# An angle of the WTC collapse I'd never seen
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182
**Category:** Great Debates
**Created:** [July 19, 2010, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182 "2010-07-19T01:39:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 35
### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/681 "2010-07-29T18:10:28Z")
Swing that big loop up to 10, 11 o’clock and you’ve got the whole of Lake Erie to dump it in. And while everyone is watching the tv seeing what’s happening in NY, how many people do you think would be outside to see it happen? Go on, you’ll be telling me they were followed on radar or some such shit, like that sort of thing couldn’t be faked, bearing in mind no black box was going to be recovered.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/682 "2010-07-29T18:19:44Z")
But eyewitnesses _did_ see the plane as it came into D.C. and crashed into the Pentagon. I forget what your contention was regarding swapping the plane out; what was the point?
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/683 "2010-07-29T18:21:02Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Swing that big loop up to 10, 11 o’clock and you’ve got the whole of Lake Erie to dump it in.
While you’re looking at maps, I suggest taking note of the numerous towns and cities that ring Lake Erie, which is hardly an isolated, untraveled body of water. Hundreds (if not thousands) of cargo vessels and fishing boats cross it daily. The chances of a large plane crashing unobserved anywhere in it in broad daylight (let alone remaining undiscovered all this time) are, to be generous in a manner Jesus Christ would find excessive, slim.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/684 "2010-07-29T18:32:17Z")
As I’ve just mentioned, the vast majority of Americans were glued to a tv screen. Makes you wonder what all those people who said they’d seen a plane were doing outdoors anyway. Dare I say “shills”?
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/685 "2010-07-29T18:42:41Z")
What, you think the streets were deserted, no one driving or walking anywhere? And, like I said, the fundamental question remains: why? Why bury the plane and swap it out for whatever?
You love to poke what you see as holes in the mainstream view, yet you refuse to address the basic, gaping holes which make your theory impossible. People don’t go to massive effort to do extremely risky things without having a reason, and they particularly don’t go to massive effort to do extremely risky things when there are easier and less risky ways of accomplishing the same goals. So your theory doesn’t make any sense unless you can make plausible an answer to “Why?”. Why?
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### Author:  [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/686 "2010-07-29T18:43:16Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> As I’ve just mentioned, the vast majority of Americans were glued to a tv screen. Makes you wonder what all those people who said they’d seen a plane were doing outdoors anyway. Dare I say “shills”?
[Maybe jogging?](http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/weightloss/2009-05-25-fitcities_N.htm) DC is the fittest city in the nation. You really believe they evacuated the entire area within eyesight of the Pentagon, with nobody noticing or complaining, and then brought in hundreds of “shills” who they managed to hire without anybody talking?
Your theories are absurdly outlandish. It’s like a Rube Goldberg machine. If you want to believe the government was in on it, why don’t you just believe they crashed four planes? Why all this bullshit about explosives, missiles and massive numbers of conspirators?
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### Author:  [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/687 "2010-07-29T18:44:16Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Swing that big loop up to 10, 11 o’clock and you’ve got the whole of Lake Erie to dump it in.
This is quickly becoming the stupidest story ever. Are you saying this happened or just trying to come up with something that could’ve happened if you squint?
The flight data recorder from the plane was recovered, so that information exists. They never got any where close to Lake Erie. The idea that nobody would have seen the plane is ridiculous and the idea that nobody would have found a commercial jet that landed in Lake Erie - no debris on the surface and then washing ashore, nobody on a ship would’ve seen the crash, nothing at all - is also absurd. So is the idea of a conspiracy just leaving the plane lying around and assuming nobody would find it.
By the way, people on that plane called family members on the ground after the hijacking. So if the plane landed in Ohio, that was faked somehow. You’ve also already seen the bodies from the crash and people saw the plane hit the building.
> [@](#):
>
> And while everyone is watching the tv seeing what’s happening in NY, how many people do you think would be outside to see it happen?
Anyone who worked on or near Lake Erie, for starters. Possibly half the city of Cleveland.
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Makes you wonder what all those people who said they’d seen a plane were doing outdoors anyway. Dare I say “shills”?
The nonsense cherry on top of the implausible sundae: the government paid thousands of people to lie and say they saw a plane. And none of them ever blabbed later. Do you believe any of this or are you just trying to waste people’s time?
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### Author:  [@Mr.Miskatonic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Miskatonic)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/688 "2010-07-29T18:47:57Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> As I’ve just mentioned, the vast majority of Americans were glued to a tv screen. Makes you wonder what all those people who said they’d seen a plane were doing outdoors anyway. Dare I say “shills”?
Well heck, some of us shills just slept right through it all!
Of course, we were on the West Coast at the time.
Seriously, those are some mighty thing straws you are grasping at.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/689 "2010-07-29T18:47:58Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> Makes you wonder what all those people who said they’d seen a plane were doing outdoors anyway.
Mostly stuck in a massive traffic jam due to having been on their way to work in DC or points north when chaos hit. Some happened to be already at work and stuck their heads out the door when the jet passed overhead, as was the case with some employees of a Safeway three miles west of the Pentagon.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/690 "2010-07-29T18:50:51Z")
> [@Indistinguishable](#):
>
> What, you think the streets were deserted, no one driving or walking anywhere?
You know, the really crazy thing is…
It’s not just the people who claim to have seen the plane who would have to be shills.
It’s everyone who claims that there were plenty of people outdoors instead of inside glued to their televisions who’d have to be shills.
There’s millions of eyewitnesses across the country who would testify that, in fact, there were still large numbers of ordinary people outdoors at the time, despite the no doubt many watching the television coverage indoors. Millions of nobodies who’d have to be government shills according to this bizarre line you’ve taken!
And why? Dear god, why?!
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/691 "2010-07-29T18:54:51Z")
> [@Gregg64](#):
>
> > [@ignoranceaintbliss](#):
> >
> > After reading up on many 9/11 sites and watching many videos, I was not fully convinced by the conspiracy theories. However, the theories did make me doubt the Pentagon attack. I couldn’t find enough evidence that a plane hit the pentagon. Does anyone have a link to footage of the pentagon attacks?
>
> I don’t have any pictures, but I was on US 1 that morning and I saw the plane…it was a plane.
Hey, look! A shill!
😉
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/692 "2010-07-29T18:55:08Z")
I get the feeling some of you are awaiting some sort of thanks for putting me right on all these elements of wrongness I’m raising? Anyone would think I’d dragged you in here unwillingly and forced you to read my nonsensical jabbering.
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### Author:  [@Indistinguishable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Indistinguishable)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/693 "2010-07-29T18:56:24Z")
Do you feel your jabbering is nonsensical?
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/694 "2010-07-29T18:58:23Z")
> [@Pashnish\_Ewing](#):
>
> we do it for the lurkers.
..
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### Author:  [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/695 "2010-07-29T18:58:33Z")
> [@ivan\_astikov](#):
>
> I get the feeling some of you are awaiting some sort of thanks for putting me right on all these elements of wrongness I’m raising? Anyone would think I’d dragged you in here unwillingly and forced you to read my nonsensical jabbering.
I’m merely interested in your motives. It does not appear that you were ever looking for ‘truth’ or knowledge of any sort.
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### Author:  [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/696 "2010-07-29T19:03:18Z")
> [@sparky\_1](#):
>
> It does not appear that you were ever looking for ‘truth’ or knowledge of any sort.
Virtually none of them ever are. There are those who eventually realize that ‘truth’ does not lie with Alex Jones and his ilk.
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### Author:  [@Frazzled](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frazzled)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/697 "2010-07-29T19:07:14Z")
I participated in this thread early on but stopped when Ivan’s obtuseness became too frustrating for me to continue posting. I’m still reading the thread to see what crazy theory he was going to post next though!
But now I’m coming around on him. His latest theory on Flight 77 tells me he doesn’t really believe this stuff either. I think he just enjoys taking us for the ride, enjoys watching us get riled up, and enjoys knowing that he has single handedly taken this thread to over 700 posts. I think his motive is quite clear - he wants to get to a thousand!
Nice job Ivan! You had me going there for a while!
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/698 "2010-07-29T19:09:14Z")
Yes, because Alex Jones is truly representative of the type of people who are interested in conspiracies, and all you skeptics are represented by truly rational chaps like James Randi, Mark Roberts and other stalwarts of The Fight Against Woo.
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### Author:  [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/699 "2010-07-29T19:10:00Z")
_Were_ the vast majority of Americans (by which I assume at least ~200 million) watching their TVs when that fourth flight disappeared?
When challenged on one doubtful claim, ivan, you seem fond of making another. Besides, it doesn’t matter - did the people on the many fishing boats and cargo ships in Lake Erie all come to shore to watch TV that morning? If not, you’d have to explain why none of them reported a plane crash or found subsequent debris.
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### Author:  [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)
#### Post date: [July 29, 2010, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/an-angle-of-the-wtc-collapse-id-never-seen/547182/700 "2010-07-29T19:11:53Z")
> [@Frazzled](#):
>
> and enjoys knowing that he has single handedly taken this thread to over 700 posts. I think his motive is quite clear - he wants to get to a thousand!
>
> Nice job Ivan! You had me going there for a while!
I’ll thank you when I get there, but I couldn’t have done it without you guise.
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