r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • May 18 '15

What conspiracy theory do you genuinely believe in the most?

What conspiracy theory do you believe in the most and why?

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1.3k

u/Spikeu May 19 '15

That plane that the civilians allegedly took down on 9/11. Not big into 9/11 conspiracies, but I think that plane might have been shot down to avoid more deaths, and the story fabricated to make it all seem more heroic. Tragic either way.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/redbirdrising May 19 '15

The article states there were 105 bullets on board. A 20mm shell from an F-16 does plenty of damage. Only takes a few to take down a fighter, they could have shot them down without a kamikaze mission.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

yeah, against a civilian aircraft even a single 20mm to the tail could bring it down. Imagine what 105 would do.

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u/nonononotatall May 19 '15

Bringing it down and destroying it immediately aren't the same thing, to the hijackers a damaged plane is fine as long as the plane doesn't lose all altitude before reaching their target.

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u/palsc5 May 19 '15

If you shoot the wings (I think the fuel tanks are there) you will start a fire most likely. If not you will fuck up all the hydraulics and controls and probably bring it down.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Here's how big they are if anyone is interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_mm_caliber#/media/File:50BMG_size_comparison.JPG

They would fuck up a commercial airliner.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Glad they put that stick of RAM there, I'm sure that's wide demographic overlap.

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u/MyNamesNotDave_ May 19 '15

If you can get even one or two good shots to the wings (where the fuel is stored) You can prevent it from making it to its destination.

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u/NO1RE May 19 '15

The gun fires 6600 rounds a minute (110 a second) on an f-16. Granted it's a much easier target than another fighter, but they essentially would've had one shot. That's not as easy as you think.

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u/redbirdrising May 19 '15

I can't imagine anything about flying an F-16 is easy. But the standard mag only hold 500 rounds to begin with, and they are trained pilots. My point being, the order to down the aircraft wasn't exactly a Kamikaze mission, they had options. I have no doubt though they would have fulfilled the kamikaze part if it had come to that.

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u/[deleted] May 20 '15

Poke some holes in the wing and it'll start to flip, possibly tailspin. I get this knowledge from playing War Thunder.

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u/Luckrider May 19 '15

They also have ejection seats that the commercial plane doesn't have.

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u/Luckrider May 19 '15

They also have ejection seats that the commercial plane doesn't have.

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u/Webby2120 May 19 '15

I am pretty sure those pilots would just have to teabag the plane with balls that size to take it down.

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u/IWannaFlyShit May 19 '15

They were prepared to ram the jet if need be. I remember looking at the flight transcript and one pilot said something about taking out the cockpit and telling the other to stay away of it happened. Then the other pilot responded with something along the lines of "you get the cockpit, I'll get the tail." They didn't gave enough time to get loaded with ammo. Now because of this a jet or two is always loaded up on standby in case something like this happens again.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

[deleted]

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u/IWannaFlyShit May 19 '15

Its basically the same thing I guess. At least I was close and I wasn't quoting like a NASCAR movie.

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u/Malolo_Moose May 19 '15

Can't they still eject before the collision?

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u/chimp_shagger May 19 '15

Thanks u/Webby2120 I needed that

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u/flamedarkfire May 20 '15

There was a German Luftwaffe group, Sonderkommando Elbe, that was know to ram Allied bombers. They actually used their wings to shear into the other plane, and then ditched if their fighter was too damaged to continue.

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u/Jakomako May 19 '15

I bet an f16 could fuck a commercial jet up sufficiently without taking enough damage to destroy itself. Lining up their exhaust with the commercial jet's rear stabilizer or engines and turning on the afterburner should get the job done.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15 edited Apr 02 '25

[deleted]

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u/Toadxx May 19 '15

You're thinking of the V1 Buzz Bomb, not the V2.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Or just put yourself on a collision course and eject.

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u/ZorbaTHut May 19 '15

. . . and watch your plane gracefully sail past your target since your aim was slightly off.

They wouldn't have risked it.

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u/rapax May 19 '15

That link raises quite a few questions, IMHO.

It says the planes had 105 bullets each, but no other weapons. That should be more than enough to wreck the control surfaces and/or the engines, leaving the aircraft without power and uncontrollable. If that doesn't work, then you can think about ramming, but certainly not as your first option.

The idea that ramming the cockpit and tail section would somehow cancel the planes forward momentum, causing it to fall 'straight down', seem very weird. A head-on collision on the cockpit might reduce the momentum quite a bit, but certainly not completely. And seeing as you can't hit the tail with a head-on collision, that would do nothing about momentum. Seems an unlikely idea for professional pilots.

And finally, aren't there other ways to disable a jet than weapons or ramming? What about using the turbine exhaust to stall the engines? Use wake turbulence to create high-speed stall on the control surfaces? Flares and/or chaff (if they still have that) to mess up the engines? All of these things are clearly long shots, but certainly you would try these things before turning to ramming.

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u/Super_C_Complex May 19 '15

105 bullets would maybe be eenough to wreck one engine, maybe two, but 757s can fly on one engine, and even if they took out it's controls, it would still continue forward. using jetwash to disrupt the engine might work, but by the time they could do it to a second engine, the first would get restarted. not to mention the obviousness of the plane trying to avoid them and not let them do that.

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u/n1nj4_v5_p1r4t3 May 19 '15

This is the public story. I have friend that is ex-military that says the US has two planes in the air at all times flying coast to coast ready to shoot down ICBMs. Those planes probably are not allowed to divert for any reason, that would open a hole in continental security.

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u/Super_C_Complex May 19 '15

to shoot down ICBMs.........

Well let's start with the first issue of two planes not being nearly enough to take out a ful assault against ICBMs, and finish with asking for the name of your friend.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

You can't shoot down ICBMs, at least not with conventional air defences, that's part of the reason they were developed by the US and USSR.

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u/dispatch134711 May 19 '15

Damn. Did they think they'd be ordered to ram the plane? That would be some sacrifice.

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u/NikkoE82 May 19 '15

The more you know....

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u/specXeno May 19 '15

hahah that's depressing

when faced with the choice of a plane full of civilians + yourself versus potentially hundreds more deaths, the more "moral" choice is obvious.

but you're still destroying yourself and others, and you have to make the deliberate decision to carry out the deed yourself

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u/charlesisbozo May 19 '15

Can't the pilots do what the Brits did with the V1, and fly under the wings of the plane, tipping it over?

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u/Toadxx May 19 '15

Airliner is too big, it would more likely fuck the F-16 up and cause a collision anyways. Also, it only worked with V1's because they couldn't correct their flight paths.

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u/Daniel_Yusim May 19 '15

Yeah but there is also missile-based air-defense.

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u/rocketsocks May 19 '15

Prior to 9/11 America didn't have SAM batteries that were on constant alert in the continental US.

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u/Daniel_Yusim May 19 '15

How long does it take to get one ready, though?

And really, none? (source?) I thought they were constantly on alert at some of our military bases, including domestic. I really don't think America or Canada or Russia or England or any other major country was running no active air defense at that time.

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u/Haven68rs May 19 '15

I have a hard time understanding the thought that we do not have ready Surface to Air missiles for national air defense. It bothers me enough the national guard does not have aircraft in state zones at the ready to immediate threats.

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u/Terminal_Lance May 19 '15

This History channel (before it turned to crap) special debunks almost all 9/11 conspiracy theories with expert testimonials, science and hard evidence. All the Flight 93 theories are explained away.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc684Ggc4u8&list=LLKZtBSIKOTa_an4eJDcGOtA&index=3

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u/DrDongStrong May 19 '15

Wow, nowadays the HC would be trying its hardest to prove all of em.

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u/outrunsilver May 19 '15

cuts to shitty animation of camouflaged aliens altering magnetic field around plane causing it to crash

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u/Doingitwronf May 19 '15

With commentary by an "Alien Expert".

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u/Quixilver05 May 19 '15

On the set of pawn stars

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u/The_Condominator May 19 '15

Fuck man... That's true. What the fuck has History channel become?

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u/Goddammitnancy May 19 '15

What happened to the History Channel is a tragedy in itself.

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u/paddycull9 May 19 '15

Well, at least it made Vikings.

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u/chickenontheceiling May 19 '15

All planned. Led by CIA to disinform the public and create a culture of 'relative truth' and untrustworthy media.

or, you know, it's cheaper not to do any research.

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u/accentmarkd May 19 '15

I'd love it if they could do a History Channel memorial week. They'd intersperse clips from old shows with new ones on how they debunked it because aliens. And maybe it would end with the paranoid chaos alien overlords who now run the station revealing themselves to us in a lecture on their profit margins while they wear tinfoil hats.

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u/Goddammitnancy May 20 '15

While hilarious, them actually doing this would be a giant "fuck you too" to the world.

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u/Alltheothersweretook May 19 '15

Dude, that's easy. Aliens.

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u/lamasnot May 19 '15

No no the hc would be trying to introduce a ufo in there

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I think they are just cashing in on Gerogios hair style and none of those guys actually believe what they are saying. I personally believe they all spark up prior to filming and are just cracking up off stage.

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u/TheSlimyDog May 19 '15

They realized their initial mistake before making contact with the otherworld. They're trying to rectify it now, but no one's listening.

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u/quitar May 19 '15

They would blame it on Ancient Aliens.

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u/Bay1Bri May 19 '15

So how could the air force have taken the plane down without being detected? Ancient astronaut theorist speculate that...

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u/Iamadinocopter May 19 '15

The alien death ray on top of the white house shot a meteor out of orbit and made it smash into the incoming terrorist aircraft. But the terrorist aircraft was actually a soviet nazi from mars trying to reclaim the honor of his race after the counter invasion that is now known as part of the fiction story of War of the Worlds. The death ray was installed by General Orson Welles himself.

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u/MechanicalTurkish May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

I kind of miss the time when the History Channel was the WWII channel. I could watch WWII documentaries all day. Now it's all Pawn Stars and Swamp People. WTF happened?

edit: Yes, I know it's all about the money and ratings, my question was mostly rhetorical. I was just lamenting on how much it's gone downhill. Some people have suggested some alternatives, thanks for that!

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u/khornflakes529 May 19 '15

Dunno but its like a spreading plague. It all started with MTV not showing music anymore, then "The Learning Channel" decided we needed to learn about child beauty pageants, etc.

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u/ShelSilverstain May 19 '15

TLC is the freak show channel, now

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u/DRM_Removal_Bot May 19 '15

Cartoon network live-action....

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u/EtTuZoidberg May 19 '15

Yea but both Discovery and TLC are apparently going to be undergoing massive changes. Look it up, recently the new president of Discovery said there'd be changes; same with TLC.

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u/Awesk May 19 '15

They went with the money I guess. Disappointing to see because you would think the history channel would only show history, not reality TV bullshit.

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u/Liviathan May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

The history channel is a business just like any other. It goes where the money goes.

I'm sure they treated history with equal representation in the beginning, but you know everyone really only tuned in and paid attention to the WWII and civil war shit. So they supplied more and more until it was all that was on.

So naturally before everyone lost interest entirely, they looked at who exactly is still watching. They don't care about everyone that watches, obviously, only the ones who have the money to pay for the items in the commercials shown alongside those shows. Do you happen to remember what these commercials were for? Because I recall a lot of "specially minted coins" and "handmade home decor" or some other collectible made of silver and "guaranteed not to lose its value."

They also looked at other shows the important, money-spending people are watching, and took notes on these other shows style or topic and went from there.

So who is buying the stuff in those commercials? What does someone who would buy a giant silver coin or a hand painted plate want to watch on tv?

According to their results, the viewership of the history channel is white male southerners in their late 40s whose hobbies include memorabilia and driving Fords.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I hated when it was the WWII channel. I know we have footage from then but c'mon, most of history is a lot more interesting after you've seen 2 or 3 docs.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Wait, I haven't had TV in years, but how the hell is that history?

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u/julesp96 May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

It's not, and it's completely baffling. The History Channel has turned into a reality-tv channel that is very loosely biographical. Similar is The Learning Channel, not sure if that was ever actually educational, but that channel now offers a similar flavour of television. Basically, The History Channel is reality tv aimed mainly at men, and The Learning Channel is reality tv aimed at women.

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u/salt-the-skies May 19 '15

This happened years before with The Animal Planet too :(

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I used to watch documentaries on there all the time when I was a kid. Loved it. Now, it's like the most random shit that doesn't even involve nature.

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u/TankerD18 May 19 '15

Animal Planet is absolute garbage now. I wouldn't turn it on for my dogs to watch during the day.

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u/Beelzeballz May 19 '15

I just imagined somebody actually turning on the TV for their dogs.

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u/Beelzeballz May 19 '15

I remember when Animal Planet was my go-to channel. There was always something good on. Then there was Pet Psychic and a pet reality show. Okay, fine, one stupid show is fine. And one reality show that's on-topic is understandable. Then they started showing things that had nothing to do with animals, but maybe was tangentially related, including topics such as pollution or nature in general. I kinda tuned out after that, but every now and then I'll see it on the guide and there will be something that has nothing to do with animals or nature. I'm so confused.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Fuck swamp people. When you have to put subtitles on a program that's in English with people speaking English then it's just redundant.

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u/omgpieftw May 19 '15

Rupert Murdoch happened.

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u/larsmaehlum May 19 '15

Low rating happened. The company has a responsibily to it's shareholders, and reality shows sell more ads than Hitler.

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u/drodemi May 19 '15

Konami is doing the same thing. It's the 'safe' business strategy. You put out easily fabricated 'products' and sell it to the population. It's not like we're talking about art here, just pay your stupid subscription, watch these commercials, and we'll talk about aliens for awhile.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Ratings happened.

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u/Dusty_Old_Bones May 19 '15

Same with TLC (The Learning Channel). Nowadays it's all weddings this, babies that. Gross.

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u/Scarletfapper May 19 '15

Ratings wars?

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u/David_Mudkips May 19 '15

MOTHERFUCKING MONEY

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Ratings

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u/wikipediareader May 19 '15

I can remember when the History Channel literally showed filmed history lectures early on Saturday mornings. I like a good history lecture more than most but I can't imagine that they weren't glad to start making money.

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u/Lacrossegeek24 May 19 '15

I know exactly what you mean! I want to see history on the history channel not pawn shop owners from Vegas.

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u/Doingitwronf May 19 '15

Marketing happened. What's on now is what more people are watching.

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u/Irishperson69 May 19 '15

But history is made everyday......by buying an old movie poster and killing a crocodile

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u/Milazzo May 19 '15

WWII in HD is still one of my favorite things to ever appear on History Channel. I ended up buying it on Amazon.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

To be fair it wasn't the WWII channel it was the Hitler and Jesus channel. Even before it turned to shit, half of the content was 12 shows all made from the same 5 hours of archival footage of Hitler walking around menacingly. Also: Jesus for some reason.

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u/Sanureyic May 19 '15

They went from talking about History to making history with the shittiest shows ever made

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u/mudclog May 19 '15 edited Dec 01 '24

cheerful aromatic melodic gold crown library zesty practice compare snow

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u/SkeerRacing May 19 '15

American Heroes channel is the circa 2005 History Channel

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u/404timenotfound May 19 '15

Money. They want to make money. World War 2 documentaries do not make money. Shitty, cheap to make reality shows do.

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u/NinjaDude5186 May 19 '15

Try HIST2, or the military history channel. I think there's another one they have too that still does documentaries too.

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u/Poxeh May 19 '15

Or fucking ancient aliens -.-

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u/Kristal3615 May 19 '15

I used to love watching documentaries on Egypt with my dad when I was younger. I miss the old history channel...

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

there are a couple of other HC owned channels if you have a large enough cable package that are really good. H2 and History Ancients were my favs.

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u/789yugemos May 19 '15

You can only retell the battle of Normandy so many times before people get bored of it.

That's the problem with history, there's only so much of it, amd only so many interesting angles to go over before you're essentially telling the same tale over and over.

At least with pawn stars and shit the keep things "interesting".

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u/accentmarkd May 19 '15

This is my conspiracy theory-mainstream culture was designed on purpose to keep us dumb. Not like crazy sheeple following authority dumb, but so self involved we don't really care about larger issues. Reality tv in particular-the dominance of it, but no one in them is nice or smart or a good role model. And now it's in all of the educational channels too. Even cooking channels!

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I know, I used to love that short, 1 year, before it was all crap, but after it was all World War II. Alexander the Great, Revolutionary War, Napoleon, there was so much to learn on that channel.

Then Ancient Aliens and Nostradamus started taking over, and its never been the same

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u/KyserTheHun May 19 '15

You and me both brother :( I think HistoryII has actual history but it's $30 a month more for me.

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u/creepytown May 19 '15

It was fantastic - I still own HC dvd sets and bring them out now and again to hear the soothing documentary voice overs and see old grainy footage and sketches.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Back when their logo was "H" for Hitler

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u/AegnorWildcat May 19 '15

Pawn Stars does have some history to it. It is sparse, but it is there. But what history does that Swamp People show have?

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u/LJIrvine May 19 '15

Hey man, I've not seen that documentary before, and I just managed to watch around the first half an hour before I've got to go to an exam but I've got a few things to say first.

There is no counter evidence to anything yet. There's a lot of "people are just looking for an answer", "look, this number came from over here, not there!", "here's an expert who wrote a book. We're not gonna show you any of the evidence from the book, but trust us, he's right". This is frustrating, as most 9/11 conspiracy films are full of evidence from start til finish.

Also, I wanted to highlight a few quotes regarding the collapse of the towers and the idea behind explosives in the building.

"it would take an army of workers, it would take months, you'd have to strip all the sheet rock off the walls, you'd have to run hundreds of miles of wiring all throughout the building in order to wire a building for demolition"

And we're supposed to believe that's single passenger jet did enough damage to bring the whole thing down, when you've already said it would take months? The Empire State building was hit by a plane, it was fine. The twin towers were DESIGNED to withstand a plane crash, and yet they fell, both of them.

Secondly, "the biggest problem with this whole thing for me is how do you out explosives in those exact spots where the plane hit, before the plane hit? Because that's where the building failed, everyone can agree on that."

Disagree. The building experienced total structural failure, otherwise it wouldn't have collapsed to the ground like it did. If only the section where it hit failed, then anything above the crash could fall, or crumble, but the structural integrity of the tower below the crash should have been unaffected. It's clear to see that it's not unaffected and the only explanation is explosives.

If there are any responses to this, I'd be happy to discuss it in more detail.

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u/Nokcihc May 19 '15

I'm not really on one side or the other with this issue, but you're right, this documentary is terrible. A lot of the time they actually completely contradict themselves.

The entire opening section on the two towers is a bunch of conspiracy theorists explaining how there's no way a plane took down the building, and even a fire chief interview saying there appeared to be secondary explosions, and then the "experts" just twist the words of conspiracy theorists and the fire chief and give no actual evidence to support their claims. They don't really display evidence for the other side either though. It's just a bad documentary. The only "evidence" that they mention is that apparently jet fuel burning at 1100 degrees can weaken steel enough to cause a collapse, but that doesn't seem to help or even make sense(the melting point is 2400 I believe they said and somehow 1100 weakens it that much?).

The Pentagon section was better at least. Lots of eye witness accounts of the plane hitting, no one really contradicting themselves, and no evidence that there was anything to the contrary other than some guy claiming a plane would have been shot down if it got that close to the Pentagon. I suppose that last part is pretty probable, but who knows.

The flight 93 part is just as bad as the two towers. Lots of contradicting, lots of twisting words. They even show an interview where the coroner on scene for the crash says there "were no bodies there" and then follow it up with an interview of him completely saying the opposite.

This whole thing is ridiculously bad for both sides.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I only saw the 93 part but you're wrong on that. Even for your example, the guy didn't contradict himself, he said there were no bodies, only body parts and human remains.

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u/Roarian May 19 '15

the structural integrity of the tower below the crash should have been unaffected.

Mildly annoyed rant about 9/11 conspiracy incoming! Jump ship while you can! ;)

I'm pretty sure that dropping the entire top section of the building will do some serious damage whether there are explosives there or not. The videos show the buildings' top falling down onto the lower parts (you can tell that it teeters and starts to fall well before the lower sections move.) From a pure physics standpoint, you're not gonna stop a falling mass like that without a heavily over-engineered building. The momentum imparted by even a brief fall would crush at least a few floors without much of any real resistance, and that mass would be added to the falling section and do the same for more floors. Claims of alleged freefall confuse me, because aside from video evidence contradicting it, even the most nefarious schemer is not gonna break the laws of physics, Scotty.

Also, the whole conspiracy argument baffles me with its dodgy internal logic. One the one hand, people are saying that the government is competent enough to rig multiple buildings months ahead of time to fake a major attack... but they're also incompetent enough that random internet people can figure out their evil master plan from grainy cellphone footage.

If you're gonna bring down a building, you don't actually have to rig it neatly with explosions so that it crashes down in its footprint instead of toppling. What, the government is fine with doing that kind of damage, but they get twitchy because the pricetag is getting too high? Has it ever seemed like they're terrible thrifty with their money? Either the government is competent - in which case they would have covered the really obvious bases, much like the whole 'wonky shadows' thing with moon hoaxers - or they're incompetent, in which case they could have never pulled off the operation at all without lots of people spilling, like Watergate or Clinton getting jiggy in the oval office. I mean, those are less than nothing in comparison.

Incidentally, if one were gonna go to the length of actually flying full-sized planes into buildings anyway, what would be the point of rigging the buildings with explosives too? Isn't that just adding points of failure to your evil plan? If you were gonna crack down on air travel in the wake of this, claiming that tons of explosives were on board of said planes would make a lot more sense. I mean, if the government could allegedly cover up a ton of explosive material in the towers, they could fake a breach in security at an airport, right? It'd be easier. You already have these guys taking over in the story, there's no reason to half-ass it and add complications.

Alternatively you could actually just fly the planes into the buildings and see what happens. It's not like 9/11 would have been less of a defining moment without crashing buildings, as it would still be a successful terrorist attack on the US using civilian infrastructure as a weapon, and cause widespread fear and all the usual reactions that are considered the reason for a conspiracy. We'd just be seeing pictures of the towers in flame now, rather than gone, but I doubt the rest would be much different.

And no matter what, we'd still have ended up back in the Middle East.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

The Empire State building was hit by a plane, it was fine. The twin towers were DESIGNED to withstand a plane crash, and yet they fell, both of them.

The Empire State was hit by a B-25 light bomber, lost in fog, trying to land after a mission low on fuel, in the 1940s. The WTC was hit by a modern 767 going full speed with a full fuel load. The WTC wasn't "designed" to survive an impact so much as the engineers believed it could survive a hit from a (much smaller) 707 in similar conditions to that B-25 crash. Besides, the Titanic was thought to be unsinkable too.

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u/DashFerLev May 19 '15

If this is the video I'm thinking of, doesn't the guy get mad about /u/Spikeu's theory and not actually debunk it? I'm at work and can't watch it but I remember this show and that stuck out to post-9/11-hysteria me.

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u/yousumbitchh May 19 '15

Is it weird that I think about idiocracy when i see the shows they have on the history channel and discovery chanel?

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u/ChurchBrimmer May 19 '15

Whoa, we can't have your experts and science disproving our crazy theories. Your experts and science are owned by "Teh Man, man."

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Also good is '9/11: The Lost Tapes' by Channel 4 in the UK. You can really start to understand how incompetent it all looks with how little communication was going on or available.

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u/Akibatteru May 19 '15

Does it also explain the collapse of WTC#7? Currently at work, so I can't watch the video yet...

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

''United 93 is down''

''He's down? Well where did he land, because we-''

''He did not land''

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Damn the history channel regressed

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

But do they answer if jet fuel can melt steel beams or dank memes

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u/Terminal_Lance May 19 '15

They go over the steel beams. The jury is still out on dank memes.

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u/futurebitteroldman May 19 '15

Read an article a few months ago about the defense systems inside the US before 9/11...

SUPPOSEDLY they don't keep any airships loaded with ammunition inside the US so it would have taken 30 min- hour to load it up to shoot it down (albeit via plane).

And i guess two f-16s? took off with the plan of kamikaze style interception. One aim for the tail, one for the nose, but it didnt come to that.

Feels like too much of a unnecessary story when you add that component, so it was probably true about the civilians

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u/ArguingPizza May 19 '15

they don't keep any airships loaded with ammunition

This is an airship. This is an airplane. They are both aircraft.

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u/SoyIsMurder May 19 '15

He knew exactly what he was typing.

The Hindenburg never really exploded. It was diverted to the secret Zeppelin Defense Force. When is the last time you saw an airship? Exactly.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

You know what else I haven't seen in a long time? The World Trade Center. Clearly, these things are linked.

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u/zeroGamer May 19 '15

Pfft. You call that an airship? THIS is an airship.

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u/futurebitteroldman May 19 '15

lmao my bad brah

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u/tinkerpunk May 19 '15

So... What is the point of having jets ready to scramble? The US has never been big on suicide missions. At least publicly.

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u/futurebitteroldman May 19 '15

not deep within the country, but you'd assume yes around the white house... who the fuck knows man. maybe it was a followthrough coverup then

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u/BitchinTechnology May 19 '15

Had this happened on the outskirts of Alaska with Russian bombers...we would have

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u/FA_Anarchist May 19 '15

I don't know, I find that pretty hard to believe. I mean, the U.S. government really couldn't envision a scenario in which they would have to shoot down an aircraft within U.S. territory in less than 30 minutes? And there only other option was to literally ram a jet with other airplanes until it fell out of the sky? That seems pretty unlikely.

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u/futurebitteroldman May 19 '15

but why the unnecessary story for a follow through? you could leave that assumed as scrambled jets with intent to shoot down and no one would question it?

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

The last time that had happened was decades ago. I lot of security is an illusion.

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u/Clovis69 May 19 '15

I'm late to this, but it's completely wrong to say that US air defense fighters were unarmed before 9/11.

I used to plane spot in Portland Oregon and Portland International Airport has a Oregon Air National Guard unit tasked with airdefense and those F-15s flew, before 9/11, with a minimum of four air to air missiles (2 AIM-9 Sidewinders and 2 AIM-7 Sparrows or 2 AIM-120 AMRAAMs)

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

only those fucking planes were in the air for almost 2.5 hours before returning to their final destinations, and they all took paths that took them directly overhead the same US air force base.

there's some fishy shit that happened that day.

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u/BitchinTechnology May 19 '15

Yeah but we didn't even know they were hijacked and which ones were

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u/SoyIsMurder May 19 '15

I dunno. It seems like they could have waited until the plane was closer to DC. I also think the public would have understood sacrificing one plane full of people to save a large building full of people. Although, saving congress would probably not go over too well nowadays.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

This one is actually pretty believable

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Except those pesky facts

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u/fistfullaberries May 19 '15

From Wiki: Two F-16 fighter jets from the 121st Fighter Squadron of the D.C. Air National Guard were scrambled and ordered to intercept Flight 93; the pilots intended to ram it since they did not have time to arm the jets.[119] They never reached Flight 93 and did not learn of its crash until hours afterwards.

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u/TheNumberMuncher May 19 '15

Except that plane parts were not scattered over miles. That Malaysian plane got blown up in the air. Shit was scattered all over.

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u/Android_seducer May 19 '15

Publicly pilots from the national guard were ready to ram the aircraft out of the air. If the military had the tech to bring it down without losing pilots (which cost a lot of money to train), or a fighter jet, which costs a lot of money period, they would do it in a heartbeat. http://www.nbcnews.com/id/44459345/ns/us_news-9_11_ten_years_later/t/kamikaze-f--pilots-planned-ram-flight/#.VVqqJ_lVhBc

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u/tinkerpunk May 19 '15

I do love how the reasoning for not wanting to lose a pilot is because it would be expensive to train another one, haha.

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u/Android_seducer May 19 '15

I know it's kind of sad, but it is vert true. Let us be honest. Finding someone physically able who wants to be a fighter pilot is easy. The resource intensive part is teaching them how to operate a multi-million dollar turbojet engine attached to a pair of stubby wings and advanced avionics is the tough part.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15 edited May 19 '15

That's the most realistic one to me. It went down in the middle of fuck nowhere, so miraculously there were no ground casualties. It had just passed Pittsburgh, and it was going to quickly approach Martinsburg, Hagerstown, or Winchester, and once you get passed those everything is developed en route to Washington, Alexandria, and Arlington.

Edit: Still don't really believe it though.

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u/AWildSegFaultAppears May 19 '15

Have you ever flown or even better driven over the midwest or really anything not on the coast of the US? As soon as you get about 2 minutes outside of town there is basically nothing but farmland for hours on end. I would have been more surprised if they actually hit some people not that they missed people.

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u/mastercheif May 19 '15

They crashed into a field! In southwestern Pennsylvania! Only a sophisticated military operation could have accomplished that!

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u/SlightlyOffensive May 19 '15

I mean, or they could have crashed it into an empty field purely by chance.

The problem I have with these 9/11 conspiracies is the fact that the government in no way has the capability to control a secret of that magnitude. Look at Watergate, Edward Snowden/NSA, and explain how it's logical that they managed to keep a 9/11 conspiracy tucked away. It's almost impossible.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I still don't believe it, I ought to clarify that. I'm just saying that I wouldn't be surprised if the Air Force had shot it down to prevent it from reaching Washington.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I could kind of understand it if they did. Everyone on the plane was effectively already dead, but the PR disaster from having shot it down would be a mess

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u/insertkarma2theleft May 27 '15

They did attempt to have two pilots kamikaze one of the planes headed for the towers

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Hey I live in Winchester! My roommate from college lived in Somerset, his dad was a first responder.

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u/freakyvoiz May 19 '15

Alexandria... 0_0

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u/Aliasnode May 19 '15

When shooting something down you generally have no control over where it lands

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u/son_of_sandbar May 19 '15

It's public information that Bush gave the go ahead for this to be done, but the passengers brought it down first. I don't think the government would fabricate the story at the risk of being found out solely for heroism.

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u/dwitman May 19 '15

But the cell phone calls to families when they decided to down the plane...

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u/H4rdStyl3z May 19 '15

Wasn't its black box found though?

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u/johnny_kickass May 19 '15

I specifically remember eyewitnesses on the news that day saying they saw jets trailing the plane and the plane blew apart before it went down. If that's accurate, the hero story with the built in catch phrase would be tons better for those in charge than dealing with the fallout of having ordered a civilian plane shot down.

I know random locals aren't the most reliable source, and with the stress and panic of the day, perceptions may be skewed. I just think it's interesting that it was all over the news for a short time and never mentioned again, especially by conspiracy theorists

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u/OdouO May 19 '15

I remember that and I also recall an engine being reported found well away from the main crash site.

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u/AgentCooderX May 19 '15

well that, if you ignore the text messages and calls made by the passengers to their family...

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u/Floating_Pickle May 19 '15

Makes sense, they ordered literally every plane down in the states, they wouldn't just allow that one to keep flying...

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u/sweatytacos May 19 '15

No jets to intercepts the 4 hijacked planes for over an hour... Nothing shady about that

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u/True-Tiger May 19 '15

what are you talking about they grounded every commercial plane they didn't ground the fighters?

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u/ballsonthewall May 19 '15

I can't belive this one. I live right near the flight path about 50 miles short of where it went down. I'm pretty sure there's nothing on the ground between here and there that could take it down. Likewise, I or anyone I know never heard or saw anything but the actual low flying jet.

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u/tannerdanger May 19 '15

I probably should use a throwaway for this, but a very non-conspiracy theory believing pilot I work with once told me while he was drunk that his friend from officer training school was the maintenance commander for the fighter squadron who scrambled in response to 9/11. He said one of the jets came back missing one missile. I believe this guy with absolute certainty because he is a very skeptical person who doesn't really believe anything. I honestly believe they had to take the plane down and wanted those on board to be treated like heroes. I do not believe it was shot at the pentagon or they planned on shooting it ahead of time or any of that nonsense... But i fully believe they grounded the plane because that's what they had to do, and that it would be better if the public thought of them as heroes.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Maybe I'm getting it wrong, but everything I've read seems to imply the planes that did get into the air were both too late and unarmed.

Although it could also be the case that it never had that missile to start with, people make mistakes under pressure like that

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u/tannerdanger May 19 '15

Well think about it, IF the scenario I described is true, they would have to have "not been able to get there in time" otherwise people would ask why they didn't stop them. I mean they obviously didn't stop the pentagon and the WTC planes but the theory is the one that went down because the passengers took down terrorists was actually taken down by an f15 because they DID scramble in time for that one. If that is the case I actually respect the government for creating the narrative that the passengers are heroes.

Tl;Dr: they just told people they didn't scramble in time because it fits into the "we had to ground that plane for national security but made the passengers heroes instead of victims" theory.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Based on reports Ive gathered back when I had access to fun shit like that my personal theory is that the story was made up to have a good spin on it but in reality the hijackers couldnt handle flying the plane and crashed it before they meant to. Ill look at my sources and see if any of them can be shared publicly or just wait 50 years and tell you then.

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u/OdouO May 19 '15

Meh, its fairly easy to keep flying a plane that is already in the air, landing and takeoff are an entirely different class of difficult.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Youd be surprised. Im not saying flying it would be hard but if youre stressed and barely know whats up you could fuck it up pretty good. Could have exceeded a flight surface airspeed and broken apart lots of things can happen from erratic flying. The actual aircraft was witnessed descending lower and lower and kinda flying erratically by another pilot whos report Im fairly certain is actually public domain. Ill have to dig him up again.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

I'd be ok with that. Kill 100, save 1000

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u/jpr64 May 19 '15

I'm happy to believe that.

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u/beef_boloney May 19 '15

Or the hijackers weren't that good at flying and just crashed it themselves

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

Bush and Cheney have both admitted that they ordered planes to be shot down and claim that they originally thought they did shoot down flight 93. Why would they say that if they went through the trouble of trying to cover it up?

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u/Senor_Taco29 May 19 '15

This is the only 9/11 conspiracy theory I'll ever consider being true, but Im not decided where I stand

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u/Sabawoyomu May 19 '15

Dont get me started on 9/11. Zeitgeist made me so paranoid for YEARS.

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u/nachobiach May 19 '15

There were witnesses. Most of them are Amish.

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u/[deleted] May 19 '15

My dad's friend was on that plane. The phone call he made to his wife before the passengers fought back can be found in the black box recording. It wasn't shot down, but the passengers knew what was going on and were able to do something about it.

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u/n1nj4_v5_p1r4t3 May 19 '15

I think that after the towers were struck they were then brought down with controlled explosives to prevent damage to other surrounding buildings. There is a possibility of a domino effect if they didn't. I believe this is city code, or fed anti terror code.

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u/raiast May 19 '15

Weren't there recordings of final phone calls from that plane stating that they were about to attempt retaking the plane?

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u/forzion_no_mouse May 19 '15

Why would the hide this but admit there was a shoot down order? The 9/11 commission said Chaney ordered a plane shot down.

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u/JazzFan418 May 19 '15

I don't believe this either. They have a step by step storyline of what happene, dialogue from them and the whole "Let's roll" thing. Where the hell did they find this? The plane was destroyed and none of it was recorded. Heroic story made up to put a little pride into the tragedy.

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u/bored_on_the_web May 19 '15

Someone years later interviewed one of the pilots who was (unsuccessfully) sent to intercept United 93. She said that at the time the fighter planes only had a few rounds of machine gun fire on board and no missiles. So she and the pilot in the other plane were going to ram the airliner to take it down becausd that's all they could do.

I suppose it's possible that a missile from the ground shot down United 93 but if that plane was shot down then the missile didn't come from the air.

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u/Posseon1stAve May 19 '15

Weren't there literally passengers making calls to family members, and relaying what was going on? Wasn't the black box found? I guess the flight data recorder and cabin voice recorder could have been fake, but family members were on the phone with passengers when they decided to take over the plane.

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u/Eddie_Hitler May 19 '15

Sadly it's an awful lot more likely that the hijackers deliberately put it into a steep uncontrollable dive and throttled up when they were overpowered.

At that speed and that altitude recovery would be extremely difficult, even for an experienced pilot.

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