blog.area51.org

Confession time again: I accepted the government’s explanation for the events of 9/11/2001 wholesale–until recently. I thought the 9-11 Truth people were a bunch of crackpots–until I started listening to what they were saying. I thought that the Popular Mechanics debunking of the 9-11 conspiracy theories had slammed the lid on the subject–until I looked at it with a critical eye.

I don’t know that I’m wholly convinced–not yet, anyway–but I’m skeptical of the official explanation. And with good reason, I think. There are far too many unanswered questions and weak explanations.

Want to know why I started changing my mind? Here are a few of the reasons:

• None of the four airplanes were intercepted by fighter jets. But NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) intercepts planes all the time, according to a NORAD spokesman. If they hear about it in time, anyway. It’s strange how NORAD didn’t hear about any of the four planes until it was too late. On September 15, 2001, the Boston Globe reported Marine Corp Major Mike Snyder, spokesman for NORAD, as saying, “We scramble aircraft to respond to any aircraft that we consider a potential threat. The hijacked aircraft were normal, scheduled commercial aircraft on approved flight plans and we only had 10 minutes prior notice to the first attack, which unfortunately was not enough notice.” So they scramble hundreds of times per year (Popular Mechanics is dead wrong in their claim that this never happens), and they missed four times in one day.
• Dick Cheney knew where United flight 93 was going (the Pentagon), according to Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, and appeared angry at people who wanted to know why he didn’t do anything.
• There is evidence that there was no widespread fire in the twin towers. Jet-fueled fire is blamed for melting steel and causing total structural failure, bringing both towers down to dust. But recently released audio recordings show that FDNY firefighters managed to reach the floors in the south tower where flight 175 had struck. Their voices are calm as they try to assess damage and put out two small fires. No massive inferno. Melting enough trusses to cause total failure would require heat close to 3000 degrees Fahrenheit. Jet fuel can only reach a top temperature of 800 degrees. That’s hot enough to potentially weaken the steel, but not enough to cause a nearly free-fall collapse.
• Speaking of free-fall collapse: the towers fell in nine and 10 seconds. Which is the simpler explanation: that jet fuel defied physics and melted steel, or that the free-fall collapse was the result of controlled detonation?
• Immediately before September 11, some unidentified investors shorted the stock of United Airlines and American Airlines. The person or persons have never been identified (and no one seems to know why). Snopes.com, the famous urban legend debunking site, reports the details of these transactions. Snopes goes on to (curiously) conclude that this was pure coincidence, based on a US government organization’s assertions. Despite the facts like these:

But it was during the final few trading days (the market closes on weekends) that the most unusual variances in activity occurred. Bloomberg data showed that on 6 September 2001, the Thursday before that black Tuesday, put-option volume in UAL stock was nearly 100 times higher than normal: 2,000 options versus 27 on the previous day.

On 6 and 7 September 2001, the Chicago Board Options Exchange handled 4,744 put options for United Airlines’ stock, translating into 474,000 shares, compared with just 396 call options, or 39,600 shares. On a day that the put-to-call ratio would normally have been expected to be roughly 1:1 (no negative news stories about United had broken), it was instead 12:1.

On 10 September 2001, another uneventful news day, American Airlines’ option volume was 4,516 puts and 748 calls, a ratio of 6:1 on yet another day when by rights these options should have been trading even. No other airline stocks were affected; only United and American were shorted in this fashion.

• Follow the money. Ask yourself: who stood to gain? Who had the motive, means, and opportunity? Al Qaeda? Motive and opportunity, perhaps, but not the means to bring down the largest buildings in the world. Even jet planes can’t do that–the towers were built to withstand multiple collisions with Boeing 707 jets. Coincidentally (?) a report written by Bush advisers over 10 years ago for the infamous Project for a New American Century seems to recommend a national disaster as a way to advance its militant agenda: “[T]he process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event–like a new Pearl Harbor.” [page 51, emphasis mine]

I haven’t even brought up other important issues, like the mysterious collapse of Building 7. No buildings have ever collapsed due to fire, and we lose three in a single day?

It is disturbing to think of your government this way. Certainly the Bush administration is corrupt, cronied, and conniving. But willing to kill 3000 people as an excuse for war profiteering?

There is no final conclusion in my mind, yet. I am convinced, however, that people who reject all except the official explanation do so because they find every other possibility unthinkable. I, for one, cannot live in that naive world any longer.

• gabriel christou said:
  October 4th, 2007 at 3:40 pm |
  

  please visit http://www.gabrielchristou.blogspot.com

  you will see PHOTOS of WHO and WHERE Bin Laden and his networks are..

  PLEASE ALSO FORWARD IT TO THE FBI

  
  
• GMR said:
  October 31st, 2007 at 1:08 pm |
  

  I believe 9/11 was an inside job and I believe AA could have been behind it themselves. CEOS like living in high fashion. Yes, I believe Osama Bin Laden had something to do with it, but I believe there is more to the story. I will never fly AA again.

  
  
• Agent Zero said:
  October 31st, 2007 at 1:32 pm |
  

  Thanks for the comment, GMR! We’d love to hear what dirt you have on AA.