The 9-11 TRUTH MOVEMENT

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SHOW TRANSCRIPT

COOPER: Tonight we want to look very closely at a conspiracy theory that is exploding on the Internet and on the airwaves. A California millionaire has spent a lot of money running TV ads, suggesting that we don't really know the full facts of what happened on 9/11. Why World Trade Center building number 7 collapsed even though it wasn't hit by a plane. Why the hole in the Pentagon was so small.

In a moment you will meet the man behind the ads, an investigators who says there are answers to all those questions. But first here's Deborah Feyerick with a look at the ads, and the allegations.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DEBORAH FEYERICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The two ads suggest a government conspiracy and coverup, raising questions like why did a building two blocks from the World Trade Center Towers seem to implode?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It was not hit by aircraft. It had no significant fire and no explanation for its collapse has been given.

FEYERICK: Another ad asking why plane parts at the Pentagon seem to have disappeared.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The photos show no cabin, no engines, and no tail.

FEYERICK: The 9/11 commission requested eyewitnesses to both events. A spokesman saying the official report, which makes no mention of any government conspiracy, speaks for itself. But the ads, paid for by California millionaire James Walters, are taking on a who killed JFK-like quality. And they're fueling efforts like 9/11 Citizenswatch, asking New York's attorney general to launch a criminal investigation into what they believe is a government coverup.

KYLE HENCE, 9/11 CITIZENSWATCH: I think there's clear evidence for convening grand juries, and examining the bodies of evidence that the independent community of researchers, and others -- family members, have brought forward.

FEYERICK: Even those who dismiss the more outlandish conspiracy theories say the 9/11 report is incomplete.

(on camera): Many people in the rest of the country probably think there's closure on this. Is there?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Not really, because there's still a lot of unanswered questions.

FEYERICK (voice-over): Glenn Corbett is helping investigate the collapse of the Towers for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

GLENN CORBETT, JOHN JAY COLLEGE OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE: The ads seem to implicate bombs and explosives, and the use of missiles on both the Pentagon and the World Trade Center complex. And the evidence, really, just doesn't support that from what we've found so far.

FEYERICK: Not only did Walters shell out 3 million for the TV ads, which got a lot of air time before the presidential elections, he also bought newspaper ads, and helped bankroll a Zogby Poll. The results of which he found 66 percent of those requested want the 9/11 investigation reopened.

Deborah Feyerick, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COOPER: Joining me from Los Angeles, the man behind the advertising campaign, Jimmy Walter. And in Miami, lawyer and investigator, Gerald Posner, author of "Why America Slept: the Reasons Behind Our Failure To Prevent 9/11."

Appreciate both of you being on the program.

Jimmy, let me start off with 2 things. You talk about the Pentagon and Tower Number 7. Let's talk with the Pentagon. If Flight 77 didn't crash into the Pentagon, as you claim it didn't, what did and what happened to the 64 passengers who have died?

JAMES W. WALTER, CREATOR OF REOPEN911.ORG: Well, I don't know. And I am not the person to ask this, I don't have the best evidence. I do know that in 1962, the United States military joint chiefs of staff commissioned a program called Operation: Northwoods, in which they planned to have military personnel dress up as civilians, get on a civilian aircraft, land it secretly, take off a drone, shoot the drone down and blame it on Cuba as a pretext to invade Cuba.

COOPER: So you think this was a pretext, to what, invade Afghanistan and Iraq?

WALTER: I'm just saying that the United States military has done it before. To ask me what happened is absurd. I don't have the evidence. And the Pentagon refuses to release the tapes that would clearly show what hit the Pentagon. Why, if they are not trying to cover something up, won't they release the tapes to prove it one way or the other?

COOPER: All right. Gerald, let me bring you in here. A lot of the conspiracy theorists on this say that there was a small hole. And that there was no large hole from the wings of the plane that hit the Pentagon, therefore, there was no plane that hit the Pentagon. You're explanation.

GERALD POSNER, AUTHOR, "WHY AMERICA SLEPT": You know Anderson, everything about this, they use evidence, they misconstrue evidence. They say, well, the hole was very small. And they show you a picture from the top, an aerial satellite photograph for the top Pentagon that looks like a small hole.

They don't show you the front of the building, which is absolutely devastated through three different layers when that plane hits. And the plane does exactly what you expect it to. It's coming down, it hits the ground at 250 miles an hour. It's 100 tons of debris. It's hitting the Pentagon, which has these 6 and 12 inch steel girders. It largely disintegrates.

But you ask the key question, what about the 64 victims on the plane? Body parts were found there at the Pentagon. They were comprised through dental records and X-rays. Do we expect that somehow the government fired a missile into the Pentagon, then took the 64 bodies that dropped down on a plane somewhere in the United States, nobody saw this happen, drop the body parts in the Pentagon, so somehow we should feel that we should invade Afghanistan? Let me assure you, after the World Trade Center Towers were hit, we did not need the Pentagon as another target to have the American people feel they should go after Afghanistan.

COOPER: Jimmy, your other major assertion is that the World Trade Building Number 7 was detonated from within. And in your commercial, you say that there's never been any public explanation given for why the building collapsed. What is your theory or belief on that?

WALTER: The building is brought down by explosives. Clearly if you look at Larry Silverstein in a movie he claims he told the fire department of the city of New York to pull the building. That's a construction industry specific term to bring down a building with explosives. Larry Silverstein is not an official of the government. He does not represent every person...

COOPER: He's the man who helped police on the World Trade Center. Gerald, let me bring in you here because I've read, this commercial said there's no evidence ever publicly been given. I've read evidence that there was diesel fuel inside the building, being stored there. What do you know about building number 7, why it collapsed?

POSNER: Building number 7 is one of the clearest examples, it's actually a slam dunk in terms of engineering. That's how it came down. I don't even know why this one is a mystery at all and I'll tell you why. It happens to be built over two electrical substations owned by the old electrical utility Coned (ph). It's an unusual design. It has a crosshatch of steel girders that are literally holding it up and after it was built, not the original designs, they stored 45,000 gallons of diesel fuel there, that was used for emergency fuel for generators, for Mayor Giuliani's emergency operations and for the Secret Service.

When that caught fire after the World Trade Center was hit and some of the damage is done to the fire retardant materials in that building there's a fire for five to seven hours. Just the opposite of what you heard in the ad. It slowly burns through those steel birders, fueled by the diesel fuel, and if you watch the tape that's on that ad, 30 seconds before the building implodes, you see the actual mechanical room crash through exactly where you expect it to. There's a clear engineering explanation for that building.

COOPER: We're going to have to leave it there tonight. Gerald Posner, appreciate you joining and Jimmy Walter, as well, thank you very much.

WALTER: It's totally wrong.

COOPER: Well, I know that is your theory and you have been airing those commercials.

(AUDIO GAP)

COOPER: Right. And I think what he is saying is that the wings disintegrated while hitting the ground. That's what I heard him saying. But people can go to your website, they have seen your commercials and you have spent $3 million propagating this. And we appreciate you joining us. Thank you very much. We are going to be doing a special series on conspiracy theories after thanksgiving, and we'd like to hear from you. What's the big story that you think has been covered up that you want us to look into. Email us now. 360@CNN.com