The Smoking Gun?

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The Smoking Gun?

World Trade Center Building 7

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Context for this presentation

• How many of you have heard of World Trade Center Building 7?

• How many of you know it collapsed on 9/11?

• How many of you have seen a video of it coming down?

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9/11: Caveat & Context• Many persuasive statements of position• Little light-shedding discussion

– doubters (“9/11 Truth”) and debunkers– much suspicion and character assassination– separate sites/videos/books attack each other– hard to piece together logical back-and-forth– very few actual debates or discussions– fewer that are fair and logical

• The neurological reaction (on all sides)– Instinctive rejection of counter thoughts/evidence– I’ve been there often!

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Presentation Outline

• Introduction to WTC 7• Significance I• The collapse• NIST investigation claims• Problems with NIST investigation• Alternative theory• Significance II• Conclusion

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Introduction toBuilding 7

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WTC Building 7The Salomon Brothers Building

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The World Trade Center

North: down and rightWTC7: lower rightNorth Tower: 100yds south

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What/who was in it?

• Mayor’s Emergency Operations Center(independent and secure air and water supplies, bullet and bomb resistant windows designed to withstand 200 MPH winds) -- moved out before 9AM on 9/11

• IRS Regional Council• Secret Service• Securities and Exchange Commission

(including files on many high profile cases, the most notable perhaps being Enron -- reportedly the only copies of the files)

• CIA• Many financial companies

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Building What?

• Never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission report

• Almost never mentioned in the press after 9/11

• Press consistently refuses to show video– Scarborough: low-quality, VP permission– Repeated requests by Dr. Steven Jones

• New York judge: “Building what?”

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WTC7’s Significance: I

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The First-Glance Oddities

• Came down on the same day as Twin Towers

• Not struck by a plane, only fires

• None of the other WTC buildings collapsed due to fire alone

• No steel-frame high-rise has ever collapsed due to fire, before or since

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High-Rise FiresWindsor Tower, Madrid, 2/05, 32 floors, 24 hrs

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High-Rise FiresPark Central Tower, Caracas, 10/04,

20/50 floors, 17 hrs

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High-Rise FiresMandarin Hotel, Beijing, 09/02, 44 floors, 5 hrs

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High-Rise Fires

• Assertion: “But these (and other dramatic examples) were structurally different”

• Definitely true, but... on 9/11– nobody knew that,– WTC7 fires were relatively small, isolated,

and mostly short-lived,– the common assumption was that the planes

had caused the only two other examples of high-rise collapse,

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The Visible Collapse:Confusing? or Persuasive?

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The Collapse

5 different videos

and

famous Dan Rather comment

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The Collapse, view 1

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The Collapse, view 5 (Rather)



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TheGovernment

Investigations

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The Investigations:The Problem

• Lack (immediate destruction) of evidence– Structural steel was all that was left– Removed under extreme security– Shipped overseas for melting down

• Investigators had little or no access

• Evidence-selection criteria questionable

• Most important: no independence

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The Investigations

• FEMA -- 2002• 9/11 Commission -- 2004• NIST

National Institute of Science and Technology– Interim report -- 2004– Preliminary report -- 2005– (Forecasts: 2006, early 2007, July 2008)– Draft for public comment -- August, 2008– Final report -- November, 2008

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FEMA Investigation

Did not have the “authority to impound pieces of steel before they were recycled”

• “The ‘official investigation’ blessed by FEMA ... is a half-baked farce that may already have been commandeered by political forces whose primary interests, to put it mildly, lie far afield of full disclosure” -- Fire Engineering Magazine

• Bush administration agency (Katrina)

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FEMA Conclusion

"The specifics of the fires [started by generator diesel fuel?] in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time... the best hypothesis [fire resulting in complete collapse] has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue."

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9/11 Commission

• Mandate (by law): investigate “facts and circumstances relating to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.”

• Mandate (by chairmen): to give the “fullest possible account of the events surrounding 9/11.”

• WTC7? Completely ignored.

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TheNIST

Investigation

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NIST Claims:These factors were NOT involved

• Diesel fuel (the main possible source of really hot fires)

• The odd construction spanning a Con Ed power substation

• Damage to WTC7’s south side from the North Tower’s destruction

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NIST: WTC7 damage

NIST schematic: south face 1-19

Missing chunk?(controversial)

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NIST: WTC7 damage

Damage to south face, from west

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NIST Claims:So what DID cause collapse?

• 7-hour raging fires causing• Thermal expansion

– Heated floor beams, lengthening them, which– Pushed a girder they abutted off its footing, which– Robbed a single vertical column of its lateral

support, which then collapsed, causing

• Progressive global collapse – a brand new concept

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And now we pause,ladies and gentlemen,

for a few minor details...

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Caution advised!The following information is

so detailed it may lull you into thinking it makes sense.

(It did to me, at first...)

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NIST: WTC7 Structure

Columns and framing -- 24 core & 19 perimeter columns

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Floors 8-20, 24-45 -- note elevator positions relative to core

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Core columns, girders and beams

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NIST: Thermal Expansion

Floor beams supposedly push against girder

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The infamous Column 79

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NIST: Collapse Mechanism

Column 79 girder connection

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Column 79

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Columns 80 & 81

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Unsupported east floors fall on Truss 2

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Truss 2 fails

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Columns 77-78-78A buckle

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Core column collapse progression

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NIST: Collapse

Global collapse: part 1

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NIST: Collapse


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NIST: Collapse


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Does THAT look like THIS?



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... or THIS?

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Problems with theNIST Investigation

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NIST Problems:

InstitutionalNIST had become “fully hijacked from the scientific into the political realm...scientists lost scientific independence and became little more than ‘hired guns.’...By 2001, everyone in NIST leadership had been trained to pay close heed to political pressures... Everything that came from the hired guns was by then routinely filtered through the front office and assessed for political implications before being released,” and was also scrutinized by the NSA, OMB, and the Commerce Department headquarters. -- whistleblower (former NIST employee)

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NIST Problems:

Institutional

NIST engages in “distortion of scientific knowledge for partisan political ends.”

-- 1200 scientists, including

52 Nobel laureates

and 63 National Medal of Sciences recipients

(through the Union of Concerned Scientists,during the Bush Administration)

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NIST Problems:

Funding / Staffing

• Funding– Twin Towers: $16 million + a bit extra– WTC7: $?– Monica Lewinsky: $40 million

• Staffing– Chose not to increase staffing for WTC7

(cited as reason for long delay)

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NIST Problems:

Perceived Objective

• Mandate (by law):''establish the likely technical cause or causes of the building failure;”[not the observed collapse]

• Final Report:“The challenge was to determine if a fire-induced floor system failure could occur in WTC 7 under an ordinary building contents fire.”

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NIST Problems:

Thoroughness

Two general scenarios considered:

• Fire-induced local failure that spread horizontally and vertically into total collapse

• Explosive-mediated demolition(no consideration of incendiaries)

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NIST Problems:A priori rejection of demolition

• ''Controlled demolition usually prepares most, if not all, interior columns in a building with explosive charges, not just one column.” -- NIST[and thus presumably couldn’t escape detection]

• BUT... NIST’s final explanation was based on the failure of one column, which was capable of bringing the entire building down.

Setting explosives would be detected

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NIST Problems:

A priori rejection of demolition

• “This collapse sequence [the one defined by NIST’s model] is inconsistent with a typical controlled demolition…” -- NIST

• Not surprising (circular reasoning), but the main events of that sequence were created by a computer, invisible to the observer, and inconsistent with what IS seen.

Doesn’t fit the collapse sequence

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NIST Problems:


• “...such testing would not necessarily have been conclusive.” (and waste of taxpayer money) -- NIST

• National Fire Protection Association publication NFPA 921: Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations: tests for explosives should be done in the presence of “high-order damage”:– Shattering of structure– Small, pulverized debris– Walls, roofs, structural members splintered or shattered– Building totally demolished

Refusal to test debris for explosives

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NIST Problems:


• “Observations for WTC 7 do not match the typical sequence of events for a controlled demolition.” -- NIST

• Based on the videos, you’ll have to be your own judge of that.

Doesn’t match observations

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NIST Problems:


Ocean Tower demolition by Controlled Demolition, Inc.



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The Model

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NIST Problems:

The Model

• Modeled over 3 million pieces, but... • Little raw data

(most evidence destroyed)

• It’s a Black Box– Not released– Parameters unknown– Can’t be tested by others

• Playing with parameters (esp. WTC 1&2)

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NIST Problems:

The Model

After noting numerous inconsistencies in the NIST report, a structural engineer asks:

“Does the structural model input data correspond to damage estimates documented in NCSTAR 1-9 Chapter 5, and is the input data realistic?”

Playing with parameters

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NIST Problems:

NIST Reticence

• Refusal to release videos/photos (until recently forced by FOIA)

• Refusal to debate• Refusal to release model

(might “jeopardize public safety”)

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NIST Problems:

FINDING REGARDING PUBLIC SAFETY INFORMATION

Pursuant to Section 7(d) of the National Construction Safety Team Act, I hereby find that the disclosure of the information described below, received by the National Institute of Standards and Technology ("NIST"), in connection with its investigation of the technical causes of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers and World Trade Center Building 7 on September 11, 2001, might jeopardize public safety. Therefore, NIST shall not release the following information:

1. All input and results files of the ANSYS 16-story collapse initiation model ...

2. All input files with connection material properties and all results files of the LS-DYNA 47-story global collapse model that were used to simulate sequential structural failures ...

-- Patrick Gallagher, Director, NIST, Dated: JUL 09 2009

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NIST Problems:Nature of Fire-Induced Collapse

• Steel frame buildings unprecedented (objection: WTCs were different)

• Gradual deformation

• Asymmetric

• Fall through path of least resistance

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NIST Problems:

Fire modeling

• Office fires tend to burn to exhaustion in about 20 minutes and move on; NIST doesn’t acknowledge

• Assumptions about “combustible load” in each room are frequently inconsistent with the actual contents

• Claims for length of burning in an area don’t match pictures.

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NIST Problems:

Fire picturesRefresher:

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NIST Problems:

Fire pictures

What was fire doing on floors 11-13 near perimeter columns 42-47 as collapse (5:25 PM) approached -- i.e., where would the heat have come from to expand beams near column 79

The Key Question:

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NIST Problems:

Fire pictures

NIST provides pictures of what was going on on the North side of the building at that time, but not the East (but does extensive modeling of heat on the East side).

A problem:

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NIST Problems:

Fire pictures: 4:00

11 hasn’t started, 12 has burned out, 13 is burning (NSTAR 1-9 vol 1 p.227)

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NIST Problems:

Fire diagrams

From preceding picture (NSTAR 1-9 vol 1 p.254)

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NIST Problems:

Fire pictures: 4:40

11 burning at right edge of critical area, 12 & 13 out (NSTAR 1-9 vol 1 p.234)

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NIST Problems:

Fire pictures: 5:20

(last shot) 11 has moved off to west, 12 & 13 out (NSTAR 1-9 vol 1 p.240)

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NIST Problems:

Heat modeling• Three scenarios (“cases”)

– Differ by 10% in gas temp assumption– A: middle– B: hotter– C: cooler

• “Given the limited guidance from the visual evidence, the Investigation Team estimated that a 10% change was within the uncertainty in the extent and the intensity of the fires.”

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NIST Problems:

Heat Modeling

Times are 4:30, 5:00, 5:30, 6:00 (!). High temperatures are on the East side, where there were apparently no pictures.

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NIST Problems:

Thermal Expansion

• No visual record of fires before noon• Over-estimation of temperatures• Insulation intact (no impact damage)• In WTC1 & 2, it was sagging pulling in the

walls, here it was expansion pushing• The SHEAR STUD problem

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NIST Problems:

Thermal Expansion

Note studs (green) projecting up from beam and girder through the metal deck and into the concrete floor slab

Sheer Studs

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NIST Problems

The STUD Problem: BeamsNIST Assertions:

• Beams had shear studs, embedded in concrete• Expansion rates of steel & concrete are similar• But steel heated up faster

– Hmmm... it was insulated, concrete wasn’t

• Studs began failing at about 220°– If boiling-water temps could do that, how can steel-

reinforced concrete be used for anything?– This extreme failure risk is not the case -- Center for

Environmental Safety and Risk Engineering, Victoria Univ, Melbourne

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NIST Problems

The STUD Problem: GirdersNIST Assertions change over time:

• 2004 Report (before thermal expansion theory)– “Most of the beams and girders were made composite with the

slabs through the use of shear studs...– Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for many of

the core girders” [note: “ failed” girders were not core girders]

• 2008 Report (after thermal expansion theory)(note omission of above significant highlighted text)– “Most of the beams were made composite with the slabs

through the use of shear studs...– Studs were not indicated on the design drawings for the

girders”

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NIST Problems:

Catch-22

If the beams have studs, and don’t expand significantly compared to the concrete they are locked into, and the girders have studs which keep them from moving sideways, then column 79 doesn’t fall, and...

the building doesn’t collapse.

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NIST Problems:

Molten Metal

Approx. melting point of steel/iron

Maximum temperature of a hydrocarbon fire in ideal oxygen conditions (but generally more like 800-1100°F, less in absence of oxygen)

2700°F

The second most serious problem

1800°F

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NIST Problems:

Molten metal• Two people in charge of WTC cleanup:

– Peter Tully (Tully Construction):pools of “literally molten steel”

– Mark Loiseaux (Controlled Demolition, Inc): “hot spots of molten steel ... at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven basement levels.”

• Leslie Robertson, a WTC designer:“As of 21 days after the attack molten steel was still running”

(in a 10/01 speech reported by the president of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah)

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NIST Problems:

Molten metalNASA surface-heat detection images of the WTC area weeks after 9/11 -- WTC7 is at the lower left, Twin Towers in the center.

Unfortunately, I can’t locate the temperature legend I had for this, but the orange is in excess of 1000°F (on the surface)

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NIST Problems:

Molten metal

And then there was Dr. John Gross,

head of the

NIST Twin Towers investigation . . .

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NIST Problems:

Molten metal



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SLIzSCt_cg




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NIST Problems:

Molten metal

Q: Why did NIST not consider these reports?

A: “Under certain circumstances it is conceivable for some of the steel in the wreckage to have melted after the buildings collapsed. Any molten steel in the wreckage was more likely due to the high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile than to short exposure to fires or explosions while the buildings were standing.”

Really? steel melts: 2700°F, oxygen-rich fire max: 1800°F. Unscientific -- no experimental testing of assertion

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

The fall of an object under the influence of gravity, with no resistance below it to limit the acceleration

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

In the collapse of a steel-frame building, any period of freefall indicates the removal of ALL structural supports within a fraction of a second; buckling or partial removal implies resistance and slowing.

The most serious problem

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

NIST (preliminary):The descent of the roofline 17 floors took 40% more time than free-fall.

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

High-school physics teacher David Chandler



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NIST Problems:

Freefall

• Find a roofline pixel in the video

• Starting point: when it changes color

• Measure total time to fall 18 floors

• Compare to time of freefall

NIST’s initial approach

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

• A single pixel can change color due to camera vibration, causing a start earlier than the actual descent of the roofline

• Freefall/gravity is a measure of acceleration -- change of speed (velocity) over time -- so velocity should be studied, not time

• It also assumes a uniform situation, thus misreading one that might have phases.

The problem with NIST’s initial approach

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

• 8/08 Public hearing: team leader Dr. Shyam Sundar denies freefall occurred, saying it couldn’t have, because that would indicate no resistance (recognizing the inconsistency with his model)

• 11/08 Final report: A new “3-phase” graph acknowledges freefall, and yet says it is consistent with the model (!) (!)

NIST’s response to having freefall demonstrated

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NIST Problems:

Freefall

Lots of complex, irrelevant math: seems like a smoke screen

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The truly serious problem

NIST Problems:

Freefall

• Molten metal: NIST denies it exists, refuses to look at documented proof

• Freefall: NIST denies it exists, and when a high-school physics teacher proves it, highly-trained professional government scientists make a claim in violation of physical laws.

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NIST Problems:

Miracles

Caption:

“I think you should be more explicit here in step two.”

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NIST Problems:

Scientific Fraud (NSF)• Fabrication: making up results

– Fuzzy, given a model with little hard data

• Falsification:– Manipulating materials/equipment/processes

• Again, fuzzy -- did no experiments; maybe model

– Changing / omitting data -- a few examples:• Denying existence of shear studs• Ignoring molten metal• False claims of fire duration• Where does ignoring freefall’s significance fit?

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NIST Problems:

Scientific Fraud (non-NSF)• Allowing non-scientific factors to determine conclusions• Failure to start with most-likely hypothesis• Failure to chose the simplest of two apparently adequate

hypotheses (“Occam’s razor”)• Straw-man (off-target) arguments in response to critics• Citing unprecedented causes for familiar phenomena• Claiming violation of the laws of nature• Failure to provide for peer review before publication• Refusing to permit attempts at replication of results

With thanks to Dr. David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of WTC 7, pp 13-26

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NIST Problems:

Response to Critiques

• Misleading

• Mischaracterizing

• Failing to respond

• Responding to something else

• Ignoring the significance of a critique

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Before we proceed further,we need to agree on a definition...

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Conspiracy

Definition

Two or more people engaged -- usually in secret -- in planning and/or executing an illegal, or at least nefarious, action.

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Conspiracy Theory

Definition

A theory which articulates a way in which two or more people are engaged in a conspiracy.

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Conspiracy Theory

Examples• 19 young men, trained and inspired by Al Qaeda

and Osama Bin Laden, by prior arrangement fly jetliners into strategic American buildings

• Persons unknown, but some necessarily with positions of power in the U.S. Government,– Allow the above conspiracy to happen (by taking no

defensive action and possibly protecting the conspirators) [LIHOP] OR

– Plan a “false-flag” attack on the aforementioned buldings, either from scratch, or making use of or augmenting the above conspiracy [MIHOP]

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Conspiracy Theory

The problem

The term has become a perjorative, used only when applied to people who assert a conspiracy involves powerful, rather than powerless, actors.

It is then used, deliberately or instinctively, to cut off rational thought and discussion.

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Government Conspiracies

Documented Examples

• False flag operations– Operation Northwoods: Joint Chiefs of Staff

propose methods to provoke war with Cuba– Gulf of Tonkin: an attack that didn’t happen– Operation Gladio: “leftist terrorist” attacks in

Europe run by intelligence organizations

• Assassinations– Martin Luther King– Patrice Lumumba– Take your pick of the other usual suspects

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TheAlternative

Theory

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The Alternative Theory:

Definition

Controlled Demolition

the bringing down of a building by the use of explosives/incendiaries to simultaneously remove critical supporting structure

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Immediate Objections

• How on earth could “they” have moved enough explosives into those towers without being detected

• Too many people -- someone would have told

• The government might do some bad things, but it would never commit that heinous a crime

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Primary Response

A demonstrated fact should not be ignored or denied simply because there is no immediate explanation of its history (e.g., Jupiter’s moon Titan has methane in its atmosphere; we can demonstrate this, though we have no idea how it got there)

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Calling a Spade a Spade



Danny Jowenko, a Danish demolition expert not dependent on U.S. reputation and government contracts

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Some Characteristics1. Fall

A. Rapid onset of collapse, initiated at bottom

B. Possible freefall

C. Fall through path of greatest resistance (not toward weak pt)

D. Falls into its own footprint

E. Leaves relatively small pile of debris

2. Explosives/incendiariesA. Witness reports of explosions

B. Evidence of high temperatures

C. Residues of explosives/incendiaries

3. Debris: concrete pulverized, steel broken up

4. Prior knowledge

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The Alternative Theory:Rapid onset, From bottom,

Freefall, Through greatest resistance

• Rapid onset -- demonstrated in the videos• From bottom -- I think I’ve seen a video of the start

of this, but I don’t have it; however, from the videos it’s obvious what happened

• Freefall (pretty much conclusive) -- demonstrated in videos by David Chandler

• Through greatest resistance -- demonstrated in the videos in light of the building construction diagrams.

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Fall into its own footprint

FEMA report: WTC7 Debris

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Fall into its own footprint

Almost no damage to immediately surrounding buildings

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Small pile of debris

47 story building = only a few stories of debris

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Explosions: Witness Reports• NYFD oral histories, hidden by NYFD

until NYTimes forced release, about 120/500 reported explosions

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Explosions: Witness Reports

Firemen and WTC1-2 explosions



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Firemen hearing it; post-WTC1-2 explosions



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Michael Hess, NYC Corporation Counsel



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Barry Jennings, NYC Housing Authority emergency coordinator



• Called to WTC7 after 1st plane hit• Arrived about 9:00, met Hess, command center deserted• Second plane hit• Called around, told to leave immediately• Elevators not working, ran down from 23rd to 6th• Big explosion below, blew our stairwell• Pulled himself back on stairs, ran up to 8th floor• Broke window, called for help• Firemen came, ran away (WTC2 down)• Fireman came again, ran away (WTC1 down)• Rescued, lobby unrecognizable, don’t look down, bodies

125For context and more, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRaKHq2dfCI





Recorded 7/07, threatened, died 8/16/08 at 53 under suspicious circumstances

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRaKHq2dfCI



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High Temperatures

• Remember:– Office fires: Usually max 1100°F– Iron/steel melt at about 2800°F

• Metallic microspheres– Metal sprayed into air so surface tension

can pull into near-spherical shapes– Iron (2800°F), lead (3180°F),

molybdenum (4500°F)

• Vaporized steel

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Iron-rich Microspheres

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Iron-rich Microspheres

• RJ Lee (2003, 2004)– Studied Deutsche Bank dust contamination– Iron particles: 6% of WTC dust (>> .04%)– Lead oxide coated -> vaporization (3180°F)

• US Geological Survey (2005)– WTC Particle Atlas– Iron-rich spherules

• NIST mentions neither

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Vaporization of Steel• FEMA Report, Appendix C authors

– 1” column -> 1/2”, razor sharp, gaping holes like swiss cheese

– “partly evaporated at extremely high temps– Thinning due to high temp (1800F) corrosion– Eutectic mixture w/sulfur (lowers melting point)

accelerates intergranular melting

• NIST ignored this– In Q&A, claimed sulfur came from wallboard– Never experimented, doesn’t happen

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Vaporization of Steel

From FEMA Report, Appendix C

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Residues

• Question:What could generate sufficient heat to melt steel?

• Answer:– Thermite -- an incendiary mixture of iron oxide (rust) and

aluminum OR– Thermate -- the above combined with sulfur (lowers the

melting point of iron/steel and would help explain the FEMA report’s sulfidation

• BUT . . .

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Residues

• Objection:NIST: Thermite takes seconds to cut through a beam, so it isn’t fast enough to explain the rapid collapses.

• Answer: – In fact, existing patented technology addressed this and

other NIST objections, OR – Nanothermite -- thermite composed of particles on a

nanometer (4 ten-millionths of an inch) scale.

• BUT . . .

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Residues

• Objection:Forget about nanothermite. All the devices for directing the thermite blast would be found in the wreckage

• Answer: – Nothing was found in the wreckage of that sort -- no

desks, cabinets, furniture -- just concrete powder and structural steel

– But in any case, self-destructing devices DO exist...

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Residues

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Residues

• Objection:Well, there'd at least be miles of wiring tangled up in the debris.

• Answer:Actually, wireless detonators were even available that can be connected to a programmed set of detonation instructions (leaving open the possibility of an instantly reprogrammable set of instructions to match any given situation, such as

where a plane hits. . .

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Residues

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Residues

• Objection:I still don't believe thermite is fast enough, and even if it were,

you'd need TONS of it. • Answer:

That's why I suggested nanothermite.

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Residues• Objection: There’s no such thing• Answer:

“At Livermore Laboratory, sol-gel chemistry [hydrocarbon matrix] ... has been the key to creating energetic materials with improved, exceptional, or entirely new properties ... These new materials have structures that can be controlled on the nanometer (billionth-of-a-meter) scale ... In general, the smaller the size of the materials being combined, the better the properties of energetic materials. Since these ‘nanostructures’ are formed with particles on the nanometer scale, the performance can be improved over materials with particles the size of grains of sand or of powdered sugar. In addition, these ‘nanocomposite’ materials can be easier and much safer to make than those made with traditional methods.”-- “Nanoscale chemistry yields better explosives”, in Science and Technology Review, October, 2000, published by Lawrence Livermore Lab

https://www.llnl.gov/str/RSimpson.html

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Residues

from Lawrence Livermore Lab: “Nanoscale chemistry yields better explosives”

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Residues• Objection:

What does that article have to do with WTC?

• Answer:– Physicist Steven Jones found metallic chips in the WTC

dust: red on one side, gray on the other– Their amount was not insignificant– The red side consisted of nano-scale particles and flat

platelets, and contains, among other things, aluminum, iron, and oxygen, in a carbon-containing matrix

– When heated to ~420°C, there was a sudden release of heat and production of iron-rich microspheres

– The analysis team pubished a paper on this in 2009

• BUT . . .

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

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Residues

Red-gray (nanothermite?) chips

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Residues

Nanothermite particles?

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Residues

• Objection:– The red layer was obviously protective paint coating

(there are persuasive chemical analysis arguments to this effect)

– They should have heated it in the absence of air -- thermite has its own oxygen and paint doesn’t

• Answer:– Paint doesn’t have nano-scale particles– Paint does not burn hot enough to create iron-rich

spheres

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Debris• Steel

– Broken into relatively small, manageable pieces (is a standard demolition practice)

– Shipped out quickly -- only one piece from WTC7 recovered)

• Concrete– Pulverized to fine dust– Generated “pyroclastic” clouds

• Bone Fragments (WTC1&2 -> Deutsche Bank)

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Prior knowledge



Larry Silverstein, WTC lease holder, made billions from insurance

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Prior knowledge

Kevin McPadden, EMT first responder



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Prior knowledge

“that building is about to blow up . . .”



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Prior knowledge• 4:15 PM: CNN

“We are getting information now that ... Building 7 ... has either collapsed or is collapsing”

• 4:53 PM: BBChave reports “that another large building has collapsed just over an hour ago”

• 5:10 PM: BBCPlus: “This wasn’t the result of a new attack but because the building had been weakened during this morning’s attack”

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Prior knowledge

And then, at 5:14 PM,7 minutes before WTC7 collapsed,

there was Jane Standley

(the BBC has since lost all recordspertaining to this, due to a “cock-up”)

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Prior knowledge

5:14 PM: BBC’s Jane Standley

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The Significance: II

“Demolishing a building so that it collapses straight down into its own footprint (the total area at the base of the building) ... requires such skill that only a handful of demolition companies in the world will attempt it.”

-- Demolition expert

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The Significance: II

• Occurred on the same day as WTC 1 & 2• Close similarity (except for top vs. bottom)• Takes weeks to set up a demolition• Al Qaeda?

– No access to high security buildings– No world class demolition expertise– No access to nano-incendiaries

153

Conclusion

• We know the official story is not true(this is only the tip of the iceberg)

• We can surmise, but don’t know, what happened• The 9/11 Commission was compromised

– Wrong goal: how did the attacks succeed– Staff head Philip Zelikow NOT independent

• We need a new, truly independent investigation with subpoena power– NYCCAN attempting to get a NYC investigations

155

Appendix:

WTC Steel Removal

156

WTC7 Steel

• Only one piece examined by FEMA (App C)– liquid iron/oxygen/sulfur eutectic moved along

intergranular boundaries, weakening the beam– eutectic mixture evidenced only 1000C, much

lower than expected for melting steel

• Possibilities raised by FEMA– long-term heating in the ground– pre-collapse, accelerated steel weakening

• Not examined further by NIST• Raises the larger question of WTC steel

removal

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Removal of WTC SteelNot all bite-sized pieces

Indicates not total dismemberment, but confuses issue of what melted prior to collapse

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Removal of WTC SteelWhy is it an important issue?

• Largest crime in U.S. history

• Law requires preservation of evidence

• 350,000 tons removed (acc. to FEMA)

• Bloomberg: looking at steel doesn’t tell anything, need computer models

• Yet said to be “highly sensitive”

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Removal of WTC SteelReasons given

• WTC1-2: Needed to find survivors• WTC7

– Needed to find survivors (but evacuated)– Putting pressure on Verizon building (but

could have just moved that)

• In any case, could have labeled, docu-mented location, and saved elsewhere

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Removal of WTC SteelWhat happened to it?

• Thousands of pieces trucked to 4 landfills• Immediate result:

– Most sent to Asia– Some used to build warship U.S.S. New York– 150 pieces saved (in off-limits hangar at JFK)

• Only parts from underground and lobby area• Who decided?

• Later (January 2007) found more– 2 columns, 3 connected perim columns

(under road excavated for human remains)– 1 burned column at edge of site (city: cutoff)

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Removal of WTC SteelWhat did FEMA look for?

• Exterior column trees & interior core columns from 1 & 2 above the impact zone or exposed to fire and/or aircraft-impacted

• Badly burnt pieces from WTC 7.• Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7, such as seat connections,

single shear plates, and column splices.• Bolts from WTC 1, 2, and 7 that were exposed to fire, fractured,

and/or that appeared undamaged.• Floor trusses, including stiffeners, seats, other components.• Any piece that, in the engineer's professional opinion, might be

useful for evaluation. When there was any doubt about a particular piece, the piece was kept while more information was gathered. A conservative approach was taken to avoid having important pieces processed in salvage yard operations.

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Removal of WTC SteelWhat about FEMA?

• 62 trips to landfills Oct-Feb

• No access to Ground Zero

• No permission to collect or store steel

• No subpoena power to obtain building plans (to make intelligent choices)

• Their observation of anomalies dropped

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Removal of WTC Steel“Highly sensitive”

• Nov 26: Trucks monitored by GPShttp://securitysolutions.com/ar/security_gps_job_massive/

– Sept: criminal scheme to divert steel– Oct: found 250 tons of scrap in LI and NJ– “Geofenced” zones, “geofenced” corridors– Improved efficiency and gridlock

• Driver behavior monitored, checked, analyzed (1.5hr lunch -> firing)

• “Loads consisted of highly sensitive material”

http://securitysolutions.com/ar/security_gps_job_massive/

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