"Repetition does not transform a lie into a truth"
Franklin D. Roosevelt
9/11 truth was the first major online conspiracy theory—and The Big Lie was its trailblazer
When French journalist and libertarian activist Thierry Meyssan published his book 9/11: The Big Lie in March 2002, the industry of conspiracy theories about the attacks was still in its infancy. There had been conspiracy theories that the hijackings were planned or carried out by the US government as early as that day. But it took a few years for 9/11 truth to truly transition from the fringe to a massive and organized movement. It was books like The Big Lie (also translated as The Horrifying Fraud in line with its original French title L'Effroyable Imposture) that took bizarre and implausible ideas and wrapped them in a cloak of “truth-seeking” activism.
And it spun an incredible “truth” out to its readers, a fanciful but compelling story of a government conspiracy that would do anything to convince the public that what they had seen was a real terrorist attack – up to the point of virtually altering reality itself. Everything we all saw, everything we were told, they were all lies and nothing like the real story. Or as the subtitle of the book puts it: “No Plane Crashed into the Pentagon!”.
Meyssan presented himself as the first person to uncover what “really” happened, and as the one brave enough to go up against the vast cabal who had perpetrated it. His theory made him famous and a bestselling author, but it also drew a massive backlash in both France and the US – and caused untold pain and grief for families who had lost someone that day, and for those who survived it.
9/11 truth was the first major conspiracy theory of the internet as we know it today, populated by blogs, videos, and early social media. And The Big Lie was the first major work of that theory.
It came out at the perfect time in the perfect place. In the US, patriotism had curdled to the point that questioning any aspect of the attacks was seen as proof that you hated America. But in Europe, and especially France, the far-left had growing suspicion about the attack that started almost immediately and was enthusiastically embraced by the public. And it came before other 9/11 books and films like Loose Change and Zeitgeist took control of the narrative.
Meyssan, who was already well known in France for his work investigating the far right and French paramilitary groups, was rewarded for his prescience. The book became an instant bestseller in France, reportedly moving 20,000 copies in the first few hours of its release, and hundreds of thousands of copies since then. He appeared on talk shows all over France, often sparring with moderators shocked at the accusations he was making. And the book was translated into over two dozen languages, with its English translation coming almost exactly a year after the attacks.
Given the magnitude of what he alleges, it’s not surprising that the book was eagerly snapped up by a public not satisfied with the “official story.” And that, Meyssan alleges, is because the “official story” was nothing more than a “loony fairy tale” which “does not stand up to critical analysis,” cooked up by the military industrial complex to plunge the US into war with both Afghanistan and Iraq.
But digging into it more, it is clear that the real fairy tale is the story that Meyssan unspools. He goes on at length about the possibility of a plot within the White House to overthrow the government, claims the FBI purposefully botched the investigation, that the Bin Laden and Bush families were financially intertwined, and that the entire purpose of the attack was to usher in a “clash of civilizations” on behalf of evangelical Christianity. Meyssan’s most explosive allegation was not just that the attacks were planned by the Bush administration, but that they were carried out directly by the “shadow government” in full view of the American people.
And the worst part of it? The two planes that hit the Twin Towers, he claims, were not flown by hijackers, but “automatically guided” by signals sent from the buildings themselves that allowed the planes to be auto-piloted into their targets.
“[The signal] was detected because it interfered with broadcasts from television antennas placed on the towers,” Meyssan claims, without evidence. “It is likely that the signal was activated at the last moment to prevent it from being discovered and destroyed.”
He also goes on to write that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon, but disappeared from radar. The explosion that killed dozens of people in Washington DC was the result of a missile strike, and the whereabouts of the real Flight 77 are just another question the American government has to answer.
The evidence Meyssan provides for these claims is almost nonexistent. He makes the classic conspiracy theorist error of taking errors in early reporting, discrepancies in eyewitness stories, and what he deems to be the “odd behavior” of people responding to the attacks as evidence of a massive plot. In reality, early reporting often has discrepancies because it is early, and eyewitness testimony is extremely unreliable. And to validate the idea that the planes were “remote control” flown into the Towers, he relies only on what he claims are interviews with pilots who told him that amateur fliers could not have done what the hijackers did, and amateur radio operators who claimed they picked up unknown signals right before the planes crashed.
These are the same tactics and logical fallacies that have been employed by countless conspiracy theorists for almost every major terrorist attack, mass shooting, and unexpected event. Meyssan certainly didn’t invent them, but he applied them to the most catastrophic terror attack in American history and pushed them out in a compelling way to a massive audience. Both his success, and the backlash against it, were entirely predictable.
With France still very much in support of the United States in the wake of the attacks, French media reacted with shock and horror, calling the book a swindle and a con. The US media reacted similarly, given that the country was still very much reeling from the terrorist assaults. In one piece published in 2002 in TIME Magazine, the idea of the attacks being an inside job was called “despicable” with the author written off as a lunatic. And a spokesman for the Pentagon denounced the book as “a slap in the face and real offense to the American people.”
Meyssan would suffer personal repercussions as well. The activism nonprofit he had started in France, the Voltaire Network, fell apart in 2003, and Meyssan was declared persona non grata in the United States in 2005 for his spreading of misinformation. And despite his book’s profile, Meyssan fell out of favor with conspiracy theorists and had little to do with the organized 9/11 truth movement, seen by other truthers as having spread unbelievable stories that made their movement look crazy. Instead, he wrote a sequel to The Big Lie that alleged Israel assassinated former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 with a missile – with the book allegedly funded by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard.
But by then, the 9/11 truth movement was enormous. It was generating protest marches, a library of books and videos, and countless debates between academics and skeptics. It set the stage for the far ends of the political spectrum embracing alternate realities as the real thing, distrusting government and experts as a reflex, and “just asking questions” about the veracity of almost every single event.
There is a straight line between The Big Lie’s outlandish claims of remote-controlled airplanes backing up a shadow government coup and the wild fantasies of QAnon, the deranged attacks on Sandy Hook Elementary School parents, and the “deep state” fantasies of conspiracy influencers.
Beyond that, The Big Lie was a trailblazer. It gave mainstream exposure and credence to a wild theory that was just starting to pick up steam, legitimizing it and exposing it to others. Meyssan’s work would become hugely important to other 9/11 truther books, who, in turn, all cited each other and built off each other’s’ plots. And while his “remote piloted planes” theory never really caught on, a huge number of conspiracy influencers still believe the Pentagon was hit by a missile, the attacks were planned by the Bush administration, and the Iraq War was a direct result of their plot.
The Big Lie may have been a lie itself – but it was definitely big.
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