The literature of 9/11 can be divided into US government documents, which support the official account of 9/11, and the body of literature that has emerged from the professional research community through dissatisfaction with the official account.

Government Documents Advocating the Official Story of September 11

A 9/11 investigation was resisted by the White House [1] and was only granted under pressure from the surviving families nearly two years after the event. The 9/11 Commission was a low-budget affair (costing a fraction of the Monica Lewinsky investigation) and tightly controlled by a White House insider, Philip Zelikow. [2]

Co-Chair  Lee Hamilton said the 9/11 Commission was “set up to fail,” and Former commissioner Max Cleland resigned, calling it a “national scandal.” [3]

The 9/11 Commission Report ignored dozens of facts, [4] including the sudden, straight-down collapse at 5:21 PM of World Trade Center 7, a 47-story steel-framed building that was two blocks from the Twin Towers and was not hit by an airplane.

The Report, which is incomplete and lacks peer review, can hardly be viewed as an evidence-based study.

The  other central documents in the official account were prepared over a seven-year period by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), in an attempt to explain the strange vertical, nearly free-fall collapses of the Twin Towers and Building 7. [5] There was no consideration given to a controlled demolition hypothesis, although the attending firefighters and TV anchors (including CBS anchor Dan Rather and ABC anchor Peter Jennings [6] suggested the uncanny similarity at the time.

Like  The 9/11 Commission Report, the NIST reports were not peer-reviewed. Sixty days were given for public comment on the first draft, but the comments, and many serious concerns that were raised, were almost entirely ignored in writing the final report. [7]

As the NIST reports were not peer-reviewed, they cannot be judged as evidence-based.

Independent Scientific Research Opposing the Official Story of September 11

Most  of the best evidence challenging the official story has been reported in ten highly documented books by Dr. David Ray Griffin, who had taught philosophy of religion, with a heavy focus on the relation between religion and science, for 35 years. His books, videotaped lectures, and online essays are available on a website. [8]

Published articles in the scientific literature include:

•  a paper reporting the presence of nanothermite in the dust from the destruction of the World Trade Center; [9]
•   six papers in the February 2010 American Behavioral Scientist, indexed by 67 databases, and published as a whole issue on State Crimes Against Democracy, with 9/11 used as a primary example; [10]
•   an article in The Environmentalist, “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials;” [11]
•   a paper, “Extremely high temperatures during the World Trade Center destruction;” [12]
•   a science article countering popular myths about the WTC collapses; [13]
•   59 peer-reviewed papers on the physics of 9/11 events, published since 2006 in the Journal of 9/11 Studies, and 67 letters between members of the academic community; [14]
•   9 scholarly papers published as a compendium in 2006 by Elsevier Science Press, suggesting US complicity in a false flag operation. [15] The Hidden History of 9-11-2001 was never reviewed in the mainstream press.

Other  resources  include  Morgan  and  Henshall’s 9/11 Revealed [16] and Flight 93 Revealed; [17] two books by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky, America’s War on Terrorism, [18] and War and Globalisation: The Truth Behind September 11; [19] and the Complete 9/11 Timeline investigative project. [20]

Although the foregoing evidence against the official story has not been distilled into the systematic reviews and practice guidelines that are the products of evidence-based medicine, each claim has been either multiply peer-reviewed or substantially documented. All claims are based on continually updated and ongoing research.

This qualifies the independent research cited above as the best available evidence concerning the events of September 11.

Note: This  summary has been excerpted and slightly revised from a paper published in the journal, Information for Social Change, August, 2010. [21]

References