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Loose Change

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File:Loosechange.PNG
The opening title shot of Loose Change.

Loose Change is a documentary written and narrated by Dylan Avery which questions the events surrounding the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attacks Loose Change is a documentary by Dylan Avery (director and narrator), Korey Rowe (producer) and Jason Bermas (webmaster and graphic designer), released through their company, Louder Than Words. It received wide attention after being featured on FOX News.

The documentary presents a rebuttal to the official version of events during the September 11, 2001 attacks and the 9/11 Commission Report. It alleges that the attacks were not the result of terrorism but a series of cleverly executed events carried out by the US government.

Internet downloads have grown substantially and may have contributed to the results of a May 2006 Zogby poll [1] which finds that "over 70 million voting age Americans support a new 9/11 investigation." [2] Over half the American public of voting age distrusts the 9/11 Commission Report and supports a new investigation of possible US Government involvement in the attacks.

The producers have claimed the film will be shown to the British Parliament on June 14, 2006. [3] Rumors have circulated that the showing has been cancelled, but the producers have asserted that this is not the case. [4]

Format

Loose Change is approximately an hour and a half long. The movie consists mostly of still photographs and news footage of events relating to 9-11, which are shown against rap music, or soft melodic background music, while narrator (director Dylan Avery) makes various claims and observations. Video and still footage used includes considerable video content from CNN, NBC, and FOX News, as well as a number of other public domain sources. There is no original 9-11 footage or interviews.

History

Financial backing for the project came in April 2005 from producers such as Phil Jayhan of letsroll911.org. Avery released the first edition of Loose Change with an initial press of 1,000 DVDs. Rowe, a former soldier who served in Afghanistan and Iraq joined the project in June 2005. Bermas also joined the team and together they released an updated second edition in November 2005.

The documentary is available for purchase and distribution through its official website. [5] It can also be viewed for free online and downloaded through Google Video, where as for mid 2006 holds the first position in the top ranking of available videos. [6]

The documentary has been released in two editions. The first was released in April 2005, followed by the second edition in November 2005. The second edition is a remake of the original with added footage and information.

Content

File:Screening color.jpg
Flyer for a screening of the documentary

Timeframe

  • Includes background information of Operation Northwoods, a plan put forward in the days of the Cuban Missile Crisis to switch out real commercial airliners with drone planes, and tests the effect of using them as weapons, all the while seeming to be an accident. It then brings to light certain events that could be evidence of this practice being used in the attacks of September 11, 2001.

Pentagon

  • Alleges that American Airlines Flight 77 could not have crashed into the Pentagon and that damage sustained to the building may have been caused by a cruise missile or a smaller military aircraft. It defends this by examining the size of the hole in the Pentagon caused by the crash, examining the lack of debris consistent to prior airliner crashes, and showing that certain pieces of debris are inconsistent in size or shape to the corresponding parts on that type of aircraft.

World Trade Center

  • Suggests that the actual collapses of the World Trade Centers 1, 2 and 7 were not triggered by the plane crashes but by a series of explosions within the buildings that were detonated shortly before each building collapsed, and supports this with eye witness reports from a janitor, firemen, and other people near the buildings who saw and heard things consistent with controlled demolitions; videotapes showing flashes in windows far below the burning floors prior to the collapse, and seismograph results recorded during the collapse compared to the collapse of other similiar buildings.

Flight 93

  • Suggests that United Airlines Flight 93 did not crash in rural Shanksville, Pennsylvania but actually landed safely at Cleveland Hopkins Airport where it was evacuated by government personnel into an unused NASA research center. Uses photographs and eye-witness reports of the crash site as evidence due to the lack of debris or severity of damage to site, a corresponding evacuation at Cleveland Hopkins Airport due to another hijacked plane and the corresponding reports, oddities in the transcripts of cell-phone calls supposedly placed from the plane during the hijacking, and the sighting of the tail number of Flight 93 on an aircraft in use at a later date.

Oddities

  • Asserts that cellular phone calls could not be made from American Airlines flights at the time of the crash. The film cites as evidence a later system installed in American Airlines planes which allowed the reception of cellular signals within the planes. It questions why such a system would be needed if cellular transmissions were already possible within commercial airliners.
  • Suggests that cell phone calls from passengers and crew were faked by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico using sophisticated voice-morphing technology and that the December 13, 2001 video of Osama Bin Laden admitting guilt was also faked.
  • Asserts that of the list of hijackers initially released by the government, many were not in the planes and were alive after September 11, 2001 and may even still be alive.

Cui Bono

  • Outlines possible motives for the attacks.
  • Alleges that Larry Silverstein stood to benefit significantly from the destruction of the towers from an extensive insurance policy.
  • Alleges that many investors engaged in insider trading with an apparent foreknowledge of the eventual destruction of the towers.
  • Alleges that millions of dollars in Kuwaiti gold bars were secretly transported away before the Twin Towers collapsed.

Factual inaccuracies

The film states that New York's Empire State Building was hit by a B-52 in 1945. It was actually a B-25 Mitchell, an aircraft less than one-third the size of a B-52, and the B-52 was not in service in 1945. The authors have since apologized and acknowledged this error.

The movie cites a study in which cell phone calls were increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to get through up to and at an altitude of 32,000 ft. According to air traffic controllers in Cleveland, who alerted their counterparts at John P. Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County, the Flight 93 headed south and then east and began a steady descent from an altitude of over 20,000 feet to less than 6,000 feet. [7]

The film states that 5 light posts were knocked over by Flight 77 and suggests that a plane hitting a single light pole would crash, citing the example of a Gulfstream II headed to Houston saying it crashed because it hit a light pole. The film suggests the pole ripped the wing off. In fact the Gulfstream II jet crashed and a TV reporter noted it had clipped a light pole while crashing. Light poles are designed to detach on impact to save lives if a car crashes into it. [8]

The film also gets the wrong engine used for Flight 77. Bollyn, the reporter of American Free Press that Loose Changes uses, had contacted the factory in Indiana which makes engines for small planes like the Cessna Citation and Global Hawk, rather than the plant in Quebec that overhauls the 757 engines or the factory in Derby, England. Loose Change also claims that Flight 77 uses two Pratt & Whitney engines made of steel and titanium alloy. This is false, because the engine used in Flight 77 are Rolls-Royce engines. [9]

Another flaw within the film is the suggestion of voice manipulation on Flight 93. While it is true that the technology does exist, Loose Change tries to make the victims of Flight 93 to be fake. The connection was that it wasn't really the victim's voices being used, by voice morphing technology. However, there is simply one flaw in this argument: In order for voice manipulation technology to take place as Loose Change suggests, the voice needs to be recorded, not live. Flight 93 conversations were live.[10]

Criticisms

The film carries many of the features of a conspiracy theory. The viewer is often asked to draw his own conclusions based on selective evidence and quote mining.

Pentagon crash

Loose Change has been criticized as disinformation even by some within the 9/11 Truth Movement, which disagrees with many aspects of the official version of events on 9/11/01. [11] A primary concern of many in the movement is the promotion by documentaries such as Loose Change and In Plane Site, that a commercial jet did not hit the Pentagon. [12] [13] [14] [15]

Critics of the documentary's proposal that a cruise missile or a small aircraft may have been the cause of damage to the Pentagon, cite the nearly 100 documented accounts from witnesses on the scene [16] who reported seeing a large airliner. Some witnesses specifically noted seeing a 757, while only two witnesses, located some distance from the scene, reported seeing a small plane. Loose Change, however, does not mention the large body of witness reports in support of a commercial jet. Not a single witness at the scene has ever reported seeing a missile. [17]

Loose Change claims that the engines belonging to the plane that crashed into the Pentagon, made of steel and titanium alloys, could not have melted, because the burning temperature of kerosene in even a pure oxygen environment is below the melting point of titanium. Critics contend the melting point of titanium is irrelevant since the motors involve steel-titanium alloy rather than pure titanium, although Ti alloys melt at temperatures (1668 °C) [18] significantly closer to titanium (1725 °C) than to steel (1500 °C).

The group Judicial Watch successfully obtained, from the Department of Defense, live video footage of the alleged Flight 77 striking the Pentagon taken from relevant, though quite distant, security cameras at the Pentagon on September 11, 2001; on May 16 2006 the group released videos from the two cameras on their website with hopes to "...put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77..." Watch's Director of Investigations & Research, Chris Farrell, stated in an interview[1] that his organization "could be the water carriers for a honey pot operation, in which the government attracts overwhelming attention to the Pentagon issue, making it the cornerstone of the 9/11 truth movement, and then blowing it out of the water by releasing clear footage of Flight 77." He stated, "Let's just call it a baited trap, it draws somebody into a situation in which they're compromised."

World Trade Center collapse

The documentary focuses on the combustion temperature of jet fuel (1517 °F) which is much lower than the melting point of steel (2777 °F). This is true but irrelevant as it does not elaborate on the combustion temperatures of office equipment and open air flame which can be much higher. It also fails to note that "steel loses 50 percent of its strength at 1,200 degrees F." [19]

As temperatures rose in the buildings, the remaining core columns softened and buckled, shifting much of the burden to the building's exterior. The floors, which largely remained intact outside the impact zone, reacted by pulling the exterior columns inward, adding to the extreme stress on the exterior columns. In the north tower, as fires consumed office furniture and other debris, softening the steel in the exterior columns, they gradually started to bow inward and then buckle. [20]

This buckling and the resulting floors falling could be heard as "secondary explosions" and "crashes" prior to the collapse. As the Twin Towers had strong outer shells and light weight trusses for floors, that would force the collapse inward as the towers were — structurally speaking — 95% air because of their open floor designs. It would allow the interior of the building to collapse first; so that debris and floors could fall inside the tower and blow out windows ahead of the exterior collapse. Sally Regenhard, founder of Skyscraper Safety Campaign, has urged a reassessment of using trusses to create open floor designs; as she points out fire experts have a motto to "Never trust the truss" in a fire. [21] The Twin Towers open floor design, greater height (wind and structural loads), their supporting columns and fireproofing being compromised by the initial impact; is significantly different from all the notable high-rise fires used as comparisons in the documentary.

Flight 93 landing

Loose Change suggests that Flight 93 landed in Cleveland instead of crashing or being shot down in Pennsylvania, and that passengers were subsequently secretly evacuated to an empty NASA research building. A number of members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, however, note that there is virtually no evidence for such a claim, and that many witnesses reported seeing and hearing the plane at the crash site. [22] [23] [24]

In-flight cell phone systems

The documentary asserts cell phone calls could not be made from an airplane, and cites new cell systems being tested after 9/11 in planes as compelling evidence in support of that position. Although cell phone calls are entirely possible at lower altitudes, it could cause interference with the airplane and ground based cell phone networks. [25] [26] The new in-flight systems allows phones to work over the ocean and at lower power levels as the signals are relayed using a satellite uplink; making interference far less likely. It also enables the flight crew to disable cell phones when necessary. This provides additional safety mechanisms and at the same time improves quality of reception.

Wikipedia as a source

Wikipedia was used as a source for some information. Critics allege that the use of Wikipedia, or any encyclopedia, is ill-fitting for a documentary as it is not a primary source. The majority of the articles cited appear to be unvandalized and match the producers' claims of their content. One noteworthy exception is a passage in the World Trade Center article regarding the gold repository beneath the buildings. As of December 28 2005 the article matched the producers' claims, but the article has since been revised and the passage removed.

Defense

Those who defend the film allege that many of the criticisms leveled at it are statistically petty. For example in the film the narrator states that "There were 14 fighter jets to protect the entire United States." He says this in reference to War games being conducted on the date of September 11th. Critics point this out as one of many factual inaccuracies or outright lies in the film; the actual number is 16, counting two planes in Alaska (20 if four planes in Ontario are included). Supporters claim that, in relevance to the United States, there is no tangible difference between 14 or 20 planes. They also claim that the narrator can still be considered at least somewhat correct because there were only 14 in the Continental United States.

Trivia

  • Samples from the Loose Change documentary can be heard in Ministry's song, LiesLiesLies, which can be found on the Rio Grande Blood record.

See also

References

  1. ^ 911Truth.org – Poll of Final Report
  2. ^ 911Truth.org – 70 Million support new investigation
  3. ^ loosechange911.blogspot.com – Parliament Funk
  4. ^ loosechange911.blogspot.com – A few things
  5. ^ "Loose Change 2nd Edition". Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  6. ^ "Loose Change 2nd Edition". Google Video. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  7. ^ A Sky Filled With Chaos, Uncertainty and True Heroism
  8. ^ "Utility Poles - Description of Strategies". AASHTO/NCHRP Strategic Highway Safety Plan. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  9. ^ 9-11 Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide
  10. ^ When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing
  11. ^ "'Loose Change' An analysis", by Michael B. Green, 911research.wtc7.net, retrieved March 1, 2006
  12. ^ Pentagon Attack Errors, 9-11 Review, retrieved March 1, 2006
  13. ^ Why the No-757 Crowd is Making an Ass out of Itself, Joël van der Reijden, retrieved March 1, 2006
  14. ^ The Pentagon attack: the "no plane" theories discredit 9/11 skepticism, oilempire.us, retrieved March 1, 2006
  15. ^ Flight 77.info, retrieved March 29, 2006
  16. ^ Pentagon eyewitnesses 'It was a plane bomb,' Eric Bart, retrieved April, 2006
  17. ^ "Eyewitness Accounts Describe Jetliner Approaching Pentagon", 911research.wtc7.net, retrieved March 1, 2006
  18. ^ Typical Properties of Titanium Alloys
  19. ^ Shermer, Michael (2005). "Fahrenheit 2777". Scientific American. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
  20. ^ Lipton, Eric. (October 2004) FreeRepublic.com – Study Suggests Design Flaws Didn't Doom Towers
  21. ^ SkyScraperSafety.org – Regenhard Calls for New High-Rise Codes and Code Group Composition. Fire Engineering Magazine (April 2002)
  22. ^ "How Did United Flight 93 Crash?". August 1, 2003. Retrieved 2006-05-17.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: year (link)
  23. ^ "The Crash of Flight 93". 9-11 Research. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  24. ^ "Eyewitness Reports". 9-11 Research. Retrieved 2006-05-17.
  25. ^ PCWorld.com – In-Flight Cell Phone Systems Gain Altitude
  26. ^ ConsumerAffairs.com – In-Flight Cell Phone System Survives Test Flight

Commentary

Debunking

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