Why did I become interested - and why have the questions never gone away?

Sometimes, many times, I have wished they had. If it only it could have been that simple. A return to innocence or maybe - because the collapses were such an assault on the senses - ignorant incredulity might be better words.

It would be so much easier if I could believe the official story that a few hijackers with boxcutters and some perfunctory flight training on single-engined planes could have hijacked four large airliners, silenced the crews, turned off transponders, and then expertly guided two of them into the Twin Towers. But I have since learned from expert and highly experienced pilots that hitting a tall building at speed is just not that easy. One hit might have been lucky, but two?

What am I to make of this from an experienced pilot?

"Regarding your comments on flight simulators, several of my colleagues and I have tried to simulate the 'hijacker's' final approach manoeuvres into the towers on our company 767 simulator. We tried repeated tight, steeply banked 180 turns at 500 mph followed by a fast rollout and line-up with a tall building. More than two-thirds of those who attempted the manoeuvre failed to make a 'hit'. How these rookies who couldn't fly a trainer pulled this off is beyond comprehension."

And it would be so convenient if I could blindly believe - as the official story claims - that another amateur pilot took a third plane down through a very sharp turn and a very rapid descent to level out at ground level and crash into the ground floor of the Pentagon - again, a manoeuvre many experienced airline pilots say is virtually impossible.

Apparently, the giant plane left virtually no marks on the grass during its approach nor any appreciable debris outside the building.

What am I to make of this, from another experienced pilot?

"I shan't get into the aerodynamic impossibility of flying a large commercial jetliner 20 feet above the ground at over 400 mph. A discussion on ground effect energy, vortex compression, downwash reaction, wake turbulence, and jetblast effects are beyond the scope of this article. Let it suffice to say that it is physically impossible to fly a 200,000-lbs airliner 20 feet above the ground at 400 mph. The author, a pilot and aeronautical engineer, challenges any pilot in the world to do so in any large high-speed aircraft that has a relatively low wing-loading (such as a commercial jet) and traveling at 400 mph.) ... Furthermore, it is known that the craft impacted the Pentagon's ground floor. For purposes of reference: If a 757 were placed on the ground on its engine nacelles (I.e., gear retracted as in flight profile), its nose would be about fifteen feet above the ground! Ergo, for the aircraft to impact the ground floor of the Pentagon, Hanjour would have needed to have flown in with the engines buried in the Pentagon lawn. Some pilot."

I am no expert in building collapses. But I watched the Twin Towers fall. Both of them. And I could not understand it. Straight down, in pieces, into dust, hundreds of floors, crumbled, pulverised. In ten or so seconds. When I visited them years ago, I read that both towers had strong central cores, massive columns of steel. Does fire cause collapse like that? Not usually. Surely steel-built towers can burn for days. They may buckle and bend, but not collapse into nothing, straight down, with no resistance.

What am I to make of singer Willie Nelson saying this:

"And I saw those towers fall and I've seen an implosion in Las Vegas. There's too much similarities between the two. And I saw the building fall [Building Seven] that didn't get hit by nothing. So, how naive are we? What do they think we'll go for?"

Yes the other collapse was WTC Building Seven, not 110 storeys but 47 storeys, which stood just nearby the Twin Towers. Building Seven wasn't hit by a plane, but during the afternoon it did what the other two did. It simply fell down. Neatly. Like a pack of cards. In six seconds.

What am I to make of what actor Martin Sheen has said?

"I was very dubious. I did not want to believe that my government could possibly be involved in such a thing, I could not live in a country that I thought could do that. That would be the ultimate betrayal. However, there have been so many revelations that now I have my doubts, and chief among them is Building Seven - how did they rig that building so that it came down on the evening of the day?...when did they rig that building? That's the most interesting question and I have not received a satisfactory answer."

Martin Sheen and Willie Nelson are artists, creative people, not scientists. But what am I to make of it when I read the opinion of a world-renowned scientist and the recipient of the National Medal of Science, America's highest honor for scientific achievement , Dr Lynn Margulis:

“It is clear to me that … 9/11… was planned in astonishing detail and carried out through the efforts of a sophisticated and large network of operatives…whoever is responsible for bringing to grisly fruition this new false-flag operation, which has been used to justify the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as unprecedented assaults on research, education, and civil liberties, must be perversely proud of their efficient handiwork. Certainly, 19 young Arab men and a man in a cave 7,000 miles away, no matter the level of their anger, could not have masterminded and carried out 9/11: the most effective television commercial in the history of Western civilization.
I suggest that those of us aware and concerned demand that the glaringly erroneous official account of 9/11 be dismissed as a fraud and a new, thorough, and impartial investigation be conducted.”

She’s just one of 250 prominent scientists who are calling for a new investigation. Another is a physicist with more than 30 years of service for the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC. Dr. David Griscom. He says that the official theory for why the Twin Towers and Building Seven collapsed "does not match the available facts" and supports the theory that the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition."

It is people such as these who have kept me interested – these and all the others listed on patriotsquestion911.com. They are the reason my questions have never gone away.

Al Francis, author of Death at Angel Bay (and stories of The Attack)