At least 6 eyewitnesses saw a military-style jet in the vicinity
of Flight 93 on the morning of September 11, just before it
crashed into the ground in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. But
the U.S. government denies this 2nd jet ever existed. We?ve
been told Flight 93 crashed because the passengers, having
learned about the other 911 hijackings on their cellphones,
rose up and overcame the terrorists, who were trying to aim
the plane at either the White House of the Capitol building.
The 40 passengers and crew aboard, as well as the 4
hijackers, were killed. ?Let?s roll,? Todd Beamer?s last words
on his cellphone before he and the other passengers
overcame the hijackers, has become the rallying cry for our
assault on terrorism.
Witness Susan Mcelwain, who lives two miles from the crash
site, says, "(A white military jet) came right over me, I
reckon just 40 or 50 feet above my mini-van. It was so low I
ducked instinctively. It was traveling real fast, but hardly
made any sound. Then it disappeared behind some trees. A
few seconds later I heard this great explosion and saw this
fireball rise up over the trees, so I figured the jet had
crashed. The ground really shook. So I dialed 911 and told
them what happened. I'd heard nothing about the other
attacks and it was only when I got home and saw the TV
that I realized it wasn't the white jet, but Flight 93. I didn't
think much more about it until the authorities started to say
there had been no other plane.
Could the military jet have been sent to shoot down the
airliner before it could cause the kind of havoc that destroyed
the World Trade Center? As was said in the last
Unknowncountry.com newsletter, ?This jet may have been
following the
flight, or it may have shot it down on presidential orders?
obviously one of the most heart-rending decisions any
president would ever have had to make.?
If such a decision was made, why keep it secret? We can
understand why questions about the crash of TWA Flight 800
have never been answered?if the military was
conducting ?war games? and accidentally shot down a
civilian plane, they might not want to admit it. But this is a
decision we can understand.
Lee Purbaugh was the only person to see the last seconds of
Flight 93 as it came down on a former strip-mine at 10:06
am, and he also saw the white jet. He was working less than
half a mile away, at the Rollock scrapyard, which overlooks
the crash site. "I heard this real loud noise coming over my
head," he says. "I looked up and it was Flight 93, barely 50
feet above me. It was coming down in a 45 degree and
rocking from side to side. Then the nose suddenly dipped
and it just crashed into the ground. There was this big
fireball and then a huge cloud of smoke. Yes, there was
another plane. I didn't get a good look but it was white and
it circled the area about twice and then it flew off over the
horizon."
Tom Spinelli was working at nearby India Lake Marina. "I
saw the white plane," he says. "It was flying around all over
the place like it was looking for something. I saw it before
and after the crash." Debris from the crash rained down on
the lake, which would not have happened if there was no
midair explosion and the plane was intact when it
crashed. "It was mainly mail, bits of in-flight magazine and
scraps of seat cloth," Tom says. "The authorities say it was
blown here by the wind." But that?s unlikely, since there was
only a 10 mph breeze at that time and the lake was a mile
and a half away.
Military officials were told about the suspected hijacking at
9:16 am, 50 minutes before the plane crashed. At 9:35 am,
they would have decided it was heading for Washington
D.C., after it made in a 180 degree turn. An anonymous
flight controller says that an F-16 was "in hot pursuit" of
Flight 93. A few minutes before the crash, pilot Bill Wright,
flying a single-engine Piper, could see Flight 93 three miles
away, but was suddenly told by air traffic control to turn
away and land immediately, with no explanation. The last
seconds of the cockpit voice recorder are the loud sounds of
wind, meaning there could have been hole in the fuselage.
The FBI's explanation for the white jet is that a passing
civilian Fairchild Falcon 20 jet was asked to descend from
34,000 feet to 5,000 feet minutes after the crash to give co-
ordinates for the site. However, the plane and pilot have
never been produced or identified, and Mcelwain says a
Falcon 20 is not the plane she saw.
At 9:22 am, a sonic boom was picked up by an earthquake
monitoring station in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles from
Shanksville, that could have been produced by a supersonic
military jet. The type of commercial plane that produces a
sonic boom is not allowed to fly over the continental United
States.
There?s no shame in shooting down a passenger plane, even
if it killed 40 of our own citizens, if doing so saved our seat of
government and prevented a much greater loss of life. The
passengers were doomed anyway?there was no way to
save them once the hijackers were in control of the plane.
Therefore, there?s no reason to keep the truth from us.
Another, similar piece of disinformation has been put forth
by our government recently: We?re now being told that Iraq
is supporting al-Qaeda, even though we were told the
opposite in the past. Again, we?ve been given no supporting
details. Surely it?s not necessary to try to fool the American
public in this way in order to try to get them to support the
coming war. Most of us realize that Saddam Hussein is a bad
guy
who needs to be taken out?the only question is: What price
will we pay to do it? Some of us think the price of conflict
may be too
high and we should not go to war, while others think we
should invade Iraq. Either way, we don?t need to be fed
disinformation in order to make up our minds. That?s
insulting to our collective intelligence.
Did the government hide the truth from us about Flight 93 in
order to turn the passengers into heroes who would inspire
us to fight against al-Qaeda? Again, this underestimates the
American public. When we saw the Twin Towers fall (and
knew it could have been us or our loved ones inside them),
we knew we were under attack and we?re ready to fight
back.
We don?t need any extra incentive.
Because no matter what really happened on September 11,
the passengers of Flight 93 are still heroes. They realized
what their duty was and they were ready to do it. Whether
or not they were actually the ones responsible for preventing
the
plane from hitting Washington is not what matters. When
soldiers go into battle, some kill the opposing forces, some
conquer enemy territory, some save civilians or fellow
soldiers, and some are killed before they have a chance to do
any of these things. But they?re all heroes.
For excellent information about Flight 93,
click here
and here.
Related Entries:
31-Aug-2010: Cocooning
10-Aug-2010: A Trip to Crop Circle Country
27-Jul-2010: Marriage: Hot & Cold
06-Jul-2010: Marcelle
27-May-2010: A Trip to Esalen
11-May-2010: The Birds
13-Apr-2010: Staying Open
31-Mar-2010: I was an Angel for Easter
23-Mar-2010: Nuns I Have Known
16-Mar-2010: It Started With a Hummingbird
