Top Lies and Deceptions In Loose Change 31-37

I never got around to posting these, on account of breaking news, but here are the rest (for now at least).

31. Claim: United Flight 93 landed at Cleveland Airport

Truth: This was a false report, it was immediately corrected by the AP, but it still lives on in Internet legend.

32. Claim: The last 3 minutes of the United 93 cockpit recorder are unaccounted for.

Truth: This was based upon initial incorrect reports of the crash time. Further analysis (see Page 48 of PDF) indicated the recorder included everything.



33. Claim: The cell phone calls from the hijacked planes could not have taken place due to the technological impossibility of placing calls from a high altitude.

Truth: Most of the calls were from Airfones, which quite obviously work fine in the air. The few cell phone calls which were made could have easily been made due to the fact that the hijackers reduced altitude to steer their planes into their targets.

34. Claim: Nine hijackers turned up alive after 9/11

Truth: All of these claims turned up immediately after 9/11. A few were just people with the same name, the rest have been unverified. To date, none of the 19 hijackers has been seen in public.

35. Claim: The bin Laden confession tape must be fake because bin Laden is lefthanded, and the man in the tape uses his right hand to write.

Truth: Aside from the fact that many left handers are ambidextrous, in Muslim culture the left hand is considered “unclean”. Osama, being a strict Muslim would most likely not prefer to use his left hand.

36. Claim: The bin Laden confession tape must be fake because bin Laden is wearing a gold ring, which is forbidden by Islamic law.

Truth: Islamic law only forbids men from wearing gold. There is no way of telling what metal the ring is made out of, and in fact he is seen wearing the same ring in other tapes.

37. Claim: $160 billion in gold is missing from the World Trade Center.

Truth: Despite the fact that this would be over half the world’s gold reserves, and be nearly impossible to move secretly, this has never been reported by any reputable news source.

38. Claim: WTC owner Larry Silverstein profited off of a massive insurance settlement from the attacks.

Truth: Silverstein only owned WTC7, he merely held the lease for the twin towers. While purchasing the lease he originallly wanted a smaller insurance policy, but was required to increase it as part of the deal. What money he did get, he used to rebuild. It has never been shown that he profited off of the attacks.

39. Claim: The Project for a New American Century (PNAC) called for a "New Pearl Harbor" which resulted in 9/11 helping them acheive their goals.

Truth: PNAC did not call for anything, they merely stated the timetable for their transformation would be slower. The transformation dealt with technological modification of the military, and has had absolutely nothing to do with the results of 9/11 or the invasion of Iraq.

40. Claim: A reporter at the Pentagon reported there was no trace of flight 77.

Truth: The reporter, Jamie McIntyre, was responding to a question regarding whether the plane crashed outside of the Pentagon. In the rest of his news reports he talks extensively about the crash, including handling pieces of the airplane himself.

41. Claim: A United Airlines employee reported seeing the tail number of United 93 on another flight in April 2003.

Truth: FAA records show that this was nothing more than him writing down the number of this flight incorrectly. There is no record of this airplane showing up anywhere since September 11, 2001