SANDY Hook conspiracy theories have been around since gunman Adam Lanza opened fire and executed 20 children and six teachers at his former primary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

Most are dismissed as nonsense — the product of overactive imaginations, boredom and too much television.

In the three years since 20-year-old Lanza brought terror to a quiet neighbourhood, many families of the victims are still being hounded by these “truthers” and their theories.

One, however, has outlasted them all, and has only grown in popularity, even spawning a book. The reason? It’s not your average keyboard warrior making the claims, but a university professor who insists his assertions are backed up by his credentials.

But how do you fake a mass shooting? And why on earth would you want to?

Professor James Tracy is convinced he has the answer. He teaches media history and analysis at Florida Atlantic University and is a published author on everything from war propaganda to the Greek debt crisis.

On blogs and the Sandy Hook Hoax Facebook page, Tracy has positioned himself as the go-to expert on all things Connecticut cover-up. Perhaps because of position and academic clout — or the fact that he just won’t give up — Tracy has even found himself spelling out his theory in the pages of the well-read Florida-based Sun Sentinel newspaper.

There, Tracy wrote at length about the “unusual” events surrounding the biggest school massacre in US history.

“Three years ago, the public learned of the most significant mass shooting ... involving the deaths of 20 young schoolchildren and seven adults,” he wrote.

“As a father of three, I immediately empathised with the parents, reminding myself there was no real way to fathom the sense of loss such an experience must involve.

“After several days of reflection, however, my instincts as a media historian and analyst took charge. In reviewing news coverage of the Sandy Hook School massacre, I began to recognise very unusual features in the alleged forensics, the emergency response and the overall way the event was being reported.”

Those features, he said, included emergency protocols being abandoned, a “bumbling” state coroner’s attempting to explain the attack the day after it occurred and the demolition of the school several months later.

But he claims the strongest indication that Sandy Hook was fake lay in his interactions — or lack thereof — with the victims’ families, particularly the parents of Noah Pozner, a beautiful young boy and the youngest of Lanza’s victims.

Tracy, believing Sandy Hook was a ruse used by the Obama administration to crack down on gun control, tracked down Noah’s parents and wrote to them. He even asked them, on a certified letterhead, for proof that Noah once lived, that the two were his parents, and that they were the rightful owners of his photographic image. The professor has not yet heard back.

On Facebook, he wrote that a number of researchers, some highly-regarded, share his theory in a new book titled Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.

“The only proof (Noah’s father) Lenny has produced that Noah died in Sandy Hook is a death certificate he provided to one of the book’s contributors, which has been revealed as a fabrication,” Tracy wrote.

“If Noah actually died, there would have been no reason to fake it.”

Lenny and Veronique Pozner broke their silence in the same newspaper this week. They told the Sun Sentinel that their “precious little boy” was missed every day and their devastation was only amplified by the likes of Tracy and those who deny Sandy Hook ever happened.

“The heartache of burying a child is a sorrow we would not wish upon anyone,” the pair wrote. “Yet to our horror, we have found that there are some in this society who lack empathy for the suffering of others. Among them are the conspiracy theorists that deny our tragedy was real. They seek us out and accuse us of being government agents who are faking our grief and lying about our loss.”

The couple took aim directly at Tracy, who they said was “chief among the conspiracy theorists”.

“A plethora of conspiracies arose after Sandy Hook, but none received as much mainstream publicity as Tracy, who suggested that the shooting never occurred and the Obama administration had staged the ‘event’ to prepare the country for strict gun control measures.

“Tracy has enjoyed tremendous success from this exposure and has since leveraged it into a popular internet blog and radio program. Worse yet, it has elevated his status and fame among the degenerates that revel in the pleasure of sadistically torturing victims’ families.

“It cannot be denied that Tracy has carved out a significant presence in the same Sandy Hook ‘hoax’ conspiracy movement that has inspired a wave of harassment, intimidation and criminal activity against our family and others.

“In fact, Tracy is among those who have personally sought to cause our family pain and anguish by publicly demonising our attempts to keep cherished photos of our slain son from falling into the hands of conspiracy theorists.”

The Pozners said demanding proof that their son was killed was insulting and hurtful.

“We found this so outrageous and unsettling that we filed a police report for harassment. Once Tracy realised we would not respond, he subjected us to ridicule and contempt on his blog, boasting to his readers that the ‘unfulfilled request’ was ‘noteworthy’ because we had used copyright claims to ‘thwart continued research of the Sandy Hook massacre event’.”

The couple has asked the university to terminate the professor’s employment.

Last week, the family of Vicki Soto, a teacher who died at Sandy Hook, used a Facebook page to ask for help after they were targeted by “truthers”.

On a memorial page dedicated to Ms Soto, her family described how they were “scared to go home” after Instagram users shared their home address.

“We don’t normally like to post these kind of things, but this just needs to be put out there in hopes someone will help us,” the family wrote on Facebook.

“(Vicki’s sister) Carlee and her husband are scared to go home. These accounts on Instagram have posted their home address and sent threatening messages. There are close to 20 accounts that keep reposting this information.”

Ms Soto and the Pozners are not the only victims targeted by the Newtown truthers. The family of Emilie Parker, a six-year-old girl who was shot and killed that Friday morning, have also been labelled liars.

Online, there are dozens of videos about the young blonde girl’s family being fake.