F.A.Q. 4: The Eye-Witnesses

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTION N°4:

Q:
“What about the thousands of eye-witnesses in Manhattan ?”

A: There is no denying the existence of a large amount of eye-witness testimonies reported by the mainstream media - and even by more credible, independent sources. However, have you ever actually read all of them, as we have done? You should. Here is what you may find :

The vast majority refer to the sightings of the 2nd event at WTC2 — while surprisingly few refer to the 1st event at WTC1. With this in mind — and permitting that witness reports might be a reliable source of information - we should concentrate on the available witness reports.


Of course, eye-witness testimonies are notoriously unreliable, particularly in the case of brief, rapidly unfolding events. In spite of this commonly-accepted fact, many people seem to be strongly attached to what (they perceive) was reported by "thousands" of eye-witnesses in Manhattan. A key question should be raised: Did most people report a “large passenger airliner?” The firm answer to this is: No.

Of those people who provided details of the object they saw, the majority reported anything but a large airliner. I submit below a cross-section of such testimonies: Of course, this selective list is only meant to get an idea of the variety of the 9/11 eye-witness reports – and is not intended to establish any conclusive proof. However, it goes to show that there was no general consensus on what precisely hit WTC2 :

SELECTED EYEWITNESS REPORTS DESCRIBING OBJECT STRIKING WTC2:

A SMALL PLANE
1. "At that point we were still not sure that it was a plane that had hit the tower. There was some talk from the civilians coming down that a plane hit. The consensus was that it was a small plane."- Credited to: Roy Chelson

A CESSNA OR LEAR JET TYPE OR...
2. “Numerous civilians were telling me that a plane had hit the building. There were discrepancies as to the type of plane. Some were saying it was a Cessna or Lear jet type, a small jet plane. Some said it was a large passenger plane. One person actually said that it was like a military style plane that actually shot missiles into the building”. - Credited to: Anthony Bartolomey

A SMALL (TRAINING) PLANE
3. “I saw it come up from the left, and I saw the plane coming through to the building, go inside, a small plane….no, no, it was plane, you know, like they teach the people to pilot a plane, a small plane, you know, it was that kind of plane…, and I never saw that plane before. It's like something, I don't know, it's like they worked with the motors, I never saw a plane like that before!”- Credited to: Karim Arraki

A CESSNA
4. “I was on my way to work…traffic was excellent…I received a call saying a small Cessna had hit the World trade Center…I was asked to go and man the Office of Emergency Management at the World Trade Center 7 on its 23d floor…” – Credited to: Barry Jennings

LIKE A SMALLER PLANE
5. “I was waiting a table and I literally saw a, it seemed to be a small plane. I just heard a couple of noises, it looked like it like it ‘bounced’ off the building and then I heard a, I just saw a huge like ball of fire on top and then the smoke seemed to simmer down…it just seemed like a smaller plane, I don’t think it was anything commercial.”- Stuart Nurick, LIVE on CBS NEWS

A SMALL, SMALL JET PLANE
6. “…We saw a plane flying low overhead which caught all of our attention. We looked up. It was making a b-line for the World Trade Centre. It was very low, extremely low, not a big plane like an airliner …uh… but not a tiny propeller plane, a small, small jet plane.”- Credited to: Mary Cozza

A LIGHT COMMUTER PLANE
7. "I mean, I hate to admit this, but I'm sitting there hoping that someone has made a mistake; there has been an accident; that this isn't the hijacked airplane, because there is confusion. We were told it was a light commuter airplane." Credited to: (news report)

THOUGHT PLANE WAS MUCH SMALLER
8. "I thought it could have been an accident...I thought the plane was much smaller..."- Credited to: Sid Bedingfield

A PROP JET
9. "I was told by somebody that we had an eyewitness who happened to be an off-duty firefighter who told me that he saw the first building get hit and it was hit by a prop jet, which I think turned out to be the wrong information, but everybody sees things differently."- Credited to: Steven Mosiello

A SMALLER TYPE PLANE
10. "And we went to a high point in our building, which is on the 25th floor, and you had a clear view of both World Trade Centers and the one that was smoking hard, and there was another plane that was flying low, and we just looked at it, and before we know it, it was just kamikaze, boom, right into the other tower... but it didn't seem like a big passenger jet. It was a smaller type plane, because it made some pretty radical turn, and flying low..." - Credited to: Mr. Tractsonburg

A SMALL JET
11. “We’re walking the dogs and we saw a plane flying really low, a jet, a small jet, and it flew directly into the World Trade Center..”- Credited to: (news report)

SMALL CARGO MILITARY
12. I got out of the car, and I told Larry I saw an FBI agent and I was going to start talking to him. I gave him my card, and he gave me a card. I said I thought that that second plane that went into the south tower was a military plane, like a transport or small cargo military. - Credited to: Battalion Chief Brian O’Flaherty

A BOMB....A MISSILE
13. "Hey Grandpa, I'll tell you what woke me up. They bombed the World Trade Centre. I'm looking at it and Mi-Kyung's video taping it. Terrible. I heard, Grandpa, I saw it. It could have been a plane, but I think it was a bomb...a missile...er...this could be world war three."- Credited to: Mi Kyung Heller

LIKE A MISSILE
14. “…I can only describe as, it sounded like a missile, not an airplane….it was definitely not the sound of a prop plane or anything like that….I grew up on military bases and I know the sound of jets and I’ve been in war zones and heard those kinds of different sounds….the sound itself was not of a prop plane , it was perhaps a jet, but it could have been a missile as well….it was high pitched, but it had a…er…a…whooshing sound, not, not like a prop plane…”- Don Dahler, LIVE on ABC TV

A ROCKET
15. “It was a big fireball or something from the plane I guess, came from across the street in front of our rig, and as we get out of the rig, there's a cop, city police officer, in the street. He's telling us, "I'm getting out of here. I just saw a rocket." He said he saw it come off the Woolworth Building and hit the tower”. - Credited to: Peter Fallucca

SOMETHING - PLANE OR MISSILE
16. “At that point I assumed you can't have two -- it can't be an accident to have two planes. So, I don't know if there's planes or missiles or what but something was hitting this thing. You saw debris was falling down.“ - Credited to: Brian Dixon

NOT A BIG PLANE
17. ”I was saying to him, "That plane is closer to us. It's really not a big plane going towards the building." Two seconds later it rammed into the building. "- Credited to: James Murphy

THOUGHT THEY SAW A MISSILE
18. " Some people thought they saw a missile, now I don't know how they could differentiate, but we might leave open the possibility that this was a missile attack on these buildings ..." Dick Oliver, LIVE on FOX News

LIKE THE SIZE OF A GOLF BALL
19. “I saw two other planes. One came in one way, and the other came in the other way, and there was a plane in the middle that was way far off in the distance. Then the plane in the middle just disappeared into a little fireball. It looked like the size of a golf ball from where I could see it. And the other two planes veered off into opposite directions.” - Credited to: Patricia Ondrovic

See: Report on NYC First Responder 9-11 Accounts (PDF 4,79 MB)


Note that 'missile' is mentioned in no uncertain terms even by a few newsmedia people: What to do with those? Did they simply tell the truth? Or were they actually instructed to do so? The latter option is theorized by some and may well be contemplated: If a "Joe Public" had very clearly seen a missile, he would undoubtedly find comfort in the fact that even war-zone experts like ABC's Don Dahler had been initially 'mistaken' as to what he saw. The endless TV replays of the BOEING 767 animation would have eventually put Joe's torments to rest. The TV images would have "cleansed" his recollections.

Generally speaking, the eye-witnesses on record reported a smaller airborne object than a wide-body passenger airliner. This fact alone is, to say the least, rather puzzling : how can a large, low-flying and very loud BOEING 767 be mistaken for a “small aircraft” by so many people? Try to picture yourself in New York that day: would you possibly have mistaken a 767 passing 700ft above you for a "small plane"?

Take “Flight 11”, for instance (the first alleged "hijacked plane"): It would have roared across the full length of Manhattan – from tip to toe, at full thrust and extremely low altitude: tens of thousands should recall that deafening event - yet hardly any witnesses on record (but a handful of newsmedia people) ever mention it. Here's just to get an idea of what it should have sounded (and approximately looked) like:


FACT: The only documented reports of a “Large Passenger Airplane” came from newsmedia employees.
(See: September Clues part D).

THE MISSILE HYPOTHESIS Arguably, what witnesses saw was a winged, plane-shaped missile. Interestingly, one such missile existed in 2001: Lockheed Martin’s flagship at the time was the JASSM AGM158, a precision-guided cruise missile with a titanium penetrator warhead. Its speed was 550mph and its CEP (Center Error Probable) as little as 8ft; of course, a pre-placed homing device in the WTC would have reduced that margin of error to zero. The point is, the AGM 158 could have undoubtedly by relied upon to hit a target as wide as the WTC (208ft) with utmost precision. Of course, such a winged missile - though considerably smaller than a Boeing 767 - would have effectively generated real eyewitnesses reporting “some sort of airplane" striking the tower. The JASSM AGM 158

We may only wonder why we have so many witness reports of a small aircraft. Since there is no photographic record of it, determining just what hit the WTC2 (if anything at all) will remain in the domain of speculation. In any event, anyone lending relevance to the available witnesses must do the effort to read their statements: Out of those who specify anything about the size of the object seen impacting the WTC2, most describe some sort of small aircraft. Consequently, at this stage and with the elements at hand, the missile hypothesis cannot be discounted. Ultimately, determining the precise object that flew into the WTC is a secondary issue: the bottom line is that the bulk of witness reports provide no support to the official 'BOEING 767' story.



WHAT ABOUT THE EYEWITNESSES TO THE TOWER COLLAPSES ?

The WTC2 tower collapsed at 9:59AM - the WTC1 at 10:28AM. By that time, there is no question that Lower Manhattan had been comprehensively evacuated. In fact, some witnesses (blocks away from the WTC complex) are on record reporting just a smoke-filled scene and little else. Since all the available collapse videos are also proven fabrications (see: COLLAPSE ANIMATIONS), we cannot know exactly what - and how much detail - was seen in reality from the streets of Manhattan. We may reasonably surmise that the 9/11 planners had no wish to show anyone the exact dynamics of the WTC destruction - and that some form of smokescreen was built up in the hour-long timelapse between the "planecrashes" and the collapses. The picture below - whether part of the fake footage or not - may give us an idea of what might have been the only sight anyone had of the tower collapses: just an impenetrable wall of smoke.