“What about building 18?"
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1601632363/ref=pe_240370_32061440_nrn_lm
“What about building 7?” A social psychological study of online discussion of 9/11 conspiracy theories
Recent research into the psychology of conspiracy belief has highlighted the importance of belief systems in the acceptance or rejection of conspiracy theories. We examined a large sample of conspiracist (pro-conspiracy-theory) and conventionalist (anti-conspiracy-theory) comments on news websites in order to investigate the relative importance of promoting alternative explanations vs. rejecting conventional explanations for events. In accordance with our hypotheses, we found that conspiracist commenters were more likely to argue against the opposing interpretation and less likely to argue in favor of their own interpretation, while the opposite was true of conventionalist commenters. However, conspiracist comments were more likely to explicitly put forward an account than conventionalist comments were. In addition, conspiracists were more likely to express mistrust and made more positive and fewer negative references to other conspiracy theories. The data also indicate that conspiracists were largely unwilling to apply the “conspiracy theory” label to their own beliefs and objected when others did so, lending support to the long-held suggestion that conspiracy belief carries a social stigma. Finally, conventionalist arguments tended to have a more hostile tone. These tendencies in persuasive communication can be understood as a reflection of an underlying conspiracist worldview in which the details of individual conspiracy theories are less important than a generalized rejection of official explanations.
“The Internet was made for conspiracy theory: it is a conspiracy theory: one thing leads to another, always another link leading you deeper into no thing and no place.”
Conspiracy theories, defined as allegations that powerful people or organizations are plotting together in secret to achieve sinister ends through deception of the public (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999; Wood et al., 2012), have long been an important element of popular discourse. With the advent of the Internet, they have become more visible than ever. Although the psychological literature on conspiracy belief has a relatively short history, with most of the relevant research having been conducted only within the past twenty years, it has revealed a great deal regarding individual differences between those who generally believe conspiracy theories (whom we call “conspiracists”) and those who prefer conventional explanations (whom we call “conventionalists”). Conspiracy beliefs have been shown to be positively correlated with mistrust of other people (Goertzel, 1994) and authorities (Swami et al., 2010); feelings of powerlessness and low self-esteem (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999); superstition, beliefs in the paranormal, and schizotypy (Darwin et al., 2011); a perceived lack of control (Hamsher et al., 1968; Whitson and Galinsky, 2008); a Machiavellian approach to social interaction (Douglas and Sutton, 2011); and openness to experience (Swami et al., 2010; but see Swami et al., 2011).
At the present time, questionnaire-based investigations of individual differences make up the bulk of the existing research, although experimental approaches are emerging (e.g., Douglas and Sutton, 2008; Jolley and Douglas, 2013). A fairly recent development in the field has been an acknowledgement that in addition to trait-like variables and transient psychological states, ideologies and broad belief systems play a substantial role in conspiracy theory belief. For example, in an examination of conspiracy theories regarding an alleged cover-up of the divinity of Mary Magdalene and the bloodline of Christ, Newheiser et al. (2011) demonstrated that the plausibility of these theories hinged largely on broader beliefs about the world. People with traditional Christian beliefs were likely to reject such theories out of hand, while those with a more New Age approach were much more receptive. In a similar vein, Lewandowsky et al. (2013b) demonstrated that rejection of climate science (though not explicitly conspiracist) is determined in part by ideological concerns, with libertarian free-market ideology, apparently predisposing people to believe that anthropogenic global warming is an unscientific hoax. It is clear, then, that individual conspiracy theories or related counter-normative explanations can seem more or less likely depending on how they comport with other beliefs held by the audience.
Some researchers have gone further, proposing the existence of a conspiracist worldview—a belief system conducive to conspiracy beliefs in general (e.g., Goertzel, 1994; Swami et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2012). This proposal stems primarily from the finding that beliefs in unrelated conspiracy theories tend to intercorrelate: for example, someone who believes that Princess Diana was deliberately assassinated is also more likely to believe that the moon landing was a hoax. Indeed, Wood et al. (2012) demonstrated that even beliefs in directly contradictory conspiracy theories were positively correlated with one another, indicating that conspiracy beliefs may be held together not by direct agreement with one another, but by mutual agreement with higher-order beliefs about the world. One particularly important element of the conspiracist worldview is thought to be a generalized opposition to official or received narratives. In this view, conspiracy belief is not about believing in particular alternative theories, but in disbelieving in whatever the official story is. This tendency has been informally noted by Dean (2002), who described most conspiracy theories as “bits and pieces without a plot… [that] fail to delineate any conspiracy at all. They simply counter conventional narratives with suspicions and allegations that, more often than not, resist coherent emplotment” (p. 92). Likewise, Clarke (2007) observed that conspiracy theories are often extremely vague, particularly in the Internet age.
If this is the case, then for people who hold a conspiracist worldview, the specifics of a conspiracy theory are less important than its identity as a conspiracy and its opposition to the official explanation. The important element is that those in power are lying and cannot be trusted, and that they are covering up something sinister. Opposition to officialdom, in this sense, parallels the generalized prejudice that Adorno et al. (1950) found to be strong enough to overcome contradictions between different anti-Jewish stereotypes. More than being a specific belief that Jews are overly secretive or overly intrusive, anti-Semitism appears to be more of a general belief that Jews are generally unpleasant people. Likewise, conspiracy theory belief appears to be more of a negative belief than a positive one—it is more concerned with saying what the cause of a condition or event was not (i.e., whatever the official explanation is) than with putting forward a specific alternative account.
An opportunity to test this idea presents itself in the form of observation of online discourse. In spite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of mainstream public acceptance for their theories, many conspiracists, both prominent and otherwise, appear to see themselves as having a duty to spread their views to the public at large. They often exhort the unthinking masses to “wake up” (e.g., Crane, 2008; Byers, 2009; Icke, 2012). This is a reasonable reaction: given a belief that people's lives are being manipulated by malevolent forces beyond their control, most would probably agree that trying to spread the word about that fact is a good idea. Outspoken conventionalists, such as those in the “skeptic” movement (e.g., Randi, 1982; Sagan, 1995; Shermer, 1997; Novella, 2009), find most conspiracy theories to be misguided at best and destructive at worst, and so make a point of arguing against them in the public sphere.
This discussion is voluminous and highly visible in many arenas, perhaps none more so than news website comment sections. Articles about topics for which popular conspiracy theories exist, such as 9/11, the moon landing, and vaccines, can have tens of thousands of comments, most of which are devoted to advancing or refuting allegations of conspiracy. These comments are often archived along with the associated articles for months or years afterward, which provides an excellent opportunity for archival research to give some insight into the thoughts and beliefs of those writing them (e.g., Fat et al., 2012; Loke, 2012; Sisask et al., 2012).
The present study consists of an examination of a large number of conspiracy theory-related persuasive comments on news stories. Such analysis of online discourse as a method of examining psychological states has increased in prominence as the Internet has become a more popular place to discuss one's ideas. The subject and pace of online discussion has been shown to be a more or less reliable barometer of public concern over social issues (Roberts et al., 2002; Scharkow and Vogelgesang, 2011), and emotional reactions expressed online can be used to consistently predict political approval ratings (Gonzalez-Bailon et al., 2012). Quantitative analysis of online discussion has also been used to gain insight into the social psychology of groups with fringe views (Douglas et al., 2005), attitudes toward Tourette's Syndrome (Fat et al., 2012), and racial views (Loke, 2012). Qualitative research on online discourse has been more common, including a study demonstrating the evolution of conspiracy theories over time in response to evidence (Lewandowsky et al., 2013a). In the context of conspiracy theories in particular, there are several advantages to content analysis of online commentary. The self-selective nature of online communication allows for the collection of a great deal of data regarding opinions that may be held by only a minority of people; moreover, the degree of anonymity facilitates the honest expression of opinions that might not be held in high social esteem elsewhere (e.g., Douglas et al., 2005; Loke, 2012).
There are some caveats associated with analyzing persuasive comments in particular. While external validity may benefit from observing behavior in a naturalistic setting, there is some degree of uncertainty regarding the internal validity of any conclusions drawn from such methods. Most obviously, there is the issue of to what degree the content of persuasive communications reflects the properties of the author rather than the demands of the situation. Rather than faithful representations of internal psychological processes, commenters' methods of argumentation might instead reflect strategic considerations regarding the audience, the venue, and the subject matter. While self-presentation is very often a concern in psychological research, even in laboratory settings, such demands may be especially salient in a situation where one's goal is implicitly (or even explicitly) to persuade others rather than to provide an honest and straightforward account of one's beliefs. Indeed, some research has shown that people do adapt their persuasive techniques according to their knowledge of the audience and the subject (Friestad and Wright, 1999; Douglas et al., 2010; Vogel et al., 2010).
The question of whether we can expect persuasive communication to accurately reflect inner psychological processes is not easily answerable, as the effect of lay persuasive knowledge on generation of persuasive arguments is fairly sparse. While there is a substantial body of research on lay persuasive knowledge, the vast majority of it focuses instead on how such knowledge affects susceptibility to the persuasive messages of others. However, it is well-established that people tend to rely heavily on projection for predicting others' behavior—that is, they use themselves as a model for prediction. This effect is especially strong when relatively little is known about the target [for a review, see Robbins and Krueger (2005)]. In general, then, it is likely that persuaders use the self as a model for argument generation: in other words, they argue in a way that they would themselves find convincing. This, in turn, suggests that the types of arguments used by persuaders can contain information relevant to understanding how they think about the issue at hand.
The tendency to use social projection is especially relevant in online settings. Much online discussion is either fully anonymous or conducted under pseudonyms, greatly limiting the amount of information available about the other party in a discussion. As such, we assume for the purposes of the present study that people will generally tend to use arguments that they themselves would find most convincing were they the audience rather than the persuader. This, in turn, should reflect the structure of their belief systems—the arguments that people find most convincing are those that match up with how they view the world (Darwin et al., 2011; Newheiser et al., 2011; Wood et al., 2012; Lewandowsky et al., 2013b). To that end, we systematically coded and analyzed conspiracist and conventionalist persuasive comments from four major news websites on articles relating to 9/11 from the period of July 1st through December 31st, 2011, encompassing the months surrounding the tenth anniversary of the attacks.
9/11 conspiracy theories provide an excellent research subject for several reasons. First, the community associated with these theories, known as the 9/11 Truth Movement, is noted for its substantial online presence and focus on Internet proselytizing. Bartlett and Miller (2011) observed that the movement's “mass membership backbone” (p. 45) devotes a substantial amount of time to producing large numbers of online comments, and Clarke (2007) saw the Truth Movement as a paradigmatic example of Internet conspiracy culture. Second, the timing was fortuitous, with the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, sure to herald a number of stories on the subject and therefore many relevant comments, having occurred shortly before data collection commenced. The recency of the materials lowered the probability of comments having been expunged from archives or lost as an unintended consequence of comment software upgrades. Third, just as the Truth Movement has a substantial online presence, so too do its conventionalist opponents in the skeptic movement. We therefore expected that there would be a good deal of debate between the two sides, providing further raw materials for analysis. Finally, the Truth Movement is a well-established community with a substantial intellectual output, including popular books (e.g., Griffin, 2004), conference circuits, several sub-organizations such as Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and at least one peer-reviewed journal, the Journal of 9/11 Studies. There is substantial debate within the Truth Movement regarding whether 9/11 was a controlled demolition, a deliberate intelligence failure, or even the result of exotic space-based weaponry (Barber, 2008). In short, its body of work is varied, voluminous, and well-developed, and should therefore be able to provide a wide range of different arguments for analysis.
If our reasoning regarding the influence of projection on persuasive tactics holds, we should see systematic differences in the characteristics of conspiracist and conventionalist arguments. Specifically, we should be able to replicate earlier results demonstrating that unrelated conspiracy beliefs are intercorrelated (e.g., Goertzel, 1994; Swami et al., 2010; Wood et al., 2012)—in this case, conspiracist comments should contain more positive (and fewer negative) references to unrelated conspiracy theories compared with conventionalist comments. Examining a long-standing correlate of conspiracy belief, we also investigated the degree to which comments contained explicit expressions of mistrust, predicting that conspiracist comments would be more likely to express mistrust of authorities or other targets than conventionalist comments (e.g., Wright and Arbuthnot, 1974; Simmons and Parsons, 2005). Further, we examined expressions of powerlessness, and predicted that conspiracist comments would express more concerns about power, as feelings of powerlessness have been shown to correlate reliably with conspiracy theory belief (Abalakina-Paap et al., 1999). Replicating the previously established relationships between conspiracy beliefs, trust, and power would increase confidence in the present study's methods and help to justify any novel results derived therefrom.
In addition to verifying the utility of this archival approach by replicating previous results, we made several novel predictions. First, if we are correct in our contention that much of the conspiracist worldview is based on a generalized rejection of official explanations rather than on positing particular alternative narratives, conspiracist comments should focus on refuting conventional explanations more than on presenting or supporting specific conspiracy theories. Therefore, conspiracist comments, relative to conventionalist comments, should be more likely to derogate rival explanations and less likely to promote their own. Second, we elected to examine the veracity of the long-held contention that “conspiracy theory” and “conspiracy theorist” carry an intellectual stigma (e.g., Bratich, 2002, 2008; Coady, 2006). If this is true, people should be unwilling to apply the term to themselves and should object when others do so. As such, we predicted that conspiracists would avoid applying the term “conspiracy theory” to their own beliefs (or “conspiracy theorists” to themselves), and would attempt to dispute others' usage of the term. While this might seem an obvious prediction—and indeed many authors take it as a given that the term is stigmatized—to our knowledge there have not yet been any empirical investigations of this contention.
Finally, another possible avenue by which the spread of conspiracy theories could be fruitfully understood is social influence theory (Latané, 1981). Since 9/11 conspiracy theories are (at least in the West) an opinion held by a vocal minority attempting to effect change, social influence theory (Latané, 1981) would predict that conventionalists, if they are good majority influencers, are more likely to show patterns consistent with normative social influence. In particular, Bratich (2008) has highlighted the hostility of intellectual orthodoxy toward conspiracist explanations for events and the labelling of conspiracists as paranoid or otherwise mentally ill (c.f. Hofstadter, 1964; Kalichman et al., 2010). At the same time, conspiracists are often hostile in a different way, dismissing conventionalists as naïve, gullible, and either unwitting dupes or willing stooges of the conspiracy (Crane, 2008; Byford, 2011). Therefore, we examined the hostility of each persuasive comment, whether characterized by outright insults, threats, dismissive sarcasm, accusations of complicity, or other hostile or insulting content.
Editor’s Note: My wife and I had lunch with Jesse at the
Citizens Hearing on Disclosure in Washington DC at the National Press Club on
May 2, 2013. He told me he was very proud of his father who was an exceptionally
honorable man and had brought home extraterrestrial debris from a crashed UFO in
July of 1947, for his Mother and him to see. He had held the metal pieces in his
hand and they all knew the material was not from Earth based on the
hieroglyphics, light weight, and strength of the metal.
Chief of Defense Staff, Ministry of Defense, Great Britain,
1973; Chairman, Military Committee of NATO, 1974-77; 
Tom Sutter writes,
“Microwaves are created within a device we call a magnetron. Don't
let that complicated sounding name intimidate you. A magnitron is a simple,
straightforward device. It forces electrons to go from a negative terminal to a
positive terminal whilst passing through a magnetic field.” ‘When
electrons encounter magnetic line of force, they rotate (spin) around that line
of force before proceeding toward the positive terminal that they are traveling
to. That electron/magnetic interaction results in the creation of microwave
energies.
Thanks to Tom Sutter
Burlington -- The photo
was taken August 20, 2013, at sunset. A quiet evening was broken by banging on
Barb’s 
"On Monday morning, on August 19, 2013, some
220 miles above the Earth, NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy looked out the window to
see a mysterious object drifting by.
Fukushima nuclear plant said on Thursday new spots of high
radiation had been found near storage tanks holding highly contaminated water
that has been pumped through the reactors to keep fuel in the melted cores from
overheating. There are 350 bolted-style tanks in place and another 710 welded
tanks.
The Obama administration tried to bolster its case for
possible military action against Syria within days, with intelligence agencies
preparing to release intercepted communications aimed at proving President Assad
perpetrated a large-scale chemical weapons attack on its civilians near
Damascus. 
Lakewood -- This is the
third time in the past six months that I've seen this large object/aircraft in
the night skies over the Metro Denver area. At roughly 4:15 AM on August 14,
2013. I was driving by Wal-Mart near 1st and Wadsworth- roughly when I saw a
slow object moving east. What struck me was how this craft resembled the
previous two sightings I witnessed this year. 
MIAMI -- This is a star-like object, a
very bright point of light captured on August 16, 2013. I have seen this object
before and it has a certain regularity. I used a Sony HD camcorder and you can
see clearly that is a point of light, like a star, but it does not move in a
straight line, so it is not an astronomical object or a satellite. I first
spotted the object around 7:30 pm, still in daylight that appeared lower in the
north horizon. It usually moves around the same point, but on August 16, it
moves up all the way to the zenith, and then it fades away on the west direction
around 8:24 pm.
they would change from green to red and drop like a rock
behind the treeline. This was about 2 weeks before I made this report. I was
told they may have been Helios helicopters. I didn’t notice them again until
last night; they were in the same location and doing the same thing as before,
changing color and dropping out of sight and back up again. Tonight they
appeared at the same time around 9:15 pm. I drove to a better location to
observe them and a couple of more people were watching them. A lady said that it
flew right over them just before I arrived and was in the shape of an asterisk
with a spinning motion in the center, she said it made a slight humming noise
like an air conditioning unit. We watched the lights hover; float around make
hairpin turns and come to a complete stop. One of the objects changed colors
from a green and white light to a brilliant red and dropped like a rock behind
the treeline. The other one floated around then hovered. A few minutes passed
and the object that dropped behind the treeline reappeared rising back up in a
brilliant red light, turning to a blinding white light. 
GRAND RAPIDS -- On August 24,
2013, at 2:45 AM, I witnessed an orange pulsating orb in the north sky as I
stepped outside to smoke a cigarette. I quickly turned on the video on my Galaxy
Exhibit 4G. I am a US Air Force veteran and aware of what aircraft look like at
night.
Marlton -- My kids and their mother were
driving down Route 70 east when they saw a UFO hovering over farm land on August
25, 2013. It began to move slowly, and was as high as a 10 story building. They
immediately knew it was an UFO because it had three white lights shining below
the craft that descended 20 feet. The lights were a continuous bright light for
the full 20 feet. After several minutes, a second UFO with red outside lights
appeared and hovered next to the first UFO. They were very frightened and went
to the nearest store where there were other observers who they said did not know
what it was. After 15 minutes, they left the store and once again saw the two
UFOs. As they drove down Route 70 a third UFO joined the other two and formed a
triangle and slowly climbed upwards. They lost the UFOs and were too scared to
try to follow them. This image was taken on my son’s cell phone of a white light
that is green in the picture. A UFO is below. Thanks to MUFON CMS
Corona -- My brother and
I were checking out the area near the Corona UFO crash site of 1947. We took
some photos with our iPhone on August 19, 2013, and when we got back home, we
noticed something in our photo. 
Fayetteville -- Travelling north
in my car after work on August 24, 2013, we took a picture of a cloud formation.
The sun was behind the car. 
Mustang -- We were at the Mustang City
Park with family and friends to watch the fireworks on July 4, 2013 that were
exploding around us. My sister-in-law said, “Jeff look a
UFO.” I looked where she pointed above the building in front of
us. I pulled out my Samsung Digital Camera and took several pictures. My
sister-in-law also recorded pictures on her phone. At first I thought it was
fireworks but it was moving too fast, and a firework went off near it. It looked
like it jumped away from the explosion. You can see it jump between the first
and second picture. It was my first good sighting and it just faded away. Thanks
to MUFON CMS
UNION -- On August 11, 2013, I was in my
front yard looking at the stars and saw to the west a bright white orb sphere
appear. It was real bright that’s why I noticed it. No noise came from it when
it moved through the sky about the speed of a plane and was definitely lower in
altitude than a plane. I took my camera on my phone and captured two pictures
before it flew out of sight. I don’t know what it is but I do know I have seen
similar things for the past two years off and on. I was super excited and when I
got inside much later and looked at my pictures I was in shock in what was in
both photos. Thanks to MUFON CMS
I was on the first leg of a flight from Denver, CO to
Charleston, SC and was staring out the window, as I do on long boring flights
and I noticed a long black cylinder like object directly off the left side of
the 737 aircraft. I took images with my iPhone around noon before we landed in
Nashville, TN. on March 14, 2011. I fly often and know what other aircraft looks
like outside of a plane window. This object was odd because it had no trail and
it kept up with our plane. Before changing direction completely and speeding up
the object was almost vertical. I pointed it out to my friend who also saw it
but could not explain it either. It changed direction and sped away.
Thanks to MUFON CMS 
HAMPTON -- I was outside
taking pictures on August 20, 2013, of the full blue moon with my new Samsung 16
megapixel camera. After downloading the pictures to my computer a noticed a
contrail next to the moon of three contrails merging into one. I could not see
the aircraft that were making the contrails. I could see there were round
objects following behind in the contrail. One of the objects stayed with the
flight until the last picture. The objects may have been illuminated by the sun
as it was 8:30 pm as the sun set. I am 65 years old and have lived my entire
life near Langley Air Force base on the east coast water front. I would judge
these objects to be in the 35000 to 40000 foot of altitude. The speed seemed to
be somewhat faster than other aircraft I have recorded at that altitude. Thanks
to MUFON CMS 
-- I saw a crystal type light, mid day around 2 PM, on
August 18, 2013, and didn’t think much of it until a minute or
so later so I took a picture. I thought it weird to see because there were
absolutely no clouds in the sky. The picture is looking west-southwest. The
shiny object was there for twenty minutes. It could be a cloud, but it would be
the first I have seen that looked like that. And there were absolutely no other
clouds in the sky. It looked the same as the photo and was clearer to the naked
eye than the camera could capture. I just thought it odd for a “cloud” to shine
like a crystal or diamond would when light reflects. 
LAKE TITICACA -- We were crossing the
border between Peru into Bolivia near the shore of Lake Titicaca on May 20,
2013. I took pictures of the view with my iPad, and when I saw the pictures
later I realized there was a green orb. 
My name is Archie Saga,
37-yrs-old. I am a Filipino living in South of France about 16 years or so.
-- UFO was allegedly spotted by the Indian Army near Taj
Mahal in mid August. A video posted online appeared to show a UFO close to 
“While travelling in my car to Seville to join
the ranks, I witnessed something unusual at Kilometer 9 of the Gerena Road, at
the crossing with the road to Extremadura. The time was 20:45 hours on the night
of 6 February 1990. A brilliant, triangular-shaped object was some 40 meters to
the right of the road, at an altitude of approximately 100
meters.”
Fareham -- Seen five
lights following each other in line, the last one was higher and closer to the
one in front. Going north then one by one turned to the east, dimmed and
disappeared. 1 minute latter a chopper whit his lights on came from the east and
turned south (took about the same path in mid August. 
