Random 9/11 Conspiracy Theories (19 items)

• 

  (#4) 'WTC 7 Was Destroyed By A Controlled Demolition'

  People watching the aftermath of September 11th were shocked when World Trade Center Building 7 collapsed, despite not being hit by either of the planes. A conspiracy theory started almost immediately that the building had been wired with charges and destroyed on the order of building owner Larry Silverstein, who ordered it "pulled."

  While WTC 7 wasn't hit by a plane, it was hit by a large amount of detritus, including the perimeter columns of one of the Twin Towers, which tore a massive gash in the side of the structure. Building 7 also had a large amount of burning jet fuel hit it, which started fires that were never put out due to failures in the sprinkler system because of water lines broken in the incident. Finally, the infamous "pull it" quote doesn't relate to some kind of demolition charge, but to the firefighting team trying to put the blaze out. The technical term for demolishing a building isn't "pull," but "shoot" or "blow."
• 

  (#11) 'If A Plane Hit The Pentagon, Where Are The Wing Holes?'

  Believers that the Pentagon was hit not by an airplane, but by a projectile, point to the fact that there was only one hole in the outer wall, and the outline of the wings wasn't there. But, as one engineer who studied the crash said, a "jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building."

  In the case of Flight 77, one of the wings was sheared off when the plane flew ground level, and the other simply disintegrated on impact. This is confirmed by the knocked down light poles leading up to the impact site - damage that only could have been caused by an airplane wing. A small hole matching the size of a landing gear was found near the main hole caused by the impact.
• 

  (#5) 'The Empire State Building Was Hit By A Plane And Didn't Collapse'

  It's true that the Empire State Building was once hit by a plane and didn't collapse. But this was by a twin-engine B-25 bomber in 1945, not a modern jet plane in 2001. The smaller and lighter B-25 carried nowhere near the amount of fuel that a modern 737 does, and it couldn't travel at anywhere near the velocity that a jet can. It also hit much higher on the building, meaning less weight was carried by the damaged structure.

  As it was, one of the plane's engines shot right through the building and flew out the other side, while the other plunged down an elevator shaft.

  The crash took 14 lives and started a fire that took an hour to put out.
• 

  (#6) 'There Was Actually a Mini-Nuke In The Basement'

  A small but vocal contingent of internet conspiracy theorists claims that the Twin Towers were actually destroyed not by planes, but by a small nuclear bomb in the basements or center columns of the buildings. They claim this because apparently water collected from the basement of WTC 6 contained a larger than normal amount of tritium, a byproduct of nuclear fusion.

  This would appear to be the only evidence of a nuclear eruption, as none of the other hallmarks of such an event were present in any form. No flash, no heat pulse, no EMP, no seismic readings, and no radioactive fallout. As it stands, the small spike in tritium is something not easily explained, but not evidence on its own of a nuclear blast.
• 

  (#14) 'A Plane Was Shot Out Of The Sky By The US Air Force'

  Possibly the most plausible September 11th conspiracy theory is that Flight 93, the plane that was hijacked before being crashed into a Pennsylvania field by the passengers, was actually taken down by the US Air Force. This would either have been because the Air Force knew it was headed toward a civilian target, or, if you're even more conspiratorial, because the passengers knew about the government plot to destroy the Twin Towers and they had to be eliminated. The farther down the rabbit hole you go, the weirder it gets - some theories have the passengers drugged or the hijackers not existing at all.

  One theory focuses on a particular National Guard pilot, Rick Gibney, and claims he fired two projectiles that brought the plane down. But Gibney, who is a real person, has sharply denied any involvement in a plot, and records show that while he was in the air that day, he was flying over Montana, then flew to Albany to ferry an emergency manager.

  No forensic evidence has ever been found suggesting a projectile was fired. The pattern of wreckage on the ground supports a plane crash, not an eruption, and no missile has ever been shown as missing or fired that day.
• 

  (#15) 'The Phone Calls From Passengers Were Fake'

  "No plane" advocates point to the phone calls made by 13 passengers on Flight 93 as fake, for a number of reasons that don't stand up to scrutiny. One of the most cited reasons is that cell phone towers can't generally pick up calls from above 10,000 feet, and while it's true that the higher you are, the harder it is to make cell phone calls, further evidence showed that all of the calls but two were made not from cell phones, but from the in-seat Airfones that were popular at the time - which had a booster on board the plane. The two cell phone calls were made when the plane was much lower and near the Earth's surface.

  A final point that "voice morphing" advocates point to is one of the passengers, Mark Bingham, calling his mother and introducing himself by his full name. However, Bingham's mother told reporters that this was a quirk of his, something he'd do when he was trying to project strength. It's also the kind of personality quirk that few would have known about - and certainly not someone trying to "fake" his voice.

  The "fake phone call" theory also relies on magical "voice morphing" technology, the ability to perfectly mimic a person's voice and vocal tics. While this technology was available to a certain extent in 2001, it had only worked with very small samples of speech, not the long calls passengers had with their loved ones. Additionally, several of the passengers who made calls had only booked their tickets recently - with several only getting on the plane on standby. It would have been impossible to record high quality vocal samples that quickly that stood up to scrutiny.

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking