Recent Pentagon 9/11 Footage Shows Plane Emerge From Cloud of Smoke
July 18, 2008 "Shot from my car while driving north on I-395, September 11, 2001. I gave this footage to ABC News in DC later on that day, but I don't believe they ever aired it. I just found the tape on which I had the original copy, and thought it was worth adding to the history of the day." (posted on YouTube by x2501x)
July 20, 2008 "This is a closeup of the plane that appears in the other video I posted, from about 1:48 to 2:14." (posted on YouTube by x2501x)
Frequently Asked Questions About 9/11
by Ken Jenkins
What follows are concise answers to the most frequently asked questions and objections related to the 9/11 Truth message.
1. "9/11 is ancient history -- it's time to move on."
Our entire world took a radical and dark turn as a direct result of 9/11. As things stand, the phony "war on terror" will continue to last "for a lifetime" as we were promised, wasting resources -- human, natural and economic -- while justifying empire, repressive police state policies, and keeping people afraid. The Obama administration is shifting the "war on terror" from Iraq back to Afghanistan, and is also now bombing Pakistan. Only 9/11 Truth can reverse this trend of endless war.
2. "Yes, but Bush & Company have left office. Not much we can do, is there?"
9/11 Truth has less to do with the perpetrators than with a corrupt set of systems, which allow psychopaths like Cheney and the neocons to pull off a scam like 9/11. The problems are far more deep and profound than a few bad actors.
3. "How could the whole of the mainstream media be complicit?"
A few gatekeepers at the top control the corporate media. Consider this quote from former CIA Director William Colby: "The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) owns everyone of any significance in the major media." Google "Operation Mockingbird" to learn some of the history of the controlled corporate media. Mockingbird was a secret CIA campaign to influence domestic and foreign media in the 1950s, made public in 1975 during the Church committee investigation. Soon after Mockingbird was implemented, it was assessed to be a 'spectacular success.'
4. How could such a large conspiracy be kept secret for so long? It must have involved thousands of people?
The conspiracy was not all that large. Most likely, only a few dozen people were central to the plot. Others involved were compartmentalized dupes who were not in on the planning. Also, our government has kept many far bigger major operations secret for many years, such as the Manhattan Project (1939-1946.) That Top Secret program was designed to develop the first atomic weapon before the Nazis did during WWII and employed 130,000 people.
5. "What about the guys who you claim 'wired' the buildings? Wouldn't they have spoken up by now?"
They are guilty of being part of a mass murder and would likely get the death penalty. They were likely well paid and now living in luxury, most likely outside this country. What would be their incentive for speaking up? If they did so, they'd be instantly silenced by the others.
6. "What happened to all the passengers?"
They died. That part of the official conspiracy theory is true.
7. "So, if you don't believe the official story, what really happened then?"
All we know for certain is that the official story cannot be true. We don't know all the details of what happened. That's why we want a real investigation -- with subpoena powers -- to find out what really did occur.
8. "Not even the Bush administration would do something so evil."
These are the same guys responsible for over a million deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan, plus hundreds of deaths of first responders at Ground Zero. A few thousand more mean little to such psychopaths.
9. "The Bush administration was too incompetent to pull off such a complex plan."
The Bush administration only ordered the operation; it was designed and implemented by professionals behind the scenes. Plus, these are the same people who pulled off the major scam of taking us to war with Iraq based on lies, with help from the complicit corporate media. They avoided impeachment for over 50 impeachable offenses. They stole two elections. This is hardly incompetence.
10. "But isn't terrorism a real threat?"
The answer to this is best described by former British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook: "The truth is, there is no Islamic army or terrorist group called al Qaeda. And any informed intelligence officer knows this. But there is a propaganda campaign to make the public believe in the presence of an identified entity representing the 'devil' only in order to drive the TV watcher to accept a unified international leadership for a war against terrorism. The country behind this propaganda is the US ..."
11. "Didn't Osama bin Laden confess to doing 9/11?"
No. Right after 9/11 he denied any involvement, and later repeated this message. The one alleged confession video has been shown to be a fake, with an imposter, a look-alike playing bin Laden. Also, bin Laden is not even wanted by the FBI for 9/11, due to "a lack of evidence", according to FBI spokesperson, Rex Tomb.
12. "This sounds like just a conspiracy theory to me."
The official story is a conspiracy theory. It's by definition a conspiracy because more than one person was involved in planning a crime. And the official story is just a theory because it has never been proven, in a court of law or anywhere else.
13. "Didn't the 9/11 Commission prove the case?"
No, not at all, it didn't even attempt to. The 9/11 Commission Report started with the assumption that the official story was true. Commission Director and Bush administration insider, Philip Zeikow, wrote a detailed outline for the report before the Commissioners even met, and was in charge of every aspect of the Commission, including writing the final report. They did not consider alternative theories. The report did not even mention the collapse of WTC Building 7.
14. "What possible motivation would the Bush administration have for ordering the 9/11 scam?"
The motivation is revealed by the very results that were implemented right after 9/11 (qui bono? -- who benefits?). It is now known that the Bush administration started discussing how to start wars with Afghanistan and Iraq during their first month in office. 9/11 gave them the pretext for those wars (with some additional lies about WMDs to kickstart the invasion of Iraq). They wanted and got far more power and control. They got all the things that the PNAC (Project for a New American Century) said they wanted in the year 2000. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Jeb Bush, as well as most of the leading neocons were all members of the PNAC, and signatories on the paper Rebuilding America's Defenses, which specifically called for "a catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."
If we are well prepared to answer these types of questions whenever they come up, we can then be more effective in educating skeptics about the real truth. The most ardent skeptics often make the best Truthers once converted.
And once converted, a person rarely, if ever, turns back to believing the big lie that is called the 'official story.'
Author Bio: 9/11 activist and video producer Ken Jenkins has a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and has done extensive postgraduate study in psychology. A pioneer in the 9/11 movement, Ken started presenting his PowerPoint and video productions on 9/11 Truth in early 2002, and has since spoken at five national 9/11 conferences. His first video, "Perspective on 9/11" was originally made for those early presentations. He has since produced ten DVDs with leading 9/11 Truth author David Ray Griffin, including "9/11 -- The Myth and the Reality". He is also a partner in 9/11 TV (911TV.org), which has documented speakers from many 9/11 conferences and events. The resulting DVDs are distributed partly through local cable access channels nationwide. By revealing the "false flag" nature of the 9/11 attacks, it is Ken's intention to not only help end the current bogus "war on terror" but to also open the way to ending war as a political option on this planet.
Note: These FAQ's were originally published on this blog but the author was unknown. We are happy to have found the author of this informative piece.
The Truth is Not Enough: How to Overcome Emotional Barriers to 9/11 Truth
by Ken Jenkins
May 1, 2009
How many times has this happened to you? You are explaining to someone some of the rational, logical reasons why the official story of 9/11 can't be true, perhaps explaining how WTC 7 fell in the exact manner of a professionally planned controlled demolition -- a job which would typically take weeks to prepare -- when out comes a 'thought stopper' phrase like:
"That's just another conspiracy theory!" or ...
"Do you also believe in Big Foot and tin foil hats?"
Or perhaps the person gets angry and/or agitated. Facts no longer matter at that point, and you can tell the person does not want to hear any more. For example, the following response came from someone after they were given a 20-minute summary of 9/11 Truth information:
"I wouldn't believe that, even if it were true!"
That reaction defies all logic and reason. But it clearly illustrates just how irrational some peoples' defenses can be. Here are a few more honest responses/defenses:
"As long as my wife and kids are fine and we can live the life style we have, the truth is, I don't really care what happened on 9/11."
"I would not want to live in a world where such a thing could be true."
"You can't expect someone to listen to information that turns their world upside down."
"I'm not sure I want to know. If this is true, then up would be down and down would be up. My life would never be the same."
"Look, I have to admit that I seriously resist anyone messing with my worldview!"
Why So Much Resistance to 9/11 Truth?
Such reactions are emotionally based. 9/11 is a very emotionally charged issue. The source of the denial and resistance is FEAR. The implications of 9/11 Truth are very scary for most people to take in. Given that a part of our government's job description is keeping its citizens safe, it's terrifying to consider that a secret rogue part of our government will do just the opposite -- mass murder those very citizens, in order to advance dark agendas -- like wars for corporate empire. To further consider that associated 'secret teams' would then put out corporate media cover-up stories, in the form of an elaborate fantasy story backed up with planted evidence, and to think that story was nearly universally accepted without question -- this is the stuff of nightmares.
Then there is the difficulty of accepting the self-image shattering realization that we were duped by such cover story lies. 9/11 Truth suggests a very uncomfortable and disturbing worldview, especially to those new to such concepts. The intensity of fear brought up by these vast implications causes defense mechanisms to take over our rational thought processes. Such denial most often overrides rationality.
What's a 9/11 Truth Activist To Do?
How can we overcome such powerful denial? What knowledge about these emotional barriers can empower us to be more effective in reaching larger numbers of our fellow citizens?
Start out by asking questions to find out what the person you are addressing currently thinks and feels about the 9/11 Truth message. Adjust your approach based on what you hear. Based on their responses, reach out and connect though empathy, to express to them an understanding of their difficult position. It's not that hard to do -- after all, most of us went through a similar process of conversion at some point, when we were in denial and uninformed about 9/11. Let them know about your own doubts, how you had a difficult time believing that the official story was false. Explain how upsetting it was for you to consider the alternative -- those very inconvenient truths. Even for those of us who were not upset by the idea of 9/11 being an inside job, there was often a difficulty in wrapping our heads around the enormity of it all. Talk about your own difficulties in rejecting the official story.
Reasons for Resistance to the Truth
There are a number of valid reasons why many of us resist the truth of 9/11. What follows are some major ones.
A. The Big Lie: I'll start with the 'Big Lie' because it was the main barrier that kept me from fully accepting the truth of 9/11 as I was researching it in the weeks after the event. The sheer audacity of pulling off something so outrageous in broad daylight, thinking they would get away with it, and the large scale of it all kept me doubting for weeks. My turning point was learning about what really happened at Pearl Harbor -- the many warnings that were ignored, the Japanese secret codes that the US had broken, etc. This new understanding, that the attack on Pearl Harbor was clearly allowed to happen, was what finally had me fully accept 9/11 Truth. The comparable number that were deliberately mass murdered, the scale of the event, the audacity, and the 60 years of largely successful cover-up all showed me that a Big Lie had happened before, and worked to fool most of the public, and not all that long ago. It was only later I discovered these quotes:
"The individual is handicapped by coming face to face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists." ~ J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI
"The masses indulge in petty falsehoods every day, but it would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths. ... The bigger the lie, therefore, the likelier it is to be believed." ~ Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
B. Major Paradigm Shift: Questioning the official story of 9/11 threatens the foundations of our society, or at least seems to. It challenges our fellow citizens' belief systems regarding the nature of our government, and even the very nature of our nation. Such questioning is far more profound than, say, questioning a war. Accepting the truth of 9/11 is, for many, a major paradigm shift, an inverting of their worldview. Such shifts risk a period of chaos and uncertainty, which many find scary.
C. Blind Nationalist Faith: 9/11 Truth is a confrontation with the self-image that many Americans have -- of their country and of themselves. The self-image Americans have been sold though our school systems and media is that we are the exceptional nation, the good guys wearing the white hats, the bringers of democracy and freedom. Such nationalistic faith can exceed religious faith in its dogmatic blindness. David Ray Griffin has an article on this subject elsewhere in this issue. [See article ps. XX-XX] and, Dr. Griffin also addresses these issues in a DVD titled "9/11 and Nationalist Faith."
D. Projecting Parental Duties on Authorities: In his book As If We Were Grownups, author Jeff Golden's thoughtful assertion is that, "We consistently elect [political] candidates who tell us what children would want to hear. Children want to hear that everything is okay, that little is required of them, that they can go out and play or watch TV, and that they'll be taken care of and protected. In exchange, they are expected to be seen and not heard, to pay their taxes, to take their flu shots, and to not question the authorities."
E. Admission of Gullibility: Anyone we are introducing 9/11 Truth to now has believed the official story for years. To accept 9/11 Truth they have to admit they were duped, deceived, and manipulated for all that time. That brings up questions of gullibility, naïveté, lack of perceptiveness, obliviousness, etc. Most of us have resistance to admitting such shortcomings. Astronomer Carl Sagan sums it up nicely:
"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous [i.e. gullible]."
F. The Rabbit Hole Effect -- Wider Implications: To believe 9/11 Truth, one also has to believe many other difficult truths, such as:
Parts of our corporate media must be incredibly corrupt to be complicit in such a massive cover-up;
There must be a powerful, secret, hidden government that is capable of planning and executing such a horrible and unthinkable act;
Some of our leaders are more corrupt and malicious than most of us would want to believe.
But one has only to remember the words of philosopher and statesman, Edmund Burke, to understand how corruption tends to prosper especially in good times:
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing."
G. Apathy and Complacency: Radio talk show host Mike Rivero sheds some light on why so many people are apathetic and complacent about changing their beliefs:
"Most people prefer to believe their leaders are just and fair even in the face of evidence to the contrary, because once a citizen acknowledges that the government under which they live is lying and corrupt, the citizen has to choose what he or she will do about it. To take action in the face of a corrupt government entails risks of harm to life and loved ones. To choose to do nothing is to surrender one's self-image of standing for principles. Most people do not have the courage to face that choice. Hence, most propaganda is not designed to fool the critical thinker but only to give moral cowards an excuse not to think at all."
H. PTSD -- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: 9/11 was first and foremost a psyop, shorthand for a Psychological Operation. It is a term used by secret services like the CIA to describe a class of operations that are intended to manipulate the emotions of populations; it is a form of mind control.
The specific intention of 9/11 was to terrorize the American people into supporting the so-called "war on terror," which is a replacement for the cold war's "war on communism." It's a blank check for the US government and the American military-industrial-complex to attack anyone, anywhere they want, anytime they want -- to support the empire.
The psyop initially worked for a vast majority of US citizens, and for many, it is still working.
The terror that so many felt during and after the attacks left many people, particularly in New York City, with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder -- PTSD. To revisit those events, as is necessary to expose the truth of 9/11, can retrigger that stress and add to the other discomforts that are already intrinsic to that same truth we are revealing. The desire to minimize re-experiencing that trauma causes people to back away. We need to go easy on those who exhibit such stress.
I. Lack of Knowledge of Historical Parallels or Patterns: While not strictly an emotional issue, the ignorance most people have about the many false flag events used to justify wars throughout history also has a psychological component. Our ability to conceptualize new information is dependent on having a frame of reference, that is, already knowing something similar, in order to be able to anchor a new thought. The lack of such historical reference points, therefore, can be yet another source of resistance. This blockage is perhaps the easiest one to deal with -- by educating people about the long history of false flag events used for triggering wars.
The Awakening Will Take Time
These are most of the major reasons why so many people resist 9/11 Truth. By understanding them, we can meet people with empathy and understanding, and have more patience with them. Patience is so important because for most, awakening to 9/11 Truth is a gradual process, often taking weeks, months, or even years. In light of that, try to be sensitive when presenting evidence, so as to notice when a person is 'full' -- when they have heard enough for the moment, and need space to digest and absorb the new, and often, disturbing concepts.
The good news is that with all that is happening now in our post-9/11 world, particularly with the public knowledge of the lies about WMDs and Saddam being linked to al Qaeda and 9/11 that led us into war with Iraq, people's minds are opening wider every day. More and more people are waking up to the degree of corruption and deception that is routine in our government. Every day they learn more about how the corporate media have been complicit in lies and cover-ups. Trust in such corporate and governmental institutions is now at an all time low, and dropping. This makes people far more open to the 9/11 Truth message. In a very real sense, our job is getting easier.
The truth alone is not enough, but the truth plus strategic thinking, planning and educating is enough to convince most fence-sitters. As David Hutton, author of The Change Agents' Handbook, says: "You do not have to spend a lot of time and effort on those who strongly resist change. You only have to help and protect those who want to change." Understanding the various emotional obstacles is an essential part of such a strategy.
It's been over seven years for some of us who have been working to expose the truth about 9/11. It will likely take several more years, but we will win -- as long as we work smart and don't give up. The truth will be revealed, and the resultant awakening will lead to the kind of deep changes that are so necessary to create a more positive future.
BIO: 9/11 activist and video producer Ken Jenkins has a degree in electrical engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University, and has done extensive postgraduate study in psychology. A pioneer in the 9/11 movement, Ken started presenting his PowerPoint and video productions on 9/11 Truth in early 2002, and has since spoken at five national 9/11 conferences. His first video, "Perspective on 9/11" was originally made for those early presentations. He has since produced ten DVDs with leading 9/11 Truth author David Ray Griffin, including "9/11 -- The Myth and the Reality". He is also a partner in 9/11 TV (911TV.org), which has documented speakers from many 9/11 conferences and events. The resulting DVDs are distributed partly through local cable access channels nationwide. By revealing the "false flag" nature of the 9/11 attacks, it is Ken's intention to not only help end the current bogus "war on terror" but to also open the way to ending war as a political option on this planet.
Source of original article at 911Truth.org
C-SPAN VIDEO LIBRARY: September 12, 2001
C-SPAN | Washington Journal 4 hours of uncut, unedited video coverage from C-Span's Video Library coverage of 9/12/2001. This is an important resource that has recently been made available both online and in DVD format.
Telephone lines were opened for viewer comments on the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Live shots were shown of the damaged Pentagon building. Mr. Capaccio participated by telephone. Many telephone calls were eye-witness accounts of the attacks.
Telephone lines were opened for viewer comments on the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, DC. Live shots were shown of the damaged Pentagon building. Mr. Capaccio participated by telephone. Many telephone calls were eye-witness accounts of the attacks.
How to Destroy the 9/11 Truth Movement
You need to be more then just armed with the truth, you also need to be aware of propaganda techniques and the processes of disinformation.
Engineering Authenticity:
DECLINE OF FACTS
BLIND SPOTS AND THEIR VALUE
The language in this video can be a little dicey but it is worth watching.
Quotes:
“I’ve been speaking about 160 times throughout this country and 16 others, during the last three years, and 98% of those who watch this presentation end up agreeing with us, by a show of hands. We really only get called conspiracy theorists and kooks by those who are unwilling to look at the evidence.” - Richard Gage, head of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth
“I think the other side is frightened to death that the American people are going to learn the truth. And the murderers are going to be held responsible for killing all those people in the twin towers. And they did it intentionally so that we would go to war.” - Dr. Stanley Monteith
Why Didn’t Millions of Gallons of Water Put Out the Ground Zero Fires?
Nanothermite usage is hazardous due to the extremely high temperatures produced and the extreme difficulty in smothering a reaction once initiated.
These toasted cars are in the lot northwest of the WTC complex. There is little visible rust so the photo was probably within a day or two of 9/11/2001.
Why Didn’t Millions of Gallons of Water Put Out the Ground Zero Fires?
4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories
Approximately three million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts, and 1 million gallons fell as rainwater, between 9/11 and 9/21 .
The spraying continued for months afterward (the 10 day period was simply the timeframe in which the DOE was sampling). Enormous amounts of water were hosed on Ground Zero continuously, day and night:
“Firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on [ground zero]. You couldn’t even begin to imagine how much water was pumped in there,” said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. “It was like you were creating a giant lake.”
Moreover, the fires were sprayed with thousands of gallons of high tech fire-retardants.
And yet, the world trade center fire was “the longest-burning structural fire in history”. The temperatures were so high that there was molten metal at ground zero for months after 9/11.
Why didn’t the enormous quantities of water and fire-retardant sprayed at Ground Zero put out the fires? How could fires and molten metal have burned for months, when fires from normal office and building materials and available sources of oxygen should have been doused by all of the water?
Dr. Steven Jones gives one possibility: “Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen and so the reaction cannot be smothered, even with water”.
The thermite reaction releases dangerous ultra-violet (UV) light requiring that the reaction not be viewed directly, or that special eye protection (for example, a welder’s mask) be worn.
Original source for this article here.
These toasted cars are in the lot northwest of the WTC complex. There is little visible rust so the photo was probably within a day or two of 9/11/2001.
Why Didn’t Millions of Gallons of Water Put Out the Ground Zero Fires?
4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories
Approximately three million gallons of water were hosed on site in the fire-fighting efforts, and 1 million gallons fell as rainwater, between 9/11 and 9/21 .
The spraying continued for months afterward (the 10 day period was simply the timeframe in which the DOE was sampling). Enormous amounts of water were hosed on Ground Zero continuously, day and night:
“Firetrucks [sprayed] a nearly constant jet of water on [ground zero]. You couldn’t even begin to imagine how much water was pumped in there,” said Tom Manley of the Uniformed Firefighters Association, the largest fire department union. “It was like you were creating a giant lake.”
Moreover, the fires were sprayed with thousands of gallons of high tech fire-retardants.
And yet, the world trade center fire was “the longest-burning structural fire in history”. The temperatures were so high that there was molten metal at ground zero for months after 9/11.
Why didn’t the enormous quantities of water and fire-retardant sprayed at Ground Zero put out the fires? How could fires and molten metal have burned for months, when fires from normal office and building materials and available sources of oxygen should have been doused by all of the water?
Dr. Steven Jones gives one possibility: “Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen and so the reaction cannot be smothered, even with water”.
The thermite reaction releases dangerous ultra-violet (UV) light requiring that the reaction not be viewed directly, or that special eye protection (for example, a welder’s mask) be worn.
Original source for this article here.
Mysterious Deaths of 9/11 Witnesses
The thing that these witnesses have in common is that their statements give support to the 9/11 truth movement.
DEAD: Barry Jennings, Beverly Eckert, Kenneth Johannemann, Michael H. Doran, Christopher Landis, Bertha Champagne, Paul Smith, Deborah Palfrey, Major General David Wherley, Salvatore Princiotta and David Graham.
NOT TALKING: John Del Giorno.
Take Advantage of Any Survey & Call for a New Investigation Into 9/11
Bombshell: Larry Silverstein Wanted To Demolish Building 7 On 9/11
Fox News hit piece against 9/11 truth and Jesse Ventura inadvertently reveals a shocking truth; WTC leaseholder was “on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building.”
Preface from Alex Jones: "To truly grasp the magnitude of this story, you really have to read the entire article. Immediately after the “pull it” controversy, debunkers claimed there was no plan to conduct a controlled demolition of the building."
"Now the fact that officials were considering blowing up the building is established, Silverstein’s consistent denial that this took place is a huge smoking gun. How did Silverstein expect to demolish the building safely when such a process takes weeks or even months to properly set up, even without the additional chaos surrounding WTC 7 on 9/11?"
"How could explosives have been correctly placed on such short notice inside a burning building that had already been evacuated – unless the explosives were already in place? This new revelation is astounding and it needs to be investigated immediately."
Original source: Paul Joseph Watson at Prison Planet.com
Friday, April 23, 2010
A Fox News hit piece against Jesse Ventura and the 9/11 truth movement written by former Washington D.C. prosecutor Jeffrey Scott Shapiro inadvertently reveals a shocking truth, that World Trade Center leaseholder Larry Silverstein, who collected nearly $500 million dollars in insurance as a result of the collapse of Building 7, a 47-story structure that was not hit by a plane but collapsed within seven seconds on September 11, was on the phone to his insurance carrier attempting to convince them that the building should be brought down via controlled demolition.
Writing for Fox News, Jeffrey Scott Shapiro states, “I was working as a journalist for Gannett News at Ground Zero that day, and I remember very clearly what I saw and heard.”
“Shortly before the building collapsed, several NYPD officers and Con-Edison workers told me that Larry Silverstein, the property developer of One World Financial Center was on the phone with his insurance carrier to see if they would authorize the controlled demolition of the building – since its foundation was already unstable and expected to fall.”
In February of 2002 Silverstein Properties won $861 million from Industrial Risk Insurers to rebuild on the site of WTC 7. Silverstein Properties’ estimated investment in WTC 7 was $386 million. This building’s collapse alone resulted in a payout of nearly $500 million, based on the contention that it was an unforeseen accidental event.
“A controlled demolition would have minimized the damage caused by the building’s imminent collapse and potentially save lives. Many law enforcement personnel, firefighters and other journalists were aware of this possible option. There was no secret. There was no conspiracy,” writes Shapiro.
However, obviously aware of how it would impact his insurance claim, Larry Silverstein has consistently denied that there was ever a plan to intentionally demolish Building 7.
In June 2005, Silverstein told New York Post journalist Sam Smith that his infamous “pull it” comment, which has been cited as proof that Silverstein planned to take down the building with explosives, “meant something else”.
In January 2006, Silverstein’s spokesperson Dara McQuillan told the U.S. State Department that the “pull it” comment meant to withdraw firefighters from the building (despite the fact that there were no firefighters inside WTC 7 as we shall later cover). There was no mention whatsoever of any plan to demolish the building before it fell.
Shapiro’s faux pas has unwittingly let the cat out of the bag on the fact that Silverstein was aggressively pushing for the building to be intentionally demolished, a claim that he has always vociferously denied, presumably to safeguard against putting in doubt the massive insurance payout he received on the basis that the collapse was accidental.
For over five years since the infamous PBS documentary was aired in which Silverstein states that the decision was made to “pull” the building, a construction term for controlled demolition, debunkers have attempted to perform all kinds of mental gymnastics in fudging the meaning behind the WTC leaseholder’s comments.
“I remember getting a call from the fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it. And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse,” said Silverstein.
Debunkers attempted to claim that Silverstein meant to “pull” the firefighters from the building due to the danger the structure was in, and this explanation was also later claimed by Silverstein’s spokesman, however, both the FEMA report, the New York Times and even Popular Mechanics reported that there were no firefighting actions taken inside WTC 7.
Another clip from the same documentary clearly illustrates that the term “pull” is industry jargon for a controlled demolition.
“While I was talking with a fellow reporter and several NYPD officers, Building 7 suddenly collapsed, and before it hit the ground, not a single sound emanated from the tower area. There were no explosives; I would have heard them. In fact, I remember that in those few seconds, as the building sank to the ground that I was stunned by how quiet it was,” writes Shapiro in his Fox News hit piece.
Shapiro’s contention that the 47-story building simply collapsed into its own footprint within seven seconds without making a sound, a feat only ever witnessed in world history on 9/11 alone, is contradicted by numerous other first-hand eyewitnesses.
Contradicting Shapiro’s claim that the collapse of the building was quiet, NYPD officer Craig Bartmer stated that he clearly heard bombs tear down Building 7 as he ran away from its collapse.
“I walked around it (Building 7). I saw a hole. I didn’t see a hole bad enough to knock a building down, though. Yeah there was definitely fire in the building, but I didn’t hear any… I didn’t hear any creaking, or… I didn’t hear any indication that it was going to come down. And all of a sudden the radios exploded and everyone started screaming ‘get away, get away, get away from it!’… It was at that moment… I looked up, and it was nothing I would ever imagine seeing in my life. The thing started pealing in on itself… Somebody grabbed my shoulder and I started running, and the shit’s hitting the ground behind me, and the whole time you’re hearing “boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.” I think I know an explosion when I hear it… Yeah it had some damage to it, but nothing like what they’re saying… Nothing to account for what we saw… I am shocked at the story we’ve heard about it to be quite honest,” said Bartmer.
EMT Indira Singh, a Senior Consultant for JP Morgan Chase in Information Technology and Risk Management, told the Pacifica show Guns and Butter, “After midday on 9/11 we had to evacuate that because they told us Building 7 was coming down. If you had been there, not being able to see very much just flames everywhere and smoke – it is entirely possible – I do believe that they brought Building 7 down because I heard that they were going to bring it down because it was unstable because of the collateral damage.”
The host asked Singh, “Did they actually use the word “brought down” and who was it that was telling you this?,” to which Singh responded, “The fire department. And they did use the words ‘we’re gonna have to bring it down’ and for us there observing the nature of the devastation it made total sense to us that this was indeed a possibility, given the subsequent controversy over it I don’t know.”
Another EMT named Mike who wished to remain anonymous wrote in a letter to the Loose Change film crew that emergency responders were told Building 7 was about to be “pulled” and that a 20 second radio countdown preceded its collapse.
“There were bright flashes up and down the sides of Building 7, you could see them through the windows…and it collapsed. We all knew it was intentionally pulled… they told us,” he stated.
Following news reports in the days after the attack that Building 7 had collapsed due to fire damage, Mike fully expected this mistake to be corrected after the chaos had subsided, but was astonished when it became part of the official story.
Mike’s report of a countdown preceding the collapse of WTC 7 was backed up by Former Air Force Special Operations for Search and Rescue, Kevin McPadden, who said that he heard the last few seconds of the countdown on a nearby police radio.
In addition, the language used by firefighters and others at ground zero shortly before the building fell strongly indicates that the building was deliberately demolished with explosives, and not that it fell unaided.
“It’s blowin’ boy.” … “Keep your eye on that building, it’ll be coming down soon.” … “The building is about to blow up, move it back.” … “Here we are walking back. There’s a building, about to blow up…”
Photo and video evidence of the collapse of Building 7 shows classic indications of a controlled demolition. The standard ‘crimp’ in the center-left top of the building and the subsequent ’squibs’ of smoke as it collapses clearly represent explosive demolition.
Veteran news anchor Dan Rather shared the view that the building looked like a controlled demolition during news coverage of the event on CBS.
Several news agencies, including the BBC and CNN, reported that the building had already collapsed 26 minutes and as much as over an hour before it actually fell.
Footage broadcast 20 minutes before Building 7 fell shows BBC reporter Jane Standley talking about the collapse of WTC 7 while it remains standing in the live shot behind her head. A Separate BBC broadcast shows reporters discussing the collapse of Building 7 26 minutes before it happened.
Just about every sentence of Shapiro’s hit piece is contradicted by numerous other eyewitnesses, so his feigned righteous indignation in ranting, “I was there. I know what happened, and there is no single credible piece of evidence that implicates the United States of America in the Sept. 11 attacks,” fails to ring true.
However, the most damning aspect of the article is Shapiro’s inadvertent revelation that Larry Silverstein was on the phone to his insurance company pushing for the building to be demolished, which is precisely what happened later in the day, and as innumerable eyewitnesses as well as video footage and physical evidence prove, the collapse of WTC 7 could have been nothing else than a controlled demolition, which would place Silverstein’s $500 million insurance payout in severe jeopardy if ever acknowledged.
Shapiro’s testimony, intended to debunk questions surrounding the official story behind 9/11, has only succeeded in raising more, because it completely contradicts Larry Silverstein’s insistence that he never considered deliberately demolishing WTC 7 with explosives.
Was Korean Airlines Flight 85 a Simulated Hijack in a 9/11 Training Exercise?
by Shoestring
Source: 9/11 Blogger April 20, 2010
TRAINING EXERCISES
Several hours after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington occurred, a passenger aircraft heading to the U.S. from Seoul, South Korea, was mistakenly considered hijacked. In a little-reported series of events, the pilots of Korean Airlines Flight 85 gave numerous indications that their plane had been taken over by hijackers, even though it had not. KAL 85, a Boeing 747 that had been due to land in Anchorage, Alaska, for a refueling stop, was consequently diverted to an airport in Canada. The military launched fighter jets to tail it and, with authorization from the Canadian prime minister, threatened to shoot the plane down if it refused to change course. Only after KAL 85 landed were officials able to confirm that no hijacking had taken place.
While a person might suggest this crisis was just the result of confusion due to the unprecedented events earlier that day, the number of indications the pilots gave that their plane was hijacked, and their repeated failure to confirm that this was not the case, raises another possibility: Could KAL 85 have been playing the part of a hijacked aircraft in a military training exercise?
This explanation would make sense of the pilots’ otherwise inexplicable actions. And there is additional evidence supporting this possibility: On September 11, NORAD–the military organization responsible for defending North American airspace–was in the second week of a major exercise. Five days earlier, that exercise included two scenarios with remarkable similarities to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. In one scenario, members of a fictitious terrorist group hijacked a Korean Airlines 747 bound from Seoul to Anchorage; in the other, a 747 bound from Japan to Anchorage was hijacked, and changed course for Canada.
We know that the U.S. and Canadian military were in fact conducting several exercises on the morning of September 11. Those exercises were supposedly canceled promptly in response to the attacks. But if KAL 85 was a simulated hijacking, it would mean at least one exercise continued well into the afternoon, hours after the attacks took place. This would raise serious questions: When exactly did the military exercises really end that day? If they were called off promptly, as has been claimed, how many people were aware of this? Did some believe the exercises were continuing in spite of the real-world attacks? And was there a sinister but as-yet-uninvestigated relationship between the real-world attacks and the military exercises they coincided with?
KOREAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 85
Korean Airlines Flight 85 was a Boeing 747 with 215 people on board, flying from Seoul to New York. It was heading for a refueling stop in Anchorage when it began behaving suspiciously. Beginning shortly after 11:00 a.m. (this and all other times given are Eastern time), its pilots gave repeated but inconclusive indications that their plane had been hijacked, even though no hijacking had taken place. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was alerted to the suspect flight shortly before noon, and it in turn notified NORAD. [1]
Concerns over whether KAL 85 had been hijacked led to the plane being diverted away from Anchorage. It was first redirected toward the remote airport at Yakutat, Alaska. But because of deteriorating weather around Yakutat and because the plane was running low on fuel, the decision was made to instead have KAL 85 land at Whitehorse Airport in Canada’s Yukon Territory. [2]
KAL 85 landed at Whitehorse Airport safely and without incident at 2:54 p.m. But only after the co-pilot was escorted off the plane and interrogated were officials able to determine that the flight had not been hijacked. [3]
PILOTS INDICATED PLANE WAS HIJACKED
The first indication of a possible hijacking was at 11:08 a.m., while KAL 85 was flying across the Pacific Ocean and hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska. The pilots sent a text message to Korean Airlines headquarters, which included the letters “HJK.” These three letters were a known code for signaling a hijacking. The message did not immediately raise any concerns. However, ARINC–a company that airlines pay to transmit text messages to and from their planes–had begun scanning all the communications it transmitted that day to search for any additional hijacked aircraft, and one of its technicians came across the message, apparently shortly before noon. Concerned that it was a coded plea for help, ARINC officials notified the FAA of the message.
KAL 85 showed its next indications of being hijacked after it entered the airspace of the FAA’s Anchorage Center at around 1:00 p.m. An Anchorage Center air traffic controller, aware of the concerns about KAL 85, asked the pilots about the status of their aircraft. In his radio transmissions, the controller included the code word that indicated a query as to whether the plane had been hijacked, in case the pilots were unable to acknowledge this freely. (Pilots are trained how to respond to such coded messages.) However, the pilots of KAL 85 offered no reassurance that their flight had not been hijacked. Instead, at 1:24 p.m., they switched their plane’s transponder (a device that sends information about an aircraft to controllers’ radar screens) to “7500,” which is the universal code meaning a plane has been hijacked. As USA Today put it, “Suddenly … a routine flight became a potential new attacker.”
As KAL 85 continued toward Anchorage, controllers again sought clarification of its situation. But, as author Lynn Spencer described, “each time controllers query the aircraft, the pilots offer no reassurance that they are not, in fact, hijacked.” Instead, KAL 85 transmitted the beacon code indicating it had been hijacked for 90 minutes, from 1:24 p.m. until 2:54 p.m., when it landed in Canada. [4] A report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 in fact stated, “There were five separate and ongoing indicators of a hijacking situation” on KAL 85, although the report did not specify what each of those indicators was. [5]
And yet KAL 85 was never hijacked. The FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, was in contact with Korean Airlines headquarters, which emphatically maintained it had received no indication that the flight was in trouble. [6] Might the “indicators of a hijacking situation” therefore have been because KAL 85 was playing a hijacked aircraft in a training exercise?
POSSIBLE HIJACKING TAKEN SERIOUSLY
The military and other government agencies took the indications of a possible hijacking very seriously. After the FAA was notified of the letters “HJK” appearing in a text message from KAL 85, it alerted NORAD. [7] NORAD then ordered Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, to launch two armed fighter jets to intercept the suspicious plane. [8] These jets flew about a mile behind KAL 85, shadowing it so its crew and passengers would not realize there were fighters close by. Two Royal Canadian Air Force fighters were also launched in response to KAL 85. Fighters escorted the plane until it landed at Whitehorse Airport. They then remained circling overhead, in case the plane tried to depart suddenly. [9]
Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region, has recalled his concerns about KAL 85, saying: “[W]e just had three attacks on the East Coast and perhaps a fourth. It was completely plausible to me that so sophisticated an operation on the East Coast could be replicated on the West Coast. So this was a plausible threat.” [10]
KAL 85 was even threatened with being shot down. Schwartz told controllers at the FAA’s Anchorage Center that the plane would be shot down if it refused to divert and remained on course for Anchorage. [11] A NORAD commander contacted Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and asked for authorization to shoot down the plane. As Chrétien later recalled, he “authorized it in principle,” telling the commander: “Yes, if you think they are terrorists. You call me again, but be ready to shoot them down.” [12]
Other agencies also took the possible hijacking seriously. When KAL 85’s pilots switched their plane’s transponder to the “7500″ hijack code, it led to what USA Today described as “a frenzy of activity.” The governor of Alaska ordered the evacuation of federal buildings and large hotels in Anchorage, along with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal. [13] After learning that KAL 85 was heading for Whitehorse Airport, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) removed children from local schools and evacuated buildings considered likely terrorist targets, such as Whitehorse City Hall. Part of the Alaska Highway was closed, a security perimeter was established around Whitehorse Airport, and non-essential staff members were evacuated from the airport terminal building. [14]
KAL 85 continued being treated as a potential threat even after it landed at Whitehorse. After touching down, the plane was directed to a secluded area on the tarmac. It was surrounded by heavily armed RCMP emergency response officers. After an officer asked to speak with a member of the flight crew, the co-pilot emerged and was escorted off the plane at gunpoint. According to a local resident who saw the incident, the co-pilot had his hands up and “had everyone drawing down on him, and he had to take some clothes off, wave his shirt in the air and all that.” [15] The passengers were not allowed off the plane until more than two hours after it landed.
The following morning, the RCMP had a bomb-sniffing dog search the aircraft. The plane’s cargo was also searched for any threats, but none were found. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, still early in the morning of September 12, that the RCMP finally confirmed that KAL 85 had never been hijacked. [16]
CONFUSED EXPLANATIONS WHY PILOTS SIGNIFIED A HIJACKING
One thing that is suspicious is the way Korean Airlines and the government agencies involved with these incidents were subsequently reluctant to explain why KAL 85 had given indications of being hijacked, or they gave conflicting explanations. Could this have been because these organizations needed to cover up the fact that–despite the attacks earlier on in New York and Washington–a hijacking simulation was still being carried out on the afternoon of 9/11, in which KAL 85 played the hijacked aircraft?
Apparently the first explanation for the series of events involving KAL 85 was offered several hours after the plane landed at Whitehorse Airport. An airport spokeswoman announced simply, “There was a communications problem aboard the plane so [the pilots] were unable to communicate and respond properly to the [air traffic control] tower anywhere they went.” [17]
The Anchorage Daily News later reported: “At the time of this September 11 incident, little was publicly disclosed about the wayward signals from the Korean pilot. The airline and flight crew have kept mum about what happened that day.” But, to explain why the pilots included the letters “HJK,” signaling a hijacking, in a text message, Korean Airlines administrator Michael Lim suggested they had intended this as a question rather than a warning, but this was unclear to those who read the message, because pilots are unable to type question marks into their texts. [18]
However, the airline’s operations chief, David Greenberg, gave a different explanation. He said the pilots’ text message was “innocent, part of a routine discussion on where to divert the flight after airspace in the United States had been closed.” Greenberg said the pilots used the three-letter hijack code “to refer to the hijackings that day.” [19] Author Lynn Spencer pointed out that this was “an odd idea for the pilots to have, and contrary to their training. But for whatever reason … they made a very dangerous bad call.” [20]
The reason why the pilots switched their transponder to the code signaling a hijacking is, as the Anchorage Daily News put it, “not entirely clear.” [21] Eleven months after 9/11, USA Today reported: “To this day, no one is certain why the pilots issued the alert. Airline sources say that exchanges between pilots and controllers were tense that morning. Some pilots objected to orders to reroute their planes. The Korean pilots may have misinterpreted the controller’s comments as an order to reset the transponder.” [22]
The military reportedly blamed the false alert on “muddled communications between air traffic controllers and the flight crew aboard the plane.” But Korean Airlines claimed that the pilot of KAL 85 “believed he was directed by air traffic controllers at the FAA’s Anchorage flight control center to send out the hijack signal.” The airline’s administrator, Michael Lim, said: “Our captain was following their instruction. [The Anchorage Center] even told the captain to transmit code 7500, hijack code. Our captain, who realized how serious it is, they were just following instructions.”
Adding to the mystery, two weeks after 9/11 it was reported that Korean Airlines had “declined to make available a tape recording of conversations between the pilot [of KAL 85] and KAL officials on the ground in Anchorage,” and that the “FAA won’t discuss any details of the case.” [23]
There was even some uncertainty and secrecy over why Whitehorse Airport was chosen as KAL 85’s new destination after it was diverted. The report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 stated: “The question of why this potentially dangerous aircraft was directed to Whitehorse rather than another airport remains unanswered by senior national agencies, the [FAA], NORAD, and Transport Canada. … [Q]uestions about the decision-making process to re-direct [KAL 85] to Whitehorse have not been answered in any significant detail.” The report added, “It is expected that greater detail on this will not be forthcoming from these agencies in the short-term.” [24]
WAS KAL 85 PART OF AN EXERCISE SIMULATION?
This secrecy and confusion would certainly make sense if these agencies were trying to cover-up KAL 85’s involvement in a training exercise. What makes this possibility seem even more likely is that, five days before 9/11, NORAD practiced two exercise scenarios with an uncanny resemblance to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. Those scenarios were part of its annual exercise, “Vigilant Guardian,” which was still taking place on September 11.
In one of the scenarios on September 6, 10 members of a fictitious terrorist group called “Lin Po” hijacked Korean Airlines Flight 357, a Boeing 747 flying from Seoul to Anchorage–in other words, a plane resembling KAL 85. The terrorists issued demands and threatened to blow up the plane if these were not met. They also killed two passengers. NORAD directed fighter jets to get in a position to shoot down the hijacked 747, and ordered its Alaskan region to intercept and shadow the plane–similar to what it did in response to KAL 85 on September 11. The scenario involved the plane eventually landing in Seattle, Washington. [25]
In the other exercise scenario on September 6, a Boeing 747, also bound for Anchorage, was hijacked by terrorists, although in that case the plane had taken off from Tokyo, not Seoul. A fictitious terrorist group called “Mum Hykro” was threatening to “rain terror from the skies onto a major U.S. city unless the U.S. declares withdrawal from Asian conflict.” Some of the plane’s passengers were killed. The plane changed its course to Vancouver, Canada, and then to San Francisco, California. The military was directed to respond, by providing “covert shadowing” of the hijacked aircraft, presumably by fighter jets. NORAD had to liaise with the appropriate air traffic control center. Its Alaskan region and Canadian region participated in the scenario. Again, we see similarities to the events involving KAL 85 five days later. [26] Might the apparent hijacking of KAL 85 on 9/11 have therefore been a simulation intended as a follow-up to these two previous scenarios?
Clearly, the actions of KAL 85 and the plane’s possible involvement in a military exercise require more investigation. But the fact that exercises resembling the real-world attacks were taking place on September 11, and–if my conclusions about KAL 85 are correct–at least one of those exercises was still going on hours after the attacks in New York and Washington took place, should be of concern to us all.
NOTES (See source for links)
[1] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.” USA Today, August 12, 2002; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare.” CNN, August 14, 2002; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, pp. 256-257.
[2] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr. 22nd Leg., 2nd Sess., February 5, 2002; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.” Anchorage Daily News, September 8, 2002.
[3] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 278-279.
[4] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare”; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 257, 277-278.
[5] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency: Public Findings Report. Whitehorse, Yukon: Yukon Government, November 13, 2001, p. 17.
[6] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[7] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[8] Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 257.
[9] “Stranded Passengers Flood Canadian Airports.” CBC News, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.” Anchorage Daily News, September 29, 2001; Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.”
[10] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.
[11] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[12] Shawn McCarthy, “PM Says U.S. Attitude Helped Fuel Sept. 11.” Globe and Mail, September 12, 2002; Sheldon Alberts, “PM Links Attacks to ‘Arrogant’ West.” National Post, September 12, 2002.
[13] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare.”
[14] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 14-15.
[15] “Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP.” Canadian Press, September 12, 2001; “Korean Planes Make Emergency Landings.” United Press International, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[16] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 17-18.
[17] “Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP.”
[18] Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.”
[19] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[20] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 279.
[21] Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[22] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[23] Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[24] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, p. 5.
[25] “NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary.” 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[26] Ibid.
Source: 9/11 Blogger April 20, 2010
TRAINING EXERCISES
Several hours after the 9/11 attacks in New York and Washington occurred, a passenger aircraft heading to the U.S. from Seoul, South Korea, was mistakenly considered hijacked. In a little-reported series of events, the pilots of Korean Airlines Flight 85 gave numerous indications that their plane had been taken over by hijackers, even though it had not. KAL 85, a Boeing 747 that had been due to land in Anchorage, Alaska, for a refueling stop, was consequently diverted to an airport in Canada. The military launched fighter jets to tail it and, with authorization from the Canadian prime minister, threatened to shoot the plane down if it refused to change course. Only after KAL 85 landed were officials able to confirm that no hijacking had taken place.
While a person might suggest this crisis was just the result of confusion due to the unprecedented events earlier that day, the number of indications the pilots gave that their plane was hijacked, and their repeated failure to confirm that this was not the case, raises another possibility: Could KAL 85 have been playing the part of a hijacked aircraft in a military training exercise?
This explanation would make sense of the pilots’ otherwise inexplicable actions. And there is additional evidence supporting this possibility: On September 11, NORAD–the military organization responsible for defending North American airspace–was in the second week of a major exercise. Five days earlier, that exercise included two scenarios with remarkable similarities to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. In one scenario, members of a fictitious terrorist group hijacked a Korean Airlines 747 bound from Seoul to Anchorage; in the other, a 747 bound from Japan to Anchorage was hijacked, and changed course for Canada.
We know that the U.S. and Canadian military were in fact conducting several exercises on the morning of September 11. Those exercises were supposedly canceled promptly in response to the attacks. But if KAL 85 was a simulated hijacking, it would mean at least one exercise continued well into the afternoon, hours after the attacks took place. This would raise serious questions: When exactly did the military exercises really end that day? If they were called off promptly, as has been claimed, how many people were aware of this? Did some believe the exercises were continuing in spite of the real-world attacks? And was there a sinister but as-yet-uninvestigated relationship between the real-world attacks and the military exercises they coincided with?
KOREAN AIRLINES FLIGHT 85
Korean Airlines Flight 85 was a Boeing 747 with 215 people on board, flying from Seoul to New York. It was heading for a refueling stop in Anchorage when it began behaving suspiciously. Beginning shortly after 11:00 a.m. (this and all other times given are Eastern time), its pilots gave repeated but inconclusive indications that their plane had been hijacked, even though no hijacking had taken place. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was alerted to the suspect flight shortly before noon, and it in turn notified NORAD. [1]
Concerns over whether KAL 85 had been hijacked led to the plane being diverted away from Anchorage. It was first redirected toward the remote airport at Yakutat, Alaska. But because of deteriorating weather around Yakutat and because the plane was running low on fuel, the decision was made to instead have KAL 85 land at Whitehorse Airport in Canada’s Yukon Territory. [2]
KAL 85 landed at Whitehorse Airport safely and without incident at 2:54 p.m. But only after the co-pilot was escorted off the plane and interrogated were officials able to determine that the flight had not been hijacked. [3]
PILOTS INDICATED PLANE WAS HIJACKED
The first indication of a possible hijacking was at 11:08 a.m., while KAL 85 was flying across the Pacific Ocean and hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska. The pilots sent a text message to Korean Airlines headquarters, which included the letters “HJK.” These three letters were a known code for signaling a hijacking. The message did not immediately raise any concerns. However, ARINC–a company that airlines pay to transmit text messages to and from their planes–had begun scanning all the communications it transmitted that day to search for any additional hijacked aircraft, and one of its technicians came across the message, apparently shortly before noon. Concerned that it was a coded plea for help, ARINC officials notified the FAA of the message.
KAL 85 showed its next indications of being hijacked after it entered the airspace of the FAA’s Anchorage Center at around 1:00 p.m. An Anchorage Center air traffic controller, aware of the concerns about KAL 85, asked the pilots about the status of their aircraft. In his radio transmissions, the controller included the code word that indicated a query as to whether the plane had been hijacked, in case the pilots were unable to acknowledge this freely. (Pilots are trained how to respond to such coded messages.) However, the pilots of KAL 85 offered no reassurance that their flight had not been hijacked. Instead, at 1:24 p.m., they switched their plane’s transponder (a device that sends information about an aircraft to controllers’ radar screens) to “7500,” which is the universal code meaning a plane has been hijacked. As USA Today put it, “Suddenly … a routine flight became a potential new attacker.”
As KAL 85 continued toward Anchorage, controllers again sought clarification of its situation. But, as author Lynn Spencer described, “each time controllers query the aircraft, the pilots offer no reassurance that they are not, in fact, hijacked.” Instead, KAL 85 transmitted the beacon code indicating it had been hijacked for 90 minutes, from 1:24 p.m. until 2:54 p.m., when it landed in Canada. [4] A report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 in fact stated, “There were five separate and ongoing indicators of a hijacking situation” on KAL 85, although the report did not specify what each of those indicators was. [5]
And yet KAL 85 was never hijacked. The FAA’s Command Center in Herndon, Virginia, was in contact with Korean Airlines headquarters, which emphatically maintained it had received no indication that the flight was in trouble. [6] Might the “indicators of a hijacking situation” therefore have been because KAL 85 was playing a hijacked aircraft in a training exercise?
POSSIBLE HIJACKING TAKEN SERIOUSLY
The military and other government agencies took the indications of a possible hijacking very seriously. After the FAA was notified of the letters “HJK” appearing in a text message from KAL 85, it alerted NORAD. [7] NORAD then ordered Elmendorf Air Force Base, near Anchorage, to launch two armed fighter jets to intercept the suspicious plane. [8] These jets flew about a mile behind KAL 85, shadowing it so its crew and passengers would not realize there were fighters close by. Two Royal Canadian Air Force fighters were also launched in response to KAL 85. Fighters escorted the plane until it landed at Whitehorse Airport. They then remained circling overhead, in case the plane tried to depart suddenly. [9]
Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz, the commander of the Alaskan NORAD Region, has recalled his concerns about KAL 85, saying: “[W]e just had three attacks on the East Coast and perhaps a fourth. It was completely plausible to me that so sophisticated an operation on the East Coast could be replicated on the West Coast. So this was a plausible threat.” [10]
KAL 85 was even threatened with being shot down. Schwartz told controllers at the FAA’s Anchorage Center that the plane would be shot down if it refused to divert and remained on course for Anchorage. [11] A NORAD commander contacted Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien and asked for authorization to shoot down the plane. As Chrétien later recalled, he “authorized it in principle,” telling the commander: “Yes, if you think they are terrorists. You call me again, but be ready to shoot them down.” [12]
Other agencies also took the possible hijacking seriously. When KAL 85’s pilots switched their plane’s transponder to the “7500″ hijack code, it led to what USA Today described as “a frenzy of activity.” The governor of Alaska ordered the evacuation of federal buildings and large hotels in Anchorage, along with the Trans-Alaska Pipeline terminal. [13] After learning that KAL 85 was heading for Whitehorse Airport, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) removed children from local schools and evacuated buildings considered likely terrorist targets, such as Whitehorse City Hall. Part of the Alaska Highway was closed, a security perimeter was established around Whitehorse Airport, and non-essential staff members were evacuated from the airport terminal building. [14]
KAL 85 continued being treated as a potential threat even after it landed at Whitehorse. After touching down, the plane was directed to a secluded area on the tarmac. It was surrounded by heavily armed RCMP emergency response officers. After an officer asked to speak with a member of the flight crew, the co-pilot emerged and was escorted off the plane at gunpoint. According to a local resident who saw the incident, the co-pilot had his hands up and “had everyone drawing down on him, and he had to take some clothes off, wave his shirt in the air and all that.” [15] The passengers were not allowed off the plane until more than two hours after it landed.
The following morning, the RCMP had a bomb-sniffing dog search the aircraft. The plane’s cargo was also searched for any threats, but none were found. It wasn’t until a couple of hours later, still early in the morning of September 12, that the RCMP finally confirmed that KAL 85 had never been hijacked. [16]
CONFUSED EXPLANATIONS WHY PILOTS SIGNIFIED A HIJACKING
One thing that is suspicious is the way Korean Airlines and the government agencies involved with these incidents were subsequently reluctant to explain why KAL 85 had given indications of being hijacked, or they gave conflicting explanations. Could this have been because these organizations needed to cover up the fact that–despite the attacks earlier on in New York and Washington–a hijacking simulation was still being carried out on the afternoon of 9/11, in which KAL 85 played the hijacked aircraft?
Apparently the first explanation for the series of events involving KAL 85 was offered several hours after the plane landed at Whitehorse Airport. An airport spokeswoman announced simply, “There was a communications problem aboard the plane so [the pilots] were unable to communicate and respond properly to the [air traffic control] tower anywhere they went.” [17]
The Anchorage Daily News later reported: “At the time of this September 11 incident, little was publicly disclosed about the wayward signals from the Korean pilot. The airline and flight crew have kept mum about what happened that day.” But, to explain why the pilots included the letters “HJK,” signaling a hijacking, in a text message, Korean Airlines administrator Michael Lim suggested they had intended this as a question rather than a warning, but this was unclear to those who read the message, because pilots are unable to type question marks into their texts. [18]
However, the airline’s operations chief, David Greenberg, gave a different explanation. He said the pilots’ text message was “innocent, part of a routine discussion on where to divert the flight after airspace in the United States had been closed.” Greenberg said the pilots used the three-letter hijack code “to refer to the hijackings that day.” [19] Author Lynn Spencer pointed out that this was “an odd idea for the pilots to have, and contrary to their training. But for whatever reason … they made a very dangerous bad call.” [20]
The reason why the pilots switched their transponder to the code signaling a hijacking is, as the Anchorage Daily News put it, “not entirely clear.” [21] Eleven months after 9/11, USA Today reported: “To this day, no one is certain why the pilots issued the alert. Airline sources say that exchanges between pilots and controllers were tense that morning. Some pilots objected to orders to reroute their planes. The Korean pilots may have misinterpreted the controller’s comments as an order to reset the transponder.” [22]
The military reportedly blamed the false alert on “muddled communications between air traffic controllers and the flight crew aboard the plane.” But Korean Airlines claimed that the pilot of KAL 85 “believed he was directed by air traffic controllers at the FAA’s Anchorage flight control center to send out the hijack signal.” The airline’s administrator, Michael Lim, said: “Our captain was following their instruction. [The Anchorage Center] even told the captain to transmit code 7500, hijack code. Our captain, who realized how serious it is, they were just following instructions.”
Adding to the mystery, two weeks after 9/11 it was reported that Korean Airlines had “declined to make available a tape recording of conversations between the pilot [of KAL 85] and KAL officials on the ground in Anchorage,” and that the “FAA won’t discuss any details of the case.” [23]
There was even some uncertainty and secrecy over why Whitehorse Airport was chosen as KAL 85’s new destination after it was diverted. The report published by the government of Yukon in November 2001 stated: “The question of why this potentially dangerous aircraft was directed to Whitehorse rather than another airport remains unanswered by senior national agencies, the [FAA], NORAD, and Transport Canada. … [Q]uestions about the decision-making process to re-direct [KAL 85] to Whitehorse have not been answered in any significant detail.” The report added, “It is expected that greater detail on this will not be forthcoming from these agencies in the short-term.” [24]
WAS KAL 85 PART OF AN EXERCISE SIMULATION?
This secrecy and confusion would certainly make sense if these agencies were trying to cover-up KAL 85’s involvement in a training exercise. What makes this possibility seem even more likely is that, five days before 9/11, NORAD practiced two exercise scenarios with an uncanny resemblance to the apparent crisis involving KAL 85. Those scenarios were part of its annual exercise, “Vigilant Guardian,” which was still taking place on September 11.
In one of the scenarios on September 6, 10 members of a fictitious terrorist group called “Lin Po” hijacked Korean Airlines Flight 357, a Boeing 747 flying from Seoul to Anchorage–in other words, a plane resembling KAL 85. The terrorists issued demands and threatened to blow up the plane if these were not met. They also killed two passengers. NORAD directed fighter jets to get in a position to shoot down the hijacked 747, and ordered its Alaskan region to intercept and shadow the plane–similar to what it did in response to KAL 85 on September 11. The scenario involved the plane eventually landing in Seattle, Washington. [25]
In the other exercise scenario on September 6, a Boeing 747, also bound for Anchorage, was hijacked by terrorists, although in that case the plane had taken off from Tokyo, not Seoul. A fictitious terrorist group called “Mum Hykro” was threatening to “rain terror from the skies onto a major U.S. city unless the U.S. declares withdrawal from Asian conflict.” Some of the plane’s passengers were killed. The plane changed its course to Vancouver, Canada, and then to San Francisco, California. The military was directed to respond, by providing “covert shadowing” of the hijacked aircraft, presumably by fighter jets. NORAD had to liaise with the appropriate air traffic control center. Its Alaskan region and Canadian region participated in the scenario. Again, we see similarities to the events involving KAL 85 five days later. [26] Might the apparent hijacking of KAL 85 on 9/11 have therefore been a simulation intended as a follow-up to these two previous scenarios?
Clearly, the actions of KAL 85 and the plane’s possible involvement in a military exercise require more investigation. But the fact that exercises resembling the real-world attacks were taking place on September 11, and–if my conclusions about KAL 85 are correct–at least one of those exercises was still going on hours after the attacks in New York and Washington took place, should be of concern to us all.
NOTES (See source for links)
[1] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.” USA Today, August 12, 2002; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare.” CNN, August 14, 2002; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, pp. 256-257.
[2] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr. 22nd Leg., 2nd Sess., February 5, 2002; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.” Anchorage Daily News, September 8, 2002.
[3] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 278-279.
[4] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare”; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, pp. 257, 277-278.
[5] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency: Public Findings Report. Whitehorse, Yukon: Yukon Government, November 13, 2001, p. 17.
[6] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[7] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[8] Zaz Hollander, “High Alert”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 257.
[9] “Stranded Passengers Flood Canadian Airports.” CBC News, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.” Anchorage Daily News, September 29, 2001; Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.; Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.”
[10] Alaska Legislature Joint Senate and House Armed Services Committee, Presentations by Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz and Major General Willie Nance Jr.
[11] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 278.
[12] Shawn McCarthy, “PM Says U.S. Attitude Helped Fuel Sept. 11.” Globe and Mail, September 12, 2002; Sheldon Alberts, “PM Links Attacks to ‘Arrogant’ West.” National Post, September 12, 2002.
[13] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster”; Patty Davis, “Korean Jet in 9/11 ‘Hijack’ Scare.”
[14] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 14-15.
[15] “Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP.” Canadian Press, September 12, 2001; “Korean Planes Make Emergency Landings.” United Press International, September 12, 2001; Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[16] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, pp. 17-18.
[17] “Korean Passenger Jet Diverted to Whitehorse Treated as Hijacking: RCMP.”
[18] Zaz Hollander, “High Alert.”
[19] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[20] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 279.
[21] Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[22] Alan Levin, “Korean Air Jet May Have Narrowly Missed Disaster.”
[23] Zaz Hollander, “False Sept. 11 Hijack Signal Put Air Force on Alert.”
[24] September 11, 2001, Whitehorse International Airport Emergency, p. 5.
[25] “NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary.” 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[26] Ibid.
David Ray Griffin: The Barbara Olson Story
This article is based on Chapter 8 of Dr. David Ray Griffin's new book, "9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press," (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008). Original article here.
This book reframes the central events of 9/11 as a series of 25 internal contradictions. The only way that its readers will be able to continue to accept the official story is to accept mutually contradictory accounts.
"9/11 Contradictions" may have the best chance of any of DRG's books (or indeed any book) of opening up a new investigation into 9/11.
Late in the day on 9/11, CNN put out a story that began: “Barbara Olson, a conservative commentator and attorney, alerted her husband, Solicitor General Ted Olson, that the plane she was on was being hijacked Tuesday morning, Ted Olson told CNN.” According to this story, Olson reported that his wife had “called him twice on a cell phone from American Airlines Flight 77,” saying that “all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers. The only weapons she mentioned were knives and cardboard cutters.”2
Ted Olson’s report was very important. It provided the only evidence that American 77, which was said to have struck the Pentagon, had still been aloft after it had disappeared from FAA radar around 9:00 AM (there had been reports, after this disappearance, that an airliner had crashed on the Ohio-Kentucky border).
Also, Barbara Olson had been a very well-known commentator on CNN. The report that she died in a plane that had been hijacked by Arab Muslims was an important factor in getting the nation’s support for the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” Ted Olson’s report was important in still another way, being the sole source of the widely accepted idea that the hijackers had box cutters.3
However, although Ted Olson’s report of phone calls from his wife has been a central pillar of the official account of 9/11, this report has been completely undermined.
Olson’s Self-Contradictions
Olson began this process of undermining by means of self-contradictions. He first told CNN, as we have seen, that his wife had “called him twice on a cell phone.” But he contradicted this claim on September 14, telling Hannity and Colmes that she had reached him by calling the Department of Justice collect. Therefore, she must have been using the “airplane phone,” he surmised, because “she somehow didn’t have access to her credit cards.”4
However, this version of Olson’s story, besides contradicting his first version, was even self-contradictory, because a credit card is needed to activate a passenger-seat phone.
Later that same day, moreover, Olson told Larry King Live that the second call from his wife suddenly went dead because “the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don’t work that well.”5 After that return to his first version, he finally settled on the second version, saying that his wife had called collect and hence must have used “the phone in the passengers’ seats” because she did not have her purse.6
By finally settling on this story, Olson avoided a technological pitfall. Given the cell phone system employed in 2001, high-altitude cell phone calls from airliners were impossible, or at least virtually so (Olson’s statement that “the signals from cell phones coming from airplanes don’t work that well” was a considerable understatement). The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004.7
However, Olson’s second story, besides being self-contradictory, was contradicted by American Airlines.
American Airlines Contradicts Olson’s Second Version
A 9/11 researcher, knowing that AA Flight 77 was a Boeing 757, noticed that AA’s website indicated that its 757s do not have passenger-seat phones. After he wrote to ask if that had been the case on September 11, 2001, an AA customer service representative replied: “That is correct; we do not have phones on our Boeing 757. The passengers on flight 77 used their own personal cellular phones to make out calls during the terrorist attack.”8
In response to this revelation, defenders of the official story might reply that Ted Olson was evidently right the first time: she had used her cell phone. However, besides the fact that this scenario is rendered unlikely by the cell phone technology employed in 2001, it has also been contradicted by the FBI.
Olson’s Story Contradicted by the FBI
The most serious official contradiction of Ted Olson’s story came in 2006 at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker. The evidence presented to this trial by the FBI included a report on phone calls from all four 9/11 flights.
In its report on American Flight 77, the FBI report attributed only one call to Barbara Olson and it was an “unconnected call,” which (of course) lasted “0 seconds.”9 According to the FBI, therefore, Ted Olson did not receive a single call from his wife using either a cell phone or an onboard phone.
Back on 9/11, the FBI itself had interviewed Olson. A report of that interview indicates that Olson told the FBI agents that his wife had called him twice from Flight 77.10 And yet the FBI’s report on calls from Flight 77, presented in 2006, indicated that no such calls occurred.
This was an amazing development: The FBI is part of the Department of Justice, and yet its report undermined the well-publicized claim of the DOJ’s former solicitor general that he had received two calls from his wife on 9/11.
Olson’s Story Also Rejected by Pentagon Historians
Ted Olson’s story has also been quietly rejected by the historians who wrote Pentagon 9/11, a treatment of the Pentagon attack put out by the Department of Defense.11
According to Olson, his wife had said that “all passengers and flight personnel, including the pilots, were herded to the back of the plane by armed hijackers.”12 This is an inherently implausible scenario. We are supposed to believe that 60-some people, including the two pilots, were held at bay by three or four men (one or two of the hijackers would have been in the cockpit) with knives and boxcutters.
This scenario becomes even more absurd when we realize that the alleged hijackers were all small, unathletic men (the 9/11 Commission pointed out that even “[t]he so-called muscle hijackers actually were not physically imposing, as the majority of them were between 5’5” and 5’7” in height and slender in build”13), and that the pilot, Charles “Chic” Burlingame, was a weightlifter and a boxer, who was described as “really tough” by one of his erstwhile opponents.14
Also, the idea that Burlingame would have turned over the plane to hijackers was rejected by his brother, who said: “I don't know what happened in that cockpit, but I'm sure that they would have had to incapacitate him or kill him because he would have done anything to prevent the kind of tragedy that befell that airplane.”15
The Pentagon historians, in any case, did not accept the Olson story, according to which Burlingame and his co-pilot did give up their plane and were in the back with the passengers and other crew members. They instead wrote that “the attackers either incapacitated or murdered the two pilots.”16
Conclusion
This rejection of Ted Olson’s story by American Airlines, the Pentagon, and especially the FBI is a development of utmost importance. Without the alleged calls from Barbara Olson, there is no evidence that Flight 77 returned to Washington.
Also, if Ted Olson’s claim was false, then there are only two possibilities: Either he lied or he was duped by someone using voice-morphing technology to pretend to be his wife.17 In either case, the official story about the calls from Barbara Olson was based on deception. And if that part of the official account of 9/11 was based on deception, should we not suspect that other parts were as well?
The fact that Ted Olson’s report has been contradicted by other defenders of the official story about 9/11 provides grounds for demanding a new investigation of 9/11. This internal contradiction is, moreover, only one of 25 such contradictions discussed in my most recent book, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press.
NOTES
1 This essay is based on Chapter 8 (“Did Ted Olson Receive Calls from Barbara Olson?”) of David Ray Griffin, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008).
2 Tim O’Brien, “Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from Plane,” CNN, September 11, 2001 (http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson).
3 This was pointed out in The 9/11 Commission Report, 8.
4 Hannity & Colmes, Fox News, September 14, 2001 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2001/foxnews091401.html).
5 “America’s New War: Recovering from Tragedy,” Larry King Live, CNN, September 14, 2001 (http://edition.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0109/14/lkl.00.html).
6 In his “Barbara K. Olson Memorial Lecture,” delivered November 16, 2001
(http://www.fed-soc.org/resources/id.63/default.asp),
Olson said that she “somehow managed . . . to use a telephone in the airplane to call.” He laid out this version of his story more fully in an interview reported in Toby Harnden, “She Asked Me How to Stop the Plane,” Daily Telegraph, March 5, 2002 (http://s3.amazonaws.com/911timeline/2002/telegraph030502.html).
7 I discussed the technical difficulties of making cell phone calls from airliners in 2001 in Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2007), 87-88, 292-97.
8 See the submission of 17 February 2006 by “the Paradroid” on the Politik Forum (http://forum.politik.de/forum/archive/index.php/t-133356-p-24.html). It is quoted in David Ray Griffin, 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 75.
9 United States v. Zacarias Moussaoui, Exhibit Number P200054 (http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov/notablecases/moussaoui/exhibits/prosecution/flights/P200054.html). These documents can be more easily viewed in “Detailed Account of Phone Calls from September 11th Flights”
(http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/calldetail.html).
10 FBI, “Interview with Theodore Olsen [sic],” “9/11 Commission, FBI Source Documents, Chronological, September 11,” 2001Intelfiles.com, March 14, 2008,
(http://intelfiles.egoplex.com:80/2008/03/911-commission-fbi-source-documents.html).
11 Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007).
12 O’Brien, “Wife of Solicitor General Alerted Him of Hijacking from Plane.”
13 9/11 Commission Staff Statement 16
(http://www.9-11commission.gov/staff_statements/staff_statement_16.pdf).
14 Shoestring, “The Flight 77 Murder Mystery: Who Really Killed Charles Burlingame?” Shoestring911, February 2, 2008 (http://shoestring911.blogspot.com/2008/02/flight-77-murder-mystery-who-really.html).
15 “In Memoriam: Charles ‘Chic’ Burlingame, 1949-2001,” USS Saratoga Museum foundation (available at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/planes/analysis/chic_remembered.html).
16 Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11 (Washington DC: Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007), 12.
17 Of these two possibilities, the idea that Ted Olson was duped should be seriously entertained only if there are records proving that the Department of Justice received two collect calls, ostensibly from Barbara Olson, that morning. Evidently no such records have been produced.
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