Dulles Airport Security video of Flight 77 Hijackers has No Authenticity: Debunked
By Thermal Detonator
If you haven’t figured out by now I am a believer in the fact of Flight 77 did hit the Pentagon. If you need further demonstration and analysis with evidence proving that it did strike the Pentagon, then highly recommend watching David Chandlers lecture presentation film from 2015, ‘Pentagon Plane Puzzle-Going Beyond Speculation’
Now besides the physical evidence, I understand the common skepticism out there that pilot hijacker Hani Hanjour was known for being a bad pilot and not only couldn’t have flown such a large plane, but would not have been able to maneuver any plane like the path the airliner took to strike the Pentagon with accuracy. This could be simply explained away by remote guidance which often airline Pilots already use after takeoff when in cruising altitude. And this seems to be the case of what we can see had been used with all the clear angles of flight 175 instantly maneuvering (tipping the wing) right before it impacted the South Tower as an indication of remote guidance since the World Trade Center were much harder targets to strike then the wide range of the Pentagon.
Even with this as an alibi for the piloting capability, 9/11 Truthers will say that there is no evidence of the hijackers having bordered their flights. Now this is understandable for Mohammad Atta and Abdulaziz al-Omari that were only seen on surveillance cameras at the Portland, Maine Airport boarding a much earlier flight, and not for Flights 11 or 175 at Boston Logan where they’re supposedly hijack planes from. But it is not acceptable to just say there is no evidence any of them boarding planes when there is surveillance video from Dulles Airport with 5 of the hijackers going through the security gate to board Flight 77.
However some 9/11 truth researchers over the years have made excuses why the Dulles airport security video has no authenticity. Because they feel there is no positive identifications of any of the 5 hijackers by Dulles airport staff and there are no authenticated passenger lists or flight manifests that feature the names of the alleged hijackers as well as boarding passes showing that they boarded the planes; and that there no reports of Physical remains.
But documents of the physical remains and death certificates of flight 77 passengers have been issued to the families; it could be anybody’s guess why the feds have not released any documents pertaining to the DNA evidence of the hijackers, and whether or not any of the Dulles Airport staff could recall seeing them on September 11th is irrelevant due to the fact that the video captures the screeners running them through metal detectors as 4 of them set them off, which is an indication that they had something on them. And from the investigative work in the book by Susan B. Trento and Joseph J. Trento entitled ‘Unsafe at any Altitude: Failed Terrorism Investigations, Scapegoating 9/11, and the Shocking Truth about Aviation Security Today’ and in a mini documentary released by DCBureau.org, interviewed staff from Dulles Airport who may have not recalled any of the hijackers the day of 9/11, but certainly did recall one the day before on 9/10, as well others recalled how the feds came and seized the security video and were able to fast forward quickly enough and identify the hijackers.
Now when it comes to the authentication of the passenger flight manifest or boarding passes, that I would give a little grace to hypothesize a possibility of fabrication made by the feds who were capable of doing so in there position and have hid other parts of 9/11 after the fact, that may have been an ordered rush to judgment from the White House to fill the holes into what became the official story, but if those who have truly paid attention to the anomalies of the reporting of FBI dragnet when the hijackers were being identified, including which planes they were on within the first few days after 9/11, if you add some of the conflicting details described on some of passenger phone calls they end up being contrary to the roster of 19 hijackers, which then would have some effect to a questioning the validity of flight manifests and boarding passes, but that doesn’t necessarily affect identifying the five hijackers for Flight 77.
There most common bullet point issues over the official claim that the surveillance video captured images of the men being undermined are:
- Dulles had over 300 cameras but no footage was released except for portions of this one video
- The alleged Dulles video contains no date, time stamp, or camera identification
- The video was shot at a rate of 30 frames per second (fps), which investigators say is not typical of CCTV videos (the video was far faster than the normal speed of security camera videos)
- The video appears to be an edited composite of shots taken from different angles
- (and for those who have not noticed second angle) The one and only video reportedly showing 9/11 hijackers was provided by a law firm representing families of victims planning to sue the airlines and security industry as well and may have played a part in the No Plane cover-up or that they simply cannot be trusted either.
There can be many reasons why they only released these portions of the security video out of the 300 cameras they have through Dulles which may mostly have not caught any of their entrances to the airports. Plus the official count claims that they were staying near the hotel and they got their rather quickly and had not waited in any of the lobbies, seating or boarding areas. What are any other security cameras of them walking towards the security gate going to tell us or do any better than what is witnessed to their metal detection screening?
The law firm representing the victims’ families of passenger Flight 77, Motley Rice, originally obtained the Dulles security videos from the FBI, and on their own they released it to the press a day before the 9/11 Commission Report came out, on July 21st, 2004. If any sort of tampering or altering had been done to the Dulles videos it certainly would have come from the FBI and not from some attorneys, even if you were going to speculate that this whole lawsuit is a cover-up.
The reason why there are shots edited from a different camera angle, is because there is likely more than one camera angle at that Dulles security gate which Motley Rice also must have possessed.
As far as not having no date, time stamp, camera identification or that the video was shot at a different frame rate (or slower) than what investigators (in what standard circumstance?) expect is rather silly in contrast to expect the same low-quality format as the security video of Atta and al-Omari in Portland, as there isn’t any expected standard from all airports to have the same security video systems, as all airports operate under different conditions of ownership and even state control over security like Boston Logan, which if we were going to speculate that any of the video could have come from different times the hijackers were traveling, entertaining the theory that the federal government altered or fabricated the video evidence of them boarding planes before 9/11, as if the Dulles video was spliced from different times there and were not boarding Flight 77 on 9/11, if that’s the detailed case they were willing to go solely for flight 77 and all five hijackers, then why not just do the same thing for Mohammed Atta at Boston Logan Airport?
A few obscure sources picked up Boston Logan witness testimonies after 9/11 in the early 2000’s, but mainly more media attention was given in 2014, revealing a settled 9/11 wrongful-death suit against the airlines and the government, ‘9/11 terrorists caught testing airport security months before attacks’ and apparently Atta was going through Logan several times in May in 2001 and after, and was seen hassling airport employees and security, and was even waking around with camera filming entrances and security ways, some sources say he was seen in employee access areas only. If Atta was there this many times as they claim, surely they would have security and surveillance video throughout the airport with him and whoever else he was with to edit and fabricate if there was ever proof of such a conspiracy to cover-up at the airports to convince the public that the hijackers boarded while fake planes were really used.
But even after all this overwhelming evidence and remaining inquiry, where was the question “Why isn’t any of the Flight 77 passengers seen on the Dulles security video going through the screening process?” Wouldn’t that be sufficient enough evidence to verify that the video was indeed recorded on 9/11 at Dulles Airport capturing the hijackers as is?
If 9/11 passengers (victims) can be verified through the security video, then the whole argument that the Dulles airport security video has no authenticity or integrity because there needs to be a time stamp, is irrelevant, wouldn’t that certify and close the deal?
I hope this analysis will serve to the end the age old denial of Flight 77 having not hit the Pentagon, as I am here to tell you that yes, one of the Flight 77 passengers has been identified which has been completely overlooked by the truth movement in the most absurd and careless way. The passenger that’s been identified was 35 year old Mari-Rae Sopper, an American gymnastics coach and Judge Advocate General’s Corps lawyer.
On ‘The September 11th 2001 Memorial’ website, Sopper’s mother Marion Kminek said on her daughter’s profile:
“She was supposedly in Row 20 but probably moved to another seat in another row where no one was sitting. Her cat, Sammy, was with her and they needed more room.“
As a clear early indication it seems that Mari had a cat with her when she boarded flight 77, and according to a Rocky Mountain News article it couldn’t be any more clear with the headlines ‘Surveillance tape of Mari-Rae Sopper seen by family’, which was partially copied to a ‘Let’s Roll‘ forum. According to the portion of article, her mother received a copy of the video in the summer of 2006. It is said that it shows Sopper going through security just steps ahead of the hijackers. Kminek said:
“First of all, she’s freezing, she’s rubbing her arms, up and down, because she is so cold. She had her cat with her. Sammy. She had never taken him on a plane before, so she took him out of the carrier, put the carrier through the security and walked through, and then they’re explaining to her you have to put the cat in the carrier.”
“When we saw it the first time, to be honest, I laughed. It’s so her.”
Where Mari is view-able in the Dulles CCTV video is right at the beginning of the video before, well before Khalid al-Mihdhar and Majed Moqed appear to cross the security gate metal detector.
Mari-Rae Sopper goes through it first holding Sammy, which looks like an orange Kurilian looking tabby cat in her hands and on her shoulders, wearing a white blouse and a gray skirt. She then goes to the counter to the left of the screen and puts her cat into the carrying cage, while she swings around again and goes through the security gate one more time, and gets wanded.
After that she goes back to the counter, grabs her red backpack and her red carrying cage with the cat inside, right while al-Mihdhar in the yellow shirt is behind her and approaches through the gate without being wanded, then Mari exits through the right side of the screen. Play the video and have a view for yourself.
Well even after the fact if you were going to still say “so what” the family members from Flight 77 could still have been in on it (in some outlandish theory that the 9/11 operation would have had to been carried out through practically all the compartments of government) not only is your accusation baseless for calling them liars, you’d also be saying it to founding members of the 9/11 truth movement.
Because as it turns out, Mari-Rae Sopper Sister, Christina Kminek who on September 12, 2006, along with two other 9/11 victims’ family members, Donna Marsh O’Connor and Michelle Little, held a press conference at the National Press Club in Washington, DC, that was only reported by C-Span to call for a new investigation into the 9/11 attacks while promoting one of the first independent 9/11 truth documentaries ‘Press For Truth’ that questions gaps in the official investigations of 9/11, which focused on the families that fought for the creation of the 9/11 Commission.
Other than Christina making her grievance quite clear, that she cannot forget to think about the gruesome way her sister perished so quickly and the moments leading up to their death, she takes great concern and issue over prior warnings the previous and current Administrations at the time had, and the poor airport security screening and the unjustified Iraq War, and how important it was to get a 9/11 Commission report in hopes that it would answer everyone’s questions on why were we attacked (besides for sloganeering rhetoric) as well as lay out the chronology of events and intelligence and communication failures and answer who should be held accountable, weather its Osama Bin Laden, Al-Qaeda and anyone for the inadequate systems and broached processes and communication for national security. Copied from a ‘9/11 Victims Family Members & Survivors Say Government is Lying -MSM Silent’, Choice and Truth blog, August 14, 2016:
“Here we are five years later. … We are still left with unanswered questions, unaccountability and facts that come to light that beg new questions or reaffirm unresolved issues during the 9/11 investigation. There needs to be a new investigation. …
I personally really hoped for one year where September 11th; I could remember those who perished and my sister in peace and not surrounded by all the unanswered questions and the political lies and drama. I’d like to finally focus on my sister.” ~ Christina Kminek
Now for most of you have been on the fence with this issue over the video, you will be satisfied now just saying that these CCTV releases from Dulles are indeed the ones that captured the hijackers boarding Flight 77 that did indeed hit the Pentagon on September 11th 2001.
But I know there are many of you still out there that are still too emotionally invested in the fallacy that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon (which I like that No Planer ilk as “Pentards”) and will try to make excuses like, “What about the 7 to 9 of the hijackers being reported alive after 9/11?”.
If you would care to know about some of the accuracy on those being reported alive, read my 6 part articles series that I have only halfway published, ‘Nineteen 9/11 Hijackers: Dead or Alive?’.
And if you still dare say “What about Khalid al-Mihdhar being reported alive after 9/11?”, still after the fact that he’s only seen on the Dulles Airport security video?
My article series has not yet reached the part where it covers the Flight 77 hijackers, as there is much more cover up to that story to be revealed then which hijackers is reported alive or not. But I will be addressing that particular al-Mihdhar claim for a separate article to also address a specific 9/11 researcher who holds that myth as a reason to question the validity of the Dulles airport video while declaring it an un-motivating factor in the addition to the 28 pages that were released.
