By Chris Melzer

Conspiracy theories still linger over such events as the 1963 assassination of president John F Kennedy, the 1969 moon landing and the 1977 death of superstar Elvis Presley.
Likewise, there is a serious war on the internet and in book stores over the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the US, and no theory seems too absurd for its believers.
For believers in symbols, the ‘reputed’ flight number of the first plane to crash onto New York’s World Trade Centre - falsely reported as Q33NY - delivers a bizarre message when written in Microsoft’s Wingdings font. Avid bloggers analyze the symbols as an airplane, two sheets of paper that look like high-rise buildings, a skull, and a Jewish symbol, star of David.
Conspiracy theories like this one have been rife for 10 years. They are often anti-Semitic, almost always anti-American and in virtually all cases easy to refute. However, those who believe in them will not be convinced otherwise.
There are scores, hundreds, even thousands of theories of what ‘really’ happened on September 11. Some are as hard to defend as the so-called Wingdings Hoax.
Indeed, the flight numbers of the planes that crashed onto the World Trade Centre were in fact AA011 and UA175. Q33NY was simply made up, and yet it is still being taken by many as the truth.
Pictures of a devil’s grimace in the smoke of the burning towers soon proved to be false. The same thing happened with a photo of tourists on the roof of the North Tower as a Boeing rushed towards them - it was not even the same type of plane.
However, other such theories are more refined, and above all more profitable. Indeed, books on conspiracy theories sell like hotcakes, and particularly those on September 11, 2001.
The catastrophe has all the elements of a good tale: evil Americans, falsely-accused Taliban, innocent victims and even greedy Jews - because it is obvious that they yet again had something to do with events, as is clearly shown by the Wingdings star of David.
Questions related to the attacks do seem warranted. Why did intelligence services get no wind of the plans? How could terrorists take control of airplanes with such crude instruments as paper cutters? How could they actually fly the planes? Why is the hole by the Pentagon so small? And why did the New York buildings collapse?
The problem is this: Many of those who define themselves as experts do not just ask questions, but also provide immediate answers that are loaded with ideology.
Most of the conspiracy theorists are convinced that the United States brought down the towers and threw a missile at the Pentagon to provide an excuse for war. And Israel is, in their way of thinking, believed to have been deeply involved in the plan.
Several groups with the word ‘Truth’ in their names vouch for all these facts, and in so doing leave more questions than answers. The most obvious of these is, if the United States actually bombed its own Defence Department with a missile, where then is the missing plane with 59 people on board?
Half-truths or plain lies allow one to hide the facts, at least at first glance, and to set up a plausible construct. And where one completely runs out of arguments, questions are asked that sound like fact.
But things are not quite that easy.
When philosopher James H Fetzer seriously claimed that a mini-nuclear bomb had been fired by US killer satellites at the World Trade Center, he caused rifts within his group Scholars for 9/11 Truth.
Such myths are quite normal, says media analyst Alexander Halavais.
‘This is the natural attempt to give sense to a disaster,’ he notes.
However, even though websites like www.911mythos.com do give the facts and even though Al Qaeda hardly helped the conspiracy theorists by claiming responsibility for the attacks, millions of people continue to believe that the US brought down the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre.
And the number is growing. According to a recent opinion poll from Pew Research Centre, only around 22 per cent of the people of Jordan believe that it was Islamic fundamentalist terrorists who perpetrated the September 11 attacks. Five years ago, the percentage was twice as high.
In Pakistan, only 12 per cent of the people believe the official account of events, and in Turkey it is as little as 9 per cent.
In 2008, in one country, at least one-quarter of respondents said they believed either the United States or Israel to have been behind the attacks. It was not a country with a Muslim majority or even a large Islamic minority.
It was Germany.
- DPA