In 1972, I earned a Ph.D. in American history. I regard 9/11 as the most baffling puzzle in American history. "So many YouTube videos. So little coherence."
The U.S. government's story of 9/11 has not varied much since approximately 9/12/01. It is the accepted story, just as the stories of the assassinations of Lincoln, JFK, RFK, and MLK are accepted. That is to say, millions of people don't accept them, but there is no single alternative story for each of these famous events that has challenged the government's story. Therefore, the government stories win by default.
This is why the government's stories stay in the textbooks and gain grudging support from the majority of the population. Nobody really wants to devote the time and effort necessary to studying all or even a fraction of the alternative narratives. It is relatively easy to poke holes in the government's story. It is incredibly difficult to fill those holes with a narrative that does not have an equal or greater number of holes.
FLIGHT 77: PENTAGON
Let's consider the plane that crashed into the Pentagon. The biggest hole in the story is the alleged pilot. He could barely fly a single-engine propeller plane, according to the people who trained him. How did this man execute the complex descent flight path required to hit the Pentagon? These pilots do not believe the story.
But did a plane hit the Pentagon? I have quoted this story before: https://www.garynorth.com/public/18321.cfm. It is from Fred Reed. Reed has been a Washington journalist. He has a friend who was a Washington journalist: "Broadcast" Dave Winslow.
A few days after Nine-Eleven, I got back to the deck after an absence. Broadcast was there. He told me that he was in his apartment at the time of the strike and heard an airplane coming in, way too low. Something wasn’t right. Looking out his window, he said, he saw the tail of an airliner pass by and then, kerwhoom! Being a reporter, he sprinted to the phone, and believed that he was the first journalist to report it. If he wasn’t, the other guy got it in less than ten seconds, I figure. These things matter to reporters.
Dental records and DNA records confirmed most of the passengers.
FLIGHTS 11 AND 175: WORLD TRADE CENTER
These plans hit the twin towers of the World Trade Center at 8:46 AM and 9:03 AM respectively. The two towers collapsed in the next hour.
There are videos showing strange events associated with these collapses. How did steel beams turn into dust?
This question was asked by Peter Jennings the next day. No one in the mainstream media bothered to pursue the matter.
Dr. Judy Wood did pursue this in her book. Her findings were too controversial to be pursued further.
Scientists could not examine the dust. The debris was removed by late September.
Did steel girders turn to dust? Some reports indicate that most of the steel was recycled. Waste not, want not! A few of the girders were preserved for years at JFK International. The hanger was closed to the public. Everything in it was given away over a 15-year period. It was officially closed in 2016.
BUILDING 7
The weakest link in the WTC story is what happened to WTC Building 7. Why did a building not hit by a plane collapse?
Also, how did the report of its collapse at 5:21 PM get reported on British TV before the collapse?
The interview ended with these appropriate words: "Unfortunately, I think we've lost the line."
Dan Rather's off-the-cuff comment occurred to other viewers.
When shown a video of the collapse, Dutch demolition expert Danny Jowenko agreed.
A team of researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks has released a video summarizing their critical evaluation of the NIST report. The final report of the team will be published later this year, we are told. A preliminary version of the report is here.
I reported on the NIST report on Building 7 in a 2008 article. It took seven years to produce it. By then, the public had forgotten all about Building 7. You can read my analysis here. The 2008 NIST press release is here. The report is here.
FLIGHT 93: SHANKSVILLE
This plane crashed in western Pennsylvania. The question has never been settled as to exactly where it crashed. There was no wreckage at the site. Also missing were any bodies. Here are extracts from two BBC interviews with the local coroner who arrived on the scene within minutes.
Here are newspaper reports of his statements.
“I got to the actual crash site and could not believe what I saw. … Usually you see much debris, wreckage, and much noise and commotion. This crash was different. There was no wreckage, no bodies, and no noise. … It appeared as though there were no passengers or crew on this plane.” (David McCall, From Tragedy to Triumph, 2002, pp. 86-87)He told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette:
“It was as if the plane had stopped and let the passengers off before it crashed.” (Tom Gibb, “Newsmaker: Coroner’s quiet unflappability helps him take charge of Somerset tragedy,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/15/2001)
He told CNN:
“It was a really a very unusual site. You almost would’ve thought the passengers had been dropped off somewhere. … Even by the standard model of an airplane crash, there was very little, even by those standards.” (CNN, 3/11/2002)
Author Jere Longman wrote:
“Wallace Miller, the Somerset County coroner, arrived and walked around the [crash] site with [assistant volunteer fire chief Rick] King. … They walked around for an hour and found almost no human remains. ‘If you didn’t know, you would have thought no one was on the plane,” Miller said. “You would have thought they dropped them off somewhere.” (Jere Longman, Among the Heroes, 2002, p. 217)
These extracts are here. Also reported here are other accounts of eyewitnesses regarding the absence of more than a few pieces of metallic scraps, plus one shoe.
Was any other wreckage found nearby? Yes. Parts were scattered across the countryside for miles.
There is no question in my mind that the plane did not crash at the site that the government says was created by the impact.
CONCLUSION
The groundwork of a comprehensive study of 9/11 mandates the creation of a precise, documented timeline for the flight of each of the planes. Until we know when something happened and where it happened, we cannot put together the pieces regarding how it happened. A sample timeline is here. But it gets detailed only after the planes hit. It does not cover the chronologies of the flights.
I believe the largest elephant in the living room is the collapse of WTC Building 7. A comprehensive team study of that event should present the first pieces in the puzzle.
Next, why did some of the twin towers' girders turn to dust?
Next, where did the twin towers' rubble go immediately after the collapse and in the days that followed?
Next, how did the pilot of Flight 77 do it.
Then I would recommend going to the collapse of the twin towers. Where did the rubble go? What kind of rubble was it?
Finally, I would recommend investigating the Shanksville crash. Was that plane shot down? Why was the wreckage scattered over the landscape? Why wasn't there any wreckage at the site where the plane supposedly crashed? What about the story of "Let's roll"?
We have waited 18 years for such studies. There are bits and pieces of the stories, bits and pieces of the puzzle, just as there were bits and pieces of the planes. But the bits and pieces do not fit into the government's story, nor do they fit into the conflicting stories of the non-Ph.D.-holding revisionist historians who have examined some of the pieces, but have yet to put together a coherent narrative.
If it has not been done in 18 years, I do not think it is going to be done. Nevertheless, it remains a legitimate area for discussion.
Any academic historian who attempts to publish a coherent revisionist account of even one of the flights had better have tenure. His job and career are at stake. the rest of the profession never is pleased with someone who comes up with an alternative explanation that is at odds with the government's explanation. It would make the whole profession look like collective dupes.
Anyone who publishes a final puzzle for all four flights -- monographs, website, links, saved PDFs of the links that will die shortly after the publication, interviews, and discussions with eyewitnesses -- would have to be independently wealthy.
He should begin with the 5W's: what, where, when, who, and why. He will also have to include the big H: how.
His wife should take out a large term insurance policy on his life as soon as he gets to who.
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