Were you ever a 9/11 CTer?

[JAStewart]

Pretty simple were you ever a 9/11 Conspiracy believer?

I was. Pretty hardcore too, but then I came over here about a month ago and read Gravy's thing and read Screw Loose Change blog and the Official Story all makes sense now. Now I'm not, but I still post over at LC and Pilots4Truth just to see what latest theories they are resorting to.

JAStewart - debunked by Gravy, Markyx and everyone else.

Oh CTers - this is not a scientific poll :)

[defaultdotxbe]

i wasnt really a CTer (but then again this was before CTs were fashionable) but i was a CD believer, until i did research

[Pardalis]

Never. I'm like teflon for these things...

Maybe I don't have the genes for it? :confused:

[Peephole]

I was right after the attacks, but I was only 15 at that time.
Not that that's any excuse. I grew out of it over the years.

Edit: And I never believed in the no plane stuff. That was totally CIA disinfo.

[ImaginalDisc]

I was, for about a day and a half, and about the Pentagon attack only. I was confused and bewildered by the nitpicks and questions raised by CT'ers to which I had no answers. I didn't think that there had been a conspiracy, I was just unsure about what had actually happend.

I didn't understand how a relatively slow moving plane could have hit the Pentagon without being shot down before it reached its target. I had to have it explained to me slowly, and with small words. The information out at the time about the Pentagon attack was relatively sparse, and the attack itself challenged my assumptions about our nation's security. I wasn't surprised that the World Trade Center were so vulnerable, but I was stunned and incredulous that the nerve center of the military was so easy to hit. It was The 9/11 Comission Report more than anything else that put all the pieces together for me.

[Hellbound]

Nope.

I did have some advantages, though.

I'd been in the military for a while, so I knew how difficult it was for government to be secret or efficient.

I've got a pretty good understanding of physics.

I'd had some experience and knowledge of explosives and their effects.

I understood just how much energy is stored by gravity and kinetic motion.

I benefited from experience. Formt eh sounds of it here (and when arguing with CTers), it seems most are in the younger crowd (teens or early twenties), when rebellion is almost a reflex and experience is generally less varied. I have a hope that only the truely deranged won't grow out of it (I point to Jones, Woods, and Fetzer as evidence of this).

[negativ]

Never. I started reading this forum during the time of the Dover, PA "intelligent design" trial. I never had any idea that there even WAS a 9/11 conspiracy contingent until people here called attention to it.

I will, however, admit to being a former JFK assassination conspiracy believer. Also, while I never could actually cross the line into actual belief, I really really WANTED to believe the Area 51 Has Developed Technology Based On Stuff Recovered From The Roswell UFO Crash in 1947 bit. I'd *still* like to believe that. But I don't want to believe it without really good reasons, what with extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence and all. :)

[stateofgrace]

No, never.

I actually came across this a few years ago on a gaming forum of all places. Some guy was going on about bombs inside the Towers.

I thought ´What the hell are you talking about? ´

I replied and got absolutely slaughtered because I had never even heard of this stuff before. So I decided to read up on it and take a look at exactly what was being suggested. I was just amazed at it all and still am, that so many people actually buy into it all.

The more I looked the more it became apparent that it is simply make believe, playing on peoples loathing of Bush and disastrous foreign policies.

[Oliver]

I´m still sceptic about foreknowledge and refused
data about information concerning terrorists and
their connections to each other...

[CurtC]

No, never. I have been arguing against various conspiracy theories for ten years or so, beginning on alt.folklore.urban and then alt.fan.cecil-adams. The 9/11 conspiracy theory was obviously much like all those others.

[Horatius]

JAStewart - debunked by Gravy

So you're telling us he really can debunk your very existence (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#26m19s)? Cool.

[Merko]

Define 'conspiracy'. I still believe there has been an immense amount of non-coordinated government cover-ups after the event. There invariably is after such a big tragedy. Not because the government did it, but because the inevitable investigation would threaten to reveal so much neglect, corruption, mismanagement and general incompetence that is prevalent in ANY government.

I also still believe that the US cabinet found this to be a great opportunity to roll out a set of plans that had been carefully crafted over a period of many years. Not that they actually celebrated the 911 deaths, but they were clearly waiting for 'something' to happen, and 911 clearly fit the criterion of this 'something' better than they could have ever dreamt of.

I also believe that preventing terrorism was not really a huge priority prior to 911, for any administration outside of Israel. For good reason, terrorism was, and still is, objectively a much lesser problem than road kills or faulty electrical appliances.

[Steve H]

Never. Lack of evidence aside, I never read or heard any 9/11 CT scenario that made any logical sense when one examines the 'big picture.' You'll find most 9/11 CTers usually tend to dwell on minutiae for this reason.

[firecoins]

were you ever a 9/11 Conspiracy believer? I believe OBL financed a mission planned by KSM and carried out by 19 Muslim hijackers mostly of Saudi descent. That seems like a conspiracy theory. The lone gunmen theory does not apply here the last I looked.

That being said the no plane theory, remote controlled planes switched in theory, missle at the Pentagon theory, or explosives in the WTC 1, 2 or 7 never made sense.

[solidslade]

I'm Conspiracy Theorist.

example, I believe the Nazi Agenda in WW2 was a conspiracy.

in that sense, I consider myself a conspiracy theorist.

I used to believe the CD theory about 9/11 was plausible, until I did my own research., and it's proven wrong.

However, those are based off of actual facts and evidence, and real history.


I have, and never WILL be though, a freakin' Truufer.

[Oliver]

So you're telling us he really can debunk your very existence (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8820426888499996890#26m19s)? Cool.

This evil guy even debunked my signature. You
better tell him nothing personal... :D

[Free Thinkr]

I considered it a possibility very briefly early on, but I never actually believed any conspiracy theory; once I did a little research, I pretty much realized there is no truth to any of them, and that most of the "holes" or "problems" with the "official" version are based on fallacies.

[Hutch]

My first (and favorite target) CT therory is "We didn't land on the Moon" and I was wholly unaware that there even was a CT about 9-11 until Delphi_ote first posted (so long yet not so long ago) about Loose Change and I began reading/posting over there (until the inevitable banning).

Guess I would make a good sheeple then; but one with some science and math, which puts me about three steps ahead of anyone at LC...

[Arus808]

when i first joined this forum i admitted that I was a Cter until i started to look into the accusations/statements in Loose Change and saw that it was all bluster.

Yes, Loose Change caused me to "ask questions" , but I asked the right questions to the right people, and no longer believe the conspiracy kooks theories.

[Axiom_Blade]

No, not at all, except for awhile I thought the Pentagon probably had Flight 93 shot down. Then I heard about Todd Beamer, and decided it must have really crashed. I didn't think the calls had been "faked" or anything like that.

A few weeks after 9/11, I had a roommate tell me that she'd "heard" that "Bush knew the attacks were going to happen. I think my mouth fell open. I was shocked that anybody would believe something so stupid, especially on hearsay. (How naive I was...!)

I was shocked and disgusted by how quickly people started believing the CTs.
I'm still amazed by what these guys will believe. A lot of them seem pretty intelligent, too. It just doesn't make any sense to me, and it really bothers me, actually.

But mostly I just want to hit them all in the face with a shovel.

[Stankeye]

Other than a few things being brought up after the fact that did seem wierd, I never thought 9/11 was anything other than some crazies crashing planes.

I'm like negativ though in that some part of me likes to fantasize about Area 51 and advanced technology..but that's just fun!

[fuelair]

Had to say no because as much as I loathe Shrub and his bbuddies, I can't see him being that vile - and no conspiracy could have faked/hidden all that occurred.

[Loss Leader]

Not only did I never believe in a 9/11 conspiracy, but the Tr00thers helped me let go of all of my conspiracy leanings. All those "questions" about the JFK assassination faded away after I saw just how stupid "questions" were when they didn't add up to anything.

[yodaluver28]

I was for about half an hour in 2003 but when I started looking a little furthur into the claims made by the main CT sites that were around at the time, I got over it.

[gfunkusarelius]

ha, i am always amazed at how many people thought that there must be a conspiracy because the govt wouldve been able to stop it (whether it is them shooting down the planes before they hit, or them tracking the terrorists, etc). i guess once you get older, work a few places, have to deal with govt bureaucracy, etc, you have no problem understanding that a nation like the US is very vulnerable to this sort of attack and there isnt a lot you can do to stop people who are really determined to attack its weaknesses. the only thing i was really shocked by was how the buildings fell. it was totally surreal watching it, but i knew that was because it was something i had never seen, i didnt know how to grasp it. i never thought it was some sort of intentional thing that was helped along by anything other than the intense fires and explosions

[Oliver]

Well, we all are 9/11 "CTer" - the official version is a conspiracy, too.

[Bell]

No, never.

The only thing I thought weird about 9/11 (and then only on the day itself) was the fact that CNN International used to broadcast short films about the building of the towers in the weeks before the attack.

[JAStewart]

Wahahah, I just got told by Killtown to 'Go back to JREF'.

[Redtail]

Nope, but then like Huntsman I'm former military and agree with what he stated.

[PerryLogan]

I first heard the whole 9/11 thing from Alex Jones, so I knew right away it was BS.

[uk_dave]

I only found out about 9/11 CT about a year or so ago.

People on another forum kept posting all these videos and saying how incredible they were, but I just couldn't see what the video makers were telling me to see. It was then that I knew I was special.

As for the day itself, the only thing which struck me as odd (apart from the whole damn insane disgusting event) was how few passengers the flights were reported to have had. Having flown within the US several times I had always experienced packed flights and squabbles over overhead bin space.

So definately no 9/11 conspiracy here. And I see no reason to treat with kid gloves those who do persist with this ****, because they really should know better.

Now as for the St Batholomew's Day Massacre....

[TellyKNeasuss]

I don't know how to vote. I never believed in MIHOP but for a while I was on the fence about LIHOP.

[T.A.M.]

Define 'conspiracy'. I still believe there has been an immense amount of non-coordinated government cover-ups after the event. There invariably is after such a big tragedy. Not because the government did it, but because the inevitable investigation would threaten to reveal so much neglect, corruption, mismanagement and general incompetence that is prevalent in ANY government.

I also still believe that the US cabinet found this to be a great opportunity to roll out a set of plans that had been carefully crafted over a period of many years. Not that they actually celebrated the 911 deaths, but they were clearly waiting for 'something' to happen, and 911 clearly fit the criterion of this 'something' better than they could have ever dreamt of.

I also believe that preventing terrorism was not really a huge priority prior to 911, for any administration outside of Israel. For good reason, terrorism was, and still is, objectively a much lesser problem than road kills or faulty electrical appliances.


I agree with almost every aspect of the above quote, except perhaps the last sentence.

As for a CTer, never was, never will be. I ask questions, but I use logic to answer them. I am a huge Carl Sagan fan, and try to model my thinking after his.

TAM

[GlennB]

Yep - for a couple of months earlier this year. Eventually the nagging doubts grew and accumulated into a great steamroller of good sense.
One of the most effective treatments for my temporary madness happened right here. It was very stylish :



<snip some blathering about thermate>
Yes, in appendix C to the FEMA report. The sulphur would suggest thermate rather than thermite
Er, no. Sulpher would suggest sulpher. Now, if it was sulpher, iron slag, aluminum, and barium nitrate byproducts you might have something.

[gumboot]

No I was never a CTer. Also I'd make a distinction that a Conspiracy Theorist is someone who believes in an unproven conspiracy.

I don't believe the Al Qaeda attack is a conspiracy theory. It's just a conspiracy.

My understanding of 9/11 came late, so I had the advantage of things like the NIST report to educate me on the details of what happened. The onyl aspect of the overall official story that I ever considered possibly wrong was UA93.

I found it highly likely that it just crashed, but until I received further information I considered it plausible that NORAD shot it down but when they found out about the passenger take over they lied about the shoot down because it would look really bad if they shot down an airliner that was about to be back in American control!

Having said that I never actually believed this theory, it was merely a "possible alternative" I allowed for (Much as I still allow for the unlikely "possible alternative" that the attacks happened exactly as officially accounted, yet the US Government (or someone else) instigated the attacks by contacting Al Qaeda).

-Gumboot

[Crazy Chainsaw]

I was curious, and could have went either way, but one Phone call to Dr. Steven Jones changed that. I could tell from just one phone call he knew nothing about he materials sciences of what he was referring too.

So I was a five second CTer, I admit it, for five seconds I Kinda believed him.

[uk_dave]

I can't post any sources for this, but it has always struck me as interesting.

In the lead up to the invasion of iraq there was a massive protest march in london and as usual the media did some vox pops with the marchers

I recall some guy saying that the war was wrong because there was no wmd in iraq, and even if they did find some, it will have been planted there by the US

So, before the actual event we already had in place a baby CT just waiting to be born kicking and screaming.

Of course, the strange thing is that the evil NWO/goat molesters found themselves unable to commit that one piece of deception which would have saved their asses from all the criticism and anger over a war which was founded on an incorrect premise.

Perhaps they're masochists too

[Bell]

I was curious, and could have went either way, but one Phone call to Dr. Steven Jones changed that. I could tell from just one phone call he knew nothing about he materials sciences of what he was referring too.

So I was a five second CTer, I admit it, for five seconds I Kinda believed him.

sj "Hello?"
cc "Yes hello!"
sj "Yes? Hello? Hello?"
cc "Hello! Crazy Chainsaw here. Hello?"
sj "Hello!"
cc "Hello!"
sj "Yes? Hello?"
cc "Hello! Is this Dr. Steven Jones? Hello?"
sj "Hello! Yes, it is."
cc "Hello?"
sj "Yes! Hello! Dr. Steven Jones here! Hello!"
*click*
sj "Hello?"

[LashL]

No, I was never a CTer.

There was a time, though, back when I was around 16 years old that I was temporarily convinced that Paul McCartney had died a decade earlier and was replaced by a double, etc. etc. etc. Ahh, the foibles of youth.

[Oliver]

Our Board-CT´ists missed to vote...

[Garb]

Yeah. Watched Loose Change, got yelled at by a guy who thought he knew exactly what he was talking about, then shut my mouth.

A few months later, watched Mark Iradian's "Screw Loose Change" video and everything changed.

[The Demon's Head]

I'm not a 9/11 CTist. However, there are a few things that I remain a bit skeptical about. Bob Baer commented about the possiblities of an inside job. Baer was asked "Are you of the opinion that there was an aspect of 'inside job' to 9/11 within the U.S. government?", Baer responsed "There is that possibility, the evidence points at it."

[Crungy]

Never. On that awful day I wondered aloud to some friends about what type of conspiracies will pop up from this. Since then I've followed event related to 9/11, but was unaware of any large CT movement, until earlier this year.

As a kid I started out with UFOs, Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. In "there is no Santa Claus" fashion I sadly learned of the scams. Later I graduated to JFK nuttery. It wasn't long until I was disgusted by the lies, con artists and mental instability that is required to wear a JKF Buff badge. What's different about 9/11 is that it's largely a phenomena incubated in cyberspace. The internet has allowed the woo to spread like wild fire. Also, like the bulk of the inhabitants of internet land, the demographic for 9/11 nutters consists mainly of young white males. All of them ignorant of history, science, and the real world. JFK nutters were either baby boomers (David Lifton), con artists (Mark Lane) or the mentally unstable (Robert Groden). Outside of the backwards baseball cap sect, 9/11 loony toonz seem to have few adults.

[jaydeehess]

I was flumoxed to learn that people actually thought that there were explosives in the towers(first CT item I came across). But since the building had been bombed before I checked out the sites that said there were.


I found them ,,,,, wanting,,,,,,. The biggest single item that bothered me was the complete and utter lack of any analysis at that time. It continues to this day for the most part for which the phrase "near (or 'at' or 'faster than') free fall" seems to be the banner message.

Next came the missile vs. plane at the Pentagon. Wow, I thought, "no one could swallow this crap. The pictures of the supposedly small entrance hole are mostly taken up by smoke and water spray.", obviously they were being very selective in the photos. I was wrong, people bought into that.

Just when I though it could not get crazier , Killtown came along.............need I say more?

No, I was never a CT.

[Axiom_Blade]

What's different about 9/11 is that it's largely a phenomena incubated in cyberspace. The internet has allowed the woo to spread like wild fire. Also, like the bulk of the inhabitants of internet land, the demographic for 9/11 nutters consists mainly of young white males. All of them ignorant of history, science, and the real world. JFK nutters were either baby boomers (David Lifton), con artists (Mark Lane) or the mentally unstable (Robert Groden). Outside of the backwards baseball cap sect, 9/11 loony toonz seem to have few adults.

I'm not so sure about that...I've met a good dozen or so 9-11 nutters in my town, and I'd say 25% are in the 18-25 demographic, but the other 75% are over 40. And this is a college town!

I think that the reason why it seems like all the deniers are under 30 is because that's the demographic that uses the Internet the most. I bet if you spend some time with peace groups, or go to a Green Party meeting (or, probably, a Libertarian Party meeting), you'd find plenty older folks with 9-11 CTs. It feels good to think that you're so much more mature than some dumb kid, but there's a LOT of dumb old people, too. And there's no fool like an old fool.

[uk_dave]

I would say that the birth of the 9/11 conspiracy theory was predictable but that it's growth until recently was mainly due to the polarisation of american politics, mistrust of the bush admin and opposition to the iraq war.

What I can't understand or excuse is the games the woowoos play with this subject. It's one thing to have endless debates about an event which happened 40 years ago, but quite another to feel so strongly that your own government was responsible for murdering 3000 of it's own and your fellow citizens and yet the best you can manage is to spend all day posting on a bloody internet forum.

If they REALLY believed then they should be doing something about it, not playing debating games online.

But, for the most part those woowoos who have lives outside of internet forum continue to lead those lives as if nothing in their CT should actually mean that they should have to do anything about it. They pay their taxes, send their kids to school, go to work, buy and consume just like everyone else, and then when they have a few spare hours they become fearless internet warriors accusing governments, military, police, fire and private citizens of being involved in mass murder.

And then, once again, life goes on.

I find that extremely bizarre.

[MRC_Hans]

Never. And the official story is not a CT, it's a fact-based assumption. And a good one at that.

Sure, I think there has been various things swept under the rug, like undue incompetence and passivity, but that's not a conspiracy, that's just business as usual.

Hans

[greyleonard]

It was an embyronic 911 CT attitude which lasted for a few weeks before I aborted.

After 911, I was alarmed that critically thinking about the United States government became antithesis to the thin concept of patriotism re-enforced by the MSM. (as evidenced by the firing of Bill Maher, and later Phil Donahue, for example)
I'm not absolutely certain, but I think the ManCow radio show may have initiated my first consideration of 911 CT. I heard about the first plane impact on the show, and some days later he played a clip from a pre-911 movie whose plot involved the government faking a terrorist attack using airplanes, and he made the suggestion that the attacks weren't at the degree of surprise that the bush admin claimed.
Later, Wolf Blitzer did a story about Meyssan's "Hunt the Boeing" site and book, and Blitzer's refutation of it was so poor and emotion laden - just plain lousy arguments - that I concluded that Blitzer must be incorrect about this topic, too. What was the name of that site Wolf was ridiculing?...

Thankfully, during my searches I also found a couple of sites (they must have been among the first) using well-reasoned arguments and factual cititations against the baseless ******** out there. One in particular documented the correspondence between a missile guy and a Flight 77 guy, including graphics and angle measurements; it's the one that nudged me back toward an accurate understanding of what happened on 911, and becoming an ex-911 CTist.

[jhunter1163]

I was never a CTer. The closest I ever came was after seeing a little bit of Loose Change. I remember thinking, "that can't possibly be true... can it?" So, I read up a little and found my way to this forum, where I was quickly shown that no, that can't possibly be true. I was relieved to say the least.

Thanks to the JREF for saving me from the hell-pit of woo.

ETA: I still have an open mind about Bigfoot though, being from the American Northwest originally.

[orphia nay]

Never. These are my first words upon first learning about a 9/11 CT on November 13 last year:

These stories are just picking at scars, opening an old wound completely unnecessarily. Shame. Some people think if an article mentions a conspiracy, it must be correct.

(It was at a sub-forum at this invitation-only forum, so I can't link to it specifically: http://www.sbwave.com/celestial/)

I still maintain that disgust, despite daily exposure to CTists claims of "massive evidence... total evidence" and despite personal attacks against my intentions and motivation.

I battled there daily for almost 2 months, then gave them up as a lost cause, then this forum took off, and I couldn't drag myself away from here, until I realized I was still angry at those first CTists I'd met, and I started debating them again after Sept 11 this year. I'm starting to feel sorry for them, actually. Believing in that crap makes them feel special, and reading Rense and prisonplanet makes them think they are doing research.

[Brainster]

I never bought into it, but that may have as much to do with who was pushing the theories when I first heard about them on Usenet back in 2002 or 2003. I'll admit that when James and I started SLC, I was a little concerned about the "Scholars", thinking that they surely must have a more coherent case to put forward than Loose Change had proposed. It boggles my mind that if anything, they're kookier than Dylan & Company.

[Hellbound]

They're creepy and they're cooky,
Mysterious and spooky,
They're all-together ooky,
The Scholars family

Da-da-da-dumb

:D

[Kiwiwriter]

I was in a different position, because I was part of Newark's emergency response that day. I had to man our Emergency Operations Center and prepare our press releases and statements from the Mayor to our city's residents about our response to the horror across the river, which was pretty serious. We had to lock down Newark International Airport and the Seaport next to it, send supplies over the river, and get ready to accommodate refugees coming back. That included setting up decontamination showers at Penn Station, which proved to be unnecessary.

When this was going on, I thought at the time, and said to people, "You watch. In three days, the conspiracy theorists will be out, linking this to the Jews, the Zionists, the Masons, and the Designated Hitter rule." It was one of the few jokes that day that gained laughs.

I had spent eight years in the Navy, two in municipal service as liaison to emergency operations and planning, and 10 years before that in newspapers and wire services. So I knew from harsh experience that governments are not very good at keeping things secret for any great length of time, and even worse at launching projects, whether it's a supply inventory or an invasion of Iraq.

Conspiracy theorists seem to think that the US government has vast and shadowy army of obedient, robot-like minions, who utterly loyal and utterly ruthless, lacking scruples but armed with near superpowers. This dark army of minions has no families, no moral values, no off-time, and is rarely seen, except in fuzzy video of CTers. They are capable of immense criminal acts, ranging from cold-blooded mass murder to faking a cell phone call. They never make mistakes, they never get caught, they never even take vacations, and they are somehow able to manipulate governments, corporations, stock markets, economies, armed forces, intelligence and police agencies, motion picture studios, media organizations, scientific bodies, and universities, all without ever making a mistake, being caught, being observed, or leaving any kind of a paper or electronic trail.

Now compare that with any government agency, ranging from the Department of Motor Vehicles to the US Navy.

I didn't need a debate between Loose Change nutters and skeptics to convince me that the truth was pretty bloody obvious. 19 guys, some boxcutters, a good chunk of money, and the love of Allah in their pretty green eyes. That and our arrogant complaceny was all they needed.

[Twilek]

Not even for one teeny split-second. My first experience with the blossoming CT was a couple months after the attacks when my ex sent me an e-mail with some links to dumb crap, of which only one can I remember now - the Fat Nose Osama picture.

I took one look at it and replied "Uh, hello? Number one, it's a still...I SAW parts of the video it's taken from and it IS him, and number two, the frame looks smooshed, so of course he looks distorted. Dur!"

Then I came here years later and found out I was correct in my observation, and that my ex is, indeed, still an idiot. :D

[njslim]

Back in early 1970'sw dabbled in the Erich Von Daniken "Chariots of the Gods"
theory - supposedly UFOs landed in past to influence our early ancestors.
Then I grew up. As for 9/11 along with Kiwiwriter had a ringside seat
and watched WTC burn and collapse from across river. After they shut
down workplace at lunchtime (Exxon (now Conoco oil refinery) in Linden
NJ - hows that for a "high value target" - went home and listened to radio
calls from site in my firehouse. We were standing by in case needed and
covering for Paterson FD who had entire day shift on scene assisting.
Really get P'O when nutjobs start spouting nonsense about what happened
that day.

[Larry Lovage]

The first inkling of 9/11 conspiracy theories was during a period when I was quite busy doing a lot of Moon Hoax debunking. A co-worker came up to me - quite a good friend, actually, and a guy whose intelligence I rate highly - and showed me a website, which thank you greyleonard must have been Meyssan's "Hunt the Boeing" site French guy, right? So, this friend was saying, "What happened to the plane?" Now, I happened to have been very impressed with helicopter footage I'd once seen of the Everglades airliner crash - there was a swathe cut in the trees, a large bare expanse of ground, and little white dots which were the debris. So the fact that a speeding airliner (which consists, remember, of 100 tons of metal stretched thinly around the largest volume possible) could entirely be consumed by a crash was not a surprise to me. I seem to remember security camera footage which I pointed out to my friend did absolutely nothing to confirm the bizarre view that there was no plane.

About six months later, I did see a website (this was long before Loose Change and certainly before my awareness of Alex Jones etc), and someone had put a scholarly report on that site which explained how one of the airliners could have been landed and the passengers offloaded somewhere, before going on to crash into either the WTC or the Pentagon. I couldn't help think, "What? Why on earth would you do something like that?" I seem to remember emailing the guy directly.

After a while I became aware of other sites, thanks to an extensive debunk-by-email I had done with someone on a moon hoax mailing list. And the principle thing that struck me was how these websites invariably painted themselves as investigative journalists, yet the language used by them, and the quality of the "evidence" they cited, didn't match anything that would be used by real newspaper or magazine articles.

However, it was not until this year that I got more heavily into seeing what the 9/11 Truth community claimed. I was recommended to watch a video called 9/11 Revisited. It was superb. Everything they said, you could almost immediately see was not the case. Some of the video footage was some of the best I'd ever seen which demonstrated conclusively that the top parts of each building collapsed as relatively whole chunks onto the floors below. At that point certain things had begun to puzzle me, mainly about the way the buildings had come down. The video footage in 9/11 Revisited reassured me that indeed everything was physically possible. Half the movie consists of almost continuous footage of the first 9/11 conference (hosted, I could hardly believe it, by Ed Begley Jr.) Fetzer presented a full version of the Silverstein video which, as it was played, directly contradicted what Fetzer had just said about it. He also played the interview with Frank Mancuso, the WTC engineer who said that a plane hitting the building would be like a mosquito hitting it. It's impossible for me to understand what Fetzer thought he was proving with that one! Mancuso died in the actual disaster, presumably with a surprised look on his face.

In September it was the fifth anniversary, and there were several documentaries on UK tv, some of them running at the same time, so I was flicking back and forth and seeing different points of view. Seeing footage filmed on the day. Hearing eyewitness and survivor testimony. So much of it plainly and clearly contradicted many of the assertions of the Truth movement, I was astonished to find that the movement was still alive afterwards. All the puzzling about WTC7, and there it was, direct from the news feed, repeated mentions of the likelihood of WTCs 5, 6 and 7's collapsing, plus footage of what were clearly enormous uncontrollable fires.

Finally, I was genuinely puzzled by the telephone calls. Found the scientific report that concluded that the calls were impossible. I carefully looked at how the data had been collected, how rigorously they had subdivided possible results, and impressed how they had recorded truthfully when they had made a successful connection, and at what height, etc. Something like 4% of successful telephone calls at something like the relevant height. And yet their conclusion, that that was a low figure that ruled out as many as 7 phone calls getting through, just left me flabbergasted. There appeared to be some kind of assumption that only the people who got through had even tried! Two hundred and fifty people on four planes, clearly in mortal danger - and apparently hardly anyone is trying out a mobile telephone. The mind boggled at the bizarre gap in the logic.

[jaydeehess]

I have to disagree with the idea that the CT's are mostly younger folk too. This is a small town(15,000 pop.) and one of the people listed in the "Scholar's" membership is a local carpenter who is a few years older than I am (I'm 50).

As others above have stated, when the theories that had the planes spirited off and other planes or missiles substituted for them , the passengers killed off , the original planes disposed of,,,, etc. I could hardly believe and still cannot understand why CT's do not recognize these types of plots as pure lunacy. These are James Bond adversary tactics, no check that, they are Dr.Evil style tactics.:jaw-dropp

Now we have that flight 93 was remotely controlled and taken to land at Cleveland, the persons on board off-loaded and secretly taken away and killed while flight was remotely piloted and forced to crash in Shankesville while a missile was sent to the Pentagon!!!!

How can anyone with two properly functioning brain cells come up with such lunacy let alone believe it???


I too started by debunking Moon Hoax believers on the Blackvault forums where the Ct's started showing up. Suprise!!!! a lot of HB's are also CT's and a few also believe that Paul MacCartney died decades ago and was replaced by a Canadian police officer.:rolleyes:

[CynicalSkeptic]

No, because I think the government is too incompetent to pull off, and keep covered up, any involvement.

[Crungy]

I'm not so sure about that...I've met a good dozen or so 9-11 nutters in my town, and I'd say 25% are in the 18-25 demographic, but the other 75% are over 40. And this is a college town!

I think that the reason why it seems like all the deniers are under 30 is because that's the demographic that uses the Internet the most. I bet if you spend some time with peace groups, or go to a Green Party meeting (or, probably, a Libertarian Party meeting), you'd find plenty older folks with 9-11 CTs. It feels good to think that you're so much more mature than some dumb kid, but there's a LOT of dumb old people, too. And there's no fool like an old fool.

Lucky for me and unlucky for you, your personal experience with the 9/11 nutters is vastly different then what I've encountered. I'm 38, work as mechanical engineer in Chicago. I work on a good amount of large and high profile building projects. From my job I'm constantly in contact with many people with the expertise to design and construct buildings. I have never met anyone in this industry who has nothing but contempt for the 9/11 nutters. I also have a fair amount of friends who come from a broad background of professional areas. None believe in any 9/11 nuttery. I don't hang it with many people under 23 so, fortunately for me, the only 9/11 loopers I've met are on the internet.

I just finished viewing the recent Gravy at Ground Zero video, and the 9/11 nutters fit the sterotype to a T. Although there is one white haired nutter arguing.

Anyone else encounter more adults nutters than clue erecting Hardly Boyz?

[LashL]

I was in a different position, because I was part of Newark's emergency response that day. I had to man our Emergency Operations Center and prepare our press releases and statements from the Mayor to our city's residents about our response to the horror across the river, which was pretty serious. We had to lock down Newark International Airport and the Seaport next to it, send supplies over the river, and get ready to accommodate refugees coming back. That included setting up decontamination showers at Penn Station, which proved to be unnecessary.

When this was going on, I thought at the time, and said to people, "You watch. In three days, the conspiracy theorists will be out, linking this to the Jews, the Zionists, the Masons, and the Designated Hitter rule." It was one of the few jokes that day that gained laughs.

I had spent eight years in the Navy, two in municipal service as liaison to emergency operations and planning, and 10 years before that in newspapers and wire services. So I knew from harsh experience that governments are not very good at keeping things secret for any great length of time, and even worse at launching projects, whether it's a supply inventory or an invasion of Iraq.

Conspiracy theorists seem to think that the US government has vast and shadowy army of obedient, robot-like minions, who utterly loyal and utterly ruthless, lacking scruples but armed with near superpowers. This dark army of minions has no families, no moral values, no off-time, and is rarely seen, except in fuzzy video of CTers. They are capable of immense criminal acts, ranging from cold-blooded mass murder to faking a cell phone call. They never make mistakes, they never get caught, they never even take vacations, and they are somehow able to manipulate governments, corporations, stock markets, economies, armed forces, intelligence and police agencies, motion picture studios, media organizations, scientific bodies, and universities, all without ever making a mistake, being caught, being observed, or leaving any kind of a paper or electronic trail.

Now compare that with any government agency, ranging from the Department of Motor Vehicles to the US Navy.

I didn't need a debate between Loose Change nutters and skeptics to convince me that the truth was pretty bloody obvious. 19 guys, some boxcutters, a good chunk of money, and the love of Allah in their pretty green eyes. That and our arrogant complaceny was all they needed.

That was a great post.

I just wanted to say that.

As you were.

[gumboot]

These are James Bond adversary tactics, no check that, they are Dr.Evil style tactics.:jaw-dropp


Actually that's a good point... the CT theory really would be perfect for a new installment of "Austin Powers".

Robot Planes, Missiles that deploy DNA and 757 wreckage, Star Wars Beam Weapons, Mini-Nukes and Cones of Destruction, Super-Nano Mega-fun-Thermate...

This all fits perfectly alongside Sharks-with-laser-beams-attached-to-their-heads, the Alan Parsons Project, and a ridiculously-slow-moving-dipping-mechanism.

Someone should really write to Mike Myers.

-Gumboot

[MG1962]

That was a great post.

I just wanted to say that.

As you were.

I agree totally - The Moon Hoaxers had Capricorn One. The 911 trooofers - The X Files

[Hierosis]

Let me take the credit now for being the ONE person who said, "yes, still do."

[parky76]

i believed in the 9-11 ct movemant after watching "in plane site". then i saw the "pod" on the damn cover of the video.

i again believed after seeing loose change. then i read the debunking documents and watched "screw loose change".

what do i believe 100% now? bush should have prepaired us better...but did he know it was coming on 9-11-01? no way of knowing for sure.

what i do know for sure..is that bush used 9-11 to scare the american people into accepting the patriot act, the military commissions act, warrentless wiretaps, etc. there have been lots of terror warnings...but no attacks..and no terror convictions.

was 9-11 an inside job? probably not. did neo-cons use it to further their agenda? hell yes.

[Larry Lovage]

Conspiracy theorists seem to think that the US government has vast and shadowy army of obedient, robot-like minions, who utterly loyal and utterly ruthless, lacking scruples but armed with near superpowers. This dark army of minions has no families, no moral values, no off-time, and is rarely seen, except in fuzzy video of CTers. They are capable of immense criminal acts, ranging from cold-blooded mass murder to faking a cell phone call. They never make mistakes, they never get caught, they never even take vacations, and they are somehow able to manipulate governments, corporations, stock markets, economies, armed forces, intelligence and police agencies, motion picture studios, media organizations, scientific bodies, and universities, all without ever making a mistake, being caught, being observed, or leaving any kind of a paper or electronic trail.
This picture comes from the movies. There used to be a vogue for that kind of political thriller in which the hero's every move would be tracked by mirror-sunglassed minions of the secret services who would rouutinely wipe out innocent people in order to frame the hero. One I saw recently was The Osterman Weekend starring Burt Lancaster as the head of a CIA that pretty much had police state powers. While looking it up on the IMDb, I discovered that in 1973 Lancaster had been in a film I'd never heard of called Executive Action (http://uk.imdb.com/title/tt0070046/) - the story of how oil tycoons had Kennedy assassinated!

[Larry Lovage]

what do i believe 100% now? bush should have prepaired us better...but did he know it was coming on 9-11-01? no way of knowing for sure. Believe me I love the guy, but if anyone should have made the USA more prepared, it was Clinton.