September 11, 2001 - An overview of some important facts to keep in mind when thinking about the events of that day.
The Pentagon
- Did you know that, initially, the military listed the time of impact of Flight 77 at the Pentagon as around 9:43 a.m. on September 11, 2001, and although this initial time of impact has been pushed back to 9:37 a.m. (The 9/11 Commission Report), the actual time of the Pentagon event may actually be 9:32 a.m. because that is when a number of battery-operated wall clocks in the west wing of the Pentagon, as well as a clock at the heliport near the Pentagon’s west wing, stopped due to a violent event of some kind?
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- Did you know that the official government account of what happened at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 is that the west side of the building was struck by Flight 77, a hijacked American Airlines 757 Boeing airplane?
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- Did you know that the US military maintains that Flight 77 hit the ground floor of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that although a number of lamp standards near the Pentagon were knocked down because they were allegedly in the flight path of the Boeing 757, there were other objects (for example, a construction site surrounded by a high chainlink fence and tall spools of wire) in the same projected flight path of the Boeing 757 that were untouched?
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- Did you know that there are photographs of the Pentagon showing that the rear portion of the first and second floor are still intact although supposedly struck by a Boeing 757 traveling at 500+ miles per hour?
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- Did you know that the Pentagon is a concrete -- not steel-framed -- building which is five stories or 77 feet tall at the highest point of the roof?
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Did you know that a Boeing 757-200, the American Airlines version which supposedly hit the Pentagon, is 155 feet long, has a wingspan of 125 feet, and measures 18 feet from the bottom of the engine to the top of the fuselage, with a fuselage that is 13 feet in diameter, engines which are nine feet in diameter, and there is a distance of 45 feet from the bottom of the engine to the top of the tail?
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- Did you know according to the US military and press reports, the object that struck the Pentagon hit at an oblique, 45-degree angle, which, if true, means that the surface area of the Pentagon that allegedly was impacted by a Boeing 757 would have increased to about 177 feet?
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- Did you know that even if the engines of a Boeing 757-200 were dragging along the grass, the plane is tall enough that it would have impacted morre than two floors of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that there is absolutely no evidence of a Boeing 757 having made contact with any portion of the grass which is in front of the Pentagon, and this means, depending on how high off the ground the Boeing was when it allegedly hit the building, more than two stories of the Pentagon should have been impacted by the plane?
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- Did you know that the impact hole in the front exterior of the Pentagon building was estimated to be between 15 and 18 feet wide – that is, not even as wide as the collective diameter of two jet engines, and, more importantly, not as wide as the collective width of such engines plus the portions of the wings and the fuselage that separate the engines from each other?
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- Did you know that even after a portion of the Pentagon collapsed from the collective forces of fire and firefighting techniques, the collapsed section, which is broader than the original impact hole, only measures half of the wing width of a Boeing 757?
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- Did you know that there are photographs of the Pentagon which were taken just after the collision showing an intact wall, approximately 25 feet above the ground, which is just over the point of impact on the west side of the Pentagon, and this intact wall shows no evidence of having been struck by the tail of a commercial jet (and the distance from the bottom of the engine to the tip of the tail is 45 feet) traveling at some 500-plus miles an hour?
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- Did you know that Francois Grangier, who is an expert on air crashes and who examined photographs of the Pentagon crash site, has stated that a Boeing 757 airplane did not cause the observable damage to the façade of the west wing of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that a Boeing 757 weighs some 60 tons when empty and that luggage and human beings add many more tons to the weight of the plane?
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- Did you know that there was, with one exception, no evidence of any debris resembling engines, wings, fuselage, luggage, or body parts to be found outside of the Pentagon near the point of impact (although there was an abundance of very small pieces of debris of some kind that has been reported)?
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- Did you know that one piece of airplane skin, bearing some of the colors of an American Airlines vehicle, was supposedly recovered on the lawn outside the Pentagon but the manner in which this coloring appears to be configured cannot be made to match any portion of the exterior of an actual American Airlines Boeing 757?
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- Did you know that the aforementioned piece of debris shows none of the black coating, soot, or fire damage which should have been characteristic of an object that had been exposed to a jet fuel fire?
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- Did you know that while the official government account of the Pentagon event maintains that the Boeing 757 completely disintegrated on impact, there is absolutely no plausible or technical explanation which is provided that would account for how the above mentioned piece of fuselage debris would have been able to escape the disintegrating fate that befell the rest of the 60 ton Boeing plane and, thereby, would have been available to be found all by itself on the lawn of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that a photograph was published in conjunction with the Pentagon event of 9/11 which purportedly depicted the turbofan of a 757, but, subsequently, a team of researchers, led by Karl Schwartz, identified the photographed item as a front-hub assembly of a front compressor from an IT8D turbojet A3 Skywarrior jet fighter, which is much smaller than a 757?
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- Did you know that prior to 9/11, A3 Skywarriors, although normally a piloted plane, were retrofitted at the Fort Collins-Loveland Airport in Colorado to serve as remote-controlled, missile-carrying aircraft?
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- Did you know that there is a photograph of a nearly round exit hole along the ground, which measures about seven feet in width, that appears in an interior ring (C) of the Pentagon – a hole which the US military claims marks the point of innermost penetration of Flight 77?
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- Did you know that the nature of the exit hole seems to indicate it was pierced not smashed?
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- Did you know that there are no scorch marks surrounding the hole as one might anticipate from a jet fuel fire?
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- Did you know that the size of this hole is too small to be caused by a jet engine or the fuselage?
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Did you know that the nose of a Boeing, referred to as the radome, contains electronic navigation gear, and it is made of carbon fiber so that it can permit passage of electronic waves?
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- Did you know that the radome is far too fragile and lacks the sort of density which could have penetrated a succession of concrete ring-walls at the Pentagon to have caused the above mentioned exit hole in the interior C-ring of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that following the Pentagon collision, there were a group of about 20 uniformed men, none of whom were from the National Transportation Safety Board, who were photographed scouring the grass in front of the west wing of the Pentagon and, eventually, taking away a large, but relatively light, tarpaulin-covered object?
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- Did you know that in the case of all air crashes, the National Transportation Safety Board has primary jurisdiction and that removing evidence from a crash site constitutes grounds for a felony prosecution?
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- Did you know that despite being a crime scene in which hundreds of people were murdered and millions of dollars of damage inflicted, all forensic evidence was removed from the scene of the crime, in and around the Pentagon, within a matter of days?
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- Did you know that because the Pentagon is situated in Arlington County, Virginia, jurisdiction for fighting the fire should have belonged to the Arlington County Fire Department, but their firefighters were not permitted to get near to the primary impact site and, instead, had to fight the fire from a distance?
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- Did you know that the Arlington County firefighters were kept away from the location where the airliner wreckage was supposed to have been, and the group which kept them away was the Urban Search and Rescue Team of FEMA?
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- Did you know that within a very short period following the Pentagon event on 9/11, all external surveillance videos covering the west façade of the building were confiscated by the FBI?
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- Did you know that with the exception of five frames of a video released by CNN on March 8, 2002, purportedly showing the Pentagon crash event of 9/11, none of the confiscated video has been released to the public by the FBI?
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- Did you know that the five released frames show an incorrect date stamp of September 12, 2001 and, as well, the time stamp for the released frames indicates a time of 17:37 rather than 9:38 a.m. or 9:32 a.m. when the actual event took place?
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- Did you know that Pierre-Henri Bunel, an artillery and explosives expert who served as an ally with General Schwartzkopf during Desert Storm, has examined the foregoing video footage, as well as other photographic evidence concerning the Pentagon event, and has concluded that the Pentagon event gave evidence (such as the color, indicating temperature of the fireball, its manner of expansion, the kind of fire equipment used in combating the fire) of a high-yield explosive denotation at the Pentagon and not the sort of deflagration which would have arisen from a jet fuel fire caused by the impact of a large commercial airliner?
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- Did you know that during the press conferences held at the Pentagon between September 12th and 15th, 2001, no one reported seeing any large pieces of evidence (such as fuselage, engines, or the like) indicating that the Pentagon had been struck by a Boeing 757?
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- Did you know that the voice and flight data recorders which were purportedly from Flight 77 were found on September 14, 2001, along with a light beacon, but that, allegedly, the two recorders were too severely damaged by the fires to yield recoverable data?
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- Did you know that Ed Plaugher, the fire chief for the Arlington County Fire Department who originally reported (between September 12th and 14th, 2001) seeing no large portions of a 757 Boeing in the fire debris at the Pentagon, but subsequently (some six months after September 11, 2001), apparently changed his account to say that he recollects having seen portions of wings, fuselage, engine, landing gear, seats, and one of the two black boxes from the airplane?
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- Did you know that according to some accounts of the Pentagon strike on 9/11, the impact was of such intensity that not only did the plane disintegrate but the aluminum portions of the plane melted when, reportedly, the temperature of the fire reached more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit?
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- Did you know that there has been no plausible technical explanation forthcoming of how the foregoing disintegration would have occurred and still have produced a small exit hole in the interior, third ring of the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that when 60-plus tons of melted plane were not found at the Pentagon event, the story began to circulate that at 5,400 degrees Fahrenheit, aluminum turns into a gas, and, so, one would not find much aluminum tonnage remaining?
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- Did you know that no one has come up with a plausible explanation of how temperatures of 5,400 degrees were reached, let alone sustained for a sufficiently long period of time, to gasify the aluminum from the alleged Boeing plane?
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- Did you know that even if someone were to come up with a plausible explanation for the generation of such sustained temperatures, there is no concomitant explanation for why this sort of extensive temperatures and heat did not do more damage to the rest of the building surrounding the hole of impact or why the grass outside of the west side of the Pentagon remained un-singed?
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- Did you know that there are photographs of unburned office equipment that is visible near the point of impact and which should have been incinerated if there were temperatures in the building that were high enough to gasify all, or large portions, of the 60 tons of aluminum and metal portions of the plane as some have tried to argue?
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- Did you know that even if someone were to come up with a plausible explanation for the generation of sustained heat capable of liquefying and gasifying 60 tons of aluminum, nevertheless, they have not been able to account for how – given the presence of such heat – authorities were supposedly able to identify some of the people who died in the wreckage from their fingerprints?
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- Did you know that despite the accounts of disintegration, liquefying, and gasifying of the Boeing 747, the FBI claims that it was able to recover a large portion of the 757 debris and that this all has been marked with the serial number of Flight 77 and has been stored in a warehouse, although pictures of this catalog of debris have never been released to the public?
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- Did you know that there were witnesses to the Pentagon event who claim that there were identifiable pieces of debris some hundred yards, or so, from the Pentagon that were supposedly photographed, but until this day few of these alleged photographs have been made public ... one exception being a photograph by Mark Faram which was of the aforementioned piece of American Airline-like colored portion of airplane skin, a piece of debris that has problems surrounding it concerning its authenticity?
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- Did you know that one of the first people to claim that a plane had hit the Pentagon was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld who claimed that he walked the 2,000 feet from the east side to the west side of the Pentagon to examine the damage and who, supposedly, saw thousands of pieces of debris which were identifiable as from an airplane?
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- Did you know evidence presented by Richard Clarke in his book Against All Enemies, as well as during his testimony before the 9/11 Commission, directly contradicts the foregoing account given by Secretary Rumsfeld, because, according to Clarke, Rumsfeld was participating in a teleconference with him during this time?
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- Did you know that on the day before 9/11, Secretary Rumsfeld reported that several trillion dollars were missing from the Pentagon accounts?
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- Did you know that the Pentagon’s west wing contained the financial management sections, accountants, financial data which were to be used in trying to track down the missing trillions?
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- Did you know that April Gallop, who had top secret security clearance and who was employed by the Army in the administrative section situated in the west part of the Pentagon, testified that she heard and felt a bomb go off, smelled no jet fuel, and saw no debris from an air crash inside the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that when April Gallop was recovering in the hospital, she was visited by men who never identified themselves but who strongly suggested that she take the package from the Victim Compensation Fund, keep her mouth shut, and who emphasized again and again that a plane had hit the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that an Army employee, who was on temporary assignment in accounting at the Pentagon and who was just returning to a south wing office that was adjacent to the west wing, stated that a number of people came running by yelling “bombs” and a “bomb went off”?
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- Did you know that a number of Pentagon witnesses indicated that they heard two explosions on the morning of 9/11?
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- Did you know that a number of witnesses at the Pentagon indicated that they smelled cordite [Explosive powder (nitroglycerin and guncotton and petrolatum) dissolved in acetone and dried and extruded in brown cords – used in many conventional explosive devices] following the initial explosion and not burning jet fuel?
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Did you know that it is possible that an initial explosion could have produced a heat signature which could have served as a homing device for a subsequent heat-seeking, guided missile?
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- Did you know that there are conflicting eyewitness accounts of whether what was seen and/or heard near the Pentagon on the morning of September 11, 2001 was an American Airlines Boeing 757, a small 10-seater jet plane, possibly with American Airlines-like coloring, or a missile?
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- Did you know that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld referred to the object which hit the Pentagon as a “missile” during an interview with Parade magazine?
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- Did you know that Major General Larry Arnold, commander of NORAD, had ordered a fighter jet which was in the vicinity to fly over the west face of the Pentagon shortly after the explosion on September 11, 2001, and the pilot indicated there was no evidence that a plane had struck the Pentagon?
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- Did you know that some people may have confused the aforementioned fly-by of a fighter jet with Flight 77, and this could be why The 9/11 Commission Report cites 9:37 a.m. as the time of impact rather than the time of 9:32 a.m. which is indicated by the battery-operated wall-clocks in the west wing of the Pentagon that stopped at the latter time due to a violent event of some kind?
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- Did you know that no one seems to have asked Major General Arnold the following question, namely: If there was a jet fighter close enough to inspect damage just shortly after 9:32 a.m. on the morning of September 11, 2001, then why was this plane not able to shoot the Boeing 757 down prior to the latter’s hitting the Pentagon since the Boeing allegedly did not crash into the building until five minutes later?