Conspiracy theories about 9/11 persist

Conspiracy theories rarely get more than a dismissive wink and smile in mainstream America.

But as the anniversary of 9/11 nears, a couple of polls show nearly a third of Americans believe the U.S. government either participated in the attacks or allowed them to happen. And conspiracy theorists are getting their day in the sun.

In Durham, the skeptics can fill a church fellowship hall or a library meeting room, casting doubt on the official story -- that al-Qaeda terrorists hijacked four commercial jets Sept. 11, crashed two into the World Trade Center and the third into the Pentagon, with the fourth plummeting into a Pennsylvania field after passengers foiled the plot.

As long as there have been historic events, conspiracy theories have followed.

Who hasn't heard the 1969 moonwalk happened in a Hollywood studio. John F. Kennedy was killed by anyone but Lee Harvey Oswald (and Lyndon Johnson was involved). Franklin D. Roosevelt surely goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor to start a world war.

"Death usually brings out conspiracy theories," said Jonathan Knight, director of the American Association of University Professors Academic Freedom and Tenure program.

Last week, in an attempt to dismiss the nagging and persistent conspiracy theories, the State Department and a federal science agency released separate reports insisting that the disasters were caused by hijackers using fully fueled passenger jets as missiles.

But a subculture of doubters home in on holes and inconsistencies with video footage, photographs and initial reactions to the catastrophic events. For them it all adds up to one inescapable conclusion: conspiracy.

On a late August evening, nearly 100 people filled a room at Eno River Unitarian Universalist Fellowship in southern Durham. They were from Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Durham, northern Chatham County, Hillsborough, Asheville, Raleigh and Wake Forest -- mostly North Carolina towns with large enclaves left of the political center.

Peter Zarcone, a man who describes himself as a skeptic -- "not a paranoid schizophrenic type of conspiracy person" -- helped organize a presentation with video clips, photographs, collected quotes and other information about events before and after 9/11.

Larry Burk, a self-employed radiologist at the forefront of establishing Duke University's alternative medicine program, was at the front of the room, wearing a small microphone under the fake white rose pinned to his lapel.

The fabric flower represents the White Flower, the nonviolent German resistance group famous for a leaflet campaign calling for active opposition to the Nazi regime during World War II.

Before the laptop presentation began, Burk polled the audience.

Who believed the federal government either took part in or allowed the attacks on the World Trade Center to happen, Burk asked. Most people raised their hands.

A smattering of hands went up when Burk asked who believed the destruction was caused by a planned demolition.

A nationwide poll this summer by the Ohio University Scripps Survey Research Center found more than a third of the 1,010 adults surveyed said it is "very likely" or "somewhat likely" that the U.S. government either participated in the attacks of allowed them to happen.

Sixteen percent said the destruction of the twin towers was aided by explosives hidden in the buildings. Fifty-four percent of those polled said they "are more angry" at the government than they used to be.

"Americans are living through a historical period in which the government is less able to keep secrets from us than it was in the past," said Pete Furia, an associate professor of political science at Wake Forest University. "But precisely because we are now aware of secretive government actions in earlier eras -- nothing on the scale of staging 9/11, but various covert operations and policy machinations -- we're hesitant to dismiss contemporary conspiracy theories outright."