Put options on American and United

"Put options," also known as short selling, basically involves betting that a stock's value will decline. You agree to sell shares you don't yet own, at a set price, to a buyer on a future date, in the belief you can acquire the stocks in the meantime at a lower price. The difference is your profit.

The CIA uses a program called PROMIS to monitor stock trades in real time for warning signs of impending trouble, including terrorist attacks. The week before September 11, put options on American and United airlines jumped massively. No other airlines experienced similar trading. Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, major occupant of the WTC, also saw a big jump in put options.

Source: Marrs, p. 112-117.

Pretty fishy stuff, no? You can dig into this one further, there is a tangled web between the CIA and the finance world, such as the fact that "Buzzy" Krongard, now executive director of the CIA, was head of the American arm of Deutsche Bank until 1998, and Deutsche Bank has been implicated in the mysterious 9/11 put options. But then you get into tenuous connections and shadowy stuff that takes us away from our search for hard evidence. Still, somewhat suspicious, I'd say.

Bottom line, me, I give it: