US: They wore T-shirts asking "What Really Happened?"; snapped up DVDs titled 9/11: The Great Illusion; and cheered as physicists, philosophers and terrorism experts decried the official version of the September 11th attacks that shook America to its core.
Some 1,200 people gathered at a Los Angeles hotel on the weekend for what organisers billed as the largest conference on the plethora of conspiracy theories that see the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York as, at best, official negligence, and at worst an orchestrated US attempt to incite world war.
The 9/11 and the Neo-Con Agenda conference comprised two days of seminars, video presentations and talks by groups including Scholars for 9/11 Truth; www.infowars.com and an appearance by actor Charlie Sheen.
Most are convinced the US military command "stood down" on the day of the attack and that the hijackers were trained at American military bases. Suggested motives range from expected benefits for US arms and oil conglomerates to revolutionary plans for a new world order.
Webster Tarpley, author of 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA, said the attacks were an example of "state-sponsored, false-flag terrorism" designed by rogue CIA elements "to start the war of civilizations".