The Video ‘9/11 And Flight 175 Alarming Footage’ Shows How Lazy Some People Are

If there's one thing social media has shown me over the past 10 years, it's just how lazy some people are when it comes to checking sources of outlandish claims. How many times have you been on Facebook and seen that one of your friends has posted a link to a cancer miracle cure that the pharmaceutical industry does not want you to know about, maps of radiation leaks from Fukushima, or pictures of animal cruelty? I always look at these with a sceptical eye, and usually after just a few google searches, I discover their origin and look down on the people who posted them like the pompous, arrogant dick I am.  I have, however, recently been surprised by a video doing the rounds. A video that has such a basic mistake in it, I am surprised anyone would share it. The video was called '9/11 And Flight 175 Alarming Footage' and not only does it claim that 9/11 was an inside job, but has evidence that the footage of Flight 175 crashing into the south tower was faked.

The video says that the footage shot by Michael Hezarkhani is fake because of two reasons. The first is that "a real airplane could not have sliced through a building" but the narrator gives no evidence as to why they can't do this, so it can be dismissed. As they say - what can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

The second reason the narrator believes the footage was faked is because it shows Flight 175's left wing going behind a building that was behind the south tower. This would be impossible from the angle of the footage and the direction of Flight 175. The narrator says that this is a computer glitch and is irrefutable proof that 9/11 was an inside job, and that the video was fake. 

Let’s for a second ignore the thousands of people who physically witnessed the attack, the wreckage of the planes, survivors inside the World Trade Centre who saw the plane coming towards them, air traffic control, and all the thousands of other bits of evidence that prove beyond all doubt that a plane did crash into the complex. Let’s say that this video is the only piece of evidence that we have that shows the attack. Does it contain evidence that it was faked?……NO! and it’s embarrassingly easy to find out why. In-fact I was able to get to the bottom of this mystery using nothing more than my iPhone in under 1 minute.

Looking at the footage and knowing that Flight 175 hit the south tower flying north I figured that it was shot somewhere in Battery Park. Opening apple maps and turning on 3D I immediately found the buildings in the video. The white one at the front is called the Whitehall Building, and directly behind it is the Downtown Athletic Club. This is the building that this video claims is behind the World Trade Centre complex.

911

But let’s say that the person who made this video did not have a shiny iPhone… is there any other way he could have found where this building was? YES! by simply googling “lower Manhatten” and looking at any image after 1930 (date the Downtown Athletic Club was constructed). All these images clearly show the 159m classic Art Deco building over 0.3 miles south of the World Trade Centre complex site.

No one – and I mean no one – has any excuse for sharing this video with their friends, and they should be mocked for their lack of critical thinking and laziness.

About Myles Power (795 Articles)
Hello Internet! My name is Myles Power and I am a chemist from the North East of England, who loves to make videos trying to counter pseudoscience and debunk quackery in all of its various forms! From the hype around GMOs through to Atrazine turning the freakin’ frogs gay, I’ll try to cut through the nonsense that’s out there!

16 Comments on The Video ‘9/11 And Flight 175 Alarming Footage’ Shows How Lazy Some People Are

  1. I think what contributes to the notion that the footage must be faked is the subtle image artefacts created by the image interpolation used to make the original footage slow motion. Because I am definitely sure that this was not shot by a camera capable of actual slow motion capture.

    This is because:
    • Consumer cameras (in the US) were back then limited to NTSC format, were the frames-per-second is 30 @ 486i. As the individual frames were likely captured with scan lines, the final frame rate was likely 60, but scan lines can be seen on on fast moving objects when the video is digitalized, something that needs to be interpolated in post to be less noticeable. But already in this process we can get image artefacts on thin fast moving details such as plane wings.

    • However, even if we take 60 fps and reduce the frame rate to half, or even film (24 fps), that would not be enough to create such smooth slow motion for such a fast moving object.

    • The type of subtle distortion seen when the wing passes behind the building is typical for post-process type slow motion, usually called “optical flow”. The motion estimation is far from perfect when details pass over each other with high speeds, and is the reason why things look “manipulated” in these details.

    • Also, why would someone film this with a high speed camera anyway? Not only would such camera be incredibly expensive and complex back in 2001, but unless you expected the impact and knew exactly when to switch on the camera, to keep the camera running for a couple of minutes would consume incredible amounts of media. You don’t simply use high speed cameras unless you know exactly what you want to capture. And I don’t think this was shot with an analogue film camera either.

    No, the subtle distortion comes from post-process interpolation which turned old NTSC video into a quasi slow motion. With the additional fact that the building is actually in front of the plane, there nothing to this video that suggests fakery.

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    • Thank you for your analysys, but you are seriously wrong. You cannot cheat science. Hollow Aluminum cannot slice 2.5 inches of steel. And yes, the left wing should not of disapeared like that.

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    • Then you also should know that NTSC could NOT get footage of this type of accuracy, as depicted. And the camera panning along with the plane is just too accurate for handheld footage, among other things.

      Oh yeah, the plane as depicted here is too *small* for a 767.

      This whole thing is a very fancy cartoon.

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      • The video is artificially slowed (to only 5% of it’s original running speed) and stabilized (which also requires resizing).

        Whatever detail once existed in that video is long since gone and what we’re left with is basically a computer programs best guess of what we should be seeing.

        The original video is easy to find and watch at it’s proper speed, it was shot by Michael Hezarkhani. It’s also plainly obvious from that original video that the building in question is in the foreground.

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  2. You might like Dave Greg’s video response https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGjLFQWTyg4

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  3. Anonymous // May 31, 2014 at 2:59 pm // Reply

    If there were ever proof that troofers have a distorted sense of reality, this is it.

    Without even looking at a map of the complex, the stacking from back to front is obviously, WTC 1, WTC 2, then the Whitehall building & Athletic Club.

    The morning sun coming from the right clearly gives that away.

    The fool who posted the video deleted the comments that were already there, and blocked the posting of new ones.

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  4. The explosions on the other side doesn’t have to be a plane slicing through the building either anyways.

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  5. The lowest point the left wingtip of Flight 175 entered the South Tower was at its 77th floor, a point 400 feet higher than the 522 foot tall Downtown Athletic Club building. It flew over it. “Truthers” only deceive idiots.

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    • You have to wonder at their thinking and reasoning ‘skills’, I’m sure they just keep throwing as much stuff as they can hoping something will stick…but so far the ‘official’ story has a million coats of Teflon lol

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  6. I just wonder how crazy these folks are to still believe this nonsense and keep on digging up ‘evidence’…if the case was strong, they’d have all the evidence they need already…

    Don’t these people understand perspective and 3 dimensional space? With my eyes I can see that the tower is further away than the building FL175 was supposed to have flown through, this is apparent from the fact that the tower is less clear than the foreground buildings -haze, but the most obvious thing is scale, the Towers were monstrously sized buildings, and if Downtown Athletic Club were really parallel or behind the Tower, then it must be over 90 floors high and nearly as wide as a Tower, which it clearly isn’t in real life…

    It reminds me of a ‘flying saucer’ photograph from some chap in Canada a few years ago, he wanted $30,000Can for the original photograph…which to non-believers was obviously a picture of a seagull in flight…

    Nice to know there are still people who will buy my magic beans…

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    • That’s why the city of New York keeps making excuses to open a real investigation into building 7? Now they’re claiming that over 40,000 signatures are “invalid” It’s one hurdle after another. We will get the high rise safety initiative on the ballot.

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  7. hello why cant I post my comment???

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  8. Lazy Person // June 3, 2014 at 12:53 am // Reply

    Just not sure why CNN broadcasted the same footage back in 2001?

    Why does the wing “magically” disappear behind this same building again
    LOL because someone forgot to edit this detail when they digitally imposed the plane
    what a crock… seriously people

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  9. An international conspiracy…of ruthless masterminds with unlimited resources…funded by a billion dollar government…screwed up the footage to be used for worldwide news.
    And OBL flying planes into buildings is impossible.
    Idiot.

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