Thierry Meyssan -  US Department of State

French Conspiracy Theorist Claims No Plane Hit Pentagon

In 2002, French conspiracy theorist Thierry Meyssan wrote a book suggesting that a cruise missile instead of a plane hit the Pentagon on September 11, and the planes that hit the World Trade Center towers had not been hijacked but were piloted by remote control. Mr. Meyssan believes both attacks were masterminded not by al Qaeda, but "from inside the American state apparatus." (9/11: The Big Lie, p. 139.)

Mr. Meyssan's claims suffer from numerous obvious flaws.

I'll demonstrate that the US State Department's rebuttal, at tax payers expense, has numerous obvious flaws too.

With regard to the Pentagon attacks, Mr. Meyssan ignores or dismisses the facts that:

• many eyewitnesses saw a plane crash into the Pentagon 
• the passenger and crew remains from American Airlines flight 77 were recovered at the Pentagon crash site  
• eyewitness reports and photographs show plane debris at the Pentagon crash site
• passengers on American Airlines flight 77 made phone calls, reporting their aircraft had been hijacked
• senior Al Qaeda leaders have admitted they conducted the September 11 attacks.

With regard to the World Trade Center attacks, Mr. Meyssan ignores or dismisses the facts that:

• Boeing commercial aircraft can not be remotely controlled
• passengers on both flights that attacked the World Trade Center made phone calls, reporting that their aircraft had been hijacked
• senior Al Qaeda leaders have admitted they conducted the September 11 attacks.

Mr. Meyssan's book, L'Effroyable Imposture [The Horrifying Fraud] is available in 19 languages -- French, English, Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Greek, Turkish, Persian, Arabic, Korean, Greek, Portugese, Romanian, Czech, Estonian, Croatian, Albanian, Serbian -- and is being translated into four more -- Chinese, Slovenian, Japanese, and Dutch. The book was published in English as 9/11: The Big Lie.

The book was severely criticized in the French press as soon as it appeared. The French newspaper Liberation called the book "The Frightening Confidence Trick ... a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation." Nevertheless, the book was an instant bestseller in France, selling more than 200,000 copies.

Notice how they immediately start off by trying to character assassinate the book.

The Pentagon Attack

Numerous Eyewitness Accounts

Mr. Meyssan suggests that a cruise missile with a depleted uranium warhead, not a plane, struck the Pentagon on September 11. But he never traveled to the United States to conduct research or interviewed any of the many eyewitnesses to the attack on the Pentagon.

Again, they are trying to discredit him without knowing exactly how and what he's researched for his book and there are plenty of photographs and news reports to get a good enough idea as to what happened there without having to travel far from home and spend thousands of dollars of your own money to conduct more research.

He ignores or dismisses the many eyewitness accounts -- some of which specifically identified the plane as having American Airlines markings, as a Boeing 757, and as a plane with passengers onboard, visible through windows.

Does anyone really think it's believable that a witness was able to see passengers in the windows of a plane supposedly flying by at 530 mph?

Excerpts from some of the eyewitness accounts are included at the end of this document.

Passenger and Crew Remains Recovered at Pentagon Crash Site

In addition to the numerous eyewitness accounts, the remains of the passengers and crew onboard American Airlines flight 77 were recovered from the Pentagon crash site.  A team of more than 100 forensic specialists and others identified 184 of the 189 people who died in the Pentagon attack (125 from the Pentagon and 64 onboard American Airlines flight 77). All but one of the passengers onboard American Airlines flight 77 was positively identified as a match with DNA samples provided by the families of the crash victims.

The government is trying to tell us that this plane that flew 530 mph into the Pentagon and that all but one of the passenger's bodies were recovered, yet photos of the inside taken a day after don't even show signs of plane debris.  The 757 supposedly disintegrated, but not the passengers?

And of course, we have only the military's word that the passenger's bodies were recovered there:

Interestingly enough, there is no 100% proof that the hijackers remains were at all identified:

These positive forensic identifications provide irrefutable proof that American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.

Or they can provide "irrefutable proof" that the passenger's bodies were just claimed to have been recovered there by the military and it's also interesting to note that this same military morgue at Dover Air Force Base also worked on the passenger remains of the other Boeing 757 that disappeared after it crashed:

In addition, rescue and recovery personnel at the Pentagon reported seeing the bodies of airline passengers. The September 14, 2001 edition of USA Today reported, "When [Army Sergeant Mark] Williams discovered the scorched bodies of several airline passengers, they were still strapped in their seats."

Again, we have to take the word of a military person about this account and it is quite remarkable that bodies of passengers and seats from the planes could have survived with the passengers still strapped in their seats when the plane traveling at 530mph crashes into a harden "blast resistant" section of the Pentagon and disintegrating rapidly it traveled through the building in more like a liquid state and when photos taken of the inside days later shows no plane debris at all:

Plane Debris Found at Pentagon Crash Site

People who went to the Pentagon crash site reported seeing parts of an airplane, including the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, the fuselage, an intact cockpit seat, and the tail number of the airplane, as reported in an e-mail to a conspiracy theory website that debunks the conspiracy theory claims.

The e-mail also contains photographs of airplane landing gear, tires, and fuselage fragments, which were taken at the Pentagon crash site. Moreover, the black boxes for American Airlines flight 77 were found at the Pentagon crash site.

Funny our government has to use a conspiracy website to try to debunk a conspiracy!  You would think that they would use one of their own government websites to help prove their own government story!  Well I guess our conspiracy websites have a lot more credibility now since the government uses them to help make their case.

It is also pretty hysterical that they quote off Rense.com, a conspiracy website, when they say this about the same site:

As for the "plane debris," most pieces are un-burnt and small enough to be carried by hand which suggests they were not part of a big fiery crash and explosion and would have been easy to plant.  As for the photos showing the landing gear and engine part from the inside, notice there is no source for those two photos and also notice that you really can't tell if they were taken inside the Pentagon are not.

As for the black boxes being recovered there, again, we have to take the word of the government (FBI) that they were found.  Also, note that the black boxes were coincidentally found in the middle of the night and the story of were the black boxes were found has changed.  Also note that they claimed that the data from the data recorder was recovered, but of course the crucial data that would prove if Flight 77 was really hijacked from the cockpit voice recorder was wasn't able to be recovered because the box was  "too damaged":

Passengers Report Hijackings

Mr. Meyssan's book also ignores the fact that several passengers from American Airlines flight 77 made phone calls reporting that their plane had been hijacked.

At 9:12 am, approximately 10 minutes after the American Airlines flight 77 had been hijacked, passenger Renee May called her mother, Nancy May, to report that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane.

Minutes later, passenger Barbara Olson called her husband Ted Olson, the solicitor general of the United States, also reporting that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters.

Alleged hijacking reports from Flight 77 do not prove that it crashed into the Pentagon.  It's interesting to note though that of the 54 alleged adult passengers on board that only two were able to allegedly make phone calls.  Why so few?

Note too that Ted Olson, who claimed his wife Barbara called him, is part of the Bush Administration who are the main suspects in this conspiracy, he is where the claim came from that box-cutters were used on the hijacked planes, and he has admitted to the Supreme Court that the government lies.

Al Qaeda Admits it Conducted September 11 Attacks

Finally, high-ranking al Qaeda members involved in the September 11 attacks, including Osama bin Laden, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, and Ramzi bin al Shibh, have openly acknowledged that they planned and executed the attacks. As Khalid Sheikh Mohammed told Al Jazeera reporter Yosri Fouda in April 2002, with reference to the September 11 attacks, "I am the head of the al Qaeda military committee and Ramzi is the coordinator of the Holy Tuesday operation. And, yes, we did it." (Yosri Fouda and Nick Fielding, Masterminds of Terror, p. 38.)

First of all, claiming responsibility for an attack does not prove Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.  Second, where are these Al Qaeda leaders in U.S. custody who claimed there were behind the attacks?

Mr. Meyssan provides no explanation for what he believes happened to American Airlines flight 77. If the plane did not crash into the Pentagon, as he claims, where did the plane and all its passengers go? He has no explanation for this question.

If Flight 77 didn't crash into the Pentagon, it really doesn't matter what happened to the plane because a conspiracy has already been proven.

Thus, there are:

• numerous eyewitness accounts of an American Airlines passenger plane crashing into the Pentagon
• phone calls from passengers on American Airlines flight 77 reporting that it had been hijacked
• eyewitness accounts of airplane parts and the bodies of airline passengers still strapped in their seats found at the Pentagon crash site, as well as photographs of airplane parts
• the remains of bodies recovered at the Pentagon crash site positively identified as matching those of the passengers and crew on American Airlines flight 77
• acknowledgements by high-ranking al Qaeda members that they carried out the September 11 attacks.

In light of these facts, there is no doubt that American Airlines flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.

Does anybody really think the government would saying anything different than that if it's a government conspiracy?

The World Trade Center Attacks

Mr. Meyssan also suggests that the two Boeing aircraft that crashed into the World Trade Center towers had not been hijacked, but were remotely controlled. He writes:

It was not necessary in fact to have any hijackers on board at all, as there was no taking of hostages: by hacking into the planes' computers before takeoff, it would have been possible to take over the aircraft in flight, thanks to the Global Hawk technology perfected by the Department of Defense. The Boeing would have been under remote control, like a drone -- a plane without a pilot. (9/11: The Big Lie, p. 34.)

Remotely Controlled Flight Not Possible

A Boeing Company official stated that Boeing has designed its commercial airplanes so that it is impossible to control them remotely. Elizabeth Verdiev, a spokesperson for Boeing, stated on June 16, 2005:

No Boeing commercial jet transport can be controlled from outside the airplane. No Boeing commercial jet transport can be "commanded" or have its flight controlled other than from within the flight deck by the pilots. Pilots can program the airplane to take off, fly to a destination and land automatically, but Boeing design philosophy keeps pilots in control and in the decision-making loop at all times.

Here is a list of Boeing planes that were flown via remote control and the last passage supports Mr. Meyssan's claim:

Meyssan's claims about the World Trade Center attacks also ignores acknowledgements by high-ranking al Qaeda members that they carried out the September 11 attacks, and the fact that several passengers and crew from the two planes that crashed into the World Trade Center towers made phone calls describing how their flights had been hijacked.

Passengers Report Hijackings

American Airlines flight 11 crashed into the World Trade Center's north tower at 8:46 am. It had been hijacked at approximately 8:14 am. Flight attendants Betty Ong and Madeline "Amy" Sweeney made phone calls describing the hijacking. Betty Ong's call lasted about 25 minutes, the first four minutes of which were recorded (see footnote 29 of The 9-11 Commission Report).

The 9-11 Commission Report stated:

At 8:19, Ong reported: "The cockpit is not answering, somebody's stabbed in business class -- and I think there's Mace -- that we can't breathe -- I don't know, I think we're getting hijacked." She then told of the stabbings of the two flight attendants.

... At 8:26, Ong reported that the plane was "flying erratically." A minute later, Flight 11 turned south. ...

Sweeney calmly reported on her line that the plane had been hijacked; a man in first class had his throast slashed; two flight attendants had been stabbed -- one was seriously hurt and was on oxygen while the other's wounds seemed minor ....

United Airlines flight 175 crashed into the World Trade Center's south tower at 9:03 am. It had been hijacked between 8:42 and 8:46 am. Passengers Peter Hanson, Brian David Sweeney, and an unidentified flight attendant made phone calls reporting that United Airlines flight 175 had been hijacked and recounting events onboard the plane.

The 9-11 Commission Report stated:

At 8:52, in Easton, Connecticut, a man named Lee Hanson received a phone call from his son Peter, a passenger on United 175. His son told him, "I think they've taken over the cockpit -- An attendant has been stabbed -- and someone else up front may have been killed." ...

Also at 8:52, a male flight attendant called a United office in San Francisco .... The flight attendant reported that the flight had been hijacked, both pilots had been killed, a flight attendant had been stabbed, and the hijackers were probably flying the plane.

... At 8:59, Flight 175 passenger Brian David Sweeney ... called his mother, Louise Sweeney, told her the flight had been hijacked, and added that the passengers were thinking about storming the cockpit to take control of the plane away from the hijackers.

At 9:00, Lee Hanson received a second call from his son Peter:

"It's getting bad, Dad -- A stewardess was stabbed -- They seem to have knives and Mace -- They said they have a bomb -- ... The plane is making jerky movements -- I don't think the pilot is flying the plane -- I think we are going down -- Don't worry, Dad -- If it happens, it'll be very fast -- My God, my God."

The call ended abruptly. Lee Hanson heard a woman scream just before it cut off. He turned on a television, and in her home so did Louise Sweeney. Both of them saw the second aircraft hit the World Trade Center.

Thus, passengers and crew members from both flights reported that they had been hijacked, that passengers and crew members had been killed or wounded, and that the planes were flying in an erratic or jerky fashion, as would be the case if they were being flown by first-time pilots, as both hijacker pilots were. There was no mention or indication of a mysterious "remote control" takeover of the planes.

In conclusion, Mr. Meyssan's book ignores obvious facts, makes sweeping, totally unfounded allegations, and employs spurious logic to try to explain away facts that he apparently finds inconvenient. As the French newspaper Liberation said, the book is "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation."

I'm not sure why the government brought up this WTC segment for it does nothing to prove that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon.

Eyewitness Accounts of Pentagon Attack

Following are some of the numerous eyewitness accounts of the Pentagon crash:

Again, interesting that the government has to rely on a private personal website to help make their case instead of one of their own.  However, I'm actually glad they used a Geocities' site to help prove their case because that means that people can't automatically dismiss this website for having it's homepage set up at Geocities also!

• Richard Benedetto: "It was an American Airlines airplane, I could see it very clearly."

Notice that the government left out the part that said he didn't see it hit the Pentagon:

Hears a good example why we can't always trust the media...

USA Today makes it seem like he saw the plane hit the Pentagon when Mr. Benedetto specifically said, "I didn't actually see the impact..."  

Also, notice that what he heard supports the missile theory rather than a Boeing 757 flying by:

• Omar Campo, a Salvadorean" "It was a passenger plane. I think an American Airways plane. I was cutting grass and it came in screaming over my head."

Notice he didn't' say he saw it hit the Pentagon.

• Joseph Candelario: "I noticed a large aircraft flying low towards the White House. This aircraft then made a sharp turn and flew towards the Pentagon and seconds later crashed into it."

That's Capt. Joseph Candelario of the U.S. Army.

• James Cissell: "I saw this plane coming in and it was low - and getting lower. ... Then I saw the faces of some of the passengers on board."

This is a good example as to why you shouldn't solely rely on eyewitness accounts.  If you think you can see faces of passengers in the tiny windows of a plane supposedly traveling 530 mph past you, then I must say you have the best eyesight in the world.

This witness also says something else that is unbelievable.  He was a stones throw away from the plane going by, yet he doesn't remember hearing it roaring past him:

• Dennis Clem: "There was a commercial airliner that said American Airliners over the side of it flying at just above treetop height at full speed headed for the Pentagon."

Notice he didn't' say he saw it hit the Pentagon.

• Michael Dobbs: "It was an American airlines airliner. I was looking out the window and saw it come right over the Navy annex at a slow angle."

Now this is peculiar about Mr. Dobbs' testimony.  He was looking out the window from the outer ring of the Pentagon where he could see the plane, yet says he didn't feel the plane hit:

• Penny Elgas: "... the plane was directly over the cars in front of my car .... I remember recognizing it as an American Airlines plane -- I could see the windows and the color stripes."

Notice she didn't' say she saw it hit the Pentagon, yet it was so close to her that she claims to have recognized lots of details about the plane.

• Cheryl Hammond: "We saw the big American Airlines plane and started running."

Notice he didn't' say he saw it hit the Pentagon.

• Joe Harrington: "... one of my guys pointed to an American Airlines airplane 20 feet high over Washington Blvd."

I have to admit I tend to agree with part of his statement:

• Albert Hemphill: "The aircraft, look[ed] to be either a 757 or Airbus."

Mr. Hemphill says he saw it hit and felt the blast even from being inside the Annex.  Remember Michael Dobbs above who was inside the Pentagon, yet couldn't feel it.

• Terrance Kean: "I saw this very, very large passenger jet. It just plowed right into the side of the Pentagon."
• William Lagasse: "It was close enough that I could see the windows and the blinds had been pulled down. I read American Airlines on it. ... I saw the aircraft above my head about 80 feet above the ground."

I'm not sure how anybody could tell that the blinds in the windows had been pulled down from a plane going 530 mph 80 feet above ones head and if the blinds were pulled down, how was James Cissell above able to see people in the windows if the blinds were pulled down?

• Robert Leonard: "I ... saw a large commercial aircraft aiming for the Pentagon."
• Lincoln Liebner: "I saw this large American Airlines passenger jet coming in fast and low."

Mr. Liebner apparently saw something no one else saw:

• Elaine McCusker: "I saw a very low-flying American Airlines plane that seemed to be accelerating."

Notice she didn't' say she saw it hit the Pentagon.

• Mitch Mitchell: "I ... saw, coming straight down the road at us, a huge jet plane clearly with American Airlines written on it .... It crossed about 100 feet in front of us and at about 20 feet altitude and we watched it go in. It struck the Pentagon."
• Terry Morin: "The plane had a silver body with red and blue stripes down the fuselage. I believed at the time that it belonged to American Airlines."
• Christopher Munsey: "I couldn't believe what I was now seeing to my right: a silver, twin-engine American Airlines jetliner gliding almost noiselessly over the Navy Annex, fast, low and straight toward the Pentagon ...."

Notice he didn't' say he saw it hit the Pentagon and that he said that it was essential quiet flying by.

• Vin Narayanan: "I looked up to my left and saw an American Airlines jet flying right at me. The jet roared over my head, clearing my car by about 25 feet."

Notice that Mr. Narayanan contradicts the official story:

• John O'Keefe: "I don't know whether I saw or heard it first -- this silver plane; I immediately recognized it as an American Airlines jet ...."

Notice Mr. O'Keefe says he didn't' say he saw it hit the Pentagon and also says something very peculiar:

• Steve Riskus: "I was close enough (about 100 feet or so) that I could see the ‘American Airlines' logo on the tail as it headed towards the building .... I clearly saw the ‘AA' logo with the eagle in the middle."
• James Ryan: "I see an American Airlines plane, silver plane, I could see AA on the tail. ... The plane was low enough that I could see the windows of the plane. I could see every detail of the plane. In my head I have ingrained forever this image of every detail of that plane. It was a silver plane, American Airlines plane, and I recognized it immediately as a passenger plane."

Notice he says he didn't see it hit the Pentagon:

• Joel Sucherman: "... looking straight ahead there was a jet, what looked to be an American Airlines jet, probably a 757, and it came screaming across the highway ... [and] hit the west side of the Pentagon."

Notice Mr. Sucherman says it was "probably" a 757, but also says he didn't see on of the most discernable characteristics of a 757:

• Donald "Tim" Timmerman, a pilot: "I live on the 16th floor, overlooking the Pentagon ... and so I have quite a panorama. ... It was a Boeing 757, American Airlines, no question."

Notice that Mr. Timmerman also says he saw it hit the ground first in which photographs clearly show nothing hit the ground first and that he also contradicts the official story of the nosecone punching out a hole in the 3rd ring by saying he saw the nose break up:

• Mike Walter: "I saw this plane, this jet, an American Airlines jet, coming. ... It went right there and slammed right into the Pentagon. I saw the big ‘AA' on the side."
• Ian Wyatt: "I duck, I look up, it looks like a silver American Airlines, twin-engine plane and then boom."

Notice he says he didn't see it hit the Pentagon:

Finally, The 9/11 Commission Report states that on September 11, air traffic controllers at Washington's Reagan National Airport instructed a C-130H cargo plane that had just taken off from the airport

The C-130 was said to have taken off from Andrews Air Force Base which, ironically, is an Air National Guard base less than 15 miles from the Pentagon:

to try to follow the plane that had been spotted on radar as heading toward Washington. According to the report, "The C-130H pilot spotted it, identified it as a Boeing 757, attempted to follow its path, and at 9:39, seconds after impact, reported to the control tower: ‘looks like that aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, sir.'"

Fist of all, the FAA issued a nationwide ground stop at about 9:25 for all aircraft, including military, yet this C-130 was still able to take off about 5 minutes later.  Did it not receive the ground stop order in time?  Second, how was a military cargo plane able to take off from an air force base and get in the air before the Pentagon was hit and not any of the multiple jetfighters stationed there?  Third, not only did it try to follow it's path, it did follow it's path, apparently very closely:

And what are the odds that this same C-130 was also one of the first planes at the scene of the Shanksville, PA crash?

In sum, hundreds of people on nearby roads or in nearby buildings saw a large passenger plane hit the Pentagon and, as the above eyewitness testimonies demonstrate, numerous people specifically identified it as an American Airlines plane.

The number of "hundreds" of eyewitness that saw the 757 keeps being mentioned, however at best, only about 130 witnesses are listed at the Geocities website that they reference from.  Not quite the "hundreds" they claim.  Of course not every witness is going to be interviewed from the news, but their claim of "hundreds" is still speculation.  Also, remember that the only listed part of the witnesses testimony that was in their favor and not the testimony that would make one question the validity of their testimony. 

Maybe we should call this government site, "www.usdisinfo.gov?"