Over the years, the attack on the towns of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is one of the most fruitful topics for conspiracy therapists around the world. We made out one of the most popular theories on this topic.

September 11, 2001 terrorists captured Four regular aircraft that flew out of three different airports in the east of the United States and headed to California. Two liners were sent to the buildings of the World Trade Center (WTC) in New York, the third-to the Pentagon building near Washington, the fourth plane fell in the state of Pennsylvania after the crew and passengers tried to regain control over the liner. As a result of attacks, in addition to terrorists, about 3,000 people died. The largest terrorist attack of its time is still shrouded in a huge number of various conspiracy theories, according to which the responsibility for the attacks is at least partially, and as a maximum does not completely lie on the militants. One of them lies in the fact that the towers did not collapse at all due to a terrorist attack, but were blown up from the Earth, while the conspiracy therapists find a variety of possible beneficiaries. For example, Yuri Subbotin, who directly calls the events of September 11, 2001, the “grandiose scam”, which “Torchiki's Company turned”, Lists There are in their article for the Parliamentary Newspaper - the official print body of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation. The list of “suspects”, in particular, included the American military who was looking for the reason to increase financing, the tower tenant, who received significant compensation from insurance companies and the state, special services, who gained access to the correspondence and telephone conversations of the Americans, and even “people are higher than Bush, those who select and appoint the presidents”.

To begin with, let's deal with the events in New York, which led to the largest number of victims. According to data The Memorial Museum September 11, the first plane at 8:46 in the morning crashed into the northern tower at the level of the 93rd-99th floors, the second-about 17 minutes later into the southern tower at the level of the 77th-85th floors. In total, each of the skyscrapers had 110 floors, that is, the liners damaged their upper parts. Nevertheless, the southern tower collapsed at 9:59, the northern tower - after another half an hour. Moreover, at 17:20, the WTC 7 skyscraper also collapsed nearby, which was not directly damaged by captured aircraft.

Several circumstances at once attracted the attention of conspiracy therapists, which began to develop various theories on the basis of, as it seemed to them, inconsistencies during events. In particular, many supporters of the alternative versions of what happened believe: skyscrapers fell due to the fact that explosives were laid on the lower floors or in the basements, because the planes that had crashed into the upper floors could not lead to collapse. In 2017, the Internet even spread on the alleged agent of the CIA, which admitted to laying bombs, but subsequently It turned outthat the source of such publications is a site with fictional news, and an agent with this name does not exist at all.

The discrepancy, which at first caused questions even among experts, was explained in 2005 in Report National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), units of the US Department of Trade. According to the investigation, the aircraft crashed into the buildings cut through the mines for engineering communications and the burning aviation fuel began to drain down them down. This led to fires on the lower floors that are good documented eyewitnesses.

The version of the fire that led to the collapse did not convince the conspiracy therapists. They paid attention to the fact that burning fuel could not lead to steel melting and, therefore, collapse. Them object Experts interviewed by Popular Mechanics magazine - to collapse skyscrapers, it was enough to lose part of their structural strength, for which it was much less heat. “Steel loses about 50% of its strength at a temperature of 1100 ° F (about 600 ° C.-Approx. Ed.), And at 1800 ° F (about 1000 ° C-approx. Ed.) This indicator is likely to lower below 10%,” Farid Alfavak-Hiri from the American Institute of Steel structures. Although aviation fuel burns at a temperature of 800 ° F (~ 430 ° C) to 1,500 ° F (~ 815 ° C), experts believe that combustible materials from which furniture were made in office buildings, as well as paper and interior items. As a result, according to the NIST report, the temperature inside rose above 1800 ° F.

New York satellite picture September 11, 2001

Another argument, popular among supporters of alternative versions, is suspiciously large dust clubs that rose around the WTC buildings at the time of collapse. Conspirologists argued that this is a characteristic feature of the controlled explosion, when the building is demolished with the help of explosives laid inside. However, experts in this area Do not see In clubs of dust and garbage around the twin towers, nothing suspicious-the weight of all the crumbling floors falls on the upper of the intact ones, and he, being unable to absorb energy, collapses to the next. It turns out a chain reaction, which experts call the word pancaking and in the process of which all the air located between the floors, "Collapses" And along with dust breaks out.

In their arguments, conspiracy therapists use not only observations and, as expert comments show, amateurish conclusions, but also seismographic data. A number of resources draws attention to the seismogram recorded on September 11, 2001 in the Scientific Center of Colombian University, 21 km from the place of attack. Scientists allegedly recorded the strongest tremors even before the collapse of the buildings, which speaks of their undermining from the ground. At the same time, the seismologist Arthur Lerner-Lama that worked that day in the Scientific Center claims: Conspirologists took only part of the seismogram to confirm their own guesses. At the full entry, you can easily see that the bursts are enhanced as the buildings are collapsed and reach the peak at the moment when skyscrapers are finally falling.

Nevertheless, the arguments regarding the twin towers do not answer the question of why a WTC 7 tower fell nearby after a few hours. Those who support the version of the explosion of this building from the ground pay attention to the preliminary preliminary published in 2002 report Federal Emergency Agency (Fema), because this document refers to minor damage that the collapse of the twin towers inflicted this building. However, in a later and more detailed report NIST indicatedthat the volume of damage was previously underestimated: “For about a third of the facade (about ten floors), the building was“ hollowed out ”by about 25% deeper,” - Reported Specialist of the department. Together with other damage, this led to “progressive collapse”, when the destruction of part of the structures gradually leads to the fall of the entire building, which was also facilitated by the design features of the seventh tower. The fire, which began due to the wreckage of the twin towers, flew to the building, played its role.

The theory that has developed around the aircraft crashed into the Pentagon building is opposite. Conspirologists are wondering: if the VTC buildings collapsed after damage to the upper floors, then why did the direct hit of the liner into the Pentagon building did not lead to its destruction? According to the supporters of this version, no plane was sent to the building, but in fact the blow was inflicted by a rocket (or at least a much smaller plane). Neither photographs from the scene, nor the fragments of conspiracy thes found at the site of the tragedy do not convince.

Pentagon reconstruction after attacks on September 11, 2001 (2002)

Unlike the twin towers made of glass and metal, the headquarters of the American army is made of reinforced concrete structures. Nevertheless, the damage was caused very significant, even though the terrorists sent the plane to that part of the Pentagon, which was reconstructed and strengthened by a happy coincidence. It was also helped that before the collision, the plane hit the ground, thereby dispersing a significant part of the energy. Other arguments of the conspiracy therapists Disassembled Authoritative factory project Snopes.

The research of those who doubt the official version are sometimes embodied in a form close to absurd. There is even a theory that planes are completely did not crash into the WTC building, although at least the moment of the collision of the aircraft with the southern tower I got it On the live broadcast of American television channels. Some documents related to the events of September 11 SecretlyWhich, coupled with the significance of those events and their emotional coloring, creates great opportunities for developing alternative versions.