Officially the air defense of the United States has completely failed on 9/11—not once, not twice, but four times in a row, while a whole slew of war game exercises were taking place simultaneously during the time of the terror attacks. Furthermore, the Continuity of Government plans were activated that day— after two decades of preparation. Many essential questions related to the “mythical historical narrative” (Zbigniew Brzeziński) are still not investigated at all. An exclusive interview with German researcher Paul Schreyer.
Paul Schreyer was born 1977 in Ahrenshoop, Germany. He is a freelance journalist for the German magazines “Telepolis”, “Hintergrund” and “Ossietzky”, as well as author of the German written book “Inside 9/11”. Related to the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, he has published also the website http://www.911-facts.info/ in English and German, and these videos: “Inside 9/11 – Who controlled the planes?“, “Inside 9/11 – Hijacking the air defense“, and “Inside 9/11 – Obstructing the investigation“.
Lars Schall: Mr. Schreyer, would you agree with me that the topic of the war games and the failure of the air defense on the morning of September 11, 2001 is the single most important issue related to the terror attacks of 9/11?
Paul Schreyer: That’s true. What we call 9/11 is essentially four planes being hijacked and crashed in a two hour period of time. Therefore, the complete failure of the air defense during these two hours should be investigated in much more depth and detail than it has been by the 9/11 Commission. And regarding the war games, yes, it’s at least quite strange that exactly on 9/11 a military exercise was taking place that included a virtual hijacking.
Actually it’s a bit more than simply strange, considering that the second big terror attack in the western hemisphere in the last decade, the 7/7 tube bombing in London 2005, was also happening precisely while an exercise testing a tube bombing was running. (1) To call this a coincidence one has to change the meaning of the word, I would say.
L.S.: Why have you developed an interest in 9/11 in general, and in the above mentioned topic in particular?
P.S.: 9/11 is still the biggest topic of our time. It started or accelerated major policy shifts in many countries. We still live under the influence of these policy shifts. That’s why you can’t act responsibly today as long as you don’t know what really happened on 9/11. We have to come clean with this history. It’s a simple matter of truthfulness.
And the issue of the air defense that morning is apparently a key to the whole thing. It should be obvious to everybody. The Pentagon was being hit about 90 minutes after the first hijacking started. And still the strongest military power in the world should not have been able to protect its own nerve center? That has to be explained.
L.S.: On the morning of 9/11 there were a whole slew of war game exercises going on. Can you tell us about one specifically, please—and that is “Vigilant Guardian”?
P.S.: “Vigilant Guardian” was a countrywide so called “transition to war” exercise taking place between August 20th and September 13th, 2001. But only between September 10th and 13th it was planned to run 24 hours a day. Right on the morning of 9/11 the scenario contained a hijacking. That’s why the first phone call about a real hijacking made officers in the air defense headquarter wonder. One even said: “Somebody started the exercise early. The hijack is not supposed to be for another hour.” It appears that the exercise somehow melted with reality.
L.S.: Did those war game exercises made it more difficult to react to the terror attacks?
P.S.: The 9/11 Commission Report, which mentions this whole exercise only once in a footnote, says no. And of course it’s true that the start of fighter jets should not have been obstructed by the exercise. Because it takes only seconds to verify if an event is real or exercise. But the role of “Vigilant Guardian” might go deeper. For it allowed access to the radar data the air defense received.
For example, as part of the exercise virtual radar signals were displayed on the screens of the operators in air defense headquarters. These signals didn’t represent real planes in the sky but were only digital points, so called “inserts”, to make the war game more realistic. In plain words, the radar data was intentionally manipulated. Therefore, assuming 9/11 might have been an inside job, the exercise could have been a useful cover for blurring the real radar picture and weakening the air defense very effectively.
L.S.: At what time were those exercises stopped?
P.S.: That’s in doubt. The military said they stopped it right after the first alarm at 8.38 a.m. But according to the tape recordings of the air defense there were virtual inserts on the screens as long as 9.30 a.m., meaning almost an hour after the first call to the military. (2) Actually it seems as if no one really stopped the exercise as long as the hijackings were in progress.
L.S.: The hijacked airplanes showed strange flight patterns. Why is this of relevance?
P.S.: You have to put yourself into the minds of the alleged hijackers. The smartest thing to do for them was to act as quickly as possible. To minimize any risk they had to get control of the planes a few minutes after takeoff and then direct them straight to their targets so that fighter jets wouldn’t have time to interfere. But that didn’t happen at all.
Take the first airliner, Flight 11. The alleged hijackers took control at 8.14 a.m., but didn’t turn to the south to New York. Instead they flew to the opposite direction to the northwest for some 13 minutes. That detour made no sense, at least if you stick to the official version of events.
And it’s the same pattern with all other 3 flights. Flight 175—hijacked at about 8.45 a.m., then again a huge detour instead of turning directly to New York. Even more strange—Flight 77, the third plane, took off from Washington to target the Pentagon, that is just a few miles from the airport. Than why did it take a detour of over 500 miles or more than one hour flying time? That is absolutely crazy and unreasonable. And it’s still unexplained.
L.S.: Related to Flight 77 there was something very odd going on with regards to a specific radar gap, correct?
P.S.: Right. The “Washington Post” reported that Flight 77 turned exactly at a small zone of poor radar coverage. (3) According to the official account they became totally invisible for about 9 minutes, just as the plane turned. And so they allegedly got lost to air traffic controllers. So this radar gap could have been the destination of the unexplained detour.
If true, a new question arises. How should the alleged hijackers have known that the radar gap existed, where it was located and when they would have arrived there? Again no explanation is given for this. The whole complex of Flight 77 remains a miracle, at least as long as you’re trying to accept the official version.
L.S.: Some people believe that the hijacked airplanes were “hijacked from the hijackers” via remote control. What’s your knowledge about this question?
P.S.: The term “remote control” in connection with passenger jets reminds of some kind of science fiction novel. But first, let’s not forget that this is exactly what many people thought in their first instinctive reaction after the second impact into the World Trade Center. Even the CNN reporter doing the live coverage that morning suspected just this immediately after the second crash when he shared his thought, and this is a citation, “if perhaps some type of navigating system or electronics” led both planes into the towers. (4) Because this is simply what it looked like. Meanwhile independent 9/11 researchers like Aidan Monaghan and Kevin Ryan have pointed in their studies to the possibility of remote control. (5)
Actually this seems to be the most probable version of what happened. At least it can explain many facts and anomalies, which the official version all sums up as coincidence or luck. Like the extremely precise approach of the plane hitting the Pentagon. Remember that it hit the building with full throttle only a few feet above the lawn. And that it hit the only side of the building, that had been renovated with steel- and Kevlar-strengthened walls and blast-resistant windows – just for the purpose of resisting a terror attack. That limited the damage effectively and is also the reason why there weren’t that many deaths as you would expect after a plane crash into such a big building.
Apart from these considerations there is the technical aspect. And there it seems that remote controlling a large Boeing passenger jet was technologically absolutely possible in the year 2001. Again, I’m pointing to the detailed studies on this by Aidan Monaghan and Kevin Ryan.
L.S.: In June 2001 there was an important change in the command structure taking place in connection to the interception of airplanes that are off-course (see the memo of the Joint Chief of Staff: “Aircraft Piracy and Destruction of Derelict Airborne Objects”). Who was calling the shots in that respect since that change—and therefore on 9/11, too?
