The clearer we thought we saw 9/11, the easier we were to fool

You’d have to think it would be just about impossible to deceive the world about a catastrophic event like 9/11 because everything happened in broad daylight in front of thousands of people wouldn’t you?

But maybe it’s just the opposite. Maybe it’s the fact that thousands saw it in person and millions watched it over and over on TV that has made it so easy for us to be fooled. The bigger the lie, the more people will believe it, as Hitler said.

Most of us are desperate to believe what we’re told. We think that if we question everything we see and hear, then we’ll never know what’s real and what’s not. This fact is taken advantage of by those who seek to deceive us. They manipulate us and we let them.

And people who do question are marginalized by being called “conspiracy theorists.” With those fringe people out of the way, the rest of us can remain smug and complacent.

There were thousands of eyewitnesses to the collapse of the World Trade Center and the crash at the Pentagon on Sept. 11. Millions more followed the events on TV. The media led us straight to the official story. They didn’t question and neither did we.


Firefighters described massive explosions in World Trade Center basements.

They talked about explosions and controlled demolition on the morning of 9/11, but once the official story was given to them by the Bush administration, they confined themselves to that.

The only thing ruining our little fantasy is that facts reveal it all to be a lie. Don’t you hate it when the truth ruins a good story?

The same thing goes for eyewitnesses. We just assume they’re telling us what they saw to the best of their ability. But what if some of them had other agendas?

One very celebrated “eyewitness” was an unidentified man who has become known as the “Harley shirt guy.” He was interviewed on Fox News about the collapse of the towers.

"...and then I witnessed both towers collapse, one first then the second, mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense."

No need for an investigation with smart witnesses like this guy. I know bad acting when I see it, and there’s no doubt in my mind that this guy was a plant. Check him out on You Tube, and you may agree.

Who, in the heat of this traumatic event, would say “mostly due to structural failure”? It reminds me of George W. saying that he saw the first plane hit the tower on TV just before going into a Florida classroom for a reading session with some kids. “The TV was obviously on,” he said to explain how he saw the event – on TV. Thanks for clarifying that, George.

When people are giving a truthful account, they don’t say things like that.

Some feel they’ve successfully identified the witness I mentioned as being actor Mark Humphrey. He is best known, at least among Canadians, for his role in the show ENG (appropriately, this stands for Electronic News Gathering), which aired in the early 1990s.

There may be a strong resemblance, but I can say with certainty that the “structural failure” guy is not Mark Humphrey. But even with the interview on video tape, most are not sure. Humphrey has had to account for his whereabouts on that day to prove he’s not part of a conspiracy. He’s not, but I think the other guy may have been.

Is the idea of fake witnesses so far-fetched? If you can consider that the government may have been behind 9/11, why wouldn’t they also plant “witnesses” to reinforce the official story. In fact, they’d be kind of dumb if they didn’t. And they know that anyone who questions whether there were plants on that day is going to be called paranoid and a kook.

In general, the eyewitness accounts on 9/11 have run the gamut. One of the many witnesses who claimed to have seen Flight 77 hit the Pentagon was Steve Anderson, the communications director for USA Today. He said that it was flying so low that it actually hit the ground first, its engines dragging along the ground. Problem is the Pentagon lawn was undamaged. Did this guy imagine it? Who knows, but he was wrong.

It is interesting and suspicious that so many eyewitnesses worked either for the federal government or the mainstream media. Within five minutes of the first tower being hit, all the major networks seemed to have executives of their network describing the scene. They all just happened to be in the area when the plane hit. This is certainly a topic for a future article.

Then there are witnesses whose accounts contradict the official story. For instance, there are witnesses who say they saw an airliner fly over the Pentagon as a huge explosion took place. In fact that would fit well with the fact that the Flight Data Recorder allegedly found in the Pentagon wreckage showed that the plane would have been too high to hit the building. You won’t hear from these witnesses on the networks.

Firefighters and Word Trade Center employees have talked in detail about loud and very destructive explosions in the basements of the towers before they fell. These people made it on to TV on the morning of 9/11 but rarely after that.

Same goes for the testimony of Barry Jennings, the emergency co-ordinator of the City of New York’s housing authority, and Michael Hess, the city’s corporation counsel. Both described being trapped in Building 7 before either tower had fallen. They experienced major explosions in the building that destroyed the lobby. No one has explained these explosions.

Some have talked about seeing airliners hit the buildings, some have said that they looked more like military planes. At the Pentagon, some described airliners, some saw a small commuter plane hit the building. We can’t discount anyone’s account, but neither should we blindly accept what we’re fed.

Yes, it all happened in broad daylight. Yes, the whole world was watching. And yes, it’s a lot easier to imagine foreign enemies attacking us than to believe it’s the very people we trust to protect us.

Perhaps the best place to hide the truth is in plain sight.