In the nearly seven years since 9-11 the conspiracy theorists have had the floor, nearly unopposed. I say that because for some years I have been looking for photo evidence contrary to those theories, and, sadly, few if any such photos ever seemed available. These are some of the first I've seen.

Granted, I have not made the search for this evidence a first (or even second or third) priority, but it was not easily found by any means. Surely, I thought, since these events all happened in daylight, and good weather, and with thousands of witnesses, there must be a great many images from cell phone cameras and security cameras, not to mention all the physical evidence that must have been extant.

Regarding the Pentagon crash, for example, the only video evidence seemed to be the Pentagon parking lot security cams that caught only a few frames, none of which actually seemed to show the aircraft itself. Then there were the stories of Pentagon (and FBI and CIA and various other men in black) types actively confiscating footage from security cams throughout the area, ostensibly to keep such images from the public. Those stories were not sourced, but they fit with the tenor of the times -- secrecy, high-handed government -- and seemed, if not accurate, at least plausible. Abu Ghraib, renditioning, WMDs -- the list of secret government activities, cover-ups and lies has been rampant, and much of it discovered to be quite true. That there would also be a conspiracy to cover up aspects of the 9-11 crashes wasn't a stretch by any means.

I'm sure there are those who so closely hold with the conspiracies that they will not be swayed by anything, as you say, but I would suggest that for most people, clear evidence such as this would indeed be convincing. I'm sorry that I haven't come across this earlier, but thanks for the posting, it's helpful.

You clearly work for the government! They clearly have you brain-washed along with the other 99% of the world. Only the conspiracy theorists (all 10 of them) have it right!!!

Many thanks for your thoughtful comment, I think it touches on some good themes. Ultimately I think there are three main problems here (and I appreciate that I'm stereotyping somewhat):

Firstly, the conspiracy theory community simply won't objectively and critically study the evidence. Aside from a very few cases, the sites making these claims based their conclusions on a platform of assumptions and innuendo, without recognizing that you simply can't do this if you want to be taken seriously. The worst example of this was all the talk about Silverstein's 'pull it' statement; another good one being the uproar over the BBC report that accidentally said WTC7 fell before it did.

Secondly, they underestimate the research task. There is so much detail in the various reports of NIST, FEMA and the 9/11 Committee, not to mention hundreds of independent academic reports, that it would take a thousand page document to outline a convincing case for a conspiracy. All these people have are youtube videos and minor inconsistencies, none of which actually prove anything.

Thirdly, it's easy to create a "god of the gaps" theory in any complex case. There will always be gaps in the knowledge of what happened that day, and people will always squeeze new theories into those gaps. You can see the evolution of this in action as conspiracy theorists have backed away from bullish claims in 2002/3 that the planes didn't exist at all, to the 2008 argument which focuses on minor details of how much fire there was in WTC7. You also see it in the way that any detail that we don't know about is taken as "evidence" (i.e. the Arab names missing from flight passenger lists issued to the public, which could have been for many reasons).

The irony is that I do (very indirectly) work for the (U.K.) government.

Just because you present this evidence does not prove that a dying man living in a cave on the other side of the world had anything to do with this. This was a well orchestrated plan (almost as good as the assassination of our dear JFK) in anycase I am and will always be skeptical of what "they" tell me. As with JFK we will never really know the truth, but the whole 9/11 incident definitely made it easier to convince a country to go to war.

Lol, perfect example of the conspiracy theorist.

Step 1: Present two lies (Bin Laden wasn't dying or in a cave pre-9/11, he was living in Kandahar)
Step 2: Ignore all the other information, like the role of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed or the documented activities of the rest of the network of well-educated people with hundreds of millions of dollars in backing.
Step 3: Use the fact that some people benefited as proof of their involvement... by which reasoning clearly Oxfam were responsible for the Asian Tsunami.
Step 4: Be skeptical of "they", but accept at face value anything spewed out by a conspiracy website.

Also, notice I explicitly stated: "I don't claim that this page somehow proves the official story to be right".

Very good blog here.

When I have time, I would like to address all the photos.
But, as I only have a bit of time, I will just address the reference to FEMA, NIST and the 9/11 Committee.

The National Institute for Standards and Technology, has been forced to admit that the total free-fall collapse of the twin towers cannot be explained after an exhaustive scientific study.

The study categorically stated that the temperatures reached in the towers didn't exceed 500 degrees, when any physicist can tell you that to cause steel to weaken is 1000 degrees and pure molten at 1500 degrees.

Staying with NIST,

"In August 2007, James Quintiere, Ph.D., former Chief of the Fire Science Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, called for an independent inquiry into NIST's investigation of the collapse of the twin towers.

Quintiere said NIST's conclusions were "questionable", that they failed to follow standard scientific procedures and that their failure to address Building 7 belied the fact that the investigation was incomplete."

Can we use NIST as a reliable source to quash conspiracy rumours?

The 911 Committee report has been pored over by Dr.Griffin, and his findings have thrown a different perspective upon its validity and substance.
Griffin found that, whilst going through numerous accounts and witness reports, it failed to take into account any witnesses which (on the face of it) could put a "spanner in the works."
Witnesses that came forward, or those who came forward with contrary reports were sidelined or outright discarded.

One example would be the outright exclusion of the evidence of a meeting between the President of Pakistan and CIA director, Tenet.
The report denied the well documented meeting with the words..."we have seen no evidence that any foreign government – or foreign government official – supplied any funding.”

Just quick, as I have an extra couple of seconds. The picture of workmen slicing beams is not the pictures of beams having been found sliced straight after the collapse of the towers.

Since it would seem you know where to look for this information, I was just wondering if you could clarify something for me. First thing I have always been unclear of is why is there no damage done by the wings of the plane to the pentagon and that the hole that barrels through many (I believe 5) of the reinforced walls are all of equal size?

The second thing is about Flight 93's crash. I'm not sure if you saw live footage the day of September 11, 2001 but I was watching the news from the time of the second plane hitting the twin towers until midnight that night and people on the scene were saying the whole day they could find nothing larger than a phone book. This would be puzzling if you think of any other plane crash wreckage you may have seen there is almost always at least some part of the fuselage left intact or at least large metal sheets would have came off upon impact.

I recognize the fact that these are based off of limited photos and a spotty memory and eye witness reports though I'm pretty sure if I looked back over the facts these two things would hold up as true and physically impossible under the circumstances painted by the media and the 9/11 Commission Report.

great effort here, Martin. It's just too bad that there will always be those that simply refuse to believe logic and science. strangely enough, so many believe in holy spirits and other mysterious god like entities without any proof as well. they call it "faith". frankly, i don't blame people who have been completely disillusioned and let-down by religion, government and big business. just believe in yourselves and remember, nobody gives a shit about you!TM

Regarding the Pentagon, to the best of my knowledge the holes aren't the same size - perhaps you have a reference? Eventually only the really heavy stuff punched through. As for the wings, there is zero chance of honeycombed aluminium punching a wing-shaped hole through concrete - you may as well through paper at rocks. The plane flowed into the building in a state closer to liquid, with the heavy elements (such as the landing gear that you see part of above) punching through the furthest.

Regarding Flight 93, is this good enough for you?. The plane didn't crash land like most accidents, it evidently ploughed into the ground. Ultimately, the wreckage was recovered, much of it by local people, so unless you're suggesting that the conspiracy involved the entire local population...

Hello
I'm not claiming to be smarter.
I'm asking you for help in understanding the evidence.

Perhaps your knowledge of the "Collapse" of the
World Trade Center Towers on 9/11,
will enable you to answer the one (1) question I ask

Please visit
www.CSI911.info

I support NO conspiracy theory. I use the scientific method.
I only deal with irrefutable evidence.
The site really asks just ONE (1) question.
It is a matter of weights & measures and math & physics

Please let me know if you can answer.
If you cannot answer my one (1) question, you are allowed
to enlist the aid of any engineer (s) or scientist (s)
or any other person (s) to help you.

If you need help, help is available.
You may contact me directly from the site.
Please post your answer for all of us to see.

Thank you for bringing us all
closer to understanding this event.

Josef Princiotta

For
Vincent Princiotta F.D.N.Y. Killed 9/11/01
In the "Collapse" of the South Tower.
And
Sal J. Princiotta F.D.N.Y. killed 5/01/07

Thanks for the compliment, glad you like the blog.

You appear to be mistaken on some of the facts here. I don't know what study you're referencing, but see: "Normal building fires and hydrocarbon (e.g., jet fuel) fires generate temperatures up to about 1,100 degrees Celsius (2,000 degrees Fahrenheit). NIST reported maximum upper layer air temperatures of about 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,800 degrees Fahrenheit) in the WTC towers (for example, see NCSTAR 1, Figure 6-36). " from NIST (http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm). I'm not aware of NIST ever admitting what you claim - if you have a reference now would be a good time to bring it out...

You reference James Quintiere, but don't give a URL. I don't dispute that he may have criticize NIST, however he emphatically does not support a conspiracy - he contributed to Popular Mechanics famous debunking edition (see him here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/military_law/1227842.html?page=9).

Is NIST a reliable source? Well no source should ever be taken at face value, but their findings are all publically available, and if they're wrong it's up to someone to find some sort of evidence proving it. I've not seen much so far...

Regarding Dr. Griffin, I'm not sure how a retired professor of Religious Studies is that qualified to contradict the views of engineers and building experts.

Finally, I'm not sure what the funding stuff has to do with anything? Bin Laden had plenty of money in 2001 without needing government funding for the attacks...

"What is Your source for the energy required
to produce these documented, physical, results? "

Potential energy. Next?

Sorry, that was a bit facetious, but in all honesty your page could be a bit clearer about what exactly you have a problem with. It kind of rambles a bit...

By the way, I'm pretty sure the comment on your page about Popular Mechanics starting the myth that the towers fell neatly into their footprints is wrong - I notice you haven't referenced it.

Excellent blog, the evidence is comprehensive and well presented!

I am definitely one of the biggest skeptics concerning conspiracy theories... I have long since personally denounced the conspiracies surrounding the WTC and flight 93.

One thing that has always bothered me was the issue regarding the Pentagon crash.

While this video is laden with inconsistencies and aimed at exploiting uncertainty to sell some DVDs... I feel like it raises some really interesting and unresolvable questions:
http://www.pentagonstrike.co.uk/flash.htm#Main

The most important things I think it asks are the following:
How come there wasn't a massive amount of debris outside of the Pentagon wall if the wings/tail were shorn off upon penetration?
How is there almost indetectable damage to the front lawn of the Pentagon (this implies that the alleged pilot, who according to statements from the film was an amateur/unskilled, would have had to bring in a gigantic 757 at an approach of no more than 2 feet off the ground travelling in excess of 400mph)?
How come every conceivable angle of footage available was confiscated, save for an ambiguous sequence from a pentagon security camera that captured no conclusive evidence?

The eyewitness accounts are also intriguing... albiet probably coerced or misguided to a small degree.

I don't believe it could have been a missle really, I'm more partial to the idea that a much smaller military plane or just a smaller, more agile plane in general was used in this situation.. That would be able to reconcile the picture you posted of the plane debris.

I'd like to know what you think about this, watch that video... I know its typical conspiracy stuff but the points it raises are intriguing and valid.

It took, what, 7 years to find these? Did I hear someone say photoshop? I have to say your skyscrapers are poor quality ;P The last paragraph makes sense!

The wheel in the picture above is absolutely 100% from a Boeing 757. I could have posted numerous other examples, such as chunks of the engine and the landing gear itself, again clearly from a 757. Some of the best photos are here. I think you also underestimate how much debris was left outside the building - like here for example (and note the colours the plane was flying in). The wings and tail weren't "shorn off", they were pulverized. Wings are not very substantial.

Also, perhaps you'd like to go speak to the parents and teachers of the schools that had children on Flight 77? What do you think happened to them exactly?

lol, rumbled ;)

There maybe a point not discussed here in full clarity. Why did the BBC report WTC7 before it happened?

Because news stations covering confusing live events never made a mistake before...

Or are you seriously trying to say that if someone was going to demolish the building, they'd need to include a British TV station in the plot? Why?

I've heard of clutching at straws, but Jesus...

The power of group think is incredible. The study I would like to see done is why so many people latch on to these conspiracy theories and get so totally ego invested. Is this a human characteristic on the upswing? I see glaring similarities between the group think of the "Truthers" and the group think of environmental alarmism. I'm sure I just pissed off some people with that.

Great post!!!

I have followed some of the 9/11 conspiracies, and have not seen some of these photos yet, so thank you for sharing them. Let's play a game of devil's advocate with the photos:

1) Without specs or something to show the picture scale, this is not that helpful. Also, who took the picture? Unlike some of the other photos, more details/background are needed.

2) This photo does not prove the damage inflicted was 'significant' and is especially useless in that it does not show the state of the building after the debris hit it. I can understand how it would be hard to accept that enough significant flaming debris (not just some dust) would fly over another building (WTC 6) to damage a building enough to make it collapse. And keep in mind the towers' collapse was supposedly not from controlled demolition, so everything should have MOSTLY fallen straight down.

3) WHEN was this photo taken? It does not appear it be even within a few days of the collapses since there was smoke coming from the collapses days after 9/11, and there is minimum amount of smoke from WTC 1 in this photo. If it was many days after the collapse, WTC6's fires could have burned it out, and THAT is the damage you see, not the damage from the initial collapse.

4 & 5) All that smoke could have been from the WTC 1 & WTC 2 collapses.

6) This 'plume' of smoke does not prove the debris was not spread out over many miles; there could be a 'concentration' of debris from a plane hit by a missile and cause a bit of a smoke when it lands, and still have other parts of the plane land miles away from the 'main' crash site (as was reported by numerous sources, google it if you doubt me). Only planes that break apart in midair leave debris trails miles long.

7) A burned up seatbelt, sitting by itself in a field of untouched grass, would only strengthen the 'conspiracy' theory that the plane was shot down. If the plane crashed on its own, per the official story, you would surely see other recognizable debris in the picture. Or burn marks on the ground.

8) These 'conspiracy theorists' (which include dozens of structural engineers) do not all claim that there would have been absolutely no saggage in the floors, but that whatever saggage there was was not significant enough to cause the collapse. And honestly, this picture does not 'prove' its an entire floor sagging, it could be wires, duct work, or anything else you'd find on a 'floor' besides the actual steel.

9) More context needed

10) Showing small pieces of the building falling would seem to enforce the idea of preplanted explosives: if only a limited area of the building was significantly weakened to collapse, the rest of the steel beams should still hold together relatively well, not fall apart like a crumbling cracker.

There have been hundreds of thousands of conspiracies that were carried out, and the perpetrators were ultimately punished. Check out the US Court system records for how many people are convicted of some sort of 'conspiracy'.

I don't think anyone here knows there ass from there elbow.

The "conspiracy theorists' should shun such a title, and the official story tellers have easily as much to learn as those assuming the truths.

I say we bring this whole thing to a court of law, with our nations best on both sides.

Then we'll see whats what. Lets just ensure the judge isn't a shill.

Both sides assume too much, both sides eat what they are being told without question, and both side leave so much to be desired in terms of logical argument or a proper forum for such a discussion.

We are all just playing a game we are told to play.

I trust and admire both sides for their loyalty and concern for this country and its people and the world, and the institution(s) are afraid of what we are capable of should we ever come to an agreement about anything, if nothing else, I can be sure of that.

Were you there in the plane? Were you investigating the wreckage? Do you have a lab where you did your own research?

Anyway... have fun yelling at eachother

Eventually only the really heavy stuff punched through.

And then evaporated. Good try, liar.

I never said the pictures proved anything - I specifically stated they didn't, so keep your knickers on.

Your entire argument is that if you take everything, twist it as far as possible one way, assume that witnesses are lying and experts are wrong, a conspiracy is "possible". And that's kind of my point. All the stuff in your rant above is your opinion, based on, well, nothing.

By the way, I'd love you to name dozens of professional structural engineers who believe this was a conspiracy. Go on...

Brilliant!

The simplest and quickest way to end this whole conspiracy campaign is to allow the conspiracy theorists the ability to ask the US government a handfull of questions that seem to be unanswered. Just a handful. Then lets look for the answer. Do it with a panel of independant scientists and engineers that are not biased either way.

The government would then have the ability to answer the questions posed and put to rest this constant war against both sides...after all we all want to know the truth, don't we?

Which kind of begs the question if you're not interested, why bother reading and commenting?

I'm not on any "side", I'm not even American, I just find conspiracy theorists amusing. Chill, dude.

First of all, in the first sentence of your article, you show that you were researching this topic with bias by labeling anyone who feels differently from you as a "nut". There are a lot of claims made by people who identify with the 9/11 truth movement which do not necessarily represent the beliefs of everyone else, and I'm sure you have heard people say the things you're arguing against, but many of the claims you're refuting are wrong or exaggerated, it seems.

1. There are many different theories about the pentagon crash- some think a missile hit the pentagon, some think a smaller plane, but the evidence does not point toward a large passenger aircraft crashing there. The hole (before the collapse of the wall) in the side was simply not big enough, there were light poles that seemed to have simply popped out of the ground, and there was no indication of the plane hitting the ground before it hit the wall. All sorts of oddities. I've never heard anyone say that there was "no debris" at the pentagon though- just that the damage and debris are inconsistent with the type of aircraft we are told crashed there. Also, the FBI confiscated all video of the crash from surrounding businesses and whatnot within minutes- why won't they release some conclusive video to the public?

2. A cloud of concrete dust still does not seem significant enough to bring down WTC7- especially not straight down, into its own footprint, in 6-7 seconds.

3. Seems irrelevant and I have never heard any claims about that.

4+5. Irrelevant... fires in other buildings to not imply fires in WTC7.

6. A picture of a cloud of smoke. Hm. It kind of looks like someone is having a campfire over there. And it certainly doesn't change the fact that the debris from flight 93 was spread out over something like 5 square miles (i don't remember the exact number) instead of a relatively small area that one would expect if a plane crashed into the ground.

7. Who has ever accused residents of the area of being liars? That is ludicrous. No one is saying that the people who live around there know any more about this incident than any of the rest of the American people. That is just inflammatory crap meant to turn people against so-called "conspiracy nuts". And a picture of a burned-up seatbelt doesn't prove anything... no one is saying that flight 93 didn't have any seatbelts. If the seatbelt was accompanied by an airplane wreckage that was all in one small area consistent with other similar plane crashes, that would be a different story.

8. I have some trouble seeing a sagging floor in there but I will take your word on that- most people who know anything about the twin towers though are aware that the building's support was in it's gigantic steel core columns. If you can show me a picture of one of those "sagging", then that will be something.

9. As you may or may not know, there is a lot of controversy within the 9/11 truth movement about whether or not thermite was used. Actually what's being talked about is thermate, which is military-grade thermite I believe. I personally could care less about this point, because this just comes down to argument about the method used in the demolition, it doesn't refute the demolition itself, which is the fundamental principle here. Also, in any case, it's pretty hard to tell what is happening in that picture.

10. How can a photo show the speed at which things are falling? And this is another case of you exaggerating people's claims- no one would argue that the building fell faster than free-fall speed, because that would be absurd. People generally argue that the buildings fell at NEAR free-fall speed, which is very inconsistent with "pancake collapse" and looks a hell of a lot like a controlled demolition.

Ultimately, I take issue with your general attitude toward "truthers" more than anything- most conspiracy theorists are not claiming to have all the answers, they are asking questions that need to be asked, and the government is refusing to give answers.

There's plenty of independent, peer-reviewed scientific research about 9/11 out there, covering everything from the fires and collapse to the nature of the global salafi jihad network. The trouble is, it's pretty much ignored. Since there will always be some information missing about any major event, there will always be conspiracy theories lurking in the gaps.

No amount of evidence will ever end this debate, because as with any similar episode, there will always be people (on both sides to be fair) who have a kind of religious faith in their belief.

"Posted by Martin:
As for the wings, there is zero chance of honeycombed aluminum punching a wing-shaped hole through concrete - you may as well through paper at rocks."

Martin, wouldn't this theory also apply to the twin tower facade, where the shape of the wings were clearly cut into the building after the planes impacted them? Several videos show this. Certainly speed has a lot to do with soft materials cutting through hard objects. One example are toothpicks found embedded into car doors after tornadoes, or high speed water jets cutting metal in metal fabrication.

The hole in the Pentagon walls was clearly not punched through by the landing gear. Anyone who has eyes can see that. The hole is round all the way through and the landing gear would have cut a different pattern (landing gear isn't round).

Also,

"Posted by Conspiracy Theorist :
Just because you present this evidence does not prove that a dying man living in a cave on the other side of the world had anything to do with this. This was a well orchestrated plan (almost as good as the assassination of our dear JFK) in anycase I am and will always be skeptical of what "they" tell me."

Conspiracy Theorist, you're assuming that getting a group of fanatical terrorists together, having them buy plane tickets and then rush the cockpits with box cutters would be a large scale event, requiring long-term planning. It isn't. Not when you're willing to die to achieve your goal. You and I may think a thousand times before attempting the same thing, but you have to remember the terrorists' ultimate goal was martyrdom. If they achieved their goal they would die, and even if they didn't achieve it they would still die trying.

Bin Laden is not some poor old farmer living in a cave in the mountains. He's a well-financed man who is extremely well connected and could easily put into action the takeover of four airplanes. Also ask yourself, if Bin Laden is some poor dying man hiding in a cave why then are we still looking for him after seven years?

Good point. Did not know it was certainly from a 757. Though don't you think it's still interesting regardless that footage from other angles is still not available today? Also the whole idea about the difficulty to pull of such a manuever with a 757. Not that I am arguing this provides any sort of significant evidence to a conspiracy... just interesting to think about.

I don't think the "parents and teachers of children" thing is entirely necessary though, thats just playing on emotion to support your position. Just as easily you could have said "how can you reconcile the casualties of flight 77 with your theory of a smaller plane?" But children dying is just so touching, yes?

But that's aside the point, once again, you've provided substantial evidence to support your position.. Personally I'm already convinced and had little real suspicion that it was a conspiracy in the first place. I just enjoy playing devil's advocate from time to time.

Keep up the good reporting,
-rr

Regarding "Nuts" - anyone who believes in something without evidence is, to me, a nut. Besides, you don't get 6,000 visitors to a page in 10 hours by being reserved ;). I've looked into these theories for some time, from initially having an open-mind to eventually being simply bemused by these people who seem so desperate to cling to the smallest of points to try and point to a conspiracy.

Regarding 1, try telling that to the families of the school-children who died in the Pentagon crash.

Regarding 2, WTC7 wasn't toppled by debris, it was damaged by it, caught fire, and collapsed. You've also neatly ignored the firefighters' reports that they watch it slowly giving way over several hours.

6, debris was not spread over 5 square miles. Some very light debris (fragments of fabric for example) were carried 8 miles, most of the debris was concentrated in a small area of woodland. Had it been hit by a missile at cruising altitude, the debris field would have likely been enormous - more like 10-20 miles.

7. The residents of the area assisted the recovery of debris. Truthers claiming that no plane crashed there were accusing them of lying. The woman who took the plume photo was subjected to a campaign of harassment.

8. I'd suggest you read the 2005 NIST report describing the collapse, since you don't seem very familiar with it.

10. It doesn't - the point is that the debris is below the building, having started above it, and is therefore falling faster than it. And I'd love to see a reference proving that falling in 11 seconds is inconsistent with pancaking...

http://www.ae911truth.org/supporters.php

How many structural engineers can you name that support the official story? And don't say 'NIST' because they even admit their story does not explain everything.

By the way, its pretty clear you don't have an open mind with this, when what I write is a 'rant', and how you mention the threats from the 'conspiracy theorists' to the lady who took the picture of smoke from flight 93. (Nevermind the threats 9/11 conspiracy theorists have received) I'm really just sharing this for anyone open minded enough to keep reading. I'm sure you'll go back go enjoying CNN or ABC or some other company that willingly reports government propaganda.

regardless of what side im taking, lets stop calling it a conspiracy theory.
that implies more than one person doing something. so as long as there was more than 1 hijacker, and somebody has an idea of how it may have happened, then that is a conspiracy theory.
the idea that 19 hijackers stole 4 planes, no matter what you think of it, is a conspiracy theory.that also goes for what mr. bush thinks.

and it seems that you still lack any convincing proof. i can take images, make up a caption, and say thats how it happened. you cite no articles or reports of any kind,and like any straw-man arguement, you seem to be attacking more the people that you disagree with than you do their stance.

and conveniently enough, you have left out all the damning evidence to your cause. you say nothing of the invisible plane that crashed in shanksville, or of all the coincidences that surround the wtc collapse: israeli companys breaking their lease and leaving the towers 2 weeks before the collapse, the 1200% increase in put-options on american and united airlines the week of the collapse, not to mention the the wtc7 building conviently houses all the investigation records for the sec(enron...), on top of that, theres not 1 piece of evidence linking bin laden to the hijackers, or the crashes themselves.
bin laden is on americas 10 most wanted list. below his name, there is no mention of september 11th of any kind. we are supposedly on a worldwide manhunt for someone that should get a fair trial in this country,and with no evidence, we all know how that trial would end. to me this implies bin laden is innocent(of the 9\11 collapse that is). im not accusing our government of anything excpept picking a scapegoat. the world will never know what happened on 9\11\01,and thats very unfortunate.

ok im done.
next....

Don't forget, you're talking about a very different facade - bomb-proofed walls compared to the relatively lightweight outer-skin of a skyscraper.

Also, while there's not a neat hole in the Pentagon, you can certainly see where the wing hit.

Careful Martin.... someone might call you on naming dozens of structural engineers who support your own documentation as well. Don't forget that your own presentation here is your own opinion, also based on, well... nothing.

Again... ^^^^^^Not intended to be proof of the official story^^^^^^. Largely, because I don't feel the need to retype the thousands of pages of reports that already detail the official story.

If conspiracy theorists want me to take them seriously, they need to produce concrete evidence, pure and simple.

A lot of what you've said doesn't even make much sense (why would the government be protecting Enron now?), and this kind of rambling really doesn't help conspiracy theorists make their point.

No evidence linking Bin Laden to the hijackers? Are you serious?!!

I'm not American, why would I watch government propaganda?
Go to Google Scholar, and you'll find thousands of peer review articles on the subject of the dynamics of steel-framed buildings subjected to fires. At any rate, it doesn't particularly matter - if you think NIST's explanation is wrong, you need to go through the presented theory and find the flaws in it. I don't really care that some retired architect disagrees - what I care about is his specific explanation of why NIST are wrong.

I described it as a rant because that's what it was. I'll freely admit this blog entry was a bit of a rant too, if that helps. If I wanted to write a detailed analysis of what happened, I'd need more than a blog.

Um, okay!

I'm not sure, but I think if the government was to create a conspiracy this elaborate, they wouldn't be so stupid as to leave all of this "evidence" against them knowing how many conspiracy nuts there are out there just waiting for something juicy to analyze and call the government liars. I also somehow doubt that there was nobody in the government who would know about the plan and refuse to go along with it and not call out the people behind it... it seems highly unlikely to me...

This is one of the things that frustrates me about these theories. Because they refuse to present a full theory, they ignore a lot of problems, like the sheer number of people that would have to be in on any conspiracy. Depending on the claims made this ranges from hundreds to tens of thousands. When people claim the BBC and American media companies were in on it, it starts getting a bit ludicrous. Not to mention the suggestion that all of the people working for NIST would agree to mass murder, and cover it up.

Martin, come on, you sound like an intelligent guy. You should know that not everyone involved in a conspiracy is even aware that a conspiracy is even in process. Tens of thousands of people need not be aware. All you need are a few people in key places powerful or influential enough to manipulate or hide the truth. Slight of hand, so to speak. That's how conspiracies work... in secret. That's the point.

How many people had conspired to invade Iraq? And make no mistake about it, invading Iraq was a conspiracy. Didn't some key people conspire to make it appear that Iraq had WMDs and was ready to immediately use it against the American people? And didn't that conspiracy lead up to unexplainable fear and ultimately the war in Iraq?

How many people did it take to start the war? You can bet that most people involved in the conspiracy were only unwittingly involved.

That's rather the point though. Manipulating the case for WMDs in Iraq led to an absolute torrent of leaks and even open rebellion from disgruntled insiders, right up to the ranks of government ministers and senior intelligence officers - they certainly weren't able to keep it a secret, or silence opposition. And you're seriously claiming that a conspiracy even more sinister, on a similar scale, wouldn't have resulted in a single murmur?

The thing that really bothers me is when conspiracy theorists try to put the blame on someone to whom they have no evidence. For example, the fact that put-options were put on United airlines is not disputed. But that doesn't mean there was a conspiracy according to the common definition. It just means that someone knew of it in advance and decided to make money. That, IN AND OF ITSELF, does NOT make a conspiracy. It just means someone made money off a tragic event. If I was going to use a plane as a missile I would make as much money off of it as I could. I would have some put-options out there as well! Hell, might as well make a few million/billion while I'm killing people. So why put the blame on Bush??? I just don't get it. If Bush did it, it would be a conspiracy, FOR SURE, but to claim that just because put-options were made Bush is guilty is just plain NUTS!!!!

I LOVE conspiracy theories, and I believe many of them have legitimate claims. But it is amazing how you can present solid counter-evidence here and you will get such replies. Rather than acknowledge the merit of your claims, you get hate mail. The confusion of facts and legitimate secret "conspiracies" gets shoved together with their own political hatred, and the cause for truth is just plain lost in the battle. The same can be said for those will not give any credence to any conspiracy theory claims!

I have not made up my mind about the who's, or what's, or how's of the Twin Towers, but I at least will not make a judgment without acknowledging and RESEARCHING the claims on both sides of the argument. When conspiracy theorists fail to acknowledge any evidence to the contrary, they are saying, in effect, "it doesn't matter what you say, I will believe what I want to believe".

Also, before we go defending Bin Ladin and implicating Bush, we should remember that Bill Clinton was the first to fire a missile at Bin Ladin. He, apparently, had enough evidence at that time to make a charge.

Couldn't agree more, cheers for the comment.

We live in an age where we can't believe everything we see in photos and on TV. Unfortunately, many people do. Those of us who are into digital manipulation know that you can't trust what people show you and these pictures can't be trusted. Notice, the source of the photos? There are none. Who's to say that these aren't from another crash or doctored to look warped, etc...

Just keep your mind open when listening to pages like these.

The guy behind the green curtain

Saying that a truth-seeker shouldn't be reading articles about conspiracies and seeing flaws in both sides is the worst statement that could be made. I thought James post was brilliant, and showed that he has a grasp for what it means to actually research and not assume anything you are "fed" is true. I couldn't agree with him more, and if you don't understand his point, you may want to reconsider whether or not you really are seeking the truth.

Absolutely, I mean, it's not like you could Google around and find the sources in about 2 seconds flat. Clearly, I've decided, as someone who runs a blog tackling general pseudoscience, to create a bunch of faked photographs to trick you all, lol.

In all seriousness, I didn't give links because these photos are everywhere anyway. Perhaps I should have done. At the end of the day though, photos can't prove much on their own. Here I just used them as a tool to present some of the weird and crazy theories out there, rather than as evidence to support the official story.

Oh but Martin, they have. The murmurs have happened and people have chalked them up to conspiracy theories by conspiracy nuts. Don't you understand that every time these murmurs occur, they're labeled as conspiracy theories? They're the reason we're having this discussion mate.

Of course... I mean, there are a whole stream of government insiders, FAA workers, NIST scientists and civil servants and intelligence officers leaking information, but clearly I've missed it, unless they've been publishing it anonymously on Youtube for some reason....

The fact remains that the government had perfect motive for committing these crimes mate. Do you remember the Reichteig fire in Germany? Who do you think would agree to attack Iraq because of their supposed WMDs which the UN inspectors clearly said weren't there.

i dont get why alot of ppl refuse to believe we have enemies in the world,and refuse to see the same enemies have attacked us several times in the past. i think ppl just want to believe in conspiracies.....
sorry the worlds not a nice place no man is good.
deal with it.

Martin, with this comment, you act in the same ignorant way that you claim conspiracy "nuts" act. You choose only the evidence you want to rebuff, you ignore other conflicting evidence, and you attack the person rather than the argument. The way to get your opinion heard and respected is to assess all sides, identify and oppose counter-arguments when you can, and make a rational, respectful case. It's going to take a little more than just a 300-word post; the most important thing to have is an open mind. Making outlandish, blanket statements just to attract readers is the reason this topic, as well as every news item in our nation, is drowning in disinformation.

"The irony is that the people who claim to be searching for the truth are so willing to ignore evidence and react angrily to those with conflicting evidence and testimony." - Martin

Do the math or get someone who can.
You can not move 80% of the Mass of a building out at 40 to 60 MPH in all directions with only 20 % of the total Mass.
The reason you don't get it is not your fault. Ask for the help you need.

Thank you for reading the words on my page.
HOWEVER
It reads - PM "Claimed" NOT Started. Painful as it may be, please read it again.
They PM may be just repeating the claim of another.
They PM may not have made up any of the stuff they put out.
They have good advertisements and wood working hints.
Is PM your source?

Or
Is the FBI your source? " ... not enough evidence to name Osama bin Laden"

Is the FBI your source? "... the only cell phone call from flight 77 did not go through and lasted 0.0 sec."

The ONLY source for the term "Boxcuters" is the Flight 77 cell phone call by
B. Olson to her husband Ted Olson. See above. THERE WAS NO CALL FBI, Under Oath, in Court.

I await any Scientific (not smart ass) answer to my question. (I expect -smart ass. am I right again?)
Thanks for the exchange.

Josef

One thing i would like to address is the fact that people are so willing to find controversy and scandal that the government need not cover there tracks in the slightest, because conspiracy theorists cover their tracks for them. These are intelligent people, and what people (usually the conspiracy theorists) tend to forget is that they are perfectly aware of the hundreds of thousands of people looking for itty bitty details in pictures and reports and videos. Not every "mistake" you might find is a "mistake". 90% of the time its planted, so you'll be overwhelmed by that and others, and convinced of theories that are complete bullshit. You and no one else knows the full truth, and no one can. The President is a figure head that doesn't even know the full extent of the truth. Or is he? The point is we will never know, And the more we come up with random ideas that we cannot prove or disprove or even clarify (because so many of these conspiracy theorists couldn't spell themselves out of the hardware case they think "grammers" come in) we shroud and distort even the small amount of truth given to us by the media.

Even if any of the evidence presented by a conspiracy theorist is valid, it wouldn't matter unless they were the only information being made available.
The Government doesn't really have to do anything to cover their tracks. There are enough people around that believe our Government can do no wrong that even if valid evidence bit them they would still deny it.
Furthermore, I come up with conflicting evidence with the official story and the Government floods the media with different more outlandish conspiracy theories along with the other theorists that my valid evidence becomes obscured and regarded as outlandish along with the rest of the theories.
Furthermore, I don't need someone to tell me that the iron supports failed from the heat. I know that is false. I've been trained in firefighting and know an oxygen starved fire. There was too much smoke for that fire to be burning hot enough to heat those beams in that short of time. The investigator at the scene of the fire stated that the fire wasn't that bad and that he could control it with a couple hoses. No fireman would make a miss call like that if the fire was burning to the point that it could cause structural failure. That fire would be so hot that water would not touch it, it would start turning to steam as soon as it left the nozzle and be steam before it reached the fire. Steam would also make the fire even more harmful to any potential survivors. It wouldn't happen and the investigator was a fire chief.
And no, the fire from one building would not be enough to cause a fire to such an extent to cause structural failure in another building. The heat might be hot enough to cause paper and such to start burning but not the structure itself to fail. It would have been easy enough to fight that fire in the third building. If that were the case, then I wouldn't want to step foot in any building built by the construction company that built the trade center and I certainly wouldn't want to have anything to do with any building that was designed by that architect either if those buildings were that frail.

So are you saying that you would not suspect a correlation between the events of 9/11 and the Bush regime's rampant desecration of the Constitution/Bill of Rights? People become so ensconced in arguments over transient, petty details that the rather large, ominous, and obvious picture is ignored in the background. In a time when an excuse was needed, it was magically provided. I guess Georgey was just standing up for truth, justice, and the American way. Just a good ol' country boy giving those ragheads what they deserved. Common sense and intuition are abandoned in the sterile robotic annals of The Holy Roman Scientific Empire. Can such dehumanized souls see the demon clothed in flesh? There'll be plenty of time to debate the trivialities in the gulag. Sieg Heil baby!

Even by the standards of conspiracy theorists, saying that other conspiracy theorists who are wrong must be government plants is a bit much.

(Oh, and before I get accused of censorship, I deleted the comment about "dancing Jews" because it was just pure hate speech :| )

I don't think anybody disputes that the administration took advantage of the events of 9/11. I fail to see quite why that would encourage hundreds of ordinary people - firefighters, NIST people, etc., to lie and cover up mass murder without a hint of a leak after 8 years. After that, your comment seemed to degenerate into nonsense :|

Are you playing devils advocate or no amount of evidence will convince you guy?

Not sure the purpose of your last paragraph but I think most intelligent people understand that throughout history there have been conspiracies. However, that doesn't make 9/11 one. In the real world, we call that a non sequitur my friend.

Non sequitur indeed. Actually I'm surprised just how little substance there is in the comments here so far... it's just a torrent of "you're an idiot and it *must* be a conspiracy because if you make some baseless assumptions, ignore a load of evidence, assume that witnesses who disagree with you are lying and consider a load of innuendo, it proves that someone... who we can't name but let's just say Jews or the government... did something (although we have no coherent theory what)."

I can honestly say that this was very interesting to read.
Most of this 'conspiracy' stiff is just plain crap from paranoid people...but that isn't to say that we shouldn't sit on our hands and be unaware of the world around us.
Be aware! That's the most important thing.

Cheers.

Wow! You should not be around firearms... If you take away sovereignty, true personal liberty, and essentially freedom, then of course the world is a nasty place. But, if you let freedom sort out successes, eventually, the evolution of kindness and humanity are restored. This means; letting nations with differing ideals, work them out themselves. We are only in distress, because we have "left our house unlocked, and unattended"... Remove the log from your own eye, before attempting to pull the splinter from another. We need to address, and perfect, our own country, before setting out to restructure the world, otherwise it becomes evident our leader's intentions are merely narcissistic parlor tricks, which only benefit few, while sifting out many, and these many are intentional casualties - You and I.

1 - Where is the engine? A supposed landing gear part can be found, but not a massive engine?

2 - There is clearly debris hitting WTC 7 but is it enough to bring the entire building down?

3 4 & 5 - There WTC 6 is much closer to WTC 1 which caused it's damage than WTC 7 was. First of all I don't know where those pictures were taken or if they are real since there's no source here. If they are true there looks like about 15 to 30 feet between the buildings, that is a huge distance for fire to spread.

2 cont'd - you see debris hitting WTC 7 but I haven never seen a picture of the building on fire. Not everyone is willing to blindly accept a story as fact.

6 - Something made a smoky ball. I don't know if this picture is real I've never seen it before.

7 - A seatbelt is found. Yet very little other substantial evidence is found. For a cynical person it is easy to explain. This doesn't prove beyond all REASONABLE DOUBT.

8 - Way to clump every single free thinking conspiracy theorist into one "CrAzY" group - not everyone believes this. But this does not explain in ANY WAY how the 150 + floored towers both collapsed in less than 10 seconds. That doesn't register with people for some reason. Less than 10 seconds is amazing to me.

9 - Very possible, not all "CONSPIRACY NUTS" are unreasonable. Pictures of neatly cut beams could be evidence of welders. This is the first I've heard on the issue.

10 - To put this simply - they fell REALLY FUCKIN' FAST.

I know a handful of "Truthers," and the one thing they have in common is that they all smoke pot. I don't want to generalize about ALL of them....but pot makes you paranoid. The "truthers" say they just want to ask some questions, have their questions answered? They have been answered. They don't believe the answers. It's a religion, a cult. I've extensively studied the actual scientific evidence--I'm an engineer. The "truthers" are not engineers. They don't know or understand science. Take some college level engineering physics and mechanics and chemistry classes, get detoxed, and then look at it again. Don't start with you conclusion and then cherry pick your evidence to support it. That's ludicrous, and that's not science.
It really cracked me up when some of the loudest "truthers" weren't scientists, but they had PhDs in...what? Religion? English.
The "Truthers" continue to FAIL to impress me.

1. A very quick search on google will show you parts of the engines.
2. That's precisely my point - you can't say it isn't. And ffs, there are dozens of photos of WTC7 on fire, clearly you've never bothered to look.
3,4,5, again, it's pretty easy to corroborate these pictures. I chose all the pictures here because I assumed everyone would have seen them before, since they're all up in hundreds of places. 15 feet is not far for fire to spread, particularly when that 15 feet is filled with burning debris.
6. Feel free to dismiss any pictures you don't like as fake :|
7. So you're accusing the hundreds of local volunteers who collected the wreckage of lying?
8. One took 9, one took 11. It's not that amazing to, for example, experts.
10. So you're claiming the debris out-pacing the towers is falling faster than free-fall speeds? Are you serious? Did you do physics in school?

I went to Iraq with a Marine Battalion. While we were there, PsyOps drove up to a town and in arabic, informed the people that all the women, children and the elderly needed to push out of the city through a certain road and the military aged men would have to push out of the same road in the opposite direction to be detained for questioning. Anyone who was left behind was considered a threat and would be killed. If we were a weaker military power and North Korea, China, Russia or any of the Middle Eastern countries stormed our USA, how would we or YOU react? Would you follow the crowd or take up arms and fight for your freedom? How do we really know that everyone out there were really terrorists and not proud (Americans) trying to defend there freedom? It's sad when you're clearing a house and approach a closed door, kick it in and find a one and two year old, in shock, that were left behind. I've seen it and it ain't pretty. I don't want to believe 9/11 was made up, but I can't help it! In any case, F G.W. Bush!

In case you didn't know, the main structure of the building would collapse at a slower rate as the upper sections slammed into the lower sections and the lower sections' inertia resisted the load for a moment. The outside debris that was shed from the buildings as they fell wasn't slowed by stationary chunks of steel. Hence one explanation for the difference in fall rates.

Completely agree with you on Iraq and the F--- G.W. Bush bit.

Exactly right. The photos and videos clearly show it, and yet people continue to insist that the towers fell at free-fall speed...

You're an idiot.

The fact you think the WTC contained a "150+ floor tower" voids any merit the rest of the words you typed might have contained.

I find it quite extraordinary that a blogger calling himself "The Lay Scientist" would be so disinterested in actual science. Indeed, many of your responses to your critics show abysmal ignorance. For instance you state, "I fail to see quite why that would encourage hundreds of ordinary people - firefighters, NIST people, etc., to lie and cover up mass murder WITHOUT A HINT OF A LEAK [my emphasis] after 8 years."

In fact, many firefighters have spoken out, despite attempts at suppression. This information is widely available on the Web. Here is just one story on the subject:
http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911_firefighters.html

You state, "...there are a whole stream of government insiders, FAA workers, NIST scientists and civil servants and intelligence officers leaking information, but clearly I've missed it...". Indeed you have, Martin. For instance, Ted Olsen's allegations that his wife spoke to him by cell phone from flight 77 has been contradicted by the FBI, American Airlines, and Pentagon historians. BTW, this phantom phone-call is the ONLY source for the use of box-cutter-wielding Arabs on flight 77. See http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8514

Also the FBI DENIES the official story that Bin Laden was behind 911. See http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Here's the FBI "Wanted" poster for OBL. http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/terrorists/terbinladen.htm

Note the lack of reference to 911 for his alleged crimes. I could go on, but similar information is widely available on the Web.

You state, "I'd suggest you read the 2005 NIST report describing the collapse, since you don't seem very familiar with it." But the 2005 (final) NIST report pointedly DOESN'T DESCRIBE THE COLLAPSE. It only covers events up to the moment of collapse. http://www.911review.com/coverup/nist.html

My point is not to argue that the official 911 story is badly flawed (though it certainly is!), but rather to point out that you are claiming to argue from a scientific basis on a subject of which you clearly know woefully little. You should be ashamed of yourself.

If you're genuinely interested in some of the problems with the official story (though I doubt it), I suggest you start with http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041221155307646

yet I don't believe in any of this controlled demolition nonsense. I'm worried more about the fact that many in our government knew that 9/11 was going to happen and instead of trying to stop it, just told important officials not to fly that day. Our government was clearly implicated in the act of terrorism no matter whether foreigners brought the buildings down or not.

I also find it a strange coincidence that when both Britain and America experience terrorist attacks, the government is holding a terror drill at coincidentally? the same time as the actual attack.

Most people I meet and know(at work, at parties, my friends and family) all have enough sense to see through the extensive propaganda tactics and realize the government's involvement, these days it's hard for me to find a "non-truther".

Simple logic would dictate that if a building was hit 3/4 of the way up by a plane even loaded with explosives would not cause a building to fall perfectly straight down. Any high school kid knows things fall toward the path of least resistance not the path most most resistance. If the explanation in the 911 commission report is your gospel on these matters explain how a pancaking of the building would only take less than 12 seconds for over 80 stories physically impossible without the use of explosives. As was the case for 3 buildings straight down. Still believe in Santa and the easter bunny? Turn you TV's off and read and try to think try hard, truth is out there its not going to come delivered through your press.

Personally, I prefer scientific evaluation to your simple inexpert logic. Does it not occur to you that the vast majority of scientists and engineers - including over 300 who signed up to the Popular Mechanics article - have absolutely no problem with what happened? What makes you think your "simple logic" invalidates this?

Also, it shows just how ignorant you are of the theories you're attacking when you talk about an explanation in the 9/11 commission report. The 9/11 Commission did not investigate how the towers collapsed.

Britain held regular drills and exercises from 9/11 onwars, the fact that a terror drill was being held in July - when we were expecting to be attacked - is hardly much of a coincidence.

Ditto with the wargames being held on 9/11. How many similar drills and exercises do you think are conducted in a particular year?

Hard to find a "non-truther"? Please...

Sorry, but that's one of the most piss-poor replies here yet.

The firefighter quotes prove precisely nothing - you could quote-mine people saying "omg it feels like an earthquake" and attempt to draw that conclusion. There's certainly no whistle-blowing there, so you're not even addressing the point I made. When hundreds of fire-fighters are tackling a vast building fire, it's not surprising that some heard explosions.

The FBI - their reasoning is freely available and perfectly reasonable. The fact that you're focusing on Bin Laden as the planner shows just how poor your knowledge of the plot network is to begin with.

Martin, you state, "The 9/11 Commission did not investigate how the towers collapsed." No, indeed they didn't. Nevertheless, apparently taking their cue from the half-baked FEMA report on the collapse, the commission members seemed unaware that WTC 1 & 2 each had 47 massive core columns that supported the weight of the virtually the entire building. Thus on page 539 of The 9/11 Commission Report it states, "These exterior walls bore most of the weight of the building. The interior core of the buildings (sic) was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped."

Perhaps you should familiarize yourself with the official misinformation and countless major omissions in The 9/11 Commission Report before you accuse others of ignorance of its contents. Here's a good place to start:

http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20050523112738404

PS, I'm still waiting for you to post my other comment.

Whether you call it whistle-blowing or not, many firefighters' stories are at odds with the official story. One of the most widespread is that they heard explosions. Another is that they observed pools of molten metal (red, therefore not Aluminum)in the basements of all 3 collapsed buildings even weeks after the event -- a fact that an official spokesman tried to deny. Another firefighter reported hearing a countdown prior to the Building 7 collapse. These are hardly "omg it feels like an earthquake" type comments. But if you want a real live whistle-blower, perhaps you should check out former FBI translator Sibel Edmonds. Oh right, she has a gag order placed on her.

Re my "focusing" on bin Laden: Could it be that you don't know that Osama bin Laden is who the US Government ultimately holds responsible for 9/11? Didn't you see the phony video they put out with a fat-faced "Osama" claiming responsibility for the attack (odd, when he'd already claimed he wasn't responsible). Check out the "official" reason the US invaded Afghanistan.

No, try again. The analysis of the collapse of the twin towers was conducted by NIST. You get all hysterical about the core columns, yet you seem to be completely oblivious of the extremely detailed 480 page analysis that describes in incredible detail how the core failed, backed up with evidence from the site and further evidence from the use of mathematical models and computer simulations (worked on by independent experts and fully accepted by the community).

Now go here and actually read the explanation before you start mindlessly criticizing something you've never seen before. In particular I would read the pages from 313 onwards, where it describes precisely the sequence of events that led to the core being overloaded.

I don't censor comments, as should be pretty obvious here. A couple were automatically marked as spam, I've released those, there were none by you in the queue.

Oh, yes, what about the FBI and others gainsaying former Solicitor General Ted Olson's comments? For some reason you forgot to mention that in your reply to my "piss-poor" comment.

The INITIAL analysis was done by FEMA engineers. They were rather vague about the core columns. Indeed, in the initial "truss failure" graphics that "demonstrated" the collapse, the core columns were completely overlooked! As the 9/11 Commissiion similarly overlooked them, I think it's a fair guess that they referred back to the FEMA report, rather than the NIST ones, which were clear in this regard.

Okay, I went to your link and read the explanation. Now I'll mindfully criticize...

The report describes the local conditions on the floors involved in the collision and subsequent fire, and describes events up to and including the moment of collapse. It then states the obvious -- "Global collapse ensued." I actually find the terminology misleading. "...the buckled columns exceeded the strain energy that could be absorbed by the structure" SOUNDS as if they're referring to the entire building rather than merely the involved floors, but of course they're not. NIST itself has admitted that it has not dealt with the actual mechanics of the collapse itself. Indeed, engineers are still putting out competing papers to try to explain how the towers could fall as they did without explosives and cutter charges. My question is WHY didn't NIST explain the actual collapse, and btw, when are they going to publish a final report on the collapse of Building 7? Could it be because a building that's damaged on one side only won't collapse in on itself exactly as is done with controlled demolitions? Before you give a glib answer, Martin, be mindful that NIST has admitted having problems coming up with an explanation. Perhaps they should just phone Pop Mechanics. They seem to have all the answers.

I respect your liberal posting policy though I did notice you censored a commenter's remarks regarding "dancing Jews", an event which of course is well documented, rather mysterious, and I suspect germain.

Its interesting both looking at the photos provided here, the links and the comments made.
Looking at this objectivly what we have is:

2 sides of an argument Both having some equally valid points, but at the same time both sides having flaws and missing information in their argument.

Now im not going to claim to know all the facts, nor am i going to sit one side of the fence or another. i have not been suitably convinced by either side to believe. IMHO it could be either or to play devils advocate: a bit of both sides.

I think its almost unquestionable that it was a terrorist attack AND the "Higherups" knew something about it.. does this mean that they used this as a coverup to demolish buildings, make money or whatever?.. No it doesn't... but at the same time maybe. You dont know what people are capable of in this world.

Its a good blog Martin and youve showed me some things i havent seen before, just be careful on your comments not to get sucked in and stubbornly defend your POV as the other side does (infact this goes for people taking either side.) Look at what they present and match that point with a valid counterpoint WITH sources without reverting to using ad hominem arguments.

Keep up the good work

You are wrong to claim that the NIST report on the collapses is "fully accepted by the [engineering] community". Currently there are 380 architects and engineers who are risking their careers to speak out on the anomalies of the collapse of the 3 towers.

Their web site is http://www.ae911truth.org/

We can be sure that there are many more with concerns who are afraid to speak out. As I previously mentioned, one can hardly accept what NIST hasn't even reported on, namely how the progressive collapse of the 3 towers occurred.

Regarding WTC - "heard a countdown" is quite some stretch of the imagination. The firefighters had a transit in the building and were able to watch as the structure distorted over a space of several hours prior to it finally collapsing, thus they had a good idea that it would come down. It astonishes me that you think the fire teams at the site were lying - my God I hope you meet them. Sounds of explosions are hardly unlikely in a burning, collapsing, building.

As for the pools of molten metal, what amuses me here is that they would be inconsistent with thermite/thermate, which would burn itself out, (which FYI is never used in demolitions because it's completely impractical) or explosives, a fact that seems to escape a lot of conspiracy theorists. Also, to be frank, I've not seen any primary source evidence of "pools of molten metal weeks later" in the first place..

What gets me about all of this is that you seem to think that just cherry-picking quotes out of context is somehow providing "Proof". Asking people to recollect precisely what happened in the chaos of such an event is bound to result in mistakes and inconsistences, yet these are seized on as evidence. It says more about the paucity of better evidence you have than anything else.

Re: Bin Laden, there is a difference between being politically responsible for a terrorist act, and being the person who planned and executed it. The FBI have published a detailed explanation of their logic here.

Ted Olson: All I see here is someone quote mining an FBI statement. Got a link to the original unedited text anywhere?

Sibel Edmonds: A low-ranking translator with a history of public attention-seeking who didn't even work for the FBI until after 9/11, and who only started making allegations about FBI incompetence over 9/11 in 2005, coincidentally right after similar reports were raised in the news and being looked into by a senate panel.

This blog normally gets about 400 readers a day - 20,000 have read this article, and keeping up with comments is a real headache. I wasn't trying to make a particularly serious case, just to highlight some of the more glaring issues with what I've long held to be a very "junk-sciencey" community of people. I did it in a way that I thought would stimulate debate - i.e. confrontational - but I didn't expect the site to be overwhelmed with 20Gb of traffic in 24 hours.

I've tried to respond to the sensible points, but as you say it's easy to get sucked in. I've tried to avoid ad hominem, as I do throughout this blog, but there are some aspects of this I have no patience with, that are just completely stupid. People like Ted Olson - who was widowed by Flight 77 - and the lady who took the photograph of the plume above have been bullied, harrassed, intimidated and defamed for no good reason.

I also lose patience with the deliberate manipulation of quotes, etc., to try and prove a point, or at times outright lies, such as the suggestion that a large number of qualified people think the official account was wrong. In this sense, Truthers have borrowed from Creationist debaters, quote-mining scientists and taking quotes out of context to try and portray a level of dissent that does not exist.

I believe we should always ask rigorous questions about what happened. The accepted explanation of the collapse MUST be criticized, because its findings will influence important things like building codes and emergency response procedures in the future. If there are mistakes in the NIST report then I want to find them. However, there is a difference between objective research, and the pursuit of a belief. There is a difference between clear-headed analysis, and mindless attack. There is a difference between dignified assertions, and anti-semitic hate speech.

Was this article level-header? Not really, it wasn't intended to be. But when you see the often hateful and obsessive language truthers have used over the last few years - claiming that victims families are liars, calling emergency service workers traitors, harrassing people who have lost loved ones - I think it's fair to indulge myself now and again.

Here's the American Airlines record of Barbara Olson's single incomplete call made from Flight 77. Conclusion? Solicitor General Ted Olsen's claim that his wife told him there were Arabs with boxcutters on Flight 77 was bullshit. What was his motive?

http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/docs/calls/Flight77/BarbaraO...

Re Bin Laden. "There is a difference between being politically responsible for a terrorist act, and being the person who planned and executed it." No kidding! Did I ever say anything different? It sounds as if your word "here" is supposed to be a link, though there isn't any there. If so, could you try again? I'd like to read the FBI's rationale.

Here's good evidence that molten metal was indeed observed in October:
http://www.jhsph.edu/Publications/Special/Welch.htm

The money quote is, "Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel." (Ms. Geyh didn't start her study till October).

Regardless of your contention that pools of molten metal are unlikely to be found if thermate was used (though I'm not suer why -- after all thermate's intense heat cuts steel like butter), molten metal pools were widely reported by witnesses, and chemical analysis of the dust by Professor Jones indicates thermate was used. I believe that it was used because it will not ignite as a result of the temperatures or percussion experienced at the impact sites (it wouldn't, btw). Just a hypothesis, though. Incidentally, have you seen the videos of red-hot metal dripping and pouring down the side of one of the towers? It's way past my bed-time (5:38 a.m. on the west coast of British Columbia), otherwise I'd provide the link, but there's at least one on YouTube.

Low level though she was, Sibel Edmonds was in a position to hear top-secret information. I believe there's likely much more to her story than your disparaging comments indicate.

Finally, I have not once used the word "proof" in my comments. That is a straw man you set up to knock down. I've merely presented evidence of contradictions between the official story and eyewitnesses/earwitnesses. If you wish to believe they're all mistaken, as you must in order to retain your faith in the official story, be my guest. I'm somewhat more cynical, particularly when you place them alongside the myriad oddities and internal contradictions with the offical story.

Jones' analysis of the chemical findings - for which I believe he didn't do his own analysis but simply looked at NISTs data - was very easily and comprehensively debunked, since his own figures fail to show a range of chemical traces that thermate would leave. His entire argument I seem to recall rested on the presence of sulphur, which is easily accounted for by the massive amount contained in the building.

Again, and I don't mean to be rude, your understanding of how thermate works seems to be fatally flawed if you think it would result in massive blobs of red hot metal (almost certainly from the vast amount of aluminum in the fire) coming out of the towers, or pools of molten metal. Can I also just point out that "they are finding molten steel" is a pit different to "pools of molten steel".

I don't believe all the eyewitnesses are mistaken. What I believe is that the presentation of their quotes is distorted. For example, at no point did anyone claim they heard a countdown, yet you put words in the mouth of a witness here.

Thinking technical here alright. In terms of proof and evidence.
Pic 1. It's not hard to put dusty wheel at the scene along with other small debris amounts. besides, there should be more debris if a boeing-757 hit the pentagon. plus look at the impossible flight path executed by hani hanjour the "best pilot" who was said by flight instructors to be a horrendous flyer and did not want to fly with him again
# 2. i have never heard a Truther argue that debris did NOT hit WTC 7. the big arguement is how debris hitting 1 face of the tower caused it to collapse straight down and in an even neater fashion than WTC 1&2. The photograph does nothing.
# 3.Once again i've never heard Truthers argue that WTC 7 could not be hit and especially by saying WTC 6 was not hit, because we ALL know it was crushed by debris. In fact truthers use that as evidence sometimes.
# 4&5. I'm sorry but by looking at the diagram of the WTC complex you can see that fires would not spread to WTC 7. There is no photographic evidence of it. This photograph just spawns an assumption. Please show me a fire reaching from WTC 5 or 6 over to WTC 7
# 6. Truthers wouldn't think this photograph is evidence flight 93 was not shot down because if it was shot down it would STILL create a plume of smoke. Plus, i haven't looked into it but i have even seen some mainstream articles talking about this pohotograph being fake.
# 7. this seatbelt prooves nothing except that maybe a plane was there. In the same case as picture 1 it could have been planted there (it's possible) and doesn't prrove what KIND of plane crashed there. keep in mind that truthers don't think that a plane DIDN'T crash in shanksville...
# 8. This photograph grabbed my attyention of course but look below it and you don't see any other sagging and there is no proof that the WHOLE floor was sagging. PLUS if you look at the caption the photograph was intensified so whatever the object is isn't that visible so maybe it isn't a metal floor beam. The caption goes on to say a 'visible hanging object' not even visible floor sagging.
# 9. This photo does not show this guy cutting anything. how are we supposed to know the design of his cut. Was it diagonal? is he even cutting at all. i know the orange dust might hint at it, but FROM the specific picture, you accuse truthers of ignoring, you can't tell anything. therfore rendering it useless. Maybe that column on the right with what looks like a possible cut halfway through could be examined but once again photo is useless for it
# 10. this is the only photo with credibility, but once again ya claim you make against truthers is one i've never heard. I have heard of the tower falling at free fall speed, but NEVER have i heard some one say the tower collapsed at faster (or Ludicrously faster [that's just ludicrous]) than free fall speed. I do not think the tower feel at free fall speed, but it did however fall a lot faster than it should have being 110 stories high. If it was pancake collapse it should have taken longer and no pyroclastic dust clouds should be seen and there should be plenty of floors in the debris pile AND the debris pile shouldn't be smoldering for 3 months!

thank you for a good try to discredit truthers and piss people off. I encourage you to read "Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to popular Mechanics and other defenders of the official conspiracy" by David Ray Griffin he shows you just how mixed up and unorganized and deceitful the Debunkers are.
Enjoy life, seek the truth

this article has nothing to do with science. Where are your sources and proof?

I apologize for breaking the rules of my own blog. Note that I explicitly stated at the beginning of the example that I wasn't offering proof of anything.

are you kidding me people? what are you trying to say or prove with your little conspiracy theories? what exactly are you trying to get across?

and im so tired of these people using "being sheep" and "turn off your TVs" so fuckin typical, come on now, if these people can't realize obvious truths on their own they dont need your argumentative asses shoving it down their throats.|

ignant' motha fuckas

baaaaah! Can I eat now? baaaaah! tell me what to do, I cant think for myself !!

So if I don't agree with you that makes me a sheep?

Martin, you state, "For example, at no point did anyone claim they heard a countdown, yet you put words in the mouth of a witness here."

Listen to the second eyewitness, who clearly states that he heard "3-2-1".

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Jlxw9TZ_0Cc

Now maybe he's lying or mistaken, but now you know that an alleged eyewitness claims to have heard the end of a countdown. Nobody put words into his mouth.

You also say, "Again, and I don't mean to be rude, your understanding of how thermate works seems to be fatally flawed if you think it would result in massive blobs of red hot metal (almost certainly from the vast amount of aluminum in the fire) coming out of the towers, or pools of molten metal."

The fires were relatively cool, even more so once the jet fuel had been (quickly) exhausted, as witnessed by the copious black smoke (poor combustion) and later photos of people waiting to be rescued on the damaged floors. Aluminum remains silver at its melting temperature, and if further heated (how?) will only glow a dull red. Steel, on the other hand, glows long before it actually melts.

None of this information is hard to come by, btw.

Incidentally, I have no idea whether large quantities of thermate produced the molten metal seen flowing down the sides of the buildings and pooled (what else would molten metal do, Martin?) in the basements. But the fact remains that something caused these phenomena. What? It wasn't jet fuel (not hot enough), and the resultant fires were hardly raging infernos, as noted.

Last comment was from me.

As stated.

The Youtube video is particularly poor. The witness doesn't say anything about hearing "3-2-1". Then the next guy, quoting him, misquotes and adds it. It's pretty dire, even by Truther standards.

I'm sorry, the fires were relatively cool? The fires were up to 1,800f. Even a typical office building fire in fact tends to go over 1,000C. As for the orange, there are plenty of reasons - oxidization or contamination with molten glass for example - why a flow of aluminium would be Orange (see for example http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm).

I don't even understand what theory you think this fits in with. By your own reasoning it can't be steel, since you claim the fires weren't hot enough. It can't be thermate, because presumably you think thermate would be applied to the central columns, so why would it - or steel it reacted with - be flowing down the outside of the building? Not to mention the fact that Thermate simply doesn't work like you seem to think it does (actually scratch that, I don't really get how you think Thermate works - bizarrely you guys seem to think it's used in demolitions, lol).

Hahahaha I LOVE how there is still a large community who is still bickering about what happened 7 years ago. Gotta love the conspirators. In my opinion, however, I believe that arguing about this and picking apart evidence isn't going to bring back the lives lost nor the time spent cleaning up the mess and it's definitely not going to stop the American Government from doing what they want. Case closed.

P.S. For those of you who want to move from challenging each other unto me, I leave this remark: I am entitled to my own opinion. You do not own the internet, nor do you have control of censorship over this comment board. Please go and scream into a pillow if you feel any unnecessary rage or take it out on your in-laws. Thank you.

"nor do you have control of censorship over this comment board"

*raises hand* I do! Only to be fair, unless something very nasty is posted, I don't tend to censor.

Regarding the American government, well I'm not American, but I understand from some of my colleagues based there that thanks to these conspiracy theorists, it's actually that much more difficult to raise serious objections to certain government activities (since people dismiss it as more conspiracy nonsense).

I went back to YouTube and discovered this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lhwCM_dicc

It appears that the whole "countdown" thing was a hoax. It's too bad that "activists" seem to feel the need to make up shit; there's enough anomalous material crying for an explanation without deliberate misinformation. For instance, "countdown" aside, just what DID cause Building 7, apparently leaning to one side due to damage and fire, to collapse in on itself EXACTLY as if it were brought down by a controlled demolition? NIST has still to tell us, almost seven years after the event. Don't you wonder about that even a little bit? Quite a number of architects and engineers do.

I don't know about anybody else, but I've never claimed that thermate was used in demolitions. However, according to Prof. Steven Jones (and contrary to what you say, though you provide no evidence to back up your assertions), the molten metal and ash streaming from the buildings was a "signature" for the use of thermite/thermate. He explains that there was also physical evidence that thermate was used: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVLeKwSkXA

THAT is why I believe thermate was used, NOT because I "seem to think it's used in demolitions, lol". Please don't put words into my mouth I didn't say. You did the same thing when you accused me of "focusing on Bin Laden being the planner" when I merely pointed out that the US invaded Afghanistan because of their stated belief that Bin Laden was responsible for 9/11 (and the Taliban wouldn't hand him over), yet the FBI claims it has no evidence linking him to 9/11.

Whenever I see/hear somebody setting up straw men to tear down rather than actually engage in meaningful debate, I know that I'm dealing with somebody that is otherwise unable to support his arguments.

A final point I'd like to clear up: You seem to delight in ridiculing doubters in the official story claiming that the buildings fell at "free fall speed". I know of no doubter with a clear grasp of the issues who makes this claim. Rather, I hear the of-repeated claim that they came down at NEAR free fall speed. That happens to be a very odd but unimpeachable fact.

On what basis do you work out that building WTC7 fell "exactly" like a controlled demolition? The final NIST report hasn't yet been released, but there are plenty of good explanations and interim findings out there. It's worth mentioning that NIST are specifically looking into the possibility of a controlled demolition, and will specifically refute it when the report is published. It'll be interesting to see their reasoning.

Steve Jone is hardly a qualified expert to be talking about Thermate signatures, and I've yet to see any evidence of Thermate used. It's curious that you seem to be in conflict over this point - earlier you were pointing to quotes about explosions, and yet now you've switched to Thermate? Not to mention that Thermite would take quite some time to melt through support beams, so it would still fail to explain the problem you seem have with the speed of the collapse. Finally, there are very good reasons why Thermate has never, ever been used as a demolition tool before - speak to any real demolitions expert about it, and see what they say about it. It would be practically impossible to do. Either way, Jones' analysis has been comprehensively debunked, and I'm curious to know what part of it you feel still stands up.

Apologies if you think I'm setting up straw men, but all the claims above are genuine, and I'm trying to respond to dozens of people in this post, so it's a bit hard to keep track of who said what at times.

This is the basis for my claim that WTC7 fell exactly like a controlled demolition.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=877gr6xtQIc

"Steve Jones is hardly a qualified expert to be talking about Thermate signatures..."
How about you, Martin? Prof. Jones has put his considerable career on the line.

"...earlier you were pointing to explosions, and yet now you've switched to Thermate?"

Thermate for the steel, explosives for the concrete, which as you know was pulverized into great streams of pyroclastic clouds for WTC1 and 2 (but not WTC7) as they "collapsed". Gosh, Martin, do I have to explain EVERYTHING?

Apology accepted. Thanks.

In the best case scenario, we know the governemnt was warned well in advance that there was a terrorist plot. As the facts poured in it would have been very easy to learn the Towers were going to be attacked. Bush ignored all warnings. He did absolutely nothing, he didn't take any of this seriously. You have to be concerned that on the same day this happened they were running a similar "what if" test which further confused everyone, preventing any actions to stop this. You have to say that there's a lot of food for conspiracy theorists to feed on. Somehting certainly reeks about the whole damn thing. I'm of the opinion we'll never know the truth, but many facts (the Bush bin Laden friendship, not capturing Bin Laden, Cheney) cause extreme alarm in this human being.

Forget about the theories!

Give this film a five minute chance: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=money+chan...

Stop playing know it alls when you don't know shit!
The world economy has a history that is hidden. There does exist super rich mo*&F#@ that own the media, industry, and the government, if not directly, then by proxy. Lift the veil from your eyes cuz perhaps what is being spun as "crazy conspiracy theory" may have a foundation of facts.

DEPROGRAM AND DISCONNECT FROM YOUR BRAINWASHED STATE OR LIVE YOUR LIVES FOREVER AS IGNORANT TOOLS

PLEASE WATCH:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=money+chan...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-515319560256183936&q=money+chan...

While I disagree with most conspiracy theories out there (especially the 9/11 conspiracy theories), I think it's good that these questions are brought up so the evidence is examined with more scrutiny.

I do completely agree. As I've said several times in the comments here, it's good that theories of how the buildings came down are challenged, because getting it right now will save lives in the future through better building codes and construction techniques.

The problem is that conspiracy theorists - as opposed to ordinary theorists - don't challenge anything, due to either lack of knowledge or (ironically) lack of motivation to find the true facts. Thermate is a great example - anybody with any sort of domain knowledge would know that the idea of using it to demolish a building is pure fantasy, up there with Star Trek. A portable device that can direct a chaotically burning powder through a massive steel column just doesn't exist, but still the Truthers persist in claiming the impossible.

In short, it's about as useful for collapse theories as creationism is for developing evolution. In fact, Creationists and 9/11 Truthers have a vast amount in common - food for a future blog perhaps.

That really hurts my feelings. But your astounding logic has caused me to change my mind. I believe GW single handedly planted explosives in the towers, shot down flight 93 with Air Force 1, and hijacked the pentagon flight, shot a missile at it, brainwashed the passengers and have them living in a secret underground facility in Area 51 with the aliens.
It all makes sense now. Pass the bong.

We don't challenge anything? Martin, unlike yourself, we challenge MANY aspects of the official story. Regarding thermite/thermate, you state, "anybody with any sort of domain knowledge would know that the idea of using it to demolish a building is pure fantasy, up there with Star Trek." Now most bloggers would include a link to back up such a bold assertion. As a commenter, if I make a claim, I feel it carries little weight unless I can provide a link. Here's one that might interest you. It's a paper called "Some Physical Chemistry Aspects of Thermite, Thermate, Iron-Aluminum-rich Microspheres, The Eutectic, and The Iron-Sulfur System as Applied to Three World Trade Center Buildings on 9/11/2001". The paper's author, Jerry Lobdill is a retired physicist. His paper has been critically reviewed (i.e. checked for errors) by Dr. Frank Legge, who is a chemist and a leading proponent of the demolition theory. Odd that these physical scientists doesn't subscribe to your "Star Trek" theory regarding thermite/thermate. I suspect you have been sucked in by a "debunking" site.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JLobdillThermiteChemist...

This is "Answers in Genesis" all over again isn't it! "Since we can't get any real papers published we'll write our own spoof one, get one person who agrees with it to review it, and then claim it's peer-reviewed research".

Instead if relying on conspiracy sites for resources, and cherry-picking those that agree with you, why don't you actually go and do some real, proper research. Why don't you go and find an example of Thermite or Thermate ever being used to demolish a building. Why don't you describe to us how Thermate could possible be applied to burn in a directed fashion through a steel support column. Why don't you explain to us why no chemical trace of Thermate (and you'd have to have used dozens of tonnes of it to bring down WTC) was ever found?

I don't have a "Star Trek theory". I worked as a scientist with a Physics Department with colleagues who operate an explosives and demolitions research group. These are the kinds of people you really ought to talk to - actually domain experts with experience of using Thermate.

Regarding the spoof paper, hilarious - it says next to nothing, and frankly it looks like something a high-school student wrote (hell if it was any good, he could have published it in a real journal). He repeats Jones' long discredited claim that Sulphur points to the presence of Thermate, when the towers were full of the stuff in dry wall). Then he comes up with some back of the envelope calculations on how much Thermite would be needed... but conveniently doesn't mention that by his own reasoning you'd need ridiculous amounts of the stuff, not to mention the virtual impossibility of applying it.

You need to go to get peer-reviewed information from real experts in this field.

Martin, you're assuming that 911 skeptics (or sceptics as you would say) maintain that the twin towers were brought down as in a conventional demolition. They weren't, as is perfectly obvious. Having said that, the type of cutting charges and explosives used to bring down the towers is really irrelevant. People argue for demolition because that is what best fits the observed (and observable) facts. If it becomes apparent that thermate wasn't used, so what? The facts won't suggest demolition any less because of it. As you now know, even NIST wasn't able to explain how the towers fell, only how the collapses could have begun, and even then they had to use the highest temperatures they could get away with, rather than the more likely median. As you also now know, a demolition expert, upon seeing the collapse of WTC7 for the first time was utterly convinced that it was a classic controlled demolition. We're still waiting for the NIST report on that. No doubt NIST's job would have been a lot easier if Giuliani had left the debris in place, rather than hauling it away. Why didn't the FBI stop him from tampering with the crime scene? I could go on and on, but it seems you would rather accuse skeptics of "not challenging anything" than familiarize yourself with all the anomalies and internal contradictions of the official 9/11 story.

My God, what a load of drivel.

". People argue for demolition because that is what best fits the observed (and observable) facts" - How on earth have you demonstrated this? I've not seen one single fact that points exlusively to a controlled demolition, not one. All I've heard is people like you say "well I think it looks a bit like x,y,z.".

"As you now know, even NIST wasn't able to explain how the towers fell, only how the collapses could have begun, and even then they had to use the highest temperatures they could get away with, rather than the more likely median." Completely wrong on both counts. There are very detailed simulations by NIST and by other independent institutions that run through the whole collapse sequence. Hell, they even built an entire scale replica of WTC7 to work with. It astonishes me that you seem to be unaware of the existance of this work. As for the temperatures, again, emphatically, you've clearly not read or understood the collapse report (which describes in detail the choice of temperature, the reasoning behind it, and the fact that they conducted several experiments at different temperatures in different conditions), and even if it were true, how would that prove it didn't happen the way they described?

"No doubt NIST's job would have been a lot easier if Giuliani had left the debris in place, rather than hauling it away. Why didn't the FBI stop him from tampering with the crime scene?"

On what basis do you call this tampering with a crime scene? Do you think CSI leave a body lying around for days after a murder to preserve a crime scene? Instead of making assumptions, why don't you e-mail NIST and ask them? Oh wait, that would involve, you know, actual proper research and checking facts and stuff.

You talk about "Internal contradictions" - you've not yet shown one. You blabber on about "well this could be interpreted x way and this might have been y and in my opinion z", but you produce no actual data to back anything up, just an onslaught of rhetoric and logical fallacies.

Here's a link to a list of internal contradictions in the official story:
http://www.interlinkbooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=1836

Here's a link discussing the problems caused investigators by removal of evidence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxycV4fNPnQ

Martin, I find your implied claim that the shipping of most of the material to China before it could be examined by engineers was not tampering with a crime scene a most extraordinary claim. And why would I ask NIST for crying out loud? Don't you know it was RUDOLPH GIULIANI that removed the evidence? Surely if you're going to post a blog ridiculing 9/11 skeptics you should at least become acquainted with the basic facts. By the time Congress asked NIST to undertake a study of what happened on 9/11 the evidence was long gone. As you now know, it was FEMA who did the first study. That was the study that "forgot" to include the function of the central pillars in its now thoroughly discredited "pancake" theory.

Regarding NIST vs. Guiliani, you seem to have misread what I said.

NIST and engineers didn't need 100% of the debris to study what happened. They took what they needed, and the rest was sent to Fresh Kills where 400 FBI staff poured over it checking it for forensic evidence, with the steel shipped out for recycling. To say the evidence was long gone is simply yet another lie. If you actually bother to do any research you'll see that hundreds of scientists have had access to debris since the disaster on which conduct detailed independent analyses... http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Biederman/Biederman-0112.html for example, or http://www.springerlink.com/content/d0g645331077xl3m/ (see, notice that you can publish research criticizing the accepted theory), or hell, just go to google scholar and start actually familiarizing yourself with the literature. Better yet, read the NIST report sections where they detail the debris they had and who had it. Presumably you assume that NIST were lying in the statement they released here: http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_152121.html

Regarding FEMAs report, it's becoming very clear to me that you either haven't read these documents, or have failed to understand them.

The FEMA report is not - and was never supposed to be - a detailed analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Center. It simply isn't in the report's mandate. This should be incredibly obvious just from the report's title - "Data Collection, Preliminary Observations, and Recommendations (FEMA 403)" - and from the introduction in which it states that: "The NIST investigators will establish the likely technical causes of the building failure and evaluate the technical aspects of emergency response and evacuation procedures in the wake of such failures."

NIST published this 10,000 page report in 2005, and it's this document you need to criticize. Attacking some preliminary observations by people who weren't asked to investigate the collapse in detail is simply knocking down a straw-man argument.

You state, "If you actually bother to do any research you'll see that hundreds of scientists have had access to debris..." Yes, but only a very small portion of it, and even then it wasn't easy. Show me where I claimed that scientists didn't have access to ANY debris.

I saw a documentary on TV shortly after 9/11 in which engineers (FEMA? NIST? I don't remember) were trying to examine as much of the material as they could at the Fresh Kills site before it was shipped overseas. One engineer in particular expressed his frustration at their limited access and was extremely critical of Giuliani. I got the strong impression that as one would expect under the circumstances, he was expressing the views of the engineers at the site in general. Much of the steel had already gone at the time of the interview, and he and other engineers were marking individual pieces of steel in the hope they could be rescued for closer examination, testing, etc. It was clearly a race against time, and the engineer was angry. He simply couldn't understand why any of the material had to be removed from the Fresh Kills site until the examiners had finished with it. So that is what happened. I remember it clearly. So if you have the impression that engineers took all that they needed, you have been misled.

On your first link, it says, "This building was not one of the original buildings attacked but it indirectly suffered severe damage and eventually collapsed. While the exact location of this beam could not be determined..."

Hmm. "location of this beam could not be determined". Evidently they tried, then. That supports MY argument Martin, not yours.

Your second link quotes an engineer stating, "simple quantitative analyses show that some common conclusions are incorrect; for example, the steel could not melt in these flames and there was more structural damage than merely softening of the steel at elevated temperatures."

Exactly! Qualitative analysis aside, consideration of the sheer scale of the collapses (quantitative analysis) suggest major structural damage, enough in fact, to cause the buildings to end up as piles of rubble. So what caused such structural damage? Was it some as-yet-unknown weakness in the structures (as assumed by the quoted engineer) or might it have been something else?

Well, your final link says, "Early tests on steel beams from the World Trade Center show they generally met or were stronger than design requirements, ruling them out as a contributing cause of the collapse of the towers, federal investigators said Wednesday."

So, using the links you provided, the evidence suggests that the observed damage to the towers would not have caused their collapse.

You say, "NIST published this 10,000 page report in 2005, and it's this document you need to criticize."

Well, Martin, you provided me with a link to the NIST report which you claimed explained the collapses, when in fact by NIST's own admission, it did no such thing. They merely "explained" events leading up to the point of collapse, as is evident upon reading the NIST document from the point you told me to read. How did you ever construe this report as describing the collapses???

By the way, I neither claimed nor implied that the FEMA report was detailed. But it's a pretty big oversight to fail to consider the function of the central columns, even for a preliminary report. I have every right to criticize it. It was nothing more than government propaganda.

"I believe that arguing about this and picking apart evidence isn't going to bring back the lives lost nor the time spent cleaning up the mess and it's definitely not going to stop the American Government from doing what they want"

Not to mention, even if people in our government were partially responsible for the attacks, they've already used it to launch a war that has taken many, many more than the 3,000 on 9/11. The Iraq Invasion and Occupation has become a much bigger deal than 9/11, and unlike 9/11, the evidence isn't weird and confusing, it's quite clear just how criminal the entire "war" was. Hell, just reading Bush's comments on the prewar intelligence yesterday blew my lid, I can't believe we have a president with the gall to lie and manipulate the way he's doing right now.

-damnit

By the way, I re-read your comment headed "My God, what a load of". You state,"Hell, they [NIST]even built an entire scale replica of WTC7 to work with. It astonishes me that you seem to be unaware of the existence of this work."

Here we go again with straw men, Martin. NOWHERE did I state or imply that NIST didn't do such work. What I claimed is that (modeling notwithstanding) NIST has still to release a final report on the collapse of WTC7, almost 7 years after the event. Indeed, they have postponed it several times and finally admitted that they're having problems with it.

You quote me (correctly) as follows: "As you now know, even NIST wasn't able to explain how the towers fell, only how the collapses could have begun, and even then they had to use the highest temperatures they could get away with, rather than the more likely median."

You then state, "Completely wrong on both counts. There are very detailed simulations by NIST and by other independent institutions that run through the whole collapse sequence."

Well, Martin, Heres a link to a letter from NIST to victims' family representatives dated Sep 27, 2007, so it's quite current:

http://www.911proof.com/NIST.pdf

On page 4, bottom of paragraph 1, it states, "As we mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse."

Earlier we learn the "reason" (Page 3, last paragraph): At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are not able to converge on a solution."

So clearly NIST has NOT detailed the whole collapse sequence. As I previously mentioned, you MISREAD the NIST report you told me to link to.

You state, "I've not seen one single fact that points exclusively to a controlled demolition, not one. All I've heard is people like you say "well I think it looks a bit like x,y,z.". Martin, that's simply not true. I provided a link to a video of a demolition expert who actually believed he was watching a controlled demolition when he saw WTC7 fall. Even after he was told it happened on 9/11, he didn't change his mind. So whatever may eventually be proven, I linked you to a single fact pointing exclusively to a controlled demolition, didn't I?

Finally, you state, "As for the temperatures, again, emphatically, you've clearly not read or understood the collapse report..."

Well, again referring to the NIST letter in the link above, "While NIST did not find evidence that any of the recovered floor columns experienced temeratures in excess of 250 degrees C, it is not possible to extrapolate from such a small sample size..." So clearly NIST couldn't back up its selection of the high temperature with actual physical evidence, thanks of course to Mr. Giuliani. Tell me again how he didn't remove evidence from the crime scene, Martin.

Martin, you state, "I work as a scientist in a Physics Department with colleagues who operate an explosives and demolitions research group." Given that you work with demolition experts, I'd be very interested to hear what their opinion of the collapse of WTC7 is. Is there anything in the videos of the collapse that is inconsistent with a controlled demolition? Anything at all? If so, what is it? Also, do they know of any other highrise building, damaged or not, ever collapsing in such a fashion, outside of a controlled demolition? I'm not trying to be a smart-ass here. I'm genuinely curious. I'm sure your other readers would like to know, too.

It really is truly besides the point. It doesn't matter the actual semantics of how the buildings fell, all that matters is that it happened. Now if you look historically at major wars, there have always been an inciting incident that launched the United States into war. In WW1 it was the Lusitania, which was proved to be propaganda, the US ignored Germany's warning to not send boats into the Atlantic. In WW2 it was Pearl Harbor, which there is evidence of us having some knowledge of beforehand, but that is besides the point because that war was unavoidable thanks to Hitler (i.e. in the absence of Pearl Harbor the government wouldn't need to convince the public, Hitler was evil enough without propaganda or exaggeration). What's more important about WW2 is the American businessman who made money while providing steel and other resources to Germany. Moving onto Vietnam, we didn't enter Vietnam until the Gulf of Tonkin incident allowed public opinion to sway; evidence has since been affirmed(by the NSA) that the North Vietnamese most likely were not involved. And then into Iraq via 9/11 (which I think we all agree have no link). In every one of these wars there has been established ulterior motives (3 were economic stimulus, Vietnam was the whole Cold War thing). Obviously it is impossible to gauge to what extent the government was involved in 9/11, but historically the government has sure managed to capitalize on "accidents" and escalate them into full fledged war. The question is how long will the truth take? Will we be 65 years old, reading our children's textbooks that will point ever so slightly to government intervention? Does anybody care that the government screwed up the Lusitania in WW1? Of course not, but by the time we get the truth for 9/11 it'll be too late. Unlike most of theories on this page, I don't claim to know how 9/11 happened, I'm open to accept that my personal beliefs could be completely wrong on that issue, but historically we can see that the government has lied to its citizens before, is it that far fetched to believe that they had some hand in it? I don't think so and the burden of proof should be on the government to convince me. Why wouldn't they? Plain and simple, 7 years later why are we debating, they could solve the whole problem and just tell us. There must be a reason why they can't or won't. Until they convince me, I'll presuppose that the government played some role, I'm just not sure which.

ps I consider myself to be a person looking for truth. I don't know what the fuck a truther is; sounds like a stupid label that will only intensify a pointless debate (regardless of which side coined the term)

pps conspiracy theorist is a terrible term for someone who doesn't accept things; it carries a negative connotation that implies the theorist is a peevish crackpot. There are several uncovered conspiracies and unanswered questions in the last 100 years (Watergate, 60's deaths/assassinations, etc.) and to think that the same kind of conspiracies could be happening now is perfectly logical. That doesn't make you some pot head, it makes you a student of history. Or did I miss the part of history with the benevolent, utopian society where government ruled fairly?

Hmm.. controlled demolation would have required the up fron placement of HE charges and associated cabling throughout the WTC towers. An activity that is unlikely to go unnoticed. There is not one iota of evidence that this placing of took place.

Second, HE traces have not been found.

Here's an movie of a (partial) collapse due to fire, well not of a high riser, but of a +- 12 story building: http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=XnPEUaVT7mg

The similarity to the WTC collapse is striking. This video proves that buildings can collapse sue to fire, countering the claim of some "Truth Scolars" that they can't.

The event in the video took place last week in Delft, the Netherlands. The Architecture faculty of Delft's technical University took fire. One section of the building collapsed.

You've stated it yourself: 'Ultimately this sort of blogging is an exercise in futility. There is no evidence, no matter how convincing, that will ever be accepted by the 9/11 "Truth" Movement's hardcore evangelists. The irony is that the people who claim to be searching for the truth are so willing to ignore evidence and react angrily to those with conflicting evidence and testimony.'

Even though you didn't offer any direct evidence (and clearly stated that you weren't going to do so), it shouldn't come as a surprise that even if you would have done this, they would've still tried to refute every logical explanation in favor of their own interpretation; it's a simple matter of wanting to believe. Logic will fail here. I've given up long ago. Let them think whatever they want about 9/11, JFK, the moon landing, chemtrails, the New World Order, Roswell and what more; I'm getting tired of it.

You do know that Japan is going to re-open the investigation them selves right?

Look, 9/11 is really REALLY see through. If you followed and openly listened to a few of the many wonderfully done and thorough investigations or documentaries that are out there an idiot could see it was staged.

Now stop trying to Nit Pick at a mountain of EVIDENCE and dive into it. I do mean evidence, not theories just thought up.

If you still think you can trust the media you are a fool.

If you think corporations are the way of the future or are safe for humanity you are a fool.

If you think We The People own our government you are a fool.

And dare i say, if you think aliens do NOT exist nor are they here and have been for thousands of years, you are a fool.

You can substitute 'fool' for Un-informed, dis-informed, or ignorant. Brain-washed works too.

The Truth is more strange than your willing to look at at this point, however once you DO have an understanding you'll find everything will make sense.

Its not your fault you dont know the way of the world, you grew up in a huge system hell bent on keeping you ignorant of it.

I like to mention JFK. YOU watch where his HEAD is shot over and over then tell ME he was hit from the back.
even you will have to admit (as a whole generation has) that he was NOT hit from the back of his head. This is a good example how easy it is for them. Have you seen the court presedings? it was Loaded with Facts, Black and white facts FAILED to produce any action or even aknolegment!

Feck it,

This is real Martin. Open your eyes, people are doing it all over the place.
where i live i cant take a spit with out hitting some one that has already excepted these things! Not an understatment. (ok maybe a little bit of one)

And I know its scary to think about how bad it really is but unless you start you are going to just keep feeding it until it kills you.

Look around.

WE are in a war RIGHT NOW that can and is compared to Nazi Germany. Look up how the war went From the very start. We caused Chaos to rain on the Iraqi people for months! When I saw the images and heard the facts i admit, I cried.

Our constitution, the People's one true weapon, has been walk all over for years, decades.

25% of the worlds species are already gone according to the newest study.

People are content on thinking that their lives are great with their tvs, grocery stores, crappy houses, cell phones, and cars.

Have you ever heard of an earth-ship? (my dream)

We have had FREE energy for over 30 years. We have all seen them even, but only on the tv, and they are always promised "...in 5 years" "....in 8 years" "in 10 years" never to be seen again. Ofcourse, its much easer to control when oil is the only option.

Even our hospitals are backwards. Look at the big problems besides automobile accidents, Heart disease, Cancer, Diabetes, Depression, obesity. Bet you didnt know you can trace ALL of them Most of the time back to nutrition. Thats something most Doctors dont even understand. and dont get me started on the pharmaceutical side of things.

your whole world is crap stacked on crap and you refuse to smell it even as its right in your face.

I suggest you open your mind and look at the information available to you.

Stumble Upon is a great place, you can learn a lot. for instance i found i could get a Stanford education for free or MIT or many other colleges, on every topic, ALL for free.

Make sure to check Conspiracy Theories! Activism is a good one too.

DeRocK~

What a moron!
I mean.. what a... MORON!

"Stumble Upon is a great place, you can learn a lot. for instance i found i could get a Stanford education for free"

Erm, yeah, clearly :|

The bottom line is if the conspiracy theorist are correct then the people who went through such extraordinary efforts to do this, can easily keep it quiet by this point (almost 7yrs later). So none of the "truthers" will ever be able to solve jack shit =( sad but true. If anyone ever reaches a place in our government that they can change things and fix this corruption then they should. I feel that this is why JFK was assassinated, hopefully one day soon another man will step up and stand up to what they KNOW is false and bring justice to all the people that took part.

Be peaceful. Seek truth.

Just to clarify my position on 9/11, as I've had several rather testy exchanges with Martin: I have a couple of hypotheses as to what happened, but they're no more than that. I'm far from an expert on the events of 9/11, but I have a good grasp of the essentials, and as I studied the matter with an open mind, it became increasingly obvious that the "official version" couldn't possibly be true.

Martin says, "Ultimately this sort of blogging is an exercise in futility. There is no evidence, no matter how convincing, that will ever be accepted by the 9/11 "Truth" Movement's hardcore evangelists. The irony is that the people who claim to be searching for the truth are so willing to ignore evidence and react angrily to those with conflicting evidence and testimony."

The irony -- as anybody can see upon reading our exchanges -- is that it's MARTIN who ignores evidence in order to cling to his faith in the official conspiracy story. For instance, he refused to believe that NIST did not analyze the actual collapse sequences of WTC1 & 2, and the comparatively high temperatures they used to "explain" the initiation of the collapse (which was as far as NIST got) were contra-indicated by the actual physical evidence in their possession, because, NIST tells us, they didn't have enough. Not only did he not believe it, he ridiculed me for believing it (as well as that Giuliani's hasty removal of the evidence was tampering with a crime scene), telling me, "There are very detailed simulations by NIST and by other independent institutions that run through the whole collapse sequence." Perhaps now I've provided a link to a NIST letter clearly supporting these claims (http://www.911proof.com/NIST.pdf), Martin will admit that he was wrong, though I'm not holding my breath.

Read our exchanges and tell me who's "reacting angrily to those with conflicting evidence and testimony," and who admitted he was wrong when the evidence indicated it (as I did with my incorrect claim that somebody heard a countdown before WTC7 collapsed).

I really don't know what happened on 9/11, but if you examine the evidence, not merely the collapses, but also the failure to intercept any of the four flights, the tight 180 degree manoeuvre away from the offices of Rumsfeld and co and into a reinforced section of the Pentagon, allegedly by a "pilot" who could barely fly a Cessna, the suspicious "put" options, the Odigo text messages, the immaculate passport conveniently found in the rubble, the obvious imposter claiming to be Bin Laden taking "credit" for 9/11, the FBI's admission that they have no evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11, the failure of even one of the names of the alleged hijackers to show up on any of the manifests, etc. etc. etc., it becomes a matter of faith to believe in the "official" version. One might just as well believe in the tooth fairy.

Anonymous's comment has all the earmarks of a deliberate attempt to discredit serious 9/11 skeptics. Note that it starts out half-way reasonable and progressively descends into irrelevant fantasy.

We are supposed to believe all this "evidence" of a conspiracy from someone who can't even spell?

Just to be clear, the claims supported by the NIST letter are that they did NOT do a complete collapse analysis, to whit, "As mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse."

So much for Martin's "very detailed simulations by NIST" that "run through the whole collapse sequence".

Seriously, do you not realize that you would have far more credibility if you actually quoted things honestly?

Let's look at the full quote: "NIST carried its analysis to the point where the buildings reached global instability. At this point, because of the magnitude of the deflections and the number of failures occurring, the computer models are unable to converge on a solution ... as mentioned previously, we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse".

It is perfectly clear to anybody with half a brain that what they are talking about is the fact that computing where every girder and every bit of debris landed is practically impossible. They modeled the collapse up until the point where the total failure of the building occurred, and then left it after that. Given that their mandate was to explain how the collapse occurred, this was sufficient. The fact that you're desperately trying to distort one single sentence to somehow support your position is a perfect example of why I have nothing but contempt for the "theories" and "evidence" you claim to provide.

I'm sorry. Until you quoted this letter, I was coming around to the idea that you were genuinely trying to find the truth, and that you were open to evidence. The fact that you deliberately cut a quote in half to try and distort it proves that you are more interested in proving your theory right than in constructively testing it.

To me there really is no room for terms such as "conspiracy theories" or in what should be an open debate it's just a word game being used to marginalize skeptics. Open the debate to widely respected scientists in a forum freely accessible to the public (non corporate funded) and also where the government observes the proceedings. If you know of such a thing please let me know. Until then why in hell should people just assume anything on either side. I have my ideas of what might have happened and they are opinions that are longing for facts. Nothing can be presented here that I will want to look over for very long mostly because it's getting old and there is no more to argue about until it is taken to another level.

~Save the The United States Constitution~

[Martin, please remove my inadvertent duplicate comment above. Sorry and thanks.]

In addition to the above, which you quoted, the last paragraph of page 4 states, "With regard to the first request, NIST has stated that it did not analyze the collapse of the towers. NIST's analysis was carried to the point of collapse initiation." The paragraph goes on to say, "Finally, NIST has stated that it found no corroborating evidence that explosives were used to bring down the buildings. NIST did not conducts tests for explosive residue..."

So a fair summary of NIST's position would be that it wasn't necessary to analyze just HOW the buildings collapsed, one the process started, because they could see that they did indeed collapse [Indeed!]. Explosives? Well, NIST couldn't find any evidence, but it didn't really look for it either, not even taking the most elementary step of checking for residue. Reminds me of the three monkeys.

You're right on regarding "conspiracy theories". Your point about not assuming anything is also good, although it's clear once one is acquainted with the known facts that the official story simply doesn't hold up. That is what I find so frustrating about Martin and his ilk. They argue in favor of the official story without knowing key basic facts.

I think you're making an arbitrary and unfair distinction between collapse initiation and collapse. Clearly NIST's mandate is to find out how the building collapse, and this they have done. You've also again misquoted the letter, and conveniently omitted the reason why NIST didn't check for residue - because such a test wouldn't have been conclusive anyway. A perfect example of that is Steve Jones' claim that sulphur residue demonstrated the use of thermate - it didn't, because the building was full of the stuff anyway.

What NIST did find - and what you've conspicuously failed to make an argument against - is that given the conditions we know existed, the collapse of the building due to damage and fire was perfectly plausible, and in fact to be expected given the circumstances.

I can't help but feel that I'm forced by default into sounding like I'm arguing for the "perfection" of the official account. I'm not. For all I know, there could easily be a number of things wrong with the NIST report, and if there are it is very important to uncover them. I'm not - and I know you'll find this hard to believe - ever going to adopt a position just because NIST does. As I said before, it's vitally important that reports like this *are* challenged, because the design of future skyscrapers will now be altered according to NIST's findings. However, I honestly don't think you've managed to produce anything amounting to evidence, and I can't help but feel that you need to go off, really read through the NIST reports, clear your head, and start looking at this without the bias that you clearly seem to be showing.

In short, I'm not saying there couldn't be a conspiracy. I'm saying that you're not showing me any real evidence for one.

I'm not actually arguing in favour of the official story, I'm arguing against conspiracy theories, and I'm using the term conspiracy theory in its popular (rather than literal) sense. I'd also like to know what basic facts you think I'm missing...

You say, "Clearly NIST's mandate is to find out how the building collapsed, and this they have done."

NIST did no such thing. This is what it did: Using the highest temperatures it could possibly justify, it presented evidence that (if the steel did in fact reach these temperatures), the floors involved in the collision of the aircraft and subsequent fires would fail. It then made the observation that a collapse ensued, and that this collapse therefore must have been due to the initial failure of the involved floors. However, it provide nothing to back up its hypothesis that the failure caused the complete collapse, one that many engineers find almost incomprehensible. The reason for this failure is ostensibly because the collapse (despite all appearances) was too chaotic to properly model. So once again, did NIST find out how the buildings collapsed? No. It merely hypothesized that the initial failure of the involved floors was sufficient to cause the entire structures to fall to the ground, without even the slightest hint as to HOW this happened. The "large body of visual evidence" NIST refers to is merely evidence that the buildings collapsed to the ground, NOT evidence that it was the collision that caused the collapses. If the visual evidence supported how the collapse progressed, then why on Earth wouldn't they describe and analyze such a progression?

You say I misquoted the letter. WHERE???

On the other hand, you DID misquote it. You state that I "conveniently omitted the reason why NIST didn't check for residue - because such a test wouldn't have been conclusive anyway."

Here are the actual quotes (page 4, fourth paragraph): "...NIST did not conduct tests for the presence of explosive residue and such tests would not necessarily have been conclusive." and (bottom of page 4): "NIST did not conduct tests for explosive residue, and as noted above, such tests would not necessarily have been conclusive."

Your paraphrasing is a misquote because of the omission of the key word "necessarily", which "conveniently" changes the meaning entirely. Your paraphrase means that a residue test would NEVER conclusively prove explosives were used. Insertion of the word "necessarily" (which NIST did in BOTH its statements) means that a residue test MAY have been conclusive. However, because it MAY NOT have been conclusive, they didn't bother doing one!!! The "logic" of that statement is exactly the same as if a detective said "I didn't dust for fingerprints, because I may not have found any, and even if I did, they MIGHT be smudged."

Gimme a break!!!

Martin, how can you say I haven't provided any evidence? I've provided LOTS of evidence. Perhaps the most persuasive evidence that something is seriously amiss with the "official" explanation of the collapses (with WTC7 still to come) can be found at the Architects and Engineers for Truth site that I previously linked to at http://www.ae911truth.org. On the other hand you accuse me of misquoting (again!) without ever providing ANY evidence for it.

You stated, "As I said before, it's vitally important that reports like this *are* challenged, because the design of future skyscrapers will now be altered according to NIST's findings."

But how can any meaningful design changes be made based on the NIST report when it doesn't even model the progressive collapse?

Oh, right, I'm "making an arbitrary and unfair distinction between collapse initiation and collapse." Picky, picky.

The now 384 architects and engineers mentioned above signed a petition demanding Congress undertake a truly independent investigation of the events of 9/11, specifically the collapse of WTC 1, 2 & 7. The signatories are not necessarily associated with Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.

Okay, just sticking to what we've already discussed, in no particular order:

1. The final NIST report DID NOT discuss the mechanics of the progressive collapse. You twice excoriated me for not reading the source material, then when I provided irrefutable evidence that they didn't, you accused me of "making an arbitrary and unfair distinction between collapse initiation and collapse" rather than admit you were wrong.

NIST's neglect is inexcusable and inexplicable for a body whose report is supposed to result in future design changes to prevent a reoccurence of total collapses in similar circumstances. Their excuse that the complexity of the collapse was too much for their computer is laughable. How on Earth did NIST and its predecessors and counterparts ever function before the age of computers?

2. The failure of NIST to check for explosive residue (which like dusting for fingerprints may or may not have been conclusive), despite widespread suspicion that explosives must have been used, was likewise inexplicable. Your misquote (or misparaphrase) from the NIST report unfortunately minimized the significance of this failure.

3. One demolition expert that I linked to stated that WTC7 "is controlled demolition. [...] A team of experts did this. This is professional work, without any doubt." (Here's a link to several other demo experts who agree:
http://demolitionexpertsquestion911.blogspot.com ).

AFTER I linked to the first demo expert quoted above, you stated, ""I've not seen one single fact that points exclusively to a controlled demolition, not one. All I've heard is people like you say "well I think it looks a bit like x,y,z."

When I pointed out that I had indeed provided such evidence, you ignored me. My guess is that you will also not enlighten us with what your expert co-workers find inconsistent with demolition in the collapse of WTC7, nor will you tell us if they are familiar with any other building falling like this into its own footprint. But I'd love you to prove me wrong!

4. You don't seem to appreciate the fact of your own enormous bias against the possibility of any kind of official cover-up of the events of 9/11, as evidenced by your replies. For instance, your constantly criticizing others for not reading documents you either haven't read or haven't comprehended; your repeated accusations of others (such as myself) for not backing up my allegations, when it is you who fails to back up your contentions; your setting up of "straw men" to knock down rather than addressing my (and others') arguments head-on; your dismissal of an important distinction (initiation vs. progression of collapses) rather than simply acknowledging your previous error; your sneering dismissal of arguments against the official story when not made in distinguished peer-reviewed periodicals while quoting the widely (and justifiably) ridiculed propaganda found in "Popular Mechanics" (!), such as the ludicrous claim that there was only one military intercept of a civilian plane in the previous DECADE. (According to an AP quote of NORAD spokesman Maj. Douglas Martin, "From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001." Link: http://www.wanttoknow.info/020812ap ). So much for the hand-picked "Popular Mechanics" experts.

5. I provided a link (http://www.interlinkbooks.com/product_info.php?products_id=1836 ) to a review of David Ray Griffin's new book, "9/11 Contradictions". The review points out several of these contradictions, and states, "Two contradictory statements cannot both be true. These contradictions show, therefore, that individuals and agencies articulating the official story of 9/11 have made many false statements. Congress and the press clearly should ask which of the contradictory statements are false and why they were made."

The review also says, "This book is purely factual, simply laying out the fact that these internal contradictions exist." So there you go, Martin, pure hard factual nuggets showing flaws in the official story, contradictions crying out for an explanation. Apparently you missed these, too.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I could go on, but these are the main points. All these points have been discussed, usually with links, in my previous posts.

Yeah, as i said "even an idiot could see through it"

The Guy's comment after mine is right...

You chose to believe 9/11 from the start and never openly considered the evidence. AND YES i Mean EVIDENCE for crying out loud!

But evidence isn't enough for you is it? You need your TV to confirm it. admit it, every time you watch something on the Truth of 9/11 you think to ourself "This Can't be true, if it were all the news stations would have been all over it. And if They believe all this stuff i'm watching isn't true then nether do I."
Come on admit it, you know that thought has crossed through your brain. More than once maybe?

Dont you see what the corporations are doing?
There fecking everything up!
i'm sure some one even as THICK as you can admit this.
But you've never seen Nike on the news so i guess you wouldn't believe that either.

Do you know much power corporations have? Do you know how destructive and cruel they are to World and every one ELSE on it!? News doesn't say anything about that. People have been talking and warning us about this for decades! DECADES! and nothing has come of it.

Once again,

Feck it...

Oh by the way, who goes to Stanford for English Spelling?

"Most people are concerned for their bellies and other people's souls. When they should be concerned for their own soul and other people's bellies."

One other point we discussed that I forgot to mention is your refusal to consider Giuliani's removal of evidence before a proper examination could be carried out as tampering with a crime scene.

Under your comment with the unbiased title "My God, what a load of drivel", you ask, "On what basis do you call this tampering with a crime scene? Do you think CSI leave a body lying around for days after a murder to preserve a crime scene? Instead of making assumptions, why don't you e-mail NIST and ask them? Oh wait, that would involve, you know, actual proper research and checking facts and stuff."

Well, I have told you of my recollection of an engineer at the Fresh Kills site bitterly complaining about this in a documentary made shortly after the event. Here is corroborating evidence from http://www.vt911.org/final%20pull%20it%20analysis.htm :
"Before they could be studied, the steel remains of the buildings were immediately – and illegally -- removed from the site, which was after all a crime scene no matter what else you believe, over the loud objections of Fire Engineering magazine and the New York Times, among many others, and access to the steel was unusually restricted in the short time before it was shipped off to Asia to be melted down, forever preventing a thorough investigation."

Primary source evidence? No. Theoretically they could be lying about the loud objections made in Fire Engineering magazine, the New York Times and the many other sources, but I very much doubt it as that is my own recollection. I tried to read the Fire Engineering magazine article (which I did find on their internal search engine), but it's behind a subscription wall.

Here's further corroboration: http://www.rense.com/general18/firefighter.htm

Giuliani's rush to remove the evidence despite strong objections from investigators, and the limiting of access at Fresh Kills is very strange indeed, particularly when you consider that he's a former District Attorney, and thus well-versed with the requirements of the law. Equally odd is the fact that he got away with it.

Furthermore, such obstructionism and destruction of evidence was part of a general pattern; The 9/11 Commission encountered similar behavior from the CIA. The link provided is a primary source, btw. The piece is written by the chairman and vice-chairman of The 9/11 Commission. It's entitled "Stonewalled by the CIA". http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/02/opinion/02kean.html

The final paragraph reads, "What we do know is that government officials decided not to inform [about the existence of key videotapes] a lawfully constituted body, created by Congress and the president, to investigate one the greatest tragedies to confront this country. We call that obstruction."

Do you catch the faint whiff of conspiracy yet, Martin?

Martin, there's so much more that we haven't touched on. Here's an excellent site I ran across titled, "Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11" They include experts in intelligence and defence, pilots, and a couple of PhD's. Each gives a brief summary of why he or she believes the official 9/11 story is bunk. It covers several aspects of 9/11,and is therefore a good, brief overview of some of the serious problems with the official account from people who know what they're talking about.

http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_alan_mil_080112_twenty_five_u_s_...

Sad to think some people really believe the "official story" of 9/11 and the media. Do you really believe our government is that righteous? The American government is one of the most corrupt. They don't care about people, only themselves. It's called New World Order. Educate yourselves, stop being brainwashed with all the propaganda the government is feeding your brain every night on the news. Break away and open your mind; come to the realization of the government's corruption and fight the NWO! STOP being a slave.

... that there are people who believe in ridiculous stories that are not backed up by scientific evidence.

Sad to know that there are people who follow their leaders without even thinking about the stories their leaders are telling and calling people with another view brainwashed.

Sad to know that one of the "righteous" stays anonymous while this country gives him the opportunity to speak his opinion freely.

Sad to know that there are people who ignore the logical time line and scientific explanations and stick to their illogical and impossible stories.

Sad to know that most conspiracy theorists don't have the guts to speak open, even they have the right to do so.

Come on, anonymous, don't be a sissy and start thinking!

actually you can get a free college education from stanford and mit and other universities online. You get the education, just not the degree.

factcheck guys.

http://lifehacker.com/software/education/technophilia-get-a-free-college...

Markus, it's not quite so simple. First of all, the Web is international, so you have no idea where Anonymous is writing from. Secondly, for all intents and purposes, "Markus" (a common Scandinavian name) is no more useful than Anonymous, and may well be a pseudonym anyway. Third, a decreasing number of countries allow their citizens to express their opinions freely on any subject, certainly not Canada, where I live, nor the UK, where Martin blogs from. For an example of a recent official suppression of free speech in The City of London, see: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2008/05/398728.html

Dear, "markus,"

I assume all those points are targeted to me since you did indeed reply to my post. Therefore, with that in mind: at what point did I claim to "believe in ridiculous stories that are not backed up by scientific evidence."? Is it not true that a story provided by the government, can possibly be "ridiculous," with all of the perversions of absolute truth? How do YOU know for sure that any of the evidence that Big Brother feeds you isn't some manipulated scheme to get you to subconsciously bow down and give them even more power? The FACTS don't lie; the government has gained much more power, even since 9/11, and we're in a downward spiral towards fascism.

I think I have a very good reason for calling people brainwashed. Look at your average American. No... really study and observe them. Much of the information they acquire comes from the News. The twisted and corrupt news stations that are owned and regulated by a few corporations. They just want money and power. Money and power. That's what it is all about. They don't care anything about You. Well, on second thought, they probably do care about you because you're one that seems to support them (in fact I know you do.)

I never stated that I was righteous. I don't know where you get your information from, but it's corrupt just like the government you worship. And what does it matter if I remain Anonymous or put a name? Would you like me to give you my name so you can send it to the CIA and have me arrested for being a suspected terrorist since I oppose the govt?

As a matter of fact, I used to believe the "scientific explanations." But you know what, I actually grew a brain and used it and decided not to be a slave to the crap that the government feeds everyone and decided to form my own beliefs on wisdom, intellect, and Truth.

Oh, I think conspiracy theorists do in fact have the guts to speak open. So why then don't you hear about them? Oh, well Big Brother doesn't want you to hear about all what they have to do and say. To them, and people like you, conspiracy theorists are a bunch of lunatics that should be shot, because THEY actually have the guts to OPPOSE the government!

Finally, I'm not the sissy. I've been down your path. I have not only started thinking, but I have broken free from the brainwashing you obviously are suppressed to.

You know, I've always wanted to see/hear some convincing arguments explaining the gov's side of what happened because of the amount of evidence pointing towards a conspiracy. I don't know how much was actually planned and staged, but I do know that we aren't told the whole truth. Yes, 2 planes took down the WTC, but I still am completely unconvinced about what flew into the Pentagon. Seems the air force had been missing a global hawk prior to that day. Not saying it showed up in DC, just saying I wish there was a lot more evidence to make it look like perhaps a plane flew in through the front door! Luggage, fuselage, aluminum skin? Where is any of that?

Yes, YS, there are several puzzling features of the Pentagon crash. Here are some from 911truth.org http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041221155307646

"How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation''s capital? How did Hani Hanjour, a man who failed as a Cessna pilot on his first flight in a Boeing, execute a difficult aerobatic maneuver to strike the Pentagon? Why did the attack strike the just-renovated side, which was largely empty and opposite from the high command?"

I'm puzzled as to why you believe 2 planes took down "the WTC" (but not WTC7,surely), when NIST stated it was unable to provide an analysis of the collapse, but only the events which led to the collapse point, using only high-end temperature data with (IMO) weak justification. NIST in conjunction with the ASCE came up with the now widely discredited "pancake theory" which failed to account for the collapse of the core columns, among other deficiencies.

I've watched several videos of the collapses and one of the things that always strikes me is the heavy black smoke at the time, indicating an oxigen deprived fire, and indeed, there are videos of a woman standing in the wreckage prior to the collapse, so clearly the fire at this point was quite cool, and at least some of the damaged beams cool enough to stand on!

Another oddity is that WTC1 & 2 don't just collapse, they EXPLODE, ejecting massive quantities of pulverized concrete UP and out in all directions. This happens right from the first moment of "collapse". What on Earth keeps the collapse going - accelerating, even - when so much of the mass, including perimeter support beams, is blasted (or somehow thrown by other means) AWAY from the buildings? (Note that WTC7 didn't explode. It collapsed neatly into its own footprint, exactly, demo experts tell us, as if it were a controlled demolition.) Keep in mind that the 48 massive core columns used at the base were much larger in cross-section than those of the upper floors. Not only that, but other than these cores, the buildings were notably lightweight! Could the cores have been overheated from a chimney effect? No. Built-in dampers prevented this.

Finally, what caused the neat, progressive line of explosions on every floor down to ten floors below the collapse point, as shown on this video of the South tower collapse? Why did they all stop precisely at that point, as the building fell floor-by-floor?

http://youtube.com/watch?v=atSd7mxgsGY&feature=related

Watch the video (It's only 3:19) and let me know what you think.

CORRECTION: The last sentence in paragraph 3 above should read:

FEMA [not NIST] in conjunction with the ASCE came up with the now widely discredited "pancake theory" which failed to account for the collapse of the core columns, among other deficiencies.

> pps conspiracy theorist is a terrible term for someone who doesn't accept things;
> it carries a negative connotation that implies the theorist is a peevish crackpot.

No... "Conspiracy theorist" *distinguishes* between those who simply don't accept things without reasonable evidence and those that are peevish crackpots.

In this case, the term is used correctly.

That's the only possible explanation for why you'd understate the number of "conspiracy theorists" so dramatically.

*Everybody* knows there are at least 12...

You know, at first I thought that you where joking. Then you posted 6 paragraphs about how the govs are lying, on a page with 10 pictures grinding your ass in the dirt.
Also,you say "Oh, well Big Brother doesn't want you to hear about all what they have to do and say. To them, and people like you, conspiracy theorists are a bunch of lunatics that should be shot, because THEY actually have the guts to OPPOSE the government!"

P.S. People want to shoot you because we want to put you out of your misery. How do you dumbasses manage to breathe?

P.P.S We've been swirling into fascism for decades, stop using 9/11 conspiracy theories to blame the government. We've all read 1984 and Animal Farm, Shut the bloody hell up.

You know, at first I thought that you where joking. Then you posted 6 paragraphs about how the govs are lying, on a page with 10 pictures grinding your ass in the dirt.
Also,you say "Oh, well Big Brother doesn't want you to hear about all what they have to do and say. To them, and people like you, conspiracy theorists are a bunch of lunatics that should be shot, because THEY actually have the guts to OPPOSE the government!"
People want to shoot you because we want to put you out of your misery. How do you dumbasses manage to breathe?

P.P.S We've been swirling into fascism for decades, stop using 9/11 conspiracy theories to blame the government. We've all read 1984 and Animal Farm, Shut the bloody hell up.

Oh my god, I loved that episode of South Park, too true!

Okay, I'm not trying to get you to stop arguing, I'm just getting rid of the argument source altogether.
Truthers, if you really believe what you're saying, then you government has KILLED HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE.
If you think that that's true, get out, otherwise you won't be safe. If the gov killed everyone in the wtc, they won't hesitate to kill you! run for your lives!
Everyone wins.

Who cares, worry about your own lives - Some Americans are such sado's Australians,British, Irish, Canadian, South Africans (yes they all speak english too) are not Patriotic freaks like you lot or conspiracy nuts. I agree with the writer of the article - let it go

I'm an English-born Canadian. I'll let it go when the US and its allies quits the phony "war on terror", so-far responsible for the loss of well over 100,000 innocent lives and the establishment of a virtual dictatorship in "the land of the free" (Patriot Act, Gitmo, illegal wiretapping of US citizens, etc. etc.) all because, (as their citizenry is reminded ad nauseam,) they mustn't forget those Arab evildoers who brought down the Twin Towers, etc. "because they hate our freedom". Anybody who believes that crap is indeed a conspiracy nut.

There are some awesome comments on here, from both sides. It's frustrating to think that regardless of whether or not there was some form of conspiracy involved, nobody will EVER be 100 percent certain about it. Somebody from within the government (in the case of there being a conspiracy) would have to come forth and make a confession or incrimination of some sort, and even then, those incriminated would completely ostracize this modern "deepthroat".

So, I say, let the conspiracy theories rest. They're (unfortunately) moot. One thing that's far less moot to argue however, is that the United States (and Russia, and Israel, and England, and Spain) knew that a terror attack was coming, but our government did nothing to stop it. This, in itself, is an impeachable offense.

Or, uh, lying to everybody about Iraq. That's another much more realistic avenue of going after what many have argued to be the worst, most deceptive administration in the history of the United States.

Of course, if all these conspiracies about 9/11 ARE, in fact, true, we should logically expect some form of terror attack or insane war or insane government takeover to take place before the big election. I doubt it'll happen, but, uh, that would be the logical next step for a bunch of psychos bent on taking over the planet and enslaving humanity.

Yep.

A year and a half ago (I can't find later data) polls showed that 51% of Americans wanted a new Congressional investigation into 9/11 and 36% of Americans believed their government was complicit. Extrapolating from these, it appears 15% were unsure whether their government was involved. So HALF of the US population (over 150 million people!) believe their own government was or may have been involved in a monstrous crime. In fact I suspect it's even more now, as organized opposition to the "official" story has grown considerably since those polls were done. Those kinds of numbers suggest a proper, no-holds-barred investigation will HAVE to be undertaken sooner or later. The groundswell's just too big to contain. As little as a year ago no politician would DARE suggest government complicity in 9/11, nor would a major newspaper publish it. But to-day even those establishment barriers are beginning to fall, as can be seen here:

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/articles/0503johnson03...

This is as it should be. I believe the US government was complicit, but we'll never really know for sure until a proper investigation is carried out - maybe not even then, but nobody's really tried. The 9/11 Commission was a whitewash of course. Just ask former commission member Max Cleland, who resigned in disgust. No, millions of Americans are demanding a PROPER investigation this time, as well they should. The issue is far too big to ignore.

"...that would be the logical next step for a bunch of psychos bent on taking over the planet and enslaving humanity."

Sounds like Project for the New American Century's, "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources for a New Century," drawn up by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolofowitz, Jeb Bush, and Lewis Libby.

Along with much other scary stuff, it says, "...the United States must retain sufficient forces able to rapidly deploy and WIN MULTIPLE SIMULTANEOUS LARGE-SCALE WARS (my emphasis) and also to be able to respond to unanticipated contingencies in regions where it does not maintain forward-based forces.

Psychos indeed!

If the neo-cons have their way with Dubya, the US will invade Iran. Fortunately that seems increasingly unlikely as paleocons Like Defense Secretary Robert Gates seem to currently have his ear. However, in the unlikely event super-hawk John McCain is elected president, look out!

Actually, Bush family members and long-time cronies were involved with the electronic security for the WTC complex. There were also extensive, unexplained power-outages in the weeks and days before 9/11, and bomb-sniffing dogs were removed 5 days prior to the event. Also there were elevator renovations being carried out in 1 or both of the twin towers (can't remember which). Any one of these or even all of them could be perfectly innocent, but it also provides opportunity to access the building cores without arousing suspicion, or perhaps turning a blind eye to it.

At any rate, my question actually referred to the COLLAPSE of WTC7. Regardless of opportunity to wire the building, was it or was it not identical to a CD? So far I've heard nothing but crickets.

As for the collapse of the building in Delft, this is a PARTIAL collapse. It only collapsed down to the lowest point involved in the fire. I've seen a similar partial collapse on YouTube. BTW, I've NEVER read a "Truth Scholar" claim that buildings can't collapse due to fire. The claim is that no steel-framed high rise ever collapsed to the ground due to fire till 9/11.

"Actually, Bush family members and long-time cronies...a blind eye to it."

Where is the evidence that controlled demolation actuallty took place? Controlled demolition should leave its tell tale marks. Traces of high explosives and detonation cabling would be left in the debris and you have me convinced of controlled demolation.

Flight JAL 312 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japan_Airlines_Flight_123 ) COULD have been downed by a bomb. A passenger COULD have taken one on board, security personel had access to the plane prior to take of, they COULD have planted a bomb on board, the crew COULD have carried a bomb on board. Maintainance personel COULD have planted a bomb. It COULD have been hit by a meteorite, knocking the tail off, it COULD have collided with another airplane. None of this actually happened. It was brought down by a catastrophic failure of a bulkhead.

You see, speculation ("COULD"'s) does not constitute proof. There's an awfull lot of possible hypothisis for any disaster. Only one, and exactly only one sequence of events led to a disaster, only one hypothesis can be the correct one: the one that exactly matches the sequence of eventys that led to the disaster. Tnere's an awful lot of "COULD"'s for events leading to a disaster. That's why professionals in trying to uncover the sequence of events that led to a disaster eliminate "COULD"'s for which they can't find supporting evidence.

Please explain how all of the potential explanations for the WTC collapses only controlled demolition is consistent with all available physical and photograhic evidence.

"As for the collapse of the building in Delft, this is a PARTIAL collapse. It only collapsed down to the lowest point involved in the fire."

Your second assertion is simply false:
http://www.nu.nl/news/1565902/10/%27Brand_meester%27_bij_TU_Delft.html

In the collapse footage http://nl.youtube.com/watch?v=ZaK5YVVaRCo you can see that the fire rages down to around the 3rd floor of the left far-end wing of the building. At the post collapse photgraph at http://www.nu.nl/news/1565902/10/%27Brand_meester%27_bij_TU_Delft.html you see that the left front wing has collapsed to the ceiling of the ground floor. The wing collapsed beyond the lowest point of the fire.

Your first assertion is true. It did not collapse to the ground. The ground floor seems to be different from the floors above it, however. There's the part of the building complex that has water hosed on its roof, for instance. In answering the question as to why the wing did not collapse to the ground I would be inclined to start an investigation here.

All of the repetive floors did collaps. The fire raged down to about halfway and nonetheless all of them collapsed. The point is that buildings can collaps due to fire.

"I've NEVER read a "Truth Scholar" claim that buildings can't collapse due to fire."

I have. At least of people who claimed to be "9/11 Truth Scholars" or "9/11 Researchers" or something like that.

"The claim is that no steel-framed high rise ever collapsed to the ground due to fire till 9/11."

First. How does the fact "no steel-framed high rise ever collapsed to the ground due to fire till 9/11" prove that it is impossible for such a high riser to callapse due to fire? Please explain.

Second. We seem to agree that buildings can collaps due to fire. Why then couldn't a high riser then not callapse due to fire? Moreover why coudn't a high riser that has been hit by an airliner at 500 mph collapse? Please argue.

Your posts illustrates nicely how "9/11 Truth Scholars", moonhoaxers, creationists and the "CIA killed JFK" theoreticians "prove" their hypotheses.

No coherent hypothesis is constructed based on and consistent with all available evidence.

Rather the alternative hypothesis is "proven" by what one could call destructive logic: doubt is cast on the official hypothesis, then the alternative hypothesis, with no, little or shaky supporting evidence is considered proven. In the process the theoraticians are highly critical of the official hypothesis and its supporting evidence and at the same time rather laxe on the quality of their own evidence and reasoning. No hypothesis elimination is done, no experiments are performed to test hypotheses.

One might say that the thruthness, so to speak, of the alternative hypothesis does stem from the perceived falseness of the official hypothesis, not from its own merits.

This doubt casting is done by a number of techniques:

- Anamoly injection. It is the most dominant technique.
An element of the official hypothesis, typically a photograph, is held in isolation against a claim contradicting the element under consideration. Only superficial analysis is performed, if any at all, as to the validity of the claim. The anomily is then considered as supporting evidence for the alternative hypothesis. Again, no analysis is done as to what is the root of the contradiction. Often, there's no logical chain provided to the stated conclusion. Often, the stated conclusion is contradicted by other available evidence and sometimes even contradicted by the element under consideration.
* A nice example is the moonhoaxer's "the lunar lander rocket exhaust plume should be visable" argument. Typically a photograph of the lunar module's upper stage in the act of lift-off from the moon is shown. Then the aformentioned claim is made. Sometimes the photograhic evidence is held against an artist impression of the event, showing an exhaust plume. A near trivial lookup in space books or on the internet will reveal images of near invisable rocket exhaust. Showing the claim to be false. A cursory analysis of the artist impression argument will reveal that the exhaust plume in the painting is the product of the artist's creativity an imagination, showing the contradiction has its root in the painting.
* Another example is the "9/11 Truth Scholar's" free fall argument. Footage from the WTC 1,2 collapses is shown and the claim is made that the towers collapse at free fall speed. Ergo, the official story is false and the towers must have collapsed due to controlled demolition. It is however, apparent from the very same footage that the ejected debris falls faster than the towers themselves collapse resulting in an umbrella shaped debris plume. No argument is provided for why controlled demolition is the only explanation possible for the stated free fall collapse.
* The claim that the WTC towers should have fallen sideways is another example. No analisys for why that should be the case is provided.
Yet another one is the youtube video reffered to in the above post. The footage is stated to contradict the pancaking hypothesis. This is than construed as to support the controlled demolation hypothesis. No analisys is done to arrive at a more accurate hypothesis. No argument is provided for why controlled demolition is the only possible alternative hypothesis.

Well the lists goes on and on.. the entry hole is too small. Computers weren't powerful enough
back in 1969.

- Asking questions is another.
Sometimes, these questions are suggestive. Sometimes these questions are legitimate. Sometimes both.
* The above posts offers a host of examples. The first paragraph lists a lot of these. Puzzles indeed. No analisys, however, is done to provide answers to these questions. These questions are left standing, apparantly for their suggestive power. For instance, the Hani Hanjour question suggests he was incapable of flying the aircraft into the Pentagon. No analysis is done as to who on the passenger list would be capable.
* The WTC collapse paragraph ask ligitimate questions. No attempt is made to answer these questions. Yet these questions are used to hint at controlled demotion. No argument is provided for why not knowing the answer to the questions leads to the conclusion that the towers collapsed due to controlled demolition.

And when there is an attempt made at direct evidence it suffers from:

- Falsehood injection. By selective reasoning: cherry picking.
Only considering evidence that supports one's claims, ignoring evidence, or explaining away evidence that contradicts ones claims.
Some examples:
* Showing a Pentagon picture and claiming there is no entry hole. Pentagon photgraphs showing an entry hole falsifies this claim.
* Showing Pentagon images without aircraft debris and claiming there is no debris found. pentagon images showing aircraft debris exists and falsifies the stated claim. These images are explained away by claiming, without supporting evidence, that the debris was planted.

- Making ill founded claims.
Some examples:
* Explosive sound heard during the WTC fire is claimed as evidence of the use of high explosives. No analysis is done on the nature of the sounds.
* The "pull" wording in the WTC7 fire being claimed to be evidence of controlled demolition. No attempt is made is to find out what the possible meaning of the word "pull" could be in this context.

Your posts illustrates nicely how "9/11 Truth Scholars", moonhoaxers, creationists and the "CIA killed JFK" theoreticians "prove" their hypotheses.

No coherent hypothesis is constructed based on and consistent with all available evidence.

Rather the alternative hypothesis is "proven" by what one could call destructive logic: doubt is cast on the official hypothesis, then the alternative hypothesis, with no, little or shaky supporting evidence is considered proven. In the process the theoraticians are highly critical of the official hypothesis and its supporting evidence and at the same time rather laxe on the quality of their own evidence and reasoning. No hypothesis elimination is done, no experiments are performed to test hypotheses.

One might say that the thruthness, so to speak, of the alternative hypothesis does stem from the perceived falseness of the official hypothesis, not from its own merits.

This doubt casting is done by a number of techniques:

- Anamoly injection. It is the most dominant technique.
An element of the official hypothesis, typically a photograph, is held in isolation against a claim contradicting the element under consideration. Only superficial analysis is performed, if any at all, as to the validity of the claim. The anomily is then considered as supporting evidence for the alternative hypothesis. Again, no analysis is done as to what is the root of the contradiction. Often, there's no logical chain provided to the stated conclusion. Often, the stated conclusion is contradicted by other available evidence and sometimes even contradicted by the element under consideration.
* A nice example is the moonhoaxer's "the lunar lander rocket exhaust plume should be visable" argument. Typically a photograph of the lunar module's upper stage in the act of lift-off from the moon is shown. Then the aformentioned claim is made. Sometimes the photograhic evidence is held against an artist impression of the event, showing an exhaust plume. A near trivial lookup in space books or on the internet will reveal images of near invisable rocket exhaust. Showing the claim to be false. A cursory analysis of the artist impression argument will reveal that the exhaust plume in the painting is the product of the artist's creativity an imagination, showing the contradiction has its root in the painting.
* Another example is the "9/11 Truth Scholar's" free fall argument. Footage from the WTC 1,2 collapses is shown and the claim is made that the towers collapse at free fall speed. Ergo, the official story is false and the towers must have collapsed due to controlled demolition. It is however, apparent from the very same footage that the ejected debris falls faster than the towers themselves collapse resulting in an umbrella shaped debris plume. No argument is provided for why controlled demolition is the only explanation possible for the stated free fall collapse.
* The claim that the WTC towers should have fallen sideways is another example. No analisys for why that should be the case is provided.
Yet another one is the youtube video reffered to in the above post. The footage is stated to contradict the pancaking hypothesis. This is than construed as to support the controlled demolation hypothesis. No analisys is done to arrive at a more accurate hypothesis. No argument is provided for why controlled demolition is the only possible alternative hypothesis.

Well the lists goes on and on.. the entry hole is too small. Computers weren't powerful enough
back in 1969.

- Asking questions is another.
Sometimes, these questions are suggestive. Sometimes these questions are legitimate. Sometimes both.
* The above posts offers a host of examples. The first paragraph lists a lot of these. Puzzles indeed. No analisys, however, is done to provide answers to these questions. These questions are left standing, apparantly for their suggestive power. For instance, the Hani Hanjour question suggests he was incapable of flying the aircraft into the Pentagon. No analysis is done as to who on the passenger list would be capable.
* The WTC collapse paragraph ask ligitimate questions. No attempt is made to answer these questions. Yet these questions are used to hint at controlled demotion. No argument is provided for why not knowing the answer to the questions leads to the conclusion that the towers collapsed due to controlled demolition.

And when there is an attempt made at direct evidence it suffers from:

- Falsehood injection. By selective reasoning: cherry picking.
Only considering evidence that supports one's claims, ignoring evidence, or explaining away evidence that contradicts ones claims.
Some examples:
* Showing a Pentagon picture and claiming there is no entry hole. Pentagon photgraphs showing an entry hole falsifies this claim.
* Showing Pentagon images without aircraft debris and claiming there is no debris found. pentagon images showing aircraft debris exists and falsifies the stated claim. These images are explained away by claiming, without supporting evidence, that the debris was planted.

- Making ill founded claims.
Some examples:
* Explosive sound heard during the WTC fire is claimed as evidence of the use of high explosives. No analysis is done on the nature of the sounds.
* The "pull" wording in the WTC7 fire being claimed to be evidence of controlled demolition. No attempt is made is to find out what the possible meaning of the word "pull" could be in this context.

While THE people are disputing this terror attack for so long someone else is gaining rivers of money.
Follow the money and you will find who really did it. Certainly is not OBL from a cave in Afghanistan.

You mean the NATO invasion of Afghanistan was based on a LIE? Oh dear :(

"Do the math or get someone who can.
You can not move 80% of the Mass of a building out at 40 to 60 MPH in all directions with only 20 % of the total Mass.
The reason you don't get it is not your fault. Ask for the help you need."

Could you clarify this statement a bit? What do you mean exactly? Why is it not possible to "not move 80% of the Mass of a building out at 40 to 60 MPH in all directions with only 20 % of the total Mass." What analysis leads you to this conclusion? Please clarify.

Let us see. Each tower had a mass of around 500,000,000,000 kilograms. The towers where 415 meters high. Now, the potential energy per tower was 0.5 * g * m * h = 0.5 * 9.81 * 500,000,000,000 * 415 = 1.02 * 10^12 Joules. Given that a ton of TNT equavilent is defined to equal 4.184×10^9 Joules, we arive at a potential energy per tower of 1.02 * 10^12 / 4.184×10^9 = 243 tons TNT equivalent. That's 24 of the heaviest conventional bombs used in WW 2, that's a small nuclear weapon.

Please argue why 243 tons of TNT equivalent is insufficient to pulvarize concrete and eject debris.

Radical Muslims have openly admitted over and over again that all non-muslims are evil and they will do everything in their power to wipe us all out. They truly believe that their "God" want them to do this. Do all Muslims subscribe to this? Absolutely not. But what the hell are we supposed to do? These people are insane and they can not be appeased. Their goal is annihilation. What more do they have to say and do to prove that?? They're not trying to hide it. I want a president to keep us safe. Nothing more and nothing less. If you've got a better idea then blowing their asses up before they blow our asses up, by all means, let us know.

What do you call this, Chantalle? The "pre-emptive murder doctrine"

Actually, I doubt radical Moslems say "all non-muslims are evil" over and over again, but it IS one of the primary "talking points" the administration mouthpieces on American right-wing talk-radio repeat ad nauseam in order to popularize the War on Terra.

Think about this, Chantalle; America spends far more on its military than THE REST OF THE WORLD COMBINED! http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

So stop quaking in your boots and ask yourself how many American civilians radical Moslem terrorists have killed in the last decade. Three thousand at the most? How many innocent Moslems has America killed? About a million? How many in the decade before that? More than a million? http://www.thenation.com/doc/20011203/cortright
Can you really not understand why Moslems are more than a little upset with America?

Do you still think that W is keeping you safe? Why? Iraq was never a threat, was it? And the Taliban was quite willing to hand Bin Laden over if the US could provide evidence he had any involvement in 9/11. Doesn't it strike you as strange that the US REFUSED?) What about Iran? Well, even if it WERE to develop a few nuclear weapons, the US has THOUSANDS more. You're being played for a sucker, Chantalle. Stop drinking the Kool-Aid, think for yourself, and grow a spine.

The same way you don´t believe conspiracy theories, people who believe those kind of theories (myself included) may argue that those photos may have been photoshoped, and there are also some photos that prove absolutely nothing (number 3 is an example of both)

Totally with you there.

IF, as you say, the only response to redical muslims is to "blow their asses up", then wouldn't it have been a good idea to invade a country which was fomenting these people? Like Saudi Arabia and not Iraq?

Invasion should be either in response to an attack or our last resort - when all else has failed. We're smart enough to figure out other ways to do something else, aren't we? Because after an invasion then comes an occupation before we get to the withdrawal part.
Do you expect us to invade each and every muslim nation that has radicals?

It's strange that while there are all these arguments of conspiracy theories and facts thrown around, there isn't a whole lot of thought given to the sheer effort it would take to create a cover-up of a government plot of this magnitude and convince the amount of people involved to okay the slaughter of the victims on 9/11. This would include the White House, Pentagon, CIA, FBI, NSA, witnesses at ground zero, including firemen and police, airline workers, etc. Has anyone come forward, EVER, from those respective fields making the claims which internet conspiracy theorists, who think google and youtube are reliable sources of factual information, seem to support? Not to mention, if it wasn't terrorists who hijacked the planes and flew them into buildings and the government set it up, how'd they get anyone to volunteer for a suicide mission? Or if the government knew about it and just let it happen, apparently nobody would object to the slaughter of all those people? Also, the plane over Pennsylvania, doesn't anyone remember the guy who made a phone call to his family saying they're going to do something about the hijackers before it crashed? But I'm sure that was fake too, there was no family who lost a beloved family member. I find it tremendously disrespectful to the families of those people on the planes to stand on your soap boxes and make poorly founded claims of conspiracies. There is no conspiracy. Photos can be photoshopped then photoshopped again and again. Get over it.

Could easily do one on the top 10 that Official Story Loyalists hate.

You know:

1) The fireball shooting out of the front of the plane before impact.
2) The complete absence of an airplane at the Pentagon.
3) The open book with pristine pages on a stool right by the hole in the Penagon.
4) The hole with a plane superimposed over it showing that there's no way it could have fit.
5) The complete absence of a plane at the site in Shanksville, PA.
6) The pools of molten steel at Ground Zero.
7) The intact (obviously planted) "terrorist" passport found at the WTC.
8) The picture of a BBC reporter standing in front of WTC 7 reporting that it had already collapsed.
9) The zoomed pictures of the dark gray plane that hit the WTC which do not even resemble a Boeing 757.
10) The pictures of all the other steel buildings in history that never collapsed due to fire.

You don't understand life, do you? You don't have the ability to step back and see the big picture, do you?

I can tell.

Actually, quite a bit of thought has been given to how many people it would take to create a cover-up, and although it would be quite a few, it certainly wouldn't be the "thousands" that many believers in the official story claim. During the Reagan administration the enormously complex Iran-Contra arms for cash caper was successful for quite some time. How many people were in the know? Well, it involved people in the White House, military, CIA, NSC, Iran, Israel, Nicaragua and even Hezbollah!

Now here's a couple of questions for you: If the "official" story were true, how many people would it take to keep THAT conspiracy under wraps? Here's something else I've never understood: Believers in the official story insist that too many people would have to be involved to keep a planned "failure" to intercept any of the four planes quiet. Well, doesn't that apply to the official story, too? How did "al Qaeda" manage to stop the interceptions? Under ordinary circumstances, they would have every reason to assume that they'd be forced down before reaching their targets, wouldn't they? What on Earth led them to believe they wouldn't - and be RIGHT? And how did they know their WTC attacks would raze 3 buildings to the ground rather than inflicting moderate damage to 2, as would be expected? Or was that just "luck"? Think about it.

If you check the web you will find 9/11 whistleblowers from the CIA, FBI (numerous), and Pentagon, among others, and many firefighters' stories are at odds with the official story. Here's a possible reason firefighters and others haven't been more vocal:

(From PrisonPlanet) Major Mike McCormack, a 9/11 toxic dust whistleblower, a ground zero hero and one of the individuals influential in the release of documents proving a government cover-up that deliberately put police, firemen and rescue personnel at risk, was raided by a New York SWAT team - who ransacked his home for three hours after he was arrested.

"I said shame on all of them....yesterday I was recognized as a national hero....they chose to humiliate me....they basically flushed my life down the toilet for no reason whatsoever," said McCormack.

McCormack said that around 75% of police, firemen and rescue personnel that he had personally spoke with now believe there is a cover-up pertaining to 9/11 and that many had been threatened that "if they ever open their mouth their pensions are at risk." http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/march2007/260307mostinsulting.htm

Try telling THEM to "get over it", Anonymous, and btw, get yourself a username.

hahaha to think people actually believe that terrorists from Saudi Arabia did all that is preposterous. if any can get any evidence that they did let me know. It must be a shock to all you sheep out there. just look at the clues its pretty obvious, everyone do me a favor before you do or say anything from now on think before you just do what your told what the "norms" are and how you should act.

Carl,
My main concern about the conspiracy theorists is that when they make public wild claims the effectively undermine the credibility of ALL those asking for more information and truth.
If I wanted to go really paranoid, I would accuse a few of them of being counter-intelligence agents planting false information so everyone asking questions can be easily dismissed as wackos. But let's stay in the realm of the rational.
Every time somebody says that the Bush administration "planned" 9/11, that person is hiding the truth: The Bush administration made possible 9/11 by politicizing the US intelligence agencies and law enforcement agencies. Had they not appointed cronies of dubious credentials to many intelligence agencies and had they not tried to manipulate the intelligence gathering activities for political gain, our intelligence forces would have been able to stop the plot way in advance.
The evidence pointing to newly appoint bureaucrats ignoring the warnings of carrier analysts is overwhelming, and there is no need to go around searching for the truth, the truth is all out and it all points to a great failure due to the politicization of the intelligence services, the law enforcement agencies and the military (by the way, the same reason that created the current situation in Iraq).

WAKE UP SHEEPLE!

Yes, most of these are rather obvious anomalies that would give any unbiased person pause. I don't agree with all of your selections (and there are many others), but - and this is what people who embrace the "official" story fail to grasp - it's not for critics of the official story to come up with a single, coherent alternative that they all agree on. Rather, just as with "peer review" of a scientific paper, it's enough merely to point out where the presented theory fails to stand up. A major difference is that anybody can criticize 9/11, so understandably some criticisms are pretty goofy. Nevertheless, what many people who argue for the official story do is take some of the weakest arguments for conspiracy, for instance the "no plane" hypothesis, which isn't believed by any serious 9/11 researcher, and use it to ridicule all 9/11 skeptics. One of the best pictures supporting controlled demolition is "2. Debris from the Twin Towers falling onto WTC7." How on Earth can the downward force of a collapsing building shoot pulverized concrete up and away from itself in great arcs? Gravity alone did this? The concrete is pulverized. How can it possibly be rebounding off anything? And what exactly is doing the pulverizing/ And with the enormous mass of material being ejected AWAY from the building, what material is left behind in sufficient quantity to raze the building to the ground? Am I the only one who sees these things?

While it's true that intelligence was highly politicized, most of the politicization occurred after 9/11. For instance, the notorious Office of Special Plans, which "stovepiped" carefully selected raw intelligence to the White House to support the existence of Iraq's non-existent WMD, wasn't established till a year after 9/11. Nevertheless, some politicization undoubtedly did exist prior to this time, as well as incompetence, facilitated in some measure by the lack of co-operation and rivalry between the FBI and CIA. That is of course the official explanation for how 9/11 happened.

I don't buy it. NORAD was far from incompetent. Till 9/11 had a sterling track-record for intercepting wayward aircraft, and such intercepts were far from rare, Popular Mechanics' "peer reviewed" claim to the contrary notwithstanding. But on that day they failed to intercept a single hijacked plane, even after the first one crashed into the north tower. Some of the blame has been laid to confusion between the hijackings and a simultaneous exercise simulating a hijacked aircraft crashing into a Washington area building. Just co-incidence, of course. Rotten luck and all that.

Seriously, though, how did the hijackers KNOW that they would be able to proceed unimpeded to their targets, when they had every reason to believe they would encounter escorts at the very least? With reason to believe they'd never reach their targets, their otherwise meticulously crafted plan was fatally flawed. Was this just an oversight? You think?

I could continue with equally compelling arguments, but there are reams of excellent material at http://www.911truth.org, or for those who are more technically oriented, http://www.ae911truth.org

As for your opening premise regarding conspiracy theorists, credibility and truth, I make the following observation: You state that wild public claims effectively undermine the credibility of ALL those asking for more information and truth. So it follows that if I want to undermine the credibility of the 9/11 skeptics' movement all I need do is make a bunch of outlandish claims. Simple enough to do. Why, then, is it "really paranoid" to believe that such information may be deliberately planted? My point here is not to state that I know the flaky stuff is planted, but that it's prudent, rather than paranoid, to consider the possibility that at least some of it is. The believers of the official story would have it that covert agents would NEVER stoop to such measures. Those ready to have their illusions shattered might want to Google "Black Panther coloring book".

Jim, most people who believe the official 9/11 story do so because they get their news from mainstream sources, and mainstream sources suppress key facts. Here are a couple...

"I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act. Islam strictly forbids causing harm to innocent women, children and other people. Such a practice is forbidden even in the course of a battle."
Osama bin Laden, September 28, 2001
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/obl_int.htm

“The reason why 9/11 is not mentioned on Usama Bin Laden’s Most Wanted page is because the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”
Rex Tomb, Chief of Investigative Publicity for the FBI
http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Note that this FBI statement was made AFTER the pathetic fake "bin Laden" tape where some chubby guy dressed like bin Laden claims he was responsible for 9/11. That tape was so thoroughly discredited that even the FBI doesn't consider it as evidence! Nevertheless, you won't find any US mainstream reference to the fact that this tape is a fake (not with Google, at any rate), so many Americans who haven't seen it believe it's proof bin Laden is responsible for 9/11. Tragic, isn't it?

Haha! I think this is great!

Point 2... "And keep in mind the towers' collapse was supposedly not from controlled demolition, so everything should have MOSTLY fallen straight down."

You know that the reason they have "controlled" demolition is because when huge objects like buildings go down there is a hell of a lot of force and if you don't control that force it may do something like take a nearby building with it. Most controlled demolitions are to ensure that the building does fall MOSTLY straight down. Also the "dust" that everyone keeps referring to is probably covering up some huge chunks of building that COULD take another building down.

Personally I think there may be some cover ups but I really doubt that the US government took out three of its own buildings, shot down a plane and then blamed it on some terrorist somewhere so that they would have an excuse to go to war. Give me a break!!

I think this was a really good post Martin and I agree with you.

Oh, surely. We should believe Bin Laden on his word. Yes. Here's the definitive truth! He said so himself, at a moment when he knew war against him was a real possibility. No possibility that he was trying to save his butt!

"The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies -- civilians and military -- is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim. "

Osama Bin Laden in his 1998 Fatwah. http://www.emergency.com/bladen98.htm

"We believe that the worst thieves in the world today and the worst terrorists are the Americans. Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind. We do not have to differentiate between military or civilian. As far as we are concerned, they are all targets, and this is what the fatwah says ... . The fatwah is general (comprehensive) and it includes all those who participate in, or help the Jewish occupiers in killing Muslims."

Osama Bin Laden on his fatwah, in a May 1998 interview: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/binladen/who/interview.html.

He does not kill civilians, it against islam, he says so himself. There's no possibility he would lie. He says so himself: it's against islam.

We should believe Bin Laden when he claims something that is consistent with the Truth, but we should not believe incriminating photographic evidence in which Bin Laden talks with amusement about the attacks and their preperations. The tape is not just fake, it is pathetically fake! Sure! Where is the evidence that it is fake, may I ask? Like you, I haven't been able to find with google any evidence for its fakeness. Since you seem to be in the know, could you please post evidence, or a reference to evidence proving it is faked?

OK i have 100% infallible evidence that 9/11 couldn't possibly be a cover-up. If the government was able to pull of this massive conspiracy, involving thousands of people, hundreds of news agencies, every facet of the governmental bureaucracy, and were able to do this so convincingly that most of the population believes their story, HOW IN GOD'S NAME WOULD THEY LET LITTLE CONSPIRACY THEORISTS EXPOSE THEM ON THEIR BLOGS AND WEBSITES? Perfect example-Loose Change. If those little pricks were actually right, they would be dead and disposed of and their website would be shut down seconds after it was set up. If our government was really this tyrannical, diabolical, killing machine, they would have gotten rid of any doubters of "their biggest lie" and would have supressed the entire conspiracy theory movement. One would have to think a plot this intricate would also have a contingency plan as to who they should deal with any conspiracy theorists, seeing as us Americans are the single most paranoid people on the planet. Theres no conspiracy, tools.

Let me see if I've got this right: You are using the fact that the maker of "Loose Change" and all the other 9/11 skeptics have NOT been killed to "prove" that there's NO conspiracy. So to use your "logic", killing Dylan Avery, et al would POINT TOWARDS A CONSPIRACY (and boy, would it ever!!!). Yet perversely, you imply that murdering anybody who publishes his/her doubts and objections with the official story is precisely what actual 9/11 conspirators WOULD do. My mind is reeling trying to understand your "logic", Anonymous. Oh, and give yourself a username.

Let's see. Each and everyone of the photographs Martin posted falsify a particular 9/11 truther's claim. For example the "there is no aircraft debris found at the pentagon" is falsified by the first photo's that show's a aircraft's wheel at the pentagon, there is, therefore, aircraft debris found at the pentagon, namely a wheel. (Doing a cursory google on "Pentagon wreckage" will show quite a bit more, btw). An scorched seat belt found at the United 93 crash site proves that an airliner crashed at that site, falsifying some canspiracy nut's claim that no aircraft crashed there. (your claim #5, it is thereby falsified) The last photo's shows WTC debris falling ahead of the collapsing tower, falsifying the claim that the towers collapsed at free fall.

Nine of your points are not evidence. They are claims, or flatout nonsense. Claims in need of supporting evidence. Evidence that is lacking.. Claims that are falsified by other evidence. Your passport point is evidence that the owner of the passport was atually on one of the planes. Evidence you dismiss planted. Where is the evidence of planting, may I ask? Why is it obvious that the passport was planted? What conclusion can we draw from 'a picture of a BBC reporter standing in front of WTC 7 reporting that it had already collapsed' other than that that reporter was obviously wrong? What conclusion can we draw from pictures of "of all the other steel buildings in history that never collapsed due to fire" other than that these other steel buildings did not collapse due to fire? Even if hundreds of highrisers did not callapse after being set ablaze by commercial airliners impacting them before 9/11. What conslusion would we be able to draw from that? That it is impossible for a building to collapse due to airliner impact and fire? That any Concorde survived tyre failure prior to 7/25 says nothing about the one that didn't. None of them where struck by a wide body jet to begin with. All of these byuilding had a different construction. And even if all of them where WTC carbon copies, even if all of them where struck by wide body jets at 500mph. What conclusion could we draw from that? Prior to 7/25/2000 no Concorde crashed due to tyre failure on take-off. Yet, on that particular day, one did. That prior to 9/11 no steel framed high riser collapsed due to fire says nothing about the fate of a steel highriser that is constructed differently that was struck by wide body jets at 500mph. Where is the evidence for this "pools of molten steel" exactly? What conclusion can we draw from a single "photograph not resembling a 757 [sic]". That the towers where not hit by 767's? There exists a wide range of photograhic evidence that show 767's striking the towers. So, obviously, that photo is wrong, not reallity or "the official story". Where is the evidence that this fireball was a bomb?

In conclusion, Martin provides 10 photographic evidence, each logicallly falsifying a claim and you. And youn think you level the balance by putting forward an equal number of nonsense claims, one of these even being falsified by primary evidence put forward by Martin.

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it” ... “The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.” -Adolf Hitler
It might seem like I'm trying to make the government seem like Nazis with this quote, but I don't think they are, it's just oddly frightening to think that these quotes have been proven true, and to think that people shut off their brains and skepticism when it comes to atrocities and their governments. The war in Iraq was perpetrated with lying, with deception, what makes you think the government can't lie about their fear-mongering tactics? Why do you think they don't kill conspiracy theorists?
Because the masses are very easily deceived, trained to scoff at conspiracy theories, and if they have the feeling that all those around them accept a story, they'd find it silly to have doubts, no matter how crazy the story is. What is, then, the easiest way to commit conspiracy? Lie constantly, control the media by giving it what it wants, especially in a news society like ours where the news is 24 hours, non-stop, with little or no time for investigation and probing. The media then relies on the government to be open and honest, and will accept any story given.
If they screwed up one assassination, or if someone found out people were dying in a strange manner, or any other evidence beyond the event became obvious, there would be reason for concern, but since we can all speak freely about the conspiracy, all they have to do is throw out a few people on the net to say "well if the government is capable of 9/11, they could silence critics! Obviously, no critics are silenced, so the conspiracy is fake!" and everyone who hears that can take that and it will silence their fear that their government is that corrupt and powerful, they will soon spread this across the net and calm the fear of others, and everyone can sleep happily at night, and feel great knowing that they're smarter than all those people who could think anything but the official story happened.

Sheeple! Friggin classic!

Yes, too many people start with the closed-minded position that a western government could possibly be so evil, rather than dispassionately considering the evidence. However, despite the fact that many Americans consider government criticism "unpatriotic", particularly concerning 9/11, the sheer weight of evidence is beginning to sway an increasing number of them to conclude that something is seriously amiss with the official story: In May 2002, 8% of Americans stated they believed their government was "mostly lying" about what they knew of the attacks prior to 9/11. By October, 2006, that number was up to 28%. In addition to those 28%, a full 65% believed their government is "hiding something". http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/view/13469

With more organized and focussed opposition to the official story, I have no reason to believe that the trend hasn't continued, so that today, the numbers would likely be even more lop-sided. This has occurred despite a steady drumbeat of ridicule (i.e. "conspiracy nuts") and vituperation of those who would question the oddities and contradictions of 9/11. So there's still hope, Psydan!

Wikipedia defines cherry picking as the act of pointing at individual cases or data that seem to confirm a particular position, while ignoring a significant portion of related cases or data that may contradict that position. The only "evidence" I'm aware of is the (allegedly) fake tape that I mentioned. So where is the evidence that I ignored? What other evidence has the American government or anybody else presented that Bin Laden is responsible or even associated with 9/11? The reason I quoted him was not to suggest that it in itself proved his innocence, but that contrary to what many people believe (because the quote has been suppressed), Bin Laden has NOT claimed responsibility for 9/11. In fact he's stated he had no knowledge of the attacks. So no Bin Laden "confession". This being the case, what hard evidence do we have tying him to 9/11? The FBI says none. Go ahead and vilify Bin Laden all you want. He probably deserves every bit of it. But just remember not to tie him to 9/11, because there's NO HARD EVIDENCE.

Regarding the 2001 "confession" video, I did some poking around and found something that I think is quite interesting. First, in June, 2006, "Muckraker Report" details his discussion with an FBI spokesman, who claims there's no hard evidence linking Bin Laden to 9/11 (the 2001 confession tape notwithstanding). http://www.teamliberty.net/id267.html

Then, in March 2007, the same reporter provides convincing evidence, imo, that the 2001 video is authentic.
http://www.muckrakerreport.com/id372.html (Be sure to read the last paragraph.)

What the @#$%^??? If the video's authentic, why doesn't a US Attorney present it to a grand jury to seek an indictment? There's only one possibility that makes sense to me; the AUDIO has been doctored. Apparently there are problems with the translation as well. Perhaps this is why the video is so fuzzy (experts believe it to be a 4th generation copy). If it were sharp, it would be more difficult to convincingly dub the appropriately damning words.

I'm not saying this is the case, but in light of the FBI's refusal to "run with it", it's my best guess.

Anybody who has ever seen a dubbed Italian movie knows just how convincing a skilled dubber can be, even when the image of the speaker is sharp. Dubbing a fuzzy video like this would be a piece of cake. Matching Bin Laden's voice would have been easy with the voice-matching technology available in 2001.

Martin's posts has 2 levels of argument. At the first level he argues at the facts regarding 9/11, he provides evedince for the involvement of Al-Qaida in the events of 9/11, contradicting the poster's assertion. Second, he argues at the logical level, he argues that the way conspiracy thereoticians argue is flawed.

Now, it is somewhat unclear to me what you are trying to argue with the video link or how the video is relevant to the discussion at hand. Having said that it seems that by providing a link to a documentary claiming that the banks have control over the USA you argue that we should distrust the USA's government and we should therefore be suspicous that 9/11 was an inside job.

How does your video refute the evidence for Al-Qaida's involvement put forward by Martin? It doesn't. Your video doesn't make Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confession go away. Your video doesn't make the cells' documented actions go away. The logic of your argument is in line with Martin's point #2: ignore all other information. (and consider only the information that is consistent, or can be stretched to be, with the conspiracy theory, I would like to add.).

If my guess at what you are trying to say is correct your argument is in line with Martin's point #4: Be skeptical of "they", but accept at face value anything spewed out by a conspiracy website.

Thanks. It is telling of the research skills of the "9/11 researcher."

BTW, Your video does not lend support to your desired conclusion. Your video's assertion is orthogonal to the matter of who did it. In a USA without the banks being in control it could have been an inside job just as well, as well as it could have been an Al-Qaida job in a USA without the banks being in control, as well as it being an inside job in a USA with the banks in control, and lastly, as well as it being an Al-Qaida job in a USA with the banks in control. Who's in control of the USA is of little relevance to the question of who commited a particular crime.

For an excellent critique of all the photos, see "Thanks for the photos" by Ben, further down the page.

Peter, anybody can say whatever they like about the events of 9/11. Some of it is just uninformed, some of it is possibly deliberate misinformation, as I discuss elsewhere. www.911truth.org (what you might call the ultimate "truther" site) lists "The top 40 reasons to doubt the official story of September 11, 2001." Number 3 is the Pentagon Strike. It asks, "How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation''s capital? How did Hani Hanjour, a man who failed as a Cessna pilot on his first flight in a Boeing, execute a difficult aerobatic maneuver to strike the Pentagon? Why did the attack strike the just-renovated side, which was largely empty and opposite from the high command?"

Notice something missing? That's right. No mention of missing debris. That, you see, is a fringe belief. Something "debunkers" do quite regularly is expose fringe beliefs to ridicule (no problem), and imply that this is part of the gospel of all "conspiracy nuts". By not pointing out that the "no debris" theory has long been discarded by serious 9/11 skeptics, Martin and other "debunkers" are guilty of something very close to a smear. Similarly with #6. Martin claims, "Ever since, conspiracy theorists have harassed and threatened her..." That is a smear of the same order as if I said, "Englishmen are murderers." In both cases, a tiny minority are guilty of the offense, so why even mention it, if it really doesn't apply to the vast majority?

Okay, Martin, you win. Up till now I'd suspected a missile brought down Flight 93. Now I see the broken and scorched remains of that seatbelt (#7), I see I was wrong. You didn't explain why, but then you didn't need to. The photo speaks for itself. God, Martin, I just HATE that photo!!!

You don't unerstand the logic,because you are not a logical person. That is why your mind is reeling. I should'nt bother trying to explain to you. That if the government for what ever reason had wanted to do this. There would have been at least a dozon easier ways to achieve the same goal. Without blowing up a bunch of buildings, killing people, and harming it's own economy. You wouldn't understand the logic of this either. Because your mind is to busy reeling. I would suggest that you seek professional help. There may be something you can take that will quiet the voices in your head and help with the reeling.

The seatbelt is evidence against those truthers who claim no plane crashed there. The explosion caught on camera demonstrates that a missile didn't bring down the flight - had a missile brought it down, the debris would have been scattered over about 20 miles, not all contained in a fairly neat area (yes, a few tiny bits were found 8 miles away, but the bulk of the wreckage was in one place).

I find the suggestion that anybody who disagrees with your version of events is somehow "brainwashed" by mainstream media or ignorant or unintelligent particularly pathetic. You seem to have great difficulty understanding why intelligent people presented with the same facts don't agree with your conclusions, and I can't help but feel that if you did understand that, you'd make a much better case than you've made so far. Just because people disagree with you, doesn't make them stupid or uneducated. Calling people "Sheeple" I find particular ironic given that about 90% of 9/11 truthers do nothing more than read conspiracy sites, and treat everything therein as fact.

Equally, you're creating a straw man in previous posts when you claim that people who disbelieve in the conspiracy theory somehow can't cope with the idea that Western governments do evil things. I don't see a single person in this thread on the anti-conspiracy side suggesting that the Bush administration are a bunch of saints. I am well away of the horrendous crimes perpetrated by Western governments in the last few hundred years. The reason I don't believe the 9/11 conspiracy theorists is because they have presented zero evidence of a conspiracy, and zero evidence that disproves the accepted story.

It's also telling how many out-and-out lies there are in this post - the guy below who says he doesn't believe that "a guy in a cave planned it" for example (what guy in a cave?!).

I also have zero tolerance of arguments that rely on selective quoting, or twisting something that can be interpreted several ways to fit your particular version. The FBI have explained in incredible detail the legal technicalities that have led to them not including 9/11 on Bin Laden's (his involvement was extremely limited even according to the official account) Most Wanted profile. Calling that evidence relies on assuming that theyEqually the comments on the BBC news reports and the lists of passengers published on CNN (why on earth would they include the hijackers on a list of victims?) are just absurd in the extreme. Does anyone here seriously believe that American conspirators would inform BBC representatives of their plans in advance? Again the same can be said of the Bin Laden quotes - the quotes that disagree with you, you ignore or claim were faked, and yet miraculously the ones that you like are acceptable evidence!

As I promised, I'll return this this debate, and I'll address genuine points then. The above is just an indication of the sort of garbage you really need to avoid if you expect more people to take you seriously.

2 stolen elections, PNAC, the most powerful nation on earth's Airforce takes the day off, just when a bunch of loons decide to crash planes into symbolic US landmarks. The most 'secure' building on earth produces no footage worth looking at of an airliner piloted by a novice who manages to skim oven uneven terrain at 15-20 feet at 500mph slamming into its 'empty' side.
Trumped up WMD charges against a country that wasn't responsible for the attack leads to an unwinnable war.
Afghan oil and gas pipelines remain amazingly secure throughout war against Taliban.
If you people can't smell a rat you deserve another term with he Republicans in charge frankly.

So we agree the Kandahar video is authentic. In it, Bin Laden talks with amusement of the attacks, it preparations and IIRC, names several of the hijackers and tells why he selected them. This tape in itself, apart from other collaborating evidence; Khalid Sheikh Mohamed's confession, the documented activity of the cells, the Atta check-in footage, for anyone interested in what really happened at 9/11 constitute a tantalizing investigative lead, to say the least.

Yet, rather than following up on the investigative lead provided, you try to discredit the video. First you said it was faked, not only was it faked, but it was a pathetic fake. You seem to come to the conclusion that there is insufficient evidence in support of this contention. Now you argue that "we should remember not to tie Bin Laden to 9/11 because it is not hard evidence". It is Bin Laden himself that ties himself with 9/11 in the video. To hear a serious researcher, devoted to finding out what really happened at 9/11, argue that we should ignore an investigative lead is puzzling. I agree that the video in itself is not definitive proof Bin Laden "don' it", he could simply have been bolstering. But why don't you, being a serious 9/11 researcher follow up onto the investigative lead the tape provides to find out if their is more incriminating evidence against the man out there? Now, whether the video is a sufficient ground for a legal indictment is a different matter. In typical conspiracy theorist fashion, you don't dive into the legal process and criminal law to find out what constitute sufficient grounds for an indictment. You fail to do an investigation to find out what the reasons are that the video is insufficient ground for an indictment. Rather, again in typical conspiracy theorist fashion you invent reasons. Again, in typical conspiracy theorist fashion, without putting any scrutiny to the reasons you have invented and without supporting evidence of claims put forward: any prosecutor, having doubts about the translation would be in a position to have the quality of the translation verified by experts and have the translation redone, if needed. Any US prosecutor would be in a position to get hold of the original copy, or a high quality copy thereof. The audio is doctored you claim. No supporting evidence is provided. In your PS you argue that it could have been doctored. I can argue that the Brooklyn bridge COULD have been constructed by child labor. I can argue that the Brooklyn Bridge COULD have been constructed out of inferior steel and ditto concrete. What "could be" is of little influence of what is actually suspended over the East River. What matters is not whether the audio on the tape COULD have been doctored. What matters if it IS actually doctored. So, again, where is the evidence exactly that the audio on the tape is doctored? It should be easy for you to prove this. Get someone who can lip read Arabic, and get someone else who understands Arabic. Have the first person watch the tape without the audio, read the lips and write down the words. Have the second person listen to the tape's audio without the video and write down the words. Compare the two transcripts and you are done. As a check you could than ask the first person to watch the video with audio and have him spot inconsistencies between what the lips say and what the audio says. Write a report and you have me convinced that the tape's audio is doctored.

Thus, we should ignore a video in which Bin Laden incriminates himself, but we should not ignore an interview in which he denies being involved with the crime he is accused of. An interview that you claim is a "key fact" that is "suppressed." First, as I demonstrated, he lied in the interview. Second, any accused will deny. The innocent will naturally deny, unless he's crazy. The guilty will deny to not to incriminate himself. The denial of involvement thus comes as no surprise: most accused deny. The denial thus tells us little about whether the accused has done it or not. Could that be the reason that little attention is paid to this "key fact?" Because this "key fact" is of little value? Rather, you claim it is "suppressed", a claim that is ridiculous in the light of the fact that the interview is right there on the internet for everyone with a browser to see and read.

One step further, we should ignore the existing evidence, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed's confession, the documented activity of the cells, the Atta check-in footage incriminating Al-Qaida, but we should believe your assertion that George W. Bush "don' it." An assertion for which not one shred of supporting evidence is provided. Since you seem to require a high level of logical en evidential rigor from "the official story", why don't you apply the same standard to your own hypothesis and it's logical and evidential foundation? The majority of arguments I've seen are of the "hold an opinion against photographic material" type, noting that the opinion and the photographic evidence do not match and subsequently, rather than performing an analysis to find out what could account for the discrepancy, proclaim that there is something wrong with "the official story". Direct evidence is absent or flimsy at best. Get this evidence and you stand a chance of convincing me.

Oh yes. Sure. Both sides might be wrong or right. Both side have a 50% chance of being right. Both sides throw roughly the same amount of arguments at each other, so it is basically a draw. It's all a matter of who you believe most. So let's call in a judge to make an intelligent toss. Right. In the meantime you can sound to be a very reasonable person.

It's the proof, the methodoligy, stupid. It's the evidence, the soundness and validity of the arguments leading to a stated conclusion that counts.

I for one have a far greater level of confidence in a proposed theory that is the result of a process in which all available evidence is considered, observed, studied in which possible explanation on these primary facts are formulated, collaboring evidence sought, in which possible explanations for which no collaborating evidence can be found are eliminated, a process in which experiments are conducted to put possible explanations to the test, a process in which if the results of an experiment does not match a possible explanation, said possible explanation are elimated, upon which new possible explanations are formulated and put to the test, a process in which the participants question the valadity of there logical deductions, assumptions and knowledge, a process that we know as the 'scientific method' than I have in a process having doubts about a competing theory is considered "proof" of one's own theory, a process in Logical Falacies have a field day, a process in which conjecture is considered to be "evidence", a process in which a foregone conclusion is to be "proven."

That's the point.

May I ask you to conduct a little experiment? On a lazy afternoon surf around a bit on some "9/11 Truth Researcher"'s web sites, try to get some insight how they arive at their conclusions and ask yourself the question if the next time, heaven forbid, a civil aircraft crashes you would like to have the subsequent investigation being performed by these "9/11 Truth Researchers" rather than by the NTSB.

That's the point. What these "9/11 Truth Researchers" spew out is baloney.

Let us see.

1) Conspiracy therorists select those pieces of evidence that seem consistent with their therories, ignoring primary evidence that is inconsistent with their theories.
2) Martin does counter a subset of a set of claims.

How does the 2 behaviours equal? They don't. Cherry picking results in a shaky theory at best and a worthless one at worst. In a debate participants are always able to say that an unaddressed issue should be addressed. These 2 bahviours are entirely different.

Going from a body of primary evidence to true conclusions is not a matter of opinion, nor is it a democratic process. Debating hypotheses is not a process of open mindedness. It is a process logic and sound reasoning.

That is where conspiracy theorists fail. And fail missarably.

Where does Martin attack the person, not the argument? He calls them nuts in his opening paragraph. Nowhere Martin argues that a claim is false because the person making the claim is nuts. I've seen the creationists, moonhoaxers and now the truthers at work, and quite frankly, from observing them holding a position for which they provide not one shred of supporting evidence, yet insisting on defending the position with every falacious argument available I think them being nuts follows as a reasonable conclusion.

My point is that only a tiny minority of 9/11 skeptics don’t believe Flight 93 crashed, by one means or another, near Shanksville, PA. As I’ve said elsewhere, ANYBODY (including mischief-makers) can comment on 9/11. It is dishonest to imply by omission that all or even all or even a majority 9/11 skeptics believe Flight 93 never reached Pennsylvania.
You say, “I find the suggestion that anybody who disagrees with your version of events is somehow "brainwashed" by mainstream media or ignorant or unintelligent particularly pathetic.”

But calling 9/11 skeptics “conspiracy nuts” is perfectly acceptable? Btw, I see you have put “brainwashed” in quotes, so this is supposedly a direct quote. I never used the word in any of my comments. I checked with the word finder. You didn’t censor something, did you, Martin?

Anyway, since you brought the subject up, here are three excellent blogs (really!) on media manipulation - brainwashing, if you like - by corporations and the presentation of tittilating, vacuous trash and outright lies for the “working class” by a UK tabloid daily. IMO, you could say much the same about The Daily Express, The News of the World, The Daily Mirror, etc. etc. Yes, Martin, they’re YOUR blogs!

Corporate-Sponsored Disinformation: Exposing the "Grassroots" Campaign against Climate Science http://layscience.net/?q=node/130

Rising Crime: Atheists, Liberals, or Just a Myth? http://layscience.net/?q=node/133
T
The Daily Mail, Climate Change and Underaged Girls http://layscience.net/?q=node/139

On the other hand, The Times [of London], does excellent investigative reporting, and has produced many exposes through the years. The Times is owned by NewsCorp which also publishes the trashy News of the World. The difference? The News of the World, Daily Mail, etc. are aimed at keeping the masses in ignorance. The Times is directed at The Establishment and those who identify with it. Only the intelligentsia read The Times. Much the same could be said in the US with say The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, whose reporting (though not its editorializing) is first-rate.

So you see, you yourself express your frustration with the masses who read trash like the Daily Mail, and get sucked in by corporate sites masquerading as “grass-roots” organizations. How would you describe the typical Daily Mail reader, Martin? What about those who are gulled by corporate media manipulators? Might you think “sheeple” would be a rather apt term?

If such views are “particularly pathetic” then why are you expressing those very views in your blogs? Btw, if you think the corporate media do such a good job of informing the masses about 9/11, Google “WTC7” and see how many of the first hundred hits are corporate media websites. Twenty, maybe? Ten at least, right? Actually it’s TWO.

Now Google “Madeleine McCann”. By my count FORTY FIVE of the first hundred sites covering this PERSONAL tragedy are corporate.

By the way, what exactly do you mean by “your version of events”? As I said in my comment, “My position on 9/11”: “I have a couple of hypotheses as to what happened, but they're no more than that. I'm far from an expert on the events of 9/11, but I have a good grasp of the essentials, and as I studied the matter with an open mind, it became increasingly obvious that the "official version" couldn't possibly be true.” You are the one who has a “version of events”. You call those who disagree with you, “conspiracy nuts”.

You state, “Equally, you're creating a straw man in previous posts when you claim that people who disbelieve in the conspiracy theory somehow can't cope with the idea that Western governments do evil things.”

Really? I read US political blogs every day, and comments such as this are all too common: “How dare you people suggest our President is either lying or deceptive. It's you moonbats [liberals] who are liars with your b***j**s and loose morals. Our President is an honest, decent man just trying to keep us safe. And when it comes to voting, I'm for the candidate who wants to keep the gays from marrying and doesn't want to let terrorists loose.
All of you people should be put in jail for your opinions because good Americans don't talk this way. They keep quiet and do as they're told. That's the America I love.” Varg http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=132071

You claim, “The FBI have explained in incredible detail the legal technicalities that have led to them not including 9/11 on Bin Laden's (his involvement was extremely limited even according to the official account) Most Wanted profile.”

Yes, you mentioned this incredibly detailed information before, and I asked you to provide a link, which you still haven’t done. Here’s the only FBI statement I can find on the matter: “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm

As for the BBC’s correctly but prematurely stating that WTC7 had collapsed, all I’ll say is that it’s rather odd, sort of like telling somebody that his pants had fallen down twenty minutes before the event. Also odd that the BBC would “lose” the footage, and odd that it just happens to scramble, cutting the reporter, and WTC7 behind her off. Fortunately somebody had videotaped it. Finally, it's decidedly odd that the studio presenter, Phil Hayton, would claim on camera to not have been working at that time till his memory was repeatedly jogged by the interviewer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMlFFQ2oqQ ). Doesn’t remember broadcasting on 9/11? Really???

Like so much else associated with 9/11, it just doesn’t smell right, does it? Just a little too much "oddness". For the record, I don’t believe the BBC would need to be part of the conspiracy for this to happen, merely the person who jumped the gun. So who notified the BBC reporter that WTC7 had collapsed? Ms. Standley says she can't remember and I don't disbelieve her, but it's too bad.

You state, “Equally, the comments on news reports and …the lists of passengers published on CNN (why on earth would they include the hijackers on a list of victims?) are just absurd in the extreme.” Whose comments, Martin? NONE of your commenters referred to this CNN victims list. More straw men. I referred to the passenger manifests, information on which is notoriously hard to come by. Since my reference, I managed to find this: http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/passengers.html
Like so much of 9/11, the information is ambiguous. Make of it what you will.

You say, “It's also telling how many out-and-out lies there are in this post - the guy below who says he doesn't believe that "a guy in a cave planned it" for example (what guy in a cave?!).” This is a most odd position for you to take, Martin. The commenter says he doesn’t believe “a guy in a cave” planned it. That’s an OPINION, Martin, not a LIE. He is of course referring to the endless references by the MSM and Bush himself to Bin Laden as a guy in a cave. Here is one of MANY examples: "If we could find the cave he is in, I promise you — he would be brought to justice or wherever he's hiding." GW Bush. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325234,00.html

This “cave-dweller” is the guy whom YOU believe (because you mocked me for not believing the video it was taken from was genuine), stated, “We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only.” http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen....

Amazing isn’t it that (according to you ) the FBI claimed OBL’s involvement with 9/11 was “extremely limited”. NOW do you see why I believe that video was dubbed?

There. I think that about covers all your objections. I look forward to your later post when you’ll address “genuine points”, which I gather will be the points that don't challenge your POV that 9/11 was not a government conspiracy.

My point is that only a tiny minority of 9/11 skeptics don’t believe Flight 93 crashed, by one means or another, near Shanksville, PA. As I’ve said elsewhere, ANYBODY (including mischief-makers) can comment on 9/11. It is dishonest to imply by omission that all or even all or even a majority 9/11 skeptics believe Flight 93 never reached Pennsylvania.
You say, “I find the suggestion that anybody who disagrees with your version of events is somehow "brainwashed" by mainstream media or ignorant or unintelligent particularly pathetic.”

But calling 9/11 skeptics “conspiracy nuts” is perfectly acceptable? Btw, I see you have put “brainwashed” in quotes, so this is supposedly a direct quote. I never used the word in any of my comments. I checked with the word finder. You didn’t censor something, did you, Martin?

Anyway, since you brought the subject up, here are three excellent blogs (really!) on media manipulation - brainwashing, if you like - by corporations and the presentation of tittilating, vacuous trash and outright lies for the “working class” by a UK tabloid daily. IMO, you could say much the same about The Daily Express, The News of the World, The Daily Mirror, etc. etc. Yes, Martin, they’re YOUR blogs!

Corporate-Sponsored Disinformation: Exposing the "Grassroots" Campaign against Climate Science http://layscience.net/?q=node/130

Rising Crime: Atheists, Liberals, or Just a Myth? http://layscience.net/?q=node/133
T
The Daily Mail, Climate Change and Underaged Girls http://layscience.net/?q=node/139

On the other hand, The Times [of London], does excellent investigative reporting, and has produced many exposes through the years. The Times is owned by NewsCorp which also publishes the trashy News of the World. The difference? The News of the World, Daily Mail, etc. are aimed at keeping the masses in ignorance. The Times is directed at The Establishment and those who identify with it. Only the intelligentsia read The Times. Much the same could be said in the US with say The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, whose reporting (though not its editorializing) is first-rate.

So you see, you yourself express your frustration with the masses who read trash like the Daily Mail, and get sucked in by corporate sites masquerading as “grass-roots” organizations. How would you describe the typical Daily Mail reader, Martin? What about those who are gulled by corporate media manipulators? Might you think “sheeple” would be a rather apt term?

If such views are “particularly pathetic” then why are you expressing those very views in your blogs? Btw, if you think the corporate media do such a good job of informing the masses about 9/11, Google “WTC7” and see how many of the first hundred hits are corporate media websites. Twenty, maybe? Ten at least, right? Actually it’s TWO.

Now Google “Madeleine McCann”. By my count FORTY FIVE of the first hundred sites covering this PERSONAL tragedy are corporate.

By the way, what exactly do you mean by “your version of events”? As I said in my comment, “My position on 9/11”: “I have a couple of hypotheses as to what happened, but they're no more than that. I'm far from an expert on the events of 9/11, but I have a good grasp of the essentials, and as I studied the matter with an open mind, it became increasingly obvious that the "official version" couldn't possibly be true.” You are the one who has a “version of events”. You call those who disagree with you, “conspiracy nuts”.

You state, “Equally, you're creating a straw man in previous posts when you claim that people who disbelieve in the conspiracy theory somehow can't cope with the idea that Western governments do evil things.”

Really? I read US political blogs every day, and comments such as this are all too common: “How dare you people suggest our President is either lying or deceptive. It's you moonbats [liberals] who are liars with your b***j**s and loose morals. Our President is an honest, decent man just trying to keep us safe. And when it comes to voting, I'm for the candidate who wants to keep the gays from marrying and doesn't want to let terrorists loose.
All of you people should be put in jail for your opinions because good Americans don't talk this way. They keep quiet and do as they're told. That's the America I love.” Varg http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=132071

You claim, “The FBI have explained in incredible detail the legal technicalities that have led to them not including 9/11 on Bin Laden's (his involvement was extremely limited even according to the official account) Most Wanted profile.”

Yes, you mentioned this incredibly detailed information before, and I asked you to provide a link, which you still haven’t done. Here’s the only FBI statement I can find on the matter: “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm

As for the BBC’s correctly but prematurely stating that WTC7 had collapsed, all I’ll say is that it’s rather odd, sort of like telling somebody that his pants had fallen down twenty minutes before the event. Also odd that the BBC would “lose” the footage, and odd that it just happens to scramble, cutting the reporter, and WTC7 behind her off. Fortunately somebody had videotaped it. Finally, it's decidedly odd that the studio presenter, Phil Hayton, would claim on camera to not have been working at that time till his memory was repeatedly jogged by the interviewer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMlFFQ2oqQ ). Doesn’t remember broadcasting on 9/11? Really???

Like so much else associated with 9/11, it just doesn’t smell right, does it? Just a little too much "oddness". For the record, I don’t believe the BBC would need to be part of the conspiracy for this to happen, merely the person who jumped the gun. So who notified the BBC reporter that WTC7 had collapsed? Ms. Standley says she can't remember and I don't disbelieve her, but it's too bad.

You state, “Equally, the comments on news reports and …the lists of passengers published on CNN (why on earth would they include the hijackers on a list of victims?) are just absurd in the extreme.” Whose comments, Martin? NONE of your commenters referred to this CNN victims list. More straw men. I referred to the passenger manifests, information on which is notoriously hard to come by. Since my reference, I managed to find this: http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/passengers.html
Like so much of 9/11, the information is ambiguous. Make of it what you will.

You say, “It's also telling how many out-and-out lies there are in this post - the guy below who says he doesn't believe that "a guy in a cave planned it" for example (what guy in a cave?!).” This is a most odd position for you to take, Martin. The commenter says he doesn’t believe “a guy in a cave” planned it. That’s an OPINION, Martin, not a LIE. He is of course referring to the endless references by the MSM and Bush himself to Bin Laden as a guy in a cave. Here is one of MANY examples: "If we could find the cave he is in, I promise you — he would be brought to justice or wherever he's hiding." GW Bush. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325234,00.html

This “cave-dweller” is the guy whom YOU believe (because you mocked me for not believing the video it was taken from was genuine), stated, “We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only.” http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen....

Amazing isn’t it that (according to you ) the FBI claimed OBL’s involvement with 9/11 was “extremely limited”. NOW do you see why I believe that video was dubbed?

There. I think that about covers all your objections. I look forward to your later post when you’ll address “genuine points”, which I gather will be the points that don't challenge your POV that 9/11 was not a government conspiracy.

My point is that only a tiny minority of 9/11 skeptics don’t believe Flight 93 crashed, by one means or another, near Shanksville, PA. As I’ve said elsewhere, ANYBODY (including mischief-makers) can comment on 9/11. It is dishonest to imply by omission that all or even all or even a majority 9/11 skeptics believe Flight 93 never reached Pennsylvania.
You say, “I find the suggestion that anybody who disagrees with your version of events is somehow "brainwashed" by mainstream media or ignorant or unintelligent particularly pathetic.”

But calling 9/11 skeptics “conspiracy nuts” is perfectly acceptable? Btw, I see you have put “brainwashed” in quotes, so this is supposedly a direct quote. I never used the word in any of my comments. I checked with the word finder. You didn’t censor something, did you, Martin?

Anyway, since you brought the subject up, here are three excellent blogs (really!) on media manipulation - brainwashing, if you like - by corporations and the presentation of tittilating, vacuous trash and outright lies for the “working class” by a UK tabloid daily. IMO, you could say much the same about The Daily Express, The News of the World, The Daily Mirror, etc. etc. Yes, Martin, they’re YOUR blogs!

Corporate-Sponsored Disinformation: Exposing the "Grassroots" Campaign against Climate Science http://layscience.net/?q=node/130

Rising Crime: Atheists, Liberals, or Just a Myth? http://layscience.net/?q=node/133
T
The Daily Mail, Climate Change and Underaged Girls http://layscience.net/?q=node/139

On the other hand, The Times [of London], does excellent investigative reporting, and has produced many exposes through the years. The Times is owned by NewsCorp which also publishes the trashy News of the World. The difference? The News of the World, Daily Mail, etc. are aimed at keeping the masses in ignorance. The Times is directed at The Establishment and those who identify with it. Only the intelligentsia read The Times. Much the same could be said in the US with say The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal, whose reporting (though not its editorializing) is first-rate.

So you see, you yourself express your frustration with the masses who read trash like the Daily Mail, and get sucked in by corporate sites masquerading as “grass-roots” organizations. How would you describe the typical Daily Mail reader, Martin? What about those who are gulled by corporate media manipulators? Might you think “sheeple” would be a rather apt term?

If such views are “particularly pathetic” then why are you expressing those very views in your blogs? Btw, if you think the corporate media do such a good job of informing the masses about 9/11, Google “WTC7” and see how many of the first hundred hits are corporate media websites. Twenty, maybe? Ten at least, right? Actually it’s TWO.

Now Google “Madeleine McCann”. By my count FORTY FIVE of the first hundred sites covering this PERSONAL tragedy are corporate.

By the way, what exactly do you mean by “your version of events”? As I said in my comment, “My position on 9/11”: “I have a couple of hypotheses as to what happened, but they're no more than that. I'm far from an expert on the events of 9/11, but I have a good grasp of the essentials, and as I studied the matter with an open mind, it became increasingly obvious that the "official version" couldn't possibly be true.” You are the one who has a “version of events”. You call those who disagree with you, “conspiracy nuts”.

You state, “Equally, you're creating a straw man in previous posts when you claim that people who disbelieve in the conspiracy theory somehow can't cope with the idea that Western governments do evil things.”

Really? I read US political blogs every day, and comments such as this are all too common: “How dare you people suggest our President is either lying or deceptive. It's you moonbats [liberals] who are liars with your b***j**s and loose morals. Our President is an honest, decent man just trying to keep us safe. And when it comes to voting, I'm for the candidate who wants to keep the gays from marrying and doesn't want to let terrorists loose.

All of you people should be put in jail for your opinions because good Americans don't talk this way. They keep quiet and do as they're told. That's the America I love.” Varg http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion?pid=132071

Martin, you claim, “The FBI have explained in incredible detail the legal technicalities that have led to them not including 9/11 on Bin Laden's (his involvement was extremely limited even according to the official account) Most Wanted profile.”

Yes, you mentioned this incredibly detailed information before, and I asked you to provide a link, which you still haven’t done. Here’s the only FBI statement I can find on the matter: “The FBI gathers evidence. Once evidence is gathered, it is turned over to the Department of Justice. The Department of Justice than decides whether it has enough evidence to present to a federal grand jury. In the case of the 1998 United States Embassies being bombed, Bin Laden has been formally indicted and charged by a grand jury. He has not been formally indicted and charged in connection with 9/11 because the FBI has no hard evidence connected Bin Laden to 9/11.” http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13664.htm

As for the BBC’s correctly but prematurely stating that WTC7 had collapsed, all I’ll say is that it’s rather odd, sort of like telling somebody that his pants had fallen down twenty minutes before the event. Also odd that the BBC would “lose” the footage, and odd that it just happens to scramble, cutting the reporter, and WTC7 behind her off. Fortunately somebody had videotaped it. Finally, it's decidedly odd that the studio presenter, Phil Hayton, would claim on camera to not have been working at that time till his memory was repeatedly jogged by the interviewer ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzMlFFQ2oqQ ). Doesn’t remember broadcasting on 9/11? Really???

Like so much else associated with 9/11, it just doesn’t smell right, does it? Just a little too much "oddness". For the record, I don’t believe the BBC would need to be part of the conspiracy for this to happen, merely the person who jumped the gun. So who notified the BBC reporter that WTC7 had collapsed? Ms. Standley says she can't remember and I don't disbelieve her, but it's too bad.

You state, “Equally, the comments on news reports and …the lists of passengers published on CNN (why on earth would they include the hijackers on a list of victims?) are just absurd in the extreme.” Whose comments, Martin? NONE of your commenters referred to this CNN victims list. More straw men. I referred to the passenger manifests, information on which is notoriously hard to come by. Since my reference, I managed to find this: http://911research.wtc7.net/planes/evidence/passengers.html
Like so much of 9/11, the information is ambiguous. Make of it what you will.

You say, “It's also telling how many out-and-out lies there are in this post - the guy below who says he doesn't believe that "a guy in a cave planned it" for example (what guy in a cave?!).” This is a most odd position for you to take, Martin. The commenter says he doesn’t believe “a guy in a cave” planned it. That’s an OPINION, Martin, not a LIE. He is of course referring to the endless references by the MSM and Bush himself to Bin Laden as a guy in a cave. Here is one of MANY examples: "If we could find the cave he is in, I promise you — he would be brought to justice or wherever he's hiding." GW Bush. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325234,00.html

This “cave-dweller” is the guy whom YOU believe (because you mocked me for not believing the video it was taken from was genuine), stated, “We calculated that the floors that would be hit would be three or four floors. I was the most optimistic of them all. (...Inaudible...) due to my experience in this field, I was thinking that the fire from the gas in the plane would melt the iron structure of the building and collapse the area where the plane hit and all the floors above it only.” http://www.npr.org/news/specials/response/investigation/011213.binladen....

Amazing isn’t it that (according to you ) the FBI claimed OBL’s involvement with 9/11 was “extremely limited”. NOW do you see why I believe that video was dubbed?

There. I think that about covers all your objections. I look forward to your later post when you’ll address “genuine points”, which I gather will be the points that don't challenge your POV that 9/11 was not a government conspiracy.

All excellent points, Frank! As you point out, 9/11 didn't happen in isolation. It's all part of a pattern of deep corruption by the US administration, enabled by the deferential mainstream media, as even former Bush Press Secretary Scott McClellan now admits. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/28/mcclellan/index.html

You say, "had a missile brought it down, the debris would have been scattered over about 20 miles, not all contained in a fairly neat area (yes, a few tiny bits were found 8 miles away, but the bulk of the wreckage was in one place)."

Where did you pull that 20 miles from, Martin? Wouldn't the size of the debris field and the size of the bits depend on the height and speed of the plane, the explosive power of the missile, where the missile exploded (tail, wing, nose), etc.? Couldn't the debris field just as easily have a radius of say, eight miles? Isn't a debris field with a radius of about EIGHT MILES (even "tiny bits") a wee bit of a stretch for an aircraft that plows STRAIGHT INTO THE GROUND?

As for Mrs. McClatchy, photo, it screamed fake to me even before I read about it. What's that slit of blue sky doing in the "stem" of the cloud? Lest you have any lingering doubts, check here: http://flight93photo.blogspot.com/2006/07/val-mcclatchey-photo-more-smok...

Ok. Let's define what we are talking about in the conetxt of a debate with Carl Olsen.

What is your theory of what "really happened at 9/11?". What evidence do you have to support it? What arguments lead you to your conclusions?

Show a picture of a smoke column. Express your opinion on how the smoke column should look. Note the discripancy between your opinion and the photo, put this forward as an argument in favour of your suspicion that the photo is faked.

Show three photographs of smoke columns, they don't match. Therefore the photo on the left is likely faked.

By the same token I can "prove" that the photo in the middle is likely faked. By the same token, give me any set of smoke columns and I can "prove" that any one of these photos is likely faked.

And you, being a serious 9/11 researcher, priding yourself in being set aside from the fringe believers that are called "nuts" by some, present that as arguments in favour of the position that the photo is faked.

I'm inclined to think that your opinion on the photo is likely wrong.

Carl, I would appreciate it if you could answer the following questions.

1) How do you define primary evidence?

2) How would you prove any of the following claims? And how would you disprove them?

a) All ravens are black.

b) There is no such thing as the Loch-Ness monster.

c) Some birds are purple.

3) An aircraft that crashed some time ago. The aircraft's debris was spread over over an 100 square mile aera. The tail was found 7 miles away from the cockpit. The main part of the fuselage was found roughly 4 miles away from any of these. I show you a piece of debris of the aircraft. The debris is a part of the floor of the passanger cabin. The piece just came back from the lab. I show you the lab report. Traces of RDX high explosives have been found in the carpet of the piece. What can we say about the fate of the aircraft? Please discuss.

Show a picture of a smoke column. Express your opinion on how the smoke column should look. Note the discripancy between your opinion and the photo, put this forward as an argument in favour of your suspicion that the photo is faked.

Show three photographs of smoke columns, they don't match. Therefore the photo on the left is likely faked.

By the same token I can "prove" that the photo in the middle is likely faked. By the same token, give me any set of smoke columns and I can "prove" that any one of these photos is likely faked.

And you, being a serious 9/11 researcher, priding yourself in being set aside from the fringe believers that are called "nuts" by some, present that as arguments in favour of the position that the photo is faked.

I'm inclined to think that your opinion on the photo is likely wrong.

Carl, I would appreciate it if you could answer the following questions.

1) How do you define primary evidence?

2) How would you prove any of the following claims? And how would you disprove them?

a) All ravens are black.

b) There is no such thing as the Loch-Ness monster.

c) Some birds are purple.

3) An aircraft that crashed some time ago. The aircraft's debris was spread over over an 100 square mile aera. The tail was found 7 miles away from the cockpit. The main part of the fuselage was found roughly 4 miles away from any of these. I show you a piece of debris of the aircraft. The debris is a part of the floor of the passanger cabin. The piece just came back from the lab. I show you the lab report. Traces of RDX high explosives have been found in the carpet of the piece. What can we say about the fate of the aircraft? Please discuss.

"hahaha to think people actually believe that terrorists from Saudi Arabia did all that is preposterous."

On what grounds exactly? And to believe the US government did it, the FBI, NIST, FEMA, hundreds of academics, hundreds of eye witnesses, hundreds of people destroying evidence, planting bombs, planting aircraft debris and what have you, being "in it" is not, surely.

"if any can get any evidence that they did let me know."

Here you go.

Khalid Sheikh Mohamed's involvement: http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2007/images/03/14/transcript_ISN10024.pdf

The Kandahar video tape having Bin Laden speaking of the attacks and its preparations.

But I'm sure this evidence is already explained away. Because it is inconsistent with the Truth for which not one shred of evidence exists. And judging from your wording such evidence does not need to be provided as the Truth is obvious from the baloney, innuendo and conjecture.. oops.. clues.

Those that "believe" "the official story" are stupids, unable to think. Because the theory that George Bush did it is somehow magically self-evident, self-proving. So it suffices to explain away "the official story", explain away primary evidence to prove that George W. Bush did it.

Try thinking you say. You couldn't if your brain was pumped by a 10 megaton nuclear device.

On 9/11 OBL was not in a cave. He was at his compound in Afganistan.

There is little doubt the Bush used the events of 9/11 as a pretext to wage war on Iraq. There's also no doubt that the stated reason for going to war against Iraq proved to be non-existant. There also is reasonable grounds to believe a PR campaign was issued to sell the war on Iraq to the American public. In what way, however, does this constitute proof that the Bush administration orchestrated the events of 9/11? It doesn't. It's conjecture. Speculation.

What I fail to understand is why you as serious researchers don't even attempt to find supportive evidence for your claims. Rather, you prefer to scavenge for "anomalies" and explain away primary evidence that does contradict your position. Rather, you leave "how on earth is this-or-that possible?"'s for what they are and construe them to be supportive evidence for your position. I find it odd that a serious researcher devoted to finding out what "really happened at 9/11" does not even attempt to get into a matter to find out how this-or-that actually was possible.

I find this particular odd in light of the fact that such an effort would, given the number of devotees available and their dedication, given the vastness of the 9/11 operation and the subsequent cover up, would be a significant but far from insurmountable task.

The 9/11 operation was a significant operation that is likely to have required a considerable amount of preparations and planning over a considerable length of time involving of a significant amount of people. Also the execution involved a significant amount of people doing a significant amount of work. The latter also applies to the subsequent cover up. All this activities will have left traces and given the volume of the activities, a significant amount of these traces should be recoverable.

- You claim that the WTC towers collapsed because of controlled demolition by high explosives. Because the huge amount of energy required to pulverize the concrete and expand the debris plume just wasn't present in the towers, as you claim, significant amounts of HE's would be used. HE's that have detonated leave residues. Find these residues. Get at the materials, have them analyzed by a chemical lab and report on your findings. Given that tens, if not hundreds, if not thousands of tonnes of concrete where blown as dust over Manhattan you might be even be able to find some of it in Manhattan today, for instance in cracks in walls, in corners of windows and the such like. Get it, have it analyzed and report your findings.

- Planting this huge amount of high explosives in the towers and finally pulling the trigger would require a significant amount of activity.
o Such activities, bringing the explosives in, bringing cabling in, drilling holes etc. might have been witnessed by people present in the towers prior to 9/11. Find these people and interview them.
o Find the people that planted the high explosives. Cross examine them. Confront them with hard evidence. Follow up on inconsistencies in their stories. Report on your findings.
o Find the people that pulled the trigger. Cross examine them. Confront them with hard evidence. Follow up on inconsistencies in their stories. Report on your findings.

- The planning of the attack on the Pentagon, if not the planning of the entire operation, is would likely have to be taken place in its staff section. That after all, is the your stated reason that the plane crashed in the other wing. Indeed, the planners wouldn't contemplate to have themselves killed. The wing where the planning was done is undamaged by the attack. Evidence might still be found there.
o Trace the people that worked there at the time. Cross examine them. Confront them with hard evidence. Follow up on inconsistencies in their stories.
o The planning will have left a paper trail. Notes, memos, hard disk files, etc. Use the Freedom Of Information Act to get hold of these materials. Make these documents public.
o Some people in the planning team may suffer from remorse and be willing to talk to you. Find these people, interview them, they may even be willing to hand over incriminating documents. Make these documents public.

- George W. Bush and his inner circle will know about details of the operation. Use the Freedom Of Information Act to get holds of tapes, documents, memos etc.

- The NORAD officers and pilots would have to have been briefed to turn a blind eye that day, or being given diverting missions that day etc.
o Find these people and interview them on what happened that day. Report on your findings.
o Some NORAD officers might have feelings of dissatisfaction or grief of not being allowed to intervene that day. Find these people and interview them. They may be willing them hand over incriminating documents. Report on your findings.

- The cover up will also have required a lot of activities. Fake evidence planted, fake photographs and possibly video's being made, photographs and possibly video's being doctored. Fake eyewitnesses being briefed or bribed. The same goes for the press.
o The planning will have left a paper trail. Notes, memos, hard disk files, etc. Use the Freedom Of Information Act to get hold of these materials.
o Find the people that planned all this. Cross examine them. Confront them with hard evidence. Follow up on inconsistencies in their stories. Report on your findings.
o Find the people that executed all this. Cross examine them. Confront them with hard evidence. Follow up on inconsistencies in their stories. Report on your findings.
o Some of the above people may suffer from remorse and be willing to talk to you. Find these people, interview them, they may even be willing to hand over incriminating documents.

That would constitute proof.

Photoshopped

Peter, I used to work as the quality control supervisor in a photo lab. Hence, I developed a keen eye for photographic detail. Mrs. McClatchy's photo appears Photoshopped to me. When I first looked at it, I thought the smoke column showed signs of having been inserted. I still see it. I may be wrong. My point is that when I read the link I provided, my suspicions that something was amiss were all but confirmed. I take strong issue with Killtown on many, perhaps most of the "points" mentioned. However, there is one in particular that I find very convincing. It's the satellite photo found here:
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/7508/1605/1600/shanks-plume-1000ft.gif

I confirmed this on Google Earth, just to make sure. The overlaid diagram is accurate. The point the photo was taken (where the lines converge) is in accord with the barn and house shown in the McClatchy picture. The crash site shown is indeed the crash site, i.e. the site of the empty pit. Accordingly, the mushroom cloud appears to be far to big (2650 feet, not 2200 feet as claimed by Killtown) and to have drifted far too far. With the given wind speed and direction, I calculate the plume would have taken 50 seconds (not 5, as Mrs. McClatchy claimed) to have traveled this far from the crash site. Also, as Killtown notes, jet fuel does indeed burn black, not gray.

I don't claim to be a "serious 9/11 researcher". As I mentioned elsewhere, I'm just a dude with a reasonable grasp of the essentials who can't reconcile the "official" story with the known facts, but thanks for the complement.

Finally, if you can demonstrate a logical fallacy anywhere in my reasoning, by all means point it out. As it is, you seriously misrepresented my comment on Mrs. McClatchy's photo. If you have any questions pertaining to 9/11, ask away, otherwise don't waste my time with silly games.

Too bad KSM and his children were tortured. Of course, that had no effect on his testimony; he said so himself. But what about actual EVIDENCE, other than his "heartfelt" confession that he refused to make under oath? Or am I being too picky?

My understanding is that many of these undertakings are being done. That said, it's not the responsibility of critics of a theory to come up with an alternate theory. It IS however, the responsibility of supporters of a theory to answer criticisms. As Martin will no doubt tell you, that is how science works. If the supporters of a theory cannot provide cogent answers to legitimate criticisms, such as "a skyscraper with a central core of 48 massive steel pillars and damage to some upper stories would not be expected to fall unaided to the ground while simultaneously pulverising an enormous mass of concrete to fine dust, and ejecting this dust along with its exoskeleton up and out in great arcs away from the building." I am a retired power engineer (albeit not a civil engineer), so I do have some knowledge of physics and engineering principles, and the collapses just don't compute. In light of the many questions asked about these collapses and NIST's mandate, NIST should have analyzed the collapses and explained how, once the failures occured on the upper floors, the buildings rapidly fell to the ground while pulverizing and dispersing much of their mass. Martin the scientist at first INSISTED REPEATEDLY that NIST had done exactly that, then when I showed him proof that they had done no such thing, accused me in so many words of being unreasonable. You think?

Yes, the video is likely authentic. However, the AUDIO likely isn't because if it were, this would be a "smoking gun" showing Bin Laden's involvement to be more than peripheral. This would be "hard evidence" of Bin Laden's involvement, yet the FBI claims it has none. That is the evidence I presented as to why I believed the audio was faked, so your accusation that I didn't provide any is false.

You state, "In typical conspiracy theorist fashion, you don't dive into the legal process and criminal law to find out what constitute sufficient grounds for an indictment." What do you base this accusation on, Peter? You have absolutely no idea how much knowledge I have of the indictment process. Here's a relevant quote from Wikipedia: "A prosecutor must convince the grand jury, as an impartial panel of ordinary citizens that there exists reasonable suspicion, probable cause, or a prima facie case that a crime has been committed." Not exactly a high standard of evidence, is it, Peter? I have little doubt that if there were no questions regarding the authenticity of that tape, Bin Laden would have been indicted for his involvement with the planning of 9/11. In addition, George Bush "assured" us that the US government had strong evidence for his involvement INDEPENDENT of the tape. So why weren't indictment proceedings undertaken? And who's lying, Bush (yet again), or the FBI?

BTW, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed's confession was coerced with waterboarding (as admitted by the Director of the CIA) and the alleged torture of his children. Also, he refused to make it under oath. Perhaps you didn't read the transcript you linked for me to read.

Nice try to shift the subject from critical examination of the "official" 9/11 account, Peter. This ol' dog ain't bitin'.

first of all nerd im REALLY insulted by the fact that i stumbled on this website and don't go on it enough to make a username, douche. MY logic makes perfect sense because what im saying is that if the government could get away with this huge conspiracy, they would easily be able to eliminate the entire conspiracy movement by effectively "nipping it in the bud". Had there been a conspiracy of this magnitude, any doubters who made theire doubts public would be put to rest long before their message was sent out to a wide enough audience. Again, im right, you douche.

Correction: 5th. sentence should read: If the supporters of a theory cannot provide cogent answers to legitimate criticisms, such as "a skyscraper with a central core of 48 massive steel pillars and damage to some upper stories would not be expected to fall unaided to the ground while simultaneously pulverising an enormous mass of concrete to fine dust, and ejecting this dust along with its exoskeleton up and out in great arcs away from the building," then the theory fails.

It's still a horrendously long sentence, I know. I'll strive to be more concise in future.

Bizarrely you state: "a skyscraper with a central core of 48 massive steel pillars and damage to some upper stories would not be expected to fall unaided to the ground while simultaneously pulverising an enormous mass of concrete to fine dust, and ejecting this dust along with its exoskeleton up and out in great arcs away from the building,"

And yet a vast number of experts have absolutely no problem with this. This is simply your interpretation based on your inexpert knowledge of the situation.

You repeatedly make these wild, sweeping statements that "x wasn't possible" or "y wasn't possible" or "buildings don't behave in this way", and yet plenty of experts have not only testified that it *was* possible, but published peer-reviewed research (such as the Purdue simulations and derivatives of the NIST simulations) describing exactly *how* it was possible.

But you simply ignore all of this contradictory information, and choose to only believe a handful of "experts" who disagree with the accepted line.

The debris field of the crash was emphatically not 8 miles in radius. If you disagree with me, please prove it - just because a couple of pieces of fabric were found upwind, doesn't make it a debris field.

Carl Olsen, and the rest of you - how about you produce one, incontrovertible fact that disproves the accepted theory of what happened on 9/11?

Not logical fallacies. Not the use of inconclusive evidence twisted in one direction. Not outright lies. Not baseless assertions. Not irrelevent details. Not innuendo. An actualy, honest-to-God, single, indisputable fact about the events that happened on that day that proves the accepted theory to be wrong.

This is the problem I have all along. I see a lot of angry Truthers calling people stupid "sheeple" for not agreeing with them (which is an ironic use of the term, lol). I see a lot of polemic about how evil governments can be (no disagreement there). I see a lot of ranting about how buildings shouldn't behave in a certain way, which directly contradicts scientists and engineers who say it should. I see a lot of hand waving about passenger lists published on CNN, and what the FBI's most wanted list does and doesn't say about OBL. What I don't see is a single shred of actual, proper, testable evidence that proves the official line to be wrong, and what I don't see is a single shred of evidence pointing to any other specific party (and please, saying somebody gained from it happening isn't providing evidence that they did it - otherwise we may as well argue that Neo-con property developers started Katrina).

Come on.. you've had 200-odd comments to make some sort of sensible, rational point about what happened, and you've provided nothing concrete at all. I'm actually pissed off about it - the next 9/11 article I do is going to be pretty crap if you guys can't think of anything new or interesting to discuss.

Let me summarize your logic. On the one hand there is the fact that the FBI did not indict Bin Laden on the events of 9/11 on the grounds that it is insufficient hard evidence. The tape in which Bin Laden incriminates himself regarding the events of 9/11 and the Wikipedia quote on what constitutes grounds for indictment.

On the other hand there is your argument, going like the following. The Wikipedia article expresses rather easy to meet criterea for an indictment. The video meets these criteria. It is therefore hard evidence.

You now have a contradiction: the FBI says it isn't hard evidence, yet you asses it is hard evidence.

So there should be a reason for this contradiction. Rather than investigating what the cause of this contradiction is, the Wikipedia quote could be wrong or incomplete, the video might, despite your assesment, be insufficient to meet the stated criteria according to lawyers after all, the FBI might have political reasons for not indicting him, rather than investigating you resolve the contradiction by pulling a reason out of thin air, you invent a reason: the audio on the tape is doctored.

Where is the evidence that the audio on the tape was faked? You claim you already provided evidence. That's rich. You argued how good Italian dubbers are. You argued that it could have been done. That's not evidence: arguing that it COULD be doctored does not imply that it IS acutally doctored. I can argue that the Hoover Dam is made out of toilet paper, I can argue how easy that would be, not having the trouble of concrete that heats when it hardens and that sort of things, that does not imply that the thing out there in the Colorado river is actually made out of toiletpaper (*). You can provide a conclusive argument that the tape's audio is doctered for instance, by having a lip reader compare the lip's word and the audio's words and show the conversation was really about a nice family picknick in the mountains, say.

You are right on the waterboarding. That makes Khalid Sheikh Mohamed's confession less credible. There's still the documented history of the cells and the Atta check-in footage, however.

And surely, Bush did considered the tape suffcient grounds to go to war on Bin Laden, whereas the tape appears to be insufficient ground for legal indictment.

(*) I can argue that Joe Something COULD have killed his wife; he was strong enough, owned a gun, and all that. That he COULD does not imply that he actually HAS. It is a fallacious argument beacuse it can be used to "prove" asserions that are false. Joe's wife turns out to have commited suicide.

There doesn't need to be a conspiracy for these events to have taken place in the manner they did-just constructive neglect on the part of the Bush administration.The 'official' enquiry wasn't broad enough even to the uninterested eye.
Cheyney just needed to sit on his hands long enough to allow everything to run its course(and he did).
But to ignore not one coincidence of events on that dreadful day but many in your own 'government line' version is niaive in the extreme.
Yes of course there is a tinfoil hat minority that deserve to be ignored and debunked but your pics disprove precisely nothing but the tinfoil hatters assertions.
The one area you fail is in WTC7-had the rubble you show(Dust more like) 'loaded the building in such an assymetric way it's collapse would be far from the pancake neat job that occurred.

Truth #1. George W. Bush orchestrated the events of 9/11 in order to have an excuse to invade Iraq. In order to execute this plan government agents where virtually everywhere, acting maliciously and invisibly pulling strings to achieve the government goals.

Truth #2. The government is not to be trusted. It lies, cheats, manipulates and steals.

The official story, what they say that happened, government reports, news reports, official photographs etc. says the opposite of Truth #1. It is therefore totally false. It is a fabrication, expected be so from truth #2. That there appears to be nothing wrong with it at first glance is because one does not look good enough, one has to look good and be a critical thinker to uncover the truth.

Truth #1 is obvious. Not in need of proof. The big fish is the official story. The official story will have clues of what really happened and fabrication all over the place. To prove we are right we only need to find these clues.

Study elements of the official story. If a factlet from the element supports the theory, report it. If a suspicious factlet in the element report it. Ask the question whether there is something wrong in the element. If such an anomaly is found report it and ask the question what is really going on there. What bests explains the anomaly? Report this new fact, you might be on to something. The better it fits Truths #1 and #2, the greater the find.

That's why we don't see a coherent hypothesis being put forward.

That's why we see all this anomaly scavenging.

That's why we only see this incoherent lists of "wrongs."

That's why we see we only see flimsy direct evidence (them being unable to find any credible).

That's why we are pointed to these "wrongs" when we ask for evidence. They are evidence that something is very wrong. There's more! More "wrongs" there.

That's why fee see all this conjecture. Great find! You are on to something!

That's why we some of these "new facts" grow in their status as they do their research.. going from being a new find to established knowledge to Truth.

That's why we see about as many theories as there are theoreticians. That's why they feel insulted when a popular claim is debunked: red herring! Others believe that nonsense, we don't.

Their bias dictates their methodology and logic. Factlets are interpreted and factoids invented within the theoretical framework of Truths #1 and #2.
Yet, some claim to be unbiased , "bias" meaning "believing the official story.", that is.

It's tragic in a kind of way.

Look, you felt insulted because you where attacked on a position you do not hold.

Ok, I thought, noting that you not yet have either had or taken the oppurtunity to express what your position actually is, to prevent such misunderstandings in the future, I'll ask Carl to articulate what his theory is on what happened at 9/11. Since, when one is presented with a conclusion that resulted from considarable reasearch, how the researcher arived at the stated conclusion from the primary evidence is rather interesting, if not crucial, I thought, I'll ask Carl in the same go. Going from an element of your theory to your theory in its entiraty. Bait & Switch? How?

Martin and Peter - how about you produce one, incontrovertible fact that proves the accepted theory of what happened on 9/11?

Not logical fallacies. Not the use of inconclusive evidence twisted in one direction. Not outright lies. Not baseless assertions. Not irrelevant details. Not innuendo. An actually, honest-to-God, single, indisputable fact about the events that happened on that day that proves the accepted theory to be right.

See? I can play silly-bugger games, rather than answer specific criticism, too.

Truth #1 Straw man. In fact the Bush administration manipulated the American people, an overly compliant US media, and (through his lap dog Colin Powell) the United Nations into believing the lie that Saddam had "weapons of mass destruction". Rational skeptic that I am, I personally chose to believe two experts in such matters, Hans Blix and Scott Ritter, that none had been found and that it was unlikely that he had any.

In my opinion, and it's just an opinion, 9/11 was the "catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor" (for which there is excellent evidence of deliberate provocation by FDR in order to convince the American people to enter WW2) referred to longingly in the PNAC paper "Rebuilding America's Defenses". http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/pdf/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf.

In this case, I believe the intent was to build support in the western world (and the American people) for Bush's "War on Terror", not Iraq. That is also the belief of many, perhaps most 9/11 skeptics.

The deliberate Administration association with Saddam and 9/11 (shamelessly aided by Rupert Murdock's Fox News) was no more than a secondary exploitation for US domestic consumption. At any rate there can be absolutely no doubt that Bush did indeed "act maliciously" and pull "invisible strings", just as you state. In other words, what you in your naive "sheeplism" (hey, a new word!) intend to be sarcastic irony is in fact the unvarnished truth. Hell, even W.'s former press secretary admits as much.

Truth #2. The government is not to be trusted. It lies, cheats, manipulates and steals.

Absolutely! See last paragraph of Truth #1. Even Martin agrees that governments can be evil.

As your other comments are predicated on your false (or falsely ironic) take on these "truths", I don't need to address them.

Martin, all sarcasm aside, I am actually shocked that you would ask, “how about you produce one, incontrovertible fact that disproves the accepted theory of what happened on 9/11?”

What if I were to say, “how about you produce one, incontrovertible fact that proves evolution?” You couldn’t do it, could you? Because outside of mathematics, that’s not how science works. That no single, stand-alone piece of evidence absolutely seals the deal in favour of evolution doesn’t mean that evolution stands on shaky theoretical ground. In fact, no logical person with a good grasp of the facts would doubt the fundamentals (at least) of evolution. Why? Because while no single fact proves evolution, there is an enormous body of integrated facts, “evidence”, that suggests that it is true. That is what makes evolution a particularly robust theory. One can argue some details, but the fundamentals are proven “beyond a reasonable doubt” (to borrow a legal acid test term) by the sheer weight of evidence, some strong, some less so. Nevertheless, no single piece of evidence standing alone can prove evolution. Is this an oddity of evolution? Not at all. The same can the same be said for ALL scientific theories. Indeed, none are actually PROVEN in the mathematically absolute sense.

So why on Earth would you, a scientist with a blog purporting to espouse scientific methodology, demand that skeptics of the official 9/11 story produce “one incontrovertible fact that DISPROVES the accepted theory of what happened on 9/11?”

Wouldn’t the scientific way be to examine the evidence which seems to suggest that the official story isn’t true*, see what, if anything, can be convincingly “explained away”, then consider whether the remaining anomalies are significant enough to undermine the official story? Once this has been done, if the official story no longer stands up, then wouldn’t the scientific way be to try to come up with an alternate theory which best fits the facts? Because that is exactly what organizations such as Scholars for 9/11 Truth are doing. http://stj911.org/hypotheses/alternative.html. There are several other such groups, of course.

What’s going on here, Martin? Why are you holding 9/11 skeptics to a “standard” totally at odds with the scientific methodology you claim to stand for? And why are you getting so angry? Relax, my friend. Life would be boring if there were no disagreements!

*such as the claim by a significant and growing number of relevant professionals that WTC 1, 2, & 7 were brought down with explosives and NIST’s failure to explain the progressive collapse mechanisms; the uncharacteristic, utter failure of NORAD, as 9/11’s planners must have anticipated; the ability of a pilot whose instructor claimed could barely land a Cessna to become an ace when piloting a 757-200 [and whatever made 9/11’s planners believe this klutz could ever pull it off?]; the odd and successful “put” options, etc. ad nauseam.

No, you are quite correct,Martin. I should have said "8 miles in breadth." Apologies. In fact, it was about 8 miles by 3 miles,as shown on this "debunking" site: http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/flight93page2 . Even this is misleading, as I believe it tended to be concentrated primarily in 4 distinct areas, which suggests that the plane was disintegrating in the air. HOWEVER, the "plane shape" in the dirt (including even the tail) is rather powerful evidence that the plane hit the ground intact. At the time of the crash, the wind was blowing at 9 knots, though I have no information on what the windspeed may have been later. The material found 8 miles from the crash site "was all very light material, such as paper and thin nylon the wind would easily blow", so as long as we're being exact (nothing wrong with that, btw!), the material was quite a bit more than just "a couple of pieces of fabric".

So I'm prepared to concede that Flight 93 was NOT shot down. It appears that NORAD had a perfect record, after all!

"Why on Earth would you, a scientist with a blog purporting to espouse scientific methodology, demand that skeptics of the official 9/11 story produce “one incontrovertible fact that DISPROVES the accepted theory of what happened on 9/11?"

Because that is how science works. Theories are proposed, and people look for the exceptions, the problems. The theory is accepted until somebody can produce an incontrovertible piece of evidence that the theory cannot explain. Evolution could very easily be falsified with one hypothetical piece of evidence. If you can't do that, you're a pretty lousy skeptic.

Carl, your position is based on religious faith rather than evidence. It's telling that you blame the Bush administration, without having one single piece of evidence linking any member to the crime. You talk about controlled demolitions, yet you cannot explain the absence of any traces of explosives, the fact that models show the planes and fuel were more than enough to bring down the tower, the fact that noone has managed to publish any research contradicting this, and the fact that a vast number of intelligent, highly experienced experts believe this to be plausible.

You've gone on and on and on for days, but failed in this one single effort to find anything in the accepted version of events that is clearly wrong. Instead you're reduced to asserting your opinion that NORAD failed (when if you did your research you would know it took them 90 minutes to intercept a measly Cessna on the only occasion in the 1990s when a domestic intercept was conducted), claiming that the collapse is unexplained when it has been explained ad nauseum in a way that experts are happy with, and pointing to some unvetted list of family architects with roughly zero experience or access to debris, etc to prove... what, that some people disagree with the experts?

You're now reduced to dancing around playing games with burden of proof, and talking about how I should look at the evidence - I have, and there is precisely nothing that contradicts the accepted theory. You are the one making claims here, so back them up with something concrete. At the moment, every attempt at criticism you make is only reinforcing my belief that the official line is correct.

Martin, lets get one thing straight, right now. I don’t LIE. I express opinions. Feel free to disagree, but don’t accuse me of lying, okay?

Right, now that’s out of the way, let’s examine your remarks:

First. let’s look at the funding for the Purdue simulation study.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Purdue_researchers_create_911_computer_sim... says, “The site [truthorlies.org, which was down when I tried it] notes that "the National Science Foundation (NSF), the agency that funded the Purdue study, is an agency whose board was appointed by George W. Bush and confirmed by the United States Senate," and that its director, Dr. Arden L. Bement Jr. worked for employers such as General Electric Company, Battelle Northwest Laboratories, and DARPA (the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), the agency responsible for the development of new technology for use by the military.” Hmmm.

That aside, what do the simulations show? They show the crashes of the planes into the Twin Towers, and the damage sustained by these crashes. Do they show how the towers collapsed? No. Do they account for the pulverization of concrete, etc. etc.? No, no, no. Here’s the animation for the North Tower: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cddIgb1nGJ8

What’s more, much of the animation is at odds with the conclusions of NIST:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2007/06/purdue-simulation-full-of-h...

Peer reviewed it may have been, but given the conflicted funding sources, that it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny is hardly surprising.

Okay then, what about the NIST simulations? Well, NIST refers only to its “sophisticated computer simulations of the sequence of events that occurred from the moment the aircraft struck the towers until they began to collapse.”
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm

So Martin, you are mistaken in claiming the Purdue simulations and derivatives of the NIST simulations describe exactly how the explosive dynamics of the progressive collapses were possible.

On this same page, NIST tells us why it didn’t consider a “controlled demolition” hypothesis. It was because,

“Video evidence also showed unambiguously that the collapse progressed from the top to the bottom [The implication that a top-down demo CAN’T be done is false, so NIST is either extremely gullible or lying], and there was no evidence (collected by NIST, or by the New York Police Department, the Port Authority Police Department or the Fire Department of New York) of any blast or explosions in the region below the impact and fire floors as the top building sections (including and above the 98th floor in WTC 1 and the 82nd floor in WTC 2) began their downward movement upon collapse initiation.”

Oh really? Check this out, then:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wpPb3dWARk

So what does NIST have to say about these apparent squibs? “As stated in Section 6.14.4 of NIST NCSTAR 1, the falling mass of the building compressed the air ahead of it—much like the action of a piston—forcing smoke and debris out the windows as the stories below failed sequentially.” Unfortunately it fails to explain how some of the “compressed air” jets (in some cases apparently flashing flame; check for yourself) are DOZENS of stories BELOW the point of collapse. Do you suppose NIST could be mistaken? No? Not even a glimmering doubt?

All theories aside........What was CDI Controlled Demolition Inc, the US military and governments most clandestine demolition, implosion, and detonation company over the last 60 years....doing inside the WTC's 1 and 2 on Sat. Sept 8th and Sun. Sept 9th 2001?

All theories aside........What was CDI Controlled Demolition Inc, the US military and governments most clandestine demolition, implosion, and detonation company over the last 60 years....doing inside the WTC's 1 and 2 on Sat. Sept 8th and Sun. Sept 9th 2001?

First, let’s clear up a couple of factual errors. You state, “when if you did your research you would know it took them 90 minutes to intercept a measly Cessna on the only occasion in the 1990s when a domestic intercept was conducted.” As I mentioned previously under (What I Believe You’re Missing, according to an AP quote of NORAD spokesman Maj. Douglas Martin, "From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001." Link: http://www.wanttoknow.info/020812ap . Oh, and Payne Stewart’s plane was a Learjet, not a “measly Cessna.” I don’t have stats on how many of those 67 scrambles involved domestic incidents, but I’d be willing to bet it’s considerably more than one, and that’s for LESS THAN ONE year, not ten.

Science doesn’t work the way you say it does at all, at least not as a rule. When I was young, there was a fierce debate between the Steady State and Big Bang models of the universe. The Big Bang theory gradually prevailed as astrophysicists pointed to an ever-increasing number of weaknesses with the Steady State, and eventually it collapsed under the sheer weight of all these little problems. It was “pecked to death” as it were - no one single fact did it in (and indeed, a handful of astrophysicists still cling to the steady state in one form or another). Lots of scientific theories die in this fashion. A bad theory will frequently manage to inelegantly incorporate certain objections so that it still “works” (as you no doubt know, these little adjustments are called “patches”, but if the criticisms keep piling up, in time it will just collapse under its own weight, and a new theory, which may have been reviled and ridiculed by the “old guard”, nevertheless becomes the accepted norm as the old guard retires. I see 9/11 that way. There are several competing rival theories to the official 9/11 story. On the one hand, that’s healthy, but it means that there’s no one clear alternative yet. I believe that with ongoing research, some of the theories will fall by the wayside (in fact they already are), and a single, probably hybrid theory will evolve. Of course, matters could be enormously clarified if a person deeply involved in the alleged conspiracy were to blow the whistle, but I think that’s unlikely. More likely, the official story will continue to be pecked at until it collapses, at which time there will be overwhelming pressure for a proper no-holds-barred investigation (I’d resurrect old Sam Ervin to lead it if I could), and we’ll come as close to the truth as we ever will.

ANYWAY, THAT’s how science works, Martin. Scientists don’t petulantly demand, “Show me one single fact that disproves my theory,” while disregarding the 100 facts that TAKEN TOGETHER render the theory extremely unlikely. Well, maybe some do, but that’s not the way science is supposed to work.

Yes, CDI was the demo form which handled the clean-up of the "stinky" OK City bombing, wasn't it? The Alfred P. Murrah building was partially controlled demo'd too, of course, but we'd better not get Martin started on that!

If there was that interest or need from the US government to invade Iraq... why waiting two years? They had a good excuse already, they didn't need Europe (our) support and they asked for it, and finally, public opinion wouldn't have been that critique if it happened right after the attack.
Chapeau for them, and shit for conspiranoics.

But don't stop with Iraq, now help other forgotten wars like Bimania's...

Right, of those 67 scrambles, how many do you think were intercepts, and of those intercepts, how many were in U.S. airspace, and how long did they take on average?

This is exactly the kind of lazy, half-assed "research" - copying a pasting a quote from a conspiracy website without investigating it or understanding it - that gives Truthers a bad name.

Science works based on evidence - the evidence that you seem to be so incapable of providing, and this is the problem. You demand that we believe your theories of the involvement of a whole cavalry of evil plotters, and yet you're unable to provide one single documented fact that contradicts the official story.

Scientists don’t petulantly demand, “Show me one single fact that disproves my theory,” while disregarding the 100 facts that TAKEN TOGETHER render the theory extremely unlikely.

There are no 100 facts that render the theory unlikely. Again, you're trying to shift goal-posts, obfuscate the discussion, do anything but avoid mentioning what even one of these killer facts is.

Your source is?

Ok for people who still think that it was an atack from terrorists, or still doenst want to see the truth, just watch out this video (english, with spanish subtitles)...
make your own conclusions...

Could you please provide pointers to this info? I'd be interested to read more about it.

What I try to say seems to escape you. I don't argue on the events of 9/11 here. I don't argue with you here, I dont argue on the merits of whatever domain claim here. The precise formulation of Truth #1 is not that important, neither is the precise formulation of #2. In don't argue either of these Truths are false or true.

I argue at a meta level here. At the level of communities of conspiracy theorists. These communities show characteristic behaviours. Patterns can be observerd. Logical fallacies, failure to put forward supporting evidence, incoherent enumerations of anomlies, dismissve reasoning, failure to state a coherent hypothesis, divergence in the variation in claims that are considered accepted knowledge over time.

I roughly point out what the method is of conspiracy theorists, what makes their clocks tick. My post does a reasonable job in explaining the behaviours and pattern that are observed. If you feel it doesn't explain properly some of these behaviours or fails to explain an observed behaviour. Pleae point that out to me and I'll try to reformulate it.

The method I present is universal. It can be used to show any complex event to be a conspiracy. I can use it to "prove" that on 7/25/2000 the British and French governments shot Concorde down with a missile to have a valid reason to put the very expensive, never profitable but prestigious Concorde out of service without losing face.

The method can be used to show complex events to be conspiracies that are not. It is therefore fallacious.

Here's 40 facts to get you started. I already linked to this, but once again, it's at:
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20041221155307646

THE DAY ITSELF - EVIDENCE OF COMPLICITY

1) AWOL Chain of Command
a. It is well documented that the officials topping the chain of command for response to a domestic attack - George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Myers, Montague Winfield - all found reason to do something else during the actual attacks, other than assuming their duties as decision-makers.
b. Who was actually in charge? Dick Cheney, Richard Clarke, Norman Mineta and the 9/11 Commission directly conflict in their accounts of top-level response to the unfolding events, such that several (or all) of them must be lying.

2) Air Defense Failures
a. The US air defense system failed to follow standard procedures for responding to diverted passenger flights.
b. Timelines: The various responsible agencies - NORAD, FAA, Pentagon, USAF, as well as the 9/11 Commission - gave radically different explanations for the failure (in some cases upheld for years), such that several officials must have lied; but none were held accountable.
c. Was there an air defense standdown?

3) Pentagon Strike
How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation''s capital? How did Hani Hanjour, a man who failed as a Cessna pilot on his first flight in a Boeing, execute a difficult aerobatic maneuver to strike the Pentagon? Why did the attack strike the just-renovated side, which was largely empty and opposite from the high command?

4) Wargames
a. US military and other authorities planned or actually rehearsed defensive response to all elements of the 9/11 scenario during the year prior to the attack - including multiple hijackings, suicide crashbombings, and a strike on the Pentagon.
b. The multiple military wargames planned long in advance and held on the morning of September 11th included scenarios of a domestic air crisis, a plane crashing into a government building, and a large-scale emergency in New York. If this was only an incredible series of coincidences, why did the official investigations avoid the issue? There is evidence that the wargames created confusion as to whether the unfolding events were "real world or exercise." Did wargames serve as the cover for air defense sabotage, and/or the execution of an "inside job"?

5) Flight 93
Did the Shanksville crash occur at 10:06 (according to a seismic report) or 10:03 (according to the 9/11 Commission)? Does the Commission wish to hide what happened in the last three minutes of the flight, and if so, why? Was Flight 93 shot down, as indicated by the scattering of debris over a trail of several miles?

THE DAY - POSSIBLE SMOKING GUNS

6) Did cell phones work at 30,000 feet in 2001? How many hijackings were attempted? How many flights were diverted?

7) Demolition Hypothesis
What caused the collapse of a third skyscraper, WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane? Were the Twin Towers and WTC 7 brought down by explosives? (See "The Case for Demolitions," the websites wtc7.net and 911research.wtc7.net, and the influential article by physicist Steven Jones. See also items no. 16 and 24, below.)

FOREKNOWLEDGE & THE ALLEGED HIJACKERS

8) What did officials know? How did they know it?
a. Multiple allied foreign agencies informed the US government of a coming attack in detail, including the manner and likely targets of the attack, the name of the operation (the "Big Wedding"), and the names of certain men later identified as being among the perpetrators.
b. Various individuals came into possession of specific advance knowledge, and some of them tried to warn the US prior to September 11th.
c. Certain prominent persons received warnings not to fly on the week or on the day of September 11th.

9) Able Danger, Plus - Surveillance of Alleged Hijackers
a. The men identified as the 9/11 ringleaders were under surveillance for years beforehand, on the suspicion they were terrorists, by a variety of US and allied authorities - including the CIA, the US military''s "Able Danger" program, the German authorities, Israeli intelligence and others.
b. Two of the alleged ringleaders who were known to be under surveillance by the CIA also lived with an FBI asset in San Diego, but this is supposed to be yet another coincidence.

10) Obstruction of FBI Investigations prior to 9/11
A group of FBI officials in New York systematically suppressed field investigations of potential terrorists that might have uncovered the alleged hijackers - as the Moussaoui case once again showed. The stories of Sibel Edmonds, Robert Wright, Coleen Rowley and Harry Samit, the "Phoenix Memo," David Schippers, the 199i orders restricting investigations, the Bush administration''s order to back off the Bin Ladin family, the reaction to the "Bojinka" plot, and John O''Neil do not, when considered in sum, indicate mere incompetence, but high-level corruption and protection of criminal networks, including the network of the alleged 9/11 conspirators. (Nearly all of these examples were omitted from or relegated to fleeting footnotes in The 9/11 Commission Report.)

11) Insider Trading
a. Unknown speculators allegedly used foreknowledge of the Sept. 11th events to profiteer on many markets internationally - including but not limited to "put options" placed to short-sell the two airlines, WTC tenants, and WTC re-insurance companies in Chicago and London.
b. In addition, suspicious monetary transactions worth hundreds of millions were conducted through offices at the Twin Towers during the actual attacks.
c. Initial reports on these trades were suppressed and forgotten, and only years later did the 9/11 Commission and SEC provide a partial, but untenable explanation for only a small number of transactions (covering only the airline put options through the Chicago Board of Exchange).

12) Who were the perpetrators?
a. Much of the evidence establishing who did the crime is dubious and miraculous: bags full of incriminating material that happened to miss the flight or were left in a van; the "magic passport" of an alleged hijacker, found at Ground Zero; documents found at motels where the alleged perpetrators had stayed days and weeks before 9/11.
b. The identities of the alleged hijackers remain unresolved, there are contradictions in official accounts of their actions and travels, and there is evidence several of them had "doubles," all of which is omitted from official investigations.
c. What happened to initial claims by the government that 50 people involved in the attacks had been identified, including the 19 alleged hijackers, with 10 still at large (suggesting that 20 had been apprehended)? http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/sns-worldtrade-50suspects...

THE 9/11 COVER-UP, 2001-2006

13) Who Is Osama Bin Ladin?
a. Who judges which of the many conflicting and dubious statements and videos attributed to Osama Bin Ladin are genuine, and which are fake? The most important Osama Bin Ladin video (Nov. 2001), in which he supposedly confesses to masterminding 9/11, appears to be a fake. In any event, the State Department''s translation of it is fraudulent.
b. Did Osama Bin Ladin visit Dubai and meet a CIA agent in July 2001 (Le Figaro)? Was he receiving dialysis in a Pakistani military hospital on the night of September 10, 2001 (CBS)?
c. Whether by Bush or Clinton: Why is Osama always allowed to escape?
d. The terror network associated with Osama, known as the "data base" (al-Qaeda), originated in the CIA-sponsored 1980s anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan. When did this network stop serving as an asset to covert operations by US intelligence and allied agencies? What were its operatives doing in Kosovo, Bosnia and Chechnya in the years prior to 9/11?

14) All the Signs of a Systematic 9/11 Cover-up
a. Airplane black boxes were found at Ground Zero, according to two first responders and an unnamed NTSB official, but they were "disappeared" and their existence is denied in The 9/11 Commission Report.
b. US officials consistently suppressed and destroyed evidence (like the tapes recorded by air traffic controllers who handled the New York flights).
c. Whistleblowers (like Sibel Edmonds and Anthony Shaffer) were intimidated, gagged and sanctioned, sending a clear signal to others who might be thinking about speaking out.
d. Officials who "failed" (like Myers and Eberhard, as well as Frasca, Maltbie and Bowman of the FBI) were given promotions.

15) Poisoning New York
The White House deliberately pressured the EPA into giving false public assurances that the toxic air at Ground Zero was safe to breathe. This knowingly contributed to an as-yet unknown number of health cases and fatalities, and demonstrates that the administration does consider the lives of American citizens to be expendable on behalf of certain interests.

16) Disposing of the Crime Scene
The rapid and illegal scrapping of the WTC ruins at Ground Zero disposed of almost all of the structural steel indispensable to any investigation of the collapse mechanics. (See also item no. 23, below.)

17) Anthrax
Mailings of weapons-grade anthrax - which caused a practical suspension of the 9/11 investigations - were traced back to US military stock. Soon after the attacks began in October 2001, the FBI approved the destruction of the original samples of the Ames strain, disposing of perhaps the most important evidence in identifying the source of the pathogens used in the mailings. Were the anthrax attacks timed to coincide with the Afghanistan invasion? Why were the letters sent only to media figures and to the leaders of the opposition in the Senate (who had just raised objections to the USA PATRIOT Act)?

18) The Stonewall
a. Colin Powell promised a "white paper" from the State Department to establish the authorship of the attacks by al-Qaeda. This was never forthcoming, and was instead replaced by a paper from Tony Blair, which presented only circumstantial evidence, with very few points actually relating to September 11th.
b. Bush and Cheney pressured the (freshly-anthraxed) leadership of the Congressional opposition into delaying the 9/11 investigation for months. The administration fought against the creation of an independent investigation for more than a year.
c. The White House thereupon attempted to appoint Henry Kissinger as the chief investigator, and acted to underfund and obstruct the 9/11 Commission.

19) A Record of Official Lies
a. "No one could have imagined planes into buildings" - a transparent falsehood upheld repeatedly by Rice, Rumsfeld and Bush.
b. "Iraq was connected to 9/11" - The most "outrageous conspiracy theory" of all, with the most disastrous impact.

20) Pakistani Connection - Congressional Connection
a. The Pakistani intelligence agency ISI, creator of the Taliban and close ally to both the CIA and "al-Qaeda," allegedly wired $100,000 to Mohamed Atta just prior to September 11th, reportedly through the ISI asset Omar Saeed Sheikh (later arrested for the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, who was investigating ISI connections to "al-Qaeda.")
b. This was ignored by the congressional 9/11 investigation, although the senator and congressman who ran the probe (Bob Graham and Porter Goss) were meeting with the ISI chief, Mahmud Ahmed, on Capitol Hill on the morning of September 11th.
c. About 25 percent of the report of the Congressional Joint Inquiry was redacted, including long passages regarding how the attack (or the network allegedly behind it) was financed. Graham later said foreign allies were involved in financing the alleged terror network, but that this would only come out in 30 years.

21) Unanswered Questions and the "Final Fraud" of the 9/11 Commission:
a. The September 11th families who fought for and gained an independent investigation (the 9/11 Commission) posed 400-plus questions, which the 9/11 Commission adopted as its roadmap. The vast majority of these questions were completely ignored in the Commission hearings and the final report.
b. The membership and staff of the 9/11 Commission displayed awesome conflicts of interest. The families called for the resignation of Executive Director Philip Zelikow, a Bush administration member and close associate of "star witness" Condoleezza Rice, and were snubbed. Commission member Max Cleland resigned, condemning the entire exercise as a "scam" and "whitewash."
c.The 9/11 Commission Report is notable mainly for its obvious omissions, distortions and outright falsehoods - ignoring anything incompatible with the official story, banishing the issues to footnotes, and even dismissing the still-unresolved question of who financed 9/11 as being "of little practical significance."

22) Crown Witnesses Held at Undisclosed Locations
The alleged masterminds of 9/11, Khalid Sheikh Mohamed (KSM) and Ramzi Binalshibh, are reported to have been captured in 2002 and 2003, although one Pakistani newspaper said KSM was killed in an attempted capture. They have been held at undisclosed locations and their supposed testimonies, as provided in transcript form by the government, form much of the basis for The 9/11 Commission Report (although the Commission''s request to see them in person was denied). After holding them for years, why doesn''t the government produce these men and put them to trial?

23) Spitzer Redux
a. Eliot Spitzer, attorney general of New York State, snubbed pleas by New York citizens to open 9/11 as a criminal case (Justicefor911.org).
b. Spitzer also refused to allow his employee, former 9/11 Commission staff member Dietrich Snell, to testify to the Congress about his (Snell''s) role in keeping "Able Danger" entirely out of The 9/11 Commission Report.

24) NIST Omissions
After the destruction of the WTC structural steel, the official Twin Towers collapse investigation was left with almost no forensic evidence, and thus could only provide dubious computer models of ultimately unprovable hypotheses. It failed to even test for the possibility of explosives. (Why not clear this up?)

25) Radio Silence
The 9/11 Commission and NIST both allowed the continuing cover-up of how Motorola''s faulty radios, purchased by the Giuliani administration, caused firefighter deaths at the WTC - once again showing the expendability, even of the first responders.

26) The Legal Catch-22
a. Hush Money - Accepting victims'' compensation barred September 11th families from pursuing discovery through litigation.
b. Judge Hallerstein - Those who refused compensation to pursue litigation and discovery had their cases consolidated under the same judge (and as a rule dismissed).

27) Saudi Connections
a. The 9/11 investigations made light of the "Bin Ladin Airlift" during the no-fly period, and ignored the long-standing Bush family business ties to the Bin Ladin family fortune. (A company in which both families held interests, the Carlyle Group, was holding its annual meeting on September 11th, with George Bush Sr., James Baker, and two brothers of Osama Bin Ladin in attendance.)
b. The issue of Ptech.

28) Media Blackout of Prominent Doubters
The official story has been questioned and many of the above points were raised by members of the US Congress, retired high-ranking officers of the US military, the three leading third-party candidates for President in the 2004 election, a member of the 9/11 Commission who resigned in protest, a former high-ranking adviser to the George W. Bush administration, former ministers to the German, British and Canadian governments, the commander-in-chief of the Russian air force, 100 luminaries who signed the "9/11 Truth Statement," and the presidents of Iran and Venezuela. Not all of these people agree fully with each other, but all would normally be considered newsworthy. Why has the corporate-owned US mass media remained silent about these statements, granting due coverage only to the comments of actor Charlie Sheen?

GEOPOLITICS, TIMING AND POSSIBLE MOTIVES

29) "The Great Game"
The Afghanistan invasion was ready for Bush''s go-ahead on September 9, 2001, with US and UK force deployments to the region already in place or underway. This followed the failure earlier that year of backdoor diplomacy with the Taliban (including payments of $125 million in US government aid to Afghanistan), in an attempt to secure a unity government for that country as a prerequisite to a Central Asian pipeline deal.

30) The Need for a "New Pearl Harbor"
Principals in US foreign policy under the current Bush administration (including Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle and others) have been instrumental in developing long-running plans for worldwide military hegemony, including an invasion of the Middle East, dating back to the Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations. They reiterated these plans in the late 1990s as members of the "Project for a New American Century," and stated a clear intent to invade Iraq for the purpose of "regime change." After 9/11, they lost no time in their attempt to tie Iraq to the attacks.

31) Perpetual "War on Terror"
9/11 is supposed to provide carte-blanche for an open-ended, global and perpetual "War on Terror," against any enemy, foreign or domestic, that the executive branch chooses to designate, and regardless of whether evidence exists to actually connect these enemies to 9/11.

32) Attacking the Constitution
a. The USA PATRIOT Act was written before 9/11, Homeland Security and the "Shadow Government" were developed long before 9/11, and plans for rounding up dissidents as a means for suppressing civil disturbance have been in the works for decades.
b. 9/11 was used as the pretext to create a new, extra-constitutional executive authority to declare anyone an "enemy combatant" (including American citizens), to detain persons indefinitely without habeas corpus, and to "render" such persons to secret prisons where torture is practiced.

33) Legal Trillions
9/11 triggers a predictable shift of public spending to war, and boosts public and private spending in the "new" New Economy of "Homeland Security," biometrics, universal surveillance, prisons, civil defense, secured enclaves, security, etc.

34) Plundered Trillions?
On September 10, 2001, Donald Rumsfeld announced a "war on waste" after an internal audit found that the Pentagon was "missing" 2.3 trillion dollars in unaccounted assets. On September 11th, this was as good as forgotten.

35) Did 9/11 prevent a stock market crash?
Did anyone benefit from the destruction of the Securities and Exchange Commission offices at WTC 7, and the resultant crippling of hundreds of fraud investigations?

36) Resource Wars
a. What was discussed in the Energy Task Force meetings under Dick Cheney in 2001? Why is the documentation of these meetings still being suppressed?
b. Is Peak Oil a motive for 9/11 as inside job?

37) The "Little Game"
Why was the WTC privatized just before its destruction?

HISTORY

38) "Al-CIA-da?"
The longstanding relationship between US intelligence networks and radical Islamists, including the network surrounding Osama Bin Ladin. (See also point 13d.)

39) Historical Precedents for "Synthetic Terror"
a. In the past many states, including the US government, have sponsored attacks on their own people, fabricated the "cause for war," created (and armed) their own enemies of convenience, and sacrificed their own citizens for "reasons of state."
b. Was 9/11 an update of the Pentagon-approved "Project Northwoods" plan for conducting self-inflicted, false-flag terror attacks in the United States, and blaming them on a foreign enemy?

40) Secret Government
a. The record of criminality and sponsorship of coups around the world by the covert networks based within the US intelligence complex.
b. Specifically also: The evidence of crime by Bush administration principals and their associates, from October Surprise to Iran-Contra and the S&L plunder to PNAC, Enron/Halliburton and beyond.

REASON NUMBER 41:
RELATED MOVEMENTS AND PARALLEL ISSUES

Ground Zero aftermath movements:
- Justice for the air-poisoning cover-up (wtceo.org)
- "Radio Silence" (radiosilencefdny.com)
- Skyscraper Safety (www.skyscrapersafety.org).

Election fraud and black box voting, 2000 to 2004. (BlackBoxVoting.org)

Lies to justify the invasion of Iraq. (afterdowningstreet.org)

Use of depleted uranium and its multi-generational consequences on human health and the environment.

Longstanding development of contingency plans for civil disturbance and military rule in the USA (See, "The War at Home")

Oklahoma City Truth movement. (Offline, but not forgotten - May 9, 2008!)

Whether you call it "Globalization" or "The New World Order" - An unsustainable system of permanent growth ultimately requires warfare, fraud, and mass manipulation.

Martin, you state, "Right, of those 67 scrambles, how many do you think were intercepts, and of those intercepts, how many were in U.S. airspace, and how long did they take on average?"

That it was considerably more than one is self-evident, as I pointed out. Feel free to diagree if you like. I doubt many readers will agree with you. As for time, again, I think it's safe to say that it's considerably less than 90 minutes, on average. That's just common sense. As for research, I'm the one whose backed up just about every assertion I've made with links. You've made several assertions for which I asked and received no evidence, like your claim that "had a missile brought it [Flight 93] down, the debris would have been scattered over about 20 miles". Where did this number come from?

YOU'RE the one who falsely asserted that Purdue simulations and derivatives from NIST simulations described exactly *how* the progressive WTC collapses could resemble explosions, when in both cases the simulations merely modelled the damage of the aircraft impacts, NOT the progressive collapses. Indeed, YOU'RE the one who insistently took me to task for not doing proper research when you repeatedly claimed that NIST had modelled the collapse. You even directed me to a link that you claimed showed this, when it did no such thing. How about acknowledging your errors, as I have done?

"explain the absence of any traces of explosives"
FOR ONE THE STEEL WAS SHIPPED OFF TO CHINA BEFOR ANY TESTING COULD BE DONE SO REASION FOR NO TRACES IS CAUSE THERE WAS NO TESTS DONE ECEPT FOR A EXPERT WHO GOT A PIECE OF STEEL FROM A MEMORIAL AND DID TESTING ON IT.

WAKE UP WATCH LOOSE CHANGE FINAL CUT.

Your are interpreting factlets with a cognitive framework in which the US government does all kind of malicious acts, its agents being everywhere pulling strings and manipulate. These malicous acts conducted by the US government include planning, preparation, execution and cover up of the 9/11 events. Also incorporated within this cognitive framwork is the lessons learned after 9/11. Within this framework, all kind of factlets become very suspicous, you find all kind of "wrongs", adding to the body of evidence you think you have in support of your hypothesis. The deeper you dig, the more you find, adding to the growing body of distrust. That's the cognitive tarpit that you are in. In this process even a factlet like that AA77 crashed later into the Pentagon than the first plane, AA11, hit the WTC is suspicous. (AA77 departed 20 minutes later from Boston Logan than AA11 did from that same airport, Washington DC is a bit farther down the road than New York City (NY City is about halfway). In this process something like an ommission, real or perceived, in an official report becomes sucpicious.

Look how many time your theory on the events of 9/11 shine through in the above assertions and questions. There is a reason you are being accused of using fallacious logic: you are. This one is called 'Begging the Question.'

There is a reason your "evidence" is dismissed: it is not evidence at all. It are suspicions that exist in your mind. Evidence is material that exists in the real world: HE residues, high velocity impact marks in metal, official documents etc, etc. Conclusions can be drawn from this evidence. Given sufficient evidence, all these conclusions can be nitted together to result in a coherent hypothesis.

You offer none of these. In the light of the fact that that would be easy to deliver for your key claim, that is pretty odd.

How much HE's would be needed for the pulverization of the tower's concrete? 100 tonnes or so? In any event, quite a lot. As I pointed out earlier, chances are you are able to find its residues in Manhatten even today. Go there and find these HE residues, and you have me convinced.

Way to utterly miss the point, Peter! You say, "In this process even a factlet like that AA77 crashed later into the Pentagon than the first plane, AA11, hit the WTC is suspicious." I assume this is your "interpretation" of "Pentagon Strike", #3 on the list. It asks, "How was it possible the Pentagon was hit 1 hour and 20 minutes after the attacks began? Why was there no response from Andrews Air Force Base, just 10 miles away and home to Air National Guard units charged with defending the skies above the nation''s capital?"

The question being asked, which is obvious to me, is how could the National Guard at Andrews Air Force Base, a mere TEN MILES from the Pentagon, allowed the Pentagon attack to occur (THE PENTAGON, for crying out loud!), when Andrews AFB should have been on high alert (ast least) after the initial attack on the WTC an hour and twenty minutes earlier? How was it that not a single Andrews AFB fighter even so much as got off the ground? If you see nothing suspicious here, in combination with all the other 39 points, then sleep on, my friend.

By the way, Peter, now I've explained it to you, do you agree with my interpretation of the point made in Question #3, or yours? Please answer. I'm honestly curious.

"You are interpreting factlets with a cognitive framework in which the US government does all kind of malicious acts, its agents being everywhere pulling strings and manipulate."

Yeah, Peter, right. They'll find those WMD's any day now!

"The deeper you dig, the more you find, adding to the growing body of distrust."

Funny how that works, isn't it? What was that again about a tar pit?

Ah, yes, Bimania. Funny how everybody just seems to forget about that, isn't it?

Yeah, I bet you would, you old devil, you! Just do some Googling if you're that interested. There's a ton of info.

Dang you Martin! You done throw me in the briar patch!

Is hard to find real evidence in these photos, you don't need to be a scientist for that.
You're only trying to manipulate public opinion.
You're just like the newspapers and news on TV in USA...

Peter, I'm really not interested in debating the purported mass psychology of conspiracy theorists in general. I speak only for Carl Olsen. Much of what some conspiracy theorists say is pure horse-shit, just as is much of what some (all-too-many imo) believers in the official story say. For all I know, your analysis may be bang-on. I'm not qualified to say. Sorry.

Martin, you state, "Right, of those 67 scrambles, how many do you think were intercepts, and of those intercepts, how many were in U.S. airspace, and how long did they take on average?"

Your smarmy comments notwithstanding, I researched this before my original post, but could find no further information, so I'll make a rather uneducated guess. Let's say that of the 67 scrambles in 9 months, a very conservative 10 resulted in intercepts. Of those intercepts, a conservative 3 were civilian flights in US air space. That would extrapolate to 4 per year. This is still an exceedingly rare event considering the number of civilian flights in the US. Extending over 10 years ("the nineties"), that would be 40. Now if you want to insist that the sole NORAD civilian intercept in US air space for an entire decade was Payne Stewart, go ahead, but I don't think that's reasonable, and I doubt many of your readers would, either. As for the average length of time of an intercept in US airspace, again, I could find no data, other than that the Payne Stewart intercept time was considerably less than the artfully worded Popular Mechanics article implied. Research it if you don't believe me. I'm fed up with providing links you obviously don't even read. At any rate, how does average time in the entire continental US relate to the lack of response from Andrews AFB, 10 miles from the Pentagon, which like the WTC complex, is in restricted air space? Your blind acceptance of the quite extraordinary Popular Mechanics claim of ONE intercept for an ENTIRE DECADE, because the article was "peer reviewed" (don't you know), rather than questioning it because of its extreme unlikelihood (i.e. thinking for yourself) is typical "sheeple" thinking.

click video
That's the video that explains the hole thing, so all of u can understand wtf did the usa governement... one word.. CONSPIRATION!! really shameless please dont be blind comme on..

the world is chock full of idiots

You're a mean hombre, Martino! I quote that pillar of the US mainstream media THE ASSOCIATED PRESS, but I took it from a "conspiracy website", and that, by implication, makes the article suspect. Well, I'm going to establish a new rule here: You're not allowed to quote from any "NON-conspiracy web-site" to make your case that there was NO conspiracy. Fair's fair. By the way, what exactly DOES make a web-site a "conspiracy website"? Any website that supports my position? Yes, that's what I thought. Well, as I say, you're a mean hombre. Logical? Not so much.

Finally somebody makes a comment Martin and I can agree on!

Yes, Zeitgeist (spirit of the times) is a powerful, thought-provoking film. Its essential messages are in basic accord with my own views, though I won't vouch for its accuracy on all points. Well worth viewing.

Here's the Remastered/Final Edition (without Spanish subtitles), which I've yet to see: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-594683847743189197&q=zeitgeist&...

Todas esas fotos y videos están más que rebatidas.
DEBUNKING THE DEBUNKERS

TODO REBATIDO AQUÍ:

----> http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=38...30727&hl=es

Pero aún hay más y mucho más nuevo:

Debate en el Parlamento Europeo el 23 de febrero de 2008 sobre los atentados del 11 S

El parlamento europeo cuestiona la versión oficial

--> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ICGh-GxHK7c...feature=related

----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXSRCDGnMEs

Y todo otra vez totalmente rebatido en:

-----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymCY3cRlR-I...feature=related

---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6jzrH1SMD4

Analista de la CIA pide la verdad sobre el 11 S

----> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hy4pJBO0f8Q...feature=related

________________________________________________

No existe ni una sola prueba que contradiga que las torres gemelas no fueron demolidas por explosivos, excepto la versión de Bush. Existen, sin embargo, miles y miles de pruebas e indicios, no rebatidos, que indican que el 11 S fue un "inside job". Por cada web que intenta defender la versión oficial, hay diez mil sitios y pruebas que la contradicen.

Sólo hace falta ver los comentarios que aparecen en las páginas que intentan defender la versión oficial.

MÁS:

Debunking the debunkers ---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PhKXTvYomwA

Y aún más claro:

Larry Silverstone, dueño del WTC desde poco antes del 11 S afirma que el WTC 7 fue demolido:

---> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WYdAJQV100

Wake up man. There is SO much EVIDENCE to dispute your "photos" that over 1000 Architects and Scientists are currently lobbying Congress for a new investigation. Do you believe EVERYTHING the government tells you or are you part of the propaganda machine?

1. You ask the original poster for a reference regarding the holes' size. Do you have a reference the holes aren't the same size?

2. Regarding the picture: how do we know this is from flight 93? All we can see is piece of what appears to be the fusselage from an airplane.

Regards

The US government OUTRIGHTLY DECEIVES it's citizens to bolster it's illegal invasion of Iraq and the mainstream media is complicit in this deception, yet they're both going to tell us the truth about everything else and we're nuts to ever question the official story? Yeah that makes complete sense.

Well, the closest I've been able to find is that on sept 22, 2001 CDI delivered a plan for the clean-up.

I've haven't been able to find any sources showing on CDI employees being present at the WTC prior to 9/11.

Since you know of their existence, where are they? Please tell.

Ok. Now you stated more clearly what you mean: you mean: how was it possible that the Pentagon was hit at all, given that it was hit a notable amount of time after the first plane hit.

Well, go into the matter, get all the information there is, put all off the evidence, all of the pieces of the puzzle into a coherent conclusion on what the reason was! Instead, you prefer to pull out of thin air a reason that is consistent with your Truth.

You have a suspicion. You may be right. You may be wrong. A suspicion is not proof, it is just that, a suspicion, an idea that exists in your head. In idea that may be true in reallity, an idea that may turn out to be not true in reallity. In the later case, you would not to ban the idea from your mind, it would have been proven itself to be a fabrication of your mind. Investigate. Find out what its flight path was. Find out if, and if so at what point in time its responder was switched of. Get hold of radar data, interview radar operators to find out if, and if so, at what point in time it became invisible to radar. Find out who had what information and who had not and why not. Find out who needed what information and had not. Find out how people acted upon receiving information. Find out who did and why. Find out why people didn't act. You have to dig up the facts and put the jig-saw pieces together. If, as you seem to believe, NORAD was somehow ordered not to take intervening action, the order will have left it trail in reallity, up until today. People will know of it. Some might even feel disgruntled for being denied the ability to defend there country, these people might be more than willing to talk. Interview these people. In report your findings. Then, you stand a chance of convincing the Martin's and Peter's of this world. The people that don't accept speculation as truth.

Yes, Peter; I and millions of others believe that the events of 9/11 need to be thoroughly examined, but such an examination is far beyond the scope of private individuals. Congress needs to appoint an unbiased panel with adequate funding and a proper investigative staff with full access to all material (included classified documents) and full subpoena powers - not glossed over by a politicized, underfunded committee with an unreasonably short deadline, like the 9/11 Committee. You are right that there is no proof, but the large number of lingering questions and justifiable suspicions clearly justify such a broad, thorough investigation.

I'm going to stop commenting on this blog for now, unless something particularly catches my eye. I think the subject's been pretty well hashed over. Anyway, it was a good discussion. Keep an open mind, my friend.

And such an investigation into the failure of NORAD to respond has already been done. But, of course the resulting report is just not credible because it is incosistent with the Truth.

As I've stated several time you could start me to get convinced the moment you come with credible, tangible evidence. 40 suspicions, real or not, and fallacious arguments doesn't cut it. However what we see you do is reject anything that is not constitent with the Truth and invent conclusions that are consistent with the Truth.

Apologies, Peter. I thought you were referring to the OK City bombing. There are indeed a large number of sites referring to the original April 19 damage being "assisted" by a partial CD.

There's a commenter on The Huffington Post, terrorfied (sic) - who regularly makes the allegation that CDI were in WTC 1 & 2 on Sept. 8 & 9/01, but provides no evidence. As you know, CDI was involved in the WTC clean-up (primary contractor, I believe), as well as The Murrah Building. In fact it CD'd the Murrah Building - what remained of it - in order to clean it up.

However, there IS an interesting allegation by a fellow who worked high in the WTC's South Tower that there was a planned power down on Sept. 8 & 9 (Sat. & Sun.) so that cabling could be upgraded (which, of course would be in the central core). He powered down the computers and restarted them that weekend, and thus had Tuesday off! While there was no power, there were no operating security cameras, etc. and many "engineers" were coming and going. Apparently he passed this information on to the 9/11 Commission, but they expressed no interest in pursuing it:
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/forbes01.htm

or

http://69.28.73.17/thornarticles/powerdown.html

I wonder if the North Tower had a similar power down?

"However what we see you do is reject anything that is not consistent with the Truth and invent conclusions that are consistent with the Truth."

Oh, Peter, how could you ever make such a vicious allegation? You jus' downright MEAN!

what motivation would the government have for blowing up WTC?

Ok. So I think it safe to say that the 'CDI was in the towers in the weekend prior to 9/11"claim is just a rumor. (Possibly the cable upgrade and CDI's post 9/11 involmenent in the cleanup mixed and blown up). Untill someone provides me credible evidence, I lay it to rest.

The referred e-mail. He says a cable upgrade was done in the weekend in tower 2. For the sake of argument, suppose he is right. People accessed the core of WTC2. For the sake of argument suppose these people planted high explosives in the core. How much of it would be needed? Let's try to make an estimate. I've seen several truthers claim that 135000 kWh would be needed assuming a 60um particle size. 135000 kWh is equal to about 115 tonnes of TNT equivalent. You would need in the order of magnitude of 100 tonnes of HE's.

This all begs several questions.

a) If these planted HE's account for the destruction of WTC 2, what does account for the destruction of WTC1?
b) How to move into the tower ~100 tonnes of HE's in a single weekend without anyone noticing?
c) The pulverization was uniform. How does one achieve this uniform pulverization with HE's charges?

Let me put it this way. If I where a researcher, regarding (b) I would interview people on what they saw that weekend, bypassers shopowners and the like, regarding (c) I would consult some experts to resolve my puzzlement. (a) just makes the proposed hypothesis shaky.

Before these questions are answered satisfactory, I think the uniform source of potential energy, assuming a 5*10^8 kg mass per tower, assuming a tower height of 415 meters, equaling 1*10^12 Joules, 240 tonnes of TNT equivalent, that was present in each, not just the one that was accessed on 9/8 and 9/9, tower offers a more satisfactory explanation for the tower's pulverization.

"So I think it safe to say that the 'CDI was in the towers in the weekend prior to 9/11"claim is just a rumor."

Indeed, Peter. But I never made the claim in the first place. It was made by Anonymous. My contribution was to state that there were allegations of skulduggery involving CDI and OK City.

Here's an excerpt from an interview of the fellow that reported the power down in WTC2:

KT: Did you think that was kind of odd that one tower (South) had a power down and the other one (North) didn't?

SF: Not really - I remember that we were notified some 3 or 4 weeks in advance by the Port Authority-NY/NJ that there would be a power outage - so we had to co-ordinate and plan efforts in the IT departments to ensure we had everything shut down in time and ready to restart. Frankly at the time I didn't think about WTC 1.
http://killtown.blogspot.com/2005/12/scott-forbes-interview.html

So you see, Peter, to assume, as you have, that there WASN'T a power down in WTC1 because you haven't heard about it, is simply illogical.

Now do you see why there needs to be a thorough, no-hold-barred investigation? At the least, it would provide answers to all the questions and lay all these questions to rest.

As for your allegations based upon explosives estimates of some "truthers", can you provide evidence that they would have the necessary expertise to make such calculations? I'm extremely surprised, given your extreme hostility to "truthers" in general, that you would consider them a reliable source in this matter. You seem to accept the word of "truthers" when it suits your purposes, but disbelieve them when it doesn't.

Oh, ant by the way, I've booked a flight from Vancouver, BC to New York, NY, to carry out the necessary investigations to definitively decide the 9/11 issue once and for all. That was a good idea. I'm surprised nobody ever thought of it before! :)

where's the photo debunking the ISI connection?

or the family members' outrage with the 9/11 commission and the government insiders that it comprised of?

oh, wait ... right ... there are none.

You are taking it as a fact that WTC1`didn't have a power down shortly before 9/11. Do you have any evidence to back that up? If not, all you can say, as I say, is "I don't know whether it had a power down or not".

One of several problems I see with your analysis is that it doesn't account for the vast amount of material spewed in all directions UP and AWAY from the towers as they collapsed. You use these figures to justify the pulverization, but remember, there has to be enough energy to keep the collapse going to the ground, taking down even the 46 massive core columns and their hundreds of cross-members. Keep in mind when you present your one-line calculation, that you're claiming to have done something even NIST couldn't manage.

I agree with you that the pulverization, like the collapse itself, was uniform. Isn't it odd then, that NIST would deem it "too chaotic" to analyze? This is what their statement suggests to me: They cannot provide a floor-by-floor analysis of a collapse to the ground which accounts for the core columns. This is the principle reason FEMA's "pancaking" hypothesis was abandoned.

You see, Peter, there's a good reason the collapses of WTC1&2 looked exactly like progressive explosions (often likened to volcanic eruptions, in fact). They WERE progressive explosions. There is simply NO WAY that the massive "overbuilt" cores of those buildings would collapse to the ground as instantly pulverized concrete, metal bars and cladding spewing up and away in greats arcs, without explosives. Martin claims that engineers have no problem with this. Obviously he hasn't done his homework. The truth is they are struggling to this day to explain it, and many INSIST that explosives had to have been used. NIST just gave up - lied in fact, by claiming that these notably orderly, progressive floor-by-floor collapses were "too chaotic" to model. The truth is that this government agency didn't dare admit what their modeling suggested. But why, if the government wasn't involved?

Firstly, from your response to the claimer its seemed you agreed with him and had the same information. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

"So you see, Peter, to assume, as you have, that there WASN'T a power down in WTC1 because you haven't heard about it, is simply illogical."

Let us see, there is some evidence to suggest there was a power outage in WTC2. And even that needs support from additional eyewitnesses and/or maintanance logs etc. There is no such evidence that there was such an outage in WTC1.

You seem to say we should assume there was also such an outage in WTC2. IOW: no evidence for event B => we should assume B.

Why is it "illogical" to not to assume an event has accured for which no evidence exists in its support? Conversely, why is it "logical" to assume that an event took place for which one does not have supporting evidence?

By this logic I can "prove", or claim its likely that little shiny, 7 footed, 5 armed, 3 headed creatures exist in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. Until the time people come out of that rainforest showing 4 megapix foto's of such creatures, I'll not assume they exist.

If you believe there was a similar outage in WTC2, it should be easy to come up with the evidence. Show it and I'll start to believe you.

Your logic goes like this. GWB brought WTC1/2/7 down by controlled demolation. A significant amount of preparations where needed to plant the charges. There was an outage in WTC1, therefore (a) the charges where planted during that outage. WTC2 also was brought down, therefore (b) a simalar outage and planting event occured in WTC2 as well.

Not one iota of evidence exist that (b) (and (a) for that matter) actually took place. The only reason why it is "logical" to assume (b) is that it fits within your beliefs. You invented this factoid to be consistent with your Truth.

You work your way from what you believe to be true, to what must have happened, rather than work your way from the primary evidence to an hypothesis on what actually happened. That's why it is logical to invent factoids for which no evidence in its support exist, they have to fit your given concusion.

Your logic is fallacious.

Arent you gullible! It is physically IMPOSSIBLE for WTC main towers to have collapsed with out the foundations being destroyed. There is not way these building would fall straight down without being imploded by explosives at the foundations. Otherwise(without destruction at the tower bases) they would have fallen sideways and destroyed even more buildings. Bombs were heard just before both buildings collapsed.

How naive you are.

See: Iraq War, Halliburton, Bush Dynasty

What part of "I don't know whether it [WTC1] had a power down or not" don't you understand, Peter? Why are you setting up straw men all the time?

As for lack of evidence for such an event, I don't know that either, though given the power down in WTC2, it seems considerably more likely than your shiny, 7 footed Amazonian creature, doesn't it? As I keep telling you, I, like millions of others, want a PROPER congressional investigation into 9/11.

you are a complete and undeniable MORON.. .youre the one who is believing propaganda.. if none of this "loose change" crap never came out you would not believe it this conspiracy.. i dont trust the govt just as much as you, maybe even more, but i think this this conspiracy is a little far fetched.. how could all those explosived it would take to put down those buildings be put into place without anyone seeing it or leaking the info?? idiots

We cannot assume there was a power down in WTC1 in the absence of evidence. ([my position].) So (within the context of the arguments premisses) we are still left with the puzlle as to what accounts for WTC1's collapse.

And you misunderstood me. You countered:

"So you see, Peter, to assume, as you have, that there WASN'T a power down in WTC1 because you haven't heard about it, is simply illogical."

I misread your counter claim as "So you see, Peter, [your position] is simply illogical."

Ok?

Look, Carl, step back from yourself a moment. Reflect on your logic an arguments. What are your assumptions? How do you go from a premisse to a conclusion?

Let's look a what you believe is one of your strongest claims: the demolition thing.

1) Fact: towers collapse.
2) Official story: towers collapse due to a particular collapse initiating event caused by structural damage and fire due to aircraft impact.
3) CO's opinion: (2) is impossible, there is no way.. 46 columns.. etc etc.
4) Now that the official story is showed to be impossible, the only