From JFK to Sept. 11, conspiracy theories thrive

The Associated Press By The Associated Press
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on August 11, 2011 at 9:04 AM, updated August 11, 2011 at 9:10 AM
conspiracy-theories.jpgIn this July 19, 2011 photo, Bryan Black, with the North Texans for 9/11 Truth group, poses for a photo in Dallas. Nationwide, the skeptics, who prefer the term "9/11 truth activists" instead of the moniker "truthers," generally have about a dozen beliefs surrounding what happened on that day, although there are some variations on who was responsible for the attacks and why.

DALLAS — In Dealey Plaza, with the white "X'' painted on the spot where President Kennedy was assassinated, ask anyone about the grassy knoll and the second gunman.




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

The skeptics — they prefer the term "9/11 truth activists" instead of "truthers" — have persisted, even thrived in the decade since 2001, with proponents from former Alaska Sen. Mike Gravel to comedian Rosie O'Donnell. And unlike the years that Kennedy assassination conspiracies took to develop, they have mobilized with lightning-like speed on the Internet, with YouTube videos of the trade center collapsing again and again.



Conspiracies can be a "security blanket" for explaining away the horrific, asserts Patrick Leman, a University of London professor who researches 9/11 theories. "It stops us from having to confront the unpredictability of life."


"There is something in the human mind that rebels against the idea of random forces or individuals being able to bring down powerful people or powerful icons," said Kay.

There's no real estimate of the numbers of people in the 9/11 "truth" movements — there's no one leader of the skeptics. A group called Remember Building 7 presented New York's City Council with a petition in 2009 signed by 80,000 people calling for an independent probe into the attacks. Other groups include Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and the 9/11 Commission Campaign, founded by Gravel.




— Criminal conspiracies within the government caused the attacks.


The investigation "was the most comprehensive examination of a structural failure ever conducted," said Shyam Sunder, lead investigator of the collapse investigation and led to 40 building code changes to make safer, terror-proof skyscrapers. NIST maintains a website with its reports and computer-based animations that reconstruct its findings to reach out to the public.

Sunder acknowledges it hasn't reached everyone.

"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," Sunder wrote in an e-mail.




"I spend three hours a day, every day, doing research on 9/11," said McIlvaine. "To me, this was a murder investigation. My son was murdered."

Tom Theimer watched the World Trade Center crumble while drinking coffee and watching television in his suburban Dallas home. Shaken, he bought flags for his porch and bumper stickers for his car reading "We will never forget."

A few years later, a friend of Theimer's wife casually mentioned that 9/11 "was an inside job." Theimer was livid and turned to the Internet, to prove the friend wrong.


"I was duped," Theimer said. "It really hurt. I cried. I couldn't sleep for months."





"It's basically a backwards way of saying we're psychologically deranged," he said. "It's questioning the psychology of the people instead of questioning the facts."


At Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Scott Dew hawked commemorative Kennedy assassination newspapers to tourists, standing under an oak tree, just steps from a white "X'' painted on the asphalt that marks where President Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.


Kennedy's assassination was "a conspiracy by the government," Dew says. "Back then, in '63, this was a money and power deal."

