September 11 attacks: Osama bin Laden's dead but conspiracy theories are still alive

“The horror! The horror!”

Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness may have been about imperialism, but this timeless quote aptly describes the expression of shock, tears of grief and feeling of helplessness that must have crippled thousands of Americans on 11 September, 2001.

At the quindecennial anniversary of the infamous attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon just outside Washington, Americans on Sunday would be forced to revisit and relive the “horror” that they witnessed.

Then President George W Bush was informed by his Chief of Staff Andrew Card that the “nation is under attack” just after the first explosion. Michael Moore shows in his hugely popular documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 that Bush failed to read the security briefing given to him on 6 August, 2001, which would have informed him that Osama bin Laden was planning to attack America by hijacking airplanes.

National security advisor Condoleezza Rice clearly said that the title of the report was Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US .

Most of the people are livid at the Saudis and Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden for carrying out the attacks and killing thousands of people.

President Barack Obama announced in his address to the nation after killing Laden that “We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by Al-Qaeda – an organisation headed by Osama bin Laden… And so we went to war against Al-Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies."

However, some people could not believe the simple explanation of the deadly attacks. They whacked their brains out, scampered for facts, opened up their school textbooks to recollect some physics and came up with alternate theories of what might have happened on that sad day.

And well, some avoided going through this much trouble and just hypothesised and assumed some sane (and not so sane) theories.

Insider trading

Some people suggest that right before the attacks, some bizarre business was carried out within the stock market. According to 9-11 Research , financial transactions right before the attack suggest that certain individuals used foreknowledge of the attack to make profits.

An extraordinary number of trades were betting that American Airlines’ stock price would fall. It was the same airlines that was hijacked during the attacks,  CBSNews  reported. The Securities and Exchange Commission launched an insider trading investigation. It makes us wonder if this might be the possible reason why President Bush chose not to look at the security briefing and completely ignore an imminent attack.

Controlled demolition

The 9/11 was actually a controlled explosion, according to notable theologian David Ray Griffin .

Griffin gave a presentation entitled The Destruction of the Trade Towers: A Christian Theologian Speaks Out and included excerpts from firemen’s tapes, which were made public after the protracted court battle by victims’ families, according to an article by GlobalResearch .

They corroborate his theory because they give evidence of explosions going off inside the building premises.

A feature article published by Europhysics News by Steven Jones, Robert Korol, Anthony Szamboti and Ted Walter argues that “neither before nor since 9/11 have fires caused the total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise – nor has any other natural event.”

They contend that the only phenomenon capable of collapsing such buildings completely has been by way of a procedure known as controlled demolition.

This theory was further strengthened by a YouTube video which compares the buildings that collapse under a controlled explosion and those that don’t. Watch the video here and decide for yourself.

US puts its guards down

Some of the theorists ask how the world’s most powerful air force failed to intercept any of the four hijacked planes. William Kelly argues in The Ratville Times that none of the hijacked planes were intercepted even though one of them (UA#93) had been hijacked for at least an hour before it crashed.

The theory started developing after it was known that North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) was unusually prepared on 9/11, because it was conducting a week-long semiannual exercise called Vigilant Guardian. Also, on 9/11, the NORAD was fully staffed.

NewsOne also reported that in the event that an airplane is hijacked, NORAD is prepared to send out fighter jets, which can debilitate or shoot down the aircraft. On 9/11, some NORAD generals said they learned of the hijackings in time to scramble fighter jets.

The Pentagon puzzle

NewsOne argues that the Pentagon crash just “doesn’t hold up”. Some theorists say that the impact holes in the Pentagon were much smaller than a commercial American Airlines plane.

It is still unclear if American Airlines Flight 77 actually hit the Pentagon because of a lack of evidence. According to 9-11 review .com , some researchers have proposed that the Pentagon was actually hit by a missile.

Dick Eastman’s two plane theory suggests that a Boeing 757 did come down towards the Pentagon but disappeared somehow making it appear that it had crashed into the building. At the same time, a smaller jet approached from a different direction and crashed into the wall.

According to 911review.com, some theorists even say that events were engineered to fool people into believing that flight 77 had crashed.

The miracle passport

Mohammed Atta’s passport braved explosion, swayed in the air for about a week and, apparently, finally landed at just the perfect spot for US intelligence to find it. It might seem incredulous, but according to The Guardian report, in less than a week, the FBI found Atta’s passport just two blocks away from the twin towers.

The documentary Loose Change by Dylan Avery suggests that all the hijackers are actually alive. (If Bush can transport Laden’s family to safety, why not the hijackers) Watch this video to know more: