Reply #44: I'll take a swag at this...

[Flatulo]

> 1 - did the eyewitnesses see something different than what people saw on TV?

That would depend on their relative position and elevations.

> 2 - approximately how many eyewitnesses observed the WTC on the morning of 9/11?

Let's make an educated guess... Manhattan has a daytime population of around 1.5 million. It may be more than this due to cummuters coming in. If we assume that as few as 10% were up and about at 9:00AM on 9/11/2001, that would be 150,000 souls awake at the time that Flight 11 slammed into WTC 1.

In the time interval between Flight 11 and Flight 175, millions of people around the country were alerted to the fact that something terrible had happend at WTC1. Anyone that had a TV on knew almost immediately, and then they called their friends or relatives to spread the horrible news (and watch it on TV). I know that my company had the TV sets on in the cafeteria within minutes of the first crash.

Since the WTC towers were the largest objects for nearly a thousand miles in any direction, it is reasonable to assume that most of those 150,000 souls in Manhattan could see smoke bellowing from the North tower,. If we further assume that only 10% of those 150,000 souls would be curious enough to actually go outside or go to a window to see one of the world's largest structures burning quite horrifically (and I'm being very conservative here - I believe it was most surely more than that. This was an absolutely unprecedented event), then we have 15,000 people staring at WTC1 as it burned.

Now, depending on one's position, it was possible to see Flight 175 come in from the SW to slam into WTC2. Since this view could conceivably be obstructed from three sides, let's say that only 1/4 of the people looking up happened to be looking up when 175 hit. If you reduce that by 50% for people who were scratching their balls or picking their asses, that still leaves nearly 2,000 people who may have actually seen the impact.

I believe the number is much, much larger than this, but I'm trying to give you the largest benefit of the doubt here.

So, you are telling me that every single last one of these witnessed is confused, mistaken or hysterical? Is this what you are really saying? I don't even know what the hell could be confusing about a jumbo jet hitting a building. Seems pretty fucking un-confusing to me. Now, if you were to tell me that a 90 year old white woman couldn't pick a black teenager being accused of robbing a 7-11 out of a police lineup, I'd say 'sure'. But an airplane hitting a skyscraper is not in the least bit subtle.