[Admin note: The Clip is from after the plane hit the Pentagon, and was taken at the Capitol, three miles away]
I cannot find much info on this Porter Goss clip, but from what I understand, it is from National Geographic and is the only known audio of Flight 77 (which crashed into the pentagon). In the clip, you hear an explosion or a loud bang of some sort which puts the crowd into an obvious panic, and then seconds after you hear some sort of jet engine fly over. Unfortunately, the clip cuts off right as the engine sound can be heard. Can anyone explain or "debunk" this? The truther in me wants to proclaim this as the smoking gun but what's more important than any of that is getting the facts right so that is why I came here. Wouldn't the jet engine sound be heard before the bang? I don't know if this can be explained by the way sound travels or with that loud bang being something like a dump truck. The fact is I simply don't know. Any help on making sense of this clip would be greatly appreciated.
Based on the timeline in this article in Time magazine, I don't see how it can be the Pentagon attack.
Porter Goss says that he was still inside the Capitol building when the Pentagon was hit. The press conference occurred afterwards, when there were fears that the Capitol could be next to be attacked.
Rep. Porter Goss, Chair, House Intelligence Committee: I was upstairs in the committee room, which was then up in the House attic, with a few senators and congressmen. Senator Bob Graham and I were hosting a breakfast meeting for Mahmud Ahmed, the head of the Pakistan intelligence service. We’d been in Pakistan the week before and had invited him to Washington to continue the conversation. He was actually sitting there in our inner sanctum when my staff handed me a note saying a plane hit the Trade Towers. Then we got the second report. Ahmed turned absolutely ashen and was escorted out of the room. I think before we even left the room, the words al-Qaeda had appeared in our discussion.
John Feehery, press secretary, Speaker Dennis Hastert: Amid all the tumult, we were called down to the Speaker’s Office. The Sergeant at Arms gave us a briefing. It was a very strange, surreal experience because the Sergeant at Arms was telling us that everything was going to be fine, and then we turned on the TV and saw another plane hit the World Trade Towers. It was one of those mornings when everything was jumbled up.
Brian Gunderson, chief of staff, Majority Leader Richard Armey (R-Texas): All of a sudden, one of the plainclothes policemen—he was part of the Speaker’s security detail—stood up and said, “Look!” He pointed out the window. He apparently saw, if not the fireball, at least the column of smoke rising in the distance from the Pentagon.
Brian Gaston, policy director, Majority Leader Richard Armey: The meeting broke up right then and there.
Tish Schwartz, chief clerk, House Judiciary Committee: I froze. You could literally see the smoke billowing up. Everybody was numb: Oh my God, what’s going on? There were no bells going off, there was no panic, screaming, anything like that. Everybody was very calm, but stunned, and in disbelief. The word surreal is used a lot, but that’s what it was.
Tom Daschle, Majority Leader, U.S. Senate: And there began the chaos.
Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives: I was trying to contact the vice president to see what he thought we should do. It was very frustrating because at that time we had these secure phones, which had a key and buttons that you had to push, and between the two of us, we didn’t connect. I had two phones on my desk—a secure phone to the White House and this regular old red phone that I took all my calls on. All of a sudden, I see the red phone flashing, and I said, “Well, they probably put the call through on the red phone.” I picked it up, figuring it was the vice president. There was a guy on the other end of the line, “What are you guys doing up there on Capitol Hill … taxes are too high … pollution all over the country,” on and on, ranting and raving. I said, “Whoa, wait a minute. Who is this?” He said, “Never mind, who is this?” I said, “This is the speaker of the house—I think you have the wrong number.”
Rep. Porter Goss, Chair, House Intelligence Committee:I raced down the stairs to brief the Speaker. I found him in his office staring down the Mall at the smoke from the Pentagon. I said we had to evacuate immediately. He agreed, saying, “On the way out, I want to open the House for a quick session and a prayer.”
Dennis Hastert: I decided to cancel Congress.
Rep. Porter Goss: We walked onto the House Floor about ten minutes before 10, and the Parliamentarian said we couldn’t open the House yet because the call was for 10 a.m. I turned around to say something to the speaker, but he wasn’t there. He was being removed by security to a secure location.
Dennis Hastert: All of a sudden, two of my security guys—one on each side of me—picked me up and whisked me away. I said, “What’s going on?” They said, “We think there’s a fourth plane and we think it’s headed for the Capitol.”
Rep. Porter Goss:I told the Parliamentarian, “We’re doing this now, because we’re going to evacuate.” There was no question we had to get out of there.
....
Rep. Porter Goss:There we were, standing at the bottom of the steps of the Capitol wondering if the building would be there the next time we came back.
Brian Gunderson:I remember seeing a network news crew, and the producer was frantically telling his crew to get that camera pointed at the Capitol Dome. He had assumed—as we all did at that time—that there might be another jetliner heading for the Capitol, and he thought it was important that his camera was in a position to get the shot of that jet smashing into the Capitol Dome.
[Admin note: The Clip is from after the plane hit the Pentagon, and was taken at the Capitol, three miles away]
I cannot find much info on this Porter Goss clip, but from what I understand, it is from National Geographic and is the only known audio of Flight 77 (which crashed into the pentagon). In the clip, you hear an explosion or a loud bang of some sort which puts the crowd into an obvious panic, and then seconds after you hear some sort of jet engine fly over. Unfortunately, the clip cuts off right as the engine sound can be heard. Can anyone explain or "debunk" this? The truther in me wants to proclaim this as the smoking gun but what's more important than any of that is getting the facts right so that is why I came here. Wouldn't the jet engine sound be heard before the bang? I don't know if this can be explained by the way sound travels or with that loud bang being something like a dump truck. The fact is I simply don't know. Any help on making sense of this clip would be greatly appreciated.
I thought he was addressing the WTC attacks but yeah his statements would make more sense if the Pentagon had already been hit. Didn't part of the Pentagon collapse after it was hit? If this is after Flight 77 hit, then I guess the collapse could account for the large bang. And I know there were tons of fighter jets in the air after all major events had passed, so could the engine just be a fighter jet passing over? If only the footage didn't cut off at the worst time.
To illustrate what the admin note claims - that Goss was 3 miles away from the Pentagon, here is Google Maps (German language, excuse me) measuring distance from impact location of AA77 into the Pentagon to the center of the Capitol lot. The line I drew is 2.93 miles, I don't know exactly where the Porter Goss interview would have taken place, but that's insignificant imprecision. The plane came from the far side of the Pentagon. It's unlikely it would have been heard. Not sure the crash would have been heard so loudly.
And I know there were tons of fighter jets in the air after all major events had passed, so could the engine just be a fighter jet passing over? If only the footage didn't cut off at the worst time.
Have you considered the possibility of sonic boom by a fighter plane?
Yes, NORAD established a CAP (Combat Air Patrol) over Washington DC. The first 3 fighters arrived at 10 am sharp, and there would be fighters in the area constantly for a while.
Not sure at this time what altitude and what patterns they would be flying, and why some would go supersonic.
This goes beyond the scope of this thread, but maybe you'll find interesting this series of videos about the military and civilian response to the hijackings, by Miles Kara, who was on the 9/11 Commission Staff, Team 8, interviewing NORAD, the FAA etc, and who has, years later now, put his knowledge and data into this series: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAEzqIDihiaDgeCLlOPb2iw
The 3rd- and 2nd-most recent videos detail the scramble of the Langley fighters (ending in estrablishing the CAP), and the activities of a group of fighters out of Andrews that volunteered to add defensive capacity over DC.
