One of the best known fables is the “Emperor’s New Clothes” by Hans Christian Anderson.  You know, where a couple of shrewd peddlers convinced the Emperor that their fabrics were so fine that only highly intelligent people could see them.  When the Emperor paraded through the town in these “new clothes”, everyone persuaded themselves that they were seeing fine gold threads, lest they be considered stupid.  Or worse, incur the wrath of the Emperor.  It was only when a little boy said, “Hey, the Emperor is naked!” and everybody laughed was the illusion broken.

This story has survived and remains popular because it reveals an essential truth of us human beings: our perception can be profoundly affected by what we want to see, to the point where we can deny what is directly in front of us.

This tendency becomes strongest in the presence of great danger.  We have an instinct to turn to our leaders and see everything as they tell us it is.

This characteristic of human populations is the explanation, and the only explanation, for why a number of events of September 11, 2001 are perceived as inaccurately by most of us today as was the Emperor’s state of dress in the old story.  For several years now, there has been an increasing number of people who are speaking out about the stark inconsistencies between the official explanations and what was seen worldwide on 9/11/01 — and can readily be seen again on dozens or hundred of public videos and photographs from that day.  Unfortunately, questioning the “official explanation” for the events of 9/11/01 is branded a “conspiracy theory” and dismissed without examination like many that preceded it. However, the fact that some conspiracy theories are bogus does not necessarily mean that all are.

What’s different in this situation from the usual conspiracy theory of the past is that there are certain events that can be seen directly by all of us from the old videos and photographs. What is obvious in these images is as much at variance with the “official explanation” as is the Emperor’s actual state of dress with the assertion of fine clothing.  I am speaking specifically of the collapse of three buildings that were part of the World Trade Center complex.

Everyone remembers that the two towers each collapsed some time after being hit by airliners.  Everyone has seen video from several different angles of the tower’s collapse — how suddenly, with no warning, each tower collapsed straight down into its own footprint.  And everyone knows it was that collapse that killed police, firefighters, other rescue workers, and those who had not yet left the building — many more than were killed in the initial airliner strikes.  We were told that the intensity of the fire from the jet fuel melted the core beams of the towers and resulted in the collapse.

The tragedy and trauma of that day and those events has blinded us to the simple fact that the “official explanation” is physically impossible.  Only if one absolutely does not think about it does the official explanation hold up.  Even from a casual observation, it is obvious that the fires were on a few upper stories of the towers and so could not have melted core steel columns simultaneously for all the lower floors.  Even wood-frame houses which catch fire do not collapse completely unless and until fire consumes most of the building.  The WTC towers were not wood, they were steel, and no modern steel skyscraper has ever collapsed, whether from fire or impact or any other accidental reason.

The fact that the collapse of the towers was perfectly symmetrical is also physically impossible as the result of any uncontrolled cause such as fire or impact.  Any such event would invariably weaken one part more than another, and any collapse or partial collapse would result in a lean or sideways fall.  The pattern of collapse of the WTC towers is seen, and only seen, when buildings are intentionally demolished with controlled detonations of high-tech explosives.

A fact less noticed or remembered from 9/11/01 is that a third building collapsed — a building that was not hit by any airplane or other sizable object.  Known as WTC7, it was almost 50 stories in height, and like the towers, collapsed straight-down in a perfectly symmetrical pattern.  Even Dan Rather of CBS remarked at the time that it looked just like the pictures we’ve all seen of planned building demolitions.

So what we have for us all to see again at any time is the collapse of three large buildings in a way that has never occurred except in controlled and planned demolitions.  The official explanations of 9/11/01 simply ignore this plain fact.

Many architects and engineers with years of experience with buildings of this type have substantiated these facts.  A group of over 1000 of them have formed an organization calling for a truly independent Congressional investigation. Their website presents the technical details of all I have said above in great detail, as well as many other disturbing facts that show that the official story is woefully incomplete. Fortunately, you do not have to be an engineer to see the buildings collapse in a way that is only seen in controlled demolitions, just like Dan Rather said. You only have to open your eyes and look.

To say that those buildings collapsed because of internal fires is to say that the Emperor is wearing beautiful clothes with golden threads — because that’s what he has told us, and if our eyes see something different, they must be defective.

We owe it to the friends and relatives of those who died in those buildings on 9/11/01 to pursue the truth of why the buildings collapsed.  Until we know that, we do not know who is really responsible for those deaths.  If you agree, you too can sign the petition of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth.