9/11 Conspiracy Theorists Gather in N.Y.
NEW YORK — Striding into Washington Square Park with a fistful of photocopied circulars and an earnest expression, Eric Williams could have been an environmental canvasser or a hip missionary. In fact, he is a pastry chef -- or was until last week, when he quit his job to devote himself full time to proving that the World Trade Center attack was ordered not by terrorists but by officials in the U.S. government.
Williams approached a pushcart vendor from Bangladesh: "Do you believe the official story, that Osama bin Laden and 19 hijackers took down the towers?"
"Yes," said the vendor.
Williams moved on to a Dominican woman. "Do you believe the government allowed the attacks to happen?"
The woman smiled, baffled, and asked her 10-year-old daughter to translate. "Do you believe Bin Laden was responsible for the attacks?" he asked the girl. The child shrugged expressively.
But he hit pay dirt with Nikolaos Vitoroulis, a freshman engineering student at Stevens Institute of Technology who was in the eighth grade at the time of the attacks. Vitoroulis, 18, said he had never believed a fire could cause a building to collapse that way, into its own footprint. The hijacked-plane scenario, he said, "seems a little fishy."
As New York readied for another anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, conspiracy theorists and researchers who belong to a group known as the 9/11 Truth Movement gathered in Greenwich Village. Among them were proponents of the "LIHOP" theory, who believe that members of the government "let it happen on purpose," and the "MIHOP" theory, who hold that government officials "made it happen on purpose."
Polls show that many Americans distrust the government on the subject of Sept. 11. A Zogby International poll taken in May found that 42% believed the government concealed evidence that contradicts official accounts. A Scripps Howard-Ohio University poll taken in August found that 36% believed it "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that federal officials allowed the attacks to occur because "they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East."
The theories -- especially the notion that the towers fell in a controlled demolition -- have become widespread enough to prompt official responses.
Last week, Brigham Young University announced that physics professor Steven E. Jones, co-chairman of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth, would be put on indefinite leave while authorities investigated his claims that the buildings were intentionally demolished using explosives.
