Why Did the Secret Service Report That a Plane Had Crashed into the White House on 9/11?

Firefighters were called out to a major incident that supposedly occurred at the White House, minutes after the Pentagon was attacked on September 11, 2001. The Secret Service had reported that a plane had crashed into the home of the U.S. president, the building was on fire, and there had been a structural collapse. However, when members of the District of Columbia Fire Department arrived on the scene, it quickly became apparent to them that no such incident had taken place and they were promptly ordered to leave.

While it might be claimed that this incident was merely the result of confusion in the middle of an unprecedented crisis, there is an alternative explanation for it. Evidence suggests the Secret Service could have been running a training exercise on the morning of September 11, which included the scenario of a plane crashing into the White House.

For example, other government agencies are known to have been holding exercises on September 11 and so the Secret Service could have run an exercise that day in order to coordinate its activities with the activities of these agencies. Additionally, the Secret Service is known to have conducted exercises before 9/11, based around the scenario of a terrorist attack at the White House. In some exercises, it actually simulated a plane crashing into the White House. So, when it reported a plane crash at the White House on September 11, it may have been responding to a simulated incident that regularly featured in its exercises.

Furthermore, before it reported the crash, the Secret Service was alerted to a suspicious plane that was supposedly approaching Washington, DC. Evidence indicates that this plane may have been a simulated aircraft in an exercise, which was subsequently imagined to have crashed into the White House.

The Secret Service was, according to numerous accounts, alarmingly slow to respond to the 9/11 attacks. If the agency was running an exercise when the attacks occurred, this may help explain its poor performance, especially if the exercise was based around the scenario of suicidal terrorists using planes as weapons. Agents may have thought real world events they heard about were simulations in the exercise, and therefore failed to respond to them promptly and appropriately.

If the Secret Service's report about a plane crashing into the White House was made as part of an exercise, this has serious implications. The report was made around an hour after the first crash at the World Trade Center occurred and several minutes after the Pentagon--the third and final building to be hit that day--was attacked. If an exercise was taking place at that time, it would mean this exercise had been allowed to continue even when it was obvious that America was under attack and the Secret Service needed to help defend the nation.

If a Secret Service exercise was allowed to continue throughout the 9/11 attacks, we need to determine the reason for this. Was it the result of incompetence or confusion? Or was what happened a planned action, perhaps orchestrated by rogue government officials who aimed to paralyze the Secret Service at this critical time, thereby increasing the likelihood that the attacks succeeded?

FIREFIGHTERS RESPONDED TO A REPORT OF A PLANE CRASH AT THE WHITE HOUSE
At around 9:46 a.m. on September 11, the District of Columbia Fire Department (DCFD) sent a number of engines and trucks to the White House to respond to an alleged incident there. This was in response to an incorrect report made by the Secret Service--the agency that protects the president and the White House--that a plane had crashed into the presidential residence, the building was on fire, and some or all of it had collapsed. Because a building collapse had reportedly occurred, the DCFD's "cave-in task force" was sent to the White House along with the other units.

However, when the first firefighters arrived at the White House, they found no incident had occurred there and were ordered to leave. A uniformed officer waved them away and said: "Get the fuck outta here! There's a plane coming in!" "It was mass confusion; we go down to the White House and no one knows what's going on," Lieutenant Jeff Wright, one of the firefighters, has recalled.

The report about the crash was soon investigated and determined to be unfounded. However, DCFD units were kept near the White House in case an attack subsequently occurred there. [1]

This curious incident is virtually unknown and no official explanation has been provided as to why the Secret Service made such an obviously false report. A possibility we need to examine is that the agency was running a training exercise based around the scenario of a plane being crashed into the White House and its report to the emergency services was made as part of this exercise.

SECRET SERVICE CONTACTED THE 'STRUCTURAL COLLAPSE TEAM'
Curiously, the Secret Service appears to have been preparing for the possibility of the White House collapsing well before it reported that some or all of the building had come down. Specifically, at around 9:07 a.m., according to a Secret Service timeline, the agency's Technical Security Division contacted the "structural collapse team" at Fort Belvoir, an Army base about 20 miles south of Washington, and told it "that the Secret Service may have a need for [its] assets and [the team's personnel] should report to their duty station." [2]

This "structural collapse team" was the Military District of Washington (MDW) Engineer Company, which was tasked with "rescuing survivors of building breakdowns and preventing such collapses in emergencies." [3] The unit had never previously been called on to carry out its mission in a real-world situation, since its creation in 1989. [4]

But now the MDW Engineer Company was placed on "alert status" and on "30-minute standby" for the White House. Later that day, it was released to go to the Pentagon to help respond to the attack there and its personnel arrived at the Department of Defense headquarters early that afternoon. [5]

But why was a "structural collapse team" contacted when no collapse had occurred at the White House and there was no indication, at the time, that one was going to happen? A possible explanation is that the MDW Engineer Company was participating in a Secret Service exercise and it was contacted in preparation for a simulated plane crash, which, in the simulation, would cause some or all of the White House to collapse.

SECRET SERVICE WAS ALERTED TO A SUSPICIOUS AIRCRAFT SUPPOSEDLY APPROACHING WASHINGTON
An incident consistent with the Secret Service running an exercise that involved the simulation of a plane being crashed into the White House occurred before the agency reported that a plane had hit the presidential residence. Specifically, the Secret Service was informed that at least one suspicious aircraft was approaching Washington. Evidence suggests this aircraft could have been a simulated plane that was going to crash into the White House.

Nelson Garabito, a senior agent at the Secret Service's Joint Operations Center who was responsible for protecting the White House airspace, received reports about the aircraft from Terry Van Steenbergen, an employee at Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) headquarters who was responsible for dealing with the president's movements.

Garabito contacted Van Steenbergen sometime after 9:03 a.m., when the second crash at the World Trade Center occurred, and Van Steenbergen told him two more planes were unaccounted for and possibly hijacked, in addition to the two that hit the Trade Center. He said one of these planes was heading toward Washington, and it was "30 miles out and coming in fast and low." [6]

Van Steenbergen's information led the Secret Service to believe the White House was in danger. "We were tracking two hijacked aircraft as they approached Washington, DC, and our assumption was that the White House was a target," Assistant Director Barbara Riggs, who was in the Director's Crisis Center at Secret Service headquarters that morning, recalled. [7]

SUSPICIOUS AIRCRAFT COULD HAVE BEEN A SIMULATED PLANE IN AN EXERCISE
It might be claimed that the suspicious aircraft Van Steenbergen told Garabito about was American Airlines Flight 77, the plane that allegedly crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. After all, Flight 77 was reportedly flying toward the White House before it changed course and then flew into the Pentagon. However, two pieces of evidence refute this possibility.

Firstly, it appears that Flight 77 was missing from air traffic controllers' radar screens when Van Steenbergen alerted Garabito to the suspicious aircraft, and so the FAA would have been unable to report that it was heading toward Washington at that time.

Van Steenbergen said he was in contact with Garabito "within 30 seconds" of the second crash at the World Trade Center. [8] Garabito said he called Van Steenbergen "a few minutes" after the second crash. [9] But a Secret Service timeline stated that the open line between the two men was established at 9:25 a.m., Van Steenbergen told Garabito two planes were unaccounted for at 9:27 a.m., and he reported that one of these was approaching Washington and was 30 miles from the White House between 9:30 a.m. and 9:31 a.m. [10] While these accounts conflict, all three appear inconsistent with the possibility that the plane Van Steenbergen said was heading toward Washington was Flight 77. This plane disappeared from controllers' radar screens at 8:56 a.m. and, according to the 9/11 Commission Report, was only located again at around 9:32 a.m., when controllers at Washington Dulles International Airport noticed it on their radar screens. [11]

Secondly, Flight 77 supposedly turned away from the White House three minutes before the Pentagon was hit. Based on an analysis of radar data, the 9/11 Commission Report stated that after flying eastward: "American 77 began turning south, away from the White House, at 9:34. It continued heading south for roughly a minute, before turning west and beginning to circle back." [12]

And yet Garabito and his colleagues believed the plane they were following never changed direction. They were counting down as it supposedly approached the White House and, Garabito described, "At one point, we got under a minute and I said, 'It's about 30 seconds out.'" He was then told that the aircraft had disappeared from radar screens. [13]

If the plane Van Steenbergen told Garabito about was Flight 77, he surely would have informed Garabito immediately when this aircraft changed course. Instead, it appears that Garabito and his colleagues thought a plane was going to crash into the White House right up to the time when the crash would have occurred.

Since the aircraft they were following appears to have been something other than Flight 77, it is surely possible that the aircraft Van Steenbergen told Garabito about was a simulated plane. This incident could therefore have been the simulation of the mock plane being crashed into the White House. If so, this simulated crash may have been what the Secret Service reported to the emergency services, thereby resulting in firefighters being sent to the White House.

AGENTS COULD HAVE BEEN GIVEN FALSE INFORMATION AS PART OF AN EXERCISE
One piece of evidence supports the possibility that Secret Service agents were participating in a training exercise on September 11, although not necessarily one involving a plane crash at the White House. This is the large amount of false information received by agents in the Director's Crisis Center (DCC) at Secret Service headquarters, which was used to direct operations in emergencies and was reportedly activated at 9:00 a.m. that day.

An agent recalled that personnel in the DCC were receiving an "enormous" amount of information on September 11, which included "conflicting info from ID, unconfirmed data, or raw information," and this information "hindered the DCC's ability to make proper decisions." Consequently, those in the DCC were "making decisions [based] on inaccurate data that could have been quickly verified, such as the misinformation [about] an aircraft that had crashed near Camp David." [14]

While it might be claimed that the misleading reports were simply the result of confusion in an unprecedented crisis, it is surely possible that they in fact related to simulated scenarios in an exercise. Perhaps Secret Service agents were being tested on how they would cope with the mass of information that would result if multiple crises occurred simultaneously.

SECRET SERVICE HELD EXERCISES BEFORE 9/11 BASED ON A PLANE CRASHING INTO THE WHITE HOUSE
Other evidence supports the possibility that, if the Secret Service was indeed running an exercise on the morning of September 11, this exercise may have included the simulation of a plane crashing into the White House. In particular, the Secret Service is known to have held exercises before then that involved this scenario. If the Secret Service believed a plane crashing into the White House was a scenario worth training for before 9/11, it surely could have simulated this scenario again if it was holding an exercise on September 11.

Specifically, since 1998, the Secret Service had run exercises at its James J. Rowley Training Center in Beltsville, Maryland, which involved the simulated crashing of planes into the White House on a piece of computer software provided by the military. These simulations were intended to test the responses of the agencies that provided security and support to the White House.

Paul Nenninger, a Secret Service agent who was assigned to the training center, described these exercises, but did not explicitly state whether the simulated crashes were imagined to be part of a terrorist attack. However, he indicated that this may have been the case, since he mentioned that the Secret Service's use of computer simulations "allow you to practice scenarios that can be attempted by a terrorist." [15]

Another piece of evidence supports the possibility that, if the Secret Service was running an exercise on September 11, this exercise could have involved some kind of simulated attack on the White House. Specifically, four months before 9/11, then-Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill stated that the Secret Service held "interagency tabletop exercises in preparation for terrorist attacks on the White House." [16] He did not say whether these exercises included simulations of a plane being crashed into the White House. All the same, his statement shows that around the time the 9/11 attacks occurred, the Secret Service considered the White House a potential target for terrorists when it held an exercise.

Furthermore, the Secret Service participated in a tabletop exercise at the White House in 1998, run by White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, which involved a scenario in which a group of terrorists seized a Learjet, loaded it with explosives, and flew it toward a target in Washington. [17] While the identity of the imagined target is unreported, the existence of this exercise confirms that, before 9/11, the possibility of a plane being used as a weapon was something the Secret Service had considered in exercises.

It also seems logical to assume that the Secret Service would have regularly trained for the possibility of a plane crashing into the White House in light of an incident that occurred exactly seven years before 9/11. On the night of September 11, 1994, a man called Frank Eugene Corder stole a single-engine plane, flew to Washington, and crashed the plane into the wall of the White House. In fact, even before this incident occurred, the possibility of a plane being used as a weapon to attack the White House had been considered. Time magazine noted, shortly after Corder crashed a plane into the presidential residence, that security officials had "long feared in private" that the White House was "vulnerable to sneak attack from the air." [18]

U.S. MILITARY WAS RUNNING AN AIR DEFENSE EXERCISE ON SEPTEMBER 11
The Secret Service, if it was planning to hold an exercise, may have scheduled this exercise specifically for the morning of September 11 so it could coordinate its activities with those of other government agencies. It has been reported that numerous agencies were running, or preparing for, exercises when the 9/11 attacks occurred. [19] And according to Major Don Arias, First Air Force chief of public affairs, different organizations would sometimes participate "in the same exercise for different reasons," because it was "common practice, when we have exercises, to get as much bang for the buck as we can." [20]

A major annual exercise that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD)--the military organization responsible for monitoring and defending U.S. airspace--was in the middle of on September 11 may be particularly significant. Our knowledge of what this exercise, called Vigilant Guardian, involved is limited. [21] There is some evidence, however, that it could have included the scenario of a plane being crashed into the White House. If this was the case, the Secret Service might have used the same scenario so it could coordinate its activities with those of NORAD.

Vigilant Guardian has been described as a "transition to wartime operations command post exercise," an "air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States," and a "simulated air war." [22] It included a series of "ever-escalating scenarios, from strained diplomacy to the outbreak of conventional warfare that headed inexorably toward nuclear conflict," according to the Denver Post. [23] It involved some "scripted inputs," such as "unknown aircraft that we scramble aircraft ... to intercept," Jeff Ford, an Air Force lieutenant colonel assigned to NORAD on September 11, said. [24]

An official document that has been publicly released outlines scenarios that were simulated as part of Vigilant Guardian in the five days before 9/11. However, this document does not describe the scenarios that were planned for the day of September 11. [25] It has been reported, though, that at least one hijacking was scheduled to be simulated that day.

Personnel at NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) in Rome, New York, which was responsible for coordinating the U.S. military's response to the 9/11 attacks, were actually going to learn of this simulated hijacking around the time when the Secret Service reported that a plane had crashed into the White House. Major Kevin Nasypany, the mission crew commander at NEADS, recalled that when NEADS was alerted to the first hijacking, at 8:37 a.m. on September 11, he said out loud, "The hijack's not supposed to be for another hour," which means it was set to occur at around 9:37 a.m.

This particular simulated hijacking, though, was apparently not going to involve the mock hijacked aircraft being crashed into the White House. According to Vanity Fair, it was going to involve politically motivated perpetrators getting control of the aircraft, landing it on a Cuba-like island, and seeking asylum there. [26]

However, the possibility that Vigilant Guardian was set to include the simulation of a plane being crashed into the White House on September 11 is supported by the fact that a scenario along these lines featured in previous NORAD exercises. This particular event was therefore one that NORAD considered worth training for.

Specifically, NORAD is known to have conducted at least three exercises in the three years before 9/11 that included the scenario of terrorists hijacking or stealing an aircraft with the intention of crashing it into the White House. These command post exercises, all called "Falcon Indian," were held in January 1999, June 1999, and June 2000. They all involved a scenario in which a Learjet, loaded with explosives, was under the control of terrorists who intended to crash the plane into the White House. [27]

FALSE REPORT OF A PLANE APPROACHING WASHINGTON COULD HAVE BEEN PART OF AN EXERCISE
An anomalous incident that occurred between the attacks on the World Trade Center and the attack on the Pentagon also supports the possibility that an exercise was taking place on September 11 based around the scenario of a plane crashing into the White House. Around 16 minutes before the Pentagon was hit, NEADS received an incorrect report that American Airlines Flight 11 had not actually crashed into the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., as was believed, and was heading south toward Washington. It is surely possible that the aircraft being referred to was in fact a simulated plane in an exercise and this mock aircraft was subsequently imagined, by the Secret Service, to have crashed into the White House.

Specifically, at 9:21 a.m., Colin Scoggins, the military liaison at the Boston Air Traffic Control Center, called NEADS and said: "I just had a report that American 11 is still in the air and it's on its way towards--heading towards Washington. ... It was evidently another aircraft that hit the [World Trade Center] tower." [28]

It seems odd that Scoggins passed on this inaccurate information without trying to verify it or gain more clarity first, since such a mystifying report was sure to cause confusion at NEADS at a time when the military needed precise information. Indeed, Scoggins's call created confusion at NEADS that lasted "for hours," according to Vanity Fair.

Furthermore, Scoggins admitted, air traffic controllers "were never tracking an actual plane on the radar after losing American 11 near Manhattan." He explained that, "had it continued south past New York in the direction it was flying before it dipped below radar coverage," Flight 11 would have "headed on a straight course toward [Washington]." And yet, despite the apparent lack of evidence that Flight 11 was still airborne, the only action he took before passing on the false report to NEADS was "talking to a supervisor." [29]

Scoggins's action makes more sense if the non-existent aircraft Scoggins told NEADS about was actually a simulated hijacked plane in the NORAD exercise. And if the Secret Service was running an exercise that was, at least to some degree, coordinated with the NORAD exercise, this mock aircraft could have featured in its exercise too.

INVESTIGATORS WERE UNABLE TO FIND THE ORIGIN OF THE FALSE REPORT
Explanations for the false report about Flight 11 being airborne 35 minutes after it crashed have been vague and inadequate. The 9/11 Commission Report stated, "We have been unable to identify the source of this mistaken FAA information." [30] Scoggins claimed the misunderstanding came about during "an unwieldy conference call between FAA centers" that he was monitoring. "The word came across--from whom or where isn't clear--that American 11 was thought to be headed for Washington," he told Vanity Fair. [31] He told the 9/11 Commission he "never learned" who originally reported that Flight 11 was still airborne and heading toward Washington. [32] But according to author Lynn Spencer, the false information was announced during the FAA teleconference by someone at the Washington Air Traffic Control Center. [33]

Could the lack of clarity around how this incident arose be because it was a simulated scenario in a training exercise? Perhaps those who described the incident to the 9/11 Commission were unaware of this detail and were consequently unclear about how the false report came about. Or maybe measures were taken to cover up this detail and those who knew it were ordered to keep quiet.

It is notable that the time when Flight 11 was reported as being still airborne and flying toward Washington is probably consistent with this non-existent aircraft reaching the White House around the time the Secret Service reported that a plane crashed there. The timing of this event is therefore consistent with an exercise scenario being played out in which a hijacked plane flew south from New York to Washington and then crashed into the White House.

POSSIBLE EXERCISE APPARENTLY CONTINUED ALL THROUGH THE ATTACKS
The Secret Service's incorrect report that a plane had crashed into the White House could be significant. Analysis of the incident gives rise to numerous questions relating to what exactly happened on September 11, who was responsible for the terrorist attacks that day, and why government agencies failed to stop them.

To begin with, who at the Secret Service reported the supposed crash to the emergency services? Why did they make the false report? Was their action performed as part of a training exercise? If so, what did the exercise involve? Did it include the scenario of a plane being crashed into the White House, which resulted in a fire and some or all of the building collapsing? Who planned it?

Additionally, who at the Secret Service alerted the MDW Engineer Company--the "structural collapse team"--at 9:07 a.m., even though no collapse had occurred at the White House and there was no evidence that an incident was going to take place that would cause it to collapse? Was the MDW Engineer Company contacted because it was participating in a Secret Service exercise that was going to include the scenario of the White House collapsing?

If the Secret Service's report to the emergency services was part of an exercise, this indicates the exercise was allowed to continue until at least 9:46 a.m., when the District of Columbia Fire Department was called out to respond to the alleged incident. This was an hour after the first crash at the World Trade Center occurred and nine minutes after the Pentagon--the final building to be hit that day--was attacked.

But if an exercise was indeed being conducted, surely this exercise should have been called off immediately when it became apparent that a real crisis was taking place, to which government agencies needed to respond. Certainly, some Secret Service agents appear to have quickly recognized the seriousness of the real-world emergency. "When we saw the plane crash into the second tower we knew it was no accident," Rebecca Ediger, who was in the Joint Operations Center that morning, recalled. [34] "At that moment," she said, "we all knew the first plane was not an accident; the country was under attack." [35] So why would an exercise be allowed to continue while America was under attack, when doing so might seriously impair the ability of the Secret Service to respond to the real-world crisis?

SECRET SERVICE MADE A 'SLOW START' IN ITS RESPONSE TO THE ATTACKS
The performance of the Secret Service on September 11 was notably poor. [36] Author Philip Melanson, in a book about the agency, referred to the Secret Service's "slow start to 9/11 protection." [37] And U.S. News & World Report specifically pointed out that "Secret Service executives did not implement an 'emergency call-up' of all personnel until the third [hijacked] plane crashed, into the Pentagon." [38]

If the Secret Service was running an exercise while the terrorist attacks were taking place, this factor might help explain its poor performance. The exercise may have created confusion, which affected the ability of agents to respond to the attacks. Agents could have mistaken real-world events they heard about for simulated events in the exercise and consequently failed to respond to them as they normally would have. Perhaps agents had also been isolated from what was going on in the real world so they could focus on the exercise and it consequently took longer for them to learn that a genuine crisis was taking place.

An exercise could have been part of a deliberate attempt to paralyze the Secret Service when the agency was urgently needed to help protect the nation. If so, this would suggest a network of rogue officials in the U.S. government was involved in planning and conducting the 9/11 attacks, since only powerful individuals in key positions could have influenced when the Secret Service held its exercises and what these exercises involved. Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaeda terrorist network would certainly have been unable to influence these things.

More than 17 years after September 11, 2001, we still know little about the actions of the Secret Service that day. The limited information available is inconclusive. Despite the circumstantial evidence indicating the agency was running an exercise when the 9/11 attacks occurred, there is currently no official confirmation of such an exercise taking place. It is therefore essential that more information be released, so we can properly assess the actions of the Secret Service on September 11. This information may help us determine whether rogue employees deliberately acted to sabotage the response of their colleagues, in order to help ensure the attacks on the U.S. succeeded.

NOTES
[1] Howard Witt, "This is Only a Test." Washington City Paper, September 21, 2001; Michael J. Ward, "Attack on the Pentagon: The Initial Fire and EMS Response." Journal of Emergency Medical Services, April 2002; Michael L. Smith, "DC Crews Dispatched to the Pentagon." Firehouse, November 2002.
[2] "Actions of TSD Related to Terrorist Incident." United States Secret Service, September 12, 2001; Garrett M. Graff, Raven Rock: The Story of the U.S. Government's Secret Plan to Save Itself--While the Rest of us Die. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2017, p. 333.
[3] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007, p. 96.
[4] Tim Hipps, "MDW Engineers Honored for Operation Noble Eagle." Fort Belvoir News, April 4, 2002; Jonathan Wiley, "Search and Rescue Challenge." Soldiers, August 2002; Ally Rogers, "911th Engineers Take Action in Training Scenario." Belvoir Eagle, February 16, 2012.
[5] Untitled document. United States Secret Service, 2001; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 96.
[6] "USSS Statements and Interview Reports." 9/11 Commission, July 28, 2003.
[7] "Spotlight on: Barbara Riggs." PCCW eNewsletter, Spring 2006.
[8] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview With Terry Van Steenbergen." 9/11 Commission, March 30, 2004.
[9] "USSS Statements and Interview Reports."
[10] "Secret Service Timeline, Unclassified Extract." United States Secret Service, September 11, 2001.
[11] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, pp. 24-25; Staff Report: The Four Flights. 9/11 Commission, August 26, 2004, pp. 29, 33.
[12] "Flight Path Study: American Airlines Flight 77." National Transportation Safety Board, February 19, 2002; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 39, 464.
[13] "The Footnotes of 9/11." CNN Presents, CNN, September 11, 2011.
[14] "USSS Statements and Interview Reports."
[15] Paul L. Nenninger, "Simulation at the Secret Service: As Real as it Gets." In Learning Rants, Raves, and Reflections: A Collection of Passionate and Professional Perspectives, edited by Elliott Masie, pp. 175-187. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer, 2005, pp. 175-178; Paul L. Nenninger, "One Secret Service Agent's Experience." Southeast Missourian, August 29, 2011; "Secret Service Simulated Crashing Planes into the White House Before 9/11." Shoestring 9/11, September 24, 2011.
[16] "Testimony of Paul H. O'Neill, Secretary of the Treasury, Before the Senate Committee on Appropriations." U.S. Department of the Treasury, May 8, 2001.
[17] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 345, 457-458.
[18] Michael Duffy, "Flight of the Intruder." Time, September 26, 1994.
[19] See "Training Exercises on 9/11." History Commons, n.d.
[20] Michael C. Ruppert, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers, 2004, p. 367.
[21] William M. Arkin, Code Names: Deciphering U.S. Military Plans, Programs, and Operations in the 9/11 World. Hanover, NH: Steerforth Press, 2005, p. 545.
[22] "Vigilant Guardian 01-2." Northeast Air Defense Sector, August 23, 2001; Leslie Filson, Air War Over America: Sept. 11 Alters Face of Air Defense Mission. Tyndall Air Force Base, FL: 1st Air Force, 2003, pp. 55, 122.
[23] Kevin Simpson, "Rearmed Forces: 9/11 Changed Military Life in Colorado." Denver Post, August 27, 2011.
[24] Thomas Doscher, "In Their Own Words--NORAD Members Recall September 11: Jeff Ford." Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, September 8, 2011.
[25] "NCOTA: Exercise Data." North American Aerospace Defense Command, July 25, 2003; "NORAD Exercises: Hijack Summary." 9/11 Commission, n.d.
[26] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live: The NORAD Tapes." Vanity Fair, August 2006.
[27] "NEADS AOR Hijack/WMD Scenarios." U.S. Air Force, 2003; Senate Committee on Armed Services, Implications for the Department of Defense and Military Operations of Proposals to Reorganize the United States Intelligence Community. 108th Cong., 2nd sess., August 17, 2004.
[28] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 26; Lynn Spencer, Touching History: The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies Over America on 9/11. New York: Free Press, 2008, p. 137.
[29] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[30] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 26.
[31] Michael Bronner, "9/11 Live."
[32] "Memorandum for the Record: Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Boston Center Field Site Interview With Colin Scoggins, Military Operations Specialist." 9/11 Commission, September 22, 2003.
[33] Lynn Spencer, Touching History, p. 137.
[34] Susan Marshall, "Two PHS Grads Serve Top Office of the Land." Peabody Gazette-Bulletin, February 12, 2003.
[35] Kerry Jones, "Trust and Confidence." The Shocker, Summer 2002.
[36] See "Laura Bush on 9/11: Why Was the President's Wife Left Vulnerable and Unprotected?" Shoestring 9/11, June 18, 2012; "The Dangerously Delayed Reactions of the Secret Service on 9/11." Shoestring 9/11, October 2, 2013; "Why Did the Secret Service Leave the President and a School Full of Children in Danger in the Middle of the 9/11 Attacks?" Shoestring 9/11, March 4, 2017.
[37] Philip H. Melanson, The Secret Service: The Hidden History of an Enigmatic Agency. 2nd ed. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2005, p. 331.
[38] Chitra Ragavan, "Under Cloudy Skies." U.S. News & World Report, December 9, 2002.

Security Alerts, Disabled Fire Alarms, and Unused Elevators: Suspicious Events at the World Trade Center Before 9/11

At least three notable anomalous events occurred at the World Trade Center in the weeks and months leading up to September 11, 2001, which may have related to the imminent terrorist attacks but could not have been caused by al-Qaeda, the group supposedly responsible for 9/11.

There was an increase in security at the Trade Center in the two weeks before 9/11, for reasons that are unclear, which only ended the day before the attacks. Also, the fire alarm system in World Trade Center Building 7 was placed on "test condition" every morning in the seven days before the attacks and on the day of 9/11. While it was in this mode, any alarms would be ignored. WTC 7 was a massive skyscraper located just north of the Twin Towers, which mysteriously collapsed late in the afternoon of September 11. And some of the elevators in the Twin Towers were out of service in the months before the attacks, supposedly due to maintenance work or modernization.

It seems odd that these events happened at the World Trade Center just before the Twin Towers were the target of a terrorist attack and three of the Trade Center buildings collapsed. It would have been notable if just one of them occurred in the period leading up to 9/11. The fact that all three did is remarkable.

Osama bin Laden--the man who supposedly ordered the 9/11 attacks--and his al-Qaeda terrorist organization would surely have been unable to bring about these events. Therefore, if the official account of 9/11 is true and they were responsible for the attacks, then it must have been just a coincidence that these events occurred before September 11. But if the events were related to preparations for the attacks on the World Trade Center, this would cast serious doubt on the official narrative of 9/11. It is possible, therefore, that they are evidence that a group other than al-Qaeda was behind 9/11.

These events may have occurred because 9/11 was a false flag operation, which is a kind of covert operation designed to appear as if it was committed by some group other than the actual perpetrators. The 9/11 attacks could perhaps have been perpetrated by a rogue group within the U.S. military and government but were carefully planned to appear as if they were carried out by Islamic terrorists.

A new investigation of the attacks would be necessary to determine if the unusual events at the World Trade Center in the period leading up to 9/11 were significant and, if they were, what their purposes were. All the same, we can at least consider possible reasons for them.

It is possible, for example, that they related to efforts to secretly prepare the Twin Towers and WTC 7 to be brought down with explosives as part of the 9/11 attacks. Perhaps the heightened security at the World Trade Center and the supposed maintenance work on the elevators were intended to create cover stories for the men who were planting the explosives. If a person inquired about mysterious workers they had seen at the Trade Center, they could be falsely told these men were there to repair the elevators or help out in response to the heightened security. Or if someone asked about unusual work they had noticed being carried out in the buildings, they could be told this work related to repairs on the elevators, even though it in fact related to the preparations for demolishing the buildings.

SECURITY AT THE WORLD TRADE CENTER WAS INCREASED JUST BEFORE 9/11
It is striking, in light of the fact that the World Trade Center was about to become the scene of a massive terrorist attack, that security at the Trade Center was suddenly increased around the end of August 2001.

Security at the checkpoint leading to the garage under the Trade Center complex, through which "deliveries and everything" had to pass, was "markedly increased about two weeks before" September 11, firefighter Timothy Brown, a supervisor at New York City's Office of Emergency Management, has recalled. Extra measures included "a lot more Port Authority police officers" at the checkpoint, and "[bomb-sniffing] dogs running around and checking all the trucks." [1] At the same time, security personnel at the Trade Center had to work extra-long shifts due to the heightened security. [2]

And Ben Fountain, who worked for a company on the 47th floor of the South Tower, recalled that in the "few weeks" before September 11, he and his colleagues were evacuated from the building "a number of times." It is unclear whether this was because of the heightened security. All the same, the amount of evacuations was "unusual," Fountain commented. [3] Brown similarly said the increased security measures were "unusual." "We had wondered if something was up," he remarked. [4] "I think they had an inkling something was going on," Fountain said. [5]

The additional security measures were withdrawn in the days before 9/11. Bomb-sniffing dogs were "abruptly removed" on September 6 and September 11 was "the first day there was not the extra security," Daria Coard, a guard in the North Tower, said.

No clear reason was provided for the increase in security. While Coard said it occurred in response to "numerous phone threats," the London Independent reported that "no explanation has been given" for it. [6] And when Brown and his colleagues asked people "in the intelligence area" if something was going on, they were told, "No." [7]

FIRE ALARM SYSTEM WAS ON 'TEST CONDITION' IN THE WEEK BEFORE 9/11
While these extra security measures were being implemented, another anomalous event occurred at WTC 7, a 47-story office building located 370 feet north of the North Tower. Specifically, every morning for the seven days before September 11, the building's fire alarm system was placed on "test condition." On September 11, it was again put on test condition, at 6:47 a.m., and only returned to normal monitoring, automatically, eight hours later, at 2:47 p.m.

Test condition was usually requested when maintenance or testing was being carried out on the alarm system. Perhaps significantly, when the system was in this mode, any alarms that were received would be considered the result of the maintenance or testing and were therefore ignored. Additionally, any alarm signals would not appear on the operator's display, although they were still recorded in the system's history file. [8]

Anything unusual that took place at WTC 7 deserves scrutiny since this building collapsed completely at 5:20 p.m. on September 11, even though no plane hit it, after being set on fire by debris when the Twin Towers came down and then burning throughout the day. The New York Times called its collapse "a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably have captured the attention of the city and the world," and noted that WTC 7 was "the first skyscraper in modern times to collapse primarily as a result of a fire." [9]

Official explanations have ruled out or ignored the use of explosives as a possible cause of its collapse. [10] Many people, though, have commented that its collapse resembled a typical controlled demolition and suggested that explosives were indeed used to bring it down. [11]

ELEVATORS WERE OUT OF OPERATION BEFORE 9/11
The third unusual event at the World Trade Center was that some of the elevators in the Twin Towers were out of service in the months before September 11. This anomaly could be particularly significant in light of the possibility that the Twin Towers were brought down with explosives, since it has been indicated that the availability of unused elevator shafts would have made it easier for demolition workers to plant explosives throughout the buildings.

At least one elevator that went all the way up the North Tower was out of operation before 9/11. Each of the Twin Towers had two passenger elevators that went from the base to the top of the building. [12] Referring to one of these elevators in the North Tower, journalists Kevin Flynn and Jim Dwyer wrote that the "elevator that ran directly from the ground" up to Windows on the World, the restaurant on the top floors of the building, "was out of service" on September 11. [13] Apparently referring to the same elevator, ABC News correspondent Don Dahler reported on the morning of September 11 that "a major elevator that went all the way to the top ... has been malfunctioning for at least a month." "They've been having a lot of trouble with that," he added. [14]

In fact, according to a report by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), both of the elevators that went from the base to the top of the North Tower were out of operation on September 11. "Elevators 6A and 7A were out of service for modernization," the report stated. [15]

Some people who worked in the North Tower have recalled problems with the building's elevators just before 9/11, but it is unclear whether they were referring to these two elevators or to other ones.

Susan Frederick, who worked on the 80th floor, said two elevators "had been out of service for more than six months" before September 11, "as renovations were taking place." [16] Nancy Cass, who worked on the 44th floor, stated that the "passenger elevators on the west side of the building had been out of order for the past five or six weeks" before September 11 "and the elevator company had a crew of men working on the scene." [17] And Monica Goldstein, who worked on the 101st floor, told her sister that in the weeks just before 9/11, "elevators skipped floors and went out of service." [18]

At least two elevators in the South Tower were out of operation just before 9/11. Each of the Twin Towers had 10 elevators that went up from the concourse to the 78th floor sky lobby. [19] Judy Wein, who worked on the 103rd floor of the South Tower, recalled that two of these in her building "had been out of service for months" before September 11. [20] And someone who was on the 78th floor of the South Tower when the plane crashed into the building on September 11 mentioned "elevators that were being repaired" there at that time. [21]

DID THE UNUSUAL EVENTS RELATE TO PREPARATIONS FOR 9/11?
It is certainly curious that at least three anomalous events occurred at the World Trade Center just before September 11, when the Twin Towers were the targets of a massive terrorist attack and these two buildings, along with WTC 7, unexpectedly collapsed. It is at least plausible that it was a coincidence that these events all took place just before 9/11. However, while it would have been notable if even one of them occurred, for all three to happen at that time due to chance would have been extraordinary.

It seems quite likely, therefore, that there were more sinister reasons for these events. If, as some people have suggested, the Twin Towers and WTC 7 were brought down with explosives, the events may have related to work carried out to prepare the three buildings to be demolished on September 11. It is consequently worth considering what purposes each event could have served if this was the case.

SECURITY ALERT COULD HAVE PROVIDED A COVER STORY FOR OPERATIVES PREPARING THE ATTACKS
It is unclear what the heightened security at the World Trade Center in the two weeks before 9/11 might have achieved. Perhaps there were a large number of people at the Trade Center at that time, helping to prepare for the attacks on September 11. This could have meant there was a danger that security guards or others who worked there would get suspicious if they noticed all these unknown people around the place. The heightened security could have been implemented so if anyone questioned what these people were doing, it could be claimed they were there to help deal with this.

Another possibility is that the security alert was intended to create a pretext for bringing to the Trade Center operatives who would make sure the explosives planted there weren't discovered at the last minute. Men disguised as security guards could have been brought there under the cover story that they were helping to implement extra security measures. Their actual role, however, would have been to guard areas where explosives were planted or work was being carried out to prepare the buildings to be demolished.

'TEST CONDITION' COULD HAVE PREVENTED FIRE ALARMS DRAWING ATTENTION TO PREPARATIONS FOR 9/11
The purpose of placing the fire alarm system in WTC 7 on test condition in the week before 9/11 could have been to prevent any last-minute work preparing the building for demolition from setting off the alarm. Had the alarm gone off, it could have drawn attention to this work and perhaps led to the sinister plan for September 11 being uncovered.

Even if the work had caused the fire alarm to go off, the fact that the system was on test condition should have meant the alarm would have been disregarded and therefore not draw attention to the work preparing WTC 7 to be demolished. As NIST pointed out, when the fire alarm system was on test condition, "any alarms received from the system were considered the result of ... maintenance or testing and were ignored."

Perhaps work was being carried out that involved drilling or other activities that created a lot of dust, which could have got into the smoke detectors and set off the fire alarm. NIST, in one of the reports it produced on the collapse of WTC 7, confirmed that dust could set off the fire alarm. Specifically, it suggested that the presence of a large amount of dust from the collapse of the South Tower could have been the cause of the alarm system in WTC 7 registering a "fire condition." Referring to an alarm at 10:00 a.m. on September 11, NIST stated that it "could not determine whether this fire alarm was triggered by smoke from a fire or by dust entering smoke detectors." [22]

It is harder to come up with possible reasons why the alarm system was on test condition on the day of 9/11, since any work preparing the building for demolition presumably would have been completed by then. Perhaps the system was on test condition that day so investigators would subsequently have less information with which to determine the sequence of events that led up to the collapse of WTC 7.

The amount of information available to investigators would in fact already have been limited due to the way information from the fire alarm system was recorded. The fire alarm system in WTC 7 recorded information at the fire command station in the building's third-floor lobby. It was also monitored away from the World Trade Center site by AFA Protective Services, a New York-based company that designs, installs, and services fire alarm systems. [23] However, NIST noted, "specific fire information beyond the fact that a fire condition has been detected is rarely sent to the monitoring site."

For example, the record in the system's history file, of the alarm in WTC 7 that occurred at 10:00 a.m. on September 11, showed that the fire condition existed in "AREA 1." However, AREA 1 was not a specific location within WTC 7, but instead referred to the entire building.

While the fire alarm equipment in WTC 7 could have provided "a much greater amount of information" than the history file recorded at the monitoring site, NIST stated, "None of that information was recovered from the building systems, which were destroyed in the collapse." [24]

ELEVATORS COULD HAVE BEEN OUT OF USE SO EXPLOSIVES COULD BE PLANTED IN THE SHAFTS
It is perhaps easiest to think of possible reasons why rogue individuals who planned to bring the Twin Towers down with explosives as part of the 9/11 attacks would have arranged to have elevators in the towers out of service in the months before September 11.

The group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth pointed out, "The architectural drawings of the WTC North Tower ... indicate that most of the [building's] core columns would be easily accessed from the elevator shafts in order to plant explosives." [25] And Tom Sullivan, an explosives technician, commented: "Looking at the [World Trade Center] building, [demolishing] it wouldn't be a problem once you gained access to the elevator shafts. Then a team of loading experts would have access to all the core columns and beams." [26]

We can see, therefore, that a reason for having elevators in the Twin Towers out of operation before 9/11 could have been to enable demolition workers to plant explosives in the unused elevator shafts or make it easier for them to access areas where they needed to plant explosives.

In light of this possibility, it is notable that one or two of the elevators in the North Tower that were out of operation went all the way up the building. Therefore, if demolition workers wanted to plant explosives in the elevator shafts or in areas accessible from the elevator shafts, having these particular elevators out of use would presumably have enabled them to rig the entire building, from the bottom to the top, with explosives.

Similarly, the fact that two elevators in the South Tower that were out of service went from the base of the tower to the 78th floor presumably would have meant demolition workers were able to plant explosives on over two-thirds of the building's floors.

An additional reason for having elevators out of service could have been to create a cover story for the demolition workers who were planting explosives in the Twin Towers. If anyone got suspicious and inquired about what these men were doing, they could have been falsely told the men were maintenance workers, there to work on elevators that were supposedly malfunctioning or being modernized.

ELEVATOR MECHANICS WERE AWAY FROM THE TWIN TOWERS WHEN THEY COLLAPSED
In light of the possibility that demolition workers planted explosives in the elevator shafts in the Twin Towers or used the elevator shafts to access the areas where they were planting explosives, it is curious that elevator mechanics at the World Trade Center appear to have been particularly fortunate on September 11, such that none of them died in the attacks.

ACE Elevator, the company responsible for servicing and modernizing the elevators at the World Trade Center, had 83 employees working at the Trade Center on September 11. Remarkably, these elevator mechanics "left the buildings after the second jet struck, nearly an hour before the first building collapsed," according to USA Today, even though, at the time, "dozens of people were trapped in stuck elevators." The mechanics were consequently about a block and a half away from the towers when the first collapse occurred. "Our people miraculously left when the second plane hit and it saved our lives," Ron Baamonde, ACE Elevator's president, commented.

The departure of elevator mechanics from a disaster site is unusual, according to USA Today. "Nobody knows the insides of a high-rise like an elevator mechanic," Robert Caporale, editor of Elevator World magazine, told the newspaper.

Baamonde said the mechanics left the towers "on their own [initiative] because they were in danger." James O'Neill, ACE Elevator's supervisor of maintenance, said they left to "assess the damage and come back in as needed." Their plan, he said, had been "to return to the building later in the day to help with rescues." [27]

However, according to elevator history expert Patrick Carrajat, no clear reason has been provided as to why ACE Elevator personnel were away from the towers when they collapsed. "We have heard several versions of why ACE personnel were not at the Trade [Center]," he wrote, and "most revolve around a labor management dispute." [28]

Furthermore, if the elevator mechanics left the World Trade Center on their own initiative after the second crash, their actions apparently violated protocol. The New York Port Authority, which owned the Trade Center, said its "emergency plan called for mechanics to stay and help with rescues." Port Authority spokesman Allen Morrison said, "There was no situation in which the mechanics were advised or instructed to leave on their own." [29]

Considering the conflicting explanations that have been offered as to why the elevator mechanics were away from the Twin Towers when they collapsed and the fact that the mechanics' actions appear to have gone against standard procedures, it is surely possible that there was a more sinister reason for the mechanics' apparent good fortune on September 11.

Perhaps someone at ACE Elevator, due to the company's involvement with maintaining the elevators at the World Trade Center, knew demolition workers had been planting explosives in the elevator shafts in the Twin Towers or using the elevator shafts to access areas where they were planting explosives. If so, this person may have consequently taken actions that ensured the company's workers were out of harm's way when the towers came down on September 11.

THE UNUSUAL EVENTS AT THE TRADE CENTER BEFORE 9/11 ARE SUSPICIOUS AND NEED TO BE INVESTIGATED
It seems reasonable to assume that the occurrence of at least three anomalous events at the World Trade Center just before September 11, when the Trade Center was the scene of a massive terrorist attack, is significant. These events therefore ought to be looked into as part of a new investigation of the 9/11 attacks.

There are many questions that need to be addressed. To begin with, were these events indeed connected to the attacks that subsequently occurred at the Trade Center? If so, what were their purposes? Did they relate to preparations for bringing down the Twin Towers and WTC 7 with explosives? Who was responsible for bringing them about?

It ought to be fairly straightforward to find out who arranged to have the fire alarm system in WTC 7 put on test condition in the days up to and including September 11. Currently, the identity of this person is unclear. AFA Protective Systems, the company that monitored the alarm system, usually placed the system on test condition in response to a request from the building manager, according to NIST. [30] And Mike Catalano, chief engineer for Salomon Smith Barney at WTC 7, said the building manager was a man called Ed Campbell. [31] However, the monitoring station history tape record for the alarm system on September 11 stated that the system was placed on test condition that day at the request of a person with the surname, "Williams." [32]

Also, was it usual to have the alarm system in WTC 7 on test condition every day for a week? Surely this was quite a drastic and risky action. If there had been a fire in WTC 7 during the week before 9/11, while the system was in this mode, would the alarm have failed to go off or, if it did go off, would it have been ignored because people assumed this was due to testing? Would those in the building therefore have stayed where they were instead of evacuating, thereby potentially putting themselves in danger? And would it have taken longer for the Fire Department to be alerted, such that the fire grew more and caused more damage before firefighters were able to bring it under control?

It has been claimed that elevators in the Twin Towers were out of service before September 11 for reasons such as "renovations," "modernization," or because they were "malfunctioning" or "being repaired." And according to people who worked in the Twin Towers, some elevators were out of use for months. But why would it take months for an elevator to be repaired or modernized? Was it usual for such work to take this long? If not, were any suspicions raised at the time about the elevators being out of operation and, if they were, what explanations were given?

Since it is plausible that the increased security at the World Trade Center, the placing of the fire alarm system in WTC 7 on test condition, and having some of the elevators in the Twin Towers out of service were connected to preparations for bringing down the Twin Towers and WTC 7 with explosives on September 11, it is surely important that these events be investigated thoroughly. Closer examination of them could help determine how the 9/11 attacks were carried out and who was responsible for them.

NOTES
[1] Tim Brown, interview by Jim Whitaker. Project Rebirth, June 30, 2002.
[2] Curtis L. Taylor and Sean Gardiner, "Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted." Newsday, September 12, 2001.
[3] "Hell on Earth." People, September 24, 2001.
[4] Tim Brown, interview by Jim Whitaker.
[5] "Hell on Earth."
[6] Curtis L. Taylor and Sean Gardiner, "Heightened Security Alert Had Just Been Lifted"; Andrew Gumbel, "Bush Did Not Heed Several Warnings of Attacks." The Independent, September 17, 2001.
[7] Tim Brown, interview by Jim Whitaker.
[8] Therese P. McAllister et al., Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2008, pp. 68-69.
[9] James Glanz, "Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade Center: Diesel Fuel." New York Times, November 29, 2001; James Glanz and Eric Lipton, "Burning Diesel is Cited in Fall of 3rd Tower." New York Times, March 2, 2002; Eric Lipton, "Fire, Not Explosives, Felled 3rd Tower on 9/11, Report Says." New York Times, August 21, 2008.
[10] Therese McAllister (Editor), World Trade Center Building Performance Study: Data Collection, Preliminary Observations, and Recommendations. Washington, DC: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002, pp. 5-1 - 5-32; Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2008, pp. 26-28.
[11] Ted Walter, Beyond Misinformation: What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2, and 7. Berkeley, CA: Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, 2015, p. 2. For a short video that compares the collapse of WTC 7 with the known controlled demolitions of some high-rise buildings, see "WTC 7: Side-by-Side Comparison to Controlled Demolition." Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, February 4, 2013.
[12] Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore, "Elevators Were Disaster Within Disaster." USA Today, September 4, 2002; Jason D. Averill et al., Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2005, p. 34.
[13] Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers. New York: Times Books, 2005, p. 151.
[14] "ABC Sept. 11, 2001, 11:18 a.m.-11:59 a.m." ABC 7, September 11, 2001.
[15] J. Randall Lawson and Robert L. Vettori, The Emergency Response Operations. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2005, p. 43.
[16] Susan A. Frederick, "9/11 Survivor's Tale: 'It Was Not my Time,' Holyoke Native Susan Frederick Says." The Republican, September 18, 2001.
[17] Damon DiMarco, Tower Stories: An Oral History of 9/11. Santa Monica, CA: Santa Monica Press, 2007, p. 59.
[18] "Lives Remembered, by the Families and Friends Who Shared Them." New York Times, September 25, 2001.
[19] H. S. Lew, Richard W. Bukowski, and Nicholas J. Carino, Design, Construction, and Maintenance of Structural and Life Safety Systems. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2005, p. 169.
[20] "Interview With Judy Wein, AON, 3/24/04, Hollis Hills, Queens." 9/11 Commission, March 24, 2004; "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Judy Wein." 9/11 Commission, March 24, 2004.
[21] Jason D. Averill et al., Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications, p. 102.
[22] Therese P. McAllister et al., Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, pp. 68-70.
[23] June 2004 Progress Report on the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster. Gaithersburg, MD: National Institute of Standards and Technology, 2004, p. 93; "Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, Part IV: Life Safety." National Institute of Standards and Technology, April 5, 2005.
[24] Therese P. McAllister et al., Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, pp. 69-70.
[25] "The Twin Towers: Gallery of Evidence." Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, n.d.
[26] "Tom Sullivan: Explosives Technician, Loader." Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, March 19, 2011; "Explosives Technician Blows Away Official WTC Conspiracy Theory." Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, June 15, 2011.
[27] Dennis Cauchon, "Mechanics Left Towers Before Buildings Collapsed." USA Today, December 19, 2001; Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore, "Elevators Were Disaster Within Disaster"; Robert Jones, "The Elevator Man's Tale." Times Herald-Record, September 8, 2002.
[28] Patrick A. Carrajat, The Past as Prologue: The History of the Elevator Industry in America, 1850-2001. Privately printed, 2005, p. 162.
[29] Dennis Cauchon and Martha T. Moore, "Elevators Were Disaster Within Disaster."
[30] Therese P. McAllister et al., Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, p. 69.
[31] Responding to Horror: Operating Engineers in Action at the World Trade Center Disaster. Washington, DC: International Union of Operating Engineers, 2003, p. 27; "Memorandum for the Record: Meeting With Mike Catalano, Former Head of Salomon Smith Barney Security, Building 7 WTC." 9/11 Commission, January 16, 2004.
[32] Therese P. McAllister et al., Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7, p. 69.

Media Business Middleman Was Shown an Unreleased Video, Which Revealed That 'Something Other Than a 757 Hit the Pentagon on 9/11'

Larry Garrison, a leading "story broker" whose job is to deliver tabloid stories to television news programs, was sent a video in the months after 9/11, which clearly showed that the Pentagon was hit by something much smaller than a commercial airliner--perhaps a missile--on September 11, 2001. However, when he passed copies of this video on to news organizations, they refused to broadcast the footage and instead sternly warned him to cease trying to get it released.

While a few videos showing the attack on the Pentagon have been released in the years since Garrison received this footage, they appear to be different to what Garrison was sent. Furthermore, none of them have been of sufficient quality to determine conclusively what hit the Pentagon on September 11. The type of aircraft involved in the attack has therefore remained a subject of controversy.

If Garrison's account is accurate, though, and the video Garrison was sent was authentic, the implications could be huge. If the Pentagon was hit by something other than a Boeing 757--the kind of aircraft that, according to the official narrative of 9/11, crashed into it--this video could reveal that the public has been seriously deceived. And if the footage was made public, its release could lead to a complete reassessment of the 9/11 attacks.

THE PENTAGON WAS SUPPOSEDLY HIT BY A HIJACKED 757
The Pentagon was hit at 9:37 a.m. on September 11 by American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757-200, according to the official account of 9/11. [1] This plane had taken off from Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC, at 8:20 a.m. that morning, bound for Los Angeles. But at 8:51 a.m., the pilots communicated with air traffic controllers for the last time and in the next few minutes, it is believed, the plane was hijacked. [2] The five alleged hijackers were from Saudi Arabia and the hijacker who allegedly took over the plane's controls was a 29-year-old called Hani Hanjour. [3]

After previously heading west, at 8:54 a.m. Flight 77 veered off its assigned course over the Ohio-Kentucky border and flew south. Two minutes later, radar contact with it was lost. Minutes after that, it turned eastward. Then, at 9:34 a.m., as it approached Washington, the plane began a 330-degree turn and descended toward the headquarters of the Department of Defense. Three minutes later, it crashed into the west wall of the Pentagon at the first-floor level, at approximately 530 miles per hour. [4]

A total of 189 people died in the attack, 64 of them on the plane and 125 working at the Pentagon. [5]

While this account seems quite straightforward and was accepted as true in the 9/11 Commission Report, Garrison received a video that indicated it was false and something other than Flight 77 had crashed into the Pentagon on September 11.

'STORY BROKER' WAS TOLD ABOUT A VIDEO THAT SHOWED A MISSILE FLYING INTO THE PENTAGON
Larry Garrison, president of SilverCreek Entertainment in Los Angeles, is what is known as a "story broker." Story brokers "place themselves as middlemen between the supply of human drama and the demand for it--so news organizations have to do business with them," according to the New York Observer. [6] Garrison "gets paid to bring tabloid stories to TV news programs," The Atlantic reported. [7]

He is the "king" of his line of work, according to numerous sources at the ABC network. [8] He has decades of experience in the media business, and has produced and brokered major news stories for ABC News, CBS News, Fox News, NBC News, and other major media organizations. [9]

In his memoir, The NewsBreaker, Garrison recalled that a few months after 9/11, he received a curious e-mail from someone who referred to himself by the pseudonym "Carl." Garrison was initially suspicious about Carl, assuming he was just a hoaxer trying to cash in on the tragic events of September 11. However, Garrison wrote, "when he told me he had a video of a missile flying into the Pentagon, not a passenger jet, I listened." Carl stated that he would like to meet Garrison and show him the video. He added, however, that "the FBI was trying to stop him from showing it to anyone."

Although Carl's claim was extraordinary, Garrison felt this man was trustworthy. "For the most part, my 20-plus years of experience helps me weed out the fakes; this guy sounded real," he has commented. He apparently talked with Carl on the phone after receiving the e-mail and "could feel the sense of urgency in his voice, and the sincerity." [10]

After researching the attack on the Pentagon and noting various anomalies that had been highlighted by commentators on the Internet, Garrison wanted to get hold of the video that Carl said he possessed. Although he was unable to persuade Carl to meet up in person, Carl did e-mail him a copy of the video. It turned out to be devastating.

Although the footage was less clear than the story broker would have liked, Garrison recalled, "it left no doubt whatsoever that what hit the Pentagon on 9/11 wasn't a 757." While the quality of the image made it impossible to determine for sure what crashed into the Pentagon, the object in the video "looked like a smaller plane or [a] cruise missile."

Upon consideration, Garrison decided it was more likely a missile, since he felt there had been greater damage to the reinforced walls of the Pentagon than a small plane could have caused. He concluded: "When I look at some of the news archives and compare the damage to the Pentagon to other concrete buildings that have been hit with a cruise missile, I have no doubt in my mind that something other than a 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11." [11]

NEWS ORGANIZATIONS REFUSED TO BROADCAST THE FOOTAGE
Garrison initially felt certain that once he passed on this astonishing video to the news networks, what it showed would become a major story and the "media machine" would then "mobilize all of its resources to discover, or uncover, what really happened." He soon found that his assumption was wrong.

After receiving the video from Carl, he contacted a couple of major news organizations. When he explained to them what he had, the people he talked to replied enthusiastically: "Oh, my God! Get that tape over here right away!"

He sent them copies of the video and then waited for a couple of days, expecting to see the footage appearing and being discussed on the news. Instead, however, the people at the news organizations called him back and warned him to abandon his efforts to get the video released to the public. He was told: "Larry, you need to listen to me on this. The video never existed. You never saw it. This could cause some real trouble if you pursue it any further." [12]

Garrison had initially been determined to help the public understand what had happened on September 11. On the day of the terrorist attacks, he recalled, "The one thing I did know was that I would find answers sooner than most and I felt obligated to make sure that [the public] knew everything I knew." [13] But what he was now being told and the manner in which it was said led him to have a change of heart.

"I remember hanging up the phone knowing that I could be putting my family and myself at risk if I tried to push the issue, and I knew there was no way to protect myself," he wrote. Therefore, he added, "I backed off." [14]

VIDEOS OF THE PENTAGON ATTACK THAT HAVE BEEN RELEASED ARE UNCLEAR
In the years since Garrison was sent this revelatory footage of the Pentagon being hit on September 11, a number of videos that show, or relate to, the attack on the Pentagon have been released, but these appear to be different to what Garrison received. This means a crucial piece of evidence related to the 9/11 attacks is still being withheld from the public.

Two videos showing the Pentagon being hit were officially released by the Department of Defense in May 2006. [15] They had been recorded by security cameras north of the crash site, at a checkpoint that cars went through on their way to a parking lot at the Pentagon. [16] However, Garrison apparently referred to these in his memoir and made clear they were different to the video he saw.

He mentioned another video, besides the one Carl sent him, that had been "recently released" and showed "something that to many does not look like a plane" crashing into the Pentagon. [17] His memoir was published just a few months after these two videos were released and the videos indeed showed "something that to many does not look like a plane" hitting the Pentagon. The Washington Post described the object in them as "a silver speck low to the ground" while the Associated Press described it as just "a thin white blur." [18]

Five frames from a video that showed the Pentagon being hit were released unofficially to news organizations in March 2002. [19] These, however, were just excerpted from one of the videos that were officially released in May 2006. [20] They were therefore unrelated to the video Garrison was sent.

A few more videos related to the Pentagon attack were released by the FBI in late 2006, but these were also apparently different to the video Garrison received. Unlike Carl's video, they either didn't show the Pentagon being hit or didn't show the attacking aircraft--or missile--flying toward the building.

Among them was footage, released in September 2006, recorded by six security cameras at a Citgo gas station near the Pentagon. [21] The video had been confiscated by the FBI within minutes of the Pentagon attack. A supervisor at the gas station had said the security cameras there were "close enough to the Pentagon to have recorded the moment of impact." [22] However, this was apparently not the case. Judicial Watch, the public interest group that obtained the videos from the FBI, noted that the videos showed that "the Citgo cameras did not seem to capture the actual attack." [23]

The final video related to the Pentagon attack to be made public was recorded by a security camera on top of the Doubletree Hotel in Arlington, Virginia, and was released in December 2006. But this too failed to shed any light on what crashed into the building. The image quality was poor, and a "close examination" of the recording by CNN revealed only "the subsequent explosion and no image of the jet" that supposedly flew into the Pentagon. [24]

LACK OF FOOTAGE OF THE PENTAGON ATTACK MADE GARRISON SUSPICIOUS
Larry Garrison's claim that something other than a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on September 11 is supported by various pieces of evidence, in addition to Carl's video, that cast doubt on the official account of the Pentagon attack. Indeed, Garrison has indicated that a reason why he wanted to see the video Carl described to him was that he had considered some of this evidence.

He was suspicious that no footage had been released showing Flight 77 as it rapidly descended toward the Pentagon. "From the day of the attacks, I was bothered that not one picture or video was captured of the jet that flew at a very low altitude near our nation's capital and targeted the center of our country's military might," he wrote. While several people had come forward claiming to have witnessed the Pentagon attack, "not one piece of video for the networks to play over and over in the days after the attacks" had surfaced. Video that aired showed the aftermath of the Pentagon being hit but not the impact itself.

Having visited Washington and its surrounding areas many times, Garrison commented that he felt "very safe in saying that there are more reporters, cameras, and video cameras per capita there than any place in the world." He therefore found it "hard to believe that not one camera captured the 757 screaming above a very densely populated area toward the Pentagon." [25]

Garrison also questioned whether Hani Hanjour, the hijacker who allegedly flew Flight 77 into the Pentagon, had the necessary skills to carry out the attack and whether it was even possible to fly a Boeing 757 into the Pentagon in the way that supposedly occurred.

757 PILOT SAID THERE WAS 'ZERO' CHANCE OF A NOVICE CARRYING OUT THE PENTAGON ATTACK
A few weeks before he received the e-mail from Carl, a man had phoned him and claimed that "he had evidence that it was impossible for the damage at the Pentagon to be caused by a passenger jet, because it was impossible for a plane of that size to fly at an altitude that low, at that speed."

A few days later, Garrison questioned one of the pilots of a 757 he was about to board for a business trip. Garrison asked the pilot, who said he had accumulated thousands of hours of flying time in his career, "if he had the skill to fly a 757 10 to 20 feet off the ground at a speed of over 500 miles an hour," meaning in the way that Flight 77 was allegedly flown toward the Pentagon. "Chuck Yeager couldn't do that!" the pilot replied. (Chuck Yeager was a flying ace and test pilot who became the first man to fly faster than the speed of sound.)

The pilot explained that planes the size of a passenger jet "do not react in an instant" and "the control inputs take longer to change the plane's altitude." The large surface areas and the weight of the plane "would make it impossible to have the degree of control you would have to have to fly at that altitude without crashing into the ground," he said. "I really don't think it would be possible," he concluded.

Garrison then asked the pilot what he thought the chances were of a novice with very limited training--i.e. someone like Hanjour--being able to hit a target with pinpoint accuracy. "Zero," the pilot replied. He added that a passenger jet's autopilot "isn't even that good and, if it were on, it would not allow the plane to fly at a low altitude, let alone treetop level." [26]

HIJACKER ALLEGEDLY AT THE CONTROLS OF FLIGHT 77 WAS AN INCOMPETENT PILOT
In fact, not only was Hanjour a novice who'd never flown a jet airliner before September 11, people who met him found him to be a hopeless pilot with nothing like the level of skill necessary to fly a commercial aircraft across America and then crash it into the side of the Pentagon.

For example, a flight instructor who trained him for about four months in 1998 recalled that Hanjour had "a poor understanding of the basic principles of aviation and poor judgment, combined with poor technical skills." [27]

Instructors at a flight school he attended early in 2001 found his piloting skills "so shoddy and his grasp of English so inadequate that they questioned whether his pilot's license was genuine," according to the New York Times. One person who worked at the flight school at the time commented: "I'm still to this day amazed that he could have flown into the Pentagon. He could not fly at all." [28]

And an instructor at a flight school in the Washington area, which he arrived at just under a month before September 11, described him as a "poor student" who had "particular difficulty landing the aircraft." [29]

PHOTOS OF THE CRASH SITE LOOKED 'LIKE A MISSILE HIT' THE PENTAGON
Garrison was also troubled by the fact that, in photos, the impact site at the Pentagon seemed inconsistent with how one might expect the location where a large plane had crashed to appear. To begin with, he wrote, "the grass right in front of the impact point was not burnt at all," even though "a hundred tons of plane and jet fuel had crashed and exploded a few yards away." "In fact," he commented, "it looked like the landscapers had just cut it."

Secondly, he thought the hole in the building supposedly made when Flight 77 crashed into it appeared too small. "The jet's wingspan is over 123 feet," but, he wrote, "the hole isn't [that wide]--not even close." He noticed that windows were unbroken "where there should have been holes caused by the wings and engines."

He spoke with experts about this anomaly and all of them told him that "it is impossible for there not to be any signs of impact points from the 12,000-pound engines on the side of the building." The photos of the Pentagon, he concluded, looked "like a missile hit, instead of a plane crash site."

Garrison was also surprised at the lack of debris at the scene of the attack. "In the pictures that were broadcast of the Pentagon, there was very little of the aircraft shown," he noted. "In my mind, a plane weighing 220,000 pounds at takeoff should have left more than a few pieces of wreckage," he commented. [30]

We can see that, aside from Carl's video, there are numerous reasons for questioning the official narrative of the Pentagon attack.

MANY UNRELEASED VIDEOS RELATED TO THE PENTAGON ATTACK EXIST
A question worth considering is where was the camera that recorded the video Garrison was sent located? It has in fact been reported that dozens of videos related to the attack on the Pentagon exist, besides the two released by the Department of Defense in May 2006, and the videos from the Doubletree Hotel and the Citgo gas station.

After the Defense Department officially released the two videos showing the attack, in May 2006, CNN Pentagon correspondent Jamie McIntyre reported that there were "at least 80 other tapes" related to the Pentagon attack "that the government is holding onto." Carl's video might have been one of these. CNN was told, however, that the videos "don't really show much." [31] Indeed, a list that has been released, of videos related to the 9/11 attacks that the FBI possesses, reveals that many of the videos related to the Pentagon attack were recorded only after the attack occurred. [32]

However, "sources" told CNN that "at least one of the tapes from a security camera at a nearby hotel may have captured the plane [that hit the Pentagon] in the air." [33] Indeed, the Washington Times reported that a "security camera atop a hotel close to the Pentagon may have captured dramatic footage of the hijacked Boeing 757 airliner as it slammed into the western wall of the Pentagon," and the hotel's employees had "sat watching the film in shock and horror several times before the FBI confiscated the video as part of its investigation." [34] Whether this footage came from the Doubletree Hotel or another hotel near the Pentagon was unstated.

Additionally, a camera operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation may have captured the attack, so this could have been the source of Carl's video. Reporter Sandra Jontz, who was at the Pentagon on September 11, was escorted out to an area in front of the crash site following the attack. While there, she recalled, she noticed "a Department of Transportation camera that monitors traffic backups pointed toward the crash site." [35]

SOME SECURITY CAMERAS WERE DESTROYED WHEN THE PENTAGON WAS HIT
It is also plausible that, in addition to the two cameras at the checkpoint that cars went through on their way to a parking lot at the Pentagon, at least one more of the Pentagon's security cameras captured the crash. The Washington Times noted that the attack "occurred close to the Pentagon's heliport, an area that normally would be under 24-hour security surveillance, including video monitoring." [36]

However, the camera on the building that was closest to the point of impact was destroyed when the Pentagon was hit. And a camera on the heliport was also destroyed when the attack occurred. These two cameras were found to provide no information related to the attack, according to Steve Pennington, a private consultant responsible for the Pentagon's security cameras. "We looked and there was nothing there," he said. [37]

Connectivity to other cameras on the west side of the Pentagon that overlooked the area where the crash occurred was cut when the building was hit, according to John Jester, chief of the Defense Protective Service--the law enforcement agency that guarded the Pentagon. A colleague in his communication center, where the cameras were monitored, told him just after the building was hit that the cameras had been "knocked out." [38] It seems plausible, though, that at least one of these cameras could have captured the approaching aircraft--or missile--in the moments before the attack occurred, before getting disconnected, and this camera might therefore have been the source of Carl's video.

Curiously, some of the Pentagon's security cameras, which were in the right positions to have possibly captured the attack, were out of operation on the morning of September 11, supposedly due to construction work that was taking place at the time. [39] "Other cameras would normally look at that area [where the attack occurred]," Pennington recalled, "but because that area was being renovated, a lot of the connectivity of those cameras and the infrastructure that allowed those cameras to be connected back to the building had been removed or destroyed." Consequently, he commented, these cameras "weren't capturing images and offering fields of view." [40]

GARRISON'S ACCOUNT INDICATES WE HAVE BEEN MISLED ABOUT THE 9/11 ATTACKS
If Larry Garrison's account of being sent unreleased footage that disproved the official narrative of the Pentagon attack is true, the implications are devastating. It means an important video exists, which quite clearly shows the Pentagon being hit on September 11, but this video has been withheld from the public. It means the Pentagon was hit by something much smaller than the Boeing 757 that was officially claimed to have crashed into it, such as a missile. It implies that people who claimed they witnessed a large commercial aircraft crashing into the Pentagon were either mistaken or lying. And it means the public has been lied to about the events of September 11.

If the video Garrison received indeed shows something other than a Boeing 757 crashing into the Pentagon, this gives rise to many questions that need to be addressed. In his memoir, Garrison stated some of these. For example, he asked, "What really happened to the 757 and its passengers that no one caught on tape or on film, crashing into the Pentagon?" [41]

Partly based on his inability to get Carl's video shown on television, he asked, "Why would the media organizations refuse to report on valuable pieces of these important stories" such as the events of September 11? "Did the news programmers not believe the evidence that was put in front of them?" he wondered or, "Did higher-ups in the government put pressure on the networks to not follow up on these leads?"

Clearly, Garrison's account could be explosive. "The implications that over 3,000 people lost their lives [in the 9/11 attacks], and the news that has and is still being delivered to the public may not be entirely true, is outrageous," Garrison wrote. The repercussions of members of the public finding out they have been seriously misled about the 9/11 attacks would likely be huge.

All the same, if footage exists that disproves the official account of what hit the Pentagon on September 11, this footage needs to be released as a matter of urgency. "It is [the media's] responsibility, with the trust that we put in them, to report what the truth is, even if we don't like the answers," Garrison commented. [42] The FBI must be aware of the video that Carl sent to Garrison, if Carl's claim that the bureau "was trying to stop him from showing [the video] to anyone" was true. Presumably it has a copy of the video, which it could release to the public.

Once members of public have seen this video, we will be able to decide for ourselves whether we think the official account of the Pentagon attack is correct.

NOTES
[1] Paul F. Mlakar et al., The Pentagon Building Performance Report. Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 2003, p. 12; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report: Final Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2004, p. 10.
[2] 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, p. 8.
[3] "The Hijack Suspects." BBC News, September 28, 2001; "September 11th Hijackers Fast Facts." CNN, August 28, 2017.
[4] Arlington County, Virginia, report, Titan Systems Corp., Arlington County: After-Action Report on the Response to the September 11 Terrorist Attack on the Pentagon. 2002, p. 9; 9/11 Commission, The 9/11 Commission Report, pp. 9-10; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11. Washington, DC: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 2007, pp. 12-17.
[5] Anthony Summers, "The Eleventh Day." New York Post, September 11, 2011.
[6] Rebecca Dana, "Fixer, Story Broker Larry Garrison Books Ramsey's Non-Killer." New York Observer, October 16, 2006.
[7] Sheelah Kolhatkar, "The News Merchant." The Atlantic, September 2010.
[8] Rebecca Dana, "Fixer, Story Broker Larry Garrison Books Ramsey's Non-Killer."
[9] Sheelah Kolhatkar, "The News Merchant"; "SilverCreek Entertainment." SilverCreek Entertainment, n.d.
[10] Larry Garrison with Kent Walker, The NewsBreaker: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the News Media and Never-Before Told Details About Some of the Decade's Biggest Stories. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 2006, p. 103.
[11] Ibid., pp. 105-107.
[12] Ibid., p. 107.
[13] Ibid., p. 102.
[14] Ibid., pp. 107-108.
[15] "Original September 11 Pentagon Video: 1 of 2." Judicial Watch, May 16, 2006; "Judicial Watch September 11 Pentagon Video: 2 of 2." Judicial Watch, May 16, 2006; Robert Burns, "Video Shows Plane Hitting Pentagon." Associated Press, May 17, 2006; Jerry Markon, "Videos Released of Plane Crashing Into Pentagon." Washington Post, May 17, 2006.
[16] "The Stories Behind the Stories." On the Story, CNN, May 20, 2006; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 161; List of videos related to the 9/11 attacks. Federal Bureau of Investigation, n.d.
[17] Larry Garrison with Kent Walker, The NewsBreaker, p. 104.
[18] Robert Burns, "Video Shows Plane Hitting Pentagon"; Jerry Markon, "Videos Released of Plane Crashing Into Pentagon."
[19] "Bush Will Send Special Envoy Zinni Back to Mideast; Accusations of Greed Over 9/11 Fund." NewsNight with Aaron Brown, CNN, March 7, 2002; "Pentagon Photos Released." Associated Press, March 8, 2002.
[20] Robert Burns, "Video Shows Plane Hitting Pentagon"; Jerry Markon, "Videos Released of Plane Crashing Into Pentagon."
[21] Randy Hall, "Cameras Near Pentagon Missed 9/11 Attack, Group Says." CNSNews.com, September 15, 2006; "Citgo Gas Station Cameras Near Pentagon Evidently Did Not Capture Attack." Judicial Watch, September 15, 2006; "Judicial Watch September 11 Pentagon Citgo Video." Judicial Watch, September 15, 2006.
[22] Bill McKelway, "Three Months on, Tension Lingers Near the Pentagon." Richmond Times-Dispatch, December 11, 2001.
[23] "Citgo Gas Station Cameras Near Pentagon Evidently Did Not Capture Attack."
[24] "Hotel Security Video Shows 9/11 Pentagon Blast, But no Plane." CNN, December 3, 2006; "FBI Releases New Footage of 9/11 Pentagon Attack." KWTX, December 4, 2006; "Judicial Watch Obtains Security Camera Videos From Doubletree Hotel That Show 9/11 Attack on Pentagon." Judicial Watch, December 7, 2006; "Doubletree Hotel Video of 9/11 Pentagon Strike." YouTube video, April 6, 2007.
[25] Larry Garrison with Kent Walker, The NewsBreaker, pp. 103-104.
[26] Ibid., pp. 104-105.
[27] Statement of [Name Redacted]. Canfield, Shapiro, Baer, Heller & Johnston, LLP, May 1, 2002.
[28] Jim Yardley, "A Trainee Noted for Incompetence." New York Times, May 4, 2002.
[29] "Memorandum for the Record: Interview of Benjamin L. Connor." 9/11 Commission, April 12, 2004.
[30] Larry Garrison with Kent Walker, The NewsBreaker, pp. 105-106.
[31] "The Stories Behind the Stories."
[32] "Declaration of Jacqueline Maguire." Scott Bingham v. United States Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, September 7, 2005; List of videos related to the 9/11 attacks.
[33] "The Stories Behind the Stories."
[34] Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Inside the Ring." Washington Times, September 21, 2001.
[35] Chris Bull and Sam Erman (Editors), At Ground Zero: 25 Stories From Young Reporters Who Were There. New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002, p. 281.
[36] Bill Gertz and Rowan Scarborough, "Inside the Ring."
[37] Brian Austin and Steve Pennington, interview by Diane Putney. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, November 9, 2006; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 153.
[38] John Jester, interview by Alfred Goldberg, Diane Putney, and Stuart Rochester. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, October 19, 2001; John Jester, interview by Diane Putney. Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, January 31, 2006; Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 153.
[39] Alfred Goldberg et al., Pentagon 9/11, p. 244.
[40] Brian Austin and Steve Pennington, interview by Diane Putney.
[41] Larry Garrison with Kent Walker, The NewsBreaker, p. 108.
[42] Ibid., pp. 112-114.