Walk On The Wild Side

On September 11, 2001, our country as we knew it, and perhaps even the rest of the world, had changed forever. Beneath the well known story of the 9/11 attacks lay many other explanations, or theories, of what actually happened that day and who is truly responsible. As I began to research the different conspiracies that have developed over the years derived from the that fateful day, I stumbled across a site containing "The 11 Most Compelling 9/11 Conspiracy Theories". As the title states, this website shares what the author considers to be the most interesting theories out there and lists them in descending order. Each theory is coupled with a brief paragraph summarizing what the theory is attempting to convey, as well as three to nine minute video of which supports each individual claim. All of these conspiracy theories suggest that someone besides Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda are responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center, mainly the United States Government. The different theories mentioned on this site include:

1. "Inside Traders Knew About Attacks Before They Happened"
2. "Air Defense Was Told To 'Stand Down'"
3. "Planes Didn't Make Twin Towers Collapse,  Bombs Did"
4. "The Pentagon Attack Scientifically Doesn't Hold Up"
5. "Flight 93 Was Completely Staged"
6. "Hijackers Are Alive. How Did Their Passports Survive Explosion?"
7. "Phone Calls Made From Plane Were Faked"
8. "Jewish People Knew Attack Was Going To Happen, Took Off Work On September 11th"
9. "Black Boxes Found By Search Crew Were Kept Secret"
10. "The Bin Laden Tapes Are Fake"
11. "Aluminum Planes Can't Penetrate Steel Structure Of World Trade Center"  

I have chosen two of these elven topics to write about.

1. "Inside Traders Knew About Attacks Before They Happened"

This first theory suggests that traders of the stock market were somehow tipped off about the 9/11 attacks. Therefor, the traders were able to place bets, also called "puts", on which companies would soon preform poorly on the stock exchange. According to the video posted underneath the short paragraph explaining this conspiracy, on the Thursday before the attacks 2,000 puts were placed on United Airlines betting that the stock value would plum-it. Apparently, the 2,000 bets that were placed was 90 times the amount of bets placed over the past three weeks, yet they were all placed on a single day. The same thing can be said for American Airlines. The video goes on to point out that Morgan-Stanley and Marsh and McLennan, the World Trade Center's biggest tenants, also had a massive increase in puts placed against each company. These different accusations seem to be legitimate, seeing as how they were produced by ABC. Yet, I dared to venture further into the world wide web to see if I could find more evidence either supporting or confirming these claims. This is what I found. It's an analysis, researched and written by a finance professor named Allen Poteshman, published by the University of Chicago. This study concluded that the volume of puts placed were, "unusually high which is consistent with informed investors having traded in the option market in advance of the attacks." This source appears to be very credible as both the author and publisher are respected parts of the academic world. Although all these transactions may simply be coincidence, all signs seem to point at insider trading.

Yet, according to Snopes.com, this conspiracy theory is completely false, "The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United Staes...investigate these rumors and found that although some unusual (and initially seemingly suspicious) trading activity did occur in the days prior to September 11, it was all coincidentally innocuous and not the result of insider trading by parties with foreknowledge of the 9/11 attacks..." In a report released by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, the author states that the large increase of put options have absolutley no connection to the attacks that occurred on 9/11. Apparently, one U.S.-based investor bought 95% of the puts offered by United Airlines, as well as 115,000 shares of American Airlines. After a thorough investigation, it was said to be that this sole investor had no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda.

I believe that there may have been some insider trading occurring on the days before 9/11. To me, it just seems far too coincidental that the puts of four of the most affected companies (American Airlines, United Airlines, Morgan-Stanley, and Marsh and McLennan) of the attacks also experienced a massive increase in puts a few days before that fateful day. In my own personal opinion, the fact that the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States conducted the investigation about the possibility of insider trading simply invalidates the data that was collected from this federal agency.

3. "Planes Didn't Make Twin Towers Collapse, Bombs Did"

The third conspiracy contemplates the probability of a small plane, when compared to the overall size of one of the Towers, being able to collapse the whole building. According to newsone.com, the falling of the towers resembled a scheduled demolition rather than a terrorist attack. The video embedded below the short paragraph depicts many different first hand accounts of people who were both inside and outside of the building. Almost all of these first-hand interpretations of what happened mention something about a bomb going off. In fact, there is even a a short clip towards the end of the video in which a camera is set on a concrete sidewalk, facing away from the street and towards a mans foot. The viewer can hear the plane flying over, and then before the plane even hits one of the Towers, there is a massive vibration. This vibration disrupts the video recording process and can be seen in the actual clip. Shortly after, the viewer is able to hear the plane crashing into one of the Towers. The disturbance in the clip is thought to be a bomb going off within the Tower before the plane hit it. The problem with this particular video is the fact that it was just recently released. This could mean that the video has been altered in some way to makes it seem as if the video recording process had been disturbed, when in reality it had not.  I discovered many different videos that suggest that bombs did indeed cause the collapse of the Twin Towers.

This first video states that an audible explosion can be heard right before the first Tower collapses. One of the issues I have with this video is the point of view. The Tower that falls is blocked by the smoke coming from the other Tower, as well as the other building itself. Therefor it is hard to see exactly when the first building, Tower 2, begins to fall. Secondly, although the noise that is emitted most definitely came from the first Tower that collapsed, it may have simply been caused by many floors falling onto another, which could have also initiated the collapse. This second video shows two fireman being questioned by what I assume to be civilians.  The firefighters, which appear to have literally just walked out of one the buildings that collapsed, state that after the plane had initially hit, there were three more explosions which brought the lobby down on top of them. This source also seems quite credible due to the fact that these firefighters had first-hand experience with this situation.

Now I do not doubt that what these firefighters heard were explosions, but who is to say that these explosions were man made? There is no telling what was kept inside the World Trade Center Towers, yet I am willing to bet there were some high-pressured, extremely flammable containers located somewhere within those buildings. All it would really take is a little bit of heat for something like that to explode. I do not think it is that far-fetched to believe that bombs were placed in the Towers, yet I find it much more plausible that something, such as I have suggested above, caused the explosions.

 There are many skeptics to the "controlled demolition" conspiracy theory. According to Phil Mole in his article titled, "9/11 Conspiracy Theories Debunked", detonating devices that are typically used during demolitions are all set off at once. This results in all parts of the building being in motion at the same time. Mole continues by stating that if one were to look carefully at any video of the collapse, that is definitely not what happened. He states, "The parts of the building above the plane impact points begin falling first, while the lower parts of the buildings are initially stationary. The parts of the towers below the impact point do not begin to fall until the higher floors have collapsed onto them." The author points out that if the towers had indeed been rigged to collapse, it would be extremely hard to pinpoint the location of which the planes would collide with the towers and then make the towers begin to collapse at those exact locations. Another point Mole makes is that unlike a planned demolition, where the building falls into its own footprint,  Tower 2 tilted towards the direction of which the plane made impact. This caused the building to fall at angle, which is apparent when watching this video. The first twenty or so floors are visibly seen falling at an angle before the rest of the building begins to collapse. Theoretically, a planned demolition falls straight down, which is demonstrated in this video. Also note that many of the explosions take place at one point in time.

I believe that the buildings fell solely because they were hit by planes. There may be some truth behind the different explosions people had reported, yet I do not think that anything but the impact of the jets caused the Twin Towers to fall. After reviewing the video of an actual building being demolished, it seems that there are a ton of explosives involved, much more than just the two or three mentioned by the firefighters.