Pentagon Paradox
Discussion
Now I havent checked the validity of this (yes, I know I should have before posting) but just received the following URL in my email:
www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main
Certainly makes interesting viewing.
Thoughts from those more informed than I?
www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main
Certainly makes interesting viewing.
Thoughts from those more informed than I?
I actually believe there is some truth to this matter. I read "The New Pearl Harbor: Disturbing Questions About the Bush Administration and 9/11" and it's littered with unanswered questions e.g. where did the plane go when it crashed etc, how did the FBI get there in 2 minutes???...fascinating read if you are the kind of person that does not believe everything the government tells you!!
www.csicop.org/hoaxwatch/
CSICOP Tracks Misinformation and Hoaxes in the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks
NOTE to visitors outside of the United States: all numeric dates given on this site are written in the American custom of Month/Day/Year. Hence "9/11/01" should not be understood as referring to the ninth day of November, 2001, but rather the eleventh day of September, 2001.
New items (5/24/02)
L’Effroyable Auteur
President of the French leftist organization Reseau Voltaire, Thierry Meyssan, is rising to world-wide recognition as the auteur one of France’s best-selling books: L’Effroyable Imposture (The Frightening Deception). Meyssan claims that the destruction at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was not caused by the impact of hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, but rather a truck bomb. He alleges that the U.S. government covered up this fact from the world as part of a larger scheme by the U.S military-industrial complex to covertly orchestrate the September 11th massacres in order to justify the campaign in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
According to an April 3, 2002, commentary in the Guardian (UK), the French daily Liberation cited weekly sales of L’Effroyable Imposture at 100,000 copies. Although sales have been brisk, it is uncertain how many French readers actually buy into Meyssan’s claims. He jump-started the book’s popularity in an appearance on the French TV infotainment program “Tout le Monde en Parle” (“Everybody’s Talking About It”). However, the more respectable French media have been unforgiving in their criticism. According to the weekly journal Le Nouvel Observateur, “The theory suits everyone - there are no Islamic extremists and everyone is happy. It eliminates reality.” Liberation renamed the book “A Frightening Confidence Trick” and called it “a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation.”
I have not read the book myself (At the time of this writing I am waiting for an English translation of the book--expected from the publisher, Carnot, before the end of May 2002). Those who are, like myself, "French-challenged" can find an English-language synopsis of Meyssan’s arguments on a web page titled “Pentagon: Hunt the Boeing and Test Your Perceptions!” (Link: www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm).
The Web page suggests that an early, misinformed report by the Associated Press was the true explanation and that subsequent corrections are actually part of a cover up:
“As everyone knows, on 11 September, less than an hour after the attack on the World Trade Centre [sic], an airplane collided with the Pentagon. The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused the explosion. The Pentagon quickly denied this. The official US government version of events still holds.”
Meyssan’s actual arguments are nothing more than cheap mystery mongering of the most immature and blatant kind. They are astonishingly sophomoric attempts to take readily explicable facts and twist them into suspicious mysteries.
Meyssan assumes that the impact of a Boeing 757, weighing 100 tons and laden with fuel would have caused far more damage to the Pentagon. The “hole” from the impact seems too small to him, and the most dramatic devastation didn’t penetrate far enough into the “rings” of the building for his satisfaction. Where Meyssan has acquired the expertise to determine how much damage aircraft can do to large buildings is an open question. Given the enormous death toll, the collapse of the roof and structure on the outermost ring and the incineration and damage to the outer three rings, a critic can only wonder at what degree of damage would seem plausible to Meyssan.
Meyssan also muses about a lack of wreckage from the airliner, ignoring the experts’ explanation that such a high-speed impact and the subsequent explosion and inferno amply explain how the Boeing jet was pulverized and incinerated.
One photo on Meyssan’s Web page shows a truck pouring sand over gravel that has been spread out by a bulldozer on the lawn at the Pentagon crash site. Incredibly, Meyssan questions why this would be done, stating that the lawn was otherwise undamaged after the attack. He takes great pains to ignore the obvious fact that this is a common practice on every construction site to prevent heavy vehicles from churning sod and soil into a morass of mud.
Meyssan’s interests do not urge him much further than half-witted attempts to undermine confidence in the facts of September 11, 2001. He shows no inclination to offer an alternative that explains such key questions, such as what happened to Flight 77 and high-profile passengers like Barbara Olson (TV commentator and wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson) if they didn’t crash into the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesman Glen Flood, quoted in an April 1, 2002, story in the Guardian called the book “a slap in the face and a real offence to the American people, particularly to the memory of the victims of the attacks.” Most Americans, I’m sure, will readily agree. It will be interesting to see the reaction here when the English-language edition of L’Effroyable Imposture makes Meyssan’s ideas fully accessible to the American public. Certainly, Meyssan offers much for skeptics around the world to ponder: he should remind us that irrational thinking continues to be, as it has so often been, a tool for dehumanizing victims and deflecting blame from the guilty.
Online resources for further reading:
The Urban Legends Reference Pages: www.snopes2.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
Time Europe Magazine:
www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901020520-237165,00.html
The National Review: www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins040902.asp
CSICOP Tracks Misinformation and Hoaxes in the Wake of the Terrorist Attacks
NOTE to visitors outside of the United States: all numeric dates given on this site are written in the American custom of Month/Day/Year. Hence "9/11/01" should not be understood as referring to the ninth day of November, 2001, but rather the eleventh day of September, 2001.
New items (5/24/02)
L’Effroyable Auteur
President of the French leftist organization Reseau Voltaire, Thierry Meyssan, is rising to world-wide recognition as the auteur one of France’s best-selling books: L’Effroyable Imposture (The Frightening Deception). Meyssan claims that the destruction at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, was not caused by the impact of hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, but rather a truck bomb. He alleges that the U.S. government covered up this fact from the world as part of a larger scheme by the U.S military-industrial complex to covertly orchestrate the September 11th massacres in order to justify the campaign in Afghanistan and elsewhere in the Middle East.
According to an April 3, 2002, commentary in the Guardian (UK), the French daily Liberation cited weekly sales of L’Effroyable Imposture at 100,000 copies. Although sales have been brisk, it is uncertain how many French readers actually buy into Meyssan’s claims. He jump-started the book’s popularity in an appearance on the French TV infotainment program “Tout le Monde en Parle” (“Everybody’s Talking About It”). However, the more respectable French media have been unforgiving in their criticism. According to the weekly journal Le Nouvel Observateur, “The theory suits everyone - there are no Islamic extremists and everyone is happy. It eliminates reality.” Liberation renamed the book “A Frightening Confidence Trick” and called it “a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation.”
I have not read the book myself (At the time of this writing I am waiting for an English translation of the book--expected from the publisher, Carnot, before the end of May 2002). Those who are, like myself, "French-challenged" can find an English-language synopsis of Meyssan’s arguments on a web page titled “Pentagon: Hunt the Boeing and Test Your Perceptions!” (Link: www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm).
The Web page suggests that an early, misinformed report by the Associated Press was the true explanation and that subsequent corrections are actually part of a cover up:
“As everyone knows, on 11 September, less than an hour after the attack on the World Trade Centre [sic], an airplane collided with the Pentagon. The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused the explosion. The Pentagon quickly denied this. The official US government version of events still holds.”
Meyssan’s actual arguments are nothing more than cheap mystery mongering of the most immature and blatant kind. They are astonishingly sophomoric attempts to take readily explicable facts and twist them into suspicious mysteries.
Meyssan assumes that the impact of a Boeing 757, weighing 100 tons and laden with fuel would have caused far more damage to the Pentagon. The “hole” from the impact seems too small to him, and the most dramatic devastation didn’t penetrate far enough into the “rings” of the building for his satisfaction. Where Meyssan has acquired the expertise to determine how much damage aircraft can do to large buildings is an open question. Given the enormous death toll, the collapse of the roof and structure on the outermost ring and the incineration and damage to the outer three rings, a critic can only wonder at what degree of damage would seem plausible to Meyssan.
Meyssan also muses about a lack of wreckage from the airliner, ignoring the experts’ explanation that such a high-speed impact and the subsequent explosion and inferno amply explain how the Boeing jet was pulverized and incinerated.
One photo on Meyssan’s Web page shows a truck pouring sand over gravel that has been spread out by a bulldozer on the lawn at the Pentagon crash site. Incredibly, Meyssan questions why this would be done, stating that the lawn was otherwise undamaged after the attack. He takes great pains to ignore the obvious fact that this is a common practice on every construction site to prevent heavy vehicles from churning sod and soil into a morass of mud.
Meyssan’s interests do not urge him much further than half-witted attempts to undermine confidence in the facts of September 11, 2001. He shows no inclination to offer an alternative that explains such key questions, such as what happened to Flight 77 and high-profile passengers like Barbara Olson (TV commentator and wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson) if they didn’t crash into the Pentagon.
Pentagon spokesman Glen Flood, quoted in an April 1, 2002, story in the Guardian called the book “a slap in the face and a real offence to the American people, particularly to the memory of the victims of the attacks.” Most Americans, I’m sure, will readily agree. It will be interesting to see the reaction here when the English-language edition of L’Effroyable Imposture makes Meyssan’s ideas fully accessible to the American public. Certainly, Meyssan offers much for skeptics around the world to ponder: he should remind us that irrational thinking continues to be, as it has so often been, a tool for dehumanizing victims and deflecting blame from the guilty.
Online resources for further reading:
The Urban Legends Reference Pages: www.snopes2.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
Time Europe Magazine:
www.time.com/time/europe/magazine/article/0,13005,901020520-237165,00.html
The National Review: www.nationalreview.com/robbins/robbins040902.asp
See also:
www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
from which: There were no large sections of the plane left by the time he was asked (the day after the attack) because they had been smashed into smaller pieces by the impact and then burned up; all that remained were smaller pieces visible only from the interior of the Pentagon.
www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
from which: There were no large sections of the plane left by the time he was asked (the day after the attack) because they had been smashed into smaller pieces by the impact and then burned up; all that remained were smaller pieces visible only from the interior of the Pentagon.
The Wiz said:
See also:
www.snopes.com/rumors/pentagon.htm
from which: There were no large sections of the plane left by the time he was asked (the day after the attack) because they had been smashed into smaller pieces by the impact and then burned up; all that remained were smaller pieces visible only from the interior of the Pentagon.
It's a fact that a commerical airline jet engine WILL NOT melt without trace!!!! Trust me my uncle works for Boeing! These buggers are made from heat resistant metals!
When the first airliner was flown into a World Trade Center tower on September 11 — before it was known that the "accident" was really part of a deliberate terrorist attack — newscasters were speculating that a small plane had accidentally flown into the side of the tower, because the visible exterior damage didn't seem as extensive as what people thought a large airliner would cause. Even though the two airplanes flown into the World Trade Center towers were travelling faster at the time of impact than the Pentagon plane was (400 MPH vs. 350 MPH), hit aluminum-and-glass buildings rather than reinforced concrete walls, and didn't dissipate much of their energy striking the ground first (as the Pentagon plane did), they still barely penetrated all the way through the WTC towers.
Sometimes the web is great - funny films, useless and useful information etc.
But sometimes its full of crap.
This is a good example. You watch the movie (flash animation) and assume its the truth - is it? Has the author doctored the images to suit his / her own opinion? We dont know and its just as "shady" as any official view that might be offered.
A couple of observations:
1) What happened to 5300 tonnes of fuel - thats what burned up and killed 100+ people causing the buidling to collapse.
2) Why no debris - well, most planes are made out of strange and rare alloys (aluminium based usually) which has some great characteristics - its light, its fairly strong etc. However, Aluminium burns if its hot enough. In fact Steel melts at 1500 C while Aluminium melts at 660 C - big difference and you wont expect to find much .
3) Ever seen the F4 Phantom crash into solid concrete? If you havent then watch this:
www.big-boys.com/articles/concreteplane.html
4) Do you know how the Pentagon is constructed? Its not some hotel or office building you know. Its made of massively re-inforced concrete and partitioned accordingly to prevent explosions from causing massive damage. HOWEVER, throw 5300 tonnes of kerosene at it and it burns - badly. Remember the twin towers fell because the intensity of the fire melted the supporting beams.
5) How did some windows remain intact? Cos they were the outside of the Pentagon - they arent going to actually be glass are they? What, so passing snipers can take a pot shot at someone in an office? Nope - heavily re-inforced bullet proof etc etc...
I could go on....
So, what is the truth? Dont know. But I know for a fact that some of the rubbish that it "published" on the web is utter rubbish.
But sometimes its full of crap.
This is a good example. You watch the movie (flash animation) and assume its the truth - is it? Has the author doctored the images to suit his / her own opinion? We dont know and its just as "shady" as any official view that might be offered.
A couple of observations:
1) What happened to 5300 tonnes of fuel - thats what burned up and killed 100+ people causing the buidling to collapse.
2) Why no debris - well, most planes are made out of strange and rare alloys (aluminium based usually) which has some great characteristics - its light, its fairly strong etc. However, Aluminium burns if its hot enough. In fact Steel melts at 1500 C while Aluminium melts at 660 C - big difference and you wont expect to find much .
3) Ever seen the F4 Phantom crash into solid concrete? If you havent then watch this:
www.big-boys.com/articles/concreteplane.html
4) Do you know how the Pentagon is constructed? Its not some hotel or office building you know. Its made of massively re-inforced concrete and partitioned accordingly to prevent explosions from causing massive damage. HOWEVER, throw 5300 tonnes of kerosene at it and it burns - badly. Remember the twin towers fell because the intensity of the fire melted the supporting beams.
5) How did some windows remain intact? Cos they were the outside of the Pentagon - they arent going to actually be glass are they? What, so passing snipers can take a pot shot at someone in an office? Nope - heavily re-inforced bullet proof etc etc...
I could go on....
So, what is the truth? Dont know. But I know for a fact that some of the rubbish that it "published" on the web is utter rubbish.
off_again said:My thoughts too. Mind you, a great bit of bs from the link (considering there was no pilot):
3) Ever seen the F4 Phantom crash into solid concrete? If you havent then watch this:
www.big-boys.com/articles/concreteplane.html
big boys.com said:
Fortunately, the pilot walked away with only a few bumps and bruises and a broken right arm.
Didn't have time for a lengthier answer earlier, but others have done the job well.
In a nutshell, planes are really quite flimsy constructions compared with the massive edifice of the Pentagon. Crash a plane full of explosive fuel into the Pentagon at several hundred mph and there will be very little left of the plane.
Some people have compared this crash with the Lockerbie crash and asked why there wer recognisable plane-shape bits at Lockerbie and not at the Pentagon. The answer is simple: the Pentagon plane disintegrated as it exploded on high speed impact with a massive solid object, while the Lockerbie plane exploded in mid air, leaving the bits to fall to Earth.
>> Edited by Zod on Monday 6th December 15:35
In a nutshell, planes are really quite flimsy constructions compared with the massive edifice of the Pentagon. Crash a plane full of explosive fuel into the Pentagon at several hundred mph and there will be very little left of the plane.
Some people have compared this crash with the Lockerbie crash and asked why there wer recognisable plane-shape bits at Lockerbie and not at the Pentagon. The answer is simple: the Pentagon plane disintegrated as it exploded on high speed impact with a massive solid object, while the Lockerbie plane exploded in mid air, leaving the bits to fall to Earth.
>> Edited by Zod on Monday 6th December 15:35
PetrolTed said:
That clip of the Phantom is interesting. Not sure what to make of the caption above the film though "Fortunately, the pilot walked away with only a few bumps and bruises and a broken right arm." - eh?!
Yeah I know - obviously the person who put the website together didnt know what was going on! Still, the clip served its purpose. Seen better footage myself - the high speed camera clearly shows there disintergration of the F4. The image of the concrete block at the end is a sight too - big burn marks and a large-ish dent. Makes you think.
Oh, and to answer the bit about engines etc being left - well watch the F4 video again. Its a jet engined plane and all that lasted was the bits that DIDNT hit the concrete. Wing and tail-plane tips. Everything else vanished.
More movies at:
www.sandia.gov/media/NRgallery00-03.htm (at the bottom)
>> Edited by off_again on Monday 6th December 15:46
PetrolTed said:Great minds think alike, eh?
That clip of the Phantom is interesting. Not sure what to make of the caption above the film though "Fortunately, the pilot walked away with only a few bumps and bruises and a broken right arm." - eh?!
It's from a documentary narrated by Carol Vorderperson. When I say "documentary" is really a clips show of lots of test crashes of cars, trains, rocket, planes etc..
There's a clue in the clip commentary where it says the the F4 is attached to a rail to stop it taking off .
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