I was curious to know, what kind of idiotic explanations are out there that give alternate explanations for 9/11? I’m personally horrified that we have idiots such as Charlie Sheen (funny actor on Two and a Half Men) who believe that the collapse of the world trade center was actually a controlled demolition. Any thoughts?
Controlled demolition seems to be the foremost conspiracy theory. I don’t think it will ever be fully debunked until someone builds a 1:1 scale WTC and crashes actual 767’s into it to reproduce the effect of the 9/11 attacks.
Another popular theory is that Israel was behind it all and that the Jewish workers in the WTC were warned in advanced. Although this has been debunked (see Snopes for example) there are still a lot of people out there who use 9/11 as an excuse to justify their anti-Semitic beliefs.
A conspiracy theory persists that the government shot Flight 93 down. Why this is such a popular one I can’t fathom. Just an excuse to pin something horrible on the government I guess.
My favorite conspiracy theory is that the Pentagon was attacked by a missile. This is so logistically impossible as to be utterly laughable but people actually believe it to be true because the aluminum plane didn’t punch a plane-shaped hole in the side of the armored, blast-proofed, recently security-upgraded concrete building.
That wouldn’t persuade them.
Any evidence that you can provide will either be a part of the conspiracy or ignored entirely.
My favorite is the No-planes. What everyone saw was holograms. And the evil goverment edited every film and photo. And an army of people came in and planted all the plane debris. And no one saw them.
Most of this is easy to understand if you go to YouTube and look at 9-11 as it was happening.
I recall one report by the CBS station, where a witness to the first attack is on a cell phone talking to the news anchor telling him what happened. The guy stops his story and say, “Oh my God, another plane just crashed into the other tower.” And the anchor says “No that look like a bomb to me. I didn’t see a plane.” Then the person on the cell says “No I saw it, it was definately another plane.”
If you look at the split screen where you see the anchor the first tower on fire and you can see the little dot behind the anchor get bigger and ram into the second tower. You can see it, because you know it’s coming but the anchor thinks it’s a bomb. OK this is how the facts get distorted. We have an eyewitness and film saying it was a plane, but because one anchorman makes an offhand remark too quick, that is what’s focused on.
If you look at the whole 9-11 thing, you have to admit, they got VERY lucky. I mean if I were to say to you on Sept 10, 2001 that tomorrow. One jet will be hijacked you’d probably say, “That’s unlikely.” If I said, “Two jets would be hijacked,” you’d probably say, “Oh come on really, maybe one.” If I told you FOUR JETS would be hijacked in a co-ordinated attack, who would have believe it possible. And that’s just hijacking the plane, and doing nothing with them but hijacking them.
It’s the unbelievablity factor that leads people to belive these things. Even Bin Laden admitted that he thought only a few floors would collapse. They got very lucky.
I saw a serious proposal that stated that because the government planned it, they had CG experts converting the missile images to planes on the live feeds. The stupidity of some people is staggering.
ISTM that the desire to pin any of this on the government is part of the anti-Semitism since the anti-Semites claim “the evil Jews are controlling the government.”
if you are REALLY bored, are feeling like you’d like to have a few braincells destoryed or are honestly very curious about what the ‘truthers’ believe watch “loose change” … it’s free (because I can’t imagine many people would pay for it) on the net … just google it. It really highlights some of their beliefs.
Two very good friends of mine would always argue with me about the government’s involvement in 9-11. Both of them were smart and educated and had watched this and were convinced. During our ‘discussions’ they kept mentioning things like dust plumes at the bases of the towers and how much heat it takes to melt steel … We had so many conversations about what they had seen in that video that I finally watched it, decided my friends really weren’t all that bright and carried on with my life.
So, the United States government is,
(a) sufficiently ruthless to kill all these innocent Americans, for whatever mysterious purpose, and
(b) sufficiently covert in their methods that almost everyone, except of course these clear-eyed theorists, has been fooled into believing it involved planes and foreign terrorists, BUT
© unable to find and eliminate the theorists who run the websites discussing (a) and (b).
I mean, why do these people think the black helicopters haven’t come for them yet?
The only thing I find odd is the way the towers came down. Only a demolitions expert could have turned them to dust like that. I think it was more then the planes that brought them down so neatly. I just wonder about things and why the buildings came down when they were hit at the top.
173.24.61.30 
Your not that bright.
How about because they don’t need to when people like yourself are doing a good enough job of trying to ridicule every suggestion they make?
Any potential group that knew the plans of these 19 Arab terrorists and their network, could also potentially facillitate circumstances to allow it to happen.
Conspiracy theories take root when the official line on a story is inadequate to cover the observable facts.
In the case of 9/11, there have been several explanations for how the buildings could have fallen the way they did. None of these explanations are remotely plausible.
None of the conspiracy theories I’ve seen are plausible either.
Exactly. No one has guessed the real conspiracy yet*, so we just let people come out with these theories so no one comes close the the truth.
*Well, other than Michael Jackson, and we took care of him.
The buildings were not hit at the top. They were hit partway down, and the steel structural members at that level were weakened by the impact and subsequent fire.
The towers were designed to support their own static weight. They weren’t designed to support the weight of eight floors’ worth of concrete and steel being dropped on them.
Conspiracy theories take root when people lack a professional understanding of events around them.
To you. This is the limitation: you, who have no knowledge of such things, refuse to believe those who do understand how such things work. There has been a plausible explanation for the entire event from start to finish, but because you don’t think it’s plausible (even if it’s true), then there’s something wrong with it.
No, conspiracy theories take root when people realise that governments and military forces aren’t there for the good of their health.
I’m willing to accept that explanation. As long as we all agree that conspiracy theories don’t have anything to do with facts.
Aha, “the facts”! The people who accept those from “official” sources, are the same ones who still believe there’ll be a “3 minute warning” before a nuclear apocalypse or an incoming asteroid strike.
Conspiracy theorists think it will matter if we get a 3 minute warning before nuclear apocalypse or a meteor strike, I suppose.
That can’t be it, because conspiracy theories come up even when we know all the little details. For example, the 9/11 and JFK conspiracy theories persist even though we know what happened down to almost every little detail.
What are you talking about? The standard explanation from NIST is not only plausible but obviously true, because we have video of its happening. Floors sagged due to the heat, pulling inwards on the perimeter columns until they were no longer able to support the huge load above that point. The top part of the tower starts falling onto the lower part, and there’s nothing in the way strong enough to stop the avalanche of debris. What’s not plausible about that?