September 11 and other conspiracy theories

[Platinum Pete]

Look, I believe that anyone lost in the September 11th tragedies and the world wide conflicts of the global war on terror (or whatever you want to call it) is truly a horrible loss. I do not bring up any of these things to open up old wounds, take away from the brave actions of soldiers, minimize the death or injury of civilians, and I certainly do not defend terrorism nor terrorists.

Lately, I am fascinated by the conspiracy theories surrounding September 11th and the subsequent actions that the media has focused on. It was pretty convinient that Saddam was found as Bush's electability was bottoming out, it's again weird that Zarqawi is killed after the gay marriage ammendment fails and the GOP congressional races are having a tough time. Not to mention the slew of terror alert warnings getting raised right in correspondence to campaign news in 2004.

I have been googling around and looked into some sights that, while I don't have more reason to believe them than the main stream media, seem to make some good points. Specifically, I have watched "Loose Change" on you tube and done some researching into the points they've made and I was looking at the pages of folks who suggest the Nick Berg beheading was a fake. The stufff is fascinating to me and I try to keep an open mind, and I apply an Occam's Razor approach to understanding this stuff.

Anybody else check into this stuff? Am I missing the sites that totally debunk the conspiracy theorists? Anybody have theories that don't conform to the widely accepted stories?

[mr_gyptian]

TIMING OF UNION "VICTORIES" VIEWED AS SUSPICIOUS

July 5th, 1863

WASHINGTON (Routers) While many rejoiced at the news of the simultaneous fall of Vicksburg and bloody Union "victory" at Gettysburg, some question the timing of the two events, accusing the Lincoln administration of orchestrating good news, at the cost of thousands of our children's lives, to coincide with the nation's birthday, in an attempt to prop up its sagging poll ratings.

"Grant could have taken Vicksburg any time over the last few weeks. Why on the Fourth of July?" asked one Democrat staffer. He went on, "...and why didn't Lincoln order Meade to defeat Lee on July 1st? Why let the battle go on for three bloody days?"

There are rumors, in fact, that after the recent indecisive battle of Brandy Station, President Lincoln ordered General Meade to allow General Lee's Army of Northern Virginia to forage in Pennsylvania to stir up a martial frenzy among a public whose enthusiasm for the war, that benefits only arms merchants, has been waning.

"This was all trumped up by that war-mongering cabal headed by Lincoln and Stanton, to cover up their incompetence in waging this senseless war," proclaimed one Senator. "I'm very suspicious of the timing."

[Platinum Pete]

That's not a particularly insightful response, but at least we know you (still) believe that republicans have always been the victims of fabrications by the liberal media.

[13]

The one that gets me the most is those who claim the Pentagon wasn't struck by AA 11.

Oh? Where did AA 11 go then? Did the Bermuda Triangle suddenly appear over Washington conveniently on a day that 3 other planes were used as guided missiles in an act of terror?

[DePierre]

Just listen to almost any Immortal Technique song (even though you may not like it) for another view on this topic. Interesting stuff.

Specifically The Cause of Death.

[Platinum Pete]

The one that gets me the most is those who claim the Pentagon wasn't struck by AA 11.

Oh? Where did AA 11 go then? Did the Bermuda Triangle suddenly appear over Washington conveniently on a day that 3 other planes were used as guided missiles in an act of terror?

I totally understand where you're coming from. That Loose Change movie spends a considerable amount of time breaking down why they think the Pentagon was not crashed by a commercial jet. It's interesting and it makes sense in the context that they present their argument in. They also suggest the whole United Flight 93 thing is bogus and call into question what kind of planes hit the towers and if planes were the real cause of collapse. It's an interesting disection of the events.

[RootSkier]

I am still waiting for any explanation at all, convincing or not, that explains why WTC7 fell. I am not a conspiracy theorist...I just really am curious.

[NorCascader]

There was this weatherman working at a small TV station in Idaho. One day, on air, he starts accusing the government of "Scalar Warfare". Manipulating weather for their own sinister purposes. Needless to say he got the axe same day...going looney on TV is the kind of stuff I'm into.

So I googled "Scott Stevens" and he's got this website called WEATHER WARS.

I wanted to see who the crackpot weather guy was going nutz on air....
But..........the more I read the more I was taken by the conspiracy theory. Scary shit.
Check it out.

[Platinum Pete]

I am still waiting for any explanation at all, convincing or not, that explains why WTC7 fell. I am not a conspiracy theorist...I just really am curious.

This too is addressed in Loose Change. Not that I am vouching for the validity of the arguments or research in the movie, just relaying content. They mention that the CIA, FBI, and SEC all had temporary office space there. Additionally, the lease holder of WTC had just renewed the lease and got a multi-billion dollar insurance policy to go with it.

[Lurch]

Look, I believe that anyone lost in the September 11th tragedies and the world wide conflicts of the global war on terror (or whatever you want to call it) is truly a horrible loss. I do not bring up any of these things to open up old wounds, take away from the brave actions of soldiers, minimize the death or injury of civilians, and I certainly do not defend terrorism nor terrorists.

Lately, I am fascinated by the conspiracy theories surrounding September 11th and the subsequent actions that the media has focused on. It was pretty convinient that Saddam was found as Bush's electability was bottoming out, it's again weird that Zarqawi is killed after the gay marriage ammendment fails and the GOP congressional races are having a tough time. Not to mention the slew of terror alert warnings getting raised right in correspondence to campaign news in 2004.

I have been googling around and looked into some sights that, while I don't have more reason to believe them than the main stream media, seem to make some good points. Specifically, I have watched "Loose Change" on you tube and done some researching into the points they've made and I was looking at the pages of folks who suggest the Nick Berg beheading was a fake. The stufff is fascinating to me and I try to keep an open mind, and I apply an Occam's Razor approach to understanding this stuff.

Anybody else check into this stuff? Am I missing the sites that totally debunk the conspiracy theorists? Anybody have theories that don't conform to the widely accepted stories?

This debunks all of the 9/11 ideas put forth in that video and it's from a reputable source.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...e/1227842.html

[Super G]

I am not a conspiracy theorist...I just really am curious.

It is good to see some rational thought being applied to 9/11. I am not a conspiracy theorist either, but I am sure as hell not stupid, and I think that the "conspiracy theories" about 9/11 make more sense to me then do the governments explanation as to what happened that day. Personally, I have a hard time believing that those towers, including WTC7 just fell down like that. I am a skier, not an engineer, but is it really possible for a 100 story building to collapse in about 10 seconds? That seems about the rate of freefall, and surely as each floor pancaked on top of one another it would have taken a little longer to fall then 10 seconds or whatever it took for the whole tower to be a pile of rubble. To me, it looked like most of the jet fuel that "caused" the beams to collapse was lost in a huge fireball during impact. What do I know, but this whole thing sounds fishy to me.

[bklyn]

7wtc fell for two reasons.
1. flaming debris and structural steel crossed vesey street during the second building collapse.
2. the mayor had his emergency management station in the building and had diesel tanks installed in the bottom of the elevator shafts to fuel generators in case of a power loss. this setup was so dangerous the FDNY had long standing citations on the violation of code and did not to attempt to put out the fire. the building had previously been listed as evac assistance only and since they confirmed that everyone had left the building they just let it burn out. this came out in the newspapers afterward.

as a 'fire warden' for our floor we had a very specific evacuation plan - never knew why the building mgmt was so anal about fire drills until after the collapse.

papers from an office across from mine were found in a backyard in brooklyn heights. this also was in the news, they were relived that the names on the memos had survived.

yes there's some really fishy things that happened afterward, but there's no conspiracy behind the original event beyond the planners. come on, this is the 8th thread on it. NO F'ING CONSPIRACY!

i've had the pleasure of being across the street from flaming jet fuel. it's fucking hot. it blasts 80 stories down the elevator shafts and spills out into the street. it did not vaporize on impact. having seen and felt the long standing fires before the collapse, which btw did not go out completely until DECEMBER, it's also clear that you do not understand how flammable all that crap in your cubicle really is. i suggest you coat your office in gasoline and test that theory with a match.

never mind - just read that popular mechanics article posted above.

[Dexter Rutecki]

Damn, and I thought we were going to be talking about how the Mossad and CIA engineered the whole thing (accepted as gospel in Arab countries).
Or about how all the Jews stayed home from work that day (gotta get myself put in that phone chain).

God I'm tired of these stupid theories coming up here, or anywhere for that matter. Why do people feel such a need to invent fiction to explain things they don't like? JFK is too great a man to have been killed by one nut, so we need to imagine the Russian-CIA-freemason-Mafia is behind it...

And the thing in Bldg Seven (where I used to work) was definitely due to the diesel being stored there--as soon as the diesel ignited it was pretty easy to see how that was going to end up.

[belgian]

This debunks all of the 9/11 ideas put forth in that video and it's from a reputable source.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/scie...e/1227842.html

Actually, that article was the reason I cancelled my subscription to PM. Had a suscription for going on 5 years and finally got fed up with every article being stupid, useless BS. I used to loooooove the magazine for the tech, car and do-it-yourself articles but the last 3 years they've downsized that and spent far too much time reviewing lawnmowers, guns and how big your truck can get before it can't possibly be considered road-legal. Only thing left worth reading in that mag are the Jay Leno articles.

Personally I never watched Loose Change the whole way through: couldn't keep interested enough. Though Fahrenheit 9/11 and the like are veeeery believable.

[SkiingBear]

Most of these conspriacy theories just make me laugh. I get the feeling that many of them are coming from high school students that are pretty sure they know everything about how the world works. I didn't bother to watch the Loose Change movie referenced earlier, but I have looked into some of the 9/11 theories. One of my favorites is that since jet fuel is similar to kerosene (molecular weight, heat of vaporization, etc), and kerosene could not have brought the towers down, so neither could jet fuel...WTF?? Seriously, that's one of your arguments?

My other favorite conspiracy theory is that we didn't land on the moon...but I won't get started on that one.

IMHO, what debunks these myths is that nobody is really spending much time trying to prove them wrong. If the govt was truly behind 9/11 they'd be spending billions to make sure everyone knew how wrong these theories are...but they're not, why should they, anyone with an education and the initiative to investigate them themselves can easily see they're full of shit (the conspiracy theorists I mean).

[powpig]

There are reputable scholars doing research and asking questions about the official version of 9-11. If you're truly interested, they're easy to find. Here's just a couple:

The steel columns of the WTC have a higher melting temperature than jet fuel burns at. Anybody care to explain just how all that steel melted?

Steven E Jones is a Professor at BYU who believes "an 'aluminothermic process' called 'thermite' was used to weaken and sever the 47 massive core coulmns that held up the towers. The offical version fails to explain how these critical columns failed." From this story:
http://www.americanfreepress.net/htm...t_down_wt.html
His complete 52 page paper can be found here:
http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

Try a Google for William Rodriguez & 911. He was the last man out of the WTC as it was coming down. His eyewitness testimony is pretty hard to ignore.

A couple other sites:
http://www.911podcasts.com
http://www.loosechange.com
http://www.americanfreepress.net

And if you'e gullible enough to believe the Popular Mechanics propaganda fluff piece please invite me to your next poker game.

[Schmear]

I hadn't heard of William Rodriguez, so I took your advice. Interesting article here:

Rodriguez heard and felt a large explosion underground before the plane hit the first tower


.

[bklyn]

There are quite a few mags that were there that can give you a first hand account. As one of them, this conspiracy stuff you're reading, linking etc. is bullshit.

[Squatch]

my favorite part out of all of this is people who think that the government is capable of all sorts of crazy conspiracies,and how they're often the same people who complain about colossal gov't fuck-ups. Are we talking about the same government here? seriously...if the government wanted to make us love them, how is trying to trick us with super-coordinated, super-secret conspiracies less work than just doing good things as a gov't?

most of these conspiracy arguments are propped up by people with a little bit of knowledge masquerading as people with a lot. it's like saying "refridgerators make the inside of the fridge cold. when i open the frige door, it cools off the outside air. therefore, if i leave the fridge door open, it will cool off the room."

[Shorey]

There are quite a few mags that were there that can give you a first hand account. As one of them, this conspiracy stuff you're reading, linking etc. is bullshit.

Why does simply raising valid questions about an event constitute a "conspiracy"? Instead of talking of conspiracies and conspiracy theories why do the authorities not simply answer the questions?

Much of it is BS as you say, but there is just reason to take issue with some aspects of what happened on 9/11, what happened to Dr Kelly before the Iraq war etc. The engineering faculty of the company I work for falls under the department I'm in. (Big company with some of the worlds leading engineering consultants.) The engineers can't fathom how one plane can fell a building from that height. The core of those buildings was designed to withstand and contain impacts and events triple the size of what happened on 9/11.

Dr David Kelly on the other hand...... was he murdered?

[bklyn]

Why does simply raising valid questions about an event constitute a "conspiracy"? Instead of talking of conspiracies and conspiracy theories why do the authorities not simply answer the questions?

thread title: "September 11 and other conspiracy theories"
because in order for these alternate universe scenarios to occur some people other than the previously identified attackers would have to have conspired to do harm and some others to cover it up.

some additional thoughts:
1. I had coworkers that worked in the towers in the first terrorist attack in 93. A truck bomb set off in the basement parking was felt in all the buildings in the complex. Bombs in the basement didn't work the first time and security had been tightened in the aftermath. It did not bring down the structure or cause major damage to the beams. That's why they decided to use planes.

2. No one else felt anything before the first plane hit. people burned in the basement, lobby and plaza got hit with the jet fuel that came out via the elevator and other shafts that created a vast hole in the center of the building.

3. It has also been stated that the impact craters in both buildings may have done more damage weakening/destroying the supporting beams and displacing loads too heavy on others than damage from the fire.

4. 7wtc went down because of the diesel fuel bombs under the elevators and the amount of debris that fell on it

For me this is an emotional topic, so I may not respond again here depending on how the thread drifts. I've already gotten myself riled up.

[shmerham]

The steel columns of the WTC have a higher melting temperature than jet fuel burns at. Anybody care to explain just how all that steel melted?
...

And if you'e gullible enough to believe the Popular Mechanics propaganda fluff piece please invite me to your next poker game.

I'm all for skepticism - no need to sweep things under the rug, take something at face value, etc; but why so many fucking threads on the same thing? Nothing new has been brought to light since the first 9/11 conspiracy thread.

Did you even read the PM article? I haven't heard any good counterarguments to anything in the article.

[Cono Este]

Why does simply raising valid questions about an event constitute a "conspiracy"? Instead of talking of conspiracies and conspiracy theories why do the authorities not simply answer the questions?

Much of it is BS as you say, but there is just reason to take issue with some aspects of what happened on 9/11, what happened to Dr Kelly before the Iraq war etc. The engineering faculty of the company I work for falls under the department I'm in. (Big company with some of the worlds leading engineering consultants.) The engineers can't fathom how one plane can fell a building from that height. The core of those buildings was designed to withstand and contain impacts and events triple the size of what happened on 9/11.

Dr David Kelly on the other hand...... was he murdered?

Loose Change=Loose marbles.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html

[Dexter Rutecki]

Powpig:

No, one loose cannon at BYU can hardly be considered a body of 'reputable scholars' doing 'research' into this. The guy you cite has even been disavowed by his own department, and in addition he seems to be a religious wacko seeing signs of Jesus wherever he looks:

Steven E. Jones is a professor at Brigham Young University. He has created the paper which has created the ground swell around the 911 conspiracy theories. His paper was peer reviewed but not by a civil engineering journal. One would think a serious professor would get his paper peer reviewed by a scientific journal which specializes in the field they are writing the paper on. Instead, his paper was peer reviewed in Research in Political Economy, Volume 23. Jones's paper is the only paper this journal has passed concerning building collapses.

But is Professor Jones qualified to create a paper which says the towers must have fell due to explosives? He is a physics professor but what experience does Jones have in building collapse forensics? He has none. His other peer reviewed papers consist of cold fusion technology. He conducts research in nuclear fusion and solar energy. Nothing in his background would suggest he is qualified to write a civil engineering paper on the infinitely complex building collapse of the towers.

Brigham Young University doesn't want anything to do with the paper.

A few department chairmen at Jones's university have issued critical statements, though none of these has yet addressed any of the points which Jones made in his paper and at his presentation at BYU. Chairman of the BYU department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Dr. Miller, is on record stating in an e-mail, "I think without exception, the structural engineering professors in our department are not in agreement with the claims made by Jones in his paper, and they don't think there is accuracy and validity to these claims".
The BYU physics department has also issued a statement: "The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones's hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU's own faculty members. Professor Jones's department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review." The College of Engineering and Technology department has also added, "The structural engineering faculty in the Fulton College of Engineering and Technology do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_E._Jones

Jones says his paper will pass peer review again. But will it pass peer review in a respected civil engineering journal? Nothing less would be taken seriously.

One of Jones BYU colleagues had this to say after reading his paper...
Letter to the Editor
Refuting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory

April 09, 2006

Dear Editor,

After reading in the Daily Herald the presentations made by Professor Steven E. Jones (BYU Physics) to students at UVSC and BYU, I feel obligated to reply to his "Conspiracy Theory" relating to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center (9/11/01).

I have studied the summary of the report by FEMA, The American Society of Civil Engineers and several other professional engineering organizations. These experts have given in detail the effects on the Towers by the impact of the commercial aircraft. I have also read Professor Jones' (referred to) 42 page unpublished report. In my understanding of structural design and the properties of structural steel I find Professor Jones' thesis that planted explosives (rather than fire from the planes) caused the collapse of the Towers, very unreliable.

The structural design of the towers was unique in that the supporting steel structure consisted of closely spaced columns in the walls of all four sides. The resulting structure was similar to a tube. When the aircraft impacted the towers at speeds of about 500 plus mph, many steel columns were immediately severed and others rendered weak by the following fires. The fires critically damaged the floors systems. Structural steel will begin to lose strength when heated to temperatures above 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. Steel bridge girders are bent to conform to the curved roadway by spot heating flanges between 800 and 1000 degrees Fahrenheit. It is easy to comprehend the loss of carrying capacity of all the structural steel due to the raging fires fed by the jet's fuel as well as aircraft and building contents.

Before one (especially students) supports such a conspiracy theory, they should investigate all details of the theory. To me a practicing structural engineer of 57 continuous years (1941-1998), Professor Jones' presentations are very disturbing.

D. Allan Firmage

Professor Emeritus, Civil Engineering, BYU

http://www.netxnews.net/vnews/displa.../443801bdadd6e

More critiques of his paper can be seen here.

His other paper is called "Behold My Hands: Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America". In it he points to circles in what seems to be the palms of south American deities suggesting they are the hands of the crucified Jesus.. As with the WTC paper, he ignores evidence like the other circles all over the artwork to make his case.


I'd love for you to actually present something substantive that proves the PM piece wrong, in any part, but you can't. You wack jobs should really leave it alone.

Oh, and you should see the bios of the other 9/11 conspiracy theory people he's aligned with--there are only two other scientists, both of questionable credentials, and one is a French dude who believes the U.S. plans to attack Jupiter with an anti-matter ray.
Are we done with this idiocy yet?

[13]

Bump -- so the smart folk can help the dumbasses figure it out.