Talk:9/11 conspiracy theories/Archive 11

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All caps stuff at front of article

Erm, hey. On my computer, in all 3 browsers I own, at the beginning of this article below the box of links to sections, it says this:

"THIS IS WHAT REALLY HAPPENED!!!

GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS PURPOSLY PLANNED THE ATTACKS AND BEFORE THE AIRPLANES HIT THE BUILDINGS, MISSILES WERE FIRED AT THE BUILDING BEFORE THE ACTUAL CRASH. HOW DO YOU THINK THE EXPLOSION HAPPENED?!

THIS WAS ALL BECAUSE OF THE FACT THAT U.S NEEDED OIL AND THEY WANTED TO INVAID IRAQ TO GET WHAT THEY NEEDED. THEIR EXCUSE? IRAW HAD WEAPONS OF MASS DISTRUCTION. DID THEY? NO!!!!!

SO TAKE THIS INTO CONSIDERATION!!"

I highly doubt that's supposed to be there.

But the strange thing is, that going into "Edit "This PagE", it... doesn't appear. I'm serious, in IE, Netscape, AND Firefox, the text does not appear , and as such I can't edit it out.

Could someone please do so and could someone PLEASE tel lme what might be going on? 199.126.134.144 03:58, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

When is something not a conspiracy and still not the offical US view? for example in the chapter conspiracy's in the main article(9-11 hyjacks) the whole oliver stone film is not mentioned. It's rather conspirative to call "reasonable doubt" conspiracy-thinking or -,theorising, perhaps the article should split between conspiracy's and doubts by the public, where the reinforced bunker with officals wathching doesn't even reward the term doubt, imho, btw .80.57.242.54 09:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Put options

This has been deleted:

  • The most notable reference concerns the options market, where in the days before 9/11 more than 6 times the normal volume of put options was purchased on both American and United Airlines.[1]

being http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/sept11/londontimes_insidertrading.html not a reliable source.

However this article tells about conspiracy theories so if there is in the literature a notable "conspiracy theory" that assert what is written above we should cite it in the article, shouldn't us?

So I think we could try to find a way to insert this "theory" without presenting it as a fact. Any suggestion?--Pokipsy76 14:12, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

We would need a reliable source who says this is an important part of conspiracy theories. Tom Harrison Talk 14:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
It looks like a part of the theory about foreknowledge. Do you find it disputable? What type of source do you need to accept this? What sources do you have to say that any other part of this article is an "important part of a conspiracy theory"? Show me some examples.--Pokipsy76 14:52, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
What sources do we have for the other items in the article? Too few, and those are often primary sources. All the inadequetly sourced claims should be deleted. It's better than it was, but too much of the article is our own work instead of the work of responsible academics. What type of source? A reliable source. Examples of reliable sources describing conspiracy theories include:
Tom Harrison Talk 15:28, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
What you have cited are only newspapers articles: are you suggesting that if a newspaper journalist read about some "conspiracy theoretic" material in a book, a movie or in the internet and write an article about it then we can insert this theory, if otherwise we know the theory from a book, a movie or the web then we cannot insert it unless a newspaper journalist write something about it?--Pokipsy76 15:45, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Yes. Tom Harrison Talk 16:00, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Let's make an example. Surely there have been a lot of newspaper articles about Loose Change (video) or about the book 9/11: The Big Lie that probably describe them as "conspiracy theoretic", do you think that this articles can be considered a reliable source who says that the theories described in that book or that video are conspiracy theories?--Pokipsy76 16:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I'm not sure I fully understand you. Can you give me a specific example? Tom Harrison Talk 16:21, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
Lets put it in this way: "Loose Change" and "9/11 the big lie" are enought famous to have a specific voice in wikipedia and I think we can reasonably agree that surely there are newspapers article about them. So the problem of having "reliable source who says this is an important part of conspiracy theories" doesn't exist for the part of the theories that are expressed in these media, ok?--Pokipsy76 16:34, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I agree that Meyssan's book should be mentioned in 9/11 conspiracy theories. I think the importance of Loose Change is overestimated because of its aggressive astroturf marketing. Tom Harrison Talk 16:57, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Ok, then we can add the put option stuff into the article because it is cited by both these media and therefore the problem of having "reliable source who says this is an important part of conspiracy theories" doesn't exist for it.--Pokipsy76 23:13, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

What exactly do you want to add, and what is the citation for it? Tom Harrison Talk 23:38, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
I was suggesting to try to find a way to insert the put option part that has been deleted without presenting it as a fact but as something that has been claimed by the media. If nobody has a suggestion I will try to think about it.--Pokipsy76 07:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
For put options, the issue would be whether it's just some unfocused innuendo, or if an actual conspiracy theory has been formulated that incorporates the assertion. Peter Grey 20:29, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

The information on put options should be here (that is if you believe that any of this stuff belongs in a "conspiracy page"). From CNN:

Late last week, the New York Stock Exchange reported that the parent companies of both American Airlines and United Airlines experienced sharp increases in short-selling of their stocks in the month that ended the day before the attacks. Between August 10 and September 10, the NYSE says short sales of UAL Corp. increased 40 percent, American parent AMR Corp increased 20 percent, and aircraft manufacturer Boeing Corp. increased 37 percent.

Furthermore, it is "suspicious" and there were "probes" that we don't have info on.--Slipgrid 06:45, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Main categorizations

These words in the Incompetence theory section "This line was advanced, with much defensive language, in The 9/11 Commission Report" I find POV and vague 02:32, 28 June 2006 (Ed Kollin)

"MIHOP ("Made It Happen on Purpose"): The U.S. government, elements within the U.S. government, or foreign governments, possibly assisted by private forces, planned and executed the attacks."

It's not just generic unknown "foreign governments" is it? Nobody that I've heard thinks it was the Russians. The only conspiracy theories I've heard of say it was Israel or Saudi Arabia. Tom Harrison Talk 12:51, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Pakistan and the UK are also frequently mentioned.[2] Seabhcán 14:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Also China. SkeenaR 22:06, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
It came from the New Yorker article. I think it's OK, and at least it's sourced. Better than catering to every theorist. I'm sure I could throw up "Mmx1 thinks Russians responsible for 9/11" on my blog if that would make you happy. --Mmx1 22:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
It's a pretty broad list of potential conspirators, but as long as it's sourced that's fine. At least the Estonians weren't in on it; right? Tom Harrison Talk 23:05, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Maybe thats what they want you to think! Seabhcán 13:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Good point; Some say the Teutonic Knights are part of the New World Order conspiracy. Tom Harrison Talk 15:13, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Loose Change

Does the Loose Change video have enough unique notability to exist as a seperate article as opposed to a section in this article and a redirect or disambig (loose change has another movie with the same name)? Hipocrite - «Talk» 18:01, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It would be not a good idea to bring all those informations inside this article because there are several people here that say it is too long and must be splitted (and some tried to do it).--Pokipsy76 18:10, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
I Oppose the merge. I would say Loose Change deserves its own article, since the film seems to have become a populist "gateway" into 9/11 conspiracy theories. Interestingly, a lot of conspiracy theorists have distanced themselves from the film. Likewise, I would oppose merging Super Size Me into McDonald's. -- MisterHand 18:11, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Oppose merge.; Film has garnered major media attention in broadcast, print, and internet sources.--Rosicrucian 22:44, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
Oppose the merge. Loose Change warrants an article of it's own. SkeenaR 00:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. - RoyBoy 800 01:19, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
First, the question asked was whether to split Loose Change into its own article, not a merger. Second, is this the Loose Change (video), whose article has an edit history going back to February, or something else? Peter Grey 02:18, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
No, it's a proposed merger. Hipocrite has already posted the merger template on the article you mention.--Rosicrucian 03:14, 29 June 2006 (UTC)

Misplaced references in "Controlled-demolition theory"

The sentence "Significant damage to the exterior of the building [WTC1 & 2] and/or the trusses could and did cause a total failure of the system" now begins with an attribution: "Supporters of the official theory say that significant damage. . ."

That small matter aside, the original sentence was followed by two notes irrelevant to what it asserted. The first note points to a resource concerning the structure of the First Interstate Bank, the second to a resource concerning the structure of the Windsor Tower. I have therefore moved the notes, placing them adjacent to the buildings they relate to.

I have not verified that the resources confirm what the article says about those two buildings. I have only assumed they do.

O Govinda 07:36, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Just a little deletion- In the subsection Alleged Demolition Waves: The citation of the USGS analysis of dust and girders from the WTC site previously numbered as 22 was erroneous in supporting the absence of explosive residues because a) It was not looking for explosive residues, and b) More importantly did not determine the identity of any specific compounds, measuring only elemental composition of the material. If there's a good reason it should be there, please say so.--Uncle-P 07:39, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Here you have the explanation for the rapid and secret removal of the dust? It so seems, we are not supposed to know these buildings are wired for just such cases(i wonder if it is for fear of psychology or pathology though), even the first moment i saw the thing on tv i recognised the controlled demolition's effects(so you can only go so far in cheating some people).80.57.242.54 09:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Duplicate quote from NIST

In the first paragraph under "World Trade Center towers / Controlled-demolition theory," we have a quote from the NIST, who

"found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001."

Further down, in the second paragraph under "Government inquiry," we again find the identical quote.

I suggest deleting the first instance of the quotation. The first time around, we are hearing what the conspiracy theorists say. However mad we may think them, we ought to let them tell us their theory, uninterrupted.

Further down, we are hearing scientific refutation from the government's report. This is where the quotation from the NIST is entirely in place.

So I suggest: Once is enough. Delete the first instance, keep the second, and move the reference note, which is obviously worth keeping.

Yes?

O Govinda 08:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Suspicious-looking edits

In my edit of 07:56, 30 June 2006 I've done hardly more than I say in my Edit Summary: I've deleted a subhead, added some new subheads, and shifted the location of a paragraph dealing with what Jim Hoffman says about "Pulverization." Anything else I've done, I believe, is of little consequence ("As of June 17, 2006, Dr. Jones says" became "On June 17, 2006, Dr. Jones said").

Yet when the revision is viewed next to the previous version, we see lots of red, as if I had done much more.

In such a controversial article as this one, that certainly looks suspicious!

My suspicion is that there's some elegantly simple way to make such revisions without triggering a needless "red alert." Could someone more experienced point me in the right direction?

My apologies to the other contributors to this page if I've made a needless messy puzzle.

Respectfully, O Govinda 08:44, 30 June 2006 (UTC)


This same comment applies to my edit of 07:12, 30 June 2006.
O Govinda 09:01, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't worry about it. Such is the consequence of moving paragraphs around. It appears to the software as if one paragraph has been deleted, and another put elsewhere in the article. I think it's easy to tell what you were doing here. -- MisterHand 12:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
It's also possible to view diffs with an external program, for example vimdiff. Tom Harrison Talk 13:15, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Thank you very much, MisterHand and Tom Harrison. I much appreciate your help and encouragement. -- Gratefully, O Govinda 19:40, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Article Violating NPOV

This article fails to explain some of the obvious logistical problems with 9/11 being a conspiracy and seems to favor the conspiracy perspective. Considering the fact that the vast majority of neutral studies have concluded that 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy, I think that the article should make reference to these studies. Perhaps atleast point out some of the obvious retorts to some of the most common conspiacy claims. As it stands this article would appear to be written by somebody who believes 9/11 was a conspiracy using simply an encyclopedia's voice.

It might be worthwhile to underline some of the salient gaps in the conspiracy theorists' arguments. But at the same time the article is about "9/11 conspiracy theories", which are a real phenomenon even though they're wrong, so the focus is on the theories, their content, their implications, and their impact on pop culture. Peter Grey 21:09, 30 June 2006 (UTC)
As said above an article about conspiracy theories will tend to focus on them. That being said you could find those "neutral" studies and quote them. I agree that the readers deserve a better explination as to what "official thoeries" are being contested .This article used to do a somewhat better job at it. And if you could find a source that agrees that "that the vast majority of neutral studies have concluded that 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy" or more accurately a Bin Ladin/Al Queda solo conspiracy that would be a good addition to the article. 17:17, 1 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)
I like your NPOV "even though they're wrong". :p ILovePlankton 02:24, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
What are these "the vast majority of neutral studies" that "have concluded that 9/11 wasn't a conspiracy"?--Pokipsy76 07:54, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
The summary paragraph found at the beginning of this article seems biased to those who are against the conspiracy theory persepctive (It must be a new additon nice I don't remember such a biased summary paragraph last time I check this page about 6 months ago):
"A number of amateur researchers have expressed skepticism about the official account of events surrounding September 11th and assert the existence of a cover-up in the investigation. Most of these theories exist on pure speculation, with pointless analyzation of grainy photographs and bad video stills. They have a wide following on internet chatrooms, but most actual scientists have been able to debunk them with a healthy dose of common sense and scientific fact."
I would suggest as a first step, to make remove some of suggestive words from this paragraph to better provide a more neutral statement. Just a quick edit below:
"A number of researchers have expressed skepticism about the official account of events surrounding September 11th and indicate the existence of a cover-up in the investigation. Most of these theories seem to be unsupported government investigations."
Its just when you use words like "common sense," "scientific fact," and "pointless" to support a statement they tend to present a preexisting bias.--Dietrichias 18:20, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I reverted the changes. (See bottom of this page for my comments.) It is in an important sense in the nature of a CT that it is "unsupported by government investigations".--Thomas Basboll 18:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

My understanding is that the NPOV tag was added because of the article being 'too pro conspiracy'. I have amended the intro to attempt to address that issue. Keeping NPOV tags on articles for extended periods is not a good idea so if there are continuing concerns I hope that we can work together to address them. TerriersFan 16:26, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Jones's credentials

The article said:

"Though this report said there was no such evidence [that the towers were brought down by controlled demolition], professor Steven E. Jones (See individual viewpoints below), as well as others, continue to say that it did not address any of the specific analysis arguing for the demolition hypothesis. [3] Critics question Jones' credibility on the subject by pointing out that he does not have a structural engineering background. [4]"

DrObjektiv deleted the setence about Jones's credibility on the grounds that it was an ad hominem. MisterHand reinstated it on the grounds the question of Jones's expertise is "very much on topic for the article."

I agree with MisterHand. Jones's expertise (or lack of it) surely matters. But not here. To question whether or not a report addresses a specific analysis, one doesn't need a background in engineering. One simply needs to be able to see "Did the report talk about the analysis or not?"

Whether a report has addressed an analysis well is a different matter, which might reasonably call for special qualifications. But that's not what's at issue here. What's at issue is whether the report addressed the analysis at all.

I have therefore deleted the sentence again, not because it's ad hominem but because it's non seq. That is, it's out of place.

Whoever is keen to introduce Jones's lack of a background in structural engineering should reintroduce the point somewhere in the article where expertise in physics but a lack of expertise in structural engineering would matter.

(And if you do reintroduce it, the second link needs editing; it's dead.)

O Govinda 13:55, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

media reaction section. please add

I've added a section on the reaction and coverage of the Main Stream Media to these theories. Please add material to this section.

(Hopefully this will begin to realign this 'article' into a coherent monolog, rather than the jumble of random information that it currently is. Also who keeps removing the 'long article' tag? This article is nearly 100kb. Max article length should be less than 32kb) Seabhcán 10:26, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

There's no point in having the tag if nothing is going to be done about it. Tom Harrison Talk 12:45, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
And why can't we then do something? This is childish. Seabhcán 15:15, 6 July 2006 (UTC)
We can do something, whenever there's a consensus what to do. Tom Harrison Talk 21:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Some articles need more than 32kb. I would say this is one of them. SkeenaR 19:21, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Barring a radical overhaul, I think that's the case. Tom Harrison Talk 21:13, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

This is a topic very worthy of a section. Many of the “mainstream” media citations and references are from the last year or so. If I were to point that out then would that be considered my original research? Also just listing them in this section would be useless duplication. 02:03, 7 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)

On the nights of September 10th and 11th ABC is broadcasting a miniseries based on the 9/11 commission report [5] 19:50 20 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)

Reverts must be explained

As you can read in the policy reverts must be always explained:

Because of the lack of paralanguage online, if you don't explain things clearly people will probably assume all kinds of nasty things, and that's how edit wars get started.

And this must not happen.--Pokipsy76 13:17, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia Founder launches Political Site

According to CNET News "Wikipedia founder Jimmy "Jimbo" Wales this week announced the opening of a wiki devoted to hot-button political topics such as gay marriage and environmental protection. Political junkies who can't get enough of Daily Kos or RedState (depending on party preferences) may now have a new Web 2.0 toy in the form of Campaigns Wikia".[6][7]

This topic seems a natural for that site 02:39, 7 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)

Ben Chertoff

The title clearly says Ben Chertoff: Propagandist & Illuminati Disinformation Tool. Tom Harrison Talk 14:10, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


And two inches below that:

"Original title
How The Bush Administration Uses Nepotism To Conceal Its Dark Secrets About 911
Exclusive to American Free Press"

The site "Educate-Yourself" seems to have independently renamed the author's article.

Respectfully, O Govinda 14:27, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

It looks to me like the author re-titled it. Still, as SkeenaR says, "Illuminati" doesn't occur in the body of the article. There are probably better examples of popular conspiracy theorists who think the Illuminati were in on it somehow. Tom Harrison Talk 14:49, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


Agreed. Whatever went wrong, the Illuminati, the Jews, and the Aliens must have been behind it.
Best wishes. O Govinda 15:30, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Who is being referred to

This article throws around the terms "theorists" and "researchers" with abandon. It does not make it clear who it means by each of these. At other times it refers to "conspiracy theorists" and "researchers questioning the official account of 9/11". Are the former shorthand for the latter? If so, may I suggest that on the first use we say something like "researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 (hereafter, 'researchers')" and that when we mean "conspiracy theorists" we do not shorten it to "theorists"? Or if we means something else, we say that? Right now, the scope of who supposedly advocates certain claims is very vague. - Jmabel | Talk 03:23, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 is a euphemism for conspiracy theorists. Or conspiracy theorists is a pejorative epithet for researchers questioning the official account of 9/11. Tom Harrison Talk 13:47, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

So what are Martin Sheen, a philosophy professor, an economist and a bureaucrat? Do they qualify as "theorists" or "researchers"? /snarky anonymous coward 07:30 12 September 2006 (UTC)

Suggests to whom?

From the article: "This claim suggests the building was destroyed to provide for an easy clean-up and removal of debris, often implying little study was done of the evidence." Suggests to whom? There doesn't seem to be any citation for this: it is in Wikipedia's narrative voice. And Wikipedia's narrative voice is not supposed to make POV claims like this.

I don't have this article watchlisted; I was just passing by because someone said this article has POV problems. There do seem to be several; I'd also suggest that someone working on this might look for wordings like "points out", which implicitly endorse the claim in question. - Jmabel | Talk 03:33, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


Were any of the planes reconstructed - normal for the FAA in commercial accidents. I don't remember seeing even part of a reconstruction - or a part of a plane as a matter of fact. Any analysis of the steel, etc. My understanding is that the same firm that did the clean-up in Oklahoma City also did the WTC job.

A Suggestion for how to shorten

>>You wanna shorten this 'conspiracy' page? Print the truth. The crime was commited by muslim/arabs.

Has anyone considered giving each hypothesis its own article, letting this page be a sort of "connect the dots", providing the full menu of possible conspiracy elements. I say this in part to shorten it, and in part to give each hypothesis the opportunity for a separate hearing.

--Thomas Basboll 20:01, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

I understand the talk page archives are quite long, but you might find it useful to scan through them. Tom Harrison Talk 20:35, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
That is, unless you are already somewhat familiar with the discussion. Tom Harrison Talk 20:40, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, Tom. I had actually let the length of the archive discourage me, but this idea of mine seems to have been largely covered. Still, one interesting thing about the conspiracy theories is that they do often simply establish connections between information that is already mainstream (and has or should have non-CT articles). One way to shorten and tighten this article, then, might be by confining it to a summary of established 9/11 facts that, when taken in particular groups, suggest various LIHOP or MIHOP scenarios.--Thomas Basboll 21:45, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
Actually, "connecting the dots" violates Wikipedia policy against original research. Any attempt to pull together disparate facts violates WP:NOR. Most of this article should be deleted on those grounds. See Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position[8] Morton DevonshireYo
This is a tough room. My suggestion was to characterize the conspiracy theories as different ways of connecting the dots. And to make the article a catalogue of the dots that various theorists connect differently. So, for example, some make use of the Pentagon anomalies, some do not; some are interested in controlled demolotion, some (like Ruppert) are not. That's what I meant by the "menu". I was not suggesting actually connecting those dots, just to describe the CTs in terms of the dots to be connected.--Thomas Basboll 06:50, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
Yes, a purely descriptive (rather than argumentative) article would be a breath of fresh air. Morton DevonshireYo
Certainly this article cannot be deleted on OR research grounds. These facts have been pulled together in many different overlapping ways by all kinds of print and on-line sources. The article simply reports on them.--Thomas Basboll 06:52, 25 July 2006 (UTC)
The facts themselves, if properly sourced, are not the problem. The sythesis of those facts, however, is not something permitted in Wikipedia. Morton DevonshireYo
Well, the particular facts about 9/11 that we will be interested in here are all ones that indicate (1) shortcomings of the official account and/or (2) a more or less sinister alternative account. There seems to be more agreement (or at least overlap of claims) in regard to (1) among CTers. (2) depends on how one constructs the supposed "they", of they "let it" or "made it" HOP. I've seen a great range of opinion about who did it, and the extent to which people whose names we're even familiar with were involved. Anyway, I think the article on Kennedy assassination theories sets an interesting example. We might consider spinning some elements off as independent articles as well, just like the single bullet theory.--Thomas Basboll 07:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
I think the root problem is the lack of secondary sources who have written about these conspiracy theories. We end up with original research by syntheses because that is about all you can do with primary sources. The way to shorten this article is not to spin off some of the original research to other pages, but to remove the original research. So far there has not been a consensus to do that. Tom Harrison Talk 13:27, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
Interesting idea. I wonder what would count as a secondary source. Griffin's stuff on controlled demolition can hardly be considered "primary" research (he's generally dismissed as an "expert" in regard to the collapses). In the New Pearl Harbour, and that early anthology on 9/11, he's basically just taking a sympathetic look at some OR, isn't he? The uphill battle that I see 9/11 CTs facing here is that anyone who writes undismissively about them will be considered biased in their favour. So the NPH is often (and I think mistakenly) considered an argument for 9/11 CTs when it is really just an attempt to articulate the case (as proposed by others) in a surveyable form--making it possible to assess them. Later on, he does go over to the "it had to be an inside job" position. But I think his first book on this is arguably a secondary source on the topic, and perhaps even NPOV (nobody's perfect, of course). Worth thinking about.--Thomas Basboll 13:53, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
A guideline for evaluating sources is at Wikipedia:Reliable sources. Tom Harrison Talk 14:16, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

William Rodriguez testimony

Why is there no reference to William Rodriguez or his report of the explosions near the bottom of the towers on this page? Were these reports debunked or refuted? --216.52.163.1 20:17, 19 July 2006 (UTC)Luid

The references were probably just thrown out willy nilly along with lots of other stuff, and so quickly that people weren't able to keep up with what was deleted. If the reports that he claimed this were not true, or if it was shown he was lying, those things most likely would have been added to the article, rather than removed. Feel free to add him back in, maybe with a reference if you feel like it. SkeenaR 08:29, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

I went ahead and added the section.--12.170.1.226 17:56, 25 July 2006 (UTC)Luid

I've done my best with the spelling and grammar. I see anonymous users continue to remove this section. As there has been no dicussion of this gentleman's credibility or debunking of his story, I'll chock it up to vandalism and keep an eye on it.--70.149.117.242 01:50, 4 August 2006 (UTC)LUID

Sound travels 17 times faster in steel than in air. It would be expected that at the bottom of the building you would hear two bangs from the plane hitting: first when the sound/vibration travels to you through metal, then again the same sound appearing to come from above when the sound travels through air. I'm guessing mentioning anything about this would be original research? Weregerbil 13:51, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

Of interest but not article worthy, Willian Rodriguez is in talks with Charlie Sheen and Esai Morales to make a movie about Mr. Rodriguez's actions that day in which he saved hundreds. No mention is to made about "conspiracy theories" [9] 01:39, 22 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.114.117.103 04:46, 23 August 2006 (UTC)69.114.117.103 (talk • contribs) .

Sulfur in WTC7 Steel

I was just re-reading this article. The reports of sulfur compounds reportedly found on steel beams from WTC7 made me think of something. If I'm not mistaken, the fires in this building were attributed to large quantities of diesel fuel used to power the emergency backup generators. One of the major concerns that environmentalists have long had with diesel was its sulfur content. I'm no expert on the subject, but my understanding is that the sulfur acts as a lubricant in diesel engines. Anyway, is it possible that the sulfur found in the steel is from the diesel? I can't find any sources that say any such thing, so it obviously wouldn't be worthy of inclusion in the article, but maybe it's something that would be worth researching. Joel Blanchette 19:33, 20 July 2006 (UTC)

Joel, when you find any evidence of actual diesel fuel, let us know. No one else ever has. bov 01:45, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

Are you looking for evidence that there was diesel within WTC7, or whether it caused the collapse? According to the FEMA report:
The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.
The building contained backup power generators fueled by diesel, which is hardly unusual for a large office tower. One can safely infer from this that there would be diesel fuel for the generators stored nearby.
As to whether diesel contributed to the collapse, I honestly don't know. Nor does anybody else. I have yet to come across an explanation for the collapse of WTC7 that didn't fall into the "theoretically possible, but extremely implausible" category. My intent was simply to find out if somebody who knows what they're talking about had already addressed this idea. 209.0.0.29 17:01, 8 August 2006 (UTC)


Sulfur, heck the 911 Report didn't even mention #7. It fell out of sympathy pains.

Unnecessary Criticism of Sources?

>"Steven E. Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, with no structural engineering experience, and Judy Wood, a mechanical engineer at Clemson University, whose experience is in the mechanical properties of Dentin, say that without the use of explosives, the fall of the towers violates conservation of momentum.[11] "

The qualifiers seem peevish, especially in the case of Judy Wood. I'd imagine that angular momentum is not a particularly esoteric area of study.Icewolf34 13:54, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

I think if you know people or study the subject of CD you will both find, everyone prepared for questions, and that anyone clearly regognises wtc 1, 2 and 7 as controlled demolitions. Demolitions are like music, buildings go down, tuftuftuftuftuf (wich appears like a cloud starting on top enveloping a collapse (like the twin towers)) or in a smaller structure like wtc7 they go similar and extremely swift. just like wtc 7 did (with also that spectacular rectangular development of smoke patterns) Collapses off other causes(fire, bombs, storms etc) are chaotic. They swing to sides (the damaged or most weakened sides usually), they drop in huge chunks that bouce off, on a still you would notice a buildup of areas loosing integrity further influencing the irregularity of the event. All this is 'unexplainable in the terms of conservation of momentum'. So although structures are build with these laws in mind, the study of demolition controls them to perfection. It is nonsense this area is not well known, spaceflight eg, would be utterly impossible without. The wtc was build with charges in place, and we have the visual evidence of how well they did that decades ago, it even made me wonder if they didn't want to afford the maintainance.80.57.242.54 10:11, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Your Personal POV

Most people here try very hard to write non POV material. However we are human. I have found over the years that when trying very hard to keep things unbiased two things happen. One is the obvious our bias creeps in. The other thing that happens is that we try so hard to be unbiased our writing is biased against our own POV. So in the name of getting things out in the open and my personal curiosity write a short statement about who and what happened on 9/11/01. A few lines about why you feel that way is ok. What I do not want is a long polemic. Also I do not want an argument there are forums for that type of thing. Remember we know the arguments pro and con so long explanations are not necessary to understand where your POV is coming from.

I am one of those shrinking amount of people who hold LIHOP views. The motive was not primarily oil. I believe that many of the “neo cons” actually believed we are in an existential “Clash of Civilizations”. Remember several prominent neo con figures escaped or lost family members to the Holocaust. Information about the general nature of the attack if not the details may have been procured at one of the many Bush/Bin Ladin family business meetings. I am a MIHOP skeptic because the added risk of exposure needed to carry out a controlled demolition was not needed. Living 25 miles from ground zero I can say that having the World Trade Center sit for months partially collapsed while people figure out what to do would in many ways have been more traumatic then the total collapse that did happen. In saying that however I do not believe most MIHOP people are wearing tinfoil hats and their claims should not be laughed at but througly investigated by a independent party. 12:30, 26 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)

Ed, I recommend this essay -
Picking Up Where Partridge Leaves Off: Researchers Address a 9/11 Skeptic
The essay is geared towards explanations and evidence that LIHOPers may not have known of or considered. 198.207.168.65 23:57, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for the article. Whether it was pure LIHOP or LIHOP with assist from actions taken or not taken or (which is where I lean but my original comments did not make this clear) or MIHOP is a technical point. Yes an really important technical point but still a technical point. The important point to me is that if they occurred they are all equally in my view an act of treason. Back to the sprit of the section so you believe it was MIHOP what do you think was the motivation? 03:33, 2 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)

Evacuation/Air defenses

I've heard rumors that the evacuation of the other tower after the first plane hit were cancelled, and the air defenses of the area stood down. Could somebody enter some more information about this subjects please?

After the first plane hit on the North Tower the PA system in the south tower announced that the building was secure and that people should return to their desks a request which many ignored. There was no inkling that the south tower would be hit so it was thought that it would be safer for people to stay inside rather then go outside and face falling debris from the North Tower. As far as a deliberate air defense stand down there have been rumors that this occurred but the most notable conspiracy theorists have emphasized in the last few years the many war games going on that morning as a diversion so that is reflected in the article. 03:20, 28 July 2006 (Ed Kollin)


This is stupid though probably true - NYC and all ( don't leave the building ). Do large skyscrapers only have doors on one side? I never went to the WTC but I would bet $$$ that the South Tower had doors on all four sides - hint try the one on the other side of the building.

Primary and secondary sources

Tom Harrison (above) has suggested something that might offer a way of bringing this article onto a firmer foundation: secondary sources. I'm not quite sure what he means by saying that we are condemned to synthesizing primary sources, since most of the CTs out there are themselves syntheses of something. But I wonder what would happen if we used agreement across the LIHOP/MIHOP divide to identify a set of core facts, or at least issues. If we could have a consensus about foregrounding anomalies that meet the following two criteria, we might give a better sense of what a "9/11 conspiracy theory" involves. (1) A good primary source is available to establish the fact. (2) It is invoked by at least one LIHOP and at least one MIHOP theory. (A "theory" here might be identified as book-length connecting of dots.) I'm not suggesting that these are the only facts we should list, only that the article could begin there.--Thomas Basboll 21:52, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

Main categorization section does not serve the reader well

The overall problem is that this section cites one source with a POV. And because it is in quotes we can not change it. What the section should be is a summary of what will be described in more detail later.

The problem with the “Official Story” is that it is vague. It should just say that the attacks were carried out Al Qaeda headed by Osama Bin Laden. Their Moslem Fundamentalist beliefs led them to see Western Civilization and Culture as evil. Then use the Ari Fleisher no warning quote.

As for The Incompetence Theory if you can not understand what is wrong with "This line was advanced, with much ass-covering compensation The 9/11 Commission Report.” I can not help you. Also how is the reader supposed to know what the “RenoWall” theory is? I would change “White House” to top executives of Bush administration or of the last four administrations. As far as the 9/11 commission report all that needs to be done is inform the reader that the incompetence theory was one of the central conclusions of that report.

As for MIHOP I would say something along the line of “Many variations but primarily elements within the United States or Israeli government”. The article contains paragraph after paragraph discussing conspiracy theories involving Israel so mention must be made in the summary.As far as “private forces” I am unsure about the need to mention it here. 02:28, 3 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)


"All the conspiracy theories start with a dissatisfaction with the official explanation of 9/11. But criticism of the official story does not in and of itself constitute a conspiracy theory. One non-conspiriatorial set of criticism..."

What is the source for this material? Tom Harrison Talk 12:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

Why was a referenced section replaced with someone's original research? Put a reference there or revert to one that has a source. If you can't easily find a reference, it doesn't belong in this article--Dcooper 14:09, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Reverting my edit is of course an option. I thought Ed's comments on the section as it stood were valid, and I've proposed a different way to present pretty much the same information in more neutral language. One problem with the old version was that it looked like one man's very biased opinion. The LIHOP/MIHOP distinction is pretty uncontroversial and I'd hardly call my very elementary observations original research. The general questions about origin and main types are not very difficult to document. I'd suggest finding some mainstream references that support the divisions of the original quote: there's the Vanity Fair piece, for example, and the New York Magazine piece, Le Monde Diplomatique, etc... Griffin might also make a good source. Certainly none of the stuff I've put in there is original.--Thomas Basboll 19:46, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Probably easy enough then to include the sources as you add the material. Again, we must not be the ones to assemble an original syntheses of facts, if they serve to advance a position. Tom Harrison Talk 19:57, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I agree. We should return to the properly-cited version unless the articles that those ideas are taken from are cited soon.--Dcooper 20:08, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
Done. I've cited the Washington Post and Vanity Fair. I've tempered the strength marker on the first two sentences and set them off so that there is one reference per paragraph.--Thomas Basboll 21:10, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
I think what needs citation is your description of what constitutes a 9/11 conspiracy theory. The Vanity Fair article is mostly about "Loose Change", with little about 'two main categories.' I think we should restore not the wording, but the citations to The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll, and maybe add Panoply of the Absurd from Der Spiegel, or some other general survey of the theories from a mainstream source (doesn't have to be those; no doubt there are others). I don't think what you have written is inaccurate, just that it needs to be supported.
Also, let's go slow and allow changes to settle. There are people who work on the page, but may only look in every couple of days. If we keep everyone on board as we go, maybe we can avoid someone coming in tomorrow, finding the article dramatically changed, and reverting. Tom Harrison Talk 21:30, 3 August 2006 (UTC)
OK. I'm working on something for the origins section. But I'll leave it alone for now. I haven't read the Spiegel piece, but that's a great source if it has what we need. I picked VF because it strikes me a slightly more mainstream than NYM. I could be wrong about that. That sentence about criticism of official story does not a conspiracy theory make is not really a substantial point (common sense really) but I wanted a smoother transition to the next paragraph. Other sentences might also work. I'll give it some thought.--Thomas Basboll 21:50, 3 August 2006 (UTC)

FEMA "small probability"

The article says: The FEMA report says that its proposed explanation of the collapse of WTC7 has only a small probability of being correct. Where does this come from? Is that a misreading of the report which says: Although the total diesel fuel on the premises contained massive potential energy, the best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence.? Weregerbil 13:51, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


On 12.3: Mossad connection to filming of 9/11 attacks with "puzzling behavior"

Hi. Could I just say that I'm a bit disturbed that link 124, in the 'celebrating Israelis' section, leads to an article on the website of historian David Irving([10]). I know he (officially) claims not to be a Holocaust denier anymore, but is he really an acceptable source for Wiki? Maybe someone could find a better source for the original story. I shall try to myself.--Lopakhin 09:02, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Anti-semitism is one element of some 9/11 conspiracy theories. I wouldn't want that to be exaggerated, but neither should it be minimized. Tom Harrison Talk 13:25, 4 August 2006 (UTC)

Would you please make for us the logical connection between, "dancing Israelis" observing the 9/11 in NY City as reported in main stream press (incl. Israeli press) and "anti-semitism"? There is no such a link on the face value of the facts being reported unless someone wants to spin it like this. In your line of logic is a suspect or arresting Israeli criminal of any particular crime "anti-semitic" and are Israeli detention centers of their judiciary "anti-semitic"? Please explain.

- If I may answer that, the anti-Semitism is not in that connection, but in linking to Irving's website. You may quibble with this if you like, but I feel that his career and evidence from his London libel trial demonstrates, at the very least, a racist outlook. Anyway, I believe that the link to him has been replaced with another, more mainstream, occurrence of the story. --Lopakhin 12:34, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory Article

How can this article exist in the same encyclopedia as September 11, 2001 attacks? The two articles do not line up well. This one is full of unverifiable original research, and should be eliminated. Not even conspiracy theorists can get it right. Here's a quote from one of your own:

  • "Partridge ridicules the Pentagon no-jetliner theory: Hundreds of eyewitnesses on the George Washington Parkway at morning rush-hour were either (a) victims of mass-hallucination, or (b) taken aside and threatened or bribed to testify falsely that they saw a commercial aircraft. Immediately after the impact, squads of conspirators rushed to the scene (including the inside of the burning Pentagon) to plant body parts, personal effects, and bogus aircraft parts (some, like the engines and landing gear weighing several hundred pounds). Others dumped aviation fuel, to "falsely" suggest involvement of an airplane.
  • With just a few paragraphs Partridge disposes of the case against the crash of Flight 77 at the Pentagon by exposing its essential absurdities. He does not address detailed claims of the no-Boeing theorists, which are so numerous their debunking could amount to a full-time job." See [11]

It's time we take a serious look at deleting all original research from this article, or Afd-ing it. Morton DevonshireYo

Wow, I never thought I would say this, but I agree with Morton, we need to get rid of the original research, among other things, and if we can't agree on how to do that then we need to put it up for AFD and see if other people think it should be deleted. 69.179.124.166 16:53, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
An AFD would be a complete waste of everyones time. There would never be a consensus to delete this article. Don't do it. I'm not worried about the article disappearing, I just don't think anybody will want to have to take part in that long pointless excercise. It's good that there are people working on improving it though. SkeenaR 23:32, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

There are lots of things wrong with this article. But it does not "contradict" the main 9/11 article any more than Kennedy assassination theories does. That is, it presents (more or less accurately) the existence of dissent about the events of 9/11.--Thomas Basboll 17:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Recent non-neutral changes

While I recognize that there are lots of problems with this article, there's no reason to insert things into the article to make it still less useful. Let's try to make this article present the best case (or set of cases) for a 9/11 conspiracy theory that is available in published sources. Like I say, there's lots of work to do. But this last stuff wasn't helpful. Giving up is fine. But then get off the field.--Thomas Basboll 17:56, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

I would say we want not the best case for the theory, but a neutral description of the theory, supported by reliable sources. Maybe that is just a different way to say what we both mean, or maybe not. Tom Harrison Talk 19:59, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
I think we agree on this. You're right that we shouldn't present theories as stronger than they really are. I meant we should make the best, clearest statement of the theories. It's important to keep theories in the plural. Lumping them altogether as a single conspiracy theory will make it seem excesively absurd. Most of the theories have a certain internal, narrative coherence that ought to be preserved in presenting them. It's part of describing them.--Thomas Basboll 22:43, 5 August 2006 (UTC)
Actually, on Wikipedia, we're not supposed to be "making a case" for any topic -- Wikipedia has a policy against that, it's called "Synthesis of published material serving to advance a position", and it violates WP:NOR. See [12] for a copy of the policy. We can describe the theory, but we cannot "make the case." This article goes too far, in that it tries to make the case, and is therefore original research. Morton DevonshireYo

WTC demolition is way too long

To get a sense of how long the WTC demolition section is I pasted it into a Word document. It's 15 pages long and 6,000 words. That's pretty much the size of an academic journal article. 500 words and about five links (to Jones, Griffin, King, Hoffman and Ross) would easily suffice to summarize the hypothesis and identify its main proponents. I'll be working on it over the next couple of days. Do let me know if you have any concerns about this.--Thomas Basboll 18:11, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

We still need citations for your description of what constitutes a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Your plans for the section sound good, but it might be wise to not let the writing get ahead of the citations that support it. What we had earlier, while certainly flawed, did have some citations to support it. Tom Harrison Talk 19:58, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

Contradictory Article?

I'll repeat my argument for removing the "contradictory article" tag so that we can discuss it. If September 11, 2001 attacks says, "On this day 19 hijackers executed a coordinated surprise terrorist attack on the US" and the 9/11 CT article say, "Since 9/11, alternative a number of alternative hypotheses have been proposed...etc." There is no contradiction. To say, "It is raining but I don't believe it is raining" is a contradiction; but to say "It is raining but Larry doesn't believe it is raining" is not. The relationship between these two articles is very clearly the second case, not the first. Wikipedia provides the official story as fact and the alternative story as opinion, hypotheses, and speculation. It even emphasises that the 9/11 CTs are incompatible with the official version. Again, this article can be improved in many ways, and I'm sure we can do a better job of not introducing "facts" that are incompatible with the official account and difficult to substantiate. But there is no fundamental problem with the whole article.--Thomas Basboll 09:39, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree. The key is that the alternative/non-consensus views be attributed to major proponents. If wikipedia offers both opinions as fact, then we have a contradiction. So I've removed the tag. Antonrojo 15:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Cleaned up removed the following links

I cleaned up the links, and removed the following:

Site better placed on the 9/11 wikisite

  • "Defense Department Releases Two Videos of Flight 77 Crashing Into Pentagon". Retrieved 2006-07-30.

Articles on a variety of topics, none on the front page had articles about 9/11 readily seen

Will put on the Sibel Edmonds page

Off topic

Site down:

  • "911research". 911research.wtc7.net. Retrieved 2006-07-30. Pro MIHOP rebuttle to original article

Signed: Travb (talk) 01:17, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

The site for the above is now back up. I put the rebuttle in as a seperate article right below the original. 02:35, 7 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)

Popular Mechanics debunks 9/11 conspiracy theories

FOX News has a good video clip of Bill O'Reilly interviewing the supervising author from Popular Mechanics magazine. RonCram 15:09, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Bill O'Reilly isn't really much of a reliable source; he's known to lie and decieve, and does so on a contiual basis. Is there a transcript anywhere? Titanium Dragon 09:57, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Thanks for sharing. Is the supervising author of Popular Mechanics a reliable source? Mlibby 19:31, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Yes. --Sloane 19:41, 12 September 2006 (UTC)
Please reference proof when casually insulting someone's credibility. I'm not saying he doesn't lie (I actually have no idea who Bill O'Reilly is, just that he's some news guy), but please include proof when you accuse someone of habitual lying.--TelevisedRevolution 00:04, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Stating the claims, not making the case

Like I've said above, the WTC section is way too long. But so are many of the other sections. They contain too much evidence and argument. The article has not been confined to presenting the core claims of the 9/11 CTs but to making the arguments. I think that violates POV, but I'd like to try to convince especially those editors that have that POV (i.e., those who support the CTs) that a simple, easily surveyable Wikipedia article is better than one that loses itself in controversial details. All the evidence can be found in stable online and offline source, which are easily referenced and linked to. Let this article be a starting point, not the last word on 9/11. Please make your objections heard. I'm going to start cutting stuff soon.--Thomas Basboll 19:14, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

Before making the cuts in the discussion pages take a section and show that section before your cuts then after your proposed cuts just so we can see what you intend. 00:50,11 August 2001 (Ed Kollin)
That's a good idea. SkeenaR 18:58, 11 August 2006 (UTC)
I noticed the Pentagon section had been cut so much that it only referred to the no-Boeing theorists, and not the fact that many of the key people in the movement do believe that AA77 hit the Pentagon. That's an example of the absurdities that happen when 'editors' who don't know anything about 9/11 CTs start 'cutting' for more 'space.' It's an outrage to the families and the researchers who don't want to have anything to do with the no-Boeing claims to be lumped in as though all people who question the official version think that missiles or drones hit the Pentagon. bov 02:33, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

How about as a compromise, breaking this main article up into several major sections, each could be a new artilce (e.g. government forewarnings, physical evidence, or the like) to which this artilce links. This main article could keep it high level. Just a though.--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 216.195.203.66 (talk • contribs) .

Draft of new WTC collapse section for your consideration

The collapse of the World Trade Center was a great surprise to the engineering community. "No experienced structural engineer watching the attack expected the WTC towers to collapse," wrote the author of the first attempt to explain the collapses [1], Zdenek Bazant, in a later paper co-authored with Mathieu Verdure[2]. "No skyscraper," they point out, "has before collapsed due to fire," and the task for engineers has been to explain how the local damage caused by the airplanes was able to bring on a global progressive collapse. While an explanation has now been "generally accepted by the community of specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering" (see also WTC collapse), Bazant and Zdenek also identify a dissenting view, which is held by "a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives". Indeed, the "controlled demolition hypothesis," which was explicitly rejected by the official NIST report[3], plays a central, albeit not essential[4], role in the conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11.

Many journalists{{fact}} compared the collapses to controlled demolitions already on the day of the attacks. The first to suggest it in literal terms seems to have been Van Romero, a demolitions expert in New Mexico. He said that the collapses looked "too methodical" to have been brought on by the impacts and subsequent fires and proposed explosives in the building to account for the images he saw on television. He later retracted his suggestion but did maintain that "that is what it looked like". Jeff King and Jim Hoffman were early defenders of the controlled demolition hypothesis and published their observations online[5]. David Ray Griffin included it in his comprehensive survey of anomalies in the official story [6] It received its most notable proponent to date in early 2006, when Steven E. Jones, a phycisist at Brigham Young University, argued that a "gravity driven collapse "(i.e., one without explosives) would defy the laws of physics and fail to account for the full range of available evidence, which comprises mainly photographs and video material, but also eye-witness reports and samples of the structural steel.

There is a range of opinion about the most likely sort of explosives, the way they were distributed, and how they were successfully brought into the building. Proponents of the hypothesis sometimes cite reports of unusual power outages, maintenance work and emergency drills in the weeks leading up to 9/11. Like any [controlled demolition], the role of the explosives would have been to remove the main structural supports in order to let gravity and the weight of the building do the rest. Many today follow Steven Jones in suggesting [thermite], perhaps in combination with other devices.

Proponents of the controlled demolition hypothesis argue that it better explains the data than the official account, as presented in the NIST report and Bazant and Verdure's recent paper. They normally emphasise the speed (near freefall), symmetry and completeness of the collapses; the reported sounds of explosions going off before the collapses began; the presence of demolition "squibs" in the videos of collapses; and evidence of molten metal both before the collapses began and long after they were over. They also argue that the fires were not hot enough, and did not burn long enough, to significantly weaken the steel in the buildings (as required by the official theory). Finally, they note that WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, also collapsed on that day, displaying many of these same features of controlled demolition.

The total progressive collapse of WTC 1, 2, and 7 has never been adequately modelled to either refute or prove the controlled demolition hypothesis.{{fact}} The NIST report provided a finite element analysis of the structural response of the building up to the point of where "collapse was inevitable" due to the "enormous" weight of the buildings above the damaged floors. Bazant and Zhou provided some rough estimates to support this characterization, concluding that the weight was at least an "order of magnitude" over that required to occasion total collapse. This was then reaffirmed by Bazant and Verdure. Alternative energy budgets have been produced{{fact}} to suggest the oppositive conclusion, namely, that the structure underneath the impacts should have easily withstood the failure of the top floors, in which case the tops of the buildings should have "fallen off" the towers, rather than straight through them. As noted, this scenario is presently defended only by "outsiders claiming a conspiracy" and has not been discussed in mainstream engineering journals.

There is widespread agreement, however, about the significance of controlled demolition hypothesis, even among those who don't endorse it specifically or conspiracy theories in general. The necessary explosives could only have been planted well in advance of the Semptember 11 attacks and would have required significant levels of access to three highly secured buildings. These housed not only some of the most important financial infrastructure in the United States, but also the offices of the CIA, the FBI and the SEC. If it were to be demonstrated that explosives were involved in the collapses, it would give much credibility to the idea that 9/11 was an "inside job".

Comments welcome

This text is about 800 words, and I hope it can replace the 6,000 we've got. Naturally, there's probably something I've missed, and there's some work to be done on the sources. My aim has been to situate the CT in as close proximity to the official story as possible, and identify only the most salient aspects of it. With links to the papers by Jones and Griffin, and to 9/11 Research (Hoffman) and Plaguepuppy (King), it should serve the curious reader.--Thomas Basboll 12:58, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
'Say' avoids the potential tendentiousness of 'point out', 'cite', 'claim', 'note', 'argue', and so on. I have added notes where I think citations are needed. We need to make clear somehow that these assertions are what the theorists say, unless we have citations to a reliable source to state them as facts. For example, they note that WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, also collapsed on that day, displaying many of these same features of controlled demolition. - What reliable source has listed the features of a controlled demolition, and has said the collapse exhibited those features? Tom Harrison Talk 14:19, 21 August 2006 (UTC)

It seems that reducing the demolition section from a sourced 6000 words to 800 indicates that it should have it's own article unless it stays here. There is no reason why that information shouldn't be included somewhere. And nobody has even mentioned molten metal yet. The collapse features mentioned are undisputed except for in this article talk page. Nobody disputes the dust clouds, etc, etc, etc and there are a billion sources for all that stuff. Of course, none of those things are proof of anything, and so what? I only bring this up in hope of avoiding a replay of that Collapse Talk fiasco. SkeenaR 05:03, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I understand this concern. The trouble is that pretty much any article in any encyclopedia deals with a topic that also deserves an essay-length or book-length treatment. Fortunately, those essays and books already exist. The reader of an encyclopedia article wants a quick overview of the main issues and some references for further reading. (I added the molten metal, which, you are right, is an important piece of evidence.) If we gave the controlled demolition hypothesis its own article (which I actually think is appropriate ... but hasn't it been tried?) then 6000 words would, IMHO, still be too long. 1500 ought to do it (again with proper references for further reading; it would be much better to send the reader on to either Griffin's survey of the arguments or Jones' paper, where all these claims are made with some authority and painlessly from within the CT POV). It would allow us to reduce the CD hypothesis section in the CT article to something like what we've got at WTC collapse. (If it's the talk we had there you're talking about it, I'd say it was very trying, but not wholly a fiasco. But, yes, I would like to avoid a process of that kind here.)--Thomas Basboll 07:07, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

You would need citing for the "ununsual" events in the buildings in the days prior to the attack. In the best case scenario you would get a legitimate cite for a source that specifically ties the unusual events to Marvin Bush and the destruction of the buildings. All I have found is sometimes inaccurate mentions in discussion boards. 02:08, 22 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.114.117.103 (talk • contribs) .

It could be a good idea. Let's hear from some others too. When you were at the collapse page, I would call that constructive. That wasn't the fiasco I was talking about. SkeenaR 08:16, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall controlled demolition theory ever having it's own article. SkeenaR 23:52, 22 August 2006 (UTC)

Sections on Israelis

Is there any proof at all for the claim that 4,000 Israelis were somehow warned about 9/11? This seems very unlikely. If no one can cite any evidence for it, I propose we delete the section. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.233.98 (talk • contribs) .

There does not need to be "proof" of 4000 Israelis having foreknowledge. What is important in the context of this article is the widespread reporting of this in the Arab media and opinion polls showing widespread belief in this in that part of the world and significant belief of this in other parts of the world. I would describe the theory as illegitimate but important. Important is what makes it article worthy. It is worthy in that a reader looking to this article to get knowledge of the main theories out their needs to know of this theory. 01:56, 22 August 2006 (Ed Kollin)—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.114.117.103 (talk • contribs) .
Good point. I find the claim to be pretty ridiculous - is there some kind of registry of all Israelis that could be used to make these warnings? I really doubt it. But you're right; the article is about theories that have been put forth, and this is a claim that comes up very often. Thanks.—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.239.233.98 (talk • contribs) .
Your Welcome (Ed Kollin) 69.114.117.103 04:50, 23 August 2006 (UTC)


The WTC had only 100 Israeli citizens working in there? That seems a little on the low side. Now we hear everyone was late to work because of prayers - yeah now that's a good one. The story about the 4000 missing workers has been attributed to a Hezbollah news source. However, the Jerusalem Post - I assume not a Hezbollah source - started the story ( remmeber the mournig for the missing 4000 on the days following 911. When the missing turned up then the other sources asked - how? There never has been - and probably wont be - a detailed report on who worked where, etc. Besides the 4000 missing it appears that there were few "important" people who went to work that morning - Israeli or not, probably praying too.

Spinoff article on controlled demolition?

SkeenaR and I have hit on a possible way of shortening the article. I have a vague sense that it's been tried before, but here's the suggestion anyway. Could we stablish a new article called "Controlled demolition hypothesis for the collapse of the World Trade Center"? It would work a bit like (but not quite) the single bullet theory in the JFK assassination. In my opinion, this article would still need to be shorter than the current CD section here. But it would obviously allow some detail.--Thomas Basboll 07:48, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I don't think there are enough secondary sources to support an independent page. Tom Harrison Talk 13:13, 23 August 2006 (UTC)
Yes, that is a problem. And I suppose we can just keep our eyes open until a critical mass is reached (a barrage of secondary works on 9/11 CTs can't be far away). At this point, there are a number of indpendent sources that attest to the existence (not truth) of the controlled demolition hypothesis. I've mentioned the forthcoming Bazant and Verdure article (pdf here[13]) in the shortened CD section above and there is, of course, also the NIST report itself. The new Popular Mechanics book, though I haven't read it yet, certainly presents the hypothesis. Griffin's book the NPH is not strictly speaking secondary, but was offered at the time only as a summary of a body of arguments, not a strong claim. These all work with overlapping primary sources, and while they arrive at different conclusions about them, again, attest to the existence of the materials that the hypothesis is constructed out of.--Thomas Basboll 14:38, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

I haven't checked all the sources in the Trade Towers section, but I can't see how it lacks them. It looks like it has enough integrity to stand on it's own to me, if that's what we wanted. SkeenaR 01:09, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

I think I've found another pretty good precedent for a separate article: Lincoln Kennedy Coincidences (urban legend). One very good parallel here is the Gardner piece in Scientific American, which is followed by his book on Dr. Matrix. That's pretty much a repeat of the Popular Mechanics coverage. Certainly an article on the now rather popular theory that the WTC was destroyed by explosives is more serious than a handful of peculiar coincidences between two presidential assassinations?--Thomas Basboll 23:50, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Category:Conspiracy theorists

Is up for review at [14]. Thought all of you would want to know. Morton devonshire 20:58, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

"The Presidents Behavior"

To me it seems this section and the few extremely bias sources are not realizing that the presidents statements were mispunctuated. And perhaps misunderstood, I will admit the president has a POOR way of phrasing things.

  • "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower -- the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly, myself, and I said, well, there's one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident..."
    • It was phrased like this "...outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw...an airplane hit the tower..." Obviously, all of us who had a television on that morning saw that an airplane hit the first tower, it dosent mean we physically saw it happen.


  • "Anyway, I was sitting there, and my Chief of Staff -- well, first of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake. And something was wrong with the plane, or -- anyway, I'm sitting there, listening to the briefing, and Andy Card came and said, 'America is under attack.'"
    • "I had seen this plane fly into the first building" Im sure could be intrpreted into "I had seen a plane had flown into the first building"


In both phrases, the president mentions the TV being on. It seems the persons who proposed this theory are assuming that he was watching a TV which depicted the first plane crash. If you stop and think for a minute you will realize, the president is talking about the coverage of the building just after the plane crash.

I recommend this section be deleted, as it lacks unbias sources and it is a simple misunderstanding of wording, punctuation and pronunciation.

Aspensti 23:57, 27 August 2006 (UTC)

This section should not be deleted because many if not a majority of "conspiracy theory" websites use this information to imply or accuse President Bush of having advanced knowledge of the attacks. Of course these websites are biased that is the reason they are cited. Despite what it seems at times this article is not a debate on whether the 9/11 conspiracy theories are correct. The cites "debunking" these theories are there to show reaction to the theories. The article is about the main 9/11 conspiracy theories that people believe. Your interpretation of these remarks is interesting and might be correct. If you can find a cite that agrees with your view put in the article. I do agree with you that the last paragraph is biased and not explanatory. I will make a change to change that and delete a bad link.69.114.117.103 06:47, 28 August 2006 (UTC) (Ed Kollin)
I agree with Ed. (and actually the White House retraction supports the original, more sinister, punctuation). Here's a draft for a more concise version:--Thomas Basboll 07:45, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

New Prez behavior section (draft)

Conspiracy theorist sometimes point to oddities inaspects of the president's behaviour on the morning of September 11, along with his own account of the events, as evidence that he had privileged access to the plans and actions of the terrorists.

First, it is suggested that the president and his security personnel behaved as though he was in no great danger, even after the second plane had hit the WTC. This, it is argued, shows that they knew the precise extent of the terror plot (especially that there was no direct threat to the president), indicating detailed advance knowledge of the events. [7]

Second, on a number of occasions after 9/11, Bush made remarks that seemed to suggest he had seen the first plane hit the WTC already before the second plane hit.[8][9] Since there was officially no footage of this impact until much later that day (when the Naudet footage was shown on television), some argue that the president's remarks suggest a unique source of intelligence and surveillance of the World Trade Center.[10][11] A White House spokesperson, however, said that the president's comment was "just a mistaken recollection" [12].

Comments to Prez draft:

If we are going to say they were oddities, we need a reliable source to cite. Otherwise it should be 'what they say are oddities.' Likewise for 'seemed to suggest.' Tom Harrison Talk 13:42, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
I've changed 'oddities' to the more neutral 'aspects'; I don't think the "seemed to suggest" is beyond the scope of the sources. Even the White House agreed that that is what his remarks suggested; the correction lay not in the interpretation of the words, but in the president's recollection.--Thomas Basboll 18:53, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

WTC 6 Explosion Mystery

We need to add part about WTC 6 building in which explosion was occured and created a huge deep crater within the building. The moment was happen at the same time when the plane hit the WTC 2 Tower. It's clearly caught by CNN television. It's forgotten by most people and researchers (see WTC 6 mystery).--124.168.89.215 18:59, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
The fact that it is not dealt with by most researchers indicates that it may be a pretty marginal issue, probably not deserving of a whole section. WTC 6 could be put on a list of proposed minor anomalies along with the link you provide. 911studies.com is not (last I checked) a very central node in the CT community. And this mystery seems a bit forced to me. (My gut says they've got the times wrong and that it is a cloud from the collapsing tower, but I haven't looked at ít closely yet.) Webster Tarpley does mention it in passing in his talks, I think, but not the explosion, just the crater (which seems very plausibly to have occured during the collapses .... again, just my gut talking).--Thomas Basboll 10:43, 29 August 2006 (UTC)
have you see the following pages after within that site, it tell details and it's clearly through the video captured on CNN, CBS & NBC television that the cloud suddenly rise from the base of WTC 6 even before the both towers collapse & the WTC 2 tower just hit. The crater which was several stories deep was not caused by the collapsing tower. WTC 6 building is far away than WTC towers. It's clearly can be see through the video. --12.170.1.226 10:55, 29 August 2006 (UTC)--—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 203.59.167.177 (talk • contribs) .
Woow!!! I must say that this page is a GREAT piece of investigation! Those photos from Pentagon firerescue http://911studies.com/911photostudies1.htm are shown to be fake without NO DOUBT. The person that made this page deserves loud BRAVO! I think MONGO, Tom Harrison, MortonDevonshire should do their homework and read those page by page. I would like to hear what they think. (I suggest starting from page http://911studies.com/911photostudies32.htm but previous photos were also very strange)

--SalvNaut 15:05, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

911studies is a moon hoax site promoted by Jim Fetzer's scholars site -- are you joking?

On Building 6, please see this page. As shown in the satellite images, "the damage consisted primarily of a series of holes," not suggestive of explosions, among other evidence against explosions. There would be no logical reason to destroy B6 because of its proximity to the destruction and liklihood of complete destruction from that. B7 was farther away. bov 15:03, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I was a bit struck when I've found that this guy investigated "moon hoax", too (and JFK). But did you look on his pages starting from page 32? Those Pentagon photos really look to be faked! Unless this guy produces his own evidenced, this is meaningful. --SalvNaut 23:50, 30 August 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, you right, I was wrong :( . --203.59.167.177 17:55, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
I don't know who are you and what are you reffering to. I suspect some kind of irony. :) --SalvNaut 20:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Photographs that 'appear fake' don't add up to evidence of anything, especially when found on a moon hoax site. We can all say that everything looks 'fake,' but without evidence, we have nothing. There is a fundamental contradiction in the Pentagon attack because many dozens of eye witnesses report the plane there and are massively redundant in their descriptions. But the way that most 9/11 research 'analyses' of the Pentagon deal with this is to announce that witness testimonies don't mean anything, were too confused, couldn't have seen it, etc., with no actual evidence for this claim. The purpose, for them, is to simply eliminate any evidence which doesn't agree with their emotional attachment to the idea that they are being lied to via long-distance photos in which they think they see something, despite fire spray of foam, water, and smoke. This is completely unscientific and only leads to speculation, not real analysis of a crime scene. bov 01:04, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

If they only appear fake - right. But if some of those things spotted by this guy are correct, and if we can rule out "burned cars being moved from place to place" in some cases, then it would be a piece of hard evidence. You could put those pictures on the table and say: "Look, they are fake". It would be a place to start to prove that feds messed up with them and call for release of other evidence. Still, I would like to confirm it by myself but I couldn't yet collect a good set of hi-res pictures from the Pentagon. When you look closer some claims made by this guy are "fishy" but still some are quite strong. I wonder if they can be explained. Wait, we are here to discuss the article. My oppinion is that it's better not to include it now.--SalvNaut 20:08, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

WTC 7: Larry Silverstein

I need to put back the changes that Tom Harrison removed. I reworded a paragraph and changed a sentence that someone added. Instead of fixing the sentence, Mr. Harrison reverted the text and removed my changes. It's funny that Weregerbil also reverted my changes for other reasons. I am putting my changes back which should not upset the boat too much. Demosfoni 20:08, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "funny" revert you refer to. Do you mean this edit of yours? I didn't revert that. I did revert earlier edits by an anonymous user[15], do you also edit as that anonymous user? The edit summary appeared misleading or mistaken: "Returned unintentional delete" when, in fact, the anon edit was removing sourced information. Weregerbil 12:23, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

Hey. leave Silverstein out of this - he was at prayer that morning, and every morning since.

Redefinition of article, cleanup suggestions, name change

I have just read this article, and in doing so, I realized that the main focus of the article may be in a rather misguided place.

Currently, this article deals with 9/11 "conspiracy theories", and the ideas thereof. Wouldn't it be more productive, relevant, and less controversial to shift the focus of the article to a broader, yet related subject, such as...9/11 skepticism?

A conspiracy regarding 9/11 refers to the idea that a group of people other than the members of Al Quaeda, often the government, conspired to either commit or involve themselves in the terrorist acts committed on 9/11, usually with some sort of massive cover-up. 9/11 skepticism, however, makes no claims as to what actually happened, but more generally contends that the general public knowledge of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is inaccurate.

We have a choice in which of these two subjects holds more weight on wikipedia. We can either have an article which primarily discusses ideas, and people who have ideas, that there are inaccuracies in the current account of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, or we can have an article which primarily discusses ideas, and people who have ideas, that the government, or some other entity, conspired to commit a terrorist act, then covered up the conspiracy with falsehoods. The differeince between the two is that while skepticism attempts to dispute a claim with facts, conspiracy theories put out their claims in addition to disputing others. The two are not the same thing, and this article must draw a distinction between the two.

In addition, the name of the article itself is, to a degree, inappropriate, or at least too vague. The 9/11 terrorist attacks were a conspiracy, an idea which virtually everyone accepts, as it is generally understood that Al Quaeda conspired to commit these crimes. In the interest of correctness, and the avoidance of colloquialisms, I believe it would be more appropriate to use a title such as "9/11 skepticism and conspiracy theories", "9/11 governmental conspiracy theories", "Theories of 9/11 government conspiracies", "Theories of 9/11 conspiracies involving the United States government", "9/11 skeptical conspiracy theories", "Skeptical conspiracy theories regarding 9/11", "Conspiracy theories of 9/11 skeptics", or something better, if you can think of anything.

152.163.100.69 20:37, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

"The 9/11 Commission Report - Skepticism and Alternative/Conspiracy Theories". The article would start with a brief overview of the commission findings which the article currently does not do to give the reader an idea of what is being challenged. It would go on in a more brief manner then it does now to explain that the report is the official theory and in the popular lexicon “9/11 conspiracy theories means LIHOP, MIHOP etc. It is a must that somebody typing in “9/11 conspiracy theories” be directed to this article. 69.114.117.103 05:39, 31 August 2006 (UTC) (Ed Kollin)

AudeViviere Removed Quote from FDNY Captain Goldbach

I don't understadn your reasoning behind removing this quote. It is direct and thorough. I contains a complete paragraph of information detailing the fact that (1) All the firefighters were ordered to evacuate and were evacuated from building 7 and (2) that the North Tower fell shortly thereafter.

Your comment: Debate of the Meaning "Pull" - rm cherry-picked quote (keep reading, he says "I'm going to guess it was after 3:00." and then mentions about pulling all of our units out...) does not make sense since you are referring to the firefighters standing around outside and dealing with fires outside of building 7.

Note also that it is impossible to use the "talk" feature with AudeViviere since has added some kind of protection feature to his site. -- Demosfoni 15:13, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

This is the place to discuss changes to the page. Tom Harrison Talk 16:11, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Later in the interview, Goldbach says:
"...At that point, this was now late in the afternoon. I'm going to guess it was after 3:00..."
"...I then walked down a couple of blocks back to the site. We were north of the Winter Garden at that point. It might have been - it was Vesey Street. We walked all the way back down to Vesey Street. There was a big discussion going on at that point about pulling all of our units out of 7 World Trade Center. Chief Nigro didn't feel it was worth taking the slightest chance of somebody else getting injured.
"So at that point we made a decision to take all of our units out of 7 World Trade Center because there was a potential for collapse." [16]
This discussion about pulling all our units out of 7 World Trade Center (which happened sometime after 3pm) is probably the same thing that Silverstein was referring to. Apparently, there were some firefighters in WTC7 who were ordered out of the building at that time. --Aude (talk contribs) 16:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
Oops! I didn't see that. I guess you are correct. Well then, maybe it is okay to delete the quote I had and put in your quote. I have no problem with it since it is still 2.5 hours before the building collapses. You could say that the Captain's statement either confirms or contradicts Mr. Silverstein's statement, depending on your point of view. -- Demosfoni 16:41, 31 August 2006 (UTC)
What? "depending on your point of view." Have you never read WP:NPOV? You should. ILovePlankton 11:36, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Flight 93 theories

Did these get somehow deleted? I know there's an abridged version on the page regarding Flight 93, but the link back here is invalid...plus they left out a good deal of stuff... 65.12.115.249 01:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Controlled demolition theory

Can someone tell me what normally happens when a fully-fueled jumbo jet crashes into a 100+ floor office tower? Since the collapse of the towers is apparently the result of a controlled demolition, evidenced by the way they fell, could we have a more precise description of what happened the last time such a tower collapsed? Just to compare the two situations. --Daniel, 3 September 2006

See the NIST FAQ on controlled demolition. The steel heated to a high temperature which reduced it's strength to 10% of it's static value and it collapsed.--Tbeatty 18:13, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
The history of mankind only has two reference points of fully-fueled jumbo jets crashing into tall steel buildings. So you can see what normally happens here.
It is not possible to tell from the way a building falls that there is demolition going on. The task of demolition charges is to remove support structure from one floor, and gravity takes care of the rest. Burning jet fuel removes 90% of the strength of steel, thereby removing the support structore of one floor, and gravity takes care of the rest. In either case what you see is the effect of gravity, and the mechanism that breaks the support of the initial floor cannot be told by looking at how the rest of the floors fall. Much like if you have a house of cards and remove one card: the rest come down whatever method you use to remove the initial card. The force of gravity does not know and it does not care. Weregerbil 07:44, 5 September 2006 (UTC)


Jet fuel does not remove 90% of the strenght of steel - never did in the past, doesn't today and never will, where does this kind of junk come from. When have you ever heard of a torch or lantern collapsing from its own weight - or a plane wing for that matter.

You should ask someone who knows metal basics.
  • Steel softens progressively from 100-200°C up.
  • Only 23% of ambient-temperature strength remains at 700°C.
  • At 800°C strength reduced to 11% and at 900°C to 6%.
(Courtesy of "Introduction to Eurocode Structural Fire Engineering". Different alloys will exhibit different numbers).
A lantern doesn't collapse because the flame does not directly heat the metal. A lamp that has steel inside the flame would be a peculiar design indeed... In real lamps the metal is below the flame and heat rises upwards. The heat that does get to the metal gets distributed since metals are good conductors of heat; the heat radiates away over a large area. The situation is rather different in a building fire. Weregerbil 19:37, 7 September 2006 (UTC)


Sorry fellas kerosene isn't that hot - well below the critical level of steel ( unless you want to force feed oxygen to the fire ). Open air burning with kerosene tops out well below that - that's why it is classified as a "cool" burning fuel. In real lamps - like a mantle lamp - the metal wires of the mantle remain unbowed/no sagging/no melting/etc for hours on end - and to boot the lamp doesn't even get too hot to handle ( actually except for the flame/and immediate vicinity nothing gets hot. Remember the pictures of the flickering flames through the windows of the towers - the kerosene had burned off and the paper and office furniture was slowly burning up. The kerosene was gone in seconds after the hit.

See here. Actual firemen who have seen the results of actual fires disagree with you (look for the phrase twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel). In a lamp metal parts are purposefully not inside the flame. You hit the nail right on the head with "except for the flame/and immediate vicinity nothing gets hot". In a flame things do get hot. You will indeed keep coming to an incorrect conclusion as long as you use a small lamp as a model for a large building fire. Weregerbil 11:01, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


The most interesting part of the weaken of steel by kerosene is first of all the speed in which kerosene did it. Where one plane load of kerosene - most of which disappeared in less than a second in a fireball - came up with the required BTUs is beyond explanation, it's like the never-ending gas tank. Secondly how did kerosene - or anything ( ie a blast furnace set up on a floor of any of the WTC buildings ) - cause all the rivets ( we are well beyond "sagging/twisting/warping/bending in this story ) to separate at exactly the same moment - not once but twice. And then the extra heat blew 50 stories down and 300 feet away and caused WTC7 to collapse ( just joking - it probably was prewired but the plane went down in PA - embarrassing, but all plans laid by mice and men can go awry - couldn't leave the building up with wires attached to say nothing of all the evidence that had been transferred to the NYC office ( not DC archives?, odd)).


If you are able to melt - or even forge - steel with kerosene in the open air with paper as an additive please publish your results. This new discovery wii revolutionize the steel processing industry. Seeing as how "experts" seem convinced that kerosene can do the job, but for some reason businesses continue to build large expensive blast furnaces and use high temperature oxygen feed forges and torches, I will be more than glad to patent the process and become a billionaire. Thanks in advance for the information.

Even the more hardcore conspiracy theorists seem to accept basic, widely documented physical properties of steel[17]. Blast furnaces are not used for removing some percentage of strength from girders, they are for smelting large amounts of iron ore. Rather a different process. Goodbye billions, I'm afraid. Weregerbil 17:16, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


Jet fuel is chemically different and more volatile than common kerosene. When jet fuel burns, it does indeed remove up to 90% of steel's structural strength (see Popular Mechanics article on the subject). Torches or lanterns do not run on jet fuel, and jets do not run on kerosene. When the jets hit, it was something like a bigger version of the basic glass-bending lab from chemistry class--except the bunsen burner is replaced by flaming jet fuel and the glass rod is replaced by a steel support. The supports were then no longer able to, well, support the untouched floors above them and the higher floors pancaked into the lower floors, creating a chain reaction that brought down the building. If one of you comes up with a way to fuel a jet with what you buy at your local REI for your portable stove, you will indeed make billions.--TelevisedRevolution 00:16, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

New WTC summary

I've inserted a longer intro to this section based on the draft I posted to this talk page above. My hope is that we can move the references from the body of the section up into the summary and then delete the rest of this very, very long section. I'll be adding the references over this coming week (help is welcome) and then I'm going to boldly delete the remainder. I hope we can settle any issues before this happens to avoid a revert crisis. (I'll back down long before that happens anyway, of course.) My hope is to end up with a shorter section (about 1000 words) that efficiently links to the people who are making the detailed arguments, instead of representing those arguments in their entirety here. An encyclopedia article should make the ideas more surveyable, not less.--Thomas Basboll 20:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

TIME to clean up?

With 9/11 conspiracies on the cover of Time magazine [18], isn't time to make this article a nice tidy reference tool? Brief summaries of major points, links to online sources of more information/mythology, and a list of major books and videos on the subject. Let this be a place to begin understanding this "process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events", which is "not a fringe phenomenon" and (!) "part of mainstream political reality".--Thomas Basboll 18:09, 4 September 2006 (UTC)

On a smaller point I did put a brief summary of the Time magazine article in the "Media Reaction" section. It might need some "tidying up" 69.114.117.103 05:01, 5 September 2006 (UTC) (Ed Kollin)

WTC 7 Timeline

There seems to be some ambiguity around the timeline of the WTC 7 rescue opertation and collapse which, if sorted out, would poke a hole in some of the conspiracy theories. Could anyone confirm or refute any of the following?

  • Does FEMA report statement that "manual firefighting activities [in WTC 7] were stopped fairly early in the day" contradict Silverstein's claim that he told the police chief to 'pull the firefighters' rather than the building? If firefighters were in the building for other reasons, such as rescue or crowd control, the two statements would not be a contradiction.
  • Does the quote from Captain Ray Goldbach about "taking out all of their units out" of the WTC 7 building contradict the statement by Silverstein that he ordered the same action? If Silverstein spoke to the police chief before that order was given, the statements are not in conflict. Antonrojo 14:46, 6 September 2006 (UTC)


How would any of the above clear up how WTC7 collapsed? WTC7 is so odd that the government official report doesn't even mention it. This is too odd for even that pack of liars to try to BS about. WTC7 inforces all the conspiracy theories, except of course the one the government tried to sell.

To bring something to your attention

I have not seen any reference to this in the article but - In the popular Command and Conquer game Red Alert Two, which came out in October 2000, there is a mission on the Soviet side where the Soviets wanted to destroy and capture the capitalist World Trade Center, they also send migs to destroy the buildings too and in order to win the mission, you must bring down the "Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre" - don;t you find that strange?

Amlder20 11:16, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

I just see it as coincidence. ILovePlankton 11:29, 7 September 2006 (UTC).
One of the Columbine killers wrote about crashing a plane into New York City [19] 69.114.117.103 06:06, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (Ed Kollin)
What? Now you're accusing video game developers of conspiring with international terrorists? A Rainbow Six game that came out shortly after was planned to have a plane level, but that was cancelled. Is Tom Clancy in on this too?--TelevisedRevolution 00:18, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

If no plane at the Pentagon, then ...

Something that isn't addressed here (not that I can see) is a rather major unanswered question. If the evidence (as some claim) indeed shows that a major airliner did not hit the Pentagon, then a mystery erupts: what happened to the plane and the people on board? A similar question can be asked regarding the theorists who suggest that the aircraft that hit the WTC weren't airliners (one of the theories says something about one of the planes carrying a bomb or a large oversized fuel tank. Certainly in the case of the Pentagon, if something else hit the building, certainly the destruction of an airliner elsewhere would have been noticed (vis a vis the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. I'm not advancing a POV here, simply pointing out one aspect of the conspiracy argument that I haven't personally seen addressed. It would be helpful if a source discussing this aspect of the event could be found. 23skidoo 22:57, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

The idea comes from Operation Northwoods. That plan suggested destroying an unmanned drone masquerading as a commercial aircraft supposedly full of "college students off on a holiday". For more detail go to page 13 in the actual document [20]. Other Conspiracy theorists point to early media reports of flight 93 landing in Cleveland 69.114.117.103 06:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC) (Ed Kollin)
If the question hasn't been asked, it doesn't belong in wikipedia. Find a reputable source that asks it.--Tbeatty 06:36, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


Whatever happened to the Columbia seismograph readings? There must be other seismographs in North America.

"Overview" (keeping it that way)

I just reverted a bunch of minor elaborations on the overview. They introduce information that belongs, if anywhere, in specific sections underneath (at least for now). In fact, I suspect that, if there something wrong with the overview as it stands, it is that it says too much, not too little. (Some of the edits also introduced grammatical errors. And one of the questioned the engineering consensus that makes controlled demolition an outsider position. That controlled demolition is beyond the pale of mainstream engineering is not controversial. CT'ers are very aware of this; it is that consensus that they are trying to affect.)--Thomas Basboll 06:38, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

See also

I think most of these are already linked in the 9/11 template, and in the body of the article. In general we prefer not to link in See also what is already linked on the page. Is there a reason to do otherwise in this case? Tom Harrison Talk 19:13, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:NOT?

Sloane has removed a list of influential conspiracy videos on the grounds of WP:LAYOUT and WP:NOT. I haven't quite understood the reasoning here or the policy behind, and would like to hear some arguments for it if someone has the time. As far as I can tell, this article is many things that WP is generally NOT, but removing bibliographical information that essentially identifies the "canon" of the conspiracy theories seems ill advised. If this article is ever going to become a surveyable resource for people interested in 9/11 CTs (whether pro or con) it seems to me that the most important thing to do is to identify key ideas and major works, and reduce the long catalogues of evidence.--Thomas Basboll 20:50, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

WP:LAYOT applies to links in "See also" section - they should not repeat links already linked in the text. As the article is very long, this shouldn't apply here. The reader, after skimming through the whole article, should be proposed with some wiki links. I understand that those should be collected with NPOV in mind. So the fact that something is already linked or not, shouldn't really care much (I am not a fan of this policy. Anyway, the policy "advises to avoid" - it does not prohibit anything.)
Videos: Sloane some time makes me angry - his actions are clear. Interestingly, he left 2 videos. 2 most "debunked" ones? Whatever the policy is, he uses it for his own purpose. Either we remove video section or leave as it was. I say let's leave it as it was. --SalvNaut 22:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
Videos: Ooops. Those were only 2 videos which linked to wiki... so.. sorry for accusation Sloane. I think that external videos could be included, but not in the "See also" section. It could be down under Refernces. --SalvNaut 22:17, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

We do have the template(s) that should give people places to go to 'see also'. I'm dubious about being able to build a list of 'see also's that allowed some that were already linked but disallowed others. I understand the point about readability. Is it possible we could agree to include in 'see also' only links to other related conspiracy theories? Tom Harrison Talk 23:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

Lead: researchers & cover-up

The lead now says "researchers assert a cover-up". Doesn't this article have a much wider scope though than actual researchers and aren't the claims a much wider collection of conspiracy theories than just a cover up? Isn't the article about "various people have a number of different conspiracy theories"? Weregerbil 15:19, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I think that the problem here is that a conspiracy theory is commonly understood as a description of group of people gathering, thinking up the whole idea of the plot with details and then realizing it. This is very far from what many resarchers/CTs think about the case. Their main accusation is an accusation of a cover-up of things that have really happened. Of course - there are many deegrees of beliefs in the CT community (maybe we could point out this fact in the header somehow... hmmpf... I am out of ideas and words now). All I know that many CTs belive in LIHOP or some other kind of gov. complicity. Theory which I find very interesting is the theory which sees intelligence and military forces as a "deadly machine", which lives it's own life realizing goals given from above by using their uncompromising means. This kind of theory asserts only a "cover-up" of those deadly-machine's actions. I agree that we should try to encompass the fact of varying beliefs with first sentences. --SalvNaut 15:37, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Yeah. Now the lead concentrates on one extreme only, that the government covered up some fumble somewhere. And then the article goes on to discuss controlled demolition and whatnot. So the lead isn't what it is supposed to be: a very quick summary of the article. Since there is a range of theories can we simply say it: Various conspiracy theories have been suggested to explain the 9/11 attacks. These theories range from some government institution covering up a mistake it made, to the US government actively planning and participating in the attacks. Maybe even mention that there is no one universal grand theory, and few people believe in all the various theory fragments which occasionally contradict each other.
(Random rambling: OTOH I'm not sure where to draw the "lower limit" of what should be considered a conspiracy theory in the article. If intelligence agencies or the military didn't quite work hard enough to catch bin Laden prior to 2001 and are now downplaying their judgement error is that properly a 9/11 conspiracy theory...?) Weregerbil 16:03, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
Replay to your OTOH: I think your example constitutes as an incomptence theory so it's a bit too "low". It is rather safe to say that the common basis for every CTier is assumption of "someone, somewhere in the US gov./milit./intelli." having wanted 9/11 to happen and more people covering it up now. "Upper limit" is also a question as some belive in freemasons/illuminati/aliens theories.
Here is a paragraph to consider, it's your proposition and some changes by me (please fix language mistakes):
A number of researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 have expressed skepticism about the official account of events surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks. Various theories have been suggested to explain the 9/11 attacks. These theories range from some government institution covering up things that really happened because of its complicity, to the conspiracy theories of US government actively planning and participating in the attacks.
things that really happened - there must be better words for that (not mistakes)... real events? --SalvNaut 17:38, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I'd like to offer another suggestion. I've never liked "a number of researchers..." as a way of referring to conspiracy theorists. At this point, with pretty much all the fifth anniversary coverage making obligatory references to CTs, and with (arguably) one third of all Americans (and probably more world wide) seriously paying attention to them, we can safely (as time TIME does) present these theories as an integral part of "political reality". That is, if we take a cultural/sociological approach and let the article cover an interlocking set of widely held beliefs, rather than being a catalogue of vaguely sinister facts, I think we can find both a tone and focus in article that would improve it. We can use this recent mainstream coverage and even the PM book as a guide, but (I hope) improve on their fairness & accuracy by our collective efforts.--Thomas Basboll 18:44, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Thomas, do you refer to the lead of the article only, or a whole? Anyway, let me just say this:
I agree that a cultural/sociological approach may have some advantages, although I'm afraid that this approach may cause the article to become too... vague. I am afraid that this will immediately cause others to add a lot of facts here. Many people, including me, see this article as a place to start,guide over CTs. Let's take the sentence about researchers - some find it very important for it immediately warns the reader that it's not just an ordinary CT. I think the time for a clearly cultural/sociological approach will come in future when things clear up a bit. That said, I agree that the article needs a clean up, and if you think that we can come up with paragraphs that encompass both: the cultural/political/sociological significance and a sort of point by point guide to CTs or a list of facts(let's make it beliefs), then please try. After seeing some changes you made to this one and other articles, I think it's possible. This interlocking set of beliefs should be chosen well. What's important, I think, article should read more or less like now - enumaration of facts, not like "a sociological/political view on the CTs". Or,... is it that you've had on your mind? --SalvNaut 19:50, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
In it goes, let's see if it stays :-) I replaced "researchers" with "people" since I'd say the vast majority of conspiracy theorists can't be described as "researchers" by any stretch of the imagination (and the minor issue that we would need reliable sources that say the theorists are indeed predominantly researchers of some sort.) I think this is at least better than the previous that only referred to a cover-up; claims of active participation seem rather important to me. Weregerbil 10:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
New lead was bad, basically it's just saying the same thing twice. Participating and complicity are the same. And "things that really happened" is bad as well. I've changed it to the following: A number of people have expressed skepticism about the official account of events surrounding the September 11, 2001 attacks. Various conspiracy theories have been suggested to explain the events.--Sloane 11:05, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Researchers/People/Conspiracy Theorists

The problem is that, quite frankly, conspiracy theorist is not very precise. Many people involved with this do significant research into it; they are by definition researchers. Many simply swallow whatever people say. It is inappropriate to do a global replacement of "researchers" with "conspiracy theorists" or "people". For instance, the lists of thing which were wrong were compiled by researchers by definition; they did research to come up with those lists. Thus, changing them to "conspiracy theorists" is silly; this is in an article called "9/11 conspiracy theories". It is shorter and more precise to state researchers came up with these. They are independent researchers, but that doesn't make them not researchers. Anyone can be a researcher if they do research; it is inappropriate to not use the word when they are in fact researchers in Wikipedia, even if you disagree with them. Titanium Dragon 19:39, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

The problem is really that we have grown do used attaching these theories to individual people because we don't want to grant their ideas the diginity of a life of their own. To take a random example, the word "researcher" is not mentioned even once in the article on paleontology. This is because the standard approach is just to lay out the set of beliefs held by paleontologist, along with their approach to empirical reality, directly. Major figures are named, but (since they are this by definition) are not qualified with "researcher" or "an individual who is pursuing paleontological ideas". This was why I wanted to shift the focus to the body of belief, which could be presented quite anonymously, rather than to continue to treat what may be 10s of millions of people, who share a set of core ideas and argue among themselves about shared set of controversial issues, as a group of individual researchers. At this point it is easy to identify the key individuals. The main task is to lay out the content of their beliefs and hypotheses, independently of who believes them.--Thomas Basboll 19:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I think people aren't comfortable doing so, but I agree; it should be made so. The problem, of course, is unlike paleontology this is not a field with a lot of solid stuff in it. It doesn't help that there are the "massive incompetance" people, who are lumped in with the others, when quite obviously the administration was massively incompetant. Then there's the "let it happen" people, who go a step further and claim the government let it happen. Then there's the "made it happen" people, who say the government itself executed the attacks. These are all distinct groups and have massively different theories for what happened. Additionally, the "secondary explosion in the basement" thing, though picked up by a lot of conspiracy theorists, is not really a conspiracy theory in and of itself beyond increasing the volume of people involved in the plot and the government's incompetancy in protecting the building. I think this page is extremely broad, and as the article is too long ANYWAY it probably needs to be split up. I also think the incompetancy stuff needs to be moved off of this page to its own article; incompetancy is not a conspiracy theory. Maybe that article already exists; if so, it should probably have a link to this article, and this article should have a link to it.
I would like to see a lot less weaselyness around this article; that a lot of these people are kooks doesn't mean all of them are, and weasel words are bad. We should state what they claim and criticisms of their claims, and talk about the people themselves a little, but not too much - this is about conspiracy theories of 9/11, not people researching conspiracy theories of 9/11. Titanium Dragon 20:25, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Continuation of government

has anyone looked into the administrations use of "continuation of government rules in this regard?

Splitting up this article

This article is way too long; we need to cut it down by splitting off daughter articles. I already split one off for the controlled-demolition theory; I'd appreciate it if people would help me format that article correctly and cut down the controlled-demolition theory on this page to be much shorter and more concise. Other long sections should also be split off into their own articles. Titanium Dragon 20:38, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

  • I disagree, one CT article is more than enough. If you think it's too long, you simply need to delete stuff. --Sloane 20:41, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • There is no reason not to split this up; there are huge numbers of people who believe in it, and a number of people have critiqued various sections. Claiming "it needs to be cut" is kind of silly; the 22kB is important and it is a belief held by many, particularly about WTC7. Wikipedia is virtual space, and there is no reason to not have this information there - its hard to find good sites regarding this sort of thing, it is notable enough for its own WP article, it is large enough for its own WP article, and it has enough sources given its classification as a conspiracy theory, and many of the sources are primary ones. This page is far too long, and there is no good reason to delete something that a huge number of people believe, even if they're wrong. It'd be equivalent to me saying there should only be one article on Creationism, and that Intelligent Design should not be split off onto its own page because they're the same people. Just because people are crackpots doesn't mean they only get one page, especially if their theories are believed by many. Titanium Dragon 20:46, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Worth noting: the section I split off is 22 kB in size, more than enough for its own article. Its 8 pages long in MS Word. Titanium Dragon 20:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • I'd like to point out that the Kennedy conspiracies also consists of only one article. No reason to give a fringe phenomenon undue weight.--Sloane 20:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Creationism is a fringe phenomenon, but has a ton of pages related to it, ranging from Creationism to Intelligent Design to creationism in schools and about 50 other articles. More people doubt the official WTC story than doubt Evolution. Titanium Dragon 20:59, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
I've posted this analogy (perhaps incorrectly) to VfD page as well, but I just wanted to point out that the WTC issue is a bit like a single movie (e.g., Never Say Never Again) in a longer series (e.g., James Bond) and Wikipedia routinely establishes separate articles for individual films and or albums by the same artist. That's really all this is.--Thomas Basboll 11:38, 12 September 2006 (UTC)


BTW, for the curious, the location I split off to is Controlled-Demolition Theory (9/11 Conspiracy Theory). He's already put it up for deletion. If you think its a good idea to split it off, go there and vote against its deletion. Titanium Dragon 21:00, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

  1. ^ Bazant and Zhou 2001
  2. ^ Bazant and Verdure
  3. ^ NIST 2005.
  4. ^ Michael Ruppert, for example, explicitly refuses to let anything depend on proving the case for demolition
  5. ^ Plague Puppy, 9/11 Research
  6. ^ New Pearl Harbor, but see also his contribution to the studies in political economy volume (and weblink at 9/11 Review).
  7. ^ http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/timeline/main/essayaninterestingday.html
  8. ^ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/12/20011204-17.html
  9. ^ http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/01/20020105-3.html
  10. ^ http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/bushlie.html
  11. ^ http://www.dcdave.com/article4/020106.html
  12. ^ Paltrow, S. (2004) "Day of Crisis: Detailed Picture of U.S. Actions on Sept. 11 Remains Elusive." Wall Street Journal March 22
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