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

[scott3x]

No scott, you are not learning. With the help of conspiracy authors and idiots on the Loose Change forum, the only thing you are learning is to have a deceitful answer to everything. The reason you do this is because you have an initial fondness for believing in quacky conspiracy theories, and quite obviously only listen to the people who share your fantasy.

You have any evidence to back that claim or are you all talk?

 

[KennyJC]

Sometimes I wonder if you're incapable of refraining from personal attacks.

You and your Loose Change crew are deliberately ignorant and dishonest. I do not tolerate that. Perhaps if you were deliberately ignorant and dishonest in another matter, I wouldn't be quite so intolerant, but not when it comes to 9/11.

Anyway, it's clear that you haven't read the document thoroughly. He said (and I quote):

There you go again quoting external sources meaning when I reply, it becomes invisible.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june07/overpass_05-10.html

I have never argued that the WTC buildings didn't reach those temperatures and neither has any serious 9/11 truther that I know. I have only argued that the fires in the WTC buildings couldn't have done it, and many experts hold this view as I have already stated.

When he talks about the WTC steel 'melting', he claims that the damage he saw to the steel points to the temperatures approaching 2,000 degrees. This does not contradict the "official story" and his comments do not in anyway paint pictures of pools liquid steel especially when his guessed temperature is not enough to melt steel completely. The beams he examined were softened, twisted and warped - NOT liquiduidized.

 

[Ganymede]

You have any evidence to back that claim or are you all talk?

Scott, put them on Ignore, make your point, and move on. They're not here to have a civil discussion. If someone were to tell me that Homo Sapiens first evolved in Europe I wouldn't spend 2 months arguing, and calling them names in order to prove my point. I would make my case and move on. You're to intelligent to engage with participants who don't even respect your opinion, nor have the honesty or integrity to concede any point what so ever.

They're only here to present the illusion that the general populace doesn't believe in a 911 conspiracy, even though plenty of mainstream media polls indicate otherwise. The Dark sectors of the Government know this. So they employ people to visit forums such as this, in order to suppress the truth. Research Operation Mockingbird, that will shine a luminous light on the lengths the spooks will go in-order to plague the general populace with misleading information. They're so well entrenched that even Alex Jones is part of the disinformation campaign. This board is saturated with spooks, it's a pointless to debate anyone who holds you in contempt. Notice how the spooks are allowed to break the forum rules with impunity. They can't complete a sentence without calling us a derogatory name. You should be jubilant that your mind is open enough to consider other alternatives, without being emotionally attached to the aristocratic power structure that proceeds to lead you astray.

 

[KennyJC]

I'll ask the loose change forum regarding this.

Again, I'll ask the loose change forum concerning this.

Once more, I'll ask the loose change crew.

Well that just about sums it up.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

He has an enormous following.

So does L. Ron Hubbard.

I agree that popularity doesn't mean rightness. But I do think that someone who has a sizeable following shouldn't be ignored, if only so that an attempt can be made to edify the following in question.

They don't want to bother meeting Jones because a) he has an agenda, rather than an open mind

He has beliefs and goals, as do we all. If you want to call that an 'agenda', fine, but then we all have agendas.

b) it seems unlikely he could provide any clarification of the issue of the collapse

I couldn't disagree with you more there.

c) he's not an engineer.

He is, however, a physicist and the WTC collapses are definitely within the realm of physics. I think it's high time that people stop worrying so much about titles and start thinking of the presented evidence.

What's more, he has referenced many others as well, some of who are definitely experts on fires. There are also many engineers who disagree with the official story.

By this, do you mean the theologians or the history professors on his "Who's That" list of arcane academics supporting his equally arcane theories?

The only theologian I have heard of is David Ray Griffin. Yes, he's a theologian, but he has also published about 5 books on 9/11 and edited another that includes some of Steven Jones' work. But if you insist on engineering experts, how about this:

NIST maintains that all three building collapses were fire-initiated despite the observations above, particularly the fact that fire endurance tests with actual models did not result in collapse. In a paper by fire-engineering experts in the UK, we find:

The basis of NIST’s collapse theory is… column behaviour in fire… However, we believe that a considerable difference in downward displace between the [47] core and [240] perimeter columns, much greater than the 300 mm proposed, is required for the collapse theory to hold true… [Our] lower reliance on passive fire protection is in contrast to the NIST work where the amount of fire protection on the truss elements is believed to be a significant factor in defining the time to collapse… The [proposed effect] is swamped by thermal expansion … Thermal expansion and the response of the whole frame to this effect has NOT been described as yet [by NIST]. (Lane and Lamont, 2005.)

http://physics911.net/stevenjones

There are many more engineers who agree with the official story.

Quantity does not equal quality, but can you even prove this claim of yours or is it a GeoffP (tm) statistic?

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

Clearly, in the actual event, the towers collapsed, never mind bent. I've simply demonstrated, through the words of experts, that the fires caused by the jets and some office furniture couldn't have done it.

The bowing of the tower shows that the steel was being subjected to immense temperatures. It really is as simple as that.

I don't see why we have to disagree here. The issue is what caused those immense temperatures. This is where we disagree.

You seem to forget that I am also using the words of experts. NIST, MIT and ASCE consists of 125,000 civil engineers as well as experts in other fields.

How many of those 125,000 spoke up for the official theory? And of those, how many were being paid by the government to do so?

Even if I use sources unrelated to NIST, there is still agreement on temperatures required to weaken steel:

All materials weaken with increasing temperature and steel is no exception. Strength loss for steel is generally accepted to begin at about 300ºC and increases rapidly after 400ºC, by 550ºC steel retains about 60% of its room temperature yield strength. This is usually considered to be the failure temperature for structural steel. However, in practice this is a very conservative assumption; low loads, the insulating effects of concrete slabs, the restraining effects of connections etc. mean that real failure temperatures can be as high as 750ºC or even higher for partially exposed members.
http://www.azobuild.com/details.asp?ArticleID=3621

In which case, the WTC buildings should not have failed, since it is estimated that the actual steel should never even have hit 700C if there was only a brief jet fuel fire followed by a bit of burning office material.

Lets also bear in mind that the aircraft damaged much of the structural support and shifted a lot of weight on to what supports remained

In one of the towers, the jets' damage was about 1% of the structural support in the floors it hit. Not exactly a lot of damage.

The effects of fire damage were also seen in WTC5 which suffered internal collapse due to "normal office fires".

I must admit I haven't heard much of WTC5, although I think I may have heard that explosives were used there as well.

Again, it would be easy for truthers to debunk any of this with an experiment using a supporting beam similar to that of the WTC and subjected to the same amount of heat. All they have to do is show how much strength was lost in the steel.

If it were so easy, I'm sure it would have been done. But then, for all I know, it has been done.

 

[scott3x]

He then offers a far more plausible cause of the WTC collapses:

Remarkably, the explosive demolition hypothesis accounts for all the available data rather easily. The core columns on lower floors are cut using explosives, near-simultaneously, along with explosives detonated up higher so that gravity acting on now-unsupported floors helps bring down the buildings quickly.

With the tiny unfortunate complication that the towers didn't fall from the bottom.

Why do you cite these idiots, Scott?

These are scientists, like you. I don't see why you have to insult them. While normal controlled demolitions start at the bottom, it isn't impossible to start one further up.

 

[scott3x]

Originally Posted by scott3x

It seems this whole bent steel thing is really just distracting us from the point.

Because it now appears that the loss of structural strength aptly explains the collapse of the Towers?

Regardless of how much certain NIST individuals would like us to believe this, it does nothing of the sort.

 

[scott3x]

Ok, after doing a little research, I have once again affirmed that there is lots of statements that there was molten steel:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-there-molten-metal-under.html

One thing that becomes obvious is that many of those quotes say metal and not steel. It’s interesting that people refer to things that are “molten” when they are clearly still solid. The fact that it may be red hot is enough to fool the layman into saying it’s “molten”. The layman will also be fooled into saying that molten material is molten steel. How did they know it is steel?

Steven Jones actually seems to have the same concern; it seems he believes it could be iron instead of steel. But there's lots of evidence that it wasn't aluminium anyway.

Secondly, what makes you think that bombs or thermate would be responsible? Bombs are instantaneous, and I’m sure you’ll agree that there wasn’t enough thermate used to continue a several month long reaction.

Actually, apparently thermate can react for quite a long time. I read it somewhere, but not sure where now. Anyway, as to why I think it was explosives, Steven Jones says it best:

Engineers have been trying to figure out exactly what happened and whether they should be worried about other buildings like it around the country… Most of the other buildings in the [area] stood despite suffering damage of all kinds, including fire… ‘Fire and the structural damage …would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated’, Dr. [Jonathan] Barnett said. (Glanz, 2001; emphasis added.)

The observed “partly evaporated” steel members is particularly upsetting to the official theory, since fires involving paper, office materials, even diesel fuel, cannot generate temperatures anywhere near the 5,000+ oF needed to “evaporate” steel. However, thermite, RDX and other commonly-used explosives can readily slice through steel (thus cutting the support columns simultaneously in an explosive demolition) and reach the required temperatures. (It is possible that some other chemical reactions were involved which might proceed at lesser temperatures.) This mystery needs to be explored — but is not mentioned in the “official” 9-11 Commission or NIST reports.

http://physics911.net/stevenjones

Still claiming that the WTC fell in free fall speed? 15 seconds for tower 2 and over 20 seconds for tower 1 are not free fall. Please stop repeating this lie.

You're right, not free fall. But almost free fall.

The NIST computer models were based upon the fires, temperature and visible bowing of the tower. They tweaked the computer models to see if the heat and temperatures could account for the bowing effect that was seen and its eventual failure. And what d’yknow? They were right.

You're clearly not reading what Steven Jones said. You ever seen what you can do to, say, the picture of a face on a computer? You can distort it beyond recognition. You can certainly do the same when it comes to computer models of fires in buildings and they certainly did so. I advise you to read more carefully what Steven Jones has said. The fact that he was put on paid leave in the university he was working in, perhaps hoping to get the types of grants that were promised if only Steven Jones would stop researching this uncomfortable subject, does not disgrace him one bit; if anything, it only adds fuel to the fire that the government badly wanted to get him out of his post. Anyway, I again quote part of what I quoted to you before, in the hopes that you actually read what he says this time instead of focusing on the fact that certain government officials didn't like the research he was doing:

Also, NIST constructs a computer model — but realistic cases do not actually lead to building collapse. So they “adjust” inputs until the model finally shows collapse initiation for the most severe cases. The details of these “adjustments” are hidden from us, in their computerized hypotheticals, but “the hypothesis is saved.” NIST also has Underwriters Laboratories construct models of the WTC trusses, but the models withstand all fires in tests and do NOT collapse. (See above for details.)

We are left without a compelling fire/damage model, unless one blindly accepts the NIST computer simulation while ignoring the model fire-tests, which I’m not willing to do. And none of the “official” models outlined above accounts for what happens to the buildings AFTER the building is “poised for collapse” (NIST, 2005, p. 142) — namely the rapid and symmetrical and complete (no tall-standing central core) collapses. Reports of explosions, heard and seen, are not discussed. And they ignore the squibs seen ejected from floors far from where the jets hit — particularly seen in WTC 7 (where no jet hit at all).

Read their report and stop going on second hand information that has been skewed by a disgraced professor.

I've checked their report to confirm bits that Steven Jones has said. For me, that's quite enough; I'm not interested in reading more disinformation.

 

[scott3x]

He then offers a far more plausible cause of the WTC collapses:

Remarkably, the explosive demolition hypothesis accounts for all the available data rather easily. The core columns on lower floors are cut using explosives, near-simultaneously, along with explosives detonated up higher so that gravity acting on now-unsupported floors helps bring down the buildings quickly. The collapses are thus symmetrical, rapid and complete, with accompanying squibs — really very standard stuff for demolition experts. Thermite (whose end product is molten iron) used on some of the steel beams readily accounts for the molten metal which then pooled beneath the rubble piles.

I believe this is a straightforward hypothesis, much more probable than the official hypothesis. It deserves scientific scrutiny, beyond what I have been able to outline in this treatise.

http://physics911.net/stevenjones

You really are making this too easy for me.

Let me start with his claim about columns being cut. In the above quote he claims explosives cut them, but this is a contradiction on his thermate claims. Was it explosives, or was it thermate? If it was explosives then once again we are faced with the conundrum of silent explosions. Find me an explosive that can cut these beams and not be heard for miles.

If I recall correctly, he believes that both thermate and explosives were used.

As for the squibs; well this is really easy to debunk. The ‘squibs’ seen in videos of the collapse are very slow, which would be consistent with the compressed air being forced out.

Steven Jones has already dealt with that argument:

4. Horizontal puffs of smoke and debris are observed emerging from WTC-7 on upper floors, in regular sequence, just as the building starts to collapse. (The reader may wish to view the close-up video clip again.) The upper floors have not moved relative to one another yet, as one can verify from the videos. In addition, the timing between the puffs is less than 0.2 seconds so air-expulsion due to collapsing floors is excluded. Free-fall time for a floor to fall down to the next floor is significantly longer than 0.2 seconds: the equation for free fall, y = ½ gt2, yields a little over 0.6 seconds, as this is near the initiation of the collapse.

http://physics911.net/stevenjones

Then he talks about thermite being used to cut beams seen at ground zero. Well this is perhaps the easiest to be debunked of all his claims. I recommend you watch this video which shows multiple beams being cut in the recovery effort:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-MEKpLmWtA

Alright, I'll let the beams thing alone for now.

It’s also worth mentioning that if the first image in that video was molten steel, then how are fire fighters able to keep their face directly over the hole? I shouldn’t need to tell you that temperatures required to keep steel molten are immense, therefore the last thing you are going to do is hover your face above it.

I'll see if I can find out regarding that.

 

[KennyJC]

I don't see why we have to disagree here. The issue is what caused those immense temperatures. This is where we disagree.

Fire. Office fires can burn up to 1800 degrees, and the expert Headspin put forward who inspected the WTC steel describes that this temperature was enough to cause the steel to become distorted.

I would be interested to hear exactly what could have caused the bowing if it wasn't the heat from the fires. I'm all ears...

How many of those 125,000 spoke up for the official theory? And of those, how many were being paid by the government to do so?

Nobody was paid to falsify scientific evidence. This is yet another baseless farfetched claim on your part.

In which case, the WTC buildings should not have failed, since it is estimated that the actual steel should never even have hit 700C if there was only a brief jet fuel fire followed by a bit of burning office material.

Subject any steel to 1800 degrees atmospheric temperature whilst it is supporting a lot of weight, and it will fail. Prove me wrong.

In one of the towers, the jets' damage was about 1% of the structural support in the floors it hit. Not exactly a lot of damage.

Bullshit.

For the north tower, 15% of the perimeter columns and 13% of the core columns were severed with many more damaged.

For the south tower 14% of the perimeter columns and 21% of the core columns were severed with many more damaged.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMZ-nkYr46w

And then you have fires up to 1832 degrees softening the naked steel.

I must admit I haven't heard much of WTC5, although I think I may have heard that explosives were used there as well.

LOL

If it were so easy, I'm sure it would have been done. But then, for all I know, it has been done.

You're right, the effects of fire on steel are well understood. Hence the overwhelming scientific consensus on the issue that weakened steel was to blame for the collapse.

 

[shaman_]

In which case, the WTC buildings should not have failed, since it is estimated that the actual steel should never even have hit 700C ...

which you keep repeating but this is blatantly false.

 

[scott3x]

Not everyone agrees with Manning’s criticism.
http://www.911myths.com/html/fire_engineering_letter.html

Granted. However, many do and continue to do so.

There may have been criticisms of the investigation but the steel was investigated. It wasn’t spirited away and it wasn’t hidden. Experts looked at it and found nothing suspicious.

Some experts on the government payroll, yes. However, many experts -not- on the government payroll have found many things to be suspicious about.

They misrepresent the physics of fires. 911research.wtc7.net points out their flaw:

Jet fuel burns at 800º to 1500ºF ... Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100ºF ... And at 1800º it is probably at less than 10 percent. Here the article implies that flame temperatures and steel temperatures are synonymous, ignoring the thermal conductivity and thermal mass of steel, which wicks away heat. In actual tests of uninsulated steel structures subjected to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled fires conducted by Corus Construction Co. the highest recorded steel temperatures were 680ºF.

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/gopm/index.html

Who is misrepresenting the physics?

http://www.debunking911.com/moltensteel.htm

At the bottom.

“So I went to the website of Corus Construction Co, and found a section in their Research area that said this about the difference in temperatures between steel and atmosphere:

"With regard to steel temperatures, these depend upon the size of the member but for typical unprotected beams and columns these would lag behind the compartment temperatures by around 100°C to 200°C."

So the tests that the conspiracy theorist cited only had atmospheric temperatures ranging around 800-900 degrees, while the Popular Mechanics article (and NIST report) mentions that pockets of the World Trade Center reached 1800 degrees. This would put the steel temperature in those locations at around 1600-1700 degrees, which is far above the 1100 degree mark that steel loses 50% of its structural integrity.

I just thought it was a pretty striking example of dishonesty….”

For starters, debunking911.com doesn't realize that celsius and fahrenheit are not the same thing. Secondly, you will note that they only mention "typical unprotected beams". My theory is that the WTC buildings were not typical buildings. I've even heard that there is some dispute as to how much of the steel was uninsulated, but in this case, the testing done was on uninsulated steel so it's not a factor. The most important point here, ofcourse, is that the same company that allegedly says (he doesn't provide a link)

With regard to steel temperatures, these depend upon the size of the member but for typical unprotected beams and columns these would lag behind the compartment temperatures by around 100°C to 200°C

is the one that, in the particular case of the WTC buildings, says

In actual tests of uninsulated steel structures subjected to prolonged hydrocarbon-fueled fires conducted by Corus Construction Co. the highest recorded steel temperatures were 680ºF

 

[shaman_]

Granted. However, many do and continue to do so.

Some experts on the government payroll, yes. However, many experts -not- on the government payroll have found many things to be suspicious about.

and their work has been debunked.

Abolhassan Astaneh is by the way a university professor.

For starters, debunking911.com doesn't realize that celsius and fahrenheit are not the same thing.

So he does. Why aren't Americans on the damn metric system?

Secondly, you will note that they only mention "typical unprotected beams". My theory is that the WTC buildings were not typical buildings. I've even heard that there is some dispute as to how much of the steel was uninsulated, but in this case, the testing done was on uninsulated steel so it's not a factor. The most important point here, ofcourse, is that the same company that allegedly says (he doesn't provide a link)

is the one that, in the particular case of the WTC buildings, says

That number is not in reference to WTC.

What was the atmosphere temperature?

Let's look at some other tests I found with a quick search. These are from a conspiracy site so they are possibly going to be the least significant results.
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian2/fire/cardington.htm

There are a couple of tests there where the atmosphere temperature is around 1000C and the steel temperature is over 900C.

The point is that a fire that reaches 1000C can heat steel above 590C point where it reaches approx 50% strength. According to NIST it is at less than 10% around 982C.

Don't forget you posted a link to an overpass that collapsed simply from the fire caused by a gas tanker crashing. To say that the steel couldn't get hot enough to weaken and bend is false.

 

[Miragememories]

"Bullshit.

For the north tower, 15% of the perimeter columns and 13% of the core columns were severed with many more damaged.

For the south tower 14% of the perimeter columns and 21% of the core columns were severed with many more damaged.

And then you have fires up to 1832 degrees softening the naked steel."

Please don't state your data as factual when most of it is based on unproven NIST hypotheses.

Yes, we can observe the perimeter column damage but core column damage is
all speculative.

20 minute office fires are not going to create sustained high temperatures long enough to seriously cripple the fire-proofed structural steel.

WTC2 (South Tower) collapsed 56 minutes after aircraft impact!

The steel was not proven to be "naked".

NIST assumed that the spray on fireproofing must have been mostly removed by the aircraft impacts because their computer simulated collapse initiation
could not succeed otherwise.

MM

 

[GeoffP]

I agree that popularity doesn't mean rightness. But I do think that someone who has a sizeable following shouldn't be ignored, if only so that an attempt can be made to edify the following in question.

Fair enough.

He has beliefs and goals, as do we all. If you want to call that an 'agenda', fine, but then we all have agendas.

Well, the issue is science and reason, not agenda. If I as a scientist had an agenda with respect to a particular research question, I wouldn't be a very impartial judge of my own answer, would I?

I couldn't disagree with you more there.

See above.

He is, however, a physicist and the WTC collapses are definitely within the realm of physics. I think it's high time that people stop worrying so much about titles and start thinking of the presented evidence.

And I am a geneticist, but not a phylogeneticist. I'm not an expert in that branch of the field. My claims in that area, therefore, would deserve scrutiny from my peers who actually work there. And the "Journal of 9/11 Studies", I'm willing to wager, is probably not a particularly impartial publication.

Quantity does not equal quality, but can you even prove this claim of yours or is it a GeoffP (tm) statistic?

Ah. Unsubstantial ad homeinem mixed with red herring sauce. Tasty.

 

[GeoffP]

NIST assumed that the spray on fireproofing must have been mostly removed by the aircraft impacts because their computer simulated collapse initiation
could not succeed otherwise.

MM

A pretty bloody likely assumption given that the building was hit by an airplane at top speed.

 

[mike47]

9/11 tragic events require a full new inquiry to check what exactly happened that day . Of course the Administration version of events do not make sense and are full of lies and contradictions .

 

[Miragememories]

"NIST assumed that the spray on fireproofing must have been mostly removed by the aircraft impacts because their computer simulated collapse initiation could not succeed otherwise."

A pretty bloody likely assumption given that the building was hit by an airplane at top speed.

Exactly!

Pretty bloody unlikely because the bulk of the aircraft's destructive energy
was used up breaking through the perimeter columns.

I suggest you investigate how NIST reached this assumption rather than allowing
yourself to be convinced by the "shock 'n awe" of those spectacular aircraft
impacts.

MM

 

[GeoffP]

Exactly!

Pretty bloody unlikely because the bulk of the aircraft's destructive energy
was used up breaking through the perimeter columns.

I suggest you investigate how NIST reached this assumption rather than allowing
yourself to be convinced by the "shock 'n awe" of those spectacular aircraft
impacts.

MM

Actually, you have taken the opposite view to me. I suggest you review the evidence before you assume that NIST doesn't know what it's talking about. It's amazing that all the airplane's energy was used up just on the perimeter, especially when parts of it burst out the other side of the buildings. Or maybe that was an exploding Mac.