9/11 Conspiracy Thread (There can be only one!)

[scott3x]

While I know of him, I don’t know much about him so no I wouldn’t say that I’m a fan.

Ok.

Originally Posted by scott3x
I would think it would have made more sense to analyze it where it had fallen. I also imagine that only government officials were allowed to analyze it. Also, could you cite a source showing me that it was analyzed further at a scrapyard?

It was from 911 myths although the original link is now dead.
http://www.911myths.com/html/recycled_steel.html

"There has been some concern expressed by others that the work of the team has been hampered because debris was removed from the site and has subsequently been processed for recycling. This is not the case. The team has had full access to the scrap yards and to the site and has been able to obtain numerous samples. At this point there is no indication that having access to each piece of steel from the World Trade Center would make a significant difference to understanding the performance of the structures".
Stop being dramatic. Thousands of people had access to the area for many months.

Having access to the area is not the same thing as having access to the material. In my last post, I made this very clear.

”A team was quickly assembled by the Structural Engineers Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers. It also involved the American Institute of Steel Construction, the American Concrete Institute, the National Fire Protection Association, and the Society of Fire Protection Engineers.[29] ASCE ultimately invited FEMA to join the investigation, which was completed under the auspices of the latter”
In the eyes of a Cter any organization with the right qualifications would probably be linked to the government somehow.

No, but the organizations that did do the work did it in a very questionable manner.

Perhaps the steel should have been given to all professors of theology for a once over as well.

Very funny. But let's face it; ultimately, a person knows what they learn, whether or not they get a degree. Similarly, if a person doesn't want to see something, they can be very good at not seeing it even if they are highly qualified to see it. There is also the fact that there are many experts who question the validity of the official story.

Originally Posted by scott3x

Not much was needed. And apparently a non governmental individual managed to get some anyway. But he may never be able to prove it, since he was never officially given anything.

Many NGOs still rely on the government for funding so … you know ..

I know what?

Is there anything in particular that Zeitgeist brings up that is new?

It brings up a lot of good points, some of which I have already mentioned here. Whether you would find anything you hadn't heard before is something I don't know.

My point being that discussions on nearly anything can go for many pages.

Ok.

In the case of 911 there are so many claims. As I said, quantity not quality. With conspiracies, particularly these days with internet and youtube, there can be smoke with no fire.

I can agree with that. I also believe that at times it's the government's story that has lots of smoke but little fire. Like the official 'raging inferno' myth. From "The Terror Conspiracy", page 52-53:
******************
As noted by reporter Christopher Bollyn, "The fact that veteran fire-fighters had a 'coherent plan for putting out' the 'two pockets of fire', indicates they judged the blazes to be manageable. These reports from the scene of the crash provide crucial evidence debunking the government's claim that a raging steel-melting inferno led to the tower's collapse.
Supporting Chief Palmer's description of only small fires in the South Tower are survivors Stanley Praimnath, Donovan Cowan and Ling Young. Praimnath, on the 81st floor, recalled, "The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway." Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby. She recalled "We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped." Young was in her 78th floor office and related, "Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got burned."
Government pronouncements and hired experts claimed temperatures in the area of these three witnesses were hot enough to cause the trusses of the south tower to fail, yet these eye-witnesses stated temperatures were cool enough for them to walk away.
**************

 

[scott3x]

Pancake theory discredited

Originally Posted by scott3x

Possibly, atleast on floors above the basement. As to the basement itself, I myself am puzzled on that one. I can easily imagine that a web site has a good theory, but I don't have one.

Well, if you can find a physical reason that any of the other floors would have held up thirty stories of building, please go ahead.

Sure. From David Ray Griffin's lecture delivered at the University of Wisconsin at Madison on April 18, 2005 (http://911review.com/articles/griffin/madison.html):
**********************************************
I will mention one more sign of a deliberate cover-up. Insofar as there is an official theory as to why the towers collapsed, it is the “pancake” theory, according to which the floors above the destruction caused by the airplanes collapsed to the floor below, which then started a chain reaction. This theory does not even begin to explain the actual nature of the collapses, such as the fact that they occurred at virtually free-fall speed. But even if the pancake theory were otherwise remotely plausible, it would not explain what happened to the 47 massive steel columns that constituted the weight-bearing core of each tower. They should have still been sticking up many hundreds of feet in the air (just like the spindle of the old-fashioned phonograph player, when the records pancaked). The 9/11 Commission Report avoided this problem, incredibly, by simply denying the existence of these columns. After saying, falsely, that most of the weight of each tower was born by the steel columns in its exterior walls, this supposedly authoritative report said: “The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped.”[37] Such a desperate lie is a sure sign of a deliberate cover-up.

In any case, when we look at all these features of the collapses, the idea that they could have caused by the impact of the airplanes plus the resulting fires is ridiculous. This is even clearer with regard to Building 7, which was not hit by an airplane. Its collapse remains so impossible to explain, except as controlled demolition, that The 9/11 Commission Report did not even mention it--as if there were nothing remarkable about the fact that for the first time in history, fire alone was said to have caused the sudden collapse of a high-rise steel-frame building (an event that would have been even more remarkable given the fact that the building had fires on only a few floors).[38]

In sum, the collapses and the cover-up--like the strike on the Pentagon, the military’s failure to prevent the attacks, and its changing stories--show that the attacks must have been planned and executed by our own political and military leaders.
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[Sock Puppy]

Well, right from the get-go, David Ray Griffin is wrong about the central core issue: the load was borne as much in the exterior as the interior. The core columns - all the columns - were hardly single pieces of steel; the supposition that they should have remained standing when the rest of the building fell all around and through them is arrant poppycock that Griffin must have struck on by watching a particularly cunning coyote attempting to catch a road runner. Real life isn't Looney Tunes. The falling materials would simply have knocked it down as they came, since it's a bit much to expect that 110 stories of steel would have just stood there as everything else were falling.

But how quickly he moves from that supposition to the supposition that the US government - and apparently all those firefighters "in on it" - is responsible! It's almost like the relationship existed a priori in his head. Why is that, I wonder?

Anyway, I've listed a bunch of other challenges above to the orthodox Troofer interpretation of the events at WTC 7 and so forth. Could you respond to them next please?

 

[scott3x]

I think you mean to say "the vast majority of people", supported by the unambiguous part of the evidence.

In your dreams perhaps. In 2004, a Zogby poll (http://www.zogby.com/search/ReadNews.dbm?ID=855) found that:
************
Half of New Yorkers Believe US Leaders Had Foreknowledge of Impending 9-11 Attacks and “Consciously Failed” To Act; 66% Call For New Probe of Unanswered Questions by Congress or New York’s Attorney General, New Zogby International Poll Reveals
************

True, it doesn't specify how many of them felt that demolitions were involved in the 9/11 building collapses. But the fact that it's asking for a new probe might lead one to believe that the demolition theory is something they have in mind.

But they were so unprofessional as to let the building enter "free fall"?

Perhaps doing it in another way would have roused even more suspicion.

Actually I've been doing some thinking; perhaps your boulderist theory is in fact the pancake theory? I mean, the building -did- start collapsing from the top then? And the pancake theory has been discredited.. so therefore your theory has been discredited ;-). At this point, you will say (someone already has anyway) that a theologist doesn't have the credentials to discredit the theory and that's when I'll point out that the WTC architect and other experts who built the towers have stated that the World Trade tower was designed to withstand plane crashes.

It's not the same thing at all, really, since I'm not arguing any sequential collapse, but the simple ignorance of resistance by the above mass, which makes far more sense.

If your theory isn't even the same as the pancake theory, all I can say is that if even the government doesn't support it, I'm guessing it's a very weak theory. I admit that on all this collapsing business I'm in a bit over my head and am instead relying on people who have written books on the subject (yes, the theologist professor has actually written 4 books on 9/11).

But let's examine your theory here: is it really a theologian who has "discredited" the pancake theory? Which individual would this be again?

David Ray Griffin.

And the architect of WTC - did he also say that the building was built to survive both an impact and the ensuing fires? Even if the fire protection was scraped off?

No, he didn't say all of this but I am assuming that's what he meant.

If he did, I guess that would be it. I mean, after all, engineers are never wrong, and their promises never exceed their claims. In particular, ships described as "unsinkable" are never, ever, actually very sinkable.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic...

I'm glad you admit that engineers can be wrong. If this is the case, then the government's theories are fair game as well. Let the true arguments win.

From Zeitgeist:
****
Pancake theory, according to which the fires, while not melting the steel, heated it up sufficiently to cause the floors weakened by the airplane strikes to break loose from the steel columns, and this started a chain reaction.
"So, you would expect then, from that theory, which is the official theory, to see a whole stack of floors, piled up on top of each other, and then a spindle of core columns standing too."
The core of the twin towers consisted of 47 massive steel columns. If the floors had broken loose from them, these columns would have still been sticking up into the air a thousand feet. The plane did not cut all those core columns..
****

And, while falling, the debris couldn't have torn the columns down anyway? The majority of the weight was actually borne by the perimeter

On these things, I can only rely on people who have studied such things, as I don't know enough to have the answers you seek.

The World Trade Center towers included many structural engineering innovations in skyscraper design and construction, which allowed the buildings to reach new heights and become the tallest in the world. Traditionally, skyscrapers used a skeleton of columns distributed throughout the interior to support building loads, with interior columns disrupting the floor space. The tube-frame concept was a major innovation, allowing open floor plans and more space to rent. The buildings used high-strength, load-bearing perimeter steel columns called Vierendeel trusses that were spaced closely together to form a strong, rigid wall structure. There were 59 perimeter columns, narrowly spaced, on each side of the buildings. These were designed to provide support for virtually all lateral loads (such as wind loads) and to share the gravity loads with the core columns.[46] Structural analysis of major portions of the World Trade Center were computed on an IBM 1620.[47]

The perimeter structure was constructed with extensive use of prefabricated modular pieces, which consisted of three columns, three stories tall, connected by spandrel plates. The perimeter columns had a square cross section, 14 inches (36 cm) on a side, and were constructed of welded steel plate.[48] The thickness of the plates and grade of structural steel varied over the height of the tower, ranging from 36,000 to 100,000 pounds per square inch[49] (260 to 670 MPa). The strength of the steel and thickness of the steel plates decreased with height because they were required to support lesser amounts of building mass on higher floors.[48] The tube-frame design required 40 percent less structural steel than conventional building designs.[50] From the 7th floor to the ground level, and down to the foundation, the columns were spaced 10 feet (3 m) apart.[51] All columns were placed on bedrock, which, unlike that in Midtown Manhattan, where the bedrock is shallow, is at 65–85 feet (20–26 m) below the surface.[52]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constru...r#Construction

I'm not an engineer, but this does not sound like solid steel columns to me. It sounds like pieces welded together, as above.

Well, neither of us are engineers; however, from everything I've seen, my bet is that David Ray Griffin is right.

Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."
For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris. That is 500F hotter then jet fuel even burns.

Dr. Steven Jones:
"So I'm looking through the official reports, what do they say about the molten metal. They say nothing. Now wait a minute. This is important evidence. So where'd that come from?"

Are we now going to start this sort of quibbling? For shame. Either steel melts via petrol fire or it doesn't. Which is it then? You can't just ignore evidence because it doesn't suit you.

What evidence am I ignoring? The answer is no, it doesn't. The melting point of steel is significantly higher then that of jet fuel fires:
http://education.jlab.org/qa/meltingpoint_01.html

If you want a scientific explanation on why the jet fuel fires played almost no role in the collapse of the World Trade Center, feel free to try to understand the technical jargon on this page:
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/wtc/how-hot.htm

Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."

Which are what? Steel? Aluminium? What? What does the good Dr. Jones know?

Someone here has said that in the case of the twin towers, NIST concluded it was aluminium. How it drew this conclusion, they don't say. I have already shown evidence that the fires the plane caused were not that hot, however, so even the assertion that it was melted aluminium is cast into doubt. But in the case of the WTC 7 building, it wasn't hit by a plane, so this argument can't even be used there.

For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris. That is 500F hotter then jet fuel even burns.

And? Has Dr. Jones never been camping? I don't think I'm mistaken when I say that the embers are the hottest part of the fire. Ash and dirt are very good insulators, and I don't doubt for a second that a fire smouldering there might reach a couple thousand degrees. However, where is Dr. Jones' evidence, again?

That, I don't have. You'd have to ask him. Unlike David Ray Griffin, however, he is a physicist at BYU, so you can't say that he doesn't have credentials in this area.

And I think a lot of people aren't so keen on believing that dark elements of their own government could do such things.

Some may indeed be, but not I. I merely understand the evidence and the meaning of coincidence.

Not sure what coincidences you had in mind; care to elaborate?

Melted steel, silly Troofer. Melted steel. Melted by gasoline fire. Are you going to carry on like this then?

Alright, I'll acknowledge that I'm not sure why that steel apparently melted.

The evidence is clear that there were molten pools of metal. Not weakened. The government agents in charge did the best they could to cover up this embarrassing fact by simply ignoring it completely as I've mentioned above.

Supposition on all counts. First, demonstrate these foundry pools of simmering metal.

Not even the government denies them; they simply omitted mentioning them in atleast one of their reports.

Second, prove they were steel and not aluminum from the plane.

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/moltensteel.html

I find the following line amusing:
"3. Demolition experts tell Popular Mechanics that wiring a building the size of WTC7 for clandestine demolition would present insurmountable logistical challenges. "

They expect their readers to not even ask -why- they believe it would 'present insurmountable challenges'.

You have missed the critical statement. I have bolded the text above. So you're really committed to your story, then, in the face of everything? Or did you honestly miss it? Because in conjunction with your willful attempt to dismiss the truck accident, I'm starting to seriously wonder.

No willful attempts to miss anything. You might have noticed that I've been reading and responding to a lot of info and once in a while something gets by. Anyway, fine, demolition experts said it. Do they mention any names or are these experts masked in anonymity?

Well, we know that NIST concluded this. But from what I've heard, NIST is hardly to be trusted.

Here we go - 'idle rumour suggests I shouldn't trust them'. They went around collecting all this evidence, see, and that bodes not well.

I have already posted info that severely discredits their 'evidence gathering'.

Why can't they just weigh a witch like we used to do in the old days? Stephen Jones and that idiot radio announcer are like the most vociferous peasants in the mob, shaking their pitchforks and demanding the death of Mary the Apothecary because their sheep lost four lambs this spring, unknowing or uncaring about the existence of bacteria. It's sad.

Stephen Jones is a physicist, not exactly someone who argues based on suspicions. As to Cooper, after having listened to one of his broadcasts, I have decided that while he may know some things, he doesn't seem to have been the best person to make a case at times.

This is what the paper said about his firing:
"South Bend firm's lab director fired after questioning federal probe".

That's their take on it, but you yourself suggested a simpler alternative.

I didn't suggest it, you did. And seriously, why should he be fired for simply questioning a federal probe? If everyone needed authorization to speak their mind, the dystopian theme of societal control brought up in the book 1984 would have come to pass.

Until I googled his name, I hadn't known he was the director of loose change. Anyway, I really liked the parts of his film that I've seen.

"Liked", not "found reasonable". I suggest you continue your internet education with this film:

http://www.lolloosechange.co.nr/ I...to the official Troofer version of the facts?

I've already critiqued the first 4 minutes of that film in one of these conspiracy threads (4 minutes was enough).

 

[KennyJC]

As noted by reporter Christopher Bollyn, "The fact that veteran fire-fighters had a 'coherent plan for putting out' the 'two pockets of fire', indicates they judged the blazes to be manageable. These reports from the scene of the crash provide crucial evidence debunking the government's claim that a raging steel-melting inferno led to the tower's collapse.

Jim Marr says the steel melts? It appears that only conspiracy theorists say the steel melted and nobody else does. That's just deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and further proof that "truthers" are liars.

Supporting Chief Palmer's description of only small fires in the South Tower are survivors Stanley Praimnath, Donovan Cowan and Ling Young. Praimnath, on the 81st floor, recalled, "The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway." Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby. She recalled "We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped." Young was in her 78th floor office and related, "Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got burned."
Government pronouncements and hired experts claimed temperatures in the area of these three witnesses were hot enough to cause the trusses of the south tower to fail, yet these eye-witnesses stated temperatures were cool enough for them to walk away.

The 81st floor is not where the worst of the heat, fires, or impact damage was. The 78th floor is obviously even lower than that and received very little damage from either the plane or fires. You don’t need a PHD to know that heat rises, thus if these people were any higher up than they were, it would be a completely different story; more fires, more heat.

Chief Palmer from the 78th floor said that there were isolated pockets of fire. But he radioed from the Sky Lobby just minutes before the collapse. Survivors reported the Sky Lobby being immediately engulfed in flames, but these would have burned off within about 10 minutes of the plane hitting. The sky lobby had little combustable furniture unlike the office floors above, and thus there was little to keep the fire going until firefighters got there. It’s worth noting that the sky lobby also had tall ceilings, so any heat there would have risen to the tall ceilings.

NIST offers temperature simulations on a floor by floor basis, and reveals that 81st floor had few relatively cool spots and the 78th floor was almost completely cool, except for a couple of areas. NIST says the worst of the fires took place on the 82nd floor.

So these quotes you gave do nothing to contradict the “official story”, and is nothing but more textbook truther manipulation.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

*************************************************************
"Mike Pecoraro told The Chief Engineer magazine he was working in the 6th sub-basement of the North Tower when the lights flickered. This was followed by a loud explosion. Pecoraro and a coworker made their way up to a C level machine shop but found it "gone." There was nothing there but rubble", recalled Pecoraro. "We're talking about a 50-ton hydraulic press- gone!"
*************************************************************

So your impression is that there must be a bomb?

Yes.

Why would they have planted one there? To what end? "Hey, this machine looks important...let's blow it up?" Where was it in relation to the columns?

I found an interesting possibility here:
http://loosechange-911.blogspot.com/2007/11/wtc-basement-explosions.html

If the Madrid Tower burned because of arson, who's to say they didn't add some explosives?

This is complete and utter supposition.

As to the arson possibility, I got it from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Building#Causes

I don't see why explosives couldn't have been used as well.

In any case, that building didn't collapse, despite a bona fide raging inferno that was only put out after 16 hours, not the paltry 1 or 2 weak fires from 9/11. There's one thing you seem to be forgetting with all your ideas of so much internal fires; fires need a lot of air. They didn't have much in the case of 9/11.

Proof please.

I've already given a lot of evidence demonstrating that the fires were small, but will look for it again if you haven't seen it yet...

I just listened to William Cooper's broadcast. He doesn't seem to say much beyond the fact that Osama wanted to commit more terrorist acts. But a lot of people knew that. I have heard of people who knew much more then this before the event.

Ok, forget the Cooper bit, but my point is that a lot of people have died as a result of what happened on 9/11.

Which you prefer to think is the American's fault, because the alternative is unacceptable to you.

What are you talking about?

Losing strength is not the same thing as giving way. In any case, Ryan wasn't arguing that the steel didn't lose its strength, only that it didn't melt, something that Dr. Brown, the project engineer for the construction of the twin towers, stated on 9/11 (This is stated in the following link: http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/collapse/meltdown.html, search for brown). So much for some of these 'experts'.

So someone incorrectly said the steel melted. Not exactly a smoking gun.

If it had just been some nameless type, it'd be one thing. But it was the project engineer for the construction of the twin towers. I wonder if he has ever explained how he came to such a faulty conclusion.

He probably said "Plane yes, fire and plane no."

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

This is what Dr. Hyman Brown said, amoung other things (from http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/collapse/meltdown.html):
****
This building would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it," he said. "But steel melts, and 90,850 litres of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire." 4 "
****

Was there any molten metal in WTC 7 at all? Please provide a link.

It's in the zeitgeist movie. The link to their site (and the movie) is here:
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ . It starts talking about it at about 55:30.

An excerpt from the movie:
*****************************************************
Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."
For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris.
*****************************************************

 

[scott3x]

Oh, and a final thing to put the nails in the coffin of the "molten conspiracy":

Thermite burns out very quickly. It doesn't smoulder for weeks and weeks.

No one said it did. The steel is what was smouldering, as a result of thermite being used on it.

 

[scott3x]

Oh, what the heck. How about this then?

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

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/moltensteel.html

So there's the "kiln theory" for Troofers to deal with now also.

This is just the evidence of the molten metal. Herb Trimpe speculates that this was the heat that was "going on when those airplanes hit", but the only thing for certain is that at some point between the airplanes hitting and the molten metal ending up where it was, something energized that metal with 'demolishing heat', as he put it.

 

[scott3x]

Firstly how would people on the bottom floors know that the explosion was before the plane hit? Were they watching the plane? The ones in the basement weren't.

When the plane hit there was an initial bang from the collision and then a subsequent explosion. It is possible that there were two bangs from the first collision as the sound travels faster down the steel than it does through air. CTers desperate to shoehorn evidence to fit their beliefs will only interpret more than one bang as evidence as bombs.

It's a little more complex then that. From "The Terror Conspiracy", page 44:
********************************
[on 9/11] Rodriguez had worked for the New York and New Jersey Port Authority for about twenty years. In 2001, he was in charge of maintenance for three stairwells in the North Tower.
Arriving at 8:30am on September 11, Rodriguez went to the maintenance office located on the first sublevel, one of six sub-basements beneath ground level. There were a total of fourteen people in the office at this time. As he was talking with others, there was a very loud, massive explosion that seemed to emanate from between sub-basements B2 and B3. There were twenty-two people on B2 sub-basement who also felt and heard that first explosion.
At first he thought it was a generator that had exploded. "When I heard the sound of the explosion, the floor beneath my feet vibrated, the walls started racking and everything started shaking", said Rodriguez. Seconds later there was another explosion way above, which made the building oscillate momentarily. This, he was later told, was a plane hitting the 90th floor.
Upon hearing about the plane, Rodriguez started heading for the loading dock to escape the explosion's fire. When asked later about those first explosions he said: "I would know if an explosion was from the bottom or the top of the building." He was clear about hearing explosions both before and after the plane hit the tower.

Rodriguez said a fellow worker, Felipe David, came into the office. "He had been standing in front of a freight elevator on sub-level 1 about 400 feet from the office when fire burst out of the elevator shaft, causing his injuries. He was so burned so badly from the basement explosion that flesh was hanging from his face and both arms." Rodriguez led David outside but returned to the building after hearing screaming inside.
***********************************

Once again, the collapse started up the top at the point of impact, so if bombs went off they had no effect on the lower levels.

I've linked to a possible reason why there were bombs in the basement and in other floors before the collapse, but will do so again if you like.

(response continued in next post)

 

[Sock Puppy]

In your dreams perhaps.

And how many nationwide?

True, it doesn't specify how many of them felt that demolitions were involved in the 9/11 building collapses. But the fact that it's asking for a new probe might lead one to believe that the demolition theory is something they have in mind.

Supposition.

Perhaps doing it in another way would have roused even more suspicion.

Oh? There are a number of ways the kind of damage you're speculating about might have been carried out, and simpler ones too. This is mere handwaving.

If your theory isn't even the same as the pancake theory, all I can say is that if even the government doesn't support it, I'm guessing it's a very weak theory.

Guesswork, frankly. Argument from authority. Yet you willfully ignore that below when you cite:

David Ray Griffin.

A theologian, not an architect, nor an engineer.

And the architect of WTC - did he also say that the building was built to survive both an impact and the ensuing fires? Even if the fire protection was scraped off?

No, he didn't say all of this but I am assuming that's what he meant.

That is a vast assumption, sir, and it's fair to say you cannot justify it.

I'm glad you admit that engineers can be wrong. If this is the case, then the government's theories are fair game as well. Let the true arguments win.

Well, every time they do, you change the subject. You have alluded to Ockham's Razor here before; I apply it now. The simplest explanation is that the boasts of the engineers did not stand.

On these things, I can only rely on people who have studied such things, as I don't know enough to have the answers you seek.

Well, neither of us are engineers; however, from everything I've seen, my bet is that David Ray Griffin is right.

Your preference, you mean.

What evidence am I ignoring? The answer is no, it doesn't. The melting point of steel is significantly higher then that of jet fuel fires:

Then you will please to explain the mystery of the melting steel from the truck. Thanks.

If you want a scientific explanation on why the jet fuel fires played almost no role in the collapse of the World Trade Center, feel free to try to understand the technical jargon on this page:

Interesting, but I disagree. I think you'll find the answers you're looking for on this page:

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1CollapseofTowers.pdf

Someone here has said that in the case of the twin towers, NIST concluded it was aluminium. How it drew this conclusion, they don't say. I have already shown evidence that the fires the plane caused were not that hot, however, so even the assertion that it was melted aluminium is cast into doubt. But in the case of the WTC 7 building, it wasn't hit by a plane, so this argument can't even be used there.

So illustrate that there was melted metal at WTC 7 at all first, and then you can stake your claim that it must have been melted steel there, too.

That, I don't have. You'd have to ask him. Unlike David Ray Griffin, however, he is a physicist at BYU, so you can't say that he doesn't have credentials in this area.

Well, if you don't have it, we can't argue it.

Alright, I'll acknowledge that I'm not sure why that steel apparently melted.

Then I submit that we - or you, rather - are done on the melted steel issue. Steel apparently can melt at gasoline fire temperatures, for some reason. Further exploration is probably required. But thus endeth the conspiracy; a naturalistic conclusion is more easily achieved. I do thank you for confronting this issue fairly.

No willful attempts to miss anything. You might have noticed that I've been reading and responding to a lot of info and once in a while something gets by. Anyway, fine, demolition experts said it. Do they mention any names or are these experts masked in anonymity?

Why should it matter? You've already implied that personal statements are no good since everyone's afraid of losing their jobs.

Stephen Jones is a physicist, not exactly someone who argues based on suspicions.

Steve Jones is a prof from Bring Em Young U, which is the last institution of higher learning I'd expect a sane head to be operating in, save perhaps Al Ahzad.

I didn't suggest it, you did. And seriously, why should he be fired for simply questioning a federal probe? If everyone needed authorization to speak their mind, the dystopian theme of societal control brought up in the book 1984 would have come to pass.

I think 1984 was more about the societal constraints on thought advanced by misguided revolutionism; or so I took from it. A note of caution for Truthers also, I should think. Not so much permission as inability. Anyway: he spoke while being a rep of an engineering firm. It's unfortunate, and even deplorable, but not necessarily conspiratorial.

I've already critiqued the first 4 minutes of that film in one of these conspiracy threads (4 minutes was enough).

So I watch all of Loose Change, but you won't watch even five minutes of Screw Loose Change?? What does this say about the foundation of the 9/11 Truth movement: objective, or faith-based? The movie was so offensive because it presented a view alternative to your own cherished beliefs that you couldn't even stomach it? My word.

SP

 

[Sock Puppy]

As to the arson possibility, I got it from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windsor_Building#Causes

I don't see why explosives couldn't have been used as well.

So everything is explosives.

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

What I'm saying is that the building was built to withstand a hit, but not a hit and a fire. The fire area drastically exceeded internal sprinkler capacity (about 10-fold).

This is what Dr. Hyman Brown said, amoung other things (from http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/collapse/meltdown.html):
****
This building would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it," he said. "But steel melts, and 90,850 litres of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire." 4 "
****

Are you citing this in support of me? Thanks.

I found an interesting possibility here:

Again - supposition.

An excerpt from the movie:
*****************************************************
Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."
For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris.
*****************************************************

Well, I'm going to need more than that, I'm afraid. An official report would be good. I can believe the hotspots, for reasons I've mentioned, but I need more on the molten metal at WTC 7.

No one said it did. The steel is what was smouldering, as a result of thermite being used on it.

Thermite burns quickly and then extinguishes. I know, as I've seen it demonstrated. It doesn't smoulder. By contrast, burning material trapped in a rubble pile does smoulder, and quite spectacularly.

This is just the evidence of the molten metal. Herb Trimpe speculates that this was the heat that was "going on when those airplanes hit", but the only thing for certain is that at some point between the airplanes hitting and the molten metal ending up where it was, something energized that metal with 'demolishing heat', as he put it.

He alludes clearly to the smouldering piles. What else is causing the heat? It's not thermite.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

No fireball could have done this:
*************************************************************
"Mike Pecoraro told The Chief Engineer magazine he was working in the 6th sub-basement of the North Tower when the lights flickered. This was followed by a loud explosion. Pecoraro and a coworker made their way up to a C level machine shop but found it "gone." There was nothing there but rubble", recalled Pecoraro. "We're talking about a 50-ton hydraulic press- gone!"
*************************************************************

http://www.911myths.com/html/mike_pecoraro.html

Ok, so he became a believer of the official story. But that link conveniently fails to mention the hydraulic press at all.

Originally Posted by scott3x

If the Madrid Tower burned because of arson, who's to say they didn't add some explosives? In any case, that building didn't collapse, despite a bona fide raging inferno that was only put out after 16 hours, not the paltry 1 or 2 weak fires from 9/11. There's one thing you seem to be forgetting with all your ideas of so much internal fires; fires need a lot of air. They didn't have much in the case of 9/11.

What? Where was all the air then?

A couple of hundred people dived to their deaths on 911. They hung out the windows as long as they could and then they dived so they wouldn't burn to death. Perhaps you should rethink that comment about the paltry 1 or 2 weak fires.

I meant a paltry 1 or 2 hours of weak fires. And alright, the fires certainly weren't weak by human standards, but they were way to weak to melt steel and arguments might even be made that they were too weak to melt aluminum. Since I can't understand the technical jargon from a 9/11 research page, however, I'm not sure.

(response continued in next post)

 

[scott3x]

Firefighter claims higher-up intimidation

Originally Posted by scott3x

There was no specific day that I'm aware of when they were afraid of losing their jobs. I definitely think -someone- should be investigating why it is that Isaac and other firemen believe that James Woolsey might have their jobs if they speak up. .

They have been speaking up though haven't they?

My guess is that they would speak up a lot more if they didn't feel intimidated by people such as former CIA director James Woolsey.

Originally Posted by scott3x

Sure. But what I'm talking about is being dismissed from the job for daring to speak out. Apparently, though, they've kept quiet enough.

Something would have come out by now.

Well, yes, something did. From Wing TV (http://www.wingtv.net/paulisaac.html):
*******************************************************************
Preeminent researcher Jim Marrs (Inside Job: Unmasking the 9/11 Conspiracies) also quotes author Randy Lavello, who wrote the following about Paul Isaac, Jr.: “New York firemen were very upset by what they considered a cover-up in the WTC destruction. Many other firemen knew there were bombs in the buildings,’ he said, ‘but they are afraid for their jobs to admit it because the higher-ups forbid discussion of this fact.’ Isaac, who was stationed at Engine 10 near the WTC in the late 1990s, said the higher-ups included the NYFD’s antiterrorism consultant, James Woolsey, a former CIA director. ‘There were definitely bombs in those buildings,’ Isaac added.”
*******************************************************************

 

[scott3x]

Scott, Steel with lose it's strength in a fire while concrete will not.

9/11 was the first time that steel structured buildings allegedly fell due to fire alone:
(http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=5296)

That is why the Madrid tower held even though the steel supports fell.

I can't pretend to understand such arguments, but if you want a bunch of structural engineering report that refutes the official story, you need look no further:
http://www.crono911.net/docs/Bazant2007.pdf

What does molten metal have to do with bombs? A bomb detonates in a second and wouldn't explain fires later on.

From Zeitgeist, sometime after minute 50:
*******************************************************
There is no scenario for a pancake scenario of buildings falling that allows it to fall at the rate of free fall.
Dr. Steven Jones, Physics Professor, BYU (from 'Improbable collapse'):
"Now what can do that, what can move mass out of the way? Explosives.
47 huge steel columns going up from the core and they're interconnected. How do you get them to fail simultaneously so that the the core disappeared? It looks like those core columns were cut."
Controlled demolition expert:
"The way we do this is by cutting the beam at an angle"
(Picture of world trade core column after collapse)
Notice the "cut" shape and the melted or "Molten Metal".
Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."
For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris. That is 500F hotter then jet fuel even burns.
Dr. Steven Jones:
"So I'm looking through the official reports, what do they say about the molten metal. They say nothing. Now wait a minute. This is important evidence. So where'd that come from?
("Thermite" - Explosive/Incendiary)
Dr. Steven Jones:
"Thermite is so hot, that it'll just cut through steel. Through structural steel, for example, like a knife through butter. The products are molten iron and aluminum oxide, which goes off primarily as a dust. You know those enormous dust clouds? You can imagine when you assemble these chemicals on a large scale."
*******************************************************

 

[scott3x]

Molten metal and jet fuel

Source for molten metal at WTC7? There were hot spots for many weeks after the collapse and remember glowing metal is not molten metal.

I never said it was. Again, from Zeitgeist:
***************************************
Dr. Steven Jones:
"I started looking at the molten metal. All 3 buildings, both towers, in the rubble, in the basement areas, and building 7, there's these pools of molten metal."
For well over 6 weeks after the collapse, hot spots of over 2000F were documented in the debris.
***************************************

Pools, not glowing metal. So tell me, how did it arrive in WTC 7? No plane crashed there, so even the argument that it was aluminium from a plane can't be used.

But this is how 911 discussions go. When the WTC 1 and 2 stuff gets silly we move to WTC7...

I'm debating on all towers, but WTC 7 is clearly the weakest link in the official story.

Originally Posted by scott3x

For starters, I'd think most if not all of the jet fuel exploded on impact. Isn't that what usually happens when a plane (or car for that matter) crashes?

Cars don't carry 10, 000 gallons.

True. But I was asking a question, not stating how much fuel a car had. Can you answer it? I'm talking in general, not what NIST believes in this particular case.

From NIST

"Less than 15 percent of the jet fuel burned in the spray cloud inside the building. A roughly comparable amount was consumed in the fireballs outside the building. Thus, well over half of the jet fuel remained in the building, unburned in the initial fires. Some splashed onto the office furnishings and combustibles from the aircraft that lodged on the impacted floors, there to ignite (immediately or later) the fires that would continue to burn for the remaining life of the building. Some of the burning fuel shot up and down the elevator shafts, blowing out doors and walls on other floors all the way down to the basement. Flash fires in the lobby blew out many of the plate glass windows. Fortunately, there were not enough combustibles near the elevators for major fires to start on the lower floors."

The elevator shafts were the point of least resistance, a conduit for the fuel to funnel down.

I went searching on the web for a little more clarification on the plausibility of these jet fuel fires + common office furnishings. I found a very refreshing PDF from the journal of 9/11 studies, co-edited by Steven Jones, Kevin Ryan (both of whom I've already mentioned in my posts) and Frank Legge:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/e/VisualizationAidsWTCTowers.pdf

It includes this gem:
****************************************************
To assist the reader in comprehending the 900 cubic feet volume of jet fuel that remained in
each of the buildings after the fireballs, three familiar examples are provided.

• A single standard 10’x10’ office cubicle filled to 9 feet. Approximately 300 such cubicles
plus walkways and amenities could have been contained on each of the 110 floors
(40,000 square feet) of each Twin Tower.
****************************************************


And its conclusion is as follows:
****************************************************
Even NIST admits in its Final Report, “The initial jet fuel fires
themselves lasted at most a few minutes.” 9 The only
remaining source of fuel for the fires was common office
furnishings. The idea that a few floors of common office
furnishings burning for 56 minutes could result in the
demolition of the South Tower is phenomenally ludicrous. If
true, then every high-rise steel tower ever constructed should
be immediately demolished as a hazard to public safety. Of
course, that is unnecessary because no high-rise steel
structure has ever collapsed as a result of fire.
The observed demolition of the Twin Towers could not have
resulted from fires caused by the burning jet fuel and/or office
furnishings. It could only have been accomplished through
the action of some other much more energetic agent.
The most obvious explanation for the demolition of the Twin
Towers is precisely timed detonations of precisely located
explosives, placed prior to September 11, 2001.

This analysis was provided at no cost to the American
taxpayer.
****************************************************

 

[scott3x]

Actually all they said was "the towers should have withstood multiple hits from airliners". I don't recall them saying the towers wouldn't "pancake" necessarily.

No they didn't. I simply think it's evident that when Frank A. Demartini, the Manager of WTC Construction said:
"The building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners", he was implying that it included the fires that would result. Or do you really believe that he was thinking as an afterthought, "but only for an hour or two, after which, the fires will take it down" now do you?

Anyway, the article I just found and have included in my last post makes very simple yet eloquent arguments that supports the view that it's absurd to think that the WTC were taken down by planes and the fires that resulted from said planes:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/e/VisualizationAidsWTCTowers.pdf

 

[scott3x]

Well, right from the get-go, David Ray Griffin is wrong about the central core issue: the load was borne as much in the exterior as the interior. The core columns - all the columns - were hardly single pieces of steel; the supposition that they should have remained standing when the rest of the building fell all around and through them is arrant poppycock that Griffin must have struck on by watching a particularly cunning coyote attempting to catch a road runner. Real life isn't Looney Tunes. The falling materials would simply have knocked it down as they came, since it's a bit much to expect that 110 stories of steel would have just stood there as everything else were falling.

Again, this talk is currently beyond me, but I will say that David Ray Griffin has written books, so while I don't understand why your argument would be mistaken, I'll take his word over yours.

But how quickly he moves from that supposition to the supposition that the US government - and apparently all those firefighters "in on it" - is responsible!

Where does he say that firefighters are in on it? And as for the US government, I believe he only believes certain elements of the government were in on it, not all of it.

It's almost like the relationship existed a priori in his head. Why is that, I wonder?

From what I've seen, he's got a lot of evidence to back up his beliefs.

 

[KennyJC]

From Zeitgeist, sometime after minute 50:
*******************************************************
There is no scenario for a pancake scenario of buildings falling that allows it to fall at the rate of free fall.

I advise you to read this:
http://www.representativepress.org/BowingDebunksExplosives.html

It details visible evidence of the towers bowing inwards in the areas worst affected by heat. Please, please, please offer an explanation for this that contradicts the fire weakening explanation. Conspiracy theorists have had nothing to say to this in all the times I bring it up. This was the evidence that even managed to get the Loose Change crew to admit the initial collapse was because of fire.

Dr. Steven Jones, Physics Professor, BYU (from 'Improbable collapse'):
"Now what can do that, what can move mass out of the way? Explosives.
47 huge steel columns going up from the core and they're interconnected. How do you get them to fail simultaneously so that the the core disappeared?

The bowing of the tower and collapse from that point vindicates the fire weakening explanation beyond all doubt. With that in mind you are assuming a single floor can withstand the immense force and momentum of around 30 floors falling from above. This is cartoon physics. Disney couldn't do any better.

It looks like those core columns were cut."
Controlled demolition expert:
"The way we do this is by cutting the beam at an angle"
(Picture of world trade core column after collapse)

Exactly. AFTER the collapse. In fact, AFTER the clean up crews were cutting the remainder of the standing beams. I posted video footage of engineers at ground zero saying that they had cut these beams and would cut the ones still standing.

I would go to the effort of finding this video again, but after debating you
and Ganymede, I know that you are cretinous liars and it would make no difference in showing you this.

Dr. Steven Jones:
"Thermite is so hot, that it'll just cut through steel. Through structural steel, for example, like a knife through butter. The products are molten iron and aluminum oxide, which goes off primarily as a dust. You know those enormous dust clouds? You can imagine when you assemble these chemicals on a large scale."
*******************************************************

Not that it would be relevant, but can American-Jesus-believing Steven Jones prove that thermite could cut through the necesarry beams quick enough based on the fact that each floor was obliterated in less than a blink of an eye?

It's also worth noting that the core of the South Tower was seen standing momentarily amidst the dust after the building collapsed around it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXcISJq7N48

So since thermite obviously wasn't used on the core column (of the South Tower) at least. Once again, we return to the fire-weakening pancaking.

 

[scott3x]

Molten metal

Originally Posted by scott3x

As noted by reporter Christopher Bollyn, "The fact that veteran fire-fighters had a 'coherent plan for putting out' the 'two pockets of fire', indicates they judged the blazes to be manageable. These reports from the scene of the crash provide crucial evidence debunking the government's claim that a raging steel-melting inferno led to the tower's collapse.

Jim Marrs says the steel melts? It appears that only conspiracy theorists say the steel melted and nobody else does. That's just deliberate misrepresentation of the facts and further proof that "truthers" are liars.

Jim Marrs is certainly not the only person to say that the steel melted, but he believes that it occurred due to explosives being used, not due to fire.

Christopher Bollyn claimed that it's the government that claimed that a raging steel-melting inferno is what led to the tower's collapse. I've been looking around in an effort to see whether any government officials did indeed claim this. I found no government officials, but there were definitely some engineers who did claim this in media reports.

Amoung then is Dr. Hyman Brown, the project engineer for the construction of the Twin Towers. On 9/11, he stated:
"This building would have stood had a plane or a force caused by a plane smashed into it," he said. "But steel melts, and 90,850 litres of aviation fluid melted the steel. Nothing is designed or will be designed to withstand that fire."

There are others, who can be seen here:
http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/collapse/meltdown.html, (search for brown)

So there's some evidence that engineers can certainly come to flawed conclusions.

 

[scott3x]

Supporting Chief Palmer's description of only small fires in the South Tower are survivors Stanley Praimnath, Donovan Cowan and Ling Young. Praimnath, on the 81st floor, recalled, "The plane impacts. I try to get up and then I realize that I'm covered up to my shoulder in debris. And when I'm digging through under all this rubble, I can see the bottom wing starting to burn, and that wing is wedged 20 feet in my office doorway." Cowan was in an open elevator at the 78th floor sky-lobby. She recalled "We went into the elevator. As soon as I hit the button, that's when there was a big boom. We both got knocked down. I remember feeling this intense heat. The doors were still open. The heat lasted for maybe 15 to 20 seconds I guess. Then it stopped." Young was in her 78th floor office and related, "Only in my area were people alive, and the people alive were from my office. I figured that out later because I sat around in there for 10 or 15 minutes. That's how I got burned."
Government pronouncements and hired experts claimed temperatures in the area of these three witnesses were hot enough to cause the trusses of the south tower to fail, yet these eye-witnesses stated temperatures were cool enough for them to walk away.

The 81st floor is not where the worst of the heat, fires, or impact damage was.

Well it must have been pretty close, if the wing of the plane was there. So tell me, where was the 'worst of the heat, fires or impact damage'? In any case, as stated above, Jim Marrs claims that "Government pronouncements and hired experts claimed temperatures in the area of these three witnesses were hot enough to cause the trusses of the south tower to fail, yet these eye-witnesses stated temperatures were cool enough for them to walk away." Are you saying that the government did not in fact claim this?

Anyway, I'm definitely very happy with this pdf I found regarding the fires in the towers:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/e/VisualizationAidsWTCTowers.pdf

The 78th floor is obviously even lower than that and received very little damage from either the plane or fires. You don’t need a PHD to know that heat rises, thus if these people were any higher up than they were, it would be a completely different story; more fires, more heat.

Like those on the 81st floor, right? Only there didn't seem to much fire up there either, despite the wing of the plane being right there. Yes, there was some, but not much.

Chief Palmer from the 78th floor said that there were isolated pockets of fire. But he radioed from the Sky Lobby just minutes before the collapse. Survivors reported the Sky Lobby being immediately engulfed in flames, but these would have burned off within about 10 minutes of the plane hitting. The sky lobby had little combustible furniture unlike the office floors above, and thus there was little to keep the fire going until firefighters got there. It’s worth noting that the sky lobby also had tall ceilings, so any heat there would have risen to the tall ceilings.

NIST offers temperature simulations on a floor by floor basis, and reveals that 81st floor had few relatively cool spots and the 78th floor was almost completely cool, except for a couple of areas. NIST says the worst of the fires took place on the 82nd floor.

Ok. But from the PDF I show above, NIST seems to make a bad case even there. I absolutely love this little statement from the above mentioned PDF:
******************************
The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes. The only remaining source of fuel for the fires was common office
furnishings. The idea that a few floors of common office furnishings burning for 56 minutes could result in the demolition of the South Tower is phenomenally ludicrous.
******************************