Pentagon "Missile" Hoax

no-plane hoaxes:

• discredit the skeptics with a straw man argument
• redirect the skeptics into a false debate (no plane vs. no complicity)
• protect the plotters from political / military insiders thinking that it was an inside job
• the fake debate between no plane and no complicity gets the Bush regime off the hook
• there is zero evidence for any of the "no plane" claims - hundreds of people saw Flight 77, no one who saw the crash saw a cruise missile, Global Hawk robot plane, fighter jet or flying saucer piloted by giant lizards fly into the Pentagon
• the physical evidence shows that a large twin engine jet hit the nearly empty part of the Pentagon, the "Black Boxes" were found, cleanup crews found remains of the passengers, the "hole was too small" claim was a hoax
• making 9/11 complicity dependent on the no-plane claim was a brilliant tactic to discredit the real evidence for people inside the Beltway, both for the majority who vote against Bush and the political / military elites (especially the military officers who saw the plane crash or the plane debris)
• the material on this page and all of the websites that are linked here should finally extinguish the "no plane" hoax -- except for those who have staked their credibility on these claims and cannot admit a mistake, and those who intentionally promote the hoax. Every claim for the "no plane" hoaxes is refuted here or at a page linked from this page.

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As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
-- Donald Rumsfeld, Feb. 12, 2002, Department of Defense news briefing

 

The purpose of "no planes" is to protect the plotters

Lots of military people saw the plane and wreckage, and making the conspiracy dependent on the no plane hoax gets Bush and Cheney off the hook. The issue is not what the peons (us) think about these issues -- the real issue is what the military and civilian leadership in DC think about these issues. No plane speculations and hoaxes steer people away from real evidence of complicity such as how the plane was steered into the nearly empty part of the Pentagon and the role of the wargames in paralyzing the defense of Washington. Cui bono - who benefits? How long would Cheney and Bush be in office if the rest of the military thought that the PNAC gang allowed 9/11 to happen -- or deliberately flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon via some form of remote control?

The fact that "No Plane" is the cudgel being used against the 9/11 truth movement proves it is a counterproductive strategy for exposing real evidence of complicity. Whether these hoaxes are coming from deliberate disinformation agents, the aggressively naive, the gullible or the sloppy is not relevant, since the ONLY evidence for "no plane" is altered and misleading perspective photos.

What hit the Pentagon on 9/11?

a. Flight 77, an American Airlines Boeing 757
b. a uranium tipped cruise missile
c. a Global Hawk robot plane
d. a flying saucer piloted by giant lizards from the planet Uranus

What are the issues of complicity regarding the Pentagon attack?

a. how the plane was not intercepted, even after the towers had been hit
b. how the plane managed to hit the nearly empty part of the building
c. why the fighter planes scrambled from Norfolk flew over the ocean, away from D.C.
d. the CIA's "plane into building" exercise conducted at the National Reconnaissance Office near Dulles Airport during 9/11
e. all of the above

What does the evidence from the Pentagon crash suggest?

a. the testimony from the eyewitnesses and the physical evidence are in agreement that Flight 77 hit the building
b. the eyewitnesses were confused about what they saw and are in contradiction to the physical evidence
c. the eyewitnesses were co-conspirators with Cheney and were deliberately lying
d. we have no idea what hit the building

Who first suggested that a missile hit the Pentagon?

a. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld on October 12, 2001
b. eyewitnesses on Interstate 395 and Route 27
c. eyewitnesses who saw the missile from the Pentagon metro station
d. the eyewitnesses are all lying, anyway, and should be ignored

What happened to Flight 77's "black box" data recorder?

a. Newsweek reported in September 2001 that it was found in the rubble of the Pentagon, but we are not allowed to know what it recorded
b. it was in the rubble of the plane, shot down over Ohio
c. it is at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean
d. Flight 77 never existed

Why are videotapes of Flight 77 at the Pentagon being kept secret?

a. The videos are withheld because the conspirators are having too much fun watching the 9/11 skeptics fall into the discrediting "no plane" trap, and want to fuel the endless speculations.
b. Because the video tapes show flying saucers circling the Pentagon on 9/11.
c. Nothing hit the Pentagon on 9/11.

Is there evidence for any of the "no Boeing hit the Pentagon" theories?

a. No. There are some slick websites and fancy films that push this claim, but they are easily debunked.
b. yes

Is remote control technology proven to work in Boeing airplanes?

a. Yes, Boeing has a patent for "auto-land," an uninterruptable autopilot that cannot be turned off from within the cockpit.
b. no.

What evidence would confirm or refute the allegations of remote control / computerized piloting of Flight 77?

a. independent analysis of the "black boxes" from Flight 77 with a "chain of custody" to prove the data had not been tampered with after the crash (the "analysis" from the so-called "Pilots for 9/11 Truth" is more misdirection to suggest Flight 77 really did not hit the Pentagon)
b. clear video of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon
c. forensic examination of the plane debris found at the scene
d. reading lots of websites

the correct answer to all questions is (a) except for question 2 which is e: all of the above.

"no plane" hoaxes discredit and distract from evidence of complicity

"No plane at the Pentagon" has been the most popular hoax, and has been promoted the longest (since a few weeks after 9/11).

The eyewitness testimony and the physical evidence disproves the "Flight 77 didn't hit the Pentagon" claims. Hundreds of people saw the plane from numerous vantage points. Photos of the impact zone show how the plane struck the first and second floors of the building. There are photos of plane debris in the wreckage.

Some websites try to make the issue of official complicity dependent on the "no plane" myth (some state there was complicity, others oppose the idea), but this is a red herring tactic. It is a big clue that the media efforts to discredit 9/11 skeptics focus on this claim (the absence of Flight 77) while ignoring evidence proven beyond reasonable doubt. Some probable disinformation efforts promoting hoaxes allegedly proving complicity focus on "no plane" and ignore other claims that actually have solid evidence (why the trillion dollar Air Force did not defend its headquarters).

None of the "no Boeing" theorists have explained why the perpetrators would have risked certain exposure by a bystander capturing video of something that wasn't a Boeing 757. Video footage from nearby surveillance cameras was immediately seized by the FBI. Workers at a nearby hotel did get to see their film (prior to its impoundment) and did not report seeing anything other than a plane hitting the Pentagon. Keeping the film footage secret allows extreme speculation to flourish, which serves the interests of the plotters.

A growing number of 9/11 skeptics have realized the "no 757" story was spread to discredit / distract us. It's a tempting theory in some ways, but if you trace the story back, there's no reality to it. Photoshopped images, claims by anonymous people on the web, a blatant disregard of all of the evidence -- these and more mental gymnastics are necessary to believe "no 757."

No judge, newspaper editor or political activist can use this sort of non-existent evidence to justify any of the "no plane" theories.

"No Planes" has been the most effective means to discredit issues of complicity inside the Beltway, both for the overwhelming majority who vote against Bush and the high level military and civilian officials who had too much personal experience with plane parts -- or friends who saw the plane and/or plane parts -- to buy this hoax.

There will never be complete agreement in the 9/11 truth movementgiven the widely varying quality of standards used by different people, the complete lack of peer review, and the presence of hoaxers trying to keep people off balance. It's more productive to persuade people outside the "truth movement" about the best evidence, and caution them about the hoaxes. There is zero evidence for any of the "no planes" claims for the Pentagon. All of the publications, websites, etc that argue for this use crappy sources and / or distortions of the evidence.

This hoax shows the limitations of doing research on the web about highly controversial topics with enormous political stakes. While the internet, and search engines, are an incredible invention that allows access to a huge collection of knowledge, they are also imperfect means of discovering the truth due to the ease that fake websites can be created and the reality that not all of human experience is archived in google.com With the Pentagon crash, some of the witnesses did tell the media that they saw the plane, but many more were not interviewed. Therefore, instant experts writing about this issue from several time zones away who ignore the need for some on-the-ground investigation (and ignore the fact that all of the photos do indeed show a 757 sized impact zone on the outside of the Pentagon) are likely to make serious mistakes. But even just using the media quoted comments, the fact of the plane crash becomes obvious and irrefutable.

Some of those promoting the no plane stories insult the eyewitnesses by claiming they are unreliable, had a poor view of the events, or are in great disagreement (when they were not). Some people got a very good view of it, others had a brief glimpse -- but none of the witnesses who saw a truck bomb, a missile, a global hawk, an A-3 fighter plane or a flying saucer piloted by giant lizards.

The no Boeing stories imply that the witnesses across Arlington County, especially those on the roads nearby the Pentagon, were part of the coverup, which is a great technique for alienating people in the Washington region. The people who saw the plane told their families, friends, co-workers, etc about the fact they'd seen a major, shocking, historical event (wouldn't you if you saw something like that?).

The"no plane" claims distract from evidence of complicity that is "hidden in plain sight" -- the Pentagon was struck in the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector. The alleged hijacker flunked out of flight school and even an expert pilot would not have chosen to fly the plane in a 270 degree spiral to hit the side of the least populated part of the Pentagon. Why would al-Qaida perform this bizarre flight maneuver to reduce damage the building. Who would have chosen to fly in a spiral around the building to hit the one place that would minimize casualties while maximizing the "shock and awe" of the event? Was the plane guided by remote control technology (which is commercially available)?

Why did the Trillion Dollar Air Force not defend its own headquarters, even after the second plane crash into the World Trade Center? The fighter planes that were scrambled from the Norfolk Virginia area after the WTC was hit, before the Pentagon strike, flew east over the Atlantic Ocean instead of northwest toward DC -- an "error" that has not been explained but could be related to "wargames" that apparently inserted fake blips into radar screens. Perhaps a future, authentic, independent investigation with subpoena power will examine the role of the war game exercises in confusing the military response to the hijackings.

What or Where? redirecting / discrediting the 9/11 truth movement

The "no 757" story has been effective at discrediting 9/11 skepticism, especially in the DC area. It is not a coincidence that the defenders of the official "surprise attack" claim focus mostly on the "no plane at the Pentagon" story in their quest to discredit 9/11 skeptics.

Many efforts that correctly debunk the "no plane" claims make the issue of complicity dependent on whether the "no plane" claim is true or false. This is a false dichotomy -- that evidence for a large jet at the Pentagon therefore exonerates the government of complicity -- that avoids the issues of the NORAD, et al wargames, the failure to defend D.C. and the fact the plane was steered into the nearly empty part of the building.

The no-plane claims have distracted from what is 100% provable -- WHERE the Pentagon was hit: the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector. If the plane had hit any other part, thousands would probably have been killed instead of a little over 100 on the ground. This fact is accepted by the media, and is a clue "hidden in plain sight" as to the level of complicity within the Bush administration.

WHERE the Pentagon was hit is strong evidence for official complicity. , since a flight school drop out would not have chosen (nor been able) to fly a plane into the mostly empty sector of the Pentagon. Hani Hanjour, a flight school drop out, clearly could not have performed this extremely difficult flying maneuver. While it is possible that a Saudi or Egyptian air force expert pilot could have been substituted for Mr. Hanjour, a terrorist would not have chosen to hit the Pentagon in the one way that minimized damage and casualties. This fact suggests that 9/11 was an "inside job," arranged by a faction in the US military. Those who are inclined to invent a statistic to explain this surreal "coincidence" should realize that the odds were not one in five -- but virtually impossible (and beyond statistical explanations).

Dov Zakheim, the PNAC member who was Pentagon Comptroller (the money man) from 2001 through early 2004, came from a military contractor that developed remote control systems for planes (System Planning Co.)

Sandia test shows what happens in high speed plane crashes

In 1998, Sandia National Laboratory conducted a test of what would happen if a plane crashed into a nuclear reactor containment structure (several foot thick concrete shielding). A military plane was flown at high speed into a reinforced object - and shattered into small pieces. This is similar to what happened to Flight 77 on 9/11.

false claim	9/11 truth
Pentagon hole was too small for a Boeing 757? "the initial damage to the west wing's facade was far too minimal to have been caused by the impact of a Boeing 757" -- David Ray Griffin, April 2005 lecture in Madison, Wisconsin	The damage to the Pentagon was the width of a 757. The famous 16 foot wide hole in the Pentagon was the diameter of the 757 cabin. The wings also gouged out a 90 foot wide swath in the building on the first floor (where it hit), and the wingtips caused additional damage to the outside (but not a hole). impact area of Flight 77 shown by piecing together photos taken shortly after the crash the impact spread fire over a wide swath within seconds (the fuel is stored in the wings) www.questionsquestions.net/blog/041116walter.html Jimmy Walter (reopen911.org): A sugar daddy with poison pills ... the ground-level entry area (where the walls were missing and support columns were missing or severely damaged and severed) was about 90 feet wide. Only the second floor area of the hole was small. Both In Plane Site and the Pentagon Strike web movie disingenuously use selective photos in which the 90-foot ground level hole is hidden behind smoke & water being sprayed by a firetruck, and it isn't even mentioned. But note that not all Pentagon no-757 advocates hide the real proportions of the hole in this way, which makes this misprepresentation even more egregious. ... there IS wreckage, not on the lawn (another example of deceptive, selective choice of photographs) but all over the South parking lot and part of the Heliport (easily visible in the photos taken by Steve Riskus), which were in fact closer to the impact point than the area of lawn that is shown (severe telephoto foreshortening illusion makes the lawn area look close to the building). Sure, one might attempt to debate whether the existing debris field is consistent with an airliner impact, but not acknowledging its existence at all (or the existence of the ground-level 90 foot entry hole) as is the case with In Plane Site and Pentagon Strike, only serves to make 911 skeptics look like conniving liars.
no plane parts found?	Many tons of plane parts were found at the Pentagon. One photo showing plane parts is on the cover of the book "Le Pentagate," a science fiction story that pretended that the Pentagon was hit by a missile - even though there was not a single eyewitness who saw a missile hit the building. a bad joke hidden in plain sight. Many of the photos on the web promoting the no-plane hoax are highly selective with what they chose to show and not show - and some were taken after the cleanup had removed the debris. There are other photos that do show airplane parts inside the building, but these photos are ignored by "no plane" websites and movies. Newsweek reported shortly after 9/11 that the "black boxes" were found in the rubble. Workers who cleaned out the debris have testified to the presence of a planeload of plane debris. Family members brought to the scene saw the plane debris. The fact that a few fringe conspiracy websites do not show photos of the plane parts years after the crash is not evidence of anything except a campaign to mislead those who don't believe the official story of 9/11.
no large pieces found?	Airplane crashes into ultra-reinforced bunkers don't leave large pieces. There are not any photos of an intact plane after the crash, but there are many photos showing smaller plane parts inside and outside of the building. www.planecrashinfo.com/w941031.htm shows the impact of a plane crash that left few parts
folding wings? The website physics911 claims the wings should have remained outside of the building if they did not "fold" into the small hole.	The "folding wings" claim falsely assumes a small impact hole - in reality, the wings created a wide hole at the base of the building! Photos of the damage clearly show the impact made by the wings and engines.
Pentagon lawn undisturbed by plane	Plane parts were scattered widely on the outside of the building. Many eyewitnesses report seeing a rain of airplane parts onto nearby areas after the collision. Some photos claiming an undisturbed lawn were digitally altered. Suspicions about sand and gravel poured on the Pentagon lawn after the crash are easily explained by the fact a road was hastily built to access the damaged area in preparation for clean-up and reconstruction (heavy trucks needed a roadbed to avoid sinking into the lawn).
exit hole implies a missile went intact through the building	The exit hole lines up well with the pattern of damage that the plane caused. A missile that blew up on entry would not have created the same damage pattern (with a wide, first floor hole in the shape of the wing cross-sections). Some sources claim that the exit hole was made wider by the firefighters to access the burning areas. A few conspiracy sites have said the exit hole was really the entrance wound. Thierry Meyssan's book "Le Pentagate" featured a picture of the exit hole (and some shredded plane debris!) on the front cover.
claim that the object punched through six walls	The gaps between the first three rings in the Pentagon only reach down to the second floor - therefore, the debris did not go six walls. http://frustratingfraud.blogspot.com/2006/11/three-rings-nine-feet-of-steel.html refutes this false claim.
claim that "ground effect" would have prevented the flight	this argument is refuted at www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0274.shtml Pentagon & Boeing 757 Ground Effect a website that is technically accurate about the "no plane" hoax but is not interested in good evidence of complicity
engine part did not match 757?	in reality, the plane parts found at the crash scene precisely matched the engines used in that 757 www.aerospaceweb.org/question/conspiracy/q0265.shtml Pentagon & Boeing 757 Engine Investigation
Eyewitness testimony and physical evidence
eyewitnesses unreliable?	At least hundreds of people saw the plane and hundreds more were involved in the cleanup of plane debris after the crash. Those with the best views (drivers stuck in traffic on I-395 and VA 27, workers outside the Pentagon building, etc) were unambiguous: they definitely saw Flight 77. Some conspiracy addicts insult the eyewitnesses by claiming they are all part of the cover-up, implying that the Cheney / Rumsfeld faction was capable of shutting down traffic on major commuter routes and replacing all of the motorists with covert operatives at the exact moment of impact. It is true that many of the eyewitnesses were military people, but there were many others who saw the plane: commuters, low-level government workers, taxi drivers, journalists, among others.
eyewitnesses confused?	The eyewitnesses who were in the area of the plane crash reported seeing the plane. Some of them were more familiar with identification of different types of jets than others, some had better views of the plane than others. No witnesses saw a missile, a fighter plane or a flying saucer piloted by giant lizards. A few said that the plane was acting like a missile, but that is an analogy, not a literal description.
why were the surveillance videos hidden?	Reverse Psychology: the dozens of surveillance videos that show Flight 77 are being hidden to fuel the "no plane" hoax. Hotel workers who saw "their" video before it was seized saw the plane on it. We don't need the videos to prove the plane really did hit the Pentagon, since the physical evidence and the eyewitness accounts show beyond any doubt that this happened. The fact that all of the nearby videos were immediately seized suggests foreknowledge of the event, but it is not evidence for "no plane." It also shows a sophisticated propaganda campaign to play on paranoia (and gullibility) of the 9/11 skeptics, implying the absence of evidence equals proof of conspiracy. The attention focused on the hidden videos distracts from the more interesting issue of the data on the black boxes supposedly recovered at the crash scene (according to Newsweek). That data would refute - or confirm - the allegations that Flight 77 (and therefore all four planes) were electronically commandeered to ensure the plane hit the least populated, most reinforced sector of the Pentagon.
Perspective on the "no plane" hoax
"no plane" claims motivate people to think "inside job"	".... if you think that the "no plane at the Pentagon" claim, even if it is wrong, is harmless... or if you think perhaps even it is beneficial because it converts a lot of people into 9/11 skeptics (and it certainly does), please think again. John Judge and Mark Robinowitz and others are correct that its intention was to alienate people inside the beltway, and make us look foolish among D.C. professionals. It succeeded." -- Emanuel Sferios, 9/11 Visibility Campaign
It doesn't matter what hit the Pentagon.	The loudest claim that most people have heard for an alternative explanation for 9/11 is "no plane hit the Pentagon," which motivates some people and discourages many more from looking at real evidence. The one piece of physical evidence unchallenged by anyone is the Pentagon was hit in the nearly empty, recently reconstructed and strengthened sector, which suggests that some sort of remote control / computerized piloting was used to steer the plane.
We don't know what hit the building - the evidence is ambiguous. "Four-and-a-half years later, we still don't have definitive proof that a plane hit that building." - Mike Berger, 911truth.org, quoted by ABC News on May 16, 2006 "photographs and eyewitnesses in the immediate aftermath failed to provide unambiguous evidence of the remains of a Boeing 757" - David Ray Griffin, from his Madison speech, April 2005	Every claim for "no Boeing" has been debunked for years - there is no "debate" about the fact the plane hit the Pentagon. Some people find it hard to admit that they were fooled by the hoax (despite being a "truth" activist). Some people like to speculate wildly and are not interested in careful research. A few promoters of "no plane" are deliberately trying to disrupt, but they are probably a small minority. www.ratical.org/ratville/JFK/JohnJudge/f77FoF.html Flight of Fantasy: Flight 77 Didn't Hit the Pentagon 23 October 2002 by John Judge .... That side of the Pentagon was virtually empty and had been for some time because the building had been under reconstruction quite visibly on that side for 5-6 years and part of that was to reinforce the building from external attack. In fact some photos show the difference in damage on either side of that reinforcement work and it is striking. That plane went 270 degrees out of its way at high speed, a very sophisticated maneuver with no possible military advantage, to hit the empty side of the Pentagon. There, as in New York, I would argue that they minimized the number of deaths by timing and method of attack. .... There is no question that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. Remaining agnostic on this point also gives ammunition to the perpetrators of the stand-down and serves to discredit the other good work that continues to be done about the reality of what happened that day. It is my feeling that this thesis was actually part of an intentional disinformation campaign that spreads red herrings to discredit the real findings. http://911research.com/essays/pentagon/video.html Video of the Pentagon Attack: What is the Government Hiding? by Jim Hoffman Version 0.9, May 16, 2006 ... saying there is not proof that a plane hit the Pentagon ... necessarily implies the following: That the scores of accounts of a large plane are either faked or coerced. That the damage to the Pentagon, including an approximately 100-foot-wide expanse of punctured facade walls on the first floor, were somehow produced by a means other than a plane. That fires that smelled like burning jet fuel, running about 200 feet across the facade of the Pentagon, were produced by some other means, or the photographs were faked. That the swath of downed lamp-poles the width of a 757's wing span were sliced and knocked over by some other means, and that smashed objects lying in the paths of the engines were damaged by some other means. That the identification of human remains of the crew and passengers of Flight 77 was fraudulent. That the Flight 77 with its crew and passengers were disposed of elsewhere, and their fate remains unknown. To believe that the Pentagon was not hit by Flight 77 requires one to accept points 5 and 6. To believe that no plane hit the Pentagon, one has to accept all six points. Such a belief isn't consistent with a rational analysis of the evidence.
logical flaws with the no plane claims	There are not any sensible arguments why the conspirators would have substituted a missile / drone / global hawk robot plane. Substituting a missile for the plane would have made the attack much more complicated, involved more technicians with insider knowledge, and not provided any direct benefit to the plotters (especially if the theory about remote control technology being used to direct the plane into the nearly empty part of the Pentagon is ever proven). The "no plane" theories don't make sense -- why would they bother to substitute? why risk being caught in the act, if someone got a clear photo? why not just remote control a 757 into the empty part of the building? The area around the Pentagon is densely populated, and a clear photo showing something other than the 757 would compromise the entire operation. www.ifacts.typepad.com If this was all a government conspiracy, why go to the bother of using a missile or fighter to hit the Pentagon when a 757 would do just fine, make a bigger bang, and there would be no need for a cover-up? from a website called "Inconvenient Facts: Thoughts on logic, critical thinking, and mind-numbing conspiracy theories" that frames 9/11 skeptics as the "9/11 Denial Movement" (linking it to Holocaust denial). Inconvenient Facts makes solid claims against the bogus claims from Gerard Holmgren and Dick Eastman (internet voices who have loudly promoted the "no plane" claims) but fails to note that there are other, real pieces of evidence of complicity.