The first conspiracy theories about 9/11 began to emerge while the wreckage was still smoldering. As evidence accumulated that conclusively linked the hijackings to Al Qaeda, some self-proclaimed skeptics searched for alternative explanations. Many seemed driven to find a way to blame the United States for somehow abetting, or even orchestrating, the tragedy.
In the years since the attacks, these assertions have grown progressively more lurid and pervasive. If you search the phrase "9/11 conspiracy" on the Internet, you will discover more than 800,000 Web pages. A few skeptics make a responsible effort to sift through the mountain of available information, but a vast majority ignore all but a few stray details they think support their theories. In fact, many conspiracy advocates demonstrate a double standard. They distrust the mainstream media coverage and government sponsored investigations of 9/11, yet they cherry-pick from those same sources to promote their extreme notions: that the hijacked planes weren't commercial jets, but military aircraft, cruise missiles, or remote-control drones; that the World Trade Center buildings were professionally demolished; that American air defenses were deliberately shut down; and more.
Increasingly, such beliefs are migrating from the fringes and into the mainstream. French author Thierry Meyssan's The Big Lie, which argues that the U.S. military used one of its own guided missiles to attack the Pentagon, was a bestseller in France, and his claims have been widely repeated in European and Middle Eastern media. When Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad wrote to President George W. Bush in May 2006, his rambling missive included broad hints that the American government was involved in organizing the attacks. Allegations of American complicity in 9/11 have become standard fare on talk radio, and among both radical left- and radical right-wing groups. Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, a Democrat from Georgia, has held a Capitol Hill hearing on the topic. Celebrities have gotten into the act as well. "Why did Bush knock down the towers?" rapper Jadakiss asked in his 2004 hit "Why?" And, in an interview with conspiracy-oriented talk-show host Alex Jones, actor Charlie Sheen embraced a variety of popular conspiracy theories.
"Everyone is entitled to his own opinion," Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York was fond of saying. "He is not entitled to his own facts." Sooner or later, even the wildest 9/11 theories rely on factual claims. And facts can be checked.
Popular Mechanics became involved in investigating 9/11 conspiracy theories in the fall of 2004, after an advertisement ran in the New York Times for the book Painful Questions by Eric Hufschmid, demanding that the 9/11 investigation be reopened. Hufschmid's book includes a number of tangible claims regarding 9/11. It states, for example, that because jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel, the fires in the World Trade Center towers could not have caused their collapse. And it claims ample evidence exists to show that demolition-style explosives were prepositioned in the buildings.
As editors of a magazine devoted to science and technology, we saw these claims as significant. Was there hard evidence to support them? And, if so, what would be the implications for our understanding of 9/11? At the very least, we thought, someone should look into these allegations. If there were even a hint of truth to these or similar claims, then the conspiracy theorists had a point: There should be a deeper investigation.
The magazine assembled a team of reporters and researchers and methodically began to analyze the most common factual claims made by conspiracy theorists--assertions that are at the root of the majority of 9/11 alternative scenarios. We interviewed scores of engineers, aviation experts, military officials, eyewitnesses, and members of the investigative teams--more than 300 sources in all. We pored over photography, maps, blueprints, aviation logs, and transcripts. The results of our research appeared in the March 2005 issue of Popular Mechanics. That cover story, "9/11: Debunking the Myths," provoked a strong reaction on the internet and in the mainstream media. The online version of the article remains the most frequently read story on www.popularmechanics.com and has been printed out more than 850,000 times.
In the months after we published the investigation, many readers--both critics and supporters--wrote to suggest other evidence they thought we had overlooked or to raise new claims they believed worthy of investigation. At the same time, many of the inaccurate claims the magazine investigated continued to appear uncorrected in popular settings, such as Wikipedia, the open-source online encyclopedia, and Loose Change, the 9/11 conspiracy documentary that has become a sensation on college campuses. With the fifth anniversary of 9/11 approaching, we decided to extend our original investigation and publish a book-length version of our findings. We expanded our team of reporters, reinterviewed experts and sources from our first investigation, and, as much as possible, addressed the additional questions raised by both critics and supporters.
The goal of this book is not to tell the complete story of what happened on September 11, 2001. There are numerous excellent sources, including the 9/11 Commission's report and the New York Times and other newspapers, that chronicle the attacks in painful detail. Instead, this book aims only to answer the questions raised by conspiracy theorists themselves. Strip away the political theorizing and logical leaps, and every conspiracy theory ultimately comes down to a small set of claims based on evidence that can be examined. These claims are the only points where the theorists' elaborate conjectures make contact with the real world. Without these foundations, the theories crumble. In every case we examined, the key claims made by conspiracy theorists turned out to be mistaken, misinterpreted, or deliberately falsified.
We understand that not all conspiracy theorists agree with all conspiracy theories. Some prominent theorists even claim that certain theories they deem less plausible have been "planted" in order to make the entire movement look ridiculous. We don't take sides in these debates. We simply checked the facts.
The work of comprehending the events of 9/11 is not finished. It is vital to understand exactly what went wrong that day and to make sure it does not happen again. There were lapses and shortcomings on the part of government agencies in the months and years leading up to 9/11. Every American wishes our government had been more alert and better prepared. And every American is entitled to ask hard questions. But there is a world of difference between believing that our government should have known what was coming and claiming that someone did know and deliberately did nothing--or, even worse, actively perpetrated attacks on its own citizens. By deliberately blurring that line, conspiracy theorists exploit and misdirect the public's legitimate anger over the events of that day.
Some argue that alternative 9/11 scenarios are valuable in that they promote skepticism of a government that has not always been as open as many would like. But a climate of poisonous suspicion will not help America adjust to the post-9/11 world. And the search for truth is not aided by the dissemination of falsehoods.
--David Dunbar and Brad Reagan