Citation Needed - 9/11 Truthers

Episode Date: September 11, 2019

There are many conspiracy theories that attribute the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks against the United States to parties other than, or in addition to, al-Qaeda[1] including that there was advance knowledge of the attacks among high-level government officials. Government investigations and independent reviews have rejected these theories.[2][3] Proponents of these theories assert that there are inconsistencies in the commonly accepted version, or evidence that was either ignored or overlooked.[4]

Well, just because you can see something from space doesn't mean it's big. So you're saying the fires aren't big? No! No, I'm just talking about something's... relative size from space. You are impossible to talk to most of the time. I get that a lot. Hey! Hey! Guys, look at this! Jesus, what are you doing? So I went to that gaming convention over the weekend and I thought of this amazing game. I invented it. Look out!

I call it Flaming Jarts and Jenga. That is an amazing name. Thank you. So, the concept is you take one of these Jarts and I painted them like little Boeing 737s and you light this little fuse on it and then you toss it towards the Jenga replica of the Twin Towers and... Well, it would, I missed, but it would have got you're really terrible at this and you don't think people are gonna be pissed off because you're making a game out of 9-11.

See, so nobody's gonna get mad about this. Literally everyone will get mad about this. I will make a list one. Nobody's gonna get mad. And two, I have no idea What this has to do with a convenience store, so it doesn't even matter That's seven eleven nine eleven or baby clothing. I don't know that either Hello and welcome to Citation Needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia and

pretend we're experts. Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be the tinfoil to this hat today, but I'll need some co-conspirators. First up, two men who I'm not saying are Jewish, but they will Jewish. Heath and Noah. This is well, I mean, I didn't go to work at the Twin Towers on 9-11. Antisemitic. Yeah.

Coincidence? And also joining us tonight. Two men who I'm not saying are lizards, but they look like lizards. Cecil and Tom. Only I can lick my eyeball. That would be amazing. Don't let Eli know you need a guy for that.

For the last time, I only went there because I thought herpatologist met herpes, doctor, it doesn't. I still have a problem. What does it mean? Now, before we take the red pill tonight, I'd like to take a moment to thank our patrons. Without your financial support,

our desperate grab for attention would lead to anti-PC shilling, and then tonight's subject in a matter of months. Because of you, we'll never use an eye of Horace as a thumbnail. We'd like to learn how to join their ranks. Be sure to stick around to the end of the show. Or if you were searching for something to confirm your biases because you're mentally ill and 9-11 truthers prey on that illness

by telling you delusional paranoia is actually secret knowledge, go to a doctor. And with that out of the way, tell us Noah, what person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event. Well, we'll be talking about today. Well, today we're gonna be talking about 9-11 truthers. And Tom, you obviously didn't have enough fun

at my expense two weeks ago. Are you ready to dig up some painful memories? Well, remember, Eli, it's your fault, you're you. a fun at my expense two weeks ago. Are you ready to dig up some painful memories? Well, remember Eli, it's your fault. You're you. It was true. So tell us Tom, who really done did 9-11? All right, all right. So obviously everybody knows that 9-11 was a terrible tragedy. But what you probably don't know is that 9-11 was really an insider plot by George W. Bush and the Illuminati as an excuse to back their way into a war in Iraq to secure for the US both

the oil and mono with time a gold they feed to the lizard people who are disguised as Jewish and dust. And if that sounds a little far fetched and maybe it's time you all spent a little more time watching YouTube documentaries and a little less time in history and physics classes. Okay, okay. Hey, I'm Tom. Virginia D is a herd flu. See, now we both fit impersonations of each other.

I'm sorry to do it today, you could see. All right, well, since I know that there's gonna be naysayers and today being 9-11, I thought we could spend a little bit of time going through the conspiracy theories, which by the way are all very true, even the ones that contradict the other ones. Right. Yeah.

So let's start with something we can all agree on. We clearly shot down that plane over Pennsylvania. That we know it. Yes, we know it. No, we didn't. There's no way we didn't shoot that plane. That happened and so did Major Kong ride that missile into Pentagon. That happened to look like the same level of credibility.

All right, so on the off chance that anyone listening to this is very, very young and also very, very poorly educated, which seemed equally likely. I'll give you a little bit of background here, maybe unnecessary. In the morning of 9-11-2001, four airplanes, possibly holograms crashed. Um, one into each of the world trade center towers, one into the Pentagon and one into Pennsylvania. Um, sadly, Pennsylvania did so. Right.

We clearly shot down that hologram over Pennsylvania, the hologram didn't really do any damage when it crashed. It makes it confusing. That was a very special episode of Gem when the hologram didn't really do any damage when it crashed. It makes me be using it. That was a very special episode of Jim when the hologram crashed. They were all very special, Cecil. All right. All right. So I think reasonable people would at least agree that the facts here remain in dispute.

Although, I guess people who use actual reason in that reasoning would argue that at least one side of that dispute is fucking crazy. Okay. The other side of that dispute is fucking crazy. Okay, the other side of that dispute is Jake Taney. They can both be crazy. You said, you're both crazy. So the official story is that al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, organized the hijacking of four airplanes using box cutters and 19 angry guys, mostly from Saudi Arabia.

Ah, racist. Some of them were very calm. And once they had control of the three of the airplanes, the hijackers flew the planes into their targets. After crashing into the twin towers, the towers collapsed. A third plane slammed into the Pentagon, as I mentioned before, and the fourth plane was piloted into the ground in a field in Pennsylvania, very likely because passengers fought the hijackers, preventing the fourth plane from reaching its target, which is probably

the White House. Al Qaeda claimed responsibility by saying, yeah, that was us. And also here's why we did it. But since that's too obvious, something far more elaborate and far less likely is almost certainly what happened. But who could forget those heroic last words in Pennsylvania, I've already missed my layover anyway. So fuck it, right?

This is better than a $9. I think it had. All right. Despite this relatively straightforward narrative, conspiracy theories took holding immediately following the attacks. Very quickly, the 9-11 truth movement began spreading online across forums within hours. And these conspiracy theories focused on anomalies in the evidence. One might be tempted to claim

that you'd need a comparable world event to compare this to in order to have a baseline for which something would be anomalous, but you would be wrong because the internet is full of really great detectives. If you're looking for Jews, yeah. The internet is really full of great detectives. If you're looking for Jews, yeah. The internet is really full of great detectives. Just looking at a great job they did

during that Boston bomber manhunt. They fucking did a bang up job there. They were, they found a man. They were hunting for a man, they found one. All right, so these conspiracy theories can be roughly divided into three types. There's the first set, the LIHOP theories or let it happen on purpose theories.

And these all share the central idea that the attacks were allowed to happen by top government officials. And in some of these theories, the attacks were ignored and thus allowed to happen. And in others, the defense systems in the United States were purportedly weakened to allow for the attacks. Then there's the LIHOP theories or make it happen on purpose. These theories posit that forces within the government not only allowed the attacks. Then there's the my hop theories or or make it happen on purpose. These theories posit that forces within the government not only allowed the attacks to happen, but that they actively worked to encourage the attacks, collaborated with al-Qaeda or

framed al-Qaeda for the attacks. Yeah, we framed them so fucking well. They actively claimed responsibility. Yeah. Just inception the fuck out of all data. So I'd note, if you want your conspiracy theory to be taken seriously, maybe don't have it rhyme with a pancake restaurant when you put it in for your actual. There you go. Or don't have it contained bunny words. I was a weakness.

All right, and then the third type is, well, it's basically just like all the other ones. And I kind of love this category. It's generally, these are the theories that have nowhere else to live, right? The idea here is that the attacks didn't happen the way we were told, or maybe not by the actors that we were told to blame,

but rather than stake out their own theories, they just simply attempt to disprove the case the government has made. And this set of plucky doubters believes that once they disprove the government's explanation, then the people will like rise up and demand a new theory. From a new investigation, we'll get some real answers now. Damn it. I just love that there's literally a category that can be best summed up as not us. All right. So some conspiracy theorist point to suspected insider trading as evidence

the powerful figures had foreknowledge of these attacks. And indeed, I mean, to be fair, there were a number of abnormal put options placed on United and American Airlines stocks just before the attacks. If by just before you mean like several days to weeks before, those put options were specific to the airlines used in the attacks and the conspiracy nuts believe that there are no coincidences. So, you know, there you have it.

Clearly someone knew something and probably was the juicer. Yeah. That tracks, though. I mean, put options are the Jewish ones if we're gonna split out. Christians only use call options because they're true patriots and they don't pay fucking a free lot. Christians believe in numbers going up. Yes.

Christian way. If it's put options are the reason then I-Qaeda's plan to attack our soybeans, I think, right now. No, perhaps maybe there might be something to the extraordinary number of put options, except that this was noticed. And it was exhaustively investigated. It turned out that 95% of the put options taken were actually taken by a single institutional investor with no conceivable ties to al-Qaeda. And then these put options were taken just a few days before that same investor also purchased 115,000 shares of American on September the 10th. So like probably not the case that the World Trade Center towers were destroyed and some weird attempt

by a finance geek to get just a little bit richer. So it was a hedge. That's what was happening. Yeah. So just to be clear, put options are what you would buy if you think the price of something is going to go down. So the guy bought airline stock, hoping the price would go up, and he also bought put options so he wouldn't lose

as much if the stock went down. That's a hedge. Who the fuck would make a conservative hedging bet if they knew that nine elevens. Is that guy? That guy fucking whiffed, right? Like fireman EMT sure, but that guy's weak. And also let's be super clear, even if this explanation is a ruse and it really was somebody else who put the put options like it wouldn't fucking matter every theory that has or even could be proposed, including the official story. How's people that know about it before it happens? All right. So another theory is the stand down theory.

So the claim here is that Norad either issued a stand down order or just intentionally didn't get intercept your jets in the air in time to thwart the attack. Now, proponents of this theory contend that Norad just fucking totally knew about these planes and they had the knowledge and the capability to intercept them and thwart the attack and they just decided not to do it because reasons. Well, Tom, the super computer was too busy tracking Santa and playing Tick-Tack toles, busy. You know what, shit. You know what, I didn't have a lot of ram. All right, we'll beside that, Cecil.

The theory does have a few problems. So most of them having to do some subset of Well, that's not how Norad fucking works The first problem here is that the hijackers pretty much immediately flipped off the planes fucking transponder So the transponder is the little electronic beepy thing that tells the world where that goddamn planes at Now that day there were approximately 4,500 blips on Norads radar. No one was yet worried about this, and the planes were no longer identifying themselves.

The planes were silent notes in a sea of overwhelming visual noise. Okay, fair enough, but maybe we don't give the transponders an off switch. Thank you. enough, but maybe we don't give the transponders and all switch. Like, I can't really think about great reason why we'd want to lose track of 400 tons of seal. You know what I'm saying? Hey boss, there's a button that says ghost mode right here. Unimplant. Is that anybody using that for fun pranks?

Maybe we just stop having it. And I mean, unless the fun pranks are really good, just we just blew on ghost mode. Okay. All right. Also, like if we couldn't turn off the transponder, how could we enjoy long-form Atlantic articles about the loss of MH370?

So like that's the fucking trade, obviously. Right, right. Oh yeah, no, I get it. It's also worth noting that on 9,11, 2001, to cover the whole of the contiguous U.S. We had a whopping 14 fighter jets on alert and the orders the standing orders for those jets restricted them from flying at supersonic flight speeds Why? Right because nobody thought this was gonna happen because it had never done that before I think yeah

And you blow out windows and shit like that. Yeah. Regular old civilian air traffic control, they didn't even have any kind of like automated connection directly to NORAD. This hasn't been a thing. The last hijacking was in 1979. So they had to physically pick up the phone and dial NORAD. And I'm guessing they probably got routed to a call center in India at the time. Yeah. Hello, NORAD. And I'm guessing they probably got rowdy to a call center in India at the time. Hello, NORAD, there might be a terrorist attack. I'm pretty sure to repeat these

options, press star. What the fuck is happening? Not a human being. And if we distributed the fighter jets like the Senate, every square foot of the country gets the same number of votes, then each fighter jet represented 252,000 square miles. So, you know, it's a big area to come. Okay, but unlike the Senate, we don't have to pretend other states matter and now way fewer than 14 states that matter. I'm just saying, we had the technology.

That's true. All right, so it's also important to remember that like, again, Nora was not on the lookout for this type of attack. Nobody was. And so none of the systems in place were meant to handle this. The longest warning that Norad had was eight minutes from finding out that flight 11 was hijacked. They found out about flight 175, pretty much as it was crashing into the South Tower, the FAA reported flight 77, the one that hit the Pentagon, they reported that fucking thing as missing, not hijacked. And Noread had a whopping three minutes. A flight 93 became

known to Noread three minutes after it got intimate with the Pennsylvania bedroom. The only one that was so cool. God damn it, kick these two off the podcast. What the hell? All right, so there's another great four knowledge theory. And this one is that Israeli agents had knowledge of the attacks. Now, this comes out of an arrest that was made a few hours after the attack by the FBI. There were five Israelis arrested filming the smoking New York skyline from the roof of a white van.

And they were arrested for it. And I kind of love this hustling behavior. What? Because I guess like somehow seeing New York on fire shouldn't have caused anyone to pull out a camera. Like this is a statement that seems insane given that my phone's camera now has its own filter just so I can take pictures of my food. Right?

No, it was later learned that they were reported by bystanders for not looking shocked enough. Two of these five guys, and this is kind of interesting. They turn out to be Israeli intelligence operatives, but the FBI cleared them of any knowledge of the attacks. And that makes fucking sense because like if you were one of the guys that knew this was gonna be happening, you wouldn't be surprised and you wouldn't be standing there filming it as if everyone back home was gonna be like Pixar, it didn't happen when you told them about everyone missed the giant applause sign on Trump tower that day

All right, well, Tom, we know the why, but we have yet to discover the, what the fuck are you talking about? So, we'll take a quick break for a little something we like to call, apropos of nothing. Blue, blue, blue, doing demolition stuff, demolition stuff is my favorite stuff. I don't think we've met him. Chad Smith.

Oh, and hello, Chad. I'm Moishiron. I'm Moishiron. Uh, how nice to meet you. Moishiron? Where'd you transfer in from? I haven't seen you in a while. Israel, Wisconsin. Israel was there. I'm from Wisconsin. Yeah, it's a small town. Oh, all right, I get it. I got a cousin in Branson, so. Jim Smith, you know Jim Smith? No. Oh that's too bad a good guy. What are you putting up there? Oh

this is um stress relief putty. Oh I got you out of that Chinese stuff. My wife is into that stuff. Listen anyway if you need me I'm out on the other side of that beam over there huh huh? Good. What? I said good news, neighbor. Hi, I'm Eli Bosnick, member of the Jewish media, and I'm Ethan Wright. You sure have had a lot of fun covering our tracks today, but it's important to remember, if you don't come to our live show on October 12, we will do another 9-11. That's right, Heath.

With nearly 18 years worth of stolen basement gold running thin, live shows for Citation needed podcast is what keeps us afloat. And if you don't buy your tickets, well, let's just say that Spider-Man turn off the dark is due for a major accident. Uh, I think that shows out of theaters. Oh, it is. Yeah.

Hades Town. Yeah, okay, people love that show. Got it. Well, we'll do them then. Great. But you don't have to buy tickets just to prevent mass terror. We've got VIP tickets. No, we do not.

They are sold out. We, okay. Well, we've got platinum tickets. And there are two of those left when we report this. There's two left. But there are tickets. Yup, there are probably some tickets. Maybe.

You should get your tickets fast. Tickets in the show notes is what we're saying. Hey guys, what are you doing with the mics? Nothing. Hats. Hats. Mike Hats. Really?

Really? What did I say about wearing the mics as hats? You look amazing? That's right. Mike Hats. And we're back. Tom, when last we left, you were repeating a lot of my talking points from 2011 and 12. Would you like to stop doing that now? I would very much not actually.

So we now arrive at the control demolition theory. So hang on to your tinfoil, gentlemen, because this is fucking crazy shit. The demolition theory nuts contended that the aircraft impacts and the resulting fucking infernos were not somehow sufficient to bring down the buildings. The buildings would not have collapsed completely

and that the buildings would have fallen more slowly. It would have accelerated at less than nine. Also, they would have fallen not quite so downishly, directly downish. Yeah, that'll get you. Right. Yeah, that's right. Well, exactly. Because under normal circumstances, they'd have to get at least a few steps out of the

ledge before they even look down and notice that they had to fall. Yeah, buildings need to fall. You know, 9-11 truthers like to take things slowly. First you have to woo the building, and you have to court the building for good amount of time, then it's going to go down. But you've got to give it. It's got to go its own pace, guys. It's own pace.

All right, so several proponents of this theory penned an article. And it was published in the Open Chemical Physics Journal and it claimed that thermite and nano thermite composites in the dust and ruin of the buildings, this was evidence of explosives. Problematically for this theory, the actual demolitions experts contend that the amount of explosives that would have been needed to weaken steel would have left rather more than trace composites because, and I actually checked the math on this one, these were really big buildings.

They were also no chain of possession for the steel that they tested, the steel beams, no isolation of the beams that were being tested from say, I don't know, a settling cutting torches. Basically, no one knows what sample they tested or how that sample was obtained. And the sample had very little thermite on it anyway, even though a lot would have been needed.

And the author's answer was, and I am dead serious here, that maybe it was something actually called super thermite, which does not exist. What I'm saying, boss, the guy says they have super thermite, which does not exist. What does it cost? The guy says they have regulatory thermite and also super thermite. What, who's get the regular? Who's get the regular?

Yeah. Maybe we get the super for like the thing in September, but okay, it's just the regular for now. Yeah. Thermite's how Mike Tyson talks about his pest problem with the orphanage. Also, so like actual demolition experts working the smoldering ruins of 9-11 at no point. Did any of them notice any of these signs of thermite, which it seems like something that the demolition guys may have pointed out, right?

Now, proponents of the theory are also at a loss to explain how demolition experts could have placed the quantities of explosives needed on the structural supports of the fucking building without anyone ever noticing. Right. I got to tell you, Frank, you're hanging there, baby poster. Looks awful lumpy. Can you get this square? But the other big thing is that they also never explain why you would add this step, right?

Like if all you're going to get out of it is faster or falling. Like they were shit. They're going, guys, look, if this takes 13 seconds to collapse, we're going to like a bunch of assholes. No shit. No shit. I know there were some other claims that molten steel was found in the rubble and the molten steel was evidence of explosive.

So this is the whole like jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams thing. And I mean, that's true for what it's worth except that it's not worth anything because there's no fucking evidence of any of this molten steel. The images cited as being evidence of molten steel, these include images of what was supposedly molten right next to construction equipment working around the glowing smoking ruins and I mean those images are admittedly impressive but fire that is on or near or among metal is not actually evidence of liquid metal the construction equipment working the scene would not have been able to work in and among molten steel without being severely damaged by it.

So basically like things were crazy and hot and smoky and all red and stuff, but that's not the same thing as multi. I mean, metal is at a hundred percent integrity until it completely melts. That's why for thousands of years we've been heating it up and pounding on it and nothing happens. Yeah, the jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams was the real rollout for sort nerds. They really came through. Right. Who was arguing that the building melted? Then Jesse Ventura got involved. You guys remember from God.

Oh, right. Oh, Jesse Ventura tried to demonstrate that the buildings were totally done in by Thermine. And so to demonstrate that he hired a company called New Mexico Tech to demonstrate how Nannel Thurmaid could totally fucking slice through his steel beam. It's a great demonstration for sure, but it's mostly demonstration of how that actually doesn't work. In the demonstration, there was like a shit ton of flame, but in the end, it was all sound and fury cutting through nothing. The steel beam was unhark. Sound and fury cutting through nothing sounds like Jesse's gubernatorial career too, so. I was going to say as an intellect, but sure, yeah.

Yeah. All right, now, for what it's worth, the National Institute of Standards and Technology did, however, conclude that if you take a massive goddamn airplane full of jet fuel and slam that fucker at hundreds of miles an hour into the side of a building, that's really bad for the building and it will totally and completely collapse no fucking problem. The media, unfortunately, reported in the days after the attacks that the fires melted the steel causing the collapse. The scientists never claimed this. The actual claims made by structural engineers was that the fires and the impact

weakened the steel beams that the beams once severely weakened collapsed. Yeah, the building doesn't have to completely liquefy before it might fall down. The chest steel burns up to 1,500 Fahrenheit and steel loses half its strength at 1,100. It doesn't have to be a puddle of steel for this to make it shit. No, the building needs to lower itself into the vat of lava while it gives you the thumbs up. I have seen the documentary. Terminator two. All right, so we got to move on from that. We could spurious you not to some fucking really wild shit to say about the Pentagon. So one claim

is that flight 77 didn't actually crash into the Pentagon at all. That didn't even happen for these guys. Instead, these guys contend that it was a cruise missile and that flight 77, I don't even know. Well, flight 77 was a Kidman missile then, I guess. I don't know. Maybe it's still circling endlessly above LAX. That's, we're sitting on the tarmac and,

Jay, I'm kidding. You could do that for a long time. So this bonkers fucking claim is predicated on the fucking nuts. Oh idea that the hole in the Pentagon is smaller than the airplane that hit it And this is a quote how does a plane 125 feet wide and 155 feet long fit into a hole, which is only 60 feet across and my fit In to Yeah, what is it that it's long it is. It's a transformer, makes it, it's a jump story. Like I actually, that's like,

it doesn't matter how long it is. That's just general good thinking. What I'm saying. No paying attention to that. Get in with the plane in there. They just like power slide it into the side of the pan. Yeah, right? So like my favorite answer to this stupid fucking question comes from Purdue professor of civil

engineering. And he argues that quote, a crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon like outline of itself into a three and four concrete bills. When flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load bearing columns Huh, there's also like airplane bits and bobs just like all over the fucking place Which you probably wouldn't have if they're just been a missile because up until this actual day Most of the missiles were made of relatively few airplanes

Or you can just tie a crate at airplane parts to a missile. You know, that's right. Cecil gets it. It's just putting up like a modern art exhibit of random airplane parts in the Pentagon. I'm aware about it. As for flight 93, conspiracy theorists contend that passengers didn't actually revolt against the hijackers causing the plane to crash before hitting its target. Instead, they claimed that the plane was actually shut down by a fighter jet. Now, this claim is based on the assertion that the engine of the plane was found miles away from the main body of the wreckage. This is a result which would be more consistent with the mid-air explosion than a crash.

I have no idea if that's actually true, but you don't need to know because it's not how it works. The engine was scattered 300 yards from the main crash site. And also as we established before, Norad had virtually no time to get jets into the air to intercept flight 93, even if they had wanted to. They had an hour and 21 minutes between the first tower getting hit and when they shot down flight 93. Just like people were

snapchatting it they had like followers on Instagram for the flight night they had plenty of time. Except it's on its way to San Francisco turns around in Ohio the transpire nurse off but yeah, you're right he said plenty of time not to find it. Yeah absolutely. Yeah. 100% shot that I'm gonna kick you in the scene the next time I see you alive Bosnick. I'm gonna kick you in the shin. Stop trying to confuse it with facts Cecil. We shot it down. Oh I'm kicking you in the ship. The next time I see you, you like Bosnick, I'm gonna kick you in the ship. Stop trying to confuse it with facts, Cecil. We shot it down. Oh, I'm kicking you in the ship, too, Keith. You guys are both getting kicked in the ship. So other nutters note that the debris

was found by local residents eight miles away from the crash site, right? So totally a mid-air explosion. And yeah, okay, maybe except that what they found eight miles away was mostly paper and like bits of chart insulation So basically that's stuff the wind would just carry and after a major jet crash and a subsequent massive fireball There was plenty of fucking wind to go around Also the eight mile figure that's driving eight miles in a straight line

It was one mile to square. Oh wow. And also I lived in Pennsylvania. I can see how that insulation was motivated to get the fuck out of it. Okay, skeptics all around. But you haven't answered my real theory about how we know we shot that plane down. The fake hero story we made up is tragically American. Come on. Let's roll Australian maybe. Americans never absolutely not. Would have gotten up and been like, you said keep your feet both.

Let's roll our rascal scooter. Got a little bit of pretzel left. All right, so internet video sham lose change. It that claimed that flight 93 actually landed safely in Ohio. And then a substitute plane was crashed in Pennsylvania. Sure. This claim seizes on an erroneous report confusing flight 93 with a Delta flight 1989. And even 9-11 troopers have sought to distance themselves from this claim, noting that, well, that's just fucking stupid. And no one's going to take them seriously.

So let's just agree not to talk about that one. Don't want to talk about it. Interesting. The one. Don't talk about it. Tom doesn't want to talk about it. There are also some theories about the hijackers themselves and these mostly stem from inaccurate initial reporting in the immediate chaos and confusion of the attacks.

A BBC report published some of the names of people believed to be hijackers and to be frank, they just got some of that shit wrong. So since a few of the people they initially claimed as hijackers were in fact still alive, the truth or nuts have seized on this bad reporting as evidence that the hijackers were like moon landing level fake, right?

That example. All of this confusion was cleared up pretty readily afterwards by the BBC. What's the dubious? The FBI and the New York Times kill him. And they know that part of the problem, they know that part of the problem was the simple confusion that arose from Arabic names that are common and just coincidentally similar. Nonetheless, truth is still claimed this initial report as evidence of a greater conspiracy. Okay, but even if that's true to the truth, there's credit.

The news did a terrible job on 9-11. It was just like, they did. It looks like the building exploded from the inside by a guy named Ted Dunston, Tom. I watched this line three seconds ago back to Mitch with the weather. Who do you think did it? Not at all false. not at all false. So there was also a theory put forth by the way, by former Bush chief economist Morgan Reynolds, and I love this one so much that there were no airplanes

used in the attacks. What? So all that video evidence, and the people on the ground that watched airplanes crash live right into shit. Well, he claims that all of that was just digital compositing. So in other words, just special effects. In fact, in this theory, the buildings were in fact struck

by missiles like wearing airplane hologram Halloween costumes. Halloween costumes, yeah. Just so we're clear, there's no technology that does this. No, but who, nerd? I guess it was missiles surrounded by hologram stuff. Yeah. And my favorite version of this theory says it was actually airplanes and missiles.

Yeah, the plan was to fly a plane within a few feet of the targets and then fire a missile from really close. Switch. And then you know, has shit to do with the plane disappears. And blow, well, yeah, the plane does, and it blows up harder from point blank. The missiles do. They blow up harder. Absolutely.

And you can accelerate shit. Yeah. You can shoot the building up a little bit with that. I think that's hard. I think that's hard. And it seems to accelerate shit. Yeah. You can shoot the building up a little bit with that. I think that's hard. And it seems to fall slower. Yeah, no, he falls back into the left. That's what happens. Okay. We're just mixing our true and our false things. So the night of the truth or movement has a few noteworthy adherents, including such a lightened intellectual powerhouses as um, Alex Jones and David Ray Griffith and the aforementioned Jesse Ventura and also

very stable personality Charlie Sheen. So, we're all just asking questions. Also guys, in 2004, nobody noticed, but John Buchanan ran for president on a platform calling for 9-11 true. Yeah, and a lot of people forget about this one, but during his campaign, Trump promised that if he was selected, we'd learn who really did 9-11 too. Oh, I literally forgotten that. Oh, February 2016. Don't worry, Trump won't pin it on Saudi Arabia. That's for sure. It was Jamal Kishokhi, exactly. I can get that guy hacking the building to pieces with machetes.

It looks fine. You're all over reacting. No collusion. On the truth, there's the truth. There's themselves falling to three basic categories, right? So the first of the hardcore nuts, not these are the guys who make the YouTube videos. These are the guys who go anomaly hunting. They provide the general technical basis for the theories. They typically employ a kind of reverse scientific method wherein the conclusion determines the evidence.

In case you're wondering, that's bad, don't do that. God, now you tell me. Everyone's been telling you. All right, now the second group, these are the critically turned. So these are like the young and the restless, right? Those are guys who are primarily just angry at the man and looking for some unifying force to coalesce around their dissatisfaction. So this group, these are the propaganda arm in the movement. They're more concerned with connecting and spreading their message.

So they're basically like the infected guy sneezing at the salad bar in the movement. They're more concerned with connecting and spreading their message. So they're basically like the infected guy sneezing at the salad bar of the movement. And then the third category of conspiracy adherence, this is the illiterati, right? This is the great teaming masses of incredulous dipshit. Is that an existing term already? Or did you just use that for the first time? This is an existing term, which is my no favorite term.

That's it. That's my new absolute favorite term in the world. I can't, how can you live in America in the modern day and not know that term now, right? Like that's, it's 62 million. I think there's last night's. That's exactly the round figure. So these are essentially conspiratorial like cannon fodder, right?

They generally make no pretenses to a deep technical understanding or scientific discipline. These are the ranks. That's the bleacher filler, right? These are your uncle and that guy in accounting who believes the maddeningly stupid shit, not because they thought any of it out, but because it's actually nice to finally be a part of some milk-toast counter-culture fake community of self-deluded jackass. That doesn't make you get up early on, son. Yeah, and I'm just saying, if we knew anyone who was like that, they're only like that until they don't know what the word skeptic means. And so they go up to no illusions on a toy store floor and talk to them about loose change. And he does a monologue for like 25 minutes in front of all the kids, but I'm stupid that movie is and you have to back away slowly.

Like that's your point to the whole time. I had a question though. If we tear down statues, you're removing them from history. Is the same true for buildings? I'm not sure. Wow. That's kind of the crux of the whole thing, right? Like 9-11 was a monstrous fucking event.

This was an event that strains our ability to think and to understand and to really begin to grasp the enormity of the whole thing. It demands that we pull it to threads that hold together our ideas of morality and history and imperialism, religion, politics, self-sacrifice. The more time we spend thinking about this

kind of event, the more questions that it engenders, not just in who and the why, but in our questions of how. The more we have to wrestle with broader questions of good and evil, of our capacity for hate and revenge and violence, or we can all just decide that the bad guys are cartoon villains, bereft of all humanity. We can simplify every part of the story down to army recruiting slogans about good guys and bad guys, and then we can be comfort in this deception through simplification. So as much as like I'm making fun of it, I actually

kind of get that. Simple answers simplify the impossible even when they are tragically fucking wrong. And if you had to summarize what you learned in one sentence, what would it be, Tom? Can we shout down that plane? Shout down that plane, Tom. Fuck you, he better hurry up, I'm freaking you, there we go, we're on it back to life. Hey, hey, hey, Todd was on that plane, I would believe the theory.

Absolutely. I believe that theory. 100%. Yes sir. What song were they blaring in the cockpit? A. Crash into WTC. B. High Jack and Diane. C. Heart shape box cutter or Dean free fallen.

Oh, all right. Well, we know it's not free. That's too fast. That's right. Absolutely. Two full. So yeah, you guys saw that. It's hijacking Diane.

Diane. No, yeah. 20 of them. That's fantastic. It's got to be that. All right. I got one here. There's a tough one for you.. While the bulk of the deaths happen the day of the attack, many still suffer from the after effects of that tragic day,

which group has suffered the most? Hey, people would have been waiting the whole goddamn off season for football to start back up only to see week two post-poster Joker. You can see the smoldering packages in twin towers for my brother. Oh, yeah.

So New Jersey boo fucking fools. I'm uncomfortable. Jesus Christ. We got a fantasy season going. Take this seriously. B, people who are sick of explaining to their British friends that this didn't happen on November 9th. Or C, people who fly a lot and just have resting,

I'd like to blow up a building face. All right, well clearly it's not B because most Americans don't have British friends. That seems pretty obvious. C is just like that's an obvious nod to you. Noah, so I'm going to go with the football one because I don't know anything about football so I just assume that's the answer. You are correct, sir. That is that. I'm gonna go with the football one because I don't know anything about football so I just assume that's the answer. You are correct, sir. That is that I'm still real over that.

Victims. That's it. We should have fucking John Stewart arguing for benefits for our family's ridiculous activities. Very least we should have a fucking memorial. At least our money back for that fantasy season from John here, whatever. Pfft.

Who reparates you? Thank you. F*** about time. Jesus, there's so much getting cut here. You can just start whenever you want. You don't like it. This is just gonna put in a little thing at the beginning. You like, couldn't make it again.

And keep, couldn't make it at all. Buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, buh, show. Oh, all right. I got one boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Show. Oh, all right. I got one more for you. Tom, which of the following is a 9-11 conspiracy theory that I have not heard from one of my idiot friends before while at a bar? I'm like a bunch of these people.

Oh, no. Eli is several, but not all of these is basically what I'm saying. Yes. Hey, the World Trade Center had a chamber of secrets with a video of JFK getting killed by George H. W. Bush. So we destroyed that tape with two airplanes. I don't know. Building B. Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign logo was the letter H for Hillary with the vertical parts in blue and the horizontal connector piece as a red arrow pointing to the right. Think about that for a second. You got it.

Looks exactly like the twin towers getting hit by an airplane that's traveling from left to right just like the airplanes did on 9-11. It depends on which way you're standing on it. Yeah, that's right. You could be, there's no other building and there's no video from right to left. It's interesting. Convenient. That's okay. See, so far it's probably be. See, So far, it's probably B. C. On September 11th, 2001, the Prague Metal Band Dream Theater released a live album called Live Scenes from New York. And the original cover art showed the New York City Skyline inside a big fireball twin towers right in the middle. Also, not just that, let me finish. Also, we're at our former shots.

Also, these three other albums were released that day. Silver side up by Nickelback. Terrible. Yes, you listen, they terrorists win. So that makes sense also airplanes Silver on the top silver side up was the album name also the building probably some silver coloring on top Also, and then go back nickel loose change was named Later documentary also another album the blueprint by Jay Z blueprint controlled demolition super thermite Also still going let me finish

Also rock in the suburbs by Ben Foltz. That's just a great album Just like quiet. I did but seismic waves of a controlled demolition were picked up by Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory in the suburbs. He's actually worked there coincidence. I quit the show. So that was see that was all you can see I may or may not have heard while at a bar from an idiot friend and D. If you take the names, Rothschild, Bilderberg, Rockefeller, Kennedy, Clinton, Obama, Soros, Buffett, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Israel, CIA. And you assign each letter of the alphabet a name from 126.

They all add up to 911. That's right. Exactly. Nine, like 11. I love it. Some asshole added CIA to that. All right, so it's actually secret answer. E you need all new friends.

Scrap the whole thing. A lot of new allies. That is correct. Which did you guess? Secret answer. E secret answer. No, it was actually all new friends. No, he is correct. He is correct.

I win. I win. I'm appealing to the judges and the judges say he's correct. Well, I spent a long time doing math on D and I just want to point out that it was pretty awesome that I eventually got a list of work to that. I will send Cecil is on my side and he knows that I win and I choose Cecil. Yeah, wait, I thought you'd be excited. I don't know if that's a good. I don't think it should.

All right, well for Heath, Noah, Cecil and Tom, I'm Eli Bosnick, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week and by then Cecil will be an expert on something else. If you're not on then, you can watch Heath and Noah participate in this year's World Crocodile Tournament on ESPN2. See you in watch Toss, DIY vlog, pay a guy to fix it on CISO, on my computer if you feel like coming over. We don't have to do anything, I promise. Whatever you want.

And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pod. Or leave us a five star review everywhere you can. That matters so much and it costs so little. Please do that. And if you'd like to get in touch with us, check out past episodes, connect with us on social media or complain about this episode because you decided that your personal tragedy is somehow sacred and shouldn't be joked about. Or like a check the show nerds, be sure to check out citationpod.com and remember, if you hit your

kids, you can't listen to our show. Nope. No, like lower the mic over one eye, like a gangster. Oh, okay, like this? Exactly. You got it. You guys look so fucking good right now.

I'm telling you. So good right. Thank you. My cats. My cats. Guys, look so fucking good right now, I'm telling you. So good, right? Thank you. My cats.

My cats.