At 9:37:45 the morning of September 11, 2001,
I didn’t feel a thing as I sat at my desk in my office in room 2E772 on the
Pentagon’s outer E ring. The first I knew a plane had hit the Pentagon was
about five minutes later when I saw it on CNN. A crawl across the bottom of the
screen under the images of the smoking twin towers in New York said an aircraft
had hit the Pentagon.
Figure 2 – Pentagon crash site. Department of Defense photo,
September 14, 2001.
I knew in an instant the world had changed. It had been a
slow summer covering the Pentagon for CNN: the news cycle had been dominated by
reports of shark attacks and the mysterious disappearance of intern Chandra
Levy. Now I could see that I would be busy around the clock for the foreseeable
future.
Figure 3 - Pentagon crash site. Photo by author, September 11,
2001.
Figure 4 - Shards of fuselage. Photo by author, September 11, 2001.
I rushed to the scene. As fire trucks poured water on the
crash site, I photographed thousands of shards of metal that covered the
Pentagon heliport, along with a few bigger pieces of plane wreckage. And I gave
my firsthand account on CNN, whenever the network could break away from the
bigger tragedy unfolding in Manhattan.
And somewhere about seven hours into my reporting, I
uttered the extemporaneous words that would earn me an indelible place in the
hearts of conspiracy theorists around the world.
“From my close-up
inspection, I can tell you there’s no sign a plane crashed anywhere near the
Pentagon…”
Figure 5 - Author reports on Pentagon attack. Photo courtesy CNN.
September 11, 2001.
It would be a few months before I would understand how
those words would become the linchpin of one of the world’s most enduring
conspiracy theories: that 9/11 was an inside job, with the explosion at the
Pentagon caused not by a plane hijacked by Islamic extremists but as the result
of a nefarious plot by the U.S. government in which a missile or bomb attack
was made to look like a plane crash.
At first I paid no attention. Nonsense. No rational person
could believe what was a self-evidently false account. But then in the spring
of 2002, just six months after the attack, a book on the subject became a huge
bestseller in France.[2] It was entitled 11 Septembre
2001: L’Effroyable Imposture (The Horrifying Fraud) [later published in the
U.S. as 9/11: The Big Lie] by Thierry
Meyssan, who was among the first to make the case that the Pentagon explosion
was caused not by a plane but by a missile.[3]
The New York Times, in a story a few
months later, called the book’s line of reasoning “a case study in how a
conspiracy theory can be built around contradictions in official statements,
unnamed 'experts' and 'professional pilots,' unverified published facts,
references to past United States policy in Cuba and Afghanistan, use of technical
information, 'revelations' about secret oil-industry maneuvers and, above all,
rhetorical questions intended to sow doubts.”[4] Though Meyssan was roundly
criticized by many in France, his book nevertheless sold 200,000 copies
according to CNN.[5]
Then came an Internet documentary, Loose Change, which also purported to debunk the official version
of 9/11, and did it in an eerily persuasive way.[6] I watched it. I had to admit it was a convincing bit of
agitprop. If I did not have the benefit of firsthand knowledge of what actually
happened, it would have raised in my mind serious doubts about the official
account. After all, there I was in the documentary –
a credible reporter from a mainstream media
outlet on the scene saying there was “no
evidence of a plane hitting anywhere near the Pentagon” – along with
another eyewitness (whom I had interviewed on CNN) saying it looked like a
cruise missile hitting the building. To this day if one does an Internet search
for “Jamie McIntyre” and “9/11,” the first clip to pop up is me seeming to deny
a plane hit the Pentagon along with various statements supporting the
contention that the crash scene was inconsistent with the crash of a 757
jetliner.
Of course, what I knew is that both of these statements
were egregiously taken out of context. I also knew a plane had indeed hit the
building. All evidence supported that and none suggested otherwise. In fact, a
longer clip of that very same report, which is also still accessible on
YouTube, shows me describing the pieces of the plane wreckage I saw and
photographed:
“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 that appeared to be a cockpit windshield, or other window
from the plane.”[7]
The video record
also shows that when I said no plane crashed near the Pentagon, I was answering a question from CNN anchor Judy
Woodruff, clarifying an earlier suggestion that perhaps the plane may have
actually crashed nearby, short of the Pentagon.
Figure 6 - CNN's Judy Woodruff debriefs author. Photo courtesy CNN,
September 11, 2001.
WOODRUFF:
Jamie, Aaron was talking earlier, er one of our correspondents was talking
earlier, I think it was Bob Franken with an eyewitness who said it appeared
that Boeing 757, the American jet, Airlines jet, landed short of the Pentagon.
Can you give us any idea how much of the plane actually impacted the building?
McINTYRE:
You know it might have appeared that way, but from my close-up inspection,
there’s no evidence of a plane having crashed anywhere near the Pentagon, the
only site is the actual side of the building that is crashed in, and the only
pieces left are small enough that you can pick up in your hand. There are no
large tail sections, wing sections, a fuselage, nothing like that anywhere
around, which would indicate the entire plane crashed into the side of the
Pentagon, and caused the side to collapse.[8]
And as for the other eyewitness – who described it as “looking
like a cruise missile,” his words were also grossly out of context. Here’s what
Mike Walter, a television reporter for USA
Today Live told me about what he saw in a CNN interview that day:
I was
heading in on northbound on 27 and the traffic this morning it was you know a
typical rush hour, it was, it had ground to a standstill. And I looked off, I
was you know looked out my window, and saw this plane, a jet, American Airlines
jet coming, and I thought uh, this doesn’t add up, it’s really low, and I saw
it, it just went, I mean it was like a, a
cruise missile, with wings went right there, and slammed right into the
Pentagon. A huge explosion, a great ball of fire, smoke started billowing
out and it was uh just chaos on the highway…[9]
And here’s what made it into the Loose Change documentary: “I
mean it was like a, a cruise missile, with wings went right there, and slammed
right into the Pentagon.”
Now one might reasonably think that if the context of both
of those remarks were explained, if people who thought an eyewitness saw a
cruise missile, found out he actually saw an American Airlines jet, they would
re-evaluate their conclusion, and perhaps lean more toward a plane than a
missile.
But Loose Change
is an example of the ability of content on the Internet to morph to stay ahead
of fact-checkers and debunkers. As soon as crowdsourcing pointed out some of
the obvious deceptions in the editing and presentation of the interviews, the Loose Change documentary crew came out
with a new, revised version that dropped some of the more blatant distortions and
replaced them with more subtle insinuations. Hence Mike Walter’s “cruise
missile” description, which clearly refers to the airliner flying like a cruise
missile, is dropped from subsequent versions. Loose Change went through at least four major revisions between
2002 and 2009, and the latest version is proclaimed to be “all new” for 2014.[10]
One essential element of a “conspiracy theory” is that it
often relies on the premise that a large number of people, usually people in
authority, are knowingly lying. In the case of the attack on the Pentagon, this
would mean hundreds of people in the U.S. government would have to be involved
in the planning and execution of the deception, and thousands more people would
have to lie or keep silent about what they know, including the victims’
families, emergency response personnel, pilots, and flight crews.
What conspiracy theorists such as Dylan Avery, the producer
of Loose Change, often do is focus on
planting doubt about several specific pieces of evidence, which in themselves
may be inconclusive, or even inconsequential, while ignoring much more
significant evidence that is uncontested and irrefutable. To succeed,
conspiracy theorists don’t have to explain away the strong evidence. They just
have to be able to exploit the inconstancies in weaker evidence enough to
create doubt, not a reasonable doubt, but any doubt. For instance Loose Change does not answer or even
address a central flaw in the missile or bomb theory, namely: “If a missile hit
the Pentagon, what happened to American Airlines Flight 77, which took off from
Dulles Airport with real people on board and never came back? Where is that
plane?” The conspiracy proponents never have to explain how so many people
could be complicit in keeping such a dark secret.
The technique of ignoring the big picture and focusing on
insignificant inconsistencies is lampooned cleverly in a parody of Loose Change, called Luke’s Change, which purports to show
that the fictional Luke Skywalker of the first Star Wars motion picture could not have destroyed the Death Star in
the manner depicted in the movie.[11] The argument parallels,
and in the process pillories, one basic line of faulty logic used to argue
against the attack on the Pentagon.
In Star Wars, a
fictional fantasy, rebel warrior Luke Skywalker, “in a galaxy long ago and far,
far away,” destroys the Imperial Death Star with an improbable shot in the
precise “sweet spot” that will bring about the demise of the space station. Luke’s Change argues – somewhat
tongue-in-cheek – that, in theory, this is not possible, employing the same
logic of 9/11 truthers who argue that something which demonstrably did happen could not have,
because in theory it is highly improbable, or as they argue, impossible.
This is one of the central arguments of those who say a
plane could not have been flown into the Pentagon, namely that the hijacker at
the controls of the American Airlines Flight 77, Hani Hanjour, did not have the
skill to fly the jetliner along the path it took, and furthermore that the
plane itself, a Boeing 757, would not be capable of such a high-speed, low
altitude flight. In other words, what actually happened in reality couldn’t have happened because in theory it was impossible, at least according to some experts. If
we were arguing a hypothetical, then the argument, with its reliance on
aviation science and flight dynamics that are beyond the comprehension of a
layman, might sound convincing. But however persuasive the theory might be, it is trumped unequivocally by what happened in reality. As the saying goes, “When
the map doesn’t match the terrain, you go with the terrain.” It is no longer
debatable whether poorly-trained pilots could steer a 757 into the Pentagon at
ground level, once it is established through irrefutable physical evidence they
did. All available evidence points that way, and no evidence refutes it. This
is a prime example of a main reason why people harbor false beliefs: very
convincing arguments can be made for things that aren’t true.
The “couldn’t happen in theory” argument was the central
underpinning for a 2010 episode of the television series “Conspiracy Theory, with Jesse Ventura” which aired on the TruTV
cable network (formally Court TV) and focused on what the program’s anonymous
deep-voiced narrator called, “the 9/11 conspiracy that was lost in the smoke
from the Trade Towers: the attack on the Pentagon.”
The Conspiracy Theory
segment is more polished, with much higher production values than its
predecessor Loose Change. But it
covers much of the same ground, and it features the credibility of Jesse
Ventura, former Minnesota governor, Navy SEAL, professional wrestler, and
author of a book purporting to disprove the Warren Commission’s conclusions
about the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.[12] The program also features
a supporting cast of seemingly open-minded co-investigators who initially
dismiss the “conspiracy theories” as unbelievable. Their apparent conversion
from skeptics to believers is one of the techniques used to bring the audience
around to accept the alternate, and ultimately false narrative.
While the program comes to many dubious conclusions, the
main argument can be boiled down to one expert who concludes the crash site is
inconsistent with what he thinks it should look like, and another expert who
cannot easily duplicate the plane’s precise flight path on a 757 flight
simulator. Again with theory up against reality, reality comes in second.
Amazingly, while concluding that the official account of
the September 11 attack is wrong and that the members of the 9/11 commission
were duped, the program ends with no plausible alternate explanation for what
happened. It suggests the plane did fly toward the Pentagon and then flew over
the building, instead of into it, leaving the fate of the plane and its
passengers and crew “up in the air,” so to speak.
I have cited three of the most prominent examples of
thinking people perpetuating the myth that the attack on the Pentagon did not
happen the way the mainstream media reported it. The examples cited were a
book, an Internet video, and a cable television show. But the real heavy
lifting in keeping the false accounts thriving is done by the hundreds if not
thousands of websites dedicated to questioning and maintaining doubts about the
reality of September 11. A Google search for “9/11 Truth” turns up millions of
hits. The top hits are almost all sites that dispute the veracity of the 9/11
commission findings, including www911truth.org, Architects and Engineers for
9/11 Truth, Pilots for 9/11 truth, Scholars for 9/11 truth, and 9/11 Truth
News.
Visit any one of these sites and you can find fresh
comments that show how many people are still taken in by the specious arguments
perpetuated by the misinformation and disinformation more than a decade after
the fact.[13]
It is hard to dismiss the sites as idle mischief, or as the
misguided efforts of a few marginal actors, when so much time, money and effort
has gone into – and continues to go into – perpetuating them. One example cited
by Popular Mechanics is the website
reopen911.org.
Reopen911.org
is bankrolled by Jimmy Walter, heir to a Florida-based home-building fortune.
In the December 7, 2005, edition of the Tampa
Tribune, Walter claimed that he had spent $6 million trying to prove that
the 9/11 attacks were actually part of a massive conspiracy. Walter’s campaign
to question the findings of the 9/11 commission has included spot ads on cable
networks (CNN, ESPN and Fox News), as well as full page ads in the New York Times, Washington Post and Newsweek. In an open letter on his
reopen911 Web site, Walter says “It seems clear to me that someone executed a
master of deception’s plan and killed thousands of innocent people. Osama and
Bush may just be patsies.”[14]
Another site called the Global Research Center features a
five-hour long documentary that is billed as “a high-quality
carefully-documented film that dramatically shows the official story about 9/11
to be a fabrication through and through.”[15] That’s right, someone
produced five hours of video on three DVDs. This is not the work of a
dilettante.
To
say that the number of websites questioning the basic facts of the September 11
attack is incalculable is to state the obvious. And the ubiquity and open
access of the Internet has transformed what might have been a tiny fringe
movement a couple of decades ago into a worldwide community of like-minded
cynics.
[1] The 9/11 Commission Report,
10.
[2] Thierry Meyssan, 11 Septembre
2001 : L’Effroyable Imposture (Paris: Carnot Editions, 2003).
[3] Alan Riding, “Sept. 11 as Right-Wing U.S. Plot: Conspiracy Theory
Sells in France,” New York Times,
June 22, 2002. http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/22/world/sept-11-as-right-wing-us-plot-conspiracy-theory-sells-in-france.html
[4] Ibid.
[5] Jim Bittermann, “French buy into 9/11 conspiracy,” CNN.com, June 26, 2002. http://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/06/26/france.book/
[6] Loose Change, (2005,
2006, 2007, 2009) written and directed by Dylan Avery, produced by Korey Rowe,
Matthew Brown, and Jason Bermas and distributed by MercuryMedia International
and Microcinema International.
[7] CNN, September 11, 2001. From author’s personal tape archives,
also available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuROgQYuA8Q
[8] CNN, September 11,
2001. From author’s personal tape archives.
Also available on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuROgQYuA8Q
[9] CNN, September 11,
2001, From author’s personal archives.
[10] Dylan Avery, “Loose Change,” YouTube
2014 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsRm8M-qOjQ
[11] Graham Putnam, Luke's
Change: an Inside Job, 2013. http://vimeo.com/61930750
[12] Jesse Ventura, Dick Russell, David Wayne, They Killed Our President: 63 Reasons To Believe There Was A Conspiracy
To Assassinate JFK (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2013).
[13] Zogby Special Feature, “A Word About Our Poll Of American Thinking
Toward The 9/11 Terrorist Attacks,” May
24, 2006. The Zogby poll found that 42 percent of Americans now believe that
the U.S. government and the 9/11 commission “concealed or refused to
investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of
the September 11 attacks,” and that “there has been a cover-up.” http://web.archive.org/web/20101119164520/http://www.zogby.com/features/features.cfm?ID=231
[14] Dunbar and Reagan, Debunking
9/11 Myths, 66.
[15] Global Research, October 18, 2013, http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-unspoken-truth-on-911-september-11-the-new-pearl-harbor/5354760
