Pentagon DNA Evidence....Is it Possible?

The following is information that shows the who's and how's of the collection of DNA evidence and the morbid tasks of identifying victims of flight 77 and the victims that died in the Pentagon. Please keep in mind, 5 bodies were not able to be identified as it was impossible to match what was left with the five missing people. Army Major James Cassella, a Pentagon spokesman stated in November of 2001, that they have exhausted all their scientific leads but were unable to match 5 of the victims.

First of all. In the beginning minutes post attacks, DMORT teams were dispatched to two of the sites. NY City WTC Coplex & the Pentagon. Teams were dispatched to Shanksville on September 13th.

For those that do not know, DMORT stands for Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team. They are a Federal Level Response team designed to provide mortuary assistance in the case of a mass fatality incident or cemetery related incident. They work under the local jurisdictional authorities such as Coroner/Medical Examiners, Law Enforcement and Emergency Managers. Please keep in mind that they are comprised of voluntary medical, forensic and mortuary professionals.

How do they do it?
DMORT assists in identifying victims pretty much in a two step process that uses a sophisticated computer program for matching physical characteristics. They gather information from the families to assist them. X-rays, known tatoos, scars, Dental Records..Something that may contain DNA evidence..this is called antemortem evidence. Or (pre-death). All this information is entered into a program called a WIN-VIP.

This program can assimilate 800 different item categories, including graphics, photos and x-rays. As forensic scientists (pathologists, anthropologists, odontologists) examine the recovered remains, they place their findings (that are called postmorten data) into WIN-VIP prograrm. Depending on the how much data is entered, the WIN-VIP system allows scientists to match the remains to their identity.

If you are interested, the five that were not identified:

Ronald Franklin Golinski- Colonel, United States Army
James T. Lynch -civilian electronics technician
Ronald John Hemenway -Electronics Technician, United States Navy
Rhonda Ridge Rasmussen -Department of the Army Employee
Dana Falkenberg-a passenger on Flight 77


For the Pentagon there was a team of more than 100 workers at a military morgue at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware that used several methods to identify remains but primarily relied on DNA testing and dental records.

So... what was done? How was it done? Was it possible?

Here we go:

At the centre of the identification process was the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, the main government agency for postmortem identification of bodily remains recovered from new and old military events. Its efforts were challenged by the destructiveness of the crashes; for forensic specialists, little was left to work with at either site. Nonetheless, advanced preparations for disasters proved useful, perhaps indispensable, to identification efforts. After the crashes, on-site responses were promptly provided by the federal government's regional Disaster Mortuary Operational Response Team (DMORT), a volunteer organisation of citizens and federal employees who provide forensic, mortuary, and family support services after disasters. The DMORT professional roster includes forensic pathologists, forensic anthropologists who specialise in osteology, and forensic odontologists. The crash sites were designated as federal crime scenes, so federal authorities could control access and supervise recovery of remains.

Each recovered item was then sent to radiography, photography, and DNA stations for initial identification procedures. Tissue samples from both sites were sent to the mortuary at the Dover, Delaware Air Force Base for analysis and matching with DNA samples from victims and their relatives. A team of forensic anthropologists from the army, the FBI, and the Smithsonian Institution was assembled and, mindful of the need to bring closure to grieving families, worked to identify victims as quickly as possible, working long shifts 7 days a week. This team was led by William C Rodriguez III, one of 51 board-certified forensic anthropologists in the USA, who is often summoned to solve difficult criminal cases. These experts generated a DNA profile from each tissue sample received, and also developed a DNA profile from known reference specimens, such as tissue from biopsy samples, Pap smears, extracted teeth, and saliva from toothbrushes. Surviving relatives provided blood samples. The scientists then analysed the DNA profiles for potential matches.

At the Pentagon, identification efforts ended on Nov 16, 2001; 179 of the 184 victims were identified, plus five profiles that did not match family reference materials, thought, therefore, to be the terrorists. No biological material was recovered for the remaining five people in the building or on the aeroplane.

To view the entire text:

www.thelancet.com...

Please note that this article requires a registration. If you wold like to use my username and password please u2u me.

I hope this explains that yes indeed that all but 5 victims from the Pentagon attack were identified.

Here is a very good article that explains is great detail the processes:

Naming the Dead — Confronting the Realities of
Rapid Identification of Degraded Skeletal Remains
S. M. Edson, J. P. Ross, M. D. Coble, T. J. Parsons, and S. M. Barritt
Armed Forces DNA Identification Laboratory
Rockville, Maryland
United States of America

www.cstl.nist.gov...


Other Sources:
1-www.dmort.org...
2-en.wikipedia.org...]DMORT
3-www.hbo.com...
4-www.arlingtoncemetery.net...




[edit on 16-3-2008 by CaptainObvious]

Out of interest, were the alleged hijackers positively identified through this same process? If not, what method was used?

reply to post by coughymachine


Good question Coughy.

The FBI i believe had some evidence to match remains. I believe that process of elimination was used as well.

This is interesting:

The only two brothers who died at the Pentagon on 9/11 were hijackers Nawaf and Salem al-Hamzi. Remains of two brothers were identified by DNA: "The DNA results strengthened the hypothesis that two of the terrorists were brothers, as indicated by other evidence. Two of the terrorist STR profiles aboard the AA Flight 77 gave a sibling index greater than 500. To further test the hypothesis of maternal relatedness, AFDIL sequenced the HVI and HVII regions of mtDNA for these individuals. The sequences generated did match in HVI and HVII, which is consistent with a maternal relationship between the two men.

www.cstl.nist.gov...

This is a great article that shows again how the remains were identified.

That's a bit weighty for me at this time of night. I'm just about to hit the sack so I'll take a look tomorrow.

I'd also be interested in reading the full Lancet article - a u2u will be on its way shortly.

Whether or not it's hypothetically "possible" to recover the DNA this evidence is automatically invalid.

To accept it as valid one must work off pure unadulterated faith in the government.

Faith based evidence is not scientific.

Nobody knows where it really came from.

The individuals who analyzed the DNA are not the same people who allegedly recovered it from the Pentagon.

The suspect completely controlled the chain of custody and provided all of this information on their own time therefore it is invalid evidence in support of their story.

No court of law would accept DNA analysis reports that were conducted solely by the defendant!

reply to post by Craig Ranke CIT


Craig,

YOU claim it's invalid. I was asked by another member if it was possible for DNA evidence to survive. It has been proven that it is.

Now, your claim is that somehow human remains of the 64 peolpe aboard flight 77 got "planted" with those that were in the Pentagon.

Let me ask you Craig... how was this done? Where is your proof?

Do you know how evidence was gathered? Did you investigate THAT?

"I did see airplane seats and a corpse still strapped to one of the seats."

–Capt. Jim Ingledue, Virginia Beach Fire Dept.

I don't know. Maybe it's me, but I may question someone walking into a blown up building with a charred body strapped to a burnt airline seat.

Have you spoken to Jim Ingledue? Did you investigate that? Remeber you guys are leaving no stone unturned in your persuit of justice.

Let me know what Captain Ingledue says after you speak with him.

thanks

I kind of figured this thread would turn into a flyover or missile debate....

Here ya go....




Again... Has CIT investigated him?

From Craig Ranke:

The individuals who analyzed the DNA are not the same people who allegedly recovered it from the Pentagon.

The suspect completely controlled the chain of custody and provided all of this information on their own time therefore it is invalid evidence in support of their story.

Ok Craig....

During the past five days, intense heat from fires, coupled with the debris and dangers of a collapsed building, slowed rescuers from getting to the victims, officials have said.

But day by day, the specially trained firefighters from Urban Search and Rescue teams from Virginia, Maryland and Tennessee erected support beams and air-bag devices to stabilize the structure.

Inch by inch, they are combing the structure, having debris hoisted out of the way to search pockets for survivors.

They’ve come across none.

When the firefighters find a body, they call in FBI agents, who photograph the remains before they are moved, Cassella said.

Rescuers then remove the bodies and take them to a tented makeshift morgue set up on the Pentagon grounds. There, the bodies are again photographed and then processed for eventual transport to Dover, either by helicopter or van, Cassella said.

Every casualty found in the Pentagon, whether active duty or civilian, a Pentagon employee or passenger on the airliner, is taken to Dover.

www.stripes.com...

So, with your quote above, should I assume that the firefighters that were finding the bodies were in on it?

The suspect completely controlled the chain of custody and provided all of this information on their own time therefore it is invalid evidence in support of their story.

I've had to walk the scene of jet crash (Lear) marking out body parts
for the coroner to recover. It is not a pleasant task. So Craig - how
about the next time there is a major disaster instead of a DMORT team
we call you and your gang of clowns to do the body recovery. That
way you can not say later that the chian of custody was violated
and the bodies planted......

Originally posted by CaptainObvious
reply to post by Craig Ranke CIT

 

Craig,

YOU claim it's invalid. I was asked by another member if it was possible for DNA evidence to survive. It has been proven that it is.

Now, your claim is that somehow human remains of the 64 peolpe aboard flight 77 got "planted" with those that were in the Pentagon.

Let me ask you Craig... how was this done? Where is your proof?

Do you know how evidence was gathered? Did you investigate THAT?

There is nothing to investigate. The entire process was completely controlled by the government therefore this is invalid evidence in support of their story.

This is common sense.

The difference between us is that I insist on using the scientific method by demanding independent verifiable evidence while your approach is purely faith based as you categorically accept whatever the government tells you even if it is totally unverifiable.

Me: Critical thinking skeptic who demands verifiable evidence.
You: Faith based government follower who believes what he is told.

Originally posted by CaptainObvious

Again... Has CIT investigated him?

As a matter of fact we HAVE investigated Mike Walter.

You didn't know that we had dinner at his house?

He was rather candid with us.

Unfortunately he isn't able to keep his story straight.

We expose some of the contradictions in this presentation:

Google Video Link

And we have more to reveal in the future.

Thanks for asking.

Originally posted by CaptainObvious

So, with your quote above, should I assume that the firefighters that were finding the bodies were in on it?

Huh?

Why would they be?

There were about 130 people killed inside the Pentagon. I have never denied this.

No doubt the "airplane seat" that Ingledue thought he saw was simply a charred up office chair.

Had to have been because the plane was on the north side of the citgo.

I gotta agree with Craig on this, Mr. Ingledue most likely saw a charred chair with an unfortunate pentagon employee sitting in it.

Originally posted by CaptainObvious
I hope this explains that yes indeed that all but 5 victims from the Pentagon attack were identified.

But you left out the major point that Dr. Robert Shaler, the director of the WTC DNA identification effort requested NIST DNA experts come up with new testing becasue of the traditional methods for performing DNA would not work.

These new test did not come out untill 2002, after the lists of bodies ID'd came out.

www.nist.gov...

Due to the nature of the World Trade Center disaster, it quickly became evident that traditional methods for performing DNA typing were not likely to be fully successful in identifying all of the recovered remains. Traditional DNA ID methods depend on the presence of long, intact segments of DNA in order to accurately type the sample. The DNA in many of the samples recovered in this situation were so fragmented that these standard methods were ineffective.

In early November 2001, Dr. Robert Shaler, the director of the WTC DNA identification effort, contacted me and asked if I would be willing to develop some new DNA tests to help in the identification effort. I agreed to fast track our research efforts over the next several months and produce some test materials for his laboratory to try by January 2002.

Also there is no evidence that any of the bodies from Flight 77 were in the Pentagon.

reply to post by ULTIMA1

Dr. Robert Shaler, the director of the WTC DNA identification effort

Ultima,

You are talking about the WTC. Not the Pentagon. Read the links and it will show you how this happened.

Thanks


[edit on 17-3-2008 by CaptainObvious]

reply to post by Craig Ranke CIT


"I did see airplane seats and a corpse still strapped to one of the seats."

What don't you get? He saw him STRAPPED. You can't pick and choose ONLY what you want to fit. Thats not how it works.







[edit on 17-3-2008 by CaptainObvious]

Originally posted by Craig Ranke CIT



Me: Critical thinking skeptic who demands verifiable evidence.
You: Faith based government follower who believes what he is told.

You: Paranoid truther that ignores eveidence

Me: Looks at ALL evidence to come to a conclusion

reply to post by CaptainObvious


Your avatar is annoying and makes it hard to read. Could you please not use an animated avatar, or if you must, make it less distracting.

Back on topic, I wonder how the authorities had the initial sample DNA of the hijackers. They would need this to match it up with any remains they found.

On another note, assuming DNA survived and they found bodies from the planes, how were they able to take samples of that DNA after the buildings fell? I very much doubt they had time before it fell. They would have been to busy getting people out.

reply to post by rizla


Rizla. My Avatar has been approved by the mods here. You don't like it? Put me on ignore.

Once again. All your questions have been answered in my OP. As far as the WTC goes. This is a thread about the Pentagon DNA evidence. IF you would like to start a thread about the WTC, please feel free.
FYI I believe only 1,594 of the 2,749 victims were identified through DNA evidence. That means over 1,100 victims were not identifed. If someone has any more info on the WTC identification status...please start a new thread.

Originally posted by CaptainObvious

Originally posted by Craig Ranke CIT



Me: Critical thinking skeptic who demands verifiable evidence.
You: Faith based government follower who believes what he is told.

You: Paranoid truther that ignores eveidence

Me: Looks at ALL evidence to come to a conclusion

Ahhh so you admit that you accept unverifiable faith based claims as evidence.

Sorry but I don't.

Real scientists and investigators don't either.

At least this thread was useful in that it was able to get you to clarify your position and approach to 9/11 research.

You are perfectly willing to compromise the scientific method in order to support what you are told by the government.


(I bet this does not come as a surprise to the readers)