busy airport. Having an on-site missile system to shoot down planes automatically would not be a smart idea.”  Maybe not, but they exist, and are supposed to be armed 24/7.  “Not to mention that the 757 approached at about 500 MPH, not enough time to make a decision, assuming that (i) missile batteries exist, (ii) they could be manually operated.”  And you say you worked there?  It just shows how little you knew about your own building.  There are five missile batteries, all of which are active 24/7, and are controlled automatically from an on-site “bunker” on the lowest sub-floor of the building.  There are people in the bunker, but the missile batteries are automatic.  Perhaps you did not have high enough clearance to be told this, but it came out in numerous news articles after the crash.

You say, “If this plot were true, and was discovered with PHYSICAL evidence, and statements from experts, and it all connected to the Republican Party, how long would it take for the Party to regain any thread of credibility?”  A long time.  But that is not the issue.  “You are accusing the "Plotters" of being both evil masterminds and complete idiots.”  No, I am accusing them of planning and executing what amounts to a new “Pearl Harbor” in order to advance their agenda.  However, with any such planned event, there will always be “mistakes” or “errors” that might lead to questions about “official stories.”  That is a calculated risk, and it is then all about damage control, dissembling, spin and outright lies.  “You are accusing of them flying something OTHER than a plane into the building, over one of the most densely populated areas in the region, when ANY random photograph showing anything other than a 757 heading for the Pentagon would destroy the plot.”  And yet not a single “random photograph” has appeared!  Coincidental, huh?  No, it’s not, because, again, they took a calculated risk that few people would be near enough to the Pentagon to have the time to figure out what was happening and snap a photo of a plane going over 450 mph, since it would take longer to set up the shot then it took the plane to hit the building.  Indeed, you yourself state that if the missile batteries were manually controlled, there might not be "enough time to make a decision" to shoot down the plane.  Yet you think that a person with a camera or cell camera would have had enough to time to figure out what was happening and snap a shot?  One or the other, please.

You ask, “There is no question that the Bush administration had some profit from 9/11. Could this have happened without the Pentagon attack, and only with the WTC attacks?”  The alleged idea was to strike at the three “pillars” of the U.S.: economic (as represented by the WTC), military (the Pentagon) and legislative (the Capitol, almost certainly the target of the fourth plane).  Could it have been accomplished solely with the WTC?  Perhaps.  But when you are going for the “big enchilada,” you build in “redundancy” for effect.

You ask, “If the attack involved a 757 flying into the Pentagon, why would the plotters use anything OTHER than a 757 to simulate this?”  That is a valid and interesting question.  It might be that by using a smaller aircraft, damage (and, perhaps, loss of life) would be somewhat minimized.  After all, the Bush Administration and its cronies had a greater interest in “preserving” the Pentagon than the WTC.

You ask, “If the plotters used a cruise missile, why did the plotters not have the official story be that terrorists had managed to steal a cruise missile and launch it?”  I am not certain I subscribe to the missile theory, though it is tempting and there is evidence for it.  However, once planes were flown into the WTC, it would have made little sense to make the “story” more complicated by bringing in the idea of stolen missiles: “the terrorists” had already crashed planes into the WTC; it made sense that they would “stick with” planes as their weapon of choice.

You ask, “If video footage existed of something other than a 757 hitting the Pentagon, why did nothing happen to those who may have seen it?”  Who says it didn’t?  Do you know anyone, much less everyone, who saw the original footage?  And who says something has to “happen” to them?  Threats are often good enough, especially when those threats are from the government and could (and often do) include threats to family and children.

You ask, “Would the plotters have been stupid enough to fly anything other than a 757 into the Pentagon over a busy freeway, with hundreds of witnesses?”  As long as it was identifiable as a commercial airliner of some sort (we are setting aside the “missile” theory here), it didn’t matter.  How many people can readily identify the difference between various sizes of planes, especially when it is right on top of them, going over 450 mph?  This is what I mean by “use some common sense.”

You say, “However, there were reports of bodies and personal effects being turned over to families of the deceased.”  I went to the link you offered, and found the article.  Yet no source is given for the actual claim that a body was found.  Consider two things.  First, the fireball was hot enough to disintegrate 80% of a 150-ton metal airplane – but it left human bodies intact?  Not likely.  Second, DNA is destroyed at temperatures as low as 150 degrees Fahrenheit.  Yet the fireball would have been almost 2,000 degrees, and the ensuing fires would most certainly have been over 451 degrees.  So how, exactly, did DNA evidence survive – especially from every person who died?

Again, a little common sense goes a long way.

Finally, something struck me about a comment made in that quote that Fitz provided.  The quote said something about a plane striking a building does not make a “cartoon cut-out” of itself; that there can be wing-folding and other physical differences that creates a different sized hole.  Uh….okay…so how do you explain the “cartoon cut-outs” made by both planes that hit the WTC?  That building was also steel and concrete and glass.  Yet both planes created holes that included the wings.  And even if there was some bizarre wing-folding at the Pentagon, surely the wings would still have caused some chipping and breaking in the façade?  Yet no such chipping or breakage occurred more than 60-75 feet from the impact zone.

Keep up the good work trying to convince me and others that the evidence matches the official story.

Peace.

Geck0,

I have read it. In fact I came across it in my 'googling' before you posted the URL and was unimpressed. Let me give you just a couple of examples why:

And he discusses many, if not all, of the things raised on other Pentagon/Flight 77 sites (and I've lost count of the number I've visited in the last week). It's a litany of conjecture and speculation, and lack of specialist knowledge in many places. I've just scanned through it again and quickly found one quote to illustrate the quality of his analysis (and please don't expect me to post every paragraph of the site with a comment on it):

"Next up is the photo to the right, which depicts ... uhhh, I have to be honest here -- I have no clue what it is supposed to be. Some kind of manifold or something. And it was discovered ... uhmm, somewhere in the Pentagon, I suppose, but that can't actually be determined from the photo. Obviously then it must be debris from Flight 77. To the left, jutting out prominently from a pile of indeterminate debris, and obviously better lit and in much sharper focus than other alleged interior shots of alleged aircraft debris, is what is claimed to be yet another component of a Boeing 757's apparently indestructible landing gear. Whatever."

This is not the approach or language of methodological analysis that experts would use. Is it? Come on, be honest. How many technical reports or analyses have you read that contain that sort of talk? It's just arrant nonsense, even if he's trying to be sarcastic.

I have just scanned maani's latest post (and will read it carefully shortly, as I always do) and have noticed he mentions a wooden table and book. I'll look at the photograph but I'll wager it is the same or similar to a photograph on 'your' Web site. I am sure I have seen similar photos of houses damaged in the Blitz. Does that mean the Blitz was a conspiracy theory? Of course not. (I'm being facetious, but actually that is the sort of 'logic' some people are using.) I'd say I would look for examples to show you, but I know it would not change your opinion.

If you look through the numerous 'conspiracy theory Web sites' -- and I'm sure I have not even scratched the surface so far -- there are so many 'conspiracy theories' (sometimes not even theories, just statements such as "impossible") to explain the same crash. Some of them I have encountered so far are:

- A large airliner, but not a 757.
- An executive jet.
- A 757 from American Airlines, but "someone" took over from Hani Hanjour on the final approach because he was a 'lousy pilot'.
- A variant of the above: the "someone" was doing it by remote control.
- A 757 or other large aircraft, piloted by remote control.
- A missile.
- Three missiles fired simultaneously at different angles into the Pentagon while a C-130, F-16 and other aircraft flew in the vicinity to distract the many people in the area.
- An aircraft hit the Pentagon, and a bomb (or more than one) was planted inside the building.

And so on.

I read words like "impossible" and "unbelievable" when some people refer to phenomena that are at odds with what they expect would have happened, or when the authors don't understand the phenomenon (the video stills is one example: to paraphrase "there is only one frame showing an aircraft, so the video MUST be fake". An un-burnt area of the building or other aspect of the crash is automatic proof that the crash was faked. Explosives or blasting experts and academics who study and model such effects may well have a scientific explanation.

Un-burnt wreckage? Remember when Concorde, fully laden with fuel and burning badly just after takeoff, crashed into a small hotel in a fireball in 2000? There were scorched and un-scorched bits of aircraft wreckage then, some with parts of the Air France logo discernable. Not a directly comparable crash (which is what I would expect 'conspiracy theorists' to retort: that fact making it, to paraphrase, "impossible in the case of the Pentagon".

Another speculation I have read is that the wreckage outside the Pentagon, and indeed inside the building, was planted. Read the interview of Mike Walter - as someone with media experience he said he made the conscious decision not to pick up the wreckage he saw as he made his way across to the Pentagon right after the impact, as he realised it was forensic evidence. But no doubt you have a theory to explain that too, parhaps along the lines of "There was some wreckage but other wreckage was planted afterwards".

And so the theories go on.