Painful
Questions: An Analysis of the Collapse of the WTC Towers and the
Flight 77/Pentagon Controversy
Interview by Marcus 3X with Eric Hufschmid author of Painful Questions
Spring/Summer 2003
Marcus: What motivated you to write Painful Questions?
Eric: My initial reaction to the 9-11 attack was "What do you expect?" America has been meddling in other nations' affairs, especially the Mideast, for decades. I was not surprised that the Arabs decided to retaliate. I considered the Arabs justified fighting back, just as we would fight back if the Arabs were bombing us and meddling in our affairs.
On September 14th [2001] I posted an article on the Internet complaining about our Mideast policy and how we are fools for letting ourselves get dragged into Israel's fight with the Arabs.
By November [2001] I discovered the Google newsgroups. Several people often complained that we should not trust our government; that something was suspicious about the September 11 attack. I did not understand what these people were complaining about. However, some of them never quit complaining, and by the beginning of January [2002] I decided to look more closely at the attack and how the towers collapsed. I began searching the Internet for photographs and descriptions. I quickly understood what those people on the Google newsgroups were complaining about. The 9-11 attack had a lot of suspicious aspects to it. It appeared as if many people knew it was going to occur, and it appeared that explosives destroyed the WTC.
In mid-January [2002] I posted a document on the Internet that explained why I believe the WTC was destroyed by explosives. I also sent email to a few people at NASA, some political candidates, radio show hosts, and political candidates to look into the collapse of the WTC.
In February [2002] I began looking through the lists of professors and graduate students at some universities in an attempt to find professors and students who seem knowledgeable in steel buildings, explosives, or concrete. I then sent e-mail messages to them pointing out that there is something strange about the collapse of the World Trade Center, and they ought to look into it, possibly even making it a project for the students. Unfortunately, my e-mail messages never seemed to have an effect.
Near the end of March [2002] I decided to talk to some neighbors, friends, and relatives about the 9-11 attack. I discovered that not one person had seen any of the Internet sites that discussed the 9-11 attack. The information was not reaching the "common people".
By the end of March [2002] I decided I was wasting my time with my Internet documents. I was also coming to the conclusion that I am wasting my time sending e-mail messages.
I decided that the only way to reach the public is with a paper book that has high quality images. I assumed that a book would make it easy for the common citizen to learn about the suspicious aspects of the 9-11 attack. We can also give books as birthday and Christmas presents, and we can show books to our friends and relatives, and that spreads the information.
Marcus: Did you find researching information for the book to be difficult?
Eric: Actually, I found two problems:
a) Information is difficult to find.
I had to spend hours a day, month after month, searching for information and photos. We cannot simply ask our government for a report on the attack because most of their reports (such as the report FEMA produced in May, 2002) are nonsense. Nor can we ask universities for a report because no university bothered to study the attack. In fact, at a congressional hearing on March 6, 2002, even Congressman Boehlert complained about the “excessive secrecy” in regards to the investigation of the collapse of the buildings. Some government officials are refusing to investigate and they are blocking attempts by others to investigate.
In February 2002 I discovered that the editor of Fire Engineering Magazine was calling the investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center “a half baked farce.” I was surprised that such an incredible accusation never made it in the news. Our media is refusing to discuss the details of the attack. Actually, they are suppressing a lot of information about the attack.
b) There is a lot of false information.
There are lots of false theories on the Internet that seem to be coming from the people involved with the attack. The purpose for the misinformation is to confuse us and mislead us. For example, on page 20 of my book I show three images from a video that appears to be faked. Anybody who believes that video will waste his time investigating a nonsensical issue. These people often post messages on the newsgroups to deceive us.
Marcus: When did you start to suspect that explosives were possibly used to bring down the WTC towers?
Eric: I suspected explosives caused the towers to collapse in January 2002 after looking closely at the design of the towers and at the photos of how the towers collapsed. The towers had a steel frame, and there is no valid reason why the entire steel frame of both towers would disintegrate so thoroughly. No fire has ever caused a steel framed building to fall down, let alone shatter into little pieces.
Also, the speed at which the towers fell down was much too fast to make sense. There should have been a thump, thump, thump as each floor fell down to the floor below. If each floor needed an average of half a second to fall down to the floor below it that would mean the towers would collapse in 55 seconds. However, both towers collapsed in ten seconds or less. Only explosives can explain such a rapid collapse.
Marcus: Let's tackle the WTC collapse issue. The U.S. Government claims that the jet fuel fires from the "hijacked" airplanes caused both towers to collapse. Can you explain how this is highly unlikely?
Eric: There are several reasons why the fires are not likely to be the cause of the collapse.
First of all, the fires were not even severe enough to kill all the people in the area that the plane crashed into. On page 27 of the Painful Questions book is a photo of the hole created by the airplane when it crashed into the North Tower. Two people can be seen standing in the hole. These two people walked over to the hole from some other area, which means they were walking through fires and jet fuel. The windows of the tower do not show many flames, either. Since the fires were not strong enough to kill people, and since there was not enough jet fuel to stop people from walking around the area, and since the flames were small, we should consider the possibility that the fires were not strong enough to cause a steel structure to disintegrate into little pieces.
In the South Tower a few people above the crash zone walked down the stairs, passing through the fire zone. The fire was not hot enough to stop people from walking down the stairs, so how could it have been hot enough to destroy a steel building? Also, there are reports that the firemen arrived at the fire zone in the South Tower and talked about the fire over their radios to headquarters. If the firemen could walk around the area, the temperature could not have been very high.
Secondly, the fire in the South Tower was so small that it did not even spread to other objects on the same floor. Rather, the fire remained restricted on one side of the tower. Since the fire did not spread to the rest of the carpeting, paper, and office furniture in the crash zone, we should consider the possibility that the fire was not strong to shatter a steel structure.
Third, the South Tower disintegrated after the fires burned for only 56 minutes. How could such a small fire cause a steel building to shatter in 56 minutes when it takes more than 56 minutes to cook a turkey? There have been many large fires in office buildings and warehouses, but not even a wooden building disintegrates in only 56 minutes. For example, in 1991 a fire burned for 19 hours in an office building at One Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That fire was much more extreme than the fires in the WTC, and it spread to 8 floors. Flames were coming from many windows on many floors. However, that fire didn't even cause the steel frame of the building to crack into two pieces, let alone shatter into thousands of pieces. By comparison, the fire in North Tower had smaller flames, and it caused the steel structure of the entire building to disintegrate after burning for less than 2 hours.
Fourth, not even the largest fire in history has caused a steel framed building to crumble, or even break into two pieces, so why should we believe that a few small fires caused both towers and Building 7 to crumble? If fire brought those buildings down, then a fire did what no fire had done before, and that requires an explanation for how the fires did it. But nobody has an explanation for how fires could have caused three steel buildings to crumble.
Marcus: Most people believe the jet fuel fire theory because they have absolutely no understanding of how the WTC towers were built, what the commercial airplanes were built of, and how jet fuel burns. Can you explain how the WTC towers were built to survive a hit from a large commercial airplane and how jet fuel burns?
Eric: Most buildings and bridges use concrete as the structural material, and steel is used only as reinforcing bars within the concrete. The towers were different; they were a 100% steel structure.
Because the towers were so tall, they were exposed to a lot of wind. The towers had to be designed to withstand the strongest storms. Therefore, the steel in the towers was extremely thick. It was 4 inches thick at the bottom of the tower, for example.
There were about 300 (depending on how you count them) vertical steel columns in the tower. Most columns were along the outside, but there were 47 columns in the interior, and these were the strongest of the columns. All of the 300 columns were connected to steel trusses along every floor. The towers were a three-dimensional network of steel beams.
Concrete was poured into corrugated steel pans along the floors in both of the WTC towers. The concrete certainly added strength to the towers, but the purpose was of this concrete was to be a fireproof and sturdy flooring material. These concrete floors were 4 inches thick along the windows and 5 inches thick in the center of the tower, and it was sitting in a corrugated steel pan, so it would have been an excellent fireproofing material to stop fires from spreading from one floor to the next.
The Airplane Crashes
When the airplanes crashed into the towers, the towers swayed slightly in one direction, and then swayed back to their normal position. The towers then remained motionless. Each airplane crash was equivalent to a strong gust of wind.
Each airplane punctured a hole within the three-dimensional network of steel beams, which a gust of wind would not have done. However, the steel structure of the tower was so strong that it could easily remained standing even with a hole in it.
Bullets are very destructive, and many people assume the airplanes were as destructive as bullets. However, bullets travel a much higher speed than airplanes, and, more importantly, bullets are solid objects whereas airplanes are hollow shells of thin aluminum. Only the engines and landing gear have massive pieces of metal.
When the airplane crashed into the towers, the hollow aluminum airplane body encountered very strong steel beams and some sturdy concrete floors. It is very likely that the airplane was shredded into pieces as it penetrated the tower. In fact, a few airplane pieces passed all the way through the towers and landed in the streets, which proves that parts of the airplane were torn off.
The Jet Fuel
As soon as the airplane hit the tower, the wings began to rupture, and that caused the jet fuel to spray out. Some of the fuel may have sprayed along the outside of the tower, but most of it was sprayed inside the tower. Photographs show that the spray of jet fuel ignited immediately and created a very large ball of fire, as seen on pages 30 and 31. This spray of jet fuel burned very rapidly. Within seconds most of the flames were gone, and the only jet fuel remaining was whatever had soaked into the carpeting, the ceiling, and the office furniture.
Because the floors were concrete and the structure was steel, the only flammable objects in the tower were the office furnishings. Unlike a house, which has a wooden structure, there was not much flammable material in these towers.
Marcus: In one section of your book you stated that the temperature of the flames in the WTC is meaningless. You went on to say that the important issues are the amount of heat generated and length of time the heat was in contact with the steel. Could you please explain?
Eric: Every flame and every fire can be described as “hot”. When a cigarette smoker pushes the button on his butane lighter, for example, he creates a flame that reaches a temperature of more than 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, which is above the melting point of aluminum. If he were to point that flame at a steel column in the World Trade Center, would the towers become weak from the high temperature of the flame? Would the towers collapse into a small pile of rubble simply because the flame was so hot? Or, if he were to put his flame against an aluminum airplane, would he be able to melt the airplane? No. The reason is that the flame from a butane lighter does not produce very much heat. The temperature of a butane flame is hot enough to destroy the tower and it is hot enough to melt a Boeing 767, but there is not enough heat in one little flame to do any damage to such a thick steel structure or a large airplane.
High temperature flames cannot do any damage to a steel structure unless the flames can produce enough heat to raise the temperature of the steel. Electric light bulbs are another example of this. The filaments are above the melting point of steel, but nothing ever melts when you turn on a light bulb. The reason is that a light bulb does not even produce enough heat to melt itself.
In order for a fire to damage a steel building, the fire has to produce a lot of heat, and the fire must be in contact with the steel for enough time for the heat to penetrate the steel. However, the photographs of the towers do not show signs that the fires were producing a lot of heat. For example, the fire in the south tower never even spread from one side of the floor to the other, which is a sign that there was not even enough heat to ignite all of the paper, computer monitors, and carpeting on that floor. If the fires could not ignite office paper and furniture, how could it have destroyed a steel structure?
Furthermore, the south tower collapsed after only 56 minutes, which is not much time for the fire to be in contact with such a thick steel structure.
Marcus: After studying the pictures and video footage of both planes crashing into the WTC towers what damage do you believe the planes caused to the buildings? Was the damage severe enough to cause the buildings to collapse the way they did?
Eric: The planes busted holes in the exterior columns of the towers, but they may not have done any damage to the interior columns. Photographs of the other airplane crashes show that airplanes tend to become shredded when they crash. The reason is because airplane bodies are thin, hollow shells of aluminum that do not have much strength. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the airplanes were shredded into pieces as they penetrated the tower. The pieces of airplane that were flying through the tower would have been deadly to the people inside the tower, but they may not have done any damage to the interior steel columns.
Marcus: What do the pictures of the WTC towers before they collapsed suggest? Did they show any signs of a collapse possibly occurring?
Eric: Moments before the towers collapsed they appeared to be recovering from the fire. The flames were slowly vanishing, and the building was motionless and stable. There were no creaking noises coming from the building to suggest that the building was on the verge of falling down, nor were there any cracks developing along the exterior of the tower. There were no windows breaking, nor were pieces of the tower falling down. There was no indication that anything terrible was about to happen. Actually, it looked as if the firemen would soon be putting the fires out, and the event would be over.
Hundreds of firemen ran into the towers because they had no reason to worry about the towers coming down. No steel structure had ever collapsed from a fire, and there was no indication that these towers were about to collapse.
Marcus: Do the pictures of the WTC towers as they collapsed suggest that it was the end result of the airplanes crashing into them? If not then what appears to be the cause of the collapses?
Eric: Both towers started to collapse at the location the airplanes had crashed into them. This creates the impression that the weak point in the tower was at the location of the crash. However, the strange thing about the collapse is that pieces of metal and enormous amounts of powder were ejected from the tower at a very high velocity. The powder and pieces of metal were thrown up to several hundred feet. The tower did not simply fall down. Rather, it looked as if it was exploding outward like a fireworks display.
If the structure was merely failing at the location of the airplane crash, large pieces of the tower should have simply fallen down. There certainly would have been some production of powder, but it would now have been such an enormous amount, and the powder would not have been ejected hundreds of feet away.
Buildings have collapsed before, but they never expelled powder and pieces of metal such an incredible distance, nor did they produce such an incredible volume of powder.
The production of powder and the manner in which it flew hundreds of feet to the air is a sign that explosives were being used to pulverize the concrete and shatter the steel structure. Furthermore, both towers disintegrated all the way into the basement. There was not even one large piece of tower remaining.
Marcus: In your book you suggested that explosives were possibly installed on nearly every floor of the WTC towers. Van Romero, vice president of research at New Mexico Tech, ORIGINALLY stated that only a small amount of explosives placed in strategic points could have caused both WTC towers to collapse. Do you still believe that explosives were installed on nearly every floor? If so, then how could a large number of explosives be planted in the WTC towers without being detected? How were the explosives detonated?
Eric: Van Romero certainly knows more about the subject than I do, but he made these remarks quickly, and has since kept quiet, as if he was threatened to shut up.
Romero may have been referring to a conventional demolition. In a conventional demolition, only a small number of explosives are used. The purpose of the explosives is to break the building into pieces, not pulverize it into a powder. Demolition companies do not want to produce powder because it creates a terrible mess to clean up. But in the case of the World Trade Center towers, all concrete was pulverized, and the entire steel structure was shattered into pieces. In other words, the towers disintegrated much more thoroughly than occurs during a normal demolition. Therefore, it appears that extra explosives were put into the towers.
There are two main reasons why the people who did this would want extra explosives. I explain this in more detail on page 86 of my book. To summarize, one reason is to pulverize the concrete into powder, which then spreads out throughout the city. By turning the concrete into powder, the clean-up crews do not have to pick up pieces of concrete. The other reason for the extra explosives is to prevent large chunks of the building from falling down onto neighboring buildings.
Office buildings have false ceilings. Above the ceiling tiles is a large gap for air-conditioning ducts, electrical wires, and other utilities. The packages of explosives used in demolitions are small; some smaller than a loaf of bread. It would be easy for maintenance crews to walk through the building, stopping every so often to climb on the ladder, push aside a ceiling tile, tie an explosive package up there. Nobody would think anything strange about maintenance people pushing aside the ceiling tiles. Besides, they probably installed the explosives at night.
Some people believe that installing thousands of explosives would be time consuming. However, installing explosives in a building is not much more difficult than delivering mail to the different companies in the towers, or changing light bulbs, or changing water bottles in water coolers.
The explosives did not need to be connected to power or to each other. Rather, each explosive had its own battery and radio controlled trigger. The computer that was in control of this demolition would trigger the explosives by sending radio signals. Radio controlled devices are so small and inexpensive today that they are appearing in low-cost toys.
The computer that controlled these explosives would be able to detonate them in any sequence. The people involved in this scam would wait for the airplanes to crash into the towers before deciding what that sequence would be. For example, after noticing that the airplane crashed into the 77th floor of the South Tower, they would set the computer to detonate explosives on the 77th floor first, followed by explosives on the 76 floor and 78th floor, and so on. This would give the impression that collapse started at the location where the plane crashed.
Marcus: Who do you believe planted the explosives in the WTC towers?
Eric: The only people who could install explosives throughout the buildings would be the maintenance crews. Also, maintenance crews have access to special rooms that they could use to store and install explosives. They also have access freight elevators to transport explosives so that they do not need to use the passenger elevators. I think at least some of the maintenance crew had to be involved in this scam. I also think the landlord and some of his management had to be involved also.
There is one other interesting aspect to the issue of explosives that many people overlook. Even if Van Romero is correct that only a small number of explosives were used, explosives are not something ordinary people can purchase, at least not in the quantities necessary to demolish gigantic office buildings. If you or I were to attempt the purchase of even 10 packages of explosives, there is a good chance that nobody would sell them to us, and that the FBI would be notified of our attempt to purchase them.
My point is that somebody purchased a tremendous amount of explosives, but the FBI never investigated. This implies that either the FBI is deeply involved in this scam, or the company who provided the explosives routinely handle explosives. Which companies can handle large amounts of explosives without raising suspicions? Demolition companies are the most obvious answer to this question, but there are other companies, also. For example, the people who do special effects in Hollywood could purchase and ship large amounts of explosives without raising the suspicions of the FBI. Considering that the demolition company called Controlled Demolition, Inc. was at the World Trade Center the next day to clean up the mess, they are a prime suspect in my opinion.
Marcus: Who profited the most from the destruction of the WTC towers and the selling of the rubble that was left from the collapse? Do you believe that these people were tied into the 9-11 attacks?
Eric: There are so many people, companies, and nations who benefited from the destruction of the World Trade Center that it is difficult to guess at how many people might have joined in this scam.
The landlord [Larry Silverstein] of the World Trade Center is trying to get many billions of dollars from insurance companies, so -- if he gets his money -- he may be the person to benefit the most financially from this attack.
I think the steel beams from the rubble were sold as scrap mainly to get rid of evidence of explosives, rather than to profit from the sale of scrap metal. The scrap metal was sold at low cost to foreign nations, which implies that they were merely trying to permanently get rid of it rather than get a fair market value.
There are people who benefited indirectly from the attack. For example, there were IRS, CIA, and FBI offices in the towers and Building 7, so it is possible that some organized crime groups who were being investigated are no longer under investigation because the paper work on their case was destroyed.
A small organization developed immediately after the attack to sell pictures of the attack for $25 apiece. They call themselves Here Is New York. They are a nonprofit organization because they donate some of their income to charity. They told people that they would be helping some children by purchasing these pictures. However, many nonprofit organizations in America are scams. They give a small amount of money to a charity in order to justify their nonprofit status, but they keep most of the money for themselves.
The Here Is New York organization will not disclose how much money they made and what exactly they did with it, but a few months after the attack they were boasting that they had sold tens of thousands of pictures. They also opened up galleries around the world. They may have brought in millions of dollars.
Marcus: In conclusion on this topic, what are the major points that you want readers to keep in mind in reference to how the WTC towers collapse was the result of explosives?
Eric: Fire routinely destroys buildings made of wood, but no fires have ever even cracked a steel framed building, let alone shatter one. On September 11th, both World Trade Center towers and Building 7 disintegrated into small pieces of steel and concrete dust. Many government officials and university professors insist that fire caused these three buildings to shatter, but none of them can explain how the fire accomplished this amazing trick. This is equivalent to police locating your stolen automobile in somebody's garage, and when they arrest the person for car theft he insists that a fire must have stolen it, although he cannot explain how the fire accomplished such an amazing trick.
No fire has ever stolen an automobile. Likewise, no fire has ever shattered a steel building, so anybody who says a fire can shatter a steel building should be considered a liar or a fool.
Since airplanes crashed into the towers, we could say that the airplanes had something to do with the collapse of the towers, but nothing crashed into Building 7. The only way to destroy a steel building in a manner that throws out clouds of dust, as we see in the photos, is with explosives. We should demand an explanation for what appears to be an impossibility. If our government cannot explain what happened, we should consider them guilty of conducting an incredible scam.
Marcus: When did you start to suspect that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon?
Eric: On March 4, 2002 I received an e-mail message that showed me the French Internet site where readers were asked to Hunt the Boeing. This was the first time I was aware that something was wrong with the attack at the Pentagon. I was shocked at the possibility that the US military faked an attack at its own headquarters. Actually, I had a sickly feeling in my stomach. It took about a week before I got over it. I already knew the FBI and CIA were corrupt enough to kill President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but I didn't realize our military is also so corrupt that they will fake a terrorist attack that kills hundreds of people and destroys a section of the Pentagon that taxpayers just spent billions to renovate.
Every year I discover that America's government and "conventional media" are more corrupt than I realized. The few government officials, who try to do something useful, such as Cynthia McKinney, are treated as lunatics by our media driven and then driven out of office.
Marcus: Five security frames were released supposedly showing Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. Clearly the object appears to be too small to be Flight 77 and the white smoke that appears in the second frame is questionable. After studying the frames what do make of the mysterious flying object, the white smoke and the bright fireball?
Eric: Commercial airplanes do not produce white smoke. The smoke from a jet engine is similar to the car exhaust; i.e., it is likely to have a faint darkness due to soot and pollution. Only solid-fueled missiles and rockets leave dense trails of white smoke. This can be seen in any NASA photo of a rocket launch.
Also, jet fuel does not produce bright, clean fireballs. Rather, jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel fuel produce dark orange fireballs that are full of soot. Pages 30, 31, and 39 of Painful Questions show photos of the fireballs from the airplanes crashes at the WTC, and those fireballs are typical for jet fuel. Compare those fireballs to the bright, clean fireball at the Pentagon on page 97, which looks just like an explosion from a bomb.
The CIA has a drone that is capable of firing missiles. This information became available to the public when the CIA used one of these weapons in Afghanistan. Therefore, it is possible that the object that hit the Pentagon was a drone, but just before it hit the building if fired a missile at the Pentagon. The missile produced the white smoke and had an explosive warhead, which created a very bright fireball. Then, perhaps a second later, the drone crashed into the building.
The drone is essentially a very small airplane, so when it crashed into the Pentagon it would not have created many scrap pieces. This would explain why so few pieces of the aircraft were found, and it would explain why the pieces were so thin and fragile. Perhaps the best example of the thinness of the parts can be seen on page 100 of Painful Questions in figure 9-5. That piece of aluminum is so thin that it supports the theory that a small drone hit the Pentagon, not a Boeing 757. On page 105 are photos of some drones. The Global Hawk drone seems the most likely to have been used. If it had been painted to look like an American Airlines plane, it would certainly have fooled a lot of people into thinking it was Flight 77 when it flew by them at 400 mph.
A Boeing 757 has about 60 tons of aluminum and steel in it. It also has two engines about 9 feet in diameter. The engines contain a lot of thick steel. A couple of engines survived the crash at the World Trade Center. Engines also survive other airplane crashes. The landing gear of a Boeing 757, where the wheels attach, also contains very thick metal, so the landing gear should have survived. Landing gear survived at the WTC towers. However, nobody claims to have found the engines or the landing gear, or anything else from Flight 77. Nor are there any reports that luggage or dead passengers were found.
Airplanes always break up into lots of pieces when they crash, but the pieces can always be found. Pieces of metal cannot vanish. However, our government wants us to believe that the Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon was the first large commercial airplane to crash into a building and then vanish.
There is no sensible explanation for how 60 tons of aluminum and steel could have disappeared. Water can easily evaporate and blow away in the breeze, but 60 tons of aluminum and steel cannot vanish. This is equivalent to 30 automobiles crashing into a building, and then the cars and dead bodies vanish.
Dave VonKleist of the Power Hour radio show has a great response to our government. He says that the real Alternative Scenario is that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon because there is more evidence that a small missile hit the building.
Rather than put up with accusations that Cynthia McKinney is a "conspiracy nut" or that the Painful Questions book is a "Alternative Scenario" we should do as Dave VonKleist would do; namely, we should call the government a bunch of Americans for believing a small fire can shatter steel buildings, and for believing that a Boeing 757 can vanish after crashing into a building. Painful Questions is not a Alternative Scenario; rather, it is simply an analysis of the photographic and other evidence. And Cynthia McKinney is not a conspiracy nut; rather, she is a woman who can think for herself and wants to know what happened.
Marcus: What is your opinion of the quality of the Flight 77 video footage? Do you believe that the U.S. Government released the poor quality video in order to hide something? Why is the time and the date of the footage incorrect?
Eric: Associated Press, Reuters, and other professional photographers always provide high-quality photos to anybody who wants to print their photographs. Nobody prints low-quality versions of photographs unless there is no alternative. The exception is the video from Flight 77 as it crashes into the pentagon. The Pentagon has the original source of this video, but they will not let anybody see it. Instead, provide us with five frames of that video, and those five frames are extremely low quality.
There is no excuse for the Pentagon to provide such low-quality images when they have the original video. The only reason somebody would release low quality images is to hide the details. If the video frames were edited, then the low quality of the images would hide the telltale signs of editing.
Another peculiar aspect of the video is that it contains a time and date, but it is not of the airplane crash. There was no reason for the Pentagon to insert the incorrect time in the video unless they wanted to hide the true time. There have been conflicting reports about what time the airplane hit the Pentagon, so perhaps the military officials decided to insert a completely false time in the video to prevent us from knowing what the true time was.
We should demand the military officials release the entire videotape and settle this dispute once and for all. Our tax money paid for the Pentagon, the high salaries of the military officials, and the video cameras at the Pentagon, so that video belongs to us. They have no right to hide it.
Marcus: In the first frame Flight 77 appears to flying low and straight towards the Pentagon. What bugs me out about this is that are numerous light poles, trees, giant spools of cable and other objects that should have come into contact with Flight 77 before it arrived to position that is seen in the first security video frame (with the exception of the giant spools of cable). I truly believe that the video frames of Flight 77 are doctored just like the Osama bin Laden confession video. Why do you believe that the U.S. Government released the frames at the time that they did?
Eric: Initially the military officials insisted that there was no video of Flight 77 hitting the building. Several months later, in March of 2002, Thierry Messyan's book became known to Americans, and Americans began suspecting that something was wrong with the theory that Flight 77 hit the pentagon. The initial French accusation was that a truck bomb had exploded in front of the Pentagon.
At the beginning of March 2002 the military officials released five frames of video that showed an object flying into the Pentagon. I think the military released this video at that particular time to show us that the French were wrong about the truck bomb theory. This video proved to us that something flew into the building. This put an end to the conspiracy theories that stated a truck bomb exploded at the Pentagon. However, it started an entirely new set of conspiracy theories that a missile or drone hit the Pentagon.
Of course, it is still possible that a truck bomb also exploded at the Pentagon. The reason is that photos, such as on pages 100 and 101, show fires all over the area, including the helicopter pad. Also, some witnesses claim to have heard two explosions.
As you mentioned, there is an entire city in front of the Pentagon, with light poles, buildings, trees, and bridges. It would take tremendous flying skills to fly a giant, commercial airplane so close to the ground in a city with so many tall obstacles. The idea that an inexperience pilot was looking out the window of the cockpit and flying this airplane at 400 mph only a few inches above the cars is absurd. Just driving a car at 120 mph along a windy road would be difficult for an inexperienced driver. The pilots in the Air Force who perform tricks at air shows probably could not do what that Arab was accused of doing.
The flight path of Flight 77 is enough to convince me that no human was in control of it, and that it was not Flight 77. Rather, it was a much smaller, more maneuverable airplane. It seems that a computer was flying the airplane, and that it was a small drone, such as the Global Hawk.
Marcus: It is also amazing that the section of the Pentagon that supposedly got hit by Flight 77 was under renovation. What is the makeup of the Pentagon wall that got damaged? Knowing the makeup of the Pentagon wall and Flight 77 what type of debris/damage should we see?
Eric: The outer wall of the Pentagon was extremely strong because it was designed specifically to withstand a military attack. It had 6 inches of limestone next to 8 inches of brick followed by 10 inches of concrete. That creates a wall of 2 feet of solid material.
What would happen when an airplane as large as a Boeing 757 crashes into such a sturdy wall? Nobody knows for sure since a Boeing 757 has never crashed into the Pentagon. However, it is very unlikely that the wingtips would be able to penetrate the wall. The wingtips should tear off, crumple, and then fall to the ground below. The engines might puncture a hole in the wall, and the body of the airplane might also, but they would lose a lot of their energy in the process. This means the engine and body parts would quickly come to a stop after penetrating the wall. This in turn means that about 60 tons of aircraft parts should have been located within the rubble of the outer ring of the Pentagon
However, nobody claims to have found wingtips of a Boeing 757 on the front lawn, and the first photographs taken of the crash site do not show any holes in the building. This implies that the entire airplane crumpled when it hit the building, and then fell down to the grass below. But there are no airplane parts along the grass.
Only a few small aircraft parts have been located, and the security video shows a small object that produced white smoke hit the Pentagon. The only sensible conclusion is that a small missile or drone hit the Pentagon, and our military officials are lying to us.
Once we realize that Flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, it makes sense that the section of the Pentagon that was hit was under renovation. Our top military leaders were involved in this scam, but they did not want to kill too many of their own people. So they selected a section of the Pentagon that did not have many people in it.
Marcus: Recently on www.rense.com there has been a lot of debate over the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris at the Pentagon. Figure 9-5 in your book is one of the photos that a lot of people are using as evidence to support their belief that Flight 77 did crash into the Pentagon. These same people will use the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris but they won't comment on the so-called five frames of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. Why are the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris not evidence of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon? Why do you believe that www.rense.com is giving so much attention to these photos being evidence of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon?
Eric: Flight 77 was a Boeing 757, which is 155 feet long and weighs about 60 tons when empty. Therefore, the Pentagon should have 60 tons of scraps from Flight 77, but the photos at www.rense.com show only a few small pieces. Those photos show evidence that an aircraft hit the building, but those few scraps do not prove Flight 77 was the aircraft.
The people who operate www.rense.com may be giving special attention to these photos because they believe the official story that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, and perhaps they want to help the rest of us understand the truth. It is also possible that they are trying to cover up a scam. Regardless of why www.rense.com is involved with this issue, I think the reason there is so much activity right now (December, 2002) in regards to Flight 77 is because Thierry Meyssan is currently starting his book tour in America to promote his books that provides evidence that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon. My book also shows that Flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, and I show that the World Trade Center attack was a scam. The weekly newspaper, the American Free Press, is also exposing this and many other scams. Finally, a few other individuals and Internet sites are also complaining that the attack on the Pentagon is a scam. I think our government is struggling to counteract us.
The five frames of video that show Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon supposedly came from one of the security cameras in front of the Pentagon. If that video truly showed evidence that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the military could release the entire video and put an end to all of the accusations that a missile hit the building. This would stop sales of Meyssan's book, and certainly make me feel like a fool. So why doesn't the military release that video and prove their innocence? I think the reason is because the video shows a missile crashing into the Pentagon.
Marcus: Figure 9-9 in your book shows a hole that was supposedly caused by Flight 77. In Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan he shows the location of Figure 9-9 in reference to where Flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon. It seems impossible for Figure 9-9 to have been produced by Flight 77 when one knows of the location of the hole in reference to where Flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon. Could you please comment on what is seen in Figure 9-9 and its location in reference to the location of where flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon? What do you believe caused this hole?
Eric: The hole is more than 6 feet in diameter, and if this is truly an exit hole for Flight 77, there should be a corresponding entrance hole at the other side of the building. However, photos taken immediately after the crash, such as those in Figure 9-6 through 9-8, do not show any noticeable entrance hole. Somehow Flight 77 got into the building through a hole so small that nobody can find it in any of the photographs. Then, after passing through the building, it supposedly punched a hole 6 foot in diameter. However, the fuselage of a Boeing 757 is about 13 feet in diameter, so obviously the entire fuselage did not create this small hole. If this hole was made by one of the engines, what happened to the engine parts? And what happened to the second engine?
Furthermore, if Flight 77 truly passed through this building, there should be 60 tons of airplane parts scattered inside the Pentagon. While a pile of rubble can be seen around the hole in Figure 9-9, nothing in the rubble appears to be from a Boeing 757. Actually, it seems to me that the rubble consists of pieces of the Pentagon, not pieces of aircraft.
One photo of the rubble shows a small wheel, but a Boeing 757 has two sets of landing gear in the back, each with four wheels, and landing gear in the front, with two wheels. That makes a total of 10 wheels. Where are the other nine wheels? The person who posted that article at www.rense.com wants us to believe that the wheel is proof that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, but almost every aircraft has wheels. Therefore, finding an aircraft wheel is only evidence that some type of aircraft may have crashed into the Pentagon.
Another photo taken inside the building shows what appears to be a small piece of landing gear, but that small scrap does not prove Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Almost every aircraft has landing gear.
Finding an exit hole in a building but no corresponding entrance hole is equivalent to finding a dead body in which there is an exit hole for a bullet but no entrance hole. In other words, it is impossible. It is more likely that a small aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, and that it created such a small entrance hole that it cannot be seen through the smoke. In Figure 9-3D is a dotted yellow circle around a location that appears to be a small hole in the building. A Boeing 757 could not possibly fit into such a small hole, but a small drone could.
My guess is that a small drone hit the Pentagon, but before it hit the building it fired a missile.
In November 2001 a spokesman for the military announced that they had found the 64 dead passengers of Flight 77 and the 125 dead Pentagon employees. The military claims that the dead bodies had been picked up, sent to Fort Belvoir, Virgina, and then transported to a morgue in Dover, Delaware. At this morgue all but 5 were identified.
However, if that report is true, that means portions of the 64 passengers survived the crash and the fire. This creates a dilemma. If human bodies survived the fire and crash, then what happened to the engines, the 10 wheels, and the other 60 tons of metal in the airplane? How could human bodies survive a fire and airplane crash, but not 60 tons of metal?
I suspect that the military is lying to us about finding the dead passengers. If you think my accusation is outrageous, consider that military officials initially claimed that there was no video of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. If you recall, during September the TV news reporters showed the airplanes crashing into the towers, but they never showed video of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon because the military told us that there was no such video. Later, in March 2002, the military released five frames of video from a security camera of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. This proves they were lying about not having any video. Since they lied to us in September about not having video, perhaps they lied to us in November about finding dead passengers. How many times does a person have to lie to you before you question his other remarks?
Marcus: What do you believe happened to Flight 77?
Eric: My initial assumption was that it was shot down near Ohio, which is where it vanished from the air traffic controllers. But a retired commercial airplane pilot pointed out to me that it would be difficult for the military to shoot down a commercial aircraft so high in the air without people on the ground noticing pieces and passengers falling down.
There is a theory on the Internet called the Bumble Planes theory , which is so gruesome that I dismissed it. However, I now wonder if some variation on this Bumble Planes theory is correct. For example, the pilot of Flight 77 may have been told by the military to quietly land his airplane at a military base because there is a terrorist on his aircraft. After the pilot naively lands the plane, the passengers are taken off and killed, and the aircraft is repainted or destroyed.
The idea that our military would do such a thing to American citizens was difficult for me to believe, which is why I dismissed the Bumble Planes theory. However, our Government has admitted to conducting LSD experiments on the unsuspecting public, as well as testing biological weapons on unsuspecting citizens, and using soldiers in radiation experiments without them understanding the dangers. Our Government conducts killings in other nations on an even larger scale.
If the military killed all the people on Flight 77 at a military base near Ohio, this would explain why the military has the dead bodies of the passengers of Flight 77, and it explains how those bodies got to the morgue in Delaware. Specifically, after killing the passengers, their bodies were flown to Dover, Delaware. Meanwhile, at the same time, the dead employees at the Pentagon were also being sent to Delaware morgue. All of the dead bodies were then mixed together, creating the illusion that they all came from the Pentagon.
Marcus: What are the major points that you want readers to keep in mind in reference to the Flight 77/Pentagon controversy?
Eric: The military is keeping the security video a secret, and I can think of only one reason for doing so. Namely, the video shows a small drone firing a missile at the Pentagon. If the military has nothing to hide, why are they hiding this video rather than using it to prove their innocence?
The military lied to us when they said they did not have any video of the airplane crashing into the pentagon. They have video from at least one security camera, and possibly other cameras. Since they lied about this video, we should wonder how many other times they lied to us.
There should be 60 tons of airplane parts in the Pentagon, including lots of seats, but of all the hundreds of photos taken, only a few small scraps of aircraft can been seen.
The terrorist decided to hit a portion of the Pentagon that was nearly empty and had just been reinforced to make it stronger. I think it is evidence that the military deliberately selected this area because they did not want to kill too many of their own employees.
The FBI confiscated security video from a nearby gas station and hotel. I can think of only one reason for confiscating that video; namely, the video shows a small drone firing a missile at the Pentagon. If the FBI has nothing to hide, why are they hiding this video?
Marcus: Finally, why should readers pick up a copy of Painful Questions?
Eric: Not much about this September 11th attack makes sense. Our Government is trying to convince us of something that is impossible. Fires do not shatter buildings, for example. Even the idea that a few terrorists can outsmart America's air defense system and air traffic controllers with four separate aircraft on the same day is ridiculous.
When people allow their government to conduct these scams, they are allowing themselves and their nation to be abused. These scams affect everybody, even people who ignore them. For example, our economy is deteriorating, and that affects all of us.
America has never been a closely-knit group of people. It is always been a nation of crime, racial problems, and recently, fighting between men and women. We should be doing things to help make our nation more pleasant, but instead most Americans ignore their crummy government.
The American people need to do a better job voting, and perhaps if they realize that the September 11th attack was a scam, they might have an incentive to pay more attention to whom they are voting for. Cynthia McKinney, for example, was struggling to understand what happened on September 11th, but most voters ignored her. She was also looking into the sex slave trade, which is another problem that has been suppressed by the conventional media. America had somebody in government who was trying to make this country better, but most Americans turned their back on her, or insulted her as a conspiracy nut. We need people like her as president, not Al Gore or George Bush.
Many months before I wrote this book I tried to explain to my own relatives that the attack is a scam. At that time I did not have any high-quality photos to show them, so I had to use words to explain it. Needless to say, I did not convince them of anything. I decided that a book with high-quality photos and diagrams would make it easier to explain this issue, and possibly get some people interested in doing a better job of voting.
This book provides you with the photos and the information you need to explain to people that this attack was a scam. You can also use this book to show people how ignorant they are, and how awful our TV news is. For example, most people do not know much about Building 7. With this book you can show them photos of the small fires burning inside Building 7, photos as it collapses, and photos of the rubble after the collapse. You can then point out to them that the conventional media has hidden this information from them. You could also ask them how the little fires shattered such a strong, steel building.
Making a better nation does not require much effort or work from any of us. It merely requires that voters do a better job of selecting government leaders. Imagine a government full of people like Cynthia McKinney who investigate problems and try to make a better nation. Perhaps my book will help stimulate voters into taking their job more seriously.
Marcus: In conclusion I would like to say that Painful Questions is the best book on the market that examines the use of explosives in the collapse of the WTC towers & the Flight 77/Pentagon cover-up. The book has over 150 full color pages with high quality photos of the events that took place on September 11, 2001. I highly recommend everyone get a copy of the book if you want to get a scientific analysis of the 9-11 attacks. You will not be disappointed.
Interview by Marcus 3X with Eric Hufschmid author of Painful Questions
Spring/Summer 2003
Marcus: What motivated you to write Painful Questions?
Eric: My initial reaction to the 9-11 attack was "What do you expect?" America has been meddling in other nations' affairs, especially the Mideast, for decades. I was not surprised that the Arabs decided to retaliate. I considered the Arabs justified fighting back, just as we would fight back if the Arabs were bombing us and meddling in our affairs.
On September 14th [2001] I posted an article on the Internet complaining about our Mideast policy and how we are fools for letting ourselves get dragged into Israel's fight with the Arabs.
By November [2001] I discovered the Google newsgroups. Several people often complained that we should not trust our government; that something was suspicious about the September 11 attack. I did not understand what these people were complaining about. However, some of them never quit complaining, and by the beginning of January [2002] I decided to look more closely at the attack and how the towers collapsed. I began searching the Internet for photographs and descriptions. I quickly understood what those people on the Google newsgroups were complaining about. The 9-11 attack had a lot of suspicious aspects to it. It appeared as if many people knew it was going to occur, and it appeared that explosives destroyed the WTC.
In mid-January [2002] I posted a document on the Internet that explained why I believe the WTC was destroyed by explosives. I also sent email to a few people at NASA, some political candidates, radio show hosts, and political candidates to look into the collapse of the WTC.
In February [2002] I began looking through the lists of professors and graduate students at some universities in an attempt to find professors and students who seem knowledgeable in steel buildings, explosives, or concrete. I then sent e-mail messages to them pointing out that there is something strange about the collapse of the World Trade Center, and they ought to look into it, possibly even making it a project for the students. Unfortunately, my e-mail messages never seemed to have an effect.
Near the end of March [2002] I decided to talk to some neighbors, friends, and relatives about the 9-11 attack. I discovered that not one person had seen any of the Internet sites that discussed the 9-11 attack. The information was not reaching the "common people".
By the end of March [2002] I decided I was wasting my time with my Internet documents. I was also coming to the conclusion that I am wasting my time sending e-mail messages.
I decided that the only way to reach the public is with a paper book that has high quality images. I assumed that a book would make it easy for the common citizen to learn about the suspicious aspects of the 9-11 attack. We can also give books as birthday and Christmas presents, and we can show books to our friends and relatives, and that spreads the information.
Marcus: Did you find researching information for the book to be difficult?
Eric: Actually, I found two problems:
a) Information is difficult to find.
I had to spend hours a day, month after month, searching for information and photos. We cannot simply ask our government for a report on the attack because most of their reports (such as the report FEMA produced in May, 2002) are nonsense. Nor can we ask universities for a report because no university bothered to study the attack. In fact, at a congressional hearing on March 6, 2002, even Congressman Boehlert complained about the “excessive secrecy” in regards to the investigation of the collapse of the buildings. Some government officials are refusing to investigate and they are blocking attempts by others to investigate.
In February 2002 I discovered that the editor of Fire Engineering Magazine was calling the investigation of the collapse of World Trade Center “a half baked farce.” I was surprised that such an incredible accusation never made it in the news. Our media is refusing to discuss the details of the attack. Actually, they are suppressing a lot of information about the attack.
b) There is a lot of false information.
There are lots of false theories on the Internet that seem to be coming from the people involved with the attack. The purpose for the misinformation is to confuse us and mislead us. For example, on page 20 of my book I show three images from a video that appears to be faked. Anybody who believes that video will waste his time investigating a nonsensical issue. These people often post messages on the newsgroups to deceive us.
Marcus: When did you start to suspect that explosives were possibly used to bring down the WTC towers?
Eric: I suspected explosives caused the towers to collapse in January 2002 after looking closely at the design of the towers and at the photos of how the towers collapsed. The towers had a steel frame, and there is no valid reason why the entire steel frame of both towers would disintegrate so thoroughly. No fire has ever caused a steel framed building to fall down, let alone shatter into little pieces.
Also, the speed at which the towers fell down was much too fast to make sense. There should have been a thump, thump, thump as each floor fell down to the floor below. If each floor needed an average of half a second to fall down to the floor below it that would mean the towers would collapse in 55 seconds. However, both towers collapsed in ten seconds or less. Only explosives can explain such a rapid collapse.
Marcus: Let's tackle the WTC collapse issue. The U.S. Government claims that the jet fuel fires from the "hijacked" airplanes caused both towers to collapse. Can you explain how this is highly unlikely?
Eric: There are several reasons why the fires are not likely to be the cause of the collapse.
First of all, the fires were not even severe enough to kill all the people in the area that the plane crashed into. On page 27 of the Painful Questions book is a photo of the hole created by the airplane when it crashed into the North Tower. Two people can be seen standing in the hole. These two people walked over to the hole from some other area, which means they were walking through fires and jet fuel. The windows of the tower do not show many flames, either. Since the fires were not strong enough to kill people, and since there was not enough jet fuel to stop people from walking around the area, and since the flames were small, we should consider the possibility that the fires were not strong enough to cause a steel structure to disintegrate into little pieces.
In the South Tower a few people above the crash zone walked down the stairs, passing through the fire zone. The fire was not hot enough to stop people from walking down the stairs, so how could it have been hot enough to destroy a steel building? Also, there are reports that the firemen arrived at the fire zone in the South Tower and talked about the fire over their radios to headquarters. If the firemen could walk around the area, the temperature could not have been very high.
Secondly, the fire in the South Tower was so small that it did not even spread to other objects on the same floor. Rather, the fire remained restricted on one side of the tower. Since the fire did not spread to the rest of the carpeting, paper, and office furniture in the crash zone, we should consider the possibility that the fire was not strong to shatter a steel structure.
Third, the South Tower disintegrated after the fires burned for only 56 minutes. How could such a small fire cause a steel building to shatter in 56 minutes when it takes more than 56 minutes to cook a turkey? There have been many large fires in office buildings and warehouses, but not even a wooden building disintegrates in only 56 minutes. For example, in 1991 a fire burned for 19 hours in an office building at One Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That fire was much more extreme than the fires in the WTC, and it spread to 8 floors. Flames were coming from many windows on many floors. However, that fire didn't even cause the steel frame of the building to crack into two pieces, let alone shatter into thousands of pieces. By comparison, the fire in North Tower had smaller flames, and it caused the steel structure of the entire building to disintegrate after burning for less than 2 hours.
Fourth, not even the largest fire in history has caused a steel framed building to crumble, or even break into two pieces, so why should we believe that a few small fires caused both towers and Building 7 to crumble? If fire brought those buildings down, then a fire did what no fire had done before, and that requires an explanation for how the fires did it. But nobody has an explanation for how fires could have caused three steel buildings to crumble.
Marcus: Most people believe the jet fuel fire theory because they have absolutely no understanding of how the WTC towers were built, what the commercial airplanes were built of, and how jet fuel burns. Can you explain how the WTC towers were built to survive a hit from a large commercial airplane and how jet fuel burns?
Eric: Most buildings and bridges use concrete as the structural material, and steel is used only as reinforcing bars within the concrete. The towers were different; they were a 100% steel structure.
Because the towers were so tall, they were exposed to a lot of wind. The towers had to be designed to withstand the strongest storms. Therefore, the steel in the towers was extremely thick. It was 4 inches thick at the bottom of the tower, for example.
There were about 300 (depending on how you count them) vertical steel columns in the tower. Most columns were along the outside, but there were 47 columns in the interior, and these were the strongest of the columns. All of the 300 columns were connected to steel trusses along every floor. The towers were a three-dimensional network of steel beams.
Concrete was poured into corrugated steel pans along the floors in both of the WTC towers. The concrete certainly added strength to the towers, but the purpose was of this concrete was to be a fireproof and sturdy flooring material. These concrete floors were 4 inches thick along the windows and 5 inches thick in the center of the tower, and it was sitting in a corrugated steel pan, so it would have been an excellent fireproofing material to stop fires from spreading from one floor to the next.
The Airplane Crashes
When the airplanes crashed into the towers, the towers swayed slightly in one direction, and then swayed back to their normal position. The towers then remained motionless. Each airplane crash was equivalent to a strong gust of wind.
Each airplane punctured a hole within the three-dimensional network of steel beams, which a gust of wind would not have done. However, the steel structure of the tower was so strong that it could easily remained standing even with a hole in it.
Bullets are very destructive, and many people assume the airplanes were as destructive as bullets. However, bullets travel a much higher speed than airplanes, and, more importantly, bullets are solid objects whereas airplanes are hollow shells of thin aluminum. Only the engines and landing gear have massive pieces of metal.
When the airplane crashed into the towers, the hollow aluminum airplane body encountered very strong steel beams and some sturdy concrete floors. It is very likely that the airplane was shredded into pieces as it penetrated the tower. In fact, a few airplane pieces passed all the way through the towers and landed in the streets, which proves that parts of the airplane were torn off.
The Jet Fuel
As soon as the airplane hit the tower, the wings began to rupture, and that caused the jet fuel to spray out. Some of the fuel may have sprayed along the outside of the tower, but most of it was sprayed inside the tower. Photographs show that the spray of jet fuel ignited immediately and created a very large ball of fire, as seen on pages 30 and 31. This spray of jet fuel burned very rapidly. Within seconds most of the flames were gone, and the only jet fuel remaining was whatever had soaked into the carpeting, the ceiling, and the office furniture.
Because the floors were concrete and the structure was steel, the only flammable objects in the tower were the office furnishings. Unlike a house, which has a wooden structure, there was not much flammable material in these towers.
Marcus: In one section of your book you stated that the temperature of the flames in the WTC is meaningless. You went on to say that the important issues are the amount of heat generated and length of time the heat was in contact with the steel. Could you please explain?
Eric: Every flame and every fire can be described as “hot”. When a cigarette smoker pushes the button on his butane lighter, for example, he creates a flame that reaches a temperature of more than 1400 degrees Fahrenheit, which is above the melting point of aluminum. If he were to point that flame at a steel column in the World Trade Center, would the towers become weak from the high temperature of the flame? Would the towers collapse into a small pile of rubble simply because the flame was so hot? Or, if he were to put his flame against an aluminum airplane, would he be able to melt the airplane? No. The reason is that the flame from a butane lighter does not produce very much heat. The temperature of a butane flame is hot enough to destroy the tower and it is hot enough to melt a Boeing 767, but there is not enough heat in one little flame to do any damage to such a thick steel structure or a large airplane.
High temperature flames cannot do any damage to a steel structure unless the flames can produce enough heat to raise the temperature of the steel. Electric light bulbs are another example of this. The filaments are above the melting point of steel, but nothing ever melts when you turn on a light bulb. The reason is that a light bulb does not even produce enough heat to melt itself.
In order for a fire to damage a steel building, the fire has to produce a lot of heat, and the fire must be in contact with the steel for enough time for the heat to penetrate the steel. However, the photographs of the towers do not show signs that the fires were producing a lot of heat. For example, the fire in the south tower never even spread from one side of the floor to the other, which is a sign that there was not even enough heat to ignite all of the paper, computer monitors, and carpeting on that floor. If the fires could not ignite office paper and furniture, how could it have destroyed a steel structure?
Furthermore, the south tower collapsed after only 56 minutes, which is not much time for the fire to be in contact with such a thick steel structure.
Marcus: After studying the pictures and video footage of both planes crashing into the WTC towers what damage do you believe the planes caused to the buildings? Was the damage severe enough to cause the buildings to collapse the way they did?
Eric: The planes busted holes in the exterior columns of the towers, but they may not have done any damage to the interior columns. Photographs of the other airplane crashes show that airplanes tend to become shredded when they crash. The reason is because airplane bodies are thin, hollow shells of aluminum that do not have much strength. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that the airplanes were shredded into pieces as they penetrated the tower. The pieces of airplane that were flying through the tower would have been deadly to the people inside the tower, but they may not have done any damage to the interior steel columns.
Marcus: What do the pictures of the WTC towers before they collapsed suggest? Did they show any signs of a collapse possibly occurring?
Eric: Moments before the towers collapsed they appeared to be recovering from the fire. The flames were slowly vanishing, and the building was motionless and stable. There were no creaking noises coming from the building to suggest that the building was on the verge of falling down, nor were there any cracks developing along the exterior of the tower. There were no windows breaking, nor were pieces of the tower falling down. There was no indication that anything terrible was about to happen. Actually, it looked as if the firemen would soon be putting the fires out, and the event would be over.
Hundreds of firemen ran into the towers because they had no reason to worry about the towers coming down. No steel structure had ever collapsed from a fire, and there was no indication that these towers were about to collapse.
Marcus: Do the pictures of the WTC towers as they collapsed suggest that it was the end result of the airplanes crashing into them? If not then what appears to be the cause of the collapses?
Eric: Both towers started to collapse at the location the airplanes had crashed into them. This creates the impression that the weak point in the tower was at the location of the crash. However, the strange thing about the collapse is that pieces of metal and enormous amounts of powder were ejected from the tower at a very high velocity. The powder and pieces of metal were thrown up to several hundred feet. The tower did not simply fall down. Rather, it looked as if it was exploding outward like a fireworks display.
If the structure was merely failing at the location of the airplane crash, large pieces of the tower should have simply fallen down. There certainly would have been some production of powder, but it would now have been such an enormous amount, and the powder would not have been ejected hundreds of feet away.
Buildings have collapsed before, but they never expelled powder and pieces of metal such an incredible distance, nor did they produce such an incredible volume of powder.
The production of powder and the manner in which it flew hundreds of feet to the air is a sign that explosives were being used to pulverize the concrete and shatter the steel structure. Furthermore, both towers disintegrated all the way into the basement. There was not even one large piece of tower remaining.
Marcus: In your book you suggested that explosives were possibly installed on nearly every floor of the WTC towers. Van Romero, vice president of research at New Mexico Tech, ORIGINALLY stated that only a small amount of explosives placed in strategic points could have caused both WTC towers to collapse. Do you still believe that explosives were installed on nearly every floor? If so, then how could a large number of explosives be planted in the WTC towers without being detected? How were the explosives detonated?
Eric: Van Romero certainly knows more about the subject than I do, but he made these remarks quickly, and has since kept quiet, as if he was threatened to shut up.
Romero may have been referring to a conventional demolition. In a conventional demolition, only a small number of explosives are used. The purpose of the explosives is to break the building into pieces, not pulverize it into a powder. Demolition companies do not want to produce powder because it creates a terrible mess to clean up. But in the case of the World Trade Center towers, all concrete was pulverized, and the entire steel structure was shattered into pieces. In other words, the towers disintegrated much more thoroughly than occurs during a normal demolition. Therefore, it appears that extra explosives were put into the towers.
There are two main reasons why the people who did this would want extra explosives. I explain this in more detail on page 86 of my book. To summarize, one reason is to pulverize the concrete into powder, which then spreads out throughout the city. By turning the concrete into powder, the clean-up crews do not have to pick up pieces of concrete. The other reason for the extra explosives is to prevent large chunks of the building from falling down onto neighboring buildings.
Office buildings have false ceilings. Above the ceiling tiles is a large gap for air-conditioning ducts, electrical wires, and other utilities. The packages of explosives used in demolitions are small; some smaller than a loaf of bread. It would be easy for maintenance crews to walk through the building, stopping every so often to climb on the ladder, push aside a ceiling tile, tie an explosive package up there. Nobody would think anything strange about maintenance people pushing aside the ceiling tiles. Besides, they probably installed the explosives at night.
Some people believe that installing thousands of explosives would be time consuming. However, installing explosives in a building is not much more difficult than delivering mail to the different companies in the towers, or changing light bulbs, or changing water bottles in water coolers.
The explosives did not need to be connected to power or to each other. Rather, each explosive had its own battery and radio controlled trigger. The computer that was in control of this demolition would trigger the explosives by sending radio signals. Radio controlled devices are so small and inexpensive today that they are appearing in low-cost toys.
The computer that controlled these explosives would be able to detonate them in any sequence. The people involved in this scam would wait for the airplanes to crash into the towers before deciding what that sequence would be. For example, after noticing that the airplane crashed into the 77th floor of the South Tower, they would set the computer to detonate explosives on the 77th floor first, followed by explosives on the 76 floor and 78th floor, and so on. This would give the impression that collapse started at the location where the plane crashed.
Marcus: Who do you believe planted the explosives in the WTC towers?
Eric: The only people who could install explosives throughout the buildings would be the maintenance crews. Also, maintenance crews have access to special rooms that they could use to store and install explosives. They also have access freight elevators to transport explosives so that they do not need to use the passenger elevators. I think at least some of the maintenance crew had to be involved in this scam. I also think the landlord and some of his management had to be involved also.
There is one other interesting aspect to the issue of explosives that many people overlook. Even if Van Romero is correct that only a small number of explosives were used, explosives are not something ordinary people can purchase, at least not in the quantities necessary to demolish gigantic office buildings. If you or I were to attempt the purchase of even 10 packages of explosives, there is a good chance that nobody would sell them to us, and that the FBI would be notified of our attempt to purchase them.
My point is that somebody purchased a tremendous amount of explosives, but the FBI never investigated. This implies that either the FBI is deeply involved in this scam, or the company who provided the explosives routinely handle explosives. Which companies can handle large amounts of explosives without raising suspicions? Demolition companies are the most obvious answer to this question, but there are other companies, also. For example, the people who do special effects in Hollywood could purchase and ship large amounts of explosives without raising the suspicions of the FBI. Considering that the demolition company called Controlled Demolition, Inc. was at the World Trade Center the next day to clean up the mess, they are a prime suspect in my opinion.
Marcus: Who profited the most from the destruction of the WTC towers and the selling of the rubble that was left from the collapse? Do you believe that these people were tied into the 9-11 attacks?
Eric: There are so many people, companies, and nations who benefited from the destruction of the World Trade Center that it is difficult to guess at how many people might have joined in this scam.
The landlord [Larry Silverstein] of the World Trade Center is trying to get many billions of dollars from insurance companies, so -- if he gets his money -- he may be the person to benefit the most financially from this attack.
I think the steel beams from the rubble were sold as scrap mainly to get rid of evidence of explosives, rather than to profit from the sale of scrap metal. The scrap metal was sold at low cost to foreign nations, which implies that they were merely trying to permanently get rid of it rather than get a fair market value.
There are people who benefited indirectly from the attack. For example, there were IRS, CIA, and FBI offices in the towers and Building 7, so it is possible that some organized crime groups who were being investigated are no longer under investigation because the paper work on their case was destroyed.
A small organization developed immediately after the attack to sell pictures of the attack for $25 apiece. They call themselves Here Is New York. They are a nonprofit organization because they donate some of their income to charity. They told people that they would be helping some children by purchasing these pictures. However, many nonprofit organizations in America are scams. They give a small amount of money to a charity in order to justify their nonprofit status, but they keep most of the money for themselves.
The Here Is New York organization will not disclose how much money they made and what exactly they did with it, but a few months after the attack they were boasting that they had sold tens of thousands of pictures. They also opened up galleries around the world. They may have brought in millions of dollars.
Marcus: In conclusion on this topic, what are the major points that you want readers to keep in mind in reference to how the WTC towers collapse was the result of explosives?
Eric: Fire routinely destroys buildings made of wood, but no fires have ever even cracked a steel framed building, let alone shatter one. On September 11th, both World Trade Center towers and Building 7 disintegrated into small pieces of steel and concrete dust. Many government officials and university professors insist that fire caused these three buildings to shatter, but none of them can explain how the fire accomplished this amazing trick. This is equivalent to police locating your stolen automobile in somebody's garage, and when they arrest the person for car theft he insists that a fire must have stolen it, although he cannot explain how the fire accomplished such an amazing trick.
No fire has ever stolen an automobile. Likewise, no fire has ever shattered a steel building, so anybody who says a fire can shatter a steel building should be considered a liar or a fool.
Since airplanes crashed into the towers, we could say that the airplanes had something to do with the collapse of the towers, but nothing crashed into Building 7. The only way to destroy a steel building in a manner that throws out clouds of dust, as we see in the photos, is with explosives. We should demand an explanation for what appears to be an impossibility. If our government cannot explain what happened, we should consider them guilty of conducting an incredible scam.
Marcus: When did you start to suspect that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon?
Eric: On March 4, 2002 I received an e-mail message that showed me the French Internet site where readers were asked to Hunt the Boeing. This was the first time I was aware that something was wrong with the attack at the Pentagon. I was shocked at the possibility that the US military faked an attack at its own headquarters. Actually, I had a sickly feeling in my stomach. It took about a week before I got over it. I already knew the FBI and CIA were corrupt enough to kill President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, but I didn't realize our military is also so corrupt that they will fake a terrorist attack that kills hundreds of people and destroys a section of the Pentagon that taxpayers just spent billions to renovate.
Every year I discover that America's government and "conventional media" are more corrupt than I realized. The few government officials, who try to do something useful, such as Cynthia McKinney, are treated as lunatics by our media driven and then driven out of office.
Marcus: Five security frames were released supposedly showing Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. Clearly the object appears to be too small to be Flight 77 and the white smoke that appears in the second frame is questionable. After studying the frames what do make of the mysterious flying object, the white smoke and the bright fireball?
Eric: Commercial airplanes do not produce white smoke. The smoke from a jet engine is similar to the car exhaust; i.e., it is likely to have a faint darkness due to soot and pollution. Only solid-fueled missiles and rockets leave dense trails of white smoke. This can be seen in any NASA photo of a rocket launch.
Also, jet fuel does not produce bright, clean fireballs. Rather, jet fuel, gasoline, and diesel fuel produce dark orange fireballs that are full of soot. Pages 30, 31, and 39 of Painful Questions show photos of the fireballs from the airplanes crashes at the WTC, and those fireballs are typical for jet fuel. Compare those fireballs to the bright, clean fireball at the Pentagon on page 97, which looks just like an explosion from a bomb.
The CIA has a drone that is capable of firing missiles. This information became available to the public when the CIA used one of these weapons in Afghanistan. Therefore, it is possible that the object that hit the Pentagon was a drone, but just before it hit the building if fired a missile at the Pentagon. The missile produced the white smoke and had an explosive warhead, which created a very bright fireball. Then, perhaps a second later, the drone crashed into the building.
The drone is essentially a very small airplane, so when it crashed into the Pentagon it would not have created many scrap pieces. This would explain why so few pieces of the aircraft were found, and it would explain why the pieces were so thin and fragile. Perhaps the best example of the thinness of the parts can be seen on page 100 of Painful Questions in figure 9-5. That piece of aluminum is so thin that it supports the theory that a small drone hit the Pentagon, not a Boeing 757. On page 105 are photos of some drones. The Global Hawk drone seems the most likely to have been used. If it had been painted to look like an American Airlines plane, it would certainly have fooled a lot of people into thinking it was Flight 77 when it flew by them at 400 mph.
A Boeing 757 has about 60 tons of aluminum and steel in it. It also has two engines about 9 feet in diameter. The engines contain a lot of thick steel. A couple of engines survived the crash at the World Trade Center. Engines also survive other airplane crashes. The landing gear of a Boeing 757, where the wheels attach, also contains very thick metal, so the landing gear should have survived. Landing gear survived at the WTC towers. However, nobody claims to have found the engines or the landing gear, or anything else from Flight 77. Nor are there any reports that luggage or dead passengers were found.
Airplanes always break up into lots of pieces when they crash, but the pieces can always be found. Pieces of metal cannot vanish. However, our government wants us to believe that the Boeing 757 that crashed into the Pentagon was the first large commercial airplane to crash into a building and then vanish.
There is no sensible explanation for how 60 tons of aluminum and steel could have disappeared. Water can easily evaporate and blow away in the breeze, but 60 tons of aluminum and steel cannot vanish. This is equivalent to 30 automobiles crashing into a building, and then the cars and dead bodies vanish.
Dave VonKleist of the Power Hour radio show has a great response to our government. He says that the real Alternative Scenario is that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon because there is more evidence that a small missile hit the building.
Rather than put up with accusations that Cynthia McKinney is a "conspiracy nut" or that the Painful Questions book is a "Alternative Scenario" we should do as Dave VonKleist would do; namely, we should call the government a bunch of Americans for believing a small fire can shatter steel buildings, and for believing that a Boeing 757 can vanish after crashing into a building. Painful Questions is not a Alternative Scenario; rather, it is simply an analysis of the photographic and other evidence. And Cynthia McKinney is not a conspiracy nut; rather, she is a woman who can think for herself and wants to know what happened.
Marcus: What is your opinion of the quality of the Flight 77 video footage? Do you believe that the U.S. Government released the poor quality video in order to hide something? Why is the time and the date of the footage incorrect?
Eric: Associated Press, Reuters, and other professional photographers always provide high-quality photos to anybody who wants to print their photographs. Nobody prints low-quality versions of photographs unless there is no alternative. The exception is the video from Flight 77 as it crashes into the pentagon. The Pentagon has the original source of this video, but they will not let anybody see it. Instead, provide us with five frames of that video, and those five frames are extremely low quality.
There is no excuse for the Pentagon to provide such low-quality images when they have the original video. The only reason somebody would release low quality images is to hide the details. If the video frames were edited, then the low quality of the images would hide the telltale signs of editing.
Another peculiar aspect of the video is that it contains a time and date, but it is not of the airplane crash. There was no reason for the Pentagon to insert the incorrect time in the video unless they wanted to hide the true time. There have been conflicting reports about what time the airplane hit the Pentagon, so perhaps the military officials decided to insert a completely false time in the video to prevent us from knowing what the true time was.
We should demand the military officials release the entire videotape and settle this dispute once and for all. Our tax money paid for the Pentagon, the high salaries of the military officials, and the video cameras at the Pentagon, so that video belongs to us. They have no right to hide it.
Marcus: In the first frame Flight 77 appears to flying low and straight towards the Pentagon. What bugs me out about this is that are numerous light poles, trees, giant spools of cable and other objects that should have come into contact with Flight 77 before it arrived to position that is seen in the first security video frame (with the exception of the giant spools of cable). I truly believe that the video frames of Flight 77 are doctored just like the Osama bin Laden confession video. Why do you believe that the U.S. Government released the frames at the time that they did?
Eric: Initially the military officials insisted that there was no video of Flight 77 hitting the building. Several months later, in March of 2002, Thierry Messyan's book became known to Americans, and Americans began suspecting that something was wrong with the theory that Flight 77 hit the pentagon. The initial French accusation was that a truck bomb had exploded in front of the Pentagon.
At the beginning of March 2002 the military officials released five frames of video that showed an object flying into the Pentagon. I think the military released this video at that particular time to show us that the French were wrong about the truck bomb theory. This video proved to us that something flew into the building. This put an end to the conspiracy theories that stated a truck bomb exploded at the Pentagon. However, it started an entirely new set of conspiracy theories that a missile or drone hit the Pentagon.
Of course, it is still possible that a truck bomb also exploded at the Pentagon. The reason is that photos, such as on pages 100 and 101, show fires all over the area, including the helicopter pad. Also, some witnesses claim to have heard two explosions.
As you mentioned, there is an entire city in front of the Pentagon, with light poles, buildings, trees, and bridges. It would take tremendous flying skills to fly a giant, commercial airplane so close to the ground in a city with so many tall obstacles. The idea that an inexperience pilot was looking out the window of the cockpit and flying this airplane at 400 mph only a few inches above the cars is absurd. Just driving a car at 120 mph along a windy road would be difficult for an inexperienced driver. The pilots in the Air Force who perform tricks at air shows probably could not do what that Arab was accused of doing.
The flight path of Flight 77 is enough to convince me that no human was in control of it, and that it was not Flight 77. Rather, it was a much smaller, more maneuverable airplane. It seems that a computer was flying the airplane, and that it was a small drone, such as the Global Hawk.
Marcus: It is also amazing that the section of the Pentagon that supposedly got hit by Flight 77 was under renovation. What is the makeup of the Pentagon wall that got damaged? Knowing the makeup of the Pentagon wall and Flight 77 what type of debris/damage should we see?
Eric: The outer wall of the Pentagon was extremely strong because it was designed specifically to withstand a military attack. It had 6 inches of limestone next to 8 inches of brick followed by 10 inches of concrete. That creates a wall of 2 feet of solid material.
What would happen when an airplane as large as a Boeing 757 crashes into such a sturdy wall? Nobody knows for sure since a Boeing 757 has never crashed into the Pentagon. However, it is very unlikely that the wingtips would be able to penetrate the wall. The wingtips should tear off, crumple, and then fall to the ground below. The engines might puncture a hole in the wall, and the body of the airplane might also, but they would lose a lot of their energy in the process. This means the engine and body parts would quickly come to a stop after penetrating the wall. This in turn means that about 60 tons of aircraft parts should have been located within the rubble of the outer ring of the Pentagon
However, nobody claims to have found wingtips of a Boeing 757 on the front lawn, and the first photographs taken of the crash site do not show any holes in the building. This implies that the entire airplane crumpled when it hit the building, and then fell down to the grass below. But there are no airplane parts along the grass.
Only a few small aircraft parts have been located, and the security video shows a small object that produced white smoke hit the Pentagon. The only sensible conclusion is that a small missile or drone hit the Pentagon, and our military officials are lying to us.
Once we realize that Flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, it makes sense that the section of the Pentagon that was hit was under renovation. Our top military leaders were involved in this scam, but they did not want to kill too many of their own people. So they selected a section of the Pentagon that did not have many people in it.
Marcus: Recently on www.rense.com there has been a lot of debate over the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris at the Pentagon. Figure 9-5 in your book is one of the photos that a lot of people are using as evidence to support their belief that Flight 77 did crash into the Pentagon. These same people will use the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris but they won't comment on the so-called five frames of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. Why are the so-called photos of Flight 77 crash debris not evidence of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon? Why do you believe that www.rense.com is giving so much attention to these photos being evidence of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon?
Eric: Flight 77 was a Boeing 757, which is 155 feet long and weighs about 60 tons when empty. Therefore, the Pentagon should have 60 tons of scraps from Flight 77, but the photos at www.rense.com show only a few small pieces. Those photos show evidence that an aircraft hit the building, but those few scraps do not prove Flight 77 was the aircraft.
The people who operate www.rense.com may be giving special attention to these photos because they believe the official story that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, and perhaps they want to help the rest of us understand the truth. It is also possible that they are trying to cover up a scam. Regardless of why www.rense.com is involved with this issue, I think the reason there is so much activity right now (December, 2002) in regards to Flight 77 is because Thierry Meyssan is currently starting his book tour in America to promote his books that provides evidence that Flight 77 never crashed into the Pentagon. My book also shows that Flight 77 never hit the Pentagon, and I show that the World Trade Center attack was a scam. The weekly newspaper, the American Free Press, is also exposing this and many other scams. Finally, a few other individuals and Internet sites are also complaining that the attack on the Pentagon is a scam. I think our government is struggling to counteract us.
The five frames of video that show Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon supposedly came from one of the security cameras in front of the Pentagon. If that video truly showed evidence that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the military could release the entire video and put an end to all of the accusations that a missile hit the building. This would stop sales of Meyssan's book, and certainly make me feel like a fool. So why doesn't the military release that video and prove their innocence? I think the reason is because the video shows a missile crashing into the Pentagon.
Marcus: Figure 9-9 in your book shows a hole that was supposedly caused by Flight 77. In Pentagate by Thierry Meyssan he shows the location of Figure 9-9 in reference to where Flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon. It seems impossible for Figure 9-9 to have been produced by Flight 77 when one knows of the location of the hole in reference to where Flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon. Could you please comment on what is seen in Figure 9-9 and its location in reference to the location of where flight 77 supposedly first came into contact with the Pentagon? What do you believe caused this hole?
Eric: The hole is more than 6 feet in diameter, and if this is truly an exit hole for Flight 77, there should be a corresponding entrance hole at the other side of the building. However, photos taken immediately after the crash, such as those in Figure 9-6 through 9-8, do not show any noticeable entrance hole. Somehow Flight 77 got into the building through a hole so small that nobody can find it in any of the photographs. Then, after passing through the building, it supposedly punched a hole 6 foot in diameter. However, the fuselage of a Boeing 757 is about 13 feet in diameter, so obviously the entire fuselage did not create this small hole. If this hole was made by one of the engines, what happened to the engine parts? And what happened to the second engine?
Furthermore, if Flight 77 truly passed through this building, there should be 60 tons of airplane parts scattered inside the Pentagon. While a pile of rubble can be seen around the hole in Figure 9-9, nothing in the rubble appears to be from a Boeing 757. Actually, it seems to me that the rubble consists of pieces of the Pentagon, not pieces of aircraft.
One photo of the rubble shows a small wheel, but a Boeing 757 has two sets of landing gear in the back, each with four wheels, and landing gear in the front, with two wheels. That makes a total of 10 wheels. Where are the other nine wheels? The person who posted that article at www.rense.com wants us to believe that the wheel is proof that Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, but almost every aircraft has wheels. Therefore, finding an aircraft wheel is only evidence that some type of aircraft may have crashed into the Pentagon.
Another photo taken inside the building shows what appears to be a small piece of landing gear, but that small scrap does not prove Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. Almost every aircraft has landing gear.
Finding an exit hole in a building but no corresponding entrance hole is equivalent to finding a dead body in which there is an exit hole for a bullet but no entrance hole. In other words, it is impossible. It is more likely that a small aircraft crashed into the Pentagon, and that it created such a small entrance hole that it cannot be seen through the smoke. In Figure 9-3D is a dotted yellow circle around a location that appears to be a small hole in the building. A Boeing 757 could not possibly fit into such a small hole, but a small drone could.
My guess is that a small drone hit the Pentagon, but before it hit the building it fired a missile.
In November 2001 a spokesman for the military announced that they had found the 64 dead passengers of Flight 77 and the 125 dead Pentagon employees. The military claims that the dead bodies had been picked up, sent to Fort Belvoir, Virgina, and then transported to a morgue in Dover, Delaware. At this morgue all but 5 were identified.
However, if that report is true, that means portions of the 64 passengers survived the crash and the fire. This creates a dilemma. If human bodies survived the fire and crash, then what happened to the engines, the 10 wheels, and the other 60 tons of metal in the airplane? How could human bodies survive a fire and airplane crash, but not 60 tons of metal?
I suspect that the military is lying to us about finding the dead passengers. If you think my accusation is outrageous, consider that military officials initially claimed that there was no video of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. If you recall, during September the TV news reporters showed the airplanes crashing into the towers, but they never showed video of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon because the military told us that there was no such video. Later, in March 2002, the military released five frames of video from a security camera of Flight 77 crashing into the Pentagon. This proves they were lying about not having any video. Since they lied to us in September about not having video, perhaps they lied to us in November about finding dead passengers. How many times does a person have to lie to you before you question his other remarks?
Marcus: What do you believe happened to Flight 77?
Eric: My initial assumption was that it was shot down near Ohio, which is where it vanished from the air traffic controllers. But a retired commercial airplane pilot pointed out to me that it would be difficult for the military to shoot down a commercial aircraft so high in the air without people on the ground noticing pieces and passengers falling down.
There is a theory on the Internet called the Bumble Planes theory , which is so gruesome that I dismissed it. However, I now wonder if some variation on this Bumble Planes theory is correct. For example, the pilot of Flight 77 may have been told by the military to quietly land his airplane at a military base because there is a terrorist on his aircraft. After the pilot naively lands the plane, the passengers are taken off and killed, and the aircraft is repainted or destroyed.
The idea that our military would do such a thing to American citizens was difficult for me to believe, which is why I dismissed the Bumble Planes theory. However, our Government has admitted to conducting LSD experiments on the unsuspecting public, as well as testing biological weapons on unsuspecting citizens, and using soldiers in radiation experiments without them understanding the dangers. Our Government conducts killings in other nations on an even larger scale.
If the military killed all the people on Flight 77 at a military base near Ohio, this would explain why the military has the dead bodies of the passengers of Flight 77, and it explains how those bodies got to the morgue in Delaware. Specifically, after killing the passengers, their bodies were flown to Dover, Delaware. Meanwhile, at the same time, the dead employees at the Pentagon were also being sent to Delaware morgue. All of the dead bodies were then mixed together, creating the illusion that they all came from the Pentagon.
Marcus: What are the major points that you want readers to keep in mind in reference to the Flight 77/Pentagon controversy?
Eric: The military is keeping the security video a secret, and I can think of only one reason for doing so. Namely, the video shows a small drone firing a missile at the Pentagon. If the military has nothing to hide, why are they hiding this video rather than using it to prove their innocence?
The military lied to us when they said they did not have any video of the airplane crashing into the pentagon. They have video from at least one security camera, and possibly other cameras. Since they lied about this video, we should wonder how many other times they lied to us.
There should be 60 tons of airplane parts in the Pentagon, including lots of seats, but of all the hundreds of photos taken, only a few small scraps of aircraft can been seen.
The terrorist decided to hit a portion of the Pentagon that was nearly empty and had just been reinforced to make it stronger. I think it is evidence that the military deliberately selected this area because they did not want to kill too many of their own employees.
The FBI confiscated security video from a nearby gas station and hotel. I can think of only one reason for confiscating that video; namely, the video shows a small drone firing a missile at the Pentagon. If the FBI has nothing to hide, why are they hiding this video?
Marcus: Finally, why should readers pick up a copy of Painful Questions?
Eric: Not much about this September 11th attack makes sense. Our Government is trying to convince us of something that is impossible. Fires do not shatter buildings, for example. Even the idea that a few terrorists can outsmart America's air defense system and air traffic controllers with four separate aircraft on the same day is ridiculous.
When people allow their government to conduct these scams, they are allowing themselves and their nation to be abused. These scams affect everybody, even people who ignore them. For example, our economy is deteriorating, and that affects all of us.
America has never been a closely-knit group of people. It is always been a nation of crime, racial problems, and recently, fighting between men and women. We should be doing things to help make our nation more pleasant, but instead most Americans ignore their crummy government.
The American people need to do a better job voting, and perhaps if they realize that the September 11th attack was a scam, they might have an incentive to pay more attention to whom they are voting for. Cynthia McKinney, for example, was struggling to understand what happened on September 11th, but most voters ignored her. She was also looking into the sex slave trade, which is another problem that has been suppressed by the conventional media. America had somebody in government who was trying to make this country better, but most Americans turned their back on her, or insulted her as a conspiracy nut. We need people like her as president, not Al Gore or George Bush.
Many months before I wrote this book I tried to explain to my own relatives that the attack is a scam. At that time I did not have any high-quality photos to show them, so I had to use words to explain it. Needless to say, I did not convince them of anything. I decided that a book with high-quality photos and diagrams would make it easier to explain this issue, and possibly get some people interested in doing a better job of voting.
This book provides you with the photos and the information you need to explain to people that this attack was a scam. You can also use this book to show people how ignorant they are, and how awful our TV news is. For example, most people do not know much about Building 7. With this book you can show them photos of the small fires burning inside Building 7, photos as it collapses, and photos of the rubble after the collapse. You can then point out to them that the conventional media has hidden this information from them. You could also ask them how the little fires shattered such a strong, steel building.
Making a better nation does not require much effort or work from any of us. It merely requires that voters do a better job of selecting government leaders. Imagine a government full of people like Cynthia McKinney who investigate problems and try to make a better nation. Perhaps my book will help stimulate voters into taking their job more seriously.
Marcus: In conclusion I would like to say that Painful Questions is the best book on the market that examines the use of explosives in the collapse of the WTC towers & the Flight 77/Pentagon cover-up. The book has over 150 full color pages with high quality photos of the events that took place on September 11, 2001. I highly recommend everyone get a copy of the book if you want to get a scientific analysis of the 9-11 attacks. You will not be disappointed.
