Just what hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center on 9/11/01 at 9:03 a.m.? That’s the question that I sought to answer as I visited New York for the excellent 911 conference (“Confronting the Evidence”, 9/11/2004) held at the Grand Ballroom which was sponsored by Jimmy Walker.

I’m sure that most people have heard what some conspiracy nuts are saying. They point out that when Flight 175 entered the South Tower no part of it broke off. The argument they make is that because a plane is largely aluminum it should have produced major confetti with its impact against the South Tower’s steel exterior.

Then there’s the overly-simplistic observation that the damage seen in some photos of the other (North Tower) did not match the footage obtained by the Naudet Brothers. I trust that everyone remembers the Naudet Brothers. Their documentary ‘911’ is an inspiration.

Conspiracy nutters also mention that there’s no known recording of Flight 175’s impact with the South Tower. Oh, we’ve got the object's deceleration and the explosion covered. But the actual, gut-wrenching sound of a largely-aluminum fuselage making contact with steel at an estimated 450 mph was never revealed to the public by anyone.

Having read these idiotic theories (no, actually having written some of them) I arrived at Lispenard and Church Streets in New York in the early afternoon of 9/11/04. It is an attractive location; and quite famous. This was where Jules Naudet captured Flight 11 striking the North Tower three years before. (The Naudets also publish a shot of someone watching the North Tower hit. Not bad considering they were ostensibly videotaping a Fire Chief inspecting a gas leak.)

About a half hour later I am standing on the sidewalk outside of Engine 7 Ladder 1, the firehouse on Duane Street where the Naudet Brothers were shooting their documentary about a rookie firefighter. The Naudets were so enthralled with their simple, colorless "probie" that they spent months shooting candid video of the firemen at this firehouse. I merely look at the firehouse from the outside for several angry minutes before heading to Ground Zero.

Upon arriving I see people pouring in for the demonstrations which are taking place on the three-year anniversary of the most tragic day in US history. A large number of bikers are riding endlessly around the block, showing the American flags attached to their finely-tuned machines. I ask many people whether they saw the object which struck the South Tower. Since most of the people I speak to are tourists very few answer in the affirmative. Finally I encounter a young, pretty French girl. She tells me she saw Flight 11 strike the North Tower. I ask her a few questions and she is not comfortable answering them. However, she tells me that only when she saw the explosion on the North Tower did she know it was a plane. I interpret her remarks to indicate that she may not have seen Flight 11 at all. (Perhaps she knows that what she saw more closely resembles a Flying Pig than a commercial jet?)

Soon afterwards I speak to a man who tells me he saw a windowless, gray cargo plane strike the South Tower. We talk at length and he makes this point very clear several times.

I talk to another man who tells me he saw a commercial jet strike the South Tower. I ask him a couple of questions about what it looked like and he quickly gets frustrated and terminates the conversation. I try to talk to a couple of other eyewitnesses but they won’t talk to me. I then hail a cab and head uptown for the Grand Ballroom event.

In the cab I come to the conclusion that someone other than Osama bin Laden sent a grey cargo plane into the South Tower. Meanwhile, the TV networks aired video of a CGI plane striking it. As absurd as it sounds, what eyewitnesses saw strike the South Tower must have been different than what TV audiences saw. This explains why so many eyewitnesses are reluctant to talk about a visual spectacle which rivals the Hindenberg disaster. 911 was actually a news media hoax, a monumental PsyOps campaign that was inflicted upon the Human Race by the corporate US media.

I’ll leave to the eyewitnesses to come forward and describe what they saw.

Scott Loughrey