Category File
9/11
6 documented theories filed under this subject.
- The Passport MiracleA 9/11 theory claiming that the discovery of one hijacker’s passport near the World Trade Center was too improbable to be authentic and therefore must have been planted as a ready-made evidentiary token for the FBI. The story focuses most strongly on the passport of Satam al-Suqami, reportedly found in lower Manhattan after Flight 11 hit the North Tower, before the towers collapsed.
- The Project for the New American Century (PNAC)A post-9/11 theory claiming that the neoconservative think tank Project for the New American Century had already outlined the strategic shape of a more aggressive U.S. military century and that its language about a “catastrophic and catalyzing event—like a new Pearl Harbor” reflected not only strategic wishfulness but foreknowledge, intent, or readiness to exploit a major attack in order to justify wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
- The Stand Down OrderA 9/11 theory claiming that U.S. air defenses were not merely confused, delayed, or trapped by outdated protocols, but were intentionally restrained by orders from high authority so that the hijacked planes could proceed unimpeded. The theory focuses on NORAD timelines, FAA-military miscommunication, delayed scrambles, and the contrast between expectations of American airpower and the actual response on September 11.
- The Dancing IsraelisA 9/11-era urban legend claiming that five Israeli nationals arrested in New Jersey on September 11, 2001 were Mossad agents who filmed the attacks and celebrated them in order to document or help shape U.S. entry into a wider Middle Eastern war. The story grew from a real arrest, a real FBI investigation, television reporting on the detainees, and the later absorption of the episode into advance-knowledge and foreign-intelligence conspiracy culture.
- The Pentagon Missile TheoryA 9/11 theory claiming that the Pentagon was not struck by American Airlines Flight 77, but by a missile or smaller military-type projectile. The theory developed from early press photographs that seemed to show limited visible wreckage, the size of the exterior damage before collapse, eyewitness confusion, and the rapid emergence of competing narratives about what a commercial-jet impact should have looked like.
- The Missing 2.3 TrillionA major post-9/11 theory claiming that the September 11 attacks functioned as a distraction from Donald Rumsfeld’s September 10, 2001 statement that the Pentagon could not properly track trillions of dollars in transactions. The theory does not usually argue that the full amount was physically stolen in a single act, but rather that the attacks buried scrutiny of a massive accounting crisis inside the Defense Department.