9/11 conspiracy Theories

Current Events
1

Hi all, as this is my first time posting on the forum let me first say that while full time school and work have left me with little time to get involved in discussions, I have been reading the forum for quite some time and find it to be a fantastic resource, as well as just truly enjoyable reading. I have great amount of respect for many of the regular posters here, and definitely have found a higher signal to noise ratio than on any other forum I’ve ever visited. Thank you for that!

I watched this film today, and found it disturbing enough to want to investigate other peoples opinions of it. If you google Loose Change you will find several places to stream or download the film; it’s about an hour and twenty minutes long. I would prefer that you didn’t post a reply here unless you’ve watched the film. In any case I highly recommend taking the time to view it, although I must warn you there is some pretty disturbing footage - watching some of it was pretty difficult, as I don’t think I’d seen much of it since shortly after the event occurred.

So basically it is my opinion that they provide indisputable evidence in this film that the official story propogated by our government as to what happened on 9/11 is false. I felt that even if you ruled out all of the eyewitness testimony, that the video footage, as well as scientific facts [ex: what tempurature titanium melts at] and historical precedent [skyscrapers don’t collapse even after burning for 24 hours over many floors] gave their argument merit. I wanted to know if other intelligent people, like the ones that frequent this forum, had come to the same conclusion as me, and if not, I would appreciate hearing why. I felt quite ill after watching this film, as it’s ramifications are pretty serious.

2

I saw the movie, but I deleted it from my hard drive, and don’t have the time to watch it again (must get to work soon) would you mind citing some of the exact points they make?

3

I’d suggest taking a look at the sites that debunk Loose Change, such as Screw Loose Change.

4

Professor Steven E. Jones (Department of Physics and Astronomy, Brigham Young University) lead an investigation into the collapse of the towers. He analyzed metal samples that he was able to acquire from the site and did several experiments to explain the (in the FEMA 911 report, Appendix C) unsolved question about the oxidation and sulfidation of the WTC steel and the molten metal found at the WTC site.

You can read his paper (currently under peer-review) here:

http://www.physics.byu.edu/research/energy/htm7.html

5

A rather humorous take on the hacks who created Loose Change can be found on Maddox’s website.

Simply paraphrased, if the far-fetched allegations against the U.S. Military and the Federal Government were indeed true, that they orchestrated the death of over 3,000 U.S. citizens to advance their shadowy and unscrupulous powermongering, then the people who were responsible for the conception, production and dissemination of an incriminating video such as Loose Change would not be alive today to continue their vituperations.

6

I avoid people who support the idea of a 9/11 conspiracy. I find you cannot argue with them. If you argue against the conspiracy, even if you provide rock solid evidence refuting the conspiracy, it means you’re part of the conspiracy. Most people I’ve met who believe in a 9/11 conspiracy do so because they want to, not because it’s rational. The motivations of such a desire worry me far more than do the allegations of a conspiracy.

-Q

7

I avoid people who support the idea of a 9/11 conspiracy. I find you cannot argue with them. If you argue against the conspiracy, even if you provide rock solid evidence refuting the conspiracy, it means you’re part of the conspiracy. Most people I’ve met who believe in a 9/11 conspiracy do so because they want to, not because it’s rational. The motivations of such a desire worry me far more than do the allegations of a conspiracy.

-Q

I agree. Sometimes by arguing with such loons you give the illusion that their position is even debatable.

8

The Vanity Fair columnist Christopher Hitchens put it best: Conspiracy theories are the “exhaust fumes of democracy”, the unavoidable result of a large amount of information circulating among a large number of people.

9

The March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics was dedicated to debunking the 9/11 myths. I thought it was well done. I guess that just means that PM is part of the vast right-wing oil/power conspiracy.

10

Not only is Popular Mechanics part of the conspiracy, Isaac Newton is too! :stuck_out_tongue:

11

Not only is Popular Mechanics part of the conspiracy, Isaac Newton is too! :stuck_out_tongue:

The author of the piece is Benjamin Chertoff, cousin of the FEMA chef Chertoff, that fact made the conspiracy theorists jump :wink:

Well, just by writing “Debunking 9/11 lies” in the headline doesn’t debunk anything. PM does refute some of the theories, but that’s easy if you just pick some of them (-> strawman argument).

I’m still waiting for an explanation of the sulfur residue on and oxidation of the WTC metal. In the FEMA report they, too, say that this is still something to look at. According to Steven Jones (he did analyze some of the steel) this points to thermate which would also explain the molten metal that was found and / or seen on the videos. But that’s still under peer review.

I also would be interested why there were such high temperatures in the rubble for weeks, the report (or PM) gives no answers to that.

Why do you think Newton is part of the conspiracy?

For example the towers fell in about 10 seconds to the ground (according to the official report), that’s about the free fall speed, i.e. no internal resistance. Newton would therefore rather prove than disprove the conspiracy :wink:

12

Well I apologize for not coming back to this earlier. Apparently my email notification wasn’t working, and I have been super swamped lately with summer school and finals. Yay to a break from that! Thank you guys for directing me to some helpful information. I almost feel silly to have been swayed by those folks, but they did a pretty good job lying convincingly about a lot of things in that movie. Glad I had the sense to ask folks who have better BS meters than myself. :wink:

13

I was just wondering what everyone thinks about the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Personally, I believe the US government is capable of such a thing, but I don’t think they did it. I haven’t done that much research on it, though, so it’d be nice to hear from someone who has.

(Mod’s note: Merged with related thread. -sN)

14

Alexander Mariott comments on 9/11 conspiracy theories here, and I left a comment of my agreement.

I think these people are completely full of it. Another good way to answer them is shown here, with Maddox’s “There is no 9/11 conspiracy you morons.”

15

I initially mentioned this in another thread, but I will repeat it here because it is pertinent to this topic.

Dr. Bob Bowman from 9/11truth.org won the Florida District 15 U.S. House of Representatives Democratic nomination. You can read about his skepticism concerning the current explanation for what really happened almost five years ago proudly displayed on his campaign website here. Fortunately, I do not expect him to have a lot of support in the general election this November.

The thing that really makes me uneasy about this guy is that he is just not some raving hermit who emerged from a reclusive hideaway in the woods to run for a United States legislative office. This guy has a doctorate from the California Institute of Technology in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering and evidently has a storied career as a highly regarded security expert for the United States government.

16

And if logic and reason don’t serve you all that well, I recommend an interesting article from Time Magazine entitled Why The 9/11 Conspiracies Won’t Go Away:

From page 2 of the article …

Korey Rowe, 23, who produced the movie … and his collaborator, Dylan Avery, 22, actually started writing Loose Change as a fictional screenplay --“loosely based around us discovering that 9/11 was an inside job,” Rowe says–before they became convinced that the evidence of conspiracy was overwhelming.

(Emphasis mine)

These guys became convinced of their own b.s. (or smoked way too much pot) and made a film without double-checking their research or putting particular facts into context. It is a hoax, clean and simple.

17

Okay, so thanks for redirecting me to this thread and for the links.

i’ve spent much of the past two days researching this whole conspiracy. And i can’t decide either way. Most of the proof supporting both sides is just plain bad, similar to a “he said, she said” argument. Both sides are guilty of quoting some random person for proof, for showing photos without context, etc.

For example, with regards to flight 77, the skeptics say, “there’s no way the plane could have melted.” The rebuttal goes something like, “no, the plane would have melted.” There’s just so much information, that it seems as though a person can just select certain statistics and use it to back up theirr view, no matter what it is. It seems i would need to take more engineering classes to fully come to a conclusion.

And if the theorists were right, they wouldn’t necessarily be dead. Wouldn’t it be fishy if some guys released a video on the internet, or published some ebook, and then mysteriously disappeared? Moreover, with this line of reasoning, i could say that all conspiracy theories are wrong by dint of us hearing of them.

Government conspiracies have indeed occurred. What about Hitler? Or Stalin? And how many objectivists think that the environmentalist movement is an attempt at more government intrusion? That’s indeed a conspiracy theory. Is it wrong because you guys are still alive?

I guess, in the end, it doesn’t really matter whether or not the conspiracy theories are true (This is coming from somebody with dead relatives from 9/11). What is important is that we need to accept that, over the past 200 years, we have helped create a government that is capable of such atrocities. In a society, when some men are allowed to control the lives of others, it creates a society of legalized criminals and a strong incentive for power. And when it comes to lusting after power, history has shown that the lives of 3000 people doesn’t mean that much.

18

I was just wondering what everyone thinks about the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Personally, I believe the US government is capable of such a thing, but I don’t think they did it. I haven’t done that much research on it, though, so it’d be nice to hear from someone who has.

I don’t think they are anywhere near capable of such a thing. No president in history has ever committed mass murder on American soil.

19

9/11 conspiracy nuts are idiots, plain and simple. Sure, it would be great to be able to “pin” the people/gov’t/organization that they already hate (Bush, Rove, Big Oil, etc), because that fits in very nicely with their worldview.

There is simply no way that something of this magnitude and import could have been planned, executed, or covered up by Americans in any capacity. It would have been (a) prevented or ( :slight_smile: exposed completely by fellow Americans.

20

9/11 conspiracy nuts are idiots, plain and simple. Sure, it would be great to be able to “pin” the people/gov’t/organization that they already hate (Bush, Rove, Big Oil, etc), because that fits in very nicely with their worldview.

There is simply no way that something of this magnitude and import could have been planned, executed, or covered up by Americans in any capacity. It would have been (a) prevented or ( :slight_smile: exposed completely by fellow Americans.

It wouldn’t be good to pin it on our government. It would kind of suck to learn that our government did kill its own citizens. Besides, blaming muslims fits nicely with my, and everyone elses’, worldview too.