9/11: Debunking The Myths [Popular Mechanics examines evidence and consults experts]

PopularMechanics ^ | March 2005 Cover Story | Editors of PM

[fight_truth_decay]

PM examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.

For background on this investigative feature, please click here.

FROM THE MOMENT the first airplane crashed into the World Trade Center on the morning of September 11, 2001, the world has asked one simple and compelling question: How could it happen?

Three and a half years later, not everyone is convinced we know the truth. Go to Google.com, type in the search phrase "World Trade Center conspiracy" and you'll get links to an estimated 628,000 Web sites. More than 3000 books on 9/11 have been published; many of them reject the official consensus that hijackers associated with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda flew passenger planes into U.S. landmarks.

Healthy skepticism, it seems, has curdled into paranoia. Wild conspiracy tales are peddled daily on the Internet, talk radio and in other media. Blurry photos, quotes taken out of context and sketchy eyewitness accounts have inspired a slew of elaborate theories: The Pentagon was struck by a missile; the World Trade Center was razed by demolition-style bombs; Flight 93 was shot down by a mysterious white jet. As outlandish as these claims may sound, they are increasingly accepted abroad and among extremists here in the United States.

To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.

In the end, we were able to debunk each of these assertions with hard evidence and a healthy dose of common sense. We learned that a few theories are based on something as innocent as a reporting error on that chaotic day. Others are the byproducts of cynical imaginations that aim to inject suspicion and animosity into public debate. Only by confronting such poisonous claims with irrefutable facts can we understand what really happened on a day that is forever seared into world history.--THE EDITORS

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[TomB]

OK, you just said that there was only one shot of the first WTC impact. I don't think there is any doubt that the WTC were one of the most photographed spots in the city, and yet no film of it. Meanwhile, we have one less shot of the pentagon, something I've never taken a picture of on my many trips to DC (except from the Washinton Monument), and yet you find that strange. Like I asked, how would this picture have been taken? The plane came over the treetops, so there was no chance to follow the path of the plane. I just don't understand the confusion.

[TomB]

Yea, you can't trust those damn neocons......

.....or can you?

[foolscap]

Many more conspiracy theories will be in the next report, if one is done, reported the editor of PM on the Bell show

That was really a good show last night. When Art started off he talked about all the people who had contacted him before the show to give him grief about having the author on the program. I belong to message board and the people were upset also before the guy had even had a chance to speak and they talked endlessly about what a rag Popular Mechanics is for publishing their report.

I am amazed how many people buy into all this conspiracy stuff. It would have taken thousands of people to pull off the conspiracy they are talking about. They don't seem to get that you can't have a secret conspiracy involving that many people and keep it a secret. I wonder what these people think with. It certainly isn't their brains. They must have very unhappy lives if they believe that the government is so terribly all powerful they force their own citizens into planes to kill them on a whim. Of course these people also read a lot from DU so that proves they are miserable, unhappy people. The crap that passes for news on DU is mind boggling. It's disgusting when you hear their stuff parroted around the internet on other boards as though it is fact. DU is a case of the internet at it's worst.

[EternalVigilance]

The plane that impacted the Pentagon hit on the side AWAY from the Potomac, DC and the Mall.

That no one other than the lone security camera photographed it doesn't surprise me in the least.

Perhaps if it had hit from a different angle, towards the Mall, some tourist or somebody might have gotten a shot. And then again, maybe not...

[fight_truth_decay]

Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D. ......"So, I sent a FOIA request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list. Believe me that they weren’t a bit happy to give it up, and I really have no idea why they choose now to release it."

"No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab. However, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airline sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. I did give American the opportunity to “revise” their original list, but they have not responded."

"The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only “passenger” body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified."

"The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together. Stay tuned for part two for a much closer look of the cast of characters on this ill-fated flight."------- http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=870."

Autopsy List Flight 77

ambrosepaul, betruyeneneh, boothmary jane, brownbernard, burlingamecharles, calleysuzanne, caswellwilliam, charleboisdavid, clarksarah, cottomasia, debeuneurejames, dickensrodney, dillardeddie, drozchuck, edwardsbarbara, falkenbergcharles, falkenbergzoe, fergusonjames, flaggdarlene, flaggwilson, gabrielrichard, grayian, hallstanley, heidenbergermichelle, jackbryan, jacobysteven, judgeann, kellerchandler, kennedyyvonne, khannorma, kincaidkaren, leedong, lewisjennifer, lewiskenneth, mayrenee, menchacadora, newtonchristopher, olsonbarbara, ornedoruben, penningerrobert, plogerrobert, plogerzandra, raineslisa, reubentodd, sammartinojohn, simmonsdiane, simmonsgeorge, soppermari-rae, speismanrobert, steuerlenorma, taylorhilda, taylorleonard, teaguesandra, whittingtonleslie, yamnickyjohn, yanceyvicki, yangshuyin, zhengyuguag,

See also: http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steveseymour/pentagon/pentagon.htm

[TomB]

It doesn't matter one bit. As you can see from some of the responses to this thread, people can take strange occurrences or "coincidences" and turn them into a complete gubmint conspiracy.

The cognitive dissonance demonstrated eerily resembles the kind you find debating people who don't believe we landed on the moon.

[fight_truth_decay]

On September 27th, the FBI published photos of the “hijackers” of Flight 77:

American Airlines #77 Boeing 757
8:10 a.m. Departed Dulles for Los Angeles
9:39 a.m. Crashed into Pentagon
Khalid Almihdhar,Majed Moqed,Nawaf Alhazmi,Salem Alhazmi,Hani Hanjour.

www.fbi.gov/pressrel/penttbom/aa77/77.htm

http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=870

"Meanwhile, back at the ranch, the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology (AFIP), does a miraculous job and identified nearly all the bodies on November 16th 2001.

"The AFIP suggest these numbers:189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were “passengers” on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell “victims” bodies from “hijacker” bodies. In fact, from the beginning NO explanation has been given for extra five suggested in news reports." [Excerpt]

[isom35]

did anyone ever tell CNN reporter Jaimie Mcintyre ?

http://thewebfairy.com/911/pentagon/27_1-mcintyre.swf

[EternalVigilance]

No kiddin'...

[Ethan_Allen]

interesting.....

I went to the link you gave:

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/steveseymour/pentagon/pentagon.htm

It started to come up, and then flashed to:

'http://www.vialls.com/pentagon/pentagon.htm

Not Found
The requested URL was not found on this server.

Apache Server at vialls.com'

Do you know what's up with that? What were you trying to say?

[LS]

Dunno. I'm in Washington a little, and there's always people with cameras and video cams. Just seems odd, that's all. Nothing conspiratorial. Just one of those odd quirks of history.

[Ethan_Allen]

'NO explanation has been given for extra five suggested in news reports." [Excerpt]'

'Khalid Almihdhar,Majed Moqed,Nawaf Alhazmi,Salem Alhazmi,Hani Hanjour.'

Here is the flight manifest and autopsy report for Flight 77

http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm

Where are the hijackers' names?

[ReignOfError]

**** There is no Arab name on this list. Something is definitely wrong here....'

The CNN page you linked to is not a passenger manifest. It's a list of victims, clearly labeled as such. I don't see anything wrong with not listing the murderers among the victims.

[fight_truth_decay]

Yes.. now flashes but then links to http://www.vialls.com/
-Joe Viallis.

Pentagon Attack Plane Was An El Al Lookalike
Flights 77 and 1862 both had "vanishing" wings (finally captured it). Showed Photos of El Al crash sites in comparison to the Pentagon--both were suggested to have vanishing wings.

[Stultis]

Hey, I'm with Rumsfeld:

RUMSFELD SAID MISSILE HIT PENTAGON

Oh, brother. Is this really the kind of lame b.s. that makes you a "skeptic" (read, "moonbat conspiracy loon")? That passing remark by Rumsfeld is what you put up against the missing plane, the dead passengers, the cellphones calls including from Barbara Olsen, etc?

Here's what Rumsfeld said:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2001/t11182001_t1012pm.html

They [find a lot] and any number of terrorist efforts have been dissuaded, deterred or stopped by good intelligence gathering and good preventive work. It is a truth that a terrorist can attack any time, any place, using any technique and it's physically impossible to defend at every time and every place against every conceivable technique. Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center. The only way to deal with this problem is by taking the battle to the terrorists, wherever they are, and dealing with them.

And this is supposed to be a Freudian slip revealing a vast conspiracy that disappeared a plane and its passengers and launched a missile at the Pentagon?! Why couldn't it be a simple reference to the use of passenger jets as missiles? Assume a minor transcription error and Rumsfeld was saying this directly. The statement is also more sensible in syntax and in context with this minor change:

Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and as the missile to damage this building

In any case it took me all of three minutes (just with google, I don't have Lexus-Nexis) to come up with a similar and unequivocal usage by Rumsfeld just a few months later:

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2002/t02032002_t0203abc.html

Rumsfeld: Well, anyone who looks at the techniques of taking American airliners filled with Americans and taking box openers and capturing crews and turning those airplanes into missiles and driving them into buildings and killing thousands of people, we know roughly the effect of that.

[ReignOfError]

Actually, I think there is only one video shot of the first plane impact on the WTC. Maybe the Pentagon isn't the object of a lot of tourists' shots, but you'd think it would be, along with the WH, Congress, and the memorials. Or maybe there isn't a good place from which to get a still pic of the Pentagon. I just thought it odd, and it wouldn't surprise me if, like in the JFK assassination, years after the fact people came forward with other photos.

http://www.defenselink.mil/photos/Sep2001/010914-F-8006R-006.html

That's a defense department aerial photo of the damage to the pentagon. It looks like the only places to get a clean shot of that side of the building is from the Pentagon grounds, from the air or from the highway (I-295?).

[Stultis]

The cognitive dissonance demonstrated eerily resembles the kind you find debating people who don't believe we landed on the moon.

I think they're actually some of the same people. IIRC one of the main figures involved in producing that stupid documentary about the moonlandings being faked is also a leading light among the 911 "skeptics".

[fight_truth_decay]

AFIP Autopsy List Flight 77 is what I pulled up as above. The links worked at the time I posted. Then they got crazy. Try googling without using the phrase "no Arabs on flight 77". That forms an opinion before the search and narrows the playing field. Not that you are doing that but an "unintentional tagged phrase" is limited to a certain mindset of results.

This conspiracy "junk" is tiring. I would go into mental fatique if I worked on this very long!

[fight_truth_decay]

[Tommyjo]

Would you say that face to face with Lt. Col. Steve O'Brien or his crew. Lt. Col O'Brien was the commander of the C-130 that witnessed the airliner crash into the Pentagon

Link