Proof that part of a Boeing 727-200 should have been visible in one of the Pentagon CCTV video frames

It is vital to compare the old and newly released frames with what SHOULD have appeared had the object crashing into the Pentagon been as large as a Boeing 757-200. Despite the uncertainties of reconstruction, enough can be done to refute the claim that these frames are consistent with a Boeing 757-200 hitting the Pentagon.

Compare the video frame captures at [link to www.rense.com]
In particular, examine the insets in frame 3. Pickering in his article posted below demonstrates that, when a photograph of a 757-200 is correctly scaled according to the height and size of the tail revealed in the still and to the known height of the Pentagon at the distance of location of the tail, far MORE of the fuselage of the 757-200 should have been exposed to the left of the block appearing in the still, even allowing for foreshortening due to an oblique approach path, as now explained.

The length of a Boeing 757-200 is 155ft, about double the height (77ft) of the Pentagon wall. Therefore, a ruler for proportional scaling of the image of a 757-200 is provided by the image height of the wall at the point where the horizontal line from the tail sticking up above the block meets the wall. (That this image is, indeed, that of the tail is in no doubt because not only does it look like a plane tail but also the other frames no longer show it sticking up in the same position above the dark silhouette of the Washington horizon). When the image of a 757-200, scaled according to the height of the Pentagon wall at the same distance away as the visible tail, is superposed onto the frame showing the incoming object obscured by the block, with its tail placed where the image of the tail is, it is blatantly obvious that more of the front of a 757-200 should have been visible to the left of the barrier block at the gas station than is the case (see the third still with superposed plane).

Of course, this assumes a approach path at right angles to the building, which was not the case, as Pickering admits. But, although the true oblique path would have shortened the image of the object somewhat, some simple trigonometry will verify that the known approach angle between the path and the Pentagon wall [link to 911research.wtc7.net] is simply not small enough to reduce the projection of the length of the plane at right angles to the wall to a size that would have left its image completely covered by the block in the still. The angle between the Pentagon wall and the incoming path of a 155ft long plane would have had to be smaller than about 30 degrees in order for such a projection to be equal to or smaller than the length implied for that distance by the width of the image of the block (this is about equal to the image height of the Pentagon at the distance corresponding to the location of the tail):

sin^-1(77/155) ~ 30 degrees.

Instead, the actual angle of approach is much more than this (about 50 degrees, see map at link above), so that foreshortening cannot explain the inconsistency between the maximum size of the object implied by its image being covered by the block and the length of a 757-200 plane. Hence, one can conclude with confidence that the object shown in the video is too small to be that of a 757-200, otherwise some of it would have extended beyond the block seen in the still and be visible.

This conclusion about a smaller plane is consistent with with the initial, light damage to the Pentagon and with the anomalous, sparse debris field (where are any chunky-sized pieces of the wings and tail, some of which would have been blown clear of the brief, rapidly cooling jet fuel explosion and would have never been vaporized or reduced to confetti, as the photos demand of ALL the wings, fuelage and tail?).

Here is Pickering's article. I agree with his judgement that we should not regard any new conclusions drawn from the latest video to be a smoking gun proving that something other than a 757-200 hit the Pentagon. Rather, it is another example of the way in which official evidence and accounts concerning 9/11 do not stand up to critical examination.

Pentagon Video Observations
by Russell Pickering
5-18-6

The video frames in this article are taken from the DoD website in their original size and resolution with no adjustments.

This second released video angle gave us the height of the "fuselage". So I found a 757-200 image at approximately the same angle and with the light coming from the same direction as it is in the new video. I matched the fuselage height exactly to the height of the object in the video. That automatically scales the rest of the graphic plane. Here is what the new video should look like then.

The first thing that stands out to me is the expected reflections and bright red color. You can clearly see the angle the sun is coming from and the fact that the aircraft would have been completely illuminated by it. You can even see the face of a building behind it reflecting sunlight.

To give an example of the detail this video camera actually captures look at the frame below with a vehicle passing by in the background. I watched it move through a couple of frames and captured a still where it was in line with the object claimed to be the nose of a 757-200.

Let's assume this is 15 feet long like the average vehicle (a Jeep Cherokee is 14'). It is an additional 150-200 feet further away from the camera than the object in the video based on the closest possible on-ramp to Washington Blvd.. You can still see the brightness and reflection which we can assume a polished aluminum aircraft would also do. The building reflections are obvious here too.

I copied the exact same aircraft that was measured by the height of the "fuselage" in the new video and placed it into the original video frame from the camera that is further back. I slightly reduced the size of the aircraft to make up for the extra camera distance. The interesting thing was that if you lined up the tail height of the graphic aircraft with the "tail" silhouette in the original frame, the graphic aircraft was in the ground and the engines were far below the "vapor trail". So I chose the middle where the two lined up. The other thing I noticed was that the shape of the alleged tail in the original video was quite different than a 757-200 empennage - even if you account for something coming in at a slight angle. What is claimed to be the tail in the original frame does appear to be pretty flush and not at a severe angle though. The one thing we should not underestimate is the difference between a black blob and highly polished aluminum. Even the "vapor trail" is illuminated by the sun.

I located the tower exactly using one of the other photos when it was illuminated in the fireball. The tower is reported to be 44 feet tall which is the height of a 757-200 with the gear down within six inches. The Pentagon wall is 77 feet high which is almost exactly half the length of a 757-200 (155 feet). The red line represents the length of the aircraft on a vertical axis. I moved the base of it to the perspective of the wall at the estimated impact point and found where the roof line intersected the middle of the red line and it all worked perfectly as a double-check. If the gear were down on the graphic aircraft it would be a little shorter than the tower which it should be since the impact was behind the tower.

Trying to mathematically figure perspective and camera distortion can twist the brain, but if you use known objects in the same vicinity you can get real close. Even if this is off by a few feet you can still see a very different picture than what we have been told. The other point that might be criticized is that the aircraft was reported to have come in at an angle. That might affect length slightly but not the general height of an object.

I believe these two sequences of newly released video are authentic. Obviously they didn't fake anything because there is nothing in them of substance. You can see too that the artificial time/date stamp originally on the first five frames when they were "leaked" is not present on the full video sequence. I used to think the frame of the initial explosion in the original video had been artificially lightened, but the blast frame in the new video does the same thing. It may be that the auto-aperture did not have time to adjust. The debris dispersal, the fireball and the smoke progression all correlate perfectly between the two videos even in the anticipated subtle differences since the two videos are slightly out-of-sync chronologically. I measured the time between various events in each of the videos for comparison and they are dead on. For instance, I timed from the explosion up to when the police car was at a certain point on the lawn and everything matches perfectly. It appears that the footage is at 1 frame per second despite what was published about 2 fps.

The police car that goes through the gate is not the same one that goes out onto the lawn. The one going through the gate has two people in it. The person that actually took the car out onto the lawn was Officer Mark Bright. He was working in the guard shack at the time and claims to have seen an aircraft. The person driving the police car through the gate had a white shirt on and in the Steve Riskus photos of Mark Bright next to his patrol car on the helipad he was wearing a dark shirt. You can read Mark's statement and see the Riskus photo here:
[link to www.pentagonresearch.com]

One important thing to note is the debris that rains down in the video. It matches between the two videos in every respect. I also cross-checked some still photos of the area and the debris landings corresponded to where pieces came down in the video to the inch. The temporarily glowing objects in the video were expelled tree branches on fire that can also be seen burned up in still photos of those areas further into the incident. If you look very closely you can see some of the larger debris in the videos that are in later photos further out on the lawn. Fire apparatus would have been arriving shortly after the released video clips end and there is nobody running around "planting" anything. The major pieces we are all familiar with appear instantly.

It strikes me that something flew into the Pentagon. I don't know what to say though because it also appears nearly as certain from all of the comparisons that the size, bright color and reflection of the object in the videos does not match what you would expect from a 757-200. I am NOT endorsing a missile or anything else! I am just looking at the physical evidence without a conclusion.

It does seem that they do not want us to have any clear picture of what it was exactly.....for now. I think the warnings people have made about a possible booby trap are valid. Don't bite on all of this and go on a tangent. They could pull something solid (or apparently solid) out of the bag and ridicule us later. We should focus on the irrefutable evidence like the demolition of WTC7, the free-fall speed of the towers, Norad, PNAC etc., in other words, things that are WELL documented. The Pentagon situation is always going to be a sticky mess. I think they have made themselves look bad enough without any more help from us.

Russell Pickering
www.pentagonresearch.com