# Pentagon Crash Video **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 18, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327 "2006-05-18T22:28:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![shelbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3d9bf3/32.png) [@shelbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/shelbo)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 10:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/1 "2006-05-18T22:28:06Z")
So the government has released the video of the airplane crashing into the Pentagon on 9/11. I’ve looked, but have not found a picture or video snippet showing the plane in the instant before impact. Is there such a picture? Or was the plane moving too fast to be picked up on the video? (Or was there NO PLANE AT ALL!!! :eek: (kidding)) ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [May 18, 2006, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/2 "2006-05-18T22:34:02Z")
There’s a streak that conforms to a plane sliding along the ground at high velocity, captured on a regular low-res CCTV camera. Problem is the velocity is too high to be captured convincingly enough for conspiracists. However, there was allegedly also confiscated CCTV video from a gas station that I think they ought to release too. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/3 "2006-05-19T00:12:26Z")
I heard on tv, so no cite, that the plane was traveling at well over 500 mph. Apparently you can see a streak of it in one frame, but by the next frame it has already hit the building. ---
**Author:** ![happywaffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ee59a6/32.png) [@happywaffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happywaffle)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/4 "2006-05-19T03:17:33Z")
Ditto. Was moving too fast to be properly captured. Which is a shame, cause of all the lame/bizarre/ridiculous 9/11 conspiracy theories I’ve seen, the one I find most interesting is how the hole in the Pentagon didn’t seem to be “plane-shaped” (no hole where the wings and engine would have gone). I was looking forward to a nice clear video of this particular attack, so the grainy stuff we got was disappointing. No worries, I still think those conspiracy folks are still a bag of nuts (see the Holocaust denial thread currently on page 1). Just did the math: plane moving at 500 miles/hour = 733 ft/sec. The videos seem to be only a couple of frames per second, so that plane would have been come and gone between frames. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/5 "2006-05-19T04:50:57Z")
The video isn’t “grainy”. Film is grainy. ---
**Author:** ![Kizarvexius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/da6949/32.png) [@Kizarvexius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kizarvexius)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/6 "2006-05-19T15:26:39Z")
Let’s suppose, just for a moment, that the video was everything the conspiracy-hawkers have been demanding. Let’s say that it showed a clear, scientifically sound and horrifyingly real image of the plane impacting the building. Let’s say that a legion of respectable and impartial video analysis experts steps forward to vouch for the authenticity of the images. The conspiracy nuts will simply claim that the video is a computer generated hoax and continue to spout their paranoid ravings. If the reports of hundreds of eyewitnesses – as well as videotaped statements from Osama Bin Ladin admitting that he planned it all – haven’t convinced you that this was an act of mass murder committed by a fanatical terrorist movement, then you have serious problems with reality, and NOTHING will change your mind. ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/7 "2006-05-19T15:32:16Z")
Why do I recall seeing this video years ago at snopes? ---
**Author:** ![happywaffle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ee59a6/32.png) [@happywaffle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/happywaffle)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/8 "2006-05-19T15:54:59Z")
I’d mostly just like to see where the wings and engines went! ---
**Author:** ![Pushkin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ee59a6/32.png) [@Pushkin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pushkin)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/9 "2006-05-19T15:59:19Z")
> [@happywaffle](#): > > I’d mostly just like to see where the wings and engines went! The wings were in little bits outside and inside the Pentagon surely? They were travelling at great speed into a large, solid, stationary object and the wings not that solid in comparison. ---
**Author:** ![Loach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/loach/32/350_2.png) [@Loach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Loach)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/10 "2006-05-19T16:00:41Z")
> [@happywaffle](#): > > I’d mostly just like to see where the wings and engines went! This has been done to death here and elsewhere. They went into the building. There is plenty of evidence. You probably wouldn’t believe it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/11 "2006-05-19T16:01:28Z")
> [@bup](#): > > Why do I recall seeing this video years ago at snopes? I think there was some security footage from a nearby gas station or something. Maybe that’s what you recall seeing. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/12 "2006-05-19T16:46:10Z")
In 2002 a short sequence of frames was released from a parking gate security camera at the Pentagon. Now the whole sequence of over a minute from that same video has been released. Plus, a second video taken by another parking gate security camera from the same angle, but a few yards closer. Other videos taken on private property (the gas station, the hotel) have not been released yet. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/13 "2006-05-19T16:54:19Z")
Photographs of engine parts in the wreckage. ---
**Author:** ![Uncommon\_Sense](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f9ae1b/32.png) [@Uncommon\_Sense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncommon_Sense)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/14 "2006-05-19T17:18:31Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > Photographs of engine parts in the wreckage. Can’t see that. Llinky-check please. ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/15 "2006-05-19T17:27:57Z")
[Photographs of engine parts in the Pentagon wreckage.](http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/turbofans.html) ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [May 19, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/16 "2006-05-19T17:36:32Z")
I personally know an eyewitness, so I’m satisfied. He works for Social Security in a nearby building. He heard an unusual noise, and he looked out the window just as the plane approached. ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2006, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/17 "2006-05-20T02:30:14Z")
> [@Walloon](#): > > The video isn’t “grainy”. Film is grainy. You are wrong. Grainy is not a scientific term by a long shot. Video tape can be made to appear more granular and at a lower resolution than when originally shot through a variety of influences: 1. Digitally zooming in on a section of the frame, then showing that zoomed in frame in full-field videotape. The heavily digitized image appears grainy, though the edge of the grains are square, not round. 2. Increase the signal to noise ratio in an attempt to coax out more information at the edge of the limits of what is visible to the naked eye. Many normal digital camera software packages permit one to increase the contrast, brightness and other qualities until you can see more than you could before, but at a cost of apparenly heightened grain. 3. You can start with extremely light-sensitive CCD’s or tubes. The image from extremely light-sensitive CCD’s or tubes delivers a routinely grainy image. For example, the Phillips video camera used as a video tap source in the mid-1970’s was a camera that delivered a very grainy image. By comparison, the Watec Black Widow CCD black and white camera used for the same purpose 10-15 years later was more light sensitive, and yet yielded a much less grainy image on the same size image, being fed through the same video coax cable. The lower the resolution ( a finite measureable quality in video ), the higher the grain structure ( an indefinable quality that is subjective to the viewer to some extent ). It is the way it is. And, since the advent of the Kodak “T”-grain stocks, grain does not look round like grain used to. Resolution has improved because the silver halide crystals in the film emulsion matrix are not round, they are flat in the shape of a “T”. Hence the name. This allows more of the grains to be struck by light in a more uniform way ( in the way that making the letter “T” out of two tubular balloons allows less light to strike the facing surface, than if you had crafted the same sized letter “T” out of flat white art card). The _apparent_ grain is reduced in this case. However, it is indisputable that both video images and film images have a grain structure that is influenced by different sets of image alteration or development. Cartooniverse, professional cameraman. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Walloon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/fbc32d/32.png) [@Walloon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Walloon)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 11:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/18 "2006-05-21T23:35:16Z")
None of those three are true for the video taken from the Pentagon parking lot security gate camera. It’s just not a high quality video — inexpensive wide-angle lens, sunlight glare on the glass covering the camera enclosure, automatic exposure that overcompensates during the fireball explosion, low frames per second rate. It was meant to photograph drivers stopped next to the camera at the parking lot gate, not airplanes hitting the Pentagon at over 500 mph. ---
**Author:** ![TPRg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecb155/32.png) [@TPRg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TPRg)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2006, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/19 "2006-05-21T23:51:45Z")
Excellent elaboration, **Cartooniverse**. From my work in video post production: film = grain, video = noise. Don’t know how official those terms are, but I thought it was worth noting 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/96bed5/32.png) [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2006, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327/20 "2006-05-22T01:00:08Z")
For those asking “where did the airplane go?”, I refer you to this video: [Jet versus concrete wall](http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/1266/Jet_Vs_Concrete_wall.html) The Jet pretty much disintegrates. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pentagon-crash-video/357327.md?page=2)