Karen Johnson is no stranger to conspiracy theories.
The Republican state Senator from Mesa has contended over the years that fluoride, for example, should be removed from water supply because it poisions the human body, and that the U.S. is working with Mexico and Canada to create a North American government.
Most recently, though, Johnson gave a speech on the Senate floor during which she asked for a re-investigation of the 9-11 attacks and offered an alternative explanation behind the collapse of the World Trade Center twin towers.
In the June 10 speech, Johnson said the theory is that demolition explosives brought down the towers and Building 7, instead of fire and damage from the planes’ impact as is widely believed.
Johnson’s theory is among many making waves on the Internet by questioning official reports about the 9-11 attacks and seeking what critics call an elusive truth about what exactly happened on Sept. 11, 2001.
Johnson’s speech illustrated the mainstream inroads so-called conspiracy theorists have made over the years. Her floor speech, at the very least, sparked a public discussion on the subject.
To Johnson and others, the truth is still out there and the official version of events, including the 9-11 Commission report, is not it.
That report, said Johnson, “represents just one theory — the theory that fire and the damage from the airplane impacts brought down the three buildings.”
“(But) this theory explains none of the features of the destruction that we all witnessed that day and which we can still observe on hundreds of videos. It explains nothing about how in four out of four cases, no hijacking code was transmitted by the hijacked airliners, and in four of four cases, no fighter jets managed to get alongside any of the hijacked airliners,” she said.
In contrast, the theory that demolition explosives brought down the buildings is “rock-solid” and “confirmed by hard evidence,” according to Johnson.
Johnson, who is retiring from the Legislature at the end of this year, distributed to colleagues a manila folder containing reading material about the theory. The folder also contained a photo of one of the towers as it fell, and a DVD copy called “Improbable Collapse.”
“As you look at that photo, ask yourself, ‘Is this a picture of a building collapsing or is this a picture of a building exploding?’” she said. “Does a building that collapses have the ability to fling its own steel beams sideways up to 600 feet? Does a building that is just starting to collapse blast its contents outwards in a massive cloud of dust? What do you see in that photo? I see an explosion. And so do millions of other people who are demanding a real investigation.”
Sen. John Huppenthal, an avid reader of scientific studies and other reports, said he has taken time to look into what caused the buildings to collapse and has dismissed conspiracy theories.
“The architectural firm that actually built the buildings went in and did detailed analysis, second by second, because they felt that the building should have held up,” Huppenthal said. “And what they hadn’t anticipated was the shock of the plane hitting the building, (knocking) the insulation off of those support members. It was that huge shock that exposed those beams that gave them an inability to defend themselves against the incredible temperatures that were generated by the tens and thousands of gallons of gasoline that went into the building,” Huppenthal said.
“We ourselves observed planes flying into the building,” he added. “You always get this kind of conspiracy-theory thing that comes out of events like this. It seems to be natural human phenomena that people are attracted to conspiracy theories. But I just don’t give it any credence at all.”
Huppenthal said he does want to understand “how they develop their theories.”
“The thing you want to do,” he said, “is to avoid rational people buying into it because they have a veneer of plausibility.”
In a statement released earlier, Johnson said she has joined forces with local 9-11 activists who have been staging a protest outside the Phoenix office of presumptive Republican presidential nominee U.S. Sen. John McCain. One of them, college professor Blair Gadsby of Scottsdale, began a hunger strike on May 26 calling for a re-investigation of the September attacks and asking McCain to look at new evidence.
Members of the 9-11 Truth Group were in the audience when Johnson delivered her speech.
Writer Phil Riske contributed to this report.