what are some conspiracy theories that you believe in?

[Sureshot324]

No matter what you'd like to believe, our government isn't a monolithic structure with a single voice. So, yes, if there were ANY reasonable evidence for a conspiracy it would have been investigated by multiple divisions of the government and, in fact it was not, because of conspiracy allegations but because that is the default approach to disasters for offices with overlapping responsibilities. I've spent a lifetime being paranoid and I'm telling you there's no conspiracy. I suggest getting a less destructive hobby like brewing beer.

The government is full of ambitious people with their own political agendas, and crying government conspiracy is almost unilaterally a bad political move. Only a handful of people in the government would need to be in on it and the rest wouldn't question it out of fear of damaging their careers. In fact this could almost be a simple case of insurance fraud without any government involvement, but there are a few factors that would have required some help from within the government. Larry Silverstein purchased the lease for WTC just weeks before 9/11 and put on an insurance policy for terrorist acts. After 9/11, he claimed the attacks constitute two separate attacks and therefore he is entitled to double the insurance money. After multiple appeals he ended up getting about 1.5 times the amount it was insured for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein#Insurance_dispute

Conspiracy theories are hardly my hobby, in fact I don't really believe in nor am I interested in any other ones, but for some reason I find this one fascinating .

 

[waggy]

Two real conspiracies

Planned obsolescence

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bxzU1HFC7Q

Planned Obsolescence is not a conspiracy its a fact. when things last 3-5 years now that used to last 30-40 yearS?

 

[Sonikku]

I believe that America is ruled by the ghost of Obama's dead father, whom he met once when he was ten.

Saw it in a movie.

 

[NoCreativity]

The government is full of ambitious people with their own political agendas, and crying government conspiracy is almost unilaterally a bad political move. Only a handful of people in the government would need to be in on it and the rest wouldn't question it out of fear of damaging their careers. In fact this could almost be a simple case of insurance fraud without any government involvement, but there are a few factors that would have required some help from within the government. Larry Silverstein purchased the lease for WTC just weeks before 9/11 and put on an insurance policy for terrorist acts. After 9/11, he claimed the attacks constitute two separate attacks and therefore he is entitled to double the insurance money. After multiple appeals he ended up getting about 1.5 times the amount it was insured for.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Silverstein#Insurance_dispute

Conspiracy theories are hardly my hobby, in fact I don't really believe in nor am I interested in any other ones, but for some reason I find this one fascinating .

So 9/11 was concocted and carried out in a few weeks for insurance money? While were at it, let's send a missile at the pentagon to throw them off the trail? And for good measure, how about blowing a plane out of the air? Sounds pretty fool proof to me.

 

[Arkaign]

Conspiracies happen billions of time daily, however most of them are benign. You call your buddy, say "hey wanna get coffee", and then you meet and get coffee. That's conspiring.

I'm not sure why people have such a strong reaction to the word. Probably because a certain nutty minority of folks concoct bizarre ones or situations that are spectacularly unprobable and it gives the word a bad name.

In reality any major power's intelligence agencies engage in conspiracy constantly as a function of their designated purpose. And by extension, these operations are kept secret as a necessity. All you really have to do is look at declassified and leaked documents to get a picture of what kind of people these are, and what lengths they are willing to go to :

MKULTRA, Family Jewels, Operation Ajax, Profect Fubelt, etc, etc, etc.

All of these things are documented and vetted. All of these were conspiracies to serve the purposes of the conspirators. All of these were kept secret at the time. It's probable to a VERY high degree that many more conspiracies were succesfully kept secret and never leaked/revealed. It's not just the US either. Polonium poisoning anyone?

As for other things that seem improbable in the "official" stories :

JFK assassination
RFK assassination
Gulf of Tonkin incident

As for things which seem like BS to me :

9/11 planned by US Gov't
Moon landing Hoax
We're in contact with Aliens / Roswell UFO
Elvis is alive
etc

 

[Sureshot324]

So 9/11 was concocted and carried out in a few weeks for insurance money? While were at it, let's send a missile at the pentagon to throw them off the trail? And for good measure, how about blowing a plane out of the air? Sounds pretty fool proof to me.

The last plane was probably meant to hit WTC 7. I don't necessarily believe it was a missle that hit the pentagon, but missle or plane, doing that to throw them off the trail sounds like a perfectly logical thing to do to me.

 

[Number1]

I'd say enough people believe 9/11 was an inside job that you can't call the official explanation "widely accepted".

It is sad to think that this inside job nonsense can gains so many believers. Ideology trumps logic.

 

[Number1]

By who, the government? Yes I'm sure exposing their own conspiracy is high on their todo list. Most of the evidence has been destroyed, so there can't be much of an investigation at this point, though Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, http://www.ae911truth.org, is pushing for a new investigation.

How can you say most of the evidence has been destroyed? We have actual VIDEO of the hijacked planed plowing into the buildings.

 

[Sureshot324]

How can you say most of the evidence has been destroyed? We have actual VIDEO of the hijacked planed plowing into the buildings.

I mean the remains of the buildings. All the steel was immediately shipped to China to be recycled and remain rubble was removed and disposed of. The remains were never tested for explosives.

 

[soulcougher73]

I believe in the 9/11 conspiracies. You do enough research into it and put your emotions of the day aside it makes a lot more sense.

 

[Gibsons]

I believe in the 9/11 conspiracies. You do enough research into it and put your emotions of the day aside it makes a lot more sense.

I can that administration having the chutzpah to try something that crazy.

But the greatest evidence, trumping all others, that it wasn't a conspiracy is that it worked so well.

 

[Printer Bandit]

most 9/11 conspiracy skeptics are atheists. that's a fact.

 

[Sureshot324]

It is sad to think that this inside job nonsense can gains so many believers. Ideology trumps logic.

On the contrary, logic is exactly what brought me to this conclusion. I looked at all the facts and deduced that the official explanation doesn't add up and a controlled demolition is the most likely reality. The fact that thousands of professional architects, engineers, and demolition experts believe it adds significant credibility.

I would say those dismissing it as nonsense are the ones who are more lacking logic, as they generally jump to the conclusion that the conspiracy is preposterous before/if they even look at the facts.

 

[CptObvious]

I believe all major religions were invented by governments as a means of social control.

 

[felang]

So 9/11 was concocted and carried out in a few weeks for insurance money? While were at it, let's send a missile at the pentagon to throw them off the trail? And for good measure, how about blowing a plane out of the air? Sounds pretty fool proof to me.

With you on that one... I never ceases to amaze me how people can believe that 9/11 was some sort of government conspiracy... makes absolutely no sense.

 

[SparkyJJO]

I mean the remains of the buildings. All the steel was immediately shipped to China to be recycled and remain rubble was removed and disposed of. The remains were never tested for explosives.

Even if it did test positive for explosives it wouldn't mean anything. The terrorists could have set explosives in there. They did once before, in the basements to try to bring the towers down years earlier (and failed).

My favorite "proof" the the conspiracy theorists are how the buildings fell straight down, not toppled. Well, duh, that's how they were designed. They were designed to go straight down in the event of structural failure to minimize collateral damage. A tower that size falling sideways...

I believe in the 9/11 conspiracies. You do enough research into it and put your emotions of the day aside it makes a lot more sense.

I find that most people who believe in the 9/11 conspiracies have not set their emotions aside.

 

[AyashiKaibutsu]

I find that most people who believe in the 9/11 conspiracies have not set their emotions aside.

He means into both sides of his brains.

 

[Sureshot324]

Even if it did test positive for explosives it wouldn't mean anything. The terrorists could have set explosives in there. They did once before, in the basements to try to bring the towers down years earlier (and failed).

I would imagine that investigators could tell the difference in the amount of explosives used to demolish a 110 story building vs a few small charges in the basement but hey, I'm no demo export.

My favorite "proof" the the conspiracy theorists are how the buildings fell straight down, not toppled. Well, duh, that's how they were designed. They were designed to go straight down in the event of structural failure to minimize collateral damage. A tower that size falling sideways...

No, buildings are not designed to come straight down like that and I challenge you to find me a link that says otherwise. Buildings are designed to support their weight as efficiently as possible. In controlled demolition, all supports are blown nearly simultaneously so the building, encountering no resistance on the way down, has no reason to go anywhere but straight down. It doesn't need to be designed a certain way for this to happen.

Oh, and high rise buildings do topple over. Do a google image search on building collapse.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Oh here we go

I would imagine that investigators could tell the difference in the amount of explosives used to demolish a 110 story building vs a few small charges in the basement but hey, I'm no demo export.

My point was they could have placed those explosives throughout the building. I only mentioned the basement incident because they had gained access once before as it was.)

No, buildings are not designed to come straight down like that and I challenge you to find me a link that says otherwise. Buildings are designed to support their weight as efficiently as possible. In controlled demolition, all supports are blown nearly simultaneously so the building, encountering no resistance on the way down, has no reason to go anywhere but straight down. It doesn't need to be designed a certain way for this to happen.

Oh, and high rise buildings do topple over. Do a google image search on building collapse.

Did I say that "ALL" buildings are designed to come straight down? Or that "NO" high rises ever topple? No. Doing some more reading however I think I may have been a bit off. The main reason it fell straight down was weight and inertia.

You had a few critical damage points, which it could withstand, but then when the heavily damaged floors collapsed, the outer "box" structure bowed outward, resulting in the floors directly above falling on top of the collapsed floors. That whole mess then slammed downward onto the floor below, well above its limit. It then fails, dropping everything down to the next floor, which then also collapses, etc, resulting in the domino effect that we saw. The only way for it to topple instead of come straight down was to either blow one side of the building completely away and a lot further down to get that sideways motion going. That wasn't going to happen easily, not with the building design. And with the aircraft impacts pretty far up the buildings the chances of it going sideways was next to none. There were no notable lateral forces involved when it started to come down. Simply one floor smashing into the next floor below it.

BTW, the building took about 10 seconds to fall at a final impact speed about about 125 mph. Free fall would have been under 8 seconds at over 180 mph.

Good reading about the structural design of the buildings, its strengths that allowed it to withstand such a massive initial impact, and the physics behind the buildings' collapse.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html

 

[ringtail]

``

 

[Sureshot324]

Oh here we go



My point was they could have placed those explosives throughout the building. I only mentioned the basement incident because they had gained access once before as it was.)





Did I say that "ALL" buildings are designed to come straight down? Or that "NO" high rises ever topple? No. Doing some more reading however I think I may have been a bit off. The main reason it fell straight down was weight and inertia.

You had a few critical damage points, which it could withstand, but then when the heavily damaged floors collapsed, the outer "box" structure bowed outward, resulting in the floors directly above falling on top of the collapsed floors. That whole mess then slammed downward onto the floor below, well above its limit. It then fails, dropping everything down to the next floor, which then also collapses, etc, resulting in the domino effect that we saw. The only way for it to topple instead of come straight down was to either blow one side of the building completely away and a lot further down to get that sideways motion going. That wasn't going to happen easily, not with the building design. And with the aircraft impacts pretty far up the buildings the chances of it going sideways was next to none. There were no notable lateral forces involved when it started to come down. Simply one floor smashing into the next floor below it.

There is simply no way this would have happened in a perfectly uniform way due to the plane. The damage from the impact was all on one side, the fire was on that side, yet the collapse of both buildings was perfectly symmetrical.

BTW, the building took about 10 seconds to fall at a final impact speed about about 125 mph. Free fall would have been under 8 seconds at over 180 mph.

Good reading about the structural design of the buildings, its strengths that allowed it to withstand such a massive initial impact, and the physics behind the buildings' collapse.
http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/jom/0112/eagar/eagar-0112.html

An interesting read. Pretty much all his key points are in the section "The collapse".

"This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h"

The WTC towers were 417m tall. Using an acceleration due to gravity calculator, they would have taken 9.22 seconds to completely collapse, not 8 seconds, never mind the fact that he's clearly rounding to exaggerate his point. I would expect a collapse from a controlled demolition to be slightly slower than a pure free fall.

" First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. "

Well, yes. That's why controlled demolitions are possible.

"Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure. Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down."

Pretty much all of this is proven false by the fact that some high rise buildings do topple over. The laws of physics don't change because the towers were larger than other high rises.

He doesn't address WTC 7 at all.

 

[SparkyJJO]

An interesting read. Pretty much all his key points are in the section "The collapse".

"This started the domino effect that caused the buildings to collapse within ten seconds, hitting bottom with an estimated speed of 200 km per hour. If it had been free fall, with no restraint, the collapse would have only taken eight seconds and would have impacted at 300 km/h"

The WTC towers were 417m tall. Using an acceleration due to gravity calculator, they would have taken 9.22 seconds to completely collapse, not 8 seconds, never mind the fact that he's clearly rounding to exaggerate his point. I would expect a collapse from a controlled demolition to be slightly slower than a pure free fall.

" First, the building is not solid; it is 95 percent air and, hence, can implode onto itself. "

Well, yes. That's why controlled demolitions are possible.

"Second, there is no lateral load, even the impact of a speeding aircraft, which is sufficient to move the center of gravity one hundred feet to the side such that it is not within the base footprint of the structure. Third, given the near free-fall collapse, there was insufficient time for portions to attain significant lateral velocity. To summarize all of these points, a 500,000 t structure has too much inertia to fall in any direction other than nearly straight down."

Pretty much all of this is proven false by the fact that some high rise buildings do topple over. The laws of physics don't change because the towers were larger than other high rises.

Nothing is proven false there. After the upper floors came apart and dropped everything above them on the floors below, it was set in a downward motion. All that mass has a huge moment of inertia, so good luck making go to the side once it started down. Once moving, it isn't going to change direction too easily. There simply was not enough lateral force to make it go anywhere but down.

Also, I'm not going to argue the point. I've learned a long time ago when all the conspiracy nuts came out of the woodwork that no matter how much you argue the physics and bring forward all the details in the world, they'll always argue the point because they have it in their minds that it had to be rigged therefore it can't be the way that the physics dictates and there has to be some other reason behind it.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I'm paranoid as hell. Ringtail, you and Sureshot324 are over the top. I believe in people not pseudo scientific "proof" from folks who are neither architectural structural engineers or familiar with the blueprints of the WTC. Why do I believe in people? Because the sheer number of inspectors, some of whom lost friends and coworkers, would have shouted it to high heaven if anyone tried to hush or spin ANY findings of internal terrorism.

To believe Fire Chiefs would rubber stamp forensic reports that gave ANY hint of internal sabotage where their own men died is ludacris. FBI forensic specialists covering up ANY hint of internal sabotage when some of their own people died is plain crazy.

You might not trust the politicians involved, I don't but, I trust the sheer number of working stiffs who knew what to look for and, didn't find it, screaming to the media about what they found. This economy sucks but, I believe there are enough people like me who aren't so afraid of losing their jobs that they'd let something as big as a conspiracy involving thousands slide by IF there were any truth to it.

 

[Sureshot324]

Nothing is proven false there. After the upper floors came apart and dropped everything above them on the floors below, it was set in a downward motion. All that mass has a huge moment of inertia, so good luck making go to the side once it started down. Once moving, it isn't going to change direction too easily. There simply was not enough lateral force to make it go anywhere but down.

As I said in my edit above, considering both the damage and fire were on one side, there's no way the collapse would be perfectly symmetrical. You seem to be under the impression that this theory of the floors collapsing and the outer columns buckling outward (even though there was no visible outward buckling whatsoever) explains the perfectly symmetrical collapse but it doesn't. They would buckle the most where the damage was the worst.

If by some miracle both buildings did collapse perfectly symmetrically, that's where the free fall speed argument comes into play.

Also, I'm not going to argue the point. I've learned a long time ago when all the conspiracy nuts came out of the woodwork that no matter how much you argue the physics and bring forward all the details in the world, they'll always argue the point because they have it in their minds that it had to be rigged therefore it can't be the way that the physics dictates and there has to be some other reason behind it.

I could say the exact same thing about you. Ignoring all the physics and have it in your head that it can't be a conspiracy so you buy into whatever argument supports that view.

 

[lokiju]

33 Conspiracy Theories That Turned Out To Be True, What Every Person Should Know…

No more Gold in Forth Knox.

[url="http://money.cnn.com/2011/06/24/news/economy/ron_paul_gold_audit/index.htm"]Ron Paul worries Fort Knox gold is gone.[/url]

WTF man! I just wasted a good solid hour reading all of those. Dammit, now I need to go fashion a tinfoil hat so I can go to bed.