I think part of the problem is that conspiracy theorists don't necessarily see anything wrong with the "I'm just asking questions and raising concerns," approach. It's our duty to be skeptical, vigilant, and suspicious where public authority is concerned. You've heard my spiel on that. But the attendant question, "How can you believe the official story when it's so full of holes?" is problematic. First, we don't agree that it has as many holes in it as claimed. And second, it's okay to believe the official theory -- holes and all -- if there's nothing better to believe in. That doesn't mean we have to close off our minds to questions that aren't yet answered. But let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I've made the same point in private discussions with a couple of the moderators, including Duane. Perhaps he would like to give the same list of reasons he gave me, or allow me to quote from his PM. Although I somewhat accept the rationale given (basically, that a lot of people who believe in conspiracy theories, either casually or as true believers, don't really know how to debate, and that requiring them to do so would be unfair, and discourage them from participating), I think there should be at least some AtM-like rules that apply to CT.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

That hypothesis is falsified by the lighting and shading on the police car in the Pentagon video that I already pointed out. The brightness of lighting and shading on Flight 77 debris matches that on the police car, which has a similar tone. Both examples show that self-shading does not make a light-toned object appear black in shading.

The problem is, the police car may be receiving fill-in light from some object(s) or surface(s), such as the lighted concrete or the security booth structures. I'm reasonably certain you can't just assume they would look similar in this case. Possibly Jay or someone else with a better understanding of this could comment.

You're only proving what you assume: if the dark object is the vertical stabilizer, then it's not a lamp post. But that proves nothing. On the other hand, if the object identified by the ASCE report (see page 13) as Flight 77 is F77 as I also contend, then it is about 100 feet further back, closer to the last lamp.

Possibly you have missed the point I intended to illustrate by including the security-camera view of the model. As you can see from the positions of the traffic cones, the gate, the gate controls, and the Pentagon itself, this view is correctly aligned. Therefore, there is something in the video at the position of the aircraft's horizontal stablizer in the model. I have demonstrated that this cannot be the light pole.

However, a problem I see for the lamp theory I broached is that the dark spot is probably too high (unless the impacted lamp was thrown upwards).

Actually, from the measurements I made, the tops of the light poles are about the right height.

But this is even beside the point. The dark object not only has nocontrary attributes (ie, is black when the aircraft would be bright. Note too that if you attached a fuselage to the alleged and mysteriously dark vertical stabilizer, we should be seeing it slightly above the foreground box, but we do not). So it doesn't even matter what it is, since we know what it is not. ~Ian

Another issue I believe you have failed to consider is that the object appears to be somewhat blurred, either due to its being out of focus or due to its rapid movement (or both). Also, as again illustrated by the security camera view of the model, the majority of the fuselage would be masked by the gate control.

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--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Note too that if you attached a fuselage to the alleged and mysteriously dark vertical stabilizer, we should be seeing it slightly above the foreground box, but we do not

Actually, this was debunked back on page 5 of this thread with this link.

http://www.mikejwilson.com/911/security_cam1.jpg

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

I'm not sure how "you have to answer questions" is necessarily following strict debating rules, but okay. After all, "I don't know" is still a perfectly valid answer--but I think that if you don't know how the evidence fails to contradict the mainstream and instead support your theory, you really need to do some more studying before you're equipped to proclaim your theory.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

but I think that if you don't know how the evidence fails to contradict the mainstream and instead support your theory, you really need to do some more studying before you're equipped to proclaim your theory.

-More- study????? Half of them only seem to know the "mainstream" side by what their CT sites tell them it is, and the other half don't even know that.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Heck, I consider it common courtesy to answer questions.

As is "I was wrong", but I obviously don't expect CT's to ever admit that. (or they wouldn't be CT's. )

Before this board had "official" rules, the only rule was be nice. Personally, I consider "you have to answer questions" to be covered by the "be nice" rule. Was I wrong to assume that??

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"The facts gentlemen, and nothing but the facts, for careful eyes are narrowly watching." Isaac Asimov

I too would like to see Cl1mh4224rd's questions answered, namely because I asked one of them myself a few pages back (i.e. the light poles).

I may as well rehash my other questions as well:

*If the Pentagon was struck by a missile, what are we seeing in the video? My opinion is that a missile would be too small to see in the video, and the fact that we can see something disproves the missile argument.

*If the Pentagon was hit by a smaller fighter plane, would that plane be big enough to:
A) Create a fireball of that size?
B) Actually penetrate the building? (Keeping in mind the video, posted very early in this thread, of small plane shown to disintegrate when plowing into reinfornced concrete.)

* Earlier in this thread I asked about the philosophy of language. I asked "What is it's point?". We are now into page 17 of a thread supposedly about the Pentagon video, yet the majority of the pages have been filled with endless definition and semantic dancing. I think the answer to my question is "The philosophy of language serves no purposes other than to distract the conversation, and to halt the progression of knowledge". We've spent far too much time, to use a sporting phrase, "playing the man, rather than the ball".

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The plural of "anecdote" is not "data".

I think the answer to my question is "The philosophy of language serves no purposes other than to distract the conversation, and to halt the progression of knowledge".

I think you're right. But it's easier to philosiphise your way through the meaning of motive and who might have it than to face the evidence that shows a 757 hit the building. You can spend the entire day rumbling over motive, and that keeps the discussion going. If you have to look at the evidence then either you have to ignore it, at which point you're shown to be unreasonable, explain it away, at which point you have to prove it, or accept it for what it is, which means discarding your beliefs. Since the third isn't an option for the CT, two can't actually be done successfully, and one grinds the discussion to a dead halt, then it is to be avoided at all costs.

__________________
Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

That's the same view to which I was referring, though it's linked on a previous page. I probably should have carried the links forward in my follow-up, for the benefit of other readers.

Here again is the link to the measurement I made in SolidWorks using Mike Wilson's model, which demonstrates that the object in the video frame is not the lamp post. As a reminder, the z-axis represents the aircraft's approximate ground track.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

I'm not sure how "you have to answer questions" is necessarily following strict debating rules, but okay. After all, "I don't know" is still a perfectly valid answer--but I think that if you don't know how the evidence fails to contradict the mainstream and instead support your theory, you really need to do some more studying before you're equipped to proclaim your theory.

I tend to agree with you on these points; one thing I'd like to see is a distinction drawn between those who merely casually believe in certain conspiracy theories and have questions, and true conspiracists, who attempt to "proclaim" the existence of conspiracies (though not necessarily articulating theories, coherent or otherwise). Obviously there are grey areas, but some people clearly fall into the latter category.

One problem we do have to guard against is giving the impression that we are "ganging up" on the conspiracists, because they will presumably always be a small minority here. For example, it's clearly unfair to expect Brumsen and turbonium to quickly answer every single question put to them by 20 different people; however, this gives them a handy excuse to duck the more problematic questions. Possibly one or two people at a time could act as designated "inquisitors" to pose questions that conspiracy proponents would be required either to answer, or to affirmatively admit that they could not answer, in a timely manner.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

It may be hard to implment, but I like that idea. Many of us have asked the same questions over and over, some worded slightly differently. Having a few people condense down all the questions into a single post would probably make the pro conspiracy person feel less besieged, as well as make it easier for the rest of us to follow along.

As far as problems with implementing this, where would the questions be asked? If it's in the regular thread, it would be pretty much the same sitution we have now. Having the questions PMed to the "inquisitors" (maybe not the best term) will probably end up making more work for those people, who would then be obliged to ride out the thread for the duration, or hand it off in some fashion. Still, I think the idea has a good deal of merit.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Eyewitnesses. While not infallible, if you have lots and lots of them that all attest to having seen the same thing, that kind of helps indicate that they're probably right.

Many eyewitnesses did not see the same thing (see more on that below). So that evidence is very much in question.

Plane bits.

The aircraft debris is very much in question. As I said, the identification of the parts has not been established. Relying on the debris photos does not go anywhere near to establishing a positive identification of origin.

Admittedly fuzzy video.

Very poor evidence of a 757. As I said before, I find it extremely difficult to believe these are the best images in existence. As one person noted on another site about the quality of the Pentagon surveillance equipment, the images look like they come from "... the equivalent of a camera-phone tied to a stick hundreds of feet away ...", and some local mini-mart videos look like Imax 3-D in comparison.

A big, plane-shaped hole.

No - images available from soon after the impact only show a single, small hole. Why do you think it's a "big, plane-shaped hole? The towers had big, plane shaped holes, but I certainly don't see that at the Pentagon. If the wings didn't slice into the wall of the building, what happened to them? There were no fragments of them outside the building.

Identified remains of people who were on the plane in question.

Documentation? I also have to wonder about how they were supposedly able to identify so many of the Flight 93 victims through DNA when there isn't even any airplane debris to identify. But that's another issue, again.

A plane that disappeared from radar into the Pentagon.

They completely lost track of Flight 77, well before the Pentagon was hit. There is nothing from the radar to suggest - let alone confirm - that what hit the Pentagon was actually Flight 77.

For 36 minutes, the FAA lost track altogether of American Airlines Flight 77, which was able to turn around and fly east toward the Pentagon, undetected by radar.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...2004Jun17.html

American Airlines headquarters in Fort Worth, Texas, learns that Flight 77 is not responding to radio calls, is not emitting a transponder signal, and flight control has lost its location since 8:56 a.m. [9/11 Commission, 2/27/2004]

A plane that never reappeared anywhere else.

No reports of it being seen elsewhere isn't evidence that it must therefore have hit the Pentagon.

Lots of missing people who were on the plane.

Same as above.

Damage leading up to the Pentagon that indicates a big frickin' plane.

Actually, very little damage leading up to the Pentagon was seen. A bent light post or two is just about it. The "Pentalawn" was still untouched. There is nothing whatsoever about surrounding damage that would lead one to conclude it was "a big fricking plane".

The conclusion of lots and lots of structural engineers that what we saw is what is likely to happen if a big frickin' plane hit the Pentagon.

That's a general statement, not evidence. What specific points of evidence are you saying comes from this "bunch 'o gears" to support their argument?

I'm sure I'm missing evidence.

That is true beyond a shadow of a doubt.

...and can you provide any concrete evidence--motive is not concrete evidence--that anything happened other than a Big Frickin' Plane hitting the Pentagon? I want details and citations, please, though I don't require that the citations be from websites. Documents are also acceptable.

Since you have requested (and can't seem to patiently wait a day for) an opposing argument - which includes any concrete evidence, and to provide supporting details, citations and documents, it would have been nice if you had included any concrete evidence and provided any details, citations and documents to support your own argument.

You are asking us to provide you with solid evidence to support our argument. I would like to request the same thing of you - not a general checklist like you have made above. However, I don't anticipate you will have any more success than myself, because the best evidence is still being withheld by the officials. Such as....

Videos

There have been reportedly been 85 videos confiscated by the FBI relating to the Pentagon hit... http://www.flight77.info/00new/appeal2.jpg

I don't know how many surveillance cameras the Pentagon would have had in normal day-today operation on 9/11 (both interior and exterior). Nor how many of those cameras may have captured images / footage of anything relating to the strike. But I know they had more than one crummy far off camera for that entire wall.

Debris

An article by USAF Col. George Nelson (ret.), speaking from his years of experience in aircraft investigations notes....

...not one piece of hard aircraft evidence has been produced in an attempt to positively identify any of the four aircraft.

http://www.physics911.net/georgenelson.htm

Black boxes

FBI Director Robert Mueller said Flight 77's data recorder provided altitude, speed, headings and other information, but the voice recorder contained nothing useful.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in501989.shtml

Let's see the information claimed above.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So, with the videos, aircraft parts, and black box data being withheld, what is left is essentially the only type of evidence they can't confiscate, lock up in a building and not release to the public - witnesses. (...well, that's probably open for debate, too!) So below are a few of the witnesses who support the argument for an explosive device causing the impact...

Witnesses

Don Perkal

The airliner crashed between two and three hundred feet from my office in the Pentagon, just around a corner from where I work. I'm the deputy General Counsel, Washington Headquarters Services, Office of the Secretary of Defense...People shouted in the corridor outside that a bomb had gone off upstairs on the main concourse in the building...Even before stepping outside I could smell the cordite. Then I knew explosives had been set off somewhere.

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/2001/09/19perkal.html

- John Bowman, a retired Marine lieutenant colonel and a contractor, was in his office in Corridor Two near the main entrance to the south parking lot.

"Everything was calm,' Bowman said. "Most people knew it was a bomb. Everyone evacuated smartly. We have a good sprinkling of military people who have been shot at."

http://www.dcmilitary.com/army/penta...s/10380-1.html

"We heard what sounded like a missile, then we heard a loud boom," said Tom Seibert, 33, a network engineer at the Pentagon.

Stanley St Clair was stumbling along the road away from the vast building, covered in dust...
"It shook the whole building and hurt our ears. Papers and furniture and debris just went flying through the hallway and I thought it was a bomb or something.[/i]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/wtccrash/s...550486,00.html

Gilah Goldsmith

"We saw a huge black cloud of smoke," she said, saying it smelled like cordite, or gun smoke.

http://72.14.209.104/search?q=cache:...ient=firefox-a

Even melted glass was reportedly seen....

Walker Lee Evey, program manager of the (Pentagon)restoration project.....The fire was so hot, Evey said, that it turned window glass to liquid and sent it spilling down walls into puddles on the ground.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/...in503257.shtml

The maximum temperature of burning jet fuel is aout 1520 °F. But glass (as used for windows) has a melting point of over 2500 °F*. If there was melted glass, it was not from jet fuel!!

No one is claiming it's "undeniable" proof -- it's just better proof for our theory than any you've been able to come up with for your theory.

And who has the "undeniable" proof under lock and key?

You know as well as anyone that there's really no such thing as "undeniable proof". You, yourself, have been denying plenty of it.

Perhaps you'd like to address the points I've brought up in my previous post, because...

...this is blatant ignorance.

Interesting post, Jay.

The thing is: I am not so sure of what I believe and disbelieve either.
However, even though you (and I mean in the plural, not just you personally) are unsure of what it is that I want to defend, it has already been established that I am a conspiracist, so that you have good reason to 'gang up' on me, (Spitfire has perceived that very well) and debunk whatever it is that I might be saying.

(This reminds me of - I believe it was - Turbonium's post in the Scholars thread, reproducing the official conspiracy theory in a sarcastic tone of voice, after which he was jumped upon (by I forgot who) saying: "and now it's up to you to prove that that's what happened!")

Anyway, as far as I know, this "pernicious method" that I am perceived as employing is a philosophical approach.

The days when Socrates was executed for corrupting Athens' youth by not really pushing any line in particular are not so far behind us as it may sometimes seem.

Having the questions PMed to the "inquisitors" (maybe not the best term) will probably end up making more work for those people, who would then be obliged to ride out the thread for the duration, or hand it off in some fashion. Still, I think the idea has a good deal of merit.

I didn't necessarily mean that everyone should be allowed to ask questions through the "inquisitor"--I more intended that one or two people be designated whose questions are required to be answered. These people would be chosen for their expertise (e.g. Jay in the case of moon hoax and 9/11 conspiracy theories), as they would be likely to ask the most problematic questions. I had also intended that "tag teaming" be allowed, as long as it is not used as an excuse to gang up.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Turbonium most of your points have, IMHO, been carefully disected and eliminated as rational evidence of a conspiracy by a lot of folks.

I'm sure you've read this (anybody who thinks the official story is a hoax needs to address this, as you know). But have you read the pages of discussion that follow it? Most of your points were brought up, and there is two sides to every one of them.

Let's put it this way: slam dunk evidence it is not.

You know, Turbonium, I might be willing to wait longer if you hadn't been asked the same questions repeatedly for as long as you've been here. Often with specific citations that you fail to counter. Generally with exactly the sort of direct evidence that you never seem to provide.

Oh, wait. I forgot. People heard something that "sounded like" a bomb, which means it was a bomb, because people never use similes. And that's direct evidence that you're right.

And as far as those eyewitnesses, I did rather mean the ones outside who said, "Hey, look! A big frickin' plane!" What's more, we've had, on this very board, someone who was there who said, here, "Hey! It was a big frickin' plane!"

As for cordite, correct me if I'm wrong, people who know more than I do, but do they even use that in most bombs?

I've seen pictures of plane bits posted on this very board. Statements of people who helped with the recovery, also posted on this board, have stated uniequivocally that they saw plane bits. In fact, the only person I've encountered who's unaware of all those plane bits is, well, you.

Was that small hole you saw perhaps a big one obscured by smoke? Because the people there say they saw a big, plane-shaped hole where the wings of the plane had completely disappeared into the building.

I can't believe you're unaware of the identification of people on the plane. I really can't.

In fact, the questions you ask lead me to wonder if you read anything but conspiracy sites. In fact, I wonder if you read the posts of other people on this board, because all the details you rather heatedly demand from me have already been posted here, repeatedly, often in response to an amorphous claim from either you or Brumsen that is completely beyond the realm of possibility.

In short, no, I'm not going to provide documentation for you, because it's already been done, over and over. I would suggest, that if you want documentation, you look for it here on this board in many, many posts that are replies to you. But I rather doubt you want documentation, because if you did, you'd already be aware of it. It's been shown to you often enough.

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Gillian

"Now everyone was giving her that kind of look UFOlogists get when they suddenly say, 'Hey, if you shade your eyes you can see it is just a flock of geese after all.'"

"You can't erase icing."

"I can't believe it doesn't work! I found it on the internet, man!"

When it comes to "No Plane" most of the "Truth" movement believe that it's a disinformation campaign by the CIA to discredit them anyways. Perhaps Turbonuim is really a paid Government debunker working to further discreadit all the CT's out there. He's here to test his skills before hitting more "true Believers."

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Howling from the Shadows

It must be fun to lead a life completely unburdened by reality. --- JayUtah

You can't reason an irrational person out of an irrational belief. --- Noclevername

Apollo: The History and the Hoax
Enter the World of Athran

Cordite is a safer, smokelss alternative to black powder. Normal black powder burns so fast it's almost instant. Smokeless burns a little slower to a lot slower depending on the type. (Rifles need slower powder or they explode.) Black powder is pretty touchy and can go off from a static shock, or any flame. Cordite comes in long strips that are best desribed as stiff shoelaces or thin vanilla beans. I can't say anything about the smell, as I've never knowingly smelled it after it's been used in a gun. The unusual shapes mean there will be some empty space in the container used as a bomb. This empty space will make the bomb less efficient for it's size. There are now a lot better alternatices for a bomb. Even a home made one. For someone to say the blast smelled like cordite was very odd, given how little chance there was it would be used in a bomb, and the fact that they would have to have more than a passing knowledge of cordite to not confuse it with some other, more common, type of explosive.

As for the first part of the quote up there, how about flawed human presumptions as well? If I worked a building like the Pentagon that was rocked by a large explosion, my first thought, barring any evidence, would be a bomb too. If I worked in a similar bulding that was NOT a likely target for attack, I might think a runaway truck hit it.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

Ahh okay, I thought you meant something along the lines of a new category, similar to a moderator. Still a good idea.

__________________
I'm not evil.
An evil person would do the things I think up.

And who has the "undeniable" proof under lock and key?

I don't claim that any such proof exists, nor do I believe it's suspicious that none does. You're simply trying to portray your critics as irrational by overstating, in straw-man fashion, why they say they believe what they do and why they reject your claims. Instead it's really as simple as one hypothesis being more credible according to the evidence than another. That doesn't mean it has to be perfect, and it certainly doesn't mean every question you can think of will be answered.

You seem quite happy guessing about evidence you haven't seen and making assumptions about why you haven't seen it. I'm not.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

And I'm very ok with that at the start. But after hundreds of postings from the same people "just asking" the same questions, and "just raising" the same concern, even well after all of those questions and concerns have been addressed, it becomes, IMHO, pointless.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

I understand the "ganging up" concern, I've seen that with some of the Moon Hoax stuff. But in this case it is not like they posted once and people suddenly asked them 20 or 50 questions, to which we are expecting instant answers. Many of us have asked the same fundamental questions for weeks and weeks and not been given satisfactory answers. I'm not sure I see the point with continuing this discussion.

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At night the stars put on a show for free (Carole King)

One Earth, One Sky - IYA 2009
All moderation in purple

Says who?

Let's start with these accounts, turbonium, and give us the reasons why we should discount them. Then present the eyewitnesses you have that would counter the above eyewitnesses and all of the other evidence.

Also, present the testimony from the hundreds of rescue and recovery personnel who were at the Pentagon in the minutes, hours, and days after the disaster and who were responsible for recovering the remains of human beings and the wreakage. Is their testimony consistent with the crash of AA77 or not? Why?

Well if you stopped behaving like a conspiracist you would not be considered one.

You claim to be sitting on the fence, you are not, you have consistently spouted that the views of CTs are worth listening too, but when given hard evidence or asked to provide it you drop the subject. THAT is a typical conspiracist tactic.

Playing the sympathy card again I see. Heh, considering how long you have played this game I find it interesting that you do that.

I jumped on Turbonium's post when he mentioned a in a sarcastic tone how to demolish a buildining, since he was not making a point but having some fun I apologized for it, LIKE WE ALL DO WHEN SOMETHING LIKE THAT happens, so stop playing the "poor little CTer" role.

You claim to use the approach of looking at all points of view to arrive at the truth, please show me where you have defended a point of view that is not a CT.

Pernicious? I don't think so, not contributing anything to the discussion? YES

Well IMHO Socrates had something meaninful to say.

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Sic Transit Gloria Mundi

*If the Pentagon was struck by a missile, what are we seeing in the video? My opinion is that a missile would be too small to see in the video, and the fact that we can see something disproves the missile argument.

I think that Mike Wilson's SolidWorks model illustrates this quite clearly--if you look at the above-linked security camera view of the model, imagine that the 757 is replaced with a cruise missile, which is two orders of magnitude smaller. One of these days when I have time I'm going to replace the 757 with a cruise missile, in order even better to illustrate this.

*If the Pentagon was hit by a smaller fighter plane, would that plane be big enough to:
A) Create a fireball of that size?
B) Actually penetrate the building? (Keeping in mind the video, posted very early in this thread, of small plane shown to disintegrate when plowing into reinfornced concrete.)

According to globalsecurity.org's specifications, the F-15E Strike Eagle has the following fuel capacity:

13,123 lb (5952 kg) internal
21,645 lb (9818 kg) in two CFTs [conformal fuel tanks]
up to three 610-US gal (2309-liter) drop tanks

Converting all of the above to pounds works out to about 45,000 lbs total, which is close enough to the 60,000+ lbs required that the difference would have been unlikely to have been noticed, if the aircraft had flown from a nearby base or refueled from a tanker shortly before the attack. Additional fuel might have been added by hanging napalm dispensers filled with jet fuel on some of the weapons hard points, but this would have been taking an even more absurd risk of discovery, as the "non-planted" witnesses would have been even more likely to have noticed that the aircraft was not a 767 [edit: of course I meant 757], and if even one of the napalm dispensers (or drop tanks, for that matter) had been photographed before the Men in Black could have carted it away, the game would have been up.

As for actually penetrating the building, as the F-15, although considerably lighter that a 757, is also much more compact, I'd say "probably, but..." with the "but" being that a Strike Eagle could not have caused the pattern of light pole damage observed, due to its having a far smaller wingspan.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Maybe we should start FAQs on all the major conspiracy theories, including links to relevant debunking sites. I'll volunteer to be PPR for the Pearl Harbor and JFK ones, though obviously they won't be finished anytime soon. That way, we can just refer stale questions (and stale questioners ) to the relevant FAQ.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor

Turbonium most of your points have, IMHO, been carefully disected and eliminated as rational evidence of a conspiracy by a lot of folks.

As a major dissector of turbonium's Pearl Harbor and JFK conspiracy claims, I have to second that. turbonium has no interest in any unbiased consideration of the evidence; he's merely interested in proclaiming various conspiracies, parroting conspiracist factoids, ignoring or belittling the overwhelming evidence against his "theories" (so-called), and attempting to score a few rhetorical points here and there.

__________________
--Doug

"When your statics problem becomes a dynamics problem, you're in trouble." --me

Moor's Law: "As you go from freshman engineering to Ph.D., the amount of work required per credit hour doubles approximately every 18 months." --me, inspired by Prof. Scott Moor