Random 9/11 Conspiracy Theories (19 items)

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  (#1) 'The Government Made It Happen'

  Conspiracy theories that the September 11th strikes were an inside job pulled off by the US government started on the internet hours after the planes made impact. Since then, rumors have run rampant that elements in the government planned the incident, arranged for the planes to get hijacked, destroyed the buildings through "controlled demolition," and did it all to make money and/or create an excuse to invade Iraq.

  After George W. Bush left office, these rumors started to wane, but they still have a considerable presence - despite absolutely no credible evidence ever being found that corroborates the idea the government made the strikes happen on purpose. If it is true, then the conspiracy would have involved thousands of people scattered across numerous branches of government and in multiple locations rigging the Twin Towers with eruptive material without anyone finding out, hiring hijackers (or actors who were willing to perish), faking untold quantities of evidence, enlisting countless experts to play along, and never letting a word of it out into the public.

  This is a conspiracy so sprawling it strains the very basics of logic.
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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.
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  (#3) 'Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams'

  A conspiracy claim that's turned into an internet meme, this holds that burning jet fuel doesn't get hot enough to melt steel - meaning the towers had to be brought down by an eruption. While it's true that jet fuel burns at between 800° and 1500°F, and steel melts at 2500°F, this meme doesn't take into account that the beams didn't have to melt - they just had to soften and lose enough of their strength to be unable to hold up the floors above them.

  Based on the way the WTC fell down in a sort of straight pancake, it's reasonable to conclude that this is what happened.
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  (#4) 'WTC 7 Was Destroyed By A Controlled Demolition'

  People watching the aftermath of September 11th were shocked when World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed, despite not being hit by either of the planes. A conspiracy theory started almost immediately that the building had been wired with charges and destroyed on the order of building owner Larry Silverstein, who ordered it "pulled."

  While WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane, it was hit by a large amount of detritus, including the perimeter columns of one of the Twin Towers, which tore a massive gash in the side of the structure. Building 7 also had a large amount of burning jet fuel hit it, which started fires that were never put out due to failures in the sprinkler system because of water lines broken in the incident. Finally, the infamous "pull it" quote doesn't relate to some kind of demolition charge, but to the firefighting team trying to put the blaze out. The technical term for demolishing a building isn't "pull," but "shoot" or "blow."
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  (#5) 'The Empire State Building Was Hit By A Plane And Didn't Collapse'

  It's true that the Empire State Building was once hit by a plane and didn't collapse. But this was by a twin-engine B-25 bomber in 1945, not a modern jet plane in 2001. The smaller and lighter B-25 carried nowhere near the amount of fuel that a modern 737 does, and it couldn't travel at anywhere near the velocity that a jet can. It also hit much higher on the building, meaning less weight was carried by the damaged structure.

  As it was, one of the plane's engines shot right through the building and flew out the other side, while the other plunged down an elevator shaft.

  The crash took 14 lives and started a fire that took an hour to put out.
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  (#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.
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  (#7) 'The WTC Strikes Were A Giant Insurance Scam'

  This theory posits that WTC lease holder Larry Silverstein had just taken out a massive insurance policy covering his buildings for billions of dollars worth of insurance in case of terrorism - and that Silverstein had them destroyed so he'd profit off it.

  But this is a massive oversimplification of what actually happened. Silverstein had recently taken out terrorism insurance on the WTC - but the buildings already had been the target of a strike, the car bombing in 1993. Not only that, but the payout Silverstein eventually received, $4.77 billion, was far, far less than the actual cost of cleaning up the site and building the Freedom Tower, which totaled over $9 billion. It took federal and state loans, along with private investment, to cover the rest.

  If Larry Silverstein destroyed the Twin Towers to profit off the insurance payout, it was the costliest and most inept scam in history.
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  (#8) 'Thermite Destroyed The World Trade Center'

  One of the key points of September 11th controlled demolition conspiracy theories is the use of thermite to cause the detonation. Various other sites call this "nano-thermite" or "thermite paint" or "thermite straps" - most of which are either theoretical or are only in research stages.

  The purpose of thermite is to use heat to cause an extremely quick-burning and high-temperature exothermic reaction - exactly the type of thing that could be set off by burning jet fuel. Iron microspheres were found in the detritus of the WTC, which theorists say could only be caused by thermite reactions.

  However, iron microspheres aren't evidence of a thermite reaction - only of a reaction involving heat and iron. And much of the WTC was iron, including a large part of the structure. Such spheres are the natural byproduct of the softening and melting of iron, and were expected to be found in the rubble. Beyond that, nobody has actually proven how a thermite reaction would cause the collapse of the towers, nor has anyone admitted to planting any sort of thermite device.
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  (#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.
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  (#10) 'The Pentagon Was Hit By A Missile, Not Flight 77'

  This is an extremely popular conspiracy theory, but putting aside the usual questions about theories like this (Who fired it? Where did it come from? Why did nobody see it before it hit?), this is based on a simple bit of misinformation - that the exterior of the Pentagon didn't "look" like it was hit by a plane.

  Except it did. Pictures of the crash site clearly show the hole where the plane's fuselage hit the building, and corroborating evidence shows how all five layers of the Pentagon were damaged, not just the outer wall. The damage done to the building simply couldn't have been done by any rocket that wouldn't have destroyed the entire building. Not only that, but the front lawn of the Pentagon was scattered with huge amounts of wreckage that corresponds to the pieces of an airplane. Such wreckage was also found in the building itself - all of it matching up perfectly to a 767 jet plane.

  There's also the matter of the missing plane and the missing passengers. If a projectile was fired at the Pentagon, what happened to Flight 77 and its passengers? Unless you believe all of these were faked in a massive conspiracy that has no paper trail, then you have to stick with the "original story" - that the Pentagon was hit by Flight 77.
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  (#11) 'If A Plane Hit The Pentagon, Where Are The Wing Holes?'

  Believers that the Pentagon was hit not by an airplane, but by a projectile, point to the fact that there was only one hole in the outer wall, and the outline of the wings wasn't there. But, as one engineer who studied the crash said, a "jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building."

  In the case of Flight 77, one of the wings was sheared off when the plane flew ground level, and the other simply disintegrated on impact. This is confirmed by the knocked down light poles leading up to the impact site - damage that only could have been caused by an airplane wing. A small hole matching the size of a landing gear was found near the main hole caused by the impact.
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  (#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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  (#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.
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  (#14) 'A Plane Was Shot Out Of The Sky By The US Air Force'

  Possibly the most plausible September 11th conspiracy theory is that Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked before being crashed into a Pennsylvania field by the passengers, was actually taken down by the US Air Force. This would either have been because the Air Force knew it was headed toward a civilian target, or, if you're even more conspiratorial, because the passengers knew about the government plot to destroy the Twin Towers and they had to be eliminated. The farther down the rabbit hole you go, the weirder it gets - some theories have the passengers drugged or the hijackers not existing at all.

  One theory focuses on a particular National Guard pilot, Rick Gibney, and claims he fired two projectiles that brought the plane down. But Gibney, who is a real person, has sharply denied any involvement in a plot, and records show that while he was in the air that day, he was flying over Montana, then flew to Albany to ferry an emergency manager.

  No forensic evidence has ever been found suggesting a projectile was fired. The pattern of wreckage on the ground supports a plane crash, not an eruption, and no missile has ever been shown as missing or fired that day.
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  (#15) 'The Phone Calls From Passengers Were Fake'

  "No plane" advocates point to the phone calls made by 13 passengers on Flight 93 as fake, for a number of reasons that don't stand up to scrutiny. One of the most cited reasons is that cell phone towers can't generally pick up calls from above 10,000 feet, and while it's true that the higher you are, the harder it is to make cell phone calls, further evidence showed that all of the calls but two were made not from cell phones, but from the in-seat Airfones that were popular at the time - which had a booster on board the plane. The two cell phone calls were made when the plane was much lower and near the Earth's surface.

  A final point that "voice morphing" advocates point to is one of the passengers, Mark Bingham, calling his mother and introducing himself by his full name. However, Bingham's mother told reporters that this was a quirk of his, something he'd do when he was trying to project strength. It's also the kind of personality quirk that few would have known about - and certainly not someone trying to "fake" his voice.

  The "fake phone call" theory also relies on magical "voice morphing" technology, the ability to perfectly mimic a person's voice and vocal tics. While this technology was available to a certain extent in 2001, it had only worked with very small samples of speech, not the long calls passengers had with their loved ones. Additionally, several of the passengers who made calls had only booked their tickets recently - with several only getting on the plane on standby. It would have been impossible to record high quality vocal samples that quickly that stood up to scrutiny.
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  (#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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  (#17) 'September 11th Was A False Flag To Start The Iraq War'

  Members of the Bush administration, including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and President Bush himself, have all been accused of planning September 11th as a "new Pearl Harbor" to galvanize support for a conflict in Iraq. While the description is real, it's been taken out of context by conspiracy theorists.

  The line, used in a report by conservative think tank Project for a New American Century, says that only an event on the level would allow for the societal transformation they were seeking. It's more a statement of fact than a wish. As it stands, the wheels to invade Iraq were already turning, September 11th just made them turn faster. The strikes were seized on as an opportunity to do what Bush sought to do anyway - invade Iraq and depose Saddam Hussein - not a reason to do it in the first place.
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  (#18) 'Conspiracy Theories About September 11th Are Themselves Government Disinformation'

  Conspiracy theories almost always beget other conspiracy theories. So it's not surprising that many September 11th truthers believe that much of what the movement holds as factual is actually disinformation pumped out by the perpetrators of the strikes.

  They believe that by filling the movement with outlandish nonsense, the plotters obscure the real research going on into what "really" happened that day. Furthermore, they posit that many truthers are actually paid shills working for the government to spread lies and discredit actual truth-seekers. Essentially, this is an argument between truthers over who is actually right. "Anyone who disagrees with me is a paid shill" is a common sentiment among conspiracy theorists, and applies to everyone - even their fellow theorists.
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  (#19) 'September 11th Was A Training Exercise That Went Live'

  The idea that terrorist strikes and preparatory drills are linked is something that rose out of September 11th. The general thought is that drills are ordered to "go live" and become actual strikes, pulled off by government entities. Military forces and civilian responders train for any kind of scenario. When one of these drills and a real incident overlap, it becomes fodder for the conspiracy theories that inevitably arise around such incidents.

  There were a number of regularly run exercises either ongoing or planned for shortly after the 11th - as is true all the time for a military that trains constantly. One was Vigilant Guardian, a NORAD exercise that tested preparedness for various airborne scenarios.

  More relevant to September 11th was a biowarfare exercise called Operation Tripod, planned to be carried out in New York on the 12th. The Office of Emergency Management headquarters for the exercise was in Building 7 of the WTC complex, and numerous emergency personnel were taking up positions in Lower Manhattan just as the strikes took place.

  Conspiracy theorists have seized on the presence of emergency teams as a clue that the government had advanced knowledge of the events, but nothing about any of these drills or exercises disproves anything about the "official story." These drills are conducted all the time, in cities large and small, and the fact that several were running at the same time as America’s worst terrorist strike is entirely attributable to coincidence.

  Many other cities have run drills without a strike, and running a drill once a strike has occurred doesn't make logical sense. In fact, there's never been a proven case of a terror drill "going live" - only unfounded rumors.

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