What Happened to Russell Pickering's
Website Pentagonresearch.com?
By:
Citizen Investigation Team
January 27, 2012
Russell Pickering was arguably the
most well known 9/11 Pentagon event
researcher for a few years prior to
December 2007 when he dramatically
"quit" the truth movement as
documented
here. He was the creator and
owner of the now defunct website
pentagonresearch.com that is cited
numerous times in David Ray
Griffin's book "Debunking 9/11
Debunking". An archive of his
site from February 2007 can be found
here (cached
backup).
Citizen Investigation Team (CIT) spent a
few days with Russell in person
during our very first research trip to
Arlington, VA in late August 2006
while we were volunteering as
research consultants to the 9/11
documentary "Loose Change
Final Cut" by Dylan Avery.
We respected some of Russell's work
that he had already published at the time
even if we disagreed with his conclusions. The relationship
started out amicable but turned
progressively ugly after we returned
to Arlington a second time (without
him and Dylan) in
November of 2006 to obtain the
witness interviews
at the former Citgo proving that the
plane flew north of the gas station and
therefore did not hit
the light poles or Pentagon.
Russell had a reputation for being
professional, logical, and
even-tempered, but after we obtained
this evidence he started emotionally
spiraling out of control while
desperately working to cast doubt
on our findings with
an aggressive
campaign against us personally.
Before we met Russell in person on
our first
research trip he had already
proclaimed to us his belief that a large
airplane hit the Pentagon. He
suggested that it was not piloted by
alleged hijacker Hani Hanjour as
claimed by the government but that
it was likely "remote controlled"
into the building. He had no
evidence to support this claim and
merely asserted it as his
unsubstantiated belief.
During this 2006 research trip
Russell started expressing concern
and frustration with his research
as he states in the following two
minute video:
Despite
this dramatically expressed extreme
uncertainty with his findings and
conclusions, only a few days after
we returned he was all of the sudden
more sure than ever of a large
plane impact. September 18th,
2006 he said:
"My official statement
now on the Pentagon is that
something with a wingspan of greater
than 100 feet but less than 140 hit
the building. [...] If I were asked
what my belief is, it is that a 757
hit the building..." -original source
(cached backup
-
screenshot)
Notice how Russell does not cite
anything new to explain what lifted
the frustration he expressed in the
video less than 30 days prior.
His certainty in the official impact
narrative only continued to grow as we
proceeded to uncover overwhelming
evidence proving otherwise. Instead
of providing counter-evidence, he
responded with steadily increased
personal attacks against us, a
reaction that discredits him as a
logical 9/11 truth seeker.
He was further discredited in August
2007 when he let it slip that he
found out about the north side
witness a day before we all visited
the Citgo station together. This is
explained and sourced
here.
This is significant because all of
us (including Dylan) remembered that
Russell first mentioned the witness
after we arrived at the
station. This means he
withheld that information for a day
until he knew we would likely find
out about it ourselves and he felt
he had no choice but to tell us.
We were supposed to share all of our
findings with each other as the trip
progressed in order to keep each
other honest, yet Russell withheld
key information likely hoping
that we would go home the next day
without ever discovering it.
Russell was well aware that a plane
on the north side could not possibly
have created the damage trail,
obviously making this critical
information that he should have
immediately shared with us.
Pickering eventually removed
his entire website with all of his
"research" from the internet and, as
already mentioned and sourced in the
beginning of this essay, he
quit 9/11 research all together.
The only thing we are aware that he
has published regarding 9/11 since
then was titled "My Pentagon
Manifesto (In Retrospect)"
which was published in the beginning
of 2011 at a variety of websites
(archived
here). If you search the
title you may notice that
in some places his name has been
removed. It seems as though
Russell has made an effort
within the last few weeks to erase
his name from the internet in an
attempt to hide his significant history with the 9/11
truth movement. In light of this
effort, this essay is meant to
document for the historical record
our experience dealing with his
subversive behavior. As made clear
in his "manifesto", Russell
authoritatively states that be
believes with "100% certainty an
aircraft hit the Pentagon" and even
goes so far as to call it a
"physical fact". Of course he
ignores the fact that we have
continued our investigation and have
provided an
overwhelming amount of
additional evidence validating our
initial findings since he "quit" at
the end of 2007.
Since Russell has removed himself
from the discussion we have had to
deal with several other entities who
claim to be part of the 9/11 truth
movement but dedicate a significant amount of energy to
fraudulently casting aspersions on
our findings and our characters.
Details regarding much of that and
responses to their arguments are
provided in a comprehensive essay
that can be found
here.
We highly recommend that everyone
who may have heard about these
accusations takes the
time to read that essay in full in order
to get both sides of the argument. This will
help you to understand the scope and
context of the numerous attacks
against us from those who have followed
Russell Pickering's lead.
The fact that CIT is still around
exposing the 9/11 deception
while our detractors keep falling by
the wayside only to be replaced by
other shadowy entities says it
all. Respected media
critic Barrie Zwicker put it best in
his
endorsement of our work:
"Arguably no single group is
being targeted more toxically than
the honest citizen detectives of
CIT. That this disinformation
campaign is being waged is a signal
tribute to the historic importance
of CITs work -- work that must be
supported unflaggingly."
