9/11 conspiracy theories

Template:Sep11 Template:911tm Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have emerged about the attacks which contradict the mainstream account of those events. The theories typically include suggestions that individuals in (or associated with) the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge, or that the attacks were a false flag operation carried out with the intention of stirring up the passions and buying the allegiance of the American people. Some conspiracy theorists have claimed that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition. Some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon, and that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down. The mainstream scientific community does not support the controlled demolition hypothesis and U.S. officials, mainstream journalists, and mainstream researchers have concluded that responsibility for the attacks rests solely with Al Qaeda.

Origins and reception

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CNN broadcast of September 11 destruction when the second plane struck the south tower of the WTC.

Since the September 11 attacks, a number of websites, books, and films have challenged the mainstream account of the attacks. Although mainstream media has stated that al-Qaeda "conspired" to execute the attacks on the World Trade Center in the legal sense, a 9/11 conspiracy theory generally refers to a belief in a broad conspiracy, in which the attacks were executed by powerful groups often including government agencies or an alleged secret global network. Many groups and individuals challenging the official account identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Initially, 9/11 conspiracy theories received little attention in the media. In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories ... that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty." Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and the Bush Administration issued refutations to the theories, including a formal response by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center, a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories, and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declares that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."

In August 2004, a Zogby International poll indicated that 49.3% New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens "overall" say US Leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act". In July 2006, a Scripps Howard and Ohio University poll concluded that "Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them", "sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings" and "twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists." A May 2006 Zogby International poll indicated that 42% of Americans more likely agree with people who believe that "the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up." A September 2006 Ipsos-Reid poll found that 22 percent of Canadians believe "the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and were actually a plot by influential Americans." An October 2006 New York Times and CBS news poll showed that 28 percent believe members of the Bush Administration are mostly lying about "what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States."

Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, a flurry of mainstream news articles on 9/11 conspiracy theories were released. In its coverage Time Magazine stated, "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality." Mainstream coverage has generally presented these theories as a cultural phenomenon and is often very critical of their content.

The mainstream account

Immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government said the attacks were carried out by members of the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden. On the morning of September 11, the government said, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes by using knives, box cutters, pepper spray and fake explosives. They piloted the planes themselves and crashed these into the World Trade Center and The Pentagon. According to mainstream scientific account, the World Trade Center towers later collapsed due to the impact damage, removal of the fire protection and the intense fires. Due to the collapse of World Trade Center One and Two, surrounding World Trade Center buildings were heavily damaged as well, leading in turn to their complete or partial collapse. United Airlines Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania later that day after passengers heard of the previous attacks in air phone and cell phone conversations and brought the plane down.

Soon after the 9/11 attacks, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and FEMA conducted building performance studies at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Intelligence Committees of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate conducted a Joint Inquiry in 2002. U.S. government officials, such as Condoleeza Rice, said they had no advance knowledge of the attacks and no idea that such a thing might happen. Organizations representing the victims' families such as the Jersey Girls demanded further investigation and, after initial reluctance, the administration acceded to their request. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission was formed tasked with “not placing individual blame” but providing an explanation as to what happened and making recommendations to prevent a recurrence. In 2004 the commission released its report. It disclosed that there were prior warnings of varying detail that the United States would be attacked by al-Qaeda. These were ignored, the report said, due to a lack of communication between various law enforcement and intelligence personnel. For the lack of interagency communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws passed in the 1970s to prevent abuses that resulted in major scandals during that era. The report also faulted both the Clinton and the Bush administration with “failure of imagination”. The explanation laid out in the report has been endorsed by most members of both major political parties, and is what conspiracy theorists refer to as "the official account" of the September, 2001 attacks, which only focuses on government sources.

In addition to government investigations and sources that comprise the "official account" that conspiracy theorists look to, the September 11, 2001 attacks have been documented and analyzed by numerous non-government sources. These include eyewitnesses, investigations by the National Fire Protection Association and other organizations, experts at Purdue University and Northwestern University, and news media throughout the world, including Al Jazeera, The Times of India, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the BBC, Le Monde, Deutsche Welle, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), and The Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.

Main approaches

9/11 conspiracy theories generally start with dissatisfaction with the official explanation of 9/11. But criticism of the official account does not in and of itself constitute a conspiracy theory. 9/11 conspiracy theories constitute a strong version of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

The weak version, which does not directly imply a conspiracy, merely suspects that government agencies, including the military and intelligence communities, dealt incompetently with the 9/11 attacks. It may go as far as suggesting that the 9/11 Commission Report covered up these alleged incompetencies and even that part of the incompetence involved inappropriate reactions to advanced warnings. While 9/11 conspiracy theories often include such claims, they go further to suggest intentional activities that either facilitated or directly caused the attacks. There are two main categories of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

1. Key individuals within the government and defense establishment "let it happen on purpose" (LIHOP). That is, they knew the attacks were coming (though there is a range of opinion about how specific their knowledge was) and undertook to weaken America's defenses sufficiently to ensure a successful major terrorist attack on home soil.
2. Key individuals within the government and defense establishment "made it happen on purpose" (MIHOP). That is, they planned the attacks (and here there is a range of opinion about what the plan was) and ultimately carried it into action.

Some theories go on to identify the people who had the power to either make it or let it happen purposefully. This list of suspects also varies considerably across theories.

The case for the theories is generally built on publicly available sources following a "connect the dots" approach. These sources include news reports of government actions, terrorist activities, and physical events, and a substantial amount of video footage. Part of the argument is a critique of the mainstream media for reporting individual facts without making an adequate effort to understand the connections between them. Conspiracy theories emerge from making such connections in the interpretative room left open by "unanswered questions". In some cases, conspiracy theorists will insist on the accuracy of early news reports that have since been retracted, refuted, or forgotten.

Arguments are offered to suggest both the physical possibility and circumstantial plausibility or likelihood of a given conspiracy theory and, correspondingly, to demonstrate the physical impossibility and circumstancial implausibility of the official account. Since most conspiracy theorists argue for further independent investigations of the attacks, the basic assertion is normally only that the alternative conspiracy theory is more likely than "the official conspiracy theory". The remainder of this article provides a survey of the arguments, which are generally combined by individual theorists in overlapping and sometimes incompatible ways.

Basic argument

Unlike the official account, which suggests that the perpetrators (the terrorists) got much more than they bargained for, conspiracy theorists assume that the 9/11 attacks achieved more-or-less exactly their intended result. They therefore draw conclusions about the motives for 9/11 by looking at its consequences. Among these they emphasize the powerful military presence of the US in the Middle East (implying, they say, increased control over oil and natural gas reserves), the significant increase in funding for the American military and the intelligence community, the restrictions on civil liberties (often presented as an attack on the US constitution), and a general will to rule the world through brute military force. 9/11, the argument goes, was a convenient opportunity for certain elements of the American establishment, and the Bush administration in particular, to achieve key foreign and domestic policy goals that had been determined in advance of the attacks.

Many point to the writings of neoconservative strategists to suggest that 9/11 was, at best, on their 'wish list' and, at worst, on their list of 'things to do'. The standard reference in presenting this idea has become a document titled Rebuilding America's Defenses, which was written by the Project for the New American Century. This document outlines a global strategy that conspiracy theorists say is very similar in its details to the military strategy of the War on Terror. The document includes the line "the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor." As well, evidence exists that the George W. Bush administration was preparing for war on Iraq months before 9/11. In particular, one of the government employees (O'Neill) reported the president's having said "Go find me a way to do this" (invade Iraq). David Ray Griffin and others have presented an argument that draws a parallel to a particular interpretation of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, according to which Roosevelt both provoked the attack and allowed it to happen in order to have a pretext for American entry into the second world war. Conspiracy theorists believe that 9/11 constitutes a "new Pearl Harbor" in at least this sense (LIHOP), many also adding the element of "false flag terrorism", i.e., that the attacks were organized by at least some of its supposed beneficiaries (MIHOP).

Pattern of behavior

To establish that the United States government (which some allege to have carried out the September 11, 2001 attacks) would be willing to use a staged incident to generate support for an armed conflict (which some conspiracy theorists say was the purpose behind the attacks) conspiracy theorists have often pointed to Operation Northwoods. This plan, which was proposed by U.S. Department of Defense leaders in 1962 during the Kennedy administration, was meant to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. The plan suggested various false flag actions, including simulated or real state sponsored acts on U.S. and Cuban soil.The plans had the written approval of all of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and were presented to President Kennedy's defense secretary, Robert McNamara, in March 1962. The plan, however, was rejected by the Kennedy administration.

Peter Dale Scott points out what he says are similarities between the assassination of JFK and the events of 9/11. Among many arguments he makes is that on September 11, at 9:59 the FBI already had names of 3 out of the 4 hijackers of Flight 93, at which time NORAD, according to the 9/11 Commission, wasn't yet aware that Flight 93 had been hijacked. (This Scott finds similiar to the situation when Oswald's description was released immediately after the JFK assassination).

Government foreknowledge

One theory is that individuals within the United States government and private sector knew of the impending attacks and purposefully failed to act on that knowledge. Former British Environment Minister Michael Meacher is among those who have suggested this possibility. The theory does not necessarily suggest that individuals within the US Government actually conducted the operation, but rather that they had enough information to have prevented the attack.

Intelligence issues

Shortly after the attacks, David Schippers, the chief prosecutor for the impeachment of Bill Clinton, stated that the government had been warned in 1995 about a future attack on a government building and that later he was contacted by three FBI agents who mentioned uncovering a possible terrorist attack planned for lower Manhattan.

• According to the story, as the agents informed their superiors they were briefed not to pursue the issue and threatened with prosecution. David Schippers declared, "Five weeks before the September 11 tragedy, I did my best to get a hold of Attorney General John Ashcroft with my concerns." According to Mr. Schippers, Ashcroft responded that they (the Justice Department) do not start investigations at the top.
• Mr. Schippers has said the information dated back to a 1995 warning that indicated a possible terrorist attack planned for lower Manhattan using a nuclear device.
• Author William Norman Grigg furthered the Schippers story in his article "Did We Know What Was Coming?" According to the article, three unnamed veteran federal law enforcement agents confirmed "the information provided to Schippers was widely known within the Bureau before September 11."

Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA) has asserted that over a year before the 9/11 attacks, a classified US intelligence unit known as "Able Danger" identified Mohammed Atta and three other future 9/11 hijackers as likely members of an Al Qaeda cell operating in the US. (Able Danger was managed by SOCOM, the military's Special Operations Command.)

• The team recommended that the information be shared with the FBI, but SOCOM rejected the recommendation. (New York Times, “Four in 9/11 Plot Are Called Tied to Qaeda in '00”, 8/9/2005)
• Acting Pentagon Inspector General Thomas Gimble in a 71-page report given to Defense Department officials in September 2006 dismissed claims that an Army intelligence unit code-named Able Danger uncovered data that could have thwarted the September 11 attacks, saying the allegations could not be substantiated. "Able Danger team members did not identify Mohamed Atta or any other 9/11 hijacker," "In fact, Able Danger produced no actionable intelligence information"
• Reacting to the Pentagon report, Rep. Weldon said, "The report trashes the reputations of military officers who had the courage to step forward and ... describe important work they were doing to track al-Qaida prior to 9/11". 9/11 Commission co-chairman Thomas Kean said he hoped the report would put an end to discussion about Able Danger. "After this I don't know where it can go"
• Pentagon officials, however, said they have found three more individuals who recall an intelligence chart identifying Mohamed Atta as a terrorist one year prior to the attacks.

• FBI agent and Al-Qaeda expert John P. O'Neill warned of an Al-Qaeda threat to the United States in the year preceding the attacks. He retired from his position in mid 2001 after an undisclosed source leaked information to the New York Times about an investigation into an incident that had occurred 13 months earlier. He was then recruited to be chief of security at the World Trade Center. His body was found in a staircase inside the south tower rubble.

Possible early warning

• On September 12, 2001, The San Francisco Chronicle reported that San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown may have received an early warning of the attack, because Brown had said a phone call from his airport security eight hours before the attacks advised him that Americans should be cautious about their air travel. He did not cancel his flight plans until he became aware of the attacks.
• Of the call, Brown said it "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement. It was not an abnormal call. I'm always concerned if my flight is going to be on time, and they always alert me when I ought to be careful."

Plan to have Taliban expel Bin Ladin or be overthrown agreed to one day before 9/11

Niaz Naik, a former Pakistani diplomat, told the BBC that senior U.S. officials told him in mid-July 2001 that U.S. military action against Afghanistan would be commenced by the middle of October 2001, unless Bin Laden was handed over. Naik told the BBC he "was in no doubt that after the World Trade Center bombings this pre-existing US plan had been built upon and would be implemented within two or three weeks," and that he doubted the plan would be halted even if bin Laden were handed over. (BBC News, 18 September 2001, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm last visited Nov. 5, 2006). The 9/11 commission released information prior to it's hearings that a plan that senior Bush officials agreed upon on one day before the 9/11 attacks featured three phases aimed at forcing the Taliban to expel bin Laden. The United States would initially use diplomacy to persuade the Taliban to expel bin Laden and, if that failed, conduct a covert program aimed at “encouraging anti-Taliban Afghans to attack al-Qaida bases.” If those steps failed, the senior Bush administration officials “agreed that the United States would seek to overthrow the Taliban regime through more direct action”

Allegations of insider trading by people with foreknowledge

News accounts in the aftermath reported a suspicious pattern of trading in the options of United and American Airlines as well as Morgan Stanley and other unusual market activity.

• In a statement to the 9/11 Commission in 2003, Mindy Kleinberg, of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, said:

"Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account."

However, according to the 9/11 Commission, the SEC and FBI examined each trade, the trades were innocuous, and no evidence of a connection was found:

A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10, the Commission said. Similarly, the Commission said, much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, that recommended these trades.

• Numerous conspiracy theorists express doubts that the Commission was actually able to explain worldwide trading patterns around the 9/11 attacks.

World Trade Center collapse as controlled demolition

Main article: Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center

See also: Collapse of the World Trade Center

The collapse of the World Trade Center was a surprise to the engineering community. While no skyscraper had ever before completely collapsed due to fire or other local damage, three skyscrapers collapsed on September 11, 2001. The challenge for engineers was then to explain how the local damage caused by the airplanes (or, in the case of WTC 7, falling debris) was able to occasion a global progressive collapse. After an intensive three-year investigation, the National Institute of Standards and Technology published an account that has been largely accepted in the engineering community. The official collapse mechanism refers only to the aircraft impacts and the subsequent fires, which are taken to have caused sufficient structural damage to occasion the collapses. Conspiracy theorists emphasize that the only precedents for global collapse before 9/11 are controlled demolitions, and demand a more thorough investigation of this possibility.

The controlled demolition hypothesis plays a central, albeit not essential, role in the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis and published their observations online. David Ray Griffin included the theory in his book The New Pearl Harbor. It received its most notable proponent to date in early 2006, when Steven E. Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, argued that a "gravity driven collapse" without demolition charges would defy the laws of physics.

There is a range of opinion about the most likely sort and amount of explosives, the way they were distributed, and how they were successfully brought into the building. Some conspiracy theorists propose a regular controlled demolition, in which the role of the demolition charges would have been to remove the main structural supports in order to let gravity and the weight of the building do the rest. Steven Jones believes that thermite (thermate), perhaps in combination with other devices, was likely involved. Critics often argue that the difficulty of preparing the building for demolition without being noticed makes controlled demolition implausible. Proponents sometimes cite reports of what they believe are unusual power outages, maintenance work and emergency drills in the weeks leading up to September 11, 2001.

There is widespread agreement, however, about the significance of the controlled demolition hypothesis, even among those who don't endorse it specifically or conspiracy theories in general. The necessary devices could only have been planted well in advance of the September 11 attacks and would have required extraordinary access to three highly secured buildings.

Building Seven

Conspiracy theorists frequently emphasise the collapse of Seven World Trade Center in discussing the controlled demolition theory. They cite several reasons for this. First, they believe the collapse displayed especially clear features of a controlled demolition. Second, they say that since no plane hit the building, its collapse is even more difficult to explain than that of the two towers. Flaming debris did fall onto the building as a result of the collapse of the twin towers, but World Trade Center buildings 4, 5 and 6 remained standing despite also being severely damaged. Third, researchers emphasise the style in which WTC7 collapsed: according to conspiracy theorists the collapse took 7 seconds, with constant acceleration close to gravitional. (FEMA described the collapse sequence as lasting 37 seconds, basing this on seismic evidence and videos of the roof of the building; 9/11 researchers analyse video footages that show only the sudden collapse of the outer walls and refer to similiarity with typical controlled demolitions) Fourth, in a PBS documentary on the collapse, Larry Silverstein, the owner of the building, said the fire department had decided to "pull it". Although his spokesperson later said Silverstein meant that firefighters had decided to withdraw from the building and the surrounding area for their own safety, many conspiracy theorists insist that "pull it" is technical slang in the demolition industry for demolish a building. (Whether or not this is what the phrase means has become a point of dispute.) The official investigation into the collapse is still ongoing (a draft of the NIST report will be released in early 2007). NIST said they had to prioritize their investigations and chose to investigate the collapse of WTC buildings 1 and 2 first, and then building 7. The fact that the building housed the offices of government agencies like the CIA, the FBI, and the SEC, along with the City of New York's emergency command bunker has also fueled conspiracy theories.

Mini-Nukes or Energy Weapons

A small number of theorists -- James W. Walter, Judy Wood, Morgan Reynolds and James H. Fetzer -- believe that the widespread damage and eventual collapse of the Twin Towers was caused by a "mini-nuke" or energy weapon. Since the resignation of Steven E. Jones, Kevin Ryan and others from the Scholars for 9/11 Truth group, James Fetzer has broadened its scope to encourage the consideration of these theories, and has endorsed the exploration of the possible use of mini-nukes, directed energy weapons, and even of HAARP for this purpose. Among these theories is one first proposed by Morgan Reynolds and Judy Wood. Researchers Steven E. Jones and Jim Hoffman have published refutations to claims that "nukes" were used and Jones has questioned whether the space weapon theories are even testable.

Pentagon not hit by an airplane

See also: American Airlines Flight 77

Security camera footage showing American Airlines Flight 77 (far right) just before impact.

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The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section.

Claims that the Pentagon was hit by something significantly smaller than a Boeing 757 (typically a missile or smaller aircraft) have been raised by some conspiracy theorists based on photographs in which there appears to be a lack of expected debris or pieces of a commercial aircraft within the immediate impact area, and what some believe is a lack of damage to the building and the lawn. The first person to suggest that a missile hit the Pentagon was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in an interview on October 12, 2001, which helped set up this claim. Subsequently, Thierry Meyssan in his book 9/11: The Big Lie gave this claim much more visibility. He also advanced the idea with his website Hunt the Boeing! and the popular internet videos Loose Change and "911 In Plane Site". A likely cause of these ideas, some say, was the initial scarcity of documentation of the attack. At first the only evidence available consisted of long distance photographs and video footage taken after the attack, eyewitness testimony from individuals at the scene, and five video frames captured by a security camera which were released on March 8, 2002. A large amount of evidence was later released after the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and several Freedom of Information Act requests.

Suspicions were additionally fueled by a lack of video footage of the impact of the jetliner, since many assume that the Pentagon must be subject to intense camera surveillance for security reasons. In addition to the Pentagon's own security cameras, these people also noted that security camera footage from a nearby Citgo gas station and from the Virginia Department of Transportation was swiftly confiscated by the US government. On May 16, 2006 the security camera footage was released as part of a Judicial Watch's FOIA request. However, due to a low number of frames per second, the videos do not clearly show the impact of the plane, only the approach of the plane (at an angle) and the explosion cloud, thus keeping the "no Boeing" theory popular. In addition to the security cam footage, the Citgo footage was released on September 15, 2006, but did not show the attacks. The Doubletree hotel, located nearby in Crystal City, Virginia, also had a security camera video, and on December 4, 2006 the FBI released the video in response to a freedom of information lawsuit filed by Scott Bingham. No plane can be seen entering the Pentagon since the camera was mounted on a lower point on the Doubletree Hotel and an elevated highway obstructs the view of the Pentagon.

A few fringe conspiracy theorists also consider American Airlines Flight 77 pilot Charles Burlingame as a "prime suspect" in the conspiracy. In response to these accusations and the Loose Change video, his sister, Debra, remarked "The only thing they (the filmmakers) seem to have gotten right about the Sept. 11 attacks is the date when they occurred...They aren't truth-tellers looking to save the world. They're con artists hoping to sucker conspiracy-theory paranoids or anti-government malcontents into shelling out their hard-earned dollars."

The Pentagon "no Boeing" theory constitutes a controversial issue, even among conspiracy theorists, many of whom have pointed out that this claim is disproven by hundreds of eyewitnesses and physical evidence, suggesting it is disinformation to create a easily discredited straw man argument. Several researchers have argued that the wings would cause less damage than the plane's main body, that photographs of large amounts of wreckage and debris matching a 757 have become available, that the appearance of the size of the hole is typically misrepresented; and that the actual fuselage diameter of 12 feet is a much more relevant dimension for the deepest parts of the hole than the overall 44 foot height of the 757's tail. They also emphasize reports from numerous eyewitnesses, including commuters on nearby roads, nearby apartment buildings, and other surrounding locations. Many witnesses saw the aircraft close up as it approached the Pentagon and described it as an American Airlines Boeing 757.

Purdue University also released a study with results that recreated the attack. In explaining the damage, the study argued that the plane was like a "sausage skin" because of the speed of impact.

Adding to confusion is an interview with Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense at the time, published by Parade Magazine and which is still hosted at http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2001/t11182001_t1012pm.html where Rumsfeld mentions "Here we're talking about plastic knives and using an American Airlines flight filed with our citizens, and the missile to damage this building and similar (inaudible) that damaged the World Trade Center." (Emphasis added.)

Flight 175 "pod" claims

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Flight 175 about to hit the South Tower, supposedly with a "pod" on its base

Some conspiracy theorists say there was a “pod” of some sort under the aircraft which hit the South Tower. This theory has mainly been propagated by 911 In Plane Site, Let’s Roll 911 and Reopen 911. Theories as to what this “pod” may have been have ranged from a missile to simply the Boeing’s left fairing.

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A close up of Flight 175 about to hit the South Tower, supposedly showing a "pod" of some kind

The website 911 In Plane Site cited an analysis by a Spanish university as “proof” that there were objects on the base of the plane. The report says that the “only explanation” for these objects is that they are “in relief”.

However, both 9/11 researchers and their critics have published refutations of the pod claims.

The websites oilempire.us, 911review.com, and questionsquestions.net have each provided critiques illustrating that the pod claim is not supported in the evidence. Those promoting the pod theory were sometimes referred to as the "pod people."

Popular Mechanics’ “Debunking the 9/11 Myths” quotes Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography Laboratory at Arizona State University, who said that the sunlight is glinting off the plane, and that “such a glint causes a blossoming (enlargement) on film, which tends to be amplified in digital versions of images--the pixels are saturated and tend to 'spill over' to adjacent pixels.” They said that “the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear”.

911 IPS responded to this by saying that “the anomaly could not have been the fairing because it protrudes beyond the front of the wing.”

"Flash" claims before Flight 175 hit the South Tower

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The alleged "flash" just as Flight 175 hits the South Tower, from four angles.

Many of the same conspiracy theorists supporting the "pod" claim have often cited the alleged “flash” as the plane hit the tower as "proof" that there was a missile launched from the underside of the plane. 911 IPS says that the flash could not be a reflection, as it was caught on camera from four different angles, and it is their theory that an object cannot reflect light in more than one direction. In addition, they said that “sparks” or “static discharge” “have been ruled out by every airline pilot we have spoken with”.

As with the pod claims, 9/11 researchers published refutations of these ideas, such as questionsquestions.net, oilempire.us, and 911review.com, which states,

"The most plausible explanation for the flashes we've seen is that the kinetic energy of the collisions vaporized a mix of materials, including steel and aluminum, which were rapidly oxidized by the pressure and heat of the 400+ mph collision."

But when Popular Mechanics published an article debunking the 16 most prevalent conspiracy theories, the flash/missile theory was not amongst them.

United Airlines Flight 93

There are several conspiracy theories surrounding the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

Jim Hoffman notes a three-minute discrepancy in the cockpit voice recording immediately prior to the flight's crash. The cockpit voice recorder transcripts end at 10:03 a.m., but Cleveland Air Traffic Control reported that Flight 93 went out of radar contact at 10:06 a.m., and FAA radar records also note a time of 10:06 a.m. Seismologists record an impact at 10:06:05 a.m., +/- a couple of seconds.

Some conspiracy theorists believe there is a cover up of evidence as the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder from Flight 93 have not been released to the general public. However, a 1990 Congressional Law prohibits the “public disclosure [of the] cockpit voice recorder recordings and transcriptions, in whole or in part, of oral communications by and between flight crew members and ground stations…” And on April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. This was made possible because the FBI controlled the investigation, as opposed to the NTSB as in typical air disasters.

Claims that Flight 93 was shot down

Some conspiracy theorists who question the common account of United Airlines Flight 93 crashing as a result of an attempted cockpit invasion, have speculated that it was shot down by US fighter jets.

This idea was promoted by author David Ray Griffin in his book The New Pearl Harbor, who cited Paul Thompson. Thompson examined a number of mainstream media reports and says that fighter jets were actually much closer to Flight 93 at the time of the crash than stated in the official record. He mentions witnesses who noticed a small white jet near the impact site soon after the crash. However, some say this was likely a business jet the ATC asked to investigate the crash area and that descended to an altitude of around 1500 ft to survey the impact. Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.

Thompson and other conspiracy theorists note that pieces of Flight 93 were found far from the crash site and suggest that this may be evidence of a shoot-down. NTSB investigators say they have found no evidence the plane was shot down. 9/11 conspiracy theorists say:

• The existence of multiple debris fields located miles away from the crash site
• Eyewitness accounts that debris fell out of the sky like confetti
• The military had known about the WTC strikes and would have investigated a plane off its flight path nearing the White House, or Three Mile Island depending on the intended target

Popular Mechanics, however, argued that debris exploding away and landing far from the crash scene is not a unique occurrence in commercial airline accidents.

Claims that Flight 93 never crashed

Some conspiracy theorists speculate that Flight 93 landed safely in Ohio. The website Physics911 says that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was actually not United 93 and that the flights involved in the 9/11 attacks were landed and substituted with other aircraft . However other websites refute this claim and point to the wreckage at the scene and witness testimony , aside from the difficulty of "plane swapping". Often cited is a preliminary AP story on Flight 93’s safe landing at a Cleveland airport by WCPO, a local Cincinnati ABC news affiliate. It was later learned Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93. WCPO has since retracted the story noting its earlier factual inaccuracies..

Claims that cell phone calls were impossible

During the flight of Flight 93 passengers made a number of calls to both family and emergency personnel. It is argued by some that connecting a cell phone to a tower's signal would have been near to impossible from the air. Based on this information, economist Michel Chossudovsky suggests the calls were fabricated or never made at all.

• In 2003 a Canadian team conducted experiments to determine if cell phones could be used from civilian aircraft flying at cruising speeds and altitudes.
• Carnegie Mellon researchers published results of a study in which they monitored spectrum frequencies generated by cell phone use during commercial passenger flights. They concluded that one to four cell phone calls are made during each average passenger flight, contrary to FCC and FAA regulations. The study makes no mention of the length of the calls or whether a successful air-ground connection was actually made during the monitored transmissions.
• According to official accounts, at 9:58 a.m., moments before Flight 93 crashed, Edward Felt dialed 9-1-1 from his cell phone from the lavatory of the aircraft and his call was answered by dispatcher John Shaw. Felt was able to tell the dispatcher about the hijacking before the call was out of range and subsequently disconnected. At the time of the call, the aircraft had descended to 5,000 feet, over Westmoreland County, which together with Somerset County has the highest summits in Pennsylvania, at ~3,000 feet in elevation.

Aside from Ed Felt's call, and another made by flight attendant CeeCee Lyles also at 9:58 a.m, all the other calls were made with onboard airphones and not cell phones.

War games and training exercises

See also: United States military exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001

Some conspiracy theorists assert that government and military exercises were being conducted to deliberately confuse NORAD, FAA and other military personnel to allow the attack to take place. United States Representative Cynthia McKinney, economist Michel Chossudovsky, and publisher/editor Michael Ruppert of From the Wilderness are a few of the individuals who have questioned these exercises.

The following war games and training events were being conducted by USAF, NORAD, CIA, NRO, FAA and FEMA:

• Northern Vigilance: an Air Force drill simulating a Russian attack, in which defense aircraft normally patrolling the Northeast are re-deployed to Canada and Alaska. Russian exercises were being held at that time in the arctic and north pacific and the drill was based on the observation of that exercise.
• Vigilant Guardian: a NORAD exercise posing an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide with a simulated air war and an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States.
• On the morning of 9/11, 50 minutes before Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating US reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles from Dulles airport.
• Tripod II, a FEMA drill simulating a biowarfare attack in New York City, was to take place on September 12th.

The President's behavior

President Bush was promoting the passage of his education plan at Emma E. Booker Elementary School on the morning of September 11. Two aspects of his behavior have been offered as indications that he had privileged access to the planning and execution of the events of 9/11. First, neither Bush nor his security personnel responded to the terrorist attacks in a manner that indicated that the President might be in danger, though he would presumably be among the targets of a coordinated terrorist attack. His continuing to read The Pet Goat to a classroom of schoolchildren, which was criticized in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, would be understandable if he knew what the plan was in advance. A response is that Bush's intention was to "project strength and calm", i.e., that he did not want to cause more panic by fleeing the room, as the footage would likely have been replayed over and over on news coverage.

Second, Bush made statements on two separate occasions, in late 2001 and early 2002, that suggested he had seen the first plane hit the World Trade Center. But unless he had some special access to the events of that day, he could not have seen the first plane hit the tower live on commercial television, since no television stations were covering that area when the first plane hit. However, skeptics insist President Bush was referring to the aftermath and not the actual jetliner impact at 8:46 a.m. The White House explained his remarks as "a mistaken recollection".

Allegations of cover-up

Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the "official account".

News stories they associate with that pattern include:

• "Bush asks Daschle to limit Sept. 11 probes"

• "Bush Opposes 9/11 Query Panel"

• "Whistleblower Complains of FBI Obstruction"

• "9-11 Commission Funding Woes"

• "Bush: Documents sought by 9/11 commission 'very sensitive'"

• "9/11 commission finishes Bush, Cheney session"

Cockpit flight and voice recorders

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) or flight recorder (FDR) were not recovered from the remains of the WTC attack.

• The Chicago Tribune reported that experts believed the recorders would not be found simply because of the massive scope of the damage and debris. NTSB and FBI have both publicly stated the recorders were never recovered. The 9/11 Commission and federal authorities say that none of the cockpit voice recorders (CVR) or the flight data recorders (FDR) from the two planes that crashed into the Twin Towers were ever found.
• Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center say they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners; this is cited to support the claim there was a government cover-up at Ground Zero.

"At one point I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV& There were a total of four black boxes. We found three" (Ground Zero, p. 108).

"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back. I can't recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders," said Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.

Other points

• US Representative Cynthia McKinney led a Capitol Hill hearing on July 23, 2005, into "what warnings the Bush administration received before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001." Panelist and former CIA official Melvin Goodman was quoted as saying "Congresswoman McKinney is viewed as a contrarian and I hope someday her views will be considered conventional wisdom." Many 9/11 conspiracy theorists testified at the hearing, including Michael Ruppert, Peter Dale Scott, David Ray Griffin, Wayne Madsen and several others.
• Between 1993 and 2000, Marvin Bush (President Bush's brother) was a principal in a company that provided security for both the World Trade Center and United Airlines. According to an article by David Ray Griffin "from 1999 to January of 2002 their cousin Wirt Walker III was the *CEO." According to its president CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down". This last statement has been used by some conspiracy theorists to say that the contract "expired" on September 11, 2001. Barbara Bush allegedly confirmed this theory in her book Reflections (ISBN 0-7432-2359-4) also stating 9/11 was the day the contract expired. However, no specific quote is provided to support this allegation, and a search for the words "contract" or "expired" yields no results. Mr. Bush was also a former director and now is an advisor to the board of directors to a firm called HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., which had what it called a "small participation in the World Trade Center property insurance coverage and some of the surrounding buildings". Marvin Bush was on a subway under Wall Street when the attacks happened.
• The day before the 9/11 attacks, President Bush's father former President George H.W. Bush and several members of his cabinet had been present at a Carlyle Group business conference with Shafig Bin Laden a brother of Osama bin Laden at the Ritz-Carlton hotel located several miles from the Pentagon. The conference was continuing with the remaining cabinet members and Bin Laden's brother at the time of the Pentagon attack. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.), along with conspiracy websites, have suggested that Carlyle's and Bush's ties to the Middle East made them somehow complicit in the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The New York Times reported that members of the bin Laden family were driven or flown under FBI supervision to a secret assembly point in Texas and then to Washington from where they left the country on a private charter plane when airports reopened three days after the attacks. The official 9/11 commission later concluded that "the FBI conducted a satisfactory screening of Saudi nationals who left the United States on charter flights" and that the exodus was approved by special advisor Richard Clarke after a request by Saudi Arabia who feared for the safety of their nationals.
• Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a letter to President Bush said, “September eleven was not a simple operation. Could it be planned and executed without coordination with intelligence and security services – or their extensive infiltration? Of course this is just an educated guess. Why have various aspects of the attacks been kept secret? Why are we not told who botched their responsibilities? And, why aren’t those responsible and the guilty parties identified and put on trial?” He also wrote, “Some believe that the hype paved the way-- and was the justification-- for an attack on Afghanistan”.
• Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez in remarks delivered on September 12th 2006 said that it was plausible the U.S. government was behind the 9/11 attacks and that "The hypothesis is not absurd ... that those towers could have been dynamited". The motive might have been "To justify the aggressions that immediately were unleashed on Afghanistan, on Iraq"
• The Washington Post reported in its August 3, 2006 edition that "For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances" and that "Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial account of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public" and that "Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted". Sources told the Post this was done to hide a bungled Pentagon response.

Claims that some of the hijackers are still alive

Initial news reports shortly after 9/11 indicated that some of the hijackers were alive, fueling speculation that others were responsible.

The BBC News reported on September 23, 2001, that some of the people named by the FBI as hijackers, killed on the crashes, were actually alive and well.

One of the hijackers was Waleed al-Shehri, and according to the BBC report he was found in Casablanca, Morocco.

• However, al-Shehri's father says he hadn't heard from his sons in ten months prior to September 2001. An ABC News story in March 2002 repeated this, and during a report entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25, 2002, NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to 'Asir, where he interviewed the third brother Salah who agreed that his two brothers were dead and said they had been "brainwashed".
• Furthermore, another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC.

According to the BBC report, Abdulaziz Al Omari, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khalid al-Midhar, three other hijackers, were also living in the Middle East.

• A man with the same name as Abdulaziz Al Omari turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995. The name, origin, birth date, and occupation were released by the FBI, but the picture was not of him. "I couldn't believe it when the FBI put me on their list", he said. "They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this." This individual was not the same person as the hijacker whose identity was later confirmed by Saudi government interviews with his family, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.
• On 23 September, 2001, the BBC and The Telegraph reported that a person named Saeed al-Ghamdi was alive and well. His name, birth date, origin, and occupation were the same as those released by the FBI, but his picture was different. He says that he studied flight training in Florida flight schools from 1998 to 2001. The journalist involved with the story later admitted "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time."
• After the attacks, reports began emerging saying that al-Mihdhar was still alive. On September 19, the FDIC distributed a "special alert" which listed al-Mihdhar as alive. The Justice Department says that this was a typo.

The BBC and The Guardian have since reported that there was evidence al-Mihdhar was still alive and that some of the other hijackers identities were in doubt. This was commented on by FBI director Robert Mueller. Der Spiegel later investigated the claims of "living" hijackers by the BBC and discovered them to be cases of mistaken identities. In 2002, Saudi Arabia admitted that the names of the hijackers were in fact correct. None of the hijackers has turned up alive since the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Motives

Theories as to why members of the US government would have allowed the attacks to occur, perpetrated the attacks, and/or obstructed the investigation generally involve one or more of the following:

• Michel Chossudovsky in an article entitled "The Criminalization of the State" suggests a simple motive in a plan for a New World Order. This particular theory takes root in a David Rockefeller Statement to the United Nations Business Council in September 1994: We are on the verge of a global transformation. All we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.
• An article on whatreallyhappened.com entitled "The 9/11 Reichstag Fire" suggests that the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) may have been responsible. It cites as evidence a statement from page 51 of a document titled 'Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century' published by PNAC: “Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event - like a new Pearl Harbor.”
• The Web site OilEmpire.us proposed that 9/11 was allowed to happen and given technical assistance by a faction of the U.S. government in order to benefit the arms manufacturing and oil industries.
• The Web site 911Review.com listed several other benefits of the attacks as possible motives, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani and President Bush's surge in popularity, Halliburton's defense contracts for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and a $2.2 billion insurance payout to the owner of the World Trade Center, Larry Silverstein who obtained the lease of the buildings from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey seven weeks before the buildings were destroyed in the September 11, 2001 attacks. This was the first time in the building's 31-year history the complex had changed ownership.

Claims related to Jews and Israel

Some conspiracy theories hold that Israel or organized Jewry played a key role in carrying out the September 11 attacks. According to the Anti-Defamation League, "anti-Semitic conspiracy theories have not been accepted in mainstream circles in the U.S.," but "this is not the case in the Arab and Muslim world." The Anti-Defamation League has published a paper, Unraveling Anti-Semitic 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, identifying the claims made and responding to them. Several websites of the 9/11 truth movement have also worked to debunk such claims and expose websites and individuals engaging in Anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial.

A claim that 4,000 Jewish employees skipped work at the WTC on September 11 has been widely reported and widely debunked. The number of Jews who died in the attacks--typically estimated at around 400--tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area. Five Israelis died in the attack.

Ariel Sharon, in 2001 Prime Minister of Israel, cancelled a planned trip to New York around the time of the attacks. Some have interpreted this as evidence he was warned to stay away. In fact, however, the rally at which he had been scheduled to speak on September 23, 2001, to a crowd of 50,000 had been cancelled a month earlier.

On September 17, 2001, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz' reported that the FBI, four hours after the attack, arrested for "puzzling behavior" five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from the roof of their company's building. The Israelis were said to have been videotaping the disaster with cries of joy and mockery. On June 21, 2002, ABC reported that the FBI has not reached a consensus on whether they were Israeli intelligence operatives but concluded they had no advance knowledge of the September 11 attacks. The five were released and deported to Israel on November 20-21, 2001.

According to The Daily Telegraph (September 16, 2001), Israel had sent two Mossad agents to Washington in August to warn both the FBI and CIA of an imminent large-scale attack involving a cell of up to 200 terrorists. The Telegraph quoted an unnamed senior Israeli security official as saying "They had no specific information about what was being planned but linked the plot to Osama bin Laden and told the Americans that there were strong grounds for suspecting Iraqi involvement."

On December 12, 2001, Fox News reported that some 60 Israelis were among the hundreds of foreigners detained since the Sept. 11 attacks. Federal investigators were reported to have described them as part of a long-running effort to spy on American government officials. A "handful" of these Israelis were described as active Israeli military or intelligence operatives. Federal investigators said that some of them failed polygraph questions inquiring about alleged surveillance activities in the United States. Investigators suspected that they may have gathered intelligence about the attacks in advance and not shared it, shadowing the hijackers in Florida and in California. As many as 140 other Israelis were reported to have been detained or arrested as part of an investigation into espionage by Israelis in the United States. Investigators were also reported to have been focusing part of their efforts on Israelis who said they were art students from the University of Jerusalem or Bezalel Academy, and repeatedly made contact with U.S. government personnel by saying they wanted to sell cheap art or handiwork. Indeed, in March, 2001, the US Office of the National Counterintelligence Executive had actually issued a warning about people identifying themselves as "Israeli art students" attempting to bypass security and gain entry to federal buildings, and even to the private residences of senior federal officials. Subsequently, the Telegraph newspaper (UK), the online magazine Salon, and the Sunday Herald (UK), among other sources, ran similar stories, elaborating in greater detail.

Less common theories

• NewsMax.com reported that people within and outside the U.S. government believed that then Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein conspired in the 9/11 attacks and the Oklahoma City Bombing. The theory extended from the one advanced by investigative journalist Jayna Davis in her book The Third Terrorist linking Hussein to the Oklahoma City Bombing. It was discussed in an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal.
• According to the Church of Scientology’s CCHR, psychiatrists are responsible for creating suicide bombers and were behind the September 11 attacks ("Suicide bombers are... assassins manufactured through drugs and psycho-political methods. Careful psychiatric indoctrination and treatment can make the most barbaric act rational.")
• Judi McLeod of Canada Free Press suggested the possible involvement of the mafia.

Media reaction

File:LeMond-9-11FrontPage.png

Le Monde Diplo Norway July 2006

While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to internet chat sites and conversation, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue.

In the July 2006 edition of the Norwegian version of Le Monde diplomatique, the headline story asked, "11 September : An Inside Job?" and surveyed the various theories discussing the official US version of 9/11, withholding any truth judgment on them.

An article in the September 11 2006 edition of the United States newsweekly Time Magazine titled “Why The 9/11 Conspiracies Won't Go Away” states that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories “depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses” and the continued popularity of these theories are due to “the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting”. It concludes that “conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events like Sept. 11. Conspiracy theories form around them like scar tissue. In a curious way, they're an American form of national mourning.”

The Daily Telegraph published an article called "The CIA couldn't have organised this..." which said "The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass" and "if there is a nefarious plot in all this bad planning, it is one improvised by a confederacy of dunces". This article mainly attacked Scholars for 9/11 Truth, a group of scientists which was, at the time, led by Professor Steven E. Jones. They said "most of them aren't scientists but instructors... at second-rate colleges".

Criticism

Critics of these alternative theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation (Barkun, 2003). A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if [the argument] gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." This, he continues, happened when Steve Jones took up the issue. The basic assumption is that conspiracy theories emerge a set of previously held or quickly assembled beliefs about how society works, which are then legitimized by further "research". Taking such beliefs seriously, even if only to criticize them, it is argued, merely grants them further legitimacy.

Michael Shermer, writing in Scientific American, said: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking (as well as creationism, Holocaust denial and the various crank theories of physics). All the "evidence" for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."

There are also behavioristic objections to these conspiracy theories, arguing that the conspiracy theorists behave in an irrational or unscholarly way. One objection is that the conspiracy theorists tend to connect unrelated information. Another is that they will often expand the conspiracy to include those who debunk their original theories, such as Popular Mechanics. There is also the tendency of the conspiracy theorists to quote only other conspiracy theorists and provide little if any expert verification of any of their claims.

File:1009motud.jpg

Image from "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", simultaneously parodying the conspiracy theories and the Hardy Boys mystery books

Scientific American, Popular Mechanics, and The Skeptic's Dictionary have published articles that challenge and discredit various 9/11 conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theorists have jumped on the contribution to the Popular Mechanics article by "senior researcher" Ben Chertoff, who they claim is cousin of Michael Chertoff - current head of Homeland Security. However, no indication of an actual connection has been revealed and Ben Chertoff has denied the allegation. Popular Mechanics has published a book entitled Debunking 9/11 Myths that expands upon the research first presented in the article. Der Spiegel dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons." 9/11 conspiracy theories were satirized and criticized in "Mystery of the Urinal Deuce", an episode of the animated television series South Park.

Although the non-conspiratorial explainations for the flash seen on the nose of Flight 175 immediately before the impact are less than clearly convincing, the conspiratorial explainations are also flawed. Launching a missile or other weapon from the plane would offer little advantage over simply placing bombs in the aircraft's cargo hold, and would additionally require substantial reworking of the plane to install the needed hardware to carry such a weapon and trigger the launch. The same objection applies to the pod theory.

References

Books

• 9/11: The Big Lie - Thierry Meyssan
• 9/11 Revealed : The Unanswered Questions - Rowland Morgan and Ian Henshall
• 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA - Webster Griffin Tarpley
• Barkun, Michael (2003). A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. University of California Press. ISBN 0-520-23805-2.
• Conspiracies, Conspiracy Theories, and the Secrets of 9/11 - Mathias Bröckers
• Crossing the Rubicon - Michael Ruppert
• Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts - The Editors of Popular Mechanics. ISBN 1-58816-635-X
• Divided We Stand: A Biography of New York's World Trade Center
• Der Spiegel (2002). Inside 9-11: What Really Happened. St. Martin's Press. ISBN 0-312-30621-0.
• Johnston, Patrick, S. (2006). Mission Accomplished (Novel). Dog Ear. ISBN 1-59858-244-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Laurent, Eric (2004). La face cachée du 11 septembre. Plon. ISBN 2-259-20030-3.
• Pentagate - Thierry Meyssan
• The 9/11 Commission Report
• The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions And Distortions - David Ray Griffin
• The Five Unanswered Questions About 9/11 - James Ridgeway
• The New Pearl Harbor - David Ray Griffin (The New Pearl Harbor can be found available online here.)
• Waking up from our Nightmare: The 9/11 Crimes in New York City - Don Paul and Jim Hoffman, ISBN 0-943096-10-3
• The Terror Timeline (2004) - Paul Thompson and The Center for Cooperative Research

Videos

• 9/11 Mysteries Part One: Demolitions [42]
• 9/11: Press for Truth
• Loose Change
• The Great Conspiracy: The 9/11 News Special You Never Saw

External links

Final report of the "National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States" (9-11 Commission), chaired by Thomas H. Kean

• Kean Report

Cynthia McKinney's July 2005 Congressional Briefing on 9/11

• McKinney Briefing

June 1, 2001, directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff changing rules on intercepting hijacked planes

• Joint Chiefs Directive

Conspiracy theories

Descriptions of and evidence for various conspiracy theories

Mainstream news organizations

• "Conspiracy Theories". CBC Television. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "9/11 conspiracy theorists energized Five years later, purveyors claim academic momentum". CNN.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• Gerrick Lewis. "'United 93' raises many questions". The Lantern.
• Lev Grossman. "Why The 9/11 Conspiracies Won't Go Away". Time magazine. Retrieved 2006-09-12.

Webpages

• "9-11 Research: An Attempt to Uncover the Truth About September 11th, 2001 (WTC 7 )". Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "9-11 Review: A Resource for Understanding the 9/11/01 Attack". Retrieved 2006-11-25.
• "Alex Jones Infowars". Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "9/11 Truth Movement Forum". Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "Former Top German Minister Rejects Official Story Of 911 Attacks". www.ratical.org. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "The "Patriots and 9/11" Trap". Retrieved 2006-12-28.
• "9/11 an Inside Job by H. Titan, Ph.D." Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "Information on 9/11 Wargames". oilempire.us. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "Scholars for 9/11 Truth". Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "9/11 Mysteries The show went to Hollywood!". Retrieved 2006-07-30. Movie on 9/11 questions
• "The WTC Conspiracy". Telepolis. Retrieved 2006-07-30. Template:De icon
• "Loose Change". Retrieved 2006-07-30. Film questioning the official account
• "The 9/11 Conspiracy: A Skeptic's View by Ernest Partridge". The Crisis Papers, commondreams.org. Retrieved 2006-07-30. Article sympathetic to LIHOP theories but skeptical of MIHOP theories
• "Picking Up Where Partridge Leaves Off: Conspiracy theorists Address a 9/11 Skeptic by Victoria Ashley and Jim Hoffman". Retrieved 2006-08-07. Pro MIHOP rebuttle to above article
• "Physics911.net". Retrieved 2006-09-11.

Flight 93

• "How Did United Flight 93 Crash?". flight93crash.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "Flight 93 Ordered Shot Down". dcdave.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.
• "Problems With the ASCE Report On The Pentagon Cast Further Doubt on 757 Account". bedoper.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30.

Videos

• Template:Google video
• Template:Google video
• 911 Videos on Truthhub.com
• Template:Google video: L.A. Conference, Alex Jones, 2006-06-24.
• Template:Google video
• Template:Google video
• List of Online Videos
• Template:Google video: two speeches given by philosopher and theologist Dr. David Ray Griffin at The Commonwealth Club in San Francisco (4/3/06) and at The Grand Lake Theater in Oakland (3/30/06).
• High Resolution (700 MB) 911 Mysteries Video - Downloadable
• Template:Google video: Gore Vidal speaks very critically about today's US government, 9/11 official account, US media.
• *Template:Google video - In his wide-ranging talk, Peter Dale Scott points out similarities that arise when you look at the assassination of JFK and the all events of 9/11. (COPA meeting in Dallas, Texas, November 18, 2006)

Blogs

• "911blogger". 911Blogger.com. Retrieved 2006-07-30. Latest news and research
• "American-Freedom.org". Retrieved 2006-07-30. News, research, information, blog, links, and a vast video library
• "Totally Fixed and Rigged Magazine". TotallyFixed.blogspot.com. Retrieved 2006-12-15. 9/11 Research and Critiques of 9/11 Media Coverage

Debunking conspiracy claims

• U.S. Gov Web Page
• Sifting Through Loose Change The 9-11 Research Companion to LOOSE CHANGE 2ND EDITION.
• Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Evidence against Controlled Demolition and its most widely held myths.
• Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories - free online publication dedicated to educating the public on the collapse of the three World Trade Center structures on September 11 2001.
• 9-11 Loose Change Second Edition Viewer Guide debunking of Loose Change and 9/11 conspiracy theories by Mark Roberts.
• Template:Google video - comedic documentary by Abby Scott and Ray Rivero on 9/11 conspiracy theorists who protest at Ground Zero.
• 911 Myths - articles by UK software developer and freelance writer Mike Williams on a wide range of 9/11 conspiracy theories.
• Alternet - When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad - critical article on 9/11 conspiracy theories by David Corn.
• Anti-Defamation League - Unraveling anti-semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories
• Democracy Now! - The New Pearl Harbor - debate between David Ray Griffin and Chip Berlet.
• eSkeptic Newsletter - 9/11 Conspiracy Theories - article debunking several 9/11 conspiracy theories by Phil Molé.
• Facts about 9/11. Not Fantasy.
• Filibuster cartoons - The Truth About 911 - editorial cartoon mocking 9/11 conspiracy theories.
• Internet Detectives - Loose Change - poitn by point debunking of Loose Change.
• Left SanePeople
• Mike J. Wilson's 9/11 Report - computer animation of Flight 77's crash in the Pentagon.
• National Review Online - 9/11 Denial - article on Thierry Meyssan's L'Effroyable Imposture by James S. Robbins, a national-security analyst & NRO contributor.
• New York Magazine - The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll - critical article on 9/11 conspiracy theories by Mark Jacobson.
• Pointless waste of time - Did the U.S. government plan and execute the 9/11 attacks? - satirical article on Loose Change and 9/11 conspiracy theories.
• Popular Mechanics - Debunking The 9/11 Myths - examines the evidence and consults the experts to refute the most persistent conspiracy theories of September 11.
• Scientific American - 9/11 has generated the mother of all conspiracy theories - article skeptical of 9/11 conspiracy theories by Michael Shermer.
• Screw Loose Change blog - blog covering 9/11 conspiracy theories and 9/11 Truth Movement by James B. and Pat.
• Screw Loose Change video - counter-video of Loose Change 2nd Edition by Mark Iradian.
• Snopes.com - Hunt the Boeing! - debunks the claims of the Hunt the Boeing! website.
• The Best Page in the Universe - There is no 9/11 conspiracy you morons. - argument against 9/11 conspiracy theories by popular Internet humorist Maddox.
• The Nation - The 9/11 X-Files - critical article on 9/11 conspiracy theories by David Corn. Focuses on Michael Ruppert and Delmart Vreeland.
• Time - Setting the Record Straight - debunking of several 9/11 conspiracy theories by Coco Masters.
• Why the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Won't Go Away - critical article about 9/11 conspiracy theories by Lev Grossman
• EVIDENCE AND AFTERMATH - A study of the primary source evidence against conspiracy.
• U.S. Department of State - How to Identify Misinformation
• U.S. Department of State - September 11 Conspiracy Theories - links to refutations of various 9/11 conspiracy theories.
• WhatDIDN'Treallyhappen.com - strong focus on refuting Michael Ruppert's timeline.