Loose Change

In May 2003, when researching for a fictional screenplay based on the 9/11 attacks, writer Dylan Avery felt there was enough evidence to support the 9/11 conspiracy theories that the attacks were orchestrated by members of the United States government, and started working on a non-fiction version.[11][12][13] The name is a pun on the idea of political change concerning 9/11 conspiracy theories and others allegedly related to it, hence renegade or "loose," and the idiom loose change as coins or pocket change.

In April 2005, the first edition of Loose Change was made available for free on the Internet and was given a limited DVD release with 50,000 sold and 100,000 given away.[6] It cost around $2,000 to make and was made primarily on Avery's laptop computer,[14] featuring a distinctive soundtrack produced by DJ Skooly.[15] Avery's childhood friend, Korey Rowe, left the service of the United States Army in June 2005 to assist with the marketing of the movie.[16] Soon after Avery decided that, "There was new information that needed to be added and improvements made," and so began creating Loose Change: 2nd Edition. Rowe assumed the role of producer, and Jason Bermas, a graphic designer, worked as production assistant. This edition cost around $6,000. It was originally released in December 2005, but was re-released in June 2006 as Loose Change: 2nd Edition Recut. Before the release of this edition, Avery, Rowe and Bermas set up an independent movie production company called Louder than Words, an organization that identifies with the 9/11 Truth Movement.[17] In April 2009 the rights to Loose Change were bought by Microcinema International DVD.[18]

In August 2006, Rowe was featured in an article admitting to the inaccuracy found in Loose Change, such as inaccurately stating a B-52 flew into the Empire State Building (it was actually a B-25 in the 1940s). "We don't ever come out and say that everything we say is 100 percent. We know there are errors in the documentary, and we've actually left them in there so that people discredit us and do the research for themselves."[14] In 2007, media entrepreneur Mark Cuban was going to distribute Loose Change, entrepreneur Matthew Brown would finance, and Charlie Sheen was going to narrate the film.[19] However, this did not happen; Fox News political talk show host Bill O'Reilly interviewed Cuban on his radio show and said Sheen's career would be over if he narrated it.

The third edition of the movie, Loose Change Final Cut, was released in November 2007. According to the Loose Change website, this edition "is substantially different from Loose Change and Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut in the way it presents the information surrounding 9/11/2001. However, it remains true to the spirit that has made Loose Change what it is today."[20] Professor David Ray Griffin was brought on as script consultant, and radio host Alex Jones and Tim Sparke of Mercury Media served as executive producers. Due to an estimated cost of $200,000, this version is the first that is not available for free online, although it is in fact available for free on Google Video and YouTube in a lower quality version. This edition is over two hours in length, substantially longer than previous versions.

Director Avery, producer Rowe and entrepreneur Matthew Brown released a new film through their production company, Collective Minds Media Company,[21] entitled Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup on September 22, 2009. The film is distributed by Microcinema International. It is narrated by Daniel Sunjata, and explores historical events leading to 9/11 and its aftermath.[4] It was financed by Joel Bachar and Patrick Kwiatkowski of Microcinema International, and its world premiere was on September 9, 2009, at the 9/11 Film Festival at the Grand Lake Theater in Oakland, California.

Flyer for a screening of the film

Loose Change 2nd Edition Recut (2006) opens with a brief description of past suspicious and questionable motives in the history of American government. This discussion mentions Operation Northwoods, a plan put forward during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 to launch false flag terrorist attacks against the United States and blame them on Cuba as a pretext to invade that country. Focus is particularly directed at the previously proposed plans to substitute real commercial airliners with pilotless drone aircraft in order to investigate the plausibility of covertly using them as weapons while maintaining the cover of an accident.[22]

Attention is also given to the Project for the New American Century, a neo-conservative think-tank that released a report in 2000 titled "Rebuilding America's Defenses". In particular the film points out a line from that report that states:

The process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor.

— Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld

It also highlights the fact that during the same year the report was released, the Pentagon conducted the first of two training exercises that simulated a Boeing 757 crashing into the building. It also says that from September 6 to 10, an unusual amount of put options were placed on the stock of American Airlines, Boeing and United Airlines.[23] The opening montage intertwines clips of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7 with a Hunter S. Thompson interview, who talks about the motive, the public version of 9/11, and answered a question saying "Absolutely," that this worked in the favor of the Bush administration.

This is followed by an examination of the attacks on the Pentagon. The film opposes the official story of Flight 77 hitting the Pentagon, alleging that the path of destruction does not match what a 757 would leave. In particular it claims that the size of the hole in the Pentagon, a lack of debris and, little landscape damage seem inconsistent with prior airliner crashes. It also alleges that too few parts were recovered from the crash site to reliably ascertain that they were of a Boeing 757, and that a flywheel observed at the site seemed too small to have been part of the aircraft's engine turbine. Experts officially declared that the wheel was part of the APU, but others say it didn't come from the APU of a 757 but likely from an E-3 Sentry aircraft.

The film also claims that the alleged hijacker-pilot Hani Hanjour had difficulty operating basic controls on a small Cessna that he rented at a flight school, and that perhaps not even an experienced pilot could have maneuvered the reflex angle of turn at the airspeed and altitude at which the aircraft approached the Pentagon, without going into a high speed stall. The film mentions three cameras on nearby buildings that allegedly caught the entire incident at the Pentagon on film, which it says the government confiscated and has refused to release in full.[24]

The next section focuses on the destruction of the World Trade Center. The film favors the controlled demolition theory of the destruction of World Trade Centers 1, 2 and 7. It cites as evidence eyewitness reports from a janitor, firemen, and other people near the buildings who heard bangs, many of them describing them as explosions as well as videotapes that show windows far below the burning floors blow out during the collapse, and seismograph results recorded during the collapse compared to the collapse of other similar buildings. The film falsely claims that WTC 1, 2 and 7 were the first steel frame buildings in history to collapse due to fire. Another allegation centers on an audio recording that the film claims contains two distinct explosions at the time of the impact. The film also posits that the official story of the collapse ignores the laws of physics.[25]

In particular, the video alleges that the fires inside the twin towers were not hot enough to bring the buildings down. An audio tape is presented in which the Captain of Ladder 7 claims that the fires can be brought under control by two lines and it is mentioned that building 7 had taken only minor damage before its own collapse. These allegations follow a listing of buildings that burned longer than the Twin Towers and did not fall.[26]

For Flight 93, the video ignores the mainstream theory of passengers crashing the plane to instead allege that it landed safely at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport where it was evacuated by government personnel into an unused NASA research center. As evidence, the film contains photographs and eyewitness reports of the crash site, media reports of a corresponding and bizarre evacuation at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport, oddities in the transcripts of cell-phone calls supposedly placed from the plane during the hijacking, and the sighting of the tail number of Flight 93 on an aircraft in use at a later date.[27]

The film follows this with a miscellaneous listing of allegations. It claims that cell phone calls could not be made from American Airlines flights at the time of the crash—asking why American Airlines had to install a system in their own airplanes to allow the reception of cellular signals within the planes if they could do this regardless on September 11. It suggests that calls from passengers and crew were faked using sophisticated voice-morphing technology developed by the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico—and that the December 13, 2001, video of Osama bin Laden claiming responsibility for the attacks was also faked, featuring what appeared to be an overweight lookalike version of Bin Laden. Finally it alleges that of the list of hijackers the government initially released, many were not in the planes and therefore survived September 11, 2001, and may even still be alive.[28]

In the end, the film gives financial motives for people it says would have benefited from launching the attacks. It first mentions Larry Silverstein, who supposedly stood to receive a substantial insurance payout after the attacks due to a fictional "anti-terrorism clause". It makes other allegations of insider trading and Halliburton's benefiting from the subsequent launch of America's War on Terror.[29][30]

Although each version of the film asserts that the events of 9/11 were essentially an "inside job", there were significant revisions between the particular theories that different editions posited. For example:

In North America it aired on Fox TV affiliates, but received further screenings internationally.[5] On September 10, 2006 BNN (Bart's Neverending Network) Nederland 3[41] and Portuguese public TV Station RTP aired Loose Change in prime time hours. RTP aired it again on 2: for September 17, 2006.[42] FreeLooseChange is an initiative in Berlin, Germany. One-hundred shops, galleries, theaters and a daily newspaper office so far distributed 50,000 free DVDs featuring the documentaries Loose Change and Terrorstorm by Alex Jones in German language versions.[43]

An August 2006 Vanity Fair article suggested that Loose Change "just might be the first Internet blockbuster." Millions more have viewed the film via unaffiliated websites. More than one million copies of the DVD have been sold, and many more have been given away.[6]

The film has been broadcast on state media outlets in Belgium, Ireland and Portugal.[5] According to Broadcast magazine, the video was to have a special screening at the UK Houses of Parliament on June 14, 2006.[44][45] Michael Meacher, the British MP who had considered sponsoring the screening, decided against it. On September 11, 2006, Dylan Avery and Jason Bermas appeared on Democracy Now! the War and Peace Report, to debate with James Meigs and David Dunbar,[46] two of the editors of Popular Mechanics and the book Debunking 9/11 Myths.[47]

Journalists,[49][50][51] researchers,[8][52] social critics,[53] as well as scientists and engineers,[10] and even members of the 9/11 Truth movement have spoken out against the film's claims about the September 11 attacks.[9]

Loose Change has been subject to criticism from a variety of sources. In March 2007, the United States Department of State published an article called "Loose Change Debunked" that says the movie makes "sloppy mistakes".[54] The article is highly critical of the evidence cited to support the claim that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, and it criticizes the controlled demolition hypothesis of the World Trade Center claiming that, "Demolition professionals say controlled demolition of the Towers that day would have been impossible." The article goes on to say:

It treats statements made at this time as if they represent reasoned judgments, not impromptu, often poorly thought-through misimpressions and uninformed speculation ... In sum, Loose Change is researched very shoddily, making numerous mistakes of fact and judgment. Nevertheless, this has not prevented it from becoming extraordinarily popular.[54]

It also notes that Loose Change has also been criticized by other members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, referring specifically to the critique Sifting Through Loose Change.[9] Michael Green, a member of the 9/11 Truth Movement, has analyzed the film and is critical of many of its claims and methods.[55] Several independent researchers have also written critiques of the film. Prominent social commentator Noam Chomsky has argued that any scientists with plausible evidence would have gone through the traditional channels of scientific journals to convince other professionals, and that such a course of action is extremely low-risk for the scientist.[53]

In May 2006, the blog Screw Loose Change was created to criticize the claims in the film.[56] Another analysis of the film has been created by the Internet Detectives.[57] Many of the critiques argue that Loose Change quote mines, uses unreliable or out-of-date sources, and cherry-picks evidence to claim that there are serious problems with official accounts of the events of September 11.[47][55][56][57]

One of the many aspects these critiques focus on is Loose Change's analysis of the collapse of the World Trade Center. The comparison to other notable high-rise fires that did not lead to collapse ignores differences in building design, significant WTC structural damage, and compromised fireproofing,[47][58] as most steel loses over half its strength at 600 °C (1,100 °F).[59][60] The comparison with Madrid's Windsor Tower fails to note its steel-supported perimeter floors that collapsed during the fire.[61] Kevin Ryan, described by Loose Change as working for Underwriters Laboratories (UL), was actually employed in a water-testing subsidiary.[47] Furthermore, UL does not certify structural steel,[47] and ASTM E119 certification is not meant to predict performance in real uncontrolled fires.[62] The NIST found no evidence of any firm having conducted tests on WTC materials in the past.[63] Another expert quoted, Van Romero, has clarified that he was misquoted by the Albuquerque Journal; he had actually said that it "looked like" explosives took down the WTC. When the misquote was printed, he felt his "scientific reputation was on the line."[60]

On September 11, 2006, the public-TV network program Democracy Now! broadcast a discussion between two Loose Change creators and two editors from Popular Mechanics, where they debated at considerable length various aspects of the documentary.[47] Jason Bermas claimed United Flight 93 did not crash into the field, and classified Popular Mechanics as a publication in the spirit of Hearst's yellow journalism.

George Monbiot, political activist and columnist for The Guardian, wrote an article on the improbability of the conspiracies cited in Loose Change,[64] and then wrote a follow-up article in response to negative comments from some of his readers.[65] On SModcast, Kevin Smith discussed Loose Change and other conspiracy videos about aliens and various things. However, he maintains that he enjoys the film purely as entertainment, and does not believe or agree with the theories presented in the film.[66] The Best Page in the Universe parodied the movie with a short video, "Unfastened Coins",[67] that "exposes" a Titanic-sinking conspiracy, and an article mocking the logic of conspiracy theories in the film.[68] The History Channel aired a two-hour episode entitled "The 9/11 Conspiracies: Fact or Fiction?" featuring interviews with the creators of Loose Change.[69] Mark Cuban, who was going to distribute the film, told the Dallas News "I don't believe the movie. Not at all."[70] Financier Matthew Brown shared similar remarks though "supports free speech, even when I vehemently disagree."

In Britain, BBC's documentary television show The Conspiracy Files aired two documentaries focused on 9/11 and the conspiracy theories surrounding the collapse of WTC7. Several claims made by Loose Change were investigated and specifically rejected. Dylan Avery was interviewed for the program, which cast him in a negative light.[71]

In 2008, film director David Lynch was interviewed on Dutch television about Loose Change, to which he said that the film made him look at what he thought he saw, that he now had questions and "... no answers."[75]

In his book American Conspiracies, specifically in Chapter 12 ("What Really Happened on September 11?"), former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura wrote that he urged "everyone to see" the documentary Loose Change.[76] The version Ventura saw was the 2007 (Final Cut) and he wrote that from the film, he was "amazed at the many firefighters and other eyewitnesses who talked about a whole series of explosions before and during the collapse of the buildings."[76]

In 2011, film writer and director Kevin Smith stated that he "loved" Loose Change and said it was a compelling watch.[77] In 2012, Smith said Loose Change was a "gripping, well-made film", "excellent filmmaking", but said he did not know if any of it was true.[78]

• 9/11 Truth movement
• 9/11: Press for Truth
• Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth
• World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories

• Official website