It's a beautiful lie? In this episode, Kevin and Sarah discuss one of the foundational texts of what would come to be known as 9/11 trutherism: 2002's "L'effroyable Imposture," aka "The Horrifying Fraud," aka "9/11: The Big Lie" by French author Thierry Meyssan. Were they impressed? Were they... horrified? There's only one way to find out — because you'll definitely never guess.

Some information about the collapse of WTC 7 was read verbatim from a slide in a presentation given by Professor Brian Wagner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRrcAYSdQmM Episode art thumbnail of plane debris at the Pentagon was sourced from the same presentation. One note: we briefly mention the diesel tanks in Building 7 as a potential contributor for the collapse, and while that was once theorized as part of the problem, the NIST final report on the collapse minimizes the role any fires specifically caused by those tanks may have played. Additional sources:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/09/27/white-house-drops-claim-of-threat-to-bush/81acd479-1596-4fca-b6e9-dca0172053c7/

https://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/13/opinion/essay-inside-the-bunker.html

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/09/were-the-only-plane-in-the-sky-214230/

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-presidents-story-11-09-2002/

We cavalierly said we'd leave a link to the book in the episode description, but that violates copyright! And we don't do that here. Recorded June 21, 2025, in South Slope, Brooklyn.