Your belief about September, 11th, 2001

[Northendzone]

so one day your boss comes to you and says - i have a special project for you. we need to arrange the following events to happen:
- fly two planes into the wtc
- fly another into the pentagon
- crash a fourth plane in rural america

please get a team together, whip up a mission statement and get it done.....we will meet monthly to discuss your teams progress.

to me the number of people that you would need to pull off a hoax like this would seemingly be large - and getting all of them to keep quiet about it would seem impossible.......

[Cowperson]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

Well, im pretty sure the plane was real and the passengers did board it and take off.

But, like I said above, ive yet to see an evidence that proves beyond a reasonable doubt that it hit the Pentagon.

The below reply is something I posted in another conspiracy theory thread in 2009 and, I think, a year earlier as well. It still applies:

The government would never be able to release enough to satisfy your paranoia.

Seriously.

If it's not one thing, it will be another.

You can never be satisfied which is what makes you different than the thousands, tens of thousands or even millions of others who have looked at the same thing you have and come to a different conclusion, the one you will never accept.

Those who have seen what you have seen and arrived at a different opinion are dismissed as "sheeple."

That is always the trick with arguing with a conspiracy theorist who's bitten badly . . . . . arguing validates the argument, implying there is something to argue about. There's no point to it really. It is actually more interesting to examine what compels the conspiracy theorist.

By the way, there is no such thing as "the government."

That's a catch phrase that allows the common conspiracy theorist to get around the fact that he's actually talking about dozens, hundreds or even thousands of people making decisions about keeping quiet . . . . . and the more people involved in the process, the more unlikely a secret conspiracy becomes.

There is no one more gullible and less open to differing opinions than a conspiracy theorist . . . . and that, of course, is the irony.

Cowperson

[Resolute 14]

Irrefutable proof!

[Pinner]

I find it interesting and somewhat refreshing that the public doesn't blindly trust their own government.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

The passengers very well could of been executed and the plane destroyed.

I'll bite on this just for the sake of argument:
The government is planning on flying a plane into the pentagon for some reason. So they'll do the most logical thing and have a plane (we'll call it plane A) take off, fly it to a secure facility to destroy the plane and murder everyone on board. Then send plane B, loaded it up with fake people and disguised it as plane A, and fly that one into the pentagon.

In this scenario, plane A is destroyed and everyone on board is dead. I have to ask... why?! Flying plane A into the pentagon is easier, gives you the exact same result and leaves fewer loose ends that need to be tied up to prevent your plot from being discovered.

Unless you're just trolling... in which case, well played.

[Matata]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

so one day your boss comes to you and says - i have a special project for you. we need to arrange the following events to happen:
- fly two planes into the wtc
- fly another into the pentagon
- crash a fourth plane in rural america

please get a team together, whip up a mission statement and get it done.....we will meet monthly to discuss your teams progress.

to me the number of people that you would need to pull off a hoax like this would seemingly be large - and getting all of them to keep quiet about it would seem impossible.......

South park broke it down very well. In order for this to be a conspiracy, it would have to be the greatest conspiracy in the history of mankind, especially since it's been nearly 10 years and no ones provided a scrap of irrefutable proof. People don't like the idea of being afraid of something foreign, that someone else could do that to our culture, it creates a feeling of loss of control.

Also, mechanics of materials is a very, very complicated field that requires a deep understanding of mathematics, physics, chemistry and statistics just to get your feet wet. If you don't have a PhD in the subject, then you're over you head and shouldn't be telling anyone what is or isn't possible.

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by Nuje

Yep. As mentioned, they're designed to flex vertically, which you will see if you're ever in a plane. Whereas forward/backward, they won't really flex. They'll simply break off.

The wings are able to withstand, with a big safety factor, full power approximately 225,000 lbs of force, they don't just "break off". During landing thrust reversers are employed stopping the plane from high speed, the wings don't break off either. The wings are very strong in the horizontal direction as well.

[Flabbibulin]

My favorite things about the 9/11 conspiracy movement-

1/ a large number of them actually believe that the US government planned the attack, unnoticed for several years, a hundred yards away in building 7 of the WTC, which is why it had to be destroyed- all the incriminating paperwork and hard drives with detailed info implicating Bush and Cheney might have caused a spot of bother if found.

2/ Two of the biggest voices in the 9/11 truth movement are 20-somethings Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas, neither of which have a University education. Dylan Avery took 5 years to finish high school and was rejected from film school twice

3/ the famous 9/11 truth movement film "Loose Change" has been edited enough times to scare a goat- after all, changing the video became important as each specific point in the first and second cuts were debunked by experts.

4/ 9/11 truthers believe that family members of United 93 victims were either lying about talking to their kin via cellphone on September 11th, or were completely duped by government hired actors.

5/ They always use references and quotes taken from first responders in the initial moments after the attacks occurred, when very little information was known.

6/ my favorite- As far as 9/11 truthers are concerned, everybody is in on it except them- who I might add are the most emotional bunch of people I have ever met...

[oilyfan]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

I have seen that page before. My problem with the thermite is that it wasn't addressed in the Commission Report and was ignored by NIST.....I don't believe that I implied thermite was used to make those angle cuts, but it must have been used somewhere to explain the presence of thermite.

You can't exactly get thermite at Walmart so it is quite suspicious...

There needs to be a proper investigation.

I am assuming a proper investigation is one which will support your arguments? You haven't responded to posts asking how this "conspiracy" has been kept secret, despite the thousands of people that would have been involved to make it happen.

Do you just want to believe and so discount overwhelming evidence that discredits the debunkers? And before you say, "what overwhelming evidence", there is tons of it look for it using the same fervour that you use to prove your delusions. I know this sounds harsh but I am sick of this schtick.

[speede5]

Originally Posted by Beerfest

Northwoods proves that the US governement has considered using "false flag" attacks to achieve what they want...............The passengers very well could of been executed and the plane destroyed.

Please note that in none of the Northwoods scenarios were innocent people killed.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by speede5

Please note that in none of the Northwoods scenarios were innocent people killed.

Huge point.

The other point is if you go into the U.S. archives or the Canadian archives for governmental strategic planning there are probably far crazier scenarios that have been rejected.

Northwoods was rejected out of hand.

In the day and age of the whistleblower as well if a plan as large as 9/11 were to be implemented by the U.S. government that would been the help of the army, airforce, CIA, DIA, NSA, the office of the president, the vice president all of those aides, probably civilian contractors. One . . . one person at the very least would have had severe guilt pangs over murdering 3000 people.

Combine that with the required execution of timed hijackings where you'd have to execute or kidnap countless people. You'd have to mine not one but 3 buildings for demolition using thermite (Which by the way you'd need nearly the whole worlds stockpile to set it up properly), meanwhile you'd need to design and test a missile built in the shape of a jetliner, or rig and test a jetliner for remote piloting.

Fact is that the so called Truthers have been sucked in by the Loose Change fraud, a film made by failed film makers who have put out 3 version of the films to coincide with the removal of failed theories.

Truthers have spent too many Saturdays at home watching X-Files, or 24 or any number of T.V. shows and taken randem bits of data, reshaped them and rammed them into their theories until they fit.

And to make them fit, they've created an entire piece of fiction that speaks to the lonely the disenfranchised and people with a higher opinion of their own intellect then reality dictates.

If there's any conspiracy about 9/11, its a conspiracy of a government that was lulled to sleep by their belief that their own country was safe enough that inaction was warrented.

[corporatejay]

Originally Posted by Pinner

I find it interesting and somewhat refreshing that the public doesn't blindly trust their own government.

This is another typical response by conspiracy theorists.

Where does it say that any of us "blindly trust own government". All of the research gone into confirming the events as they unfolded is an investigation, it just doesn't imply a conspiracy.

If everyone blindly followed the government no investigation would have been done. The U.S. would have said "terrorists did it" and that would have been that.

Instead, rational people used scientific methods to figure out what happened that day.

[Phaneuf3]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

Instead, rational people used scientific methods to figure out what happened that day.

Silly sheeple... blindly following the scientific method. WAKE UP!

Speaking of the scientific method, I think the most prudent course of action to test this 'controlled demolition' theory and put the issue to rest is to rebuild the towers exactly how they were and crash planes into them again. Repeat your results.

[D to the iddy]

Why is there a comma between "September" and "11th"?

(Also, put me in the camp that thinks that it was an outside job but the government knew something was going to happen and didn't try and stop it.)

[Thor]

From a purely neuroscience standpoint, conspiracy theories are perfect examples of a now more commonly understood phenomena where by people who hold a belief are given evidence against their view only become more entrenched and convinced of their original held belief.

Photon already mentioned this, for any conspiracy theorist to actually convert to the other side they themselves have to reason themselves out of it, and threads like these where they are shown facts only serves to strengthen their beliefs in the conspiracy.

There is also a host of psychological matters at work here which I won't go into, the distrust of authority and other issues but its very interesting how as we are learning more in neuroscience we can more accurately predict behavior.

[Pinner]

Originally Posted by corporatejay

If everyone blindly followed the government no investigation would have been done. The U.S. would have said "terrorists did it" and that would have been that.

Exactly my point Jay, 50 years ago that is exactly what would have happened.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Pinner

Exactly my point Jay, 50 years ago that is exactly what would have happened.

Thats right, its the Pearl Harbour syndrome. The U.S. government blamed the Japanese for the attack when we know now that it was the Damned Dirty Apes that bombed Pearl Harbour.

[troutman]

http://skepdic.com/911conspiracy.html

The obvious corollary to the belief that the Bush administration is all-powerful is that the rest of us are completely powerless. --George Monbiot

The obvious error of the 9/11 deniers is in failing to falsify the claim that 9/11 was planned and executed by 19 Islamic soldiers at war with the United States and directed by Osama bin Laden. --Bob Carroll

The belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking...and is easily refuted by noting that beliefs and theories are not built on single facts alone, but on a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry. All of the “evidence” for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. --Michael Shermer

[Flacker]

The idea that secondary explosions support some kind of controlled demo, is silly.

Both aircraft had a fuel load for a transcontinental flight. Said fuel could not have physically burned in a single instance. Jet fuels have an emulsifier to prevent vaporization and explosion in the event that it escapes that tanks.

Massive quanties of jet fuel flowing down elevator shafts may cause a little drama in the lobby of the building.


Also on the topic of molten metal on the site. Fire alone couldn't produce that, but how about the energy created from thousands of tons of concrete and steel falling out of the sky. The compression forces of those materials would be massive enough to melt steel.

[transplant99]

Originally Posted by troutman

http://skepdic.com/911conspiracy.html

The obvious corollary to the belief that the Bush administration is all-powerful is that the rest of us are completely powerless. --George Monbiot

The obvious error of the 9/11 deniers is in failing to falsify the claim that 9/11 was planned and executed by 19 Islamic soldiers at war with the United States and directed by Osama bin Laden. --Bob Carroll

The belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking...and is easily refuted by noting that beliefs and theories are not built on single facts alone, but on a convergence of evidence from multiple lines of inquiry. All of the “evidence” for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. --Michael Shermer

Hey, when you have Charlie Sheen on your side, you are gold!