The 9/11 Conspiracy Theories

Following a public lecture I gave in 2005 at the L.A. Public Library, I was buttonholed by a documentary filmmaker with ambitions of exposing the conspiracy behind 9/11.

“You mean the conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda to attack the United States?” I asked rhetorically, knowing what was to come.

“That’s what they want you to believe,” he said. 

“Who is they?” I queried. 

“The government,” he whispered, as if they might be listening at that very moment. 

At this point in the conversation I declined to be interviewed, knowing precisely where the dialogue was going next: 

• the Pentagon was hit by a missile,
• Air Force jets were ordered to “stand down” and not intercept Flights 11 and 175 that struck the twin towers, 
• which themselves were razed by demolition explosives timed to go off soon after the impact of the planes, 
• a mysterious white jet shot down Flight 93 over Pennsylvania,
• New York Jews were ordered to stay home that day (Zionists and other pro-Israeli factions, of course, were involved), 
• that 9/11 was orchestrated by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the CIA in order to implement their plan for global domination and a New World Order, to be launched by a Pearl Harbor-like attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, thereby providing the justification for war. 

The 9/11 Truther movement began in 2002, when the noted French left-wing activist Thierry Meyssan’s 9/11 conspiracy book, L’Effroyable Imposture (The Appalling Deception) became a bestseller in France, then soon made its way across the Atlantic, resulting in such books as Inside Job by Jim Marrs, The New Pearl Harbor by David Ray Griffin, and 9/11: The Great Illusion by George Humphrey.

Let’s begin with where many 9/11 Truthers start: the melting point of steel. According to the website 911research.wtc7.net, steel melts at a temperature of 2,777 degrees Fahrenheit, but jet fuel burns at only 1,517 degrees Fahrenheit. No melted steel, no collapsed towers. Therefore explosive devices must have been used.

Wrong. 

In an article in the Journal of the Minerals, Metals, and Materials Society, M.I.T. engineering professor Dr. Thomas Eagar explains why: steel loses 50 percent of its strength at 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit; 90,000 liters of jet fuel ignited other combustible materials such as rugs, curtains, furniture, and paper, which continued burning after the jet fuel was exhausted, raising temperatures above 1,400 degrees Fahrenheit and spreading the fire throughout the building; temperature differentials of hundreds of degrees across single steel horizontal trusses caused them to sag, straining and then breaking the angle clips that held them to the vertical columns; once one truss failed, others failed, and when one floor collapsed (along with the ten stories above it) onto the next floor below, that floor then gave way, creating a pancaking effect that triggered the 500,000-ton building to collapse. 

For the special issue of Skeptic on 9/11 we consulted a demolition expert named Brent Blanchard, who is Director of Field Operations for Protec Documentation Services, a company that documents the work of building demolition contractors. Since the rise in popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories, he too has been inundated with requests to explain why the buildings appeared to have “collapsed as if by a controlled demolition.”

Blanchard and his team of experts at Protec have worked with all major American demolition companies and many foreign ones to study the controlled demolition of over 1,000 of some of the largest and tallest buildings around the world. Their duties include engineering studies, structural analysis, vibration/air overpressure monitoring and photographic services. On September 11, 2001, Protec had portable field seismic monitoring systems operating at other sites in Manhattan and Brooklyn. Demolition specialists were hired to clean up Ground Zero and remove the remaining damaged structures, and these experts called on Blanchard’s company to document both the deconstruction and the debris removal. Here are nine of the best arguments made by 9/11 conspiracy theorists and their rebuttal by Protec:

Claim #1: The collapse of the towers looked exactly like controlled demolitions.

Answer: No, they did not. The key to any demolition investigation is in finding out the “where”—the actual point at which the building failed. All photographic evidence shows World Trade Center buildings 1 and 2 failed at the point of impact. Actual implosion demolitions always start with the bottom floors. Photo evidence shows the lower floors of WTC 1 and 2 were intact until destroyed from above. If you search “building demolition” on YouTube you will find hundreds of video clips of buildings collapsing by controlled demolition. I could not find one that collapsed from the top down, as did the World Trade Center buildings, including building 7. Instead, what you see is what demolition experts tell us is how it is done: the charges are set to explode from the bottom up.

Claim #2: The World Trade Center buildings fell right down into their own footprint.

Answer: Not exactly. They followed the path of least resistance and there was a lot of resistance. Buildings of 20 stories or more do not topple over like trees or reinforced towers or smokestacks, primarily because they are mostly empty space within designed for office space with 95 percent of the structure’s interior consisting of nothing but air. Imploding demolitions fall into a footprint because lower stories are removed first. WTC debris was forced out away from the building as the falling mass encountered intact floors. As well, the collapse began on the side where the planes impacted, and so were tilted slightly toward that weakened collapse point, which you can clearly see in the numerous videos of the collapsing buildings.

Claim #3: Explosive charges are seen shooting out of windows from several floors just prior to collapse.

Answer: Air and debris can be seen being violently ejected from the building but not because of explosive charges but as a natural and predictable effect of rapid structure collapse of the upper floors on the lower floors thereby pushing out the smoke from the burning fires. As well, the impact and explosion of the airplane crashes into the buildings knocked off most of the fireproofing drywall material surrounding the steel beams, considerably increasing their vulnerability to flames.

Claim #4: Witnesses heard explosions.

Answer: All Seismic evidence from many independent sources on 9/11 showed none of the sudden vibration spikes that result from explosive detonations. What people might have heard are common office items that explode in massive fires, such as cleaning supplies, CRT TVs and computer monitors, large motors with an oil reservoir for lube, like in elevator lift motors, tires in vehicles in the parking structure, and propane tanks.

Claim #5: A heat-generating explosive (thermite?) melted steel at Ground Zero.

Answer: No demolition workers report encountering molten steel, cut beams, or any evidence whatsoever of explosions or explosive charges.

Claim #6: Ground Zero debris—particularly the large steel columns from towers 1 and 2—were quickly shipped overseas to prevent scrutiny.

Answer: Not according to those who handled the steel. The chain of custody is clearly documented, first at Ground Zero by Protec and later at the Fresh Kills site by Yannuzzi Demolition. The time frame (months) before it was shipped to China was normal.

Claim #7: WTC Building 7 was intentionally “pulled down” with explosives. The building owner himself was quoted as saying he decided to “pull it.”

Answer: Building owners do not have authority over emergency personnel at a disaster scene. We have never heard “pull it” used to refer to an explosive demolition. Demolition explosive experts anticipated the collapse of WTC7, and also witnessed it from a few hundred feet away and no one heard detonations.

Claim #8: Steel-frame buildings do not collapse due to fire.

Answer: Many steel-framed buildings have collapsed due to fire. For example, on May 13, 2008, a large part of the tall concrete-reinforced steel architecture tower at the Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands caught on fire and burned, and shortly thereafter collapsed nearly straight-down, almost precisely into its own footprint.

Claim #9: Anyone who denies that explosives were used is ignoring evidence.

Answer: Most of our comments apply to the differences between what people actually saw on 9/11 and what they should have seen had explosives been present. The hundreds of men and women who worked to remove debris from Ground Zero were some of the country’s most experienced and respected demolition veterans. They of all people possessed the experience and expertise to recognize evidence of controlled demolition if it existed. None of these people has come forward with suspicions that explosives were used.

The collapse of World Trade Center building 7 has grown in importance to conspiracy theorists, especially since standard non-conspiracy explanations for the demise of WTC buildings 1 and 2 became accepted. Since building 7 was not struck by a plane, and it did not collapse until 5:20pm on 9/11, hours after the twin towers collapsed, the cause of its collapse, say the conspiracists, must be different from that of WTC 1 and 2. According to wtc7.net, for example, “fires were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building fires,” and that any damage from falling debris from WTC 1 and WTC 2 would have needed to be symmetrical to trigger the pancaking collapse of WTC 7. 

In point of fact, the fires burning in building 7 were extensive, not isolated. 9/11 conspiracy theorists tend to only show the north side of WTC 7, which does not look nearly as damaged as the other side. As the building burned all day, emergency response workers realized that collapse was imminent, and at 3pm that day they began evacuation of all emergency personnel. In fact, according to FDNY fire Chief Daniel Nigro, he and his firefighters noticed structural deformations of Building 7 hours before its collapse, and he said later, “I feared a collapse of Building 7 (as did many on my staff).” When the building did collapse, it went first on the south side of the building, which is where the most extensive damage was from the falling debris of the WTC 1 and 2 buildings. 

For my money, the oddest of all the 9/11 conspiracy theory claims involves the Pentagon. The idea, first floated in Thierry Meyssan’s book, was that the Pentagon was struck by a missile because the damage was too narrow and limited to be the result of an impact from a Boeing 757. In the 9/11 conspiracy film, Loose Change, dramatic reenactments are presented, arguing that the hole in the Pentagon was too small to have been made by American Airlines Flight 77. 

First, how would any of us know how big a hole a plane should make colliding with a massive building like the Pentagon? These conspiracists are talking through their hats.

All of the 9/11 conspiracy claims are this easily refuted.

Second, according to a structural engineer named Allyn E. Kilsheimer, who arrived on the scene shortly after the impact: “I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of the plane with the airline markings on them. I held in my hand the tail section of the plane, and I found the black box.” Kilsheimer’s eyewitness account is backed up by photos of plane wreckage inside and outside the building. Kilsheimer adds: “I held parts of uniforms from crew members in my hands, including body parts. Okay?”

All of the 9/11 conspiracy claims are this easily refuted. On the Pentagon “missile strike,” for example, I queried my documentary antagonist I mentioned at the start of this chapter about what happened to Flight 77, which disappeared at the same time as the Pentagon was struck. “The plane was destroyed and the passengers were murdered by Bush operatives,” he solemnly revealed. “Do you mean to tell me,” I retorted, “that not one of the thousands of conspirators needed to pull all this off is a whistle-blower who would go on TV or write a tell-all book?” 

Think about all the examples of disgruntled government bureaucrats and ex-politicians who can’t wait to go public with their insider information that we tax payers will presumably want to know about. Not one of these 9/11 insiders, witness to what is arguably the greatest conspiracy and cover-up in the history of the United States, if not all of Western civilization, wants to go on CNN or 60 Minutes to reveal their secret? Not one of them wants to cash in what could very well be one of the bestselling books of the year, if not the decade? Not one of them, after a couple of drinks and a twinge or two of guilt, has leaked to a friend (or a friend of a friend) their deep secret? Not one? 

The ultimate failure of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists is their inability to explain away the overwhelming evidence of the real conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

Then there is the conspiracy theory that NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) supposedly told fighter jets to “stand down” and let the commercial jets reach their targets, thereby implicating the U.S. military in the conspiracy. In point of fact, in a special issue of Popular Mechanics on 9/11 the editors report:

On 9/11 there were only 14 fighter jets on alert in the contiguous 48 states. No computer network or alarm automatically alerted the North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) of missing planes. And NORAD’s sophisticated radar … ringed the continent, looking outward for threats, not inward.

Remember the Hindsight Bias: after the fact it seems obvious what should have been done. Before 9/11, hijackers of planes typically demanded ransom or some political action be taken, then they would land the plane at some pre-determined destination. Hijacking a plane and flying it into a building was something new that almost no one anticipated. Also, on 9/11 the hijackers disabled the onboard radar transponders, making it much harder to track. Without that, NORAD would have had to search 4500 identical radar blips on its screens, not knowing precisely which ones were hijacked planes. 

Another conspiracy claim is that there was a suspiciously high volume of “put” trading of airline stocks in the days just before 9/11. A “put” trade is a bet that the price of a stock will decrease, which is why this is sometimes called “selling short” a stock. Conspiracists think that a lot of trading “insiders” knew the attacks were coming on 9/11 so they bet the airline stocks would decline after. In fact, the level of put trading in the days before 9/11 was not so different from other peaks earlier in the year, plus American Airlines had just recently released a report predicting possible losses in the coming quarter, and when that happens put traders increase their trading activity.

Then there’s the matter of cell phone calls made from the planes, which conspiracists claim could not have happened in 2001, given the technology of the day. First, some passengers used the in-flight cell phones available on seat-backs. Second, cell phones in 2001 could be made from high-altitude flights, albeit the coverage was spotty as the plane moved through tower cells. According to Paul Guckian, vice president of engineering for cell-phone maker Qualcomm, “at the altitude for commercial airliners, around 30,000 or 35,000 feet, phones would still get a signal.”

By definition, then, 19 members of al-Qaeda plotting to fly planes into buildings without telling us constitutes a conspiracy.

Dozens more 9/11 conspiracy claims go on and on in this vein of anomaly hunting, all grounded in the argument from personal incredulity—if I can’t think of an explanation for anomaly X besides a conspiracy, then that proves there is a conspiracy. No, it doesn’t. It just means you can’t think of an explanation.

So, all that said, I ask again, was 9/11 a conspiracy? Well, yes, it was. Say what?

In my book Conspiracy, I defined a conspiracy as two or more people or a group plotting or acting in secret to gain an advantage or harm others immorally or illegally. By definition, then, 19 members of al-Qaeda plotting to fly planes into buildings without telling us constitutes a conspiracy. The ultimate failure of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists is their inability to explain away the overwhelming evidence of the real conspiracy by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. For example:

• The 1983 attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon by a radical Hezbollah faction. 
• The 1993 truck bomb attack on the World Trade Center.
• The 1995 attempt to blow up 12 planes heading from the Philippines to the U.S. 
• The 1995 bombings of U.S. Embassy buildings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 12 Americans and 200 Kenyans and Tanzanians.
• The 1996 attack on Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia that killed 19 U.S. military personnel.
• The 1999 failed attempt to attack Los Angeles International airport by Ahmed Ressam.
• The 2000 suicide boat attack on the U.S.S. Cole that killed 17 sailors and injured 39 others.
• The well-documented evidence that Osama Bin Laden is a major financier for and the leader of al-Qaeda. 
• The 1996 fatwa by Bin Laden that officially declared a jihad against the United States.
• The 1998 fatwa calling on his followers “to kill the Americans and their allies—civilian and military is an individual duty for any Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it.”

Given this background, since Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda have officially claimed responsibility for the attacks of 9/11, we should take them at their word that they did it.