Remembering 9/11

Does anybody really know what happened on September 11, 2001? I don't, and I doubt that anybody else has the straight story either.

I don't believe any of the conspiracy conjectures, but I don't believe any official reports I've ever heard either. All I believe is that the official investigation was inexcusably sloppy and crude, and that the official explanation is miserably incomplete.

There are too many inadequately answered questions. How could a mostly aluminum airplane, built no more heavily than absolutely necessary, cause the total collapse of a massive steel and concrete building intended to withstand every imaginable onslaught for centuries? What caused the upper parts of the collapsing buildings to fall almost as rapidly as if the lower parts were not there? Why do photographs of the wreckage show material breakage patterns of a sort that would result from explosives?

Let me offer a humble conjecture. From having spent thirty-two years working in various sorts of office buildings and helping to install systems in some of them, I know a bit of how they're built. They have easily removable lift-out floor plates, quick-drop ceiling tiles, and often easily removable wall panels, all for the purpose of facilitating easy installation and maintenance of phone systems, computer networks, interoffice communication systems, security camera systems, and whatever.

Installation and maintenance technicians are always around the building somewhere, doing something to one system or another. The office workers pay them little mind for the most part, and sometimes even lend them a hand.

Suppose, in the weeks before the 9/11 disaster, a few dozen Al Qaeda operatives showed up disguised as installation technicians, bearing forged credentials and a believable story about what they were going to install. They could easily bring in explosive devices disguised as system components. No one would question them. They would be free to plant the explosives in full view of everybody, and no one would ever insist on double-checking what's inside of the black boxes.

Could this be what happened? I don't know. I have no evidence. But at least I think it's believable. Opinions, anyone? What do you believe?