Talk:September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories

Page name issue

Should the name of this page be 9/11 advance-knowledge debate instead of 9/11 advanced-knowledge debate, because we have an article entitled "Pearl Harbor advance-knowledge debate". Noah¢s (Talk) 03:45, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I created the page without the d, for precisely that reason, but it was quickly changed. Thinking about it, perhaps its better with the d, so maybe the Pearl Harbor article should be changed to match this one for consistency? Corleonebrother (talk) 18:32, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

I disagree - in conversational American English, "advance" is used to indicate one event preceding another in time: "advance warning," "cash in advance," etc. are standard, whereas "advanced-knowledge" appears to be a new coinage. It is also potentially confusing (to speakers of American English, anyway) as "advanced" is used to indicate an object's position in space or the progress of some process: "one car advanced ahead of another," "advanced colon cancer." I would suggest that the two articles should be called "Debate over advance knowledge of Pearl Harbor Attack" and "Debate over advance knowledge of 9/11 attacks." Or use the word 'foreknowledge.' Or actually add some content about the outlines of the debate, hopefully noting how quickly it devolves to juvenile mudslinging. Why aren't the Bushite trolls crawling all over this article, by the way? Maybe you guys tired them out. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.161.122.104 (talk) 05:51, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

I was the editor that added the d to the name of the article, and now I'm thinking that was a mistake; the article should be renamed to 9/11 advance-knowledge debate. Ice Cold Beer (talk) 17:56, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Sibel Edmonds??

The article has nothing about Sibel Edmonds and what she discovered! --Espoo (talk) 11:20, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

I've added it to the article. Qworty (talk) 20:39, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Xinoehpoel

There's nothing in the article about Xinoehpoel who predicted the attacks on usenet. See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D07E6DD173BF934A2575AC0A9679C8B63 Arnold1 (talk) 01:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

See also the original usenet thread that the article above is referring to : http://groups.google.com/group/alt.prophecies.nostradamus/browse_thread/thread/cbaaf7d794e0061f?hl=en&tvc=2 Arnold1 (talk) 01:05, 13 May 2008 (UTC)

I was a regular reader of alt.prophecies.nostradamus at the time, and I can vouch for the authenticity of Xinoehpoel (as much as an anonymous user can vouch for anything). Funny thing was he predicted Sept 1, 2001 first (9-1-1) and when that failed to occur he predicted Sept 11 (9-11). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.235.97.218 (talk) 13:07, 21 July 2011 (UTC)

"9/11 advance-knowledge hypotheses"?

This article doesn't cover the debate as much as the questions raised. A lot of the statements seem removed from any context and left completely open-ended. Some of the statements are also using dated sources (as early as Sept 12, 2001), which can be problematic since they tend to carry more speculation than research.-Wafulz (talk) 19:32, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Urban Moving Systems

Maybe they were in contract with U.S. government in 2001.

http://www.fedspending.org/faads/faads.php?fiscal_year=2001&recip_id=903577&sortby=f&datype=T&reptype=r&database=faads&detail=4&submit=GO —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.78.224.246 (talk) 15:01, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

No such debate

Two months ago I requested a citation for "The 9/11 advance-knowledge debate is a debate about whether anyone outside of al Qaeda had foreknowledge that the September 11, 2001 attacks were going to take place." No citation has been provided, and there is no such debate, so I'm removing the inaccurate statement. Tom Harrison ^Talk 19:38, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

The Lone Gunmen and other popular culture depictions of plane as missiles?

In discussing evidence for or against the assertion that government officials should have anticipated the use of aircraft as missiles, is there a place in this article for appearances of such in popular culture? Of course one of the most infamous is the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen, which premiered in March 2001. If millions of Americans had been exposed to such scenarios (however unrealistically), it seems like that lends some credence to the argument that officials should have at least seriously considered such possibilities. I know that after the initial waves of shock and grief, one of the first things I thought of was, "didn't I just see this on TV a few months ago?" (I also thought, "ah, so that's why they killed Massoud over the weekend," but that's a fairly different discussion.) 74.74.65.213 (talk) 03:00, 6 September 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia makes contradictory claims

It is quite pathetic to state in the same paragraph that 5 Israelis were filming the burning skyline 4 HOURS after the event, and then to repeat a baseless claim from Ketchum of Counterpunch that this happened 16 minutes after the event. I deleted the remarks made by that defamatory hate site, as they are not even reputable in the realm of conspiracy theories. ---JD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 205.68.95.65 (talk) 18:49, 16 September 2008 (UTC)

They were ARRESTED 4 hours after the event. They were most certainly celebrating 16 minutes after the first attack occurred because they have it on video and took photographs before the 2nd tower was hit. It was even reported that they were setup before the attacks had occurred. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ryal-oh (talk • contribs) 15:41, 24 March 2011 (UTC)

Um, yeah, kinda sounds like that would need to be in there. Specifically: "The New York Times reported Thursday that a group of five men had set up video cameras aimed at the Twin Towers prior to the attack on Tuesday, and were seen congratulating one another afterwards." In that report you linked to published 9/14/2001. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.136.37.144 (talk) 03:44, 2 September 2011 (UTC)

Reliable Sources

I'm undoing the change from Logicman1966 because the referenced cite is to a CounterPunch article. CounterPunch is not a reliable source. See the following archived discussion. [1] A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 00:08, 23 February 2009 (UTC)

No, in the discussion you linked to, there was NOT a consensus of opinion that CounterPunch is not a reliable source. I disagree with that statement. Regardless, I have unsuccessfully tried finding an alternative source for the quote. Unfortunately it appears that a lot of material relating to this incident has been removed/deleted from the public record. That in itself is noteworthy. Logicman1966 (talk) 05:49, 27 February 2009 (UTC)

I've gone back and reread the discussion and the overwhelming majority of editors (i.e. all but one) did not feel CounterPunch is a reliable source. Several reasons were given including it had "a strong political agenda and bias", prides itself on "giving space to marginal views" and lacked "a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy". The only real disagreement was in situations where an individual author was particularly well know and notable in his own right (such as Noam Chomsky).

As for statement, "a lot of material relating to this incident has been removed/deleted from the public record. That in itself is noteworthy", that sounds like original research and no, it is not noteworthy unless reliable sources say such a thing.

BTW, there's one more important point that I'd like to make. Al Qaeda's terrorist attacks on 9/11 have been extremely well-covered by numerous reliable sources. If you're having trouble finding reliable sources that same something, that's a good indication that it should NOT be in Wikipedia. This should be relatively easy. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 14:56, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

Susan Lindauer

I'm surprised there is no mention of Susan Lindauer. Her testimony in a U.S. District Court hearing along with supporting testimony from reliable sources indicates she contacted the DOJ Office of Counterterrorism in August of 2001 telling them that "an attack is imminent and would occur in the southern part of Manhattan, involving airplanes and possibly a nuclear weapon with the WTC as the likely target". Relevance is supported by ..."The prosecution did not challenge Godfrey's testimony that Lindauer made the predictions in the time period given by the witness". She claims Richard Carl Fuisz gave her the information in his capacity as a CIA agent (this is not mentioned in his bio). The case is a bit confusing as the case against her claim put to the court is that "her willingness to produce witnesses to verify those claims were signs of delusion". Wayne (talk) 14:04, 4 March 2009 (UTC)

WTC7 and the BBC

What about the reporting of the collapse of the Salomon Brothers building prior to the event?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNK1V6S2cbo&feature=related

Even the BBC explanation of it is dodgy: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2007/02/part_of_the_conspiracy.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.15.40.144 (talk) 10:22, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

There explanation lies around the fact that they "longer have the original tapes of our 9/11 coverage (for reasons of cock-up, not conspiracy)"...er...right.Smallman12q (talk) 14:01, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

The collapse was imminent, firefighters expected it to happen. It's no surprise that the BBC already had a line prepared for the event beforehand, as to be up-to-date at that point. Furthermore, you'd have to find RS discussing the BBC as part of the advance-knowledge debate. 92.76.129.224 (talk) 13:51, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

Actually, the firefighters based this expectation predominantly on the documented fact that they were told that the skyscraper would collapse.

http://rememberbuilding7.org/foreknowledge/

CNN and the BBC did not merely report that the building was damaged or that it might collapse; they prematurely announced its actual collapse.

CNN's Aaron Brown, one hour and ten minutes in advance of the collapse: "We are getting information now that one of the other buildings, Building 7, in the World Trade Center complex, is on fire and has either collapsed or is collapsing." CNN then revised its captions accordingly, from "may collapse" to "poised to collapse" (approximately 15 minutes before the actual collapse) and then to "on verge of collapse" (approximately 1.5 minutes before actual destruction). High precision!

Of course, NIST's final explanation 7 years later -- not based on any physical research material, as "no steel was recovered from WTC 7" -- was that a totally unpredictable chain of events -- "thermal expansion" causing the failure of an inner column, column number 79, followed by the failure of the other 80 columns within a couple of seconds (NIST doesn't go into details here) -- led to an "unprecedented event": the total destruction of a skyscraper. Without the failure of column 79, about which no one could have had foreknowledge, the skyscaper would, according to NIST, not have collapsed. History teaches (talk) 13:34, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Related Illustrations

Should illustrations depicting the WTC as a target be included such as...

• 
  Page 49 of the Air Force Manual "10-100: Airman's Manual" from Aug 1999.
• 
  The cover of a US Dept of Justice manual entitled "Managing Weapons of Mass Destruction Incidents: An Executive Level Program for Sheriffs" from June 2000.

I'm curious to know=P.Smallman12q (talk) 13:52, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

No. It's your original research - no reliable source discusses these images. Hipocrite (talk) 13:54, 22 October 2009 (UTC)

Hmm...well in that regard...that there aren't any reliable sources that discuss the images...thats true(unless someone can find such a source). While WP:OR states that "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth." It then states "This policy and the verifiability policy reinforce each other by requiring that only assertions, theories, opinions, and arguments that have already been published in a reliable source may be used in Wikipedia"... Are pictures considered assertions? This is a losing argument, but the pictures come from a reliable source... Well I was hoping to get the two pics included...but I can see that until an expert comes along and writes about it...I'm simply not qualified enough to discern what it is I see...Smallman12q (talk) 00:38, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

It's your OR connecting the pictures with the September 11 Attacks unless you find a RS that state that they are a significant part of the advance-knowledge debate. WP does not aim at introducing new elements into ongoing debates, but at accurately depicting them. That is, whether you are or are not qualified enough to discern what's on them is not the issue, the threshold for inclusion is not individual perception and analysis, but verifyability. 92.76.129.224 (talk) 13:46, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

I've concluded that it is indeed OR as I can't find any reliable sources pointing these pictures out...my apologies...Smallman12q (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 15:11, 24 October 2009 (UTC).

Bias

Whoever had the flippancy to write this:

"However, certain questions of 9/11 foreknowledge are distinct from conspiracy theories because they propose incompetence and failures on the parts of many people and entities, not a deliberate allowance of the attacks to occur."

Thank you for this elegant disclaimer. The Orwellian brutality of this sentence in and by itself is a damning indictment of consensus truth. I propose no change. No wording could more succinctly express the climate of self-censorship we subject ourselves to. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.72.202.138 (talk) 13:52, 29 March 2010 (UTC)

reliable source

Is http://www.justiceblind.com/airplanes.html a reliable source? Do we have other sources for Senator Bob Graham's statements cited on that page? --Espoo (talk) 17:17, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Removed paragraph due to missing citation

I remove the last paragraph in the Able Danger section due to a missing citation. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.231.25.98 (talk) 22:26, 10 September 2010 (UTC)

Inappropriate referencing

I noticed that at least one reference, the Globe and Mail article by Doug Saunders, is a link to whatreallyhappened.com which is not a reliable source, even if it does offer a reprint of a Globe and Mail article -- which I can't yet confirm, since the link is now broken. Andrevan@ 09:15, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Citation Needed

I came across the portion where the article mentions the Nation Reconnaissance Office's drills happening the same day as the attacks. On the morning of September 11, 2001, the National Reconnaissance Office, who are responsible for operating U.S. reconnaissance satellites, had scheduled an exercise simulating the crashing of an aircraft into their building, four miles (6 km) from Washington Dulles International Airport.[citation needed] here are a few sources...

(Through the Associated Press) http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2002-08-22-sept-11-plane-drill-_x.htm

(Transcript of House of Representative Hearing regarding DynCorps suspected slave trade, Missing Trillions of dollars, and the 9/11 wargames) http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/031505_mckinney_transcript.shtml

(video through C-Span of the same House Hearing targeting, DynCorps suspected slave trade, Missing Trillions of dollars, and the 9/11 wargames) http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af0_1207651726

Proposed split

False flag and other conspiracy theories should be separated from the advance-knowledge debate, which is, while integral to the former, still fundamentally distinct in many ways.   — C M B J   20:29, 18 September 2011 (UTC)

Senator Hart on his warnings to Rice

I spotted this interview with senator Hart. My edit [2] was reverted from the 9/11 main article. Possibly, some information from the source fits this article, what do you think?, which section: Intelligence Warnings? lessismore (talk) 22:05, 17 March 2012 (UTC)

blp

The quote attributed to Rice isn't cited; since it's contentious and likely to be challenged I've removed it[3] per WP:BLP. Tom Harrison ^Talk 11:54, 19 March 2012 (UTC)

Is this a real topic?

Is this a real topic? I'm not aware of any September 11 attacks advance-knowledge debate outside the 9/11 conspiracy theorist community (and we already have an article dedicated to 9/11 conspiracy theories). I doubt if the advance-knowledge conspiracy theory is notable on its own. This article seems like the result of WP:OR-y and WP:SYN-y research by Wikipedia editors to create a topic. Thoughts? A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 12:03, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

This is probably a daughter article of 9/11 conspiracy theories...MONGO 20:29, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

OK, I just looked into the history and based on the edit summaries, it looks like it was created as a subarticle of 9/11 conspiracy theories.[4] If so, "September 11 attacks advance-knowledge debate" is a misleading name. It should be "September 11 attacks advance-knowledge conspiracy theories". Maybe fixing the article is as simple as renaming it? But I don't think that 9/11 advance-knowledge conspiracy theories is notable on its own. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 23:16, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

I think it's a spectrum from conspiracy theory to mainstream debate (how much intelligence was there?, how actionable was it?). Some people hold outlandish conspiracy theories in this area. The spectrum then moves from there all the way to reliable discussion of the issue such as the Commission quote given, "During the spring and summer of 2001, U.S. intelligence agencies received a stream of warnings about an attack al Qaeda planned, as one report puts it "something very, very, very big."", and mainstream discussion of Massoud's warning. I've started a discussion at Talk:September 11 intelligence prior to the attacks about how merging these two articles may help resolve an undue weight issue. Superm401 - Talk 00:38, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Is there a debate? Who are the parties to this debate? There were hearings, and they have an article, and there were investigations, and they have articles; and then there are conspiracy theories, and this is a pov fork - a conspiracist synthesis of material from articles about the hearings and investigations, from primary sources, and from ct sites. It looks like the subject of this article doesn't really exist. Tom Harrison ^Talk 02:41, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

The question of advanced knowledge is hardly fringe and does get mainstream attention. Just the question of whether they could have predicted the use of planes as missiles has been covered extensively in major reliable sources. See a small sampling of those sources: [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13]. Several of those cover the general issue of advanced knowledge in significant detail. This is not considering all the claims about al-Hazmi and al-Midhar.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 19:00, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

Discussing possible fork

I've started a discussion at Talk:September 11 intelligence prior to the attacks. Superm401 - Talk 00:31, 23 March 2012 (UTC)