The two videos from the Pentagon security cameras released in May of 2006 were the first officially-released images of the Pentagon attack. One of the two videos was the source of the famous five video frames leaked in 2002.

The two videos, from cameras separated by as little as 15 feet, show almost identical imagery of the development of the fireball.

Like the five frames, neither of the two videos shows a jetliner, or any details about what hit the Pentagon. Although there is a tendency to focus on the content of the videos as a primary evidence about the attack, there is no shortage of other evidence showing that a twin engine jetliner hit the Pentagon.

Earlier analysis based only on the five frames from the one of the two cameras speculated that some of the frames may have been edited. However, the newly released videos show that many of the details that seemed anomylous in the five frames may be nothing more than artifacts and counterintuitive appearances.

This is a good example how a vacuum of evidence tends to amplify anomalies and feed speculation.

The fact that neither of the videos shows a jetliner is not inconsistent with the crash of Flight 77, a Boeing 757, even assuming the videos were not edited, because the plane, flying at an estimated 780 feet per second, would only be visible to either camera for a fraction of a second, but the videos show only about one frame per second.

page last modified: 2006-05-17