10 Years Later, Search for "Truth" about 9/11 Continues

10 years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, thousands of people in the United States challenge the official version of the event. Conspiracy theories are an attempt to explain, in a simplified way, situations which are so frightening that the mind cannot grasp them, experts tell the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

In the decade that has passed since the attacks on the U.S., the number of skeptics (known as “truthers” or, as they prefer to call themselves, “9/11 truth activists”) continues to grow, according to the Associated Press. “[They] don’t believe the official version of how the World Trade Center collapsed, who was responsible or what the government knew and when.”

There are at least a dozen alternative versions of what has happened that day. Some believe that explosives were planted in the WTC buildings which caused the skyscrapers to collapse, not the airplanes. Others suspect that the U.S. government was behind the attacks. There are many theories surrounding the 47-story Seven World Trade Center, which collapsed even though no plane hit the building. Some think that the skyscraper collapsed because the government wanted to remove all traces of a secret operation run from CIA offices situated in the building. Truthers keep wondering why the authorities did not react when 11 countries warned the U.S. of imminent terrorist attacks. Others say that “fighter jets could have intercepted at least one of the four planes that day.”

According to a survey conducted in March 2010 by Angus Reid Public Opinion, 26 percent of Americans believe that the “Sept. 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.”

Among these 26 percent are members of a group called Remember Building 7, which in 2009 presented New York’s City Council with a petition signed by 80,000 people demanding an independent investigation into the attacks. Other organizations include Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 and the 9/11 Commission Campaign, founded by former Alaskan senator Mike Gravel.

U.S. President John F. Kennedy was shot nearly half a century ago in Dallas, Texas, which still inspires conspiracy theories. In the same town, six members of the 9/11 Truth group have met to talk about the U.S. government’s lies about the attacks from 10 years ago, wrote Tamara Lush, for the Associated Press. The group has 50 active members and 200 people on its mailing list.

“Before 9/11, I was a working class person, going through life, pretty much accepting everything given and told to me,” said 50-year-old Bryan Black from Commerce, Texas. “I’m starting to see things. I’m more open to skeptical conversation,” he adds.

“We believe that if all of the American public saw footage of building Seven on the nightly news, it would lead to widespread skepticism of 9/11,” said Ted Walter, who has been unsuccessfully trying to reopen the investigation into how Seven World Trade Center collapsed.

Experts believe that for many people conspiracy theories are more comforting than coming to the realization that life can be unpredictable and full of tragic events.

Political scientist Tomasz Słupik, Ph.D., from the University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland, explains that these theories are “an attempt to rationalize” a fact or a spectacular event which “neither our imagination nor our mind can explain.”

“The human is a sense-creative animal; conspiracy theories give meaning or pseudo-meaning to what exceeds our cognitive abilities or interpretations,” said Słupik.

“By spreading these theories, not only do their authors gain publicity, but they also clearly define the enemy,” explained Adam Krawczyk, Ph.D., a historian from the University of Silesia. For adherents, frequently people susceptible to manipulation, these theories “explain a certain reality,” he adds.

According to sociologist Andrzej Zybertowicz, Ph.D., of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland, these theories often stem from lack of knowledge. “Reality is always richer than our capacity to know reality, and a conspiracy theory is one of the schemes of creating simplified explanations,” he said. “The human brain is designed in such a way that, in order to achieve peace and psychic balance, it prefers to get an unverified explanation rather than live under besetting questions,” added Zybertowicz.

Conspiracy theories are usually formed “in situations of uncertainty, conflict, war, civil or moral crisis,” said Słupik. Zybertowicz clarifies that in the case of 9/11 attacks these theories also stem from a democracy crisis.

“A large part of the society doesn’t trust the government. When a startling event occurs which has some kind of a conspiracy background — and, after all, the 9/11 attacks happened because the terrorists had conspired — a question arises as to whether this somewhat obvious plot has exhausted the causes of these attacks or whether there were some further reasons. History shows that sometimes there were further reasons indeed,” explained Zybertowicz.

“People became convinced that politicians have been repeatedly deceiving them, that they are corrupted and lead a lifestyle inconsistent with the principles they advocate. Because of that, the public has learned to mistrust the authorities. And situations of this type foster an unnatural development of this distrust,” explained the sociologist.

During the 6-year-long official investigation, no evidence was found in support of the alternative hypotheses claiming that the World Trade Center towers were struck by missiles or collapsed because explosives were planted in the basement.

The investigation “was the most comprehensive examination of a structural failure ever conducted,” said Shyam Sunder, one of the experts in charge of the inquiry. “We really can’t explain why some people question our findings about the WTC collapses when we have done our best to present those findings and how they were derived as clearly as possible,” he adds, emphasizing that reports and computer animations are available on the Internet.

On the 10th anniversary of the attacks, the 9/11 Truth group from Texas plans to display a new 9/11 documentary. Remember Building 7 is trying to raise $1 million to finance a new investigation into the collapses of the towers. Scheduled to be held in Toronto on Sept. 11 is a conference on alternate 9/11 theories, organized by the International Center for 9/11 Studies.

On the other hand, even in the very hearth of the conspiracy-theory world, at Dealey Square in Dallas, where Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, for some it is difficult to agree with the skeptics. Scott Dew, author of newspapers exposing the truth about the president’s murder, claims that the assassination committed nearly 50 years ago was “a conspiracy by the government.” “Back then, in ’63, this was a money and power deal,” he said. He believes, however, that on Sept. 11 it was bin Laden who was the attacker. “I don’t believe the other theories that President Bush or the government had anything to do with it,” he said.