Did F77 hit the pentagon? Eyewitness accounts examined. PART 2

The same pre-manufactured spin was repeated in combination with the
Timmerman quote at Starnet.com
http://www.azstarnet.com/attack/3-1.html
at the same time as showing a photo of the hole which isn't anywhere near
200 ft wide. Have a look at the photo. If the black van just in front of the hole
is 20ft long, then the hole is 50 - 80 ft wide.

It is interesting to note that all three of these reports chose the same
Timmerman quote in partnership with what appears to be a pre-set script
from authorities. And a similar pairing was also made by the SF Gate on
Sept 12

<http://www.sfgate.com/today/0912_chron_main.shtml>
although this chose to paraphrase Timmerman, rather quote him directly.
Timmerman was only interviewed once and his dramatic description of the
crash was quickly co-opted into the official mythology.

Like the Mike Walter report, this demonstrates the absolute importance
of being able to interview a witness extensively, before giving too much
weight to their account.

"Father Stephen McGraw was driving to a graveside service at Arlington
National Cemetery the morning of Sept. 11, when he mistakenly took the
Pentagon exit onto Washington Boulevard, putting him in a position to
witness American Airlines Flight 77 crash into the Pentagon. 'I was in
the left hand lane with my windows closed. I did not hear anything at
all until the plane was just right above our cars.' McGraw estimates
that the plane passed about 20 feet over his car, as he waited in the
left hand lane of the road, on the side closest to the Pentagon. 'The
plane clipped the top of a light pole just before it got to us, injuring
a taxi driver, whose taxi was just a few feet away from my car. I saw
it crash into the building,' he said. 'My only memories really were that
it looked like a plane coming in for a landing. I mean in the sense that
it was controlled and sort of straight. That was my impression,' he said.
'There was an explosion and a loud noise and I felt the impact. I remember
seeing a fireball come out of two windows (of the Pentagon). I saw an
explosion of fire billowing through those two windows.'"
- "Pentagon Crash Eyewitness Comforted Victims </gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.mdw.army.mil/news/Pentagon%5Fcrash%5Feyewitness%5Fcomforted%5Fvictims.html>." MDW News Service, 28 Sep 2001

There's a big problem with this account. McGraw says that the plane
passed directly over his car at power pole hight but that he didn't hear
anything until it was directly above.Totally impossible if it was a 757. He
says he had the window closed, which is like wearing a t-shirt to protect
against a machine gun. If a 757 was passing 20 ft over your car, you
would be deafened by it before you saw it. This account must be subject
to serious questioning to have any chance of being considered, because
in this form, it is totally impossible to believe that McGraw saw a 757.
So either the whole account is fiction, or embellished beyond credibility,
or what Mcgraw saw was actually a small plane or a cruise missile, which
might make it credible in terms of the noise factor. Note that the reference
to American airlines F77 was inserted by commentary, not directly attributed
to Mcgraw. So I checked the reference to see if there were any clues as to
what kind of plane McGraw thinks he saw.
The reference turned out to be US Army - The Military district of
Washington site.The article containing McGraw's quote was written by
Paul Haring (Staff photographer for the Fort Myer Military Community's
Pentagram newspaper) for the MDW News Service (That's Military District
of Washington) and not posted till Sept 28.
In this article McGraw is also quoted as saying (and in Haring's article this
quote directly follows the end of the section quoted above, so he's just been
talking about the explosion,and impact)

"I remember hearing a collective gasp or scream from one of the
other cars near me.Almost a collective gasp it seemed."

Let me think now... He was in a car with the windows closed, which
explains why he was totally oblivious to the noise of a 757 approaching
his car at a hight of about 20 ft, but as it slammed into the wall, precipitating
an explosion and fireball, he was able to hear a collective gasp from a
nearby car. Hmm...or did they all wait until the noise had died down,
and then gasp in unison at a volume louder than a 757?
Media searches for Father John Mcgraw returned no matches. The
only matches on Yahoo were for references to Haring's article, which
is posted on behalf of the US army - an organization not noted for
critically questioning official stories.
It is beyond question that McGraw cannot possibly be giving a
truthful, accurate account of F77 hitting the Pentagon. So either the
report is fiction, or else Mcgraw witnessed proof that whatever hit
the wall was not F77. The unlikely story about hearing the collective
gasp tells me that this account should be discarded, especially as it does
not contain any redeeming qualities to offset it's retrospective nature.

"'I glanced up just at the point where the plane was going into the
building,' said Carla Thompson, who works in an Arlington, Va.,
office building about 1,000 yards from the crash. 'I saw an indentation
in the building and then it was just blown-up up-red, everything red,
' she said. 'Everybody was just starting to go crazy. I was petrified.'"
- "Terrorists Attack New York, Pentagon </gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la%2D091201main.story>
" Los Angeles Times, 12 Sep 2001

If she glanced up just at the point of collision, then she can't have seen the
object clearly enough to identify it. She say's "the plane", which is fair
enough, because you wouldn't expect anyone in this situation to think that
it was anything else. She can't possibly have actually seen a plane, but
understandably, in the light of everything else that was being said, included
this assumption in her quote. But was it a light plane, a passenger jet, a
military jet, a helicopter or a cruise missile?
It obviously wouldn't cross the mind of someone in that situation. So
what Thompson claims to have seen was an indentation and an explosion.
It's not in dispute that they occurred, but Thompson's quote is irrelevant
to the question of what caused the explosion. She does not say words
to the effect that she saw a large passenger jet fly towards the Pentagon
and collide with the wall.
I did an extensive search to see if Thompson made any other reports,
but the LA times quote was the only reference to her anywhere.

The final witness of the 19 on the Urban legends site.

"I witnessed the jet hit the Pentagon on September 11. From my
office on the 19th floor of the USA TODAY building in Arlington,
Va., I have a view of Arlington Cemetery, Crystal City, the Pentagon,
National Airport and the Potomac River. ... Shortly after watching
the second tragedy, I heard jet engines pass our building, which, being
so close to the airport is very common. But I thought the airport was
closed. I figured it was a plane coming in for landing. A few moments
later, as I was looking down at my desk, the plane caught my eye.
it didn't register at first. I thought to myself that I couldn't believe
the pilot was flying so low. Then it dawned on me what was about to
happen. I watched in horror as the plane flew at treetop level, banked
slightly to the left, drug it's wing along the ground and slammed into
the west wall of the Pentagon exploding into a giant orange fireball.
Then black smoke. Then white smoke."
- Steve Anderson </gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.jmu.edu/alumni/tragedy%5Fresponse/read%5Fmessages.html>, Director of Communications,
USA Today

Yet another "USA today" worker. I checked the reference on this one and
immediately discounted It. it's not even a media report. It's an account from
Anderson which is posted on a pro-government style website, simply entitled
"Sept 11." It's not a site dedicated to research or analysis, and questioning
of the official story would definitely not be welcome there. The posting date
was Oct 2. Another "USA today" witness not considered worthy of
interview by his own network (or any other). Anderson's story is not
published anywhere else. There are not even any second hand references
to him as being a witness. We have only this account, posted on a less
than critical medium, 3 weeks after the event. Even if this account is
truthful in it's intention, there is no doubt that if Anderson wasn't certain
what the object was at the time of sighting, he would have convinced
himself by Oct 2 that it must have been F77. This is why accounts should
really be published as soon as possible after the event, to have any credibility,
before people start to conciously or unconciously change their story in line with
what it is that they're supposed to have seen, and before the media begins to
develop preconceptions about what people could or could not have seen.
Anderson's account doesn't come anywhere near meeting verifiable standards.
Nevertheless, I can't resist pointing out the obvious impossibility in this account
even if it was admissible.I don't know exactly where the "USA today" office is,
but lets say it's 1000 yards from the Pentagon, like Carla Thompson's office.
An aircraft flying at 400 mph, will cover that distance in about 5 seconds.
Anderson said that he heard it pass over the building and initially thought
nothing of it.
So in the next 5 seconds he had time to: Think that the noise of the
unseen aircraft was a plane coming in for a landing : weigh this up
against his thought that the airport was closed : look down at his desk
for a few moments: have the plane catch his eye: look up and catch full
sight of it: have a dumbstruck moment where nothing registered: and stil
l have enough time left to meticulously observe that "the plane flew at
treetop level, banked slightly to the left, drug it's wing along the
ground and slammed into the west wall of the Pentagon." Try acting
this out and see if you have enough time left at the end to make such a
detailed observation. And if the wing dragged along the ground for 30
yards, he would have seen that for about 0.15 of a second before the
explosion.

What appeared at first reading to be 19 eyewitness accounts actually
turned to out to be none.Thompson's glimpse of what happened was
so fleeting that it would fit with almost any scenario.Timmerman asked us
to believe in apartment blocks that come and go.The Winslow report is
almost certainly a fabrication, is too enigmatic anyway, and at very best is
almost certainly 2nd hand. Sucherman didn't claim to see a collision, or
describe the plane.The Walter reports are too contradictory, and in any case,
mostly say that he didn't see the collison. The anonymous testimony of "KM"
mentions only a "plane" which could refer to any type of plane, or a cruise missile
So that testimony wouldn't contribute anything, even if it was admissible.
McGraw has all kinds of problems, both with credibilty and verification,
Anderson's is retrospective and impossible to take seriously anyway, and
Kizildrgri described nothing except a big boom. The other 10 didn't even
make it to a detailed anaysis, because they didn't even give the superficial
impression of having witnessed the collision.

What has emerged so far is a disturbing pattern of manipulative
reporting and fabrication.
What has also emerged is that a suspiciously high number of these
dubious witnesses just happen to be media figures.

I now searched for other reports which had a chance of meeting the
required standards of verification and credibility. Perhaps the "urban
legends" site simply chose an unfortunate selection of quotes, and that
there is more conclusive evidence to be found elsewhere.

This is what I could find.

The Boston Globe Sept 12
Rodney Washington, a systems engineer for a Pentagon contractor,
was stuck in stand-still traffic a few hundred yards from the Pentagon
when the American Airlines jet roared overhead from the southwest.

"It was extremely loud, as you can imagine, a plane that size, it
was deafening," Washington said.

The plane was flying low and rapidly descended, Washington said,
knocking over light poles before hitting the ground on a helicopter
pad just in front of the Pentagon and essentially bouncing into it.

It "landed there and the momentum took it into the Pentagon,"
Washington said. "There was a very, very brief delay and then it exploded."

There are some obvious signs for a report which is fabricated or embellished
beyond credibility, and this one has painted some of them in very big letters.
First, the plane. It hits the ground, but miraculously does not break up,
explode, flip over or cartwheel, but simply continues, into the wall, intact
enough to smash it's way through the wall, and then, apparently still intact
enough to see, waits a respectful moment before spontaneously exploding.
How long does it wait? 1 second? So, if it was travelling at the conservative
speed of 300mph, after it hit the ground and it landed 30 yards from the wall,
then it took approximately 0.2 of a second to reach the wall. So it endured 2
collisions in 0.2 seconds, but waited another full second to suddenly explode
after staying intact from two devestating impacts. Perhaps it exploded in a
more realistic time frame, for example 10 milliseconds after smashing through
the wall? That's more like it, except I'd like to know how the witness was
able to pick a 10 millisecond delay from "instantaneous". The entire experience,
from the time the plane hit the ground would have lasted 0.21 of a second.
Could the witness have even distinguished this from an impression that it simply
flew into the wall? Therin lies the insoluble problem of this account. If it waited
long enough before exploding, for the human eye to be able to pick up the
delay, it postulates an impossible end to an impossible crash scenario. And if it
exploded in a believable time frame - say a few milliseconds added on to a
total time of about 0.2 of a second - then how could the witness have
distinguished this from being instantaneous? The whole event would have
appeared instantaneous but is described in detailed sequence. "Oh what a
tangled web we weave..."
Now, to the question of the conditions under which the witness would have
been making this razor sharp observation. If it hit the ground, it would of
course have thrown up a huge cloud of dirt.(Unless it landed on very hard
ground, in which case we ask why it didn't beak up on impact) 0.2 of a
second later, the scene would have been further complicated by the collapsing
rubble as it smashed it's way through the wall. So even if this witness does
have the miraculous observational powers to be able to pick a sequence of
events broken down into milliseconds, all he would have seen was a cloud
of flying dirt and collapsing rubble with the briefest of a blurred glimpse of the
plane, before the explosion. But Eagle-Eye-Washington was still able to
pick out where it landed, how the momentum carried it into the building
and best of all, amongst the falling rubble and flying dirt, that after it smashed
through the wall, there was "a very,very brief delay " before it exploded.

Newsday (New York NY) Sept 11
One eyewitness, State Department employee Ken Ford, said he watched
from the 15th floor of the State Department Annex, just across the
Potomac River from the Pentagon."We were watching the airport,
through the [binoculars]," Ford said, referring to Reagan National
Airport, a short distance away. "The plane was a two-engine turbo prop
that flew up the river from National. Then it turned back toward the
Pentagon. We thought it had been waved off and then it hit the building."

It's not clear why the word "binoculars" is in brackets. I couldn't find anything
else from Ford. He's vague about the manner in which it collided with the
building, which probably increases the credibility of his account. In real life,
most people who witness shocking, unexpected events which happen very
quickly, don't take in a lot of fine detail. It's when people report meticulously
detailed observations in these situations that suspicions of fabrication or
embellishment are aroused. If he was watching from across the river (east)
then he couldn't have directly seen an impact on the western wall, although
it's feasible that he could have seen it's approach until milliseconds before
impact, and then seen some of the explosion rising above the buiding.
This one (just) meets accepted standards, but directly contradicts the
official story anyway. We need more information about how and when it
was sourced.

Agence France Presse Sept 11

"I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and
low." said Army captain Lincoln Liebner. "My first thought was,
I've never seen one flying at that hight",he said. "Before it hit,I
realized what was happening".

At first glance, this seems like a fairly straightforward eyewitness quote
that Captain Liebner really is claiming first hand to have clearly seen an
American Airlines jet "hit".(Presumably the Pentagon)
Unfortunately, more detailed research exposed it as a fabrication. Here's
how. A search turned up 14 such matches for Agence France in
combination with Leibner, many of them on Sept 11, and some on Sept
12. They are all, almost exactly the same story, but there are minor variations,
as the report was modified slightly over the 14 different airings given to
the story over the two days.Unfortunately, exact times are not given for
the reports, but we know which of the 14 matches was the earliest,
because the search always lists the results by the most recent document first.
All of the Sept 12 versions of this report gave Liebner's quote, as above.
So did the later reports of Sept 11. But the story in the first three reports
was quite different, as far as Leibner is concerned. Here's the first report.

At a media briefing, Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clark told the
story of Capt. Lincoln Liebner, who was outside the Pentagon when
the blast took place. He rushed into the building to help. His hands
were burned, and after he was taken away to a hospital for treatment,
he returned later in the day to do more.

No quote from Leibner, and not even a second hand reference to any
kind of plane, let alone an "American airlines passenger jet." In fact the
incident is described as a "blast".

Here's the second report.

Army Captain Lincoln Liebner, who witnessed the blast, entered the
damaged building and pulled colleagues from the fire, according to
Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke. His hands badly burnt by the
flames, Liebner refused to leave the scene and seek treatment.

"They forced him to go to the hospital," Clarke said. "He came back
and he's in the building and he is working."

The third report

Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clark related the example of Army
Capt. Lincoln Liebner who saw the aircraft hit and rushed into the
burning building to help. He later was taken to a nearby hospital
to have his hands treated for burns, but then returned to the
Pentagon, Clark said.

Still no direct quote from Leibener but what he's alleged to have
witnessed has suddenly changed from a "blast" to "saw the aircraft hit."

And in the fourth report, it becames the direct quote from Leibner,
and remains so for the other 10 reports.The reference to Clarke disappears.
Did the media get an opportunity to interview Leibner, between the third
and fourth reports? There's no evidence for this.

"He came back and he's in the building and he is working." Does
this sound like an invitation to interview him?

So I found the original transcript of Clarke's media briefing.

Federal news Service Sept 11 2001.
And I'd just like to say one more thing. The response from the
military has been phenomenal. The response from the search
and rescue people has been incredible, and the people in the
community. And I'll just give you one example. There is a young man,
Captain Lincoln Liebner --

Q Spell it.

MS. CLARKE: -- L-i-e-b-n-e-r -- who was on the west side of the
building when it was hit. He saw what happened. He immediately
went in to try to help some of the injured, and helped pull them
out. His hands were burned. He went to the hospital to be taken
care of. They forced him to go to the hospital. He came back and
he's in the building and he is working. And that's just one --

Q Army?

MS. CLARKE: Army.

Q That is just one example of the kind of response we've seen
to this tragedy. And with that, I'd like to turn it over --

Q Torie, just -- excuse me.

There was no further reference to Leibner in the media briefing. So
the overwhelming evidence is that no such direct account ever came
from Leibner. He may or may not have said such a thing to someone
in the department, he may or may not exist. And notice that Clarke made
no mention of either a "blast" or an aircraft, using the ambiguous
word "hit". And she simply describes Leibner as having seen "what happened."
The first two media reports wrote in a reference to a "blast" with no
indication where this came from.
This strongly indicates that at the time of the first two reports, the
general word that was going around was that it had been a bomb.
Suddenly, this was corrected to be a plane, and just to re-inforce the
point, a quote and a witness was invented. So the second hand story
of the man who had witnessed the "blast", something which implies
contradiction of the official story, became mythologised as the man
who's eyewitness account corroborates the official story.
Not only were the Leibner references twisted, but so were Clarke's.
Notice that in the media briefing, Clarke was ambiguous about what
the incident actually was. Her only two references were "hit", which
could mean almost anything and "what happened." As if Clarke herself
was not yet aware of what the official story was concerning the incident.
Agence France twice paraphrased her as referring to a "blast", a word
she never used. In the third report this was sharply corrected, in that Clarke
was said to claimed that Leibner "saw the aircraft hit ", also a clear
misrepresentation of what went on at the breifing, but a very decisive
shift in direction. The fact that in the fourth report, the almost certainly
fabricated Leibner account then completely replaced any reference to
the original briefing strongly indicates that Agence France went into
damage control mode to make sure that the first two reports were
completely buried by the strongest possible confirmation that could be
manufactured that it had been an American Airlines jet.

The Daily Record Sept 12
Record reporter Anna Adams was in Washington yesterday when
the plane hit the Pentagon.

She said: "Nothing prepared me for what I saw this morning.

"As I took a walk through American history, in the seat of government
of the most powerful nation on earth, the vulnerability of the nation
was laid before my astonished eyes.

"I was just five blocks away as Armageddon came to America.

"A passenger jet screamed into the Pentagon and was followed by
a ball of fire which erupted skywards. A thick pall of smoke quickly
covered the area.

"The ear-splitting explosions ripped through the area, the smell
of burning filled the air, panic spread throughout the streets.

"People ran in all directions - they didn't know where or why.

"I was among them - out of breath and out of my mind - I walked
in circles.

"At first, no one knew or could believe what they had actually seen,
what had happened.

"We thought we did but it was impossible to take in.

"Although I was only a few hundred yards away, I had to return
to my nearby hotel and turn on the TV in my room to find out the enormity of the calamity.

"Then I went back on the streets. The mayhem was growing by
the minute.

She was five blocks away. She could not have seen the impact directly,
unless she was in a significantly elevated area. Perhaps she was, but she
doesn't say this. Did she actually see a passenger jet hit the Pentagon?
On close reading she doesn't say anything about seeing anything except
general mayhem and panic.The description of the plane hitting the Pentagon
is certainly not an eyewitness account, but a rather poetically written summary
of the event which Adams assumes to have taken place.

And she admits that she didn't even go to the scene, to check anything directly.

"Although I was only a few hundred yards away, I had to return to my
nearby hotel and turn on the TV in my room to find out the enormity
of the calamity."

Why? Were reporters barred from getting close enough to see what
was really happening? If so, why? If she could only find out "the enormity
of the calamity" by watching TV, then it's certain that she did not witness
with her own eyes, a passenger jet fly into the wall of the building.

An exhaustive search revealed no other matches for Anna Adams.

The Sydney Morning Herald Sept 12 reported that

A woman eyewitness told CNN of the plane crashing into the
Pentagon: "A commercial plane came in. It was coming too fast,
too low and then I saw the fire that came up after that.''

So where did the SMH pick this quote up from? Directly from CNN?
It doesn't seem so. It's lifted directly from a story by the press association
dated Sept 11. How directly? This is the press association report.

A woman eyewitness told CNN of the plane crashing into the Pentagon:
"A commercial plane came in. It was coming too fast, too low
and then I saw the fire that came up after that.''

This was also picked up word for word on Sept 12 by the Grimsby Evening
Telegraph. I wonder if they copied it from SMH ? The appropriately named
"Liverpool echo" also published the anonymous quote on Sept 12, but
dropped the reference to CNN.

I couldn't find a transcript for it, but I did find the CNN audio at
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/day.video.09.html

The quote is accurate in essence, although the wording has been changed.
But she didn't say anything about seeing a plane crash into the pentagon.
She says saw a saw a commercial plane (Size and type unspecified)
coming in too fast and too low - and then the fire.
Check the audio for yourself.

St Louis Post- Dispatch Sept 13. quoted Mike Dobbs as saying

"We were looking out the window, and we saw a plane coming toward
us, for about 10 seconds," he said. "It was like watching a train wreck.
I was mesmerized. It took me a couple of seconds to understand what
we were seeing, and to process it.

"At first I thought it was trying to crash land, but it was coming in
so deliberately, so level, that I realized this is probably part of what
had happened in New York -- part of a coordinated attack.

"It hit, but by that time we had started running. Everyone said
there was a deafening explosion, but with the adrenaline, we
didn't hear it."

It's not clear whether the St Louis Post- Dispatch conducted it's own
interview with Dobbs, or whether it copied and embellished it from
"The Plain Dealer" which quoted Dobbs, thus on Sept 12.

"I saw it come right over the Navy annex at a slow angle,"
he told Scripps Howard News Service. "It seemed to be almost
coming in slow motion. I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it, and
then we all started running."

The quotes are different enough that it's possible that it could be the same
man relating the same experience in two different interviews. Except that
my search showed that Dobbs did not say what the "The "Plain Dealer"
attributed to him. To the "Plain Dealers" credit, it has at least told us where
it sourced and embellished the quote from. So here is how Mike Dobbs
was actually quoted by the Scripps Howard news service, on Sept 11.

"It seemed to be almost coming in in slow motion," he said later.
"I didn't actually feel it hit, but I saw it and then we all started running.
They evacuated everybody around us."

This is certainly not a clear description of seeing a large passenger jet actually
hit the Pentagon. But, in the case of the "Plain Dealer" it is a clear description
of the media policy of never letting accuracy get in the way of a juicy quote.

The missing peice of information here, is whether the St Louis Post -Dispatch
conducted a fresh interview with Dobbs for Sept 13, or whether it further
embellished the Plain Dealer embellishment. Either way, by Sept 13 the Dobbs
story had grown considerably from it's humble beginnings on Sept 11. It's
understandable that if Dobbs did give a fresh interview, that he may have been
more coherent on Sept 12 than he was on Sept 11. (presumably he would have
had to have given the St Louis interview, if it took place, on Sept 12) The Sept
11 quote tells us almost nothing. The Sept 13 quote is a little more explicit.
at at least mentions a plane, but gives no other clues. If the Sept 13 quote is
genuime, a closer examination shows that it only further confuses the question.
What kind of plane was it? Was it actually the plane that Dobbs saw, that
caused the explosion, or did it veer away at the last moment and something
else cause the explosion? The Sept 13 quote says that he was running away
by the time it hit, so he certainly couldn't have seen anything that might answer
this question. Perhaps common sense tells us that it must have been. The
problem is that he also says that he didn't hear the explosion.This is puzzling
because he also mentions nothing about feeling it. If he didn't see it, didn't
hear it and didn't feel it, how does he know that it hit ? And in combination
with the Sept 11 report he completes the trifecta by specifically stating that
he didn't feel it either. In The Sept 11 report, he says he saw it, and then started
running, but it's not clear whether this means that he didn't start running until
after it hit, or whether he started running after he saw it coming towards the
building. This is very confusing, which is not to impugn Dobbs. It's easy to
sympathise with the difficulty of being clear about such an experience, but
that doesn't change the fact that this is not an eyewitness report of a large
jet hitting the pentagon. A crash of an unspecified kind of plane, that the
witness didn't feel, didn't hear, and (perhaps) didn't see.

No other matches were found for Mike Dobbs.

The Express Sept 12
Sarah Newsome saw the plane crash into the Pentagon as she was
on her way to work.

"I couldn't believe my eyes - this jet appeared to be heading straight
for the building.

"As it headed towards it the plane began to accelerate and I was
thinking 'This can't really be happening - I can't be seeing this'.

"It plunged into the side in a ball of orange and yellow flame and
there was a massive explosion and the sound of crumbling brick and metal.

For this report, we do at least have the names of the writers, but the quote
is unsourced, in the sense of who interviewed Newsome and when and
where, and is not repeated by any other media. There are no other reports
of any kind that refer to Sarah Newsome as a witness. It (just) meets
acceptable standards of verification and clarity to warrant further investigation.
Note that while she explicitly says that a jet hit the side of the Pentagon, she
does not say whether it was large or small, civillian or military, and does not
say how long she had to identify it. I have a question about how somebody
can tell that a plane has accelerated. If it's traveliing at 400 mph, and you see
it travel 1/2 mile, and it accelerates to 500 mph in the last 250 yards, then
the witness will see it travel at 400mph for about 3 seconds, increasing to
500mph over the last second. Is this discernable? Probably not, but there
is a good explanation as to why a witness might truthfully describe a genuine
impression of seeing a plane accelerating. If the witness has seen it
approaching for a considerable distance, then the changing perspective might
make it appear to be travelling faster as it came closer. A witness who
reports an acceleration in this context is likely to be telling the truth. But
a witness who sees it come unexpectedy out of nowhere for only a few
hundred yards of viewing (less than 2 seconds) and claims that it accelerated
in the last 100 yards before impact is likely to be either embellishing or
fabricating. Since Newsome doesn't mention how long she saw it for,
there is no indication either way.
This certainly qualifies as an eyewitness account, although the strength of
the verification leaves much to be desired. It does not provide any evidence
for F77 hitting the Pentagon. She could just as easily have been describing
a 757, a DC10, an F16 or a cruise missile.

Chistopher Munsey wrote this first hand account of what he claims to
have personally witnessed. The Navy Times Sept 11.
http://www.navytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-467181.php

A silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly
over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon, just
hundreds of yards away...
The plane, with red and blue markings, hurtled by and within moments
exploded in a ground-shaking “whoomp,” as it appeared to hit the side
of the Pentagon.

Does this have the style of an account being written by an eyewitness? I
don't think so. It's too poetic and detatched. This posting date of this is
acceptably early, although we don't know the time of posting. In this case,
that's an important factor, because bearing in mind that it's a military
publication, it's relevant to ask how well established the official story
was by the time he wrote it. The lesson of the Leibner account is that
such questions are legitimate. So did Munsey really see this, or is he
simply writing the military spin? We can't know for sure, but the fact
that no other matches turned up for Munsey does not help his cause.
What also doesn't help is an article at

http://www.multipull.com/twacasefile/may.html

It concerns the issue of TWA 800, another plane disaster which has
aroused some highly controversial suspicions of government and military
evil against it's own citizens. Not having researched TWA 800, I
won't offer an opinion, but simply observe that there are allegations of
govt. wrongdoing in relation to it.
The article, highly technical in nature,and very even and factual in it's tone
accuses Munsey of writing misleading spin (not it's actual words) in an
article he wrote in July 1996, in relation to the evidence surrounding TWA
800. Unfortunately it does not cite an author's name.

It's from the website of TWA 800 case files, which introduces itself thus
at it's homepage http://www.multipull.com/twacasefile/bf.html

TWA 800 Case Files came into existence in January, 1997. Its
intention then was and now is to critically examine the quality of
information made available to the public concerning TWA Flight
800, and to serve as a collection and access point for media artifacts
of the disaster.
TWA 800 Case Files is not the representative of a particular organization.
Articles represent the point of view of their authors alone, and are
presented in an attempt to increase the resolution of what is and what
is not factually known about TWA Flight 800.

And another article by Munsey at

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/2001/Feb/15/215localnews16.html

puts the navy's case on yet another contentious military issue, the collsion
between the US submarine and the the Japanese Boat, which resulted in
the deaths of Japanese civilians.Given that he writes for the Navy times,
it's not suspicious in itself that Musey should be writing on these issues,
and hardly surprising that he should be putting the official point of view,
but it is a little much to swallow that he just happens to be the only person
we can find who clearly and unambiguosly saw an American Airlines passenger
jet in full flight, and then saw it crash into the side of the building, especially
considering the romantic, detatched style of the account. If other independent
witnesses eventuate which strongly corroborate Munsey, then this may need
to be reviewed, but for now, caution should be exercised about the credibility
of this account.I do also have a big problem with the idea that a 757, just a
few hundred yards away would be described as "gliding almost noiselessly"
as it" hurtled by".

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/11_APdc.html
I saw a big jet flying close to the building coming at full speed. There
was a big noise when it hit the building,'' said Oscar Martinez, who
witnessed the attack.

This is from Ron Fournier of the AP, in the the same article as the infamous
Dave Winslow account. Since I found no other references to Martinez's
alleged account, and extensive searches turned up no verification, or any
other reference to Martinez, I'm not to prepared to consider a completely
uncorroborated account from an article which has already so spectacularly
impugned it's own credibility.

http://www.dcmilitary.com/marines/hendersonhall/6_39/local_news/10797-1.html

Defense Protective Service officers were the first on the scene of the
terrorist attack. One, Mark Bright, actually saw the plane hit the
building. He had been manning the guard booth at the Mall Entrance
to the building.
"I saw the plane at the Navy Annex area," he said. "I knew it was going
to strike the building because it was very, very low -- at the height of the
street lights. It knocked a couple down." The plane would have been
seconds from impact -- the annex is only a few hundred yards from the
Pentagon.
He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the
Pentagon. "As soon as it struck the building I just called in an
attack, because I knew it couldn't be accidental," Bright said. He
jumped into his police cruiser and headed to the area.

According to calculations deduced from maps, relating to the Timmerman
account, the Navy Annex is about 400 -500 yards from the pentagon. I'm
well aware that the method of this calculation was crude but it gives us a
general idea. The description here indicates that it may be a closer. This
article agees that the plane was only seconds from impact. If we assume
500 yards, then it was about 2 1/2 seconds away. So would this really
have been discernable?

He said he heard the plane "power-up" just before it struck the Pentagon.

We can only assume that he had a maximum of 1 second to pick the
difference in the sound, before this was erased by the sound of the explosion,
and the visual shock. I concede that as a military officer, who is always
working near the sound of planes, that he would have a better chance
of noticing these things than the average person. But I still have a big
question mark over whether such a precise dissection really would
have been possible, in the context of a total experince which lasted 2 1/2
seconds maximum, followed by such a shocking and dramatic aftermath.
It doesn't help that the account was posted on Sept 24 or 28, depending
on which date you believe on the page.Too late to have credibility unless
other redeeming features emerge.It hasn't demonstrated any and it just
happens to be from a military publication. The article is entitled
"The Pentagon's first heroes in a day of heroes."
and opens with this.

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Sept. 24, 2001) -- What sort of person
hears an explosion -- and runs toward it?
Ask the people alive today because some Defense Protective Service
officers did exactly that after the hijacked jetliner hit the Pentagon
Sept. 11.
This is not to deny that many people acted heroically during this event.
But it's clear that the focus of this article is to not present objective, critical
analysis of what happened, but to present patriotic spin. Combined with
the late posting, it doesn't meet verifiable standards to the degree which
justifies uncritical acceptance of the doubtful statement above.Anyway, it
gives no indication of what sort of plane it was.


This is the last account I found that offered any hope of a clear witness

“The plane approached from my left and struck the building in
front of me to my right. It was a large American Airlines jetliner
with turbine engines on the wings.”
<http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0203/S00134.htm>
This doesn't come from a major mainstream media outlet but from a
website named Scoop.The quote is attributed to Steve Riskus who
also supplied some photos which he said were taken immediately after
the crash. At it's homepage <http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/about/>
Scoop describes itself thus.

Scoop is a Wellington based Internet news agency accredited
to the New Zealand Parliament Press Gallery. (A Yahoo search
confirmed this as correct) It specialises in providing news and
commentary **raw and fast** and is made up largely of what
Scoop likes to call "disintermediated" news - that is news without
a spin put on it by a journalist.

What I am interested in here is how the quote was sourced. Scoop
is based in New Zealand, so the witness Steve Riskus has obviously
submitted his information by email. Or did he? The page which posts
his account quote goes on to say.

Asked if he finds the controversy over the crash annoying Steve
replied, “sure.... I do find the controversy annoying... especially
when people ask me questions when they have no intention of
changing there opinion that no plane crashed... but alas... there
is no controversy for me.”

This takes on the appearance of some kind of interview. But Scoop
does not tell us whether this exchange took place by email or voice.
It also doesn't ask any important questions. Exactly where did the
plane come in, with reference to what's in the photos, and where he
was at the time of the impact? This is important because the Riskus
account is dated March 19 2002 - way too late to be worth anything
at all, if it were not for the fact that he also provided photos.
So I went searching for other references to Riskus to see if there was
anything else which might better authenticate his account. I found nothing
except the same account with minor variations and the photos posted on
other web sites. He claims that the photos were taken immediately after
the crash On one site he says less than a minute and on another site he says
"seconds".
The photos are therefore the key to determining whether this highly
restrospective account can provide any evidence that a large passenger
jet crashed into the Pentagon. Lets have a look at them.

It's difficult to say whether there is a traffic jam here. It looks to me to
be consistent with a scenario of light traffic,with the small amount of
congestion near the Pentagon being caused by people having stopped and
got out to look. But we don't see a large police presence there to try to
sort out the potential chaos. This supports the claim by Riskus that the
photos are taken fairly soon after the incident. But his descriptions of one
minute and "seconds" may be exaggerations, because we can see that a
police car has already had time to find a way around the barriers and park
off the road and the officer is out and appears to be walking towards the
fire.So it look's as if it is soon after the incident and perhaps the first photo
may have been taken within a minute, but it doesn't look like they were
taken in rapid succession.
I wasn't able to make a confident assessment of whether there's a jam,
or whether it's just that people have stopped to get out and have a look.
That would appear to be irrelevant now since all of the accounts allegedly
involving a traffic jam have now been discredited. Nevertheless, you never
know what else might turn up, so it's always worth noting these details.
Most of the photos give the definite impression of light traffic, but there
was one which made me not so sure.

We have a witness who can demonstrate that he was there at least
reasonably soon after it happened, and clearly claims to have seen an
AA jetliner fly into the Pentagon.The problem is in it's very late lodgement,
(more than 6 months! ) the lack of any critical questioning, the scant details
in the account apart from the identifiaction of the plane, and the possible
exaggeration that it was taken within a few moments of the crash. The
photos are the only redeeming factor which makes this account worthy
of further inquiry.
The cruical problem is whether Riskus's claim that it was an AA jetliner
has been made retrospectively, in the light of more than 6 months of the
official story, or whether he has claimed this from the beginning.We don't
know. Riskus also posted the photos at

http://criticalthrash.com/terror/crashthumbnails.html with the following
message

I took these photos less than 1 minutes after I watched the american
airlines 757 airplane crash into the pentagon on Sept 11 2001. I
left shortly after the picture were taken in fear of further attacks.

The message is not dated. But he is even more specific about the plane.
An AA 757. Since we don't know the date, it brings us no closer to being
able to determine whether Riskus is making this identification retrospectively.
But it does reveal that the communication between Scoop and Riskus
was done by email, not voice, because the distinctive spelling/language
in both postings indicates that both the Scoop comment and the
critical thrash comment were typed by the same person.

At http://www.artbell.com/letters21.html one of the Riskus photos is
posted with this caption

Steve Riskus sends us: I saw the plane crash into the pentagon
about 100 ft in front of me. Debri landed on my car.

It's undated. And with that message the Riskus account unravels.
How long could Riskus have seen the object for? As in the case of
Sucherman, at that range from inside a car, probably a maximum of
1 second. It's questionable whether even an aviation expert would be
able to so accurately identify a craft down to the exact model of jet
and the type of engines in that amount of time, especially under such
shocking, difficult and unexpected circumstances, amongst the deafening
and frightening noise. (which he doesn't mention) - and just for good
measure, while was trying to drive a car. And if Riskus has any specialised
knowledge of planes, he hasn't mentioned it, which would seem curious
given the nature of the debate.
But the deciding factor is the claim that debris landed on his car.
If he was driving at the time, and he took the photos within less than 1 minute
of the crash, then he must have taken them from virtually the same spot that he
stopped his car, which allegedly had been hit by debris. So have a good look
the Riskus photos, and in particular at the other cars which are close to where
the photo was taken, and therefore close to his car. Do you see any sign that
debris has hit any of the other cars? Do you see any debris on the road? Do
you see any debris on the lawn between the Pentagon and the road? In all of
the photos, in combination, do you see any debris which has been flung out
anything like that kind of distance? So we're asked to believe that completely
contrary to the rest of the of the debris pattern, Riskus's car was hit, when
there is no sign of even a scrap of any other debris within at least 50 yards.
He also didn't take any photos of the damage to his car, or of the debris which
must have been sitting either on his car or on the road, right next to him. One
would think this had to be a photo well worth taking. So he had the presence
of mind in a stressful situation, to note exactly what model of plane it was, with
probably 1 second to see it, and the presence of mind to immediately start taking
photos, but not the presence of mind to photograph the miraculously unique
peice(s) of the plane, the only debris to have been flung that far out, which
just happened to hit his car and nobody elses, and presumably must have
damaged it. This account is so retrospective and poorly verified that the
only reason for considering it at all was the photos, and the photos do not
support the account.

In many hours of painstaking analysis of every search parameter I could think
of that offered any hope of finding eyewtiness accounts of the collision, this
was all I could find. The tools used were LexisNexis and Yahoo. Of course,
I can't guarentee that nothing slipped through the net, but the search was
exhaustive and meticulous. It's unlikely that anything significant was missed.

My conclusion is that there is noeyewitness evidence to support the theory
that F77 hit thePentagon, unless my search has missed something very significant.
Given the strength of the photographic evidence that whatever hit the
Pentagon could not possibly have been F77, I can see no reason
for not stating this conclusion with a lot of confidence, unless and until
contrary evidence emerges.

So how and why was such a strong superficial impression generated that
the media was brimming with eyewitness reports? Basically, smoke and
mirrors. When you look at the total number of potential witnesses turned
up by this search, if you count only those which appeared superficially
to provide a clear eyewitness to the collision, there were only 18 and
one of these contradicted the official story.

Earlier, after dealing with the 8 witnesses which made it to the final
cut, on the Urban legends site, I noted that a suspiciously high number
of them were media workers.
After anaysis of all 18 reports, we find military personel even more
heavily represented. It's not surprising that there should be some, since
the incident took place an area with a high population of military personel,
but 8 of 18 is a very high proportion, especially when you add to it 5
from the media. Of the 5 remaining, there is no guarentee that some of
them might not also have been military. Timmerman was the only one
who gave an occupation, and being a pilot does not preclude the
possibility that he was military. It's clear that the govt and the military
have performed a brilliant feat of illusion here. But what of the media?
Were they in on it as well?

It's not neccesary to allege that the media were part of a malicious
conspiracy to fabricate the story. Some of the bogus reports can be
easily explained by the media's normal practice of bending the truth
a little in order to be able to present a good story, quickly enough to
keep up with their competitors. Combined with the desire not to upset
authorities at a time of patriotic shock and grieving, with talk of retaliatory
war already in the air, this would have made a strong incentive for the
media to publish any eyewitness they thought they could conjure,
regardless of accuracy or journalistic integrity.
All that would have been needed was for the administration to plant
a little well placed hearsay, and let the media do the rest in the inevitable
scramble to have the best and quickest story. The rationale of the media,
while not excusable, is easy to understand. In the frenzied period just after
the attacks, the word comes in to the office that the explosion at the
Pentagon was caused by a suicide plunge from a large passenger jet.
This would seem to make sense, given what had just happened in New
York. And the general frenzy and shock of the morning would not have
facilitated clear thinking, and there was the added confusion of the bogus
bomb report at the State Department.
Any story like this needs to have an eyewitness quote to fit the standard
media formula for an attractive report. So the desperate scramble would
have been on to find any eyewitness they could, as quickly as possible.Third
hand hearsay would probably have been good enough for most editors or
journalists in this situation. And they could easily rationalise the placement
of bogus quotation marks with the reasoning that "well I know that's basically
what she said, because so and so told me, and I haven't got time to track
her down before the deadline". Some would not have been above completly
fabricating a witness, with the rationalisation "well, I know that's what
happened, and I know plenty of people saw it, and I've got a deadline to
meet".
To provide an eyewitness account of my own, in my former capacity
as a media spokesperson for the Campaign to Save Native Forests, in
Western Australia, I was once falsely quoted in a similar context in Perth's
"Daily News". I was directly quoted as saying things which I had never
even implied informally, off the record. The journalist wanted a juicy story,
had a deadline to meet, and fabricated the entire interview. The first I
knew of it was when I read it in the paper. And I have no way to prove
that that's what happened.
So it's easy to explain how what appeared superficially to be dozens,
perhaps hundreds of eyewitness accounts has turned out after close
analysis to be nothing.
The fact such dishonest methods were needed in order to provide
eyewitness accounts for something which if it took place, could conceivably
have been clearly witnessed by dozens, maybe hundreds of people, is
itself evidence that the event simply didn't take place.

At this stage it's relevant to examine the alleged witnesses collectively.
Having established a fairly clear layout of the geography surrounding
the event we are now in a position to intelligently speculate on the following
question. If the event actually did take place, what would witnesses be likely
to have seen from the various vantage points around the Pentagon?
The locations come into four main categories. The arterial roads running
around the Pentagon's western perimiter, the cemetary, The Sheraton
Hotel, and the high rise area of Arlington.
From the nearby roads, mororists would have most likely have had a clear
view of the collision, but not enough time to make any accurate
identification of the plane, although it's possible that some might have
been able to suggest that it was probably a big plane. Cylclists or
pedestrians would have had a better chance of seeing the plane for longer,
and therefore an increased chance of being able to identify it, although this
probablity would still be best described as marginal. People in the southern
part cemetary would have experienced a plane fly over, frighteningly low.
They may have had a better chance of identifying it as a large plane, but
those on the east side would have had a marginal chance of seeing the collision.
People in tall buildings- the Sheraton or other high rise in Arlington would have
had the best chance of seeing both the collision and seeing the plane for long
enough to identify it, at least as a big plane. An examination of this shows us
that the collective pattern of evidence which we might expect is completely
absent. Timmerman said it flew right past the Sheraton, but there are no
witnesses from there. Was it empty at the time? My extensive searches
did not turn up a single reference to anyone from the Sheraton Hotel. A
qualification here. I was specifically searching for people who witnessed
a direct collision. This search of course accidently turned up other
eyewitnesses who " almost saw it", but I did not make an in depth examination
of these. So although my search did not turn up any reference to Sheraton
witnesses, I can not at this stage categorically rule out the possibility that
some "near miss witnesses" could turn up with search parameters specifically
tailored to look for this kind of witness. But I can say that my extensive
searches on the subject did not reveal a single witness in either category
from the Sheraton Hotel. The same goes for people in the cemetary.Was
there no-one in the southern section at the time? McGraw says he was
driving to a graveside service at the time. Given that he was almost there,
and had taken a wrong turn, it's reasonable to assume that it was close to
starting time and therefore a considerable number of people were already
gathered in one place in the cemetary. But there is no report of any such
group having collectively witnessed such an event. If this service was in the
north-eastern corner, then their experience would have been less dramatic.
Nevertheless they still would have heard the plane and seen it, and heard
the explosion, and perhaps seen the fire.So would have anybody who was
in the cemetary, but I didn't find a single witness from this area. This doesn't
prove that nothing happened. And it doesn't prove that nobody saw or heard
anything from the cemetary or the Sheraton. What it proves it that the media
were negligent in their duty to think about the incident and creatively seek out
important and reliable witnesses. It shows it that the reports are highly selective.
People in the Sheraton and in the cemetary would have seen something,
but nobody has asked them. Which brings me to another point. Many of
these witnesses were in a collective situation according to their reports,
but were curiously reported in a manner strongly reminiscent of a solo
experience. There were a number who said they were stuck in traffic,
but we don't have any collective sightings from people who all saw it
together while stuck in traffic.Others saw it from offices in Arlington
with no reference to any co-workers. There are no reports of collective
sightings of workers. (To be exact, I do remember one in this style, which
I discarded because nobody saw the collision.)
What about the taxi-driver who was injured by a pole which was knocked
down, according the McGraw account? The media love this kind of interview.
What about a group of motorists who were all sitting in the trafffic jam next to
each other, all relating what they saw in excited tones? The media love that sort
of thing of too. What about people who were narrowly missed by falling poles?
The media loves that kind of interview. All of these tell tale signs of a normal
reporting pattern are missing. The whole thing is very manufactured. Compare
it with the live interviews and accounts of the WTC disaster. The press was
right on the spot. There were lots of live accounts, and as always happenes
in such a situation, most of them were not very factual. Hysterical, crying, shocked
people were blurting out their experience in a highly emotional way. We saw
none of that with the Pentagon event. The reports are in general detatched
and factual like a retrospective witness statement to a police inquiry. 4 of the 18
are too late to have credibility. The collective impression of the eyewitness
reports at the Pentagon is one of a scripted event.

When I began this research, I was genuinely open minded. I wanted to
solve the problem of the contradiction between the witness evidence and
the photographic evidence.I was determined that if the eyewitness eveidence
was there, to find it and authenticate it. If it was fraudulent, to discover it
and expose it. My search led me convincingly to the latter path. I am now
convinced that F77 did not hit the Pentagon wall. If it was hit by a flying
object, which seems to be the case, it was hit by a missile or a small plane,
perhaps a drone military jet.
I anticipate the next question. "So what happened to the large passenger
jet that everyone was seeing in the area at the time? Did it just vanish? "
The question is pre-empting futher research which needs to be done. Was
there a a large passenger jet seen in the area at the time ? A superficial reading
of media reports would seem to suggest so. But then again, a superficial
reading of media reports seemed to suggest that there were eyewitnesses
to F77 hitting the Pentagon.Under close examination, these evaporated
I won't pre-empt the result of future research into the question of whether
there were significant eywitness reports of a large passenger jet in the area
at the time. If it turns out that there is such evidence, that will create a new
mystery to be unravelled. But it needs to be acknowledged that claims of
mass sightings of a large passenger jet close to the event, have as far as I
am aware, not yet been subject to meticulous scrutiny of the type presented
here, and until such time as they are, any statements about them should be
tentative.
The other question which now needs to be adressed is "what happened to
F77" ? At this stage, I have no idea. But I am now convinced that it didn't
hit the Pentagon.