The 9/11 deniers

Avery released the first version of "Loose Change" in April 2005. He produced it for less than $2,000, using off-the-shelf video-editing software on his notebook computer, and though some scenes betray the film's budget, its overall aesthetic is surprisingly professional -- set against a breezy pop-synth soundtrack, it resembles nothing so much as a show on MTV. Avery's research methods also set "Loose Change" apart from other skeptical 9/11 documentaries in circulation; instead of conducting his own investigation, he stitched together the many arguments and observations about 9/11 that have long been gestating online, making "Loose Change" something like a film version of a highly contested Wikipedia page. He has updated his movie in response to advice and criticism from others in the movement, releasing "Loose Change: 2nd Edition" in January, and is at work on the ultimate version, to be called "Loose Change: Final Cut."

Insofar as any film without a distributor can be called a success, "Loose Change" has been a smash hit, selling a purported 100,000 DVDs and racing to the top of online video sites. Korey Rowe, Avery's close friend and the movie's producer, told me that a few Hollywood studios have expressed interest in distributing the movie nationally later this year. Avery, who'd like the film to open on Sept. 11, says, "We're pretty confident that it's going to be in theaters one way or another."

Avery's theory hinges on his idea that the U.S. government is a far likelier suspect in the 9/11 attacks than 19 terrorists. Thus the film launches its argument by pointing to Operation Northwoods, a 1962 U.S. military proposal to drum up public support for an invasion of Cuba that included a plan for staging a Cuban shoot-down of an American passenger plane. Northwoods shows that the American government has previously contemplated military plans using "drone" aircraft painted to look like civilian planes -- an integral ingredient in the film's larger conspiracy. Then there's "Rebuilding America's Defenses," a 2000 report by the Project for the New American Century, a neoconservative group. The document includes the smoking-gun argument that the process needed for a necessary foreign policy transformation "is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event -- like a new Pearl Harbor."

"Loose Change" then puts forward three alternative ideas for what actually happened on 9/11. They are:

• American Airlines Flight 77 did not crash into the Pentagon. First popularized by the author Thierry Meyssan, whose book "L'Effroyable Imposture" ("The Big Lie") hit the bestseller list in France, this is one of the oldest and most enduring claims made by 9/11 skeptics. "Loose Change" argues that Hani Hanjour, the terrorist pilot alleged to have been at the controls of Flight 77, was not skilled enough to have made the difficult diving maneuver that characterized the plane's approach. Avery, who narrates the film, also shows a montage of images from outside the Pentagon that he says don't fit a plane crash -- there's no airplane debris outside the building, he says, and the damage pattern looks suspiciously similar to that of a cruise-missile strike. He also points out that the government has not released surveillance tapes from cameras mounted on the freeway and at a nearby gas station and hotel. "If the government has nothing to hide, why are they so afraid to answer a few questions, or release a few videos?"
• The World Trade Center towers were brought down by controlled explosives. The film points to eyewitnesses who reported explosions coming from many areas of the buildings after the planes crashed. Willie Rodriguez, a janitor who was working in the North Tower, says that he heard a loud explosion near the base of the building. "Loose Change" also includes footage captured by French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet in which firefighters at the scene report the sound of explosions preceding the collapse of the buildings. (After the Naudet brothers threatened to sue Avery for copyright infringement, he agreed to remove their footage.) And Avery shows several shots of the towers collapsing in which he says "explosions can be seen bursting from the buildings 20 to 30 stories below the demolition wave."
• United Flight 93 did not crash in Shanksville, Penn. Instead, it landed safely in Cleveland, and 200 people on board were evacuated. Avery says that the debris field in Shanksville showed nothing resembling a downed aircraft, that neither plane parts nor passenger remains were visible at the scene. The movie cites reports of an airplane landing at the Cleveland Hopkins Airport on the morning of 9/11, and in a tangle of logic deduces that, actually, two planes landed there and that one of them was Flight 93. Including hijackers and crew, the official story says that there were 44 people on board Flight 93 when it crashed, but Avery alleges that about 200 people were taken off the plane in Cleveland. He suggests that in addition to Flight 93's passengers, these 200 people included the passengers of the flights alleged to have crashed into the Pentagon and the trade towers. Avery says, cryptically: "It's interesting to note that the combined total of all the passengers from all four flights is 198. Or 243. Depending on who you ask."

Next page: The battle of the Big Lies