The events of 9/11 are one of the most widely discussed issues between conspiracy theorists. Simply googling any combination of the words "building," "debris," "controlled demolition," or "Boeing 757" will bring up links to conspiracy theorist websites. For sure, there is no shortage of speculation on the "truth" of the September 11th attacks. But if a true skeptic were to investigate these theories in depth, they would find that there is little to no logical support for these theories. Those who purport theories that the events September 11th were due to something other than Al Qaeda terrorist attacks rely on misapplied, and at times even faulty information.
Eric Hufschmid is the author of Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack. In his interview with Connie Bryan in this video (1), they are discussing some of the main points to his book. During the interview, it should be noted that neither Hufschmid nor Bryan quote or refer any experts on any of the subjects they discuss except for one professor at Bringham Young University, all they are doing is speculating. The first point that they discuss is that after the collapse of the Twin Towers, there was no debris left, so something other than a normal collapse must have happened. They discuss that firefighters comment that there was no office equipment or pieces of the building after the collapse. What they do not consider was the effect that the extreme height of the Twin Towers would have on an objects impact with the ground. Both towers were over 400 meters tall, a computer, or "piece of staircase" would not survive a 400 meter fall intact. After a 400 meter fall, any object would be pulverized, resulting in an extremely large dust cloud such as this:
(2)
Hufschmid and Bryan also discuss how the building fell at free fall speeds, something usually only characteristic of controlled demolitions, and they use this as proof that explosives must have been in the buildings. Again, the detail that they overlook is the extreme size and height of the building. The Twin Towers were the first buildings of their size to collapse in such a manner, and because of this, there's no building demolition to compare the collapse of the Twin Towers to. Without complete information of how these buildings should collapse, they are in no position to accurately make speculations that the buildings could have collapsed due to anything other than structural damage. Hufschmid and Bryan also discuss the way the dust from the collapse "swirled" as the buildings were falling, and how that must be evidence that something other than a normal collapse was occurring. The main pieces of evidence that Hufschmid uses is that debris was flying out of the windows horizontally as the floors were collapsing, and that as the floors collapsed they must have created a vacuum above them, causing the dust from the collapse to swirl up into the vacuum.
On these points, it must first be noted that Eric Hufschmid is not a physicist of any kind, he is a software developer, nor does he reference any physicists on these points. As for the debris flying horizontally, this is easily explained by the way in which the floors collapsed, as explained by S. Shyam Sunder, who was the head engineer of the official congressional investigation. Sunder explains that as the steel floor beams buckled, they pulled inward on the outside steel reinforcements of the buildings. When the reinforcements snapped from the pressure, they and the surrounding material flew outward, or rather, horizontally. A more detailed explanation may be found here (3). So what of the missing "vacuum?" This piece of "evidence" can be debunked by Hufschmid's own theory. His mistake is that he's looking at the wrong section of the collapse. In the video, you can see he's pointing to right above where the collapse is occurring; if you look higher up, at the top of the dust cloud, you can see that the dust is "swirling in" as he puts it.
The last piece of "evidence" that Hufschmid and Bryan discuss is the rapid removal and disposal of debris from the Twin Towers collapse as proof that the government was trying to cover up it's involvement in blowing up the World Trade Center. An aspect of this claim is that much of the steel was sold to outside companies to recycle the steel. A question that this aspect creates is, if the government were trying to hide evidence, why would it dispense the evidence to the public? That aside, the claim that all debris was immediately disposed of is wrong. As explained in "A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1,2, & 7 From an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint," (4) by contractors who worked directly with the debris removal process, the rubble from the towers was moved out of the way, moved to an out of the way location, analyzed by multiple experts, then shipped off.
So what do conspiracy theorists think of the Pentagon attack? This video (5) gives the general conspiracy theorist consensus that the Pentagon attack was orchestrated by the government and carried out by the military. The video intimates that the Pentagon was not really hit by a Boeing 757, but by a missile, and it gives several explanations to support this. The first explanation the video gives is that there was seemingly no 757 debris after the crash. The video shows pictures of the holes that were made in the walls of the Pentagon, and indicates that you cannot see any debris. However, these pictures only show a small portion of the crash site, not the whole area. This video (6) (at about 2 min. 40 sec.), reports that airplane debris can be seen all over the area. Aside from the fact that a picture only shows one small area of the crash site, the video neglects to notice that there is no debris from the building visible either. The next point that the video makes is that if a 757 had crashed into the Pentagon, it would have injured the ground around it. However, when you look at the security camera video (7) of the crash, you can see that debris from the impact only comes off the Pentagon, not from anywhere off the ground, indicating that the object did not hit the ground, and either way would have left no turf damage.
The next point that the video makes as to why it couldn't have been a 757 that hit the Pentagon was the apparent ineptitude of the hijackers. There are indeed numerous accounts from their respective flight schools about what bad pilots the hijackers were. However, according to this Washington Post article (8) the hijackers did in fact receive their certification for flying planes. Other flaws that the video contains in its argument are the inconsistencies of the evidence it uses. Part of the video's argument is that witnesses did not see a 757 hit the Pentagon, they claimed it was some other sort of aircraft. However, speculation on what that other sort of aircraft may have been is varied, and further on in the video, there are witnesses who do claim to have seen a 757 hit the Pentagon. The final inconsistency in the video is its comparison of the Pentagon plane crash with other plane crashes. Of the other plane crashes the video uses, the scenario differs. Some crashes hit the ground and skid before coming to a stop, others simply hit the ground head on, and none of them hit a building.
Why are 9/11 conspiracy theories so rampant in today's culture? They certainly show the diverseness of America's population. All one has to do is compare the comments on the youtube videos presented here to see a wide variety of personalities, and personal, social, and political opinions. So why do some choose to believe these theories? Perhaps they have become jaded by a government they inherently mistrust. This mistrust may be fueled by government secrecy not only about the September 11th attacks, but other issues as well. Perhaps some look back at scandals like Watergate, and Vietnam and believe that history will repeat itself. And perhaps others still look at the great American mysteries such as the Lincoln and Kennedy assassinations and refuse to believe that a great mystery for our time wouldn't exist as well. Whatever the case, the arguments for and against these theories show the diversity of American popular opinion today.
Bibliography:
1. Bryan, Connie. "9/11 Lies and Deceptions." Nov. 17, 2006. Youtube. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=K8hi303peYU>
2. Hulshizer, Daniel. "9/11." Retrieved Dec. 6, 2007. <http://freethoughts.org/archives/9-11-n.jpg>
3. Lewis, Susan K. "Building on Ground Zero." Aug. 3, 2006. NOVA. <http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/sunder.html>
4. Blanchard, Brent. "A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1, 2, & 7 From an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint." Aug, 8, 2006. Journal of Debunking 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Volume 1, Issue 2. <http://www.jod911.com/>
5. "Ogilvieci." "9/11 Coverup Conspiracy- No 757." March 28, 2007. Youtube. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=zAwtmun_aj8>
6. "Waldemar3." "Uncut Unedited Raw 9/11/01 Satellite Feed Pentagon Video." Nov. 12, 2007. Youtube. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=dsu-jVRzrfA>
7. "Pacifico555." "9/11 Pentagon Video." May 16, 2006. Youtube. <http://youtube.com/watch?v=40g4ZSHtpMc>
8. Yardley, Jonathan. "The 9/11 Hijackers." The Washington Post. May, 1, 2005. Pg. BW02. <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042801315.html>
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