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Last updated: 12/02/2005 |
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Debunking Urban Legends... |
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(Killtown's critique is in red.)
with David Emery Your Guide to one of hundreds of sites Hunt the Boeing! From the mailbag...
Got this URL forwarded to me from a friend. It's a series of pictures that "shows" that a truck full of explosives, rather than a plane, caused damage to the Pentagon on Sept. 11. I'm sending it on to you for examination: http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm The site is not about photos that
show a “truck full of explosives” caused the damage to the Pentagon, rather than
a plane. They just stated that the AP’s first reports were that a truck bomb
did, “The Associated Press first reported that a booby-trapped truck had caused
the explosion.” "Hunt the Boeing!" is a provocative display of smoke and mirrors, but there's little else to recommend the site. Its authors present a fraction of the available evidence in a highly selective, distorted, titillating way, proving absolutely nothing — except, perhaps, that there's always room for another conspiracy theory. A fraction of evidence? You make it sound like he only supplied 1/10th of 1% of the available evidence. You only listed three, so I’m assuming the fraction you're referring to is 1/4th of what you listed. “Highly selective”? That site shows multiple photographs linked from various sources and you only list one photo that looks very suspect in it’s authenticity. “Proving absolutely nothing”? I think you should let your readers decide for themselves about this just like the "Hunt the Boeing!" website does. While making few explicit allegations, the authors argue, in effect, that based on photographic and physical evidence, the damage to the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 could not have been caused by a crashing jetliner, contrary to the official and overwhelmingly accepted explanation. “Overwhelmingly accepted explanation” does not prove something happened. It just proves that it's "overwhelmingly accepted"! The argument is weak. For starters, it conveniently ignores some of the most obvious, compelling evidence. For example: Crash scene photo’s that you can see with your own eyes is not “obvious, compelling evidence” ???
Eyewitnesses can’t be wrong or even lie? Eyewitnesses are more reliable than multiple photos? What about the eyewitnesses that describe a smaller plane and one that sounds like a jetfighter? The funny thing is that most eyewitnesses don't describe that they saw a Boeing 757, they just described seeing a "plane" or a "silvery flash"!
The black boxes having been found "right where the plane came into the building" couldn’t have been planted or fabricated? Have we ever heard any of the data the was said to have been recovered according to this CNN news report: "FBI Director Robert Mueller said Friday investigators have recovered some information from the flight data recorder from American Airlines Flight 77, the hijacked jet that slammed into the Pentagon"?
Still relying on newspaper articles for your proof? Couldn't the recovery reports have been fabricated too? I'm mean if our Government planned this conspiracy, wouldn't they fabricate evidence to trick us? Of course, the evasion of bedrock evidence is standard fare for conspiracy theorists. If pressed they would doubtless claim that all of the above must have been planted or manufactured, but they can't even prove such a claim plausible, let alone true beyond a reasonable doubt. Not claiming it, but definitely asking the question "Couldn't it"!Eschewing plain facts and common sense, they ask us to focus instead on misleadingly posed condundrums such as the following:
According to a drawing?
The tail section of the plane would of extending above the 2nd floor, so where did it go? The wings would have extending wider than the 30 yards collapsed area, where did they go?
Answer: No, but we can in this one taken by an Associated Press photographer. That's it? How can you be sure that small piece of debris weren't planted? There are at least 30 + photo’s on the net showing no evidence of debris and that’s is the only one showing the only visible signs of debris coming from an American Airlines. Also, notice how clean it is. No burn or scratch marks. Hmmmm? Not bad for supposedly coming from a plane that just crashed into a reinforced concrete building going 400 mph +! Bear in mind, eyewitnesses say the Boeing 757 virtually disintegrated when it struck the reinforced wall of the building. Given that, and the tremendous forward momentum of the aircraft on impact, the assumption that a significant amount of debris ought to be visible in front of the Pentagon wouldn't seem justified. You just said in your answer above, “It didn't only damage the outside. Structural damage extended at least 150 feet inside, well into the third ("C") ring of the building”. Now you’re mentioning that some of the eyewitnesses say that the Boeing 757 virtually disintegrated when it struck the reinforced wall of the building. How could a plane crash and penetrate all the through to the 3rd ring of the Pentagon if it “virtually disintegrated” when it struck the reinforced wall of the building? According to a CNN article published the day after the attack, Michael Tamillow, a battalion chief of the Fairfax County, Virginia Fire Department, reported that parts of the Boeing 757 fuselage had indeed been recovered from the wreckage by FBI investigators (the same team that later found the black boxes). "No large pieces apparently survived," the article said. Still relying on the "always accurate" news articles? I’m wondering just what was the size of debris from the plane that managed to "extended at least 150 feet inside, well into the third ("C") ring of the building"? One visitor who surveyed the crash site a few days later, Representative Judy Biggert of Illinois, told reporters she saw remnants of the jetliner: "There was a seat from a plane," she said, "there was part of the tail and then there was a part of green metal, I could not tell what it was, a part of the outside of the plane." (Chicago Sun-Times, 16 Sep, 2001) The “told reporters” proof?! How could she have seen a seat from the plane when you already have mentioned that the plane “virtually disintegrated” on impact and that "no large pieces apparently survived"? Where did she see part of the tail section and the "green metal"??? (For a more detailed consideration of these and further "Hunt the Boeing" puzzles, please read the excellent commentary by engineer Paul Boutin and astrophysicist Patrick Di Justo, Web-posted on March 14.) Do you always choose “excellent commentary” over many crash scene photos? And before you label Boutin and Di Justo's commentary as "excellent", you might want to read my critique of their "excellent commentary". You're no doubt wondering who's behind these flights of fancy and what, exactly, they're driving at. Well, according to the French newspaper Le Monde, the culprit is Thierry Meyssan, well-known leftist radical and president of the Voltaire Network, a controversial site devoted to "the fight for freedom and secularity." His son, Raphaël Meyssan, is credited as the Webmaster of both the Voltaire Network and Utopian Asylum, which, uncoincidentally, hosts "Hunt the Boeing!" Oh, he’s a leftist radical? So his site must not be true! What are they trying to prove? That the attacks of September 11 were perpetrated not by foreign terrorists, but by the U.S. government upon its own citizens — a conspiracy theory in the grand tradition. Grand tradition yes, but that doesn’t mean the U.S. Government has never thought of the idea…“In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.” http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/jointchiefs_010501.html To quote the late Carl Sagan, "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof." So far we haven't seen any proof at all. Haven’t seen any proof at all??? Didn’t you even look
at the crash scene photos??? Are many different photos of the same scene not
extraordinary proof these days? Are the news and
eyewitness reports
that seem to be your majority of proof more extraordinary? Personally, We'll
stick with the photos. ;-)
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