This article gathers information about the origins of 9/11 conspiracy theories. There might have been rumours of various theories not mentioned here, but I have documented the most influential pieces of early 9/11 conspiracy theories.

September 11, 2001: First speculations of an inside job and controlled demolition . Controlled demolition was speculated by David Rostcheck (see here ). Inside job and all the usual conspiracy roar was bullhorned by Alex Jones (his September 11 show on torrent here) . Alex Jones is not mentioned here as an originator of any particular claim, since he parrots everything he hears and claims conspiracy around every corner.

September 13, 2001: The author of the website serendipity.li, Peter Meyer, released his first controlled demolition article, THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMBING .

September 15, 2001: The first NORAD stand-down implication was published by the editor of the Emperor's New Clothes website, Jared Israel.

He wrote an article called: CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE OR TREASON? , which was later followed by many other articles on that site, concentrating on the same theme.

His earlier works include this one from July 29, 2000. In the article he claims that the 1995 Srebrenica massacre was a hoax and Serbs were the actual victims.

September 17, 2001: The mention of Operation Northwoods is archived possibly for the first time here (although Alex Jones already mentioned this on September 11, 2001 among his other usual paranoia). Later Northwoods is also mentioned by Carol A. Valentine on October 6, 2001 on her article .

October 6, 2001: Numerous conspiracy claims see the daylight in this article by Carol A. Valentine called: OPERATION 911: NO SUICIDE PILOTS .

The conspiracy claims raised by this article include:

Remote controlled planes

No hijackers involved

Downplaying of Hani Hanjour's piloting skills

Global Hawk at Pentagon

Passports found almost intact are fake

Flight 93 was shot down

‘Arabs with boxcutters’

8 mile debris area at Shanksville

Atta's luggage findings are fake

And she also states the infamous “WHO WRITES THIS STUFF” –line , later used by Dylan Avery on Loose Change

I wonder, if Dylan knew who he was quoting. Carol A. Valentine’s web page introduces us to topics, like

The American Coup d’Etat and the War for Jewish Supremacy

Imperium Judacum

The Great Holocaust Irony

Etc. etc.

Carol A. Valentine denies holocaust and provides links to dozens of sites promoting these stories. Her site is very anti-semitic.

October 12, 2001: The first lengthy analysis about no arabs on the passenger lists , which also further sparked the remote controlled planes –theories. The article was called: THE PERPLEXING PUZZLE OF THE PUBLISHED PASSENGER LISTS , published by Gary North.

This detail was first noticed September 28, 2001 by <AFJS@webtv.net> on alt.culture.alaska . He first mentions this on September 22, 2001, but on 28th he gives actual links to prove his point.

Carol Valentine also catches this post by AFJS and mentions it in her article on October 6, 2001.

October 15, 2001: The theory that a released 9/11-related Bin Laden video is fake is written by Carol A. Valentine in an article called: THE TALIBAN HOME VIDEO .

October 21, 2001: First serious truther analysis of the WTC collapse . Article called: MUSLIMS SUSPEND THE LAWS OF PHYSICS , by Jim McMichael.

Topics of this article include:

jet fuel can’t melt steel

black smoke indicates a died down fire, either low on temperature or starved for oxygen

falling into own footprint

the tops of the towers should have toppled over

everything has to fail simultaneously

first time in the history of tall city buildings

pulverized concrete

the core should have been left standing

design loads, the towers should have been able to support the weight

This article was quickly mirrored in numerous sites.

This article by Jim McMichael has had a tremendous effect on the 9/11 conspiracy theories. The article was discovered in January, 2002 by a young Australian guitarist, Gerard Holmgren (see January 2002). Eric Hufschmid (author of Painful Questions, video: Painful Deceptions) started questioning the official story after being pointed to this article (see Mid - 2002). Jeff King in turn cites Eric Hufschmid (see September 16, 2002). Jim Hoffman (creator of WTC7.net, 911Research.WTC7.net, and 911Review.com) started questioning the official story after reading this article on March, 2003. David Ray Griffin in turn cited Eric Hufschmid, Jeff King, Peter Meyer, and Jim Hoffman about controlled demolition in "New Pearl Harbor" early 2004. Steven Jones started questioning the official collapse story in 2005, after being introduced to Jim Hoffman’s work. And so on.

At the end of his article, Jim McMichael links to three articles, all written by Carol A. Valentine. These two might have had some early links, since Carol A. Valentine links to some 30 articles related to 9/11 on her website. Only two of these linked articles are written by some other author than herself, one being this article by Jim McMichael.

The beginning of 2002: WTC 7 demolition , by Rosalee Grable of www.thewebfairy.com , a site that was publishing information which pointed out that the towers fell due to controlled demolitions. One of the things that led Rosalee to this conclusion was that, after poring over single-frame video 'captures' for hours on end, she noticed the WTC7 'squibs'. Gerard Holmgren was introduced to Rosalee Grable via her website. Gerard Holmgren, Rosalee Grable and a man called Scott Loughrey soon joined forces, nowadays promoting the no planes hit the WTC -theories.

January 20, 2002: An early and extensive summary of conspiracy theories with multiple links emerges, courtesy of MalcontentX, titled: September 11: Unanswered Questions .

March, 2002: Australian guitarist Gerard Holmgren, inspired by the article ‘Muslims Suspend the Laws of Physics’ by Jim McMichael, ran the collapse times through some very basic 'physics' (The Law of Falling Bodies which resulted from the works of Galileo and Sir Isaac Newton), and came to the conclusion that those Towers did, indeed, drop at free-fall speeds , and that could only result from controlled demolitions. Gerard Holmgren found Jeff King in early 2002, gave Jeff the 'falling bodies' insight, and Jeff was supposedly the first to publish that insight.

March 8, 2002: A book titled L’Effroyable imposture (9/11: The Big Lie) is released by Thierry Meyssan and extraordinary amount of conspiracy theories see the daylight. This book also popularized the 9/11 conspiracy theories. The book has been translated to 28 languages.

He lists his sources here . Meyssan did not travel himself from Paris to Washington but used correspondents to interview the eyewitnesses.

Claims of this book include:

9/11 was a US government false flag operation

no plane hit the Pentagon

remote controlled planes and controlled demolition at WTC

9/11 used as a pretext of war in Afghanistan

Osama Bin Laden a fabrication of US intelligence

no film footage of the Pentagon explosion exists

eyewitness testimonies of the Pentagon crash are suspicious, contradictory or flatly incredible

photos offer no evidence of the debris typical of an airplane crash

the area of destruction to the Pentagon is impossibly small given the size and span of the craft

Sources:

L’Effroyable imposture

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,901020520-237165,00.html

He launched the book on one of France's trashiest talk shows, and he followed up with a string of controversy-churning TV appearances that further piqued public curiosity. This book went on top of the weekly French sales charts in the spring of 2002 and sold a total of 164 100 copies in France, and over half a million copies internationally in the year 2002. The success of this book was one key element in encouraging and inspiring other conspiracy theorists. For example Eric Hufschmid has admitted this inspiration.

Meyssan also published a website called “ Hunt The Boeing ” around the time of the release of his book.

In this book Meyssan presented the idea of no plane at the Pentagon. Three months later, in June 2002, he released another book titled " Le Pentagate " (The Pentagate), in which he for the first time presented the theory, that a missile hit the Pentagon .

US government response to the contents of this book:

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive/2005/Jun/28-581634.html

March 10, 2002: An article called FLIGHT OF THE BUMBLE PLANES is released. The author is supposedly a person using the alias "Snake Plissken", who was a Carol A. Valentine reader and provided her with this theory, released on Carol's website.



This is the first article, that suggests plane swaps . According to this scenario, all four "hijacked" aircraft were switched to remote controlled commuter jets filled with incendiaries/explosives or a cruise missile ( POD theory started here?). The original planes landed at a single airport or air base, transferring their passengers to a single aircraft, the one that crashed in Pennsylvania. Meanwhile, remotely controlled aircraft of various types carried out the actual attacks.



Other suggestions of this article:

Voice simulation used to fake the phone calls

"Mom, this is Mark Bingham." -line is fake

Well trained American soldiers would kill thousands of innocent American civilians to achieve a bigger objective. If they wouldn't they were not trained well.

The low passenger count on each flight is suspicious

Mid – 2002: “ PAINFUL QUESTIONS ” by Eric Hufschmid is released.

Eric Hufschmid started questioning the official story on January 18, 2002. He read the article “Muslims Suspend The Laws Of Physics” by Jim McMichael. He credits an internet personality called Geeman for pointing this article out to him.

“On the 18th of January I was looking through some of Geeman's links and I came across an article that seemed familiar. This article suggested that explosives were used to destroy the towers. The explosives did not seem to be the familiar aspect of this site, however. Rather, the remarks about pancakes and Muslim magicians seemed familiar. It was that article by Jim McMichael with the title “Muslims Suspend The Laws Of Physics”. Now, in mid-January, I understood what he was complaining about, although I still had not figured out what the pancakes had to do with the collapse.”

http://www.erichufschmid.net/PainfulQuestionsPurpose.html

He went on and did further research, eventually writing the book “Painful Questions” released in Mid – 2002 and later releasing the video Painful Deceptions.

In this book he includes many rare WTC photos to prove his case of an inside job and controlled demolition , asks why no video of flight 77 crash has been released , why so few people know about WTC 7 and its collapse and why seismic stations didn’t pick up the crash of flight 77 .

This book was one source used by Jeff King in his controlled demolition analysis, referenced by David Ray Griffin in his book " The New Pearl Harbor " as well as Andreas von Bulow (a retired Defense Minister of Germany) in his book “ Die CIA und der 11. September ” (The CIA and September 11).

September 16, 2002: Jeff King (PlaguePuppy) was the one who took apart the aspects of the demolition for a more detailed examination . He talked much about pyroclastic flows .

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/physics/

http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/collapse%20update/

He also did a lot to pioneer the recognition that it wasn't just conventional explosives . http://st12.startlogic.com/~xenonpup/spire/The%20Strange%20Collapse%20of%20the%20Spire.htm

http://st12.startlogic.com/~xenonpup/dust%20trails/

“As difficult as it may be to accept the possibility of a controlled demolition with conventional explosives, we are faced here with the additional difficulty of a process that seems to defy the laws of physics. But perhaps what we are seeing instead is a technology based on aspects of physics not generally known, but that exist as proven science for those privy to the world of black technology. Given the tremendous funding for advanced weapons programs it is not unreasonable to think that whole new areas of physics may have been developed and exploited for weapons technology in the past few decades.”

Note: It is difficult to trace, where the Mini-Nuke and Thermite theories originated, but both are already mentioned in multiple posts written in 2002.