9/11 conspiracy theories

A variety of conspiracy theories have emerged which contradict the mainstream account of the September 11, 2001 attacks. The most visible group of conspiracy theorists is the 9/11 truth movement, whose claims typically include suggestions that individuals in the government of the United States knew of the impending attacks and refused to act on that knowledge, or that the attacks were a false flag operation carried out with the intention of stirring up the passions and winning the allegiance of the American people in order to facilitate military spending, the restriction of civil liberties, and a program of aggressive and profitable foreign policy.

Most members of the 9/11 truth movement claim that the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition and that United Airlines Flight 93 was shot down. While some also contend that a commercial airliner did not crash into the Pentagon, this position is debated within the 9/11 Truth Movement, with many who believe that AA Flight 77 did crash there, but that it was allowed to crash via an effective stand down of the military.^[1]

Published reports by the National Institute of Standards and Technology do not support the controlled demolition hypothesis.^[2][3] U.S. officials, mainstream journalists, and independent researchers generally accepted the conclusion that Al Qaeda is solely responsible for the attacks and the resulting destruction, and civil engineers generally accept the mainstream account that the impacts of jets at high speeds in combination with subsequent fires, rather than controlled demolition, led to the collapse of the Twin Towers.^[4]

Origins and reception

Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a number of websites, books, and films have challenged the mainstream account of the attacks. Although mainstream media report that al-Qaeda conspired to carry out the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, 9/11 conspiracy theories assert the mainstream accounts are inaccurate or incomplete. Many groups and individuals challenging the official account (which some of them refer to as the "Official Conspiracy Theory" or "OCT") identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.^[5]

Initially, 9/11 conspiracy theories received little attention in the media. In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence of "outrageous conspiracy theories ... that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from the guilty."^[6] Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and the Bush Administration issued responses to the theories, including a formal analysis by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to questions about the collapse of the World Trade Center,^[7] a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories,^[8] and a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declared that terrorism springs from "subcultures of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."^[9]

A number of 9/11 opinion polls have been conducted to try and establish roughly how many people have doubts about the official account, and how prevalent the conspiracy theories are. Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11 conspiracy theories.^[10] Time Magazine stated, "This is not a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."^[11] Mainstream coverage generally presents these theories as a cultural phenomenon and is often critical of their content.

The mainstream account

Immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. government stated that nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercial airplanes by using knives, box cutters, pepper spray and fake explosives. At 8:46 a.m. and 9:03am, Flights 11 and 175 crashed into the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, causing them to collapse soon after. 7 World Trade Center collapsed later in the day from fires started by debris from the collapse of the North Tower. Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. and Flight 93 crashed in Pennsylvania at 10:03 a.m. after the passengers stormed the cockpit. US government intelligence sources identified the hijackers and linked them to the terrorist organisation al-Qaeda, headed by Osama Bin Laden, which later claimed sole responsibility for the attacks.

The two terms 'mainstream account' and 'official account' both refer to:

• The reports from the official government investigations - the 9/11 Commission Report (which incorporated intelligence information from the earlier FBI investigation (PENTBOM) and the Joint Inquiry of 2002), and the studies into building performance carried out by the Federal Emergency Management Agency^[12] (FEMA) and the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).
• Investigations by non-government organisations that support the official account - such as those by the National Fire Protection Association, Purdue University and Northwestern University.^[13],^[14][15]
• Similar articles in magazines such as "Popular Mechanics", "Scientific American" and "Time"
• Similar articles in news media throughout the world, including The Times of India,^[16] the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC),^[17] the BBC,^[18] Le Monde,^[19] Deutsche Welle,^[20] the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC),^[21] and The Chosun Ilbo of South Korea.^[22]

The 9/11 Commission Report disclosed prior warnings of varying detail that al-Qaeda would attack the United States. The report said that the government ignored these warnings due to a lack of communication between various law enforcement and intelligence personnel. For the lack of inter-agency communication, the report cited bureaucratic inertia and laws passed in the 1970s to prevent abuses that caused scandals during that era. The report faulted the Clinton and the Bush administration with “failure of imagination”. Most members of the Democratic party and the Republican party endorsed the commission's report.

Some criticisms of the mainstream account focus on how the government formed and operated the 9/11 Commission, and allege omissions and distortions in the 9/11 Commission Report and the NIST Report.

Main approaches

Most 9/11 conspiracy theories generally originate from dissatisfaction with the official explanation of 9/11.^[23] There are three main forms:

• Incompetence - the weakest version suggests that there was a conspiracy to cover-up failures within the government. What is being covered up may be limited to inadequate counter-terrorism strategies and inappropriate responses to warnings received by the intelligence and security services, or it may go further to suggest that the military response at the time of attacks was also incompetent.^[24]
• LIHOP ("let it happen on purpose") - this version suggests that key individuals within the government had at least some foreknowledge of the attacks and deliberately ignored them or even actively weakened America's defenses to ensure the hijacked flights were not intercepted.^[25]
• MIHOP ("made it happen on purpose") - the strongest version suggests that key individuals within the government planned the attacks and collaborated with al-Qaeda in carrying them out. There is a range of opinion about how this might have been achieved.^[26]

Proponents of LIHOP and MIHOP theories suggest some motives for why the government would have wanted the attacks to happen. 9/11 began the War on Terror and led directly to the US invasion of Afghanistan and indirectly to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Conspiracy theorists point out the alleged benefits that these consequences have given to the US government, corporations, and individuals within them, including an enhanced geopolitical position, increased control of oil supplies, increased profits for the weapons and security industries, and public support for a domestic agenda that strips away civil liberties.

The case for the theories is generally built on publicly available sources following a "connect the dots" approach. These sources include news reports of government actions, terrorist activities, and physical events, and a substantial amount of video footage. Part of these arguments is a critique of the mainstream media for reporting individual facts without understanding the connections between them.

Theorists offer arguments to suggest both the physical possibility and circumstantial plausibility or likelihood of a given conspiracy theory and, correspondingly, to demonstrate the physical impossibility and circumstantial implausibility of the official account. Since most conspiracy theorists argue for further independent investigations of the attacks, the basic assertion is normally only that the conspiracy theories are more likely than the mainstream account of events.

The remainder of this article provides a survey of the arguments. Some of these, such as claims that there has been a cover-up, are compatible with all three forms of theories, while most, such as the controlled demolition hypothesis, imply only the MIHOP form.

Claims that US defenses were deliberately disabled

Central to many 9/11 theories alleging government involvement is the idea that the US air defense system, NORAD, was deliberately stood down or rendered ineffective. This idea usually originates with disbelief in the 9/11 Commission Report account of the actions taken by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and NORAD and other military personnel with some noting that fighter jets had responded when aircraft had wandered off course sixty seven times in the twelve months prior to 9/11 but failed to do so that day. Some theorists also suggest that the war games being conducted on September 11 were deliberately planned to coincide with the attacks to create confusion. United States Representative Cynthia McKinney, economist Michel Chossudovsky, and publisher/editor Michael Ruppert of From the Wilderness are a few of the individuals who have questioned these exercises.

The 9/11 Commission Report timeline of events in the FAA and NORAD contradicts the timeline released by NORAD shortly after the event. The Washington Post reported in its August 3, 2006 edition that

"For more than two years after the attacks, officials with NORAD and the FAA provided inaccurate information about the response to the hijackings in testimony and media appearances... Some staff members and commissioners of the Sept. 11 panel concluded that the Pentagon's initial account of how it reacted to the 2001 terrorist attacks may have been part of a deliberate effort to mislead the commission and the public... Suspicion of wrongdoing ran so deep that the 10-member commission, in a secret meeting at the end of its tenure in summer 2004, debated referring the matter to the Justice Department for criminal investigation. In the end, the panel agreed to a compromise, turning over the allegations to the inspectors general for the Defense and Transportation departments, who can make criminal referrals if they believe they are warranted".^[27]

Since the 9/11 Commission places the primary blame on communication failures within the FAA, conspiracy theorist Prof. David Ray Griffin has questioned why the US military would lie to cover up the mistakes made by that agency.^[28]

War games and training exercises

See also: United States military exercises scheduled for September 11, 2001

The following war games and training events were being conducted by the United States Air Force, NORAD, Central Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Federal Aviation Administration and Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA):^[29]

• Northern Vigilance: an Air Force drill simulating a Russian attack, in which defense aircraft normally patrolling the Northeast are re-deployed to Canada and Alaska. Russian exercises were being held at that time in the Arctic and North Pacific and the drill was based on the observation of that exercise.

• Vigilant Guardian: a NORAD exercise posing an imaginary crisis to North American Air Defense outposts nationwide with a simulated air war and an air defense exercise simulating an attack on the United States.

• On the morning of 9/11, 50 minutes before Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating US reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles from Dulles airport.^[30]

• Tripod II, a FEMA drill simulating a biowarfare attack in New York City, was to take place on September 12.

Norman Mineta 9/11 Commission testimony

During the 9/11 Commission's public hearings, Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta offered the following testimony:

There was a young man who had come in and said to the vice president, "The plane is 50 miles out. The plane is 30 miles out." And when it got down to, "The plane is 10 miles out," the young man also said to the vice president, "Do the orders still stand?" And the vice president turned and whipped his neck around and said, "Of course the orders still stand. Have you heard anything to the contrary?^[31]

Several conspiracy theorists have posited that the orders spoken of must have been an order to not shoot down the plane that was approaching the Pentagon. They conclude that expected action would be to shoot down the approaching plane and the unusual nature of the order explains the young man's disbelief.^[32] However, while in the full transcript Mineta clarified that he was later told that the order being discussed was indeed a shoot down order, the 911 commission found that "A shootdown authorization was not communicated to the NORAD air defense sector until 28 minutes after United 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania", some 55 minutes after the Pentagon was hit.

Allegations of insider foreknowledge

With reference to intelligence failures that took place before the attacks, the 9/11 Commission Report concluded that both the Bush and Clinton Administrations had been "not well served" by the CIA or FBI. Numerous whistleblowers and officials have surfaced suggesting that there was a deliberate effort, from high-ranking officials, to prevent investigations into Al Qaeda. Former British Environment Minister, Michael Meacher, suggests that individuals within the United States government and private sector knew of the impending attacks and deliberately failed to curtail those acts. He also cites the numerous warnings the United States received from foreign intelligence agencies, saying that they may have been deliberately ignored.^[33]

Insider trading

The Times reported on September 18 that investigations were under way into the unusually large numbers of shares in insurance companies and airlines sold off before the attack, in the UK, Italy, Germany, Japan, Switzerland, France and the US.^[34] News accounts in the weeks that followed reported a notable pattern of trading in the options of United and American Airlines^[35] as well as Morgan Stanley and^[36] other market activity.^[37] An article published in The Journal of Business in 2006 provides statistical claims of unusual option market activity days before 9/11:

Examination of the option trading leading up to September 11 reveals that there was an unusually high level of put buying. This finding is consistent with informed investors having traded options in advance of the attacks.^[38]

In a statement to the 9/11 Commission in 2003, Mindy Kleinberg, of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee, said:

Never before on the Chicago Exchange were such large amounts of United and American Airlines options traded. These investors netted a profit of at least $5 million after the September 11th attacks. Interestingly, the names of the investors remain undisclosed and the $5 million remains unclaimed in the Chicago Exchange account.^[39]

Regarding these trades, the 9/11 Commission found no malfeasance:

A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95% of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10... much of the seemingly suspicious trading in American on September 10 was traced to a specific U.S.-based options trading newsletter, faxed to its subscribers on Sunday, September 9, that recommended these trades.^[40]

9/11 Truth Movement members Jim Hoffman, Michael Ruppert and David Ray Griffin are among those who criticise the 9/11 Commission for using a circular argument in concluding that the trades were innocuous primarily because there were no ties to Al-Qaeda.^[41][42][43] Ruppert also claims that the intelligence agencies constantly monitor the stock exchange and should have "connected the dots" to realise that an event was about to take place involving American Airlines, United Airlines, and the World Trade Center.

Warnings given to individuals

There have been claims that some individuals received warnings in advance of the attacks. Some claim that Pentagon officials and other members of the government (including San Francisco Mayor, Willie Lewis Brown, Jr.) cancelled their flight plans for September 11.^[44] Of his call, Brown said it "didn't come in any alarming fashion, which is why I'm hesitant to make an alarming statement. It was not an abnormal call. I'm always concerned if my flight is going to be on time, and they always alert me when I ought to be careful."^[45] Ariel Sharon, Prime Minister of Israel, is said to have canceled a planned trip to New York around the time of the attacks. Some have interpreted this as evidence he was warned to stay away.^[46]

Two hours before the attacks, two employees of Odigo Inc., an Israeli company in Tel Aviv, received instant messages warning of an attack. The workers notified Odigo, who notified Israeli security who then notified the FBI of the message when the attacks began. Immediately after the attacks, Odigo traced the Internet address of the sender and gave it to the FBI. The warnings did not specifically mention the WTC attacks but said that "something big" was going to happen in a certain amount of time and ended with an anti-Semitic slur.^[47]

There are also claims that New York City Mayor Rudolph Guiliani was warned in advance that the Twin Towers were about to collapse.^[48]

World Trade Center collapse as controlled demolition

Main article: Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center

The collapse of the World Trade Center was a surprise to many structural engineers.^[49] No steel-framed skyscraper had ever before or since collapsed due to fire or other local damage, yet it occurred three times on September 11, 2001.

Twin Towers collapse as a controlled demolition

The Federal Emergency Management Agency Report (2002) was the initial government investigation into the collapses of the Twin Towers, and it supported the theories that had been put forward by scientific journals and presented in the mainstream media - that the damage from by the fires, together with the damage from the plane impacts, caused a local collapse, which then led to a complete global collapse by floors 'pancaking'. After a 3-year full investigation, in 2005 the National Institute of Standards and Technology published its final report. The theory presented in this report is regarded as the 'official account' of the collapses and has been largely accepted in the engineering community.^{[citation needed]} The NIST Report into the collapse of Building 7 is due in late 2007.^[50]

The controlled demolition hypothesis plays a central, albeit not essential, role in the 9/11 conspiracy theories that assert that the US government is responsible for the attacks.^[51] Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis and published their observations online.^[52] David Ray Griffin included the theory in his book The New Pearl Harbor. It received its most notable proponents to date when, in early 2006, Steven Jones, a physicist at Brigham Young University, argued that a "gravity driven collapse" without demolition charges would defy the laws of physics^[53] and in August 2007, with National Medal of Science winner Dr. Lynn Margulis praising The New Pearl Harbor and The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, “which provides overwhelming evidence that the official story is contradictory, incomplete, and unbelievable” while calling for a new investigation.

There is a range of opinion about the most likely sort and amount of explosives, the way they were distributed, and how they were successfully brought into the building. Steven Jones, of the new Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice organisation, believes that the molten metal found underground weeks after 9/11 suggests that jet fuel could not have been the only incendiary used that day, and that thermite (in the form of thermate), perhaps in combination with other devices, was likely involved. Jones says "molten material" streamed out of the south tower shortly before it collapsed.^[54][55] There were reports of "molten steel" in the pockets of the rubble.^[56][57][58] Firefighters described having seen in the rubble "molten steel running down the channels, like you were in a foundry". World Trade Center USGS Thermal study, conducted on September 16,2001 using Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer, showed hotspots in the rubble reaching temperatures greater than 1000 K (727°C, 1341°F).^[59] Samples of a once molten mixture of iron, aluminum, and sulfur were found in the rubble and analyzed by FEMA, who was unable to determine the source of the sulfur stating: "The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 [WTC7] and 2 [Towers] are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified." ^[60] Those elements as residues, as well as high temperatures sustained in the rubble, can result from burning thermate^[61]. Jones believes the sulfur is a result of deliberate demolition using thermate. Although NIST did no study regarding the sulfur found by FEMA^[7] they did note that the metals were abundant in the constructions of the towers, and up to 240 kg^{[citation needed]} of sulfur could have been released from tower's drywalls which were composed of calcium sulfate.^[7] As Drywall can only release free sulphur if heated to 1400 degrees Celsius (12 g/m³ @ 900 degrees in the presence of CO as a catalyst), NIST suggested acid rain may also have contributed.

A small number of theorists, including Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth, believe that the widespread damage and eventual collapse of the Twin Towers was caused by a directed energy weapon.^[62] James Fetzer, the head of the group, has endorsed the exploration of the all kinds of possible theories, including the use of mini-nukes, and HAARP technology. Among these theories is one first proposed by Morgan Reynolds and Judy Wood. Steven Jones and Jim Hoffman have published what they say are refutations to claims that "nukes" were used^[63][64] and Jones has questioned whether the space weapon theories are even testable.^[65]

Critics often argue that the difficulty of preparing the building for demolition without being noticed makes controlled demolition implausible. Proponents sometimes point out that between 1993 and 2000, Marvin Bush (President Bush's brother) was on the board of directors of Securacom, a company that provided security for the World Trade Center.^[66] According to its president CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down". This last statement has been used by some conspiracy theorists to say that the contract "expired" on September 11, 2001. Mr. Bush was also a former director and now is an advisor to the board of directors to a firm called HCC Insurance Holdings, Inc., which had what it called a "small participation in the World Trade Center property insurance coverage and some of the surrounding buildings".^[67]

Building Seven collapse as a conventional controlled demolition

Seven World Trade Center collapsed at 5:20 p.m. on September 11. Although it is received relatively little attention in the mainstream media, conspiracy theorists frequently discuss the nature of its collapse. They claim that it showed signs of a conventional controlled demolition (as opposed to the Twin Towers which they claim were an unusual form of controlled demolition).^[68] They also say that since no plane hit the building, how fires caused even a local collapse is even harder to explain with Building 7 than it is with the Twin Towers. Flaming debris did fall onto the building as a result of the collapse of the twin towers, but Four, Five, and Six World Trade Center, which were all closer to the Towers than Building 7, remained standing despite also being severely damaged.^[69]

Currently, the official account of the Building 7 collapse is the FEMA report of 2002 that proposed that fires started by falling debris from the North Tower collapse caused a local failure and then a global collapse in a similar way to the Twin Towers collapses. It also stated that "the specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue." The full investigation by the NIST has yet to be published; NIST have said that they had to prioritize their investigations and chose to investigate the collapse of WTC buildings 1 and 2 first, and then building 7.^[7]

Conspiracy theorists emphasise the style in which Building 7 collapsed: the speed of the total collapse (suggesting there was little resistance to the 'pancaking floors'),^[70] the sudden onset, the verticality, puffs of dust, the classic 'crimp' of the roof, and the way the rubble fell mostly within the building's footprint.^[71]

Some conspiracy theorists also claim that owner Larry Silverstein accidentally revealed, on a PBS documentary on the collapse, that he was told that the fire department had decided to "pull it", allegedly the technical slang meaning "demolish the building".^[72][73] His spokesperson later said Silverstein meant that firefighters had decided to withdraw from the building and the surrounding area for their own safety.^[74]

The BBC World News also aired a live coverage of the World Trade Center buildings as they were falling down. Their coverage was accurate right until Building Seven was about to come down. The reporter on the scene, Jane Standley, incorrectly reported that Building Seven had collapsed even though this building was still standing right behind her ^[75]. About five minutes before the actual collapse of Building 7, the video feed of Ms. Standley is cut off. ^[76]

The fact that the building housed the offices of government agencies like the Central Intelligence Agency,^[77] the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, along with the City of New York's emergency command bunker, has also fueled conspiracy theories.

Pentagon not hit by a Boeing 757

See also: American Airlines Flight 77

Security camera footage showing Flight 77 immediately before impact.^[78][79] Conspiracy theorists dispute the contents of the video.

The Pentagon, after collapse of the damaged section.

Claims that the Pentagon was hit by something significantly smaller than a Boeing 757 (typically a missile or smaller aircraft) have been raised by some conspiracy theorists based on photographs in which there appears to be a lack of expected debris or pieces of a commercial aircraft within the immediate impact area, and what some believe is a lack of damage to the building and the lawn. Conspiracy theorists say the first person to suggest that a missile hit the Pentagon was Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in an interview on October 122001,^[80] which helped set up this claim. Subsequently, Thierry Meyssan in his book 9/11: The Big Lie gave this claim much more visibility. He also advanced the idea with his website Hunt the Boeing!^[81] and the popular internet videos Loose Change and "911 In Plane Site". At first the only evidence available consisted of long distance photographs and video footage^[82] taken after the attack, eyewitness testimony from individuals at the scene, and five video frames captured by a security camera which were released on March 8, 2002. A large amount of evidence was later released after the Zacarias Moussaoui trial and several Freedom of Information Act requests.^{[citation needed]} Some photos show a full frame of mangled aircraft parts without other content that could prove the context is a location at the Pentagon at the correct time. One photo shows a rotor frequently cited as too small to be a 757's engine rotor, even with all the compressor blades ripped off. No public photos show seats, luggage, cockpit machinery, viewport windows or bodies.

Debris from an aircraft scattered near the Pentagon.

Suspicions were additionally fueled by a lack of video footage of the impact of the jetliner, since many assume that the Pentagon must be subject to intense camera surveillance for security reasons. In addition to the Pentagon's own security cameras, these people also noted that security camera footage from a nearby Citgo gas station, a local Double Tree Hotel and from the Virginia Department of Transportation was swiftly confiscated by the US government. On May 16, 2006 the security camera footage was released as part of a Judicial Watch's FOIA request.^[83][84] However, due to a low number of frames per second, the videos do not clearly show the impact of the plane, only the approach of the plane (at an angle) and the explosion cloud, thus keeping the "no Boeing" theory popular. The video was also released with the wrong date in the bottom left hand corner; it read Septemer 12, 2001 instead of September 11, 2001. In addition to the security cam footage, the Citgo footage was released on September 15, 2006, but did not show the attacks.^[85] The Doubletree hotel, located nearby in Crystal City, Virginia, also had a security camera video, and on December 4, 2006 the FBI released the video in response to a freedom of information lawsuit filed by Scott Bingham.^[86][87] No plane can be seen entering the Pentagon since the camera was mounted on a lower point on the Doubletree Hotel and an elevated highway obstructs the view of the Pentagon.^[88][89]

A few conspiracy theorists also consider American Airlines Flight 77 pilot Charles Burlingame as a "prime suspect" in the conspiracy.^[90][91] In response to these accusations and the Loose Change video, his sister, Debra, remarked "The only thing they (the filmmakers) seem to have gotten right about the September 11 attacks is the date when they occurred.... They aren't truth-tellers looking to save the world. They're con artists hoping to sucker conspiracy-theory paranoids or anti-government malcontents into shelling out their hard-earned dollars."^[92]

The Pentagon "no Boeing" theory constitutes a controversial issue, even among conspiracy theorists, many of whom have said that this claim is disproved by hundreds of eyewitnesses and physical evidence, suggesting it is disinformation to create a supposedly easily discredited straw man argument.^[93][94][95] Several researchers have argued that the wings would cause less damage than the plane's main body, that photographs of large amounts of wreckage and debris matching a 757 have become available, that the appearance of the size of the hole is typically misrepresented; and that the actual fuselage diameter of 12 feet is a much more relevant dimension for the deepest parts of the hole than the overall 44-foot height of the 757's tail.^[96][97] They also emphasize reports from numerous eyewitnesses, including commuters on nearby roads,^[98] nearby apartment buildings,^[99] and other surrounding locations. Many witnesses saw the aircraft close up as it approached the Pentagon and described it as an American Airlines Boeing 757.^{[100][101][102]}

Purdue University also released a study with results that recreated the attack. In explaining the damage, the study argued that the plane was like a "sausage skin" because of the speed of impact.^[103]

In June 2007, university student Calum Douglas, from Pilots for 9/11 Truth, presented an analysis of (allegedly) Flight 77 black box data.^[104] Douglas says he obtained the data from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) after issuing a petition via the Freedom of Information Act. The analysis provides with three independent methods of measuring aircraft position and two methods of measuring aircraft height near the end of the recording. Pilots for 9/11 Truth issue the following press release:

1. The NTSB Flight Path Animation approach path and altitude does not support official events.
2. All Altitude data shows the aircraft at least 300 feet too high to have struck the light poles.
3. The rate of descent data is in direct conflict with the aircraft being able to impact the light poles and be captured in the Dept of Defense "5 Frames" video of an object traveling nearly parallel with the Pentagon lawn.
4. The record of data stops at least one second prior to official impact time.
5. If data trends are continued, the aircraft altitude would have been at least 100 feet too high to have hit the Pentagon.

United Airlines Flight 93

There are several conspiracy theories surrounding the crash of United Airlines Flight 93 in Pennsylvania.

Jim Hoffman notes a three-minute discrepancy in the cockpit voice recording immediately prior to the flight's crash.^[105] The cockpit voice recorder transcripts end at 10:03 a.m., but Cleveland Air Traffic Control reported that Flight 93 went out of radar contact at 10:06 a.m., and FAA radar records also note a time of 10:06 a.m.^[105] Seismologists record an impact at 10:06:05 a.m., +/- a couple of seconds.^[106]

Claims that Flight 93 was shot down

Some conspiracy theorists who question the common account of United Airlines Flight 93 crashing as a result of an attempted cockpit invasion, have speculated that it was shot down by US fighter jets.^[107]

This idea was promoted by author David Ray Griffin in his book The New Pearl Harbor, who cited Paul Thompson. Thompson and other conspiracy theorists note that debris from Flight 93 was found 3 miles from the crash site^[108] and suggest that this may be evidence of a shoot-down.^[109] There are also some eyewitness reports of debris falling from the sky like confetti.^[110] NTSB investigators say they have found no evidence the plane was shot down and Popular Mechanics argued that debris exploding away and landing far from the crash scene is not a unique occurrence in commercial airline accidents.^[111]

Thompson also examined a number of mainstream media reports and says that fighter jets were actually much closer to Flight 93 at the time of the crash than stated in the official record.^[112] He mentions witnesses who noticed a small white jet near the impact site soon after the crash.^[113] However, some say this was likely a business jet the ATC asked to investigate the crash area and that descended to an altitude of around 1500 ft to survey the impact. Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.^[114] He^{[attribution needed]} has questioned whether it is plausible that the military did not know about Flight 93 being off-course and out of contact, and suggests that his claim shows that they were aware and had sent jets to investigate and possibly shoot it down.^[115]

Conspiracy theorists also seized on a quote by the US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, in which he referenced Flight 93 as "the plane they shot down over Pennsylvania." A Pentagon official later said that Rumsfeld had misspoken.^[116]

Claims that Flight 93 never crashed

Some conspiracy theorists speculate that Flight 93 landed safely in Ohio. The website Physics911 says that the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania was actually not United 93 and that the flights involved in the 9/11 attacks were landed and substituted with other aircraft;^[117] however, other websites refute this claim^[118]and point to the wreckage at the scene and witness testimony,^[119] aside from the difficulty of "plane swapping". Often cited is a preliminary AP story on Flight 93’s safe landing at a Cleveland airport by WCPO, a local Cincinnati ABC news affiliate.^[120] It was later learned Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93. WCPO has since retracted the story noting its earlier factual inaccuracies.

The President's behavior

President Bush was promoting the passage of his education plan at Emma E. Booker Elementary School on the morning of September 11. He was apparently already aware of the first plane impact before he entered the classroom for a reading of The Pet Goat with the children. At 9:05am, Andrew Card whispered in his ear that the second Tower had been hit and that America was under attack. That the president chose to stay in the classroom, without asking for additional information from his staff, and that those staff did not volunteer any additional information or take him to a place of safety, has led to allegations that he knew that the attack was taking place, knew he was safe and knew the situation was being handled.^[121][122] A response is that Bush's intention was to "project strength and calm", i.e., that he did not want to cause more panic by fleeing the room, as the footage would likely have been replayed over and over on news coverage.^[123]

President Bush also made statements on two separate occasions, in late 2001 and early 2002, in which he said he saw the first plane hit the World Trade Center and that he assumed it was an accident. He could not have seen the first plane hit the tower live on commercial television, since no television stations were broadcasting footage from the area when the first plane hit.^[124][125] The only known footage of the first plane crashing was captured by filmmaker Jules Naudet while making a documentary about a new firefighter.^[126] The video was first broadcast on CNN later in the day and was later released as the documentary film "9/11". The White House explained his remarks as "a mistaken recollection".^[127] and some critics insist that President Bush was referring to the aftermath and not the actual jetliner impact at 8:46 a.m.

Claims relating to the hijackings

Some of the events that took place on the planes prior to their impacts have been disputed. The maneuver carried out by Flight 77 as it approached the Pentagon has been identified as one that would have required either a very experienced pilot or a computer-controlled set flight path. The 9/11 Commission Report notes that the reported pilot of Flight 77, Hani Hanjour, was described as a "terrible pilot" by one of his instructors.^[128]

Claims that the planes were flown into their targets by computer

Jim Hoffman and the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice are among those who have said the Flight Management Computer Systems on board Flights 11, 175 and 77 could have been loaded with a preset route that guided the planes to their targets.^[129] Boeing has confirmed that this would have been technically possible.^[130] Hoffman claims that this is a more likely scenario than the mainstream account of the hijackings of Flights 11, 175 and 77, and also how Flight 77 performed the unusual maneuver it made on its approach to the Pentagon.^[131] He notes Flight 93 appears to be an exception, citing the high distribution of phone calls from Flight 93 compared to the other three flights.^[132]

Some theories go suggest that, rather than having preset routes entered into the planes on-board computers, the planes were modified to be flown by remote control. The controllers of the planes may have been on the ground or, as in the "doomsday plane" theory, in another aircraft. This theory argues that a blurry white object seen in the sky in videos of the World Trade Center, was a plane containing the remote controller of Flights 11 and 175, and that an aircraft that flew away from the Pentagon after that impact contained the remote controller of Flight 77.^[133] The aircraft at the Pentagon was later identified as a E-4B National Airborne Operations Center (NAOC) plane, a militarised version of a Boeing 747-200, taking part in the Global Guardian exercise.

Claims that the hijackers were not on the planes

Some conspiracy theorists go further to suggest that the hijackers were not on the planes at all. This claim was fueled by erroneous initial news reports shortly after 9/11 that indicated that some of the hijackers were still alive. The BBC and the Daily Telegraph newspaper reported on September 23, 2001, that some of the people named by the FBI as hijackers were actually alive and well.^[134][135] One of them was Waleed al-Shehri, who they said they had found in Casablanca, Morocco. Abdulaziz Al Omari, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khalid al-Midhar, three other hijackers, were all said to be living in the Middle East. On September 19, the FDIC even distributed a "special alert" which listed al-Mihdhar as alive. The Justice Department says that this was a typographical error.

All of the reports have since been acknowledged as cases of mistaken identity by the publications involved and by other news organisations such as NBC.^{[136][134][137]} In 2002, Saudi Arabia admitted that the names of the hijackers were correct.^[138] The editor of BBC News Online has said the identity confusion in the original BBC article that sparked the theories may be due to the hijackers' names being common Arabic names, and that the BBC has later superseded the original article.^[139]

Attention has also been given to news reports that indicated the hijackers were not typical Islamic suicide terrorists - for example Mohammad Atta reportedly ate pork, drank alcohol, gambled in casinos and went to strip clubs.^[140]

Claims that the cell phone calls were faked

If the hijackers were not on the planes, then necessarily the reported phone calls from the flights must have been somehow 'faked', perhaps using voice synthesizers. Though the technology to achieve this may have existed, this would have made the operation far more complicated, with little reward for the perpetrators. The issue of fake phone calls has caused divisions between the 9/11 Families Movement and the 9/11 Truth Movement in general.^[141]

A.K. Dewdney, in a study conducted in Canada in 2003, suggested that mobile phone calls from planes are nearly impossible.^[142] He argued that connecting a cell phone to a tower's signal would have been extremely difficult from the air. Based on this assumption, economist Michel Chossudovsky suggests the calls were fabricated or never made at all.^[143] Critics of this study have pointed out that mobile phone signals would not have been the same in Canada in 2003 as they were near the northeast coast of the United States on September 11.^{[citation needed]} Additionally, Carnegie Mellon researchers have concluded that one to four cell phone calls are made during each average passenger flight, contrary to FCC and FAA regulations. These calls, the report claims, are most probably made during take off and landing.^[144]

During the flight of Flight 93, 13 passengers made a total of over 30 calls to both family and emergency personnel (and all but two of these were on air phones). There were far fewer phone calls from Flights 11, 175 and 77, leading to some claims that these calls may have been faked even if the Flight 93 calls were real. Reportedly, the only two calls from these flights that were recorded were placed by flight attendants Madeleine Sweeney and Betty Ong on Flight 11. Proponents of this theory have pointed out various anomalies relating to the phone calls.^[145]

Claims relating to the World Trade Center plane impacts

Some conspiracy theorists have made claims relating to the nature of the planes that were seen hitting the World Trade Center Towers. These claims range from a modification of the Boeing planes (in the form of a 'pod' on the underside), to claims that different planes were involved or that nothing hit the Towers at all ('No Boeing Theories' or 'No Plane Theories'). Many prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement have debunked all of these claims^[146] and the majority believe that Flights 11 and 175 hit the Towers as in the official account.

The theory that there was a "pod" of some sort under the aircraft which hit the South Tower has mainly been propagated by the videos 911 In Plane Site, Let’s Roll 911, and Reopen 911. Theories as to what this pod may have been have ranged from a missile to simply the Boeing’s left fairing.^[147] The website 911 In Plane Site cited an analysis by a Spanish university as proof that there were objects on the base of the plane. The report says that the "only explanation" for these objects is that they are "in relief."^[148]

Popular Mechanics’ “Debunking the 9/11 Myths” quotes Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography Laboratory at Arizona State University, who said that the sunlight is glinting off the plane, and that “such a glint causes a blossoming (enlargement) on film, which tends to be amplified in digital versions of images--the pixels are saturated and tend to 'spill over' to adjacent pixels.” They said that “the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear”.^[149]

One theory, being promoted by internet-only videos, asserts that this shot of the second impact, taken from a news helicopter, depicts a superimposed CGI image.

Many of the same conspiracy theorists supporting the pod claim have often alleged a flash as the plane hit the tower as proof that there was a missile launched from the underside of the plane. 911 In Plane Site says that the flash could not be a reflection, as it was caught on camera from four different angles, and it is their theory that an object cannot reflect light in more than one direction. In addition, they said that sparks or static discharge "have been ruled out by every airline pilot we have spoken with."^[150]

Various prominent 9/11 researchers have also published refutations of the pod and flash claims, saying they are not supported by the evidence.^[151][152] Those promoting the pod theory have been referred to as the "pod people."^[153][154]

Morgan Reynolds, former chief economist in the Bush Administration, who admits that he is the "black sheep" of the 9/11 Truth Movement,^[155] believes that the Boeing planes of Flights 11 and 175 could not have impacted the Towers. He has proposed that there may have been a 'plane swap' or there may have been no impacts at all, with 'video fakery' used to depict the plane crashes in news reports. The idea of computer animation being involved has been promoted by the internet-only videos 9/11 Octopus and September Clues. All such theories have been widely denounced by certain members of the 9/11 Truth Movement^[156] but there is still some debate.^[157][158]

Allegations of cover-up

Conspiracy theorists say they detect a pattern of behavior on the part of officials investigating the September 11 attack meant to suppress the emergence of evidence that might contradict the "official account".^{[159][160][161]} They associated news stories from several different sources with that pattern.^{[162][163][164][165][166][167]}

Cockpit flight and voice recorders

The cockpit voice recorder (CVR) or flight data recorder (FDR) were not recovered from the remains of the WTC attack.

• Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center say they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners; this is cited to support the claim there was a government cover-up at Ground Zero.^[168][169]

"At one point I was assigned to take Federal Agents around the site to search for the black boxes from the planes. We were getting ready to go out. My ATV was parked at the top of the stairs at the Brooks Brothers entrance area. We loaded up about a million dollars worth of equipment and strapped it into the ATV. There were a total of four black boxes. We found three" (Ground Zero, p. 108).^[170]

"It's extremely rare that we don't get the recorders back. I can't recall another domestic case in which we did not recover the recorders," said Ted Lopatkiewicz, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.^[171]

Some conspiracy theorists believe there is a cover up of evidence as the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorder from Flight 93 have not been released to the general public. However, a 1990 Congressional Law prohibits the “public disclosure of the cockpit voice recorder recordings and transcriptions, in whole or in part, of oral communications by and between flight crew members and ground stations…” And on April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings.^[172] This was made possible because the FBI controlled the investigation, as opposed to the NTSB as in typical air disasters.^[173]

Motives

"Pax Americana"

In suggesting motives for the US government to have carried out the attacks, Professor David Ray Griffin claims that a global "Pax Americana" was a dream held by many members of the Bush Administration. This dream was first articulated in the Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney, a document that has been called "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony"^[174] and has been echoed in the writings of the neoconservatives. In his lecture, "9/11: The Myth and the Reality," Griffin states that:

"Achieving this goal (American global hegemony) would require four things.
1. One of these was getting control of the world's oil, especially in Central Asia and the Middle East, and the Bush-Cheney administration came to power with plans already made to attack Afghanistan and Iraq.
2. A second requirement was a technological transformation of the military, in which fighting from space would become central.
3. A third requirement was an enormous increase in military spending, to pay for these new wars and for weaponizing space.
4. A fourth need was to modify the doctrine of preemptive attack, so that America would be able to attack other countries even if they posed no imminent threat.
These four elements would, moreover, require a fifth: an event that would make the American people ready to accept these imperialistic policies."^[175]

Some of the most widely cited writings of the neoconservatives come from the think-tank the "Project for a New American Century". This group contained numerous members of the Bush Administration including Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush. A document published in 2000 entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses" called for increased spending in order to transform the military. It goes on to say:

"This process of transformation... is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor."^[176][177]

In his book "The Grand Chessboard" (1997), geostrategist