Is science being used to reveal the truth about 9/11 or to help conceal it?

By Craig McKee (http://truthandshadows.wordpress.com)

Sometimes it seems like it takes more energy to understand the 9/11 Truth movement than it does to understand 9/11.

While you often see contentious and aggressive debates on line between truthers and those who support the official story, you’re just as likely to get such exchanges between two people who claim to believe 9/11 was an inside job.

Understandably, science is often touted by truthers and official-story-believers alike as being essential to evaluating 9/11 evidence. And this makes perfect sense. Why should we accept someone’s gut feeling when we can quantify something?

Looking at melting points, collapse times, and jet fighter velocities are what’s going to dazzle the millions of regular people who are just waiting to hear the latest 9/11 research. Right? We wouldn’t want to say anything that can’t be verified scientifically, would we? We mustn’t question any word out of a witness’s mouth unless it’s to apply a mathematical formula to it.

There are many people in the 9/11 Truth movement who possess real scientific knowledge that is vital in trying to find the truth. Their knowledge of physics and chemistry far exceeds my own. My training and experience are not in the field of engineering but rather in the field of journalism.

As a journalist, I have had to cover stories on a wide variety of topics. It was my job to learn enough to ask the right questions and then to try and put all I’d learned into some kind of perspective. I was used to dealing with people who had agendas, and who weren’t always telling me the truth. Gut feelings were actually pretty important. Of course, I couldn’t base an article just on a feeling, but I could pursue a line of inquiry based on a feeling that the truth was being hidden.

If you don’t have any instincts about what you’re being fed by people who claim they have the truth, you’re toast.  No journalist can function without some ability to assess what they’ve learned and to help their readers to understand it.

Then we come to 9/11.

I began this blog very conscious of wanting to help people who weren’t experts on the subject to better understand what happened. If possible, I wanted to open their eyes to what I’d come to believe. I also wanted to be able to advance the story even for those who have followed the research for years. This is a work in progress; I’m learning something new every day.

I’ve come to suspect, however, that most of the people who read this already know what they think. But that’s okay; writing for them gives me a challenge. I know that anything I say that is incorrect will be pointed out immediately. Kind of exciting, actually.

But if you accept what a lot of people say on web sites and forums about 9/11, you’d think that you’d better be a scientist or else you should pack up and go home. I really think this is wrong. I think we need the scientists as well as the people who can look at the big picture – maybe even provide some political analysis.

Barrie Zwicker’s book Towers of Deception is a great example of a piece of work that may not break any new scientific ground, but which provides an analysis that advanced my understanding of the mechanisms behind 9/11 significantly. You don’t need a computer to understand what he’s saying, you need an open mind.

This idea that if we say anything controversial about what happened on Sept. 11 we’re making the movement look ridiculous is way overstated if not completely wrong. Some people believe God lives in a spaceship. Does that make your local minister, priest or rabbi look like a fool?

Sometimes science is used in 9/11 Truth discussions disingenuously to block debate about events when common sense is what’s needed.

One of the elements of the official story of the alleged Pentagon plane impact is the propelling of a light pole into the windshield of Lloyde England’s cab after the pole was supposedly struck by Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that is supposed to have gone on to hit the Pentagon.

On the 9/11 forum 911oz.net, I had an exchange with someone about the believability of England’s story, which doesn’t seem to have been witnessed by anyone (witnesses are vital when they support your side of the story, but not so important when there aren’t any).

Was I at the Pentagon that day? Nope. Do I have video tape showing what happened to the cab that day? Nope. Do I think that pole went through that windshield? Not a freaking chance.

Can I explain why it’s impossible that way a physics professor would? Maybe not, yet. I may not fully understand why gravity works the way it does, but I know I’m not going to float away anytime soon. And after watching Mr. England interview in the film Eye of the Storm by Citizen Investigation Team, I don’t think he’s telling us the whole truth.

I don’t think Mike Walter is telling us the whole truth, and I don’t for a second believe the 757’s wings “folded in” and followed the rest of the plane into the Pentagon. The idea that the plane hit the building is absolutely ridiculous based on the available information. If I’m wrong, let’s see those video tapes.

I think there’s something very fishy about Theresa Renaud, wife of a CBS producer, saying to Bryant Gumbel on 9/11 that she didn’t know if anything hit the North Tower and then seconds later saying that another plane hit another tower. Do I need a lie detector test before I can be suspicious?

I’m not saying verifiable proof isn’t the best confirmation of something, I’m saying it shouldn’t be used to block discussion and exploration of what happened. To say the Truth movement should ignore the Pentagon because we don’t know what happened is nuts in my book.

Some contributors to 911 forums demand scientific proof when it helps them to deflect attention from a valid question. Then, when it suits them, they tell us what they THINK. Double standards abound.

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I know I said last week I would write about the David Chandler and Jonathan Cole attack on CIT, but my schedule just didn’t allow me to give this the time that it deserves, especially in light of the statement by architect Richard Gage that he no longer supports CIT’s research. I’ll try to address both in my next post. Promise.