Physical and mathematical analysis of Pentagon crash
by Gerard HolmgrenPART 11. WHAT ABOUT THE EYEWITNESSES?
When an eyewitness claims to have seen something which is physically impossible they are generally assumed to be either mistaken or lying. Indeed, such dismissal is not limited to reports of the physically impossible, but extended to the dubious. For example reports of UFOs, sea monsters, ghosts or Bigfoot are usually dismissed as hoaxes or illusions, even though such things are not necessarily physically impossible, but simply outside the scope of what we generally accept as being reasonable and credible. The plausibility of such alleged accounts cannot be be mathematically tested, and quantitatively defined as being either possible or impossible. Much of the official story concerning AA 77 can, and has now been, subjected to mathematical analysis, and has been found to be impossible.
To uncritically accept eyewitness reports of a solid object fitting through a hole smaller than itself, or alternatively blowing itself into nothing against the rules of physics is inconsistent with the standards of proof and credibility normally applied to alleged eyewitnesses of other dubious, but not necessarily impossible phenomena.
The question has to be asked - how many eyewitness reports would be needed to even reopen such a question, let alone consider it to be proved, contrary to the laws of physics? And what standards of verification should be applied? Does an anonymous, third hand, one line quote in a military newspaper (hardly an independent source, considering the nature of the debate) constitute an “eyewitness” in these circumstances? How many of these would be needed in order to confidently override the laws of physics?
We need dozens, maybe hundreds of credible well verified, comprehensive eyewitness reports in close to full agreement with each other, from sources which are at least in theory independent, to even reopen the question. The mainstream media and certain web authors have done a smoke and mirrors job to have us believe that such eyewitness evidence exists.
It doesn’t. Those sources do not make any effort to critically examine the question of how the alleged eyewitness reports originated, or to critically deconstruct the reports either individually or collectively. I dealt with this question comprehensively in this article, published in June 2002
Did AA 77 hit the Pentagon? Eyewitness accounts examined.
http://hamilton.indymedia.org:8081/front.php3?article_id=1786&group=webcast
It demonstrated that eyewitness accounts do not confirm a large passenger jet hitting the Pentagon. The findings of the article did not demonstrate that the eyewitness reports, when taken in isolation, prove that it didn’t happen. It simply demonstrated that they don’t confirm anything one way or the other. They are confused, lacking in substance, highly contradictory and poorly verified.
Some described a large passenger jet, some even specifying an AA 757. One alleged witness (Ford) described it as a propeller plane. Many gave no indication at all as to what kind of plane it was, but were unjustifiably seized upon by supporters of the 757 theory as proof that a large passenger jet hit the building, simply because a witness allegedly said that “a plane“ hit the building. Many claimed to see a large plane close to the scene, but didn’t see it hit the building. Another report, which I decided not to review, and in retrospect should have (Steve Patterson) described it as an 8 to 12 seater jet. And even amongst those who claimed it to be a large plane, there was wild contradiction in how it hit.
One expects some variation, but not to this extent. One alleged witness, (MikeWalter) said in one interview that it that dove steeply into the building from almost directly above it. But in a different interview he described it as “like a cruise missile with wings” - the above description wouldn’t seem to be describing missile -like behavior- and in several other interviews he said he that he didn’t see it at all, including one given only an hour after the steep dive interview. Nevertheless, one media commentator in defending the official story, selectively quoted Walter and wrote “Mike Walter is in no doubt about what he saw.” Others said it flew level and crashed on the ground in front of the building, near the helipad, and others said it flew straight into the wall.
And bear in mind that the meaning of "it" was in many cases unspecified.The verification of most reports was extremely poor, amounting to hearsay. I was only able to find two witnesses who gave direct live interviews for which transcripts were available. Walter and Timmerman. Walter, who gave several interviews, contradicted himself so much that it was hard to know what to make of it. Timmerman's account was impossible to believe, because it required us to believe that a block of apartments suddenly sprang out of the ground half way through his sighting and then disappeared again afterwards.
The different accounts contradict each other so heavily, that one has to either dismiss nearly all of them in favour of a few, selected as being the most credible, or else speculate that 4 or 5 planes must have hit the building. It was difficult to find more than any 3 witnesses who agreed with each other enough to group them together. And that was before deconstructing them individually, to test their verification and plausibility.In that article I refrained from comparing the eyewitness reports with any physical evidence. I simply wanted to isolate the reports and see how they stood up in a self contained analysis. But it’s now time to subject some of these to critical examination of how they fit with the physical evidence. There were two reports (Timmerman and Washington) which explicitly stated a large plane, (in Timmerman’s case, explicitly an AA 757) and suggested that it crashed on the ground, near the helipad, just in front of the building. Both of these reports were discredited and exposed as almost certain fabrications because of internal inconsistencies, without the need to resort to any of the physical evidence. But lets pretend that their reports had stood up, when viewed in isolation.
Here again is that photo of the area in question, surrounded by smooth lawns, just after the incident.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/june2aa/june2aa.htm
Can you pick the spot where a 155 ft fuselage, 12 ft wide, with a wingspan of 125 ft crashed and exploded with a ferocity never previously seen in aviation history? If this actually happened, then we are wasting money and space building airport runways. We could just use golf courses. The lawns would clearly stand up very well to this kind of treatment.
Imagine that you are a lawyer, conducting a defence in a murder trial. Suppose that the prosecution presented Timmerman and Washington as witnesses in relation to the above photograph, which was deemed to be relevant to the case. How would you feel if your client was convicted on the basis that the testimonies of Timmerman and Washington were deemed to override the physical evidence shown in the photo? Just a chance you might appeal?
Although the eyewitness investigation didn’t reveal evidence for any specific scenario, its really significant finding was that it exposed several examples of blatant fabrication of reports which claimed to support the official story. Why fabricate eyewitness evidence for something that really happened? These reports are still circulating around the web and the media as if they were genuine. For example, the report attributed to Captain Lincoln Liebner was exposed as an unequivocal fabrication, but some web authors who I know are well aware of this, and others who may not be aware of it, continue to post the Liebner report on their websites as evidence for the official story. Other reports exposed as certain or almost certain fabrications include Timmerman, Washington, Mcgraw and Winslow. These continue to be heavily promoted as evidence.
Of course, the article wasn’t perfect, and in retrospect there’s a few things I should have handled a little differently. Nevertheless, it was a very thorough investigation, and remains, as far as I am aware, the only comprehensive investigation which has been done into the eyewitness aspect. The best complaint that most critics could come up with is that I didn’t go even further, and personally track down and phone the alleged witnesses myself - rather difficult since most of them were either anonymous, or appeared not to exist, or worked for the military, or were simply untraceable without spending amounts of time and money which very few people have. But the same critics had been perfectly happy to accept these bogus or dubious or poorly verified reports at face value and post them as evidence on their websites for months without any attempt at critical investigation. As soon as my investigation was published, discrediting or throwing serious doubt on many of these reports, it suddenly became dreadfully important (but apparently only for me) to phone the witnesses, before drawing any conclusions. Meanwhile, these critics happily continue to quote the discredited accounts such as Liebner, Timmerman, Winslow, Mcgraw and Washington without bothering to have done any investigation themselves. The argument seemed to be that because my investigation had only been 95% thorough, then its findings were less credible than those who had done no investigation at all, but simply collected quotes from press or other websites.
Although my search was very thorough, inevitably I missed a few, and with a number of critics aggressively trawling the web to try to find anything I’d missed, they’ve managed to find a few.So I’m now I’m now going to address one of these to demonstrate in a similar style to my earlier investigation, an example of how a report which really tells us nothing at all has been misrepresented as eyewitness evidence for the official story. Case 2 deals with an outright fabrication, which appears to have been perpetrated since my article was published. The misrepresented case is one attributed to a firefighter named Alan Wallace.http://www.iaff.org/across/news/archives/102401local.html
"Moments later, fire fighters Allan Wallace and Mark Skipper ran for cover as the ill-fated aircraft impacted the southwest face of the building, leaving hundreds of Pentagon workers as well as the 64 people aboard the plane dead or missing.
'I just happened to look up and see the plane,' said Wallace. 'It was about 200 yards away, and was coming in low and fast. I told Mark that we needed to get the hell out of there.'
The hijacked Boeing 757, loaded with 30,000 pounds of fuel, departed Dulles International Airport at 8:10 a.m. enroute to Los Angeles. At some point during the flight, terrorists commandeered the plane and steered a course for Washington, D.C. At 9:40 a.m., the plane smashed into the five-story office building which serves as the nerve center of the U.S. military.
Both Wallace and Skipper tried to get as far away as possible. Wallace only made it about 20 feet, but found shelter under a transport van. Skipper ran toward a field and was knocked over by the blast. Both men suffered 1st and 2nd degree burns."Variations on this story are published at
http://www.msnbc.com/news/635293.asp
http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/pentagram/6_37/local_news/10386-1.html
http://detnews.com/2001/nation/0109/11/nation-291261.htmOne of these says that Wallace didn’t actually make it under the van until after the blast. It also mentions that the plane was alleged to be about 25 ft of the ground.
Lets pull this apart.
"I just happened to look up and see the plane ..."When it was 200 yards away? If it was a 757, the noise would have been deafening well before then. It’s inconceivable that someone could only become become aware of a plane of that size at that height and distance by “just happening to look up.”. Notice that he says “the plane”, with no further embellishment. This statement might be plausible if it was something much quieter. So either it represents a dubious and poorly verified statement contradicting the official story, or else it simply isn’t believable.
In one of the other versions, he specifically states that he didn’t hear it until he saw it.There’s a further problem with this statement. If was 25 ft high and 200 yards away, it would be at about a 2 degree angle from the ground where Wallace was standing, so it would be in his normal line of vision. He actually didn’t need to look up at all. It should really be “I just happened to be not looking down, and see the plane”, which does not have a particularly credible ring to it. Other variations on this story do not have Wallace engaged in some kind of task, where he’s looking down. He’s said to be simply walking along. Which means that the plane should have been in his field of vision, the moment it appeared over the horizon, rather than something which had to be looked up at to be seen. It’s possible that the surrounding topography, trees and buildings limited the horizon to this distance and that Wallace did see it the moment it appeared, and has simply described the sighting clumsily, or not realised this, because it happened so quickly. So we shouldn’t say “That proves this guy is lying”, but neither should we uncritically accept it all at face value without thinking it through. These are exactly the kinds of issues which would be raised in a cross examination in court.
400 mph is 195 yards per second. So if it was 200 yards away, then Wallace had 1 second to do everything which the article claims him to have done.
1) Take it in for a moment
2) Yell “Get the hell out of here”
3) Turn and run about twenty feet.
I’ve tested this, using a tape measure and a metronome set at 60 beats per minute to count the time. When turning the instant of the metronome click (leaving no time at all for reaction and recognition, or yelling out), and beginning to sprint, I got to take one big step by the second click - covering about 7 ft, so I still needed another second to get close to 20 ft . (and I’m quick). So it’s impossible to have done this in 1 second. You need at least two, which means that the plane must been 400 yards away, when he first saw it. Realistically, we should be adding another 1/2 to 1 second for reaction time and yelling out. So we really need to call the plane’s distance as 500 - 600 yards. You can try it out for yourself .
A certain amount of latitude has to allowed in estimating distances, but expanding 200 to 500 or 600, is stretching the boundaries of such latitude. But if we reduce the van’s distance to 15 ft, meaning that one more big step gets you nearly there, we might just be able to suggest that this is plausible in 2 seconds - 400 yards of flight, which just comes within acceptable margins of error.
Apart from the fact that 500-600 yards would be stretching the figures in the report beyond credibility, there’s another reason why the plane can’t have been more than about 450 yards away, unless we start changing another of Wallace’s parameters by orders of magnitude. If it was 25 ft off the ground, and more than about 450 yards away, it would have crashed into the Navy annex, rather than coming over the top of it. Who says it came over the Navy annex? Several of the other witnesses which purport to support the official story. So either it didn’t come over the Navy annex, discrediting those reports, or else Wallace is orders of magnitude out not only with the distance, but also with the height , and also significantly out with the distance of the van. This starts to create too much inaccuracy for the report to be credible, considering the confident and unequivocable manner in which the distances are presented, especially when combining it with the unlikely introduction of “ just happening to look up.” If it was anything like 25 ft off the ground, and went south of the Navy annex, then it probably would have demolished buildings on the other side of 395. If it went north, it might have hit the Sheraton, and if it went further north through the cemetery, it would have cut a vicious swathe of destruction through the trees.
It might be possible to plot a credible flight path between these obstacles, but it would have to be very specific, and even if it avoided the major obstacles mentioned, one would think that a very specific swathe 500 - 600 yards long, of poles and trees, matching this path would have to been knocked over, easily discernible from aerial photos. No such obvious swathe exists.And you would then have to disregard all eyewitnesses that suggested a different flight path, Including Timmerman, Walter and Munsey, three often held up as proof of the official story. (Although they all contradict each other anyway, as well as Walter contradicting himself) But this complication is unnecessary if we reduce the distance of the van to 15 ft. If we assert that he underestimated the distance of the plane by 50% and overestimated the distance of the van by 30%, it’s unrealistic, but possible. 2 seconds gives a fraction of an instant to react, time to yell something, and time to get close to the 15ft sprint. The first step is the slowest because of the need to turn and push off and more ground can be covered in the following second.
But there is a nagging problem. The report strongly implies that Wallace saw it first and alerted Skipper to it. If this is the case, we really have to add another 2 seconds, to do this and have both men take off. Did Skipper “just happen to see it” at exactly the same time? Is he also in the habit of walking with his head down? (We are talking about delays of 1/4 second as being critical) or did he see it a bit before Wallace, and Wallace didn’t realize this? Maybe. Or perhaps they both saw it immediately it cleared the horizon.
This isn't pushing me to allege with any confidence that this report is an outright fabrication, but at the same time, neither is it inspiring a lot of faith.Where in this account does Wallace give any indication as to what kind of plane it was? We don’t expect him to say AA 757, but was it large or small, civilian or military? The reference to the alleged 757 was the creation of the writer, inserted into the middle of Wallace’s story, giving the subconscious impression to the not fully critical reader that Wallace himself had described it as such. As was common in reports on this issue, the alleged witness simply said ‘the plane”, and the writer of the story added the assumption that it was a 757, in such a way that the careless reader could easily gain the general impression that the witness had actually said this.
Any suggestion that Wallace told the writer that it was a large plane, and that the writer simply didn’t quote him on this, is pure speculation. But even if we want to indulge in such speculation, the report then becomes difficult to take seriously, if we add extra time for Wallace to register something about what kind of plane it was. The scenario that I’ve created to try to make the account plausible is postulating extraordinarily quick reaction times and giving the benefit of the doubt in relation to the added complication of whether both men saw it at the same instant. One has to factor in becoming aware of the danger, yelling out, and an instant smart decision to run straight for the van. Some people might just freeze in shock in this situation and not react at all within 2 seconds. Wallace’s reported reactions are possible, but unusually sharp. In this situation, someone is unlikely to take in the added detail of the approximate size of the plane. Whether it was a small military jet or a large passenger jet, either would look big and menacing in that shocked instant of realization of what was happening. We’re postulating an immediate turn and sprint, on registering the situation. We’ve already twisted all the other dubious factors in this report to their limits, to try to keep it plausible.So the unsubstantiated assumption that Wallace told the writer it was a large passenger jet, but just wasn’t quoted as such, forces us to add at least another hundred yards to the plane’s distance, which means that it’s now back into the region where the 25 ft height starts to create further complications. The plausibility of the report can be best maintained by giving Wallace no time at all to take in anything about what kind of plane it was. The reference to the 757 is invention by the writer based on a preconceived conclusion.
I’m uncomfortable with how much I’ve had to twist this report to try to keep it credible. I suspect that it may be a fabrication, or at least a wild embellishment. But it’s possible that someone named Allan Wallace might have experienced something like this. If so, all it tells us is what we already know - that something hit the Pentagon and caused an explosion. Any assertion that this represents an eyewitness account supporting the 757 theory is without justification, although a tentative case could be made to suggest that the noise factor might favour the small plane theory. Any web author who presents this account as evidence for the official story is either dishonest, or failing to critically think through the report and deconstruct it for real meaning.
If you read my eyewitness article, you’ll see that the illusion that “hundreds of people identified the pla ne” has been to a large extent, created by the unjustified juxtaposition of predetermined conclusions onto reports that really don’t tell us anything at all, like this one.
Speculation to be argued back and forth, that a certain person may or may not have reported it as a large plane would be relevant if the physical evidence demonstrated that such a scenario was possible. It would be relevant in the event of a flyby rather than a crash. But in the case of the overwhelming physical, mathematical and scientific evidence that it was totally impossible, reports like this are worthless to the argument of what kind of plane or missile it was.
In my previous article, I examined a number of reports which were exposed as outright fabrications. In the cases of Washington, McGraw and Timmerman, it was because internal contradictions exposed their reports as impossible to believe. In the case of Winslow, it was because an investigation into the media trail of how the report originated, indicated strongly that no such report was ever made, and that even if it was, it originated from third hand hearsay. In the case of Liebner, it was shown quite conclusively that Leibner never actually made the statement which you see in press reports and on websites, and in fact was never even interviewed. Since I wrote the article, another fabrication of a slightly different style has emerged, and I’m going to deconstruct this one in order to demonstrate the desperate measures that have been used to try sell this outrageous story.
http://americanhistory.si.edu/september11/collection/record.asp?ID=28 (undated)
"Statement from Penny Elgas
Personal Experience At The Pentagon on September 11, 2001
By Penny Elgas
Traffic was at a standstill. I heard a rumble, looked out my driver's side window and realized that I was looking at the nose of an airplane coming straight at us from over the road (Columbia Pike) that runs perpendicular to the road I was on. The plane just appeared there- very low in the air, to the side of (and not much above) the CITGO gas station that I never knew was there. My first thought was 'Oh My God, this must be World War III!'In that split second, my brain flooded with adrenaline and I watched everything play out in ultra slow motion, I saw the plane coming in slow motion toward my car and then it banked in the slightest turn in front of me, toward the heliport. In the nano-second that the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car, the plane seemed to be not more than 80 feet off the ground and about 4-5 car lengths in front of me. It was far enough in front of me that I saw the end of the wing closest to me and the underside of the other wing as that other wing rocked slightly toward the ground. I remember recognizing it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the color stripes. And I remember thinking that it was just like planes in which I had flown many times but at that point it never occurred to me that this might be a plane with passengers.
In my adrenaline-filled state of mind, I was overcome by my visual senses. The day had started out beautiful and sunny and I had driven to work with my car's sunroof open. I believe that I may have also had one or more car windows open because the traffic wasn't moving anyway. At the second that I saw the plane, my visual senses took over completely and I did not hear or feel anything -- not the roar of the plane, or wind force, or impact sounds.
The plane seemed to be floating as if it were a paper glider and I watched in horror as it gently rocked and slowly glided straight into the Pentagon. At the point where the fuselage hit the wall, it seemed to simply melt into the building. I saw a smoke ring surround the fuselage as it made contact with the wall. It appeared as a smoke ring that encircled the fuselage at the point of contact and it seemed to be several feet thick. I later realized that it was probably the rubble of churning bits of the plane and concrete. The churning smoke ring started at the top of the fuselage and simultaneously wrapped down both the right and left sides of the fuselage to the underside, where the coiling rings crossed over each other and then coiled back up to the top. Then it started over again -- only this next time, I also saw fire, glowing fire in the smoke ring. At that point, the wings disappeared into the Pentagon. And then I saw an explosion and watched the tail of the plane slip into the building. It was here that I closed my eyes for a moment and when I looked back, the entire area was awash in thick black smoke...
...When I arrived home, I turned on every radio and TV in the house -- I'm not sure whether I was trying to drown out my thoughts or whether I was just hungry for news. I made a cup of tea to calm my nerves and called my husband to let him know that I was okay. I told him that there was a piece of the plane in my car, but for some reason, I couldn't deal with it just yet. I also called my son at college to reassure him that I was okay. Apparently, I made several cups of tea that I don't remember making because later that day I found four sopping teabags lined up on my kitchen counter. I believe now, that I was operating on 'auto-pilot' and was probably in shock for much of that day. At some point I opted for quiet and turned off all the noise except the radio in my kitchen. Then I went to my car and faced that piece of the plane that was in the back seat. It appeared to be a piece of the tail. There was no metal on it and it was very lightweight -- all plastic and fiberglass. It was 22" long and 15" wide. I have no idea how it got into my car because I do not remember seeing any rubble flying around while I was at the crash site. I assume that it dropped in through the sunroof or flipped in through a window. The plane piece consisted of a layer of white paint, and layers of yellow and gray fiberglass as well as a thin brown corrugated material.I gingerly picked up the piece and carried it into the house. As I entered the kitchen, I heard the radio announcer on WMAL state that it was an American Airlines flight and I thought to myself, 'I knew that.' But then the announcer said that is was Flight number 77 and he stated the number of passengers and crew and it hit me hard that the planes had been full of innocent victims. The radio announcer said that they were taking calls from people who had a personal experience to share. I dialed the station. I remember that I told them that I was 'Penny from Springfield' and that I had a piece of the plane. The next thing I knew, I was on the air and Chris Core said 'Penny from Springfield, What did you see?' I don't remember any of the rest of our conversation and coworkers who heard it said it was somewhat incoherent. The only thing that I remember is that at the end, Chris Core said, How weird is that?' And I remember thinking that his comment didn't make me feel any better."
Before pulling it apart, let's note that it's undated and unverified. It appears to have emerged about a year after the incident. Anybody can turn up a year later with a privately written statement and say whatever they like. So the verification standards are not acceptable.
Let’s begin
with the entry of the plane into the building. This report clearly indicates
that the plane flew into the building with wings close to parallel and that
both wings entered the building. I think I am on good scientific ground when
I state that a solid 125 ft object cannot pass through another solid object
without leaving a 125 ft hole. It doesn’t matter how many eye witnesses
might allege that they saw such a thing happen - it didn’t. Anyone who
alleges that they saw such a thing is either lying or deluded to the point of
insanity - or else they saw a smaller plane, or a very sophisticated hologram
or some kind of highly advanced, secret matter teleportation technology. If
it was a plane small enough to fit into the hole, painted in AA colours, then
the witness could be telling the truth. The witness doesn’t actually say
anything about the size of the plane, so it’s possible that she could
have seen this, and not thought it through when later told that it was AA 77.
Either way, this report is either a lie or a report of something much smaller
than a 757, painted in AA colours.
Let's apply some more critical thinking. This part.
"I saw the plane
coming in slow motion toward my car and then it banked in the slightest turn
in front of me, toward the heliport."
If she had a clear
view of 100 yards out of each window, then she would have first seen the plane
when it was about 100 yards from her car. If you check the location of Columbia
Pike where said the plane was when she first saw it, and Washington Boulevard,
which would appear to be the road that she was on, then it fits with such an
assumption. It was allegedly coming straight towards her. The flying time from
that point, to being directly over the road is about 1/2 second. The plane is
a little over 50 yards long.It takes about 1/4 second to fly its own
length. It allegedly discernibly changed it’s direction in the time that
it took to fly twice its own length - from one quarter second increment
to the next - from one plane length to the next. Even if that’s physically
possible, the human eye could not pick this up. I’ve checked this speed
on the metronome. If you say the words “too fast” at a quick pace,
it’s approximately the time of of the word “too”. To suggest
that any change in direction could be detected in this time would be to assert
that the plane “jumped” like a film that’s had some frames
cut out. Not possible.
She says that she went into slow motion mode. This can happen, when a person
is presented with a threatening situation at high speed, but there are limits.
As we shall see, this report well and truly exceeds those limits. Like this.
"I saw a smoke ring
surround the fuselage as it made contact with the wall. It appeared as a smoke
ring that encircled the fuselage at the point of contact and it seemed to be
several feet thick. I later realized that it was probably the rubble of churning
bits of the plane and concrete. The churning smoke ring started at the top of
the fuselage and simultaneously wrapped down both the right and left sides of
the fuselage to the underside, where the coiling rings crossed over each other
and then coiled back up to the top. Then it started over again -- only this
next time, I also saw fire, glowing fire in the smoke ring. At that point, the
wings disappeared into the Pentagon. And then I saw an explosion and watched
the tail of the plane slip into the building."
This indicates that the plane sliced through the building quite easily. If its initial speed was 400 mph, then 300 mph seems a reasonable estimate of its passage through the wall. At 440 ft per second., the whole plane would have taken 350 milliseconds to pass through. Analyze the smoke ring cycles in the first half of the penetration. There were two complete smoke rings in the time of about 1/2 the penetration of the plane which is about 175 ms. 87 ms per smoke ring cycle. Each cycle was divided into 3 distinctly visible stages. The appearance of the smoke at the top of the fuselage, the coiling around to cross over at the bottom, and the coiling back up to cross again at the top. About 29 ms per section. This is roughly equivalent to 1 video or film frame. Video or film runs at speeds between 24 and 30 frames per second, depending upon the format. About 30 to 40 ms per frame. The whole idea of this speed is that the human eye can’t distinguish between one frame and the next, making the motion appear continuous and seamless. Except for Penny Elgas, who has the miraculous ability to distinguish one frame from another. Watching videos must be a real drag for her, because she can see all the little tricks they do with stunt work and other cutting techniques. On the brighter side, she’ll never be short of a job as a referee or lineswoman for the international tennis circuit. They should be lining up at her door after this report. Then another three part series. The wings, the explosion, the tail. About 27 ms - 1 frame each. I don’t care how much someone is in slow motion mode - the human eye and brain in combination simply cannot register distinctly different images and event sequences at this pace. In all, 10 distinct events have been described. 3 sections of smoke ring times 2, the beginning of the fire, the entry of the wings, the explosion, the entry of the tail. An average of 35 ms per image - 10 distinct images in 10 frames Again, using the “too fast” comparison, the entire entry of the plane would take about as much time as the word ‘fast”. As another comparison, try repeatedly clapping your hands as fast as you can from a distance of about 2 ft between the hands, and see how blurred the movement is. Each clap is about the total time that the plane took to enter the building - and you only get one shot at seeing it.
Now imagine registering 10 clear separate images, in smooth sequence within each blurred handclap, registering details such as the thickness of the smoke, and the crossover of the rings.
People in dangerous situations can get adrenalin bursts which can trigger extraordinary feats of strength. When someone who’s experienced this situation says that they lifted the side of an overturned car to free their trapped partner, we are inclined to believe it. But if they say that they jumped over a 100 ft fence with the adrenalin burst, we know that they have crossed the line.This account is the visual equivalent of that 100 ft fence jump. It’s physiologically impossible.
She says that after the explosion, the tail continued to “slip”into the building. Hold on a moment - this is the explosion which is disintegrating the plane to nothing - blowing outwards in all directions, but the tail is continuing to slip serenely into it at the same time as being being cremated by it? Even Hollywood doesn’t bother with this illusion in explosion scenes, because they know it’s the exact opposite of what happens. When something is travelling forward into a blast, it gets pushed backwards by the force. Of course, if it has strong momentum, the two will counteract each other. But it doesn’t just keep travelling at the same speed into the point of the blast, at the same time as being vapourized by it, like being fed into a furnace on a conveyer belt. It wouldn’t matter how many eyewitnesses claimed to see this happen - it didn’t.
At the same time that the tail slipped serenely into this all consuming blast, without missing a beat, a fragment of it was blown 100 yards back the other way, to land in her car. Penny really should be relating this story at physics conferences around the world. I’m sure they’ll be busy rewriting the rules of how the universe works after verifying this.
Now the claim that
she was able to see the windows and colour stripes on the plane. In total she
probably saw the plane for about 1 second. Imagine yourself stopped at an intersection,
and a car goes past at 150 mph.
You are able to report to the police that you recognized the distinctive gold,
green,and black door trim of a mid 80’s Falcon,and noticed that the windows
were tinted. Now multiply the speed by 2.5.
That’s only
some of the problem. Elgas says that at the time of initial sighting, the plane
was headed straight towards her. She can’t have got a good view of the
stripes and windows from front on, in the first 1/4 second. Then it was banking
away a little and was directly over the road, with the near wing banked up a
little, so that she was looking up at the underside of the wing. What could
she see? Go back to those photos of 757s and have a look at the way they’re
built. The wing at the point where it joins the fuselage is just on the lower
stripe, and would obscure a very significant section of the stripes and windows
from this angle.The engine juts out significantly forward of the wing. Very
little of the fuselage would be visible from this angle, during this 1/4 second
window of opportunity. As the wing extends out further, it gets narrower,but
the closer perspective increases its effective width in her vision. I’m
not saying that the all of the stripes and windows were completely obscured
for the whole sighting, but there would be a ridiculously short window of opportunity
to catch any glimpse, as the plane turned from its front on view, to
its wing-obscured view. Then it would have been past her, with the 15
ft tail fin , the closest part of the plane, banked slightly, to show her the
underside, and obscuring a significant amount of any parting glimpse she might
have got.The phones will be running hot from the tennis association!!
"In the nano-second that the plane was directly over the cars in front of
my car, the plane seemed to be not more than 80 feet off the ground and about
4-5 car lengths in front of me."
4-5 car lengths can
be approximated to about 60 ft. The length of the wing to the fuselage is 56
ft, making a total of 116 ft from driver to fuselage. Subtract a little, as the
plane is alleged to be slightly banked, thus reducing the effective horizontal
width. Offset this for the length of her car’s bonnet. Let’s call
the 4-5 car lengths can be approximated to about 60 ft. The length of the wing
to the fuselage is 56 ft, making a total of 116 ft from driver to fuselage.Subtract
a little, as the plane is alleged to be slightly banked, thus reducing the effective
horizontal width. Offset this for the length of her car’s bonnet. Let’s
call the total distance from driver’s eyes to fuselage 118 ft. To make
the maths easy, round it to 120. Sitting in the car, her eyes are about 4 ft
off the ground, so the effective height of the plane from her eyeline is about
76 ft. Round this to 80. If you check the angle made by something which is 80
ft high and 120 ft distant, it’s approximately 30 degrees. When I sit
in my car, a 30 degree angle from my eyes looks straight into the folded up
sun visor. In other words, you can’t see something at this angle from
a car. Of course, it’s a little different for each person, depending on
their car, seat position and posture Her distances, as in the case of Wallace
are subject to inaccuracy, but the point needs to be made that on the basis
of these figures it would be impossible for her to see the fuselage, from that
height and distance. The open sun roof wouldn’t help. The fuselage would
be behind the section that joins the windscreen to the roof edge. Of course,
with a moment to spare, one can change this by leaning forward, but it's been
established that she probably has about 1/4 of a second to sight the small section
of the windows and AA colour scheme that isn't obscured by the wing. Because
of the many variables, we can’t state with certainty that the fuselage
was hidden from her vision, but when taken at face value, it appears to be impossible
for her to have seen it.
And now, the encore. The piece of plane that found its way into her back
seat. If you’ve checked the link, you will have seen the photo of it,
and will unreservedly agree that it is definitely, without doubt, unequivocably
a piece of -??? - a piece of whatever they tell us it is. It’s turned
up at the Smithsonian museum, in a little patriotic box, which apparently proves
that it must have once been part of a 757. And we know that it was found in
Penny’s back seat. We have absolute proof of that because she told us
so. Penny - as one of the few people on Earth who has actually witnessed a 125
ft solid object move through another solid object without leaving a 125 ft hole
- and also with the help of some adrenalin, has performed the visual equivalent
of jumping over a 100 ft fence, is not a person whose word can be doubted.
So this piece of the plane which had just been flung 100 yards out of a violent
explosion, with temperatures orders of magnitude above 700 degrees C, just a
few seconds before, lobbed into Penny’s back seat, 1 to 2 feet behind
her head, so gently and quietly that she didn’t even notice it - which
is strange for a person who was in a state of mind that enabled her take in
tiny details in 30 ms increments. Furthermore, the piece of plane had miraculously
cooled down during its 100-yard journey, to the extent that nothing caught
fire, or even singed, or made a burning smell in the back seat. It just sat
there quietly like a good little piece of plane should, until she was ready
to find it and put it in her little patriotic box.
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