SALIENT Editor James Robinson looks behind the 9/11 ‘conspiracy’ and unsurprisingly, finds a lot of hot air.
As with any global catastrophe, as the event slides from the headlines, conspiracy theorists soon sidle in to pick the flesh of credibility from the bones of the event. Conspiracy theorists come to hilariously silly conclusions, protest by sending email forwards and hijack every 9/11 related conversation with cries of “I’m telling you, the Towers were lowered by explosives! A plane never hit the Pentagon!” Not the most respected bunch on the whole, but they could help themselves more by not making such mistakes as getting Mikey Havoc to write a column in ‘Conspiracy’ magazine.
In all but a few cases, the curdling stench of paranoia sits upon the most ludicrous of ideas. Take Princess Diana, and the notion that Prince Phillip ordered MI6 to kill her because she was an embarrassment. First of all, why was she such an embarrassment? Charles and Diana had been divorced for years. Surely the divorce thing would have lead to her being ‘whacked’ years beforehand, if a ‘divorce’ is reason enough to be killed. Maybe it was because she was going to marry a Muslim? Well, I refuse to believe that Prince Phillip would order the mother of his grandchildren to die for marrying a Muslim. Or that Prince Phillip would hold such sway with the MI6 in the first place that they would drop everything and indulge his bigoted and murderous wishes. But I digress…
The idea that the Twin Towers were demolished not by commercial airliners, but by freight planes filled with fuel and a building rigged with explosives beforehand, has equally silly motives behind it. The main thought is that it was done to advance US oil interests and war plans. Excuse me? How many maybes and chance decisions does that take into account? And look at the global oil scenario and the current worldwide popularity of US war plans to realise that, well maybe that was a lot of work for little result. And it would have been a lot of work. Tricking everyone from air traffic controllers to eyewitnesses, and convincing those that they couldn’t fool to keep their mouth shut in the face of such senseless destruction. The other motive given is that the government mysteriously wanted the buildings leveled. Who knows why? Maybe post-presidency George W. eyes up a career as a shopping mall developer?
Recently Popular Mechanics magazine did an extensive investigation to silence the 9/11 conspiracy theorists. It involved nine researchers consulting with over 70 professionals. So popular was the story, it will soon be released as an entire book. It is a comprehensive debunking of the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11. Here is a brief summary of their findings on some of the more widespread conspiracies…
Photographs and video footage of United Airlines Flight 175 hitting the South Tower of World Trade Centre show an object underneath the fuselage. Theorists believe that this pod is actually a missile, and proof that it was an inside job.
Analysis of the photo showed it to actually be the right fairing of the Boeing 767, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear, but which had been given an exaggerated look by shadows and sunlight.
Theory 2: AIR DEFENCE SQUADRONS STOOD DOWN
The lack of fighter-jets dispatched to protect Washington is seen as proof that they were told to stand down to allow the attacks. Which is crap. Initial confusion meant that some planes were reported hijacked at the same time they crashed into their targets (some even after). Some fighters were dispatched, but pre-9/11 the North American Air Defence Command didn’t monitor local flights. The coverage was like a doughnut, America in the middle, patrolling outwards, but with nothing in the middle. 4500 identical radar blips had to be searched in some of the busiest air corridors in America. Subsequently, defence jets got nowhere near the planes.
Theory 3: NON-COMMERCIAL AIRLINERS
FOX employee Marc Birnbach said in a live interview on September 11 broadcast on FOX, claiming to be an eyewitness, that the planes had no windows and did not look like commercial planes. Birnbach, a freelance FOX filmographer, spurned the theory that the buildings were hit with a fuel tanker or military cargo plane. It turns out that Birnbach was actually two miles away and never saw the planes hit, only heard. Funny what happens when you trust FOX News, eh? Analysis of debris further concluded that these were the United Airlines flights.
Theory 4: STEEL DOES NOT MELT, MAKING THE COLLAPSE OF THE TWO TOWERS IMPOSSIBLE
While steel melts at 2750 degrees Celsius, jet fuel burns between 800 and 1500 degrees Celsius. However, at 1500 degrees steel has lost over 50 percent of its strength. So it was kinda inevitable that the buildings would collapse. Loss of strength at the top forced the top floors to collapse in on the ones beneath them, starting a series of “pancaking” floors, a process that didn’t need explosives to begin. The “pancaking” process created the puffs of air and debris out the side when the buildings collapsed.
Theory 5: THE PENTAGON WAS NOT HIT BY A PLANE
Theorists point to the fact that the hole in the Pentagon was 16 feet wide and the plane 125 feet wide, but this is a little ludicrous according to scientists. One wing hit the ground before impact, the other was sheared off by the force of the initial impact. The body of the plane would have impacted in a state more akin to a liquid than a metal. The idea that the plane would leave a cartoon imprint of itself in the building is slightly funky also. Intact windows around the blast sight were blast proof windows that were holding up to massive force as planned. And contrary to “reports” plane wreckage was found at the site, with eyewitnesses talking freely to Popular Mechanics about holding pieces of the plane in their very hand.
Theory 6: FLIGHT 93 WAS SHOT DOWN
Flight 93 is the epicenter for ludicrous ideas. Many feel that it was full of the passengers who were supposed to be on the first three planes that supposedly crashed. It was apparently shot out of the sky, and eyewitnesses remember seeing a mysterious white plane on the scene soon after it crashed. This was confirmed to be a passing private airplane, asked to descend and confirm the exact location of the crash. Theorists talk of human remains being found in a small town called Indian Lake, 70 miles from the crash. This is widely denied by the inhabits of the town.
ANYWAY… what do I know? Or Popular Mechanics? Those men in white coats with their beards and cigarettes and strange shaded faces are probably capable of defying and science and tricking millions. I mean they fooled you all into thinking that a man landed on the moon right?
(FOR THE FULL STORY, GO TO WWW.POPULARMECHANICS. COM. IF YOU COME ACROSS ANY CONSPIRACY THEORISTS, HIT THEM ACROSS THE HEAD… AND RUN. CARTOONS COURTESY OF WWW.THEBESTPAGEINTHEUNIVERSE.COM . CHECK THAT OUT TOO, IT’S FUNNY.)