Customer Reviews

Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can't Stand Up to the Facts

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2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(65)

 

 

First class scholarship and examination of the corrosive myths about 9/11. Nothing nefarious in the loss of the World Trade Center - just physics and engineering. A well written book. Worth sending to your crazy relatives who think there was some conspiracy.

It is absolutely amazing the kind of reviews people will dare to give. As one prior reviewer astutely noticed, many "reviews" were done by people with an agenda to sell who obviously did not read the book. In fact, even before the book was published you had 911 conspiracy folks writing negative assertions about the book before it was even published. This tells you the mindset of such people and the prejudice they have. There is simply no way you can be objective by trying to trash something before you've even read it. But such is the folly of some. And let me say that I am particularly disappointed with Ed Haas, who appears to be just using this forum to promote his conspiracy agenda instead of reviewing the book honestly.

As someone who came to this issue trying to objectively ascertain what the truth is regarding 911, and as a former native New Yorker for over 30 years, I will now try to render an honest review of this book as one who has actually read it and also has verified many of its points from my own research. I will also point out some of the facts which prove that most of the negative reviewers did NOT read the book.

First, let's dispense with the most obvious nonsense arguments. It is a fallacy of logic to argue that because the book was done by folks at Popular Mechanics (PM), which is owned by Hearst Communications, that this automatically dismisses the evidence from the many independent scientists, engineers, physicists, and other experts. This is known as the genetic "consider the source" fallacy. Such reasoning is flawed and is just a way of avoiding the facts presented by PM.

Second, it has not been conclusively proven that the Ben Chertoff who used to be the head of the magazine's research department at PM is in any way related to Michael Chertoff, the head of Homeland Security. Now, according to Ben's mom, Michael MIGHT be a distant cousin (p. 102). Yet conspiracy theorists unwisely take a MIGHT and turn it into a conclusive fact. Nonsense. If that is the case, then I can argue that the Bush administration is using Bush's baked beans to poison us all in a worldwide conspiracy to dominate the world...LOL. And do I even need to point out that people having the same last name does not necessarily mean they must be related. That fallacy is called the non sequitur. But let's move on.

One argument has been made that the people at PM are not scientists and engineers. Fair enough. But that's a red herring designed to divert our attention from the facts. They CONSULTED many scientists and engineers and reported what THEY said. That is the point. But since we are on the topic of "scientists and engineers," perhaps we are to believe that David Ray Griffin, who doesn't have the first degree in relevant scientific or engineering fields, is a credible source of information about what happened on 911? Mr. Griffin has been shown to be an author with an agenda who cannot see that he has been duped by the likes of French author Thierry Meyssan, who "...never visited the United States for his research" (p.59). So the work of Griffin is highly suspect and lacks real credibility.

It is easy for some reviewers to talk big talk about PM committing "straw man fallacies" while committing their own fallacies, but the facts are otherwise. This book is excellent in its presentation of the facts and documentation. The only problem I had is that it didn't use the standard numerical reference techniques most scholarly books use. I would have also liked it if they made it easier to contact the many experts consulted by providing contact information such as email addresses. That way, it would be easier to verify that these experts really said what it is claimed they said.

However, I have found in my research that if you really want to contact someone, all you need is some basic information and you can usually follow-up and make contact. Other than that, the book does a great job of answering (with credible sources from those expert in the relevant fields) most of the major wild 911 "inside job" conspiracy theories.

The book is divided up into 4 major sections: The Planes, The World Trade Center, The Pentagon, and Flight 93, with an afterward by James Meiggs, editor-in-chief of PM, 3 appendices (Appendix A: Experts Consulted, Appendix B: World Trade Center Report, Appendix C: Pentagon Building Report), notes and an index. I will now highlight points from each major section:

The Planes:

The book nicely puts the issue in a conspiracy "claim" vs. "fact" format, which makes things easier to follow. Some claim that the 19 "amateur" hijackers with box cutters taking over planes and flying them and hitting "75 percent" of their targets raises a lot of questions. Perhaps. But you don't need to be an expert flyer to crash a big plane into a big building. That's common sense. But "Debunking 911 myths" points out that "The hijacker pilots...may not have been have been highly skilled, but they were not complete amateurs" (p. 4).

Some have tried to argue that there was a "missile" or "pod" underneath the planes that hit the Towers. However, this assumption was based on an inaccurate interpretation of bad photography. "Debunking" consulted Ronald Greeley, director of the Space Photography Laboratory at Arizona State University. His findings? "After studying the high-resolution image and comparing it to photos of a Boeing 767-200ER's undercarriage, Greeley dismissed the notion that the Howard photo reveals a `pod'...In fact, Greeley confirms the photo reveals only the Boeing's right fairing, a pronounced bulge that contains the landing gear" (pp. 9, 10). So, conspiracy theorists have mistaken lighting angles and pixel distortion on digital images for some kind of "pod" or missile.

Another false claim debunked by "Debunking" is the idea that there was a "stand down" order given to the military so that the hijacked planes could reach their targets. "Debunking" catalogs all the confusion on 911 and shows that even though the hijackers had turned off the transponders, fighter planes were ordered to battle stations. But with over 4,000 planes in the air, and an inadequate ATC system, it is not hard to see why intercepts were delayed (pp.14-19). It was also pointed out the NORAD's more sophisticated radar focused outside the continental US for threats, not inward. No need for wild conspiracy theories.

The World Trade Center:

One claim is that the Towers were not brought down by the combination of large planes full of jet fuel slamming into them and the subsequent damage, but they collapsed due to intentially placed bombs or controlled demolition charges.

However, "Debunking" provides evidence from credible independent sources that this was not the case (pp. 28-58). I have personally watched video of authentic controlled demolitions and the Towers and building 7 do NOT precisely match them. In real demo, the puffs of smoke from the charges going off, sometimes called "squibs," always come first and then the building comes down. With WTCs 1,2, 7 the "squibs" show up only AFTER the building begins to collapse. But conspiracy theorists ignore that little fact to their detriment.

Conspiracy theorists are fond of making mention of the work of professor Steven Jones of BYU. It is claimed that he found something in a sample of the WTC rubble which indicates to him that explosives were used. However, the credibility of Mr. Jones is in question on many counts.

First, his own colleagues at BYU, who are civil engineers while he is NOT, do not find his work credible. Second, "Debunking" consulted metallurgy professors (specialists in metals analysis) who "...found flaws with the evidence Jones uses to support his arguments...Alan Pense, professor emeritus of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University, said: `The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing ...or show materials that appear to be other than steel'" (p. 41).

Third, what really caught my eye was this info regarding the "thermite" allegedly found by Mr. Jones. "Richard Furehan, professor of metallurgical engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, says that Jones does not provide adequate evidence to show that thermite reactions did take place...even if they did, that would not necessarily indicate the presence of explosives. THE THERMITE REACTION COULD HAVE OCCURRED WITH ALUMINUM METAL AND ANY OXIDE THAT HAPPENS TO BE NEAR IT (p. 42, emphasis added.). So, a thermite reaction can take place in other ways. Interesting that we don't hear that from the conspiracy folks.

And finally, "Debunking" provides more information from various experts showing that Mr. Jones' work is "naïve and unscientific" (as Dr. Thomas Eagar of MIT personally told me in a private email), but space won't permit me to go into further detail.

When it comes to building 7, most conspiracy theorists always mention the words of Larry Silverstein on a nationally televised show using the words "pull it." These words are interpreted to mean that Silverstein was admitting he told a "fire commander" (note not a demolition specialist) to "pull it" (misread to mean demolish building 7). However, "Debunking" points out from 4 different demolition experts that "pull it" is "not slang for controlled demolition" (p. 57). Even after Silverstein clarified his words, saying that his concern was to "pull" the squadron of firefighters from the building, conspiracy theorists still cling to their misinterpretation and misapplication of Silverstein's words. What's more, with all the fuss over the collapse of Towers 1, 2 and building 7, people forget that other buildings and structures either fully or partially collapsed that day (such as the St. Nicholas Church, the North Bridge - wonder if Silverstein owns those too, or if demolition charges were placed in those too).

And yes, despite false claims to the contrary, "Debunking" did address in detail the Empire State Building and the B-25 that crashed into it and listed the vital differences between that incident and the collapse of the Towers (pp. 29-32).

The Pentagon:

One conspiracy theory about the Pentagon, circulated mainly by a French writer who never visited the United States, is that flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon. Some say it was a missile (although no credible witnesses say they saw one) and other say it was a "Global Hawk" (a smaller, unmanned plane, although no one saw that either and no GH parts were found).

Pentagon Video - Some people argue that if flight 77 hit the Pentagon, then the security camera should clearly show it. Yet "Debunking" points out that the Philips LTC 1261 camera filmed at one frame per second, while the plane was traveling at about 780 feet per second. Now, anyone who knows anything about photography can understand what that means; you will not get a clear image of a plane (p. 61).

Small Debris - Although most conspiracy theorists claim that the debris of the Pentagon was too little to be from flight 77, they also do not investigate the fact that most airplane crashes do NOT leave great remains. "Debunking" gives several examples of this fact. So this does not prove flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon.

Intact Windows - Now the idea that regular windows could remain intact after a commercial jet hits a building would seem rather incredible, but not when you know all the facts. "Debunking" explains that the Pentagon windows were blast resistant and weighed "1,600" pounds each (p. 71). Wow! My first reaction was `What the heck kind of window weighs that much?' It seems they wanted them to withstand a powerful missile or bomb. But these were not household windows, and therefore any conspiracy argument from intact windows after the plane crash appear to be based on ignorance.

Flight 93:

"Debunking" deals a death blow to the main conspiracy theories surrounding this flight. Instead of the flight crashing due to the heroics of the brave passengers, the flight is said to have either been shot down by an F16 or a mysterious white jet. But the facts show that the Army Colonel Donn de Grand-Pre lied on the Alex Jones show about knowing the pilot who allegedly shot down flight 93. Mr. Grand-Pre also lied about contacting General Hugh Shelton, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time (pp. 77-80).

"Debunking" also proves, from a credible source, that the white jet that was seen around the wreckage of flight 93 was not a military plane but "a Dassault Falcon 20 business jet owned by the VF Corporation" (p. 82).

Cell phones - Conspiracy theorists are fond of saying that all those calls were somehow faked because cell phones can't work above 8,000 feet. However, "Debunking" proves from cell phone company sources that this is not true: "While not exactly reliable, cell-phone calls from airplanes were possible in 2001...because cell sites have a range of several miles, even at 35,000 feet...says Rick Kemper, director of technology and security at the CTIA - The Wireless Association" (pp. 83,84).

When it comes to the small amount of wreckage found at the flight 93 crash site, "Debunking" also documents, from experts in air crash analysis, the fact that most plane crashes routinely leave little wreckage (pp. 86-90). The problem, then, is that while conspiracy believers ask many questions, they seem to rarely find credible answers from proper authorities.

So despite what you hear from some fake reviewers of the book, the book does address most of the wild conspiracy claims they tried to say the book did not address (which shows they didn't read the book).

In conclusion, it seems to me that the fake reviews by people with an agenda to push shows the dishonesty and disingenuousness of those in the 911 conspiracy movement. The facts show from this book, and other sources available online, that if the "official story" has holes in it the size of a "hundred pound block of Swiss cheese" (as one reviewer opined), then that goes hundreds of times more for these wild "inside job" theories which have no credible, factual support.

I applaud the people at PM for doing a fine job of putting together a masterful work disproving these nonsensical theories that ultimately dishonor the memory of the lives we lost on 911 and their surviving families. Remember, Remember, the FACTS about the 11th of September...because the Master Himself said it best: "and you shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free" (John 8:32).

I went into this book open minded as all should. It was published by Popular Mechanics who has nothing to gain or lose by swaying public decisions on 9/11. I myself never believed our Gov't could do such a thing and this book reinforced my beliefs. I'm 43 years old and I'm ashamed to say, but this is the first book I've found interesting enough to read front to back. If you're a conspiracy Theorist or someone that just wants to see what the other half is saying about 9/11, this book is a must read! It's an eye opener.

I have carefully read with, I hope, an open mind, the various theories about the causes of 911. Carefully watched the videos from the what is called the 911 truth movement. I definitally start from knowing my government lies to me and is, to boot, incompetent. These other reports of explanations of 911 did indeed raise unanswered questions but fell short of convincing me that there was an inside job.
I had found some holes in the various conspiracy theories -- but this book revealed to me and documented something ELSE: (a) That there was in the truth movement significant amounts of what I call "cherry picking" the evidence (reporting on what supports their position and ignoring what contradicts it.)

This book also (b) documented, by doing their journalistic homework and actually tracking down witnesses (who had been quoted by the conspiracy theorists in support of their ideas)something I did NOT know: That witnesses had been quoted out of context, misquoted, and their words used to state exactly the opposite of what the witness, when interviewed by Popular Mechanics, actually meant and saw.

This book does, to me, a convincing job of showing that many of the "unexplained things" (such as why the planes were not intercepted)are not as far fetched as the conspiracy theorists would have me believe. Well, there's far too much detail to list here. After all it's a whole book.

If you REALLY want what I call an objective view and are open minded, and can accept the reality that there are details about 911 or any catastrophic event that may never be explained, you might like this book and value it.

But DON'T expect it to convince anyone who is an avid advocate of "our government did it" or any similar belief.
Why? Because the very nature of believing there is a SECRET and POWERFUL group that did this makes it absolutely impossible to ever prove there isn't one.
Here's why:
Bring up the fact that some item of evidence that SHOULD exist if there was a conspiracy doesn't exist, then the reply is "of course not, it's SECRET."
Bring up any evidence that it was done by middle easterners in commercial airliners with box cutters and that can be dismissed as fake evidence (after all, a POWERFUL group of conspirators can fake any evidence, right?)
Bring forth any witnesses that offer testimony that contradicts the secret-conspiracy theory and they can be dismissed as either "under pressure from authorities" or "part of the conspiracy" or "just mistaken."
Do a good enough job of questioning the credibility of the conspiracy theory and _your_ motives will be questioned and the suggestion made that you might even be part of the conspiracy.
Bring forth any technological expert that testifies to anything that supports the conventional view or contradicts the conspiracy view and they can be dismissed as either incompetent, paid off, or part of the conspiracy.

This does not mean I deny there are unexplained facts, conflicting witness reports, nor that I or the authors of this book rule out that some people inside and outside the administration were and are (a) making statements that aren't true, (b) some may even be deliberately lying to cover up things (after all ALL people tend to want to cover up their incompetence and this administration is well known to be particularly poor at being able to admit errors.)
I am also well aware that the administration intended to attack Iraq long before 911 and it apparently used 911 as an excuse to do so. That doesn't mean they created 911. I just think Bin Ladin played right into their hands -- and Bush in-turn right into Bin Ladin's hands (Bush's behavior since 911 has been a recruiting Bonanza for all radical Islamic groups.)

Particularly after reading this book, I would say institutional and personal incompetence and negligence exist in such unimaginable depth and spread in government and elsewhere -- that THIS is one of the sticking points that trips up many of the conspiracy theorists that leads them to conclude malice is at work in the US government:

These analysts see things that it seems could only be explained either by malice or by incredible levels of incompetence and negligence -- levels that to these folks (who themselves are sometimes themselves rather competent and responsible) is simply unimaginable. I suspect this is their one of their blind spots. Thus they are forced to conclude malice and complicity is at work.

Napoleon Bonaparte once said:
"Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."

And this similar quote attributed to Goethe, the German philosopher:
"Misunderstandings and neglect occasion more mischief in the world than even malice and wickedness. At all events, the two latter are of less frequent occurrence."

From the age of those quotes, coming from two very different sources, each with their own credibility, it would appear to me that there has been for centuries a long standing human tendency to see the results of stupidity and neglect and attribute those results to malice.

If you've looked at conspiracy web sites, watched "Loose Change", saw the C-SPAN presentation, and you are curious about the peculiarities in the events of 9/11 that these groups and individuals are turning up, then you owe it to yourself to read this book as well. It is so well written. It gives clear and complete facts and doesn't take any more of your time than it has to. It is not political. The discussion of how the twin towers and wtc 7 collapsed is excellent, as is the explanation of how the damage to the Pentagon is consistent with being hit by a passenger jet.

The book deals with the issues that an engineer or physicist would be likely to address. It doesn't discuss the non-scientific accusations, such as the hijackers being alive and well or the participation of the Pentagon pilot in previous Pentagon attack exercises. But what they do cover is substantial and I thank them for it.

Ok, As many have pointed out the book doesn't address the problem of towers falling at near-terminal velocity all the way into their own footprint.

I'll give you the essential explanation for why tower falls at near-terminal velocity. The top of the building above the point of failure drops with the same acceleration as gravity unless something resists it. The incorrect assumption is that the heavily reinforced structure and beams in the lower part of the building should significantly slow the momentum of the top of the building.

For a very short time after initial failure the bottom structure may provide some mechanical resistance. At the center of the problem though is what is happening to the debris between the falling section and intact section below. The debris is quickly pulverized into a median consisting of heated air, tons of cement, shattered steel, and other debris. The debris essentially becomes a very viscous median traveling downward ahead of the upper section of the building. The top section of the building and the viscous debris act much like an object moving through air or a liquid at high speed. A highly energetic bow shock forms within tons of viscous debris.

Now, a bow shock does not transfer energy at the acceleration of gravity. It transfers energy at the speed of sound as determined be the viscosity of the median. Remember we are talking about stupendous amounts of energy. When this energy wave hits the top of the remaining building the wave front of energy is absorbed and dampened. This energy causes catastrophic failure of the materials in the floors below. The bow shock will instantly pulverize everything turning it into a superheated slurry of cement dust, shattered steel, and melted debris. Once pulverized it adds its weight to the inertial energy to the downward wave. The energy of the bow shock is the total inertial energy of the top of the building added to the pulverized debris plus the frictional thermal energy generated within our accelerating sludge plus whatever mechanical energy released through catastrophic failure of the materials.

Some of this energy will also be projected upward though the top floors, though to a much lesser degree. If there is any pancaking of floors I would expect it on the bottom floors of the falling section. There's no floors left to pancake underneath once the bow shock disintegrates them.

Also remember that structural steel transfers energy within it fairly well, thus it becomes difficult to access the degree to which the steel dampens or transfers the energy of the bow shock.

I really think you need to use a good dose of fluid mechanics along with your structural analysis to understand what is going on inside a huge falling building such at the WTC building.

Also, I think it is a mistake to think that large buildings collapsed from the bottom up will be the same as top down building failures. With a bottom up demolition the building falls largely intact with the bottom floors successively crumpling and dissipating their energy over time. The top down failure produces a huge wave of semi-viscous debris falling through the building. It's totally different.

Save your money and just download the government's report for free. You can find it easily with an Internet search. This book just regurgitates what's in the government's report. There is very little critical thinking going on in this book's analysis of the events of 9/11.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. This book provides a mountain of facts and evidence to refute the conspiracy theorist "truthers." After this book, it seems unlikely to me that they can now find enough extraordinary proof for their extraordinary claims - that would be a pretty tall mountain.

If you doubt that emotion prevails over reason in this issue, check out the Amazon ratings - either all ones or all fives. Ridiculous.

The book, Debunking 9/11 Myths is an in-depth investigation by Popular Mechanics that attempts to provide answers for conspiracy theorists. The book begins with a self-explanatory "Contents" section that lays out a clear order of topics to be discussed. Following that is a brief "Acknowledgments" section to recognize everyone who made the publication possible, a "Foreword" by Senator John McCain and an "Introduction" by Editors David Dunbar and Brad Reagan. The proceeding four chapters of the book explore a total of twenty conspiracy theories under the major headings: "The Planes," "The World Trade Center," The Pentagon," and "Flight 93." The book then sums up with an "Afterword" by James B. Meigs, Editor-in-Chief of Popular Mechanics, who shares some constant themes among the flawed reasoning of conspiracy theorists, and concludes with three appendices: "Appendix A: Experts Consulted", "Appendix B: World Trade Center Report" and "Appendix C: Pentagon Building Report"; a "Notes" section, to provide additional clarity of sources and citations of specific facts, and finally, a standard "Index" of discussed topics.

Let me begin my review of this book with the "Foreword" by Senator John McCain. In my opinion, it was not a wise decision to have John McCain prelude a skeptical book that is attempting to debunk 9/11 conspiracy theories since his background as an American politician associated with the Republican Political Party distinctly suggests a bias in the position the book is going to take. In fact, in his foreword, after conveying that this book will start and end its investigation only with facts, he puts readers in an emotionally loaded spiral by saying, "To blame not a gang of terrorists but some conspiracy for 9/11 insults the police officers and firefighters who raced into the burning towers; the men and women who left for dangerous, distant lands to fight our enemies; and those who have fought in all the wars of our history (Popular Mechanics xiv)." For me, this sentence in and of itself framed the book from being a neutral analysis of 9/11 myths to a biased piece of work attempting to distance conspiracy theorists from suspecting the government and their actions. Moreover, in the "Introduction" Editors David Dunbar and Brad Reagan do something similar by saying, "this book aims only to answer the questions raised by conspiracy theorists themselves (Popular Mechanics xx)," which for me suggests that they have already taken a side.

Moving forward, in the four main chapters of the book, each conspiracy theory is organized in a claim versus fact fashion that makes the book very easy to follow and presents the evidence very cleanly. In saying that however, I still feel that better efforts could have been made to use a more standard form of citation which allows readers to directly see which sources support the text at hand. By having all of their sources listed in an appendix at the back of the book without any embedded references in the text, I often found myself being over skeptical and wondered which parts were from a reliable source and which parts (if any) were deduced by Popular Mechanics. In the next paragraph I have cited a specific example from the book which I felt had strong arguments in disproving its respective conspiracy theory but failed to convince me completely because of its overstated evidence.

In the chapter "The Planes," one conspiracy theory claims that pictures and video footage taken of Flight 175 just before it hit the South Tower shows an object at the base of the right wing, "-possibly a bomb, a missile or a piece of equipment from an air-refueling tanker- (Popular Mechanics 8)" and therefore suggests that 9/11 was an `inside job' by President George Bush. To debunk this theory, Popular Mechanics got the help of Ronald Greeley, the director of a space photography laboratory at Arizona State University and Thomas R. Edwards, co-founder of TREC, a company that analyzes images for law enforcement. After analyzing the pictures, both individuals agreed that the object seen in the pictures could have easily been caused by the angle of sunlight hitting the plane in relation to the positioning of the camera taking the picture. Also, Thomas R. Edwards explained the effects of improperly resizing pictures so that pixels are distorted and thus create an overlap of color that is meaningless. He goes on to say that poor quality picture evidence like this does not serve as strong proof in the court room and is therefore highly inadvisable to use. I was fairly convinced with this answer but was disappointed when Popular Mechanics inflated their evidence by reporting an absence of eyewitnesses that could account for seeing missiles on the planes since eyewitnesses do not serve as strong evidence anyway. Furthermore, the consultation with Skip Aldous, a retired Air Force squadron commander who says it is not possible to fit a commercial plane with missiles as it requires very complex mechanisms was rather irrelevant. Although missiles require complex mechanisms they are not impossible to construct. Also, the book later discusses a conspiracy theory in which people speculate that the planes were actually military plane that had been painted white.

Overall this book was a good place to start and helped me get a feel for what conspiracy theories have been proposed and what kind of evidence may help to prove them wrong. This book was definitely not a show stopper and did not convince me to its fullest potential despite its many expert sources and pictures. To be further convinced, I would have liked to see more official documents being cited rather than having multiple quotes from `experts.' I would have also liked to see more direct evidence like laboratory tests that prove the substance present at the scene was not melted steel and had no explosive materials in it. Lastly, I felt the scientific method should have been more apparently used to disprove conspiracy theories and evaluate its counter evidence.

The editors at Popular Mechanics have done a good job in collecting and responding to the conspiracy theories that have unfortunately flourished after 9/11. Facing the facts and the claims of the conspiracy theorists, I believe they have done a good job in refuting those theories responsibly. Of course conspiracy theorists will not agree, and will likely continue repeating their claims in spite of the paucity of evidence or logic they offer for their theories. This book points out that most conspiracy theorists look to the smallest anomaly and out of that argue for an even more grandiose theory, for which they furnish no proof, only their zealously decided opinions. Most crimes involve a suspect, a murder weapon, and motive, yet I would venture to state that most conspiracy theorists only look at one of those three elements, and fill in the details of the rest with whatever they wish to believe. We have a suspect - Al Qaeda, we have a motivation - Al Qaeda's openly hostile condemnation of our policies (since 1998 and before), and we all saw the murder weapon fly into those buildings, with tragic effect until 9/11. Conspiracy theorists wishing to refute the ideas presented in this book must be willing to face the facts as the real experts have relayed them, and if they have a viable alternative that involves a real suspect, a real motive and a real alternative murder weapon, to put that in as concise and compelling terms as possible. This is what conspiracy theorists have not been able to do. If you wish to debunk their hype, or simply begin to become familiar with it, this book is not a bad place to start. . .there is only one error I clearly found on this book. In the color photos following page 42, the pictures of Hani Hanjour and Ziad Jarrah are mixed up. Does this mean the rest of book is wrong? I don't think so.