25 Years 9/11 - 25 Years of Conspiracy Theories

Translated from the original article published by INVED
On September 11, 2026, the terrorist attacks of September 11 mark their 25th anniversary. Around 3,000 people lost their lives directly in the attacks, many more were injured or died from the long term consequences. 9/11 itself was not a conspiracy theory (those came later), but a real conspiracy, the conspiracy of the terrorists.

The attackers of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, prepared the attack for years. A total of 19 terrorists hijacked four passenger planes on the morning of September 11, two of which were flown into the towers of the World Trade Center and one into the Pentagon. This time, the consequences would be much greater than those of the often forgotten bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.

The morning of September 11, 2001 made history. The images went around the world, and almost every TV station spontaneously changed its programming. Films later dealt with the events of September 11 as well, including one about the passengers of Flight 93, who resisted the hijackers and prevented the plane from reaching its intended target, thereby preventing an even greater catastrophe. According to the findings of the 9/11 Commission, the hijackers most likely intended to hit either the Capitol or the White House with Flight 93.

An event of such magnitude, one that would have such global consequences and, on top of that, involved the United States, was almost destined to become a breeding ground for conspiracy theories. And there were plenty of them. Very quickly, people started talking about a so called “inside job”, claiming that the US government itself had planned the attacks and that the buildings had not actually collapsed because of the planes hitting them (something that is sometimes denied as well), but because of “controlled demolitions”.

As with many conspiracy theories of this magnitude, those spreading them failed to explain not only how thousands of co conspirators could have been recruited for such an operation, but also how their silence could have been guaranteed. The “Truther” movement, as these self proclaimed “investigators” called themselves, was not particularly bothered by such questions.

The phrase “jet fuel does not melt steel” can still be found across social media today, even though countless experts have pointed out for many years that steel does not have to melt to lose its structural strength, and that this loss of strength, combined with the massive damage caused by the aircraft impacts, led to the collapse. Investigations by NIST, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a US federal agency, also found no evidence that the towers were brought down by a controlled demolition.

The passports of some of the terrorists that were found after the attacks are also presented as “compelling” evidence of a “staged event”. What remains unmentioned is that only a fraction of the passports were recovered in the first place, and that other objects and debris were also thrown clear during the impacts without being “pulverized”.

Under a YouTube video about the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, one user commented that it was “interesting” that the same bystanders could supposedly be seen in the report as in footage from September 11. With this unsupported claim, the user indirectly picks up on the conspiracy theory of so called “crisis actors” that is widespread in the United States, the idea that actors are used to stage such events. Similar claims have also been used to portray numerous mass shootings in the United States as “staged”.

Another conspiracy theory, in this case clearly motivated by antisemitism, is the idea that there were no Jewish victims because Jews had supposedly been warned by Israel beforehand. The claim that “4,000 Jews/Israelis were warned before 9/11” is based on the manipulative distortion of an actual news report. On September 12, 2001, the Jerusalem Post reported that around 4,000 Israelis had been reported as potentially being in the areas of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

A central starting point for these conspiracy theories, which exist in different variations, was a report by the Hezbollah affiliated broadcaster Al Manar. On September 17, it falsely claimed that 4,000 Israelis who worked at the World Trade Center had not shown up for work on September 11 after receiving information from the Israeli intelligence service Shabak.

In the Middle East, the rivalry between extremist groups and governments of Sunni and Shia orientation also contributed to different conspiracy theories about who was responsible for the September 11 attacks. Al Qaeda was a Sunni extremist and strongly anti Shia organization, while Iran and the Shia Hezbollah associated with it stood on the other side of this religious and geopolitical rivalry. Some actors on the Shia side, represented for example by the Iranian government and Hezbollah, consequently also spread theories about Israeli responsibility for the attacks.

Antisemitic conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11 are generally very common and are not limited to the claim that “the Jews were warned”. They also include claims that Jews were directly responsible for the attack. This is communicated through different codes, sometimes “Mossad” or “Israel”, sometimes quite openly “the Jews”, or, in some antisemitic online circles, coded as “Juice” (often accompanied by a juice box icon), because “juice” and “Jews” sound similar when spoken. Such codes can also be used to evade hate speech moderation and avoid openly antisemitic language.

The internet, which was still quite new to the broader public at the time and had now become available to almost everyone, played a particularly important role. In online forums and newsgroups, the predecessors of today’s social media, users discussed who was “really” responsible for 9/11 and how the “mainstream media” were supposedly lying to us.

The belief in a government conspiracy and in government deception surrounding September 11 brought together the political extremes, the far right and the far left, something we can still observe today, but it also often spread into the political mainstream. Anti American sentiment played a role, as did genuinely questionable decisions by US policymakers and potential failures by the authorities before and after the attack. These were mixed together with conspiracy theories, propaganda and disinformation.

The 9/11 Commission itself did indeed identify failures before the attacks. These failures, however, are not evidence that the US government organized the attacks itself. After 9/11, the United States declared the “War on Terror”, followed by the war in Afghanistan and, in 2003, the invasion of Iraq, even though Iraq was not responsible for the September 11 attacks.

Alternative realities surrounding September 11 remain an evergreen subject among conspiracy theorists today, and 9/11 conspiracy theories were, without question, a milestone in the networking of subversive groups and the polarization of society, accelerated by the internet. Many people became ideologically radicalized during this period, and belief in one conspiracy theory developed into a general anti system worldview that was directed not only against the United States, but against the West in general as the supposed “source of all evil”.

Compilation of 9/11 conspiracy theory comments posted on social media in 2026:

25 Years 9/11 – 25 Years of Conspiracy Theories

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