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Although I refer frequently in this article to the "official story," there really isn't, technically speaking, an official story of what happened at the Pentagon that day. What there is instead is an officially encouraged, and notably vague, group consensus -- a consensus shaped and reinforced by Washington's political and media institutions, which have carefully avoided fleshing out too many details. This strategy is apparently intended to disarm critics, since it is much harder to point out the lies and absurdities in the official story if that official story has never been formally presented.

What the (un)official story says is that Flight 77, flying at a high rate of speed while mere feet off the ground, plowed into the side of the Pentagon at about 9:38 AM on the morning of September 11, 2001. Initial statements indicated that the only components of the aircraft to survive the impact and subsequent fire were the black boxes and a single landing light. The black boxes have never been turned over to civilian authorities and their contents have never been publicly revealed.

The failure to recover the rest of the aircraft was unofficially attributed to the fact that the entire plane was vaporized by the fire. Let me repeat that: the aircraft was vaporized by the fire. Not just melted into a pool of molten metal, mind you, but literally boiled away! Over 100 tons of metal, including two five-ton aircraft engines!

Although it should be obvious to any thinking person, it must be stated here anyway: a hydrocarbon fire cannot possibly burn at the temperatures required to even melt a 100 ton aircraft, let alone actually vaporize it. That such an absurd notion was even floated out there for public consumption indicates that Washington officials were desperately seeking any explanation, no matter how preposterous, for the complete lack of aircraft wreckage recovered from the Pentagon.

While the aircraft did not survive the ordeal, the remains of the passengers allegedly did. All but a handful were purportedly positively identified through forensic analysis. Apparently the fire in the Pentagon burned hot enough to vaporize steel aircraft engines, but not hot enough to cremate human remains. Sounds reasonable to me. (http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/stripe/6_48/national_news/12279-1.html)

The attack on the Pentagon reportedly damaged an enormous chunk of office space, and yet, curiously, only 125 people were killed on the ground, with another 80 seriously injured. As in New York, initial casualty estimates were substantially higher. Demolition and reconstruction began almost immediately, and within a year, some of the newly rebuilt offices were already ready for occupation.

Some later reports indicated that Flight 77 had not actually been vaporized, but was in fact largely recovered and reconstructed. Such claims have never been formally confirmed or denied by Washington officials. To date, there is no compelling evidence indicating that any aircraft debris was recovered from any part of the Pentagon.

Many questions have been left unanswered by the official story of the attack. For example, how could hijackers possibly have known that they would be able to fly unmolested for some 300 miles while headed directly into the heart of the nation's capital, through the most tightly controlled airspace in the world -- and do it not in a surprise attack, while the nation's defenses were sleeping, but rather while the country was on the highest state of alert, and actually anticipating the attack? ... while the whole world was watching, and all the broadcast and cable television networks were providing play-by-play coverage?

Wouldn't it have made far more sense for the Pentagon to be the first target struck, utilizing the element of surprise, considering that the home of U.S. military forces is obviously a little better defended than the World Trade Center? Wouldn't the logical way to implement the assault have been to hit the military command center first, then strike the civilian targets while the military was attempting to regroup and secure Washington? You would think that even a third-rate terrorist would know that, let alone a terrorist superstar like Osama bin Laden.

Another question that has been raised is why there has never been any film or videotape released depicting an airplane approaching, or crashing into, the Pentagon. As the home of Uncle Sam's military machine, the Pentagon is quite obviously one of the most secure buildings in the world. It is under constant surveillance by multiple closed-circuit cameras. In addition to the Pentagon's own footage, surveillance cameras at a Sheraton hotel and a Citgo gas station were also positioned to record the 'crash.' Tape from both cameras was reportedly quickly seized by the FBI. None of the footage has ever seen the light of day. And despite the fact that an unusually high number of media personnel claimed that they witnessed the attack, no photographs or videotape of the attack have ever been released by any media outlet. With the exception of one notorious image that is purported to be a frame from a tape from one of the Pentagon's CCTV cameras, there is no photographic evidence of any airplane, of any size, flying in the vicinity of, approaching, or crashing into, the Pentagon.


Unlike the actual 'crash,' there is plenty of photographic evidence of the aftermath of the attack. Virtually none of it supports the official story. Nothing that can be confirmed as aircraft debris is visible in any of the photographs that have found their way into the public domain. Photos do reveal, and Pentagon officials have acknowledged, that the initial penetration into the side of the building was not nearly large enough to account for the wingspan of a Boeing 757-200 aircraft (actually, the penetration wasn't even large enough to account for the fuselage of a 757). In fact, all the available photos reveal that the initial damage to the front facade of the Pentagon, after the alleged crash but before the collapse that occurred about a half-hour later, was relatively minor. And the impact apparently did not generate enough explosive force to even displace the wire spools just below the alleged point of impact.

The pre-collapse photos reveal that the front wall of the Pentagon remained remarkably intact after the initial impact. Pentagon officials, and defenders of the official story, have claimed that the small entry wound made by the alleged plane was the result of the fact that the aircraft's wings were either sheared off or folded back on impact, and that only the fuselage entered the building -- becoming, in effect, a  very large missile. That would be a much more plausible claim if a 757 did not have very large wings that would be clearly visible in these photographs if they had in fact been sheared off as the fuselage entered the building. Attached to those wings are two engines, each about 9 feet in diameter, 21 feet long, and weighing nearly five tons. The official story doesn't really bother to account for them.

One enterprising soul put together a composite image that illustrates, more clearly than any other image that I have come across, the fundamental absurdity of the official story of the crash of Flight 77. Seen below is an actual photo of the Pentagon, over which is overlaid both a properly scaled image of the pre-collapse damage to the facade on September 11, and a properly scaled image of a Boeing 757-200 aircraft.


Perfectly obvious in this composite photo is that the actual impact damage to the Pentagon was entirely inconsistent with the crash of a large passenger plane. Also obvious is that even if we accept the dubious notion that the plane's fuselage disappeared within the building, some very large aircraft parts seem to be unaccounted for -- like the two wings, the two engines, and the three tail fins.

Nevertheless, the official story claims that the plane did in fact impact the Pentagon exactly as depicted in the above photo, as can be seen in the graphic to the right, which was used by Pentagon spokesmen during a post-911 press briefing. As can be seen in the graphic, Flight 77 allegedly plowed through three of the five concentric rings that make up the Pentagon, coming to rest completely within the complex of buildings. According to various 911 gatekeepers, that is why there is no aircraft debris visible on the lawn outside the alleged point of impact (such as in the photo to the left). Also missing, needless to say, is any indication that a 100 ton aircraft performed a gymnastics floor routine on that lawn before slamming into the side of the Pentagon.

After the collapse, there was still no aircraft wreckage visible, as can be seen in these post-collapse photos -- the center one taken just after the collapse, while the fire still burned, and the other two taken after clean-up efforts were underway. According to the 911 gatekeepers, the remains of the aircraft were at that time still buried beneath the collapsed building. Fair enough. That seems to be a reasonable enough claim -- except for the fact that only the outer ring of the Pentagon collapsed, while the plane, according to the official story, penetrated through two additional rings, neither of which collapsed, and neither of which yielded any verifiable aircraft debris. And if any aircraft debris was later found buried beneath the collapsed portion of the Pentagon, no one bothered to document it with photographs.

Sometimes offered in support of the official story is photographic evidence of an exit wound exactly where we would expect it to be located if an airplane, or some other fast moving projectile, did in fact slice through the concentric rings of the Pentagon in the manner indicated in the official Pentagon graphic. Punched through the inside of "C" ring, at ground level, was a remarkably clean hole that appeared to measure roughly 8'-9' high and 10'-12' wide. This hole, punched through a thick, steel-reinforced masonry wall, was purportedly made by the nosecone of Flight 77. There is no indication, however, in any of the photos, of aircraft debris either inside or outside of the hole.