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Considering
that the engine did not have an explosive inside it, was travelling
(optimistically) at 300 mph and weighed about half of the “Grand Slam”, it’s a
little difficult to work out how it was able to a penetration job which would
appear to be about equal to that which the Grand Slam was capable of, and do it
easily by the look of the photo. Even more remarkable is the fact that the face
of the engine is the worst shape possible for penetrating a target. Tens of
thousands of years ago, people worked out that pointed surfaces penetrate
targets more easily than flat surfaces, and arrows, spears swords, bullets and
missiles are designed according to this principle. The above articles mention
that the “grand slam” was aerodynamically designed to ensure that the pointed
end would be facing down when it struck. So the engine was really just like a
heavier and more powerful version of the old mediaeval catapult. They had less
powerful propulsion and couldn’t throw anything approaching that weight, but if
they’d had even 10% of the alleged penetrative power of this remarkable engine,
then most castles would have been demolished within the first hour of the
siege. In
Dec 2001 it was reported that the US air force's new cave and bunker busting
bombs could penetrate 11 ft of reinforced concrete, perhaps
more. http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2001/011213-attack02.htm What
a remarkable achievement! Decades of experience and research in the area of
missile development, swallowing billions of dollars, have finally achieved a
penetrative power approaching that of a flat ended, non explosive, 6 ton chunk
of metal hurled through the air at a few hundred mph, like a bigger version of
an ancient siege engine. Where
is this engine? Did it miraculously disintegrate after punching it’s way through
three rings? Or have authorities rushed it away somewhere to hide any evidence
for their own story? PART
11. WHAT ABOUT THE EYEWITNESSES? When
an eyewitness claims to have seen something which is physically impossible they
are generally assumed to be either mistaken or lying. Indeed, such dismissal is
not limited to reports of the physically impossible, but extended to the
dubious. For example reports of UFOs, sea monsters, ghosts or Bigfoot are
usually dismissed as hoaxes or illusions, even though such things are not
necessarily physically impossible, but simply outside the scope of what we
generally accept as being reasonable and credible. The plausibility of such
alleged accounts cannot be mathematically tested, and quantitatively defined as
being either possible or impossible. Much of the official story concerning AA 77
can, and has now been, subjected to mathematical analysis, and has been found to
be impossible. To
uncritically accept eyewitness reports of a solid object fitting through a hole
smaller than itself, or alternatively blowing itself into nothing against the
rules of physics is inconsistent with the standards of proof and credibility
normally applied to alleged eyewitnesses of other dubious, but not necessarily
impossible phenomena. The
question has to be asked - how many eyewitness reports would be needed to even
reopen such a question, let alone consider it to be proved, contrary to the laws
of physics? And what standards of verification should be applied? Does an
anonymous, third hand, one line quote in a military newspaper (hardly an
independent source, considering the nature of the debate ) constitute an
“eyewitness” in these circumstances? How many of these would be needed in order
to confidently override the laws of physics ? We
need dozens, maybe hundreds of credible well verified, comprehensive eyewitness
reports in close to full agreement with each other, from sources which are at
least in theory independent, to even reopen the question. The mainstream media
and certain web authors have done a smoke and mirrors job to have us believe
that such eyewitness evidence exists. It
doesn’t. Those sources do not make any effort to critically examine the question
of how the alleged eyewitness reports originated, or to critically deconstruct
the reports either individually or collectively. I dealt with this question
comprehensively in this article, published in June 2002 Did
AA 77 hit the Pentagon? Eyewitness accounts examined. http://hamilton.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=1786&group=webcast It
demonstrated that eyewitness accounts do not confirm a large passenger jet
hitting the Pentagon. The findings of the article did not demonstrate that the
eyewitness reports, when taken in isolation, prove that it didn’t happen. It
simply demonstrated that they don’t confirm anything one way or the other. They
are confused, lacking in substance, highly contradictory and poorly
verified. Some
described a large passenger jet, some even specifying an AA 757. One alleged
witness (Ford) described it as a propeller plane. Many gave no indication at all
as to what kind of plane it was, but were unjustifiably seized upon by
supporters of the 757 theory as proof that a large passenger jet hit the
building, simply because a witness allegedly said that “a plane “ hit the
building. Many claimed to see a large plane close to the scene, but didn’t see
it hit the building. Another report, which I decided not to review, and in
retrospect should have (Steve Patterson) described it as an 8 to 12 seater jet.
And even amongst those who claimed it to be a large plane, there was wild
contradiction in how it hit. One
expects some variation, but not to this extent. One alleged witness, (Mike
Walter) said in one interview that it that dove steeply into the building from
almost directly above it. But in a different interview he described it as “like
a cruise missile with wings” - the above description wouldn’t seem to be
describing missile -like behaviour- and in several other interviews he said he
that he didn’t see it at all, including one given only an hour after the steep
dive interview. Nevertheless, one media commentator in defending the official
story, selectively quoted Walter and wrote “Mike Walter is in no doubt about
what he saw.” Others said it flew level and crashed on the ground in front of
the building, near the helipad, and others said it flew straight into the wall.
The
verification of most reports was extremely poor, amounting to hearsay. I was
only able to find two witnesses who gave direct live interviews for which
transcripts were available. Walter and Timmerman. Walter, who gave several
interviews, contradicted himself so much that it was hard to know what to make
of it. Timmerman's account was impossible to believe, because it required us to
believe that a block of apartments suddenly sprang out of the ground half way
through his sighting and then disappeared again afterwards. In
that article I refrained from comparing the eyewitness reports with any physical
evidence. I simply wanted to isolate the reports and see how they stood up in a
self contained analysis. But it’s now time to subject some of these to critical
examination of how they fit with the physical evidence. There were two reports
(Timmerman and Washington) which explicitly stated a large plane, (in
Timmerman’s case, explicitly an AA 757) and suggested that it crashed on the
ground, near the helipad, just in front of the building. Both of these reports
were discredited and exposed as almost certain fabrications because of internal
inconsistencies, without the need to resort to any of the physical evidence. But
lets pretend that their reports had stood up, when viewed in
isolation. Here
again is that photo of the area in question, surrounded by smooth lawns, just
after the incident. http://66.129.143.7/june2aa.htm Can
you pick the spot where a 155 ft fuselage, 12 ft wide, with a wingspan of 125 ft
crashed and exploded with a ferocity never previously seen in aviation history ?
If this actually happened, then we are wasting money and space building airport
runways. We could just use golf courses. The lawns would clearly stand up very
well to this kind of treatment. Imagine
that you are a lawyer, conducting a defence in a murder trial. Suppose that the
prosecution presented Timmerman and Washington as witnesses in relation to the
above photograph, which was deemed to be relevant to the case. How would you
feel if your client was convicted on the basis that the testimonies of Timmerman
and Washington were deemed to override the physical evidence shown in the photo
? Just a chance you might appeal ? Although
the eyewitness investigation didn’t reveal evidence for any specific scenario,
it’s really significant finding was that it exposed several examples of blatant
fabrication of reports which claimed to support the official story. Why
fabricate eyewitness evidence for something that really happened? These reports
are still circulating around the web and the media as if they were genuine. For
example, the report attributed to Captain Lincoln Liebner was exposed as an
unequivocal fabrication, but some web authors who I know are well aware of this,
and others who may not be aware of it, continue to post the Liebner report on
their websites as evidence for the official story. Other reports exposed as
certain or almost certain fabrications include Timmerman, Washington, McGraw and
Winslow. These continue to be heavily promoted as
evidence. Of
course, the article wasn’t perfect, and in retrospect there’s a few things I
should have handled a little differently. Nevertheless, it was a very thorough
investigation, and remains, as far as I am aware, the only comprehensive
investigation which has been done into the eyewitness aspect. The best complaint
that most critics could come up with is that I didn’t go even further, and
personally track down and phone the alleged witnesses myself - rather difficult
since most of them were either anonymous, or appeared not to exist, or worked
for the military, or were simply untraceable without spending amounts of time
and money which very few people have. But the same critics had been perfectly
happy to accept these bogus or dubious or poorly verified reports at face value
and post them as evidence on their websites for months without any attempt at
critical investigation. As soon as my investigation was published, discrediting
or throwing serious doubt on many of these reports, it suddenly became
dreadfully important ( but apparently only for me ) to phone the witnesses,
before drawing any conclusions. Meanwhile, these critics happily continue to
quote the discredited accounts such as Liebner, Timmerman, Winslow, McGraw and
Washington without bothering to have done any investigation themselves. The
argument seemed to be that because my investigation had only been 95% thorough,
then it’s findings were less credible than those who had done no investigation
at all, but simply collected quotes from press or other websites.
http://www.iaff.org/across/news/archives/102401local.html [[
Moments later, fire fighters Allan Wallace and Mark Skipper ran for cover as the
ill-fated aircraft impacted the southwest face of the building, leaving hundreds
of Pentagon workers as well as the 64 people aboard the plane dead or missing.
Variations
on this story are published at http://www.msnbc.com/news/635293.asp
One
of these says that Wallace didn’t actually make it under the van until after the
blast. It also mentions that the plane was alleged to be about 25 ft of the
ground. Lets
pull this apart. [[
"I just happened to look up and see the plane," ]] When
it was 200 yards away? If it was a 757, the noise would have been deafening well
before then. It’s inconceivable that someone could only become aware of a plane
of that size at that height and distance by “just happening to look up.”. Notice
that he says “the plane”, with no further embellishment. This statement might be
plausible if it was something much quieter. So either it represents a dubious
and poorly verified statement contradicting the official story, or else it
simply isn’t believable. There’s
a further problem with this statement. If was 25 ft high and 200 yards away, it
would be at about a 2 degree angle from the ground where Wallace was standing,
so it would be in his normal line of vision. He actually didn’t need to look up
at all. It should really be “I just happened to be not looking down, and see the
plane”, which does not have a particularly credible ring to it. Other variations
on this story do not have Wallace engaged in some kind of task, where he’s
looking down. He’s said to be simply walking along. Which means that the plane
should have been in his field of vision, the moment it appeared over the
horizon, rather than something which had to be looked up at to be seen. It’s
possible that the surrounding topography, trees and buildings limited the
horizon to this distance and that Wallace did see it the moment it appeared, and
has simply described the sighting clumsily, or not realised this, because it
happened so quickly. So we shouldn’t say “That proves this guy is lying”, but
neither should we uncritically accept it all at face value without thinking it
through. These are exactly the kinds of issues which would be raised in a cross
examination in court. 400
mph is 195 yards per second. So if it was 200 yards away, then Wallace had 1
second to do everything which the article claims him to have
done. 1)
Take it in for a moment 2)
Yell “Get the hell out of here” 3)
Turn and run about twenty feet. I’ve
tested this, using a tape measure and a metronome set at 60 beats per minute to
count the time. When turning the instant of the metronome click (leaving no time
at all for reaction and recognition, or yelling out), and beginning to sprint, I
got to take one big step by the second click - covering about 7 ft, so I still
needed another second to get close to 20 ft . ( and I’m quick ). So it’s
impossible to have done this in 1 second. You need at least two, which means
that the plane must been 400 yards away, when he first saw it. Realistically, we
should be adding another 1/2 to 1 second for reaction time and yelling out. So
we really need to call the plane’s distance as 500 - 600 yards. You can try it
out for yourself . A
certain amount of latitude has to allowed in estimating distances, but expanding
200 to 500 or 600, is stretching the boundaries of such latitude. But if we
reduce the van’s distance to 15 ft, meaning that one more big step gets you
nearly there, we might just be able to suggest that this is plausible in 2
seconds - 400 yards of flight, which just comes within acceptable margins of
error. Apart
from the fact that 500 -600 yards would be stretching the figures in the report
beyond credibility, there’s another reason why the plane can’t have been more
than about 450 yards away, unless we start changing another of Wallace’s
parameters by orders of magnitude. If it was 25 ft off the ground, and more than
about 450 yards away, it would have crashed into the Navy annex, rather than
coming over the top of it. Who says it came over the Navy annex? Several of the
other witnesses which purport to support the official story. So either it didn’t
come over the Navy annex, discrediting those reports, or else Wallace is orders
of magnitude out not only with the distance, but also with the height , and also
significantly out with the distance of the van. This starts to create too much
inaccuracy for the report to be credible, considering the confident and
unequivocal manner in which the distances are presented, especially when
combining it with the unlikely introduction of “ just happening to look up.” If
it was anything like 25 ft off the ground, and went south of the Navy annex,
then it probably would have demolished buildings on the other side of 395. If it
went north, it might have hit the Sheraton, and if it went further north through
the cemetery, it would have cut a vicious swathe of destruction through the
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