There are many claims made by the 9/11 terrorist attack conspiracy theorists that are quite ridiculous when you think about them, yet neither the teorists themselves nor anybody else seems to notice. Here are a few of them:
Two holes were visible in the Pentagon immediately after the attack: a 75-ft.-wide entry hole in the building's exterior wall, and a 16-ft.-wide hole in Ring C, the Pentagon's middle ring. Conspiracy theorists claim both holes are far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757. "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 16 ft. across?" asks reopen911.org, a Web site "dedicated to discovering the bottom line truth to what really occurred on September 11, 2001." The truth is of even less importance to French author Thierry Meyssan, whose baseless assertions are fodder for even mainstream European and Middle Eastern media. In his book The Big Lie, Meyssan concludes that the Pentagon was struck by a satellite-guided missile - part of an elaborate U.S. military coup. "This attack," he writes, "could only be committed by United States military personnel against other U.S. military personnel."
I really wonder how the conspiracy theorists envision the secret government meeting where this was decided to go.
Evil politician: "We need to stage a plane crash on the Pentagon. To do this we'll make a missile hit the building and then have a special team secretly knock down and bend some light poles, destroy the transformer box outside the Pentagon, scatter some debris on the lawn and hope nobody will witness this. If there are eyewitnesses, we'll bribe them, extort them or get rid of them. And if there's any camera footage, we'll confiscate it all."
Consultant: "But sir..."
Evil politician: "Yes, Tom?"
Consultant: "If we want to stage a passenger plane crash on the Pentagon, wouldn't it be easier to simply crash a passenger plane on the Pentagon, rather than go through this elaborate and highly risky scheme?"
Evil politician: "Haha, don't be silly, Tom. Why would we do that? That would be too easy. Where's the challenge?"
I mean, seriously. If the government wanted to stage a plane crash, why would they use a missile instead of, oh I don't know, a plane? What sense does that make?
Just think about the risks of using a missile: It was in the middle of the morning, the day is bright, hundreds of potential eyewitnesses, any of who could see that whatever was flying towards the building was certainly not a passenger plane, who could easily spot a suspicious team knocking down lamp posts, destroying a transformer box on the lawn of the building and scattering debris around. Then there's the risk of people filming the event and distributing copies before they could be confiscated. Why would they go through all this trouble and risk when they could simply crash a plane on the building and have to do nothing more? What sense does it make?
Yes, passenger planes can be remote-controlled. Heck, they can be landed by remote control. Using a missile just makes no sense whatsoever.
This must be one of the dumbest claims ever in the history of conspiracy theories.
Photographs and video footage shot just before United Airlines Flight 175 hit the South Tower of the World Trade Center (WTC) show an object underneath the fuselage at the base of the right wing. The film "911 In Plane Site" and the Web site LetsRoll911.org claim that no such object is found on a stock Boeing 767. They speculate that this "military pod" is a missile, a bomb or a piece of equipment on an air-refueling tanker. LetsRoll911.org points to this as evidence that the attacks were an "inside job" sanctioned by "President George Bush, who planned and engineered 9/11." On Sept. 11, FOX News broadcast a live phone interview with FOX employee Marc Birnbach. 911inplanesite.com states that "Bernback" saw the plane "crash into the South Tower." "It definitely did not look like a commercial plane," Birnbach said on air. "I didn't see any windows on the sides." Coupled with photographs and videos of Flight 175 that lack the resolution to show windows, Birnbach's statement has fueled one of the most widely referenced 9/11 conspiracy theories - specifically, that the South Tower was struck by a military cargo plane or a fuel tanker.
There are two stupidities in this.
1) The idea that the passengers on board the planes were either removed from the planes before the impacts, or the planes themselves were switched to cargo planes or air-refueling tankers.
I also have to wonder how the conspiracy theorists envision the secret meeting for this one.
Evil politician: "And we'll have to do something about the passengers before the planes are crashed on the buildings. After all, we don't want to kill them. We'll have to infiltrate the control center that tracks the planes, have them land somewhere, remove the passengers, and only then have the planes crash on the buildings. Or better yet, we'll just switch the planes to some cargo planes. Let's just hope that nobody notices that the planes are wrong."
Consultant: "But sir... What about the people inside the towers? How are we going to save them?"
Evil politician: "Don't be silly, Tom. Who cares about those people? We have to think about the passengers!"
Consultant: "And what will we do with all those passengers? It's not like we can let them go home."
Evil politician: "I don't know. We'll think of something. We'll probably have to put them in some super-secret underground prison for the rest of their lives."
Consultant: "But why?"
Evil politician: "Stop asking silly questions, Tom. Leave the thinking to me."
Many of the 9/11 conspiracy theorists go to great lengths to try to prove that the passenger planes were either empty of passengers, or not the same hijacked passenger planes at all. But why? How does that make any sense? If they didn't care about the people in the towers, why would they care about the people on the planes?
2) The idea that there was some kind of explosive device or fuel tank on the bottom of one of the planes.
Evil politician: "And when the plane crashes, we need an explosion. A big explosion. I know, we'll put a bomb underneath the cargo plane to make the explosion bigger."
Consultant: "But sir, why does it have to be on the outside of the plane, where people can see and photograph it? After all, if it's a cargo plane, couldn't we put the bomb inside the plane? Even if we end up using a passenger plane, the bomb would still fit nicely inside."
Evil politician: "Tom, what have I told you about silly questions?"
So, according to conspiracy theorists, we have the original passenger planes switched with some cargo planes with bombs hanging on the outside. Why? What exactly would the problem be in using the original passenger planes (or at least passenger planes of the same model)? It just makes no sense.
The first hijacked plane crashed through the 94th to the 98th floors of the World Trade Center's 110-story North Tower; the second jet slammed into the 78th to the 84th floors of the 110-story South Tower. The impact and ensuing fires disrupted elevator service in both buildings. Plus, the lobbies of both buildings were visibly damaged before the towers collapsed. "There is NO WAY the impact of the jet caused such widespread damage 80 stories below," claims a posting on the San Diego Independent Media Center Web site (sandiego.indymedia.org). "It is OBVIOUS and irrefutable that OTHER EXPLOSIVES (... such as concussion bombs) HAD ALREADY BEEN DETONATED in the lower levels of tower one at the same time as the plane crash."
Evil politician: "We need explosions. Tons of explosions. Put some bombs in the lobby of the buildings and have them explode at the same time as the planes hit."
Consultant: "But sir, what for? Somebody in the lobby who survives the ordeal might notice these unexplained explosions there. Not to talk that someone might notice when we are planting the bombs."
Evil politician: "Tom, why are you here asking all these silly questions? What do I pay you to do?"
Consultant: "I'm a consultant. I provide my expert opinion on this whole plan."
Evil politician: "Well, you are doing a pretty poor job at it. You are fired."
And those are just a few of the numerous silly claims they make.
The reason why the conspiracy theorists come up with these absolutely silly claims that make no sense whatsoever, and cling to them even when their sillyness is pointed out, is what I have mentioned several times in my previous writings on the subject: They need all these claims for their shotgun argumentation.
Shotgun argumentation thrives on the sheer amount of "evidence" and claims of conspiracy. The more, the better. Quantity over quality.
The really sad part of this is that many people don't see how silly these claims are because they don't think about them. They swallow them whole, without thinking.