My brother’s convinced that a plane never actually hit the pentagon, but it was a missile instead. He got this from a wonderful piece of Flash:
http://www.freedomunderground.org/memoryhole/pentagon.php#Main
I know that this theory’s been pretty heavily debunked, but this Flash has a lot of “facts” to back up the assertion. If anyone could debunk these claims, I’d appreciate it.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=273359&highlight=pentagon
No way am I spending the time to code that. I’ve already wasted too much time on this.
It’s been thoroughy debunked, but the simplest riposte is to ask your brother where he thinks the passengers went, if their plane didn’t hit the Pentagon?
Excellent point. Something hit the Pentagon, and a large plane and all the passengers are unaccounted for.
They’re on an uncharted island a thousand miles from Fiji, fending off the polar bears.
Lets face it, if you want to have the world think a 757 hit the pentagon. the simplest way to go about it is to actually fly a 757 into the pentagon.
The last time I tried debunking it this way, the reply I got was that their plane was shot down by another missile.
Face it, there’s no arguing with these people.
Amen to that. Do a search on my username and pentagon. I’ve posted my killer point often enough. Not doing it again.
Apparently someone has a lot of missiles to spare. Did you ask what the point of all this missile play was?
It’s turtles *all * the way down, sir!
-Joe
It’s way too convoluted to waste time on, but the gist of it was that they really really wanted a major attack in order to justify war with Iraq, so they had all these missiles ready just waiting for an opportunity to use them, and the attack on the WTC provided it.
The scary thing is, it’s actually otherwise-intelligent people who believe this.
Well, now I’m intrigued. If Flight 77 was shot down by a missile, where did it crash (assuming it wasn’t at the Pentagon)? The U.S. isn’t so empty that a shot-down commercial jet could go undiscovered for any length of time.
I think I may be able to clear this up.
While relaxing in my Feng Shui apartment, I was contacted by a spirit guide. He told me that some friendly aliens had told him that when NASA were faking their Moon landings, their primitive spacecraft (using stealth technology developed years ago at Area 51) went into orbit.
And that it decayed out of orbit on 9/11 and hit the Pentagon.
The missing plane is in the Bermuda Triangle.
Where did they get the missiles? Reagan and Bush Sr gave them to the Mujahadin who became the Taliban. DUH!
Though that 757-sized hole is bigger than I’d expect from a Stinger. I’ve got it! It was a secret ammo dump in the Pentagon leftover from when hippies in 1967 tried to encircle it to drive out Yog-Sothoth.
I think those who claim a missile did the damage assume it was a Tomahawk cruise missile or equivalent. This begs the question as to why the damage to the Pentagon is inconsistent with the the detonation of a thousand-pound high explosive warhead, which, IIRC, is a Tomahawk’s normal payload.
BTW, the linked statement that “a Boeing 757 was never found” at the Pentagon is factually incorrect. Firstly, no aircraft hitting a solid structure at high speed would be found intact. No aircraft were found at the site of the WTC, either. Secondly, plenty of fragmented wreckage, including two nearly complete engines of the specific type used in a 757, WERE found and photographed at the Pentagon crash site.
OK, so in addition to the above, the OP has the following rhetorical questions to ask of his/her brother:
Where is the missing plane and its passengers?
If the objective was to whip up anti-terrorism hysteria, what was the need to fire a missile at the Pentagon, when at least three planes had apparently been hijacked and two had been successfully flown into targets, with spectaular loss of life and property? Wasn’t that enough?
How did numerous witnesses somehow mistake a twenty-odd foot-long missile for a hundred-some-odd foot-long Boeing 757 commercial airliner?
If a missile was fired, where was it fired from, what military unit was involved, and how could it possibly be kept secret since anywhere from dozens to hundreds of people would have to have participated in the acquisition, preparation and launch of the device?
I’m actually in the middle of a discussion about this on another board. When I asked what happened to the people on the plane, he said “Do we really know there were people on the plane? How do we know it even took off? Does anyone actually know anyone who died?”
So I provided a list of people who were on the plane. I reiterated my question. He said “The military probably killed them. I wouldn’t put it past them.” :smack:
Yeah, They just “rubbed out” the wife of the Solicitor General of the United States (after faking a couple of cell phone calls from her to her husband).
The flash makes a good point actually… remarks about “where are the passengers” don’t answer the points they make. How a lousy pilot managed such a good hit isn’t answered too. I don’t beleive it was a missile… but the pentagon damage is pretty wierd no matter what.
El Kabong did a better job by asking why the damage isn’t consistent with a tomahawk explosive for example… Does anyone have fotos of the engines they said they found inside the pentagon ?
In the end I think flight simulators must be very good for training suicide missions when you can manage planes the way they did...Well, technically, the toughest things about flying a plane are takeoff and landing. They weren’t really concerned with those two.