5. Why did the American government need to kill 2,996 of its own people to go to war? It has shown that it can easily capitalize on opportunities provided by others. Do you doubt that there are extremists, religious and otherwise, in the Middle East and elsewhere who would love to do harm to the United States? Wouldn’t it have been easier for the government to wait for an unforeseen attack to take place or to simply not stop one that was already in the works? And even if leaders in the Bush administration wanted to pull off their own false flag, instead of relying on outsiders, why wouldn’t the conspirators simply fake an attack and report the deaths of a number of citizens? Surely a group with the power to pull off the alleged 9/11 conspiracy would be able to create the illusion of a catastrophic event similar to some of the proposals from Operation Northwoods, the planned false flag operation from the 1960s that was never put into action.
6. Finally, and most importantly, is it possible that you’re wrong? Could you have been misled by conspiracy-minded “experts” and documentaries based on conjecture? If this is even within the realm of plausibility, I hope you’ll take another (more critical) look at the evidence and your stance on the issue.
My sincere hope is that these questions and other similar queries will help 9/11 Truthers apply the same skepticism to their own beliefs as they do to the official reports. If they are consistent in their analyses, they will see that the alternative explanations, of which there are too many to count, leave far more questions than they answer.57
BUILDING 7
“Building 7!” has become a battle cry for alternative theorists who claim there was a government conspiracy to destroy the Twin Towers and other buildings using bombs planted inside them days or weeks before 9/11. These believers in the inside-job notion posit that the planes were flown into the structures just before the detonation of the bombs, which served as the real catalyst for the collapses, or even that the planes were actually holograms that couldn’t have done any physical damage.58 This would explain, according to theorists, why 7 World Trade Center, which was located in the World Trade Center complex near the North Tower, fell when it wasn’t directly impacted by a plane. But, if that were the case, and the U.S. government (or anyone else, for that matter) took the time to plant explosive devices and arrange for planes to collide with the Twin Towers containing them, why would they have randomly detonated explosive devices in a third building that didn’t receive any damage? Why wouldn’t they have arranged for three planes or three holograms? Certainly the shadowy elite capable of such a massive conspiracy would also be able to recognize that a plane didn’t hit Building 7, so how did they make such an error? This act itself would undermine the entire point of flying the planes into the other two buildings in the first place, as well as the idea that the government is competent enough to pull off a conspiracy of this magnitude without leaving a trace of verifiable evidence.
Alternative theorists who believe in a government conspiracy surrounding the attacks of September 11 also point to a BBC broadcast from that fateful day as evidence of an inside job. In the report, a news personality seems to describe the collapse of Building 7 before it actually occurs. The foreign reporters are discussing how “the building had been weakened” and how there were “fears of possible further collapses around the area,” but Building 7 appears to still be standing on a screen behind them, proving to some believers that the media outlet was part of the conspiracy. To properly address this piece of “evidence,” I want to assume for a moment that the alternative theorists are correct. If the attacks on 9/11 were part of an inside job, and this video proves it, what does that mean? Well, for one, it means the U.S. government—while attempting to carefully carry out the bombings without a single leak or slipup—gave a British news agency and its reporters a script of the events of that day before they actually happened. It would mean that, instead of allowing news outlets to report the collapses as they were witnessed, the conspirators themselves revealed the conspiracy and provided forward-looking information to foreign broadcasters about Building 7’s failure. Since that probably didn’t happen, because it makes absolutely no sense, why did the BBC seem to report the news prior to the collapse of Building 7?
If you were watching the news that day, you might remember that Building 7 received a substantial amount of damage from debris and that nobody was surprised when it fell. The building had been burning for hours and those who were paying attention saw flames pouring out of a majorly affected building and knew it was only a matter of time before it was completely destroyed. The massive fires went largely ignored by the first responders from the Fire Department for the City of New York, primarily because Building 7 was empty and their efforts were focused on rescuing survivors from the Twin Towers. Those who were fighting the fires in Building 7 ultimately withdrew their efforts hours before the afternoon collapse. They declared that the building had been fatally damaged, and prepared for it to fall. So, how did BBC reporters describe the collapse before it happened? It’s simple: they made a mistake. They acted prematurely based on numerous other news reports that described Building 7’s “imminent” collapse. Being in the United Kingdom, they were relying on second- and third-hand accounts for new developments and, due to heightened levels of stress and panic, they made an error. This isn’t revolutionary, because news outlets get things wrong all the time, and it isn’t an unexplainable prophecy, either.
If you think Building 7 is some sort of smoking gun pointing to a government conspiracy on 9/11, I recommend you take an honest look at the investigators’ reports and anything else that details the position of the scientific consensus.59 Look at peer-reviewed articles on the events of that day,60 and analyze detailed pieces put out by Popular Mechanics and Structure Magazine.61 If you do, and you’re intellectually honest in your approach, you’ll see that there isn’t much mystery left to this horrifying and deadly event in our history.
ARCHITECTS AND ENGINEERS
One of the most common objections from within the Truther movement involves Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth), an organization dedicated to finding architects, engineers, and self-proclaimed demolition experts who dispute the results of the official probe into the attacks of September 11. Alternative theorists often point to this group’s petition, which currently has 2,444 signatories from people claiming to be within those fields, and ask, “Could 2,000+ architects and engineers really be wrong!?”
The short answer is, “Yes, they could be wrong.” Any argument based upon, “[X number of people] can’t be wrong!” is itself wrong. The appeal to popularity underestimates human gullibility because billions of people believe all sorts of ridiculous things, and they are very often incorrect. That said, many alternative theorists consider AE911Truth to be definitive proof that the Bush White House planned the events that unfolded on 9/11. The organization seeks a “new investigation,” but there are few details about exactly what that would entail. Do they want the same government they believe had a role in orchestrating the attacks to reinvestigate? Is there something preventing anyone from running their own, independent investigations (as many have)? This vagueness in the AE911Truth mission is why I encourage those who want a new investigation to start a crowd-funding campaign. If they believe the facts should be analyzed again, they should fund the project, instead of seeking a new government-sanctioned probe that they would likely disregard anyway.
While alternative theorists often hang their hat on the fact that AE911Truth has almost 2,500 architects, engineers, and students who call for a new investigation into the events of September 11, that number is nowhere near what could be called a consensus in the field. In fact, it is quite the opposite. According to the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards, there are 105,847 architects licensed in the United States.62 There are also more than 1.5 million engineers in the country, not including students. That means for every 765 licensed architects and engineers in America, there is approximately one student or professional
who has signed an online petition for a new investigation—that is less than 0.13 percent. A scientific consensus is achieved when there is significant harmony among interpretations of solid evidence, not when an extremely small minority group professes a nonspecific disagreement with “the official story.”63 When asked about the conspiracy theories surrounding the attacks on September 11, Noam Chomsky, an American linguist and political activist known for his criticisms of the U.S. government, alluded to the AE911Truth petition and those who support it.
“You’re right that there’s a consensus among a miniscule number of architects and engineers, a tiny number, a couple of them are perfectly serious, they are not doing what scientists and engineers do when they think they’ve discovered something,” Chomsky told a 9/11 conspiracy apologist during a lecture in Florida. “What you do when you think you’ve discovered something is write articles in scientific journals, give talks at the professional societies, go to the civil engineering department at MIT or Florida or wherever you are, and present your results, then proceed to try to convince the national academies, the professional society of physicists and civil engineers, the departments of the major universities, convince them that you’ve discovered something.”
The AE911Truth organization is not unlike the Creationists’ Dissent from Darwin campaign, which purports to represent more than 800 scientists in the United States and around the world who have signed a statement expressing their skepticism of Neo-Darwinism, or evolution by natural selection.64 According to the Dissent from Darwin website, the group’s statement was first drafted in 2001 by the Discovery Institute and can be signed by anyone who holds a Ph.D. in a science or technology field like biology, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, or computer science, or an M.D. if they also serve as a professor of medicine. To illustrate why amassing such a list of a minority group of scientists, engineers, computer scientists, and doctors who doubt a scientific consensus isn’t the same as evidence that could actually dispute that consensus, the National Center for Scientific Education created Project Steve, a “tongue-in-cheek” list of scientists with the given name “Steven” who accept evolution as reality. This parody list, which currently has more than 1,350 signatures, shows that scientific findings aren’t decided by petitions or minority groups, but by the scientific facts, and its lesson can be equally applied to the premise of the AE911Truth agenda.
In conclusion, while I suppose it is within the realm of possibility that a huge number of U.S. government officials and civilians conspired to kill thousands of American citizens on 9/11, or that they faked the moon landings in the 1960s, I don’t think it’s likely because I haven’t seen hard evidence to support those claims. And if I were convinced, for instance, that the U.S. government executed the domestic attacks on 9/11, as many alternative theorists are, I would do anything in my power to bring the plot to light. I would leave the country and continue my work from a safe distance, and I would relentlessly pursue proof no matter what. Many believers, however, simply aren’t willing to take the steps necessary to make a real difference. To me this shows that some alternative theorists, like theists and other believers, often care more about “knowing” something you don’t than about the real issue.
“The main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory, is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is actually chaotic. The truth is that it is not The Iluminati, or The Jewish Banking Conspiracy, or the Gray Alien Theory. The truth is far more frightening. Nobody is in control. The world is rudderless …”
—Alan Moore
NOTES
1. I chose this quote by Assange not because it is definite proof that the attacks on September 11, 2011, weren’t orchestrated by the Bush administration or some shadowy elite group, but because Assange—through WikiLeaks—had access to a trove of leaked information from every corner of the world. The data provides an abundance of evidence for all sorts of governmental misdeeds, but out of the millions of leaked documents and dozens of whistleblowers, nothing points directly to any sort of internal conspiracy surrounding the 9/11 attacks.
2. It should also be noted that, if 9/11 was part of an enormous plot staged by Bush as a means to go to war, there were many easier ways to reach the same end result.
3. Susan Svrluga, “The Father of a Boy Killed at Sandy Hook Gets Death Threats; Some People Say the Shooting Was a Hoax,” Washington Post, Grade Point Blog, January 13, 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/grade-point/wp/2016/01/13/the-father-of-a-boy-killed-at-sandy-hook-gets-death-threats-from-people-who-say-the-shooting-was-a-hoax/.
4. “Calgary Removing Fluoride from Water Supply,” CBC/Radio Canada, February 8, 2011, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-removing-fluoride-from-water-supply-1.1022279.
5. “Dental Decay Rampant in Calgary Children, Pediatric Dentist Says,” CBC/Radio Canada, December 8, 2014, www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/dental-decay-rampant-in-calgary-children-pediatric-dentist-says-1.2864413.
6. Georgina Kenyon, “The Man Who Studies the Spread of Ignorance,” BBC, January 6, 2016, www.bbc.com/future/story/20160105-the-man-who-studies-the-spread-of-ignorance.
7. PPP surveyed 1,247 registered American voters between March 27 and March 30, 2013. The margin of error for the overall sample is +/-2.8% and the poll was not paid for or authorized by any campaign or political organization.
8. David Shiffman, “Why Animal Planet’s Fake Documentaries About Mermaids Are Dangerous,” Slate, May 30, 2013, www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/05/mermaids_aren_t_real_animal_planet_s_fake_documentaries_misrepresent_ocean.html.
9. If a person chooses to consume only organic foods because they enjoy them, that’s perfectly fine. But false claims about GMOs are false claims nonetheless.
10. Alessandro Bessi et al., “Science vs Conspiracy: Collective Narratives in the Age of Misinformation,” PloS One 10, no. 2 (2015): e0118093.
11. Quassim Cassam, “The Intellectual Character of Conspiracy Theorists,” Aeon Essays, March 13, 2015, aeon.co/essays/the-intellectual-character-of-conspiracy-theorists.
12. David G. McAfee, Disproving Christianity and Other Secular Writings, 2nd ed., rev. (Dangerous Little Books, 2011).
13. I am proud to be an American in that I value its innovative contributions to the world, but our great nation is not without its flaws. This is my type of patriotism … and it is based on the evidence.
14. D. R. Grimes, “On the Viability of Conspiratorial Beliefs,” PLoS One 11, no. 1 (2016): e0147905.
15. There will likely never be a single “cure” for all types of cancer, so the claim that one exists is already based on a fundamental misunderstanding of the concepts involved.
16. I’ve heard conspiracy theorists argue, “No President of the U.S. has had cancer!” This is simply not true. Many U.S. presidents have had cancer, both in and out of office, including Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.
17. Steven Novella, “The Hidden Cancer Cure,” Science-Based Medicine, February 23, 2011, www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-hidden-cancer-cure/.
18. A number of believers have sent me patent applications as “proof” of chem-trails, AIDS cures, etc., but all that really tells me is they don’t understand the patent system. People can apply for a patent for just about anything.
19. J. Marvin Herndon, “Evidence of Coal-Fly-Ash Toxic Chemical Geoengineering in the Troposphere: Consequences for Public Health,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12, no. 8 (2015): 9375–9390.
20. Paul B. Tchounwou, “Retraction: Herndon JM Evidence of Coal-Fly-Ash Toxic Chemical Geoengineering in the Troposphere: Consequences for Public Health,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12, no. 9 (2015): 10941–10942.
21. I feel particularly bad for alternative theorists who are also theists; they have two supposedly all-powerful forces that they believe are controlling or ruling over them.
22. Vernon Stauffe
r, New England and the Bavarian Illuminati (New York: Columbia University Press, 1918), chapter 3.
23. “Meet the Man Who Started the Illuminati,” National Geographic, April 12, 2017, www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2016/07-08/profile-adam-weishaupt-illuminati-secret-society/.
24. Dave Sirus (Brick), tweet, May 22, 2014, twitter.com/DaveSirus/status/469559708324356096.
25. Hans Decoz, “Master Number 11 Numerology,” Numerology.com, www.numerology.com/numerology-numbers/11-master-number.
26. Robert Anton Wilson, Robert Anton Wilson Explains Everything, audio cassette, Sounds True, Inc., 2001.
27. Main Roderick, Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1997), 1.
28. “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.—Søren Kierkegaard
29. Lee McIntyre, “The Price of Denialism,” New York Times, Opinionator, November 7, 2015, opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/11/07/the-rules-ofdenialism.
30. Frank Newport, “Landing a Man on the Moon: The Public’s View,” Gallup News Service, July 20, 1999.
31. P. L. Bender et al., “The Lunar Laser Ranging Experiment Accurate Ranges Have Given a Large Improvement in the Lunar Orbit and New Selenophysical Information,” Science 182, no. 4109 (1973): 229–238.
No Sacred Cows Page 44