The Pentagon Strike, Popular Mechanics and the 9/11 Truth Movement

The March Issue of Popular Mechanics Magazine is running an article that it claims "refutes the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11". It covers everything from the WTC attacks, to the crash of Flight 93, or as Donald Rumsfeld more accurately put it, the shooting down of the plane over Pennsylvania.
All this might lead the reader of these claims to conclude that they've now dug up an American Airlines Boeing 757 at the Pentagon and have the photographs to prove it.

Not exactly.

Instead, they've quoted structural engineer Allyn E. Kilsheimer, an eyewitness who states,

"It was absolutely a plane, and I'll tell you why," [...]
"I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box."

Really, and what sort of plane would that be exactly?
He doesn't say.

The online article supplies just one photograph that's been in circulation on the web for more than three years. It shows a small, mangled piece of painted metal, with neatly serrated edges, that is amazingly untarnished despite surviving a 530mph (NTSC) impact and being hurled some distance from the Pentagon by the explosion.
Not only that, but it appears to be painted a light blue colour. American Airlines doesn't paint it's aircraft, besides the logo. They're HIGHLY REFLECTIVE aluminium.
Nethertheless, the magazine states, it is "proof that a passenger plane, not a missile, hit the building."
Actually, it's "proof" there was a piece of metal sitting on the lawn outside the Pentagon. What this piece really belongs to is anybody's guess; a helicopter, a drone, or planted evidence are a few of the other possibilities.

The magazine does acknowledge that photographs clearly show intact windows near the plane's point of impact. And then, just to shoot itself in the foot again, it quotes Ken Hays, Executive Vice President of the company that manufactured the windows, who says of them:

"They were not designed to receive wracking seismic force," Hays notes.

No kidding. And a high speed impact of an 80 ton commercial airliner will certainly create a "wracking seismic force". Enough to drill a hole through several layers of steel-reinforced concrete if we are to believe the ASCE.
However, according to a report that analysed data from nearby siesmic recording stations, whatever hit the Pentagon didn't create the seismic force that the planes that hit the towers did,

We analyzed seismic records from five stations in the northeastern United States, ranging from 63 to 350 km from the Pentagon. Despite detailed analysis of the data, we could not find a clear seismic signal. Even the closest station ( = 62.8 km) at Soldier's Delight, Baltimore County, Maryland (SDMD) did not record the impact. We concluded that the plane impact to the Pentagon generated relatively weak seismic signals. However, we positively identified seismic signals associated with United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed near Shanksville, Somerset County, Pennsylvania. The time of the plane crash was 10:06:05 5 (EDT).
- Seismic Observations During September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attack
Full Report (PDF)

Now, how would they explain that one?

There are so many obvious flaws in the Popular Mechanics article, it's hard to know where to turn next, and I'm not going to continue since the article does a good job of exposing it's real intentions itself.
The publication of this article has come not long after some members of the 9/11 "Truth" Movement have done a simultaneous U-turn on the Pentagon evidence. For three years some of the most popular 9/11 websites have been citing the lack of evidence for a 757 crash at the Pentagon as an important and revealing piece of the puzzle for understanding the truth of 9/11. Which it is. As of September 2004, the "interpretation" of the evidence, or lack thereof, has changed and now a 757 DID crash at the Pentagon, or so they say.
Has more evidence come to light that requires we alter our hypothesis of "no Flight 77 at the Pentagon"?

Nope.

So, what are the odds that several unaffiliated 9/11 websites would all suddenly decide to change their mind on one of the strongest pieces of evidence that 9/11 was an inside job.
What seems to have happened is a coordinated response to the popularity of the Pentagon Flash which appeared in late August, and has been subsequently downloaded and watched by millions of people worldwide.
Surely this is precisely what the 9/11 Truth Movement has been wanting all along, right? Not so, it seems.
Instead, they've decided to "attack" the evidence cited in the video in true COINTELPRO style.
Perhaps the Powers That Be have decided that its creators are digging a little too deep in their search for Truth. Of course, the U-turn also serves to show the public that corruption is found even in so-called "truth movements".
And now, with the "flawed" Popular Mechanics article giving the population another reason to distrust authority, one would be forgiven for wondering what's really going on.

Fortunately then, here is an article that gives a well researched insight into the players and motives behind the 9/11 Truth Movement:

Looking at the current infighting going on at present, it would appear that CoIntelPro agents have done a fine job. No one knows who is who anymore, everyone suspects everyone else, and those members of the public whose minds are not, as yet, welded shut will be the ones to suffer most from the lack of coherent information about what really happened on 911, who really is to blame, or what the real issue is.

For any 9-11 investigator to come out and say that a 757 plane definitely hit the Pentagon is to rob the public of the singularly most important aspect of 9-11 and the one that has the chance to blow the whole dastardly plot wide open.
Full Article.

Signs of the Times

I spent some time staying at a friend's house recently which has given me some insight into his life that I didn't have before. During my stay we had a number of conversations relating to the state of the world and the direction it's heading.

During one discussion, I pointed out that the Signs seem to indicate this world may well be heading for some catastrophes. Things don't look good for the future of the planet.

Based on what he asked?

I gave a few examples, such as the increase in Earth-bound objects in recent years.

The idea of the "End Times" isn't new to my friend. He's read the books that describe the times of turmoil in the final days, as passed on in "stories" and "myths" from ancient times.
What he isn't aware of, and what most of these books omit, is the evidence showing periods of destruction in the past, and based on the cyclical nature of the universe, the likelihood of it happening again. Neither it seems, was my friend interested in looking.
In the past he appeared to enjoy these conversations, but things were different this time around.

Common sense, he said, tells him the world will continue as it always has. The human race has had its ups and downs in the past but we're still here.

Forgetting the Earth Changes for a moment, what about the actions of the current Bush Administration, the slaughtering of innocent civilians in Iraq, the questions surrounding the official story of 9/11, the remarkable similarity in the rise the Bush Reich with that of Hitler's Nazi party, I ask. Why did he think this was happening now and what did he think the the potential implications would be?

His answer was simple. Even if it's all true he said, Hitler was defeated and everything was okay in end.

Well, he seemed to have overlooked a not-so-small detail. That 65 million people died in the Second World War, and the lives of millions of others were thrown into turmoil by the actions of a tyrannical government which chose to impose its "ideals" on the rest of the world. The lives of these people was certainly not "alright".
The logical flaws in his thinking are fundamental.
Common sense is only useful, if based on knowledge. If it is based on incomplete data, or "false knowledge", which really isn't knowledge at all, it is useless.

Anyhow, the reason for my friend's continued ignorance is now clear. He stated it himself. He isn't comfortable discussing these subjects in any depth, and just wants to have a "good time". He loves food. He loves women. He likes working out. He likes talking about "conspiracy", all the while the unpleasant details are left out. Fortunately for him then, the Devil is in the details.
It's easy to jump to erroneous conclusions by skipping the "little" details, only for these seemingly trivial pieces of information to turn out to be critical to the understanding of a problem.
As someone recently pointed out to me. If you don't know something, you shouldn't be afraid to say so.

What is interesting in my friend's case is, despite making the choice to put his head in the sand, rather than saying "I don't want to know" and leaving his mind open to other possibilities, he chose to "disagree" with me.

"You have your opinions, I have mine. We'll have to agree to disagree", he said.
Now, I didn't respond to this since he has clearly stated his choice, and this is his right of freewill. But what has he really chosen to disagree with? Me or reality?

The following excerpt taken from Laura Knight-Jadczyk's, The High Strangeness of Dimensions, Densities and the Process of Alien Abduction sums up my friends position concisely, as it does a large proportion of the worlds population, it seems:

We see here what we Cohen has called "implicatory denial" where there is no attempt to deny either the facts or their conventional interpretation; what is ultimately denied are the psychological, political and moral implications that follow from deep acknowledgement. We can casually admit things in states of implicatory denial,which then leads us directly into "interpretive denial" where the raw facts that something may actually be happening - such as conspiracy- are not really denied - they are just "interpreted" or rationalized away. We are then more easily able to slip into literal denial, that there is no "conspiracy", and then the painful truth of our true condition is ameliorated and we can return to our sitcoms, ballgames and weekend barbeques.

We all have a choice to make. We can pay attention to the Signs of the Times, or we can continue with "Everyday Life". The decision we make as individuals will determine what, if any, future we have. And here we are not talking about our "physical vehicle", we are talking about the battle for our very soul.