After the release of the QFG Pentagon Strike Flash Animation on August 23rd, 2004, a veritable onslaught of new articles were published that sought to dismiss the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory. One such article, that is frequently referenced by certain '9/11 researchers' was authored by a member of the forum, "Catherder", at the "AboveTopSecret.com" (ATS) website. Interestingly, the article, entitled 9/11: A Boeing 757 Struck the Pentagon", was written just a few weeks after the release of the Pentagon Strike Flash animation, which by then, was winging its way around the world and into the inboxes of millions of ordinary citizens. Perhaps you were one of them...

The claim that promoters of the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory were doing immense damage to the truth/accountability movement was raised in Mike Ruppert's book Crossing the Rubicon. In a stunning piece of warped logic, Ruppert claimed that, while he is quite convinced that it was not Flight 77 that hit the Pentagon, he chose not to talk about or deal with the subject as part of his overall case for conspiracy because of the "implications". According to Ruppert, the "implications" are that anyone that suggests that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is then forced to answer the question as to what actually happened to Flight 77. If that's the case, then we better just wrap up the whole 9/11 Truth Movement and go home and have a beer.

Ruppert balks at the idea of offering an answer to this question to his readers because, he claims, most people would be unable to accept it, and, he suggests, 9/11 researchers serve only to alienate the public support that they wish to attract by stretching the boundaries of the collective belief system. What Ruppert doesn't explain is why any member of the public would happily accept that U.S. government officials participated in the slaughter of the passengers on Flights 11 and 175 and the occupants of the WTC towers (as he details in his book) yet would be unable to accept the idea that the same government officials played a part in disposing of the passengers of Flight 77 in a much less imaginative way. Let's be honest here, in the context of 9/11 being the work of a faction of the US government and military, the answer to the question as to what happened to Flight 77 if it didn't hit the Pentagon is quite obvious - Flight 77 and its occupants were flown to a specific destination and “disposed of” by the conspirators. That's pretty simple; cut and dried; no need for much stretching there! But, for some reason, Ruppert (and others affected by this paramoralism) seems to think that killing thousands of citizens by crashing airplanes is easier to accept than cold bloodedly murdering them "in person," as it were.

Since Ruppert's declaration about the "no plane at the Pentagon" theory, many other "9/11 researchers", such as Mark Rabinowitz and Jim Hoffman, have seized upon Ruppert's idea and even expanded upon it by suggesting that the "no planers" are actually government agents trying to discredit the REAL 9/11 researchers with the 'kooky' "no plane" theory.

In order to really understand the insidiousness of this patronising claim that the public could not accept the implications of the idea that a Boeing 757 did not hit the Pentagon, let's look at the "evidence" as presented by the ATS member that it really was Flight 77 that impacted the Pentagon that bright September morn.

First, however, I would like to make a few observations about 9/11 research in general.

Anyone who takes on the formidable task of digging into the events of 9/11 is immediately at a disadvantage because the US government has already declared the case closed. The government knows how it happened and who did it and have informed the entire world. As a result, there is no possibility of access to the raw data, to the crime scene or analyses of same. Here is where we meet the major obstacle: since the US government is the prime suspect, we cannot simply take as truth everything - or anything - that they say in relation to the case.

Investigation of the 9/11 attacks should be approached like any murder investigation. When confronted with a murder case (like 9/11) and a suspect that has a history of deceit and murder (like the US government and its agencies) and who had an opportunity and a motive to commit the murder, do you take as fact any claims by the suspect that he did not commit the murder? Do you seek to fit the facts around his claim that he did not commit the murder? When you confront evidence that suggests that the suspect is lying about his account of where he was and what he was doing, or you find inconsistencies and logistically impossible scenarios in his account, do you ignore these and focus only on the fact that he said he did not commit the murder and try to find and present evidence that backs up his claim to innocence?

The fact is that researchers coming to the 9/11 investigation after the fact, and after the case has been officially closed, are not only confronted with the task of trying to find out what actually happened - they also face the already well established public belief, by which they themselves are also influenced, that the official story is the truth. The best approach for any 9/11 researcher with honest intentions is to, if possible, wipe from their minds the official version of events and take the attitude of someone who has just returned from a 5 year trip to the outer reaches of the solar system, during which time they had no communication with planet earth. Start with a beginner's mind, turn off the sound of all the conflicting voices and their claims, and just LOOK at the evidence without prejudice.

Now, if the person with a truly open mind is given all of the publicly available evidence and has been additionally furnished with knowledge of the effects of airplane crashes and that of missile impacts, what would such a person conclude about the most likely cause of the Pentagon damage? Of course, not all of the evidence was made available to the public, but there is still sufficient visual evidence from "ground zero" (both in terms of place and TIME), to form a pretty good "best guess". For a definitive conclusion to be reached, the "private" evidence, like the video tapes of the event that the FBI confiscated, would have to be released, and we don't expect that to happen any time soon. Of course, the fact that the definitive evidence of the videos has not been released is in itself a key piece of evidence that suggests that the official story of what hit the Pentagon is not the real story.

The purpose of this small introduction is to prepare the reader for the fact that, in his attempted rebuttal of the no 757 at the Pentagon theory, the ATS article author, CatHerder, appears to have succumbed to the influence of the mainstream media shills that have incessantly parroted the official government story about what happened on 9/11 for the three years prior to the writing of the article. As such, he has failed to don the mantle of objective observer of the available evidence that is so crucial to finding the truth, and instead exerts a lot of effort to make the available evidence fit the government claim that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon on the morning of September 11th 2001. Either that, or he/she is part of the "official government cover-up." After you read everything below, you can make a call on that one yourself.

Here is the ATS article as it appears on the ATS site with my comments interspersed in dark blue text.

Evidence That A Boeing 757 Really Did Impact the Pentagon on 9/11

by "CatHerder", Member, AboveTopSecret.com/forum

September 11th, 2004

Did a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9-11

First let's start with the factual information available on hand.

The 757-200
As we can see from the freely available information for the Boeing 757 (from the Boeing website). The 757 is a midsized commercial airliner designed for short haul and medium haul routes (Medium Range Transport (MR-TR)), although since its release, and the subsequent discovery of the Wake Vortex it leaves behind the FAA has classified the 757 as a "Heavy" aircraft; the FAA places the 757 in the Geometric Design Classification IV, and an ATC Operation Class C. (source)

The 757-200 dimensions:
Tail Height: 44 ft 6 in (13.6m)
Length: 155 ft 3 in (47.32m)
Wingspan: 124 ft 10 in (38.05m)
Body Exterior Width: 12 ft 4 in (3.7m)
Fuel Capacity: 11,489 us gal (43,490l / 43,490kg)
Maximum Takeoff weight: 255,000lb (115,680kg)
Typical Cruise Speed: 0.80 Mach (573.6mph / 956kmh)
Engines used on a 757: Two 166.4kN (37,400lb) Rolls-Royce RB211-535C turbofans, or 178.8kN (40,200lb) RB211-535E4s, or 193.5kN (43,500lb) RB211-535E4-Bs, or 162.8kN (36,600lb) Pratt & Whitney PW2037s, or two 178.4kN (40,100lb) PW2040s, or 189.5kN (42,600lb) PW2043s. (source1) (source2)
Auxiliary Power Unit: Honeywell GTCP331-200



left portion: source1 right portion: source2 (height and width notation to graphic added by me)

Next, let's look at the Pentagon.

The Pentagon

The Pentagon was designed in the early 40's and was completed in only 16 months on Jan 14, 1943. The shortages of materials required for war production raised many design and construction problems. The use of reinforced concrete in lieu of formed steel for the building made possible a saving of 43,000 tons of steel, more than enough to build a battleship. The use of concrete ramps rather than elevators further reduced steel requirements. Drainage pipes were concrete; ducts were fiber, interior doors were wood. An unusual wall design - concrete spandrels carried to window sill level - eliminated many miles of through-wall copper flashing.(Source1) (Source2)

Recent renovations and upgrades to the building were nearing completion on the side hit on 9-11 and performed reasonably well considering they were not designed to withstand aircraft impact. On September 11, when an American Airlines Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon, home of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), about 20,000 people were at work in this, the largest office building in the world. Yet according to the DoD casualty update on October 1, only 125 Pentagon employees were killed along with the 64 from the fated airliner. (source - Architecture Week)

The exterior walls had been reinforced with steel beams and columns, bolted where they met at each floor. Some of these reinforced walls very near the point of impact remained in place for a half hour before collapsing, allowing uncounted hundreds to escape. "Had we not undertaken this effort," said Evey at a press briefing on September 15, "this could have been much, much worse."

Now, I'm sure everyone can agree that the above information is a matter of public record, and none of it is incorrect, altered, or misquoted in any way to support either side of the case. It is all merely factual information that we will refer to in the following sections.

[Note: I was unintentionally misleading in a previous post when I said the Pentagon didn't use a steel beam construction - while that is still true for the original design, it was reinforced in various areas during the upgrades to include steel beams and columns in some areas of the renovations.]

Quoted from ArchitectureWeek.com :
In addition to major overhauls of the mechanical and electrical systems, the Wedge One renovation included the fire sprinklers, automatic fire doors, and the steel which saved many lives on the day of the attack.

The blast-resistant windows were nearly two inches (5 centimeters) thick. Some of them remain remarkably intact and in place adjacent the point of impact. Some were popped out of their frames by the force of the exploding jet fuel, but they fell without breaking or splintering.

Also on the exterior walls, between the steel columns, the renovation crew had placed Kevlar cloth, similar to the material used for bullet-proof vests. This had the effect of holding together building materials so they wouldn't become deadly projectiles in an explosion.

Looking At the Big Picture

From facts contained above, we can all agree that:

·  The length of the outside wall on any side of the pentagon is 921 feet.

·  The wingspan of a 757 is 124 feet 10 inches.

·  Now, everyone can agree that 921/125= roughly 7.4 right?



Given the size of the 757, and the size of the Pentagon, the damaged area fits in perfectly with the dimensions of both the aircraft and the building.

The above "opening gambit" is very telling since it delivers hard facts, one after the other, all of which are accurate. It is in this last statement that the twisting begins. The fact that the length of the Pentagon is equivalent to 7.4 757's wing to wing, or that the width of one 757 equals 13.5% of the facade of the Pentagon has no bearing on the actual damage done. Indeed, given the weight and speed of the 757 that is alleged to have impacted the building, the actual damage done to the Pentagon is entirely inconsistent with an aircraft of the size, weight, and speed of a 757. In other words, the argument actually supports the "no-Boeing" theory better than it supports "Flight 77 hit the Pentagon."

Look at the hole in the building



Here is the hole in the building - it's been reported by at least a dozen different sources (including conspiracy theory sites) to be a 16 to 20 foot hole. That is really interesting when you take into account the fact that the 757 body is 12 ft 4in wide and 13 ft 6in high. (Here is where I was mistaken in the past, like so very many others I was led astray by the HEIGHT of the aircraft, which is actually the measurement from the wheels-down to the tip of the tail. That measurement is for aircraft hangar clearance, not the SIZE of the aircraft.) The 757 is basically a cylinder that is 13 feet across. It then should not be surprising that it would create something around a thirteen foot hole in the side of the building.

Here is the next twist. The Boeing 757 is not simply a 13ft wide cylinder; if it were, then the damage to the Pentagon might be more plausible. The reality, however, is that a Boeing 757 is a 13ft wide, 155 ft long cylinder with a tail fin that extends 45 ft into the air. Add to that the fact that there are two 6 ton steel engines slung under each wing about 6 feet to each side of the cylinder body. The wings extend out on each side for 50ft + making for a total aircraft width of 125 feet, a total length of 155 ft and a maximum height of 45 ft. It comes as no surprise then that this large commercial aircraft weighs in at over 90 tons fully loaded. On take off from Washington Dulles airport, Flight 77 weighed approximately 82 tons.

The above nonsensical argument would have you believe that the only thing to consider is a "13 ft wide cylinder" that just magically lost everything else, or that everything else just "folded up" and flew inside the building plastered to the side of that 13 ft cylinder. Even if the wings could do that, we are still left with the two 6 ton engines that were NOT dropped off on the lawn, and which, together, are as wide as the cylinder body!

Look at the nose-on view of a 757 - you can see the body is slightly less than 1/3 the size of the height of the aircraft. The tail certainly isn't going to punch a hole through a reinforced concrete wall; that is why there is no 40 foot hole in the front of the Pentagon in any photos. A 40 foot object didn't hit it, a 13 foot object did.

Again, this is not JUST a "13ft object" by any stretch of the imagination. By now it should be obvious that the author is attempting to subtly manipulate the reader by reducing a large, 82 ton passenger aircraft to "a 13ft object".

Think about this.

Is "a 13ft object" a reasonable description of a Boeing 757? Is it reasonable for the author to reduce a large plane that can carry up to 200 adult human beings to "a 13ft object"? We could take this unreasonable definition one step further and flesh out the image that our author is trying to plant in our heads and say that, according to our author, the Boeing 757 that he/she alleges hit the Pentagon, was comparable to a large SUV, or a similar "13ft object".

While it is reasonable to state that the tail of a 757 may not necessarily have punched a hole through the facade of the Pentagon, can we expect to at least see some evidence of the tail having hit the facade? More than that, we must consider the forward momentum of those two, inescapable, 6 TON steel engines that were neither dropped on the lawn, nor were they smashed like pancakes against the side of the "13 ft cylinder." If I struck the facade of the Pentagon with a sledge hammer, is it reasonable that I would be able to cause some observable damage? The outer 6 inches of the facade of the Pentagon is made of soft limestone, yet our author sees no problem with claiming that such a soft surface, when struck by a piece of aircraft weighing SIX TONS and traveling at hundreds of miles per hour, would in no way leave any significant and observable damage.

While the "cylinder body" that our author keeps referring to is indeed 13ft 6in high, he omits the fact that the engines extend 5 feet below the body and over six feet to either side, meaning that, if the aircraft were actually able to successfully fly at just 1 inch above the ground (highly unlikely), the height of the "cylinder body" above the ground would be at least 18 ft 6 inches! Let us repeat that: if a Boeing 757 were actually able to fly at just 1 inch above the ground, the height of the "13 ft cylinder body" would be at least 18 feet 6 inches! Now, add to that the fact that the plane also includes those two bothersome 6 TON engines, AND a tail fin that protrudes 25 feet above the top of the cylinder body making for a total aircraft height of just less than 40 feet with wheels up. Obviously then, we can reasonably expect that the damage to the facade of the Pentagon would have extended up to this height IF it was a 757 that hit the building.

However, according to the official Pentagon report:

"The height of the damage to the facade of the building was much less than the height of the aircraft’s tail. At approximately 45 ft, the tail height was nearly as tall as the first four floors of the building. Obvious visible damage extended only over the lowest two floors, to approximately 25 ft above grade."

Look at this close up of the above photo:

The top of the hole in the middle of the white box is at the same level as the top of the windows of the second floor, or about 23-25 feet from ground. The three windows above this are the windows of the third floor. The foam covered window to the top right is the fourth floor. As noted by the Pentagon report, this area (above the center hole) is where the tail should have struck, but there is no evidence of any damage that we would expect from such an impact. What's more, the tail fin was definitely not dropped on the lawn along with the two 6 TON engines.

Conclusion? The tail fin of a Boeing 757 did not strike this area.

What does that suggest? That a Boeing 757 was not involved in the attack.

Is that logical enough?

However, from the point of view of the author on the ATS forum and the U.S. government, we are not allowed to use such logic. Instead, we must give in to emotional blackmail and then engage in implausible mental gymnastics to try to explain how a 757 really could have been involved in the Pentagon attack; and all because the US government says so - a government that has made lies the core aspect of its domestic and foreign policy from day one.

In terms of the damage that should have been caused by the other parts of a 757 (you know, the large aircraft that our author has reduced to a mere 12ft 4 in wide cylinder), the official Pentagon Building Performance Report stated that:

"The projected width [of damage to the facade] was approximately 90 ft, which is substantially less than the 125 ft wingspan of the aircraft"

Indeed, but there is no explanation of why there is no damage to the facade where the wings should logically have struck. Could it be that an aircraft with the wingspan of a 757 was not involved?

Conspiracy theory?

No, just the most obvious and logical explanation.

The Pentagon report also made note of the fact that:

"With the possible exception of the immediate vicinity of the fuselage’s entry point at column line 14, essentially all interior impact damage was inflicted in the first story: The aircraft seems for the most part to have slipped between the first-floor slab on grade and the second floor."

That is impossible as the following graphic will show. Note the pink line, where the "13 ft cylinder" is supposed to have slipped "under."

Another 9/11 researcher, who is naturally skeptical about the claim that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, produced the above graphic and posed some obvious and logical questions about the feasibility of the official story quoted above. Given the height of just the fuselage (leaving out the 25 feet of tail fin), how is it possible that the immediate damage and the debris of the plane were "largely confined to the first floor"? And remember, we are talking here about a scenario where the plane is flying at just one inch above the ground!

What is more, evidence from photos of the site show cable spools that were clearly untouched by any incoming aircraft, suggesting that the aircraft would have to have been flying above the maximum height of the spools (some 6 feet) when it hit the Pentagon. In this case, the damage should have been almost entirely to the second floor!

Of course, this is not the case, which leaves us with the logical deduction that it is highly improbable that a 757 was involved in the attack on the Pentagon, and that a much smaller and more nimble aircraft was used.

Among those 9/11 researchers that claim that a 757 hit the Pentagon, much is made of the fact that the Pentagon facade was built with "steel reinforced concrete walls". This fact is used to explain the extremely limited immediate damage to the Pentagon facade. But how much credit are we going to give to brick and concrete that has been reinforced with relatively thin steel bars? Is such a wall indestructible? If the tail fin and wings of a Boeing 757 traveling at 400mph+ hit such a wall, could we at least expect them to leave a dent? A little scrape even?

Not at the Pentagon apparently.

Consider the picture below showing the impact hole at the WTC North Tower:

The facade of the WTC Towers were made of prefabricated steel yet as we can see from the imprint of the plane, these steel lattices were in no way strong enough to stop the massive kinetic energy of the entire aircraft impacting the building, including the wings and tail fin and leaving a roughly 757-shaped hole in the facade.

To provide a scale reference, a survivor of the initial impact has been circled in the above photo (click the picture for a close up).

Given that I am no structural engineer, however, I cannot make any claims as to the comparative strength of the steel reinforced brick and concrete walls of the Pentagon versus the steel facade of the WTC towers and will allow for the idea that the wall of the Pentagon was stronger than that of the WTC. We can even theorize that it is due to this comparative strength difference that there is not a similar 757-shaped gaping hole at the Pentagon. However, as noted, the facade of the Pentagon was made of soft limestone 6 inches thick. Can anyone explain why a similar shape as that in the picture above does not appear in the soft limestone facade of the Pentagon?

In fact, there appear to be no pictures of the Pentagon facade immediately after the attack that show a clear picture of the exact extent of the damage. That's because all press personnel were restricted. We only have photos because a civilian managed to take them in spite of the "cordon sanitaire." What IS clear is that, as the Pentagon report noted, the Pentagon facade bears NO evidence of damage from parts of a 757 at ALL. One notable explanation for this mysterious lack of damage offered by official government story enthusiasts is that by some mysterious force of nature, the wings and tail must have sheared off before impact. Of course, in such a case, we would expect to see at least some recognisable debris of the wings and tail section outside the building. Yet, as anyone who has carefully inspected the evidence at the scene can attest, there is no such debris.

According to official story enthusiasts, the complete lack of any debris from the wings that we are told somehow sheared off, is not a problem: they simply disintegrated on impact and were rendered little more than confetti that blew away in the breeze (I kid you not; this was actually suggested by several "researchers"). But in this unlikely case, how do we explain that the 125 feet long wings of a 757 disintegrated, yet a fairly slender tree standing just a few feet from the front of the Pentagon - and in the direct path of the alleged 757 - was still standing, albeit severely charred? (Charred tree branches visible in center of image) What's more, this explanation completely omits mention of the two six TON engines attached to said wings.

Can we now at least accept as a possibility the idea that a 757 was not involved in the attack on the Pentagon?

Why is it so difficult for our author to accept this? The answer would seem to be that since the official government story does not allow for such a scenario, like all good and obedient citizens, our author feels compelled to believe what the government says, regardless of the massive historical evidence showing that, on several occasions in the past, the U.S. government has allowed, facilitated, or actually carried out, attacks on its own citizens and interests in order to achieve some specific goal, usually associated with waging war on other nations - wars like the 2003 invasion of Iraq that was a direct result of the 9/11 attacks, including the attack on the Pentagon. Either the ATS author is such a "good and obedient" citizen, or we must conclude that said author is an agent of said government.

If we peruse other postings made by the ATS author on the subject of 9/11 in general, it seems that he/she accepts the idea that there was some level of complicity in the 9/11 attacks on the part of the US government. Yet he/she appears to have no problem with using the claims of the same U.S. government to back up his argument that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.

For the record, I have nothing against the US government per se, and have no desire to accuse the Bush administration or anyone else unjustly. But in the case of the 911 attacks, there is significant and compelling evidence to suggest that something is not right with the official version of events and that members of the US government are lying about the true nature of those events. In this case, there is a case to answer, and my sole aim is to get at the truth, whatever that truth may turn out to be. In pursuing this objective, I will look at the facts and the facts alone and draw conclusions based on what those facts suggest, alone.

At this point, we are approaching the paradox that is at the heart of the argument of the "no 757 " debunkers. They clearly are well aware that there is a serious problem with the lack of damage and debris at the Pentagon, yet that does not deter them from continuing with their increasingly unbelievable theories in an attempt to prove that the official government story is correct. At the same time, after coming up with bizarre explanations for the lack of damage and debris, they are then forced to deal with the fact that, while the damage to the Pentagon facade is not consistent with the impact of a large commercial airliner, the damage to the interior of the Pentagon is even less so.

Now, let's return to the ATS forum post.

Also, as I showed earlier: Here is an L1011 (it's a larger plane than a 757 - but the basic design of how a plane body is built is the same) being scrapped, you can see that almost ALL of the support structure is in the bottom 2/5 of the plane. This is the part that punched the hole in the Pentagon, the rest of the thin, hollow, top of the plane just shredded into chunks, some of which are laying on the lawn and around the rescue vehicles. Most of a commercial airliner is just a thin aluminum shell, insulation, a thin plastic inner liner, some carpet and seats. They're designed to be as light as possible so they can carry more cargo and more people while using less fuel and at the same time remain "safe".

It is a given that the majority of mass is going to be in the bottom half of the aircraft - the primary structure and heaviest parts are all located there, as is the luggage and any freight.

But lets reinforce this as fact with a photo of a 757-300 being built. (Remember, the only difference between a 757-200 and a 757-300 is the length of the body, and the wings on the 757-300 are reinforced and slightly deeper - the height and width and wingspan remain identical.)

Indeed, aircraft like the 757 are made of aluminium, for the most part, yet that does not take away from the fact that the 757 that is alleged to have hit the Pentagon was over 80 tons and flying at over 400mph, with two six TON steel engines flanking.

(source) We should also make a note of the yellow primer used on the interior of the rear section.



This image shows the light green primer used on the primary structure components in the 757 (Boeing uses the same yellow primer and the same green primer on almost every single part of every single 757 and 767 built).

What does the green or yellow primer have to do with anything? Well, we'll take a look at the aircraft parts from the Pentagon wreckage photos below.

Are we to assume that Boeing is the only aircraft manufacturer to use green primer on the shells of its aircraft? Is it possible that this primer is an aircraft industry standard and that other aircraft manufactures also use green primer? If so, can the fact that some small pieces of debris that were found inside the Pentagon be reasonably touted as evidence that it had to be a Boeing 757 that impacted the building?

Here, I direct your attention to the fact that Epoxy Primer 37035A is just exactly that shade of yucky yellow/green. It is available from Aerospace Coatings Akzo Nobel and is designated as "Epoxy Primer 37035A (green)" or "Epoxy Primer 37052 (green)". It is apparently widely used on many types of aircraft.

Again, we should note that the entire argument of the ATS author seems to be based on the premise that the official US government story about what hit the Pentagon MUST BE correct, despite the fact that he/she ALSO accepts the idea that there was some level of complicity in the 9/11 attacks on the part of the US government. Again, that is similar to taking the word of a suspected murderer about the very murder he is suspected of having committed. It's just not logical. Could it be that the posts on the ATS forum where "CatHerder" claims to believe that the government was complicit in the 9/11 attacks are examples of what is known in psychology as "malignant pseudo-identification"?

Malignant pseudo-identification is the process by which a COINTELPRO agent consciously imitates or simulates certain behaviors or beliefs in order to foster the sincere activist's "identification" with him/her, thus increasing the activist's vulnerability to exploitation.

Activists and those who have altruistic self-concepts are most vulnerable to malignant pseudo-identification especially during work with the agent when the interaction includes matter relating to their competency, autonomy, or knowledge. The goal of the agent is to increase the activist's general empathy for the agent and ideas the agent wishes to "plant" through pseudo-identification with the activist's self-concepts. The most common example of this is the agent who will compliment the activist for his competency or knowledge or value to the movement. Another is to declare identification with many of the ideas of the activist, and then diverge on the one idea that they have been sent in to debunk. And certainly we can see that the issue of whether or not Flight 77 struck the Pentagon is just such an idea that would necessitate major debunking.

Ok, but how did a hollow tube, made of mostly aluminium, manage to punch through the Pentagon? I'm happy to try to help explain it with the aid of the good folks at Perdue University . We'll get to that in a moment.

This is a very good question. So which is it? You can make the argument that a 757 was so flimsy that the Pentagon facade was relatively undamaged by the impact, or you argue that the weight and speed of the aircraft was such that it penetrated 3 rings of the building, but you can't have it both ways! Any theory that attempts to reconcile these irreconcilable claims is untenable. But that does not seem to bother our fearless debunker. He/she has already made two assertions (13 ft cylinder and paint color) that in no way whatsoever "prove" any case at all, and now, with the help of the "good folks at Perdue University", our agent - uh, excuse me, author - comes up with a seriously far out theory to explain how a 757 could have caused the damage to the interior of the Pentagon in spite of the fact that most of it "just shredded into chunks" and was scattered all over the lawn.

Examining Ground Debris

Landing Gear Evidence

Rim photographed in the Pentagon wreckage. You can clearly see it is a double bead design as required by the NTSB, and you can also see it has had 90% of the rim edge smashed off in the crash.





Some people have tried to claim that the rims are different from a 757 rim - well here (bottom) is a 757-200 rim from an American Airlines 757, I've outlined the exact same symmetrical holes. I think perhaps some people are thrown off by the balancing led weights attached on the rims in the bottom photo? Have you never taken your car in for a wheel alignment and tire balancing? This is clearly the same kind of rim found on a 757. (The hub-covers/grease-covers are not present for obvious reasons - to remove one you pop it off with a flathead screw driver... so how would you expect it to stay on in a 400mph impact with a reinforced concrete wall?)

While we agree that the wheel rim from the Pentagon appears to be the same as that of a Boeing 757, does this mean that it comes from a 757? Do other types of aircraft use double rims such as those pictured above? We need to look at the "wheel rim" evidence firstly in the context of there being a massive government conspiracy on 9/11 and secondly in context of the other massive evidence that points to something else having hit the Pentagon. Taking these facts into consideration and the evidence for a general 9/11 government conspiracy, is it not plausible that the conspirators would have taken the precaution to plant evidence at the scene to cover up the truth of their activities? Could this planting of evidence not include a "damaged" wheel rim from a 757 landing gear? In the final analysis, the only people qualified to make any definitive statement on the "wheel rim" evidence at the Pentagon are those people whose jobs involve designing or maintaining Boeing 757 landing gear and/or those people whose jobs involve the design or maintenance of Global Hawk landing gear.

Keep in mind that there are very few available photos of aircraft debris inside the Pentagon: a wheel rim and a landing gear strut, and an engine combustion chamber. The wheel rim was in the non-renovated Wedge 2 by the AE drive hole. And despite the assertions of the author of the ATS post, without expert analysis, no one can say that the few recognizable airplane parts are unequivocally from a 757.

Landing gear strut - appears to be from the nose gear - note how charred the area around it is.

This landing gear strut is inadmissible as evidence given the fact that the CatHerder does not claim to be an expert on landing gear and cannot verify from which aircraft this landing gear comes. As such, it could be the landing gear strut from any number of aircraft.

The next photo is from the cover from one of the conspiracy sites that demands "where is the plane?"- they must not have looked very hard, there are 2 obvious chunks of it in the photo. Another rim from the airplane on the right, and a large chunk of bulkhead on the left.

Again the alleged "evidence" of debris from a Boeing 757 in the above pictured debris is inconclusive. The fact that the ATS author claims categorically that there is "a large chunk of bulkhead on the left" is somewhat comical given his/her admitted lack of expertise in positively identifying charred remains of any aircraft let alone a Boeing 757. We should note that we are not saying that "no plane" hit the Pentagon, we are simply saying that the damage and debris is inconsistent with a Boeing 757.

Below: More parts from inside the 757 - note the Boeing green primer on 3 parts in this photo - two circled.

Again, for anyone, let alone an amateur like CatHerder, to claim that they can positively identify debris from a Boeing 757 from these mangled pieces of material raises questions about the integrity and impartiality of said individual. Can "CatHerder" be sure that these greenish pieces of material are not from some part of the inside of the Pentagon or from another type of aircraft? The very fact that all of these parts and bits of "evidence" were NOT trotted out by the government and put on display for the public and experts to examine is more indication that if they had been, someone would have recognized them as something else entirely.

No official explanation for the above hole in ring C has ever been put forward, and the ATS author studiously ignores this fact. The official Pentagon building performance report simply states that:

"There was a hole in the east wall of ring C, emerging into AE Drive, between column lines 5 and 7 in Wedge 2. The wall failure was approximately 310 ft from where the fuselage of the aircraft entered the west wall of the building..."

That's it. The fact that whatever came out through this hole is essentially the object that hit the Pentagon and did the major part of the damage is apparently not deemed important enough, either by the US government or CatHerder, to deserve comment.

The fact is that the above image showing the round hole that was left in ring C is one of the most intriguing aspects of the Pentagon attack. While we might assume that it is unofficially claimed that one of the engines of Flight 77 made this hole (the engine being the only part of a 757 that could possibly be strong enough to pass through three rings of the Pentagon, never mind that it left no evidence of its entry on the exterior of the building), as we have seen, a disk that is verifiably part of the engine of the aircraft that hit the Pentagon was found at the front of the building, not in the third ring. This fact strongly suggests that the engine that the disk came from was destroyed in the initial blast at the front of the building. It is highly unlikely therefore that an engine of the plane that hit the Pentagon punched out this hole. Whatever the object was, it had enough force to breach the main reinforced steel concrete outer wall and then travel some 250 feet, passing through five other double-brick walls on the way. Terry Mitchell, Chief of the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) was one of the first on the scene at this “punch out” point. In a DOD news briefing about the reconstruction of the Pentagon he stated:

“This is a hole in -- there was a punch-out. They suspect that this was where a part of the aircraft came through this hole, although I didn’t see any evidence of the aircraft down there.”

Indeed, it just must have been where part of the aircraft came out, yet there was no evidence of any part of an aircraft that could have made the hole! Never mind that CatHerder has just told us about all the evidence of the aircraft that is just laying all around! Later in the same briefing when referring to the same hole Mitchell must have realised his mistake and stated:

“This pile here is all Pentagon metal. None of that is aircraft whatsoever. As you can see, they’ve punched a hole in here. This was punched by the rescue workers to clean it out”.

So which was it? Was the hole punched out by some part of the aircraft or by rescue workers? Was the pile of stuff aircraft debris, as CatHerder claims, or was it "all Pentagon metal" as Terry Mitchell says? Look again at the picture of the hole. We don’t need the contradictory statements of Mr. Mitchell to conclude that, due to the fact that the debris is on the outside of the building, the hole was punched out from the inside, yet how could it have been “punched out” by rescue workers when there are scorch marks at the top of the hole on the outside? Did the rescue workers punch out this hole when the fire was still raging inside? Hardly likely. Limiting air flow is part of fighting a fire. You don’t make holes to let in more air while you are trying to extinguish a fire.

Dare we suggest that the OASD chief was lying that day? That he changed his story because the “official” version of events did not include the idea that part of the aircraft made that hole, because it is inconceivable that any part of a 757 could have done so? If so, then a government official is on record as having lied about the events at the Pentagon, yet such does not dissuade CatHerder from trying to convince the public that the official government story about the strike on the Pentagon is correct.

Below, another photo of a tire with the same pattern as ones used on a 757, found in the Pentagon wreckage.

Again, for anyone to present a grainy picture of something that vaguely resembles a tyre and then claim that this is a positive ID of the wheel of a Boeing 757 simply gives us further cause to believe that CatHerder either has an agenda about which he/she is not being honest, or is so invested in his/her need to prove the government story correct that he/she has lost any hope of being objective about his/her analysis of the evidence.

Engine Evidence

Let’s take a look at some of the ground debris that appears to be related to an aircraft engine. Many different sites and posts have reported that the 757 uses Rolls-Royce engines [RB211-535E4B] - however it should be noted, for the sake of thoroughness (ibid), that American Airlines also use Pratt & Witney engines [PW2037] in many of their 757 fleet. You can also view this information on their website. (The 757 fleets around the world actually use over six different kinds of engines.) The 757 that is reported to have hit the Pentagon was using RB211-535E4B engines.

Here is are photos of some apparent engine parts from the Pentagon crash site.



Image portion cropped from (source) - Another View

What is seen in this photo is most likely the APU (Aux Power Unit) used in a 757 that is equipped with Rolls-Royce RB211 engines. The APU (Honeywell GTCP331-200) is located in the tail section of the aircraft (that's what the large vent that looks like a 3rd jet engine is) as edvidenced (ibid) on this technical rescue reference aid from Boeing. Boeing 757 reference website. These small turbine engines are quite common on modern turbine & turbofan passenger aircraft, and are used to furnish ground auxillary power while the main engines are shut down during ground operations. An online training aid lets you Play around with the controls on a 757/767 instrument pannel (ibid).

The reader will notice in the above something that CatHerder does repeatedly throughout his/her analysis. When presenting his/her argument he/she pads out the point being made with additional information that is often irrelevant to the point being made, but which is included, it seems, to create the impression that the point being made is well-researched or "factual". For example, what does a link to an online pilot training aid that lets you play around with a 757 instrument panel have to do with identifying the disk in the above picture?

There have been some people who claim that a Global Hawk was what hit the Pentagon. Here is what John W. Brown, spokesman for Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), had to say about the part in the photo above 'It is not a part from any Rolls Royce engine that I'm familiar with, and certainly not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.' (Of course it wouldn't be anything he's familiar with, it's a powerplant made by Honeywell.) The AE 3007 engines are used in small commuter jets such as the Cessna Citation; the AE 3007H is also used in the military's unmanned aircraft, the Global Hawk. The Global Hawk is manufactured by Northrop Grumman's subsidiary Ryan Aeronautical, which it acquired from Teledyne, Inc. in July 1999. A detailed view of what the turbofan that powers the Global Hawk looks like - I'm sure you can see it's too small to be anything in the pictures contained here or anywhere else in the Pentagon crash evidence. Also visible in this photo, one of the 757's blue passenger seats to the left of the turbine, and possibly a 2nd seat above the other seat.

Again CatHerder reveals his/her possible agenda by selective quoting (and without references) in the above paragraph. First of all, the comments by Rolls Royce spokesman John Brown are taken from an American Free Press article written by Christopher Bollyn.

Bollyn undertook the task of trying to find out what exactly the disk in the above photo was. He called Honeywell’s Aerospace division in Phoenix, Ariz., where the GTCP331-200 APU used on the 757 aircraft is made: “There’s no way that’s an APU wheel”, an expert at Honeywell told AFP. The expert, who cannot be named, added: “That turbine disc—there’s no way in the world that came out of an APU”

The first point then is that an expert form Honeywell that makes the APU for the 757 has stated categorically that the APU wheel in the photo is not from a 757.

As mentioned by CatHerder, Bollyn then contacted John W. Brown, spokesman for Rolls Royce (Indianapolis), asking if the disk was from a Rolls Royce manufactured engine, perhaps the AE3007H used in the Global Hawk. Brown’s response was:

“It is not a part from any Rolls Royce engine that I’m familiar with, and certainly not the AE 3007H made here in Indy.”

Next Bollyn called Pratt & Whitney who manufactures parts of the 757’s turbofan jet engines:

“If the aircraft that struck the Pentagon was a Boeing 757-200 owned by American Airlines, then it would have to be a Rolls Royce engine”, Mark Sullivan, spokesman for Pratt & Whitney, told AFP.

So we have another spokesman for Pratt and Whitney, who, along with Rolls Royce, manufacture parts of the 757s main engines (not the APU), who has contradicted John Brown of Rolls Royce by saying that the part MUST be from a Rolls Royce engine, which includes the possibility that it was the AE 3007H which is the engine in a Global Hawk, yet it is NOT the GTCP331-200 which is the APU used on the Boeing 757 as stated by the Honeywell expert.

Bollyn then contacted John W. Brown, spokesman for Rolls Royce once more, to inform him that the Pratt & Whitney spokesperson had stated that it must be a piece of a Rolls Royce engine. At this point Brown balked and asked who at Pratt & Whitney had provided the information.

Asked again if the disc in the photo was a piece of a Rolls Royce RB211-535, or from the AE 3007 series, Brown said he could not answer.

Bollyn then asked Brown if he was actually familiar with the parts of an AE 3007H, which is made at the Indiana plant: “No”, Brown said. “I don’t build the engines. I am a spokesman for the company. I speak for the company.”

So the Rolls Royce spokesman that CatHerder quotes as an expert on the evidence that the disk in the photo cannot be from a Global Hawk has stated that he is not familiar with the parts of the Global Hawk engine and is therefore not qualified to make any statement about the origins of the the wheel in the photo.

We are left then with the likelihood that the disk in the photo IS from a Rolls Royce engine, but NOT from the APU of the 757 as stated by the Honeywell expert. Could it then be a part of one of the main engines of a 757? By all accounts it is far too small to be the disk from one of the 757's main engines, given that they are between 6 and 7 ft in diameter. The disk on the AE 3007H however is a little over 3 ft in diameter, and despite what CatHerder says, the disk in the photo is a very good match for that of a AE 3007H, the engine used on a Global Hawk but never on a Boeing 757.

Bollyn states:

Rolls Royce produces the RB211-535 (main) engines for American Airlines 757-200 aircraft at a plant in Derby, England. Martin Johnson, head of communications at Rolls Royce in Derby, said he had followed the story closely in American Free Press and had also been notified in advance by Rolls Royce offices in Seattle and Indianapolis. However, rather than address the question of the unidentified disc, Johnson launched a verbal attack on this reporter for questioning the government version of events at the Pentagon on 9-11. ‘You are the only person in the world who does not believe that a 757 hit the Pentagon’, Johnson said. ‘The idea that we can have a reasonable conversation is beyond your wildest dreams’, Johnson said and hung up the phone.

While there can be no definitive statements made on the matter, the available evidence would seem to suggest that the engine disk in the FEMA photos is probably too small to be part of a 757 engine and, contrary to what CatHerder states, according to the Honeywell expert that makes the APU for the 757, it is definitely not a part of a 757’s APU. So what is it? It could very well be part of a Global Hawk AE3007H engine.

Back to our ATS author:

Below is a significant portion of a badly smashed RB211 engine in the Pentagon wreckage - what appears to be the diffusor section of the compressor, one of the pumps remains partially attached, some hoses and the familiar webbed wire wraps (to the right of the main ring) and some of the Boeing yellow primed support structure is lying beside it (left, with rivets - again: note the yellow primer, we'll cover that further down). Reference: Image of the engine used on the 757 (it's the rightmost one, top row) Rolls-Royce

Yet again our non-expert author presents photographs of mangled pieces of debris and asserts categorically that they are parts from a 757 engine.

In this case, we are provided with a link to a picture of a 757 engine without its casing from which our author can apparently quite easily identify things like the "diffusor section of the compressor" and "one of the pumps" and "some hoses and the familiar webbed wire wraps".

Ah yes! Those familiar webbed wire wraps, known and loved in every household across the country! The photo below is the reference that our author has used to positively match the mangled and burnt debris above. Well? Can't you see it?! It's right there!! Clearly the debris above is the very same 757 engine in the photo below!

No? Well, obviously you just don't trust enough in the word of the US government and its agent, CatHerder. If you did, you would be able to see the truth straight away. (End sarcasm.)

Another engine part, bottom right.

Again, for the author, in his/her non-expert opinion, to declare that the circular piece of debris in the above photo is "another engine part" is either evidence of extreme subjectivity or a deliberate attempt to mislead the reader. We are beginning to think it is the latter.

Below: Evidence of the right engine impact on the side of the building is evident on the large pillar being sprayed with fire retardant. (click photo for huge version)

At this point, CatHerder's sweeping statements about damage to the Pentagon and what caused it are getting to be somewhat farcical. In this case, as in almost every statement made by the him/her so far, the claim is spurious to say the least.

Click on the link to view a larger version of the photo. You will see that the chunk of masonry that is missing is a the level of the second floor windows in the Pentagon. If, as CatHerder states, the engine of a 757 did this damage then the nose of the plane would have impacted several feet higher around the middle of the second floor. Yet CatHerder sees no problem with making such a claim while at the same time presenting photographs that show clearly that whatever hit the Pentagon struck the facade at the level of the first floor!

Again, we realize that we have been dazzled with more photos and more unsubstantiated claims.

The hit lightpoles, and damaged vehicles in the flightpath (click for larger images)

Indeed, damaged light poles, but was it a 757 that did this damage or another type of craft? We aren't saying that a plane did not hit the Pentagon. Hardly anyone IS saying that. The only thing at issue is what KIND of plane was it?

The debris field of small chunks of plane witnesses said debris "rained down for minutes after the crash". (click for larger images)

Again, (and we are sure you are getting tired of this by now) the debris in the upper photos is extremely small and most likely to be masonry from the facade of the Pentagon rather than "small chunks of plane" as CatHerder states. Note yet again that he (or she) is making sweeping assertions without providing any evidence at all for any of his/her claims! Somehow, probably due to the abundance of photos and the authoritative writing style that has very little content, many people actually accept this bit of what can only be called "yellow journalism" as a serious debunking of the "No Boeing" idea!

As noted by Thierry Meyssan in his book Pentagate, even the American government has refused to recognise that the infamous piece of debris in the lower photo on the left above is a part of the Flight 77, yet CatHerder sagely affirms that it is, without doubt, a piece of Flight 77. As for the "eyewitnesses" statements that debris "rained down for minutes after the crash", we do not doubt that it did, but that has little or no bearing on our investigation into whether Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, or whether it was something else.

[Deleted part of CatHerder's analysis of the size of the infamous "piece of plane" given that the point has already been made that the US government officially disowns this as a part of Flight 77.]

Even the black boxes have been recovered, the reason given for not playing the flight voice recorder for the media was that it wouldn't serve any use other than to cause more emotional pain to family members (I agree with them frankly).

Well, again CatHerder is being disingenuous.

Flight data recorders were found at the Pentagon on September 14th 2001. On Feb. 25, 2002, FBI Director Robert Mueller stated that Flight 77's data recorder provided altitude, speed, headings and other information, but the voice recorder contained nothing useful. [CBS]

Later, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld said that the data on the cockpit voice data recorder was unrecoverable. No further explanation was given for these contradictory statements.

If the cockpit voice data really was unrecoverable, it would be the first time in aviation history a solid-state data recorder (the type used on Flight 77) was unrecoverable after a crash.

From a Scientific American feature article lauding the "Better Black Box" in their [WWW] September 2000 issue:

Nearly 100,000 flight recorders have been installed in commercial aircraft over the past four decades. The prices of the latest models generally range from $10,000 to $20,000. Their survival rate has greatly improved in recent years as the FAA has raised the certification requirements. Although older recorders using magnetic tape were susceptible to fire damage, no solid-state device has been destroyed in an accident to date.

Lawyers representing 9/11 victim families are attempting to use the Freedom of Information Act to obtain transcripts of the black-box data. See [WWW] 9/11 Lawyers Seek Black-Box Data on Saudi Hijackers by Tom Flocco, which indicates the FBI are obstructing the NTSB review of the black box data. [Flight 77 Black Boxes]

So we see it was not the case that only the public did not get to hear what was on the data recorders, the families of the victims have been left out in the cold too.

So much for wanting to prevent emotional pain!

Of course, as Flight 77 was not the plane involved in the Pentagon Attack, its black boxes would presumably show that, and the government would be very reluctant to allow the data to be examined, or allow the NTSB to carry out the investigation of the crash that is required by law. [Flight 77 Black Boxes]

As an interesting aside on the black boxes, Allyn E. Kilsheimer is the CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, the company responsible for rebuilding the Pentagon under the Phoenix Project. He was the head structural engineer on the rebuilding project and the first structural engineer to arrive at the scene (at the request of the DOD by the way). He stated:

"I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box." Kilsheimer's eyewitness account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the building. Kilsheimer adds: "I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?"

Of course, the idea that we should give any credit to the words of someone who was immediately called by the Pentagon to come and "assess the damage" and who went on to make millions from the reconstruction project is laughable. Kilsheimer was also the "government's man" at the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing and the first WTC bombing. Coincidence?

But it doesn't end there.

Kilsheimer claimed that he "found the black box" on the afternoon of 9/11. The only problem with this statement is that it is an out and out lie, and verifiably so.

From MSNBC:

"Carlton Burkhammer was at work at Fairfax County Fire and Rescue Station 14 when he heard about the World Trade Center crashes. Part of Fairfax County’s elite urban search and rescue team, Burkhammer prepared to suit up and head to New York City. One of the nation’s most experienced rescue teams, the squad had been deployed in disasters all over the world: Oklahoma City, embassy bombings, the Turkey earthquake. [...] Early Friday morning, shortly before 4 a.m., Burkhammer and another firefighter, Brian Moravitz, were combing through debris near the impact site. Peering at the wreckage with their helmet lights, the two spotted an intact seat from the plane’s cockpit with a chunk of the floor still attached. Then they saw two odd-shaped dark boxes, about 1.5 by 2 feet long."

Yet again we have a government agent openly and PROVABLY lying about the events surrounding the attack on the Pentagon, but that again does not give CatHerder any pause for thought before trumpeting the official story as the truth.

Area of fence to the right of the impact area partially flattened by the right engine of the plane. Note how a couple of the poles are bent right over, some are sheered off at the top, yet the pole and fence portion on the left is untouched (obviously the right engine took out the fence to the right of those poles) and the entire back side of the fence has been torn away. The generator was hit by the right wing and engine before the 757 hit the building - the damage is evidenced by other photos of the crash area.

Closeup of generator smashed in the front and gouged on the top - hard to image a missile accomplishing both of these. But if the right engine of a 757 hit the front of the generator, part of the wing could gouge the top. At the very least, something very large, and very heavy smashed into this extremely heavy desil generator.



Click the image on the left to view a large top-down image of the impact area, including the large desil (sic) generator which is visibly damaged, and actually spun ~45 degrees from the impact! Most importantly it is spun ~45 degrees towards the building - if this was a missile or a bomb, the explosion could ONLY have spun it away from the building.

In the immediate aftermath of the Pentagon attack, the Associated Press reported that a truck bomb had exploded at the Pentagon. There were other reports that a helicopter had exploded. It certainly seems likely then that something exploded in the vicinity of the Pentagon before the main impact. As noted by CatHerder, there was a diesel generator stationed just to the right of the impact point in front of the Pentagon that was part of the Pentagon refurbishment project. Diesel generators usually have a large fuel tank located somewhere nearby to power them. Photos taken moments after the impact show an already burning fire to the right of the main impact site that is emitting a dense cloud of black smoke.

This black smoke is consistent with burning fuel (diesel), which continued to burn long after the flames and smoke from the main impact had died down.

The Gate Camera

Some people don't seem to see perspective correctly. I've zoomed in, and compared the two frames over and over - here is what I see as the airplane. I will repeat, however, that this is terrible evidence due to the horrible quality of the original images. I do believe, however, that the white smoke in the images is caused by one or more damaged engine from the impact with the multiple light poles on the way in (as seen in the above image).



I stuck in a 757 that was at relatively the same angle - except it's banking slightly to starboard instead of to port - hence the ONE wing is out of place. If it was banking slightly to port it would fit perfectly... However, once again - this is entirely subjective and the image quality from the released surveillance camera is not good enough to form a factual opinion.

The author's comment that "if it was banking slightly to port it (a 757) would fit perfectly" is really quite humorous. The fact is that you could "stick in" a tank or a bus or a large two-storey house and they would also "fit perfectly".

The facts are as follows:

There were at least four video cameras capable of recording the attack on the Pentagon. One was on the roof of the Sheraton Hotel, a second was at a gas station across the road from the Pentagon itself, the third belonged to the Virginia Department of Transportation and was stationed on route 27, which the aircraft flew over. The fourth was the Pentagon’s security camera stationed at the opposite one end of the façade from where the plane struck.

The footage from the cameras at the Sheraton, the gas station and on route 27 were confiscated by the FBI and have never been released. The only footage made available to the public was that recorded by the Pentagon’s security camera. According to the Washington Times however, both the DOJ and the FBI denied responsibility for releasing the footage from the Pentagon's security camera:

"The Pentagon has not released any video or any photos from security cameras from the terrorist attack of Sept. 11," said Pentagon spokeswoman Cheryl Irwin. A spokeswoman at the Department of Justice, which reviews taped and photographed evidence obtained by federal security cameras, said she could not comment on whether the photos are legitimate, adding that the photos "were not disseminated by the FBI or the Department of Justice."

Of course, a simple denial does not mean that someone within the DOJ or the DOD or the FBI did not release the footage to the public - after all, we are dealing with a massive 9/11 conspiracy and the footage is from the Pentagon's very own security camera. We can assume with a reasonable degree of certainty therefore, that someone within one of the arms of the American military/ political/ industrial complex released the footage and then denied that they did so, and for a very specific reason.

The above photo is the first still from the only video footage of the Pentagon attack that has been made available. It is alleged that it shows an approaching Boeing 757 in the upper right hand corner. Do you see a Boeing 757-200 in this picture?

If we think back to the images and video footage of Flight 11 and Flight 175 hitting the WTC towers, we remember that we all saw both large Boeing airplanes, as clear as day, even though they were flying at over 500 mph and were over 1,000 feet up in the air when they struck the WTC Towers. This provides us with an excellent guide on how such commercial aircraft appear at that distance. The side of the Pentagon is 971 feet long and the plane in the footage is no more than 750 feet (250 yards) from the camera that is stationed near the opposite end of the Pentagon. Remember the indelible images of those huge planes flying into the World Trade Center towers? Even at that distance, even with the size of the WTC towers, the image and size of the aircraft that was burned into our minds from having seen the tapes replayed endlessly, is awe-inspiring.

Now, look again at the above image from the Pentagon Security camera of the plane approaching the building. Ask yourself the question: where is the Boeing 757-200 in this image?

Next time you are at an airport, take five minutes and go and look at some planes on the runway. Pick out a large passenger jet that is approximately 750 feet away, preferably one in the process of taking off or landing. Take a picture of it. Then look at this image from the Pentagon Security camera again and ask yourself. Where is that Boeing 757?!

The fact is that if a Boeing 757 really did hit the Pentagon, it would stick out like, well… like a Boeing 757 in this footage, but the simple and obvious fact is that there is no Boeing 757 there. In fact, there is no plane of any description in the footage released by the Pentagon.

Note that the time stamp displays a date and time of September 12th at 5.37:19 pm. The DOD has offered no reason for this discrepancy, which is understandable since they claim to have no knowledge about who released the images. In the footage, the progression of seconds jumps from 19, where it starts, to 21 and then on to 22 and 23 where it ends, meaning that one second and an undetermined number of frames have been cut from the film. No explanation has ever been offered by any official sources as to why this video footage has clearly been “doctored”, why one second and several frames have been removed – frames that would likely show just what it was that struck the Pentagon. Of course, this is very convenient for exponents of the official story. The footage shows something flying into the Pentagon and exploding, and since we were all immediately told that that "something" was a 757, the case is closed, right?

Not really.

Quite apart from the fact that the doctoring of the video strongly suggests that someone released this footage in an attempt to provide "evidence" to the public that a 757 hit the Pentagon, while at the same time removing the incriminating frames and denying the public the right to actually see what it was, in the images above we see a stream of white smoke that is entirely inconsistent with a commercial jet aircraft at ground level and much more in line with the trail left by a missile launch. Please note however that I am not saying that only a “missile” struck the Pentagon.

Note also the picture of actual impact and explosion.

Have you ever burned oil, or car gas or diesel? It burns with a dense black smoke, as does oil (see above picture of claimed truck bomb). The flame is predominantly red, which, I am told, is due to the low burn temperature of oil-based fuel (see picture of flames from plane explosions at WTC). While there are few bomb or explosive experts willing to weigh in, there have been a few who claim to know about bomb detonations who affirm that this white flame is clear evidence of explosives detonating. In fact, several eyewitnesses to the attack made it very clear that they knew that the explosion involved explosives, not a mere aircraft full of fuel.

Eyewitness to the Pentagon attack and Pentagon worker Don Perkal, was on the scene within minutes:

“Even before stepping outside I could smell the cordite. Then I knew explosives had been set off somewhere.”

He also stated:

“Hundreds of F.B.I., Secret Service and Defense Department plainclothes investigators were deployed in the parking lot, recording witness statements.”

Another eyewitness, Gilah Goldsmith said:

“We saw a huge black cloud of smoke”, adding that it smelled like cordite, or gun smoke.

Witnesses inside the Pentagon, mostly military men, described a shockwave and a blast.

The Washington Post ran a story where it was stated:

Air Force Lt. Col. Marc Abshire, 40, a speechwriter for Air Force Secretary James Roche, was working on several speeches this morning when he felt the blast of the explosion at the Pentagon. His office is on the D ring, near the eighth corridor, he said. “It shot me back in my chair. There was a huge blast. I could feel the air shock wave of it”, Abshire said. “I didn’t know exactly what it was. It didn’t rumble. It was more of a direct smack.”

Donald R. Bouchoux, 53, a retired Naval officer, a Great Falls resident, a Vietnam veteran and former commanding officer of a Navy fighter squadron, was driving west from Tysons Corner to the Pentagon for a 10am meeting. He wrote:

“At 9:40 a.m. I was driving down Washington Boulevard (Route 27) along the side of the Pentagon when the aircraft crossed about 200 yards (should be more than 150 yards from the impact) in front of me and impacted the side of the building. There was an enormous fireball, followed about two seconds later by debris raining down. The car moved about a foot to the right when the shock wave hit.”

John Bowman, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a contractor, was in his office in Corridor Two near the main entrance to the south parking lot.

“Everything was calm”, Bowman said. “Most people knew it was a bomb. Everyone evacuated smartly. We have a good sprinkling of military people who have been shot at.”

Stars and Stripes reporter Lisa Burgess was walking on the Pentagon’s innermost corridor, across the courtyard, when the incident happened.

“I heard two loud booms - one large, one smaller, and the shock wave threw me against the wall”, she said.

Anger and guilt still sear Lieutenant Colonel Michael Beans who shakes his head ruefully and asks himself why he survived: "Why you, not them? Who made that decision?" (…) Inside the Pentagon, the blast lifted Beans off the floor as he crossed a huge open office toward his desk. "You heard this huge concussion, then the room filled with this real bright light, just like everything was encompassed within this bright light," said Beans. "As soon as I hit the floor, all the lights went out, there was a small fire starting to burn."

So we see that several witnesses, both inside and outside the building, described a shockwave that knocked them to the ground. Several described it as a concussion. Such a shockwave cannot be explained by the impact of an aircraft or the combustion of jet fuel, and indicates the detonation of an explosive. Explosive detonations produce blast pressures thousands of times stronger than hydrocarbon fireballs because explosives are oxidized by chemicals intrinsic to them whereas hydrocarbons rely on oxygen in ambient air for combustion. Consequently the chemical reaction proceeds at a much higher rate in an explosive.

Hydrocarbon fireballs can produce detonation waves if the fuel and air are mixed prior to ignition, but such detonation waves are comparatively weak. The violence of most plane crashes precludes such pre-mixing. In the Twin Tower jet collisions, the columns of the curtain walls diced the fuel tanks in the wings, assuring fuel and air mixing about as optimally as could be imagined in a collision, and yet there were no reports of detonation shockwaves from any survivors from the floors below the impact point.

Cordite is an explosive compound used in aircraft gun ammunition. Several witnesses with the benefit of military experience recognized the smell of this compound. Cordite N consists of three main explosive compounds: nitroguanidine, nitrocellulose, and nitroglycerin. It is cool-burning, and produces little smoke and no flash, but, like other explosives, produces a strong detonation wave.

Back to ATS forum post:

Lets look at the physics involved

Here CatHerder takes us off on a tangent that is wholly irrelevant to the task of analysing the likely physical impact of 80 tons of metal and other solid matter on the Pentagon and therefore to answering the question of whether or not Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, because, despite the above heading, the only physics that is employed by the people at Purdue University is that pertaining to the physics of liquid, i.e. the fuel in the wings of the plane and its hypothesised effect on the Pentagon facade and interior. It therefore has little to do with the job of ironing out the problems of the claim that an 80 ton Boeing aircraft hit the Pentagon. We can only assume that it is an attempt to confuse the reader and detract from the main issue - that the totality of evidence at the Pentagon crash site is entirely inconsistent with a Boeing 757 having hit the Pentagon that day.

Engineers, computer scientists and graphics technology experts at Purdue University have created the first publicly available simulation that uses scientific principles to study in detail what theoretically happened when the Boeing 757 crashed into the Pentagon last Sept. 11

Using simulation software called LS-Dyna, the smart folks use the physically accurate simulation results as input to animations and visualizations to produce a vivid reenactment of the impact of the aircraft on the Pentagon building and provide the larger team with the necessary data to construct these using 3D Studio Max, AutoCAD, and research tools.

Again the author is being less that transparent and omits to specify that the referenced research looks at the impact of the liquid in the fuel tanks and its effect on the Pentagon. In fact it is a testimony to the fact that even those that hold to the official version of events have had to resort to the idea that, in their own words:

"a basic hypothesis, informally confirmed with engineers knowledgeable in this subject, is that the bulk of the impact damage is due to the body of fuel in the wing and center tanks."

And why? Because the damage to the Pentagon, including the 8 feet wide circular hole punched out in ring C is ENTIRELY inconsistent with the impact of an 80 ton 757 jetliner.

The Purdue folks further state that:

"The purpose of this simulation is to understand the response of a reinforced concrete column subjected to high-speed impact of the fuel in the aircraft tanks."

But CatHerder conveniently leaves the details out.  

Now we can see, through a very competent and valid simulator, what happened in the attack on the Pentagon. Click here to view a video generated by the simulator. Or, click here to read the white paper.

Again, this simulation does not show us "what happened in the attack on the Pentagon"; it shows us the hypothesised effect of the FUEL in the wings on the Pentagon and is an example of the desperate attempts to find an explanation, ANY explanation, for why the impact damage is NOT consistent with the impact of a 757 when the government says it was a 757. In fact, the study above is contradictory if one wants to stick with the "13 ft cylinder" and "confetti-ized" wings theory. You can't have it both ways.

In layman's terms the crash dynamics worked like so: A large hollow tube, with a belly full of luggage, a passenger bay with 60 people, and wings full of fuel smashed into the side of an almost solid object while moving at a tremendous speed (somewhere around 350-400mph). When the 225,000lb+ plane hit, it smashed apart with such force from the crash that it became like one massive column of liquid (no, the plane didn't melt or turn into liquid, it just acted like one physically - mountainslides act the same way, a million tons of rock acts like a large field of liquid during a landslide even if no water is present). All the small parts, luggage, people, seats, and all the tens of thousands of pounds of fuel acting like a massive river came crashing into the wall of the Pentagon. This force burst through the outside wall and flowed through the inside to the next wall, and momentum carried this mass until it finally ran out of inertia at the 3rd ring.

Plane hitting WTC (another example of crash fluid dynamics) - RealAudio Required - note how the 767 "liquifies" and flows through the WTC tower.

Please do read the information on the Perdue website yourself - I don't do it justice with my one paragraph of paraphrasing!

Indeed, not only does the author's paraphrasing and selective use of data not tell the truth about the real nature and reason for this "simulation", it attempts to distract and confuse the reader by suggesting that an 80 ton solid aircraft was little more than a column of liquid! Again, you can't have it both ways. If you are going to include the wings and fuel tanks, and twin 6 TON engines, then the hole is way too small for all of this together to have created it.

For anyone to try and compare the effects of an 80 ton aircraft crashing into a building at 400mph to the effects of a landslide of rocks and soil is far-fetched at best, yet it is testimony to the extreme lengths that CatHerder must go to to try and prove that a 757 hit the Pentagon when there is simply no evidence to stand on.

If a 757 really did hit the Pentagon then there should be no need for outlandish theories about columns of water. The evidence SHOULD be all there, and it should be a breeze to present facts that would quickly dismiss any attempts to suggest otherwise.

But we see that this is not the case - in fact the exact opposite is true! CatHerder is finding it very difficult to prove something that should be easily provable if the evidence was there for ALL to see.

Please read again his/her claim that the plane: