The TL;DR; answer is no 9/11 was not the result of a controlled demolition. For a slightly longer explanation read on.
There are numerous YouTube clips and various websites that promote the idea that the collapse of the twin towers was not in any way related to the fully fueled commercial airliners being flown into the towers, but instead the actual collapse was due to a previously planned controlled demolition.
Is there any evidence for this claim?
If you dig into the topic then you will find quite a bit of stuff that does indeed appear to make a convincing case and you will also encounter people who are quite sure it was a controlled demolition. They have no doubts and will cite apparent evidence. The problem is that when you dig, and I mean really dig, then you find that these apparently credible bits of evidence simply do not withstand any reasonable degree of critical analysis.
Outright fraudulent Claims
The passion with which such claims are promoted knows no bounds. An example of a popular fraudulent claim is this, and note that it appears in three different sources all making the same false claim …
No it is not official, and no the ESJ (European Scientific Journal) did not conclude that 9/11 was a controlled demolition, that is a deliberate outright lie. That alone is perhaps all you really need to know about the degree of honesty and integrity in play when faced with such claims.
You can fact check this yourself via snopes.
The root of this is that there was indeed an article published by conspiracy theorists. However it was in reality published in a magazine and not within a scientific journal. I blogged about it in detail at time.
I did receive criticism for that posting from some within the comments section which was rather active. The point of that specific posting was as follows:
- To point out that those authoring this magazine article were not exactly credible sources. A big deal is made by those promoting the claim that “Scientists have concluded”, and so if you start with a claim that is founded upon reputation, then do not be surprised if that reputation is scrutinised, criticised, and then trashed.
- My primary goal was actually to make the point that in times of high stress humans can and do sincerely embrace conspiracies to gain a degree of control over something that is traumatic. The pattern-seeking engine between our ears behaves like this.
The ESJ (European Scientific Journal) issued a clear disclaimer making it very clear that they have never published any 9/11 material …
Regarding the recent developments on social media, we would like to inform the public that neither the European Scientific Journal, ESJ, nor the European Scientific Institute, ESI have published content on 9/11 attacks.
The NIST response to the Magazine Article
The Editors of Europhysics News contacted the National Institute of Science and Technology and asked them to comment upon the article in question. The response was as follows …
The NIST WTC investigation team members feel that since our study of the World Trade Center building (WTC 1, 2 and 7) collapses ended in 2008, there has been no new evidence presented that would change our findings and conclusions, and therefore, nothing new that we can contribute to the discussion. NIST firmly stands behind its investigation results, and that the body of evidence still overwhelmingly leads to the following scenarios:
- The WTC Towers collapsed because aircraft impact damage and debris dislodged fireproofing from critical steel components, jet fuel-initiated fires burned very hot for long duration when fed by debris and office materials, and the heat eventually weakened the exposed steel until it lost integrity and led to a global failure; and
- WTC 7 collapsed because damage caused by debris from the falling WTC 1 ignited fires on multiple floors, the heat expanded and dislodged a beam connecting a key perimeter column to both a long-span central beam and a critical internal support column, and the column’s failure set off a chain reaction of failures across the building’s steel infrastructure.
Our comprehensive website, http://wtc.nist.gov, covers all aspects of the WTC investigation and provides three sets of “frequently asked questions” (on the overall investigation, the WTC towers and WTC 7) that address—based solely on our findings—many of the claims made by those holding alternative views as to how the three WTC buildings collapsed.
The NIST investigation into the collapses of WTC Buildings 1, 2 and 7 was the most detailed examination of structural failure ever conducted. Based on the recommendations from this investigation, two sets of major and far-reaching building and fire code changes have been adopted by the International Code Council (ICC) into the ICC’s I-Codes (specifically the International Building Code, or IBC, and the International Fire Code, or IFC). The 40 code changes were adopted less than five years from the release of the final report on WTC 1 and 2, and less than two years following the release of the final report on WTC 7. This is an extraordinarily rapid pace in the code making and approval process—a solid affirmation by the ICC that the work done by the NIST WTC investigation team was of the highest quality and critical to ensuring that future buildings—especially tall structures—will be increasingly resistant to fire, more easily evacuated in emergencies, more accessible to first responders when needed, and most importantly, safer overall.
Some specifics of the Controlled Demolition Claims
Claim: Jet fuel cannot melt steel beams
This claim is misleading, as steel beams do to not need to melt completely to be compromised structurally.
Claim: A sprinkler system would have prevented temperatures from rising high enough to cause to cause structural damage.
This claim ignores the fact that a crash from a 767 jet would likely destroy such a system.
Claim: The structural system would have been protected by fireproofing material
similarly, such a system would have been damaged in a 767 crash. However, there is also clear evidence from the fire department that even prior to 9/11 the fireproofing was seriously compromised.
Claim: Puffs of smoke exploding from below the collapsing towers suggests controlled demolition.
This claim does little to address the simpler explanation that air pressure from the collapse of one of the largest buildings ever built would have forced air and debris through windows.
Claim: The buildings fell at a rate possible only by a controlled demolition.
Numerous engineers and scientists have argued that the rate at which the buildings fell is consistent with the manner in which the towers failed, and that the exact time of total collapse is hard to pin down reliably in the first place.
It is at this point that we perhaps enter into the game of whack-a-mole. What comes next is, “Ah yes but … ” and so another claim pops up and for that there is a rebuttal, and then another and another.
Rinse and repeat again and again, and nothing actually changes, and so it is perhaps appropriate to pause and consider what is actually going on here.
Is there something odd about people who believe this stuff?
The short answer is no. Humans are awash with many cognitive biases and so we are all at risk of buying into a belief in something that is not actually true at all.
The observation that many people take this all seriously and truly believe is itself quite interesting. There are however a couple of important points to remember when encountering people who embrace conspiracy ideas …
- Generally they are quite sincere in their beliefs.
- The degree of human intelligence plays no part, there is no correlation between the belief and how smart they are. The smarter somebody is, the better they are at dreaming up rationalizations for utterly absurd notions.
- It is not specific to a particular demography, they are not all white nerdy guys living in their moms basement.
- It is not about a lack of some information and misinformation. Generally no quantity of rebuttal to the justifications for the conspiracy belief changes the minds true believers.
- Not everybody who articulates a conspiracy idea is actually buying into the conspiracy belief, instead there are some who are simply carried by the tide of popularity for an idea. If presented with a well-reasoned fact-based verifiable arguments, then they tend to be persuaded. Others however, when faced with such arguments, do tend to demonstrate an immunity to any rebuttal.
It has perhaps always been like this with humans. What is different about 9/11, and other more recent conspiracy ideas, is that since about the mid 2000’s the Internet has acted as an amplifier for such beliefs. That was perhaps well illustrated by the election.
So why do such beliefs take root and flourish within human minds?
University of Miami political scientists Joseph E. Uscinski and Joseph M. Parent looked into what really explains this. They noted that in laboratory experiments …
“researchers have found that inducing anxiety or loss of control triggers respondents to see nonexistent patterns and evoke conspiratorial explanations” and that in the real world “there is evidence that disasters (e.g., earthquakes) and other high-stress situations (e.g., job uncertainty) prompt people to concoct, embrace, and repeat conspiracy theories.”
In other words, when faced with a high-stress event such as 9/11, people embrace beliefs, perhaps religious or perhaps simply a conspiracy, as an attempt to explain it, and so gain some degree of control over the emotional trauma. Because it is embraced at an emotional level, any debunking of the idea at an intellectual level will be ineffective.
I do find it fascinating that the 9/11 belief is akin to many religious beliefs and operate in a similar manner. Take for example the Catholic shrine of Lourdes where various miracles have supposedly occurred. As a skeptic you might think, “Evidence, oh that’s very interesting, let’s take a look then”. So you check and what you discover is that the evidence is not quite as portrayed. Often it is vague, but has been endorsed by various “experts” who assure you of its reliability and yet nothing truly robust or compelling emerges. Instead a balance is struck such that it is just sufficiently compelling enough to convince those that already believe, but is not sufficient to convince any independent skeptical minded person seeking something robust.
It is perhaps part of our humanity that we are like this. The pattern seeking engine between our ears jumps to rapid conclusions as an attempt to explain what we encounter and we grasp that emotionally. Being able to do that gave us as a species a distinct survival advantage, hence that attribute has been naturally selected. If we are really going to address it and overcome it, especially now in an age when the flow of information has been greatly increased, then we need to start thinking things through, not just at an emotional level which often leads to incorrect conclusions, but to also think things through analytically.
You really can’t tell people what is and is not actually true, but becoming conscious that we can all slip is perhaps the beginning of a road that enables us as individuals to seriously question things that we have previously assumed. In other words, don’t make statements, but instead ask questions, not just to others but to ourselves and work through things at an analytical level. We truly do need to equip ourselves to be able to rise to the challenge of this new age of myth-information and work out what is really true.
Questions to Ask yourself?
When faced with specific ideas, and it need not be just 9/11 claims, then here a few questions that might help.
- Is this really true?
- What actually convinces me that this is true?
- What would change my mind about this? [If everything you list for the previous question has a solid rebuttal, and yet you still believe, then you need to seriously work out what is going on and why you actually believe]
- Am I simply embracing this at an emotional level or do I have good solid robust facts that convince most rational reasonable people?
- Have I simply invested so much time and effort into this that it would leave me feeling empty if I came to terms with it not being true?
- What is the full conversation here, am I inside a bubble listening to just one side? What do those that do not agree with this idea actually say, and why do they hold that position?
If indeed you do truly believe and wish to label me a “fucking idiot” for not believing what is apparently obvious to you, then you should seriously pause and ask yourself why I don’t.
The 9/11 Conspiracy
The bottom line is that there was indeed a 9/11 conspiracy involving a group of religious fanatics and the hijacking of commercial airliners. That is well documented. The alternative claim that it was really an inside job and all the result of a controlled demolition is a layer of complexity that simply does not have any credible evidence, but does throw up a lot of other questions such as …
- Who exactly orchestrated this inside job?
- Why has nobody, not one individual, ever popped up to explain that they were part of this conspiracy?
- A controlled demolition involves a considerable effort and would need many experts and thousands of hours of preparation, yet strangely enough nobody working in the WTC noticed anything.
What we do perhaps also learn from other popular conspiracies, for example the JFK assassination, is that once it is rooted in the culture the idea will persist and stick no matter how robustly it is debunked. Many books, YouTube clips, and movies will continue to pop up in the years to come with some new apparent twist, and yet most will know in their heart of hearts that the simplest answer, a group of religious fanatics and a hijacking, is the best explanation.
“Claim: Jet fuel cannot melt steel beams
This claim is misleading, as steel beams do to not need to melt completely to be compromised structurally.”
There is a nice YouTube video of a guy addressing that massive steel does not need to melt in order for it to be structurally altered. In order for them to fail significantly, in fact, structural steel beams do not even need to melt at all.
It can scientifically be verified whether or not a fire resulting from jet fuel can potentially become hot enough to melt steel; the answer to which is no, by the way.
So why is the claim being uttered? Why is “melting steel” put forth?
The rebuttal appears to indicate that the argument implied by the scientifically correct claim is this (and by all means correct me if I am wrong):
– In order for the buildings to collapse, the structural steel has to fail.
– In order for structural steel to fail, the beams need to melt.
– —>> (Structural) steel cannot be melted by jet fuel. <<—
This is indeed a fallacy, since the second premise can easily be refuted by research.
However, the above reasoning is not the argument that is being put forth.
As I understand it, the the argument is thus:
– There is much evidence supporting the presence of molten steel both before and after the collapse of the towers (eyewitness testimonies, the images on the screen, scientific research by a.o. Stephen Jones and Niels Harrit).
– Something must have caused the steel to heat up to the temperature where it begins to melt.
– —>> (Structural) steel cannot be melted by jet fuel. <<—
The argument is thus attacked based on an erroneous interpretation and thus misrepresentation. Consequently the misrepresented argument is labeled “misleading”.
The rebuttal is a strawman fallacy.
Just one question. You make the observation “There is much evidence supporting the presence of molten steel both before and after the collapse of the towers“.
Can you cite a reliable unbiased source that verifiers that this is true, that there was molten steel “before” and/or “after” the collapse?
I’ll also let Link speak for themself, but here is a list:
A report by Waste Age describes New York Sanitation Department workers moving “everything from molten steel beams to human remains.” 2
A report on the Government Computer News website quotes Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint Inc. as stating:
In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel 3
A Messenger-Inquirer report recounts the experiences of Bronx firefighter “Toolie” O’Toole, who stated that some of the beams lifted from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero by cranes were “dripping from the molten steel.” 4
A transcription of an audio interview of Ground Zero chaplain Herb Trimpe contains the following passage:
When I was there, of course, the remnants of the towers were still standing. It looked like an enormous junkyard. A scrap metal yard, very similar to that. Except this was still burning. There was still fire. On the cold days, even in January, there was a noticeable difference between the temperature in the middle of the site than there was when you walked two blocks over on Broadway. You could actually feel the heat.
It took me a long time to realize it and I found myself actually one day wanting to get back. Why? Because I felt more comfortable. I realized it was actually warmer on site. The fires burned, up to 2,000 degrees, underground for quite a while before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off.
I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat. So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors. It was just demolishing heat. 5
A report in the Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine about recovery work in late October quotes Alison Geyh, Ph.D., as stating:
Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel. 6
A publication by the National Environmental Health Association quotes Ron Burger, a public health advisor at the National Center for Environmental Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who arrived at Ground Zero on the evening of September 12th. Burger stated:
Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster. 7
An article in The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah describing a speaking appearance by Leslie Robertson (structural engineer responsible for the design of the World Trade Center) contains this passage:
As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running. 8
A member of the New York Air National Guard’s 109th Air Wing was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6. He kept a journal on which an article containing the following passage is based.
Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots. 9
The book American Ground, which contains detailed descriptions of conditions at Ground Zero, contains this passage:
… or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole. 10
A review of of the documentary Collateral Damage in the New York Post describes firemen at Ground Zero recalling “heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel.” 11
Fire Power: It Took Three Lawyers to Stop the Destruction of CDI Inc., The Daily Record, 10/7/00
D-Day: NY Sanitation Workers’ Challenge of a Lifetime, WasteAge.com, 4/1/02 [cached]
Handheld app eased recovery tasks, GCN.com, 9/11/02 [cached]
Recovery worker reflects on months spent at Ground Zero, Messenger-Inquirer.com, 6/29/02 [cached]
The Chaplain’s Tale, RecordOnline.com, [cached]
Mobilizing Public Health, Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine, [cached]
The scene at Ground Zero, NEHA.org, [cached]
WTC a Structural Success, SEAU News, , page 3
Ground Zero, 12/01 [cached]
American Ground, , page 32
Unflinching Look Among the Ruins, NYPost.com, 3/3/04
I expect you to find some reason to ignore these references, but one can always hope against hope the light will dawn on you. (The links didn’t transfer, but I guess that means you’ll have to do some homework yourself, busy man that you are.)
For anybody curious, Steve grabbed all that text from here http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/moltensteel.html
Steve, it would be a lot simpler to simply say “Here is a list“, provide one link, and perhaps point at the one example that you think is the best one.
So let us take a brief look at the first …
// A report by Waste Age describes New York Sanitation Department workers moving “everything from molten steel beams to human remains.”//
The passing reference, the precise phrase “molten steel beams”, is rather odd. Either a steel beam was a beam or it had melted, it can’t be both. I personally interpret this as a description of steel beams bent out of shape, or even glowing, and nothing more. I don’t see that as a solid objective confirmation that steel had become liquid.
This perhaps beautifully encapsulates it all in many ways. It is just enough to convince a believer, but is not objectively robust enough to persuade a skeptic.
Carry on down and the rest is more of the same low quality anecdotal quotes.
Anyway, since we are into cut-and-paste, the 911-myths site addresses the Molten Steel Witness accounts here … http://911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html
My question stands, can anybody cite a reliable unbiased source that verifies that this is true, that there was molten steel “before” and/or “after” the collapse?
That’s not a cue for another bit of cut-and-paste and so I better explain what is going on here.
There was a large source of Aluminum, rather a lot of people witnessed the aircraft impact the structures. The melting point for Aluminum is well below that of steel and well within the range of the prevailing fire. The molten material witnessed, photographed, and observed, is both quite real and well understood, it is not “evidence” of a thermite cutter charge in action, which incidentally can’t cut sideways to slice vertical steel supporting beams, that’s not how they work … ever. Instead what we have is this Aluminum manifesting as molten material.
Am I persuaded by this “evidence”?
I think you can guess the answer.
Dave, simply put, my experience with you is that you don’t take even one conclusive example as proof of anything if it contradicts your deep seated biases, so I provided a list with several examples that come from various “non-truther” and legitimate publications. As various psychologists have identified, deeply held false beliefs are to a degree hardwired in one’s synapses and to change that belief after being presented with accurate information actually takes a good deal of effort. You can do it… if you try, that is.
You ought to know if you are trying for scientific accuracy that any reliable Primary Source (not a denier website) that discusses the color (wavelength of radiant energy) of molten metals at their melting point will point out that the wavelengths are determined by each metal’s unique thermodynamic properties. Molten steel or iron radiates at very different wavelengths than aluminum. Molten aluminum looks nothing like molten steel. A shower of bright yellow/orange metal coming from the corner of one of the towers is not molten aluminum. Molten aluminum simply never looks like that. At best reddish, not bright yellow/orange. Find a good metalurgy manual and look it up.
Here is another cut and paste but also the link from which the excerpt below comes from, but please do read the entire page.
http://www.historycommons.org/context.jsp?item=a091601hotspots
Below are quotes from a list of legitimate publications and reports, which describes what the government-hired structural engineer, Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, examined on site and in the immediate aftermath regarding columns melting. Again, this is important in regard to the fact that jet fuel alone in the uncontrolled conditions of that day could not melt steel columns yet steel columns did in fact melt if you believe and don’t dismiss the evidence.
This engineer, again, was hired by the government to example and analyze what he found. This should perhaps satisfy your request for my focussing on one reliable source and example. If you take a look at the entire page you will find many more examples that puts melted and molten steel found in the 9/11 events in NYC in a much broader context than this one engineers expert analysis. I encourage you to.
“September 19-October 2001: Structural Engineer Finds Evidence of Extreme Temperatures at WTC
Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl examines steel from the World Trade Center.
Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl examines steel from the World Trade Center. [Source: University of California, Berkeley]
An engineer investigating the remains of the World Trade Center sees melted girders and other evidence that the towers experienced extreme temperatures on 9/11. Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl is a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in studying structural damage done by earthquakes and terrorist bombings. [CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 12/7/2001; CBS NEWS, 3/11/2002] He arrives in New York on September 19 to conduct a two-week scientific reconnaissance of the collapsed towers, hoping to gain an understanding of how they had come down. His project is one of eight financed by the National Science Foundation to study the WTC disaster. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/2/2001; BERKELEYAN, 10/3/2001; US CONGRESS. HOUSE. COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, 3/6/2002] He examines numerous pieces of steel taken from Ground Zero. [CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 12/7/2001] Astaneh-Asl will describe the WTC as “the best-designed building I have ever seen.” [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 10/22/2001] Yet he notices unusual warping and other damage in its remaining steel:
bullet At a recycling center in New Jersey, he sees 10-ton steel beams from the towers that look “like giant sticks of twisted licorice.” [CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 12/7/2001] He shows the San Francisco Chronicle a “banana-shaped, rust-colored piece of steel” that has “twisted like toffee during the terrorist attack.” [SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, 10/22/2001]
bullet He later recalls, “I saw melting of girders in [the] World Trade Center.” [PBS, 5/10/2007]
bullet He notes that steel has bent at several connection points that had joined the floors of the WTC to the vertical columns. He describes the connections as being smoothly warped, saying, “If you remember the Salvador Dali paintings with the clocks that are kind of melted—it’s kind of like that.” He adds, “That could only happen if you get steel yellow hot or white hot—perhaps around 2,000 degrees.” [CHRONICLE OF HIGHER EDUCATION, 12/7/2001]
bullet Astaneh-Asl says that steel flanges have been reduced “from an inch thick to paper thin.” [BERKELEYAN, 10/3/2001]
bullet He finds a foot-long twisted shard of steel that is “like a piece of bread, but it was high-strength steel.” He comments, “I haven’t seen anything like this [before].” [BERKELEY DAILY PLANET, 10/20/2001]
bullet He finds “severely scorched [steel] members from 40 or so floors below the points of impact [by the planes].” He believes this is the result of the planes having destroyed the elevator walls, thereby allowing burning jet fuel to pour down into the building, igniting fires hundreds of feet below the impact floors. [CBS NEWS, 3/12/2002]
bullet He says that, in some places, the fireproofing used to protect the WTC steel has “melted into a glassy residue.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/2/2001]
bullet Astaneh-Asl sees a charred I-beam from WTC Building 7, which collapsed late in the afternoon of 9/11. “The beam, so named because its cross-section looks like a capital I, had clearly endured searing temperatures. Parts of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.” [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/2/2001]
Other individuals will report seeing molten metal in the remains of the World Trade Center in the weeks and months after 9/11 (see September 12, 2001-February 2002), and data collected by NASA reveals dozens of “hot spots” (some over 1,300 degrees Fahrenheit) at Ground Zero (see September 16-23, 2001). But Thomas Eagar—an engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—later comments that the “temperature of the fire at the WTC [on 9/11] was not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel.” [EAGAR AND MUSSO, 12/2001] Yet Astaneh-Asl will later put forward the “tentative” conclusion, “The collapse of the [Twin Towers] was most likely due to the intense fire initiated by the jet fuel of the planes and continued due to burning of the building contents.” [ASTANEH-ASL, 11/30/2003 pdf file] Astaneh-Asl is a member of the team assembled by the American Society of Civil Engineers to investigate the World Trade Center site after 9/11 (see September 12, 2001), though he will resign from this because he disagrees with its decision to keep findings secret until the initial inquiry has been completed. [NEW YORK TIMES, 10/2/2001; ASSOCIATED PRESS, 9/6/2002]
Entity Tags: World Trade Center, Thomas Eagar, Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl
Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, 9/11 Timeline”
SO, melted steel, vaporized metal. And Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl in general is not in strong disagreement with the “collapse by fire” theory. Both the USGS and Lee environmental study of the Deutsche Bank building found evidence in the rubble and remains of extreme temperatures, such as molten molybdenum, vaporized glass and lead. A spray of airborne molten metal forms by surface tension into spheres. The USGS found and photographed examples of this in the dust collected from the area around lower Manhattan. Jet fuel burning in an uncontrolled situation doesn’t create these results.
Another example of extreme temperatures well beyond what the uncontrolled burn of jet fuel can accomplish is described by fire scientists at Worcester Polytech in Worcester, Massachusetts. This link will take you to the article they published, but which since is difficult to find. It has been preserved by those interested what the researchers found and described. Those researchers have appeared in other places and described what mystified them. If you intent to dismiss this article because of who has preserved it, that’s your prerogative but I’d suggest it would be a stretch to do so as a call to the school could verify its authenticity. Please note that Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl also mentions the paper thin edges found on flanges WPI experts examined and called mysterious.
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/wpi_steel.html
Best to you… Steve
Steve, you write …
The fundamental problem is that what you deem “conclusive” never actually turns out to be that. Take for example the big ticket item from that last comment, the colour of melted Aluminum, we will look to that is a moment, but first …
Cutting and pasting long lists from truther sites screams “deep seated bias” at me.
… er no, you provided a list of anecdotal quotes that you cut and pasted directly from a truther site, that was your source. That in turn does have references to the originals, but it is anecdotal, not objective, and not without published rebuttal …
OK, let’s move on to aluminum. In response to the preceding claim of molten steel I pointed out that it was melted aluminum from the aircraft, that is the commonly accepted explanation. Your rebuttal was …
Come now, you know the rebuttal to this rebuttal, it is this …
Pure liquid aluminum would be expected to appear silvery. However, the molten metal was very likely mixed with large amounts of hot, partially burned, solid organic materials (e.g., furniture, carpets, partitions and computers) which can display an orange glow, much like logs burning in a fireplace. The apparent color also would have been affected by slag formation on the surface.”
… and so once again the conclusive evidence is not conclusive after all. Melted aluminum really is the best simplest most reasonable answer.
This pattern repeats again and again. Each and every time I scratch a bit the claim falls apart.
For the molten steel claims promoted by 911 sites there are rebuttals on various other sites for example here …
http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm
… or here …
http://911myths.com/html/wtc_molten_steel.html
I’ll not play cut-and-paste, nor need we rehash it all. The curious can go look at both sides of a rather old conversation that has taken place over the years.
As I previously alluded to, it all very much reminds me of the balance these things reach. To pick an example that I suspect we are both neutral about there are the supposed miracles at various Catholic shrines. The vague is touted as conclusive and verified by doctors, and yet it always turns out to not be sufficiently robust enough to actually be conclusive but instead convinces those that already believe, but does not convince a skeptic. If something conclusive, such as a miracle cure that manifests as a missing limb reappearing happened, then that would nail it, but nothing like that degree of objectivity ever emerges. Our species tends to reach this balance for many popular claims and I find that 911 is no exception to this.
So public statements by one of the government’s own structural engineers, corroborated by other eyewitness researchers and professions describing in the first person their observations are “anecdotal?” Your intellectual dishonesty and aversion to conclusive evidence is quite something to behold.
What does Dr. Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl actually think caused the collapse, what is his position?
Here is the conclusion of the report he wrote in 2003 (http://911-engineers.blogspot.com/2007/04/world-trade-center-collapse-field.html)
Clearly he is not promoting the idea of a controlled demolition, does not hold that position, and has not changed his mind since writing that conclusion.
It is quite frankly bizarre to deploy an appeal-to-authority by quote-mining the “findings” of a Structural Engineer, but at the same time completely ignoring the conclusions drawn by that very same Structural Engineer.
And so once again, scratch, and just below the surface things are not as claimed.
No reply button on your last reply so I’ll answer here… I didn’t say he believed the cause was CD. In fact I said the opposite. What his comments show conclusively is there was melted, even vaporized, steel, which WPI also found, which USGS and the Lee study also described. That sort of legitimate, conclusive sourcing is what you disputed from Link’s comment. Once you can get your head around WHY there was melted steel perhaps the light will start to dawn on you that the official conspiracy theory has some pretty big holes in it.
BTW, I believe AQ did planning to stage an attack. I believe that has been shown. I believe the History Commons timeline shows evidence of that. I also think the HC evidence shows US and other intelligence agencies collected signals that tipped them off that an attack was in the works. Though I can’t prove it, it sure seems plausible if certain folks knew about that planning and choreographed the attack to include the destruction of these buildings it sure would be an excellent opportunity to enact all sorts of agenda items that those seeking great power might want. The Reichstag fire was just such an event enabling just that sort of power grab.
Given the physical evidence of the building failures and the fact that jet fuel simply doesn’t have the energy potential to melt steel, nor does a gravity induced building failure, some other agency had to have been responsible. The physical evidence suggests pretty strongly this is the case. Of course it raises all sorts of very difficult questions. But fundamental physical attributes, such as the wavelengths of radiant energy at particular temperatures applied to metals, or the fact that an object falling at the acceleration of gravity has nothing resisting its descent, or the presence of melted and vaporized steel, are undeniable pieces of evidence that a priori transcend politically difficult questions. If these phenomena are in evidence in the destruction of these buildings, and they are, they necessitate asking certain other questions. I’m asking these questions as are many others. The official conspiracy theory deliberately obfuscates these issues because, well, of where they lead.
I don’t claim to have a lot of final answers. I do know certain fundamental phenomena are in evidence that convince me the official explanation, the official conspiracy theory, simply doesn’t explain how those buildings came down or why these fundamental physical attributes of the destruction exist in this event. In fact they, and you, actively work to deny this obvious evidence with all sorts of hollow excuses that ignores the fundamental nature of the physics this evidence relies on.
Good luck getting your head around it.
Hi Steve … comments tend to nest to about 7 levels only (perhaps I should find that option and raise it a bit at some point).
So anyway, to try and wrap all this up (for now) …
// I believe AQ did planning to stage an attack //
I agree.
// melted steel //
I’m not convinced. Very briefly, because we have covered it in previous comments, Distorted steel, bent and twisted out of shape .. yes … but melted, no. As for molten metal material … Aluminium.
As with many things, there is a conversation, not just between us but between many. That consists of claims, rebuttals, and counter claims. I find the following an interesting meta-insight into how to deal with that …
when you find yourself moving in one direction with regards to a controversy, deliberately slow down and seek out information from the other side. You don’t really know what is going on until you find out what all sides believe, and why, and how they respond to the claims of the other side.
The frequent example here is, imagine listening to just the defense or the prosecution in a trial, then making a decision without listening to the other side. How fair do you think your decision would be? You could be convinced of almost anything if you only listen to one side, and the more developed, sophisticated, and well-funded that side is, the more extreme of a view they can persuade you into.
(FYI … he was talking about the GMO debate, but I believe it is good guidance and that it applies generally).
Yes there are indeed claims, but there are also rebuttals. In the context of the big picture, I’m simply not convinced, because the arguments do all have convincing rebuttals.
We can wrap this up for now but between the eyewitnesses and photographic proof this point isn’t in dispute. There are inconclusive points that reasonable people can disagree on in all sorts of things. Not this. It’s key. This fire captain below saying molten metal running down channel rails “like a foundry,” “like lava” as others who were also first person witnesses nod in agreement is not a case of mistaken identification. Nor were Astaneh-Asl’s observations, nor the Worcester Polytechnic researchers, and many other corroborating witnesses. You ponder that. Take care.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=nsw2j-3MCMg
At the EPA, NOAA, NASA, DOE and other agencies a bevy of career scientists and researchers whose professional lives revolve around science have been lamenting the shift in ideology and political motivation their leaders are being influenced by, or embrace themselves, under the Trump administration. The science that has motivated their careers is being used for a political agenda of a corrupt regime, being either silenced, curtailed, or cherry-picked for political gain. The scientists and researchers that worked on NIST’s NCSTAR 1 report to provide an explanation for the destruction of the WTC towers I, II, and 7 I have no doubt performed their duties with integrity and as thoroughly as the task warranted. But I also believe their leadership made absolutely sure the conclusion of the report fit the explanation they needed to arrive at, that is, Dave’s quote from NIST, and likely written by a faithful staffer reiterating what they believe is the proper thing to say in NIST’s reply to the Europhysics News article:
• “The WTC Towers collapsed because aircraft impact damage and debris dislodged fireproofing from critical steel components, jet fuel-initiated fires burned very hot for long duration when fed by debris and office materials, and the heat eventually weakened the exposed steel until it lost integrity and led to a global failure; and
• WTC 7 collapsed because damage caused by debris from the falling WTC 1 ignited fires on multiple floors, the heat expanded and dislodged a beam connecting a key perimeter column to both a long-span central beam and a critical internal support column, and the column’s failure set off a chain reaction of failures across the building’s steel infrastructure.”
It might have been a slam-dunk for NIST if the report actually proved this, but it doesn’t. I’ll give some evidence how it fails in a bit. It also might be a more credible explanation if the scenario described wasn’t so clearly a repetition of a “man on the street” interview of a supposed eyewitness conducted on 9/11/2001 minutes after the WTC building failures by a Fox News interviewer of a Fox News freelancer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z45hI6YuC-I
“And then I witnessed both towers collapse, one first and then the second, mostly due to structural failure because the fires were just too intense.” This statement was made just minutes after both towers had disintegrated. What is striking is the continuity of the concept voiced here, with the smoke rising in the background minutes following the catastrophe, and how it has been the core to explanations of the destruction ever since for the past 16 years.
This simplistic explanation while sounding plausible defies logic for a number of reasons but perhaps chiefly because of the improbability of the much smaller masses of the building segments above the strike zones crushing down through the path of HIGHEST resistance in buildings. The intact structure below the strike zones increased in strength and rigidity the farther down the building one went. For a small mass to crush down through a increasingly more rigid and intact mass is highly unlikely to occur once, ridiculously improbable to happen twice.
NIST was mandated by Congress to explain the destruction but failed to explain “global failure” in the NCSTAR 1 report with regard to WTC I and II. NIST provided for WTC 7 a short, incomplete simulation that clearly fails to match the visual record. NIST replied to requests for corrections to NCSTAR 1 in September 2007, before the WTC 7 addendum was completed, saying, “…NIST has stated that it did not analyze the collapse of the towers. NIST’s analysis was carried to the point of collapse initiation….” NIST failed its mandate.
Those other bits that took place after collapse initiation, the small masses of the “detached” upper sections above the strike zones, crushing down through the path of highest resistance all the way the ground, not once but twice…NIST offered no explanation for this remarkable new phenomenon in physics and building failure under fire conditions. NIST left the explanation for those events to outside speculative commentary from folks like Bazant and Zhou, Greening, and others, all of whom who have had expert technical challenges to their speculative papers.
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/TheMissingJolt7.pdf
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/NISTandDrBazant-SimultaneousFailure-WTCCollapseAnalysis2.pdf
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2009/FGvsNewton.pdf
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/e/hand-waving-the%20physics-of-911-by-david-griscom.pdf
(Please address the merits of the enclosed arguments above, not cast aspersions on the website where the arguments are made.)
As for WTC 7, NIST’s “chain reaction” of column failures ignores observed, measured, symmetrical, and straight-down free fall acceleration through 8 floors, this remarkable, fundamental and revealing physical phenomenon, is left completely out of the explanation. Instead NIST supplies a short simulation of building failure that bears no resemblance, beyond the first couple of seconds, to the observed event, the symmetrical and straight-down free fall acceleration in an identical fashion as a controlled demolition. What does a faulty simulation prove if anything? It proves they don’t have a cogent explanation, and a simulation which doesn’t model reality with any accuracy.
And yet Dave quotes NIST as saying they have no new information to add to their analysis.
Were the fires so intense as to cause structural failure, initiate the collapse, and result in global failure in less than one hour for the South Tower, less than a hour and a half for the North Tower?
The thick black smoke pouring from the buildings signaled very poor conditions for combustion existed right up to “collapse initiation.”
Thomas Eagar of MIT also offers this: “The temperature of the fire at the WTC was not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel.” And, “It is known that the WTC fire was a fuel-rich, diffuse flame as evidenced by the copious black smoke [16].”
NIST actually says “The simulations and the visible evidence suggested that the duration of temperatures in the neighborhood of 1000 degrees C at any given location on any given floor was about 15 min. to 20 minutes.” Sec 1-5F Chap 6.6.2 pg 109. And, “In actual metallurgical analyses of WTC steel, NIST reports: These [steel] microstructures show no evidence of exposure to temperatures above 600°C for any significant time [18].”
Here are three accounts that are drawn from people in the physical locality where “intense fires” were said to have caused structural failure. The first is Fire Chief Orio Palmer – WTC victim. Chief of Battalion 7, FDNY, Manhattan.
• Transcript of FDNY radio communications on 9/11: Battalion Chief Orio Palmer took an elevator to the 41st floor of the South Tower, then climbed the stairs to the 78th floor. With him was Fire Marshal Ronald Bucca, who had climbed the stairs from the ground floor. They were the first firefighters to reach an airplane impact zone in either the North or South Tower. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, United Flight 175 impacted the South Tower, “crashing through the 77th to 85th floors”.
9:52 a.m.
Chief Palmer: “Battalion Seven … Ladder 15, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones.”
Ladder 15: “What stair are you in, Orio?”
Battalion Seven Aide: “Seven Alpha to lobby command post.”
Ladder Fifteen: “Fifteen to Battalion Seven.”
Chief Palmer: “… Ladder 15.”
Ladder 15: “Chief, what stair you in?”
Chief Palmer: “South stairway Adam, South Tower.”
Ladder 15: “Floor 78?”
Chief Palmer: “Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here.”
Ladder 15: “Alright ten-four, we’re on our way.”
9:52 a.m.
Battalion Seven Aide: “Seven Alpha for Battalion Seven.”
Chief Palmer: “South tower, Steve, south tower, tell them …Tower one.”
Chief Palmer: “Fifteen.”
Chief Palmer: “I’m going to need two of your firefighters, Adam stairway, to knock down two fires. We have a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock it down, kay.”
Ladder 15: “Alright ten-four, we’re coming up the stairs. We’re on 77 now in the B stair, I’ll be right to you.”
Ladder 15 Roof: “Fifteen Roof to 15. We’re on 71. We’re coming right up.”
9:57 a.m.
“Division 3 … lobby command, to the Fieldcom command post.”
Chief Palmer: “Operations Tower One to floor above Battalion Nine.”
Battalion Nine Chief: “Battalion Nine to command post.”
Battalion Seven Operations Tower One: “Battalion Seven Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay.”
Battalion Nine: “Alright, I’m on my way up, Orio.”
Two minutes later, at 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds.”
Chief Palmer: “Battalion Seven … Ladder 15, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines…” in close vicinity of where supposed intense fires caused the South Tower to fail less than one hour after the plane strike and within a couple of minutes following this communication.
The second is Brian Clark – WTC survivor. Manager at Euro Brokers, WTC South Tower, 84th floor. “On September 11, 2001, I was employed by a company called Euro Brokers and our offices were on the 84th floor of the South Tower, which was the second building to be hit that day with an airplane. And I was working away at my computer and at 8:46 in the morning, there was this loud BOOM. …
Two or three minutes later I started talking with one fellow named Bobby Call … and as he was telling me this — BOOM BOOM — this double explosion and our building shook. … Everything just exploded in our room. Now we’re on the 84th floor. What I didn’t know at the time was that the second plane had hit six floors below us on the 78th floor. … We dusted ourselves off and I said, “Come on. Let’s go home.” …
When I looked down there, I didn’t see flames. I just sensed that it was the right thing to go and try and test it. We would go as far as we could until we were stopped by flames. And when we came to the 78th floor, the last layer was standing, but it was cracked, and there were flames licking up the other side of the wall, like this. It wasn’t a roaring inferno. I sensed that the flames were maybe starved for oxygen right there, you know, in the interior. We kept going and we got onto the 74th floor, when we got down that far, normal conditions — the lights were on, fresh air was coming up from below. …
My ears were hearing loud explosions at ground level. Very mysterious. Explosions that seemed to be at ground level as opposed to high in the air.”
Brian Clark descended through the strike zone without being stopped by intense fires. He and a companion escaped the building and survived.
The third is the silent testimony of Edna Cintron looking out from the hole punctured in the North Tower by the aircraft. No smoke or fire surrounding her, clearly observed and photographed, waving a cloth. The North Tower completely disintegrated after about an hour and twenty minutes of being struck.
http://patriotsquestion911.com/survivors.html#Cintron
At nearly the same time that Chief Palmer was on the radio on the 78th floor of the South Tower reporting two lines were needed to knock down two isolated pockets of fire just minutes before the South Tower failed, on the ground a city engineer was saying the buildings “had been compromised” and were in imminent danger of collapse, fire officials had to evacuate their personnel. This was LESS THAN AN HOUR after the plane struck the building.
“Before 9:59 am, that is before the South Tower disappears: “In the lobby of Building 7 of the WTC, EMS Division Chief John Peruggia is in discussion with Fire Department Captain Richard Rotanz and a representative from the Department of Buildings. As Peruggia later describes, “It was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the [Twin] Towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building’s stability was compromised and they felt that the North Tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse.” Peruggia grabs EMT Richard Zarrillo and tells him to pass on the message “that the buildings have been compromised, we need to evacuate, they’re going to collapse.” Zarrillo heads out to the fire command post, situated in front of 3 World Financial, the American Express Building, where he relays this message to several senior firefighters. He says, “OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.” (OEM is the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management, which has its headquarters in WTC 7.) Fire Chief Pete Ganci’s response is, “who the f___ told you that?” Seconds later, they hear the noise of the South Tower as it collapses. [CITY OF NEW YORK, 10/23/2001; CITY OF NEW YORK, 10/25/2001; CITY OF NEW YORK, 10/25/2001; CITY OF NEW YORK, 11/9/2001] Others also appear to have been aware of the imminent danger. Fire Chief Joseph Pfeifer, who is at the command post in the lobby of the North Tower, says, “Right before the South Tower collapsed, I noticed a lot of people just left the lobby, and I heard we had a crew of all different people, high-level people in government, everybody was gone, almost like they had information that we didn’t have.” He says some of them are moving to a new command post across the street. [CITY OF NEW YORK, 10/23/2001; FIREHOUSE MAGAZINE, 4/2002; DWYER AND FLYNN, 2005, PP. 214] Mayor Giuliani also says he receives a prior warning of the first collapse, while at his temporary headquarters at 75 Barclay Street (see (Before 9:59 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Entity Tags: Richard Rotanz, Joseph Pfeifer, John Peruggia, World Trade Center, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney
Timeline Tags: 9/11 Timeline
http://www.historycommons.org/project.jsp?project=911_project
Category Tags: All Day of 9/11 Events, WTC Investigation, Key Day of 9/11 Events, World Trade Center”
Where did the city engineer get his information? Was it Chief Palmer? Someone else? Was it from analysis from within the buildings determined during the 57 minutes from strike to failure of the South Tower? Where did Giuliani hear his information? Were the fire chiefs whose combined experience fighting high-rise building fires compelled them to send hundreds of fire fighters into the buildings wrong to have followed their professional instincts, leading to many, many deaths of these people? Was it entirely coincidental that moments after saying the buildings had been compromised and were in imminent danger of collapse, the South Tower actually did?
In spite of NIST’s reply to the Europhysics News article, which Dave provides, here are direct contradictions to the official narrative that “intense fires” played a key role in the WTC building failures. Controlled demolition, the much more likely cause given the extremely short chronology between plane strike and building failure in both cases, is certainly a viable theory, one, however, NIST made no effort whatsoever to explore, and says so. The Fox News “man on the street” interview shows that the narrative that exists to this day — intense fires, structural failure, global collapse — started virtually immediately after the buildings disintegrated.
There is considerable evidence in eyewitness accounts from throughout the buildings, from deep basement levels to high in the buildings, that explosives were detonating, even in interviews conducted by NIST. There is photographic evidence, video evidence, statements made in real time on national network television about multiple ground level explosions. NONE of this made it into any official report or response. I’ll post some of these in another comment.
Was the destruction of these towers caused by controlled demolition? Probably so. The official narrative doesn’t hold up, regardless of all the hand-waving to the contrary that taken place since that “man on the street interview” that laid out the narrative so succinctly early on Sept 11, 2001.
Dave, author of this post, references right off the bat three obscure non-science websites, sporting ambiguous titles about a publication last year in a respected European scientific publication, EurophysicsNews, the official publication of the European Physical Society whose membership includes the members of 42 European national physical societies, and then says, “That alone is perhaps all you really need to know about the degree of honesty and integrity in play when faced with such claims.”
No, Dave, directing people to use that shallow a measure to bolster your biased unscientific, irrational attempts to discredit long running expert criticism of the official explanation for the destruction of the three WTC towers doesn’t do yourself justice for a website that is otherwise an adequate outlet of good Climate Change commentary and progressive scientific topics.
You sound like the most rabid of AGW deniers, using the same techniques and strategies to undermine concepts you have a personal bias against but apparently lack the knowledge to address directly. Does 9/11 truth offend a political sensibility of yours that concludes no government would or ever has deliberately killed its own citizens to advance a geopolitical strategy? Is that what turns off the rational, objective, empirical part of your thinking?
Like the Climate-gate gainsayers you attack not the message and content of what the experts who wrote and submitted their article to the European Physical Society were saying, but attacked the messengers themselves, and disparaged the publication where they say it, as if that proves their lack of credibility. You made a strenuous effort to disparage EurophysicsNews as lacking scientific credibility while upholding the scientific credibility of Popular Mechanics’ critique of those experts questioning the official government line.
Let’s compare some headlines between Europhysics News and Popular Mechanics articles:
EN: Properties of nuclei probed by laser light; Ion Coulomb crystals: from quantum technology to chemistry close to the absolute zero point; Pattern Formation Induced by Fixed Boundary Condition; Novel plasma jet offshoot phenomenon explains blue atmospheric jets; Fluctuational electrodynamics for nonlinear media.
PM: Why the C-130 Is Such a Badass Plane; 7 of the World’s Most Crucial Ports; Everything You Want to Know About North Korean Nukes (But Were Afraid to Ask); The 50 Best New Board Games; Russian Bombers Sighted off Alaska for Second Straight Day.
Holding up a popular non-technical magazine dedicated to influencing populous sentiments to conform to a particular militaristic agenda in the aftermath of the 9/11 events as having more credibility than the one that actually discusses science, well, you made a valiant effort that those of us less awed by pseudo-science saw right through. THAT is why you received so much push back and criticism. Your appeal to the authority of those who held, and presumable still holds, your particular bias without the benefit of valid science backing up their shallow claims mimics another technique climate change deniers rely on.
You use here and in that last big posting on 9/11 the demonstrably silly idea that the trauma of big events like the 9/11 attacks provokes psychological imbalances in people in response resulting in conspiratorial thinking. You even adapt research opinions to bolster this notion. I see this a sad, desperate even, attempt to discredit how other people think when their thinking differs from your own. There is something decidedly disturbing in attributing this type of reasoning to others who don’t conform to your biases. The Soviets subjected dissidents to psychological purgatory for not buying the Politburos line of thinking. THAT demonstrates the danger of your attempt to discredit experts with whom you disagree.
Why it is silly ought to be obvious also.
The events of 16 years ago are long past the initial trauma stage. The ongoing discussions and research by experts in physics, structural and mechanical engineering, architecture availing themselves of a body of evidence publicly available in thousands of pages of NIST empirical analysis, or FEMA, or from other expert sources such as the USGS, the NYC Fire Department, the 9/11 Commission report – publicly available – the tens of thousands of photographs – publicly available – hundreds of hours of video and audio of all aspects of the events from national news broadcasts, official interviews, personal eyewitness recordings and records of experiences – publicly available… all of this archive as a historical database to draw from has been and is an ongoing endeavor as a matter of intellectual inquiry. To hear you speak, you would shut it down. The history is settled. Nothing more to see here, folks, move along. YOU are the fool for thinking and saying so…
For readers, here are some websites that influenced me when after 3 or 4 years the initial trauma of the 9/11 attacks wore off and I started my own inquiry into the physical and engineering aspects of the WTC destruction that didn’t make sense in the official explanation and narrative of events. I have continues to doubt the official conspiracy theory and find nonsensical, unscientific criticisms of my questions about the official explanation, like these posted by Dave, offensive.
Dave started this post calling into question the honesty and integrity of people like me, and the many, many experts whose opinions I share, some of whom have long decades of expertise in academia, in government research labs, in basic research and whom are perfectly suited to offer expert opinions. For Dave to call into question their fitness through decrying their “honesty or integrity,” or the soundness of their psychological profiles as a means to discredit what they are conveying in their expert opinions is beneath anyone claiming to uphold scientific values or that they represent rational skepticism.
http://patriotsquestion911.com/#Griscom
http://www.journalof911studies.com
http://www.ae911truth.org
http://www.complete911timeline.com
I have a degree in physics and know enough to see that those few engineers that have defended the official story have fudged their assumptions, omitted and distorted facts, ignored or outright denied obvious evidence and testimony, and did not follow through on their calculations. There is already one well done study proving that WTC 7 was not felled by building fires.
Just curious, but …
– How exactly does this well-done study prove that WTC 7 did not collapse due to the raging fires that had been burning all day?
– What fact does the study establish to verify this?
– What about WTC 1 and 2, why the focus on WTC 7?
– Why exactly would anybody for any reason conspire to orchestrate a controlled demolition of WTC 7 later in the day when WTC 1 and 2 had already collapsed?
– Given the observation that there was a raging fire burning in WTC7 for most of the day prior to its collapse, how was it possible that any explosives placed for a controlled demolition had not been previously compromised by that fire?
– Given the observable fact that WTC7 was completely gutted by the fire, then what purpose did a controlled demolition actually serve? The building had already been completely destroyed.
– What fact does the study establish to verify this?
It is not just one fact, but several. Go to the link above and view Dr. Hulsey’s presentations. The draft report is due out in October or November 2017, not yet as of this comment.
– What about WTC 1 and 2, why the focus on WTC 7?
Some people view WTC 7 as the weak link, because it was not even hit by an aircraft, and too many people don’t know about it, so proving that the WTC 7 collapse was a controlled demolition is the first step to making the whole controlled demolition scenario more publicly known and proving that all three were controlled demolitions. Even beyond these three buildings are the unexplainable facts about WTC 6, which was hollowed out from the inside as seen from overhead photos, and some columns in the WTC 1 or 2 that simply turned to dust in mid-air. These mystify me and I am still looking for an explanation.
– Why exactly would anybody for any reason conspire to orchestrate a controlled demolition of WTC 7 later in the day when WTC 1 and 2 had already collapsed?
Any such orchestration had to have been planned well ahead of time. WTC 1 and 2 had symbolic meanings and had to go first. WTC 7 also apparently had some offices that monitored and possibly controlled the collapses of WTC 1 and 2. There are other theories. I don’t really know the answer to that question.
… more in the next comment (this WordPress page apparently has its limits)
Dave’s last presumption, WTC 7 was “completely gutted by fire,” claiming this is an observable fact was not by any stretch observed or factual. There were fires observed on particular floors throughout the day but at no time were fires observed in any of the video or photographic record that at all plausibly supports the claim “completely gutted by fire.”
None of his questions address questions raised by the observed behaviors of the building failures. Making up claims, such as “completely gutted by fire” while ignoring observational facts, the photographic and video record showing otherwise, or physical and measurable facts, free fall acceleration through 8 stories, indicates Dave isn’t prepared to face the empirical evidence and allow the evidence to lead where it obviously leads… fire and gravity alone cannot account for what was observed in any of the towers’ destruction.
– Given the observation that there was a raging fire burning in WTC7 for most of the day prior to its collapse, how was it possible that any explosives placed for a controlled demolition had not been previously compromised by that fire?
Currently used explosives are not that easy to set off by fire in the first place. In addition to that, they could have been encased to make them fire-proof.
– Given the observable fact that WTC7 was completely gutted by the fire, then what purpose did a controlled demolition actually serve? The building had already been completely destroyed.
I don’t know the answer to that question, except to say that the collapse of WTC 7 had to have been planned well ahead of time. If you look through some of the many videos and testimony, you will find that explosions were set off in the lobby of WTC 7 well ahead of the collapse.