Random 9/11 Conspiracy Theories (19 items)

• (#9) 'The Planes Didn't Exist - They Were Holograms'

  Possibly the smallest faction of September 11th truthers believes that it wasn't planes that hit the towers at all, but missiles with holograms around them. They also believe the planes never existed, and that the supposed "victims" were simulated by the government ("VicSims" is their nomenclature).

  Most of these theories are based on artifacts of video images, such as perceived glitches in "image layering," and corroborated with strange examinations of pictures of September 11th victims with arrows and circles noting various things that "don't make sense." But none of these things are actually evidence, and the plot demands the use of magical technology that doesn't actually exist. Until some actual evidence surfaces that proves the passengers on the planes were fake and that the planes were actually rockets, this is simply a far-out conspiracy theory.
• (#6) 'There Was Actually a Mini-Nuke In The Basement'

  A small but vocal contingent of internet conspiracy theorists claims that the Twin Towers were actually destroyed not by planes, but by a small nuclear bomb in the basements or center columns of the buildings. They claim this because apparently water collected from the basement of WTC 6 contained a larger than normal amount of tritium, a byproduct of nuclear fusion.

  This would appear to be the only evidence of a nuclear eruption, as none of the other hallmarks of such an event were present in any form. No flash, no heat pulse, no EMP, no seismic readings, and no radioactive fallout. As it stands, the small spike in tritium is something not easily explained, but not evidence on its own of a nuclear blast.
• (#16) 'September 11th Was A Jewish Plot"

  The idea that September 11th was actually pulled off by the Israeli secret service stems from several popular, but completely debunked, urban legends.

  One is that 4,000 Israelis (or Jewish people, depending on which source you use) were told to stay home on September 11, therefore sparing their life in the supposed Mossad strike on America. Putting aside the logical issues with this conspiracy (How would Mossad contact 4,000 Israelis? Is there a mass email list? How would they have done it without anyone knowing?), there's the simple fact that it's not plausible that 4,000 nationals from one country would work in one office space at one time. The source of this rumor appears to be a story that said 4,000 Israeli nationals were working in Lower Manhattan or near the Pentagon at the time.

  The other rumor is that not a single Jewish person perished in the strikes, but we know this to also be false. About 10% of the victims were Jewish, and financial firm Cantor Fitzgerald sent representatives to dozens of Jewish funerals in the days after the incident. This theory is both demonstrably false and extremely anti-Semitic.
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  (#2) 'The Government Allowed It To Happen'

  An alternative version of the strikes being an inside job held by some conspiracy theorists is that the government didn't actively plan them, but knew they were going to happen and allowed them to. This theory has little to corroborate it other than certain coincidences and failures of intelligence.

  The most damning piece of evidence is that the Bush administration was given a memo several weeks before the incident claiming that Osama Bin Laden was planning a strike in the United States, but even that document (which was declassified in 2004) had no concrete information on where or when it would take place - only that it might.
• (#13) 'There's No Video Evidence Of A Plane Hitting The Pentagon'

  Believers in the previous theory point to there being no clear video evidence of a plane hitting the Pentagon - only a small object that looks like a rocket. The FBI confiscated 85 different video tapes of CCTV footage related to the crash. Only a small number of these showed anything like an object hitting a building.

  It's a Pentagon security camera that, for a single frame, shows a small white blur that's too small to be an oncoming plane. But this camera was using a wide angle lens to show as much of the security area as possible. Anything shown through this is, by the design of the lens, going to appear much smaller than it actually is, and also curved.

  Several other camera angles were eventually released. One shows nothing, as it wasn't pointed directly at the Pentagon, and another shows the aftermath of the impact, which looks consistent with a jetliner strike.
• (#12) 'The Pentagon Has Defenses That Would Have Shot A Plane Down'

  A conspiracy theory that emerged soon after the incident, echoed by September 11th truthers, is that the Pentagon has extensive missile defense systems that didn't go into action on September 11, 2001, meaning the government either planned the strike or knew it was going to happen.

  The problem with this theory is that it presumes facts not in evidence. In this case, the facts are that the Pentagon does not have such a defense system. No pictures have ever been produced of one, nobody has ever claimed to have worked on it or trained on it, and nobody at the Pentagon has ever complained about it not being used - because it's not real.

  Beyond the problematic issue of rigging a facility in a crowded city with weapons, there's the issue of Reagan International Airport, which is directly in the flight path of the Pentagon. Any theoretical system would have just seconds to determine if a plane heading toward the Pentagon was hostile, or simply a flight from or to Reagan. The risk of an accidental launch is far higher than the benefit of possibly being able to shoot down an oncoming plane.

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