It's all a conspiracy!

[Twatybollocks]

The moon landing was faked, the Holocaust during WWII didn't happen, Princess Dianna was assassinated, the Titanic didn't sink and 9/11 was staged so America could invade the Middle East for oil.

All conspiracy theories which make you think there's an underlying secret organisation which controls the world. It used to be harmless speculation between mates but since the internet explosion the theories have become widespread and the evidence much more compelling.

There was a debate in the cheesebin recently (no really) where the landing on the moon was in doubt and yes, the US shot missiles at the Pentagon to make the 9/11 attack seem more real. It amazes me that people read an angle on the event and seriously believe that angle no matter what.

Why do you thinnk people would rather believe such tragic events are part of a conspiracy rather than something that simply happened?

Are there any conspiracy theories you yourself believe in, genuinely? Have you researched it?

To make my point, a US friend of mine who is a serious conspiracy theory believer (I mean SERIOUS) sent me this footage of the 9/11 attacks. Specifically the second plane hitting the tower. Watch it if you can, it's very detailed and the point is driven home exceedingly well. I came away from it with a thought that is was possible that the second hit was a missile and not a plane.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeIVD5wT4KE


Then it hit me. I was around that day! I watched live reports from all over the world. I saw that second plane hit from multiple angles on TV reports and from the public's video cameras. I've watched enough movies to spot a fake it took me a couple of minutes to find a different shot of the same event.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=U0JH1nI3oQY

There's loads more. Lets not forget the many eye witnesses but that's not enough for conspiracy theorists. It scares me that people will jump onto any small thing and ignore every thing else. Common sense goes out of the door! When such massive events happen it is such a chaotic time that anyone looking at everything in hindsight will probably find some evidence that doesn't add up or seems suspicious. It doesn't mean it's a conspiracy.

[terrorbite]

The thing with conspiracies is, there's usually a lot of deliberate misinformation mixed in with the truth to discredit the theories.

I didn't watch the clips you posted, but I had heard that some people believe the towers were hit by missiles. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. There were thousands of witnesses. There's no way you can cover something like that up. I wouldn't be surprised if that theory was devised by the government.

There's also the speculation as to whether the Pentagon was hit by a plane or a missile. In my opinion, that could go either way. Think about it. The Pentagon is an incredibly high security building. There must be hundreds of security cameras filming it, so why has no footage ever been released of the so-called plane crashing into it? All footage from nearby security cameras was confiscated by the FBI and has never been released to the public, even when people have asked for it under the Freedom of Information Act. They eventually did release about 5 measly, grainy frames from one camera... but it shows nothing of interest.

More and more americans are waking up, and are questioning 9/11. That's not to say they all believe it was an inside job (I do), but there are so many questions unanswered, and the 9/11 Commission Report doesn't answer them. In fact, it completely ignores one piece of evidence which I believe proves it was a set-up (and I mentioned it in the cheese bin thread). The fact that WTC Building 7 fell in a perfect, controlled demolition-style way without being hit by a plane, or even majorly damaged just can't be explained. Obviously there's countless other evidence, and I've done a lot of research on 9/11, but that's the smoking gun as far as I'm concerned.

Most people don't believe these things, because they don't believe the government is capable of them, but come on... do you really think the government, let alone the elite higher up the chain of command, give a shit about you, or your life? They take care of themselves and their own families as we all do. They're not driven by money. They have all the money in the world. They're driven by power, and the desire for more power and they'll stop at nothing to get it. As the saying goes "power corrupts. absolute power corrupts absolutely."

When you wake up to all of this, you see everything in a different light. You don't automatically buy into everything you're told in the newspapers or on tv. Its a great feeling actually, being in control of your own mind and your own destiny.

Wow, that was a long post by my standards.

[Twatybollocks]

The thing with conspiracies is, there's usually a lot of deliberate misinformation mixed in with the truth to discredit the theories.

I didn't watch the clips you posted, but I had heard that some people believe the towers were hit by missiles. That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. There were thousands of witnesses. There's no way you can cover something like that up. I wouldn't be surprised if that theory was devised by the government.

There's also the speculation as to whether the Pentagon was hit by a plane or a missile. In my opinion, that could go either way. Think about it. The Pentagon is an incredibly high security building. There must be hundreds of security cameras filming it, so why has no footage ever been released of the so-called plane crashing into it? All footage from nearby security cameras was confiscated by the FBI and has never been released to the public, even when people have asked for it under the Freedom of Information Act. They eventually did release about 5 measly, grainy frames from one camera... but it shows nothing of interest.

More and more americans are waking up, and are questioning 9/11. That's not to say they all believe it was an inside job (I do), but there are so many questions unanswered, and the 9/11 Commission Report doesn't answer them. In fact, it completely ignores one piece of evidence which I believe proves it was a set-up (and I mentioned it in the cheese bin thread). The fact that WTC Building 7 fell in a perfect, controlled demolition-style way without being hit by a plane, or even majorly damaged just can't be explained. Obviously there's countless other evidence, and I've done a lot of research on 9/11, but that's the smoking gun as far as I'm concerned.

Most people don't believe these things, because they don't believe the government is capable of them, but come on... do you really think the government, let alone the elite higher up the chain of command, give a shit about you, or your life? They take care of themselves and their own families as we all do. They're not driven by money. They have all the money in the world. They're driven by power, and the desire for more power and they'll stop at nothing to get it. As the saying goes "power corrupts. absolute power corrupts absolutely."

When you wake up to all of this, you see everything in a different light. You don't automatically buy into everything you're told in the newspapers or on tv. Its a great feeling actually, being in control of your own mind and your own destiny.

Wow, that was a long post by my standards.


I'm certain open to the idea that the government may have known the 9/11 attacks were going to happen and chose not to act, just as I concede it makes sense the theory that Winston Churchill deliberately failed to warn the Americans about the attack on Pearl Harbour.

Being open to such ideas is natural, harmless. Claiming the whole thing was either staged or deliberately made to look far worse is another. At the very least believing such garbage belittles the memory of those who died.

I urge you to watch the two videos as they really highlight the issue. Look at the comments on the second video as the conspiracy nuts claim it's all a fake. It doesn't matter how much evidence is placed right in front of them, as long as they can find some inconsistencies, something that looks dodgy that's good enough for them.

Just stop and think for a second. Think how many people, how many departments would have had to have been involved to pull this off. Think about how many events would have had to have been pulled of perfectly for it all to work. There would be zero tolerance for mistakes, the operation would have been phenomenal. And yet if a Minister is having an affair, or the Prime Minister says something in private he really shouldn't it's so easily leaked to the press. All it takes is one person to spill the beans and yet we have not one word from anyone, either directly or indirectly.

I've been to ground zero. I went last year. All the buildings within quite a large radius are still unsafe to enter, are still being repaired YEARS later. These towers were huge, their collapse not only caused direct damage but it was like an earthquake in a confined space. You find it that hard to believe that other buildings nearby collapsed later? Oh no, it must have been a controlled explosion that went wrong! That's the answer *slaps head*

The Pentagon Conspiracy theory makes me laugh. Blowing up the two towers isn't enough. They need to blow up the Pentagon as well so they shoot a missile at it. The only footage shows an explosion but no plane but at the angle of the security camera it's impossible to tell. This fuels the theory! Further to this, there's claims that no plane wreckage was found. Then when photos are released of FBI agents picking up plane debris while you can see the fire crews still putting out the blaze the claim is changed to this is showing the FBI planting the wreckage. Right in front of firemen and other people who have gathered around to watch.

Then of course is the problem with the missing plane. If it was a missile where is the plane? Then of course there's all the missing people who where on the plane. You think the airline was in on it too? You think all these families was in on it as well? Or do you think the US shot down the plane? Do you think the thousands who had already died in the towers wasn't going to be enough to let the US do what it wanted in the Middle East so they had to sweeten the deal by either pulling off another massive conspiracy or deliberately shooting down a plane and a missile into the pentagon?

If you sit down and read some of the claims there's some credence to them until you actually think about it from all angles and the event as a whole. Such an operation would be impossible. Humans make mistakes too easily. Humans couldn't have carried out such an event…but Aliens could…..

[Thunderjew]

Usually i'm not into all this conspiracy stuff, but 7:29 on the first video is pretty odd.

[katt]

The 9/11 conspiracy thing is just silly. Believe anything but the truth!

The monica lewinsky scandal could not even be covered up without someone spilling all. it is amazing people think all the people that owuld have been necessary to bring about the staged mass murder of thousands of their own countrymen would have all kept hush.

furthermore bin laden took credit for the thing. Gee that is a tough one....who is more likely to orchestrate planes crashing into american buildings bin laden or george bush? seriously the people who believe 911 conspiracy theories must have these completely loopy Kim Jong anti-american propaganda-style ideas about how evil george bush is. :P

and regarding the video: too many people saw it live and recognized the objects as planes. anyone who saw the footage on tv and is not completely loopy knows it was a plane

[Thomp]

I spent this afternoon watching three of those "September: Clues" videos, and it was the biggest pile of bollocks I've ever witnessed.

"Look guys! From one angle the plane is white, but MIRACULOUSLY from another angle it's black!" *shock and horror*

Sorry, dumbass, but that's called SHADOWING. ¬_¬

Also, that point on the first video at 7:29:-

"Look again, guys! There's no plane there yet when we zoom in, there is!" :o

Hate to burst your bubble, bub, but you can't see a plane because, technically, we're not zoomed in close enough to see it. I actually burst out laughing about "the ghost plane" bit too. I mean, it's gone into the WTC, it hasn't just disappeared.

There's just too much bullshit in those fifteen minutes to suggest that this is all a big conspiracy. That's all it is, a conspiracy. It's like all the other conspiracies in the history of the human race, we'll never know the full extent of it. Was Diana mudered? We won't know. Was 9/11 caused by the US government? We won't know. People can believe what they want, but they shouldn't be force fed garbage by anyone. They shouldn't be peer pressured into believing something. If people want to find out stuff for themselves, then they can... don't try and make them believe your story.

[katt]

one other thing i forgot to add was the WTC had already had observation deck bombing attacks by (non us govt:rolleyes:) terrorists several years before the plane thing. They obviously wanted to mess with these particular buildings.

People who believe the US govt did it usually just dislike america in some way and want to find an asinine and edgy way to criticize it.

there is plenty of stuff to find fault with in any country without making up stuff

[Cjw]

The one thing that sort of annoys me about hardcore* conspiracy theorists is that whilst they claim that everyone who doesn't subscribe to their beliefs is some sort of idiot, it's perfectly ok for them to watch a video from the Internet and claim it as 100% cold hard facts without actually questioning it.


Note the use of "Hardcore"

[swampmonkey]

OK, i'll fess up. It was me and my secret organisation. I'm trying to take over the world in an over complicated James Bond esq way.

This is actually just as believable as some of the conspiracy theories out there.

[JebblehMooo]

I am for once not going to go into a big ramble about what I believe happened that day on both the WTC crashes and the Pentagon, I do think that some things dont add up, but that we will never really know what happened anyway if anything untoward did happen, as it would have been covered up or burnt or whatever a long time ago.

But after watching those videos I just went on to looking up Nostradamus :D
And other prophetic people, which I thought was a bit more intresting than conspiracies, since, as I also agree, it is an insult to the people who died to just focus on theories, when its much more important to remember those who died tragicaly and needlessly then precisely how it happened in the first place.

[Smokey]

That You-Tube video seems to believe that every one of those news stations was in cahoots with the CIA/FBI. So CNN, and FOX both blew up the WTC.

As for the pentagon not releasing footage. It's one of the most secure buildings in the world, of course they won't let you see video footage of it.

Conspiracys are just ways of making insecure people feel special in the same way that alien abductees feel special. the more they repeat their story, the more they believe it themselves. Then they corrupt fact to back up their own arguments. the trouble is that if 1000 people say one thing and one person says another then some people will believe the one person and immediately discount the numerous others who disagree.

Take the MMR vaccine link to autism for example. One flawed stdu says there is a link, 100s of good studies disagree and 1000s of children don't get he jab because their mum's read about something misrepresented in the News of the World.

[Archaeology hat]

If you look carefully at the second video at 7:14 you can see the wings of the plane that are claimed not to exist.

[Rook]

Much as I'd rather forget it exists, I feel compelled to point you good people to the video in this here thread (http://forums.weebls-stuff.com/showthread.php?t=68015). I wouldn't expect anyone to watch the whole thing, or any of it for that matter, but their take on 9/11 runs a little like this; they don't think a plane should have been able to destroy the towers, and because metal shearing is evident at the tower bases, they've decided the real culprit was shaped thermite charges.

I often get annoyed by conspiracy theorists, then I tend to calm down once I realise that, really, they aren't doing any harm except to themselves. I can't wait to see what they say when we go back to the moon; they'll probably claim that the many artefacts of the old landings were planted there by the first of the new missions :rolleyes:

edit/ The times for the video are 37;15 (start of 9/11 crap), and 49;00 for the stuff about the tower collapse (personal favourite moment of mine is 49;50, where some guy claims the towers were 'built to withstand an impact from a B747 at any location'. Prffft).

[Splush]

I tend to think that the urge to embrace conspiracy theories is an inherent psychological trait that you either have or do not have; that some people will always gravitate to the extraordinary, dramatic explanations and some will never bother investigating at all, while others are in the grey are in between. I do think scepticism is an admirable character trait; everything should be questioned and popular consensus is no replacement for weighing up the facts yourself. But, personally, none of the conspiracy theories mentioned in the thread have ever really done much for me.

It seems that it's so often the case that if somebody believes in, say, the moon landing hoax conspiracy, they will also believe in the 9/11 conspiracy. That instantly makes me suspicious, and supports my idea that "conspiracy theorist" is just a personality quirk, and can devalue an argument in my view. Conversely, when somebody who wouldn't normally gravitate towards that type of thing does latch on to one of these theories, I'm much more interested in what they have to say.

For example I heard Joe Rogan (American comedian and TV presenter) talking about his belief in the moon landing hoax and his attitude was really refreshing, he had none of the signs of the conspiracy fetishist who just wants these exciting, dramatic explanations to be true, instead he sounded like a reasonable man who had reached a point where he couldn't ignore what he saw as supporting evidence. I don't agree with him mind you, as the rebuttals I've read of all his arguments were very comprehensive, but I appreciated his approach to it.

That's what bothers me, the idea that people just want these things to be true because it's exciting to them. Sometimes the 9/11 conspiracy thing feels quite insulting to me, like conspiracy fetishists are trying to make excitement for themselves out of a tragedy. The commonly accepted course of events on 9/11 seems so believable to me that I don't know why people ever felt the need to leap to more extraordinary theories. I'm generally a big fan of Occam's razor. I've heard people say it's just a way of dealing with a scary world, but the world that the 9/11 conspiracy theorists envision certainly doesn't seem any less scary than the one we've already got.

Sorry for the rambling post.

[UMIST_For_Ever]

Conspiracies are something of a war of attrition - initially you dismiss something as nonsense although there are only so many times that you can hear something before many people do waiver and begin to change their viewpoint.
:(

[argh]

There is the whole Americans funding Afghanistan militans during the soviet rule (Bin Laden was a militant though there is dispuit about wether his group would've gotten american training/funding), they also trained Saddam Hussein for a military coup. What I'm saying is since governments in America have worked before with these Big enemies, could they have done it again (as in Bin Laden could have done the act, but with help from the US govenment, hence less people involved in coverups.)

[Splush]

One thing I often think about is how helpless we are in these matters, because so few people know enough about the specifics of the claims. Take the WTC building 7 thing, the idea that the building fell in the style of a controlled explosion rather than with the impact of a plane. I could read arguments for or against that theory all day and I'd be none the wiser because I'd only really feel confident in having an opinion if I was a civil engineer or an experienced demolitions expert, or at least if one I knew and trusted gave me their opinion on it. We're at the mercy of experts, but experts have agendas of their own.

We're at the mercy of experts in so many facets of life, I think it extends to issues like global warming where the only people who really deserve an opinion are scientists in the appropriate fields, but us lay-people carry on forming opinions regardless. I think it extends to issues like Iraq where the only people who can truly make informed decisions are people inside the actual country, and people with access to classified intelligence reports. The information goes through so many filters before it gets to us, the lay masses, that it's virtually meaningless.

I really feel like a helpless sheep sometimes. I suppose it's the media's role to present the facts to us, but who really has confidence in them?

[terrorbite]

At the very least believing such garbage belittles the memory of those who died.
Everyone says that as an excuse not to re-open the investigations. A lot of 911 families support groups that have been interviewed don't believe the official government word on what happened.

I urge you to watch the two videos as they really highlight the issue. Look at the comments on the second video as the conspiracy nuts claim it's all a fake. It doesn't matter how much evidence is placed right in front of them, as long as they can find some inconsistencies, something that looks dodgy that's good enough for them.
I'm a big believer in government conspiracies, but when presented with evidence to support either side I think for myself rather than blindly accepting what I'm shown. I've seen a lot of conspiracy videos and read a lot of articles. I draw my own conclusions.

Just stop and think for a second. Think how many people, how many departments would have had to have been involved to pull this off. Think about how many events would have had to have been pulled of perfectly for it all to work. There would be zero tolerance for mistakes, the operation would have been phenomenal. And yet if a Minister is having an affair, or the Prime Minister says something in private he really shouldn't it's so easily leaked to the press. All it takes is one person to spill the beans and yet we have not one word from anyone, either directly or indirectly.
They involve as few people as possible. For example, you'd expect the people at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) to be on the inside, considering none of the hijacked planes were shot down. We're talking about the most advanced military in the world here, and yet a few terrorists living up in the mountains in the Middle East were able to stop them from responding to planes going off course? The attacks happened over the space of well over an hour!

But no, coincidentally NORAD were running an exercise on the day of 911 dealing with the possibly of planes being hijacked (what are the chances eh?) and they couldn't distinguish between the real hijacks and the exercises.

That's an example of how few people need to have knowledge of the underlying motive. Also, obviously, anyone on the inside who tries the spill the beans will be killed off, imprisoned or have their reputation ruined by the media.

I've been to ground zero. I went last year. All the buildings within quite a large radius are still unsafe to enter, are still being repaired YEARS later. These towers were huge, their collapse not only caused direct damage but it was like an earthquake in a confined space. You find it that hard to believe that other buildings nearby collapsed later? Oh no, it must have been a controlled explosion that went wrong! That's the answer *slaps head*
I don't claim to be a demolition expert, but buildings damaged by debris or a simulated earthquake just don't collapse perfectly on the spot, at freefall speed. Look at footage of building 7 falling. It kinks in the middle before falling down - a classic sign of demolition. If it had fallen for the reasons you said, surely it would slowly collapse, floor by floor, or the side hit by the debris would cave in or something? Like I say, I'm not an expert but I at least know basic physics.

Also, as I mentioned in the cheese bin thread, the leaseholder of the world trade centre complex said in an interview that he gave the word for it to be pulled! AND, the BBC mistakenly reported the building had collapsed before it happened! AND, police and fire officers at the scene told the public to get back because the building was "coming down". You can look up footage of all of these things.

Then of course, there's the twin towers themselves, which I don't want to get into in this post.

The Pentagon Conspiracy theory makes me laugh. Blowing up the two towers isn't enough. They need to blow up the Pentagon as well so they shoot a missile at it. The only footage shows an explosion but no plane but at the angle of the security camera it's impossible to tell. This fuels the theory! Further to this, there's claims that no plane wreckage was found. Then when photos are released of FBI agents picking up plane debris while you can see the fire crews still putting out the blaze the claim is changed to this is showing the FBI planting the wreckage. Right in front of firemen and other people who have gathered around to watch.
The official line from the government is that the heat from the jet fuel vaporised the entire plane. What sort of fire vaporises an ENTIRE PLANE (which had two massive engines made of steel and titanium weighing 6 tonnes each), yet supposedly leaves human bodies intact so that their fingerprints could identify them?!

And why did they cover the entire lawn in front of the Pentagon shortly after with gravel? What purpose would that serve, apart from to cover up forensic evidence?

Also, as I mentioned before... if a plane really hit the Pentagon, why has no decent footage been released? It would disprove the conspiracy theories if they made it available, surely?

Then of course is the problem with the missing plane. If it was a missile where is the plane? Then of course there's all the missing people who where on the plane. You think the airline was in on it too? You think all these families was in on it as well? Or do you think the US shot down the plane?
If you're referring to the plane that supposedly crashed in that field, then your guess is as good as mine on that. If you look at pictures from the crash site, it certainly doesn't look like a plane crashed there nor were any bodies found I believe.

Do you think the thousands who had already died in the towers wasn't going to be enough to let the US do what it wanted in the Middle East so they had to sweeten the deal by either pulling off another massive conspiracy or deliberately shooting down a plane and a missile into the pentagon?
I'm sure they wanted it on as big a scale as possible, to ensure safe passing of all their new anti-terror legislation and support from the war.

Humans make mistakes too easily.
Yes, and that's why everyone is questioning it!

Damn. It took forever to reply to your post, and I still haven't replied to other peoples yet :D

[waggit]

Nobody has said anything about the passport. yet.
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/deceptions/passport.html

[katt]

oh terrorbite :( :P

anyway these facts (tm) were taken from the popular mechanics website (the magazine assembled a team of experts

To investigate 16 of the most prevalent claims made by conspiracy theorists, POPULAR MECHANICS assembled a team of nine researchers and reporters who, together with PM editors, consulted more than 70 professionals in fields that form the core content of this magazine, including aviation, engineering and the military.


They involve as few people as possible. For example, you'd expect the people at NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command) to be on the inside, considering none of the hijacked planes were shot down. We're talking about the most advanced military in the world here, and yet a few terrorists living up in the mountains in the Middle East were able to stop them from responding to planes going off course? The attacks happened over the space of well over an hour!

FACT: 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. "They [civilian Air Traffic Control, or ATC] had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Boston Center, one of 22 Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regional ATC facilities, called NORAD's Northeast Air Defense Sector (NEADS) three times: at 8:37 am EST to inform NEADS that Flight 11 was hijacked; at 9:21 am to inform the agency, mistakenly, that Flight 11 was headed for Washington (the plane had hit the North Tower 35 minutes earlier); and at 9:41 am to (erroneously) identify Delta Air Lines Flight 1989 from Boston as a possible hijacking. The New York ATC called NEADS at 9:03 am to report that United Flight 175 had been hijacked — the same time the plane slammed into the South Tower. Within minutes of that first call from Boston Center, NEADS scrambled two F-15s from Otis Air Force Base in Falmouth, Mass., and three F-16s from Langley Air National Guard Base in Hampton, Va. None of the fighters got anywhere near the pirated planes.

Why couldn't ATC find the hijacked flights? When the hijackers turned off the planes' transponders, which broadcast identifying signals, ATC had to search 4500 identical radar blips crisscrossing some of the country's busiest air corridors. And NORAD's sophisticated radar? It ringed the continent, looking outward for threats, not inward. "It was like a doughnut," Martin says. "There was no coverage in the middle." Pre-9/11, flights originating in the States were not seen as threats and NORAD wasn't prepared to track them.

In the decade before 9/11, NORAD intercepted only one civilian plane over North America: golfer Payne Stewart's Learjet, in October 1999. With passengers and crew unconscious from cabin decompression, the plane lost radio contact but remained in transponder contact until it crashed. Even so, it took an F-16 1 hour and 22 minutes to reach the stricken jet. Rules in effect back then, and on 9/11, prohibited supersonic flight on intercepts. Prior to 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," FAA spokesman Bill Schumann tells PM. After 9/11, NORAD and the FAA increased cooperation, setting up hotlines between ATCs and NORAD command centers, according to officials from both agencies. NORAD has also increased its fighter coverage and has installed radar to monitor airspace over the continent.





I don't claim to be a demolition expert, but buildings damaged by debris or a simulated earthquake just don't collapse perfectly on the spot, at freefall speed. Look at footage of building 7 falling. It kinks in the middle before falling down - a classic sign of demolition. If it had fallen for the reasons you said, surely it would slowly collapse, floor by floor, or the side hit by the debris would cave in or something? Like I say, I'm not an expert but I at least know basic physics.


Following up on a May 2002 preliminary report by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), a major study will be released in spring 2005 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a branch of the U.S. Department of Commerce. NIST shared its initial findings with PM and made its lead researcher available to our team of reporters.

The NIST investigation revealed that plane debris sliced through the utility shafts at the North Tower's core, creating a conduit for burning jet fuel — and fiery destruction throughout the building. "It's very hard to document where the fuel went," says Forman Williams, a NIST adviser and a combustion expert, "but if it's atomized and combustible and gets to an ignition source, it'll go off."

Burning fuel traveling down the elevator shafts would have disrupted the elevator systems and caused extensive damage to the lobbies. NIST heard first-person testimony that "some elevators slammed right down" to the ground floor. "The doors cracked open on the lobby floor and flames came out and people died," says James Quintiere, an engineering professor at the University of Maryland and a NIST adviser. A similar observation was made in the French documentary "9/11," by Jules and Gedeon Naudet. As Jules Naudet entered the North Tower lobby, minutes after the first aircraft struck, he saw victims on fire, a scene he found too horrific to film.

Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength — and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."

"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."



as for the plane in the pentagon there was debris

FACT: Blast expert Allyn E. Kilsheimer was the first structural engineer to arrive at the Pentagon after the crash and helped coordinate the emergency response. "It was absolutely a plane, and I'll tell you why," says Kilsheimer, CEO of KCE Structural Engineers PC, Washington, D.C. "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?"

well i wont go on pasting stuff. it seems that for every theory there is an explanation or a witness that debunks it somewhere. here is the full article :

http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=1

I dont believe in ghosts and i do not believe the US govt killed 2000 american citizens

[Rook]

What sort of fire vaporises an ENTIRE PLANE (which had two massive engines made of steel and titanium weighing 6 tonnes each), yet supposedly leaves human bodies intact so that their fingerprints could identify them?!
This sort. (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=7SOtvQ4nPQg) While I realise the statement claims the plane was destroyed by the fire, it's more likely that the majority of the plane went the way of the F-4 Phantom in that little clip (which I'm sure we all remember from GCSE science).

I would imagine that in such a collision, the plane is atomised because it is fairly rigid; humans, however, are more 'floppy' as it were, and while you would be unable to live through such a crash, depending on the specifics it's not unreasonable to believe that some human remains would be present. Though not necessarily instantly recognizable as such.

[Cap'n Zog]

The plane hitting the pentagon is pretty clearly genuine, the damage to street lamps and a large container on the lawn is too widespread to have been caused by a missile, unless it flew a zigzag path.

Also things like short change often place the location of the impact hole in the wrong place to claim it is too small.

There is a good documentary called screw loose change that runs through the whole film debunking most of its facts.

[harryashfield]

I have to say, I'm something of a conspiracy theorist myself. I mean, it's quite fun to look at things from different angles and think that something more secrative and bizzaire happened. The likelyhood is that what we are told happened did but the fact that we can think otherwise makes it seem a lot more interesting, and gives some of us who don't have much to say in a conversation a chace to 'drop a bomb' and get a chance to talk. As for 9/11, The film 'loose change' is quite convincing, but then again, watch South Park 'The mystery of the urinal deuce' and frakly, that makes a good point as well. Who caused 9/11? "A bunch of pissed off muslims. What are you, retarded?"

[Twatybollocks]

Oh terrobite indeed.

You say you read lots of conspiracy theories and articles but make you own mind up but it seems your fascination with such articles is leading you to want to believe in them rather than question them.

If you were in court being accused of murder or any serious crime the police would have to prove to the jury beyond questionable doubt that you were guilty. An inconsistency here, a strange occurrence there against a mass of evidence means nothing in such serious circumstances.

Yet in a massive incident involving huge loss of life you would rather believe an enormous conspiracy rather than what actually happened?

In today's news Jacqui Smith has defended a decision not to publicise the fact that 5,000 illegal immigrants were cleared to work in security, amid claims of a cover-up. This news is embarrassing to her, embarrassing to the government and she faced stiff questioning in the commons. Such a cover-up can and has cost people their jobs. It was leaked yet hardly anyone knew of it and the person who leaked it knew they could lose their job or even be charged for releasing confidential information.

This is not the exception these days but the norm. President Nixon was unable to cover up a burglary and lost his Presidency over it. Yet they can blow up the two towers with missiles (or two planes or maybe one plane and one missile, or maybe explosives, the conspiracy theories seem confused about this) and the Pentagon, plant explosives to destroy the WTC 7 building, make three planes disappear and basically kill over 2000 people without a single leak. All live in front of news networks and thousands of people at the scene.

I'm not saying that there should be no 9/11 investigations. There's been loads so far and I think this incident is something we will be investigating for many years to come. Not only so such a thing should never happen again, lessons learned etc but if the US did have some intelligence on the attacks before they happened then they were either incompetent and should be treated accordingly or if they chose to let it happen without any warning then those responsible should be charged to the full extent of the law. The latter is far more viable than them orchestrating the whole thing. Basically the head of intelligence and the President needed to be the only two people who knew about it. Why isn't this 'conspiracy' mentioned? Coz it's pretty boring and impossible to prove. No, the super evil mastermind of the world S.P.E.C.T.R.E style conspiracy is much more juicy.

I actually don't believe you when you say you read all the articles with your suspicions of the WTC 7 building collapse. What is the advice about apparently undamaged buildings after an earthquake? Don't go in there. Why? Because the slightest thing can bring them down. Just look at this!

http://www.911inplanesite.com/images2005/01_wtc7.jpg

I mean, blimey…I'm surprised it didn't fall straight away! Looking at the official investigation report it shows that not only did the building endure this but fires raged for hours inside it. So all the official investigating departments involved were either in on the conspiracy too or someone deliberately started loads of fires just to bring the building down?

You think the seriously could have kept the conspiracy details to just a few people? You think just a few people could organise such events without anyone being suspicious? Thousands dead, three planes destroyed, three buildings destroyed, the Pentagon hit..no leaks, no witnesses and no evidence found by anyone. Imagine the sheer volume of people involved in the investigation. Almost every branch of the government, the police, forensic experts, bomb experts, the aviation authorities, architects, engineers, no-one finds anything solid?

The only things we have is circumstantial. So one network announces the collapse several minutes before it does. Was this network involved or did the person who was supposed to report it jumping the gun? Or was it a common trick used by news networks? The common trick when they can't get someone onto the scene is to make it look like someone is by having footage of the scene placed behind them. In this instance there was simply so much going on the networks were having trouble keeping up with the sheer scale or what was happening. I find it much easier to believe the network simply had rolling footage in the background but pretended they were reporting live so they could keep up with the other networks and the volume of reports coming in. A simple explanation but people would rather believe something far less likely simply because it's titillating.

To get the thread off 9/11 for a bit, Global Warming. Is it happening? Maybe. Is it humans fault? Maybe. Is it fact? No. it's being reported as fact but Scientists cannot 100% forecast what the weather will be tomorrow. The further in the future they go the less accurate they become which is why you never see anything more than a 5 day forecast and yet they can predict what is going to happen in decades? No, I don’t buy it as fact but then again it's always a good idea to look after where you live and the more eco friendly we are the better. We just have to be careful the eco stuff being rammed down our throats isn't going to harm the environment even more or just make businesses more money without making any difference.

[Cap'n Zog]

Oh, had another thought, conspiracy theorists talk about NORAD 'happening' to be on a training exercise that day. What if the organisation behind the hijackers had found this out and planned the attack accordingly? I don't see why it couldn't be possible for a huge international terrorist network to find out that sort of information, especially of a large scale set of manoeuvres such as that.

[maxxy_p]

I don't claim to be a demolition expert, but buildings damaged by debris or a simulated earthquake just don't collapse perfectly on the spot, at freefall speed. Look at footage of building 7 falling. It kinks in the middle before falling down - a classic sign of demolition. If it had fallen for the reasons you said, surely it would slowly collapse, floor by floor, or the side hit by the debris would cave in or something? Like I say, I'm not an expert but I at least know basic physics.How many people do you reckon are engineers or demolitions experts in the USA, or the UK, or any other Western country? Because a lot of them will have seen the footage, and I don't see anyone with any real knowledge on the subject coming forward to denounce it as a controlled explosion or whatever other explanation you want to give to it. Do you seriously think engineers and demolitions experts just turn a blind eye to this shit? Or are they all in on it? Every single person in the West who has studied engineering? Do they not give a fuck about all this?

Or do the internet conspiracists know better, with their meticulous bullshit about how it fell?

[Rook]

What I find most amusing is how the conspiracy theorists say things like "if a plane really had hit it, it wouldn't have fallen like that". How many buildings the size of WTC 1 & 2 have ever fallen down at all, by any method? None. There is no real precedence for this kind of thing, and you can't just scale up the behaviour of smaller buildings; it's rarely that simple.

While I do believe there are details we don't know, the same is true of anything. And really, I wouldn't care even if all the conspiracy theorists were right, because it wouldn't make any difference; this is the world we live in, and it is the way it is for many reasons. What those are doesn't really matter to me.

[Littleshore]

http://screwloosechange.blogspot.com/ - love this site

also the moon... well, this movie with henry kissinger, donald rumsfeld and stanley kubricks wife should be watched
1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbegH4HMafQ)
2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsh6JmaKJBA)
3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhZ-Pn7lV0)
4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O21Q-qGBLRo)
5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSQ952XZQns)

[katt]

hmm it seems reasonable to believe that some people knew something was coming in the government. However I doubt they knew exactly when and where; or maybe they just did not take it seriously.

I think people who like conspiracy theories are generally against big governments and view them as a negative force. I guess they would rather believe a big old mean goverment knocked down the buildings rather than a smaller pack of terrorists scattered about.

I think distrust of the government is a good thing. However... reality should be kept in check. When you start suggesting the BBC was in on it too it just gets a bit out there.

[RobDonkey]

If you're terrorist organisation you generally don't do something that will get your country flattened by Americans.

And isn't it strange how countries with no oil never have what America regards as terrorists?

[Boyinabox]

I thought terrorbite was a sensible chap, but now I have him in the same league as most of the people who post on youtube. :(
Whilst I understand why conspiracy theories spring up about dramatic events such as 9/11 or the moon landings, I'm always amazed at just how far people go to find a conspiracy.

Check out this video for example (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=VjgidAICoQI)

For those of you who can't be bothered to watch it, its a video claiming that scientists are hiding the "fact" that the Earth is expanding. Yeah.

I hope I don't need to explain why that obviously isn't true.

[Splush]

also the moon... well, this movie with henry kissinger, donald rumsfeld and stanley kubricks wife should be watched
1 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbegH4HMafQ)
2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gsh6JmaKJBA)
3 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOhZ-Pn7lV0)
4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O21Q-qGBLRo)
5 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSQ952XZQns)
I love this film, it's amazing that they got such high-profile people involved, especially for a French production. If you didn't bother watching the last couple of minutes you could believe that it's all totally genuine, I wonder how many people did that? Could be seen as slightly irresponsible, but still very clever.

If you're terrorist organisation you generally don't do something that will get your country flattened by Americans.

And isn't it strange how countries with no oil never have what America regards as terrorists?
Terrorists don't really have countries, it wasn't an Afghani military attack*, it was an attack in the name of an ideology. And besides, encouraging America to flatten a middle eastern country is only going to help their terrorist recruitment efforts, and the upheaval created by the war in Iraq is potentially going to allow extremist militias to take over the country, which is clearly in Al-Qaeda's interests. Not that I agreed with the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, but I find that pretty weak logic for why terrorists wouldn't have committed the attacks.

And that second statement is kind of silly. You imply that America wouldn't attack a terrorist organisation which attacked them if that organisation was not located in a region with oil, but they've only been attacked by terrorist organisations from regions with oil, so it's a totally baseless statement.

*I guess some people believe it was a Saudi military attack but whatever.

[Roachy]

I'm sorry but I fucking hate conspiracy theories. Personally I think they're for paranoid people who want there to be some sort of underlying 'truth'.

My friend was telling me recently all about the fact it's strange that the twin towers collapsed.

A plane flew into it ffs. A massive passenger plane, it wasn't the bloody spruce goose.

[katt]

I was thinking about how the towers collapsed. I don't know anything about engineering but if one floor has the steel give out and it pounds onto the floor below with equal force all around then that floor will give way too. And then that floor will smash onto the one below it and vice versa. sort of like dominos.

maybe they did not bend in the middle and topple because it was easier for it to fall straight down as the buildings were so large and perfectly square.

from rewatching the videos (for the first time in awhile :( ) it seems that the collapse started right from the part where the plane hit and the steel would be weakest and then went down from there. and the steel in the whole building was weak because the burning fuel made its way down through it (as mentioned in that article i quoted)

it was an odd image to see them fall but it seems believable to me that the planes alone caused it.

[doctor_fruitbat]

Splush, maybe it's the alcohol talking, but you're like the level headed person I try to be. God bless you Splush.

And for once, I'm going to agree with Roach. I'm not one for conspiracy theories.