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The 9/11 Mystery Plane (Part II)
Did the US Military Fudge the
9/11 Timeline?
911
Mystery Plane Part I
By Mark H. Gaffney
5-7-7
http://www.rense.com/general76/wdb.htm
In a recent article, I presented compelling evidence that an E-4B, the US
military's most advanced command and control platform, circled over the
White House at the time of the September 11, 2001 attack.[1] Officially
known as the National Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP, pronounced
knee-cap), the E-4B's more common name is the "doomsday" plane. This paper
will expand that discussion and will ultimately argue that the military
fudged the time of the pentagon crash to conceal the presence of the E-4B.
As in any wartime situation, the day of September 11 2001 was marked by
tremendous uncertainty and confusion. Although a total of four commercial
airliners were involved in the attack, the FAA processed numerous false
reports of other hijackings, well into the afternoon. By one account New
York City firemen at the World Trade Center also received a false alarm
about a third suicide plane.[2] There was a bomb scare at the FAA's Boston
Air Traffic Center, as well as a false alarm about an approaching suicide
plane that prompted the evacuation of the building.[3] An evacuation also
occurred at another FAA facility on Martha's Vineyard when a large white
plane was sighted near the tower. [4] Unfortunately, this low-flying plane
was never identified. There were also evacuations at Reagan National
Airport in Washington and at Cleveland Airport. There was even a reported
threat to Air Force One, which delayed President Bush's return to
Washington.[5]
Numerous anomalies associated with the collapse of the Trade Center and
the Pentagon attack remain controversial nearly six years after the attack
because the official investigations failed to explain them. To this day
there is widespread uncertainty about the actual chronology of events,
i.e., exactly what happened on 9/11, and when. A glance at Paul Thompson's
invaluable book, The Terror Timeline, shows that the official narrative as
presented in the 9/11 Commission Report is at best a partial record, and
at worst a complete fabrication, since what it leaves out often conflicts
with the official story.[6] Moreover, Professor and Theologian David Ray
Griffin's 2005 book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions
is even more troubling, because it exposes numerous flaws in the official
investigation, including cases of deception. Griffin's critique should be
considered a necessary companion volume to the final report, and together
with Thompson's book makes for essential reading. Both are indispensable
resources for anyone trying to understand the events of September 11.
Fortunately, Thompson's timeline, which attempts to be comprehensive, is
also accessible via the internet.[7]
The official 9/11 narrative has undergone two revisions, both major. The
military announced the first just a week after the attack. The 9/11
Commission unveiled the second in its final report, released in July 2004.
In his companion book Griffin argues persuasively that both revisions were
attempts to salvage the official conspiracy theory. Before I proceed,
allow me to briefly review how both of these revisions came about: Two
days after the attack, on September 13, 2001, General Richard Myers,
acting Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed
Services Committee that NORAD failed to get fighters in the air until
after the Pentagon strike.[8] This admission by Myers caused huge problems
for the US military, because its failure to respond looked like a
deliberate stand-down; which, if true, was treason. A week later, on
September 18, 2001, the military attempted to shield itself from such
criticism by announcing a revised timeline, essentially blaming the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the breach of security on
9/11.[9] The Pentagon claimed that NORAD was unable to respond in a timely
manner because it did not receive notification from the FAA about the
hijacked planes until too late. As the months passed, however, cracks
began to appear in this revised timeline. The problem was that even with
the delayed notification NORAD arguably still had sufficient time to
scramble fighters and intercept two and possibly three of the hijacked
planes. The 9/11 Commission Report, published in July 2004, acknowledged
this problem,[10] then announced a second revision of the timeline.
According to this latest story, the FAA wasn't merely tardy, no, it failed
completely. In other words, the FAA neglected to notify NORAD that Flights
175, 77 and 93 had been hijacked until after the the planes had crashed.
This gross incompetence on the part of the FAA was bizarre, to say the
least, since the FAA simultaneously showed remarkable professionalism and
skill by grounding nearly 4500 planes in about three hours, all without a
single mishap. In fact, the FAA's emergency shut down of the entire US air
traffic system on 9/11 was unprecedented in the annals of US aviation.
The latest revision was largely based on new evidence in the form of
certain NORAD audio-tapes, which the government had withheld for many
months. However, thanks to a court order the tapes were finally made
available to the panel late in the investigation. Based on its review of
these tapes, the commission surprised everyone by announcing a completely
new element in the story, the so called "phantom plane" scenario. The 9/11
Commission Report asserts that at 9:21 AM on September 11 the FAA
mistakenly notified NORAD that Flight 11 had missed the World Trade Center
and was flying south en route to Washington.[11] The report further states
that the F-16s scrambled from Langley AFB at 9:30 AM were sent aloft not
to intercept Flight 77 (or Flight 93), as the military had previously
claimed, but for the purpose of intercepting this phantom Flight 11
somewhere near Baltimore.[12] These new disclosures were a major change in
the official story, and were deeply embarrassing to the pentagon because
they directly contradicted the earlier testimony by generals and other
military officers, which made no mention of any phantom plane. Indeed,
even during his final appearance before the commission in June 2004
General Larry Arnold stated that "We scrambled those aircraft [the Langley
fighters] to get them over Washington, D.C., to protect Washington,
D.C."[13] Moments later, Arnold had to be coached by panel members
regarding the phantom plane. The general's inability to recall details
that as a NORAD commander he should have known caused shock and outrage
among panel members. The Washington Post subsequently reported that some
of the commissioners and their staff were convinced that the pentagon had
deliberately deceived them.[14] During its final meeting the panel even
discussed referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal
investigation. However, the panel's outrage never made it into in the 9/11
Commission Report, nor is there any mention of deception. The report
blandly informs us that the generals' previous testimony was merely
"incorrect."[15]
Although much has been made of this loss of face by the Pentagon, "what is
really going on," as David Ray Griffin has correctly pointed out, "is that
the military is briefly suffering a little embarrassment, experienced
primarily by a few scapegoats [i.e., General Arnold], for the sake of the
new story, which, if accepted, permanently removes the suspicion of guilt
for treason and murder from everyone in the military."[16] A closer
reading of the report shows that its main objective was to exonerate the
Pentagon brass of responsibility for the breach of security on September
11. Yet, the report suffers from a deeper weakness, which is fundamental:
Even if we wish to believe the official story and the newest timeline,
this means we must accept that the Joint Chiefs deliberately deceived the
nation and the panel for nearly three years. The entire chain of command
kept quiet, as well, hence, was complicit in this deception. While it's
usually assumed that if the generals lied it was to conceal their own
incompetence, why would they expose themselves to the treasonous charge of
implementing a stand-down by overstating "the FAA's ability to
provide....timely and useful information," if the FAA were responsible all
along?[17] This makes no sense and should increase our skepticism about
every facet of the official narrative. There is also a further problem: If
the FAA was guilty of gross negligence on 9/11, why was no one held
accountable? In the months following the attack not a single FAA official
was dismissed, demoted, or even reprimanded. Why not? Did the Bush
administration refrain from demotions and dismissals because this would
have begun a legal process of discovery and appeal involving the scrutiny
of relevant documents and the release of evidence, which had to be avoided
at all costs? The Origin of the Phantom Plane Story
The phantom plane story certainly had the effect of letting the US
military off the hook. Was it a device contrived for this purpose? It's
curious that one of the most muddled portions of the 9/11 chronology, on a
day marked by confusion, was the time period between 9:21 AM, when the FAA
notified NORAD about the phantom Flight 11, to 9:38 AM, when Flight 77
allegedly smashed into the pentagon. Let us now examine this part of the
official narrative, in the hope of shedding some fresh light on it.
Although the 9/11 Commission Report fails to explain how the phantom plane
story originated,[18] Michael Bronner disclosed more details last summer
in a much-ballyhooed article in Vanity Fair, "9/11 Live: The NORAD
Tapes."[19] Bronner is a former producer of 60 Minutes, and also helped
produce the recent film United 93 (not to be confused with the 2005
Discovery docudrama, The Flight that Fought Back.) For reasons that have
never been explained, the US military granted Bronner exclusive access to
the same NORAD tapes that the 9/11 Commission obtained only after a
lengthy court battle.[20] The tapes provided the grist for Bronner's
article, which defends the official narrative as presented in the 9/11
Commission Report. Although Bronner asserts that "the truth is all on
tape," as we will see, there are solid reasons to question his arguments
and conclusions. Let's start with the phantom plane issue.
As part of his research, Bronner interviewed Colin Scoggins, who on
September 11, 2001 was the military liaison at the FAA's Boston Air
Traffic Center, where much of the action occurred. Scoggins told Bronner
the phantom plane story began as a misunderstanding during a
teleconference "in the flurry of information zipping back and
forth...[and]... transmogrified into the idea that a different plane had
hit the tower, and that American 11 was still hijacked and still in the
air."[21] Although the 9/11 Commission Report doesn't mention Scoggins by
name, it was he who placed the crucial call to NEADS at 9:21 AM informing
the military that Flight 11 was heading for Washington.[22] Recently, when
I conducted my own interview with Scoggins, he confirmed that the FAA
tracked Flight 11 continuously until just north of the World Trade Center,
when the plane dropped below 2,000 feet and was lost to radar.[23]
However, according to Scoggins the FAA never tracked any phantom plane
between New York and Washington. In his article Bronner tagged Scoggins
with the responsibility for the mistaken report, but Scoggins told me he
merely relayed what he overheard during the conference call. More details
emerged during our interview and subsequent email exchanges. Scoggins
thinks someone at FAA headquarters dropped a "call sign" during the
teleconference, meaning that during the discussion about hijacked planes
someone failed to mention a flight number, leading to a mix-up.[24] (The
FAA headquarters is located on Independence Avenue in downtown
Washington.)
Numerous individuals from various agencies were on the line, that morning.
Scoggins doesn't know exactly who or how many people were listening. The
conference call may well have included staffers from the Pentagon and
NORAD, which, notice, if correct, would mean that the military overheard
the FAA discussion, and therefore, by 9:21 AM must have known about at
least one of the other hijacked planes, in addition to Flight 11. This
would contradict the official story that the military was in the dark.
Scoggins doubts this interpretation, but it's certainly possible, because
the Pentagon and NORAD were usual participants in FAA conference calls.
Maj. General Craig McKinley, who was at the Pentagon on 9/11, confirmed as
much in his testimony before the 9/11 Commission in May 2003.[25] The fact
was also confirmed by the FAA's Deputy in Public Affairs Laura Brown in a
May 2003 memo to the 911 Commission, in which Brown sought to clarify the
FAA's role. Her memo states that "Within minutes after the first aircraft
hit the World Trade Center, the FAA immediately established several phone
bridges that included FAA field facilities, the FAA Command Center, FAA
headquarters, DoD [the Department of Defense, i.e., the Pentagon and NORAD],
the Secret Service, and other government agencies."[26] The 9/11
Commission discussed Brown's memo during its hearings. Commissioner
Richard Ben-Veniste even read it into the record.[27] Yet, her memo is
never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. Why not? Is it because the
FAA memo contradicts the official story that the US military was not in
the loop on September 11? Of course, it is possible that the FAA staffer
who dropped the call-sign was referring to one of the other suspected
hijackings that turned out to be a false alarm. But anyone who seriously
doubts that the military was in the loop should check out David Ray
Griffin's latest book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking, which presents an
enormous amount of additional evidence. Griffin thinks the FAA initiated a
phone bridge with the military much earlier, in fact, as early as 8:20-25
AM, and he is probably correct.[28] As I proceed I will touch on some of
this evidence.
Pushback? Or Obfuscation?
Michael Bronner made another serious charge in his article: He claimed
that the operational commander of NORAD's Northeast Sector (NEADS) was
unable to deploy his fighters over Manhattan on September 11 because he
encountered resistance from the FAA. With both WTC towers in flames, as
Bronner tells it, the NEADS mission-crew commander Lt. Col. Kevin Nasypany
was insistent about immediately moving his F-15s into position over New
York to protect the city. The planes had finally been scrambled from Otis
AFB, near Cape Cod, and were in a holding pattern over the Atlantic.
However, at this point, according to Bronner, NEADS received "pushback"
from FAA controllers who were afraid that NORAD's "fast-moving fighters"
might collide with commercial passenger planes, hundreds of which were "in
the area, still flying normal routes." To drive his point home Bronner
adds that FAA controllers had "the final authority over the fighters as
long as they [were] in civilian airspace." While Bronner is correct that
New York air traffic controllers initially hesitated to allow NORAD
fighters into New York City airspace, Bronner exaggerates this delay,
which according to Scoggins was no more than 2-4 minutes.[29] There are
excellent reasons why the FAA controllers were not unduly concerned about
a mid-air collision. Lower Manhattan is not a flight corridor for
commercial air traffic, nor was it on September 11. Three international
airports service greater New York City. Two of them, JFK and La Guardia,
are well to the east of Manhattan, and the third, Newark Airport, is
located in New Jersey, west across the Hudson. None of the flight
corridors or holding patterns for these busy airports intersect the
borough of Manhattan at any point.[30]
Furthermore, the Manhattan airspace under 3,300 feet is doubly restricted
in the vicinity of the World Trade Center due to the obvious hazards posed
by tall buildings. The dangers have been known since at least 1945, when
an Air Force B-25 pilot lost his way on a foggy night and smashed into the
78th-79th floor of the Empire State Building. The following year another
plane crashed into 40 Wall Street, the tallest building in the financial
district at that time. To prevent such fiery disasters in the future the
FAA long ago designated this airspace as a "no fly zone." Aside from
police traffic, the only exceptions to the ban were by special permit. For
which reasons the risk of a midair collision over Manhattan on 9/11 was
close to nil, as both NEADS and the FAA surely must have known. Nor is it
likely that a commercial pilot would have knowingly violated this ban in
the midst of an unparalleled aviation disaster. In addition to risking his
plane, crew and passengers for no reason, such a pilot would have expected
to encounter a fighter intercept himself within minutes and, later, severe
disciplinary action, probably including the early termination of his
career.
As we know, of course, there were no fighter intercepts on 9/11. The two
F-15s scrambled from Otis AFB ended up in a holding pen south of Long
Island. The pilots later explained that while they waited for orders they
watched the ominous plume of smoke billowing from the WTC, conspicuous
from 70 miles away.[31] Their orders never did come. The pilots only
learned about the second strike when they called their commander for an
update.[32] In the end, they took the initiative themselves, an admission
that is deeply buried in a footnote of the 9/11 Commission Report. [33] At
9:13 AM the pilots "told their Boston Center controller that they needed
to establish a Combat Air Patrol (CAP) over New York." Which they finally
accomplished at 9:25 AM, much too late to make a difference.[34]
Given all of this, Bronner's charge that the FAA obstructed and delayed
NEADS on 9/11 is extremely dubious. The real question is why NEADS did not
scramble the fighters from Otis much sooner, in which case the F-15s would
have arrived in time to intercept Flight 11 and Flight 175. All of the
evidence suggests that FAA controllers were begging for fighter
protection. Colin Scoggins told me he made as many as 40 calls to NEADS on
the morning of September 11 trying to get fighters in the air. During some
of these calls he attempted to persuade NEADS to scramble fighters from
bases that were not officially on alert, such as the Pomona base, near
Atlantic City, which is much closer to New York than the NEADS alert base
on Cape Cod (Otis AFB). Pomona is the home of the Air National Guard's
177th fighter wing, and I was astonished to learn that the base actually
had fighters in the air at the time of the attack. Two F-16s from Pomona
were practicing bombing-runs over an empty stretch of New Jersey pine
barrens, and could easily have been rerouted to Manhattan in just
minutes.[35]
But NEADS ignored Scoggins' request. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions
his call, but distorts what actually happened. The report states: "the
[Boston] Center also tried to contact a former alert site in Atlantic
City, unaware it had been phased out."[36] This is hogwash. Scoggins was
well aware the Pomona base was not officially on alert. But he was rightly
undeterred by this formality, which, under the circumstances, was
irrelevant. Given that a hijacking was in progress just a few miles up the
coast, the fighters from Pomona, already airborne, could and should have
been mustered without delay. While it is true they were unarmed, this
should not have been a consideration, since the military protocols in
effect required scrambled fighters to follow and track hijacked planes.
Shooting them down was a last resort. Scoggins still believes that if
NEADS had utilized the fighters from Pomona they might well have foiled
the suicide attack. Whether or not hijackers were actually on board and
flying the 767s remains controversial, but his point is well taken. The
decision to scramble on 9/11 should have been made irrespective of whether
the fighters were officially "on alert," and whether or not they were
armed. The 9/11 Commission Report's misrepresentation of this call by
Scoggins was a case of treasonous deception; and the same is true of
Bronner's article, which was a carefully-crafted piece of misinformation.
Unfortunately, ordinary citizens who know nothing about emergency
protocols and no-fly zones probably found it persuasive. Although Bronner
claims to have heard 30 hours of NORAD tape, according to Scoggins most of
those hours were "dead time," that is, empty tape. Scoggins thinks Bronner
heard only snippets, about 10 of which are mentioned in his article.
Indeed, the information that NORAD made available to Bronner was highly
selective: only a fraction of the 100-300 phone calls made on the morning
of 9/11, not to mention FAA recordings and in-house tapes recorded by
American and United Airlines. For which reason we should be wary of the
picture Bronner paints. Only a comprehensive review of all of the
recordings and radar data from 9/11 can reveal what actually happened.
Andrews Air Force Base is another facility that NEADS could have mustered
on 9/11. Just minutes away from the White House by air, Andrews is the
home of Air Force One and is the port of entry to and from Washington for
US presidents and diplomats. Indeed, the base has a long tradition of
servicing and defending the nation's capital. Although Andrews was not one
of NORAD's officially designated alert bases on 9/11, at least two
combat-ready fighter units were based there, including a DC Air National
Guard (DCANG) squadron of the 113th fighter wing. The 113th's mission, as
stated on the Andrews website, was to provide "capable and ready response
forces for the District of Columbia."[37] On a separate page the DCANG
squadron boasted about providing "combat units in the highest possible
state of readiness."[38] The 321st Marine Fighter Attack Squadron was also
based at Andrews, and flew the sophisticated F/A-18 Hornet.[39] Nor was
Andrews the only response-capable facility in the area. The Patuxent Naval
Base in Maryland also had fighters. In fact, Former Secretary of Defense
Casper Weinberger told FOX News on September 11 that "The city
[Washington] is ringed with Air Force bases and Navy bases, and the
ability to get defensive planes in the air is very very high."[40] But not
on the morning of September 11. During a national security teleconference
convened that morning by Counter-terrorism Czar Richard A. Clark, General
Richard Myers explained that F-16 fighters from the DCANG squadron at
Andrews had finally been scrambled.[41] The general didn't mention that
the Secret Service had rousted them, not the Pentagon.[42] The F-16s
arrived over Washington even later than the fighters from Langley, much
too late to matter.
This story also has a postscript. Soon after the attack, 9/11 truth
investigators discovered that someone had scrubbed the DCANG web page from
the internet, along with its mission statement about "providing combat
units in the highest possible state of readiness."[43] Luckily, however,
several months before the attack someone archived the page, which can
still be viewed on line[44] A number of 9/11 researchers, including Mike
Ruppert, Paul Thompson and David Griffin, have already told this story;
but the alteration of the Andrews website, involving the destruction of
evidence, is so important it bears repeating.
NEADS fails in its mission: to track planes
During our interview Scoggins also provided more details about another
important matter that the 9/11 Commission failed to explain. Although the
FAA's Boston Center tracked Flight 11 continuously on radar, for some
reason NEADS was unable to locate the hijacked plane. Scoggins told me he
gave them "nav aids," which are commonly used reference points, and even
precise latitude and longitude coordinates, but to no avail. Lt. Col Dawne
Deskins, who was on the receiving end of his call, told FOX News exactly
what Scoggins told me: "He [Scoggins] gave me the latitude and longitude
of that track...but there was nothing there."[45] At the time, Flight 11
was moving at 600 mph and should have been conspicuous on radar, according
to Scoggins. But NEADS never did find the plane. This strange lapse haunts
Scoggins to this day, because it never should have happened. The problem
was not the transfer of information. NEADS received the precise
coordinates. The NORAD/FAA interface was a practiced routine, and it
functioned on 9/11. NEADS' failure to locate Flight 11 on radar is a
genuine anomaly, and getting to the bottom of it should have been one of
the 9/11 Commission's top priorities.
Yet, incredibly, the 9/11 Commission Report barely mentions the issue. It
appears that instead of doing its job, i.e., digging for the truth, the
commission meekly accepted the military's various explanations, without a
word of protest. General McKinley, for example, told the panel that "We
are dependent on the FAA."[46] During the same hearing General Arnold told
them: "Our resources were extremely limited in many cases, because we
initially could not even see what the FAA could see..." There was also the
lame excuse about antiquated radar equipment. During his October 2001
testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Ralph Eberhart
described NORAD's command and control systems as "70's and 80's
technology"[47]; and Michael Bronner echoes this latter theme in his
Vanity Fair article. Indeed, he amplifies it in melodramatic fashion, and
I'm going to quote a passage verbatim because the issue is so important.
Bronner: "Radar is the NEADS controllers' most vital piece of equipment,
but by 9/11 the scopes were so old, among other factors, that controllers
were ultimately unable to find any of the hijacked planes in enough time
to react. Known collectively as the Green Eye for the glow the radar rings
give off, the scopes looked like something out of Dr. Strangelove and were
strikingly anachronistic compared with the equipment at civilian
air-traffic sites."[48] This is pure obfuscation. While it's true that
NEADS was using older hardware on 9/11, Scoggins told me the military's
radar was more than adequate. According to Scoggins NEADS could see
everything the FAA saw, and more. NEADS' failure to locate Flight 11 on
radar had the serious consequence of slowing down the military's response,
because Col. Robert Marr, NEADS commander, was reluctant to scramble his
Otis fighters without a target. Was this the intended outcome?
The Actual Path of Flight 77
Scoggins placed yet another important call on that fateful morning. At
9:36 AM he notified NEADS about an unidentified plane six to eight miles
southeast of the White House. Scoggins was again merely relaying
information from the FAA's Washington headquarters. Yet, the call sparked
a frenzy. NEADS immediately redirected the Langley fighters to the
capital. As we know, of course, only moments before, NEADS had discovered
that the F-16s were not en route to Baltimore, where they supposedly had
been sent to intercept Flight 11 (the phantom plane). No, in fact, they
were in a holding pattern over the Atlantic. The fighters did not finally
reach Washington until a few minutes before 10 AM, much too late.
(Fighters from the DCANG unit based at Andrews arrived moments later.)
Scoggins told me that after the Pentagon strike he assumed, like everyone
else, that this unidentified plane he reported at 9:36 AM was Flight 77.
He was also under the impression that it made a pass near the White House.
Scoggins is not alone in this view. Even today, many people think Flight
77 flew over Washington before striking the Pentagon. White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer actually gave rise to one of these stories, which
were widely reported in the media.[49]
This cannot be correct, however, because the National Transportation and
Safety Board (NTSB) flight path study, which was finally released in
August 2006, shows that American Airlines Flight 77 never crossed the
Potomac River.[50] If you will glance at a map of the Washington DC area
you will see that the Potomac lies directly south of the White House. This
means that the unidentified plane reported by Scoggins, 6 to 8 miles SE of
the White House, was over Maryland at the time, hence, could not have been
Flight 77. According to the NTSB flight path study, Flight 77 approached
Washington from the west. However, at the last minute it veered south and
completed its now-famous downward spiraling loop over Alexandria; after
which, it came around and smashed into the Pentagon.
The NTSB study, based on Flight 77's recovered flight data recorder, is
extremely important, because it shows that Flight 77 never came closer to
the White House than the pentagon itself. What, then, did the FAA "see"
over Maryland at 9:36 AM, if not Flight 77? As I've shown in a previous
article, another aircraft, an E-4B, the so called doomsday plane, was also
in the air over Washington at the time of the 9/11 attack.[51] The FAA may
well have been tracking this other plane. The E-4B is equipped with a
military transponder and therefore has the capability to transmit in code
unreadable to the FAA. For which reason the E-4B would have appeared only
as a blip on primary radar; and so, would have been indistinguishable from
a hijacked commercial-sized plane with its transponder off; and as we
know, Flight 77's transponder went off at 8:56 AM. It's no wonder Scoggins
later assumed this plane was Flight 77. Did Ari Fleischer also confuse the
two planes for the same reason? Fleischer probably received his
information from the Secret Service, which had a direct feed to FAA
radar.[52] The Secret Service was probably tracking the same plane that
the FAA was seeing. This would explain Fleischer's emotional statement to
the press that Flight 77 passed near the White House. Of course, only a
comprehensive review of all of the radar data can ultimately determine if
this is correct.
Three Eyewitness Accounts
The NTSB's flight path study is also important for another reason: It
corroborates several key eyewitness accounts from 9/11 that were excluded
from the official narrative. Let us examine them: During a 2002 MSNBC
special, NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw interviewed several air traffic
controllers who described what they saw on September 11. One of them, Todd
Lewis, was on duty at Dulles International Airport. Here is a portion of
the MSNBC transcript:
Mr. LEWIS: Well, it -- it [Flight 77] was heading right towards a
prohibited area in downtown Washington. And that -- that covers the
Capitol and the White House. We then called the White House on the hotline
to let them know....Then, it turned south and away from the prohibited
area, which seemed like a momentary sigh of relief.[53] [my emphasis]
Notice, this testimony by Todd Lewis accords with the NTSB's flight path
study. Moreover, his story is corroborated by another account that
appeared in USA Today.[54] According to this report, Chris Stephenson,
chief air traffic controller at Washington's Reagan National Airport,
received a warning call from the Secret Service at 9:30 AM that an
unidentified aircraft was approaching Washington from the west at high
speed. Stephenson quickly checked his scope and located the plane on
radar, about 5 miles west of the city. He then looked out the window and
actually saw Flight 77 approaching. He watched it turn south and make a
360 degree looping spiral, descending all the while. The plane came back
around and passed out of view behind some tall buildings in Crystal City,
which is immediately south of the Pentagon. Next, he witnessed a huge
fireball. Stephenson's account begins at 9:30 AM, 8 minutes before the
official Flight 77 crash time of 9:38 AM. This time difference is
extremely important, because both Stephenson and the official narrative
cannot be correct. Obviously, Flight 77 did not require 8 minutes to
complete a looping spiral and make its final approach. These last
maneuvers surely took no longer than 1-2 minutes. Thus, we are talking
about a discrepancy of roughly 6 minutes. Under the circumstances, this
might as well be an eternity.
Chris Stephenson's account flatly contradicts the 9/11 Commission Report,
which states that Flight 77 did not begin its famous looping turn until
after 9:34 AM.[55] Yet, Stephenson's timeline is further supported by
Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta's testimony to the 9/11
Commission. On May 23, 2003 Mineta told the panel that on the morning of
September 11 he arrived at the PEOC (the Presidential Emergency Operations
Center, located under the White House) at 9:20 AM. Vice President Cheney
was already present. Mineta explained that about 5-6 minutes later he
overheard a conversation between Cheney and a young man who came in to
inform the vice president about an approaching aircraft. In the words of
Mineta: "There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice
president, 'The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out.' And
when it got down to, 'The plane is 10 miles out,' the young man also said
to the vice president, 'Do the orders still stand?' And the vice president
turned and whipped his neck around and said, 'Of course the orders still
stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?'"[56] As numerous 9/11
investigators have observed, Mineta's testimony is powerful evidence that
a stand-down order was in effect. Certainly, at the very least, the
"orders" were not that the plane should be shot down, which would have
been standard operating procedure (SOP). The fact that some other unusual
order was in effect raises questions about the role that a pre-planned
military exercise may have played in the 9/11 attack. As we know, at least
10 such drills were in progress on September 11. My point, however, is
that this conversation between Cheney and the young man, which Mineta says
took place at 9:25 - 9:26 AM, is consistent with what I am proposing: that
the Pentagon strike occurred 5-6 minutes before the official crash time of
9:38 AM.
Notice also that the accounts of both Stephenson and Mineta mention a
warning call from the Secret Service. The fact that Vice President Cheney
was being kept apprised of the status of Flight 77 strongly suggests that
the military was also tracking the plane. Yet, all of the above accounts,
which are mutually corroborative, were excluded from the 9/11 Commission
Report. Why? Well, obviously, because they contradict the official
narrative.
Frozen in Time
Compelling physical evidence also supports what I am proposing. Among the
oddities from 9/11 are two curious photographs of Pentagon clocks that
stopped working at the time of the attack. One of these clocks was in the
heliport office.[57] The other was inside the west wing.[58] It appears
that the powerful shock wave that occurred at the moment of impact knocked
the clocks off the wall, causing them to break. Notice the shattered glass
in the following photo. One of the clocks stopped at 9:31:40 AM, the other
at 9:32:30 AM. For the purposes of this discussion, I will round them off
to 9:32 AM.
This important evidence was preserved by the US Navy and the Smithsonian
Institution, both unimpeachable sources. From what I understand, until
very recently one of the clocks was on display in the Smithsonian. Both of
the photos may be viewed via the internet. One website mentions that "The
airplane actually struck the Pentagon at 9:38 AM; apparently the clock was
six minutes slow." Yet, both clocks stopped within a minute of the same
time. Were they both running 5-6 minutes late? I think not. Remember,
these were military clocks. Anyone familiar with the US military knows
they do not run 5-6 minutes behind schedule. Being "on time" is an
important part of military discipline. Indeed, it's one of the first
lessons that grunts learn in boot camp. Judging from the photos, it
appears that one of the clocks was battery-powered, a common type. We
can't be certain about the other. It might have been battery-powered, or
possibly it was an electric wall clock, and stopped when the power went
off.
I am not, however, the first to challenge the 9/11 timeline based on this
photographic evidence. Barbara Honegger, a military affairs journalist,
discussed the frozen Pentagon clocks in her excellent 2006 article "The
Pentagon Attack Papers."[59] Honegger starts with a germane story about
another famous historical event that was similarly frozen in time: the
great San Francisco earthquake of 1906. In the aftermath of "the big one"
the San Francisco Chronicle featured a front-page photo of a charred clock
that stopped at precisely 5:12 AM, marking the fateful moment when the
massive quake rocked the city. She writes: "a century after that
devastating event the stopped clock serves as both the ultimate evidence
and the symbol that captures it all."[60] Honegger makes an astute point:
Will the Pentagon clocks one day be viewed in a similar way? I would
argue, yes, though I suspect they will become even more famous.
In her article Honegger argues on the basis of the frozen clocks that the
Pentagon attack commenced at 9:32 AM. She also cites additional evidence,
including a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) "timeline document" from
September 11 2001, which, according to her, states that Flight 77 hit the
Pentagon at 9:32 AM.[61] Although Barbara was unable to produce this
document when I contacted her, I was able to determine that she is
correct. After an extensive search I found the original document posted at
the National Security Archive, a website maintained by staff at George
Washington University.[62] The site specializes in posting official
9/11-related documents obtained via the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).
The document, titled "Executive Summary: Chronology of a Multiple
Hijacking Crisis, September 11, 2001," records the FAA's original timeline
of the major events of 9/11. The entry for "0932" reads as follows: "ATC
AEA reports aircraft crashes into west side of pentagon." Here, the double
acronym ATC AEA stands for "Air Traffic Control Eastern Region."
Amazingly, the 9/11 Commission Report actually references this FAA
document in two separate footnotes, although, obviously, not for the
purpose of corroborating the official Pentagon crash time of 9:38.[63] The
FAA document, dated September 17 2001, evidently was released one day
before the Pentagon announced its major revision in the official story.
Judging by the scant amount of press attention it received, the FAA
timeline soon disappeared into America's collective memory hole, where it
has languished in obscurity ever since. Nonetheless, though long
forgotten, the document is no less real, and is explosive evidence that
flatly contradicts the official narrative.
Honegger also cites the testimony of a notable eyewitness. The soon-to-be
Danish Foreign Minister, Per Stig Moller, happened to be in Washington on
the day of the September 11 attack. When he heard a loud noise Moller
looked outside, saw smoke rising from the Pentagon, and immediately
checked his watch. The time was 9:32 AM, a time Moller subsequently
reported in press interviews on his return to Denmark.[64] Honegger also
mentions Alberto Gonzales, who on 9/11 was President Bush's legal counsel.
On August 27, 2002 Gonzales gave an address at the Naval Postgraduate
School in which he stated unequivocally that "the Pentagon was attacked at
9:32." Honegger works at the school and has a tape of the address.
Although Gonzales' remark has long since been forgotten, it shows that
even within the Bush administration the official timeline did not take
hold for many months.
But Honegger seriously doubts that a commercial airliner hit the Pentagon.
Evidently, she supports the view that conspirators staged a plane-switch.
She thinks bombs were planted in the building, which caused the initial
blast wave, although she doesn't rule out the possibility of a subsequent
strike by missile or a smaller plane. Yet, as Honegger herself admits, one
of the frozen clocks was found in the heliport office, a separate building
located outside the Pentagon. This is significant, because if explosions
occurred within the Pentagon the shocks surely would have been contained
by the west wing's brand-new exterior blast wall; in which case, the clock
in the heliport office would not have been affected. Moreover, if a
separate bomb went off outside the building, near the heliport office, the
explosion could not have been missed. Surely it would have been seen and
reported by numerous passers by. If it happened in this way, where are
these many witnesses? To my knowledge, there are none. Moreover, the
flight recorder data shows that Flight 77 never flew below 20,000 feet,
until its final approach, not even during the time it was lost to radar.
In short, there were no interruptions in its flight path. Finally, the
recovery of Boeing 757 parts from within the Pentagon[65] confirms this
interpretation, and suggests that at least some of the anomalies, such as
the small hole and the seeming absence of wreckage, may have been the
result of a high speed impact against the Pentagon's exterior blast wall.
Bear in mind that the west wing was no ordinary construction. This section
of the Pentagon had just been outfitted with a 2 foot thick outer wall of
steel-reinforced concrete. I would argue that the frozen clocks
corroborate air traffic controller Chris Stephenson's eyewitness account
of Flight 77's final approach; and are compelling evidence that Flight 77
hit the west wing at approximately 9:32 AM, a full 6 minutes before the
official crash time. Assuming this interpretation is correct, how might we
explain a discrepancy of this magnitude, which, in the context of 9/11, is
a veritable lifetime?
Two Different Events?
As we know, the press initially reported that the Pentagon strike occurred
at 9:43 AM. However, 7 days after the attack, on September 18 2001, NORAD
announced a revised crash time of 9:38 AM, which the 9/11 Commission later
reaffirmed. But if the strike actually occurred at 9:32 AM, why was the
crash time in the original report (9:43 AM), so far wrong? Initially, as I
puzzled over this, I attributed the huge 11 minute disparity to the
confusion of events. I also discounted the possibility that the Pentagon
had fudged the timeline. My reasoning was straightforward. Moving the
crash time back by a minute or two, to say nothing of 6 or even 11
whopping minutes, made the generals look more guilty of a stand-down, not
less. This made absolutely no sense. If the Joint Chiefs were bent on
covering-up their gross negligence, even their complicity, surely they
would have adjusted the crash-time forward, not backward. The same logic
held for the 9/11 Commission. Although their phantom plane scenario proved
embarrassing to the generals, as I've explained, the commission's main
objective was to absolve the general staff of all responsibility. So, if
the crash actually occurred at 9:32 AM, why would the panel ratify a later
time, which made the generals look more guilty? Again, this made no sense.
This logic went out the window, however, when I learned about the E-4B.
Whence, I began to suspect that the answer is counter-intuitive. The
presence of the world's most advanced command and control platform over
Washington on 9/11 not only brings clarity to the many ambiguous reports
about Flight 77's trajectory, it also suggests a likely motive for a
cover-up, and even points to the means by which this was achieved.
According to one early and widely reported version of events, the hijacked
American Airlines Flight 77 missed the Pentagon on its first pass, then
continued east across the Potomac River. The plane allegedly passed close
to the White House, swung around, re-crossed the river, circled the
Pentagon again, and finally smacked into the west wing. What is
astonishing about this popular account, which attempts to support the
official narrative, is that so many people took it seriously. No doubt,
many still do. (See the diagram below.)
There are serious problems, however, with this version of events: If
Flight 77 crossed the Potomac it would also have had to cross Reagan
Airport's busy air traffic corridor, which follows the river. In which
case, air traffic controllers at Reagan surely would have noticed the
intrusion. What is more, on its return the errant plane would have
intruded a second time. Indeed, Flight 77 would have flown directly over
Reagan Airport. It would be hard to imagine a more conspicuous display.
Assuming the controllers at Reagan were dozing on the job and somehow
missed the first pass, it is just not possible that they missed the
second. If it happened in this way, there would also be many additional
eyewitnesses. So, where are these witnesses? As far as I know, they don't
exist. Instead, we have the credible testimony, already presented, of air
traffic controller Stephenson, who saw Flight 77 on radar, then looked out
the window of the Reagan tower and watched the plane complete its final
approach without ever leaving Virginia. Obviously, the early account
illustrated by the above diagram was a hybrid attempt to explain both the
Pentagon crash and the mystery sightings over Washington. But given that
Flight 77 never crossed the Potomac, and also the powerful evidence that
the mystery plane was an E-4B, I think we must conclude that these were
two separate events.
The fact that the US military denies to this day that an E-4B circled over
Washington on 9/11 suggests a likely motive for a cover-up: to conceal the
E-4B's presence, hence, the role it played. Although the military brass
could have minimized the appearance of a stand-down by acknowledging the
actual crash time of 9:32 AM, in that case the generals would have had a
lot of explaining to do. For instance, they would have had to explain what
the FAA was tracking at 9:36 AM when Scoggins reported an unidentified
plane 6 miles southeast of the White House, not to mention the various
media reports of a large white plane circling over the White House and
Capitol during the attack. Settling on a 9:38 AM crash time allowed the
generals to exploit the ambiguous reports and the genuine chaos that
prevailed on September 11. This analysis also brings clarity to the
strange 9/11 account of Langley fighter pilot Major Dean Eckmann, who,
according to the BBC, received a radio transmission at 9:33 AM while
piloting his F-16 over the Atlantic. In Eckmann's own words: "They said:
All aeroplanes, if you come within 30 miles of Washington DC, you will be
shot down."[66] Who sent this order? Was this the E-4B, warning off all
planes, military as well as commercial, in order to conceal its presence
over the Capitol? Not surprisingly, the BBC news story is nowhere
recounted in the 9/11 Commission Report.
Flight 77: Lost? Or: Crashed?
This analysis would also explain the 9:34 AM report that Flight 77 had
disappeared from radar. The 9/11 Commission Report mentions this event,
probably because it was too prominent to exclude.[67] However, as I will
show, the official narrative distorts its significance, spinning the story
to convey the false impression that Flight 77 was still airborne at 9:34
AM, when, in fact, it had just crashed. Let us now examine the verbatim
wording of the official narrative:
"At the suggestion of the Boston Center's military liaison [i.e.,
Scoggins], NEADS contacted the FAA's Washington Center to ask about
American Flight 11. In the course of the conversation, a Washington Center
manager informed NEADS: 'We're lookingwe also lost Flight 77.' The time
was 9:34. This was the first notice to the military that Flight 77 was
missing, and it had come by chance."[68]
Notice, the time of this report, 9:34 AM, is consistent with the
alternative crash scenario I have proposed. Obviously, if Flight 77 struck
the pentagon at 9:32 AM it would have been lost to radar. Therefore, the
remark by the staffer at Washington Center at 9:34 AM about a missing
plane is not in the least surprising. In fact, we would expect this. Yet,
here we are led to believe that Flight 77 was still aloft and cruising at
9:34 AM when the FAA somehow lost the plane. Nor does the 9/11 Commission
Report tell us why it disappeared: one of several reasons why the official
narrative is just not believable. Evidently, the FAA's Washington Center
had been tracking Flight 77 for some time. Yet, we are supposed to believe
that the FAA failed to inform NORAD about the hijacking. Then, for reasons
that are equally mysterious, the FAA somehow lost Flight 77 at 9:34 AM.
The 9/11 Commission Report mentions this event a second time, possibly for
emphasis. The second passage reads as follows: "[NEADS] was notified at
9:34 AM that American 77 was lost. Then, minutes later, NEADS was told
that an unknown plane was 6 miles southeast of the White House. Only then
did the already scrambled airplanes start moving directly toward
Washington, D.C."[69] Notice, the text mentions the warning call made by
Scoggins. Notice also the clever use of the passive tense, for added
effect. The reader gets the impression that the bungler at the FAA was the
active party. NEADS was merely the unfortunate victim of the FAA's
incompetence. I would argue that the above passages are a cunning example
of treasonous deception, carefully orchestrated for the purpose of leading
the reader away from the actual crash time of 9:32 AM.
As we know, one of the NORAD audio-tapes was the original source of this
9:34 AM report. The tape was among those made available to Michael Bronner,
who mentions it in his August 2006 Vanity Fair article. Indeed, Bronner
actually includes a portion of the transcript of this conversation between
NEADS ID techs Dooley and Watson and the FAA's Washington Center:
09:34:01 WASHINGTON CENTER: Now, let me tell you this. I-I'll-we've been
looking. We're-also lost American 77- WATSON: American 77? DOOLEY:
American 77's lost- WATSON: Where was it proposed to head, sir? WASHINGTON
CENTER: Okay, he was going to L.A. also- WATSON: From where, sir?
WASHINGTON CENTER: I think he was from Boston also. Now let me tell you
this story here. Indianapolis Center was working this guy- WATSON: What
guy? WASHINGTON CENTER: American 77, at flight level 3-5-0 [35,000 feet].
However, they lost radar with him. They lost contact with him. They lost
everything. And they don't have any idea where he is or what happened.
The transcript provides more details. Notice, the FAA controller at
Washington Center states incorrectly that Flight 77 departed from Boston,
when in fact it departed from Dulles. Also, near the end he mentions,
almost in passing, that Flight 77 was at 35,000 feet when it disappeared
from radar. Seeing this, the average reader will probably conclude that
Flight 77 was still at cruising altitude when Washington Center lost radar
contact at 9:34 AM. But this would be a misreading of the transcript.
Notice, Washington Center mentions that the FAA center in Indianapolis had
been tracking Flight 77 earlier in the morning. The 9/11 Commission Report
states that Indianapolis lost Flight 77 at 8:56 AM when the plane's
transponder was turned off, and at this point reported that Flight 77 had
crashed.[70] As we know, of course, Flight 77 did not crash at 8:56
AM.[71] According to the 9/11 Commission Report, this earlier loss of
radar contact occurred for technical reasons.[72]
But here's my point: When the controller at Washington Center informed
NEADS that Flight 77's altitude was 35,000 feet, he was not giving the
plane's current altitude (at 9:34 AM), which he had no way of knowing
without a transponder. No, he was merely restating the plane's last known
altitude, data that was current some 38 minutes before, at 8:56 AM, when
Flight 77's transponder went off. Yet, the above transcript is ambiguous
enough to reinforce the false impression that the plane was still aloft
and cruising at 9:34 AM. Is this why the Pentagon chose to release this
particular tape: because it proved helpful in spinning the story and
reinforcing the cover-up? No doubt, the military brass made the tape
available for a reason, first to the 9/11 Commission, then to Bronner. And
why Bronner? Well, as we know, it's long been standard practice for the US
government and the Pentagon to shape and spin the news by feeding selected
tidbits to anointed journalists. Some well-known reporters have built
entire careers, not to say reputations, on their "privileged" access to
"insider" information from official sources.
Conclusion
Based on all of the above, I believe that the US military announced the
original 9:43 AM Pentagon crash time to conceal the presence of the E-4B
over Washington. A week later, when the military revised the cover-up,
they moved the timeline forward by as much as they dared. The 9:38 AM
crash time should therefore be understood as a "best fit" that succeeded
in masking the presence of the E-4B on the one hand, while minimizing the
evidence pointing to a stand-down on the other. The fact that the evidence
was still quite incriminating is a measure of just how important
concealment of the E-4B was, from the standpoint of the Joint Chiefs.
Otherwise, they would never have exposed themselves in this way. Notice,
assuming this analysis is correct, it tends to rule out any possibility
that the E-4B was conducting legitimate business on 9/11 when it circled
over Washington. On this basis we must also conclude that the 9/11
Commission participated in the cover up. We know that the commission had
access to the NTSB flight path study long before it was released to the
public, because the footnotes of the 9/11 Commission Report cite this
important document. Therefore, the panel surely knew that Flight 77 never
crossed the Potomac. This knowledge alone should have led the panel to
investigate the news reports and eyewitness accounts of the mystery plane
over Washington, in order to resolve the ambiguous sightings. Of course,
as we know, the panel did nothing of the kind. Their ratification of the
9:38 AM crash time allowed the ambiguous reports to stand, so crucial to
the continuing cover up. Of course, given that a Bush insider, Phil
Zelikow, stage-managed the 9/11 investigation and oversaw the preparation
of the final report, none of this is so surprising. Indeed, there are
questions about just how much access the various panel members had to key
documents during the investigation. It's quite possible that none of them
ever saw the NTSB flight path study, thanks to the role played by Zelikow.
In conclusion, it would appear that the official 9/11 narrative is a house
of cards, a complete fabrication that a genuine investigation could expose
in short order simply by plying key witnesses with the right questions.
One prime candidate would be the Washington Center controller who spoke
with NEADS ID techs Watson and Dooley at 9:34 AM on September 11. This
controller should be able to set the record straight regarding the context
of his/her conversation about the "lost" Flight 77, which would help to
establish the actual time of impact. It would also be fruitful to
interview the various commissioners to learn if they had a chance to
actually examine key documents like the NTSB flight path study. Of course,
without a new 9/11 investigation, we will probably never know the full
story.
Mark H. Gaffney's latest book, Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes, was a
finalist for the 2004 Narcissus Book Award. Mark can be reached for
comment at
markhgaffney@earthlink.net Visit Mark's website at
www.gnosticsecrets.com
NOTES [1] Mark H. Gaffney, "The 9/11 Mystery Plane," posted at
http://www.rense.com/general76/missing.htm [2] Interview with
Deputy Fire Chief Peter Hayden, Firehouse Magazine, April 2002. [3]
Interview with Colin Scoggins, March 11, 2007. [4] email from Colin
Scoggins, April 11, 2007 [5] The best account I've seen of this incident
is by Webster Griffin Tarpley, 911: Synthetic Terrorism, Progressive
Press, 2006, pp.
179-283. [6] Paul Thompson, The Terror Timeline: Year by Year, Day by Day,
Minute by Minute, Reagan Books, 2004. [7] Go to
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
[8] Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman, U.S. Senator Carl Levin
(D-MI), Hearing On the Nomination of General Richard Myers to be Chairman
of The Joint Chiefs of Staff, September 13, 2001. Archived at
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/mycon.htm [9] Press
Release, Directorate of Public Affairs, NORAD, September 18,
2001. Archived at
http://www.public-action.com/911/noradresponse/ [10] The 9/11
Commission Report. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks upon the United States, WW Norton and Company, New York, 2004, p.
34 [11] The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 26 [12] While Col. Alan Scott
testified that the Langley fighters were scrambled to intercept Flight 77,
NORAD Maj. Gen. Larry Arnold was less clear about this in his remarks, and
indicated that the intent was also to intercept Flight 93. Transcript of
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, Public
Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003. For the transcript go to
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9
-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm [13] Transcript: 9/11 Commission
Hearings for June 17, 2004, Thursday, June 17, 2004; 2:01 PM. Posted at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49429-2004Jun17.html
[14] Dan Eggen, "9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon," Washington
Post, August 2, 2006. [15] This phrase occurs numerous times. The 9/11
Commission Report. Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist
Attacks upon the United States, WW Norton and Company, New York, 2004, p.
34. [16] David Ray Griffin, "9/11 Live or Fabricated: Do the NORAD Tapes
Verify The 9/11 Commission Report?", September 4, 2006, posted at
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2006091418303369 [17]
The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 34. [18] The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 26.
[19] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes," Vanity Fair, August
2006. Posted at
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/08/norad200608?
printable=true?tPage=all [20] Subsequently, the transcripts were released
and are currently available for download at George Washington University's
National Security Archive, along with the National Transportation and
Safety Board (NTSB) flight path studies for flights 11, 175 and 77. Go to
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB165/index.htm [21]
"9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." [22] Paul Thompson, "Complete 911 Timeline,"
posted at
http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline.jsp?
timeline=complete_911_timeline&day_of_9/11=aa77 Also see The 9/11
Commission Report, p. 26. [23] Interview with Colin Scoggins, March 10,
2007. [24] email from Colin Scoggins, April 27, 2007. [25] 9/11
Commission, Public Hearing, May 23, 2003. [26] FAA Communications with
NORAD On September 11, 2001, FAA clarification memo to 9/11 Independent
Commission, posted at
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=2004081200421797 [27]
NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, Public
Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003. For the transcript go to
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9
-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm [28] David Ray Griffin, The 9/11
Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Olive Branch Press,
Massachusetts, 2005, pp. 186-188. [29] email from Colin Scoggins, May 1,
2007. [30] Reynolds Dixon, "The Flying Elephant: Evidence for Involvement
of a Third Jet in the WTC Attacks," Journal of 9/11 Studies, Vol 1,
Scholars for 9/11 Truth, June 2006, posted at
http://journalof911studies.com/
[31] Kevin Dennehy, "I thought it was the end of the world," Cape Cod
Times, August 21, 2002. [32] "Moments of Crisis, Part I: Terror Hits the
Towers," ABC News, September 14, 2002. [33]The 9/11 Commission Report, p.
459, note 120. [34] The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 24. [35] M. Kelly,
North Jersey Media Group, "Atlantic City F-16 Fighters Were Eight Minutes
Away from 9/11 Hijacked Planes," posted at
http://www.prisonplanet.com/051203atlanticcityfighters.html [36]
The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 20. [37] The Andrews web page has been
archived. To see it as it looked in September 2001 go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcmilsep.htm [38] The
original page has been archived. Here's how it looked on April
19, 2001.
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/dcandr2.htm [39] The Andrews
page has been archived. Scroll to the bottom: http://emperors-clothes.com/9-11backups/dcmil.htm
[40] Interview with Casper Weinberger, FOX News, September 11, 2001. [41]
Richard A. Clark, Against All Enemies, New York, The Free Press,
2004, p.12. [42] General Arnold admitted this during his testimony before
the 9/11 Commission. Transcript, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS
UPON THE UNITED STATES, Public Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003 posted at
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9
-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm [43] Illarion Bykov and Jared Israel
were the first to report this, in November 2001. Go to
http://emperors-clothes.com/indict/indict-1.htm [44] Here's how
the original page looked on April 19, 2001:
http://emperor.vwh.net/9-11backups/dcandr2.htm [45] Steve Brown,
'Air Defenders Learn Lessons from September 11," FOX News, September 8
2002. [46] Transcript, NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST ATTACKS UPON THE
UNITED STATES, Public Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003 posted at
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9
-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm [47] FDCH Transcripts, Senate Armed
Services Committee Holds Hearing on Role of Defense Department in HOmeland
Security, October 25, 2001. [48] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD
Tapes," Vanity Fair, August 2006. [49] "Primary Target: The Pentagon," CBS
NEWS, September 21, 2001; Boston Globe, November 23, 2001; Daily
Telegraph, September 16, 2001. [50] To view a map of Flight 77's final
approach to the pentagon or to download the NTSB's flight path study go to
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB165/index.htm [51]
Mark H. Gaffney, "The 9/11 Mystery Plane," posted at
http://www.rense.com/general76/missing.htm [52] Against All
Enemies, p. 7. [53] "The Skies in Lockdown," MSNBC, September 11, 2002.
[54] Alan Levin, "Voices from the Air Traffic World," USA Today, August
12, 2002. [55] The report states that at 9:29 AM Flight 77 was still 38
miles west of the pentagon. According to the report it did not begin its
famous looping turn until 9:34 AM. The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 9, notes
59 and 60; also p. 25, note 146. [56] NATIONAL COMMISSION ON TERRORIST
ATTACKS UPON THE UNITED STATES, Public Hearing, Friday, May 23, 2003,
posted at
http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9
-11Commission_Hearing_2003-05-23.htm [57] This photo is posted at
http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=19
[58] This second photo is posted at
http://www.news.navy.mil/view_single.asp?id=2480 [59] Barbara
Honegger, "The Pentagon Attack Papers," in Jim Marrs, The Terror
Conspiracy, Disinformation Co., New York, 2006, p. 439. [60] A photo of
the frozen San Francisco clock is posted at
http://sfgate.com/greatquake/
[61] FAA timeline document, "Executive Summary Chronology of a Multiple
Hijacking Crisis," September 11, 2001. [62] The FAA timeline (document #5)
can be downloaded as a pdf file from
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB165/index.htm [63] The
9/11 Commission Report, p. 454, footnotes 40 and 41. [64] "The Pentagon
Attack Papers", p. 440. [65] See Russell Pickering's site for a
discussion:
http://www.pentagonresearch.com/757debris.html Also see
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0265.shtml [66]
"Clear the Skies," BBC, September 1, 2002. [67] The 9/11 Commission
Report, p. 27; also see pp. 33 and 34. [68] The 9/11 Commission Report, p.
27. [69] The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 34. [70] The 9/11 Commission
Report, p. 24. [71] The plane's flight recorder data shows that Flight 77
never dropped below 20,000, until its final approach. [72] The 9/11
Commission Report, p. 25.
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