911inthemedia redesign & relaunch

9/11 Truth is going from strength to strength. Here in Oxford, we've been running a series of weekly street stalls which have gone down very well with the general public. It's this feeling of change in the air which has led me to make several major changes to 911inthemedia:

1 - Previously the site was anonymous. It was my intention to contact media analysts in order to interest them in the unfair way in which 9/11 Truth has been dealt with by the mainstream media. I contacted several and received no replies. I felt that by being anonymous, I would stand a better chance of being taken seriously, because it would only take a quick internet search to reveal that I have a reasonably long and deep involvement in 9/11 Truth. Thanks to Ian Neal for highlighting the blog at The War on Freedom forum and apologies for my anonymous reply. I have since realised that we can't wait for so called media professionals to take our case to the public - we simply have to do it ourselves. Be the media, Indymedia style.

2 - I always tried to write in as neutral tone as possible, and this will not change.

3 - The C-word. I have replaced all references to 9/11 C********y Theories with the term 9/11 Alternative Theories (with the exception of direct media quotes, URLs & one or two places where it makes sense to keep it) This may make the text a little jarring at times, as really it should 'alternative 9/11 theories' but it was quicker to change this way. I'd used the C-word to give myself a little mainstream respectability, but realised that I was actually only insulting the very people who might want to read and link to the blog, including myself.

So, I have a lot of catching up to do, and may simply work to publish something by the time of the 6th anniversary. I hope that 9/11 Truth activists in the UK will use this blog as an historical resource. I think it would be most effective as an introduction to 9/11 Truth for academically minded, lightly sceptical newcomers to the subject.

Any comments welcome.

Cheers, Ian

2006: The 5th Anniversary

Interspersed amongst articles concerning United 93 and World Trade Center came articles which can be classed as belonging to the fifth anniversary season for media coverage of 9/11 alternative theories. One of the first of these was a Monday 7th August, 2006 Guardian article headlined “9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Thriving”.

Education writer Justin Pope concentrates on the controversy surrounding 9/11 alternative theories, rather than the substance of the theories themselves. He does present arguments both for and against 9/11 alternative theories, whilst the article is the first to cover one of the more prominent 9/11 alternative theory groups - Scholars for 9/11 Truth. He gives a brief summary of their main ideas from the Scholars for 9/11 Truth website: “the ‘World Trade Center was almost certainly brought down by controlled demolitions’ and ‘the government not only permitted 9/11 to occur but may even have orchestrated these events to facilitate its political agenda.’”

Pope quotes Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors, to associate 9/11 alternative theories with more radical and unpalatable ideas: “However, ‘with academic freedom comes academic responsibility. And that requires them to teach the truth of their discipline, and the truth does not include conspiracy theories, or flat Earth theories, or Holocaust denial theories.’”

Liquid Bombs

Following the terror alert over the alleged plot to blow up transatlantic airliners which was first reported on 10th August, there were a number of articles which referenced 9/11 alternative theories.

“Just whose side is Pakistan really on?” was published on 13th August, 2006. After detailing Pakistan’s role in the war on terror, Times journalist Christina Lamb writes that, “Many Muslims are reluctant to accept the role of fundamentalists in terror attacks. Their scepticism is fed by conspiracy theories that continue to spread on the internet. Among the most virulent are: Bin Laden was never involved in 9/11, but has been used by Washington to justify spending on the military and intelligence services. Bin Laden has been dead more than five years and the US used lookalikes and fake tapes of his voice to issue new threats.”

The mention of look-alikes by Lamb is a reference to the belief amongst some conspiracy theorists that the December 2001 tape of Osama bin Laden in which he admits to carrying out the 9/11 attacks was in some way faked. The evidence, they allege, is that the person in the video looks different from the widely disseminated images of Osama bin Laden which became famous in the hours and days after the attacks.

This section is followed by the frequently used tactic of promoting Israeli based conspiracy theories and linking them with more popular ones. She writes, “The Israelis were quickly fingered in the Arab world as suspects after the towers collapsed, killing 2,752. This theory is often bolstered with the false claim that 4,000 Jewish employees did not turn up for work that day. Conspiracy theorists say the impact of the planes did not have the power to demolish the towers. The buildings had been rigged with explosives.”

Lamb’s treatment of the Pentagon based conspiracy theories is more straightforward: “The relatively limited damage suffered by the Pentagon despite being hit by a passenger jet is held up as evidence that it was a faked attack. Some suspect a guided missile was used.”

Denial

The following day, the Times again attacked 9/11 alternative theories in, “They are in denial over terrorism” published on 14th August, 2006. Mary Ann Sieghart again links Israel and Jews to the alternative theories as she writes, “Rather than face up to the fact that there are now worryingly high numbers of radicalised young Muslims, some of whom have murderous designs against their compatriots, these Muslims would prefer to delude themselves that the whole thing is a Western plot. A staggering 45 per cent of British Muslims, according to a poll by Channel 4, believe that 9/11 was a conspiracy between the US and Israel. How could they, in the face of such overwhelming evidence? We know who the hijackers were, and they weren’t CIA or Mossad agents. They were angry young Muslims.”

She continues, “If the US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew of the attack that was about to happen, what was he doing sitting in the Pentagon, which was hit by one of the aircraft? If Israelis were in on the plot, why didn't they tell Daniel Lewin, a former Israeli commando, who struggled with Mohammed Atta and other hijackers aboard American Airlines Flight 11, the first plane to crash into the towers? No, it is as preposterous to deny that Islamist terrorists undertook the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks as it is to deny that the threat of similar attacks in the future exists.”

Loony

Whilst these references to 9/11 alternative theories in the Times were made only in passing, “Moderate Muslims must offer hotheads an alternative view” by the Sun’s political editor Trevor Kavanagh tackles them head on. Published on Monday 14th August, 2006, the article employs a variety of techniques used to discredit 9/11 alternative theories.

Kavanagh opens the article with, “Some loony keeps sending me messages that 9/11 was a Jewish conspiracy” before using terms such as “rant”, “laughable cyber-joke”, “dangerous theories”, “claptrap” and “fantasists” to paint 9/11 alternative theorists in a negative light.

But it is perhaps the accompanying cartoon which is of greater interest. It depicts a Muslim man pointing as the second plane impacts the Twin Towers with the caption, “Look, you see, it’s not a plane – it’s a US Missile.” This refers to an increasingly controversial idea amongst 9/11 alternative theorists that missiles rather than planes were used to target the World Trade Centre. By focusing on one of the more incredible 9/11 alternative theories, the Sun seeks to discredit others by association.

Internet

A few days later, on Friday 18th August 2006, the BBC Newsnight blog covered alternative theories in a general article titled, “On internet conspiracy theories.” Beneath a photograph of a stylised alien, the opening paragraph concludes, “You lot can say what you like about Diana and flying saucers and JFK, but hacks stick to the evidence, at least until they get down the pub.”

Having set the tone of the article, the writer then discusses three rules to apply when assessing the “CT” (conspiracy theory) and the “OV” (official version) of events. Within these points, 9/11 alternative theories are mentioned twice: “The September 11 CT that said 'Flight 93 was brought down by the airforce not the passengers' was once a widely held internet CT, but then decent taped evidence came along and undermined it among all but the most cynical” and “But the background to the World Trade Centre attacks had an utterly compelling received wisdom, whereas the CTs just never remotely fitted with how any sensible person expects the world to behave.”

By sandwiching sentences about 9/11 alternative theories in with ones about more unbelieveable ideas, the writer is able to dismiss and ridicule them by association. Examples of the latter include “So just because you see a weird flying saucer and the OV claims it's marsh gas, don't assume it's therefore an alien spaceship” and “Just because there are oddities in the photos from the moon landings, that doesn't mean that they were mocked up in the Nevada desert.”

In addition to rubbishing 9/11 alternative theories by association, the writer makes a couple of candid admissions concerning possible reasons why alternative theories in general have not received fairer media coverage. After admitting that some journalists “entertain such notions in private” the journalist concludes, “So which CTs should you buy into? Well you'll just have to make your own minds up. I've got a mortgage to pay.”

Inside Job

Following August’s ‘silly season’ in the British media, coverage of 9/11 alternative theories began in earnest just a few days into September. The coverage in the days leading up to the fifth anniversary was more frequent than previous years and reasonably balanced.

On Tuesday 5th September 2006, the Mail continued in it’s unexpected role as one of the fairer media outlets covering 9/11 conspiracy theories when it published “Fury as academics claim 9/11 was 'inside job'”. The article quotes extensively from members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth, with quotes from just one person arguing against 9/11 alternative theories.

After a brief introduction, journalist Jaya Narain discusses Professor Steven Jones, who became one of the most prominent and credible 9/11 alternative theorists after the online publication of a paper questioning the collapse of the three buildings at the World Trade Centre site. The subject of much controversy, the paper is yet to be published in a mainstream academic journal, although 9/11 alternative theorists present the paper as ‘academic’ and ‘peer reviewed’. It has however been published online, initially on the physics section of Brigham Young University website (although this was later withdrawn by Jones at the university’s request after Jones was placed on paid leave) and in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, an online publication. It has also been published in a recent book, “9/11 and American Empire (Volume I) Intellectuals Speak Out”.

In the article, Jones is not ridiculed by Narain – on the contrary his position is presented fairly accurately: “Professor Jones said it was impossible for the twin towers to have collapsed in the way they did from the collision of two aeroplanes. He maintains jet fuel does not burn at temperatures high enough to melt steel beams and claims horizontal puffs of smoke seen during the collapse of the towers are indicative of controlled explosions used to bring down the towers.”

Narain then introduces “Christopher Pyle, professor of constitutional law” to cast doubt on the assertions of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. He is quoted as saying, “To plant bombs in three buildings with enough bomb materials and wiring? It's too huge a project and would require far too many people to keep it a secret afterwards. After every major crisis, like the assassinations of JFK or Martin Luther King, we've had conspiracy theorists who come up with plausible scenarios for gullible people. It's a waste of time.”

Such arguments are often countered by 9/11 alternative theorists by referring to such operations as the Manhattan Project, which according to Wikipedia “would eventually employ over 130,000 people… and result in the creation of multiple production and research sites operated in secret…at over thirty different sites spread across the United States, Canada, and in the United Kingdom…The existence of these sites and the secret cities of Los Alamos, Oak Ridge, and Hanford were not made public until the announcement of the Hiroshima explosion and remained officially secret until the end of WWII.”

The article then continues with a quote from “University of Wisconsin assistant professor, Kevin Barrett” who himself has been the subject of controversy. Barrett touches on some of the psychological arguments used by 9/11 alternative theorists to explain why their ideas are not more widely believed: “People will disregard evidence it if causes their faith to be shattered. I think we were all shocked. And then, when the voice of authority told us what happened, we just believed it.”

9/11 was a hoax

On the same day as the Mail, the Guardian ran a very similar article almost certainly culled from the same New York Times source. “Who really blew up the twin towers?” by Christina Asquith uses many of the same quotes, including those from Steven Jones and Christopher Pyle.

On balance, the Guardian article paints 9/11 alternative theories in a slightly more positive light. In addition to highlighting Jones’ doubts about the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC7, it delves more deeply into the background of who in America could have been behind such a plot.

Asquith writes, “For most of the world, the story of 9/11 begins at 8.45am on September 11 2001, when American Airlines flight 11 smashed into the North tower of the World Trade Centre. But, tumble down the rabbit hole with Jones, and the plotline begins a year earlier, in September 2000. A neoconservative group called Project for a New American Century, which included the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the vice-president, Dick Cheney, brought out a report arguing for a global expansion of American military and economic supremacy, and for the US to transform itself into a ‘one-world superpower’. The report warned that ‘the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalysing event - like a new Pearl Harbor’.”

Asquith also takes the highly unusual step of quoting an expert who participated in the US government’s study of the WTC collapses who actually recognises some of the alternative theorists concerns. Although “Jonathan Barnett, professor of fire protection engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, calls such claims ‘bad science’” he also admits that, “Yes, it is unusual for a steel structure to collapse from fire” and, “The collapse of WTC 7 was also unusual.”

Asquith then uses an entire paragraph to detail the reports which back up the official theory: “Since the attacks, the US government has issued three reports into the events of the day, all of which involved hundreds of professors, scientists and government officials. The 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan group, issued a 500-page, moment-by-moment investigation into the hijackers' movements, concluding that they were connected to Osama bin Laden. The National Institute of Standards and Technology, a government agency, filed 10,000 pages of reports examining the towers' collapse. And the Federal Emergency Management Agency weighed in, examining the response to the attacks.”

Here however, Asquith is ignoring certain evidence often cited by alternative theorists to back up their claims. They point out for example that Osama bin Laden is not indicted for 9/11 on his page on the FBI top most wanted fugitive website. Furthermore, Asquith fails to mention the recently released NIST FAQ factsheet which explains that in relation to WTC7, “NIST also is considering whether hypothetical blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse. While NIST has found no evidence of a blast or controlled demolition event, NIST would like to determine the magnitude of hypothetical blast scenarios that could have led to the structural failure of one or more critical elements.”

CIA

A few days later, the Telegraph ran another article about Scholars for 9/11 Truth on Friday 8th September 2006 headlined “The CIA couldn't have organised this...” Written by Michael Shelden, a professor of English at Indiana State University, the article’s main thesis is that the mistakes in the subsequent war on terror make it unlikely that anyone in the US governmental apparatus would be capable of organising the 9/11 attacks and keeping it a secret. After a run down of Steven Jones’ ideas that, “the burning jet fuel from the two airliners that crashed into the buildings could not have generated enough heat to cause the structures to collapse,” Shelden seeks to discredit Jones by highlighting one of his other controversial ideas, “Evidence for Christ's Visit in Ancient America.”

Shelden writes, “Jones is convinced, for example, that Jesus was wandering through ancient Mexico around AD 600, paying calls on various Mayan villagers. He has published "evidence" that the Mayans were well aware of the "resurrected Lord" centuries before the Spanish priests crossed the Atlantic and gave them the Good News.”

Shelden later attempts to paint 9/11 alternative theorists in general in a negative light as he writes, “the people who were most likely to believe in the 9/11 conspiracies were those who ‘regularly use the internet but who do not regularly use ‘mainstream" media’’. Alone in a darkened room with paranoid cyber-friends as your only company, you can easily begin to entertain all sorts of bizarre notions, especially when trying to make sense of an event as grotesque as the collapse of two skyscrapers.”

James Fetzer, another senior member of Scholars for 9/11 Truth also comes in for criticism, because he “thinks that JFK was killed by several shooters and that the moon landing in 1969 may have been a hoax.”

Towards the end of the article, Shelden lays out his incompetence theory: “The most persuasive argument against a conspiracy is the profound incompetence that subsequent events have revealed at every level among the supposed conspirators. The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass tucked alongside the Hudson River.”

David Ray Griffin

Just two days before the fifth anniversary on Saturday 9th September, 2006, the Guardian published “Full house as leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist has his say” The article by Audrey Gillan publicises a London meeting organised by the “British 9/11 for Truth Movement.”

Overall, the article is generally factual and refrains from using the usual tactics to discredit 9/11 alternative theorists. In one paragraph however, Gillan writes, “websites show countless images that ‘back up’ the claims, chatrooms are screaming with conspiracists...” Using such language is an attempt to pour scorn on the “growing number of disbelievers.”

Despite having covered the meeting before it happened, there were no news articles in the Guardian or elsewhere which followed up with a post meeting report.

9/11

On the day of the anniversary itself, the media completely ignored 9/11 alternative theories. This could in part be due to feeling the need to respect the families of those who died, as well as feeling that the topic had been sufficiently covered in the previous days and weeks.

That 9/11 alternative theorists were ignored is slightly surprising, however, due to the fact that some of them gathered outside the US Embassy in Grosvenor Square in London. This was the same location where most of the British media were covering the memorial service organised by the US Embassy. Examples of such reporting can be found from the BBC, Times, Express and Guardian. But it was left to the political activist website Indymedia to report on the protest. (video / photos / photos)

2006 - Film Fictionalisation - United 93 & World Trade Center

Even before it’s world premiere on 26th April 2006 at New York’s Tribeca film festival, the film United 93 prompted a number of articles discussing 9/11 alternative theories. One of the first of these was “Chaos and cock-up always trump conspiracy” published in the Sunday 9th April, 2006 edition of the Observer.

Throughout the article, 9/11 is linked with other alternative theories, mainly those which have been explored in films. Journalist Mark Kermode tells of his encounter with US filmmaker Spike Lee, who has spoken with people who “‘will swear on a stack of bibles that they heard explosions and they think that the levees were blown up.’” Kermode later notes that, “the Apollo conspiracy theorists clearly owe less to reality than they do to the plot of the Seventies cult movie Capricorn One.”

Describing the 1962 film The Manchurian Candidate, he claims that, “…among conspiracy theorists, its central brainwashing premise is taken as barely disguised fact” and “…most of what the public knows about the Kennedy assassination is based on a string of excitably dramatic movies…which viewers have mistaken for verifiable truth.”

Kermode concludes the article by admitting that, “I used to take solace in Gail Brewer-Giorgio's bonkers books Is Elvis Alive? and The Elvis Files, which argued that a fit and healthy Presley had carefully planned and faked his death in 1977, fled Graceland in a helicopter and restarted his life in privacy and seclusion.”

Amongst these references to a plethora of alternative theories, Kermode mentions Loose Change: 2nd Edition, and briefly summarises it: “The film argued that the World Trade Centre was blown up from inside, that the Pentagon was struck by a cruise missile and that United Airlines Flight 93, in which terrorists were officially reported to have been overpowered by passengers, did not crash in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, but landed safely in Ohio.”

He continues, “This all sounded like baloney to me. But just to be sure, I contacted respected British film-maker Paul Greengrass, who's putting the finishing touches on his thoroughly researched, fact-based docudrama, United 93.” Satisfied with Greengrass’s assertion that, “The stuff about the plane being shot down is simply not true” Kermode notes that, “…the body of people who deny the official version of what happened on 11 September, the so-called '9/11 Truth Movement', is growing by the day…with Charlie Sheen telling America's GCN radio network last month: 'Nineteen amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75 per cent of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory.'”

This is one of the first mentions of ‘The 9/11 Truth Movement’ a term commonly used by 9/11 alternative theorists but avoided by the media. Kermode is also slightly out of step with many of his fellow journalists, who usually downplay the number of people who subscribe to 9/11 alternative theories.

Letters

A week later, on Sunday 16th April, 2006 the Observer made the previously unheard of step of publishing a letter from not just one, but two 9/11 alternative theorists. The letters page, titled, “Three cheers for Modernism, and a word from the 9/11 conspiracy theorists” contained letters (both via email) from former MI5 officer Annie Machon, and Andrew Johnson.

Machon’s letter notes the, “the rapidly growing body of academics, scientists, celebrities and members of the public questioning the events of 9/11 (who) take the view that the basic laws of physics mean that the events of that day could not have happened in the way described by the US government.” Johnson publicises, “A new group…called Scholars for 9/11 Truth.” Both letters include websites, a rare example of the Observer linking to sources of 9/11 alternative theories.

Internet

This new approach of allowing those sceptical of the official 9/11 account to voice their opinions continued in the Guardian on Thursday 11th May, 2006 with “Flight 93: special internet edition”. Whilst not an out and out 9/11 alternative theorist, journalist and filmmaker Alex Cox is clearly willing to share some of their concerns.

He writes that, “Although the mainstream media treated the Kean Commission report with reverence, its name is mud on the web. On the internet, Kean's version of events has been dissected from all sides…The internet pullulates with blogs and sites and forums dedicated to "alternative" 9/11 scenarios. Very occasionally, one of them leads to a page about the conspiracy of George Bush and alien reptiles, but many more are considered and informative, with copious hyperlinks.” Here he links to the Complete 9/11 Timeline, also published by Paul Thompson as a book.

Cox also reveals the levels of scepticism which many journalists ignore, that, “…a lot of Americans believe it (or something like it): polls tell us that 70% of them don't trust the "official" version, which may explain some of the stick United 93 has been getting on the internet.”

It is this “stick”, according to Cox, which led Universal, the studio behind United 93, to shut down the internet forum associated with the film. “Posts on the message board were believed to have run as high as 10 to one against the film,” he writes.

Cox also details the evidence cited by alternative theorists to back up their ideas: “…people on the ground who saw flight 93 tailed by another aircraft, and the apparent explosion of the aircraft in mid-air (which would suggest it was shot down by the air force - something Donald Rumsfeld briefly said, apparently in error). (CNN / CNN / video)

Several eye-witnesses say they heard the plane explode in the air. The ‘Flight 93 Crash Theory Home Page’ claims a secondary debris field eight miles from the crash site: its sources are CNN and a Pennsylvania newspaper.”

Heroes

The Telegraph returns to more familiar ground in “What the heroes of United 93 teach us” published on 22nd May, 2006. Half way through the article, journalist Jim White turns his attention to alternative theories. He writes, “For those of us who believe that history is governed by cock-up, the biggest service it provides is the way in which it subverts 9/11 conspiracy theories.”

White then mixes two peripheral alternative theories with one of the most widely believed: “These began to circulate even as the Twin Towers still smoked. There were dozens of them: that this was the work of Mossad, that the planes were never hijacked at all, that the World Trade Centre was blown up by rogue elements in government.”Changing tack, he then states that: “It is almost common currency that United 93 did not crash as a result of a disturbance in the cockpit, but was shot down by the US Air Force to prevent it reaching Washington. The truth, as the film recognises, is that human organisation works on precedent rather than foresight. Thus, on September 11, when the unexpected happened, there was no procedure in place to counteract it. In its scenes of panicked confusion in control rooms and flight towers, the film shows that no one knew what to do: their systems had failed them. Indeed, such was the fuzziness of lines of command that the military did not even learn United 93 had been hijacked until four minutes after it crashed.”

Here, White claims that “when the unexpected happened, there was no procedure in place to counteract it”, yet this runs contrary to an Associated Press report of 12th August 2002 (unavailable on the AP website) which explained that, “From Sept. 11 to June, NORAD scrambled jets or diverted combat air patrols 462 times, almost seven times as often as the 67 scrambles from September 2000 to June 2001.” (link / link / link)

So if this AP report did exist - it is cited by authors such as Nafeez Ahmed and David Ray Griffin - then it would provide an argument against White’s position that, “no one knew what to do: their systems had failed them.”

Shot Down

Having already broken ranks on two occasions with the rest of the British media – Sue Reid’s 2004 review of A New Pearl Harbor and Tony Rennell’s 2005 review of 9/11 Revealed - the Mail achieved another first by allowing a 9/11 alternative theorist author a platform to review the film United 93.

Rowland Morgan, author of “Flight 93: What Really Happened On The Heroic 9/11 ‘Let’s Roll’ Flight” wrote a very lengthy article on 19th August 2006 under the title, “Flight 93 'was shot down' claims book” Morgan gives a brief outline of the official story of, “the legend of United Airways Flight 93, one that has been vigorously promoted in a stream of books and films, most recently in the £9.6 million Hollywood movie…”

But he soon moves straight to the point: “Yet my own exhaustive investigations have led me to conclude that the story of Flight 93 is far from being the straightforward account of supreme courage that the authorities would have us believe… For I believe that Flight 93 may well have been deliberately shot down as a means of stopping it from reaching its ultimate target — even at the expense of the 40 blameless people on board. It is a suspicion that was held even by the FBI, but was swept aside as a shaken America clung on to the official version of selfless sacrifice and raw patriotism.”

Morgan then issues a call which characterises the more rational 9/11 alternative theorists: “But let us examine the evidence — so that you can come to your own conclusion.” This evidence is then explained in several detailed sections. First comes the crash site itself: “…the absence of any significant debris — including tailplane and wings — bewildered witnesses, relatives and, more importantly, some crash experts. They found it hard to believe that an airliner up to 155ft long, with two engines each weighing more than six tons, could have penetrated the ground so completely as to utterly disappear. Had it, in reality, been blown to pieces in mid-air?”

We learn that rather than a single impact site, “…a dining room table (was) recovered from a marina in Indian Lake, a couple of miles away from the crash site…and only a one-ton segment of an engine was ever recovered, again more than a mile from the crash site. The FBI said, unconvincingly, that it had ‘bounced’ there. The FBI also claimed metal fragments found up to eight miles away could have been carried there by the wind, even though the breeze was very light.”

In scenes reminiscent of Satam-al-Suqami’s passport at Ground Zero, “…the FBI belatedly claimed to have made two sensational discoveries - a red bandana and a passport allegedly belonging to the hijackers. Very conveniently, these turned up as prosecution evidence earlier this year at the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker…”

To support his thesis that Flight 93 was shot down, Morgan turns to eyewitness reports of “two F-16s tailing Flight 93 minutes before it went down” and “numerous and highly credible witness accounts of a mysterious white jet being seen after Flight 93 went down.”

The article also covers issues such as when did the military find out from the FAA about the hijacked plane, the fact that, “the Transportation Safety Board was not in charge of the investigation - the FBI was” and the mobile phone calls made by the passengers, including “Flight 93’s most famous passenger Todd Beamer, whose ‘Let’s roll!’ phrase became a byword for the victims’ heroism and patriotism.”

World Trade Center

In stark contrast to United 93, Oliver Stone’s film World Trade Center produced no articles dealing directly with 9/11 alternative theories. However, many journalists commented in passing on their surprise that Stone – the director of conspiracy classics JFK and Nixon - hadn’t incorporated any conspiratorial aspects into his film. World Trade Center, produced by Paramount Pictures, was released in the US on 9th August 2006. The fact that the UK release date for the film is not until late September could in part account for this lack of coverage.

Schlock

However, one example of a passing mention occurs at the end of, “Mixed reaction to 9/11 film in US” a BBC website article from Friday, 11th August 2006. After commenting on whether the film might shock sensitive audiences, it concludes, “A film based on the conspiracies buzzing round the internet - for which there is no evidence - is on the way, apparently. Where good taste and sensitivity goes now, schlock and dangerous misinformation may follow.”

Another article from the BBC which might be expected to at least reference 9/11 alternative theories is “Stone explains 11 September movie” published on Tuesday, 21 February 2006. At no point though, are such ideas even mentioned, let alone explained or more fully explored.

2006: The 5th Anniversary

2006 - The Pentagon Tapes

On 16th May 2006, the Pentagon released two videos of the attack on the Pentagon after a Freedom of Information request by the organisation Judicial Watch. Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton noted in a press release that, “Finally, we hope that this video will put to rest the conspiracy theories involving American Airlines Flight 77.” But the video images released by the Pentagon were similar to the five still frames which had been reported on over four years earlier, and did little to quell 9/11 alternative theories about the attack.

The BBC covered the story heavily in several website articles and TV news reports. “US releases 9/11 Pentagon video”, published on Tuesday 16th May, 2006 confusingly mixes up alternative theories about Flight 93 and the Pentagon when it notes that, “Some theorists have suggested the aircraft was shot down in flight, and that the Pentagon was struck by a missile.” It does mention Thierry Meyssan who, “alleged that Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon and suggested a truck bomb or missile caused the damage.”

Meyssan merits further attention in “Why Pentagon released 9/11 tape”, published on the same day. The article explains that, “The Pentagon said it could not release the videos in question because they were part of an ongoing investigation against al-Qaeda plotter Zacarias Moussaoui” before mentioning that, “…ideas aired in books such as Thierry Meyssan's The Pentagate, which argues that a missile, not a plane, struck the headquarters of the US defence department. The French journalist and left-wing activist claims the US government itself was behind the attacks. Two books he published on the subject were worldwide bestsellers.”

Down but not out

Whilst these articles are primarily about the release of the tapes and mention alternative theories only in passing, “Conspiracy theorists down but not out” is devoted entirely to 9/11 alternative theories about the Pentagon attack. Published a day later on Wednesday 17th May, 2006, this relatively lengthy article details many of the specific claims of 9/11 alternative theorists, offering some slightly generalised answers.

Journalist Paul Reynolds acknowledges that the “…grainy video frames…do not absolutely without doubt show that this was American Airlines 77 in its final moments…” He later remarks: “To understand the conspiracy theory, it is worth considering a film called Loose Change: 2nd edition.” Loose Change (Editions 1 & 2) are two of the most downloaded internet films of all time, and are popular with 9/11 alternative theorists. This article not only mentions the film, but also provides a link to google video where it can be viewed online.

He goes on to outline seven claims of 9/11 alternative theorists, such as, “it must have been a missile, a military aircraft or a drone”, “The alleged pilot Hani Hanjour was not skilled enough to execute the manoeuvre and the plane would have stalled in the tight turn alleged” and “The damage was not consistent with the size of the airliner.”

With this analysis, Reynolds goes further than previous BBC articles, and rather than simply dismiss the alternative theories outright, notes that, “There are, of course, answers to all of the above, to be found in the report of the 9/11 Commission, in other technical assessments and in common sense.”

The article continues by mentioning some of the other claims of Loose Change: 2nd Edition, including the allegation, “that United 93 which came down in a field in Pennsylvania, never crashed (the "crash site" was dug out by bulldozers) but landed at Cleveland and the passengers taken off” and “that the Twin Towers were brought down by ‘controlled demolition’”.

The Editors

A day later, on Thursday 18th May 2006, Reynolds published one of a deluge of emails he had received in a BBC blog called The Editors. “Conspiracy Theories” largely consists of an email from someone called David who is based in the UK. Before David’s email, Reynolds writes, “Each and every one of the theories has been exposed and I only wish I had the time and space to have gone into each.”

After a short introduction, David writes, “people…commonly called ‘conspiracy theorists’ by the media, certainly DO believe eyewitneses and the physical evidence. Unfortuately, most of the physical evidence was either (a) removed and destroyed as quickly as possible or (b) withheld by the government for no apparent reason…”The email continues, “The government line…ignores…physical evidence that it cannot explain, eg the pools of molten steel at the foot of the twin towers, remaining red-hot even some weeks after the impacts, the seismographic evidence, and the free-fall time of the towers' collapse, which would be impossible if the pancake theory is correct, and we haven't even started talking about Larry Silverstein saying that he, along with a fire chief, made the decision to "pull" building seven, which meant that it had to have been wired for demolition BEFORE 9/11.” (video / video)

“Further, what engineering studies is he talking about? All but one of the studies that I know of, including the opinion of the chief engineer of the twin towers, says that it is impossible that a single impact by a jet liner could cause the towers to collapse, and that they were designed to withstand impacts by multiple boeing seven-oh-sevens, fully laden with fuel.” (video / video)

The publication of this email is one of the few instances where a 9/11 alternative theorist is given a prominent platform in the British media. Many previous blogs and articles had published readers feedback, but this becomes easily lost amongst a swarm of comments. In addition, the BBC allowed the respondent to raise infrequently mentioned issues, such as the “pools of molten steel at the foot of the twin towers” and building seven (WTC7).

Guardian

Coverage in the Guardian followed a similar pattern to the BBC, with an initial article the day of the footage’s release, and a follow up article about alternative theories surrounding the Pentagon crash.

“Pentagon releases September 11 video” published on Tuesday 16th May, 2006, offers a run down of Meyssan’s ideas: “The Flight 77 crash has spawned numerous conspiracy theories, including one from the French journalist Thierry Meyssam who suggested that a truck bomb or missile caused the explosion, not the plane.”

The article then makes an interesting admission, marking one of the first occasions that the British media has acknowledged expert dissent over 9/11: “Most journalists, scientists and military experts have dismissed the conspiracy theories, but a minority of experts support them.”

Plane Spotting

“Plane spotting” published on Thursday 18th May, 2006 also marks new territory for the Guardian in its more balanced and neutral tone. This Newsblog item recounts both sides of the argument as to whether the released images show a plane, and links to one of the most popular Pentagon 9/11 alternative websites, Pentagon-Strike.

Journalist Mark Oliver concludes: “The Hot Air blog and Captain's Quarters say that frames from the new video show a smoke trail belonging to the plane. Watching the video, I can buy this. Maybe you can see a smoke trail. But those who are suspicious argue that the footage does not clearly show a plane going into the building, only a fleeting, vague light shape, and then the explosion. One explanation for this is that the camera was low quality and the plane was moving at more than 500mph.”

2006 - Film Fictionalisation - United 93 & World Trade Center

2006 - Charlie Sheen - Challenge me on the Facts

Whilst the fourth anniversary had witnessed some of the most balanced ever coverage of 9/11 alternative theories – thanks to reviews of 9/11 Revealed – this media goodwill soon evaporated in the spring of 2006. On Monday 20th March 2006, US film actor Charlie Sheen appeared on a US radio talk show hosted by independent journalist and prominent 9/11 alternative theorist Alex Jones to voice his doubts about the veracity of the official story of 9/11. (audio)

The story was almost completely ignored in the British media. The BBC, for example, didn’t cover it at all, not even to rubbish Sheen’s stance. This is despite the fact that the BBC clearly regards Sheen as newsworthy enough to report widely on his turbulent private life. There are many articles about him which predate his March 2006 comments on 9/11, whilst in the months following his radio interview, several articles appeared about his marriage break up. These include, “Sheen 'must stay away from wife'” , “Actor Sheen denies abusing wife” , “Sheen restraining order extended” and “'Amicable' split for actor Sheen”

It can’t be argued that the BBC regards the political views of Hollywood celebrities as not being newsworthy, as evidenced by their coverage of two stories concerning the attitude of actors Bruce Willis and Robin Williams towards the Iraq war. September 2003 saw the BBC report on “Actor Willis' $1m Saddam bounty”, whilst in December 2003, they noted that, “Williams entertains Iraq troops”.

Insane

Whilst the BBC and other newsrooms simply ignored the story, it was picked up by celebrity gossip columnist Marina Hyde in the Guardian, who couldn’t resist resorting to ridicule. The subheadline of “He's a right Charlie”, published on Saturday 25th March, 2006 reads, “Mr Sheen is the latest celebrity to confuse fact and fiction.”

Hyde turns one of Sheen’s quotes from the radio show on it’s head as she writes, “…the Hotshots Part Deux star told a US radio station this week, ‘…and then when the buildings came down later on that day, I said to my brother 'call me insane', but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition?’ You're insane. Next.”

Hyde repeats the tactic of linking questionable aspects of Sheen’s past with genuine concerns that he raises. She writes, “But it is George Bush's assertion that he saw the first plane hit the north tower of the World Trade Centre before any footage of it had been released that tells Charlie he's on to something. ‘I guess one of the perks of being president is that you get access to TV channels that don't exist in the known universe,’ he continued in a manner which in no way suggests he once had a monstrous coke problem.”

So although Hyde doesn’t actually refute Sheen’s allegation, she ridicules it by association. CNN actually reported on Bush’s comments on 4th December 2001. The US president is quoted as saying, “And I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower - the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and I said, ‘There's one terrible pilot.’ And I said, ‘It must have been a horrible accident.’” CNN / video

The guilt by association theme is continued throughout the article, as Hyde writes, “For many celebrities, conspiracy theories are the VIP rooms of history. Sure, you'll have your Earl Warrens and your senate investigations patrolling the velvet rope…” and “…but you'd have to think there'd be a seat in the Sheen kitchen cabinet for Spike Lee, who last year told CNN he suspected the Bush administration had blown up the levees in New Orleans.”

Finally comes, “Tom Cruise, who famously dismisses psychiatry as a big conspiracy” whilst “completing the quartet is Michael Jackson, who…was taped espousing the oldest conspiracy of all: it's the Jews!”

Fun

The following Saturday, Hyde used her ‘Lost in Showbiz’ column to continue her ridicule of Sheen and respond to “…hundreds of furious emails - including a trenchant exchange with David Shayler - and, perhaps most upsettingly, a verified document headed ‘Charlie Sheen Statement to the London Guardian.’”

But “It was meant to be fun ...”, published on Saturday 1st April, 2006 begins with Hyde’s mocking admission that she is, “distressed to the point of requiring constant medication by a week that began last Saturday on these pages, in a column addressing the actor Charlie Sheen's espousal of a 9/11 conspiracy theory.”

After lamenting that Sheen no longer looks, “like the drug addict he played in the 1986 classic Ferris Bueller's Day Off”, Hyde informs her readers that, “Charlie has issued a formal rebuttal, and though I haven't quite the strength to print it here, I am deeply chastened.”

Sheen’s unpublished statement to the Guardian accuses journalists such as Hyde of, “…blatantly disregarding any of the potentially valuable content of the story” whilst “no attention whatsoever is given to the questions I raise or the evidence that stimulated those very questions.”

Most tellingly, Sheen challenges his critics to, “Do a little research on Building Seven. (WTC7) Building Seven lives at the epicenter of my entire debate. Prove yourself worthy of genuine investigative journalism. Look at the video evidence.”

After brushing aside Sheen’s statement, Hyde deals with some of the emails she received about her initial column. “Rebuke instead comes from a new army of web readers. ‘You stupid whore,’ reasons one. ‘Do you believe everything the president tells you?’ But of course I do. He is Charlie's dad, after all.” This refers to Charlie Sheen’s father Martin Sheen, who plays the role of US president in the TV series ‘The West Wing’.

Overall, Hyde’s two columns represent a resurgence in the tactic of ridiculing 9/11 alternative theories. Sheen is quoted sparingly, whilst the majority of the column is devoted to personal attacks. However, Hyde is keen to point out that her “facetious showbiz column”, “might be kindly described as a few jokes about celebrities on a Saturday.”

2006 - The Pentagon Tapes

2005 - The 4th Anniversary - 9/11 Revealed: Challenging the Facts behind the War on Terror

The fourth anniversary brought none of the scathing attacks which had characterised the previous three years anniversary coverage of 9/11 alternative theories, but instead heralded two reviews of a new British book, “9/11 Revealed: Challenging the Facts behind the War on Terror” by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan.

The first of these reviews (unavailable on the Mail website) was published on Saturday 6th August, 2005 under the title “9/11 on Trial” by Mail journalist Tony Rennell The article begins by comparing 9/11 with a very infrequently cited document, which details US government plans to, “fabricate an outrage against innocent civilians, fool the world and provide a pretext for war…This ‘agent provocateur' plan – codenamed Operation Northwoods and revealed in official archives – dates from 1962 when the Cold War was at its height. Four decades later, there are a growing number of people who look back at this proto-conspiracy and then to the events of 9-11 and see uncanny and frightening modern parallels.”

The National Security Archive at George Washington University elaborates further on Operation Northwoods: “the Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba. These proposals - part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose - included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),” faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.”

By opening with the comparison of 9/11 to Operation Northwoods, Rennell avoids the ridicule of many previous articles, and sets 9/11 alternative theories in an historical context, one in which the US government contemplated carrying out covert terror operations against US citizens.

Rennell goes on to recognise that, “many of the theories are outlandish in the extreme. It would be easy to dismiss them as hokum, the invention of over-active imaginations among those whose instinct is always to find some way to blame America for the world's ills…Some would say that even in discussing such notions, we are lending comfort to terrorists and doing a disservice to the dead.”

But he counters these misgivings by admitting that, “…much of the evidence the authors present is undeniably compelling…can the idea of a 9/11 plot by those who serve the deeply mistrusted Bush really be ruled out with total certainty, without at least considering the arguments?”

The article then devotes a large section to what Henshall and Morgan claim is the, “most startling question, which remains unresolved… why the hijackers' principal target, the two 110-storey towers at the World Trade Centre in New York, crumbled so easily. No-one who watched each building suddenly cascade into dust and debris in just 20 seconds will ever forget the slow-motion horror.”

Here, Rennell makes a rare factual error, one which crucially affects how 9/11 alternative theories about the collapse of the towers are to be understood. His claim of a twenty second collapse time is contradicted by the 9/11 Commission report (Chapter 9.2 SEPTEMBER 11,2001, From 9:59 until 10:28 A.M) which states that, “At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds, killing all civilians and emergency personnel inside…” In addition, video evidence of the collapse of both towers corroborates the figure of approximately ten seconds.

The speed of the collapse is important; Rennell later writes, “That they collapsed after being hit and fell at such speed was unprecedented in the history of architecture. It astonished many engineers.” Other experts mentioned by Rennell include, “expert demolition contractor from Pennsylvania , Michael Taylor, who said the fall of the buildings ‘looked like a classic controlled demolition'” whilst “Van Romero, vice-president for research at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, reached the same opinion after studying videos of the disaster, and concluded that ‘explosive devices inside the buildings' caused them to collapse.”

These quotes follow an abundance of other speculation as to why the towers could not have collapsed by the “official explanation… known as the Pancake Effect.” Rennell notes that, “the towers had expressly been built to survive the impact of a Boeing 707, a plane the same size and carrying as much fuel as the ones that struck” and that “Some firefighters told reporters that day they thought there had been bombs in the building.”

The article then moves on to, “the collapse of a third building on the World Trade Centre site, a smaller 47-storey block known as WTC7, which was largely ignored by the world's media. It had not been hit by a plane yet it, too, mysteriously fell many hours after the Towers had gone.” Rennell continues: “…according to Henshall and Morgan, a steel-framed building had never collapsed as a result of fire before this day” before noting that, “The landlord of the World Trade Centre site, Larry Silverstein, explicitly suggested at one point that WTC7 was deliberately demolished. He told a U.S. TV documentary that a decision was made to ‘pull' the building rather than risk loss of life, though this was later denied.

Certainly, according to Henshall and Morgan, the building's fall in seven seconds was just as textbook-tidy and suspicious as the collapse of the Twin Towers. Given that it also housed offices of the U.S. Secret Service, the CIA and the Defence Department, this has led conspiracy theorists to give it a key role in the supposed 9/11 plot…”

By devoting a prominent section of his article to the collapse of the Twin Towers and WTC7 - also known as the Salomon Brothers Building – Rennell breaks new ground in articles about 9/11 conspiracy theories. Previous articles had largely ignored or ridiculed these two issues, whereas Rennell devotes time to explain some of the alleged anomalies.

The article then covers territory familiar to readers of previous alternative theory articles - the Pentagon crash - before outlining how 9/11 might have been run along the lines of Operation Northwoods: “Planes were swapped, ‘drones' slammed into the World Trade Centre (which was mined with explosives as well) and the Pentagon, and the identities of alleged hijackers from the Middle East were stolen or invented to put the blame on Al-Qaeda.”But Rennell avoids ridicule, and stresses that, “Henshall and Morgan…make it clear that they themselves are not advocating such an extreme theory of empty planes and hoax attacks…Instead of retreating into fantasy, they simply insist that something is being held back – that we have not been told the full story. And it's hard to discount all their arguments.”

Rennell also reports on the previously uncovered story, at least in relation to 9/11 alternative theories, that a wargame exercise was running on the morning of 9/11. After devoting a small section to the slow response of the US military, Rennell contends that, “One explanation for this paralysis is that there was, as fate would have it, an air defence exercise going on in U.S. airspace that same day, codenamed Vigilant Guardian. The air traffic controllers were confused by this, thinking the planes disappearing from their screens might be part of the exercise. Coincidence? No, say the 9/11 sceptics.” Leaving aside Rennell’s reporting of the wargame exercise, it should also be noted that several times throughout the article he uses the language adopted by Henshall and Morgan to describe 9/11 alternative theorists: 9/11 sceptics, although the term conspiracy theory is still prevalent.

Rennell also attempts to explain some of the terms used by 9/11 alternative theorists: “two types of government-inspired plot postulated by 9/11 sceptics – popularly known as ‘LIHOP' and ‘MIHOP'” (Let it Happen on Purpose, and Make it Happen on Purpose).The article moves towards it’s conclusion by noting a further, “catalogue of unanswered questions” such as, “How…did the hijackers manage to slip past airport security with weapons?” and the “phone calls from the planes. Experts in Henshall and Morgan's book say it is all but impossible to make a mobile phone call above 8,000 feet – let alone four times that altitude, as the jet passengers are alleged to have done.”

Rennell concludes the section on unanswered questions with a fair appraisal of “9/11 Revealed”, and of 9/11 alternative theorists in general: “This call for transparency is the thrust of their whole argument. It is time, they say, for a full and truly independent inquiry into 9/11 that will reveal all the facts and silence the rumours.”

The article concludes by dealing with Henshall and Morgan’s analysis of the largely forgotten anthrax attacks which occurred in the months following 9/11. “The letters mysteriously stopped,” writes Rennell, “and the anthrax spores were identified by scientists as a particular strain stemming only from the government's own labs in Maryland.”

Rennell’s final sentences mirror the cautious, yet interested and fair tone of the article as a whole: “With public trust one of the major casualties of the war, can any of us be absolutely sure we have not been caught up in a lie, and perhaps a bigger one even than we ever thought possible? In their enquiries, Henshall and Morgan may have discovered no smoking gun – but they have certainly left a whiff of something sinister in the air.”

Times

A much shorter and slightly more critical article of 9/11 alternative theories followed on 4th September, 2005 in a book review by Nick Fielding of the Times. It was simply titled, “Terrorism: 9/11 Revealed: Challenging the Facts behind the War on Terror by Ian Henshall and Rowland Morgan”

Fielding first notes some of the events which were, “grist to the conspiracy theorists’ mill” such as “The “miraculous” recovery of lead hijacker Mohammed Atta’s passport from the ruins of the World Trade Center, the spotting of a team of Israelis who cheered as they filmed the incident in New York, the odd behaviour of George W Bush.”

Here Fielding makes a minor factual error: it was actually Satam-al-Suqami’s passport which was recovered from nearby the World Trade Center, although many 9/11 alternative websites report incorrectly that it was Mohammed Atta’s. The 9/11 Commission (Staff Statements, page 21) noted that, “Suqami’s passport survived the attack: a passerby picked it up from the World Trade Center and handed to a New York Police Department detective shortly before the towers collapsed.”

He then makes another, more important factual error, claiming that, “One of the strongest (and unsubstantiated) theories to emerge suggested that millions of dollars had been made by speculators on the New York stock exchange who had advance knowledge of the campaign.”

Yet, according to the 9/11 Commission (Note 130), “Some unusual trading did in fact occur, but each such trade proved to have an innocuous explanation... A single U.S.-based institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al Qaeda purchased 95 percent of the UAL puts on September 6 as part of a trading strategy that also included buying 115,000 shares of American on September 10.”

But despite these errors, Fielding, like Rennell, differentiates between, “allowing the attacks to happen — or in the case of the most extreme theories, by organising them under a ‘false flag’”. In addition to mentioning ‘false flag’, a key term in the 9/11 alternative theory lexicon, Fielding discusses “the military-industrial complex in America, headed by Dick Cheney and his neocon supporters in the Project for a New American Century” judged by most 9/11 alternative theorists to be the key suspects in the 9/11 attacks.

Although Fielding doesn’t reference Operation Northwoods, probably the closest historical to 9/11 in the eyes of the alternative theorists, he does mention, “previous occasions where America has invented incidents to justify continuing hostilities, such as during the Spanish-American conflict or the Gulf of Tonkin incident in the Vietnam war.”

Fielding then edges closer to ridicule by using one of the more controversial theories amongst 9/11 conspiracy theories. He writes, “A recent DVD from the Blackpool 9/11 Truth Group, for example, states the following: ‘The two planes which flew into the towers are American KC737 in-flight refuel tankers fitted with missile pods and not passenger airliners.’”However, this is later tempered by a statement which Henshall and Morgan actually used for the back cover blurb of “9/11 Revealed”. Fielding wrote, “The authors of Revealed, both radical journalists, have subjected the official version of what happened to intense scrutiny and found huge gaps.”

He concludes, “You don’t have to be a conspiracy nut to see that the official account published by the 9/11 Commission is full of gaps. The interesting question is whether or not all such incidents are, ultimately, unknowable or whether the public has been misled. Take your pick.”

Overall, the article covers many of Henshall and Morgan’s theses fairly and rationally. Both articles largely avoid simply ridiculing or ignoring 9/11 alternative theories like so many before them. The fourth anniversary was certainly a watershed moment in media coverage of 9/11 alternative theories.

2006 - Charlie Sheen - Challenge me on the Facts

2005 - Paperclips, 7/7 & the FDNY Imam

On Wednesday 11th May, 2005, the Guardian published another surprising article which sought to outline some of the 9/11 alternative theories without ridiculing them. “The war on paperclips” is framed by a question asked early on by journalist AL Kennedy, “Now if 9/11/2001 is so important, why is it so hard to find out what happened?”

The article lists several concerns, including, “The FBI, as we know, blocked all manner of investigations into the plot in the run up to its execution” and “I worry why the nearest military aircraft weren't scrambled to intercept any of the hijacked flights when this is standard procedure and why, when more distant jets were finally aloft, they flew at less than half speed.”

The article does end by describing conspiracy theorists as “paranoid, depressed”, but overall, it’s tone is sympathetic.

7/7

The 7th July 2005 attacks on the London transport network occasioned several articles which mentioned 9/11 alternative theories in passing. Times journalist Daniel Finkelstein opens his 13th July, 2005 article. “Politeness in the photocopier queue is why we're losing the War on Terror” with, “I’m furious. According to the Associated Press and an assorted mixture of internet nutters, the Israelis were tipped off about the London attacks moments before they happened. Israeli Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was able to change his plans to visit a hotel directly above one of the blast sites. It’s a repeat of the old canard about 9/11. You know the one — the Jews had been warned and stayed away from the World Trade Centre.”

Finkelstein refers to a peripheral 9/11 conspiracy theory about Jewish and Israeli involvement, and uses the phrases “internet nutters” and “old canard” to discredit scepticism about 9/11.

Muslim Theories

In the weeks and months following 7/7, some journalists attempted to delve deeper into Muslim communities in order to try to understand the roots of Islamic extremism. One such Independent article was “In the neighbourhood of the truth”, published on 29 July 2005.

Journalist Paul Vallely discusses the sociological and psychological impact of 7/7, before noting that, “Experimental research studies show that one third of participants fabricate what they ‘remember’” before noting that “You can’t always believe what you remember.”

He later writes: “Extrapolate this onto a cultural level and you get grand narratives which can seem preposterous – as with the conspiracy theory popular among many Muslims abroad that 9/11 was not the work of Muslims but a plot by Israeli agents provocateurs.”

Denial

This analysis of Muslim communities continued in a 4th July, 2006 Times article, “The only state Muslims have embraced is denial” in which former Conservative parliamentary candidate Ali Miraj questions the commitment of Muslim communities to fight extremism. During the article he laments that, “I have met scores of highly educated Muslims who still buy the conspiracy theory nonsense that 9/11 was a Mossad plot.”

NY Imam

The association of 9/11 alternative theories with Muslims was heightened in the media in October 2005 by stories dealing with the resignation of a NY Imam over remarks he made concerning his disbelief in the official version of 9/11.

In “NY imam quits over 9/11 remarks” published on Monday, 3rd October 2005, the BBC quotes Imam Intikab Habib from an interview he gave to New York newspaper Newsday. “I've heard professionals say that nowhere ever in history did a steel building come down with fire alone," he is quoted as saying. “Was it 19 hijackers who pulled it down, or was it a conspiracy?”

Times

The Times also covered the story the same day in an article titled, “New York firefighters' imam forced to quit over 9/11 outburst” A similar quote from the Imam was used: “I, as an individual, do not know who did the attacks. I do not believe it was 19 hijackers who did those attacks. Experts say that it takes two or three weeks to demolish a building like that, but it was pulled down in a couple of hours. Was it 19 hijackers who brought it down or was it a conspiracy?”

2004 - The 3rd Anniversary - TV Fictionalisation & 9/11 Conspiracy Documentaries

The only article of note dealing with 9/11 alternative theories around the third anniversary was, “When seeing is not believing”, a Monday September 6, 2004 Guardian article by TV critic Mark Lawson. It reviews “The 9/11 Conspiracies” a documentary screened on Channel 4 and “The Grid” a fictionalised futuristic account of Al-Qaeda screened on BBC2.

Lawson returns to familiar ground with his ridicule of 9/11 alternative theories by linking them with classics of the genre. He writes, “The allegation that the Apollo moonlandings were tricked up in an Arizona film studio irritates former astronauts and NASA officials but can be watched by most viewers with a smile. And the various theories that Princess Diana was murdered or is riding Shergar on a desert island as Elvis and Lord Lucan look on, though painful for her immediate family, are actually comforting for her fans who prefer them to the savage lottery of a car crash. The alternative hypotheses for September 11, however, have more in common with Holocaust denial: you gasp that people can be so dismissive of body-counts and substantial documentation.”

The article does, however, enunciate some of the key 9/11 alternative theories. “George W Bush and Dick Cheney stood down America's air defences in order to allow an attack which would green-light the neo-cons' plans to hit Iraq. It was not a hijacked plane which hit the Pentagon but an American missile intended to fake damage” before it attacks the Pentagon alternative theory at it’s Achilles heel: “the jet was flown to a secret location where pilots and passengers now live.”

The ridicule continues though, as Lawson writes, “The sister of the pilot of the Pentagon plane explains with commendable calmness that he really wasn't the kind of guy to disappear to fake his death to play volleyball on a secret Hawaiian island with Princess Diana” and, “At first, the documentary's response to these wacky narratives feels disproportionate: like Inspector Morse and Hercule Poirot reopening the Humpty Dumpty case.” Lawson’s commentary piece does acknowledge the veracity of some of the minor 9/11 alternative theories, noting that, “the documentary touches on genuine miscarriages of official history. One, though already well-covered in Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, is the evacuation of prominent Saudis from the States in the days after the attacks; the other is the presence in Manhattan of a van-load of young Israelis who may have been agents.” (article / article)

Perhaps the most interesting point of Lawson’s analysis, however, is that, “Crucially, the spread of 9/11 conspiracy theories became an industry not after 9/11 but following the Iraq war” acknowledging the increased politicisation following the onset of the Iraq war which could account for 9/11 alternative theories. Before long though, Lawson reverts to ridiculing 9/11 alternative theories by setting them in an historical context. “In the same way, the internet fantasies about the moon landings are partly driven by the fact that Richard Nixon, the most divisive president until George W Bush, was in the White House at the time. And the belief that aliens landed at Roswell in New Mexico in 1946 - now an almost mainstream opinion in some parts of America - was oxygenated by the shock of Pearl Harbor and the invasion fears produced by the cold war.”

Despite his overwhelmingly negative tone, Lawson also breaks new ground by being one of the first to acknowledge the disputed lexicon surrounding alternative theories. Early on in his article, he writes, “Documentaries about conspiracy theories - or ‘counter-histories’, as some adherents prefer…” whilst towards the middle of the article he requests that we be, “fair to the counter-historians” and later he mentions “alternative histories.”

Alternative Theories in general

As was the pattern after the first and second anniversaries, articles mentioning 9/11 alternative theories continued to appear in the months following the third anniversary. Observer columnist David Aaronovitch, who a year earlier had ridiculed Michael Meacher’s outspoken stance, wrote an article titled, “Why I hate the madness of these conspiracy theories” on Sunday November 21, 2004. The article is an attack on alternative theories in general, and concentrates on the recently re-released conspiracy based film “The Manchurian Candidate.”

Acknowledging the level of 9/11 scepticism in Britain, Aaronovitch writes, “Today's Observer reveals that, in a nationwide ICM poll, most Britons agree that there is much or some truth in the claim that the Bush administration knew in advance about the 11 September plot, but decided to let it go ahead so as to provide a justification for invading Afghanistan and Iraq.” He then scathes John Pilger for comments he made about the lack of air defences on 9/11 published a few weeks earlier in a New Statesman article headlined, “Iraq: The Unthinkable Becomes Normal.”

Aaronovitch briefly quotes Pilger: “'Of course,' said Pilger, the failure to intercept and shoot down the aircraft 'could be due to the most extraordinary combination of coincidences. Or it could not.'” Aaronovitch then asks readers, “to contemplate what Pilger is asking people to believe - that the administration connived in the slaughter of its own citizens, including relatives of its own officials” before resorting to attacking Pilger’s sanity: “One demented swallow does not make a sweltering summer.”

Conspiracy Theory the Board Game

The generalised attack on alternative theories continued a few weeks later in the Telegraph, in an article headlined, “The beauty of Conspiracy Theory is that you can win only by losing rather badly”. Journalist Adam Nicolson details his idea for a new board game called, “Conspiracy Theory.”

The opening two paragraphs read: “I have long known, as you perhaps haven't, that Aids is in fact an experimental cancer cure, developed in the 1960s in Africa by a series of half-maverick, half-government-sponsored scientists, which went horribly wrong and took on a life of its own. The CIA is largely run by the Mafia, which explains why Berlusconi may yet get away with it. Sinatra had a homosexual affair with JFK, for which the whole Marilyn Monroe thing was just a smokescreen that still takes most people in. Roosevelt arranged for the Japanese to attack Pearl Harbor because it was the only way to get America into the Second World War. Churchill arranged with Hitler for Chamberlain to look ridiculous at Munich so that he, Churchill, could become Prime Minister and he, Hitler, could share world domination with the Churchill clique. George W Bush arranged 9/11 because his presidency was looking flaccid and he wanted a go at Iraq to show his dad what he could do; the only things that went wrong were that the airliner aimed at the Pentagon failed to get Rumsfeld, and no one in the Bush Administration managed to arrange for any of the people involved in the attack on any of the targets to have anything to do with Iraq. Apart from that, quite a success.”

Similar ridicule of 9/11 alternative theories continued into the spring of 2005, evidenced in a 1st April, 2005 comment piece in the Times in which columnist Mick Hume devotes a small section to 9/11.

He writes: “I AM NOT a big believer in conspiracy theories. I think that probably, on balance, the Jews did not stage 9/11, the Royal Family did not murder Diana, Princess of Wales, the Americans did not fake the Moon landings and Dirty Den did not assassinate JFK. However, I am starting to suspect that the Conservative Party front bench may be a secret conspiracy to re-elect Tony Blair.”

2005 - Paperclips, 7/7 & the FDNY Imam

2004 - Fahrenheit 911 & A New Pearl Harbour

The summer of 2004 saw the release of Michael Moore’s documentary film, Fahrenheit 9/11, and the publication of one of the most popular 9/11 alternative theory books, “The New Pearl Harbor” by US theologian David Ray Griffin. Moore’s film received huge media attention, particularly after it won the coveted Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival. But it was not well received by 9/11 alternative theorists, largely because it accepts the US government’s story of what happened on 9/11, and only attacks President Bush on post 9/11 issues such the alleged escape of many bin Laden family members in the days following 9/11.

In contrast, Griffin’s book deals with most of the core 9/11 alternative theories, yet it received just one review in the UK press, “The 9/11 X-Files” in the Daily Mail (unavailable on the Mail website) on Thursday 24th June, 2004. Whilst the title might not be particularly flattering, the review is lengthy, and journalist Sue Reid details many of Griffin’s assertions. Although she often couches them in cautionary terms, she never descends into ridicule.

She writes: “It will be damned in some quarters as nothing other than the irresponsible ramblings of conspiracy theorists or the wild rantings of anti-war activists…Yet its findings have garnered an enthusiastic response from sections of America’s intelligentsia and a former British Cabinet Minister, the MP Michael Meacher, wrote the foreword of the book…The book makes some deeply unpalatable - and frankly incredible – assertions.”

These assertions include: “Why were no military fighters scrambled from the nearest air force bases after the terrorists first struck? How could a rookie pilot - one of the terrorists - fly a 757 aircraft so precisely into the American defence headquarters, the Pentagon? Was it really an aircraft that pierced this well-protected building or a military plane or missile? And who made ten million dollars out of betting before 9/11 that shares in the two airlines of the hijacked planes were about to plummet?”Discussing American Airlines Flight 11 in detail (it would eventually plough into the North Tower), Reid writes, “…its radio suddenly snapped off air. The first indication that it might have been hijacked. The time was precisely 8:14am. Flight 11 should have been immediately intercepted by fighter pilots sent up from nearby McGuire Air Force Base, in New Jersey, who could have made the journey to the World Trade Centre in three minutes. Interception is a standard - and mandatory - emergency procedure in the U.S. in suspected hijacks and one that had been used routinely in 67 air scares over America in the nine months preceding 9/11. But, disturbingly, fighter jets were instead ordered out of an air base 180 miles away in Cape Cod.”

Reid goes on to note that, “Professor Griffin raises some other tantalising questions about events that day. He records that the Pentagon was hit by the hijacked American Airlines Flight 77 at 9.38am, The aircraft, with 58 passengers on board, had left Dulles Airport, in Washington DC at 8.20am and suddenly disappeared from radio contact at 8.46am. Astonishingly, no fighter jets from Andrews Air Force Base, just ten miles from Washington D.C., were ever scrambled to intercept it. Instead fighters were ordered from 130 miles away at Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.”

Reid quotes, “Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband died in the World Trade Centre. She apparently told a television show: "I don't understand how a plane could hit our defence department (The Pentagon) an hour after the first plane hit the Twin Towers. I don't understand how that is possible. I'm a reasonable person. But when you look at the fact that we spend a half trillion dollars on national defence . . . I think there were procedures and protocols that were not followed on September 11.” Having dealt with the Pentagon, Reid is sure that, ”One fact is certain about 9/11 and that concerns the stock market dealings before the tragedy. An extremely high volume of "put options" - a bet on the price of shares falling - were purchased for the stock of Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, the international financiers which occupied 22 storeys of the World Trade Centre. Even more telling were the volume of "put options" on American and United Airlines, which owned the four aircraft hijacked by the terrorists. On these two airlines, and only these two, the level of share trade went up by 1,200 per cent in the three days prior to the catastrophe. As the shares dropped in response to the terrorism, the value of these options multiplied a hundred fold. Someone - and it may have been Bin Laden himself - had made ten million dollars in profit. So why weren't these dealings spotted?”

Reid ignores Griffin’s theories about the collapse of the three World Trade Centre buildings that collapsed on 9/11, which are regarded by many 9/11 alternative theorists as the strongest evidence for US government complicity. Overall, the article summarises many of Griffin’s ideas but doesn’t attempt to refute them, either by arguing against them or ridiculing them.

2004 - The 3rd Anniversary - TV Fictionalisation & 9/11 Conspiracy Documentaries

2003 - The 2nd Anniversary - Michael Meacher

The second anniversary occasioned the most prominent critic thus far to express doubts about the US government’s official account of 9/11. On Saturday September 6, 2003, former cabinet minister Michael Meacher MP wrote an article in the Guardian headlined, “This war on terrorism is bogus”

Meacher’s article mentions a number of issues, including the Project for a New American Century, advance warnings from foreign governments of the attacks, the slow reaction of the US air force, the failure to capture bin Laden, and strategic control of the world’s remaining hydrocarbon supplies.

He ends by writing, “The conclusion of all this analysis must surely be that the ‘global war on terrorism’ has the hallmarks of a political myth propagated to pave the way for a wholly different agenda - the US goal of world hegemony, built around securing by force command over the oil supplies required to drive the whole project.”

Meacher raises many of the same points as Vidal had written about nearly a year earlier. But whereas the response to Vidal’s article was muted, Meacher’s article prompted a flurry of editorials and articles which sought to ridicule and undermine his position.

The Telegraph weighed in the following day with an article entitled, “Meacher allegations over September 11 'monstrous', says US” and an editorial headlined, “Loony tunes”.

The editorial is very direct in its ridicule of Meacher’s ideas. After a very brief summary of some of Meacher’s claims, it ends by linking them to general alternative theories including, ‘Aliens: why they choose to live among us’ or ‘The cabal of jealous starlets who killed Marilyn Monroe’ and ‘The coded Confederate message in the Gettysburg Address.’”

An article by Francis Elliott in the same edition of the Telegraph is slightly more balanced in its approach. After using several paragraphs to outline what Meacher wrote, the article leaves the job of refuting the claims to a series of quotes from a variety of sources.

A spokesman from the US embassy in London is quoted as saying that, “Mr Meacher's fantastic allegations…would be monstrous, and monstrously offensive, if they came from someone serious or credible.” Bernard Jenkin, the shadow defence secretary referred to them as coming from “the loony left” and an unnamed senior Whitehall aide said, “It's the stuff of fantasy.”

Guardian Response

The response in the Guardian was swift and damning. The Monday September 8, 2003 edition contained four letters that refer to the article, all of which are negative. The section of the letters page dealing with the issue is headlined, “An insult to the victims of September 11.” This frames the debate as one in which to question who the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks were is to give offence to those who died.

The letter writers use a variety of techniques to criticise Meacher. Alcuin Mitchell from London writes, “I'm surprised Michael Meacher didn't go the whole hog and say it was Mossad agents in league with the CIA who flew the jets into the twin towers.” Meacher’s assertions are described as, “pathetic and despicable” whilst Meacher himself is a “political has-been” who, “has managed to embarrass our country, insult the families of the victims of 9/11 and the whole American people, and give succour to our enemies.”

Keith Lodge from Middlesbrough also references peripheral Jewish based 9/11 conspiracy theories: “(And how can the neocons be guilty, when we all know it was the Jews?) Shame on you Mr Meacher.” None of the letter writers directly addresses any of Meacher’s points, but instead resort to ridicule.

David Aaronovitch

However, the following day, columnist David Aaronovitch did address specific issues in his article, “Has Meacher completely lost the plot?” But he chose to completely ignore some of Meacher’s ideas simply by stating that, “The oil and PNAC arguments in points one and two are so complex and recondite that I'll begin at about point three, in which the US may create a pretext for attacks.”

Aaronovitch goes on to challenge some of Meacher’s ideas, such as possible US prior knowledge of Pearl Harbour, and the times of the notification of the hijackings and the subsequent response by the US air force. Leaving Pearl Harbour to the historians, the disagreement between Meacher and Aaronovitch over when the four planes were hijacked could in part be down to the fact that two different official versions of the response had been released at the time of their writing in autumn 2003: the immediate reports and interviews to the media in the days following 9/11; and an official NORAD (North American Aerospace Defense Command) press release on 18th September 2001. This situation was further complicated in 2004 by the 9/11 Commission, which endorsed a third timeline of when the planes were hijacked and when US fighter jets were scrambled to intercept them.

This confusion is detailed in “Without Precedent”, a book published in August 2006 by 9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Kean and vice-chairman Lee Hamilton. A San Francisco Chronicle article quotes from the book, saying that, “NORAD officials advanced an account of 9/11 that was untrue” whilst a Washington Post article headlined, “9/11 Panel Suspected Deception by Pentagon” quotes Kean as saying, “We to this day don't know why NORAD [the North American Aerospace Command] told us what they told us. It was just so far from the truth.” So Meacher and Aaronovitch may have been using different sources to advance their arguments, hence the confusion.

Aaronovitch uses the rest of the article to dispute some of Meacher’s remaining points, before moving towards general ridicule. He describes Meacher’s style of argument as, “conspiracy 101” and his views as, “bizarre nonsense” before concluding that, “I grant that Iraq has made us all a little mad” and that, “many of us struggle to maintain our composure.”

The Mirror

The controversy continued the next day, Wednesday 10th September 2003 as the Daily Mirror’s Sue Carroll devoted a small section of her column to subtly supporting Meacher, albeit in a very tongue-in-cheek way. Although the section is subheadlined, “Dotty Plots”, Carroll doubts her previously negative reaction to alternative theories, claiming that, “there are still enough unanswered questions to fuel doubts about exactly how Princess Diana died” and stating that, “I used to think anyone who bought a conspiracy theory belonged in the puzzle factory. Now, I'm not so sure.”

The article continues it’s theme of equating alternative theories with insanity yet claims that government do not always tell the truth by concluding, “Do we all need medication? No. Some honest answers would do the trick.”

Meacher’s counter attack

Michael Meacher was given the opportunity to respond to the attacks made after his initial article in a lengthy letter published by the Guardian on Saturday September 13, 2003 under the title, “Cock-up not conspiracy.”

In the letter, Meacher distances himself from 9/11 alternative theories and instead emphasises the elements of his article which were ignored by many critics, including David Aaronovitch, such as The Project for the New American Century. He concentrates on the subject matter at hand, and unlike many of his critics, refrains from making personal attacks.

Many of these controversial themes were later revisited in a Thursday July 29, 2004 Guardian interview entitled, “I'm also a believer in the cock-up theory” in which Meacher states, “I am absolutely NOT a conspiracy theorist. I am anything but paranoid. I have an extremely rational belief in systematically collecting the evidence and seeing where the facts and the documents take you.”

The interview is generally sympathetic to Meacher, and quotes him at length. Journalist Matthew Tempest even acknowledges that some of Meacher’s views have been subsequently verified, such as, “The Senate's Kean commission into 9/11 finds a confused chain of command on the day, but confirms that while the Pentagon was hit at 9.38am, planes from nearby Andrews were only scrambled at 10.38am.”

Meacher’s only sign of hostility towards the interviewer comes when he’s asked about the foreword he wrote to “The New Pearl Harbour: Disturbing Questions about the Bush Administration and 9/11” by US theologian David Ray Griffin, a book published in 2004 and largely ignored by the UK media. Meacher responds by saying that, “Writing a foreword does NOT mean I agree with everything in it. It is an unconventional book which says things which deserved to be listened to and have an airing.”

Griffin’s book is highly regarded as one of the best amongst 9/11 alternative theorists, and so Meacher’s reaction is likely a response to the uneasy path which he treads between mainstream respectability and the radical politics of questioning 9/11.

The Truth is out there

With a nod to the alternative TV series “The X-Files”, on Sunday October 5, 2003 freelance journalist Paul Donovan wrote an article entitled, “Why isn't the truth out there?” Published in the Observer, the article defends Meacher’s questioning of 9/11 and brings up many of the same unanswered questions, largely attributed to “retired US army veteran Stan Goff, who taught military science and doctrine at West Point,” and who was major source for Gore Vidal’s book “Dreaming War.”

In addition to Vidal, Donavan notes that, “Meacher is not the first to raise questions regarding the sequence of events post-9/11. John Pilger and Noam Chomsky have consistently exposed the truth and put the sequence of events of the past two years in context.”

The majority of the article deals with the timeline of the hijacked planes and the lack of response by the US military and President Bush. Goff is quoted as saying, “The planes are all hijacked between 7.45 and 8.10am eastern daylight time. Who is notified? This is an event already that is unprecedented. But the president is not notified…By around 8.15am it should be very apparent that something is terribly wrong. The President is glad-handing teachers…Four planes have obviously been hijacked simultaneously, an event never before seen in history, and one has just dived into the world's best-known twin towers, and still no-one notifies the nominal Commander in Chief.”

The article is in some ways similar to Gore Vidal’s article of October 2002: it highlights anomalies with the official story, specifically the lack of response from US fighter jets, and yet received no coverage or counter attacks in the British media.

Andreas von Bulow

On 20th November 2003, the Telegraph published an article headlined, “German Sept 11 theory stokes anti-US feeling” about “The CIA and September 11th” a book authored by former state secretary of the Germany Ministry of Defence, Andreas von Bulow, published in German as “Die CIA und der 11. September.”

According to the Telegraph, von Bulow’s book alleges that, “The World Trade Centre collapsed due to explosives, not the impact of the Boeings; no planes flew into the Pentagon or crashed in Pennsylvania; and mobile phone calls made by those on the latter flight were simulated by the CIA. Mr von Bulow also argues that the Israeli intelligence service, Mossad, was involved in the attacks, warning Israelis to avoid the Twin Towers in the preceding days.”

Here the Telegraph mentions one of the more popular 9/11 alternative theories – that the Twin Towers were demolished by explosives – together with some of the more peripheral ideas, including that the mobile phones calls were faked and that the Israeli intelligence agency Mossad was involved.

The article does quote von Bulow at length however, and finishes with him disputing the charges levelled against him of anti-Americanism. “I'm not in the least anti-American," he insisted. "I'm just part of a growing momentum against Bush and his chess power-politics. I feel sorry for those who are being sucked in by his ideas."

Journalist Kate Connolly also mentions the relatively high number of Germans who believe in such alternative theories, which presents von Bulow as not being alone in his views. She writes that, “…his ideas are very popular in Germany, which is wallowing in a wave of anti-Americanism. Polls show that a fifth of the population, and one in three of those under 30, believe the US government ordered the attacks.”

The article also mentions Thierry Meyssan’s “success with such theories” in France, as well as two other German authors who have published 9/11 conspiracy books: Mathias Brockers and Gerhard Wisnewski. By describing the book as, “…more than 271 speculative pages, full of ‘ifs’, ‘buts’ and ‘maybes’”, the article casts doubt on the veracity of von Bulow’s ideas.

2004 - Fahrenheit 911 & A New Pearl Harbour