Popular Mechanics Attempts to Discredit 9/11 "Conspiracy Theorists"

In the March 2005 issue of the magazine Popular Mechanics, an article has been constructed to "debunk conspiracy theorists" of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

However, the article, not surprisingly, refrains from reporting on the real evidence and focuses solely on the obvious hoaxes and lies surrounding the attacks.

In an attempt to discredit all 9/11 researchers, the article debunks obvious hoaxes and exaggerations such as a pod on the belly of the airliners, the idea that Flight 175 had no windows, the idea that no jet hit the Pentagon, and the fact that some windows at the Pentagon remained intact.

At the same time, the article completely avoids the evidence that surrounds the true 9/11 skepticism. It fails to report on the warnings from U.S. allies about the attacks, the wargames in Virginia on 9/11, the NORAD "live fly" exercises on 9/11, the fighter planes which were sent the wrong way from Norfolk, the large shares of American and United Airlines stock traded only days before 9/11, and the fact that the Pentagon was struck in the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector.

The Popular Mechanics article boldly asserts that all "9/11 conspiracy theorists" believe the obvious fakes and even goes as far as to accuse those who question the government's explanation of the attacks of disgracing "the memories of the thousands who died that day."

Unfortunately, the article seems to focus on the shady 9/11 websites to make it appear as though the entire idea of 9/11 complicity is all a big joke concocted by storytellers.

Disinformation such as "pods on planes," "no plane hit the Pentagon," "cellphones can't be used in airplanes," "there was no plane at the North Tower," and "there was no plane in Pennsylvania," have stained the image of those who simply desire the truth about 9/11.

Websites such as thewebfairy.com, 911hoax.com, 911closeup.com, physics911.org, reopen911.org, 911skeptics.blogspot.com, rense.com, 911sharethetruth.com, thoughtcrimenews.com/wtc.htm, leftgatekeepers.com, warfolly.com, and 911-strike.com, among others, have unfortunately severely damaged the credibility of the true researchers.

The article also failed to mention that the respectable 9/11 websites which support the idea of complicity have all debunked the hoaxes which it claims these people believe.

If the idea of 9/11 complicity is ever to be taken seriously by the masses, people must stop buying into obvious hoaxes and disinformation and focus solely on the true facts.

 

I heard about this two weeks ago. Jim Hoffman (911research.wtc7.net/ ) and Joel Skousen (www.worldaffairsbrief.com) nicely debunked this fradulent hit piece, which conveniently ignored several key areas of the 9/11 attacks.

 

http://www.rense.com/general62/deun.htm

Debunking The Debunkers​

​

By Joel Skousen
World Affairs Brief - c. 2005 Joel Skousen
Partial quotations with attribution permitted.
Cite source as World Affairs Brief
http://www.worldaffairsbrief.com
2-14-5​

In every major conspiracy to cover up government criminal activity, agents of change or naïve "experts" have been hired by the establishment media to debunk conspiracy theories and facts. Walter Cronkite was trotted out of retirement to host a PBS documentary debunking the conspiracy facts surrounding the assassination of JFK (which was hardly convincing). In like manner, other programs have been produced at great expense to discredit the charges of government cover-ups in the Vince Foster and Ron Brown murders, the downing of TWA 800 by a missile, and the OKC bombing of the Murrah building.

The professional debunkers use four primary tactics to accomplish their propaganda feats:

1) They refuse to mention, much less attempt to disprove, the most irrefutable and damaging evidence.

2) They take great delight in debunking only those conspiracy theories that are the weakest or that are planted by other government sympathizers to help discredit the more credible conspiracy facts. This is what is referred to as a "straw man" argument, where a weak or false argument is set up so that it can easily be knocked down.

3) They only select "experts" who agree with the official conclusion.

4) They snicker at or mock anyone who believes that government engages in criminal behavior or covers up crimes in collusion with judges, investigators, prosecutors, media heads, and hand-picked commissions. Worse, they label dissenters as unpatriotic or mentally imbalanced.

So it is with the latest government attempt to debunk the evidence of government collusion in the 9/11 attacks. For over a decade now, the PTB have used an odd vehicle to do their debunking on a variety of issues-Popular Mechanics Magazine (a Hearst publication). I suppose they are targeting the back-yard mechanic and auto-enthusiast crowd, who are often prone to accepting conspiracy facts and theories.

In the March 2005 issue, PM magazine singled out 16 issues or claims of the 9/11 skeptics that point to government collusion and systematically attempted to debunk each one. Of the 16, most missed the mark and almost half were straw men arguments-either ridiculous arguments that few conspiracists believed or restatements of the arguments that were highly distorted so as to make them look weaker than they really were. PM took a lot of pot shots at conspiracy buffs, saying that those "who peddle fantasies that this country encouraged, permitted or actually carried out the attacks are libeling the truth - and disgracing the memories of the thousands who died that day."

That would be true only if there was no basis in fact for these controversies. I am one of those who claim there are factual arguments pointing to conspiracy, and that truth is not served by taking cheap shots at those who see gaping flaws in the government story-especially when you don't address the really tough questions in your rebuttal. Here is a quick run down of the claims (some lumped together) and why PM's debunking was superficial and distorted:

1) The bulging projection (pod) visible on the bottom of Flight 175 as it struck the south tower

If the bulge is real, critics claim it means the aircraft was modified for the attack, which could not have been done by hijackers. PM says the anomaly was simply the bulging faring under each wing root which hides the landing gear. This is a possibility since the bulge viewed on all pictures of Flight 175 is in the same location as the landing gear faring. However, the bulge is significantly bigger than the actual faring, and casts a shadow on the bottom of the aircraft. The real landing gear faring is flush with the bottom of the plane and could not cast a shadow on that area.

Besides, I talked to Boeing about the bulge and a woman spokesperson admitted that Boeing had studied the bulge and concluded, "It wasn't modified by Boeing." She didn't deny the bulge wasn't there, nor did she try to persuade me it was the landing gear faring. However, I don't have an answer for what the purpose of the modification might have been.

Later PM turns a related claim by a witness (that there were no windows on this aircraft) into a major issue to debunked. This was a straw man issue that was easily debunked with a photo of the plane's debris, with windows. This was never a credible issue with most conspiracy theorists.

2) The "stand down" order to stop intervention against the hijackers

PM cites the existence of a few scrambled jets as proof there was no "stand down" order given. This is a straw argument because key facts are omitted. There is other evidence to show that these fighters were called out purposely from bases too distant to make the intercepts-and never engaged afterburners for extra speed, indicating no sincere attempt to intercept. I received an email from one of the tower operators at McGuire AFB telling me he had received a call from the base commander ordering him to shut down military flight ops and not let fighter-interceptors take off. This was before the general shut down of the air traffic system by the FAA. This indicates that aircraft closer to the hijacked planes were told to stand down.

There are two witnesses (a general and a Congressman) who said VP Dick Cheney was operating under stand-down orders, except as pertaining to Flight 93 in Pennsylvania. PM tried to make the case that NORAD had never vigorously followed standing orders to intercept hijacked aircraft, and that their high definition radars were all pointed outside the US boundaries (like a doughnut). Neither is true. There were dozens of intercepts in the two years prior to 9/11 (PM said there was only one) and NORAD has complete radar coverage within the US.

PM also presented disinformation when it claimed that if an airliner turns off its transponder, the controller can no longer distinguish the aircraft from thousand of other smaller blips on his screen. Not so. First, there aren't thousands of unlabeled blips on the screen in any given sector, and second, the actual radar return is still on the screen at the same approximate position of the transponder data symbol, making it easier to acquire.

PM neglected to mention the more powerful evidences of cover-up and collusion here, including the FAA's destruction of the tape recording of air traffic controllers' description of the events, the FAA refusing to turn over tape recordings of the ATC controllers talking to the pilots when the hijackings were declared, and the discrepancies between the claims of when the FAA supposedly notified NORAD.

3) Explosives brought down the twin towers (puff of dust, etc.)

This is only a partial straw man argument. There is significant evidence that the aircraft impacts did not cause the collapse, but PM only discussed the fire and explosive claims that were easily explained away. An early claim making the rounds was that the towers couldn't have collapsed since fuel doesn't burn hot enough to melt steel. PM correctly pointed out, as I have also in my briefs, that steel trusses supporting the floor system only need be heated to the point of sagging-not melting-in order to give way.

Early conspiracists claimed that the puffs of smoke coming out of the windows as each floor pancaked down on another were evidence of demolition charges. Once again, PM correctly pointed out that the crushing of sheet rock interiors can cause this. I was never convinced of controlled demolition myself, since it would have required months of prep work inside the building, unbeknownst to all the tenants.

But conspicuously absent from the PM arguments was the blockbuster evidence that the 42 main pillars in the central core of the building had been taken down by a combination of explosives and thermite charges-which can melt steel like butter. The head of the company removing the debris from the WTC said in an interview that there were large pools of hot molten steel in the lowest basement where the main support pillars had stood. No expert has claimed that either fuel or burning debris falling into an oxygen starved basement would have been capable of creating the huge quantity of concentrated heat needed to melt 42 huge pillars with two-foot-thick steel walls. Numerous witnesses and fire fighters heard large explosions in the lower section of the building just prior to the collapse. One video shot of the south WTC (whose central core was not even damaged by Flight 175) gives clear evidence of the central core being collapsed prior to the general collapse: the center mounted TV towers started descending downward well prior to the outer section of the building. PM was silent on these major anomalies, and so was the 9/11 Commission, which indicates they were avoiding the tough issues.

PM did attempt some sleight of hand, with some remarks by a paid "expert" trying to explain away the symmetrical and absolutely vertical collapse of WTC building #7 that was only slightly damaged on one side. A video of the collapse does show the telltale signs of explosive demolition on each floor-which would have been impossible if the building was heeling over toward the damaged side.

4) The Pentagon crash

PM discussed the common arguments against the official version: the penetration hole was too small; there was not enough debris outside; windows close to the impact were still intact. The window argument was a straw man with an easy explanation-they were reinforced security glass. The issues of the penetration hole and the lack of large pieces of debris simply do not jive with the official story, but they are explainable if you include the parking lot video evidence that shows a huge white explosion at impact. This cannot happen with an aircraft laden only with fuel. It can only happen in the presence of high explosives. Some witnesses saw a smaller aircraft, others saw the Boeing. One or two saw and heard a missile launch. Could all three have been present? I think so.

There are credible witnesses who saw many small pieces of aluminum scattered about, plus a few larger pieces. If the larger Boeing was blasted apart at impact with high explosives it would explain the shower of aluminum shards that littered the road. The Pentagon parking lot video tape (which strangely fails to show a large Boeing aircraft) does show a huge white explosion-the unique sign of high explosives. An aircraft laden only with fuel gives off the red and black signature only-nothing white or bright. If the Boeing was laced with explosives, it would also explain why the wings didn't totally penetrate the structure. I have checked the photographs of major engine and landing gear pieces among the wreckage and they do match the Boeing aircraft, so I do think a Boeing hit the Pentagon. But I am not buying PM's statement (given without any evidence or photos) that a landing gear was responsible for the 12-foot round hole that penetrated three rings of the Pentagon. The landing gear is a long, gangly affair, and it didn't even make it through the first ring, according to photos I have seen. Only a missile could have penetrated that far. Was a missile on the smaller jet seen by witnesses used to prep the hardened Pentagon façade?

PM's glib explanations did not do justice to the multiple possibilities. Besides, if the government version is true, why is the FBI refusing to turn over the two video surveillance tapes (one from a gas station and one from a hotel) that would show what really happened?

5) Flight 93 was shot down by an F-16

PM discussed all the key issues: a small white private jet that was shadowing the flight; engine parts apart from the main wreckage; debris two miles away in Indian Lake; and the purported identity of the F-16 pilot. But in each case, it falsified the evidence by quoting erroneous, distorted or planted theories by government experts.

For example, while it finally acknowledged the presence of a white unmarked jet, it claimed it was a private jet flying at 30,000 feet, asked to descend from high altitude and check out the crash. This was impossible as witnesses saw the plane before the crash. PM even claimed to have talked to the company (which conveniently didn't want to be named) that owned the jet. But this is at variance with prior admission by a leasing company that said the jet was theirs and was leased to the government (the CIA often uses white unmarked jets).

This story by PM was a total fabrication. I have listened to the private transcripts of the radio talk between Cleveland Center and all the other airliners controlled by ATC in that sector (including Flight 93). Even the 9/11 commission refused to address this private tape, which was recorded by one private jet that was in the area, and is still available on the internet. Nowhere in that transcript is any private aircraft asked by Cleveland Center to follow or descend with Flight 93. In fact, the one airliner that was closest to Flight 93 was asked by Cleveland Center to verify visually the condition of Flight 93 after the Center and all other aircraft on that frequency heard the pilot of the aircraft announce that "there was a bomb on board." The aircraft acknowledged seeing Flight 93 in the distance and then suddenly announced that he observed an explosion. This was while Flight 93 was at altitude, confirming reports from ATC controllers who had vectored an F-16 to Flight 93, and witnesses who saw the shoot down from the ground.

It also explains why one of the engines was found miles away. PM tried to divert its readers from the issue by telling about another part of the engine found about 300 meters from the crash site-which is explainable, if you don't address the issue of the other engine. Many witnesses saw streams of papers, luggage and even body parts falling some distance from the crash site. PM blamed this on an updraft-but luggage and body parts don't blow two miles away in a gentle breeze.

Lastly, the issue on the identity of the pilot of the F-16 (a Major Gibbons) is problematic. The source is a retired Colonel Donn de Grand-Pre, who makes many claims about hobnobbing with big wigs in Washington that I find uncredible and suspicious. He claims he was at an awards ceremony in North Dakota when Major Gibbons was supposedly awarded a medal for shooting down Flight 93. I always found this a little fantastic. Why would the government give out a public award for something they were trying to keep secret? The government still doesn't admit to shooting down Flight 93, let alone disclose who did it. Of course, if they did allow a private awards ceremony, it would explain why they would have Major Gibbons deny it. While PM's debunking of the Gibbons story may be true (they claim he was using his F-16 to pick up a big-wig in Montana), their explanation was also a bit fantastic: people have to be trained in ejection seat procedures prior to flying in a high performance jet.

 

So Rat, This is "nicely debunking" PM? Could your standards possibly be any lower? Aren't you embarrassed to pass of this trash as a serious rebuttal?

I recieved an email from a guy telling me he heard someone say that 9/11 was plotted by alcoholic lesbians from Antigua. I guess I have now "nicely debunked" the standard theory too.

 

Poinbreak, you never offer any substance to your posts, how about going to your websites and trying to legitamately argue Pressed Rat and Lucifer Sam's Post, Instead you just make a stupid, lame joke at the fact that they are using their heads and questioning what goes on around them, your pathetic...

Peace and Love,
Dan

 

PB - do you even know who Joel Skousen is?

I am sure you automatically assume that anyone who questions the actions and motives of the federal government is a liberal and a "conspiracy theorist," which Joel Skousen is not.

Joel Skousen is a political scientist and Constitutional scholar, and he owns his own security systems company. He is also a former fighter pilot with the US Airforce.

You can read about him and his background here:

http://www.joelskousen.com/About/about.html

I see nothing wrong with that quote provided. Do you think Skousen made it up or something? Is it wrong to gather information based on firsthand accounts? Is it only credible if it's coming from the mouth of Sean Hannity, or the pages of a Christopher Hitchens piece?

Is investigative research "wrong" to you?

Is questioning the norms that are fed to us "wrong?"

 

Hipster, there is absolutely nothing I can link to or post which Rat wouldn't flippantly reject, almost 99% of the time without reading it. By definition, anything which contradicts his conspiracies is part of the conspiracy. Thus all I can do is point out logical fallacies.

And how much would those credentials mean if he didn't believe your conspiracies? NOTHING.

Holy fuck this is naive. Do you honestly believe that people are never dishonest unless they are part of the Bilderburg global conspiracy? You are exactly the kind of person that these theories are designed for.

 

Not all of this is necessarily disinformation.

I myself am not sold on the plane pod theory, and I have come to believe that this theory does more to hinder, versus help those attempting to help expose the truth behind 9/11.

I am, however, sold that no plane crashed into the Pentagon.

I simply find it hard to swallow that a jetliner could slam into the Pentagon, leaving hardly any discernable wreckage behind. (Aside from in one rather suspicious photo, that very well could have been doctored.) Also, the damage to the face of the Pentagon (that is before the outer ring collapsed) is inconsistent with the damage that would be caused by a 757.

And there is still no explanation for the hole punched through the C-ring of the Pentagon, piercing a total of SIX steel-reinforced concrete walls.

PM says that the hole was the result of the landing gear punching through the walls, which is a blatant lie. There is no way landing gear could create that kind of damage by punching through three rings (six outer, steel-reinforced concrete walls) of the Pentagon.

What hit the Pentagon was clearly a missile or UAV (ie: Global Hawk) packed with explosives. Several eyewitnesses described seeing and/or hearing what was believed to be a missile. The bulk of those who reported a missile were members, or ex-members, of the US miltary.

As far as Flight 93 -- it was shot down, as debris was scattered over several miles. Couple this with the numerous eyewitness accounts of people actually witnessing the plane being shot down. Even the mayor of Shanksville isn't accepting the official story of what happened....

http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/9-11_mysteries.html

I've never heard the one about no plane being at the North Tower.

I don't know what to think about the cell phone calls, but here is what Michel Chossudovsky had to say about it....

http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html

 

Rense has severely damaged the credibility of the "true" researchers! Yet Rat follows that post with a Rense article and neither of you seem to catch on.

 

I don't see how you can buy the "no Boeing" theory when there were hundreds of eyewitnesses who saw the plane from I-395, 100 witness testimonies claiming to have seen a plane hit the Pentagon have been compiled in a pamphlet published by Penny Schoner, and there are pictures from the wreckage site which actually show debris from a 757. Now, you say these photos could be doctored, but you have no proof, so that doesn't really hold up.

Many people also point to the fact that surveillance footage was taken by the government to "hide what really happened." However, workers at a nearby hotel did get to see their film (prior to its impoundment) and did not report seeing anything other than a plane hitting the Pentagon. Plus, the fact that the footage was taken only works in the hands of the government because it fuels speculation and makes the conspiracy theorists look like fools. It should be a clue that virtually every anti-conspiracy argument debunks the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory to attempt to debunk all of the arguments surrounding 9/11.

Most of the specualtion about the Pentagon attack stems from Thierry Meyssan's book, The Horrible Fraud, which was written in Paris where no actual observations of the attack could be made. This fact alone doesn't mean that the book's arguments are all false, but it makes me wonder.

Here is a good article debunking the Pentagon myth:
http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/pentagontrap.html

Here is a list of eyewitness testimonies and press reports about the Pentagon attack:
http://911research.wtc7.net/pentagon/evidence/witnesses/bart.html

Another article debunking the "no plane" theory:
http://www.911review.com/errors/pentagon/index.html

I never said that the plane wasn't shot down. The crazy theory that I said was garbage is one where some people actually think that there was no plane that crashed/was shot down in Pennsylvania. I don't know how they get that one.

This is the worst one of all. A few people actually think that the plane crash at the North Tower was faked by a giant hologram. Haha.

Well consider these facts:

• Airplanes have Airphones which DO work.

• The loved ones who received the calls would surely know that it wasn't their spouse/family member on the other end.

You also have to consider the fact that the government using this argument to debunk conspiracy theorists is a great way to create a divide between the families of the victims and the researchers. I'm sure the government would take advantage of that.

Actually, I did catch on... shows how little you know.

However, not all of the information on Rense is bad. The site publishes some good material and some red herrings. Unfortunately, Rense does publish some articles and arguments based solely on outlandish claims and blurry, questionable photos that are only sourced to other conspiracy-related websites.

While Rense does publish good material, it has promoted red herrings and therefore can be considered one of the sources hurting the credibility of 9/11 researchers.

 

HUNDREDS of eyewitnesses? I think you might be exaggerating a bit. Yes, a good majority of people reported that they saw a 757 crash into the Pentagon. However, a number of people reported something other than a 757 crash into the Pentagon, which might explain why there was no discernable wreckage indicative of a Boeing (aside from that one picture), nor damage to the Pentagon indicative of a 757 collision. I am not going to throw this evidence out just because of eyewitness accounts, who caught the incident as it unfolded within a split second's time, when there are also dozens of other people who claimed otherwise. I believe in piecing ALL the information together, examining every aspect.

Many of the people who did report seeing a Boeing, saw it just as it was hitting the face of the building, or out of the corner of their eye. Let's also consider the object's speed (which has to have slammed into the building at several hundred MPH). Most people who saw anything at all, likely only saw for a second or two -- not for a minute or two.

Again, most of the people who reported seeing/hearing something other than a Boeing were mostly ex-military personnel, who have experience with missiles and/or UAV's.

I am not going to discredit the people who claimed to see something that was not a Boeing, especially when photographic evidence doesn’t even support the official story that a Boeing crashed into the Pentagon.

The fact is, there are UAV’s that can resemble airplanes, especially if they are travelling at a high enough speed. This might be why some people reported seeing a plane that was smaller than a 757. This might be why some people described it as appearing to be a commuter plane or a fighter jet.

And if a 757 really did hit the Pentagon, as the government claims, why haven’t we seen any REAL footage to this date? All we have seen is a measly, grainy, two second piece of footage recorded from the parking lot gates.

I don't buy the theory that it is to fuel speculation, because that only draws even more attention to the whole of 9/11 and the rest of the shadowy occurances surrounding this day. It would be much easier for them to just come out and disprove all the conspiracy theorists by showing the plane hitting the building.

And you still have not answered how a Boeing can pierce through SIX steel-reinforced concrete walls, without breaking apart, piercing a hole through the inner wall of the C-ring of the Pentagon. THE C-RING!!! Not just the A-ring and B-ring.

What about the firefighters who reported smelling cordite when they arrived on scene?

What about the engine rotor photographed outside of the Pentagon, which a spokesperson from Rolls Royce -- the makers of the 757 engine -- said was NOT from a Boeing 757? If it’s not from a Boeing 757, what is it from?

Sorry, but that lone picture of plane debris is highly suspect, seeing as that it's the only piece of wreckage photographed suggesting a Boeing at all. It's also funny that one particular picture happens to capture the airline's trademark colors. Of course I have no way to prove or disprove it either way, so I am acting on a cumulation of everything I have gathered since I began my research into 9/11 almost 2 years ago.

Meyssan was the first to suggest the "no Boeing" theory, but his theories are very different from what is commonly believed now among those questioning the "official" story. Frankly, I found his book to be crap. He said nothing about a missile or a UAV slamming into the building, rather he suggested it was a truck bomb, which is ludicrous, and was thrown out the window in 2002.

Well, that is one theory among many. I have read all this before, as well as many other articles regarding the Pentagon attack.

I have read all of the eyewitness accounts already.

Rense is the best alternative website on the internet, bar none.

Rense leaves it up to his viewers to come to their own conclusions. Yes, he does post lots of theories from third-party sources, and there is nothing wrong with that. All conspiracies have theories, and Rense.com offers an outlet for these theories. You're not supposed to believe everything you read because you're supposed to think for yourself and come to your own conclusions. Only a narrow-minded person would shun the 9/11 Truth Movement because of what they read on Rense.

Bullocks. Then why has your buddy Ruppert appeared on Rense's show multiple times? Did it hurt his credibility?

 

lol, great signature pic Pressed_Rat, funny.

 

Well, when considering that a pamphlet of 100 witness testimonies has been made and the fact that the pamphlet obviously does not contain the testimonies of every person who claimed to have seen a Boeing hit the Pentagon, it's easy to see that there are indeed hundreds of witness who claim to have seen a Boeing.

Regardless of the exact number of people who claimed they saw a Boeing, this number far exceeds those who claim to have seen a missile/UAV/whatever.

That's not true. Witnesses have even claimed to have read "American Airlines" on the jet. Obviously, if they could tell what airline the jet was from, they could easily tell that it was indeed a jet and not a missile/UAV. Other who couldn't tell that the airliner was an American Airlines jet still claimed to have seen the red and blue stripes.

James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst, said, "The sight of the 757 diving in at an unrecoverable angle is frozen in my memory..." He too likely knows what he is talking about.

It should be known that a common tactic used to support the "no Boeing" theory is to cite Mike Walter's quote which reads, "I mean it was like a cruise missile with wings. It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon."

However, the first part of his quote is consistenly left out. It reads, "I looked out my window and I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. And I thought, 'This doesn't add up, it's really low.'"

So what? What photographic evidence supports the theory that a missile/UAV crashed into the Pentagon?

It should be noted that most of the people claiming to have seen a smaller commuter plane were considerable distances from the object in question.

Fueling speculation about the Pentagon attacks makes it that much easier to disprove the conspiracy theorists. There would be conspiracy theorists regardless if there was any disagreement over the Pentagon attack, so why would they release the footage? Besides, I already stated that workers at one of the gas stations that caught the attack on film reported seeing nothing other than an airliner strike the Pentagon.

Allow me to quote 9-11 review for this one:

"This argument is based on a misunderstanding of the Pentagon's design. In fact, the light-wells between the C- and D-ring and D- and E-ring are only three stories deep. The first and second stories span the distance between the Pentagon's facade and the punctured C-ring wall, which faces a ground-level courtyard. There are no masonry walls in this space, only load-bearing columns. Thus it would be possible for an aircraft part that breached the facade to travel through this area on the ground floor, miss the columns, and puncture the C-ring wall withough having encountering anything more than unsubstantial gypsum walls and furniture in-between."

I'm sorry, but this explaantion sounds much more logical than claiming that a missile/UAV MUST have hit the Pentagon.

So what? Firefighters at the Pentagon also reported seeing a Boeing 757 strike the Pentagon.

Once again, it is possible (I'm not saying this is true) that pieces like this could have been planted to create even more suspicion about the attack. Regardless, this piece of "evidence" surely does not conclude that a missile/UAV struck the Pentagon.

I'll agree that the picture is suspect, and I will once again suggest that it was (possibly, who knows) created to stir up more speculation.

There are pictures from inside the Pentagon which also show debris which appear to be from an airliner.







There are more of those pictures, too.

I never said that Rense was a terrible website. In fact, I strictly said that "Rense does publish good material," so don't get out-of-whack here.

Plus, you act as though I said that posting theories from third-party sources is a bad thing when I never said anything of the kind. I said that posting "articles and arguments based solely on outlandish claims and blurry, questionable photos that are only sourced to other conspiracy-related websites" is not very reliable.

Haha, my buddy? Pff... so I think that Ruppert is the most reliable source on the controversy surrounding 9/11. So what? After all, he's a published author and has a newsletter read by 40 members of congress and professors at 30 universities around the world. Him being a former narcotics investigator with the LAPD doesn't hurt, either.

Just because Michael Ruppert has been on Rense's show certainly doesn't mean that he believes a missile/UAV struck the Pentagon... or that there's life on Mars, UFO's visiting us nightly, or that Bigfoot lives in his backyard.

 

Well, again... the number of eyewitnesses that saw a Boeing crash into the Pentagon doesn't really mean a whole heck of a lot to me, as I have no way of proving the validity of each quote. The same can be said for some of the handful of people that claimed to see something other than a Boeing for that matter.

Therefore, I don't really rely all that much on eyewitness accounts, especially those originating from over the internet or any other unknown source, when it could just as well be hearsay or concocted by somebody with their own personal agenda to sway people's opinions, to match the way they see fit.

Also, keep in mind that most of the sufficienty documented quotes from eyewitnesses originated from "official sources," so it's likely there is going to be a bias as to which eyewitness accounts are published and which ones aren't.

I would much rather go by the hard evidence (or lack thereof), unlike you and Jim Hoffman of 911research, who place much more emphasis on eyewitness accounts in relation to the attack on the Pentagon.

But even Hoffman has no explanation for the lack of debris and damage to the face of the Pentagon, directly following the impact.

All I know is that if a Boeing hit the Pentagon, the Pentagon lawn would be littered with pieces of wing, tail, fuselage, landing gear, engines, etc..

Even the planes that slammed into the twin towers at 300+ MPH littered the streets below with wreckage.

I saw none of this with the Pentagon footage. I saw one piece of what is supposedly part of the plane's mangled facade, and that is it.

Again, I am not saying your theory is wrong, but neither is mine. Theories can be neither right or wrong because they are just that: theories. Your theory that a Boeing hit the Pentagon is no better than my theory that a Boeing did not hit the Pentagon, because it has not been adequately proven either way.

All I know is that after seeing Dave vonKleist's 911 In Plane Site -- which is easily the most popular of the independent 9/11 documentaries -- there is no way -- at least in my mind -- that a 757 could have crashed into the Pentagon.

But again, this is simply the conclusion I have come to, and I don't expect you to agree with me.

Again, when it comes to "eyewitness accounts," you encounter a lot of hearsay. It's hearsay that just does not hold up to the photographic evidence.... at least in my opinion.

A UAV can easily be painted and decaled to resemble an American Airlines jet. As a matter of fact, it only seems logical that if a UAV was involved, it would be made to look as much like an American Airlines as possible.

Well, James S. Robbins is also a pro-Bush neocon who writes for the National Standard, pushing pro-war propaganda, so it's not any surprise that is what he claimed to see that morning.

Ok. Well, that's one of the quotes.

Lack of debris.

Lack of damage to the Pentagon (before the outer wall collapsed), or a hole big enough to swallow a 757, while leaving no discernable wreckage on the lawn.

Lack of damage to the Pentagon lawn.

Undamaged wire spools in front of the point of impact.

Engine rotor compatible (at least in appearance and size) to that of an unmanned air vehicle, such as the Global Hawk or Predator. (You say, "Well what if it was planted?" Well, what if it wasn't?)

The C-ring "punch out."

Where does it say this? Does it give the location of each person and where they were standing at the time?

First, you said it was the workers at the neighboring hotel. Now it's the gas station?

Which one is it?

To an untrained eye, it's easy to look at grainy camera footage, thinking that what you are seeing is a 757, especially if that is the prevailing scenario given of what happened.

I never heard the story of people at the hotel/gas station viewing this footage before the tape was confiscated by the FBI, just minutes after the crash. Do you have any links for this?

It is a possibility that could be a reason for the C-ring punch out, though there is nothing to prove it was caused by an airplane or its engine or landing gear, either.

Plus, this is only one person's theory: Jim Hoffman's. At least this is where the theory originated, anyway. Certainly Hoffman has the credentials to make him a credible 9/11 researcher, but that doesn't mean I am going to agree with everything he claims -- just like I don't agree with everything Ruppert claims.

Sure, anything is possible. It's just as possible that it wasn't planted.

If it wasn't planted, and that is not the engine rotor from a Boeing 757, then what is it? Do you think it's something they had hung on one of the walls inside one of the offices inside the Pentagon, as a decoration?

Possibly. I cannot prove or disprove it either way.

I don't know if that is that debris from a Boeing or not. I am not a plane expert. It could just as well be the debris from a Global Hawk or Predator UAV as far as I am concerned.

Again, we are all entitled to believe what we want. But until I see some real footage of a Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon, it's going to take an awful lot to convince me this is what really happened.

 

I swear to god...what passes for "evidence" with some people is truly pathetic. Let's employ Occam's Razor here. What seems more likely:

1) A plane actually did hit the Pentagon, as all the reports, evidence, and eyewitness accounts suggest.

2) The plane in question mysteriously disappeared from the face of the earth. Coincidentally, a missile launched by...umm, the Pentagon...struck the Pentagon at approximately the same time. They attacked their own facility and got their own workers killed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever, as there was no possible way that they would stand to gain by doing so. The evidence? A few firefighters smelled camphor at the Pentagon.

 

We all saw the planes hit the towers. Pieces did not break off and fall down. The whole plane went in and was swalled up by the building. We DID see plenty of stuff come flying out the other side, something that obviously couldn't happen at the Pentagon. I think you need to go back and reinvent another excuse or just quietly abandon this logic.

Yes, but it was totally dishonest and deliberately misleading. If someone deliberately misquotes and misleads do you just keep reading, unfazed?

 

For the first time ever, I have to agree with Pointbreak.

The fact that there was little to no debris on the lawn does little for the "no Boeing" case. What most "no Boeing" advocates always seem to forget is that there was debris outside of the Pentagon... all over the South parking lot and the heliport. In reality, the Pentagon lawn isn't even all that close to the Pentagon. It is made to appear so through the use of telephoto foreshortening. So, it shouldn't surprise people to learn that there weren't "pieces of wing, tail, fuselage, landing gear, engines, etc." all over the lawn.

As far as the misleading quote goes, Pointbreak's right. I don't think I'd trust a source which deliberately tampers with the evidence to support its case.

Also, there is one big issue I'd like for you to explain to me, Pressed_Rat. Why in the WORLD would the government be foolish enough to use a missile/UAV to strike the Pentagon and risk being caught? Why would the government risk hundreds of people seeing a missile or something that was not a jet strike the Pentagon? That could seal their fate. I don't think they're that stupid. Could you explain your reasoning?

 

I'd like an answer to this too, Pressed Rat. Furthermore, I'd like to hear your reason as to why the government would attack its own facility at all...especially since the people in charge of the missiles are the same people WHO WORK IN THE PENTAGON.

 

http://www.freedomfiles.org/war/pentagon.htm

compeling but..

After 10 minutes research i am going with a plane hit the Penatgon

http://www.geoffmetcalf.com/pentagon/pentagon-email_20020316.html

http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm

 

And why would they hit the WTC with jets and then go to all that trouble to build an AA 737 replica UAV to hit the Pentagon? Why aren't regular jets good enough for the pentagon?

Do you honestly expect us to believe you wouldn't reject any footage released as "fabricated"? You say you want footage, but when footage is provided you reject it. You want wreckage but when you see wreckage you reject it. You reject witnesses (because you "can't prove the validity of each quote"!). You ignore deliberate deceptions by the conspiracy theory proponents.

You know what else looks like an American Airlines jet? A whole lot like a AA jet? An AA jet.

But lets ignore that. It could have been a global hawk or a predator. Well, a Global Hawk weighs about 26,000 pounds. A predator weighs about 2,000 pounds. A 757 weighs about 220,000 pounds. So saying that a predator could be made to look like something that weighs about 100 times as much is a bit ridiculous.

But how about that global hawk? It is about 44 ft by 116ft . A 757 is about 178 feet by 124 feet. That means some engineers down at the skunkworks turned a global hawk into a convincing replica of a plane which is nearly ten times heavier, four times longer, and 50% wider. How that could fly on a global hawk engine is a bit of a mystery. And how many engineers and builders would be required for such a massive custom job? It must take hundreds, if not thousands of experienced people to build a standard spec 757 using off the shelf components and readily available parts from established suppliers and subcontractors.