Did the World Trade Center towers collapse, or were the buildings purposely demolished? And who is "really" to blame for 9/11?

Those questions were raised Friday night during a screening of the film "Improbable Collapse." The UAF Coalition for Peace and Justice hosted a screening and discussion of the film with director Michael Berger in the Schaible Auditorium.

The movie theorized that the towers were destroyed through a controlled demolition and suggested it was administered by a clandestine government or business operation.

"It was a psychological operation -- when you see a building come down no one is going to stand up and question the story," Berger said. "When you see these buildings crumble your first response is fear and you want to go after whoever is to blame."

But some audience members questioned how such a massive cover-up could take place.

Norm Davis, a physical education teacher for the Fairbanks North Star Borough and a former Marine, questioned the logistics behind a large scale government cover-up.

"I can't understand how layers of sequential administration were involved with the demolition," he said. "There wasn't anything [Berger] said that had continuous logical information. There was a lot of cherry picking of information to fit how he wanted us to see the events."

To support his theory, Berger compared the "pancake" collapse of the WTC buildings to controlled building demolitions, in which explosives are used to collapse building floors on top of each other like a stack of pancakes.

Further scientific evidence in the movie was presented by Steven Jones, a former physics professor at Brigham Young University. Jones' study showed traces of thermite, a compound used in controlled demolitions to destroy steel structures, on steel samples from the WTC buildings.

Jones' work has been questioned publicly. BYU in 2006 placed him on paid leave because of his theories, and officials there noted that none of his work on 9/11 has been published in peer-reviewed journals, according to U.S. News & World Report.

In addition, the collapse of a third building, the World Trade Center Building 7, was investigated. The movie also questioned why this building was left out of the 9/11 Commission Report.

"Just from the perspective of watching the buildings fall, it looks like a controlled demolition, especially Building 7," said David Koester, an anthropology professor at UAF. "[But] if the buildings were brought down by controlled demolition, then how did that happen?"

This question and many others were raised in response to Berger's theory and supporting evidence during a discussion following the screening.

Berger's knowledge of the 9/11 events impressed and interested Melanie Bakker, a junior wildlife biology student.

"I was curious about a lot of the information," she said. "There definitely needs to be more research done on the evidence."

Tram Smyth, an undergraduate physics major, was surprised by the amount of scientific information presented.

"I maintain my initial perspective which is that there isn't sufficient evidence to support the subject claim made by the movie," he said.

The UAF Coalition for Peace and Justice is in its second year. The group's main goal is to raise awareness about the cost of war and the motivations behind it. Anna Godduhn, an interdisciplinary Ph.D. student and the group's coordinator, organized the event.

"The turn out was great, we had a diverse group of people and a lot of discussion," she said. "I think that a lot of people don't buy the fire story and want to know what happened."