September 11, 2001

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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:19 am

Richard wrote: See 9/11 Mysteries for a lengthy (1hr 30min) analysis of the collapses of the Twin Towers.
This needs to be watched. The thought of it is sickening, but it needs to be seen anyway, especially by those who truly seek the truth.
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ExpectantlyIronic
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Post by ExpectantlyIronic » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:16 am

I tend to think it more likely that small fires took down a skyscraper then the alternative of a massive conspiracy taking place. Incidentally, I don't think it was small fires that took down WTC 7, given that the south side of the building looks pretty f**ked given the amount of smoke billowing from it. Also, the lower SW corner was right annihilated.

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:21 am

Good to see some sensibility. Conspiracy theories are ridiculous.
- Scott

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Post by Richard » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:25 am

ExpectantlyIronic wrote:I tend to think it more likely that small fires took down a skyscraper then the alternative of a massive conspiracy taking place. Incidentally, I don't think it was small fires that took down WTC 7, given that the south side of the building looks pretty f**ked given the amount of smoke billowing from it. Also, the lower SW corner was right annihilated.
The NIST photo you allude to was faked. There was no such damage to the south-west corner.

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Post by ExpectantlyIronic » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:44 am

Richard,
The NIST photo you allude to was faked.
So now the National Institute of Standards and Technology was in on the conspiracy as well? The implausibility of the conspiracy theories comes primarily from the fact that too many people would have to be in on it. People with nothing to gain from such foul acts, and nothing to lose by blowing the whistle to the media.

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Post by Shahrazad » Mon Apr 09, 2007 3:22 am

Conspiracy theories are ridiculous.
Why? Because 9/11 was a hard thing to pull off? May I remind you that Bin Laden and his cronies pulled it off?

I'm not saying what I believe happened, but such a bold statement needs to be qualified.

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Post by Unidian » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:05 am

The myth that a "massive conspiracy" would be required is the #1 answer of "debunkers." But I see no reason whatsoever why a huge number of people should be required. A few guys could plan it, a few guys could set it up, and a few guys could carry it out. I don't see why more than perhaps 200 people in total would be needed, and there is a certain amount of evidence that unusual power outages and construction work were present in the weeks leading up to the event. And Guiliani somehow knew the buildings were coming down, even though such collapses were completely unexpected and unprecedented in history. 9/11 Mysteries presents this evidence, and a great deal more.

"Conspiracy theories are ridiculous" is the answer of a person who is unwilling to be honest about the facts of both 9/11 and human history. Was 9/11 an inside job? I don't know. But it would be neither unprecedented nor particularly surprising if it were. History is replete with such "false flag" operations carried out for political, financial, and other reasons. I've also found that almost without exception, those who dismiss the "inside job" view out of hand have not in fact watched any of the major films such as 9/11 Mysteries from beginning to end. Most are afraid to do so, in my opinion.
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Post by Unidian » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:10 am

The implausibility of the conspiracy theories comes primarily from the fact that too many people would have to be in on it. People with nothing to gain from such foul acts, and nothing to lose by blowing the whistle to the media.
Nothing to gain? How about keeping their jobs? How quickly do you think someone at NIST or FEMA would be fired for suggesting that their employer (the US government) had something to do with it? How much more danger would they be in if they pursued it further?

Conspiracies do not require a large number of people who are complicit in the whole plan. Rather, they require that people who find something out or suspect something keep their mouths shut. There are any number of ways to ensure that people do this.
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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 5:36 am

Shah,
Why? Because 9/11 was a hard thing to pull off? May I remind you that Bin Laden and his cronies pulled it off?
No. If you look at the facts without being having an emotional interest in either side of the story, you find that the theories are in fact ridiculous.

Nat,
The myth that a "massive conspiracy" would be required is the #1 answer of "debunkers." But I see no reason whatsoever why a huge number of people should be required. A few guys could plan it, a few guys could set it up, and a few guys could carry it out. I don't see why more than perhaps 200 people in total would be needed, and there is a certain amount of evidence that unusual power outages and construction work were present in the weeks leading up to the event. And Guiliani somehow knew the buildings were coming down, even though such collapses were completely unexpected and unprecedented in history. 9/11 Mysteries presents this evidence, and a great deal more.
200 people is a lot of people. To find that many professional people who wouldn't talk about being involved in a terrorist looking attack would be a HUGE job. I can't imagine any organization that could pull it off.

Sure, in the movies it can work. But it has nothing to do with how people and organizations actually work in real life.

So there were unusual things happening in the weeks prior. That doesn't mean anything, especially in NYC. So Guiliani suspecting the buildings would come down. That doesn't mean he knew anything about anything prior. I would assume the buildings would fall, too, if I heard a plane had crashed into them.

Lets not play the jump to conclusions game here.
"Conspiracy theories are ridiculous" is the answer of a person who is unwilling to be honest about the facts of both 9/11 and human history. Was 9/11 an inside job? I don't know. But it would be neither unprecedented nor particularly surprising if it were. History is replete with such "false flag" operations carried out for political, financial, and other reasons. I've also found that almost without exception, those who dismiss the "inside job" view out of hand have not in fact watched any of the major films such as 9/11 Mysteries from beginning to end. Most are afraid to do so, in my opinion.


Here we seem to be playing that jump to conclusions game again.

I'm not afraid of watching these movies, and I have watched them. I find them to be made by people who aren't living in the real world, for people who aren't living in the real world. People who are addicted to the emotional rush they get from trying to piece together the huge puzzle.

"Conspiracy theories are ridiculous" is the answer of a person who is tired of trying to superimpose some fast paced tv show, like 24, over real life. Not the answer of someone who's trying to be dishonest, but rather, the opposite.

Was 9-11 an inside job? I don't know, either. It could have been. Who cares? The fact is that we CAN'T know.

If it was an inside job, but it was only done by a small group of people, can that really be thought to be an inside job or should it be thought of more as that those people separated themselves from the "inside" when they decided to go through with it. Take all of the people in office in Washington, and lets say 4 people were in on it. Should we lump the rest of the people in office into the category just because a few decided to do this?

So, I have contentions with calling it an "inside job", even if it was. If I kill someone, my family shouldn't go to prison just because they knew me and we live in the same house. They should only go if they were in on it.

And if most of the government was in on it, that would be way too big of a conspiracy to cover up. It would also be very unrealistic...however, many conspiracy theorists unconsciously believe that's the case. Especially people who adhere to "Loose Change" caliber beliefs. That flick was an absolute joke. The theories of the pentagon not actually being hit, but rather detonated...what a farse. I personally don't see how anyone believes in any of it.

A helpful thing for a conspiracy theorist to do would be to apply for a government position and find out exactly how it is. It's very boring.

They should try to think about what it would take to pull an inside job like that. How hard it would be. I personally think it'd be easier to be a terrorist and fly the plane into the building. WAY easier! They didn't have to cover their tracks...they just had to stay below the radar and go through the loopholes.
- Scott

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Unidian
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Post by Unidian » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:45 am

I agree that Loose Change is a rather bad film. It is full of inaccuracies, bizarre conclusions, and shoddy research. I no longer advise people to view Loose Change to learn about 9/11 conspiracy views, because it is too screwy.

Review of "Loose Change" by 9/11 Research

I also agree that it is not likely the entire government or even a large portion thereof was in on it. If it was an inside job, it was probably the work of some faction within government, such as the PNAC (the group that had previously written about the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" to push their radical agenda). I'm not even totally convinced that Bush would have needed to know the whole story, although there is reason to believe that Cheney (a pillar of the PNAC) may have.

Okay, so you don't buy any of it. I don't have a problem with that. I'm not a full-fledged believer in the "inside job" view, either, and I think that anyone who is is jumping to conclusions. I just disagree with you that it is "ridiculous." I don't think it can be reasonably dismissed so easily. Yes, portions of Loose Change and similar films can be thrown out right away by sensible people. But that isn't all there is. There are a lot of questions that are considerably more substantial.

In any case, good on ya for at least watching some of the films before trashing them. It's hard to believe how many trash them without having even seen them.
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Post by Shahrazad » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:47 am

200 people is a lot of people. To find that many professional people who wouldn't talk about being involved in a terrorist looking attack would be a HUGE job. I can't imagine any organization that could pull it off.
Again, if Al Qaeda did it, how many people do you think knew about it? Probably all of Al Qaeda.
I personally think it'd be easier to be a terrorist and fly the plane into the building. WAY easier! They didn't have to cover their tracks...they just had to stay below the radar and go through the loopholes.
Huh? Are you suggesting that 9/11 took no planning at all, just 4 random guys hijacking 4 planes?

If so, your version is ridiculous.

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Post by Unidian » Mon Apr 09, 2007 6:51 am

Shah,

I don't think he's suggesting that. He's just saying that a terrorist plan would be logistically easier and less complex than an inside job. I agree with this, but I don't think it says anything about whether or not an inside job actually occurred. To determine that, I think we have to go to the evidence, which currently remains unclear.
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Shahrazad
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Post by Shahrazad » Mon Apr 09, 2007 7:20 am

But why would he say that they "didn't have to cover their tracks"? The keeping-it-secret part of the whole plan would seem to be just as difficult for Al Qaeda than for the US govt.

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:08 am

Nat,
I'm not even totally convinced that Bush would have needed to know the whole story, although there is reason to believe that Cheney (a pillar of the PNAC) may have.
Agreed. I still don't want to jump to conclusions, though. I wouldn't put someone in prison for a crime just because they had a good reason to commit it. I'd need quite a bit of evidence to be able to tell whether they're actually guilty or not.
I just disagree with you that it is "ridiculous." I don't think it can be reasonably dismissed so easily. Yes, portions of Loose Change and similar films can be thrown out right away by sensible people. But that isn't all there is. There are a lot of questions that are considerably more substantial.
I agree with you here. Questions need answering...but the conspiracy theories which answer those questions aren't cutting it for me. I am not calling the questions or the questioners ridiculous...just most of the theories.

To be more clear, I shouldn't have implied that ALL of the theories are ridiculous.

Shah,
Again, if Al Qaeda did it, how many people do you think knew about it? Probably all of Al Qaeda.
Who knows. Maybe it was all, maybe most, maybe some, maybe a couple, maybe none. I don't see what difference it makes.
Huh? Are you suggesting that 9/11 took no planning at all, just 4 random guys hijacking 4 planes?

If so, your version is ridiculous.
Yes, if that were so my version would be pretty ridiculous. But that isn't what I was saying.

By the way, I heard various rumors about the US government hearing about the attacks before it happened. It may have been the case that some info leaked from Al Qaeda.

There is a story of Israeli Mossad agents who watched the attacks and danced. Obviously they knew something about it beforehand, if that story is true.

My point was that it's be very hard for a person inside of the US government to pull off the job and cover their tracks during the process. It'd be easier to do what the terrorists did, to get the job done. If you're in a government position, you can't be one of the guys on the plane...you'd have to FIND a guy. And trying to find someone to do something like that is pretty tough! That's just one factor, though. Basically every step the person makes has to be covered up. It would take a hell of a lot of intelligence and planning...way more than the planning it took on the part of the terrorists.

I would be highly suprised if it was an inside job.
- Scott

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 8:18 am

Nat,
I don't think he's suggesting that. He's just saying that a terrorist plan would be logistically easier and less complex than an inside job. I agree with this, but I don't think it says anything about whether or not an inside job actually occurred. To determine that, I think we have to go to the evidence, which currently remains unclear.
Agreed completely.

Shah,
But why would he say that they "didn't have to cover their tracks"? The keeping-it-secret part of the whole plan would seem to be just as difficult for Al Qaeda than for the US govt.
I disagree. It'd be a lot harder to organise a team in the US, and to actually pull it off without any intel leaks. Especially when you're in a high position.
- Scott

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Post by Katy » Mon Apr 09, 2007 10:28 am

When the US was working on the Manhattan Project it required several hundreds of people to pull it off, but the vast majority of them didn't know what they were doing. They knew they needed a sensitive trigger, or this piece or that piece but not what the actual project would be. This was hundreds of people working for the government who didn't even know they were a part of anything important. Many of these didn't even figure it out later because what they had done seemed so trivial and boring and routine. Divide and conquer. The real hard parts don't take too many people, and if you know the government is capable of killing thousands of people, you'd likely assume that you could be killed quickly and easily too if you said anything.


Sher: In the interest of fairness, AQ works on the cell system. By definition the entire group didn't know about it.
-Katy

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Elizabeth Isabelle
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Post by Elizabeth Isabelle » Mon Apr 09, 2007 1:59 pm

sschaula wrote:200 people is a lot of people. To find that many professional people who wouldn't talk about being involved in a terrorist looking attack would be a HUGE job. I can't imagine any organization that could pull it off.
200 is a lot of people; I can't imagine it would take that many to pull it off. But even if they did need 200 people, I can think of an organization really fast that has a big presence in NYC. Mafia. And I don't think it's unheard of for parts of the government to work clandestinely with the mafia. I wouldn't put it past the Bush family to work with them, either.

Bush did not win by popular vote the first election. Florida was the swing state, and all the sudden with Governor Bush's brother running for President, the people counting the ballots suddenly could only count ballots that had perfect punch holes, and not the ones that had only dented the card but not punched completely through (the pregnant chad) or the ones that had punched through but still had a piece of the punched-out portion attached to the main card (the hanging chad). we got made fun of by the rest of the country due to all the ballot counting problems (Flori-duh was the biggest joke), but why was it never a problem before, and why was it only suddenly a problem when it involved the Bush brothers? Plus they were ordered to stop counting ballots before they were all counted. But with all the problems, Florida got electronic voting booths. At first everyone thought that was a great idea, saves on problems, saves on time/effort/cost of counting ballots... but after the next election people realized what happened. Hardly anyone sounded like they were voting for Bush, and he was running low in the popularity polls - yet he won the election again, and there was no way to do a recount because it was all electronic. It can't be too hard to mess with the data of an electronic voting system. We do not have control of our country - we are only told that we do.

And now we find out that another Bush brother was in charge of security during the period leading up to 9/11?
.

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:18 pm

Katy,
When the US was working on the Manhattan Project it required several hundreds of people to pull it off, but the vast majority of them didn't know what they were doing. They knew they needed a sensitive trigger, or this piece or that piece but not what the actual project would be. This was hundreds of people working for the government who didn't even know they were a part of anything important. Many of these didn't even figure it out later because what they had done seemed so trivial and boring and routine. Divide and conquer. The real hard parts don't take too many people, and if you know the government is capable of killing thousands of people, you'd likely assume that you could be killed quickly and easily too if you said anything.
I don't believe this type of argument. This is the kind of thing I consider ridiculous...no offense to you. It seems logical, but it truly is jumping to conclusions and is highly unrealistic.
- Scott

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:22 pm

E,
200 is a lot of people; I can't imagine it would take that many to pull it off. But even if they did need 200 people, I can think of an organization really fast that has a big presence in NYC. Mafia. And I don't think it's unheard of for parts of the government to work clandestinely with the mafia. I wouldn't put it past the Bush family to work with them, either.
This is truly ridiculous.
Bush did not win by popular vote the first election. Florida was the swing state, and all the sudden with Governor Bush's brother running for President, the people counting the ballots suddenly could only count ballots that had perfect punch holes, and not the ones that had only dented the card but not punched completely through (the pregnant chad) or the ones that had punched through but still had a piece of the punched-out portion attached to the main card (the hanging chad). we got made fun of by the rest of the country due to all the ballot counting problems (Flori-duh was the biggest joke), but why was it never a problem before, and why was it only suddenly a problem when it involved the Bush brothers? Plus they were ordered to stop counting ballots before they were all counted. But with all the problems, Florida got electronic voting booths. At first everyone thought that was a great idea, saves on problems, saves on time/effort/cost of counting ballots... but after the next election people realized what happened. Hardly anyone sounded like they were voting for Bush, and he was running low in the popularity polls - yet he won the election again, and there was no way to do a recount because it was all electronic. It can't be too hard to mess with the data of an electronic voting system. We do not have control of our country - we are only told that we do.

And now we find out that another Bush brother was in charge of security during the period leading up to 9/11?
It almost sounds like a cheap action flick! I'm sorry, Elizabeth, but I can't jump that far.
- Scott

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Post by Katy » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:24 pm

sschaula wrote: I don't believe this type of argument. This is the kind of thing I consider ridiculous...no offense to you. It seems logical, but it truly is jumping to conclusions and is highly unrealistic.
What's jumping to conclusions? We know absolutely, with 0% room for doubt, that the people on the Manhattan project didn't all know what they were doing because the government wanted it to be a secret. This demonstrates that it is possible to have a large number of people working on a project not know what they are doing.
-Katy

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Post by Shahrazad » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:48 pm

It once happened to me. I was working on a very secret investigation, but I had no idea what it was. I was told to write a computer program to manipulate some data, and told what data the program should pull, but I never knew how exactly they were going to use my data. Knowing what it was all about would have certainly made my job less boring. But they kept it secret until someone was in jail.

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Post by sschaula » Mon Apr 09, 2007 2:51 pm

Katy,
What's jumping to conclusions? We know absolutely, with 0% room for doubt, that the people on the Manhattan project didn't all know what they were doing because the government wanted it to be a secret. This demonstrates that it is possible to have a large number of people working on a project not know what they are doing.
It's jumping to conclusions to relate it to 9-11. Consider the fact that we know people were involved in the Manhattan project...they found out afterwards what they had done...yet we don't know anyone who was involved in 9-11, and no one has come forth saying anything about it. So there is a gap there that requires quite a hop.
- Scott

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The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire

Post by DHodges » Tue Apr 10, 2007 1:46 am

From what I've read and heard, burning jet fuel does not burn hot enough to melt steel - or even severely weaken it - over the course of several hours. (The twin towers' construction used about 200,000 tons of steel.)

In the rubble of the twin towers, I read about the workers finding these pools of molten metal - still molten, weeks after the towers fell.

This seems consistent with some sort of incendiary device(s) within the building, and inconsistent with the fall of the building being caused solely by the plane crashes. The jet fuel and impact is just not enough.

This seems especially true in the case of the second tower, where most of the jet fuel burned in a fireball outside the tower; and yet that tower fell before the other one.

The straight-down collapse also seems to me inconsistent with weakened steel. I would expect a weakened structure to lean and fall to one side, rather than collapse straight down; especially a structure with a large external frame. One side should weaken before the other.

The straight-down collapse looks very much like controlled demolition. From TV shows on the subject, my impression was that it was a difficult task, taking a lot of careful planning, to place all the charges and detonate them in such a way that the result was a straight-down collapse.

I don't want to advance any particular theory as to who placed those devices, but the collapse of the towers without them seems far-fetched. WTC 7, of course, even more so.

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Post by Ryan Rudolph » Tue Apr 10, 2007 2:03 am

Dhodges, here's a tidbit from an article in response to your claims:
CLAIM: "We have been lied to," announces the Web site AttackOnAmerica.net. "The first lie was that the load of fuel from the aircraft was the cause of structural failure. No kerosene fire can burn hot enough to melt steel." The posting is entitled "Proof Of Controlled Demolition At The WTC."

FACT: Jet fuel burns at 800° to 1500°F, not hot enough to melt steel (2750°F). However, experts agree that for the towers to collapse, their steel frames didn't need to melt, they just had to lose some of their structural strength--and that required exposure to much less heat. "I have never seen melted steel in a building fire," says retired New York deputy fire chief Vincent Dunn, author of The Collapse Of Burning Buildings: A Guide To Fireground Safety. "But I've seen a lot of twisted, warped, bent and sagging steel. What happens is that the steel tries to expand at both ends, but when it can no longer expand, it sags and the surrounding concrete cracks."

"Steel loses about 50 percent of its strength at 1100°F," notes senior engineer Farid Alfawak-hiri of the American Institute of Steel Construction. "And at 1800° it is probably at less than 10 percent." NIST also believes that a great deal of the spray-on fireproofing insulation was likely knocked off the steel beams that were in the path of the crashing jets, leaving the metal more vulnerable to the heat.

But jet fuel wasn't the only thing burning, notes Forman Williams, a professor of engineering at the University of California, San Diego, and one of seven structural engineers and fire experts that PM consulted. He says that while the jet fuel was the catalyst for the WTC fires, the resulting inferno was intensified by the combustible material inside the buildings, including rugs, curtains, furniture and paper. NIST reports that pockets of fire hit 1832°F.

"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
Puffs Of Dust
CLAIM: As each tower collapsed, clearly visible puffs of dust and debris were ejected from the sides of the buildings. An advertisement in The New York Times for the book Painful Questions: An Analysis Of The September 11th Attack made this claim: "The concrete clouds shooting out of the buildings are not possible from a mere collapse. They do occur from explosions." Numerous conspiracy theorists cite Van Romero, an explosives expert and vice president of the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology, who was quoted on 9/11 by the Albuquerque Journal as saying "there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse." The article continues, "Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures."

FACT: Once each tower began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed zone bore down with pulverizing force on the highest intact floor. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, transmitting the forces to the floor below, allowing the collapse to progress downward through the building in a chain reaction. Engineers call the process "pancaking," and it does not require an explosion to begin, according to David Biggs, a structural engineer at Ryan-Biggs Associates and a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) team that worked on the FEMA report.

Like all office buildings, the WTC towers contained a huge volume of air. As they pancaked, all that air--along with the concrete and other debris pulverized by the force of the collapse--was ejected with enormous energy. "When you have a significant portion of a floor collapsing, it's going to shoot air and concrete dust out the window," NIST lead investigator Shyam Sunder tells PM. Those clouds of dust may create the impression of a controlled demolition, Sunder adds, "but it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception."

Demolition expert Romero regrets that his comments to the Albuquerque Journal became fodder for conspiracy theorists. "I was misquoted in saying that I thought it was explosives that brought down the building," he tells PM. "I only said that that's what it looked like."

Romero, who agrees with the scientific conclusion that fire triggered the collapses, demanded a retraction from the Journal. It was printed Sept. 22, 2001. "I felt like my scientific reputation was on the line." But emperors-clothes.com saw something else: "The paymaster of Romero's research institute is the Pentagon. Directly or indirectly, pressure was brought to bear, forcing Romero to retract his original statement." Romero responds: "Conspiracy theorists came out saying that the government got to me. That is the farthest thing from the truth. This has been an albatross around my neck for three years."

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Post by DHodges » Tue Apr 10, 2007 6:51 am

Ryan R wrote:
"The jet fuel was the ignition source," Williams tells PM. "It burned for maybe 10 minutes, and [the towers] were still standing in 10 minutes. It was the rest of the stuff burning afterward that was responsible for the heat transfer that eventually brought them down."
Doesn't that still require some explanation? What was in the towers that burned at such a high temperature? Being an office building, you would expect it to have a lot of paper and wood, which does not burn that hot (451 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Ray Bradbury).

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