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Since the September 11, 2001 attacks, a number of theories challenging the mainstream account of the attacks have been put
forward in websites, books, and films. Although mainstream media report that al-Qaeda agents conspired to carry out the World
Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, members within the 9/11 Truth Movement say the mainstream accounts are inaccurate or incomplete.
Many groups and individuals challenging the mainstream account of events (often referred to by conspiracy theorists as the
"official conspiracy theory") identify as part of the 9/11 Truth Movement.
In an address to the United Nations on November 10, 2001, United States President George W. Bush denounced the emergence
of "outrageous conspiracy theories ... that attempt to shift the blame away from the terrorists, themselves, away from
the guilty."Later, as media exposure of conspiracy theories of the events of 9/11 increased, US government agencies and
the Bush Administration issued responses to the theories, including a formal analysis by the National Institute of Standards
and Technology (NIST) about the collapse of the World Trade Center,a revised 2006 State Department webpage to debunk the theories,and
a strategy paper referred to by President Bush in an August 2006 speech, which declared that terrorism springs from "subcultures
of conspiracy and misinformation," and that "terrorists recruit more effectively from populations whose information
about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories. The distortions keep alive grievances
and filter out facts that would challenge popular prejudices and self-serving propaganda."
A number of 9/11 opinion polls have been conducted to try and establish roughly how many people have doubts about the
mainstream account, and how prevalent some of the theories are. Just prior to the fifth anniversary of the attacks, mainstream
news outlets released a flurry of articles on the growth of 9/11 conspiracy theories.Time Magazine stated, "This is not
a fringe phenomenon. It is a mainstream political reality."Mainstream coverage generally presents these theories as a
cultural phenomenon and is often critical of their content.
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