Debunking Conspiracy Theorists

tunaman

Astute observers of history are aware that for every notable event there will usually be at least one, often several, wild conspiracy theories which spring up around it. "The CIA killed Hendrix", "The Pope had John Lennon murdered ", "Hitler was half Werewolf", "Space aliens replaced Nixon with a clone", etc, etc. The bigger the event, the more ridiculous and more numerous are the fanciful rantings which circulate in relation to it.

So it's hardly surprising that the events of Sept 11 2001 have spawned their fair share of these ludicrous fairy tales. And as always, there is sadly a small but gullible percentage of the population eager to lap up these tall tales, regardless of facts or rational analysis.

One of the wilder stories circulating about Sept 11, and one that has attracted something of a cult following amongst conspiracy buffs is that it was carried out by 19 fanatical Arab hijackers, masterminded by an evil genius named Osama bin Laden, with no apparent motivation other than that they "hate our freedoms."

Never a group of people to be bothered by facts, the perpetrators of this cartoon fantasy have constructed an elaborately woven web of delusions and unsubstantiated hearsay in order to promote this garbage across the internet and the media to the extent that a number of otherwise rational people have actually fallen under its spell. Normally I don't even bother debunking this kind of junk, but the effect that this paranoid myth is beginning to have requires a little rational analysis, in order to consign it to the same rubbish bin as all such silly conspiracy theories.

These crackpots even contend that the extremist Bush regime was caught unawares by the attacks, had no hand in organizing them, and actually would have stopped them if it had been able. Blindly ignoring the stand-down of the US Air Force, the insider trading on airline stocks — linked to the CIA, the complicit behavior of Bush on the morning of the attacks, the controlled demolition of the WTC, the firing of a missile into the Pentagon and a host of other documented proofs that the Bush regime was behind the attacks, the conspiracy theorists stick doggedly to a silly story about 19 Arab hijackers somehow managing to commandeer 4 planes simultaneously and fly them around US airspace for nearly 2 hours, crashing them into important buildings, without the US intelligence services having any idea that it was coming, and without the Air Force knowing what to do.

The huge difficulties with such a stupid story force them to invent even more preposturous stories to distract from its core silliness, and thus the tale has escalated into a mythic fantasy of truly gargantuan proportions.

It's difficult to apply rational analysis to such unmitigated stupidity, but that is the task which I take on in this article. However, it should be noted that one of the curious characteristics of conspiracy theorists is that they effortlessly change their so-called evidence in response to each aspect which is debunked. As soon as one delusion is unmasked, they simply invent another to replace it, and deny that the first ever existed. Eventually, when they have turned full circle through this endlessly changing fantasy fog , they then re-invent the original delusion and deny that you ever debunked it, thus beginning the circle once more. This technique is known as "the fruit loop" and saves the conspiracy theorist from ever having to see any of their ideas through to their (ill)logical conclusions.

According to the practitioners of the fruit loop, 19 Arabs took over the 4 planes by subduing the passengers and crew through the use of guns, knives, box cutters and gas, and then used electronic guidance systems which they had smuggled on board to fly the planes to their targets.

The suspension of disbelief required for this outrageous concoction is only for the hard-core conspiracy theorist. For a start, they conveniently skip over the awkward fact that there weren't any Arabs on the planes. If there were, one must speculate that they somehow got on board without being filmed by any of the security cameras and without being registered on the passenger lists. But the curly question of how they are supposed to have got on board is all too mundane for the exciting world of the conspiracy theorist. With vague mumblings that they must have been using false ID (but never specifying which IDs they are alleged to have used, or how these were traced to their real identities), they quickly bypass this problem, to relate exciting and sinister tales about how some of the fictitious fiends were actually searched before boarding because they looked suspicious. However, as inevitably happens with any web of lies, this simply paints them into an even more difficult corner. How are they supposed to have got on board with all that stuff if they were searched? And if they used gas in a confined space, they would have been affected themselves unless they also had masks in their luggage.

"Excuse me sir, why do you have a boxcutter, a gun, a container of gas, a gas mask and an electronic guidance unit in your luggage?" "A present for your grandmother? Very well sir, on you get." "Very strange", thinks the security officer. "That's the fourth Arab man without an Arabic name who just got on board with a knife, gun or boxcutter and gas mask. And why does that security camera keep flicking off every time one of these characters shows up? Must be one of those days I guess..."

Asking any of these basic questions to a conspiracy theorist is likely to cause a sudden leap to the claim that we know that they were on board because they left a credit card trail for the tickets they had purchased and cars they had rented. So if they used credit cards that identified them, how does that reconcile with the claim that they used false IDs to get on to the plane? But by this time the fruit loop is in full swing, as the conspiracy theorist tries to stay one jump ahead of this annoying and awkward rational analysis. They will allege that the hijackers' passports were found at the crash scenes. "So there!" they exalt triumphantly, their fanatical faces lighting up with that deranged look of one who has just a revelation of questionable sanity. Hmm? So they got on board with false IDs but took their real passports with them? However, by this time the fruit loop has been completely circumnavigated,and the conspiracy theorist exclaims impatiently, "Who said anything about false IDs? We know what seats they were sitting in! Their presence is well documented!" And so the whole loop starts again. "Well, why aren't they on the passenger lists?" "You numbskull! They assumed the identities of other passengers!" And so on...

Finally, out of sheer fascination with this circular method of creative delusion, the rational sceptic will allow them to get away with this loop, in order to move on to the next question, and see what further delights await us in the unraveling of this marvelously stupid story. "Uh, how come their passports survived fiery crashes that completely incinerated the planes and all the passengers? " The answer of course is that it's just one of those strange co-incidences, those little quirks of fate that do happen from time to time. You know, like the same person winning the lottery four weeks in a row. The odds are astronomical, but these things do happen...

This is another favourite deductive method of the conspiracy theorist. The "improbability drive", in which they decide upon a conclusion without any evidence whatsoever to support it, and then continually speculate a series of wildly improbable events and unbelievable co-incidences to support it, shrugging off the implausibility of each event with the vague assertion that sometimes the impossible happens (just about all the time in their world). There is a principle called "Occam's Razor" which suggests that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, the simplest explanation is most likely to be correct. Conspiracy theorists hate Occam's razor.

tunaman

Having for the sake of amusement, allowed them to get away with with the silly story of the nineteen invisible Arabs, we move on to the question of how they are supposed to have taken over the planes.

Hijacking a plane is not an easy thing to do. Hijacking it without the pilot being able to alert ground control is near impossible. The pilot has only to punch in a four digit code to alert ground control to a hijacking. Unconcerned with the awkward question of plausibility, the conspiracy buffs maintain that on that September 11th, the invisible hijackers took over the plane by the rather crude method of threatening people with boxcutters and knives, and spraying gas - after they had attached their masks, obviously - but somehow took control of the plane without the crew first getting a chance to punch in the hijacking code. Not just on one plane, but on all four. At this point in the tale, the conspiracy theorist is again forced to call upon the services of the improbability drive.

So now that our incredibly lucky hijackers have taken control of the planes, all four pilots fly them with breath taking skill and certainty to their fiery end, all four pilots unflinching in their steely resolve for a swift meeting with Allah. Apart from their psychotic hatred of 'our freedoms', it was their fanatical devotion to Islam which enabled them to summon up the iron will to do this. Which is strange, because according to another piece of hearsay peddled by the conspiracy buffs, these guys actually went out drinking and womanizing the night before their great martyrdom, even leaving their Korans in the bar - really impeccable Islamic behavior - and then got up at 5 o'clock the next morning to pull off the greatest covert operation in history. This also requires us to believe that they were even clear headed enough to learn how to fly the huge planes by reading flight manuals in Arabic in the car on the way to the airport. We know this because they supposedly left the flight manuals there for us to find.

It gets better. Their practical training had allegedly been limited to Cessnas and flight simulators, but this was no barrier to the unflinching certainty with which they took over the planes and skillfully guided them to their doom. If they are supposed to have done their flight training with these tools, which would be available just about anywhere in the world, its not clear why they would have decided to risk blowing their cover to US intelligence services by doing the training in Florida, rather than somewhere in the Middle East, but such reasoning is foreign to the foggy world of the conspiracy theorist, too trapped in the constant rotation of the mental fruit loop to make their unsubstantiated fabrications seem even semi-believable.

Having triumphantly established a circular delusion in support of the mythical Arabs, the conspiracy theorist now confronts the difficult question of why there's nothing left of the planes. Anybody who has seen the endlessly replayed footage of the second plane going into the WTC will realize that the plane was packed with explosives. Planes do not and cannot blow up into nothing in that manner when they crash.

Did the mythical Arabs also haul a huge heap of explosives on board, and mange to deploy them in such a manner that they went off in the exact instant of the crash, completely vapourizing the plane? This is a little difficult even for the conspiracy theorist, who at this point decides that its easier to invent new laws of physics in order to keep the delusion rolling along.

There weren't any explosives. It wasn't an inside job. The plane blew up into nothing from its exploding fuel load! Remarkable, quite remarkable. Sluggishly combustible jet fuel which is basically Kerosene, and which burns at a maximum temperature of around 800 degrees Celcius has suddenly taken on the qualities of a ferociously explosive demolition agent, vapourising sixty-five tons of aircraft into a puff of smoke. Never mind that a plane of that size contains around fifteen tons of steel and titanium, of which even the melting points are about double that of the maximum combustion temperature of Kerosene - let alone the boiling point - which is what would be required to vapourise a plane. And then there's about fifty tons of aluminium to be accounted for. In excess of 15lbs of metal for each gallon of Kerosene.

For the conspiracy theorist, such inconvenient facts are vaguely dismissed as 'mumbo jumbo'. This convenient little phrase is their answer to just about anything factual or logical. Like a conjurer pulling a rabbit out of a hat, they suddenly become fanatically insistent about the devastating explosive qualities of Kerosene, something hitherto completely unknown to science, but just discovered by them, this very minute. Blissfully ignoring the fact that never before or since in aviation history has a plane vapourised into nothing from an exploding fuel load, the conspiracy theorist relies upon Hollywood images, where the effects are are always larger than life, and certainly larger than the intellects of these cretins.

"Its a well known fact that planes blow up into nothing on impact", they state with pompous certainty, "watch any Bruce Willis movie."

"Care to provide any documented examples? If it's a well known fact, then presumably this well known fact springs from some kind of documentation - other than Bruce Willis movies?"

At this point the mad but cunning eyes of the conspiracy theorist will narrow as they sense the corner that they have backed themselves into, and plan their escape by means of another stunning backflip.

"Ah, but planes have never crashed into buildings before, so there's no way of telling." they counter with a sly grin. Well, actually planes have crashed into buildings before and since, and not vapourised into nothing. "But not big planes, with that much fuel", they shriek in hysterical denial. Or that much metal to vapourise.

"Yes but not hijacked planes!" "Are you suggesting that whether the crash is deliberate or accidental affects the combustion qualities of the fuel?" "Now you're just being silly".

Although collisions with buildings are rare, planes frequently crash into mountains, streets, other aircraft, nosedive into the ground, or have bombs planted aboard them, and don't vapourise into nothing. What's so special about a tower that's mostly glass? But by now, the conspiracy theorist has once again sailed happily around the fruit loop. "It's a well documented fact that planes explode into nothing on impact."

Effortlessly weaving back and forth between the position that its a "well known fact" and that "its never happened before, so we have nothing to compare it to", the conspiracy theorist has now convinced themselves - if not too many other people - that the WTC plane was not loaded with explosives, and that the instant vapourisation of the plane in a massive fireball was the same as any other plane crash you might care to mention. Round and round the fruit loop.

But the hurdles which confront the conspiracy theorist are many, and they are now forced to implement even more creative uses for the newly discovered shockingly destructive qualities of Kerosene. They have to explain how the Arabs also engineered the elegant veritcal collapse of both the WTC towers, and for this awkward fact the easiest counter is to simply deny that it was a controlled demolition, and claim that the buildings collapsed from fire caused by the burning Kerosene.

tunaman

For this, its necessary to sweep aside the second law of thermodynamics and propose Kerosene which is not only impossibly destructive, but also recycles itself for a second burning in violation of the law of degradation of energy. You see, it not only consumed itself in a sudden catastrophic fireball , vapourising a sixty-five ton plane into nothing, but then came back for a second go, burning at 2000 degrees centigrade for another hour at the impact point, melting the skyscraper's steel like butter. And while it was doing all this it also poured down the elevator shafts, starting fires all through the building. When I was at school there was a little thing called the entropy law which suggests that a given portion of fuel can only burn once, something which is readily observable in the real world, even for those who didn't make it to junior high school science. But this is no problem for the conspiracy theorist. Gleefully, they claim that a few thousand gallons of Kerosene is enough to:

- Completely vapourise a sixty-five ton aircraft

- Have enough left over to burn ferociously enough for over an hour at the impact point to melt steel - melting point about double the maximum combustion temperature of the fuel

- Still have enough left over to pour down the elevator shafts and start similarly destructive fires all through the building

This Kerosene really is remarkable stuff! How chilling to realize that those Kerosene heaters we had in the house when I was a kid were deadly bombs, just waiting to go off. One false move and the entire street might have been vapourised. And never again will I take Kerosene lamps out camping. One moment you're there innocently holding the lamp - the next - kapow! Vapourised into nothing along with with the rest of the camp site, and still leaving enough of the deadly stuff to start a massive forest fire.

These whackos are actually claiming that the raging inferno allegedly created by the miraculously recycling, and impossibly hot burning Kerosene melted or at least softened the steel supports of the skyscraper. Oblivious to the fact that the black smoke coming from the WTC indicates an oxygen starved fire - therefore not particularly hot - they trumpet an alleged temperature in the building of 2000 degrees centigrade, without a shred of evidence to support this curious suspension of the laws of physics.

Not content with this ludicrous garbage, they then contend that as the steel frames softened, they came straight down instead of buckling and twisting and falling sideways.

Since they're already re-engineered the combustion qualities of jet fuel, violated the second law of thermodynamics, and redefined the structural properties of steel, why let a little thing like the laws of gravity get in the way?

The tower fell in a time almost identical to that of a free falling object, dropped from that height, meaning that its physically impossible for it to have collapsed by the method of the top floors smashing through the lower floors. But according to the conspiracy theorists, the laws of gravity were temporarily suspended on the morning of September 11th. It appears that the evil psychic power of those dreadful Arabs knew no bounds. Even after they were dead, they were able, by the power of their evil spirits, to force down the tower at a speed physically impossible under the laws of gravity, had it been meeting any resistance from fireproofed steel structures originally designed to resist many tons of hurricane force wind as well as the impact of a Boeing passenger jet straying off course.

Clearly, these conspiracy nuts never did their science homework at school, but did become extremely adept at inventing tall tales for why. "Muslim terrorists stole my notes,Sir." "No Miss, the Kerosene heater blew up and vapourised everything in the street, except for my passport." "You see Sir, the schoolbus was hijacked by Arabs who destroyed my homework because they hate our freedoms."

Or perhaps they misunderstood the term 'creative science' and mistakenly thought that coming up with such rubbish was in fact, their science homework.

The ferocious heat generated by this ghastly Kerosene was, according to the conspiracy theorists, the reason why so many of the WTC victims can't be identified. DNA is destroyed by heat - although 2000 degrees centigrade isn't really required, 100 degrees centigrade will generally do the job. This is quite remarkable, because according to the conspiracy theorist, the nature of DNA suddenly changes if you go to a different city.

That's right, if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in New York, your DNA will be destroyed by such temperatures. But if you are killed by an Arab terrorist in Washington, your DNA will be so robust that it can survive temperatures which completely vapourise a sixty-five ton aircraft.

You see, these loonies have somehow concocted the idea that the missile which hit the pentagon was not a missile at all, but one of the hijacked planes. And to prove this unlikely premise, they point to a propaganda statement from the Bush regime, which rather stupidly claims that all but one of the people aboard the plane were identified from the site by DNA testing, even though nothing remains of the plane. The plane was vapourised by the fuel tank explosion, maintain these space loonies, but the people inside it were all but one identified by DNA testing.

So there we have it. The qualities of DNA are different, depending upon which city you're in, or perhaps depending upon which fairy story you're trying to sell at any particular time.

This concoction about one of the hijacked planes hitting the Pentagon really is a howler. For those not familiar with the layout of the Pentagon, it consists of 5 rings of building, each with a space inbetween. Each ring of building is about 30-35 feet deep, with a similar amount of open space between it and the next ring. The object which penetrated the Pentagon went in at about a 45 degree angle, punching a neat circular hole of about a 12 foot diameter through three rings - six walls. A little later a section of wall about 65 foot wide collapsed in the outer ring. Since the plane which the conspiracy theorists claim to be responsible for the impact had a wing span of 125 feet and a length of 155 feet, and there was no wreckage of the plane, either inside or outside the building, and the lawns outside were still smooth and green enough to play golf on, this crazy delusion is clearly physically impossible.

But hey, we've already disregarded the combustion qualities of jet fuel, the normal properties of common building materials, the properties of DNA, the laws of gravity and the second law of thermodynamics, so what the hell - why not throw in a little spatial impossibility as well? I would have thought that the observation that a solid object cannot pass through another solid object without leaving a hole at least as big as itself is reasonably sound science. But to the conspiracy theorist, this is 'mumbo jumbo'. It conflicts with the delusion that they're hooked on, so it 'must be wrong' although trying to get them to explain exactly how it could be wrong is a futile endeavour.

Conspiracy theorists fly into a curious panic whenever the Pentagon missile is mentioned. They nervously maintain that the plane was vapourised by it's exploding fuel load, and point to the WTC crash as evidence of this behavior. That's a wonderful fruit loop. Like an insect which has just been sprayed, running back and forth in its last mad death throes, they first argue that the reason the hole is so small is that the plane never entered the wall, having blown up outside, and then suddenly backflip to explain the 250 foot deep missile hole by saying that the plane disappeared all the way into the building, and then blew up inside the building - even though the building shows no sign of such damage. As for what happened to the wings - here's where they get really creative. The wings snapped off and folded into the fuselage which then carried them into the building, which then closed up behind the plane like a piece of meat.

When it suits them, they'll also claim that the plane slid in on its belly - ignoring the undamaged lawn - while at the same time citing alleged witnesses to the plane diving steeply into the building from an 'irrecoverable angle.' How they reconcile these two scenarios as being compatible is truly a study in stupidity.

Once they get desperate enough, you can be sure that the UFO conspiracy stuff will make an appearance. The Arabs are in league with the Martians. Space aliens snatched the remains of the Pentagon plane and fixed most of the hole in the wall, just to confuse people. They gave the Arabs invisibility pills to help get them onto the planes. Little green men were seen talking to Bin Laden a few weeks prior to the attacks.

As America gears up to impeach the traitor Bush, and stop his perpetual oil war, it's not helpful to have these idiots distracting from the process by spreading silly conspiracy theories about mythical Arabs, stories which do nothing but play into the hands of the extremist Bush regime.

At a less serious time, we might tolerate such crackpots with amused detachment, but they need to understand that the treachery that was perpetrated on September 11th, and the subsequent war crimes committed in 'retaliation' are far too serious for us to allow such frivolous self indulgence to go unchallenged.

Those who are truly addicted to conspiracy delusions should find a more appropriate outlet for their paranoia.

Its time to stop loony conspiracy theories about September 11th.

http://www.aglob.ru/en/analysis/?id=483

I couldn't have put it better myself.

RedPlanet

i read something in a newspaper about a year ago where this journalist was interviewing this guy from Russian intelligence and he was saying that the hijackers were not Arab. He said this because of the calls made on the airphones reporting the hijackings, none of them identified the hijackers as Arab. He explaned that this meant that there were no racial differences between the caller and the hijacker.

Don't have a link to the article anymore unfortunately.

SpitfireIV

Interesting story Redplanet, never heard of that, below though is something related, its the 'alledged' hi-jackers names, have a read though them and see how many it says are still alive or a case of mistaken identity :rolleyes:

Here is the official info about these "hijackers". Many of the real identities are still alive. The FBI ignored these facts during 2001-2002 and never updated their suspect list.

"Official Pilots":

1) Waleed Alshehri, AA11, North Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list. Believed to be a pilot, though first reports said, his brother might have been a pilot, too. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: Possible confused identity with the son of a Saudi Arabian diplomat

Father Mohammad Alsheri said in a "20-20"- interview, Waleed had no flying experience. Then he left for the first time in his live his town for a trip to Medina. His father said, he had a strong sense of humour, was live loving, in contact with his father and called him in January 2001, 8 months before 911, he would be "on his way home". He never called back. His father never got an official visit by the FBI and learned from his son's death from the news and local newspapers. Saudi Authrities told him, that they had no hard evidence, that his son was involved in the hijack.

2) Mohammad Atta, AA 11, North Tower WTC Name not on passenger list. Believed to be the pilot of that plane. Instead of thinking about committing suicide only, he officially applied for a student visa, together with Marwan Al-Shehhi. These visas arrived after a "bureaucratic backlog" in March 2001 at Al-Shehhis flight school Huffmann Aviation by Rudi Dekkers. Author Daniel Hopsinker linked Huffmann Aviation to the CIA connected company For odd reasons an AP story said, "On the form, filled out by a Huffman assistant, Atta's name is spelled "Mohomed." Due to local reports Dekkers assistant who filled these visas out, Nicole Antini, was just then being sexually harassed by Rudi Dekkers, her beefy middle-aged boss, according to a lawsuit for sexual harassment which Dekker's was forced to settle recently for an undisclosed sum. In 2001, the Mossad observed various muslim students, who trained at military flight schools, including Mohammad Atta and warned the CIA twice of a possible terrorist attack. Leaked to the european press in late 2002, early 2003, it came out, that Mohammad Atta was even observed since 1998 by german intelligence, regarding his contacts (See Mamoun Darkanzali). This fits with other articles on Darkanzali, who was in contact with some spanish suspects, which telephone had been tapped. In another article it was reported, that the CIA tried to hire Darkanzali as an informant.

3) Hani Hanjour, AA77, Pentagon Name not on passenger list. Believed to be the pilot of that plane. It was said, he held a commercial pilot's license that expired in October, 1999. It was stated, that Lotfi Raissi was his flying teacher. But Raissi,who was arrested in September 2001 in United Kingdom, was plead unguilty in February 2002 and is free again. 4) Marwan Al-Shehhi, UA 175, South Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list. Believed to be the pilot of that plane. Instead of thinking about committing suicide only, he officially applied for a student visa. These visas arrived after a "bureaucratic backlog" in March 2001 at Al-Shehhis flight school Huffmann Aviation. Author Daniel Hopsicker linked Huffmann Aviation (->) to a CIA connected company

The accomplices:

5) Saeed Alghamdi, UA93, Pennsylvannia Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: "Identity is disputed" The real Saeed Alghamdi said to newspaper Asharq Al Awsat, he is still alive and pilot for Saudi Airlines. Saudi Airlines said once it was considering legal action against the FBI for seriously damaging its reputation and that of its pilots.

6) Ahmad Ibrahim A. Al Haznawi, UA93, Pennsylvannia Name not on passenger list.

7) Ahmed Alnami UA93, Pennsylvannia Name not on passenger list. Father Abdullah Alnami said to "20/20" (Barbara Walters) his son left home for the first time in his life -- six months before the attacks, and believes, he is innocent. Another Abdullah Alnami said (before the photos had been released!), he is administrative supervisor with Saudi Arabian Airlines and was in Riyadh when the terrorists struck.

8) Ziad Samir Jarrah, UA93, Pennsylvannia Name not on passenger list. Believed to be the pilot of that plane.

9) Fayez Rashid Ahmed Hassan Al Qadi Banihammad, UA 175, South Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list.

10) Wail M. Alshehri, , AA11, North Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: Possible confused identity with the son of a Saudi Arabian diplomat Father thinks, he and his brother are innocent.

11) Satam M.A. Al Suqami, AA11, North Tower WTC Name not on passenger list.

12) Abdulaziz Alomari, AA11, North Tower WTC Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on Alomari: "Identity is in dispute" The real Abdulaziz Alomari is alive and an engineer with Saudi Telecoms and claims, his passport was once stolen in Denver. Another Abdulaziz Al Omari is pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines.

13) Khalid Almihdhar, AA77, Pentagon Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: "May be an assumed name; there are reports he is still alive" The real Khalid Al Midhar in fact said, he is alive.

14) Majed Moqed, AA77, Pentagon Name not on passenger list.

15) Nawaf Alhazmi,AA77, Pentagon Name not on passenger list.

16) Salem Alhazmi, AA77, Pentagon Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: "May be a a stolen identity"

The real Al-Hamzi is 26. In September 2001 he had just returned to work at a petrochemical complex in the industrial eastern city of Yanbou.

17) Ahmed Alghamdi, UA 175, South Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on him: "Lost his driver's license in 1995 for failing to pay a traffic fine, ...Bought plane ticket on August 29 through the Internet using a Mailboxes Etc. address"

18) Hamza Alghamdi, UA 175, South Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list.

19) Mohand Alshehri, UA 175, South Tower WTC. Name not on passenger list. CNN reported (-> Hijackers, alive) on Alsheri: "Saudi Embassy has named Alshehri as a victim of mistaken identity" It is claimed, that he communicated with other hijack plotters. He once asked to use the Internet at a public library in Delray Beach, Florida.

tunaman

Sunday, 23 September, 2001, 12:30 GMT 13:30 UK
Hijack 'suspects' alive and well

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1559151.stm

Another of the men named by the FBI as a hijacker in the suicide attacks on Washington and New York has turned up alive and well.

The identities of four of the 19 suspects accused of having carried out the attacks are now in doubt.

Saudi Arabian pilot Waleed Al Shehri was one of five men that the FBI said had deliberately crashed American Airlines flight 11 into the World Trade Centre on 11 September.

His photograph was released, and has since appeared in newspapers and on television around the world.

Hijacking suspects
Flight 175: Marwan Al-Shehhi, Fayez Ahmed, Mohald Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi and Ahmed Alghamdi

Flight 11: Waleed M Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Mohamed Atta, Abdulaziz Alomari and Satam Al Suqami

Flight 77: Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi and Hani Hanjour

Flight 93: Ahmed Alhaznawi, Ahmed Alnami, Ziad Jarrahi and Saeed Alghamdi

Now he is protesting his innocence from Casablanca, Morocco.

He told journalists there that he had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and Washington, and had been in Morocco when they happened. He has contacted both the Saudi and American authorities, according to Saudi press reports.

He acknowledges that he attended flight training school at Daytona Beach in the United States, and is indeed the same Waleed Al Shehri to whom the FBI has been referring.

But, he says, he left the United States in September last year, became a pilot with Saudi Arabian airlines and is currently on a further training course in Morocco.

Mistaken identity

Abdulaziz Al Omari, another of the Flight 11 hijack suspects, has also been quoted in Arab news reports.

Abdelaziz Al Omari 'lost his passport in Denver'
He says he is an engineer with Saudi Telecoms, and that he lost his passport while studying in Denver.

Another man with exactly the same name surfaced on the pages of the English-language Arab News.

The second Abdulaziz Al Omari is a pilot for Saudi Arabian Airlines, the report says.

Meanwhile, Asharq Al Awsat newspaper, a London-based Arabic daily, says it has interviewed Saeed Alghamdi.

Khalid Al-Midhar may also be alive

He was listed by the FBI as a hijacker in the United flight that crashed in Pennsylvania.

And there are suggestions that another suspect, Khalid Al Midhar, may also be alive.

FBI Director Robert Mueller acknowledged on Thursday that the identity of several of the suicide hijackers is in doubt.

ShayHT

Anyone every watch the TV show "The Lone Gunmen"?

Well in its first episode, which aired around March 01, it centred around the US governements plot to ignite hostilities worldwide.....by remotely flying a plane into the WTC......

(Show was axed after 1 season!)

Squaddy

ShayHT wrote:

Anyone every watch the TV show "The Lone Gunmen"?

Well in its first episode, which aired around March 01, it centred around the US governements plot to ignite hostilities worldwide.....by remotely flying a plane into the WTC......

(Show was axed after 1 season!)

It was a good episode

Here the link

iregk

Love the first post, that long story, brilliant.

Scary thing. I remember seeing a film called Last man on planet earth back in November 2001 and the story of it was a terrorist attack on the world trade center that caused them to collapse and resulted in a war between the US and Afghanastan. Thats the main gist of it. I was thinking at the time, christ they got that out fast. Then I checked the film out online. It was released in 1999!!! Now the film was pure pants but thats some strange happening.

bonkey

iregk wrote:

Then I checked the film out online. It was released in 1999!!! Now the film was pure pants but thats some strange happening.

Hmm...1999 yoiu say. So all of the following would be events in history at that point:

1) Islamic terrorist bombs the World Trade Center
2) Taliban seize control of Afghanistan
3) Osama Bin Laden moves to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, already having formed Al Qaeda and attacked US and other nation's resources abroad
4) US launch an attack at Afghanistan using cruise missiles to try and kill Bin Laden.


Maybe i'm missing something, but from the above, I don't really see why an attack on the WTC leading to a war with Afghanistan was so far-fetched. THe only far-fetched aspect of it is that said war turned out to be world-ending in the movie you saw.

jc

iregk

Ok I really don't have time to spoon feed you. I will let you carry on and try to think about it a little bit more.

bonkey

iregk wrote:

Ok I really don't have time to spoon feed you.

Thats quite OK. I neither need nor want spoon-feeding.

I will let you carry on and try to think about it a little bit more.

Why? You think that by doing so I'll see fewer previous events that could act as insipiration?

Or maybe I'll take your movie, the Lone Gunmen episode, Tad Williams' "War of the Flowers" and a few other things and conclude that there is some sort of predictive subconscious collective which tried to warn us.

Yeah...that latter one sounds more credible. I'll go with that.

SkepticOne

An entertaining article but I think a lot of it has been fairly well debunked on various websites.

tunaman

SkepticOne wrote:

An entertaining article but I think a lot of it has been fairly well debunked on various websites.

This article shows up the official account and many of those sites for the ridiculous amount of contradictions and inconsistencies in their story.

How is it possible a passport managed to survive intact the total destruction we saw at the WTC?

How is it possible for a red bandana to survive completely intact at the alledged crash site of flight 93, when no plane or bodies were found?

SkepticOne

tunaman wrote:

This article shows up the official account and many of those sites for the ridiculous amount of contradictions and inconsistencies in their story."

Except that it doesn't. e.g.: from the article:

about 65 foot wide collapsed in the outer ring. Since the plane which the conspiracy theorists claim to be responsible for the impact had a wing span of 125 feet and a length of 155 feet, and there was no wreckage of the plane, either inside or outside the building, and the lawns outside were still smooth and green enough to play golf on, this crazy delusion is clearly physically impossible.

This just made up rubbish.

bonkey

tunaman wrote:

How is it possible a passport managed to survive intact the total destruction we saw at the WTC?

Something survived, ergo to claim it was total destruction is both wrong and misleading.

How is it possible for a red bandana to survive completely intact at the alledged crash site of flight 93, when no plane or bodies were found?

Plane parts and body parts were found though. Again, you're using misleading descriptions of what the reality was.

If your case is so strong, why do you have to use such tactics?

jc

bonkey

Just to make sure no-one thinks I'm trying to dodge really important questions here about the passport and bandana.

Fuel-air explosions generate a shockwave. This shockwave travels faster than the "fireball". So if you have a lightweight object, it is entirely possible for it to be blown away from the fireball.

This isn't the only way that a lightweight object could survive, incidentally, but it shows first and foremostly that survival of such an object is not in and of itself impossible.

Moving on from there, one must also ask what else was found in similar condition. I'm willing to bet that sheets of paper and other lightweight, notionally-flammable articles were also found...despite tunaman's claims of "total" destruction.

If one could show that the passport and the bandana were the only items at each crash to survive intact, then sure...there's something to wonder about. However, thats simply not the case. tunaman may want us to believe it is, through misleading terms like "total destruction", but its simply not true.

Ask yourself which is more unlikely - that a plane be found undamaged after a crash, or that a lightweight item of clothing from inside the plane be found (relatively) undamaged amid pieces of a destroyed aircraft and human remains?

Ask yourself which would get damaged least in a high-speed impact...a plane, a body, or a lightweight flexible item of clothing.

tunaman suggests that the lack of a plane or a body means the bandana should also not be there.
I say there is no shortage of smashed-up plane-parts, smashed-up body parts, and other items of debris in various states and conditions. I do not believe the bandana surviving is in any way remarkable, with the possible exception of who it belonged to.

I dunno about anyone else, but I would expect to find more instancesof the lighter material surviving (realtively) undamaged than the heavier, more solid objects. I certainly wouldn't suggest that a plane or a body shouldn't have been broken up on impact because a bandana survived...but this is effectively what tunaman's reasoning suggests is a more credible argument.

Now...as for who the bandana and passport belonged to...whether or not that is remarkable is entirely dependant on the number of relatively-undamaged items found. If this was the only one, then sure...the odds of it being a hijackers would be (number of hijackers / number of people on plane in total). Less than 1 in 10. If you allow for there being more than one item which survived (which is the case), then the odds of something belonging to a terrorist reach almost-certainty.

tunaman

about 65 foot wide collapsed in the outer ring. Since the plane which the conspiracy theorists claim to be responsible for the impact had a wing span of 125 feet and a length of 155 feet, and there was no wreckage of the plane, either inside or outside the building, and the lawns outside were still smooth and green enough to play golf on, this crazy delusion is clearly physically impossible.

SkepticOne wrote:

This just made up rubbish.

Here is a link to the official boeing website...

http://www.boeing.com/commercial/757family/pf/pf_200tech.html

757-200 Technical Characteristics

Wing span 124 ft 10 in (38.05 m)
Overall Length 155 ft 3 in (47.32 m)
Tail Height 44 ft 6 in (13.6 m)

Here is the officially released footage...

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b338/merc_mercy_/pentanimxox1.gif

Does that object look anything like an airliner? or anywhere near 45ft tall?

Here is a picture of the incredible pentagon lawn complete with wreckage...

http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/images/pelouse.jpg

A closer look...

http://i40.photobucket.com/albums/e207/Mercury2/pent-foam-small.jpg

How is this even remotely possible?

tunaman

bonkey wrote:

Something survived, ergo to claim it was total destruction is both wrong and misleading.

It was conveniently found after the event, that doesn't automatically mean the passport survived. How hard would it have been for somebody to plant it after the event? what is more likely?

As for my claim of total destruction being wrong and misleading, what would you call this?

http://www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/wtc_Hells_Heart.jpg

http://www.zombietime.com/wtc_9-13-2001/wtc_overview_west_1.jpg

Plane parts and body parts were found though.

Can you point out where you think you can see any plane wreckage?

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/images/static/terrorism/photogallery/9301.jpg

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/911/images/00037r.jpg

http://www.autolinkmn.com/PennsylvaniaCrashSite.jpg

Do you blindly believe the US government claims of finding body and plane parts, despite the lack of any evidence?

It looks like you place an incredible amount of trust in known liars.

Again, you're using misleading descriptions of what the reality was.

If your case is so strong, why do you have to use such tactics?

That is exactly what you have been trying to do.

If you aren't already a politician you really should be.

bonkey

tunaman wrote:

It was conveniently found after the event,

When did you think things would be found? Before the event?

that doesn't automatically mean the passport survived.

I never said it did. I've said that the claims it could not have come from plane are patently false. There is a distinction, but it doesn't surprise me that you choose not to see it.

what is more likely?

I don't believe its indactive either way, personally. I think its a non-issue that MIHOP-theorists want to case as being significant when it isn't.

As for my claim of total destruction being wrong and misleading, what would you call this?

I'd call it a picture of the area taken from a large distance. See that tiny little golden thing in the middle? of yoru first shot? Thats Fritz Koenig's sculpture - The Sphere. Its about 4.5m wide and over 7m high. The other picture is from an equally large distance.

So you're showing me long-range pictures and asking me to conclude from this that nothing survived....nothing as small as items of clothing, passports, suitcases, briefcases....nothing.

Given that such items would be in and around a pixel in size (at most) in the pictures you've supplied, and even then would only be visible if they were on the very top of the rubble pile, I can safely say that once again your "evidence" has nothing to do with the claims it purportedly supports.

Seeing as the passport was found after the crash, but before the towers fell, these pictures are - in any case - utterly irrelevant.

More relevant pictures would be more like this one. Goodness...whats that? Debris lying about? A seat cushion? It must have been planted. The photo must be a fake.

Right?

Can you point out where you think you can see any plane wreckage?

I don't need to. Showing me carefully-chosen pictures proves nothing. It most certainly is again not at a close enough distance and high enough resolution to assert that no small debris was found anywhere.

MIHOPers make big noises about the debris found miles away, about the engine found hundreds of yards away, and then...just like you're doing here...expect no-one to notice the discrepancy when they also claim there was no wreckage and destruction was total.

You can't have it both ways. Either nothing at all was found, or the destruction was not total. Take your pick, but please stop with the punch-and-judy "oh yes there is....oh no there isn't" reversal of position depending on which challenge to the official story you're currently favouring.

Do you blindly believe the US government claims of finding body and plane parts, despite the lack of any evidence?

The good old "they won't show us the evidence, so we'll claim it doesn't exist" approach.

To answer your question: no, I don't blindly believe the US government.

However, there are simply too many conspiracy theories which argue that the dispersal pattern of debris is significant for me to believe that there was no debris.

I also don't expect the FBI to publish pictures of body parts recovered, and seeing as they were the ones who processed the crime-scene, the fact that usch pictures haven't been released means nothing. Either they have the pictures and evidence and are behaving appropriately, or they don't have the pictures and evidence and are lying. That we haven't been given the pictures doesn't favour either option, so its irrelevant.

Maybe there's other evidence though. Let me see....

That didn't take long to find.

And look...not only is it about the debris from flight 93, bit its about personal effects found there too.

Wow. Agrees with my assertion that the bandana and passport weren't the only things found intact, doesn't contradict the official assertion that only small pieces of wreckage were found, nor my rationale as to why we should expect to find more smaller items intact than larger ones. That's just too convenient...must be a planted story.

I'm guessing you don't believe a mission badge survived the Columbia disaster unscathed either.

It looks like you place an incredible amount of trust in known liars.

I'm trusting those who favour "shot down" theories (amonst others) as a corroborating source for the existence of debris.

Should I dismiss them as inherently untrustworthy? Should I decide that even though I've no logical, scientific or other basis to refute their claims of the existence of debris, plane-engines etc. that they're alse lying to me and basing their claims on something they too know is false?

I have some difficulty, I must admit, sacrificing the solid ground of rational thought to make such a leap of faith.

That is exactly what you have been trying to do.

No. Its not.

I'm not trying to suggest at all that I know what happened. I'm taking your claim, your evidence, your argument and I'm then showing how they don't match up - how your pseudo-science isn't scientific, how your pictures that prove something cannot and do not offer any such proof, and how your descriptions are inaccurate but consistently inaccurate in a style that helps your case suggesting that its not entirely accidental.

If you aren't already a politician you really should be.

Why? Becauuse I'm asking you to back your claims up with science? Because I know enough about various fields of science to point out when you're selling snake-oil? Because I can rationally explain why your so-called proof isn't any such thing?

And I must ask again...

Why do you keep resorting to such personal attacks?

If my argument is as weak as you suggest, then why not simply rip it to shreds rather than wasting your time trying to be demeaning towards me? It only detracts from whatever strength your argument has.