A page from the US government that is a mix of very
accurate debunking with gross omission of critical issues. Most of the
comments about Meyssan's work are accurate -- but it is intriguing that
the US State Department is citing (among other things) the "rense.com"
website in support of its point of view - this website references rense.com
for pointing out the no plane stuff is not true. (Rense is a "out
there" website that mixes real information about conspiracies with
disinformation, making it unreliable as a source for accurate investigations
- perhaps that is the point of the site, or perhaps they are merely lacking
a fact checker.)
Unfortunately, the real issues of the Pentagon crash - how Flight 77
hit the nearly empty part, the failure to defend the National Capitol
- are ignored.
which is a very good technical rebuttal to the "no plane" stuff
(but it also ignores WHERE the plane hit and why there was not an effort
to intercept it)
[UPDATE: Agence France-Presse story is here. Patrick and I were also
on Toronto's International Connection radio show earlier.]
Paul Boutin is a freelance technology writer and former engineer in San
Francisco. Patrick Di Justo is an astrophysics educator at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York City who writes for Wired magazine
and Wired News.
To be clear: We believe that American Airlines Flight 77 hit
the Pentagon on 9/11/2001 because we know far too many friends and colleagues
in Washington who saw the plane come in over the freeway - some right
over their heads - and felt the earth shake as it disappeared into the
Pentagon. And we think people who believe they can uncover the truth
about anything by surfing the Web are deceiving themselves in a dangerous
way.
But we couldn't help taking up the challenge anyway.
As lifelong propellerheads who firmly believe in asking questions, we
found Hunt the Boeing an engaging puzzle, despite its tragic subject
matter, but one full of obvious errors and misleading questions. Since
many of our friends continue to ask us if we've seen the site, we decided
to document our answers to it, which we wrote separately. As might be
expected, Patrick focused on the math and science (you may remember
his widely circulated napkin math on the WTC attack), while Paul picked
apart the wording of the questions.
See the original site for photos that accompany the questions.
Question No 1
The first satellite image shows the section of the building that was
hit by the Boeing. In the image below, the second ring of the building
is also visible. It is clear that the aircraft only hit the first ring.
The four interior rings remain intact. They were only fire-damaged after
the initial explosion. Can you explain how a Boeing 757-200, weighing
nearly 100 tons and travelling at a minimum speed of 250 miles an hour*
only damaged the outside of the Pentagon?
Paul: The question and photos are misleading: Parts of the
plane penetrated the ground floors of the second and third rings of
the building. These photos show only their intact roofs. Eyewitnesses
and news reporters have talked about the twelve-foot hole punched through
the inside wall of the second ring by one of the plane's engines.
More importantly, the question focuses on the planeâs size and
weight, making it sound extraordinarily heavy, but leaves out the size
and weight of the Pentagon â Americaâs largest office building
with three times the floor space of the Empire State Building - as well
as the difference in relative stiffness and energy absorption between
a building and an airplane. Each side of the Pentagon contains over
100,000 tons of Potomac sand mixed into the steel-reinforced concrete
under its limestome facade. There are nearly 10,000 concrete piles anchoring
each side of the building. And in the wake of bombings in Oklahoma City
and Saudi Arabia, that portion of the Pentagon
had just been reinforced with a computationally modeled lattice
of steel tubes designed to prevent it from collapsing after an explosion.
By contrast, the plane is only 100 tons of custom alloys stretched thin
enough to fly. It's not like a giant bullet; more like a giant racing
bike. Even so, the plane knocked down 10,000 tons of building material
- 100 times its own weight - in the crash and subsequent collapse. Another
57,000 tons of the Pentagon were damaged badly enough to be torn down.
The Brobdingnagian scale of the Pentagon makes the total area of damage
seem small, but it would hold several Silicon Valley office buildings,
or an airport terminal.
Patrick: Watch the videotapes of the planes hitting the World Trade
Center. They were traveling at approximately 400 mph, and they hit an
aluminum and glass building. An entire plane went in, and hardly anything
came out the other side, 208 feet away.
Here we have a plane traveling at nearly 250 mph (just over 1/2 the
velocity of the WTC planes, meaning just over 1/4 of their kinetic energy),
hitting the ground (which would absorb much of that energy), and only
then sliding at a much slower speed into a steel-and-kevlar-reinforced
concrete and brick building. Obviously, it's not going to go very far.
Still, parts of the plane penetrated into the C ring.
Question No 2
The two photographs in question 2 show the building just after the attack.
We may observe that the aircraft only hit the ground floor. The four
upper floors collapsed towards 10.10 am. The building is 26 yards high.
Can you explain how a Boeing 14.9 yards high, 51.7 yards long, with
a wingspan of 41.6 yards and a cockpit 3.8 yards high, could crash into
just the ground floor of this building?
Paul: Again the question contains incorrect facts in its setup: As reported
in the New York Times, the plane struck between the first and second
floors of the building. The high-res version of the photo shows a two
story high hole in side of the building. Don't look where the fire truck
is directing its water, but towards the center of the photo â
two floors out of four are knocked out of the outside wall.
Patrick: The plane hit the ground first, then slid into the building.
If the landing wheels were not down and locked, the full height of the
plane would extend upwards into the second floor of the building, which
is what happened.
Question No 3
The photograph above shows the lawn in front of the damaged building.
You'll remember that the aircraft only hit the ground floor of the Pentagon's
first ring. Can you find debris of a Boeing 757-200 in this photograph?
Paul: : Yet another leading question ("you'll remember..."),
but one looking in the wrong place anyway. At 250 mph, the plane did
not stop at the outside of the building. Security camera photos and
eyewitness accounts from many credible people, including AP reporter
Dave Winslow, agree that the plane completely disappeared into the building.
If you've seen photos of airline crashes after the fire is out, they
often look more like landfill sites than anything recognizable as having
been an airplane.
But since the question more literally asks for a photo showing airliner
debris on the lawn, here's one. Here's another.
Patrick: The Pentagon burned (or at least smoldered) for several days.
Was this photograph taken on September 11? Or was it taken after the
wreckage was moved away?
Question No 4
The photograph in question 4 shows a truck pouring sand over the lawn
of the Pentagon. Behind it a bulldozer is seen spreading gravel over
the turf. Can you explain why the Defence Secretary deemed it necessary
to sand over the lawn, which was otherwise undamaged after the attack?
Patrick: My father was a construction engineer. He would only put a
crane onto a grass lawn in an extreme emergency, and only after getting
indemnified against damages. No, the first thing he would do is to lay
down a pathway of steel plates, then cover them with gravel, to prevent
his equipment from getting bogged down in the soft earth. When you see
in that picture is a roadway being built to bring the heavy equipment
across the lawn.
Paul: You don't have to be a construction worker to recognize a road
being built over the lawn, to support the vehicles dismantling the damaged
building and hauling away debris. I can't find any news reports (or
people who remember any) about Donald Rumsfeld personally ordering this
work done. I suspect the statement is false, and was added to make the
activity seem more suspicious.
Question No 5
The photographs in Question 5 show representations of a Boeing 757-200
superimposed on the section of the building that was hit. Can you explain
what happened to the wings of the aircraft and why they caused no damage?
Patrick: I'm not certain the models are to scale, and they're certainly
not in the correct orientation. Since the plane hit the ground and skidded
into the building, enough energy was lost by the initial impact and
friction with the ground that the engines probably did not penetrate
the building.
Paul: If you're going to doctor evidence, do it right: Eyewitness accounts
say the plane hit from 45 degrees to the side. Adjust the silhouettes
properly, and fix the parallax effect in the second photo. The plane
fits the impact area pretty well: Don't look at the collapsed upper
floors, but at the wider swatch knocked out of the ground floor. I would
expect the wings, being weaker than the building, to collapse on the
way in. But with no previous crashes of the sort to guide us, we can't
possibly predict what should have happened. If there's anything we learned
that day, it's that we are poor judges of what is and isn't possible.
Question No 6
The quotations in Question 6 correspond to statements made by Arlington
County Fire Chief, Ed Plaugher, at a press conference held by Assistant
Defence Secretary, Victoria Clarke, on 12 September 2001, at the Pentagon.
When asked by a journalist: "Is there anything left of the aircraft
at all?"
"First of all, the question about the aircraft, there are some
small pieces of aircraft visible from the interior during this fire-fighting
operation I'm talking about, but not large sections. In other words,
there's no fuselage sections and that sort of thing."
"You know, I'd rather not comment on that. We have a lot of eyewitnesses
that can give you better information about what actually happened with
the aircraft as it approached. So we don't know. I don't know."
When asked by a journalist: "Where is the jet fuel?"
"We have what we believe is a puddle right there that the -- what
we believe is to be the nose of the aircraft. So -"
Can you explain why the County Fire Chief could not tell reporters where
the aircraft was?
Paul: Quoting people verbatim to make them sound like they
are dissembling is an old journalists' trick, as any Doonesbury reader
knows. I think Chief Plaugher answered the question pretty well: There's
a puddle (of melted metal, not jet fuel - he's not directly answering
the reporter's idiotic question) that was the nose, and a few small
pieces visible, but no large sections.
Patrick: Are any government officials telling any journalists anything
these days?
Question No 7
The two photographs in question 7 were taken just after the attack.
They show the precise spot on the outer ring where the Boeing struck.
Can you find the aircraft's point of impact?
Paul: The answer is front and center in the photo, maybe to make us
think it can't be that obvious: The two-story high impact hole (also
seen in the photo for Question No 2) is immediately to the right of
the fireman, partly hidden by the spray of water from the fire truck.
Look at the second high-res photo and you can't miss it. Are we supposed
to think it's a two-story archway of some sort? See pre-crash photos
or the surviving sides for comparison.
Patrick: In enlargement #1, the impact hole fits in the rectangle formed
from pixel(1232,1088) to pixel(1492, 1545).
After that, I didn't bother to look at enlargement #2.
A growing number of people have been led to believe that an airliner
did not hit the Pentagon on 9/11. However, in this case the "official
version" of events is irrefutable.
Father Stephen McGraw had taken a wrong turn on his way to Arlington
National Cemetery the morning of September 11, 2001. After taking the
Pentagon exit onto Washington Boulevard, Fr. McGraw found himself mired
in traffic, stewing impatiently over being late for a planned graveside
service. Suddenly the priest heard a deafening roar as a large aircraft
passed directly over the roof of his car. "It looked like a plane
coming in for a landing . I mean, in the sense that it was controlled
and sort of straight," recalled Fr. McGraw.
The priest "looked out just as the plane clipped an overhead
sign and then toppled a light pole, injuring a taxi driver a few feet
away," recounts investigative author James Bamford in his new book
A Pretext for War. "A second later, American Flight 77 smashed
into the gray concrete wall of the Pentagon. The jet hit with such force
that it penetrated four of the five concentric rings of corridors and
offices surrounding a gazebo in the center court, long nicknamed Ground
Zero."
"I saw it crash into the building," testifies the priest.
"There was an explosion and a loud noise, and I felt the impact.
I remember seeing a fireball come out of two windows.... I saw an explosion
of fire billowing through those two windows. I remember hearing a gasp
or scream from one of the other cars near me. Almost a collective gasp,
it seemed."
That "collective gasp" was wrenched from the throats of
numerous witnesses who - like Father McGraw - saw the crash with their
own eyes, heard the explosions with their own ears, and felt the percussive
aftershock with their own bodies.
"Did you see that?" exclaimed Aydan Kizildrgli, a student
from Turkey who had also been snarled in traffic. Notes Bamford: "Traffic
along the highway came immediately to a halt as people jumped out of
their cars and began putting their cell phones to their ears. Stunned
and dazed, Kizildrgli left his car on the road and began walking aimlessly
for half an hour."
Also among the eyewitnesses were Dan Creed and two colleagues from
Oracle Software, who, seated in a car near the Naval Annex, watched
in horrified wonder as the hijacked plane dived, leveled off and struck
the Pentagon next door. Telling his story to the Phoenix, Arizona, Ahwatukee
Foothills News, Creed recalled the dreadful events. "It was no
more than 30 feet off the ground, and it was screaming. It was just
screaming. It was nothing more than a guided missile at that point,"
said Creed.
Moments later, the plane struck the Pentagon, killing all 64 of its
passengers and crew. The crash took the lives of another 125 people
on the ground. "I can still see the plane. I can still see it right
now. It's just the most frightening thing in the world, going full speed,
going full throttle, its wheels up," Creed recalled.
Frank Probst, an employee of the Pentagon Renovation Program Office,
was outside the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001. In an
interview with the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), Probst
gave his own eyewitness account. He had been watching live television
coverage of the second plane hitting the World Trade Center tower in
one of the construction site trailers.
Around 9:30 a.m., Probst left the trailer and (as paraphrased in an
ASCE report) "began walking to the Modular Office Compound . located
beyond the extreme north end of the Pentagon" for a 10 o'clock
meeting. Approaching the heliport, he looked over and saw "a plane
flying low over the Annex and heading right for him." Understandably,
Probst "hit the ground and observed the right wing tip pass through
the portable 750 kW generator" that provided backup power to a
portion of the Pentagon. He saw the right engine take out "the
chain-link fence and posts surrounding the generator." The left
engine, he said, "struck an external steam vault before the fuselage
entered the building."
Probst described to the ASCE how, "as the fireball from the crash
moved toward him," he ran toward the South Parking Lot. He said
that he fell down twice, and while running, "fine pieces of wing
debris floated down about him." He only saw "fire and smoke
within the building at the point of impact."
The ASCE also interviewed Don Mason, another employee of the Pentagon
Renovation Program Office. At the time of the crash, Mason was "stopped
in traffic west of the building," according to the ASCE account
of his story. "The plane approached low," flying "directly"
over him, "possibly clipping the antenna of the vehicle immediately
behind him." It also "struck three light poles between him
and the building."
Mason, the ASCE recounted, said that he saw his colleague Probst "directly
in the plane's path, and he witnessed a small explosion as the portable
generator was struck by the right wing." He also recalled "seeing
the tail of the plane" as it entered the building, followed by
a "fireball that erupted" upon the plane's impact.
Pentagate?
With eyewitness testimony like this, it's hard to see how anyone could
believe that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon. Shockingly,
though, that's just what a growing number of people have been led to
believe. A number of Web sites claim that the twin-engine Boeing 757
did not crash into the Pentagon. Their theories range from truck bombs
and pre-set on-site explosive charges to remotely
controlled aircraft and missile attacks.
It is not just the events of 9/11 at the Pentagon, however, that have
people scratching their heads. Americans are inundated each
day with a veritable torrent of information, both true and false. There
has been a marked proliferation of 24-hour news channels, a renaissance
in talk radio, and a deluge of information on the Internet. Moreover,
there has been an explosion in consumer goods and an accompanying explosion
in advertising related to those goods and services. We are bombarded
with claims and counterclaims. Oftentimes it is exceedingly difficult
to separate the hype from the truth. The problem applies to alternative
news media as well as mainstream media. The former are wont to publish
all manner of conjecture and theory, often based on only the slimmest,
often misconstrued, bits of "evidence." ... Many
alternative media outlets, however, persist in perpetuating "conspiracy
theories" that are untrue and misleading. This is particularly
true of the assertion that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon.
Americans mindful of the dangers threatening the founding ideals of
this nation need be especially cautious in such matters. The hazards
can be illustrated by applying Gresham's Law. In economics, this law
teaches that bad money drives out good. In the
information society, bad information drives out good information. The
proliferation of misinformation causes the dilution of good, factual
information. Valuable information on actual cover-ups, for instance,
is discredited when other alleged, but non-factual and misleading, conspiracy
theories are given undue currency. In short, bad conspiracy theories
discredit all assertions of conspiracy, making for fertile ground in
which actual conspiracies thrive.
The assertion that American Airlines Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon
achieved notoriety following the publication in France of l'Effroyable
Imposture by French journalist Thierry Meyssan. The book, published
in the U.S. as 9/11: The Big Lie, was an immediate sensation in France,
becoming, as Time Europe noted, that nation's number one best-seller.
The book has since catalyzed an explosion of Web sites and alternative
publications making similar claims. For his part, Meyssan claims that
the official explanation of the Pentagon's damage - that the hijacked
airliner crashed into the building - is "a loony tale constructed
in bits and pieces, one lie leading to another."
Instead of providing an alternative explanation, however, he simply
demanded that the U.S. come clean. "The official version is only
propaganda," he wrote. "But the facts remain that 125 persons
died at the Pentagon and that an airplane carrying 64 passengers disappeared.
What became of American Airlines flight 77? Are the passengers dead?
If so, who killed them and why? If not, where are they? The U.S. administration
should address all these questions."
Such questions, of course, ignore publicly available evidence, including
the fact that some passenger remains were found. Diagrams presented
by the American Society of Civil Engineers, in its report entitled The
Pentagon Building Performance Report, show the relative positions of
passenger remains found within the damaged structure of the Pentagon.
By applying certain principles, it is possible to evaluate the validity
of a given news report, press release, advertisement, conspiracy theory,
or other claim. In fact, the 9/11 crash at the Pentagon provides a sort
of laboratory with which to demonstrate these principles of critical
thinking.
Evaluating Meyssan's Work
In essence, Meyssan states that there is no evidence for the official
version of events, then assumes on that basis that the official version
must be false. Historian David Hackett Fischer categorizes such reasoning
as "the fallacy of the negative proof," wherein a person argues
that "'there is no evidence that X is the case,' and then proceeds
to affirm or assume that not-X is the case." In such instances
all that is proven, Fischer notes, is that there "is no evidence
of X."
Unfortunately for Meyssan, there is plenty of evidence regarding what
happened at the Pentagon on 9/11. The U.S. government did, in fact,
answer Meyssan's questions in the form of the "official version"
of events. By asking such questions in l'Effroyable Imposture, published
in the U.S. as 9/11: The Big Lie, Meyssan makes a ham-handed, almost
absurd, attempt to lead readers to conclude that no explanation for
that day's events had yet been offered.
Having come under fire for 9/11: The Big Lie, Meyssan and his organization
released a subsequent book, Pentagate, that more fully develops his
critique of the attack on the Pentagon. The analysis provided in Pentagate
makes attempts on multiple fronts to convince readers that the conventional
explanation of the damage at the Pentagon is faulty. According to the
book:
. Witness testimony indicates that a missile was responsible for the
damage. "In all cases," the book concludes, "these testimonies
concerning the sound and the trajectory also correspond perfectly with
the manner in which a missile flies in the final phase of flight, just
before it strikes its target."
. There is no debris from the plane, and the wings, which should have
sheared off, are nowhere to be seen.
. The damage at the Pentagon could have been caused by a missile but
not by a plane. "The building was not smashed into as if it had
suffered from a classic plane crash," Meyssan writes in Pentagate,
"but was perforated as if struck by a missile."
. Civilian sources did not know where Flight 77 was after 9:09 a.m.
on 9/11. Consequently, civilian flight control, the FAA, "could
not have known that the plane turned back [toward Washington, D.C.]
since it had become, by the agency's own admission, invisible to its
eyes...."
. The U.S. military did not destroy the plane, despite having the
capability to do so.
By attempting to develop these five points in greater detail, Meyssan
attempts to lead readers to the conclusion that a missile, fired by
the U.S. armed forces, hit the Pentagon.
Consistent Witness Testimony
A very basic means of judging the validity of any story is the ability
to identify multiple named witnesses who each attest, in consistent
fashion, to the various "facts" at issue. How does Meyssan
measure up to this requirement? The answer: not very well.
In fact, though he asserts that the Pentagon was hit by a missile
and not an airplane, he does not cite even a single witness claiming
to have seen a missile. His only "evidence" for the
missile theory are descriptive similes used by witnesses who attested
to seeing a plane but who compared the plane to a missile. For instance, he quotes USA Today reporter Joel Sucherman, who saw the
plane as it raced toward its target. According to Sucherman, "whoever
was flying the plane made no attempt to change direction. It was coming
in at a high rate of speed, but not at a steep angle - almost like a
heat-seeking missile was locked on its target and staying dead on course."
Meyssan also quotes another USA Today reporter, Mike Walter, who saw
the plane crash into the Pentagon. As to the plane's behavior, Walter
recalled that he saw "a plane, a plane from American Airlines.
I thought: 'That's not right, it's really low.' And I saw it. I mean,
it was like a cruise missile with wings." Based on these and other
witnesses who described the plane's behavior by using missile similes,
Meyssan concludes, "In all cases, these testimonies concerning
the sound and the trajectory also correspond perfectly with the manner
in which a missile flies in the final phase of flight, just before it
strikes its target."
If the witnesses are not saying that they saw a missile, what are
they saying? Sucherman, in stating that the plane seemed "like
a heat-seeking missile" that "was locked on its target"
was not saying that it was a heat-seeking missile, but was simply describing
in an emphatic manner the fact that the plane did not deviate from its
course. The same applies to Mike Walter's statement that he saw "a
plane, a plane from American Airlines," which "was like a
cruise missile with wings." To anyone with even a basic grasp of
the English language, Sucherman and Walter are speaking metaphorically.
Either Meyssan does not understand the use of metaphor in English, or
he is being disingenuous.
The Scene of the Crime
The most intriguing points of the theory proposed by Meyssan and others
that the Pentagon was not struck by a jetliner are to be found at the
scene of the crime. According to Meyssan, the damage to the building
was not extensive enough to have been caused by a giant airliner moving
at speeds of more than 350 mph (more than 500 mph according to the "official
version"), and there are no discernable pieces of the aircraft
remaining, as should have been the case if the Pentagon was hit by a
plane. Both claims are based on misinterpretations and factual errors.
As to the extent of damage at the Pentagon, in 9/11: The Big Lie,
Meyssan provides an aerial photo showing the collapsed section of the
outer ring of the Pentagon with an outline of a jetliner superimposed
on the image. Referring to this graphic, he writes: "If one superimposes
the plane's outline onto the satellite photo . it can be seen that only
the nose of the Boeing entered the building. The fuselage and the wings
remained outside." He goes on in this vein, stating: "The
plane was stopped dead, without its wings having struck the façade.
There is no visible trace of any impact except that from the Boeing's
nose. We should thus be able to see the wings and the fuselage outside,
on the lawn in fact."
In his subsequent book, Pentagate, he argues that the scale of the
damage to the façade of the building was too small to have been
caused by the Boeing airliner. This estimation is based largely on an
analysis of a photo taken prior to the building's collapse that shows
the entry hole punched through the building. In the photo the entry
hole is visible extending to the top of the second floor and ending
just shy of two of the third floor windows. Only the top of the hole,
corresponding roughly with the level of the second floor, is visible.
The lower portion of the impact site is entirely obscured in the photo
by a heavy jet of water being sprayed across the building's façade
by a fire truck.
Meyssan alleges from this that the entry hole was too small to have
been made by a Boeing 757. "The impact itself is nevertheless quite
narrow," he writes. "It extends from ground level to the first
floor of the building (about 25 feet high). [Note that what Americans
refer to as the second floor, Europeans call the first floor.] Its width
corresponds to that of two windows above (about 17 to 20 feet wide)."
He concludes: "The aircraft that passed through this orifice thus
measured less than 17 to 20 feet in diameter. That could correspond
to the passenger cabin of a Boeing 757-200 which in fact measures 11.5
feet. But this plane also possesses wings that give a total breadth
of 125 feet." The inference, of course, is that Flight 77 could
not have caused the damage to the façade of the Pentagon.
In fact, the photo presented as evidence by Meyssan in support
of this analysis is misleading, because the ground floor of the building
is obscured. Other photos were taken of the façade before the
collapse that show much greater damage that does fit the profile of
an aircraft. Damage below the two windows cited by Meyssan and extending
through the floor above ground level clearly corresponds to the entry
point of the fuselage, while to the left and right of this area damage
caused by the wings is clearly visible.
Though the Pentagon survived the impact remarkably well, the
plane cut a vast swath of destruction throughout the affected portion
of the structure. The building, it should be noted, is built
of steel reinforced concrete and masonry throughout, supported by narrowly
spaced, spirally reinforced concrete columns varying in thickness from
14 to 21 inches, with the larger columns, naturally, to be found in
the first story.
The load-bearing columns support a slab, beam, and girder system of
flooring. While not a fortress, the construction of the Pentagon is
substantial and massive. The building is constructed of 680,000 tons
of sand and gravel that were used to make the steel-reinforced concrete.
Each of the five sides of the building then contains more than 100,000
tons of structural building components. The Boeing aircraft, by comparison,
weighed nearly 100 tons and, like any aircraft, was of much lighter
aluminum and composite construction, as befitting a vehicle meant to
fly.
The American Society of Civil Engineers described the impact site
and the damage in their comprehensive report on the crash. According
to the report, "Most of the serious structural damage was within
a swath that was approximately 75 to 80 ft wide and extended approximately
230 ft into the first floor of the building. This swath was oriented
at approximately 35 to 40 degrees perpendicular to the exterior wall
of the Pentagon. Within the swath of serious damage was a narrower,
tapering area that contained most of the very severe structural damage.
This tapering area approximated a triangle in plan and had a width of
approximately 90 ft at the aircraft's entry point and a length of approximately
230 ft along the trajectory of the aircraft through the building."
No Evidence of a Missile
Because Meyssan misleadingly downplays the damage to the building,
he is able to argue that the damage was caused by a missile. But
here again is another example of faulty logic. In a section of Pentagate
written by Pierre-Henri Bunel, the author notes that the damage at the
Pentagon "resembles the effects of anti-concrete hollow charges...."
There is no witness testimony presented indicating that anyone saw a
cruise missile.
Though many people saw an American Airlines plane fly into the Pentagon,
no one is quoted as having seen a military plane launch a missile and
there is no indication that one was fired either from land or sea-based
launch systems. The assertion that a missile damaged the Pentagon is
based solely on the fact that the explosion and resulting damage at
the Pentagon have some similarities with those caused by cruise missile
warheads.
In a sense, this argument takes the form of what historian David Hackett
Fischer calls the "fallacy of the possible proof." This fallacy,
Fischer notes, consists of attempting to demonstrate that a proposition
is true or false solely "by establishing the possibility of its
truth or falsity." For instance, it is possible for it to snow
in North Dakota on June 1. It does not follow from this possibility
that it did actually snow in North Dakota on June 1. Similarly, it is
possible that a missile hit the Pentagon. Unfortunately, admitting the
possibility of such is not the same as proving that it actually happened
- particularly when eyewitnesses, including those cited by Meyssan,
unambiguously reported seeing a plane.
To take it to the next step and prove that such an event actually
occurred, it would be necessary to cite evidence supporting the assertion.
It has already been noted that witnesses unambiguously reported seeing
a plane hit the Pentagon and not a missile. Likewise, there is no physical
evidence that would both support the missile theory and undermine the
official explanation that Flight 77 was responsible for the damage.
Meyssan attempts to skirt this issue, but faulty logic again thwarts
his analysis. He cites the statements of firefighters who stated, "The
only way you could tell that an aircraft was inside was that we saw
pieces of the nose gear." He then quotes Arlington County fire
chief Ed Plaugher, who in a statement to the press on September 12,
2001 said, "We have what we believe is a puddle right there that
the - what we believe to be the nose of the aircraft...."
A few lines later, Meyssan makes the critical leap in logic. "In
contrast to the fragile nose of a plane, the heads of certain missiles
are extremely resistant. This debris that firemen said they saw and
that they had trouble identifying as the nose of the plane could well
have been the warhead of a missile." What is the fatal flaw in
this statement? The warhead happens to be the portion of the weapon
that contains the explosive charge. Had a missile detonated inside the
Pentagon, there would not be a warhead remaining to be found by firefighters.
Meyssan can't have his cake and eat it too.
Moreover, though Meyssan argues that there is no debris from the plane
located near or inside the Pentagon, witnesses have attested to the
existence of such debris, and some of that debris even appears in the
photographic record. In addition to landing gear, engine components,
and the plane's "black boxes," chunks of aluminum and other
plane debris were found inside the damaged section of the building.
Occam's Razor
There are still other problems with Meyssan's analysis. He notes correctly,
for instance, that Flight 77 was lost to FAA controllers after the hijackers
turned off the plane's transponder. He insists, however, that because
the controllers lost the flight, no evidence exists that the plane was
turned toward Washington. This, too, is not true. In fact, the 9/11
Commission Report points out that, "According to the radar reconstruction,
American 77 reemerged as a primary target on Indianapolis Center radar
scopes at 9:05, east of its last known position. The target remained
in Indianapolis Center's airspace for another six minutes, then crossed
into the western portion of Washington Center's airspace at 9:10."
In yet another example of the "fallacy of the possible proof,"
Meyssan alleges that because the U.S. military did not prevent Flight
77 from reaching the Pentagon, despite the fact that it is the most
powerful and sophisticated military organization in the world, the U.S.
armed forces must, therefore, have purposefully facilitated the attack.
Strictly speaking, this absurd suggestion fits the basic description
of a "possibility." Once again, however, the necessity of
an event does not follow from its possibility.
Overall, however, the Meyssan theory fails its most important test.
A 14th century philosopher, William of Occam, formulated the principle
("Occam's razor") that the best explanation of observed phenomena
is the simplest. Of the two competing explanations for the events at
the Pentagon and on Flight 77, one posits that the plane struck the
building at a high rate of speed causing both the disintegration of
the plane and the destruction on the ground. The other, Meyssan's theory,
argues that the plane did not hit the Pentagon but disappeared. Not
only does the extant evidence run counter to this theory, but it does
not account for some of the observed phenomena, does not explain what
happened to the plane and its passengers, and is manifestly more complex.
It is safe to say that the thesis advocated by Thierry Meyssan, that
Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, is a tour de force of obfuscation
and misinterpretation. Meyssan has nevertheless attracted a bevy of
adherents who have based their own interpretations and theories on his.
Just how prevalent this theory has become can be confirmed quickly with
a Web search. Such a search turns up very little useful information
but returns a veritable mountain of misinformation.
This, in fact, underscores the problem. Modern society is awash in
a rapidly expanding sea of information, and it has become increasingly
more difficult to identify information that is reliable, factual and
useful. Nevertheless, it is essential to identify reliable information
sources and carefully evaluate their material. What is the background
of the source? Does the source have a track record of reliability? Is
the story verifiable? Are witnesses named, or are they anonymous? Does
the story match known or observed phenomena, or does it run counter
to these? Are there elements of the story that you know to be true -
or know not to be true? Has the source consistently employed fallacious
reasoning?
Failure to carefully weigh the reliability of information sources
by asking these and other questions exposes patriotic Americans to the
possibility of being misled and marginalized, an outcome to be avoided
if the tide toward collectivism is to be reversed.
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/08-23-2004/facts.htm
