Who really killed John F. Kennedy? Did America really land on the moon? What really brought down the Twin Towers? Few modern phenomena possess the sheer fascination quotient of conspiracy theories. If you believe in them, you’ll of course dig into them obsessively, and if you don’t believe in them, you surely feel a great curiosity about why other people do. Science writer and Skeptic magazine Editor in Chief Michael Shermer falls, needless to say, into the second group; so far into it that examining conspiracy theories and those who subscribe to them has become one of his best-known professional pursuits since at least 1997, the year of his straightforwardly titled book Why People Believe Weird Things.
On the 50th anniversary of JFK’s assassination, Shermer wrote an article in the Los Angeles Times about the reasons that event has drawn so many avid conspiracy theorists over the past half-decade. First: their cognitive dissonance resulting from the two seemingly incompatible ideas, that of JFK “as one of the most powerful people on Earth” and JFK “killed by Lee Harvey Oswald, a lone loser, a nobody.” Second: their participation in a monological belief system, “a unitary, closed-off worldview in which beliefs come together in a mutually supportive network.” Third: their confirmation bias, or “the tendency to look for and find confirming evidence for what you already believe” — the umbrella man, the grassy knoll — “and to ignore disconfirming evidence.”
These factors all come into play with the other major American conspiracy theories as well. In the podcast clip at the top of the post, you can hear physicist Michio Kaku trying to set straight a moon landing conspiracy theorist. They argue that man has never set foot on the moon, but that the government instead hoodwinked us into believing it with an elaborate audiovisual production (directed, some theorists insist, by none other than Stanley Kubrick, who supposedly “confessed” in fake interview footage that recently made the internet rounds). Should you require further argument to the contrary, have a look at S.G. Collins’ Moon Hoax Not just above.
No higher-profile set of conspiracy-theory movement has come out of recent history than the 9/11 Truthers, who may differ on the details, but who all gather under the umbrella of believing that the events of that day happened not because of the actions of a conspiracy of foreign terrorists, but because of a conspiracy within the United States government itself. In the Q&A footage above (originally uploaded, in fact, by a believer), one such theorist stands up and asks linguist and activist Noam Chomsky to join in on the movement, pointing to a cover-up of the manner in which 7 World Trade Center collapsed — a big “smoking gun” of the larger conspiracy, in their eyes.
This prompts Chomsky to offer an explanation of how scientists and engineers actually go looking for the truth. Have they eliminated entirely their cognitive dissonance, monological belief systems, and confirmation biases? No human could ever do that perfectly — indeed, to be human is to be subject to all these distorting conditions and more — but the larger enterprise of science, at its best, frees us little by little from those very shackles. What a shame to voluntarily clap oneself back into them.
Related Content:
Michio Kaku Schools a Moon Landing-Conspiracy Believer on His Science Fantastic Podcast
Stanley Kubrick Faked the Apollo 11 Moon Landing in 1969, Or So the Conspiracy Theory Goes
Noam Chomsky Schools 9/11 Truther; Explains the Science of Making Credible Claims
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. He’s at work on a book about Los Angeles, A Los Angeles Primer, the video series The City in Cinema, the crowdfunded journalism project Where Is the City of the Future?, and the Los Angeles Review of Books’ Korea Blog. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
Kaku and Chomsky have positions on JFK’s assassination? My research shows Chomsky as being indifferent to the subject, and I can find nothing on Kaku’s beliefs regarding this.
I think the author of this article decided to pile on with an additional conspiracy, not understanding that history sides with those who believe JFK was assassinated by Alan Dulles’ CIA.
The case for Oswald being the lone assassin was refuted a long time ago and you will no longer find serious historians willing to endorse the Warren Report. Were there any, you would have cited one.
For a less serious approach to faking a moon landing, try
“That Mitchell and Webb Look — Moon Landing Sketch”
https://youtu.be/P6MOnehCOUw?list=FLPTEB2QgfTuyETvB-vig_9w
Physics continues to confirm that he was shot from the rear.
My thoughts exactly. I can not believe someone will just increase their article view by such a misleading title.
You should actully research the article above to find that nowhere does it claim that Kaku or Chomsky have positions on JFK’s assasination
“Physics continues to confirm that he was shot from the rear.”.…. Really?? What physics are you reffering to? Your own opinions??
Mark, history most decidedly does NOT side with those who say that the CIA had JFK killed. If it did, then such information would be found in history books. It isn’t. That’s not to say that the Warren Commission Report wasn’t riddled with numerous issues. It is saying that if you, or anyone else, wish to assert a fact, you need to back it up with what we call EVIDENCE.
It’s quite fallacious, and probably disingenuous, to dump in 9/11 and the JFK assassination with the moon hoax. Why not say what’s wrong with all those idiots who questioned WMD in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 9/11 and the JFK assassination?
Mr. Marshall has obviously not done any independent research on these issues and contents himself with parroting pre-digested narratives. Mainstream shills seem capable of only ad hominem attempts to pathologize holders of dissenting views and are ill equipped to argue their viewpoint on the facts.
Is is laziness, disinterest, or venality? Pragmatism would also discourage mainstream shills to have an open and in-depth discussion of the facts because the facts, including basic laws of physics, overwhelmingly line up against the official narratives they blindly defend.
For example, even the NIST admits that Building 7 collapsed at absolute free-fall acceleration for over 100 feet on 9/11, i.e. all physical resistance of the entire steel-framed structure of building was erased for 8 stories. There is absolutely no scenario in this physical universe where that could happen due to office fires, the governments’ explanation. The only way that could happen is a result of demolition.
Chomsky demonstrates the limits of his own integrity and reinforces the accusation against him as a “left gatekeeper” by his deficient position on 9/11.
So much corruption. So much greed.
yes, “Why not say what’s wrong with all those idiots who questioned WMD in Iraq, the Gulf of Tonkin incident, 9/11 and the JFK assassination?”
not to mention dozens of other examples where the “conspiracy theory” was true. conspiracy theories aren’t false because they are conspiracy theories–if they are false, it’s because in a given instance–they are not true.
and given the duplicities of our government and the mainstream corporate media– ALWAYS QUESTION THE OFFICIAL STORY !
I found the videos interesting and thoughtful as well as the article that linked them. I do not see any dis-ingenuousness on the part of the writer. I see nothing about the JFK assassination in the title so I see no deceptive attempt to drag people to the article. Nowhere does the article say that Chomsky and Kaku give opinions on the JFK assassination. Rather, the author refers to a book that examines why people are so ready to believe conspiracy theories even when they fly in the face of evidence. Among the conspiracies the book references is the JFK assassination.
I tend to take Chomsky’s tack on many such arguments: all the supposed physics aside, the things we DO know about 9–11 make it virtually impossible that it was a government conspiracy initiated int he White House. And you must understand, that comes from a man who likely despised the Bush presidency.
Conspiracies are not easy to formulate and execute and the larger the conspiracy the less likely it is that it will succeed.
A conspiracy to take down the towers or building 7 would have required the silence of so many people. Moreover, one simply cannot set up a controlled demolition of building in secret. It takes months of set up…not just planning, but actually entering the building, exposing the necessary strength parts, attaching explosive with wires running everywhere. It cannot be done surreptitiously.
“For example, even the NIST admits that Building 7 collapsed at absolute free-fall acceleration for over 100 feet on 9/11, i.e. all physical resistance of the entire steel-framed structure of building was erased for 8 stories. There is absolutely no scenario in this physical universe where that could happen due to office fires, the governments’ explanation. The only way that could happen is a result of demolition.”
Actually, the NIST documents do not say this. They talk about “near free-fall” and they explain why the way the building was constructed was consistent with what happened. Since they are public documents, I would recommend you to read them again.
In fact, a demolition wouldn’t do that either. But that’s another issue.
The real hoax is the money the government use to send people to the moon.
Apollo 11 (1969).
The entire program cost $25.4 billion in 1973 dollars or roughly $170 billion in 2005 dollars, according to Wikipedia (@http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apo…). Knock off a billion or two from the 1973 figure and you’ll have a guess on how much the program cost up to Apollo 11.
You write so smart, doesn’t mean you are.“the tendency to look for and find confirming evidence for what you already believe” Thats exactly how our judicial system works. Can’t tell which side you’ve chosen.
I totally disagree with Chomsky, he says Bush administration wanted to attack Iraq, if anything they would have blamed 9/11 on Iraqis not Saudis. What he has forgotten is… the invasion of Iraq came after the invasion Afghanistan. Bush admin blamed it on Bin Laden because he was hiding in Afghanistan at the time. They created this fable enemy to first find an excuse to invade Afg and then use the same excuse (when WMD were not found in Iraq) to topple Sadam’s regime. Without the excuse of fable enemy US couldn’t have convinced the international community and especially its allies to suppot the US with two wars.
Here is the typical pattern — lumping moon landing hoax w jfk / 911- to equate believers of any one of those into that condesending “conspiracy theorist” term — shame on you — this poor journalism thanks for nothing — the CIA recently admitted they witheld evidence that should of been submitted to the warren commision — regarding their dealings w oswald prior to assasination — when you obfuscate a federal investigation by witholding evidence you are culpable for the crime — ‘the cover up is worse than the crime’?? Why is shot from rear the question to debate — ?? It means nothing. -
Same for 911 — i got news for you if 19 men all agreed to hijack 4 seperate planes — that is a conspiracy — and frankly best case scenario if that happened — saying that whoever funded those 19 was not pertinent to investigation is really unfathomable- why not release 28 page report identifing governments that funded it? Why not just check for explosives in building dust? Why not just release video of plane hitting pentagon?
Why not figure out what happened to bldg 7 legitimatly? Why not figure out who really mailed the anthrax? Look at what has transpired since..? Look around — this country is crumbling and dividing around us- literally self destructing — because we are living a future that is built on lies, injustice, and frankly evil- we are still in iraq, a war that now they even admit they were wrong about? Still in afghanistan? There still is a Taliban?? — c’mon you gotta be kidding? Ya know i dont give a crap if 9/11 is the result of criminal incompetence, ‘let it happen on purpose”, or ‘made it happen on purpose” the only difference is the jail sentences. .….the real problem is that we are crumbling because there is a truth that must be faced for us to move foward.…..everyone knows it too
There is no need to rebut the moon-landing deniers point-for-point. The fact is that the astronauts left artifacts on the Moon that can be detected by anyone on Earth. Now, I’m not talking about boot-prints! The astronauts left special optical devices called ‘corner cubes’ on the moon. These devices have the property that they reflect light back along the direction of incidence, no matter the direction of incidence. So what one can do is shine very bright laser light on these cubes and look for the reflection. In this way scientists have been measuring the distance to the moon since the 60’s by measuring the time it takes to see a reflection from a corner cube. There’s no better truth than one that can be verified again and again.
Ha he did not answer that succinctly, and That was pretty funny how he got vaklempt a couple times. Chomsky you are also owned by the media player…
MaGaO
I repeat that NIST, after being challenged for their deceptive, delayed and deficient original report on Building 7, had to walk their report back and ADMIT free fall. Try to keep up with events.
From NIST’s own website:
“Stage 2 (1.75 to 4.0 seconds): gravitational acceleration (free fall) …
During Stage 2, the north face descended essentially in free fall, indicating negligible support from the structure below.”
http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.cfm
You can see their dishonesty at work here as well because they try to say “essentially” free fall, when they admit absolute free fall, and “negligible” when the correct adjective is “no … whatsoever.”
An alternate source:
“In stage 2, the north face descended at GRAVITATIONAL ACCELERATION, as the buckled columns provided neglibile support to the upper portion of the north face. This FREE FALL DROP continued for approximately 8 stories or 32.0 m.”
“In its draft report, released in August 2008, NIST attempted to cover up evidence that WTC7 fell at freefall, but the coverup was transparent. In its final report, released in November 2008, NIST finally acknowledged freefall, but couched it in a bizarre framework that continues to deny its clear significance. This video displays the brazenness of the NIST WTC7 coverup.”
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf
Joe, you are undoubtedly correct that constructing a conspiracy like 9/11 would take a real effort. Not only would there have to be an effort before 9/11, but there would be a long “tail” on the event (i.e. after 9/11) where unfavorable information about the event would have to be suppressed. All this would be particularly difficult since it would be done in a fish bowl, so to speak. However, it would not be impossible, particularly if the people involved in the conspiracy had both money and extensive political power.
Difficult is not the same as impossible. The collapses we all saw of all three World Trade Center towers do not conform to basic laws of physics which determine how things fall. It is impossible in a realistic world for one asymmetrically-damaged steel-superstructure high-rise to collapse symmetrically. For three to collapse that way on the same day demonstrates clearly these were not “natural” collapses. Further, collapsing at (or very near) free fall acceleration speed without explosives to remove the resistance that would have been provided by undamaged steel and concrete in the buildings also can’t happen. The videos of the day demonstrate that three high-rises fell symmetrically into their own footprints at free fall-like speeds, confirming the presences of explosives. It was an inside job, no matter how difficult the undertaking might have been.
I like the way that Noam Chomsky in Florida recently replied to this query about 9–11 Theories that USA government officials were greatly responsible for it. (See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3i9ra-i6Knc )
Your website notes:
“No higher-profile set of conspiracy-theory movement has come out of recent history than the 9/11 Truthers, who may differ on the details, but who all gather under the umbrella of believing that the events of that day happened not because of the actions of a conspiracy of foreign terrorists, but because of a conspiracy within the United States government itself. In the Q&A footage above (originally uploaded, in fact, by a believer), one such theorist stands up and asks linguist and activist Noam Chomskyto join in on the movement, pointing to a cover-up of the manner in which 7 World Trade Center collapsed — a big “smoking gun” of the larger conspiracy, in their eyes.”
Chomsky on the video goes on to say that he thinks it illogical that that the Bush Administration would have charged Saudi Citizens with the 9–11 crimes instead of Iraqis if the Bush Administration had really wanted to start wars in the Middle East based upon some 9–11 conspiracy as Truthers claim. I, however, find that this sort of argument is tautological and unsound by Chomsky. I am surprised Chomsky used such an argument loaded with more assumptions that some 9–11 Truthers share.
Chomsky expects us to believe that with Saudi citizenry having such great involvement in 9–11 episode, it was likely impossible for the Bush-Cheney administration to finger Iraq immediately. Perhaps as Truthers have stated, the point of 9–11 was to destabilize the Middle East, then it was not necessary to have Iraqis involved in 9–11. The point may have been to have a crusade on religion despite what Bush W. claimed later, i.e. in terms of his platitude calling Americans not to disturb good Muslims based on other’s crimes. (Homeland Security and local police and federal practices would speak otherwise.)
There are certainly many other arguments against the flimsy Chomsky Thought Experiment in the video, i.e. blaming radical Islam and bombing into stone age has always worked to create terror in the Middle East.
Your blogger continues:
“This prompts Chomsky to offer an explanation of how scientists and engineers actually go looking for the truth. Have they eliminated entirely their cognitive dissonance, monological belief systems, and confirmation biases? No human could ever do that perfectly — indeed, to be human is to be subject to all these distorting conditions and more — but the larger enterprise of science, at its best, frees us little by little from those very shackles. What a shame to voluntarily clap oneself back into them.”
I agree with with Chomsky’s suggestion that concerned engineers and other scientists publish in well-known journals their arguments which support the Truthers. (Even if the best journals reject the articles, the articles could then be published online after the rejection. Subsequently, other scientists could verify their findings.
I think that if the articles have been submitted and rejected, the reason for rejection must also be made clear by the journals.
The empirically established fact (see link below) that WTC7 was destroyed by energetic materials having been physically transported inside the building at some point prior to its destruction immediately shines a bright spotlight (relly more like a giant laser beam) on literally the only ones on the planet who could possibly have carried out a covert domestic operation of that magnitude in that building (and by extension the rest of the events that day).… the only ones who had exclusive carte blanche 24/7 access to all parts of the highly secured building.… the only ones who had ready access to the quantity and quality of energetic materials required.… and the only ones who could possibly have defeated the high level security system of the building in order to allow in personnel/assets with the required expertise in the effective use of said energetic materials.
The fact of the matter is that only the Department of Defense/Central Intelligence Agency (headed at the time by Richard Meyers/George Tenet respectively) could have done it, and just as one needn’t be Isaac Newton to see there is no other possible explanation for the observed behavior of WTC7 other than energetic materials having been physically transported inside the building, one needn’t be Sherlock Holmes to see there is no other possible explanation as to who could have done it since the building was in perpetual 24/7 lock down for many years as a highly secured government facility right up to the day it was destroyed.… it’s elementary.
My (inhaling deeply) complete iron clad definitively conclusive prima facie open and shut case top to bottom empirically verifiable scientific method driven graphical target system analysis and conclusion arrived at by process of elimination continues to stand empirically unassailed in any way shape or form now for well over a year (and coming up on 50,000 views) over at the Cambridge University sponsored science forum TheNakedScientists.…
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?topic=49603.msg440497#msg440497
No doubt a lot of conspiracy theorists are guilty of paranoia, circular logic and confirmation bias. But so are a lot of ‘sceptics’ who basically disbelieve anything except government reports and mainstream science.
Equally, there are dozens of cases of equivalent crimes being committed by agents of the state, and then covered up by other agents of the state (Gladio, BCCI, Iran Contra, Gulf of Tonkin).
Adopting either a totally pro or totally anti approach to ‘conspiracy theories’ is about the dumbest thing anyone can do. The very nature of the topic demands a subtle response. Sadly such a response was lacking in this article, which is a shame because this is usually an excellent site.
There’s no ‘schooling’ of any 9/11 Truth here whatsoever. Chomsky is so obviously a shill for Zionists that he cannot even discuss the facts.
http://postimg.org/image/m1zbrix09/
As for the Moon Landing, that is a lot harder to prove either way than 9.11
Quite right.
Shermer is not to be taken seriously on ANY topic. As with JFK he simply refuses to acknowledge the voluminous scientific research done on 9/11 and the degree to which it supports conspiracy.
Kaku, simply depends on money from the government and big corporations to support “big science.” Naturally, he would never ruffle any feathers.
Both are hypocrites.
why is this the first we’re hearing of the ‘aluminum flag’ as opposed to nasa saying it decades ago?
JFK could only have been killed in one of three ways: by Lee Harvey Oswald, by a conspiracy, or by friendly fire.
Gunnery Sergeant Carlos Hathcock is skeptical of Oswald’s alleged shooting feat. Hathcock was a former senior instructor at the U. S. Marine Corps Sniper Instruction School at Quantico, Virginia. He has been described as the most famous American military sniper in history. In Vietnam he was credited with 93 confirmed kills. Craig Roberts asked Hathcock about the marksmanship feat attributed to Oswald by the Warren Commission. Hathcock answered that he did not believe Oswald could have done what the Commission said he did. Added Hathcock:
“Let me tell you what we did at Quantico. We reconstructed the whole thing: the angle, the range, the moving target, the time limit, the obstacles, everything. I don’t know how many times we tried it, but we couldn’t duplicate what the Warren Commission said Oswald did.”
If a conspiracy killed JFK, Bobby Kennedy would have gone after the killers of his brother with the full powers of the federal government. Bobby had a reputation as a ruthless and relentless investigator. There is absolutely no evidence that Bobby Kennedy pursued an investigation for any alleged conspirators.
The regular presidential detail, already exhausted, had decided to drink and party the night of November 21, 1963 rather then sleep. Some of the agents were drinking pure Everclear, which is 190 proof or 95% alcohol by volume. Some agents even stayed up until 5 am. One of the drunk agents lost his Secret Service ID. The next morning, hungover agents recruited George Hickey, a non-drinker, who was normally assigned to the motor pool as a driver, to be be part of the protective team in the followup car behind Kennedy’s limo. Hickey was given the job of commanding the AR-15, a weapon he had never qualified on.
On November 22, 1963, as the presidential motorcade drove slowly through Dealey Plaza, something caused a loud noise, amplified by the surrounding buildings. Most bystanders said it sounded like a firecracker. Veteran agents thought it was a backfire. Secret Service agent George Hickey, riding in the left rear seat of the Secret Service follow-up car thought it was a gunshot. He picked up an AR-15, flicked off the safety, and stands on the rear seat cushion rather then the floor of the car. He points the weapon in the direction of the loud noise, the left rear of the car, looking for a target.
Hickey, seeing nothing to shoot at, turned towards the front of the car, pointing his weapon in the general direction of the presidential limo. At that moment, Agent Bill Greer, the driver of the President’s limo, slowed to almost a standstill, causing Agent Sam Kinney, the driver of the Secret Service followup vehicle, to brake. Hickey lost his footing after the brakes were applied and reflexively gripped his weapon, inadvertently squeezing the trigger once, and fired a three-round-burst, killing Kennedy and wounding Governor Connally.
The next day, all AR-15’s were removed from the Secret Service armory.
Bobby Kennedy was the fixer. He ordered the cover-up. He was the only one who had the authority to order the arrest and execution of Lee Harvey Oswald to deflect the blame and protect the government from world-wide shame. All videos taken by bystanders were confiscated. The videos released to the public were edited by having the origin of the fatal shots removed from the film. Since then, the government has manufactured massive amounts of propaganda to confuse and deceive the public, and bury the truth as deeply as possible.
“The Echo from Dealey Plaza” by Abraham Bolden, the only black agent in the Secret Service, described the legendary partying of JFK’s Secret Service detail, and how he was railroaded to prison on trumped up charges by his fellow agents for telling the Warren Commission the truth about the Secret Service’s role in the “assassination.”
Today, Bolden, a 79-year-old retiree in Chicago, thinks that drinking definitely had something to do with the lackadaisical Secret Service performance during the Kennedy motorcade. “The biggest problem I ran into with the Secret Service when I was an agent was their constant drinking,” he told me. “When we would get to a place, one of the first things they would do was stock up with liquor. They would drink and then we would go to work.” On November 22, Bolden says, “their reflexes were definitely affected by, number one, the loss of sleep and, number two, the fact that [some may have] consumed that amount of alcohol.”
Quotes from the Vanity Fair article, “Could the Secret Service Have Saved JFK?”
“Long work shifts and a tolerance for partying, drinking, and sometimes showing up for work with a hangover had become entrenched during J.F.K.’s years in office.”
“Overworked and undermanned, the agency, under President Kennedy, had begun to skirt the department’s strictures. He was a risk-taker and a womanizer, who set a bad example.”
“Agents acknowledged that the Secret Service’s socializing intensified each year of the Kennedy administration, to a point where, by late 1963, a few members of the presidential detail were regularly remaining in bars until the early morning hours,” investigative journalist Seymour M. Hersh would note in his book The Dark Side of Camelot.”
“From the beginning, the macho pride of the armed men of the service has made it a culture that has masked its weaknesses. Pride is not flexible and it does not ask for help. And since tough guys don’t complain, problems are often downplayed. Sleep and careful eating are for sissies. Training is for beginners.”
“Even today, this old-school mindset has bedeviled the agency. It is still a culture of disaster — with changes made after problems — rather than a culture of prevention.”
Reference:
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/politics/2014/10/secret-service-jfk-assassination
“Mortal Error,” a book by Bonar Menniger, tells the story about Howard Donahue, a ballistics expert, who studied the Kennedy assassination. He took a human skull and marked on it where the bullet entered and exited, drilled a hole through those marks and ran a dowel rod through it to determine the angle of the bullet’s path. Tilting the skull at the same position as Kennedy’s head when he was shot, the dowel rod indicated that the path of the bullet originated directly behind Kennedy from the Secret Service followup vehicle. There was no ballistics evidence that any rounds were fired from the Texas School Book Depository.
Read “The Death of A President” by William Manchester for the hints of truth written between the lines of the Official Lies. The Secret Service website says they take gun safety very seriously, a harsh lesson they’ll never forget.
This guy is full of shit. Take it to the establishment? The establishment is the the cover up. Bush not connected, more b.s. Why weren’t there any defences for the Pentagon? This guy’s arguments are not logical and he loses all credibility.
I applaud OC For keeping these comments open… These are complex subjects that deserve open investigation. Libre
Finally Somebody who makes sense,factual evidence rather than confusing doublespeak, strung sloppally together. it’s getting scary
Chomsky’s is “Who cares?”
We don’t know exactly how difficult it would have been to set up a controlled demolition in WTC‑7, nor the number of people involved but we can identify the characteristics of a controlled demolition and the collapse of WTC‑7 displayed all the characteristics of a classic controlled demolition, aka, an implosion:
* explosions pre-collapse (to weaken the building) and explosions during collapse (to bring it down);
* kink in middle at top just as it begins to fall (this reflects the weakening of the central columns first to make the building fall in on itself); sudden onset of destruction; straight-down, symmetrical collapse through path of greatest resistance including actual free fall acceleration into building footprint;
* pyroclastic-like clouds of pulverised concrete (the clouds include the gases from the incendiaries used which is why they look similar to the clouds from volcanic eruptions);
* limited damage to adjacent structures; complete collapse and dismemberment of steel frame;
* molten steel
None of these characteristics are shared by a collapse by fire and, in any case, no high rise steel frame building has ever collapsed from fire outside buildings whose cause of collapse is under contention (the three on 9/11 and the Plasco Building in Tehran). Moreover, the building only ever suffered quite modest fires during the day and there were really no signs of fire in the collapse itself. Compare to WTC‑5 which was ablaze but it didn’t come down.
See my webpage Occam’s Razor on 9/11: http://occamsrazorterrorevents.weebly.com/911.html
Evidence trumps speculations about difficulty of setup and number of people involved. Conspiracies can involve a vast number of people whose involvement various on the active/complicit continuum.
We also know that NIST was fraudulent in its rationale for not investigation controlled demolition as the most obvious hypothesis, namely, that the sounds of explosions weren’t “loud enough” when there are quite loud sounds of explosions but in any case the many other characteristics made it the most obvious hypothesis.
We also know that their claim for fire was based purely on speculation and theory. NIST surmised that “thermal expansion pushed a girder off its seat” and that this displaced girder ultimately “caused a floor to collapse leading to a cascade of floor failures,” without forensic examination of material and without access to data on what went on inside the building before and during the collapse (apart from, allegedly, the presence of “uncontrolled fires”), in other words, without a skerrick of evidence of these hitherto unknown phenomena.
Everyone knows NASA pushes Flat Earth because Oter Space is Fake.
“Everyone knows NASA pushes Flat Earth because Outer Space is Fake.”
(Spelling correction.)