On the 11 September 2001, four American airliners were hijacked and used in a terrorist attack on mainland America that shocked the world with its audacity.
By the end of the day, three skyscrapers that made up part of the World Trade Center Complex in New York had collapsed, The Twin Towers and WT7.
Also attacked was The Pentagon, supposedly one of the most secure buildings in the world.
Only the fourth attack on the White House was foiled, not by the interception of the American military, but by a group of airline passengers who sacrificed their own lives in order to prevent the deaths of many more people.
Within hours, the terrorists were identified and shock and disbelief turned to anger and calls for retribution. In total over 3,000 people died and America wanted revenge.
In the following weeks as the evidence of what happened slowly came to light a growing number of people became convinced that they were being duped.
The 9/11 conspiracy theory was born and as the evidence from the attacks has been examined and re-examined over the years, the belief that something doesn’t quite add up hasn’t diminished.
The Prediction of a Disaster
Three months before the 9/11 attack conspiracy theorist Bill Cooper predicted that a terrorist attack was about to be perpetrated on mainland America, that Osama Bin Laden would be blamed for the attack (despite being little known at the time) but that the real perpetrators were the American government.
After the attack, he continued to express these beliefs on his radio show.
On November 5 an anonymous report was made to the police that Cooper was brandishing a gun. A group of plain-clothed police officers arrived at Cooper’s house and lured him out by pretending to cause a disturbance.
Cooper who had armed himself entered into a confrontation and was shot dead, as was a local police officer.
For many his death was too convenient, silenced just as an increasing number of people began to tune into his show to listen to his theory.
Rumors also abounded that certain people were told not to fly or to go near the World Trade Center in New York on the day of the attacks.
A number of CIA agents certainly cancelled their flights.
Of course, little of this can be proven and is largely supposition and hearsay except for the information supplied by one very high profile gentleman.
The mayor of San Francisco, Willie Brown stated publicly that the day before the attack he received a warning from ‘airport security’ advising him to cancel his flight to New York on 9/11, which he did.
Some speculate that the call actually came from Condoleeza Rice. A psychic prediction or knowledge that something dreadful was about to unfold?
Amazingly there is also evidence of insider trading taking place in the days running up to the terrorist attacks.
Shares in United Airlines and American Airlines who owned the hijacked planes dropped dramatically suggesting that some traders had inside knowledge that both airlines were to suffer a dramatic loss.
A Strange Sequence of Events
In the days that led up to the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, people working in the Twin Towers and WT 7 reported a number of unusual events.
One of the principal people responsible for security at the World Trade Center was Marvin Bush, younger brother of the then President George Bush. He was CEO of a company called Securacom.
On the weekend of September 8th and 9th, the company ordered a power down in the South Tower. This was almost unprecedented and involved turning off electricity for almost two days.
On these days, no security footage was filmed and no doors could be locked. Witnesses report seeing a number of engineers working in and around the buildings.
In the third building to collapse WT7, the fire alarms were put on test, meaning that any call to the fire services would be ignored. Strangely, they had been put on test not just on 9/11 but for the preceding week.
On the day of the terrorist attack, the fire system failed to record any information regarding the fires which supposedly destroyed the building, the only skyscraper in the world to collapse due to fire alone.
Why Weren’t The Hijacked Planes Intercepted?
One of the most puzzling aspects of the response to the 9/11 hijacking of four passenger airlines is the failure of the American Air Force to intercept any of the planes.
Despite being scrambled on numerous occasions in the preceding months, all false alarms, no initial attempt was made to intercept the passenger planes which were allowed to fly erratically off course for over an hour.
The excuse for this failure was that a major military training exercise was taking place. Ironically one of the scenarios being re-enacted was the hijack of a plane intended to be flown into a skyscraper.
The exercise caused confusion with some believing that the hijack reports were part of the training exercise.
Once scrambled the fighter jets headed off into sea rather than inland where the planes were circling.
Had somebody leaked the details of the military exercise to terrorists who took advantage of the situation or were the military exercises used as a convenient excuse for a failure to respond?
Larry Silverstein
Just 6 weeks before the terrorist attack, Larry Silverstein, the CEO of Silverstein Properties took out the lease on The Twin Towers using $14 million from his own personal fortune.
He did not own the buildings outright but was obliged to insure them and was the beneficiary of any insurance payment After the attacks, he was awarded $5 billion in compensation.
9/11 theorists also point to a comment he made on TV which they claim shows he acted suspiciously. Silverstein owned WT7 outright.
Talking about a conversation that he had with a Fire Chief on the day of the disaster, he was advised that the fire department may not be able to control the fire raging within building 7.
Silverstein said his advice to the Fire Chief was to ‘pull it’.
Did he mean pull out the firefighters risking their lives or more ominously pull down and destroy the building and any evidence that might exist within it that the terrorist attack was in fact home grown?
The Culprits Identified
Within hours of the attack and with no real evidence, the perpetrators of the heinous terrorist attack had been named.
As predicted by Bill Cooper, Osama Bin Laden was named as the mastermind and the American President vowed to seek him out and kill him.
19 men were deemed to be responsible for the crime.
Originating from Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Egypt they had spent months learning to fly and preparing themselves for the attack, yet they seemed to have flown under the radar of the American government.
Identified because they were the only Arabic names on the passenger lists, it later transpired that some of the terrorists had stolen the identities of other people.
Few who have seen the devastating images of 9/11 can imagine that much survived the explosions and the collapse of the buildings.
Bizarrely, the American government claims to have discovered not one, but four intact passports belonging to the terrorists within hours.
One was handed to a police officer near the World Trade Center by a person who then ran away, two were discovered at the crash site of the plane in Pennsylvania and the fourth was found near The Pentagon.
Not surprisingly, many people find it difficult to accept that these passports survived and were so easily recovered, when little else did.
The Pentagon
Shortly after the attack on The Twin Towers in New York, a passenger plane was flown into the side of The Pentagon, one of the most secure buildings in the world.
The day before the attack the American defence Secretary had revealed that there was an unexplained $2.3 trillion hole in The Pentagon accounts.
This amounted to $8,000 for each American citizen.
Some say too conveniently, the plane flew directly into the Budget Analysis Office where accountants were working to reconcile the financial records of The Pentagon with the missing money.
Further suspicions were aroused when it was revealed that there was no footage or photographic evidence of The Pentagon attack.
Supposedly, a terrorist with little flying experience other than small Cessna aircraft had flown an enormous passenger plane with precision into the side of a secure building.
The conspiracy theorists put forward the idea that it was a missile that hit The Pentagon conveniently destroying all evidence of financial malpractice.
The American Government on the other hand states that it has DNA evidence from the passengers as well as plane wreckage from the scene.
Flight 93
Flight 93 was the fourth plane to be hijacked. Heading towards The White House a group of passengers bravely tackled the hijackers knowing that they were likely to perish.
The plane crash landed in a field in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Some believe that this incident was staged and the passengers on the plane relocated with secret identities.
Adding fuel to these suspicions, was the coroner who visited the scene on the day.
Wally Miller stated that when he arrived at the scene it looked as if somebody had dug a hole and dumped rubbish in it.
He could see no bodies and not a single drop of blood. Miller later said that he had been misquoted and misinterpreted.
WT7
More than any other aspect of the events of 9/11, the collapse of building 7 has caused the most controversy and debate.
To the untrained eye the collapse of the North and South Towers and building 7 look like controlled demolitions. To this day architects, engineers and firefighters are still debating the cause of the collapse.
If WT 7 collapsed due to fire then it is the only skyscraper in the world ever to do so. At the time WT 7 housed several CIA agencies including the department which was responsible for emergency management.
In other words the department that would have been responsible for handling and attempting to control the events that unfolded on 9/11.
Some have suggested that the 9/11 attacks were orchestrated from this building.
On the day of the attacks the fire alarms were turned off in the building and placed on test, meaning that the Fire Department would not respond to an alarm and no data would be recorded if fire did break out.
As the North Tower came down WT7 was hit by debris which supposedly caused a fire. The building had been evacuated but a small number of people were still trapped inside.
One of these people, Barry Jennings, claims to have heard a number of explosions and recalls a stairwell collapsing inexplicably beneath his feet.
Eventually, he escaped before the building collapsed some hours later.
To date there is no real explanation why this building collapsed in the way it did, fire would weaken but not destroy the steel frame and the building was fire proofed during its construction.
Built over a subway and an electricity power station, it was supported by a series of columns. When the building collapsed it emulated one undergoing a controlled demolition.
For this to happen under ‘natural’ circumstances all of the columns would have to collapse simultaneously, which seems impossible.
One of the top demolition experts in the world Danny Jowenko, investigated the collapse in depth and declared it was a controlled demolition.
He was killed soon afterwards in a suspicious car crash which some have linked to the CIA.
In recent years the theory that thermite may have been used in all three buildings to cause controlled explosions has gathered momentum but remains unproven.
A further twist to the story of WT7 is the disastrous reporting by BBC News on the day of the disaster.
Their correspondent in New York who was new to the job and the city, reported live on air that building 7 had collapsed.
The building can clearly be seen still standing in the background over her left shoulder.
The BBC reported the collapse as fact half an hour before it happened prompting the accusation that journalists had been given scripts to read. The BBC deny this and state it was merely a mistake made on a very confusing day.
The 9/11 Commission
The 9/11 Commission was set up to investigate the terrorist attacks. Many including members of the commission itself believe that it was set up to fail.
Massively underfunded compared with other similar commissions, it left 75% of the questions asked, unanswered.
A great deal of information was withheld from the commission and the President and Vice President only agreed to give evidence if it was not under oath and kept secret.
Did Bush Lie?
Answering the questions of a young child sometime after 9/11, Bush recalled the events of the day. On 9/11 Bush was visiting an elementary school in Florida.
An aide is filmed in the classroom whispering into Bush’s ear as he informs the President of the second attack on the World Trade Center.
Strangely, he tells the child that he had seen footage of the first attack on TV before entering the classroom.
This would have been impossible as the only known footage recorded by a documentary maker in New York, did not surface until the following day when it was handed over to the government.
So what had Bush seen as he waited outside that classroom, possibly video evidence provided by his own people, proof the attack was underway?
Motives, Means and Opportunity
So what would persuade the American government to fabricate a false flag attack and kill 3,000 of their own citizens?
The obvious answer would be that it justified attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Iran.
The attacks meant that the American public on the whole supported the deployment of their troops thousands of miles away to the Middle East.
Many people suspect that oil was the root cause for intervention and war in the Middle East, an industry which the Bush family have a strong interest in.
Other conspiracy theorists have suggested that it was a plot between the government, the military and financial institutions to establish a new world order led by America.
Conclusion
The puzzle of 9/11 remains incomplete. A date with enormous significance in the west it altered the course of history and triggered a conflict that still hasn’t been resolved.
Half the world now lives in fear of terror attacks and innocent Muslim communities are vilified and attacked for their faith.
Despite the American government’s insistence that the attacks were perpetrated by Al Quaeda terrorists, much remains hidden and unexplained.
As long as so many questions remain unanswered the 9/11 conspiracy theory will continue to gather supporters and we will never really know what happened on that fateful September day in 2001.