title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: A common claim among conspiracy theorists is that the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) issued a stand down order or deliberately scrambled fighters late to allow the hijacked airplanes to reach their targets without interference. According to this theory, NORAD had the capability of locating and intercepting planes on 9/11, and its failure to do so indicates a government conspiracy to allow the attacks to occur. Conspiracy theorist Mark R. Elsis says: "There is only one explanation for this ... Our Air Force was ordered to Stand Down on 9/11."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: One of the first actions taken by the hijackers on 9/11 was to turn off or disable each of the four aircraft's on board transponders. Without these transponder signals to identify the airplane's tail number, altitude, and speed, the hijacked airplanes would have been only blips among 4,500 other blips on NORAD's radar screens, making them very difficult to track.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On 9/11, only 14 fighter jets were on alert in the contiguous 48 states. There was no automated method for the civilian air traffic controllers to alert NORAD. A passenger aircraft had not been hijacked in the U.S. since 1979. "They had to pick up the phone and literally dial us," says Maj. Douglas Martin, public affairs officer for NORAD. Only one civilian plane—a chartered Learjet 35 with golfer Payne Stewart and five others on board—was intercepted by NORAD over North America in the decade prior to 9/11, which took one hour and 19 minutes.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Rules in effect at that time, and on 9/11, barred supersonic flight on intercepts. Before 9/11, all other NORAD interceptions were limited to offshore Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ). "Until 9/11 there was no domestic ADIZ," says FAA spokesman Bill Schumann. After 9/11, the FAA and NORAD increased cooperation. They set up hotlines between command centers while NORAD increased its fighter coverage and installed radar to watch airspace over the continent.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The longest warning NORAD received of the hijackings was some eight minutes for American Airlines Flight 11, the first flight hijacked. The FAA alerted NORAD to the hijacked Flight 175 at just about the same time it was crashing into the World Trade Center's South Tower. The FAA notified NORAD of the missing – not hijacked – Flight 77 three minutes before it struck the Pentagon. NORAD received no warning of the hijack of United Flight 93 until three minutes after it had crashed in Pennsylvania.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: CAMERA and JTA (Jewish Telegraphic Agency) criticized claims by Carl Cameron who stated, "certain suspects in the September 11th attacks may have managed to stay ahead of them by knowing who and when investigators are calling on the telephone," by using information from Amdocs Limited, an Israeli-based private communications company, and Comverse Infosys, another Israeli-run company that provides electronic eavesdropping technology for the U.S. government.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: It has been claimed that Israeli agents may have had foreknowledge of the attacks, and a persistent theory claimed Israeli and/or Jewish involvement. Four hours after the attack, the FBI arrested five Israelis who had been filming the smoking skyline from the roof of a white van in the parking lot of an apartment building, for "puzzling behavior." The Israelis were videotaping the events, and one bystander said they acted in a suspicious manner: "They were like happy, you know ... They didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was very strange." The van was found to be owned by an Israeli-owned company called Urban Moving, which the FBI believed was providing cover for an Israeli intelligence operation. The case was then moved to the FBI's Foreign Counterintelligence Section. According to a former CIA operations chief, "many people in the U.S. intelligence community believed that some of the men arrested were working for Israeli intelligence." A spokesperson for the Israeli Embassy in the United States said the men had not been involved in any intelligence operation in the United States. The FBI eventually concluded that the five Israelis probably had no foreknowledge of the attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The plane crashes and resulting fires caused the collapse of the World Trade Center. Controlled demolition conspiracy theories say the collapse of the North Tower, South Tower, or of 7 World Trade Center was caused by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Demolition theory proponents, such as Brigham Young University physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argue that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional factors weakening the structures.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In the article "Active Thermotic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe", which appeared in the "Open Chemical Physics Journal", authors Niels Harrit of the University of Copenhagen's Department of Chemistry, Jeffrey Farrer of Brigham Young University's Department of Physics and Astronomy, Steven E. Jones, and others state that thermite and nano-thermite composites in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings. The article contained no scientific rebuttal and the editor in chief of the publication subsequently resigned.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Jones has not explained how the amount of explosive needed to bring down the buildings could have been positioned in the two buildings without drawing attention, but mentioned efforts to research the buildings' maintenance activity in the weeks prior to the event. Federal investigators at the National Institute of Standards and Technology state that enormous quantities of thermite would have to be applied to the structural columns to damage them, but Jones disputed this, saying that he and others were investigating "superthermite". Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America", who corresponded with Jones, states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also said that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Jones also said that molten steel found in the rubble was evidence of explosives, as an ordinary airplane fire would not generate enough heat to produce this, citing photographs of red debris being removed by construction equipment, but Blanchard said that if there had been any molten steel in the rubble any excavation equipment encountering it would have been immediately damaged. Other sampling of the pulverized dust by United States Geological Survey and RJ Lee did not report any evidence of thermite or explosives. It has been theorized the "thermite material" found was primer paint. Dave Thomas of "Skeptical Inquirer" magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermotic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas said that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when Jesse Ventura hired New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal, position.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) concluded the accepted version was more than sufficient to explain the collapse of the buildings. NIST and many scientists refuse to debate conspiracy theorists because they feel it would give those theories unwarranted credibility. Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings without the use of explosives. As a result, NIST said that it did not perform any test for the residue of explosive compounds of any kind in the debris.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Soon after the day of the attacks, major media sources published that the towers had collapsed due to heat melting the steel.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The erroneous claim that the combustion temperature of jet fuel could not melt steel contributed to the belief among skeptics that the towers would not have collapsed without external interference. The basic claim is false, because the combustion temperature of kerosene (jet fuel) is, in fact, more than 500 °C higher than the melting point of structural steel (2093 °C "vs." less than 1539 °C).


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Further, NIST did not claim that the steel melted, but rather that heat softened and weakened the steel, and that weakening, together with the damage caused by the planes' impacts, caused structural collapse. NIST reported that a simulation model based on the simple assumption that combustible vapors burned immediately upon mixing with the incoming air showed that "at any given location, the duration of [gas] temperatures near 1,000 °C was about 15 to 20 [minutes]. The rest of the time, the calculated temperatures were 500 °C or below."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Political activist Thierry Meyssan and filmmaker Dylan Avery claim that American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. Instead, they argue that the Pentagon was hit by a missile launched by elements from inside the U.S. government. Some claim that the holes in the Pentagon walls were far too small to have been made by a Boeing 757: "How does a plane 125 ft. wide and 155 ft. long fit into a hole which is only 60 ft. across?" Meyssan's book, "L'Effroyable Imposture" (published in English as "9/11: The Big Lie") became available in more than a dozen languages. When released, the book was heavily criticized by both the mainstream French and American press, and later, from within the 9/11 Truth movement. The French newspaper "Liberation" called the book "a tissue of wild and irresponsible allegations, entirely without foundation."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In response to the conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon, Mete Sozen, a professor of civil engineering at Purdue University argues that: "A crashing jet doesn't punch a cartoon-like outline of itself into a reinforced concrete building. When Flight 77 hit the Pentagon, one wing hit the ground and the other was sheared off by the Pentagon's load-bearing columns." According to "ArchitectureWeek", the reason the Pentagon took relatively little damage from the impact was because Wedge One had recently been renovated. (This was part of a renovation program which had been begun in the 1980s, and Wedge One was the first of five to be renovated.)


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Evidence contradicting some conspiracy theorists' claim of a missile hitting the Pentagon have been described by researchers within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman, in his essay "The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows", and by others broadly refuting the role of other conspiracies in the attacks. The evidence refuting missile claims includes airplane debris including Flight 77's black boxes, the nose cone, landing gear, an airplane tire, and an intact cockpit seat were observed at the crash site. The remains of passengers from Flight 77 were indeed found at the Pentagon crash site and their identities confirmed by DNA analysis. Foreign governments, such as the Chinese Foreign Ministry (FMPRC), also confirms the death of their citizens onboard Flight 77. Many eyewitnesses saw the plane strike the Pentagon. Further, Flight 77 passengers made phone calls reporting that their airplane had been hijacked. For example, passenger Renee May called her mother to tell her that the plane had been hijacked and that the passengers had been herded to the back of the plane. Another passenger named Barbara Olson called her husband (U.S. Solicitor General Theodore Olson) and said that the flight had been hijacked, and that the hijackers had knives and box cutters. Some conspiracy theories say the phone calls the passengers made were fabricated by voice morphing, the passengers' bodies disposed of, and a missile fired at the Pentagon.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The pressure group Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act request on December 15, 2004, to force the government to release video recordings from the Sheraton National Hotel, the Nexcomm/Citgo gas station, Pentagon security cameras and the Virginia Department of Transportation. On May 16, 2006, the government released the Pentagon security camera videos to Judicial Watch. The image of American Airlines Flight 77 which appears in the videos has been described as "[a] white blob" and "a white streak" (by the BBC), "a thin white blur" (by The Associated Press), and "a silver speck low to the ground" (in "The Washington Post"). A sequence of five frames from one of the videos already appeared in the media in 2002. Some conspiracy theorists believe the new video does not answer their questions.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The fourth plane hijacked on 9/11, United Airlines Flight 93, crashed in an open field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania, after the passengers revolted. Out of the four planes hijacked on that day, Flight 93 was the only one not to reach its target.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: One conspiracy theory surrounding this event is the claim that Flight 93 was shot down by a U.S. fighter jet. David Ray Griffin and Alex Jones have asserted that large parts of the plane, including the main body of the engine, landed miles away from the main wreckage site, too far away for an ordinary plane crash. Jones says that planes usually leave a small debris field when they crash, and that this is not compatible with reports of wreckage found farther away from the main crash site. One person claimed that the main body of the engine was found miles away from the main wreckage site with damage comparable to that which a heat-seeking missile would do to an airliner.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to some theories, the plane had to be shot down by the government because passengers had found out about the alleged plot.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to Phil Molé of "Skeptic" magazine, "[this] claim rests largely on unsupported assertions that the main body of the engine and other large parts of the plane turned up miles from the main wreckage site, too far away to have resulted from an ordinary crash. This claim is incorrect, because the engine was found only 300 yards from the main crash site, and its location was consistent with the direction in which the plane had been traveling." Michael K. Hynes, an airline accident expert who investigated the crash of TWA Flight 800 in 1996, says that, at very high velocities of 500 mph or more, it would only take a few seconds to move or tumble across the ground for 300 yards.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Reports of wreckage discovered at Indian Lake by local residents are accurate. CNN reported that investigators found debris from the crash at least eight miles away from the crash site, including in New Baltimore. According to CNN, this debris was all very light material that the wind would have easily blown away, and a "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette" article from September 14, 2001, describes the material as "mostly papers", "strands of charred insulation", and an "endorsed paycheck". The same article quotes FBI agent Bill Crowley that, "Lighter, smaller debris probably shot into the air on the heat of a fireball that witnesses said shot several hundred feet into the air after the jetliner crashed. Then, it probably rode a wind that was blowing southeast at about 9 m.p.h." Also, the distance between the crash site and Indian Lake was misreported in some accounts. According to the BBC, "In a straight line, Indian Lake is just over a mile from the crash site. The road between the two locations takes a roundabout route of 6.9 miles—accounting for the erroneous reports."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Some conspiracy theorists believe a small white jet seen flying over the crash area may have fired a missile to shoot down Flight 93. Government agencies such as the FBI assert this small plane was a Dassault Falcon business jet asked to descend to an altitude of around 1,500 ft to survey the impact. Ben Sliney, who was the FAA operation manager on September 11, 2001, says no military aircraft were near Flight 93.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Some internet videos, such as "Loose Change", speculate that Flight 93 safely landed in Ohio, and a substituted plane was involved in the crash in Pennsylvania. Often cited is a preliminary news report that Flight 93 landed at a Cleveland airport; it was later learned that Delta Flight 1989 was the plane confused with Flight 93, and the report was retracted as inaccurate. Several websites within the 9/11 Truth Movement dispute this claim, citing the wreckage at the scene, eyewitness testimony, and the difficulty of secretly substituting one plane for another, and claim that such "hoax theories ... appear calculated to alienate victims' survivors and the larger public from the 9/11 truth movement". The editor of the article has since written a rebuttal to the claims.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Valencia McClatchey, a local woman who took the only photograph of the mushroom cloud from the impact of Flight 93 seconds after it hit the ground, says she has been harassed over the telephone and in person by conspiracy theorists, who claim she faked the photo. The FBI, the Somerset County authorities, the Smithsonian, and the National Park Service's Flight 93 National Memorial staff have all individually examined the photograph as well as the film negatives and all four agencies consider the photo to be authentic.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: While some conspiracy theorists have claimed that passengers of Flight 93 and/or Flight 77 were murdered or that they were relocated, with the intent that they never be found, others within the 9/11 Truth Movement, such as Jim Hoffman and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, repudiate such claims.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers. Some of the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked. The BBC explained that the initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names. In response to a request from the BBC, the FBI said that it was confident to have identified all nineteen hijackers, and that none of the other inquiries had raised the issue of doubt about their identities. "The New York Times" also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken identity.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of "Arab News" in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September 14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were quickly resolved. According to Bradley, "all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we're dealing with are coincidentally identical names." In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are "as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to Thomas Kean, chair of the 9/11 Commission, "Sixteen of the nineteen shouldn't have gotten into the United States in any way at all because there was something wrong with their visas, something wrong with their passports. They should simply have been stopped at the border. That was sixteen of the nineteen. Obviously, if even half of those people had been stopped, there never would have been a plot."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Khalid al Mihdhar and Nawaf al Hazmi had both been identified as al-Qaeda agents by the CIA, but that information was not shared with the FBI or U.S. Immigration, so both men were able to legally enter the U.S. to prepare for the 9/11 attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: There are allegations that individuals within the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) may have played an important role in financing the attacks. There are also claims that other foreign intelligence agencies, such as the Israeli Mossad, had foreknowledge of the attacks, and that Saudi Arabia may have played a role in financing the attacks. General Hamid Gul, a former head of ISI, believes the attacks were an "inside job" originating in the United States, perpetrated by Israel or neo-conservatives. Francesco Cossiga, former President of Italy from 1985 until his 1992 resignation over Operation Gladio, said that it is common knowledge among the Italian center-left that the 9/11 attacks were a joint operation of the CIA and the Mossad. Subsequent reports indicated that he did not actually believe this.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: A conspiracy theory documented by the Anti-Defamation League, Thom Burnett and others is that the state of Israel was involved in the attacks, and may have planned them. A variety of motives are suggested, including: to cause the United States to attack enemies of Israel; to divert public attention away from Israel's treatment of Palestinians; to help Zionists take control of world affairs; and to persuade Americans to support Israel. Variants of the theory contend that the attack was organized by Ariel Sharon, Mossad, or the government of Israel. Kevin Barrett, a former lecturer at the University of Wisconsin is, according to "Slate" website, a "leading advocate of theories that Israel's Mossad orchestrated the 9/11 attacks."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Some proponents of this believe that Jewish employees were forewarned by Israeli intelligence to skip work on September 11, resulting in no Jewish deaths at the World Trade Center. According to Cinnamon Stillwell, some 9/11 conspiracy theorists put this number as high as 4,000 Jewish people skipping work. This was first reported on September 17 by the Lebanese Hezbollah-owned satellite television channel Al-Manar and is believed to be based on the September 12 edition of "The Jerusalem Post" that said "The Foreign Ministry in Jerusalem has so far received the names of 4,000 Israelis believed to have been in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon at the time of the attacks."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The number of Jews who died in the attacks is variously estimated at between 270 and 400. The lower figure tracks closely with the percentage of Jews living in the New York area and partial surveys of the victims' listed religion. The U.S. State Department has published a partial list of 76 in response to claims that fewer Jews/Israelis died in the WTC attacks than should have been present at the time. Five Israeli citizens died in the attack.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In 2003, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) published a report attacking "hateful conspiracy theories" that the 9/11 attacks were carried about by Israelis and Jews, saying they had the potential to "rationalize and fuel global anti-Semitism." It found that such theories were widely accepted in the Arab and Muslim world, as well as in Europe and the United States.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The ADL's report found that "The Big Lie has united American far-right extremists and white supremacists and elements within the Arab and Muslim world". It asserted that many of the theories were modern manifestation of the 19th-century "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", which purported to map out a Jewish conspiracy for world domination. The ADL has characterized the Jeff Rense website as carrying anti-Semitic materials, such as "American Jews staged the 9/11 terrorist attacks for their own financial gain and to induce the American people to endorse wars of aggression and genocide on the nations of the Middle East and the theft of their resources for the benefit of Israel".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Pedro A. Sanjuan, a former United Nations diplomat, alleged that antisemitic 9/11 conspiracy theories were quite common at high levels of the organization following the attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: British investigative journalists Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan claimed in their 2011 book "The Eleventh Day" that the Saudi Royal Family provided material and financial support to the hijackers and that the Bush Administration covered this up as well as their own alleged incompetence. The authors claim the 9/11 Truth movement helped this coverup by deflecting attention away from these actions. In September 2011 a "Lloyd's insurance syndicate" began legal action against Saudi Arabia demanding the repayment of £136m it paid out to victims of the 9/11 attacks. A number of prominent Saudi charities and banks as well as a leading member of the al-Saud royal family were accused of being "agents and alter egos" for the Saudi state that "knowingly" provided funding to al-Qaeda and encouraged anti Western sentiment.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Such theories have historically revolved around the putative content of the 28 pages of the 2002 report of the U.S. Congress Joint Inquiry that were withheld from publication until July 15, 2016.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Former Florida Senator Bob Graham, co-chairman of the Joint Inquiry, as well as other former officials who did read the entire version of the Joint Inquiry's report, still partly classified, believe there is a U.S. government's coverup on the Saudi government officials' substantial aid provided to the perpetrators of the 9/11 act, notably the role of Fahad al-Thumairy, a diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Former chief economist within the Labor Department under the Bush administration, Morgan Reynolds, argues that no planes were used in the attacks. Reynolds claims it is physically impossible that the Boeing planes of Flights 11 and 175 could have penetrated the steel frames of the Towers, and that digital compositing was used to depict the plane crashes in both news reports and subsequent amateur video. "There were no planes, there were no hijackers", Reynolds insists. "I know, I know, I'm out of the mainstream, but that's the way it is". According to David Shayler, "the only explanation is that they were missiles surrounded by holograms made to look like planes", he says, which would be well beyond the capabilities of contemporaneous hologram technology. "Watch footage frame by frame and you will see a cigar-shaped missile hitting the World Trade Center". Most no-planes adherents, including Thierry Meyssan and Reynolds, assert that either CGI of a passenger plane was overlaid onto a winged cruise missile or military aircraft, or that computer-generated images of a passenger plane were inserted into the video footage and plane-shaped explosive cut-outs were planted in the buildings in order to create the impression of plane impact. Some truth movement veterans have repeatedly refuted the "no-plane" claims. In fact, discussion of no-plane theories has been banned from certain conspiracy theory websites and advocates have sometimes been threatened with violence by posters at other conspiracy theory websites.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to the 9/11 Commission Report, both black boxes from Flight 77 and both black boxes from Flight 93 were recovered. Flight 77's CVR was said to be too damaged to yield any data. On April 18, 2002, the FBI allowed the families of victims from Flight 93 to listen to the voice recordings. In April 2006, a transcript of the CVR was released as part of the Zacarias Moussaoui trial.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Two men, Michael Bellone and Nicholas DeMasi, who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center, said in the book "Behind-The-Scenes: Ground Zero" that they helped federal agents find three of the four "black boxes" from the jetliners:


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: A series of interviews, audio and videotapes were released in the years following the 9/11 attacks that were reported to be from Osama bin Laden. In the first of these the speaker denied responsibility for the attacks. On September 17, 2001, in a statement issued to Al Jazeera, Bin Laden is quoted as saying: "The U.S. government has consistently blamed me for being behind every occasion its enemies attack it. I would like to assure the world that I did not plan the recent attacks, which seems to have been planned by people for personal reasons."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In a tape released in December 2001 known as 'the Jalalabad tape', the speaker is alleged to have foreknowledge of the attacks. The Central Intelligence Agency claimed the tape was probably from Osama bin Laden. Some observers, especially people in the Muslim world, doubted the authenticity of the tape. On December 20, 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast an analysis of the White House's translation of the videotape. On the program "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on Oriental Studies found the White House's translation to be both inaccurate and manipulative, stating, "At the most important places where it is held to prove the guilt of bin Laden, it is not identical with the Arabic", and that the words used that indicate foreknowledge can not be heard at all in the original. Prof. Gernot Rotter, professor of Islamic and Arabic Studies at the Asia-Africa Institute at the University of Hamburg, said "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Some members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth believe that the man in this videotape is not Osama bin Laden at all, citing differences in weight and facial features, along with his wearing of a gold ring, which is forbidden by Muslim law, and writing with his right hand although bin Laden was left-handed.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In an audiotape released in November 2007, Bin Laden claimed responsibility for the attacks and denied the Taliban and the Afghan government or people had any prior knowledge of the attacks. In an interview with al-Jazeera, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Ramzi bin al-Shibh, two of al-Qaeda's alleged masterminds of the attacks, also confessed their involvement in the attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Richard Clarke, who headed the government's anti-terrorism efforts in 2001, theorized CIA director George Tenet ordered the agency to withhold information about Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar from the rest of the government in an effort to cover up the agency's recruitment of the two. George Tenet released a statement denying the agency deliberately withheld information about the pair and noted Clarke himself said he had no proof.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In September 2000 the Project for a New American Century (PNAC) released a strategic treatise entitled "Rebuilding America's Defences". The Defense Planning Guidance of 1992, was drafted by Paul Wolfowitz on behalf of then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney. This was described as "a blueprint for permanent American global hegemony" by Andrew Bacevich in his book "American Empire: The Realities and Consequences of U.S. Diplomacy".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Matt Taibbi argued in his book "" that conspiracy theorists have taken what is written in the paper "completely out of context", and that the "transformation" referenced in the paper is explicitly said to be a decades-long process to turn the Cold War-era military into a "new, modern military" which could deal with more localized conflicts. He said that, for this to be evidence of motive, either those responsible would have decided to openly state their objectives, or would have read the paper in 2000 and quickly laid the groundwork for the 9/11 attacks using it as inspiration.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Conspiracy theorists have questioned whether "The Oil Factor" and 9/11 provided the United States and the United Kingdom with a reason to launch a war they had wanted for some time, and suggest that this gives them a strong motive for either carrying out the attacks, or allowing them to take place. For instance, Andreas von Bülow, a former research minister in the German government, has argued that 9/11 was staged to justify the subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Former Malaysian prime minister Mahathir Mohamad was quoted as saying that there was "strong evidence" that the attacks were faked so that the United States could go to war against Muslims. In spite of these allegations, the Bush administration specifically rejected proposals to immediately attack Iraq in response to 9/11, and acknowledged that there was no evidence of Iraqi involvement in the attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Alex Jones and other personalities hold that 9/11 was initiated by a disparate variety of banking, corporate, globalization, and military interests for the purpose of creating a globalist government. Such New World Order conspiracy theories predate 9/11.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Conspiracy theorists often point to Operation Northwoods as a model for the 9/11 attacks, theorizing the attacks were carried out by the U.S. government as a false flag operation and then blamed on Islamic extremists. Operation Northwoods was an unimplemented, apparently rejected, plan approved by the United States Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962. One proposal in the plan suggested that covert operatives commit multiple acts of terrorism in U.S. cities and blame Cuba, thus providing a pretext for invasion.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: "Time" magazine contrasted events which inspired past conspiracy theories with those that inspire 9/11 conspiracy theories such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy. "Time" called the public assassination of Kennedy a "private, intimate affair" when compared with the attack on the World Trade Center, which was witnessed by millions of people and documented by hundreds of videographers; and said, "there is no event so plain and clear that a determined human being can't find ambiguity in it."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Many individuals and organizations that support or discuss 9/11 conspiracy theories consider themselves to be part of the 9/11 Truth movement.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Prominent adherents of the movement include, among others, radio talk show host Alex Jones, theologian David Ray Griffin, physicist Steven E. Jones, software engineer Jim Hoffman, architect Richard Gage (of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth), film producer Dylan Avery, former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, former member of the U.S. House of Representatives Cynthia McKinney, actors Daniel Sunjata, Ed Asner, and Charlie Sheen, political science professor Joseph Diaferia and journalist Thierry Meyssan. Adherents of the 9/11 Truth movement come from diverse social backgrounds. The movement draws adherents from people of diverse political beliefs including liberals, conservatives, and libertarians. The Anti-Defamation League has named Alan Sabrosky as a key figure in anti-Semitic 9/11 conspiracy theories.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Among the organizations that actively discuss and promote such theories are Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a group that focuses on the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings; 9/11 Truth, founded in 2004; Scholars for 9/11 Truth, founded in 2005, and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice, a group that split from Scholars for 9/11 Truth in 2007 and runs the online publication "Journal of 9/11 Studies"; 9/11 Citizens Watch, which was already formed in 2002; and the Hispanic Victims Group. Several of these groups have collected signatures on petitions asking for further investigation of the September 11 attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: 9/11 Conspiracy theory critic Jonathan Kay asserts that for the most part proponents are not out for financial gain and in some cases have left lucrative careers to become activists.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Dr Michael Wood and Dr Karen Douglas University of Kent psychologists who specialize in conspiracy theories examined the comments sections of over 2000 news articles relating to the collapse of World Trade Center 7. They found that proponents of 9/11 conspiracy theories were more likely to try and debunk the mainstream account than promote their own theories and also were more likely to believe in other conspiracy theories. Proponents of the mainstream account tended to argue for that account and showed a greater hostility toward conspiracy theory proponents.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: According to a 2011 analysis in a "Skeptical Inquirer" article, people involved in this movement, which seemingly is a disparate group with very diversified backgrounds, could be classified into three groups. They join the movement for different reasons, loosely self-assemble to fill different roles and are united by their shared mistrust in experts and the establishment (government and reputable sources of knowledge), and conspiratorial stance. Through their engagement, they each find their own fulfillment and satisfaction. Together, they contribute to the persistence, resilience and exaggerated claims of acceptance (in general public) of the movement. These three groups are:


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: While discussion and coverage of these theories is mainly confined to Internet pages, books, documentary films, and conversation, a number of mainstream news outlets around the world have covered the issue.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The Norwegian version of the July 2006 "Le Monde diplomatique" sparked interest when they ran, on their own initiative, a three-page main story on the 9/11 attacks and summarized the various types of 9/11 conspiracy theories (which were not specifically endorsed by the newspaper, only recensed). In December 2006, the French version published an article by Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of "CounterPunch", which strongly criticized the alleged endorsement of conspiracy theories by the U.S. left-wing, alleging that it was a sign of "theoretical emptiness."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Also, on the Canadian website for "CBC News: The Fifth Estate", a program titled, "Conspiracy Theories: uncovering the facts behind the myths of Sept. 11, 2001" was broadcast on October 29, 2003, stating that what they found may be more surprising than any theories. On November 27, 2009, "The Fifth Estate" aired a documentary entitled "The Unofficial Story" where several prominent members of the 9/11 Truth Movement made their case.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: An article in the September 11, 2006, edition of "Time" magazine comments that the major 9/11 conspiracy theories "depend on circumstantial evidence, facts without analysis or documentation, quotes taken out of context and the scattered testimony of traumatized eyewitnesses", and enjoy continued popularity because "the idea that there is a malevolent controlling force orchestrating global events is, in a perverse way, comforting". It concludes that "conspiracy theories are part of the process by which Americans deal with traumatic public events" and constitute "an American form of national mourning."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Australian newspaper "The Daily Telegraph" published an article titled "The CIA couldn't have organised this ..." which said "The same people who are making a mess of Iraq were never so clever or devious that they could stage a complex assault on two narrow towers of steel and glass" and "if there is a nefarious plot in all this bad planning, it is one improvised by a confederacy of dunces". This article mainly attacked a group of scientists led by Professor Steven E. Jones, now called Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. They said "most of them aren't scientists but instructors ... at second-rate colleges".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: "The Daily Telegraph" also published an article in May 2007 that was highly critical of "Loose Change 2", a movie which presents a 9/11 conspiracy theory.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Doug MacEachern in a May 2008 column for "The Arizona Republic" wrote that while many "9/11 truthers" are not crackpots that espouse "crackpot conspiracy theories", supporters of the theories fail to take into account both human nature and that nobody has come forward claiming they were participants in the alleged conspiracies. This view was seconded by Timothy Giannuzzi, a "Calgary Herald" op-ed columnist specializing in foreign policy.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On June 7, 2008, the "Financial Times" published a lengthy article on the 9/11 Truth Movement and 9/11 conspiracy theories.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Charlie Brooker, a British comedian and multimedia personality, in a July 2008 column published by "The Guardian" as part of its "Comment is free" series agreed that 9/11 conspiracy theorists fail to take in account human fallacies and added that believing in these theories gives theorists a sense of belonging to a community that shares privileged information thus giving the theorists a delusional sense of power. The commentary generated over 1700 online responses, the largest in the history of the series. In a September 2009 piece, "The Guardian" was more supportive of 9/11 conspiracy theories, asking, "when did it become uncool to ask questions? When did questioners become imbeciles?"


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On September 12, 2008, Russian State Television broadcast in prime time a documentary made by Member of the European Parliament Giulietto Chiesa entitled "Zero", sympathetic to those who question the accepted account of the attacks according to Chiesa. According to Thierry Meyssan in conjunction with the documentary, Russian State Television aired a debate on the subject. The panel consisted of members from several countries including 12 Russians who hold divergent views. The motive of Russian State Television in broadcasting the documentary was questioned by a commentator from "The Other Russia" who noted that Russian State Television had a history of broadcasting programs involving conspiracy theories involving the United States government.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Nasir Mahmood in a commentary printed by the "Pakistan Observer" wrote favorably about a 9/11 truth lecture and film festival held in California and quoted a Jewish speaker at that festival who said that none of the 19 suspected hijackers had been proven guilty of anything and compared racism against Muslims resulting from what he called false accusations to the racism against Jews in the Nazi era.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The emergence of the birther movement in 2009 has led to comparisons between that movement and the 9/11 Truth movement, with both movements seen in a very negative light. Moon landing conspiracy theories have also been compared to the birther and 9/11 conspiracy theories. James Borne, a journalist for "The New York Times" who covered the September 11 attacks, described his assignment covering a 9/11 truth meeting as "[p]erhaps the most intellectually scary assignment I have had in recent years".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On August 31, 2009, the National Geographic Channel aired the program "9/11 Science and Conspiracy", in which the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center tested some of the claims frequently made by those who question the accepted 9/11 account. Specifically, the experiments concluded that burning jet fuel alone can sufficiently raise the temperature of a steel support column to the point of structural failure, that a controlled demolition using conventional techniques would leave clear evidence that was not found at Ground Zero, that using thermite is not an effective technique to melt a steel column, and that even if thermite chemical signatures were found, it would be impossible to tell if thermite was actually used or if the traces came from the reaction of aircraft aluminum with other substances in the fire. The testing also concluded that the type of hole found at the Pentagon was consistent with the standard scenario, and that damage from a bombing or missile attack would differ from the damage that occurred. In the program, several prominent 9/11 conspiracy theorists viewed rough edits of the experiments, and expressed their disagreement with the findings.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The British left wing magazine "New Statesman" listed David Ray Griffin as the 41st most important person who matters today. The magazine said that Griffin's "books on the subject have lent a sheen of respectability that appeals to people at the highest levels of government". The publication listed 9/11 conspiracy theories as "one of the most pernicious global myths". Griffin's book "The New Pearl Harbor Revisited" was chosen by Publishers Weekly as a "Pick of the Week" in November 2008.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Denver public television KBDI-TV has aired 9/11 truth documentaries several times. The stations spokesperson claimed airing these documentaries has been a boon for the stations fund raising efforts.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Glenn Beck, television and radio host, said of the allegations: "There are limits to debasement of this country, aren't there? I mean, it's one thing to believe that our politicians are capable of being Bernie Madoff. It's another to think that they are willing to kill 3,000 Americans. Once you cross that line, you're in a whole new territory."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In March 2010, "The Washington Post" editorialized against Yukihisa Fujita, a prominent Japanese politician who has espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories. They described Fujita as a man "susceptible to the imaginings of the lunatic fringe". It went on to say that the U.S.–Japan alliance would be "severely tested" if Fujita's party continued to tolerate these kinds of comments.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: For the ninth anniversary of the attacks the Egyptian daily "Al-masry Al-youm" published an article questioning the U.S. Government story and promoting conspiracy theories. The senior analyst for the semi-official Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies and a member of Parliament from the Muslim Brotherhood was quoted.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Gordon Farrer, the technology editor for "The Age", theorized in a November 2010 column for the "Sydney Morning Herald" that the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories was a result of two main factors. One revolved around the personality traits of the theorists themselves (cynical, anxious, belief that they are freethinkers). The second revolved around the high internet search ranking 9/11 conspiracy theories receive, leading to a false air of authority to the theories. Speaking of the theorists. Farrer wrote that "when politicians and media don't give them voice they feel more threatened, more suspicious, cornered, helpless; and so they go on the attack".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Geraldo Rivera, the host of "Geraldo at Large", a news magazine run by Fox News Channel, expressed openness to questions on causes of the collapse of 7 World Trade Center. Andrew Napolitano, a legal analyst for Fox News and former judge at the New Jersey Superior Court, voiced support for skepticism about the collapse of the high-rise building, and for Rivera investigating the event.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Alex Jones syndicated radio program was dropped by 70 radio stations when he began espousing 9/11 conspiracy theories. On August 29, 2010, BBC Two broadcast a program entitled "The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – Ten Years On".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On September 5, 2011, "The Guardian" published an article entitled, "9/11 conspiracy theories debunked". The article noted that unlike the collapse of World Trade Centers 1 and 2 a controlled demolition collapses a building from the bottom and explains that the windows popped because of collapsing floors. The article also said there are conspiracy theories that claim that 7 World Trade Center was also downed by a controlled demolition, that the Pentagon being hit by a missile, that the hijacked planes were packed with explosives and flown by remote control, that Israel was behind the attacks, that a plane headed for the Pentagon was shot down by a missile, that there was insider trading by people who had foreknowledge of the attacks were all false.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Toure Neblett, who has Tweeted his suspicions about the attack on the Pentagon, is one of the hosts of the MSNBC program "The Cycle", which debuted on June 25, 2012.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Critics of these conspiracy theories say they are a form of conspiracism common throughout history after a traumatic event in which conspiracy theories emerge as a mythic form of explanation. A related criticism addresses the form of research on which the theories are based. Thomas W. Eagar, an engineering professor at MIT, suggested they "use the 'reverse scientific method'. They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Eagar's criticisms also exemplify a common stance that the theories are best ignored. "I've told people that if the argument gets too mainstream, I'll engage in the debate." According to him, this happened when Steve Jones, a physics professor at Brigham Young University, took up the issue.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: "The mistaken belief that a handful of unexplained anomalies can undermine a well-established theory lies at the heart of all conspiratorial thinking. All the evidence for a 9/11 conspiracy falls under the rubric of this fallacy. Such notions are easily refuted by noting that scientific theories are not built on single facts alone but on a convergence of evidence assembled from multiple lines of inquiry."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: "Scientific American", "Popular Mechanics", and "The Skeptic's Dictionary" have published articles that rebut various 9/11 conspiracy theories. "Popular Mechanics" has published a book entitled "Debunking 9/11 Myths" that expands upon the research first presented in the article. In the foreword for the book Senator John McCain wrote that blaming the U.S. government for the events "mars the memories of all those lost on that day" and "exploits the public's anger and sadness. It shakes Americans' faith in their government at a time when that faith is already near an all-time low. It trafficks in ugly, unfounded accusations of extraordinary evil against fellow Americans." "Der Spiegel" dismissed 9/11 conspiracy theories as a "panoply of the absurd", stating "as diverse as these theories and their adherents may be, they share a basic thought pattern: great tragedies must have great reasons."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Journalist Matt Taibbi, in his book "", discusses 9/11 conspiracy theories as symptomatic of what he calls the "derangement" of American society; a disconnection from reality due to widespread "disgust with our political system". Drawing a parallel with the Charismatic Movement, he argues that both "chose to battle bugbears that were completely idiotic, fanciful, and imaginary," instead of taking control of their own lives. While critical, Taibbi explains that 9/11 conspiracy theories are different from "Clinton-era black-helicopter paranoia", and constitute more than "a small, scattered group of nutcases [...] they really were, just as they claim to be, almost everyone you meet."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: David Aaronovitch, a columnist for "The Times", in his book entitled "Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History" that was published in May 2009, claimed that the theories strain credulity. He charges that 9/11 conspiracy theorists have exaggerated the expertise of those supporting their theories, and says 9/11 conspiracy theorists, including David Ray Griffin, cross-cite each other. He also claims the popularity of 9/11 conspiracy theories has hurt the War on Terror. According to Aaronovitch, because a significant portion of educated Pakistanis believe that George W. Bush brought the towers down, dealing with the Taliban is difficult "because they actually don't believe the fundamental premise on which the war against terror was waged".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein co-authored a 2009 paper which used members of the 9/11 Truth movement and others as examples of people who suffer from "crippled epistemologies", to public trust and the political system. He wrote that "[t]hey do not merely undermine democratic debate [...] In extreme cases, they create or fuel violence. If government can dispel such theories, it should do so."


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In June 2011, the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) was criticized for hosting a lecture by Richard Gage, president of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Rick Bell, the director of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) New York chapter, who was a witness to the 9/11 attacks, said that "no amount of money" would persuade him to allow the group to talk at his headquarters and said that Gage lacks credibility among the professional community. Eugine Kohn, former spokesperson for the AIA, said Gage's theories were "ridiculous", "[t]here were no explosives planted", and "[t]he buildings were definitely brought down by the planes". The decision to host the event was also criticized by the former president of RIBA and the founding president of the AIA's United Kingdom chapter. Gage has been warned by the AIA against giving a false impression that he has a relationship with it. A July 2012 article in the AIA's magazine criticized Gage for continuing to intimate that he has an association with the organization, and claimed that there were no architects at an Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth screening held in an AIA boardroom. RIBA released a statement saying the perception that it endorses events held in its buildings is "regrettable", and said it would review policy on "private hire" of its buildings. Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan offer scathing criticism of many of the above theories in "The Eleventh Day", their 2011 investigation of the attacks.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: U.S. representative Peter T. King, chairmen of the House Homeland Security Committee, said 9/11 conspiracy theorists "trivialize" the "most tragic event to affect the United States" and that "[p]eople making these claims are disgraceful, and they should be ashamed of themselves".


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The hosts of "The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe" (the "SGU") have spoken repeatedly about the "absurdity of 9/11 conspiracy theories". In addition to critiquing the theories using the same or similar arguments as the above, the "SGU" hosts say that, like most conspiracy theories, this one collapses under its own weight and contradicts itself. In order for the 9/11 conspiracy theories to be correct, the U.S. government would not only have to orchestrate the claimed false flag operation regarding the airplanes that crashed into the World Trade Center, but they would also have to orchestrate a superfluous controlled demolition and cover their tracks so flawlessly that it becomes indistinguishable to physicists from the "official story", yet the plan would have to be flawed enough so that "losers in their mothers' basement" will discover the conspiracy.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Former Canadian Liberal Party leader Stéphane Dion forced a candidate from Winnipeg, Lesley Hughes, to terminate her campaign after earlier writings from Hughes surfaced in which Hughes wrote that U.S., German, Russian and Israeli intelligence officials knew about the 9/11 attacks in advance. Peter Kent, Deputy Editor of Global Television Network News and a Conservative Party candidate in the 2008 Canadian election, had earlier called for Hughes's resignation, saying that the 9/11 Truth movement is "one of Canada's most notorious hatemongering fringe movements" composed of "conspiracy theorists who are notorious for holding anti-Semitic views." On June 16, 2009, Hughes sued Kent, the Canadian Jewish Congress, the B'nai B'rith of Canada and four senior members of the two organizations, alleging the antisemitic allegations were untrue and defamatory and ruined her career. Later, another Conservative Party candidate called for the leader of the New Democratic Party to fire a candidate for her pro-9/11 truth views. Zijad Delic, head of the Canadian Islamic Congress, Canada's largest Muslim advocacy organization, is trying to remove 9/11 conspiracy theorists from its board, in an effort to what he describes as purifying within and totally canadianize the organization.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In 2008, calls for the resignation of Richard Falk, the special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories for the United Nations, were partially based on his support investigating the validity of 9/11 conspiracy theories. In 2011, Falk praised a book by David Ray Griffin. Falk was condemned for his remarks by United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and United States ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In February 2009, Aymeric Chauprade, a professor of geopolitics at CID military college in Paris, was fired by French Defence Minister Hervé Morin for writing a book entitled "Chronicle of the Clash of Civilizations" that espoused 9/11 conspiracy theories.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In September 2009, Van Jones, an adviser to US President Barack Obama, resigned after his signature on a 2004 petition calling for an investigation into whether government officials deliberately allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur and other controversial statements came to light drawing criticism. Van Jones said he was a victim of a smear campaign, adding that he does not currently, nor ever has agreed with that theory.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: The 9/11 truth movement became an issue in the 2010 Texas Gubernatorial Republican primary when candidate Debra Medina replied when asked by Glenn Beck about US government involvement in the 9/11 attacks: "I think some very good questions have been raised in that regard, there are some very good arguments, and I think the American people have not seen all of the evidence there, so I have not taken a position on that." After being criticized for the remarks by opposing candidates, Medina said that she has never been a 9/11 truth movement member and believes the twin towers were attacked by Muslim terrorists.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: On September 23, 2010, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in a speech to the United Nations said that "[t]he majority of the American people, as well as other nations and politicians, believe [...] some segments within the U.S. government orchestrated the attack to reverse the declining American economy and its grips on the Middle East in order to save the Zionist regime", and that "the majority of the American people as well most nations and politicians around the world agree with this view". The remarks prompted the United States delegation as well as others to walk out. U.S. President Barack Obama criticized Ahmadinejad's remarks before the United Nations General Assembly on the following day, saying that "[f]or him to make a statement like that was inexcusable" and called the remarks "offensive" and "hateful". Previously Ahmadinejad had described the 9/11 attacks as a "suspect event" and suggested that the Bush Administration was involved in 9/11. The Iranian president repeated his claims in 2011 with another appearance at the UN and was thereafter criticized in an article appearing in al-Qaeda's magazine, "Inspire". The article claimed that Ahmadinejad was jealous of al-Qaeda because the stateless and under-fire Islamic terrorist organization did on 9/11 what Iran could not do.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: In 2012, Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi has called for a scientific conference to look into the events of 9/11 and speculated that the attacks were an inside job. According to an international poll that same year, huge majorities in Muslim countries prefer to believe baseless conspiracy theories rather than listen to the mainstream facts of what happened on September 11, 2001, in New York City and Washington. Although al-Qaeda occasionally brags about its "achievement," 75 percent of Egyptian citizens, for example, still deny that Arabs carried out the attacks, as a Pew study reported in July 2011.


title: 9/11 conspiracy theories

text: Army specialist April Gallop filed suit claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and other Bush administration officials orchestrated the 9/11 attacks and that the Pentagon was hit by an attack ordered by Cheney. The suit was dismissed in 2010 by Judge Denny Chin, who said the claim was "the product of cynical delusion and fantasy". Her lawyers filed an appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals which in April 2010 issued a show cause order why the lawyers and Gallop should not be sanctioned for filing a frivolous lawsuit. Her lawyers asked that the judges on the Court of Appeals recuse themselves because their emotions made them prejudge the case and abuse their power. On October 14, 2011, the judges sanctioned her lawyers $15,000 each for both the frivolous lawsuits and the accusations of prejudice. Gallop was not fined because of her unfamiliarity with the law.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Lesley Sue Goldstein (May 2, 1946 – February 16, 2015), known professionally as Lesley Gore, was an American singer, songwriter, actress, and activist. At the age of 16, she recorded the pop hit "It's My Party", a US number one in 1963. She followed it up with ten further "Billboard" top 40 hits including "Judy's Turn to Cry" and "You Don't Own Me".


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore later worked as an actress and television personality. She composed songs with her brother Michael Gore for the 1980 film "Fame", for which he won an Academy Award. She hosted several editions of the LGBT-oriented public television show, "In the Life", on American TV in the 2000s.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore was born Lesley Sue Goldstein in Brooklyn, New York City, into a middle-class Jewish family. The daughter of Leo Goldstein and Ronny Gore, her father was the owner of Peter Pan, a children's swimwear and underwear manufacturer, and later became a leading brand licensing agent in the apparel industry. She was raised in Tenafly, New Jersey, and attended the Dwight School for Girls in nearby Englewood. She also attended Sarah Lawrence College.


title: Lesley Gore

text: When she recorded her version of "It's My Party" with Quincy Jones in 1963, she was a junior in high school. It became a number-one, nationwide hit. Gore's version was certified as a Gold record. It also marked the beginning of a time when fans would show up on her front lawn.


title: Lesley Gore

text: "It's My Party" was followed by many other hits for Gore, including the sequel, "Judy's Turn to Cry" (US number five); "She's a Fool" (US number five); the feminist-themed million-selling "You Don't Own Me", which held at number two for three weeks behind the Beatles' "I Want To Hold Your Hand"; "That's the Way Boys Are" (US No. 12); "Maybe I Know" (US No. 14/UK No. 20); "Look of Love" (US No. 27); and "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" (US number 13), which she sang during a bus scene from the 1965 movie, "Ski Party." In 1965, she also appeared in the beach party film "The Girls on the Beach" in which she performed three songs: "Leave Me Alone", "It's Gotta Be You", and "I Don't Want to Be a Loser".


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore was given first shot at recording "A Groovy Kind of Love" by songwriters Carole Bayer and Toni Wine with a melody borrowed from a sonatina by Muzio Clementi, but Shelby Singleton, a producer for Mercury subsidiary Smash Records, refused to let Gore record a song with the word "groovy" in its lyrics. The Mindbenders went on to record it, and it reached number two on the "Billboard" charts.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore recorded composer Marvin Hamlisch's first hit composition, "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows", on May 21, 1963, while "It's My Party" was climbing the charts. Her record producer from 1963 to 1965 was Quincy Jones. Jones's dentist was Marvin Hamlisch's uncle, and Hamlisch asked his uncle to convey several songs to Jones. "Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows" was released on the LP "Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts", but did not surface as a single until June 1965. Hamlisch composed three other Gore associated songs: "California Nights", "That's the Way the Ball Bounces" and "One by One". "That's the Way the Ball Bounces" was recorded September 21, 1963, at A&R Studios in New York; it was released as the B-side of "That's the Way Boys Are" and appeared on the LP "Boys Boys Boys". "One by One" was an unreleased track recorded on July 31, 1969, in New York and produced by Paul Leka; it first appeared on the Bear Family five-CD anthology of Gore's Mercury work entitled "It's My Party" (1994).


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore was one of the featured performers in the "T.A.M.I. Show" concert film, which was recorded and released in 1964 by American International Pictures, and placed in the National Film Registry in 2006. Gore had one of the longest sets in the film, performing six songs, including "It's My Party", "You Don't Own Me", and "Judy's Turn to Cry".


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore performed on two consecutive episodes of the "Batman" television series (January 19 and 25, 1967), in which she guest-starred as Pussycat, one of Catwoman's minions. In the January 19 episode "That Darn Catwoman", she lip-synched to the Bob Crewe-produced "California Nights", and in the January 25 episode "Scat! Darn Catwoman", she lip-synched to "Maybe Now". "California Nights", which Gore recorded for her 1967 album of the same name, returned her to the top twenty of the Hot 100. The single peaked at number 16 in March 1967 (14 weeks on the chart). It was her first top-40 hit since "My Town, My Guy and Me" in late 1965 and her first top-20 since "Sunshine, Lollipops, and Rainbows". Gore also performed "It's My Party" and "We Know We're in Love" ten months earlier on the final episode of "The Donna Reed Show", which aired on March 19, 1966.


title: Lesley Gore

text: After high school, while continuing to make appearances as a singer, Gore attended Sarah Lawrence College, studying English and American literature. At college, folk music was popularly lauded as "chic", whereas pop music was often derided as "uncool". "Had I been tall with blonde hair, had I been Mary Travers, I would have gotten along fine." She graduated in 1968.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore signed a contract with Mercury Records with a five-year term that carried her obligations to the company through the spring of 1968. Her last big hit had been 12 months prior to this time, but Mercury still saw promise in her as an artist and believed that one of her singles would make it, as they had in the past. They offered a one-year extension on the initial contract, and Gore was formally contracted to Mercury for a sixth year. During this time, "He Gives Me Love (La La La)", a single release based on a Eurovision Song Contest winner, rose to number 96 on the Music Business charts, while bubbling under the Hot 100 in "Billboard". Mercury took out a full-page ad in the trades to support the single, but its airplay was spotty, becoming a hit in only a few major markets. She was then paired with the successful soul producers Kenny Gamble, Leon Huff, and Thom Bell for two singles that took her into the "soul" genre: "I'll Be Standing By" and "Take Good Care (Of My Heart)". These songs did not fit the image Mercury had crafted for her, and the singles were not played. Her contract with Mercury ended after the release of "98.6/Lazy Day" and "Wedding Bell Blues" failed to make headway on the charts.


title: Lesley Gore

text: In 1970, she signed with Crewe Records and was reunited with producer Bob Crewe, who had produced her album "California Nights".


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore composed songs for the soundtrack of the 1980 film "Fame", for which she received an Academy Award nomination for "Out Here on My Own", written with her brother Michael. Michael won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for the theme song of the same film. Gore played concerts and appeared on television throughout the 1980s and 1990s.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore co-wrote a song, "My Secret Love", for the 1996 film "Grace of My Heart". The film includes a subplot about a young singer named Kelly Porter, who is based in part on Gore and is played by Bridget Fonda. The character, who is a closeted lesbian, performs "My Secret Love" in the film.


title: Lesley Gore

text: In 2005, Gore recorded "Ever Since" (her first album of new material since "Love Me By Name" in 1976), with producer/songwriter Blake Morgan, with the label Engine Company Records. The album received favorable reviews from "The New York Times", "Rolling Stone", "Billboard", and other national press. The album also included a revised version of "You Don't Own Me", about which the "New York Daily News" wrote: "In Lesley Gore's new version of 'You Don't Own Me'—cut more than 40 years after its initial recording—she lends a pop classic new life." Gore commented: "Without the loud backing track, I could wring more meaning from the lyric". And: "It's a song that takes on new meaning every time you sing it."


title: Lesley Gore

text: Beginning in 2003, Gore hosted several editions of the PBS television series "In the Life", which focused on LGBTQ+ issues. In a 2005 interview with "After Ellen", she stated she was a lesbian and had been in a relationship with luxury jewelry designer Lois Sasson since 1982. She had known about her attraction to women from the time she was 20 and stated that although the music business was "totally homophobic", she never felt she had to pretend she was straight. "I just kind of lived my life naturally and did what I wanted to do," she said. "I didn't avoid anything, I didn't put it in anybody's face."


title: Lesley Gore

text: Gore had been working on a memoir and a Broadway show based on her life when she died of lung cancer on February 16, 2015, at the NYU Langone Medical Center in Manhattan, New York City, at the age of 68. At the time of her death, Gore and Sasson had been together for 33 years. They planned to be married in the summer of 2015.


title: Lesley Gore

text: Her "New York Times" obituary stated, "with songs like 'It’s My Party,' 'Judy’s Turn to Cry', and the indelibly defiant 1964 single 'You Don’t Own Me' — all recorded before she was 18 — Gore made herself the voice of teenaged girls aggrieved by fickle boyfriends, moving quickly from tearful self-pity to fierce self-assertion."


title: Lesley Gore

text: National Public Radio named "Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts", Gore's second album, as forebearer of one of the top 150 albums recorded by women. The album missed the official list (1964–present) because it was released in 1963. "She is a forebearer for her assertion of feminine power in pop, and her validation of a female perspective."


title: Lesley Gore

text: Lesley Gore’s papers were donated to the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and became accessible to the public in 2022. Catalogued by the library and her partner Lois Sasson, it includes family photos, scrapbook pages, annotated music and lyrics, business files, an unfinished memoir, and sound and video recordings.


title: Capital city

text: A capital city or capital is the municipality holding primary status in a country, state, province, department, or other subnational entity, usually as its seat of the government. A capital is typically a city that physically encompasses the government's offices and meeting places; the status as capital is often designated by its law or constitution. In some jurisdictions, including several countries, different branches of government are in different settlements. In some cases, a distinction is made between the official (constitutional) capital and the seat of government, which is in another place.


title: Capital city

text: English-language news media often use the name of the capital city as an alternative name for the government of the country of which it is the capital, as a form of metonymy. For example, "relations between Washington and London" refer to "relations between the United States and the United Kingdom".


title: Capital city

text: In several English-speaking states, the terms county town and county seat are also used in lower subdivisions. In some unitary states, subnational capitals may be known as 'administrative centres'. The capital is often the largest city of its constituent, though not always.


title: Capital city

text: Historically, the major economic centre of a state or region has often become the focal point of political power, and became a capital through conquest or federation. Examples are ancient Babylon, Abbasid Baghdad, ancient Athens, Rome, Bratislava, Budapest, Constantinople, Chang'an, ancient Cusco, Kyiv, Madrid, Paris, Podgorica, London, Beijing, Prague, Tallinn, Tokyo, Lisbon, Riga, Vilnius, and Warsaw. (The modern capital city has, however, not always existed: in medieval Western Europe, an itinerant (wandering) government was common.)


title: Capital city

text: The capital city naturally attracts politically motivated people and those whose skills are needed for efficient administration of national or imperial governments, such as lawyers, political scientists, bankers, journalists, and public policy makers. Some of these cities are or were also religious centres, e.g. Constantinople (more than one religion), Rome (the Roman Catholic Church), Jerusalem (more than one religion), Babylon, Moscow (the Russian Orthodox Church), Belgrade (the Serbian Orthodox Church), Paris, and Beijing. In some countries, the capital has been changed for geopolitical reasons; Finland's first city, Turku, which had served as the country's capital since the Middle Ages under the Swedish rule, lost its right during the Grand Duchy of Finland in 1812, when Helsinki was made the current capital of Finland by the Russian Empire.


title: Capital city

text: The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal. Traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, e.g. Nanking by Shanghai, Quebec City by Montreal, and numerous US state capitals. The decline of a dynasty or culture could also mean the extinction of its capital city, as occurred at Babylon and Cahokia. "Political nomadism" was practiced in ancient Near East to increase ties between the ruler and the subjects.


title: Capital city

text: Although many capitals are defined by constitution or legislation, many long-time capitals have no legal designation as such, including Bern, Edinburgh, Lisbon, London, Paris, and Wellington. They are recognized as capitals as a matter of convention, and because all or almost all the country's central political institutions, such as government departments, supreme court, legislature, embassies, etc., are located in or near them.


title: Capital city

text: Many modern capital cities are located in the centre of countries so they are more accessible to its population and have better protection from possible invasions. The location may also be based on a compromise among two or more cities or other political divisions, historical reasons, or enough land was needed to deliberately build a new planned city for the capital. The majority of national capitals are also the largest city in their respective countries, but this is not the case in some countries.


title: Capital city

text: Counties in the United Kingdom have historic county towns, which are often not the largest settlement within the county and often are no longer administrative centres, as many historical counties are now only ceremonial, and administrative boundaries are different. The number of new capitals in the world increased substantially since the Renaissance period, especially with the founding of independent nation-states since the eighteenth century.


title: Capital city

text: In Canada, there is a federal capital, while the ten provinces and three territories each have capital cities. The states of such countries as Mexico, Brazil (including the famous cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, capitals of their respective states), and Australia also each have capital cities. For example, the six state capitals of Australia are Adelaide, Brisbane, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, and Sydney. In Australia, the term "capital cities" is regularly used to refer to those six state capitals plus the federal capital Canberra, and Darwin, the capital of the Northern Territory. Abu Dhabi is the capital city of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi and also of the United Arab Emirates overall.


title: Capital city

text: In unitary states which consist of multiple constituent nations, such as the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Denmark, each will usually have its own capital city. Unlike in federations, there is usually not a separate national capital, but rather the capital city of one constituent nation will also be the capital of the state overall, such as London, which is the capital of England and of the United Kingdom. Similarly, each of the autonomous communities of Spain and regions of Italy has a capital city, such as Seville and Naples, while Madrid is the capital of the Community of Madrid and of the Kingdom of Spain as a whole and Rome is the capital of Italy and of the region of Lazio.


title: Capital city

text: In the Federal Republic of Germany, each of its constituent states (or "Länder", plural of "Land") has its own capital city, such as Dresden, Wiesbaden, Mainz, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart, and Munich, as do all of the republics of the Russian Federation. The national capitals of Germany and Russia (the Stadtstaat of Berlin and the federal city of Moscow) are also constituent states of both countries in their own right. Each of the states of Austria and cantons of Switzerland also have their own capital cities. Vienna, the national capital of Austria, is also one of the states, while Bern is the ("de facto") capital of both Switzerland and of the Canton of Bern.


title: Capital city

text: Governing entities sometimes plan, design and build new capital cities to house the seat of government of a polity or of a subdivision. Deliberately planned and designed capitals include:


title: Capital city

text: Changes in a nation's political regime sometimes result in the designation of a new capital. Akmola (renamed Astana in 1998) became the capital of Kazakhstan in 1997, following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Naypyidaw was founded in Burma's interior as the former capital, Rangoon, was claimed to be overcrowded.


title: Capital city

text: A few nation-states have multiple capitals, and there are also several states that have no capital. Some have a city as the capital but with most government agencies elsewhere.


title: Capital city

text: There is also a ghost town which is currently the "de jure" capital of a territory: Plymouth in Montserrat.


title: Capital city

text: There are several countries where, for various reasons, the official capital and de facto seat of government are separated:


title: Capital city

text: Some historical examples of similar arrangements, where the recognized capital was not the official seat of government:


title: Capital city

text: With the rise of the modern nation-state, the capital city has become a symbol for the state and its government, and imbued with political meaning. Unlike medieval capitals, which were declared wherever a monarch held his or her court, the selection, relocation, founding, or capture of a modern capital city is a highly symbolic event. For example:


title: Capital city

text: The capital city is usually but not always a primary target in a war, as capturing it usually guarantees capture of much of the enemy government, victory for the attacking forces, or at the very least demoralization for the defeated forces.


title: Capital city

text: In ancient China, where governments were massive centralized bureaucracies with little flexibility on the provincial level, a dynasty could easily be toppled with the fall of its capital. In the Three Kingdoms period, both Shu and Wu fell when their respective capitals of Chengdu and Jianye fell. The Ming dynasty relocated its capital from Nanjing to Beijing, where they could more effectively control the generals and troops guarding the borders from Mongols and Manchus. The Ming was destroyed when Li Zicheng took their seat of power, and this pattern repeats itself in Chinese history, until the fall of the traditional Confucian monarchy in the 20th century. After the Qing dynasty's collapse, decentralization of authority and improved transportation and communication technologies allowed both the Chinese Nationalists and Chinese Communists to rapidly relocate capitals and keep their leadership structures intact during the great crisis of Japanese invasion.


title: Capital city

text: National capitals were arguably less important as military objectives in other parts of the world, including the West, because of socioeconomic trends toward localized authority, a strategic modus operandi especially popular after the development of feudalism and reaffirmed by the development of democratic and capitalistic philosophies. In 1204, after the Latin Crusaders captured the Byzantine capital, Constantinople, Byzantine forces were able to regroup in several provinces; provincial noblemen managed to reconquer the capital after 60 years and preserve the empire for another 200 years after that. The British forces sacked various American capitals repeatedly during the Revolutionary War and War of 1812, but American forces could still carry on fighting from the countryside, where they enjoyed support from local governments and the traditionally independent civilian frontiersmen. Exceptions to these generalizations include highly centralized states such as France, whose centralized bureaucracies could effectively coordinate far-flung resources, giving the state a powerful advantage over less coherent rivals, but risking utter ruin if the capital were taken.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Euphemia LatiQue Sumpter, better known as Tika Sumpter, is an American actress, singer, producer, television host, and model. Sumpter began her career as the host of "Best Friend's Date". From 2005 to 2010, she appeared in the daytime soap opera, "One Life to Live". In 2010, she made her film debut in "".


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter was later featured in supporting roles for "What's Your Number?", "Think Like a Man", "Sparkle", and "A Madea Christmas". From 2013 to 2021, she appeared on the OWN soap opera "The Haves and the Have Nots", as well as in "Ride Along", "Ride Along 2", "Get On Up", and "Nobody's Fool". In 2016, she starred as Michelle Robinson in "Southside with You". In 2020, she appeared in "Sonic the Hedgehog" and reprised her role in the 2022 sequel, "Sonic the Hedgehog 2".


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter was born in Queens, New York City. She was a cheerleader at her high school. She graduated from Longwood Senior High School in Middle Island, New York and studied at Marymount Manhattan College where she majored in communications.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter began her modeling career and appeared in commercials for Hewlett-Packard and Liz Claiborne's Curve fragrances. She also worked as a waitress before acting. In 2004, she served as the co-host for the reality series "Best Friend's Date", which was broadcast on Nickelodeon's defunct cable channel The N, now titled TeenNick. The following year she landed the role of Layla Williamson in the ABC daytime soap opera, "One Life to Live". For her portrayal of Layla, Sumpter was nominated for an NAACP Image Award for Best Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 2008. She first appeared on-screen on July 15, 2005, playing the role regularly through September 14, 2010. Sumpter reappeared in the role on November 9–10, 2010, and January 21 and 24, 2011.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: In 2010, Sumpter made her film debut in "" and briefly appeared in "Salt". From January to May 2011, Sumpter appeared in The CW teen drama series, "Gossip Girl" as Raina Thorpe. She played singer Jason Derülo's girlfriend in the video for his song "It Girl". In 2011, she appeared in the romantic comedy film "What's Your Number?". From 2011 to 2012 she also had a recurring role as Jenna Rice in the BET comedy series, "The Game".


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter played Delores "Dee" Anderson in the musical-drama "Sparkle" (2012), inspired by the story of The Supremes. Sumpter is heard on the "", and appears in the music video for "Celebrate".


title: Tika Sumpter

text: After "Sparkle", she starred in the independent comedy film "My Man Is a Loser". From May 2013 to July 2021, Sumpter starred as Candace Young, a lead villainess, in the Oprah Winfrey Network soap opera "The Haves and the Have Nots". The series was a hit for the Oprah Winfrey Network. In 2013, she also appeared in "A Madea Christmas".


title: Tika Sumpter

text: In 2014, Sumpter co-starred in "Ride Along", opposite Kevin Hart and Ice Cube. She reprised her role in the 2016 sequel "Ride Along 2". She played Yvonne Fair in "Get On Up", the biographical drama film about James Brown. In the same year she co-starred opposite Queen Latifah, Mo'Nique, and Khandi Alexander in the HBO biographical film "Bessie" about the blues singer Bessie Smith.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter played a young Michelle Robinson in the film "Southside with You", a biopic about the early romance between Barack and Michelle Obama. The film premiered at the 2016 Sundance Film Festival and received positive reviews from critics. Sumpter also co-produced the film.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: Sumpter is an honorary member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was inducted into the organization on July 10, 2016, at the 67th annual Boule, in Atlanta, Georgia.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: In 2018, Sumpter appeared in the drama "The Old Man & the Gun", directed by David Lowery. She also appeared in "An Acceptable Loss", a political thriller written and directed by Joe Chappelle, and in the comedy-drama film "Nobody's Fool" for Paramount Players.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: In 2019, Sumpter was cast in the ABC comedy series "Mixed-ish", a prequel spinoff of "Black-ish", playing the role of Alicia, Rainbow's mother. In 2020, she appeared in the film "Sonic the Hedgehog" based on the video game franchise, and in the 2022 sequel.


title: Tika Sumpter

text: On October 8, 2016, Sumpter gave birth to her daughter, Ella-Loren. In January 2017, Sumpter announced that she was engaged to "The Haves and the Have Nots" co-star, Nicholas James. The couple married in 2022.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Natalie Denise Suleman (born Nadya Denise Doud-Suleman; July 11, 1975), known as Octomom in the media, is an American media personality who came to international attention when she gave birth to the first surviving octuplets in January 2009. The circumstances of their high order multiple birth led to controversy in the field of assisted reproductive technology as well as an investigation by the Medical Board of California of the fertility specialist involved.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman conceived the octuplets and her six older children via in vitro fertilization (IVF). Although she initially denied ever having used public assistance, she confirmed in April 2012 on NBC's "Today" show that she was on public assistance.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Nadya was born in Fullerton, California. She is the only child of Angela Victoria Suleman (born Stanaitis), a schoolteacher of Lithuanian descent and Edward Doud Suleman, a Palestinian restaurant owner turned realtor who served as a translator in Iraq. She attended Nogales High School in La Puente, California, where she was known as "Natalie Doud", and later Mt. San Antonio College in Walnut where she earned a psychiatric technician license. She received a B.S. in child development and worked for a state mental hospital for three years.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: In 1996, Suleman married Marco Gutierrez. They separated in 2000. Gutierrez filed for divorce in November 2006, which was finalized in January 2008.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman began IVF treatments at age 21 in 1997, under the supervision of Dr. Michael Kamrava, who was later expelled from the American Society for Reproductive Medicine.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: In 2001, Suleman gave birth to her first son, Elijah. In 2002, she gave birth to her first daughter, Ameerah. Suleman continued IVF treatments which resulted in three further pregnancies, including two more sons, Joshua and Aidan, and one set of fraternal twins, Calyssa and Caleb, for a total of six children: four sons, two daughters. In 2019, Suleman revealed that her son, Aidan is "severely autistic" and "requires complete assistance in meeting all needs in activities of daily living." Suleman is a vegan and says that most of her children prefer vegan food.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: In 2009, Suleman stated that she had six embryos left over from her previous IVF treatments. She explained that she requested all of the remaining embryos be transferred into her uterus at one time. A woman her age would normally have a maximum of three embryos transferred. Suleman states that part of her reasoning for attempting a sixth pregnancy was so that the frozen embryos would not be destroyed. Fresh cycles were always done, despite there being available frozen embryos stored with Dr. Kamrava. In June 2011, during a California Medical Board investigation, it was found that Kamrava had transferred twelve embryos, which the board found to be an "extreme" departure from standard of care. After reviewing Suleman's case, in combination with three other cases, the Medical Board of California voted to revoke Kamrava's medical license, effective July 1, 2011.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: News of the octuplets caused an international media sensation. Public response was largely negative, including death threats. There has been much public discussion about Suleman's decision to have the octuplets, including a minor protest outside the Suleman home. Many expressed concern that Suleman's decision for more children would burden taxpayers via public support. Suleman claimed to be able to independently support her children saying she was planning to return to school to complete a master's degree in counseling, but records showed that Suleman was unemployed after having received disability between 2002 and 2008, as payment for a back injury suffered during a riot in September 1999.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: In March 2009 Suleman bought a new house in La Habra, and many stories questioned that the octuplets would be released from the hospital, while Suleman expressed concern about losing custody of them. In the early morning hours of April 1, the day she would bring home the seventh octuplet, vandals threw a baby seat through the back window of her Toyota minivan. As of April 14, 2009, all of the children were home with their mother and grandmother.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: The octuplets celebrated their first birthday on January 26, 2010. Suleman told "People" magazine, "I don't get much sleep, but I'm used to that. Once one of the kids gets up, they all get up. Some nights I don't sleep at all or as little as half an hour. On the good nights I may get up to two full hours. The longest I've gone without sleeping is 72 hours. It's hard, but I'm continuing to move forward with my life and trying to be the best mother I can be."


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman quickly captured the public eye with the birth of octuplets. Within the first week, the media dubbed her "Octomom". Suleman hired the Killeen Furtney Group as her initial public relations company, with Wes Yoder providing a small amount of "pro bono" advice. Both groups soon ended their involvement after receiving death threats. Her next spokesman was Victor Munoz, who quit on March 6, 2009.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman has appeared on many television shows, starting with a February 2009 interview with Ann Curry. Suleman rejected suggestions that her decisions have been selfish or that she would not be able to care for her children, stating, "I know I'll be able to afford them when I'm done with my schooling. If I was just sitting down watching TV and not being as determined as I am to succeed and provide a better future for my children, I believe that would be considered, to a certain degree, selfish". Suleman would make another appearance later in March on "Dr. Phil" alongside fellow guest Gloria Allred. Allred had a list of criticisms regarding Suleman's performance as mother and homemaker.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: On April 16, 2009, Suleman revealed she struck a deal for a reality TV show in the UK, though "The Hollywood Reporter" said some U.S. networks were reluctant to pick up the show. Suleman signed an agreement with the Los Angeles Superior Court on July 24 to have each of her children earn $250 a day to star in a reality show; filming was set to begin on September 1. On May 4, 2009, it was announced that Allred had filed a case with Orange County Superior Court requesting that a guardian be appointed to protect the rights of the infants. Later Fox aired their own two-hour special titled, "Octo-Mom: The Incredible Unseen Footage". There were many parodies and other media events based on the story, including a 2009 musical performed in Los Angeles, although she was not involved in its production. It was initially released in 2012, but was given a re-release on July 25, 2014.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman was featured in the February 2010 issue of "Star", where she gave an interview. Several pictorials followed, focused mainly on her weight loss since delivering the octuplets a year earlier.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: In April 2010, Suleman was on "The Oprah Winfrey Show" and "Idol Gives Back", in which she denied claims that she had received plastic surgery and stated that she refused to star in pornographic movies. She added that she had seriously rethought her decision to give birth to and raise her children, and that she hoped to become a teacher. She made another appearance on "The Oprah Winfrey Show", where she asked and received help from Suze Orman about financial issues that she was then facing with her children and discussed her compulsive hoarding disorder developed from childhood.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: On April 30, 2012, Suleman filed for personal bankruptcy. Suleman said she had $50,000 in assets and up to $1 million in debts. Her home in La Habra was set to go up for auction. Earlier, she was accused of neglecting her children while spending hundreds of dollars on herself for services such as Brazilian blowouts. However, after visiting her house, social workers determined that the children were not in danger and should not be removed.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: Suleman checked herself into Chapman House Treatment Center in Los Angeles on October 23, 2012, for 28 days or more for rehabilitation for anxiety, exhaustion, and stress. She had been taking Xanax under a doctor's care for her problems.


title: Nadya Suleman

text: On January 13, 2014, Suleman was accused of welfare fraud by the state of California for failing to disclose nearly $30,000 in earnings. On 14 July 2014, she pleaded no contest to a single count of misdemeanor welfare fraud for failing to disclose income she was receiving from videos and personal appearances while collecting more than $26,000 in public assistance funds to care for her 14 children. Suleman was sentenced to 200 hours of community service and two years of probation, and ordered to pay a small fine. Her attorney, Arthur J. LaCilento, said that with financial help from friends, his client has already repaid the county welfare system. Before making her plea, Suleman had been facing four felony charges, including perjury and welfare fraud, in the case.