Five years have past and it looks like misinformation and paranoid propaganda are still finding footholds in the American collective unconscious. Anyone reflecting on the events of September 11, 2001 remembers how amid all the intense fear and sadness, confusion was the reigning emotion of the day. You could see it in the people at the scene, government and local officials struggling to respond, and every single man, woman and child watching the horror unfold on live TV.

Yet despite one of the biggest and most comprehensive forensic investigations in the history of the nation, there are still those who seize upon that confusion, and through misattributed statements and endless innuendo, advance an alternative (but easily disproved) version of the events that confirms their own paranoid assumptions.

Photo: Associated Press

The north tower collapses in New York five years ago.

With slick propaganda like the psuedo-documentary Loose Change*, conspiracy theorists have tried to give legitimacy to a theory about 9/11 that no intelligent person would agree with if it was presented in a straightforward manner. Like weeds growing in cracks in a concrete slab, these intellectually dishonest ideas live in the spaces between the facts, never able to survive out in the open.

Now I could waste a whole series of blogs picking apart the problems in Loose Change, but others have already done so, in greater depth.

What really bothers me about the film's assertions, such as their pet theory that the World Trade Center collapsed as the result of a controlled demolition by the federal government, is that it is a direct insult not only to the countless experts who worked tirelessly on the real, honest investigation, but to engineers everywhere.

It's one thing for a heavily slanted documentary to insult the intelligence of the average viewer. In fact it's not as unusual as you might think. But Loose Change is particularly insidious, and makes assertions that would have even a freshman engineering student scratching his or her head.

First, the filmmakers make a big deal out of denying that a fully fueled commercial jet traveling at full speed would be enough to bring down the towers. What is odd is that this is technically true. It also took nearly an hour of raging, out-of-control, thousand-degree fires to weaken the then-exposed steel supports enough to bring the buildings down. Structural engineers marveled that the towers stood as long as they did.

The makers of Loose Change assert that a controlled demolition brought down the WTC, and they cling to any scrap of information that might support that theory. Never mind that demolition is a very exact science, and the careful placement of explosives in structures as large as the towers would have taken months if not years (the filmmakers theorize a window of several days).

No, what is most insulting about the argument is the complete lack of any evidence. The smoking gun discovery that stirs so much pride in the filmmakers consists a few carefully selected shots of the towers collapsing, where a narrator cites bits of debris falling just below the collapsing top as evidence of explosive charges. These irregular little spurts of smoke and debris are completely inconsistent with the multiple, synchronized explosions used in controlled demolition. And never mind the fact the towers fell from the top down. Implosions start at the bottom. It's easy to find confirmation of your beliefs in photos and video when all you're looking for is confirmation. It's not all that different from some guy seeing an image of the Virgin Mary burned into his breakfast omelet.

I know, I said I wouldn't turn this into a boring point-by-point debunking. It's just the film is nothing but an endless parade of similar examples, with more bad science and (intentional?) misunderstandings of basic principles of engineering. But what is most telling is that the filmmakers did not bother to interview any structural engineers, demolition engineers or any other expert in a relevant field.

Out of all the 9/11 conspiracy groups that claim members in visible academic and business positions, there is not a single structural engineer among them. So, unless the big, scary government conspirators have managed to intimidate or pay off every engineering-related person in the world (I'm still waiting for my check), the conspiracy buffs appear to be avoiding confrontation with those who could easily discredit them.

Engineers have grown accustomed to the general public's misunderstanding of their work. The events of 9/11 are one time when engineers can't let disinformation slip by, and they need to take the initiative against those who try to muddy up established facts with junk science.

*Those screening Loose Change on Google Video, where it once held the #1 viewed spot, might also want to look up Screw Loose Change, a subtitled version of the film critiquing its assertions with the aid of actual facts.

September 22, 2006

I would love to hear the contentions and conclusions of an honest, open debate amongst the many bright and dedicated structural engineers of this country, especially in collaboration with experts from other fields related to the 911 tragedy. Unfortunately, it seems that ridicule continues to be the main defense strategy of official story apologists.

Jeremiah Duke

September 8, 2006

Read pages 39-40 of the NIST report. It shows the summary that most people should understand. If you want to know if these reports are from Engineers, you can read the list of the people who contributed at the beginning of the report.

Joel Radman

September 6, 2006

You continue to talk about the lack of evidence in Loose Change but offered none in your own writing. Where is your scientific evidence in this piece? You said that many engineers were surprised that it stood as long as it did? Where are your quotes? This article did nothing but help confirm the lack of a decent explanation any engineer can give in writing. Do you actually believe that there was enough jet fuel on the aircraft to burn for the entire time leading up to the collapse? Do you actually believe that jet fuel burns at thousands of degrees? If you engineers are sooo open to explaining the collapses on 911 why don't you start with WTC 7? You know the one that was never hit by a plane. You know the first steel structured building to have ever collapsed due to a fire...

Jason Herrera