9-11/anomalies

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Overview

A number of irregularities have been pointed out regarding the events of the 9/11 attacks, mainly along the lines of objections to the official story as given by the 9/11 Commission. Unfortunately, although many of these are reasonable, a number of very unlikely scenarios have also been suggested and widely circulated, causing many people to overlook the more reasonable objections to the official story or even to believe that those unlikely scenarios are the only objections to the official story.

At this point, the basic facts are not yet clear or complete enough to begin trying to piece together any kind of coherent picture of what, if any, common cause (e.g. conspiracies) might be behind the various irregularities; once each item has been more thoroughly investigated and can reasonably be judged as either "reasonable" or "dismissable", we can start trying to piece together a larger picture.

The Latest

The List

Note: One good litmus test for classifying an anomaly as an objection, as opposed to circumstantial evidence, is the presence of a clear contradiction between what someone (including official reports) says or does versus what they should have said or done given the information available. The objection does not have to explain the discrepancy (in order to be valid); it merely seeks an explanation.

Reasonable Objections

  • collapse-related anomalies (see also: wikipedia:Collapse of the World Trade Center):
    • The free-fall, controlled-demolition nature of the collapses of WTC1, WTC2, and especially WTC7
      • David Brin has suggested (albeit not as a refutation of the idea that controlled-demolition was used, as that idea was probably not yet extant at the time of writing) that the "clean" nature of the collapses was simply due to good engineering design intended specifically to minimize danger to those outside the buildings and prevent the feared "domino effect"
      • It should be noted that WTC1 and WTC2 collapsed from the top, which (Jowenko implies in an oblique comment) is a sign against controlled demolition. WTC7, however, collapsed from the bottom.
    • The "squibs" observed in videos of those collapses
    • The fact that WTC7 collapsed at all despite the lack of any significant impacts from aircraft or falling debris, as well as the fact that it too collapsed abruptly and in a way very reminiscent of controlled demolition; compare with WTC5 and WTC6, both of which were hugely damaged by falling debris and fires but remained standing
    • Multiple eyewitness descriptions of explosions, both heard and seen, which do not fit the official "progressive collapse" model [1]
  • Pentagon-related anomalies (see [2])
    • Intense suppression of evidence (especially 3rd-party videos) which might have resolved many questions and allowed inquiry to focus on real issues
    • Odd patterns of activity afterwards (men in office suits moving around debris)
    • Inconsistency between the known piloting skills of the alleged pilot and the apparently difficult maneuver required to turn around and hit the far side of the building from the direction the plane was traveling
    • Why didn't the plane just hit the nearer side of the building? Perhaps this is easily explained, but haven't seen any explanations yet.
  • Discrepancies regarding the identification of the hijackers [3]
    • The amazing coincidence that the passports of two hijackers somehow escaped the fireball when AA11 crashed into WTC1, and the lack of any specific information about how they were found [4] (How many other passengers' passports were found? Where may images of the passports be viewed online, so as to answer a number of questions about how they were used?)
  • The fact that George W. Bush remained in a widely-known vulnerable location for the better part of an hour after being told that "America's under attack".
  • The substantial number of people who have come forward with evidence that there was foreknowledge of the attacks, and the apparent lack of investigation into these leads [5]
  • Just how did the BBC get the idea that WTC7 had collapsed many minutes before it suddenly did so? Why hasn't there been any kind of investigation to clear up what is most likely an innocent mistake made on a day of unprecedented chaos?
  • The seemingly unnecessary levels of secrecy surrounding information which should be available (future article: 9/11 information concealment) Why were the families of UA93 victims not allowed to make copies of or take notes on what they heard? [6] Why have officials not offered any plausible reason for these restrictions?
  • More questions here need follow-up work; perhaps a page listing all the questions and everything known in relation to the answers? A rather massive project...

Dismissable Theories

  • The Pentagon was not hit by AA77: theories include a truck bomb, a cruise missile, a smaller aircraft, and similar variations
  • UA93 was shot down, rather than the passengers seizing control and deliberately crashing it
  • This video claims:
    • In the first impact, the initial flash is seen before the plane's shadow is visible on the building. (Actually, it looks to me like the shadow is visible; it just gets much clearer after the impact, when it is greatly thickened by smoke from the explosion.)
    • In the first impact, the initial flash is wider than the plane's fuselage. (Is there any reason to think that an impact flash would NOT be wider than the impacting object?)
    • In the second impact, "extra equipment" is visible on the plane's underside. (It's not clear to me that this is anything more than a trick of the light, though it would be nice to find a soon-before-9/11 photo of UA175 from the right-hand side to help figure out what this might be.)
    • In the second impact, the plane fires a missile at the building milliseconds before impact. (Wouldn't this be both extraordinarily difficult to arrange AND unnecessary? Again, though, a contemporaneous photo might help; what is that bright-shiny thing near the plane's nose, just before it hits, if it's not a missile? The video shows the same thing from 4 different angles; where are the originals of those videos so we can do the same frame-by-frame slow-down of the impact?)

Further Investigation Needed

  • "Third NYC Jet" theories [7] [8]: if true, is probably "circumstantial" at best, but still a loose end worth tying down. (Note that some "third jet" video clips show what seem to be birds, without further explanation; is this an attempt to discredit "3rd jet" theories, or just paranoia?)
  • The alleged pilots of the aircraft in each case were abysmal at flying, based on the testimony of their flying instructors (rebuttal: the twin towers made an easy target; no significant skill required. I've seen rebuttals of this rebuttal elsewhere; must find sources.)
  • Why did the man in the video of Osama bin Laden taking credit for the attacks look utterly unlike him (except superficially)? (Or was the video on Loose Change misdirection? Need to find actual videos. See wikipedia:Videos of Osama bin Laden.)
  • There has been repeated mention of an unusually large number of "put" orders placed on American Airlines and United Airlines for the 3 weeks prior to 9/11, and no apparent official investigation. [9]
  • The debris from UA93 in Pennsylvania was curiously sparse; news reports [10] show only small bits of scattered debris, and one smoking hole. Where are the high-resolution photos and the accountings of all the debris found?
  • Why were there reports that UA93 landed safely in Cleveland? What was the "threatened" plane that landed there, causing evacuation of the Cleveland airport? Are these reports false? Is Loose Change [11] the only source for these reports? (Where did this report get its video?) Is there any confirmation of the "small white plane" that Susan McIlwain reports flew very low over her moments before the crash? (Was she still in her car when she ducked? If not, why did she get out; if so, why did she duck? Potential answers are semi-obvious, but the questions need to be asked in order to reduce the informational search-space. Who filmed the video shown here? Clearly it was not filmed for YouTube, comments notwithstanding, but for a broadcast documentary ("IQ1"?).)

Circumstantial Evidence

There is already an alarming amount of circumstantial evidence seemingly connecting the leaders of the United States with the events of 9/11, but this may yet turn out to be a coincidence; people who operate in powerful circles often turn out to have unusual connections with each other.

Nonetheless, in case it turns out to be significant later on, here is a collection of all the known circumstantial evidence:

  • George W. Bush ignored a number of warnings about the imminent likelihood of terrorist attacks on US soil
  • The administration has displayed a complete lack of interest in (indeed, antipathy toward [12]) resolving any of the noted irregularities
  • Evidence from Ground Zero was rapidly hauled off and disposed of; comparatively little of it was retained for forensic examination (some obvious reasons for this suggest themselves, but we are not currently aware of any official explanation), leaving crucial questions unanswered which might otherwise have laid to rest (One official comment is here)
  • The impacted section of the Pentagon had just undergone an extensive refit to harden it against impact damage, and was not fully occupied
  • George W. Bush's brother Marvin sat on the board of the Kuwaiti-owned company which provided electronic security to the World Trade Center, Dulles Airport and United Airlines [13]
  • George W. Bush found success as a businessman only after the investment of Osama bin Laden's brother Salem and reputed al Qaeda financier Khalid bin Mahfouz (link found here is now 404)
  • George W. Bush's uncle (George H.W. Bush's brother Jonathan Bush is CEO of Riggs Bank N.A. which was found guilty of laundering terrorist funds and fined a US-record $25 million [14] [W]
  • US intelligence used Al Qaeda as an asset ([15] is somewhat murky) U.S. supported al-Qaeda cells during Balkan Wars Macedonian dailies see links between Albanian Rebels and bin Ladin
  • more stuff here to list but I don't have time
  • Although $100 million was allocated to investigate Bill Clinton (in which zero deaths were involved), only $14 million was allocated to investigate 9/11 (involving the deaths of over 2000 people and a monetary loss of far more than $14 million) – up from an initial budget of $3 million.

Links

Reference

Opinion

Loose Change

Although the Loose Change documentary film raises some valid points, it also has its screws loose in many other ways and should not be taken as representing a summary of reasonable objections to the official story of 9/11.

Criticism

Video

  • 9/11: Press for Truth (official web site): contains a lot of specific information, once you get past the emotional appeals which tend to be heavier towards the beginning of the video. Spins an interesting connection between Mohammed Atta, the Pakistani IIS, and back to the US government.
  • Penn & Teller on 9/11 conspiracies (this should be moved to 9/11 anomaly denial, and probably the criticism links above belong there as well)
  • Italian documentary about the collapse of WTC7. Reiterates some of the old arguments, but includes some new details.
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