911 CONSPIRACY THEORIES
FROM THE WIKIPEDIA, THE FREE ENCYCLOPEDIA
9/11 conspiracy theories allege that the September 11 attacks in
2001 were either intentionally allowed to happen or were a false
flag operation orchestrated by an organization with elements
inside the United States government. 1 A poll taken in 2006 by
Scripps Howard and Ohio University showed that, "More than a
third of the American public suspects that federal officials
assisted in the 9/11 terrorist attacks or took no action to stop
them so the United States could go to war in the Middle East." 2
(This idea is silly logic. First, there was nothing in the Middle
East that in 2001 threatened the USA/Britain in any large manner.
Oil was not threatened to be stopped in any manner from reaching
the USA/Britain. Life was going along just fine in 2001 in both
the USA and Britain. If the USA/Britain wanted to go to war in
the Middle East, all they needed to do was (as they did) cry out
that Sadam had "weapons of mass destruction" - they did not need
to plan some kind of conspiracy that would have involved "paying
off" or "bribing" a mass amount of people as such that would have
involved the 9/11 attacks - Keith Hunt)
The most prominent theory is that the collapse of the World Trade
Center and 7 World Trade Center were the result of a controlled
demolition rather than structural weakening due to fire. 3/4
(We have shown the weakness [pun not intended] of such an
argument and the truth of the matter - Keith Hunt)
Another prominent belief is that the Pentagon was hit by a
missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government 5
or that a commercial airliner was allowed to do so via an
effective standdown of the American military. 6/7 The commonly
claimed motives are to justify the invasion of Afghanistan and
Iraq, to expand U.S. control of the Middle East's oil resources,
to facilitate increased military spending; and to restrict
domestic civil liberties.[citation needed]
(Again, no such elaberate conspiracy was needed, only the cry
that Sadam had weapons of mass destruction. The USA/Britain today
in 2010 does NOT control the Middle East; oil can be and is,
brought into the USA from many other nations than from Iraq
and/or Afghanistan. Kuwait was free [from the USA invasion of
Iraq 10 years ealier under Bush Sr. administration], and it has
much oil, so also Canada and other countries, to feed the USA oil
drugged nation. The USA/Britain only needed the excuse of Sadam
having "weapons of mass destruction" to go to war in the Middle
East, which was used to do just that - to go to war - Keith Hunt)
Published reports and articles by the U.S. National Institute of
Standards and Technology, Popular Mechanics and mainstream media
have rejected the 9/11 conspiracy theories. 8/9 The civil
engineering establishment generally accepts that the impacts of
jet aircraft at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires,
rather than controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the
Twin Towers. 10
(And all that I presented ealier in this series of studies as to
why the Twin Towers collapsed - common logical sense when you
known how the Towers were built - Keith Hunt)
CONTENT
* History
* Mainstream account
* 3 Variants
* 3.1 "LIHOP" and "MIHOP"
* 3.2 Investigation-oriented approach
4 Main theories
* 4.1 Foreknowledge
* 4.2 World Trade Center collapse
* 4.3 The Pentagon
* 4.4 Flight 93
* 4.5 Hijackers
* 4.6 Phone calls
* 4.7 Jewish and Israeli involvement
5 Cover-up allegations
* 5.1 Cockpit recorders
* 5.2 Bin Laden tapes
6 Other theories
* 6.1 Foreign governments
* 6.2 No plane theories
* 6.3 Reptilian shape-shifting aliens
* 6.4 Drug industry cartel
7 Motives
* 7.1 Pax Americana
* 7.2 Invasions
* 7.3 Suggested historical precedents
8 Proponents
9 Media reaction
* 9.1 In popular culture
10 Criticism
* 10.1 In the political arena
* 11 See also
* 12 Notes
* 13 Bibliography
14 External links
* 14.1 United States government sources
* 14.2 Engineering publications
* 14.3 Proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories
* 14.4 Debunkers of 9/11 conspiracy theories
HISTORY
Since the September 11 attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories
regarding the 9/11 attacks have been put forward in Web sites,
books, and films. Many groups and individuals advocating 9/11
conspiracy theories identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement
11/12/13 Unlike other conspiracies theories, such as those about
the death of Princess Diana, 9/11 conspiracy theories did not
emerge immediately after the event. Indeed, most professional
conspiracy theorists in the United States appeared to be as
shocked as the rest of the population 14 The first theories that
emerged focused primarily on various anomalies in the publicly
available evidence, and proponents later developed more specific
theories about an alleged plot. 14 One allegation that was
widely circulated by e-mail and on the Web, is that not a single
Jew had been killed in the attack and that attacks must have been
the work of the Mossad, not Islamic terrorists 14
The first elaborated theories appeared in Europe. They include a
blog published by Mathias Brockers, an editor at the German
newspaper Die Tageszeitung at the time, the book "9/11: The Big
Lie" by French journalist Thierry Meyssan, the book "The CIA and
September 11" by former German state minister Andreas von Bulow
and the book "Operation 9/11," written by the German journalist
Gerhard Wisnewski. 14
While these theories were popular in Europe, they were treated by
the U.S. media with either bafflement or amusement and were
dismissed by the U.S. government as the product of anti-American-
ism. 15/16 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." 17
By 2004, conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks began
to gain ground in the United States. One explanation for the
increase in popularity was that it was not the discovery of any
new or more compelling evidence or an improvement of the
technical quality of the presentation of the theories, but rather
the growing criticism of the Iraq War and the presidency of
George W. Bush, who had been reelected in 2004. 14 Revelations
of spin doctoring and lying by federal officials, such as the
claims about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in
Iraq, the belated release of the President's Daily Brief of
August 6, 2001 and reports that NORAD had lied to the 9/11
Commission, may have fuelled the conspiracy theories. 14
Between 2004 and the fifth anniversary of the September 11
attacks in 2006, mainstream coverage of the conspiracy theories
increased. 14 Reacting to the growing publicity, the U.S.
government issued responses to the theories, including a formal
analysis by the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) about the collapse of the World Trade Center, 18 a
revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories, 19
and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August
2006 speech, which declared 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." 20 Al-Qaeda has
repeatedly claimed responsibility for the attacks, with chief
deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri accusing Shia Iran and Hezbollah of
intentionally starting rumors that Israel carried out the attacks
to denigrate Sunni successes in hurting America.
21/22/23/24/25/26
Some of the conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks do
not involve representational strategies typical of many
conspiracy theories that establish a clear dichotomy between good
and evil, or guilty and innocent. Instead, they call up
gradations of negligence and complicity. 14 Matthias Brockers,
an early proponent of such theories, dismisses the official
account of the September 11 attacks as being itself a conspiracy
theory that seeks "to reduce complexity, disentangle what is
confusing," and "explain the inexplicable". 14
Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream
news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11
conspiracy theories, 27 with an article in the magazine "Time"
stating that "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream
political reality." 28 An August 2007 Zogby poll commissioned by
911 Truth.org 29 found that 63.6% of Americans believe that Arab
fundamentalists were responsible for 9/11 while 26.4% of believed
that "certain elements in the U.S. government knew the attacks
were coming but consciously let them proceed for various
political, military and economic reasons" and 4.8% of them
believe that "certain U.S. Government elements actively planned
or assisted some aspects of the attacks". 30 (See 9/11 opinion
polls.) In 2008, 9/11 conspiracy theories topped a "greatest
conspiracy theory" list compiled by The Daily Telegraph. The list
was based on following and traction. 31/32 Mainstream coverage
generally presents these theories as a cultural phenomenon and is
often critical of their content. [citation needed]
(Once more, if the USA/Britain wanted to go to war in the Middle
East [for whatever fanciful reason some want to claim they did]
they had the "ace card" up their sleeve - "weapons of mass
destruction" in Iraq. They had no need to plan a detailed
conspiracy of 9/11 NOR to ALLOW such a plan [that they supposedly
knew about according to conspiracy buffs] to be carried out, upon
not just USA people but many others from around the world who
died on that day of 9/11 - Keith Hunt)
MAINSTREAM ACCOUNT
See also: September 11 attacks
On September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four
commercial passenger jet airliners. The hijackers intentionally
crashed two of the airliners into the Twin Towers of the World
Trade Center in New York City, killing everyone on board and many
others working in the buildings. Both buildings collapsed within
two hours, destroying at least two nearby buildings and damaging
others. The hijackers crashed a third airliner into the Pentagon
and a fourth plane crashed into a field near Shanksville,
Pennsylvania after the passengers and flight crew revolted. 33
The 9/11 Commission Report disclosed prior warnings of varying
detail of planned attacks against the United States by al-Qaeda.
The report said that the government ignored these warnings due to
a lack of communication between various law enforcement and
intelligence personnel. For the lack of inter-agency
communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws
passed in the 1970s to prevent abuses that caused scandals during
that era. The report faulted the Clinton and the Bush
administrations with "failure of imagination". Most members of
the Democratic and the Republican parties applauded the
commission's work. 34
Within the context of 9/11 conspiracy theories, the terms
'mainstream account,' 'official account' and 'official conspiracy
theory' all refer to:
* The reports from government investigations - the 9/11
Commission Report (which incorporated intelligence information
from the earlier FBI investigation (PENTTBOM) and the Joint
Inquiry of 2002), and the studies into building performance
carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency 35 (FEMA)
and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
* Investigations by non-government organizations that support the
mainstream account - such as those by the National Fire
Protection Association, and by scientists of Purdue University
and Northwestern University. 36/37/38
* Articles supporting these facts and theories appearing in
magazines such as Popular Mechanics, Scientific American, and
Time.
* Similar articles in news media throughout the world, including
The Times of India, 39 the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(CBC), 40 the BBC, 41 Le Monde, 42 Deutsche Welle, 43 the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), 44 and The Chosun
Ilbo of South Korea. 45
* President Barack Obama's June 2009 speech to the Muslim world
where he said "I am aware that some question or justify the
events of 9/11. But let us be clear: al-Qaeda killed nearly 3,000
people on that day." 46
VARIANTS
Most 9/11 conspiracy theories generally originate from
dissatisfaction with the mainstream account of 9/11. 47
"LIHOP" and "MIHOP"
Less extensive theories allege that official reports have covered
up incompetence or negligence from U.S. personnel or the Bush
Administration, 48 or involvement of a foreign government or
organization other than al-Qaeda. 49 The most prevalent theories
can be broadly divided into two main forms:
LIHOP ("Let it happen on purpose") - suggests that key
individuals within the government had at least some foreknowledge
of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or actively weakened
America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not
intercepted. 47/50
MIHOP ("Make it happen on purpose") - that key individuals within
the government planned the attacks and collaborated with, or
framed, al-Qaeda in carrying them out. There is a range of
opinions about how this might have been achieved. 47/50
Investigation-oriented approach
Other critics of the account of the September 11 attacks provided
by the U.S. government are not proposing specific theories, but
try to demonstrate that the U.S. government's account of the
events is wrong. This, according to them, would lead to a general
call for a new official investigation into the events of
September 11, 2001. According to Jonathan Kay, managing editor
for comment at the Canadian newspaper "National Post," 51 who is
currently working on a book about proponents of 9/11 conspiracy
theories, "they don't feel that that's their job. They feel their
job is to show everybody that the official theory of 9/11 is
wrong. And then, when everybody is convinced, then the population
will rise up and demand a new investigation with government
resources, and that investigation will tell us what actually
happened." 52
MAIN THEORIES
Foreknowledge
Main article: 9111 advance-knowledge debate
See also: U.S. military response during the September 11 attacks
and United States government operations and exercises on
September 11, 2001
It has been claimed that action or inaction by U.S. officials
with foreknowledge was intended to ensure that the attacks took
place successfully. For example, Michael Meacher, former British
environment minister and member of Tony Blair's Cabinet until
June 2003 claims that the United States knowingly failed to
prevent the attacks. 53/54 Author David Ray Griffin alleges that
the 9/11 conspiracy was considerably larger than the government
claims and that the entire 9/11 Commission Report "is constructed
in support of one big lie: that the official story about 9/11 is
true." 55
One popular conspiracy theory suggests there was a suspiciously
high volume of put options placed on United Airlines and American
Airlines stocks just before 9/11. According to this theory,
trading insiders knew in advance of the coming events of 9/11 and
placed their bets accordingly. An analysis by Allen M. Poteshman
into the possibility of insider trading on 9/11 concludes that:
"A measure of abnormal long put volume was also examined and seen
to be at abnormally high levels in the days leading up to the
attacks. Consequently, the paper concludes that there is evidence
of unusual option market activity in the days leading up to
September 11 that is consistent with investors trading on advance
knowledge of the attacks." 56
(Once more, there is a simple logical answer to this argument;
people just do not use logic, it is like some "black plague" to
them, they are so afraid to use logic. The terrorists are all
over the world, whatever group it is that comes from the Middle
East. They do have modern space-age technology as like most
reading this series have, cell phones, iPods, Computers, Laptops,
ways to make bombs, skills of various kinds, from fake passports
to flying commercial airplanes. They are not ignorant back-woods-
men [though many of them live in the hills, but some right in our
modern cities]. They also need money to do what they do - blow-up
and kill [with bombs or guns or rockets]. It would be very
logical for MANY of them [in different countries] to use the Wall
Street Stocks etc.etc. to bring in money, from something THEY
knew was to happen on September 11 2001. It is just that simple.
Just that logical from people who are very killingly logical [you
decide to be a suicide bomber, you are going to your death very
logically], which conspiracy geeks can't seem to logically think
the fanatical terrorists have any logic. The truth is they have
more logic that most they are out to kill have. Keith Hunt)
On the days leading up to 9/11, two airlines saw a rise in their
put to call ratio. These two airlines were United Airlines and
American Airlines, the two airlines whose planes were hijacked on
9/11. Between 6 and 7 September, the Chicago Board Options
Exchange saw purchases of 4,744 "put" option contracts in UAL
versus 396 call options. On 10 September, more trading in Chicago
saw the purchase of 4,516 put options in American Airlines, the
other airline involved in the hijackings. This compares with a
mere 748 call options in American purchased that day. No others
airline companies saw anomalies in their put to call ratio in the
days leading up to the attacks. 57 American Airlines however,
had just released a major warning about possible losses. 58
Insurance companies saw anomalous trading activities as well.
Citigroup Inc., which has estimated that its Travelers insurance
unit may pay $500 million in claims from the World Trade Center
attack, had about 45 times the normal volume during three trading
days before the attack for options that profit if the stock falls
below $40. Citigroup shares fell $1.25 in late trading to $38.09.
Morgan Stanley, which occupied 22 floors at the World Trade
Center, experienced bigger-than-normal pre-attack trading of
options that profit when stock prices fall. Other companies that
were directly affected by the tragedy had similar jumps. 59
Raytheon, a defense contractor, had an anomalously high number of
call options trading on September 10. A Raytheon option that
makes money if shares are more than $25 each had 232 options
contracts traded on the day before the attacks, almost six times
the total number of trades that had occurred before that day. 60
(All you will notice were connected to what was to happen by the
terrorists on September 11. This just proves my point as I've
stated above. The fanatical terrorists are not stupid or
illogical. They are VERY logical. They knew what was planned.
They knew also how to bring some money into their nets. Now, if
every single "stock" buyer etc. could be traced as to the place
from where the "trading" was done, you might, I said might, get
an insight. But then people can go to a library, or buy a laptop
then do their "stocks" and then throw it in the river, the laptop
that is. Keith Hunt)
Another common claim is that the North American Aerospace Defense
Command (NORAD) issued a stand down order or deliberately
scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to reach
their targets without interference. According to this theory,
NORAD had the capability of locating and intercepting planes on
9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government conspiracy
to allow the attacks to occur. 58 The Web site:
emperors-clothes.com argues that the U.S. military failed to do
their job. StandDown.net's Mark R. Elsis says "There is only one
explanation for this.... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down
on 9/ 11." 61/62
In September 2001, NORAD generals said they learned of the
hijackings in time to scramble fighter jets. Later, the U.S.
government released tapes claiming to show the Federal Aviation
Agency (FAA) did not tell the military about the hijackings until
three of the four planes had crashed, a fact that would indicate
that the FAA repeatedly lied to other U.S. government agencies.
63
The Answer:
Phil Mold of Skeptic magazine has explained that it is neither
quick nor easy to locate and intercept a plane behaving
erratically, and that the hijackers turned off or disabled the
onboard radar transponders. Without these transponder signals to
identify the airplanes, the hijacked airplanes would have been
only blips among 4,500 other blips on NORAD'S radar screens,
making them very difficult to track. 58/61
According to Popular Mechanics, only 14 fighter jets were on
alert in the contiguous 48 states on 9/11. There was no automated
method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert NORAD.
61 A passenger airline hadn't been hijacked in the US since
1979. 64 "They had to pick up the phone and literally dial us,"
says Maj.Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD.
According to Popular Mechanics, only one civilian plane was
intercepted in the decade prior to 9/11, which took 1 hour and 22
minutes. 61
Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic
flight on intercepts. Before 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions
were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ).
"Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says FAA spokesman Bill
Schumann. After 9/11, the FAA and NORAD increased cooperation.
They set up hotlines between command centers while NORAD
increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch
airspace over the continent. 61
(There, now you know the rest of the story, as Paul Harvey would
have said. There were hundreds of aircraft in the air and on the
radar on 9/11. The hijackers were logical enough to make sure the
.... whatever in the cock-pit was not in tune with ground
control. What was happening on 9/11 in that part of the USA was
nothing like what had ever happened before. You think the USA
airforce is PERFECT, always was, and will forever be? You are in
a dream if you think so. There is NOTHING PERFECT about any part
of the USA military machine. They make mistakes, they blunder
[they kill their own with so-called "friendly fire"], they miss-
communicate, they make errors, they are caught off guard by
something they did not expect or antisipate. They are human
people, and where you have human people, you get errors,
mistakes, blunders, bewilderment, hopping on one foot while
juggling the 5 balls with two hands. Get the picture? Use some
logic and you will. They have "tightened" up things [you know
that if you're flying these days] since 9/11, but do not EVER
think the terrorists can't find a way around our "tightening of
things" for if you do, they will blow you up along with
themselves. Keith Hunt)
WORLD TRADE CENTER COLLAPSE
Main article: World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy
theories
The controlled demolition conspiracy theories claim that the
collapse of the North Tower, South Tower and 7 World Trade Center
was not caused by the plane crash damage, or by resulting fire
damage, but by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.
The reasoning behind this explained that if the US Government had
planted explosives in the building but made it look like
terrorists had done the damage, it would have given them a
perfect excuse to go to war in Iraq. 65
(But it would have been the simplest for USA/Briatain, with no
loss of life, to have used the "weapons of mass destruction"
argument for war, as they did after 9/11 - Keith Hunt)
Demolition theory proponents, such as physicist Steven E. Jones,
architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and
theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and
resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings
sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the
buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds
that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their
structures. Jones has presented the hypothesis that thermite or
nanothermite 66 was used to demolish the buildings and says he
has found evidence of such explosives in the WTC 67/68/69/70
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
concluded the official version was more than sufficient to
explain the collapse of the buildings. The NIST and many
mainstream scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists
because they feel it would give these theories unwarranted
credibility. 71 Specialists in structural mechanics and
structural engineering generally accept the model of a
fire-induced, Gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center
buildings without the use of explosives 72/73/74
(We have seen that the way the buildings were built [way
different than the Empire State Building] and the effect such
large planes acting as a huge bomb, would have had on those
Towers, all make quite logical sense as to how and why they came
down. The mixture of plane fuel, gas, electrical wires exploding,
and all the other mixtures of such building, would explain the
thermite or nanothermite in the dust, as Jones claims he has
evidence of. Many strange things can happen in such an explosive
falling of such buildings, least of which could be odd mixing of
things to produce what Jones claims he has found in the dust.
Then such "conspiracy" people are not against just lying to you.
You don't think so? Well some under the name of "Christian"
ministers have written articles about the "stones" for the next
Temple in Jerusalem being at a certain ship-dock ready to be sent
to the Holy Land. That was back in the 1980s - and it was all
just a pure in-your-face LIE! So do not think that "conspiracy"
geeks are above lying to you - Keith Hunt)
Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published
that the towers had collapsed due to melted steel 75/76
Knowledge that the burning temperatures of jet fuel would not
melt the steel support structure of the WTC contributed to the
belief among skeptics that the towers would not have collapsed
without external interference (something other than the planes).
NIST does not claim that the steel was melted, but rather that
the weakened steel (at 1000 degrees Celsius steel weakens to
roughly 10% of its room temperature strength), together with the
damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused the collapses. 77
NIST reported that a simulation model based on the assumption
that combustible vapors burned immediately upon mixing with the
incoming oxygen showed that "at any given location, the duration
of (Gas) temperatures near 1,000 C was about 15 min to 20 min.
The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were 500 C or
below." 78
(And there is much more to the logical fall of those buildings,
as I've shown you earlier in these studies. It was a COMBINED
factor, when all came together, that brought down those two
towers - Keith Hunt)
THE PENTAGON
According to some theories, the U.S. administration deliberately
chose not to shoot down a plane that was heading for the
Pentagon, while others contend that no plane hit the Pentagon at
all.
Theories that allege deliberate inaction by the U.S.
administration cite former transportation secretary Norman
Mineta's testimony to the 9/11 Commission, in which he stated
that an aide asked then Vice President Dick Cheney whether the
"orders still stand". Cheney answered that they did. Mineta
assumed that the orders were to shoot down the plane, while
conspiracy theorists see this as an indication that the orders
were not to shoot down the plane. 63
(AN ASSUMPTION does not prove a factual reality. Even going along
with the argument. Conspiracy guys are at confusion on this
matter, some calim this, others of them claim something else. I
suppose in the confusion of the events of that day, some
confusion would be on all sides, people in the street, people in
the airforce, even people in Government circles. But we have
shown that there is enough evidence and logic that sends the
conspiracy thoughts to planet Pluto - Keith Hunt)
Thierry Meyssan and Dylan Avery argue that American Airlines
Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead they ague that
Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside
the U.S. government. Reopen 91l.org says that the holes in the
Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing
757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a
hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssan's book, "L'Effroyable
Imposture" (published in English as "911: The Big Lie") became an
instant bestseller in France and is available in more than a
dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized
by the French press. The French newspaper Liberation called the
book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely
without foundation." 80/81/82
According to Mete Sozen, a professor of structural engineering at
Purdue University, a crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like
outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When
Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other
was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns. 80
According to Architecture Week, the reason the Pentagon took
relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One
had recently been renovated. 83 (This was part of a renovation
program which had been begun in the eighties, and Wedge One was
the first of five to be renovated. 84
(It has been very well explained and proved in an earlier study
that indeed a 757 plane did smash into the Pentagon - Keith Hunt)
Airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, 85 the nose
cone, landing gear, 86 an airplane tire, 87 the fuselage,
[citation needed] and an intact cockpit seat 88 were observed at
the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were
found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed
by DNA analysis. 89 Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the
Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls
reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example,
passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane
had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the
back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called
her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that
the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives
and box cutters. 5/80/90
A year before the attacks, a massive casualty (MASCAL) exercise
was conducted in which a hijacked plane crashed into the Pentagon
91, which has raised suspicion amongst some.
(So, why does it seem strange to some that the USA would have
some common logic sense, as to actually think it may be possible
that a hijacked plane could be smashed into the Pentagon? Planes
before 9/11 have been hijacked. It is not un-logical to believe
the USA Government had enough logic to relaize one of its "main
defence" buildings could be targeted for a "hit" by hijacked
planes. It should be logic that if a torrorist group wanted to
make a clear statement to the USA, the Pentagon would be one of
the main targets to hit. The White House another logical target
for a terror group. The Twin Towers I suspect would have been the
furthest from the USA military mind, as they were in many ways
"International" buildings and not thought of as the same as the
Pentagon and White House - Keith Hunt)
FLIGHT 93
The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93,
crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania after the
passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day,
it was the only one not to reach its target. 92
One of the popular conspiracy theories surrounding this event is
that Flight 93 was actually shot down by a U.S. fighter jet.
David Ray Griffin and Alex Jones say that large parts of the
plane including the main body of the engine landed miles away
from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane
crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field
when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of
wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. A posting
on Rense.com claimed that the main body of the engine was found
miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to
that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner)
80/92/93
According to some theories, the plane had to be shot down by the
government because passengers had found out about the alleged
plot. 94
According to the magazine "Skeptic," "[this] claim rests largely
on unsupported assertions that the main body of the engine and
other large parts of the plane turned up miles from the main
wreckage site, too far away to have resulted from an ordinary
crash. This is incorrect, because the engine was found only 300
yards from the main crash site, and its location was consistent
with the direction in which the plane had been traveling." 95
(So you see how some conspiracy people are not beyond LYING to
you, or getting facts so mixed up that their story line becomes a
lie, an un-truth, or half-truth, or a no truth at all. It reminds
me of the "Christian" writers who have written half-truths, or
no-truth, hence lies, about the Jewish Temple they say must be
build before Jesus returns. They want Christ to return any second
in a "secret rapture" and they say a Jewish Temple must be built
before He can return, so hence they make up stories and out right
lies, about the stones of the Temple on their way to the Holy
Land etc. and etc. - Keith Hunt)
Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the
crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, says that, at very high
velocities of 500 mph or more, it would only take a few seconds
to move or tumble across the ground for 300 yards. 80/95
Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Lake by local residents
are accurate. CNN reported that investigators found debris from
the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site,
including in New Baltimore. 96 However, according to CNN, this
debris was all very light material that the wind would have
easily blown away, and a Pittsburgh Post-Gazette article from
September 14, 2001 describes the material as "mostly papers",
"strands of charred insulation", and an "endorsed paycheck". The
same article quotes FBI agent Bill Crowley that, "Lighter,
smaller debris probably shot into the air on the heat of a
fireball that witnesses said shot several hundred feet into the
air after the jetliner crashed. Then, it probably rode a wind
that was blowing southeast at about 9 m.p.h." 97 Also, the
distance between the crash site and Indian Lake was misreported
in some accounts. According to the BBC, "In a straight line,
Indian Lake is just over a mile from the crash site. The road
between the two locations takes a roundabout route of 6.9 miles -
accounting for the erroneous reports." 92
(See how things can get out of context, miss-applied? One not
clearly stated fact, can lead to a multitude of false ideas and
hence to false theories, and eventually into the "conspiracy"
realm, and you always have "conspiracy hobbiests" eager to lap it
up, and exaggerate it even more - Keith Hunt)
Some conspiracy theorists believe a small white jet seen flying
over the crash area may have fired a missile to shoot down Flight
93. 98 However, government agencies such as the FBI assert this
was a Dassault Falcon business jet asked to descend to an
altitude of around 1500 ft to survey the impact. 99 Ben Sliney,
who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no
military aircraft were near Flight 93. 100
Some internet videos, such as Loose Change, speculate that Flight
93 safely landed in Ohio, and a substituted plane was involved in
the crash in Pennsylvania 101 Often cited is a preliminary news
report that Flight 93 landed at a Cleveland airport; 102 it was
later learned that Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with
Flight 93, and the report was retracted as inaccurate. Several
websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim,
citing the wreckage at the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the
difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for another, and
claim that such "hoax theories... appear calculated to alienate
victims' survivors and the larger public from the 9/11 truth
movement". 93/103 The editor of the article has since written a
rebuttal to the claims. 104
The woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from
the impact of Flight 93 hitting the ground says she has been
harassed by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked the photo.
The FBI, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Service's Flight
93 National Memorial have found it to be authentic. 105
Conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Flight 93
and/or Flight 77, were murdered or that they were relocated, with
the intent that they never be found. 94
(I mean this has got to be making you laugh by now, if it was not
so serious a matter. Conspiracy geeks want you to believe all
these people were "paif off" or bribed. That all their friends
and relatives and co-workers were "paif off" - held fake
funerals, if the passengers were relocated never to be found. It
goes on and on - conspiracy people will do just about anything,
bend their mind, refuse facts, blind themsleves to reality,
forget about any logic - do anything to hold their conspiracy
belief - it gives them some kind of kick, a thrill up the spine,
a tingle over the skin. It reminds me of the "Pentecostal guy"
back in the 1980s who called me on the phone, asked me if I
observed the Sabbath on the 7th day. I told him I did. Then he
told me he did NOT, but knew he had the Spirit of God because he
"spoke in tongues." He never logically thought the "tongues
speaking" could be something other than from God. He had the cart
before the horse in trying to prove he had the Spirit of God and
hence did not have to observe the Sabbath day. But would he ever
admit his logic was NOT logic, not on your life! He would stick
to it no matter how I tried to show him his logic was not logic,
but self deception. He liked his self-deception too much to give
it up. Keith Hunt)
HIJACKERS
See also: Hijackers in the September 11 attacks and 9/11
advance-knowledge debate#Blocked al- Qaeda investigations
During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath
of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC published the names and identities
of what they believed to be some of the hijackers. 106 Some of
the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that
was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the
hijackings were faked. 106/107 The BBC explained that the
initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported
back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names. 106 In
response to a request from the BBC, the FBI stated: 106
The FBI is confident that it has positively identified the
nineteen hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist
attacks. Also, the 9/11 investigation was thoroughly
reviewed by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks
Upon the United States and the House and Senate Joint
Inquiry. Neither of these reviews ever raised the issue of
doubt about the identity of the nineteen hijackers.
The New York Times also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken
identity 108
According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of "Arab
News" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about
the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September
14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the
cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were
quickly resolved. According to Bradley, "all of this is
attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few
days following the attack. What we're dealing with are
coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley,
the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said
al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the
United States or Great Britain." 107
According to Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, "Sixteen
of the nineteen shouldn't have gotten into the United States in
any way at all because there was something wrong with their
visas, something wrong with their passports. They should simply
have been stopped at the border. That was sixteen of the
nineteen. Obviously, if even half of those people had been
stopped, there never would have been a plot." 109
Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi had both been identified as
al-Qaeda agents by the CIA, but that information was not shared
with the FBI or U.S. Immigration, so both men were able to
legally enter the U.S. to prepare for the 9/11 attacks. 110
Five of the alleged hijackers may have received training at U.S.
military facilities 111 The Defense Department confirmed that
three of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz al-Omari and
Saeed al-Ghamdi, "have the same names as alumni of American
military schools." A Mohamed Atta attended the International
Officers School at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama; an
Abdulaziz al-Omari went to the Aerospace Medical School at Brooks
Air Force Base in Texas; and a Saeed al-Ghamdi was at the Defense
Language Institute at the Presidio in Monterey, California. 112
PHONE CALLS
After 9/11, cellular experts said that calls were able to be
placed from the hijacked planes, and that they were surprised
that they lasted as long as they did. They said that the only
reason that the calls went through in the first place is that the
aircraft were flying so close to the ground. 113 Alexa Graf, an
AT&T; spokesperson said it was almost a fluke that the calls
reached their destinations. 114 Other industry experts said that
it is possible to use cell phones with varying degrees of success
during the ascent and descent of commercial airline flights. 115
Marvin Sirbu, professor of engineering and public policy at
Carnegie Mellon University said on September 14, 2001, that "The
fact of the matter is that cell phones can work in almost all
phases of a commercial flight." 115
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, 13 passengers from
Flight 93 made a total of over 30 calls to both family and
emergency personnel (twenty-two confirmed air phone calls, two
confirmed cell phone and eight not specified in the report).
According to Debunk911myths.org, all but two calls from Flight 93
were made on air phones, not cell phones, and both calls lasted
about a minute before being dropped. 116 Brenda Raney, Verizon
Wireless spokesperson, said that Flight 93 was supported by
several cell sites.114 There were reportedly three phone calls
from Flight 11, five from Flight 175, and three calls from Flight
77. Two calls from these flights were recorded, placed by flight
attendants Madeleine Sweeney and Betty Ong on Flight 11.
JEWISH AND ISRAELI INVOLVEMENT
See also: 9/11 advance-knowledge debate#Israel
There are theories that 9/11 was part of an international Jewish
conspiracy. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, another myth popular
with 9/11 conspiracy theorists 117 is that 4,000 Jewish
employees skipped work at the World Trade Center on September 11.
This was first reported on September 17 by the Lebanese
Hezbollahowned satellite television channel Al-Manar and is
believed to be based on the September 12 edition of the Jerusalem
Post that stated "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far
received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the
areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of
the attacks." 118 Both turned out to be incorrect; the number of
Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between
270 to 400 119/120/121/122 The lower figure tracks closely with
the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial
surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State
Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to
claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than
should have been present at the time. 123/124 Five Israeli
citizens died in the attack. 125
It has been claimed that Israeli agents may have had
foreknowledge of the attacks. Four hours after the attack, the
FBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking
skyline from the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an
apartment building, for "puzzling behavior". The Israelis were
said to have been videotaping the events with cries of "joy and
mockery ".126/127/128 While "The Forward," a New York Jewish
news magazine, reported that the FBI considered them to be
intelligence operatives, a spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy
in the United States said that they had not been involved in any
intelligence operation in the United States. 126
Imam Anwar al-Awlaki of Virgnia initially condemned the attacks.
But just six days after the attack, he wrote on the
IslamOnline.net website a suggestion that Israeli intelligence
agents might have been responsible for the attacks, and that the
FBI "went into the roster of the airplanes and whoever had a
Muslim or Arab name became the hijacker by default. 129
(And so it goes on .... this and that reported by this and that,
and slanted for that and this reason, concerning maybe this and
couldbe that idea - Keith Hunt)
COVER-UP ALLEGATIONS
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
mainstream account. 130/131/132 [citation needed] The debris
from ground-zero, for example, was removed without a proper
forensic investigation, making it very difficult to discover why
the World Trade Center buildings collapsed. 133/134
(It should be common logic as to why the buildings collapsed.
When you know how they were built, what hit them, what effect it
would have on everything up and down the buildings, I submit it
is common logic that tells you why they collapsed - Keith Hunt)
COCKPIT RECORDERS
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the cockpit voice
recorders (CVR) or flight data recorders (FDR), or "black boxes",
from Flights 11 and 175 were not recovered from the remains of
the WTC attack; however, two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas
DeMasi, who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade
Center, stated in the book "Behind-The-Scenes: Ground Zero" 135
that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black
boxes" from the jetliners: 136/137
"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." 138
According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from
Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered.
However, the CVR from Flight 77 was said to be too damaged to
yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families
of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings 139
In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of
the Zacarias Moussaoui trial. 140 Some conspiracy theorists do
not believe that the black boxes were damaged and that instead
there has been a cover up of evidence. [citation needed]
(As stated the consipracy buffs will go down dying before they
will admit their errors, even when the conspiracy guys do not
agree with each other, but have conflicting "conspiracy" theories
- Keith Hunt)
The cockpit voice recorder from Flight 77 was heavily damaged
from the impact and resulting fire. As the photo shows (which I
have not reproduced - Keith Hunt)
BIN LADEN TAPES
Main article: Videos of Osama bin Laden
A series of interviews, audio and videotapes have been released
since the 9/11 attacks that have been reported to be from Osama
bin Laden. At first the speaker denied responsibility for the
attacksl 141 but over the years has taken increasing
responsibility for them culminating in a November 2007 audiotape
in which the speaker claimed sole responsibility for the attacks
and denied the Taliban and the Afghan government or people had
any prior knowledge of the attacks. 142/143/144 According to the
Central Intelligence Agency, the speaker was most likely Osama
bin Laden. Some observers, especially people in the Muslim world,
doubt the authenticity of the tape. 145 In the tape said to be
found in December 2001 in Afghanistan 146, Osama happens to use
his right hand in taking notes while the FBI, which does not
indict him for 9/11 attacks in its website, states that he is
left-handed 147.
OTHER THEORIES
Foreign governments
See also: Responsibility for the September 11 attacks#Other
alleged responsibility and 9/11 advancedknowledge debate#Foreign
government foreknowledge
.........................
To be continued with other "wacky" ideas behind the 9/11 attack
in the USA, including beings from another planet.
Keith Hunt
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