747? Missle? What? July 8, 2005 Lauren More than enough to give one pause. I heart Chuck for pointing out this one.
…until you remember countless hours watching, again and again, the jets entering the World trade center buildings, and just…vanishing. In a ball of flame. As if they never existed.
I’m with Shelley on this one. The planes that hit the WTC pretty much vaporized. I don’t know where all of the “evidence” displayed in the video came from, or how accurate it is. As a card-carrying skeptic, I’m always very leery of conspiracy theories… But that’s just my 2 cents…
As a card-carrying skeptic, I’m always very leery of conspiracy theories… I see. Skeptical of everything except the Official Story, eh? I don’t know about that Pentagon thing (i think it might be a distraction from more easily proven crimes carried out by ‘whoever’ it was). Something stinks with the whole war on terror. The thing that keeps me going is that hopefully Karmic Justice will prevail…
Great, now I have to make a tin foil hat so they can’t read my thoughts! Thanks alot for making me see that… wonder if they have bugged my phones yet? LOL, it is a spooky video. Very nicely done too, loved the music.
Yeah, I gotta say that’s not very convincing. A bunch of witnesses saying it “sounded like a missile?” And where exactly have they heard these missiles before? Hmm. In the movies maybe? You think those sounds (in the movies) are made by actual missiles? (hint: usually not) They’re just as likely to be modified plane sounds. Did you know all those punches in action movies are made by (among other things) hitting sides of beef with a baseball bat? And I agree with the others who said the WTC planes “disappeared” too. I especially liked “smelled like cordite.” I’m less suspicious of the Pentagon attack details (at least as far as this particular conspiracy is concerned) than I am of a guy hanging around the Pentagon who can tell the difference between the smell of cordite and jet fuel. Anyway, to spend any time on this particular cover-up just gets in the way of the actual verifiable crap that’s going on. Plus, it makes liberals seem insane.
Given the fact that the Pentagon strike was basically ignored anyway, I don’t see what anyone would have stood to gain from this attack that they hadn’t already gained from the WTC attacks.
Insane? Maybe. Let me adjust my tinfoil hat. I don’t put much stock in conspiracy theories either, but I do find it questionable that the video footage hasn’t been released, especially with the overcoverage of the World Trade Center. Nonetheless, my first thought considered the New York-centered news coverage as being the logical point of view for New York-based news agencies. Plus the plethora of witnesses and people lost. Still, it does raise questions. Like Chuck says on his page, I’d like to see corroborating evidence that the story that has been told to us is what actually happened.
I see. Skeptical of everything except the Official Story, eh? Yep, I’m actually a plant from Homeland Security, here to keep you from guessing the Truth! 😉 Seriously though, as someone else pointed out, even if you think that the attacks were all one big plot: Given the fact that the Pentagon strike was basically ignored anyway, I don’t see what anyone would have stood to gain from this attack that they hadn’t already gained from the WTC attacks. However, I certainly do agree with you that the WoT smells. But I think it’s pretty clear where much of the smell is coming from–the twisting of intelligence before the invasion, the attacks on civil rights, the camps at Guantanamo Bay, the rendition of prisoners to countries where they are probably tortured, etc., etc. And it’s healthy to question those in authority, certainly–a key to democracy that I wish our current leaders understood. I just think there are enough well-documented shenanigans to keep us busy for some time without trying to construct more of them…
and how are we to evaluate the claims that the unreleased videos actually exist? an infinite regress of conspiracy. not at all to say that i trust the government.
Let’s think about planes and buildings for a moment. Planes are built as lightly as possible while still being able to do the job for which they are designed. The WTC, while strong enough to stand up, was not built to withstand attack. The Pentagon, though, is built to withstand punishment. So when planes collided with the glass exterior of the WTC they left a ‘plane-shaped hole’ in the exterior and then disintegrated. When the plane hit the Pentagon, it did a bunch of damage and then disintegrated. Except for the only really dense part of the plane. Compared to the rest of the plane (which is mostly air), a jet engine is a nearly solid hunk of metal. The hole penetrating the Pentagon as shown in the video is roughly the size of one of the engines on the plane. It stayed together long enough to go quite some way into the building. And I seem to recall seeing a picture/video frame showing what is probably an engine exiting the far side of the WTC as well.
The hole penetrating the Pentagon as shown in the video is roughly the size of one of the engines on the plane. It stayed together long enough to go quite some way into the building. The hole in the Pentagon was likely the keel beam from Flight 77. I’m guessing that within my lifetime, the documentary materials from the Pentagon crash will be released. There must be some current political explanation for keeping it all under wraps. I’ve been interested in all of the possible explanation for the 9/11 attacks, ranging from MIHOP to LIHOP to blowback from a S. American drug running group. The fact remains that this should have been the most studied and investigated crime in known history. Unfortunately, the President did all he could to stop the investigation – most likely for political reasons. Remember, it took a visit from Blair to convince the President to hit al Qaeda before Saddam.
Unfortunately, the President did all he could to stop the investigation – most likely for political reasons. Ryan put this very eloquently, and I guess was part of what I was wrapping my mind around as I was writing my post. Mostly, I was fuming mad, and that sometimes leads to sort of incoherent writing. My overall point, though (if you missed it, that the War on Terror has been conducted in an egregiously irresponsible manner, to the point where the title of it is outright laughable. If we’re sure OBL perpetrated the crimes, where the fuck is he? If we’re sure the ‘tarists’ came from Saudi Arabia, why aren’t we beating down their doors? (That last one is rhetorical, of course.) That the President gets away with this by creating a system of notification for us to let us know how terrified we’re supposed to be, and clearly starts a war for specious reasons is ridiculous. I’m fucking tired of it, and I’m done trying to reason through it with people. The thing in Iraq is wrong. Period. And just for the record over here, I only presented the movie to raise questions — which it obviously does, because it’s quite well-done. I don’t mean to present it as The Truth or anything; the original story may be right, but we certainly have found ourselves with reasons to doubt, and that must empower and mobilize the loyal opposition.
I’m with you on the quashed investigation. But I can’t get on the we-shot-a-missle-at-the-Pentagon-to-make-it-easy-to-go-to-war bandwagon.
Our leaders have a pretty good understanding of the state of our democracy right now. Since they’ve donned the mantle of pnac warriors to the rest of the world, they have public opinion all up in arms about stuff that doesn’t make any difference, while stuff that does, like why we’re really fighting a war and what we hope to gain out of it, go silently missing in public discourse. Criminals can be very efficient that way.
The thing that makes this argument so ridiculous to me is this: If the Shadowy Conspiracy To Go To War really is wicked enough to shoot a missle at the Pentagon, what’s so difficult about them just hijacking an actual aircraft? WHY would they use a missile, knowing that the attack would be scrutinized years after the fact, when they could just use an actual plane? They control the media, can’t they just get a 747?
What gives me pause is the text on that movie’s site. The author seems to want to blame the Pentagon attack on Israel, and not only don’t I find that compelling, I find it a little discomfitingly close to that virulent and spurious bit of crap about how supposedly no Jews died in the Towers. These are theories moving out of tinfoil hat territory and into the realm of some other kind of headgear.
I love conspiracy theories. I even studied them a bit in grad school. I think what’s common to the vast majority of them is that they take an unpleasant truth, or a vexing mystery, and provide a simple answer that gives you a clear target for your outrage: “I’m not in debt because I made bad decisions, it’s all because we went off the gold standard!” “I don’t actually have to pay taxes, the Illuminati created the IRS illegaly!” And the best in show: “We didn’t get our asses handed to us in WWI–it was the Jews who betrayed us!” Not that there aren’t conspiracies out there. Damn–just look at COINTELPRO. But I think it’s generally conspiracy theories, as intricate and convoluted as they are, actually function to simplify complex situations that are virtually incomprehensible to start with, and very, very depressing when you finally unravel them. Anyway, here’s Snopes’ take on the vanishing 757 theory.
I shouldn’t get involved in this discussion, because it’s just going to piss me off. But I have to ask: do these folks have a theory about what happened to the people who were (supposedly) on the plane? My dad knew one of them, and I’m sure he’d be overjoyed to hear that she’s not, in fact, dead but is living on an island somewhere with Elvis and Amelia Earhart. Can someone direct me to the island?
Sally, I believe the “prevailing wisdom” (hehe) among the 9/11 conspiracy theorists is that Flight 77 was directed (by remote control, no less) off the coast and either forced to crash or was shot down over the Atlantic. This would account for the plane and the passengers.
Ah. Wouldn’t it be more convenient just to remote control it into the Pentagon and save the cost of a missle? This seems like a very complicated, somewhat pointless conspiracy. Personally, I prefer the theory about the island with Elvis and Amelia Earhart.
Apparently, they did control the planes that hit the towers. The Pentagon must have been too difficult to hit? I dunno…. None of it addresses the fact that one plane went down in Pennsylvania, too. Anyway, all of the publically available evidence points to a series of events that reflects the official story, anyway. Of course this doesn’t mean that there aren’t loose ends. Of all the nits to pick about 9/11, the question of whether or not a missile or a plane hit the Pentagon is like arguing over what kind of gun Oswald used. It’s easily verifiable from the known evidence, but in the end people died and we haven’t held anyone “to account” (as the Cowboy in Chief would say). (To clarify, I believe Flight 77 hit the Pentagon.)
Although I haven’t watched the whole flash movie, I’ve seen similar. They tend to leave out all the other eye witness accounts that saw a plane matching a 757 flying toward the Pentagon. The first thing I heard from my mom, who works near the Pentagon, was that someone came running into her workplace saying he saw a plane crash into the Pentagon. Of course, what I’m recounting here is a third hand story, so, whatever.
I don’t put much stock in conspiracy theories either, but I do find it questionable that the video footage hasn’t been released, especially with the overcoverage of the World Trade Center. Why should you find it questionable that video footage of a crash at a military installation would not be released? I certainly wouldn’t expect the military to take the chance of offering close-up views of their HQ. Nonetheless, my first thought considered the New York-centered news coverage as being the logical point of view for New York-based news agencies. Plus the plethora of witnesses and people lost. Another factor is that the Pentagon is surrounded by vast parking lots and grounds, and easy to segregate and lock down. The WTC was plunked in the middle of a bustling business district with a large residential complex quite nearby, and many of the surrounding buildings were hopelessly damaged (I think they *still* haven’t re-opened the offices above the Church Street Post Office, which, while not badly structurally damaged by the shards of masonry and fusellage that fell on it, suffered terrible water damage from the sprinkler system and rain). Plus, I think the WTC offered better visuals for television, leading to the overuse of those images.