Flight 93, sonic boom ?

[Crazytimes]

Have you guys heard about this ?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30682

"The FBI insists there was no military plane in the area, but at 9:22 am a sonic boom - caused by a supersonic jet - was picked up by an earthquake monitor in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles away from Shanksville."


Anyone able to debunk it ?

[funk de fino]

Have you guys heard about this ?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30682

"The FBI insists there was no military plane in the area, but at 9:22 am a sonic boom - caused by a supersonic jet - was picked up by an earthquake monitor in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles away from Shanksville."


Anyone able to debunk it ?

Unsourced quote from one of the UK gutter press?

Original source would be nice to back up the claim.

[jhunter1163]

Since when do seismographs pick up sonic booms?

[Reheat]

9:22? Maybe you ought to take a look at the time line before making such a ridiculous assumption.....

[Crazytimes]

This is all good info. This moron I am arguing with keeps telling me to explain the sonic boom. Thanks guys

[ElMondoHummus]

Well, there are 38 USGS Seismograph stations listed in Pennsylvania (http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/station_book/Pennsylvania_USA.html). I suppose someone could brute-force request seismic data from that date and time from all of them... not a fun task though...

[Jonnyclueless]

9:22? Maybe you ought to take a look at the time line before making such a ridiculous assumption.....

:dl:

It probably originally came from the Star of India.

[gumboot]

A seisomograph would not pick up a sonic boom.

[TC329]

9:22? Maybe you ought to take a look at the time line before making such a ridiculous assumption.....

yeah it couldn't possibly be a fighter jet on its way to new york there weren't any around, right reheat?

[jhunter1163]

TC, I'll type this slower so it's easier to read. A seismograph would not pick up a sonic boom.

[ElMondoHummus]

Since when do seismographs pick up sonic booms?

A seisomograph would not pick up a sonic boom.

TC, I'll type this slower so it's easier to read. A seismograph would not pick up a sonic boom.

Guys, I hate to say this, but seismographs can indeed pick sonic booms up:

http://www.earthquakes.bgs.ac.uk/monitoring/index.html


Seismologists are able to discriminate between earthquakes and the large number of other signals (such as quarry blasts, explosions, sonic booms and collapses ) which are recorded in addition to earthquakes...

... Most seismic events occur naturally but some are triggered by human activities such as mining, and other tremors (eg. sonic booms and explosions) are often mistaken for earthquakes...


My bolding for emphasis. Also note that there's an example of a seismographic reading of an actual sonic boom. The point is that such booms can indeed be captured by seismographs. Now, are all? Good question; I don't know.

But that's all irrelevant. The real question is whether the report of a sonic boom at that time in that area is accurate. Every single mention I've seen on the net was the same detail-lacking claim, zero context, zero attribution. With no source cited, plus considering the sources making the claim, I'm not ready to accept it at face value; this reads just like other claims passed around with no attribution, and ultimately refuted when the proper context is discovered.

I'm thinking about seeing if I have the time to query the Pennsylvania seismographic monitoring stations to see if they have archived raw data from those dates. But I'm hoping to find info narrowing down which of the 38 stations supposedly detected that event. I don't really feel like querying each and every station. Plus, there's also the time involved. And on top of that, I am no trained geologist or seismologist; I'd need one of you guys to interpret them for me if I got them. So I'm disinclined, but I am thinking about it.

-------

There's also another way to approach this. Is ATC radar or other aircraft tracking data viewable by the public? I'd like to see if there's any confirmation of non-commercial aircraft over Pennsylvania at that time. Granted, that's a tall order; there are dozens to hundreds of aircraft in the air at any given time, so discrimination would be difficult at best. On top of that, obtaining seismographic data would probably be eaiser to obtain. But, my point is that this is another way to investigate this claim.

[njslim]

World Net Daily is a right wing internet publication - know for its occasional wild claims

Sometimes half joking called "WORLD NUT DAILY" - Drudgereport links to it

It is NOT a quasi Fascist anti semitic rag like others. It is strong supporter of Israel

[TC329]

TC, I'll type this slower so it's easier to read. A seismograph would not pick up a sonic boom.

looks like typing slower didn't improve your intelligence in any form...........

[Jonnyclueless]

Where's the Ka-boom? The earth shattering Ka-boom?

[jhunter1163]

looks like typing slower didn't improve your intelligence in any form...........

Coming from you, Dom, that's hilarious. I didn't know you had that kind of humor in you.

And you might as well knock it off with the insults. We see your game, and we're not going to report you and give you the satisfaction of getting banned so you can run around saying "they couldn't handle me at JREF!"

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

[TC329]

Coming from you, Dom, that's hilarious. I didn't know you had that kind of humor in you.

And you might as well knock it off with the insults. We see your game, and we're not going to report you and give you the satisfaction of getting banned so you can run around saying "they couldn't handle me at JREF!"

We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

how is what you said not an insult and what i said in return to you an insult?

:eek:

[jhunter1163]

OK, Dom. Here goes. I was wrong about seismographs not picking up sonic booms. See how easy that was?

Now, what evidence do you have that what was picked up by the seismograph at 9:22 on 9/11 was a sonic boom, other than that unconfirmed and unattributed World Net Daily story?

[ElMondoHummus]

All right. We do not know which monitoring station recorded a sonic boom. Assuming one did, and assuming the interpretation of the event is correct, then what could have caused that? This could not have been the Langley fighters; they only launched at that time, plus they were sent out over the Atlantic. They could not have been the Otis fighters either, because those were sent over Long Island at 9:07. No other fighters I'm aware of were scrambled in the timeframe under discussion. Gumboot, have I missed anything here? I don't recall anything other than the Langley and Otis fighters being in the air at this point.

Again, that all is working on the assumption that the sonic boom was indeed a sonic boom, therefore this conversation is theoretical. I still want to see the seismic claim at minimum sourced before drawing too many conclusions from it.

[T.A.M.]

Have you guys heard about this ?

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30682

"The FBI insists there was no military plane in the area, but at 9:22 am a sonic boom - caused by a supersonic jet - was picked up by an earthquake monitor in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles away from Shanksville."


Anyone able to debunk it ?

Well, given the only "evidence" for this is an UNSOURCED comment in one internet website article, I would say it is as easy to debunk as...

"Last year I jumped 35 feet in the air using no form of assistance."

Anyone able to debunk it?

TAM:)

[Caustic Logic]

I do remember hearing about this years back, and thinking it was good evidence for a shoot-down. But looking at it again...

The quote:
"The FBI insists there was no military plane in the area, but at 9:22 am a sonic boom - caused by a supersonic jet - was picked up by an earthquake monitor in southern Pennsylvania, 60 miles away from Shanksville."

Does the monitor know what causes the spike? Who decided it was a sonic boom? So a seismograph may pick up a sonic boom. I don't see why not. If it puts pressure on the ground, it would register, if just a tiny spike.

To find out more, EMH provided that handy link. 38 stations statewide, only so many within app. 60 miles of the crash site. That narrows it down, but still too much checking for the moment to even compile a list...

Time: 9:22. Official hijacking time if I'm not mistaken is 9:28, some reports say FAA reported it so at 9:16. It was either leaving PA or entering Ohio at the time (http://911review.org/brad.com/Woodybox/ual93_full.gif), not ever turned around yet, nowhere near the crash time of 10:06.

So we have a possible sonic boom from a supersonic aircraft in the area 93 crashed 44 minutes prior to that crash. Was this craft passing through west after 93? Was it the white plane some reported seeing back there again at crash time, and if so any evidence that mysterious plane was armed?

Or was it some other event, like some dynamiting or a busy day at the local "Curves"? Or perhaps just a BS story the Mirror included just because it fit?

[Cheap Shot]

Is it possible that the Otis Fighters at 9:22 were near the edge of W-105 just outside of NYC. NYC falls within 60 miles of the eastern portion of PA. At some point those two fighters probably pushed the envelope and opened it up. There is your boom at 9:22.

[jberryhill]

"Last year I jumped 35 feet in the air using no form of assistance."

Anyone able to debunk it?

Debunk it?

No need.

How many times did you jump?

[Crazytimes]

Yeah, it looks like the timeline is off.

Flight 93 took off at 8:42am. So at 9:22 their was a sonic boom ? Doesnt make sense.

[ElMondoHummus]

Well, I think the potential argument would be that it establishes (supposedly) the presence of a military aircraft in the area before Flight 93 got there, therefore providing background for the possibility of a shootdown.

Given that the wreckage argues against a shootdown, it's really irrelevent minutiae. I only participated out of an academic sense of wanting to see where the charge led. Even if against all odds a military aircraft were established to have been around Fliight 93 and in range of shooting it down, that establishes nothing because the crash itself doesn't indicate anything other than an controlled descent into the ground. The supposed presence of a supposed military aircraft contradicts nothing more than the point statement by "the government" that there was no fighter in the area, and that's all it would contradict if it were true. Which is yet not even remotely established (unless you count CheapShot's note about the Otis fighters, and while they may have indeed caused the sonic boom in question, I don't consider them "in the area". New York City is indeed close to eastern Pennsylvania, but Shanksville is just under 300 miles away. Given that the seismographic station mentioned was 60 miles away from Shanksville, I'm hard pressed to see how fighters over Long Island caused waves detectible in Shanksville, but I can't rule it out. Regardless, they may have caused the seismographic spikes, but they couldn't have participated in a shootdown, not at that distance).

[Mangoose]

This is the source of the claim:

http://www.flight93crash.com/flight93_seismic_event.htm

According to archive.org's Wayback Machine, this page was first cached on August 11, 2002. That is almost half a year before the WorldNetDaily editorial appeared.

In the original essay, Robb Magley gave the wave forms of the seismic event and linked to an FAQ that provided more detail. This FAQ is no longer live but can be found cached at archive.org:

http://web.archive.org/web/20020820142310/http://members.fortunecity.com/seismicevent/faq.html

Here Magley gives personal information about himself, as well as some details about the seismic data and the equipment he used to analyze it. The monitoring station was reportedly located at 40.6401N -77.8914W.

[PhantomWolf]

Even if there was one, it would indicate that the plane doing it was travelling at supersonic speeds, 40 mins later at those speeds, why would it still be in the same area? Planes don't circle at supersonic.

[ElMondoHummus]

Thanks, Mangoose!

[Mangoose]

Looks like the code for the monitoring station is SSPA. That is the location of the station via the lat long coordinates that Magley gave.

I have been searching for the data on the IRIS website, but it has been challenging. But now with the name of the station, it should be easier to narrow it down.

[Mangoose]

It is interesting that in the original article, Magley asserts that the seismic waveform has the "signature" of a sonic boom without showing us HOW it resembles a sonic boom to the exclusion of other possibilities.

If I were trying to test the sonic boom hypothesis, I would maybe take a look at the data from nearby station WRPS, which was located at Penn State University, only 10 miles away from the SSPA station in Standing Stone. I suppose it would depend on what direction a fighter is flying, but it might be reasonable to expect that a sonic boom on SSPA would also appear at Standing Stone. If there were similar events recorded at both stations, that would possibly be evidence against the seismic event being a purely local event at Standing Stone. If both events are recorded at the same moment, that might be evidence against a sonic boom (which presumably would reach the University at a different moment than Standing Stone). And if the event was recorded only at Standing Stone, that might be evidence suggesting that the event was a local one.

Of course, it would be helpful to see what magnitude the supposed event was.

[Mangoose]

I googled "SSPA" and "sonic boom" and found this very interesting letter (at http://www.usnewslink.com/flight93.htm) by someone who claims to have checked Magley's data and finds his "sonic boom" interpretation unfounded:

I've been contacted by Ed Haering, a researcher with NASA whose work with sonic booms is well-known (at least within those circles which concern themselves with such things). He was contacted by a reporter and asked to duplicate my process and give his opinion.

Put simply, he doesn't think the event was a sonic boom, and frankly, I'm inclined to agree with him. Below are salient excerpts from his email:

Dear Mr. Magley,

I was able to retrieve the SSPA data. Bottom line, I don't think what this seismograph measured on 9/11/2001 in Pennsylvania is a sonic boom.

First, for reference, see: http://www.galcit.caltech.edu/SonicBoom/f-18 especially the last plot. This is a known sonic boom, from a known aircraft, hitting a seismograph.

1) Notice that in all three directions, U(p), N(orth), and E(ast), the first downward peak happens simultaneously. It also shows the ground initially moving down, south, and east, which is consistent with the direction of the sonic boom from the F-18.

2) The time difference between the first downward peak and the first maximum peak is on the order of 0.15 seconds. This is consistent with the first plot of the website above showing 0.13 seconds for a pressure measurement of the sonic boom. The pressure plot is the same shape as the initial part of the seismograph displacement plot, just flipped vertically.

3) Prior to the sonic boom, the seismograph data is very flat, and there is oscillations after the boom that dampen out in a few seconds.

Now referring to the SSPA data, I looked at the three axes of displacement of the earth. Plots are attached to this email.

1) In the closeup plot, sspa20sec.gif, the event does not happen simultaneously in all three axes. The Z axis on the bottom plot has the event occuring a full second after the north and east axes events, which is an eternity as far as a sonic boom is concerned.

2) The duration of the event is much greater than one would expect of a sonic boom. The shape of the event is not consistent with the "N" shape of a sonic boom.

3) In the plot sspa2min.gif, there is a considerable amount of oscillations before the event in question.

I don't know what caused these wiggles, but it doesn't look like a sonic boom to me.

Sincerely,

Ed Haering

P.S. You can trust me, I'm with the Government, and I'm here to help! :-)

[ElMondoHummus]

Dude, you are whippin' me on this one. The furthest I got was querying the USGS folks at my university and being referred over to IRIS. All Hail Mangoose! :wackynotworthy:

Seriously, though, I'd also like to see that original data, and post it here to see what other folks say.

ETA: Maybe I should've read Mangoose's link to the rebuttal. The person writing it included plots that to this amateur (me) don't look like the plots the original claimant posted.

[Mangoose]

The plots provided by Haering are not live at the original links, but these have been cached as well.

Here are the plots by Magley:

http://img530.imageshack.us/img530/4313/sonicboomkn0.gif

And here are the plots by Haering:

http://img525.imageshack.us/img525/6578/asspa20seckv5.gif

(This is "sspa20sec.gif" from the above message)

http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/3343/asspa2minfk7.gif

(This is "sspa2min.gif" in the above message)

ElMondoHummus: Did you have to go to archive.org to view the plots, or did you access them on the original page?

[Mangoose]

And compare with a seismic plot of a real F-18:

http://img206.imageshack.us/img206/3923/hiroo2ig3.gif

Notice how the three axes are nearly simultaneous, as opposed to the event recorded by the seismograph at SSPA.

According to the Caltech page, this plot was:

# Obtained from Tri-Net seismograph EDW TRI at Edwards AFB, located at Lat 34.88303N, Long 117.99106W
# Sampling rate 100 Hz.
# Instrument signal deconvolved to displacement, with passband 0.3 - 40 Hz.
# The record shows that the N-wave pushes the earth down about 0.4 microns and then pulls it up by about the same amount (U).

http://web.archive.org/web/20021203065950/www.galcit.caltech.edu/SonicBoom/f-18/

[Mangoose]

Presumably the author of the email is this guy:

http://www.dfrc.nasa.gov/Gallery/Photo/People/HTML/ED06-0008-1.html

And here is an article about Haering's work with sonic booms:

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/technology/sonicboom_techwed_042104.html

If Haering could confirm that he wrote the email giving his expert opinion, then I think that gives an adequate response to the question in the OP.

[ElMondoHummus]

ElMondoHummus: Did you have to go to archive.org to view the plots, or did you access them on the original page?

I quickly breezed through the links you provided up above.

[Mangoose]

Crazytimes: Does this help ya?

[Crazytimes]

Crazytimes: Does this help ya?

It does, thank you very much.