A Timeline of Craziness

[BaaBaa]

It wasn't until I became a JREF forum member that I realized the breadth of 9/11 truthiness and I will admit freely that I still retain little beyond a general knowledge of the topic, but lately I've been kind of wondering about the 'history' of trutherism so I'm hoping somebody might be able to answer a couple of questions I have:

Posters and lurkers,

1. How quickly did it take for a conspiratorial theory to coalesce and from that to what could be qualified as '9/11 "Truth" '

2. Who gets the dubious credit for being 'The First Truther'?

[ElMondoHummus]

Believe it or not, someone put together a timeline/history guide of the appearances and development of the common 9/11 conspiratorial fantasies:

http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/history

I forget who put it up - Ref, was this yours? - but it's been a good resource for a question like yours.

[ElMondoHummus]

Oh, and Ref did start a thread that sort of sideways deals with your question regarding origins. It's more a post on relationships - the thread title is "Who Influenced Who" - but it also helps illuminate how the myths and fantasies got started by showing who ended up influencing who's hypotheses.
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=106284

[MikeW]

I also documented some very early comments on this page (http://911myths.com/index.php/In_the_beginning). A lot of the very early newsgroup posts still read like they could be posted today, so little has changed.

[leftysergeant]

I also documented some very early comments on this page (http://911myths.com/index.php/In_the_beginning). A lot of the very early newsgroup posts still read like they could be posted today, so little has changed.

That accounts for the CD theorists. There is one referrence to a Global Hawk in there, too, but no good ana;ysis of the impact evidence. That had to wait for the French criminal Pierre-Henri Bunel and his sponsor Thierry Meyssen.

[BaaBaa]

"September 11, 2001: First speculations of an inside job and controlled demolition. "

FFS...

Much thanks and big ups to all involved....

[Bell]

"September 11, 2001: First speculations of an inside job and controlled demolition. "

FFS...

Much thanks and big ups to all involved....

Yes, you need to be a special kind of crazy to start sprouting conspiracy theories while the towers collapsed mere hours ago (7 had not even collapsed yet!) and almost all of America (the world?) was still in utter shock.

Eta:

kcrF346sS_I

[BaaBaa]

See, the joke is on me there because I was going to say that I had suspicions that straight from giddy-up somebody would, a la Dale Gribble, be beaking off like in a conspiratorial vein but I refrained from doing that because any RATIONAL person would at least take time to process the information.....aaaand, I was wrong.

I guess i just wasn't realistice enough.

[ElMondoHummus]

Yes, you need to be a special kind of crazy to start sprouting conspiracy theories while the towers collapsed mere hours ago (7 had not even collapsed yet!) and almost all of America (the world?) was still in utter shock.

I sort of disagree. I think a person would just have to be a run-of-the-mill crazy. When a person's worldview is so skewed that the immediate reaction to 9/11 was "Conspiracy!", you have to admit they're looney, no question about it, but at the same time, you have to admit that there's a severe paucity of information available. So there's at least an excuse to be ignorant and go with what your worldview is shaping you to think. A run-of-the-mill paranoid delusionist would simply naturally think "Conspiracy!" at anything he saw, so it's totally expected behavior for conspiracy addicts to react that way.

But when a person years afterwards has the benefit of all the knowledge that exists, is not operating in a vacuum, and still chooses to ignore not only common sense but critical thinking plus established fact, well then... that's a special kind of crazy. It's one thing to fall off the cliff when you're at the edge, but it's another to cross several miles to get to the point where you're about to go over. That characterizes the modern 9/11 conspiracy addict: If you take them at their word, they perused many pages of text to form their delusion, and all without trying to find the actual answers, answers many of us found on our own before coming here.

I admit that someone who posts conspiracy delusion mere hours into the event is brazen, but I don't think they're special in any way other than that.

[BaaBaa]

That "No one can convince me" guy HAS to be David Cross trying out new material....

[Brainster]

One of the things I did not understand until James and I started SLC was that there is a conspiracy theory industry out there, ready to jump upon any major event and weave it into their already-existing overarching conspiracy. Thus it's probably useless to ask who was a "Zero-Day" truther; there were many of them. Indeed, Alex Jones claims to have predicted the attacks. This is BS (he in fact simply told his listeners to warn the White House against trying a terrorist attack).

Indeed, a kook on the right side named Jack Wheeler (http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/4143/2/) used the same gambit a few weeks ago:

[the Democratic party] is now being threatened with being thrown out of power. If that party is evil enough and fascist enough to cause an economic catastrophe, it is certainly evil and fascist enough to cause a physical catastrophe, an Ultimate October Surprise, that will frighten and enrage voters enough to preserve its power in November.

What could this be? The most likely would be another 9/11, a massively horrific terrorist attack, perhaps even nuclear. An attack for which no one or no group will claim responsibility, no Al Qaeda, no Osama bin Laden, no Timothy McVeigh - just a plethora of pointed fingers at a multitude of suspects, without any sufficiently hard evidence to implicate one in particular.

Of course, this is not really a prediction, and indeed, Wheeler has covered his bases on that point:

The message should go on to explain how nothing they do is going to work. It need not accuse them of plotting any specific act, just tell them that whatever they are plotting, it will fail, serving only to enrage voters against them.

Millions of such messages delivered ever week from now to November 2nd may convince even Rahm Emanuel to abandon the evil he and his fellow Dems are planning.

And then, on an Election Day that has seen no October Surprise but a Dem Demolition instead, we can all congratulate ourselves and say to each other, This was no accident, Comrades.

It's a win-win for Wheeler. If there is a terrorist attack, he claims to be the guy who predicted it. If there isn't a terrorist attack, he claims to be the guy who prevented it.

[INRM]

The chronology is very interesting to say the least. I'm very surprised the day 9/11 happened people were already speculating it was a controlled demolition.

I didn't hear any claims of controlled demolition until 2003.

[The Charnel Expanse]

nvm...

[Orphia Nay]

Here's the first 9/11 Truth protest, in 2002.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/09/14/1486451.php?

My, how their protests have grown! ;) :D

[Bell]

Here's the first 9/11 Truth protest, in 2002.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2002/09/14/1486451.php?

My, how their protests have grown! ;) :D

Nice one Orphia :)

I can't say for certain that more that 2 people joined that protest. For all I know the other people with the bullhorns shouted "they are teh crazy"