9-11 Conspiracies Part II: The Pentagon "Missile" Attack!

Last month, after the five-year anniversary of 9-11 had passed, the loopy Conspiracy Theorists had once again crawled out of their holes - energized anew from angrily observing the heartfelt laments, memorials and fellowships of real people in America. I decided to write a series of articles addressing the contrived issues of these closet-wackjobs in order to illuminate to my readers just how crazy and hellbent on this administration's downfall some of the fringe left have become.

What Are These Kooks Saying?
Did the Bush Administration plan and execute the greatest, most diabolically murderous and spectacular flim-flam in American history on September 11th, 2001 (in order to justify war)?

• Were all three collapsed towers of the WTC secretly demolished?
  
• Was that a missile that flew into the Pentagon?
  
• Was the crash of Flight 93 in a Pennsylvania field staged and the passengers spirited away to a gas chamber?
  
• If he didn't expect it, why did President Bush just sit there in that classroom and continue to read to the kids - instead of leaping to his feet and taking charge when "informed" that an aircraft had crashed into the North Tower?

These and other compelling questions have kept Charlie Sheen and other such towering intellects of our time awake at night. Sage books (like the French bestseller Pentagate) and venerable MENSA-like organizations and websites (such as 9-11 Truth, WTC7 and Prison Planet) have emerged to show us the light on this fantastical coup that was wrought by the Evil Genious George W. Bush...and you thought MoveOn.org was a magnet for nutcases!

The first offering in this series was entitled 9-11 Conspiracies Part I: The Alleged Secret Demolition of the WTC Towers. Now it is time to move onto another burning question that you are no doubt losing sleep over:

9-11 Conspiracies Part II:
The Alleged U.S. Missile Attack on the Pentagon

Many people in the so-called "9/11 Truth Movement" believe that the Pentagon was not actually struck by Flight 77, as the "official story" claims. Instead, they believe that the United States government somehow staged the damage, perhaps through the use of a bomb or strategically fired missile.

"Why was there only a small hole, 16 feet in diameter, in the side of the Pentagon where a large passenger plane supposedly crashed? Wouldn't it have been bigger and shouldn't the crash have made more of an aircraft-shaped impression like the ones that hit the WTC towers?"

• 9/11 conspiracy theorists like to reference pictures of the damaged Pentagon in which the hole made by the plane appears to be small, but aren't as fond of the pictures accurately showing the full extent of the damage. The hole was described by the on-scene CNN correspondent Jamie McIntyre as "a huge gaping hole."
  
  
• When American Airlines Flight 77 hit the Pentagon's exterior wall, Ring E, it created a hole approximately 75 feet wide, according to the ASCE Pentagon Building Performance Report. The exterior facade collapsed about 20 minutes after impact, but ASCE based its measurements of the original hole on the number of first-floor support columns that were destroyed or damaged. Computer simulations confirmed the findings.
  
  
• The expectation that a speeding Boeing 757 would leave an immediately recognizable, snow-angel style impression of itself in a solid concrete building (versus the mostly-glass exterior of the WTC buildings, which did leave outlines of the crashed planes) is completely unrealistic.
  
  
• According to Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at Purdue University who specializes in the behavior of concrete buildings:

"One wing hit the ground; the other was sheared off by the force of the impact with the Pentagon's load-bearing columns"

"What about the fact that the supposed plane just disintegrated? That reporter McIntyre even reported: 'From my close-up inspection, there's no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon.' So, what gives?"

• In true Michael Moore fashion, this sentence was taken out of context. In his interview, this reporter was trying to point out that the plane had not crashed into the ground before hitting the Pentagon, but crashed directly into it.
  
  
• He went on to say the following without so much as a breath:

"The only site is the actual site of the building that's crashed in, and as I said, the only pieces left that you can see are small enough that you can pick up in your hand. There are no large tail sections, wing sections, fuselage, nothing like that anywhere around, which would indicate that the entire plane crashed into the side of the Pentagon and then caused the side to collapse."

• Earlier in the interview, McIntyre also had stated the following:

"I could see parts of the airplane that crashed into the building, very small pieces of the plane on the heliport outside the building. The biggest piece I saw was about three feet long, it was silver and had been painted green and red, but I could not see any identifying markings on the plane. I also saw a large piece of shattered glass. It appeared to be a cockpit windshield or other window from the plane."

• Not enough? In an article of Popular Mechanics, blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer gave his own observations as the first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after Flight 77 crashed:

"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.

• Kilsheimer's eyewitness account is backed up by a large collection of photos of the plane wreckage, both inside and outside of the building.

"But what about the supposed passengers and crew? Wouldn't there have been DNA or blood at least?"

• On this ridiculous and disproven claim, Kilsheimer was equally clear:

"I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?"

Tune back in for 9-11 Conspirancies Part III:
The "Shootdown" of Flight 93

Thanks again to the Skeptic Society and Popular Mechanics.