Alternative Interpretations

While a group of truth-seekers will generally agree that the official narrative of a suspected false-flag amounts to an untrue conspiracy theory, there will be noticeable differences between the alternative interpretations that replace this discredited orthodoxy. Although united by their essential deviancy, some counter-narratives are more “deviant” than others. It is possible to discern different schools of thought that behave like trans-local factions – the truth-seeker is undoubtedly influenced by the particular theorists and theories they pursue during personal research – but I must stress that each truth-seeker has their own unique view that might draw upon several of these, with subjective emphasis upon the ‘who’, ‘what’, or ‘why’.⁴⁴⁹ I will take ‘who’,

‘what’, and ‘why’ as three interrelated dimensions and again focus mainly on 9/11 to show the diversity of alternative viewpoints amid the fluid truth movement.

Who?

The ‘who’ question was given less attention than I expected prior to fieldwork. Common to all FFCNs is the rejection that the apparent perpetrators were entirely culpable (i.e. they might be patsies). For example, Bin Laden is not excused entirely but perceived more as a useful tool for the secret service(s). Or in 7/7, the “attackers” thought they were part of a training exercise. In

447 Pipes, pp. 38-42.

448 For ‘plausibility structures’, see Peter Berger, Social Reality of Religion, Homeless Mind, Sacred Canopy. The specific term ‘deviant plausibility structure’ is used by Eileen Barker as she tries to understand the modern phenomenon of Creationist Science. Eileen Barker, ‘In the Beginning: The battle of creationist science against evolutionism’. The ‘for/of social reality’ is a nod to Geertz, Interpretation of Cultures, p. 93.

449 One could theorise about these similarities/differences in a way comparable to the denominational differences within a church.

169 FFCNs the actual culprits are revealed according to “quo bono”: who benefits? In this way a wide range of primary institutions become suspect, such as the mainstream news media, the political establishment/government, and the intelligence services.

Whenever the ‘who’ was addressed arguments could arise. With 9/11 (and the present-day ISIS attacks) there is much debate over whether Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, was responsible.

As with the talk in Chapter One, this would descend quickly into an anti-Zionism/anti-Semitism debate. Israel’s involvement in alleged false-flags is a recurring allegation among truth-seekers.

The Bush administration, and Blair’s government, as the British counterpart, is another likely culprit.⁴⁵⁰ Nobody was ever sure if other, secret, parties were ultimately responsible; and in the same vein, nothing prevents these culprits from working together. The US and UK governments appear suspicious, but some truth-seekers allowed for the existence of rogue elements. Indeed, I eventually felt that the ‘who?’ question was left neglected partly to avoid stoking confrontation (since the subject of Israel is a well-known divisive subject), but also due to its unknowability.

Far from contradicting the counter-narrative, multiple potential culprits are more plausible within a shared culture in which everything appears potentially interconnected, nothing is as it seems, and nothing happens by accident.⁴⁵¹

However, whilst truth-seekers would discuss several possible culprits, many truth-seekers would avoid making any hard conclusions. The only certainty was that Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda did not act alone. Beyond that, potentially guilty parties were not easily dismissed. There are also esoteric answers that presume that parties ultimately responsible hide themselves effectively. Academic and popular commentators have taken the way that conspiracy theories rely on ever-widening circles of involvement as a sign of their inherent implausibility. From the emic perspective, however, a conspiracy of this scale becomes feasible on these very grounds. Furthermore, when truth-seekers speak about ‘mainstream media’ involvement, or talk about the Bush administration, CIA, or Mossad, they do not presume full-scale involvement. Rogue elements within these organisations might be intricately and intelligently connected.

What?

The ‘what?’ question is perhaps the most fascinating of all from an analytical perspective. This has changed over time. According to Nick, for years “the “what” is just the three towers fell and not two. Building 7 came down and not just the two, that is what traditionally the truth movement will talk about”. For many truth-seekers, what happened was a (self-evident) demolition job.

Judy Wood is an important figure (as mentioned in the first excerpt) who changed the scene by asking a straightforward question: Where did the towers go? People who subscribe to Wood’s ideas stress that they ‘turned into dust, 100,000 tonnes of dust; they didn’t collapse’. For those

450 For ‘why?’, see below.

451 Barkun, p. 6.

170 who accept that “dustification” occurred, her explanation is one of the few plausible options available. She focuses on a large energy signature detected in the Atlantic Ocean as a sign that the Towers fell through a calculated manipulation of the “Hutchingson Effect”. Nick was not personally convinced, reflecting, “generally the truth movement in this country didn’t want to go there, didn’t want a thing where beam weaponry brought down the towers, and no planes went into the towers”. According to my fieldwork, however, Wood’s ideas enjoy broad support; she is a well-known name across all three groups and even spoke at New Horizons in 2012 to an allegedly record-breaking audience. This is not because everyone subscribes to her conclusions, but because her contribution to ‘what?’ undermines the official position “in incredible detail and focus, but she doesn’t say anything about who did it or why it was done”. Her insights can therefore be adopted by truth-seekers of many creeds. She also exemplifies the characteristics discussed in the preceding section insofar as “Judy Wood is very visual, she shows a lot of pictures and says “can you see what happened?” or “can you see this?””. Although Nick rejected the Hutchinson effect, and with it Wood’s theory, he still thought her research was “terribly important”, revealing in scientific terms the mystery of the debris which, for Nick, remained “an incredibly weird phenomenon that nobody can understand. And I think it is exotic technology, and I’d like to leave it at that”.

Judy Wood’s research also provided the infamous “no planes” theory its firmest evidence. The invocation of secret technologies draws upon scientific authority (which is further aided by Doctor Judy Wood’s academic credentials as a natural scientist) and the truth-seeker’s

“alternative” knowledge of history, past and present. The success of Wood’s theory owes much to vagueness on the ‘who?’ and ‘why?’ dimensions, allowing for multiple interpretations. On the other hand, some truth-seekers felt that discussing “exotic technologies” discredits the counter-narrative altogether. Others felt that by complicating the ‘what?’ dimension needless arguments have been incurred when efforts would be better directed at “waking up” the masses to the essential deception at play; for this reason, some believe (though I only ever met a handful) Judy Wood and her supporters are controlled opposition sent in to disrupt and derail the efforts of 9/11 Truth.

Why?

The common answer is simple and extends across all the counter-narratives: the real conspirators abuse power to gain further power.⁴⁵² Although its nature and form vary between narratives, power and control is the ultimate end-goal. More specific reasons, such as “energy extraction” by inducing fear, understood within the framework of the holistic universe, can be seen as goals that symbolise power. To the extent that the ‘how’ is contained in the ‘why’, the tacit ‘why’ is

452 This emic perspective is in accordance with Fenster’s etic understanding of “conspiracy theories” as being fundamentally to do with power.

171 referential: FFCNs proceed through deception, and thus, in a sense, deception is always the hidden purpose. In all of these ‘why’ explanations, counter-narratives go beyond explaining conspiracies to rectifying them. For example, “energy extraction” depends on people being asleep. In this way, FFCNs posit a metanarrative of awakening: to discuss them is to “awake” to the deception, and they thus behave like discursive symbols of mindful liberation.

One of David Icke’s most prevalent ideas that circulates the truth movement is his formulation of

‘Problem-Reaction-Solution’ (PRS).⁴⁵³ This tripartite scheme is the alleged means by which the power-holders advance their agenda of control: 1) create a problem; 2) shepherd the public’s perception of this problem into ‘a reaction of fear and ‘do something’’ by feeding the

‘unquestioning lap-dog media the version of the problem that you want people to believe’; 3) provide solutions which ‘advance your transformation of the world’. PRS is a calculated strategy by which governments can precure the consent of its citizens for otherwise unpopular policies.

For 9/11, the (manufactured) problem is the violent threat of Islamic Extremism; the (manufactured) reaction was one of fear and vengefulness, aided by society’s (controlled) institutions of knowledge-production (the mass media); and the (pre-planned) solution was the subsequent War on Terror. This proceeded both abroad (through direct military action in parts of the Middle East) and domestically (by the increase of preventive security measures). For truth-seekers, this War on Terror was a thinly-veiled War on Liberty; according to the PRS the real purpose of the “solution” was to erode civil liberties. The PRS hypothesis constitutes a theoretical

“how-to” for (continual) societal domination that accommodates subsequent socio-cultural changes all too comfortably. This explanatory trope is a “cause-and-effect” interpretation of events that problematizes the question of agency: the reactive agent becomes the causal agent. A perceptual template therefore exists that qualifies the present in terms of past and future tidings;

a teleology, sensitive to the purpose of events, read primarily by who benefits in terms of power.

When PRS is repeated over time, the second of Icke’s best-known ideas is enacted, the

‘totalitarian tiptoe’ (TT). As suggested by the catchy, alliterative term, society “tiptoes” ever-closer to a scenario of tyrannical domination. Taken together, these ideas offer a comprehensive account of the shifting landscape of geo-politics, viewed immediately from the lens of the local:

false-attacks are symptomatic of a pervasive super-conspiracy. Attentive to an emergent New World Order where the elites enjoy total control over the (surviving) population, this steady march is detectable in the fault-lines of an unfolding present-day reality, in the political arena occupying the public sphere, and in perceptions of power materialised, especially surveillance.

The above examples of PRS involve “solutions” that result in greater material control for the elites; they are exoteric theories of power. An alternative explanation, by contrast, proceeds along

453 See Icke, Remember, pp. 175-81.

172 esoteric lines and holds that the real purpose of 9/11 was a form of energy extraction.⁴⁵⁴ Interestingly, these esoteric interpretations of 9/11 do not rely upon the truth-seeker “believing”

in, say, the extra-dimensional and extra-terrestrial dimensions suggested by David Icke; instead, they only insist that the hidden controllers believe in them.

Summary

In summary, the central tenets of a false-flag narratives are counter-balanced by a rich variety of answers to these individual, but interrelated, questions. In cases like the “no planes” debate, or that around Israel’s involvement, these differences lead to conflict. Overall, however, there is space for subjective and reflexive engagement with the alternative interpretations available across the network. Some might prefer a this-worldly understanding whereby 9/11 was a PRS operation to enable a profitable war overseas; another might subscribe to the energy extraction theory within an esoteric framework. The former group can take the latter’s understanding in metaphorical terms, while the latter appreciates the monetary dimension. Importantly, the answers to ‘who’,

‘what’, and ‘why’ are easily applied onto other false-flags.