"Culturally, as a society, it becomes unhealthy," said Christopher Farrell of the conservative think tank Judicial Watch, which successfully filed suit against the government seeking the release of a video showing American Airlines Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon. The think tank was hoping to put to rest beliefs that the explosion was caused by a missile.
"If an individual demonstrated this sort of behavior, medical health professionals would recommend they treat it," said Farrell, a former military intelligence officer and the organization's director of investigations and research. "There's healthy skepticism, and then there's unhealthy."
This weekend's gathering in New York drew together strands of a scattered movement that has, until now, gained steam principally through the Internet.
There was radio host and activist Ralph Schoenman, who, during the course of a dizzying two-hour speech Friday, said that "not only was Mohamed Atta monitored by Mossad and the CIA, but he was being run by German intelligence," and that Hurricane Katrina "had been on the drawing board for years" as a way to "de-concentrate population" in inner cities.
There was Harvey Newman, a retired market researcher, who wrote a Caribbean-influenced "9/11 Truth" anthem ("Was the Pentagon building hit by an air-o-plane?/ And if it wasn't, please can you explain?")
There was Korey Rowe, 23, an Iraq war veteran from upstate New York who helped produce the documentary "Loose Change," which has been viewed online 10 million times. His baseball cap twisted backward, Rowe warned the audience about "agents provocateurs" who may have infiltrated the group in advance of anniversary events at ground zero. "We need to identify them now, and we need to remove them," he said.
A man in his 30s, conservatively dressed and soft-spoken, said he told almost no one about his attendance at 9/11 Truth meetings -- not his co-workers at a corporate law firm and not his girlfriend. "It's considered part of the loony left," he said. "I'm very careful. I tell people who love me and will accept me for what I am."
For Williams, the former chef who lives in Duxbury, Mass., his fascination with the events of Sept. 11 grew so intense over the last two years that making pastries seemed pointless, then unbearable. He broke up with his girlfriend and now devotes six to eight hours a day to researching and writing, and hosts an Internet radio show and website. He has just sold the German and Turkish rights to two of his books, "The Puzzle of 9/11" and "9/11 101."
Europeans are always interested, he said. Engaging New Yorkers is more challenging. After an hour, he and his team left the park, drained.
Behind them, holding the Sept. 11 pamphlets, were three friends in their 20s. They were sitting on a wall in the sun, resting after a film shoot.
"At first, I thought, 'Oh, my God, a kook,' " said Shelley Rogers, 26, a graduate student in education at New York University.
But her friend Antonio Cisneros, 20, was fascinated.
"I think they're too extreme for me," he said, "but there are a lot of questions that need to be asked." He said he was glad someone was doing it.
Asked if they believed the government would murder Americans for strategic reasons, all three, without pausing, said yes.
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ellen.barry@latimes.com
