September 11, 2001. Islamist terrorists affiliated with al-Qaeda flew two hijacked planes into the World Trade Center. Michael Foran/CCA 2.0 /CroppedAccording to the official account and media narrative, on September 11, 2001, 19 al-Qaeda hijackers took control of four commercial airliners. American Airlines Flight 11 struck the North Tower of the World Trade Center at 8:46 a.m., followed by United Airlines Flight 175 striking the South Tower at 9:03 a.m. Both towers collapsed within two hours.American Airlines Flight 77 struck the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. United Airlines Flight 93, believed to have been headed for a target in Washington, D.C., crashed in a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, at 10:03 a.m. after passengers attempted to retake control of the aircraft. The attacks killed 2,977 people.Al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, claimed responsibility.However, conspiracy theorists have offered other explanations, including claims that no planes struck the towers and that hologram projectors created the illusion of aircraft striking them. They also claim that the towers were brought down by controlled demolitions.This article will examine all three theories to determine which makes the most sense.The first problem with the hologram-projector theory is that no such technology exists. Even today, 3-D movies rely on the same basic technique used 70 years ago, requiring the audience to wear glasses. Even then, the image is not truly three-dimensional. Regardless of where viewers sit in the theater, they see the same image. For that image to be visible, it must be projected onto a stationary screen by a stationary projector. It would be impossible to project a holographic image into the sky that mimics an airplane flying toward a building.A projected image, holographic or otherwise, consists of light and has no mass. It cannot shatter glass, sever steel columns, or ignite a fuel fire, all of which occurred at the points of impact on both towers. Investigators recovered physical wreckage matching Boeing 767 components, including a wing section later confirmed by a Boeing technician. Radar tracked each aircraft until impact, while cockpit and cabin phone calls from crew members and passengers described the hijackings in real time. Medical examiners also used DNA testing to identify victims at the crash sites. None of this would have been possible without real aircraft and human remains.The hologram theory is sometimes linked to the controlled-demolition theory, although some versions claim that the demolition was timed to follow real planes striking the towers. This raises a logical problem: If two planes actually struck the buildings, there would have been no need for a controlled demolition.The towers collapsed after the impacts released about 20,000 gallons of jet fuel, which burns at temperatures between 800 and 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit, igniting fires throughout the buildings. Many victims died from fire and smoke long before the heat weakened the structures enough for them to collapse. If a theorist accepts that the planes struck the towers and caused these fires, there is no reason to introduce a controlled demolition. The fire and smoke billowing from the buildings support claims that intense fires followed the impacts.The controlled-demolition theory is presumably based partly on the fact that steel does not melt at temperatures between 800 and 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit. While that is true, steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1,100 degrees Fahrenheit and about 90 percent at 1,800 degrees. This loss of strength, not melting, is the mechanism identified by NIST. Heated floor trusses sagged and pulled the perimeter columns inward until they buckled, triggering a progressive collapse.One of the main pieces of evidence cited by the controlled-demolition crowd is that the towers collapsed into their footprints, similar to how a city demolishes unwanted buildings. However, this is not accurate. Debris from the collapses damaged or destroyed more than a dozen surrounding buildings. Four other structures in the World Trade Center complex were immediately crushed or destroyed, a nearby church was completely destroyed, and 7 World Trade Center, which was not struck by an aircraft, caught fire from falling debris and collapsed roughly seven hours later.FEMA’s assessment states that 10 major buildings experienced partial or total collapse and that debris clouds fell onto and blew into surrounding structures across the complex. The debris field extended well beyond the towers’ footprints. This is the opposite of what a footprint-contained collapse would look like.Another problem with the controlled-demolition theory is that demolishing a steel high-rise requires cutting hundreds of structural columns and rigging them with explosive charges timed to detonate in sequence. This work requires months of direct access to the building’s core and multiple floors.The largest steel-frame building ever brought down by controlled demolition in the United States was the J.L. Hudson Department Store in Detroit, Michigan, which was imploded on October 24, 1998. The 25-story building stood 439 feet tall and covered 2.2 million square feet, making it a fraction of the size of a single World Trade Center tower.Preparing the building for demolition took seven months. A 21-person crew spent three months surveying the structure, followed by four months of engineering design by Controlled Demolition, Inc. A separate 12-person loading crew then spent 24 days placing 4,118 explosive charges at 1,100 locations across nine levels. The charges were connected by 36,000 feet of detonating cord and 4,512 delay elements.The demolition used 2,728 pounds of explosives and left approximately 200,000 tons of concrete and hardfill material in a debris pile standing 35 to 60 feet tall.A project the size of the WTC would have been nearly impossible to keep secret. It would have required a crew of hundreds, with trucks moving in and out of Lower Manhattan to carry away steel and concrete and deliver explosives. The buildings had extensive security and surveillance cameras. Everyone from elevator operators and security guards to parking attendants would have had to participate in the conspiracy or fail to notice the work.Steel and concrete would have had to be removed not only from the lower floors but from floors throughout the buildings, requiring extensive use of the elevators. None of the thousands of employees working for companies in the buildings reported seeing crews cutting steel and concrete or moving explosives. No related construction noise or explosions were reported. Months of heavy truck traffic would also have disrupted Lower Manhattan, yet no complaints or reports document such activity.Video and photographic evidence, along with computer simulations, showed that neither explosives nor fuel-oil fires played a role and that the heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail. Controlled demolitions produce a distinct pattern of nearly simultaneous, high-decibel explosions as charges detonate within milliseconds of one another. Buildings demolished this way collapse from the base within seconds.The towers instead began collapsing at the points of impact and fire damage, while WTC 7 collapsed after burning for hours. No audio or video recording from that day captured the explosion pattern that a controlled demolition of this scale would produce.The United States has faced attacks by Islamist terrorist groups for decades, with U.S. citizens targeted at home and abroad. Examples include the April 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut by Islamic Jihad, which killed 17 Americans; the October 1983 truck bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut by Hezbollah, which killed 241 U.S. service members; and the June 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847, during which Hezbollah terrorists tortured and killed a U.S. Navy diver.The February 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York killed six people. This was followed by the November 1995 car bombing in Riyadh, which killed five U.S. soldiers; the June 1996 Khobar Towers bombing at a U.S. military base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, which killed 19 Americans; the August 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, which killed 224 people; and the October 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.Post-9/11 domestic attacks included the 2009 Fort Hood shooting, the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, the 2015 San Bernardino attack, the 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, and the 2025 New Orleans truck attack on Bourbon Street, in which an Islamic State-inspired attacker killed 14 people.Occam’s razor holds that the simplest explanation is generally the most likely to be correct. Islamist extremists have a long, documented history of attacking the United States, making it likely that Islamist terrorists carried out the 9/11 attacks. This explanation is strengthened by al-Qaeda’s claim of responsibility. Investigations and subsequent trials also detailed how al-Qaeda-linked terrorists planned and carried out the attacks.The post 9/11 Conspiracy Theories: Hologram Projectors Don’t Exist, Controlled Demolitions Take Months appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.