Personally, one of the main reasons I started taking the conspiracy theories about 9/11 seriously is the ardor and certainty of the so-called debunkers. They are so sure of their views and so ready with their explanations that they seem rehearsed, coached or even incentivized. Looking at the fire-induced, symmetric, and free-fall collapse of WTC7, how can anyone with any level of scientific background be so certain? The best a debunker could say would be something like, “Yes, the free-fall and the symmetry aspects of the collapse do look quite strange. But the official explanation seems plausible. At least, it is more plausible than a wild conspiracy by the government to kill 3000 of our own citizens.” But that is not at all the way they put it. They laugh at the conspiracy theories, make emotional statements about the technical claims, and ignore the questions that they cannot explain away. They toe the official line even when it is clearly unscientific. They try to attack the credibility of the conspiracy camp despite the obvious fact that it has the support of many seasoned professionals, like architects, physics teachers, structural engineers and university professors.
The official media have a clear bias against the conspiracy theories as well, which is evident in the History Channel video. A slightly more balanced BBC video still shows a similar bias. But this is to be expected. To be fair, some of the conspiracy theories do get a bit too wild – like talking about holographic planes hitting the WTC towers, and accusing the government of using laser or nuclear weapons. Furthermore, there are conspiracy theories about every major event in the US. While I honestly believe that there was a domestic conspiracy behind 9/11, it probably says more about my unwarranted skepticism or overactive imagination (which, by the way, is exactly the kind of self-doubt that I would expect to see in a real debunker as well).
The basis of my skepticism is that I have genuine questions that no debunker has answered to my satisfaction. Here are some of them:
- Multi-ton steel beams ejected up and out during the collapse of the towers, some at speeds of 100km/hr. Where did the horizontal momentum come from? Where did the energy to pulverize concrete come from?
- Human remains on DB building. What ejected the human remains (including those of the firefighters) all the way to the DB building?
- Pentagon plane debris largely missing outside the building. Especially the engines. Where did they go? They didn’t go into the building because there weren’t any punch holes, like we saw on the WTC towers. They were not outside the building either. You will see more on this in the next post.
- Impossible mobile phone calls – debunkers just insist that cell phone calls could be made at 40,000 feet. However, a recent article on CNN says that cell phones cannot work over 10,000ft or when flying faster than 155mph (250km/hr). The 9/11 jetliners were flying higher and faster when some of the alleged calls were made. So where did they make the calls from?
- Unlikely feats of flying large commercial jetliners by pilots barely capable of flying single engine Cessnas. I don’t know how easy it is to direct a plane, flying well above its safe speed at sea-level, into a relatively narrow building.
- Missing debris field in the Shanksville crash. Where did the plane go?
- Crime scene effacement. Why did ground zero get cleaned up in such a hurry? How come nobody was ever indicted for disturbing the crime scene?
- Fire-induced collapse of WTC7. How come the building codes were not revised to ensure that relatively minor office fires do not demolish skyscrapers?
- Convenient discovery of intact passports and travel documents of the hijackers, while the entire planes were so damaged that the blackboxes and cockpit voice recorders were essentially unusable. How did that happen?
Note that these questions are not meant to paint any specific picture of a conspiracy, speculating who did it, why and how. They are listed only to point out the inconsistencies in the official narrative and the circumstantial evidence of a possible conspiracy. Although I speculated on the possible motives for a domestic conspiracy behind 9/11, I have no idea how any of them would map to an action plan to commit mass murder of this magnitude. However, the comportment of the debunkers leads me to believe that it did, and that they are very likely part of it.
The most compelling conspiracy theory video I watched is the one embedded below. Do watch it, even if you are not a conspiracy buff. It is a well-made and interesting production. Fact or fiction? You be the judge.
I want to expand a bit on the first question listed above. The reason any object can fall freely (at the acceleration of g) is that its entire gravitational potential energy is being converted to its kinetic energy. If some of the potential energy is wasted (to pulverize concrete and to hurl steel beams around, for instance), free fall cannot occur. You could ignore the steel beams, and argue that the pulverization took place when the concrete impacted the ground — but then, you can actually see the concrete disintegrating during (or even before) the collapse from the videos. The energy to do that would have to come from somewhere. The only plausible candidate seems to be explosives.