The Top Ten Conspiracy Theories,Number 8

September 11 was orchestrated by the U. S. government

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a variety of conspiracy theories have emerged which dispute the mainstream account of those events. The theories typically include suggestions that individuals in (or associated with) the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge, or that the attacks were a false flag operation carried out with the intention of stirring up the passions and buying the allegiance of the American people.

Some conspiracy theorists have claimed that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition. Some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon, and that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down.

Published reports by structural engineers do not support the controlled demolition hypothesis. U.S. officials, mainstream journalists, and mainstream researchers have concluded that responsibility for the attacks and the resulting destruction rests solely with Al Qaeda.

Since the September 11 attacks, a number of websites, books, and films have challenged the mainstream account of the attacks. Although mainstream media has stated that al-Qaeda conspired to execute the attacks on the World Trade Center, 9/11 conspiracy theories assert the mainstream accounts are either inaccurate or incomplete. Many groups and individuals challenging the official account identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.

Initially, 9/11 conspiracy theories received little attention in the media. 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." Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and the Bush Administration issued refutations to the theories, including a formal response by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to questions about the destruction of the World Trade Center, a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories, and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declares 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."

In August 2004, a Zogby International poll indicated that 49.3% of New York City residents and 41% of New York citizens "overall" say US Leaders "knew in advance that attacks were planned on or around September 11, 2001, and that they consciously failed to act". In July 2006, a Scripps Howard and Ohio University poll concluded that "Thirty-six percent of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them", "sixteen percent said it's "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings" and "twelve percent suspect the Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists." A May 2006 Zogby International poll indicated that 42% of Americans more likely agree with people who believe that "the US government and its 9/11 Commission concealed or refused to investigate critical evidence that contradicts their official explanation of the September 11th attacks, saying there has been a cover-up." A September 2006 Ipsos-Reid poll found that 22 percent of Canadians believe "the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, had nothing to do with Osama Bin Laden and were actually a plot by influential Americans." An October 2006 New York Times and CBS news poll showed that 28 percent believe members of the Bush Administration are mostly lying about "what they knew prior to September 11th, 2001, about possible terrorist attacks against the United States."

Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, a flurry of mainstream news articles on 9/11 conspiracy theories were released. In its coverage Time Magazine stated, "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality." Mainstream coverage has generally presented these theories as a cultural phenomenon and is often very critical of their content.

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war on terror

9/11 Conspiracy Theories,controlled demolition hypothesis 3

The day of the attacks, there were reports suggesting explosions and secondary devices. Several journalists reporting on the events speculated that the World Trade Center collapses were caused by intentionally planted explosives and some experts made similar suggestions in the days following the attacks. As an official explanation that did not involve explosives emerged, however, these speculations ceased, and some were retracted.

In a notable example, the Albuquerque Journal quoted Van Romero, Vice President for Research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who said that the collapses looked "too methodical" and that his opinion, based on the videotapes, was that there were some explosive devices inside that caused the towers to collapse. He further said "detonation of bombs within the towers is consistent with a common terrorist strategy."After speaking with structural engineers, however, he revised his opinion and said "certainly the fire is what caused the building to fail". He further said he had been misquoted and had "only said that that's what it looked like."

An early version of the controlled-demolition hypothesis, explictly stated in opposition to the official explanation, was formulated by J. McMichael. His ironic essay "Muslims Suspend the Laws of Physics" recalled Romero's initial remarks and introduced some of the lasting elements of the hypothesis: that the fires could not have sufficiently weakened the steel to initiate the collapses, and that the undamaged structure underneath the impact zones would have resisted a total progressive collapse. These ideas were then developed in greater detail by Jeff King and Jim Hoffman on their websites, with little attention from the mainstream media.

Eric Hufschmid's Painful Questions was the first book-length treatment of the hypothesis, and included questions about Building Seven. In 2004 this book was singled out by proponents and debunkers alike. Popular Mechanics started its investigation into this and other 9/11 conspiracy theories when Painful Questions was advertised in the New York Times and theologian David Ray Griffin listed Hufschmid's questions among the reasons to re-investigate the events of 9/11 in his influential book The New Pearl Harbor.

In late 2005, Steven E. Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, made his own pursuit of the hypothesis public. Even before peer review and publication of the article in the 2006 book "9/11 and the American Empire: Intellectuals speak out," his interest in the hypothesis brought a measure of scientific credibility and increased media exposure to the theory. In consequence, however, Jones was placed on paid leave by his university in September 2006 for his "increasingly speculative and accusatory" statements.

The controlled demolition hypothesis and the official explanations of the collapse developed alongside each other. Proponents of the controlled demolition hypothesis, for example, were among the first to question the "pancake collapse" hypothesis, in which floors progressively detached from the columns due to the force of higher floors falling on them. This theory, which constituted the official consensus until the middle of 2005, was ultimately rejected by NIST. In its effort to understand the collapse of Building Seven, moreover, NIST claims to be currently developing "hypothetical blast scenarios" that will be of interest to proponents of controlled demolition. Likewise, Zdenek P. Bazant, who co-authored the first published analysis of the collapses of the two towers, has proposed examining data from controlled demolitions in order to better model the progressive-collapse of the towers. The controlled demolition hypothesis has been pursued mainly by experts in fields other than structural engineering and by a network of amateur investigators.

An August 2006 poll concluded that 36% of respondents overall said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials either participated in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or took no action to stop them "because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East." 16 percent of Americans considered it at least somewhat likely that "the collapse of the twin towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings."