9/11 Conspiracy Theory Debunked

[TheElite]

Sure. You can put wings and a tail on a missile. But then you'd have a 20 foot plane. Let's assume that a missle was dressed up to look exactly like Flight 77. Then you'd have something like the photo below. One is a real 757. The other is a 20 foot version of a 757. Yes, it's to scale.

Are you going to tell me, with a straight face, that anyone could mistake one for the other?

The only evidence provided in that article is a geiger counter reading that 8-10 times higher than the normal radiation for that area. Now, I'm no expert, but I did a quick search, and this Cristian Science Monitor article says that a single depleted urainum bullet registers 1000 times normal levels on a geiger counter:

If a DU missile hit the Pentagon, don't you think the readout would be a bit higher than 8-10 times normal? I think these conspiracy theorists (and yes, they are conspiracy theorists...Rokke uses the same arguments (no plane debris, size of hole, etc) and even believes in the WTC missile pod theory) took a factual observation (reading from a geiger counter) and are using the general populace's ignorance of radiation levels to scare them into believing the conspiracy theory with them.

8-10 times normal is nothing. TVs put out 2x normal levels. The fillings in your teeth put out radiation, as does your own body. Also, there's no way to determine the source of radiation based on a geiger counter reading. Rems are rems, regardless of the source, so their claim that depleted uranium is the source is 100% unfounded conjecture.

I think you missed some of my point regarding the cloaking. Why couldnt they add a body of about 100ft, and put the missile in there?

Also, the evidence that this site gave was quite good I thought: Pentagon crash

[MacOSXMan]

WTC7: Another Controlled Demolition Comparison

Edited May 14, 2007 by WinMacsta06

[jackwanders]

I think you missed some of my point regarding the cloaking. Why couldnt they add a body of about 100ft, and put the missile in there?

Also, the evidence that this site gave was quite good I thought: Pentagon crash

Well, first, I didn't miss your point. You said "is it hard to cloak a missile to look like a jetliner? I mean, add some wings, aerodynamic tale, etc?". Now you're changing your argument to say that they placed the missile inside a large, plane shaped shell.

Even then, how would you fire such a missile? You certainly wouldn't be able to use any traditional launching system...you'd pretty much have to fly it into the Pentagon, meaning you're now suggesting that perhaps the US put a missile inside a plane and flew the plane into the Pentagon. Is that right? Because, if I'm not mistaken, isn't the argument that a plane didn't hit the Pentagon?

That site uses the same arguments I've seen everywhere else. The CNN reporter saying 'no evidence of a plane crashing near Pentagon' makes sense, because Flight 77 didn't crash near the Pentagon. It flew into the Pentagon. What wasn't destroyed on impact continued to travel within the outer wall of the Pentagon, hence why there's little plane debris outside and no crash indications on the ground outside the building.

He goes on to compare the holes of the WTC and the Pentagon, which is pretty disingenuous. He says

Take a look at this hole and notice that the I beams are gone, they are not there at all! Thus why then are the beems still there in the Pentagon Crash. The WTC was designed to take a hit from a 747 and yet the beams are gone! Thus it does support that a small aircraft or missile hit the Pentagon and not a AA 757.

This is flawed. Even if WTC was designed to withstand collapse in the event of a plane crash, that does not mean the outer wall was designed to withstand the impact. It makes perfect sense that the wings of the plane would slice right through the glass, aluminum, and comparatively thin steel beams. However, the Pentagon is a different story. The outer wall of the Pentagon was designed to withstand blasts, explosions, etc. The walls of the Pentagon were much stronger than the walls of the WTC. Also, the beams of the WTC were only separated from the outside world by glass and aluminum. The beams of the Pentagon were protected by feet of blast-resistant concrete. Big difference. It's really not surprising that the wings of Flight 77 were obliterated by the outer wall of the Pentagon.

Then he has the gall to compare the Flight 77 impact with that of a smaller plane skidding across a road into the cinder block wall of a warehouse. The fact that he neglects the two huge facts that:

- This plane was skidding across a road. Flight 77 was traveling over 500 mph.

- The warehouse was constructed using standard cinder blocks. The Pentagon was blast resistant.

This author is either fooling himself, trying to fool you, or less intelligent than you want him to be. He actually does this a number of times, comparing the Pentagon impact with other plane crashes...Different planes crashing into buildings with significantly different constructions. Doesn't this strike you as a poorly constructed argument?

The absolute best part of the entire article? He claims that explosives were used to knock down the light poles, so that they wouldn't impede the flight of the 'whatever it was that hit the Pentagon'. Why? Because he says

The light poles would have destroyed the wings on any 757 Boeing Aircraft to my estimation.

Go back and read that again. The lightpoles, 20 foot aluminum poles anchored to the ground only by some cement and bolts would have destroyed the wings on any 757. Got that?

He then makes a big todo about the infeasibility of the Pentagon wall, a thick, reinforced, blast-resistant concrete wall, doing the exact same thing. This guy believes that a pole in the ground is enough to destroy an aircraft wing, but a huge concrete wall is not.

Good lord.

Edited May 15, 2007 by Jack31081

[TheElite]

Well, first, I didn't miss your point. You said "is it hard to cloak a missile to look like a jetliner? I mean, add some wings, aerodynamic tale, etc?". Now you're changing your argument to say that they placed the missile inside a large, plane shaped shell.

Even then, how would you fire such a missile? You certainly wouldn't be able to use any traditional launching system...you'd pretty much have to fly it into the Pentagon, meaning you're now suggesting that perhaps the US put a missile inside a plane and flew the plane into the Pentagon. Is that right? Because, if I'm not mistaken, isn't the argument that a plane didn't hit the Pentagon?

That site uses the same arguments I've seen everywhere else. The CNN reporter saying 'no evidence of a plane crashing near Pentagon' makes sense, because Flight 77 didn't crash near the Pentagon. It flew into the Pentagon. What wasn't destroyed on impact continued to travel within the outer wall of the Pentagon, hence why there's little plane debris outside and no crash indications on the ground outside the building.

He goes on to compare the holes of the WTC and the Pentagon, which is pretty disingenuous. He says

This is flawed. Even if WTC was designed to withstand collapse in the event of a plane crash, that does not mean the outer wall was designed to withstand the impact. It makes perfect sense that the wings of the plane would slice right through the glass, aluminum, and comparatively thin steel beams. However, the Pentagon is a different story. The outer wall of the Pentagon was designed to withstand blasts, explosions, etc. The walls of the Pentagon were much stronger than the walls of the WTC. Also, the beams of the WTC were only separated from the outside world by glass and aluminum. The beams of the Pentagon were protected by feet of blast-resistant concrete. Big difference. It's really not surprising that the wings of Flight 77 were obliterated by the outer wall of the Pentagon.

Then he has the gall to compare the Flight 77 impact with that of a smaller plane skidding across a road into the cinder block wall of a warehouse. The fact that he neglects the two huge facts that:

- This plane was skidding across a road. Flight 77 was traveling over 500 mph.

- The warehouse was constructed using standard cinder blocks. The Pentagon was blast resistant.

This author is either fooling himself, trying to fool you, or less intelligent than you want him to be. He actually does this a number of times, comparing the Pentagon impact with other plane crashes...Different planes crashing into buildings with significantly different constructions. Doesn't this strike you as a poorly constructed argument?

The absolute best part of the entire article? He claims that explosives were used to knock down the light poles, so that they wouldn't impede the flight of the 'whatever it was that hit the Pentagon'. Why? Because he says

Go back and read that again. The lightpoles, 20 foot aluminum poles anchored to the ground only by some cement and bolts would have destroyed the wings on any 757. Got that?

He then makes a big todo about the infeasibility of the Pentagon wall, a thick, reinforced, blast-resistant concrete wall, doing the exact same thing. This guy believes that a pole in the ground is enough to destroy an aircraft wing, but a huge concrete wall is not.

Good lord.

I didn't change my argument, I talked about cloaking it. Putting it in a shell, is that not cloaking?

Whatever we talk about, whether it was a missile or a plane body with a missile inside, it doesn't matter because the explosion is going to come from the missile. Not the body that will crumple very easily.

About the light poles. If the plane hit them, wouldn't they bend? But why does it look like that they have just been plucked out of the ground with no damage to the body itself?

Also, what about the passenger list of Flight 77, why aren't any names of Arabs on there?

[jackwanders]

I didn't change my argument, I talked about cloaking it. Putting it in a shell, is that not cloaking?

Whatever we talk about, whether it was a missile or a plane body with a missile inside, it doesn't matter because the explosion is going to come from the missile. Not the body that will crumple very easily.

Have you considered the flight dynamics of a plane shaped shell flying through the air with a missile inside? How would such a thing fly through the air at 500mph unless it was a real plane?

About the light poles. If the plane hit them, wouldn't they bend? But why does it look like that they have just been plucked out of the ground with no damage to the body itself?

interesting recreation of the Flight 77 crash:

Some of those photos show twisting and breakage of the poles, top and bottom. This caused me to go back to the light pole photos often used to support the "no bending" argument. I'm working on that now and will edit my post when I'm done.

Also, what about the passenger list of Flight 77, why aren't any names of Arabs on there?

Oh, come on. This one isn't even difficult. Whenever theorists talk about the lack of Arabs on Flight 77, they always link to a news article that lists the crew and passengers. Most of the time, it's this CNN article. What's funny is that the theorists can't do their math. The article states the plane had 64 people on board. It goes on to list 6 crew and 50 passengers. That leaves 8 people unaccounted for. The 5 hijackers and 3 unlisted passengers. Two of these passengers were identified after the bodies were recovered.

The flaw comes in the fact that the theorists claim that the list was provided by AA, or that the CNN article respresents an actual flight manifest. Neither is the case. Look at the other passenger lists on CNN. None of them list the hijackers. That's because CNN isn't presenting a full flight manifest, they're presenting a list of the victims onboard. That excludes the hijackers. Every single page I find online that lists the people onboard the 9/11 flights, the people are split into three categories: Crew, Passengers, Hijackers. Taking the passenger list and claiming "OMG, no Arabs" is, again, disingenuous. If you want a "manifest" (i use quotes because it's as much a manifest as any other list on the internet, aka "not official"), try this page:

http://sep11memories.org/wiki/Casualties_o...lines_Flight_77

It lists all 64 passengers, hijackers included.

Oh, and then there's the fact that all 5 Flight 77 hijackers were stopped for an extra baggage search on the morning of 9/11. Three of them were selected by CAPPS and two did not provide adequate ID. I suppose all of the employees who conducted and witnessed those searches must be lying.

What's telling here is that I knew bubkus of the Flight 77 passenger list before you brought it up. Everything I just posted I gleaned from the internet in the last 15 minutes or so. You asked the question, and you could have just as easily found this information yourself. But you chose not to. You would rather keep the questions unanswered, because it leaves the possibility of a conspiracy. Once the question is answered, there's one less 'gap'.

Before asking me another question in an attempt to "trap" me behind a question whose answer isn't easily available on the internet, try researching the answer for yourself. Because let's face it, that's exactly what you're doing. You'll keep asking questions until I say "You know, I don't know the answer to that"...then you'll jump all over it and say , "Ha! See, it could be a conspiracy." If you really wanted to know the answer, you'd go find them yourself, you wouldn't be asking me.

Edited May 15, 2007 by Jack31081

[Robgig1088]

Apparently jet fuel is the only thing known to man that can burn.

I would have never guessed that

Seriously. What a ridiculous assumption. The entire building was burning. How about carpet, furnature, paper, etc. All of it in a tightly enclosed area made of concrete (like a kiln) and the steel melted. Whats so surprising about this? Are you guys suggesting explosives? Or best yet, that someone launched a missile. Theres no question it was an airplane. Whether the government was in on it or not is questionable, but use some common sense and realize it was an airplane. I get enough conspiracy theories from my dad

[jackwanders]

Ok, well I can't edit my last post now, so I'll make a new one regarding the light poles.

The first thing I noticed was that the photo of the full pole showed a tall pole with an 'arm', to which the light was attached. Basically, a big upside down 'L'. The author then goes on to show a number of poles which he says show no evidence of being hit by a plane, because they are not bent in the middle.

I thought about this, then noticed something interesting about the photos. None of the poles had that 'arm' on top of them. In addition to that, they appeared a good deal shorter than the full light pole.

I pulled all the photos into photoshop and used the size of their square bases to try and scale them to one another...to see how tall each pole was in relation to the others. If I make the square bases roughly the same size, then the poles themselves should be scaled as well. Granted, it's not perfect because the pole's base is partially obscured by the guardrail, and the images are low resolution, but here ya go:

Interesting. Poles 4 and 5 don't show bending because they weren't bent, they were literally cut in half. This becomes more obvious when you look at the original photos. The top of each pole looks like it was pinched or snapped. Pole 3 was crumpled, and the top of the pole is twisted.

Pole 1 was not on the Pentagon grounds, but rather on the road next to it, so a comparison like that isn't fair. However:

It seems pretty clear that this pole too was cut in half by the wing, yanking it out of the ground and damaging the taxi.

[TheElite]

Have you considered the flight dynamics of a plane shaped shell flying through the air with a missile inside? How would such a thing fly through the air at 500mph unless it was a real plane?

interesting recreation of the Flight 77 crash:

Some of those photos show twisting and breakage of the poles, top and bottom. This caused me to go back to the light pole photos often used to support the "no bending" argument. I'm working on that now and will edit my post when I'm done.

Oh, come on. This one isn't even difficult. Whenever theorists talk about the lack of Arabs on Flight 77, they always link to a news article that lists the crew and passengers. Most of the time, it's this CNN article. What's funny is that the theorists can't do their math. The article states the plane had 64 people on board. It goes on to list 6 crew and 50 passengers. That leaves 8 people unaccounted for. The 5 hijackers and 3 unlisted passengers. Two of these passengers were identified after the bodies were recovered.

The flaw comes in the fact that the theorists claim that the list was provided by AA, or that the CNN article respresents an actual flight manifest. Neither is the case. Look at the other passenger lists on CNN. None of them list the hijackers. That's because CNN isn't presenting a full flight manifest, they're presenting a list of the victims onboard. That excludes the hijackers. Every single page I find online that lists the people onboard the 9/11 flights, the people are split into three categories: Crew, Passengers, Hijackers. Taking the passenger list and claiming "OMG, no Arabs" is, again, disingenuous. If you want a "manifest" (i use quotes because it's as much a manifest as any other list on the internet, aka "not official"), try this page:

http://sep11memories.org/wiki/Casualties_o...lines_Flight_77

It lists all 64 passengers, hijackers included.

Oh, and then there's the fact that all 5 Flight 77 hijackers were stopped for an extra baggage search on the morning of 9/11. Three of them were selected by CAPPS and two did not provide adequate ID. I suppose all of the employees who conducted and witnessed those searches must be lying.

What's telling here is that I knew bubkus of the Flight 77 passenger list before you brought it up. Everything I just posted I gleaned from the internet in the last 15 minutes or so. You asked the question, and you could have just as easily found this information yourself. But you chose not to. You would rather keep the questions unanswered, because it leaves the possibility of a conspiracy. Once the question is answered, there's one less 'gap'.

Before asking me another question in an attempt to "trap" me behind a question whose answer isn't easily available on the internet, try researching the answer for yourself. Because let's face it, that's exactly what you're doing. You'll keep asking questions until I say "You know, I don't know the answer to that"...then you'll jump all over it and say , "Ha! See, it could be a conspiracy." If you really wanted to know the answer, you'd go find them yourself, you wouldn't be asking me.

So you're saying that as 8 passengers were unaccounted for, then 2 were later found so still 6 remain, and that 5 of these 6 were hijackers? Thats a damn big assumption is it not?

Actually I didnt use any CNN article, I used this site.

That link that you posted there, you're saying that just because these names have been put on this wiki site, it proves there were 5 hijackers on board?

Ok, well I can't edit my last post now, so I'll make a new one regarding the light poles.

The first thing I noticed was that the photo of the full pole showed a tall pole with an 'arm', to which the light was attached. Basically, a big upside down 'L'. The author then goes on to show a number of poles which he says show no evidence of being hit by a plane, because they are not bent in the middle.

I thought about this, then noticed something interesting about the photos. None of the poles had that 'arm' on top of them. In addition to that, they appeared a good deal shorter than the full light pole.

I pulled all the photos into photoshop and used the size of their square bases to try and scale them to one another...to see how tall each pole was in relation to the others. If I make the square bases roughly the same size, then the poles themselves should be scaled as well. Granted, it's not perfect because the pole's base is partially obscured by the guardrail, and the images are low resolution, but here ya go:

Interesting. Poles 4 and 5 don't show bending because they weren't bent, they were literally cut in half. This becomes more obvious when you look at the original photos. The top of each pole looks like it was pinched or snapped. Pole 3 was crumpled, and the top of the pole is twisted.

Pole 1 was not on the Pentagon grounds, but rather on the road next to it, so a comparison like that isn't fair. However:

It seems pretty clear that this pole too was cut in half by the wing, yanking it out of the ground and damaging the taxi.

Ok. I didnt notice that. Good eye. But one thing your youtube video doesnt show, the wing damage on the pentagon? It doesnt say why the wings caused minimal to no damage.

Edited May 16, 2007 by ZAnwar

[jackwanders]

So you're saying that as 8 passengers were unaccounted for, then 2 were later found so still 6 remain, and that 5 of these 6 were hijackers? Thats a damn big assumption is it not?

Actually I didnt use any CNN article, I used this site.

That link that you posted there, you're saying that just because these names have been put on this wiki site, it proves there were 5 hijackers on board?

That SierraTimes article uses the CNN article as its "source". Because the hijackers don't appear on the victim list, SierraTimes is concluding that they weren't on board.

My point is that none of the lists are official, as none of them come directly from AA. Every article that talks about Flight 77 says there were 64 people on board. Every passenger list mentions 6 crew: a captain, first officer and 4 other crew members. Every list of Flight 77 hijackers lists 5 men. That makes 11. The only way to show evidence that the hijackers weren't on board would be to have a passenger list that shows more than 53 passengers on board, because that would equal more than 64. There is no such list. Every "passenger" list names between 50 and 53 people.

Basically, I am saying that it's a wasted effort to claim the hijackers weren't on board because CNN doesn't list them with the other victims.

Ok. I didnt notice that. Good eye. But one thing your youtube video doesnt show, the wing damage on the pentagon? It doesnt say why the wings caused minimal to no damage.

The wings didn't cause "minimal to no damage". The main damage to the facade was measured to be somewhere between 75-90 feet, with minor damage extending past that. The fuselage is a little under 13 feet across. That's 30+ feet on either side of the fuselage to account for, meaning the wings did do major damage. The wrinkle comes in the fact that the damage width is less than the wingspan of the plane, even when you account for the angle of the plane at impact; some part of the wings caused little to no damage at all.

Lucky for us, someone's already looked into this, and with some detail, I'd say. A group of scientists at Purdue University created a physical simulation of the impact. What they did was create a model of the plane, and a model of the 'strongest' part of the Pentagon, its reinforced support beams. They then duplicated the flight of the plane to see how the building and plane would interact.

Phase I of the project is here:

http://www.cs.purdue.edu/homes/cmh/simulation/phase1/

These are basic wireframe simulations showing the interaction between the columns and the aluminum shell of the plane, along with the central and wing-based fuel tanks. One thing of not is how the columns don't even blink when the aluminum hits them. The column slices through it like butter. It's the fuel tanks that do the damage. And the fuel tanks are shorter than the full wings.

Here's Phase II, showing more detail and creating a more realistic simulation:

http://www.cs.purdue.edu/cgvlab/projects/pentagon.htm

Head to the Pentagon section and there are two more videos. By mapping out the conditions of the impact, these simulations created damage patterns similar to what actually happened, giving us pretty good evidence that a 757 created the damage seen on 9/11.

[TheElite]

About the wings damage, this is what I was talking about:

Where the wings are suppose to hit, there is like no damage there. The damage that looks like was there, was most likely caused by the crashing/explosion itself.

And what the hell is this, I was quite confused by this:

[jackwanders]

Looks like there is damage to the facade to me:

On either side, that only accounts for about 25% of the wing, which is mostly just the aluminum skin and the thinnest part of the fuel tanks. The bulk of the wings are easily included in the collapsed and severely damaged areas.

As for the hole, here's a diagram from the NIST Building Performance Report:

The hole matches the trajectory of the plane, so it's not unreasonable to think that some of the plane broke through the two layers of brick that made up the wall. As for the suspicious shape of the hole, I've looked around and have seen no explanation for why it is round like that. Perhaps it just happened that way and there was no need to explain why the hole would look like that. Perhaps the hole was small and the crews inside made it bigger so that they could move through it. All I do know is that one hole isn't enough to throw away all the other evidence that rather plainly indicates a 757 hit the Pentagon.

[TheElite]

Surely an airliner travelling at 400+mph would have its wings do more damage than that? Maybe that damage was caused by the wings, but I still think that, that damage would come just from the explosion it self.

And about that hole, I understand what you're saying, but why is there a hole so far into the building when the preceding walls have been labelled as split or cracked.

[jackwanders]

The only walls between the exterior wall and the wall with the hole are interior dividers. Drywall and plaster. In other words, it was an open floor plan between those two walls. Those squares are support beams, not parts of walls. The Purdue simulations show that the plane was essentially shredded by the many support beams inside the Pentagon, turning the plane into a mess of fast moving chunks.

You say "surely an airliner...", but really, you're only applying common sense. And common sense rarely applies to extraordinary circumstances. The best we can do is go back and try to recreate the circumstances that led to the result. I've posted the results of those attempts already.

[TheElite]

Did they ever say what went through that hole? An engine or something else?

But the recreations do not give a full view. They state how the wings can rip through poles going at great speeds, without suffering damage, yet totally get incinerated when they hit a building. Not even a sufficiently recognisable piece of the wing was found. http://physics911.net/missingwings

[jackwanders]

The recreations don't show that at all. The wings don't rip through the support beams at all...quite the opposite. The aluminum skin of the wing gets shredded by the poles. The thicker fuel tank damages the poles, but still gets destroyed, exposing and igniting the fuel inside.

Considering the many support beams inside the Pentagon basically shredded the plane, and the majority of the fuel (which exploded, mind you) was located in the wings, is it all that surprising that there wasn't much left of them besides rather generic looking scraps of metal?

As for what created the exit hole, some reports say an engine, some say a landing gear piece. I'm not sure it's exactly known, as I think whatever created the hole was followed by more debris during the crash.

[jackwanders]

Also, even if the majority of the damage to the collapsed section was caused by the explosion, that area is still large enough to fit the fuselage, most of the wings and the engines, so the damage that would have been caused by the widest parts of the wings and the engines is superseded by the explosion damage. The collapsed area on the facade was about 80' wide. The wingspan was 125'. That overall width is lessened because of the angle of impact...I think to around 104' (can't find the figure that had the numbers on it). So that means only about 12' on either side of the collapsed area. Those 12' account for the thinnest part of the wings, much of that was just aluminum skin without a fuel tank underneath it.

[TheElite]

The recreations don't show that at all. The wings don't rip through the support beams at all...quite the opposite. The aluminum skin of the wing gets shredded by the poles. The thicker fuel tank damages the poles, but still gets destroyed, exposing and igniting the fuel inside.

Considering the many support beams inside the Pentagon basically shredded the plane, and the majority of the fuel (which exploded, mind you) was located in the wings, is it all that surprising that there wasn't much left of them besides rather generic looking scraps of metal?

As for what created the exit hole, some reports say an engine, some say a landing gear piece. I'm not sure it's exactly known, as I think whatever created the hole was followed by more debris during the crash.

Actually, I wasnt talking about the beams, but rather the light poles on the streets. But still, I understand what you're saying about the wings being shredded on impact, but even after the explosion, the 12' that you mention should technically still be there as it was furthest from the explosion. And, even if what you're saying is true, the Pentagon only gets severely damaged where the nose of it hits, the sides of it still have even the windows intact. There should really be some evidence of the right wing left as it is furthest way from the esxplosion because of the angle it hits at.

If you look at the link that I posted on the previous page (if you want, I can post it), it shows pictures of gear from the debris matching a plane other than a 757. One of the exhibits was an alloy wheel and the other the alleged engine that came through that hole, which they said didnt match that of a 757, but of another plane, because it was much smaller in size.

[jackwanders]

Here is a synopsis of his analysis of the wheel. The wheel isn't silvery (well that's because it's covered in dust). The outer rim isn't there, but may have been torn off (seems likely, given the condition of the outer edge). Even if the wheel is a 757 wheel, the photo may have been doctored. The wheel may match the front wheel of a GlobalHawk (even though the GlobalHawk has 12 cutouts and the Pentagon wheel only has 8...that much is obvious). The wheel isn't silvery enough and is missing the outer rim (didn't he already say this?). It's a possible match for the GlobalHawk, I just need better photos (even though the cutouts are visibly different). The wheel doesn't match the front wheel of a 757 (he forgets to mention that the front and rear landing wheels are VERY different).

For a more "thorough" analysis of the wheel, check out this page:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0290.shtml

Now for the "engine". He says "look at the GlobalHawk engine, and the 757 engine...which does this more closely match? He's making the incorrect assumption that this engine part is about the same diameter, give or take, as the engine itself. This is incorrect. He then links to a rense.com article which circles one piece of metal in a photo and claims that it matches exactly a 727 engine.

Let's clear the air. The "engine" is actually a part, specifically part of the compressor. Again, a more thorough analysis is done here:

http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0265.shtml

They even cover the JT8D, A-3 theory and GlobalHawk theory.

Now, which article is more reliable? The one that makes a few assumptions and speculations and then draws conclusions based on that and "common sense", or one which tracks down data, makes direct comparisons, and investigates all possibilities, not only the one they "want" to be true?

Edited May 17, 2007 by Jack31081

[jackwanders]

There should really be some evidence of the right wing left as it is furthest way from the esxplosion because of the angle it hits at.

Should there be? Based on what exactly? Research? Simulations? Data analysis? Calculations?

[TheElite]

Should there be? Based on what exactly? Research? Simulations? Data analysis? Calculations?

Based on that recreation video.

The angle that the plane comes at, the right wing hits first, even before the explosion. Then during the explosion the left wing hits. You could say that the blast caught the left wing, but the right wing should have crumpled or broken off first, especially the furthest away parts before the explosion incinerates it.

The wings have to first create an impact on the outer walls, but as there is no "horizontal" damage, it doesn't even look like the wings reached the beams.

[jackwanders]

Look at the photo above where I circled the two areas on either side of the collapsed area. For the right wing, the entire limestone facade is gone in the outlined area, down to the reinforced beams. That seems to be within reason, as far as the damage a wing tip would cause to a limestone-faced reinforced concrete wall in the span of a few milliseconds. Remember, that recreation spans an entire 0.25 seconds. For all intents and purposes, the plane exploded as soon as the right wing tip impacted the buliding.

And in the face of all the other evidence pointing to the fact that a 757 flew into the Pentagon, I don't think "there's less damage to this area of the wall" is enough to conclude anything, especially when that statement is based on nothing more than your opinion.

[TheElite]

But it doesn't look like the wings caused that damage. It looks like the engines on each side caused the damages to the respective sides of the walls where you've put those circles.

[jackwanders]

Ok, let's flip things around for a minute. Can you provide an alternate scenario that matches all the evidence as well or better than a 757? Are you willing to throw out all the evidence of a 757 (eyewitness testimony, bodies of crew and passengers, 757 parts found in debris, etc) because you don't think there's quite enough damage to the facade on the right of the collapsed portion of the Pentagon?

If you can't see how one piece of a 1000 piece puzzle fits into the big picture before it's fully assembled, do you throw out the entire puzzle?

[TheElite]

No, I wont throw out the puzzle.

[jackwanders]

Does that wrap up discussion on the Pentagon?