The September 11 terrorist attacks were arguably the most watched event in human history. As a result, the facts about what happened seem indisputable. We have all seen the footage of planes flying into the World Trade Centre towers over and over.
Yet, a group of conspiracy theorists continue to claim that the official account of what happened that day amounts to the greatest cover up in the history of modern civilisation.
ABC Unleashed last week published the claims of Hereward Fenton of the 9/11 Truth Movement in Australia, a movement which disputes the official story and claims that the World Trade Centre did not actually collapse as the result of planes hitting the towers, but rather as the result of a controlled demolition.
When I last wrote about the lunacy of this theory in March 2007 my opinions were later attacked on the website that Fenton is a researcher for. Anonymous posts on the website www.911oz.com accused me of being a Mossad agent, telling me to go "back to Israel and fortify your bunkers". These comments highlight some of the prejudices that can often fuel these theories.
The 9/11 Commission set up in 2002 interviewed over 1,200 people in 10 countries and reviewed over two and a half million pages of documents before releasing a 571-page report explaining how and why the World Trade Centre buildings collapsed.
The report found "no corroborating evidence" for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001.
So why do these theories continue to have support in the community? The theories are motivated from a variety of factors sometimes relating to anti-Americanism and most commonly from a psychology of mistrust and paranoia.
Those involved establish their conclusions first, and gather their evidence later. Contradictory evidence is either ignored or discredited.
Popular Mechanics, who have debunked the theories surrounding the attacks, argue that conspiracy theories "share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons".
In the most watched documentary promoting the conspiracy theories, Loose Change, which has been viewed by millions of people on Youtube, the narrator reflects ... "That 19 hijackers are going to completely bypass security and crash four commercial airliners in a span of two hours, with no interruption from the military forces, in the most guarded airspace in the United States and the world? That to me is a conspiracy theory."
We all wondered on September 12, "How could this happen?" But just because something seems implausible does not provide evidence of a conspiracy. It's strange that the moon and the sun appear to be exactly the same size from the earth, but so what?
The conspiracy theories have been able to gather a strong following because they explain elements of the story that the official account is unable to explain easily to a lay person.
The main concern of those in the 9/11 Truth Movement is that they think it would be impossible for the World Trade Centre to fall in the uniform fashion that we all witnessed without it being the result of a controlled demolition. It is true that the temperatures inside the towers would not have reached levels that would have melted the metal, thus causing the buildings to collapse.
Steel's melting temperature is 1,500°C and there is consensus that temperatures inside the World Trade Centre would not have likely exceeded 1,100°C. However, the theorists fail to mention that steel that is heated to over 1,000°C softens to such an extent that its strength is reduced by up to 90 per cent.
They also fail to look at factors such as the internal damage to the building support structures and fire-proofing insulation which inevitably led to the collapse of both towers.
The conspiracy theorists are oppositional by nature. They will believe 11 different versions of what occurred, even if they are all contradictory, but only as long as they are not related to the official version of events.
One theorist who claims that a missile was fired into the Pentagon will associate himself with another theorist who is certain that the attack was carried out by an unmanned remotely controlled plane.
To account for this problem groups such as the 9/11 Truth Movement have tried to classify themselves under two main headings. They identify themselves as either MIHOPs (Made It Happen On Purpose) or LIHOPs (Let It Happen On Purpose).
Both these groups believe that the US government had something to do with the attacks but divide themselves over whether the government let it happen or made it happen.
Perhaps the CIA did plant explosives inside the World Trade Centre and demolish it by controlled demolition. And maybe the military did fire a missile into its own headquarters at the Pentagon. Or maybe 19 terrorists, with links to Al Qaeda, hijacked four commercial airliners and used them as weapons to kill almost 3,000 people.
It is clear from the report into the attacks that the Bush administration was incompetent in stopping the terrorist attacks, but that does not mean that they were involved. To suggest that they were disrespects the lives of every person who died as a result of the attacks.
Perhaps the story would make a great Hollywood blockbuster, but in the real world it has less credibility than the idea that Prime Minister Harold Holt was captured by a Chinese submarine whilst swimming off Point Nepean.
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