1) Weeks after September 11th, cleanup workers found several hot spots of molten steel, as related and photographed in various newspaper reports. To melt steel requires temperatures in excess of 2800 degrees Farenheit for an extended time. The fires from the aircraft collisions that supposedly brought down the buildings burned kerosene, which under idealized lab conditions burns at peak temperatures of 1700 F. http://911readingroom.org/bib/docs/WhyIndeed_version3.pdf

"Melted" Steel
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."

Professor Jones' comments and conjectures about the origin of the alleged molten iron found within the three huge piles of combustible matter burning after the collapse of the WTC towers, distinctly prove that Professor Jones is oblivious of the fact that Iron Burns in air.

For perspective, I found this children's educational webpage that further illustrates that "Professor Jones" (among the "9-11 Scholars") is an incompetent ignoramus because he ignores the scientifically provable (or disprovable) fact that Iron metal itself burns, and that when amassed in large piles can ignite fires (and can even melt itself). The article discusses child-safe experiments observing a very slow oxidation of iron (rusting at room temperature), but also mentions:

"Sometimes a big load of iron in a ship can get hot. The heat can even set other materials on fire. That’s because the iron is rusting, which means it is burning very, very slowly. Iron rusts in a chemical reaction called oxidation. That means the iron reacts with oxygen gas from the air. Oxidation is the chemical reaction that occurs when anything burns in air. Like most oxidations, rusting gives off heat."

http://www.highlightskids.com/Science/TryThis/h3TT1004_ironBurns.asp?subTitleID=159

Beyond the scope of this child-oriented article, it is important to understand that general rule in chemistry that most chemical reactions (e.g., oxidation of iron) are accelerated by higher temperatures. This is especially true of iron oxidation. This means, that the hotter iron metal in contact with oxygen is, the faster it will oxidize (burn). For example, it is a familiar sight at iron foundries to see hot iron rust forming instantaneously on red-hot iron beams. This hot rust usually falls off spontaneously (because of the difference in thermal expansion properties between iron and rust). Meaning, a hot iron beam, if combined with a large enough number of other hot iron beams in a confined or semi insulated pile (e.g., covered with cement dust), will burn CONTINUOUSLY until it consumes itself, (and thus will appear to have been "vaporized" to those not looking for the rust residue). It will just thin away (and turn into rust)... A WWII witness in Germany recounts seeing the "iron" of three Russian tanks "burn" from March 9, 1945 until November 3, 1945: http://members.tripod.com/~radde/RaddesFlight.html ("The three Russian tanks before Bresin still burned as we passed by them on the morning of 11-3, and this taught me something surprising: iron burns.") This account suggests that the "critical mass" of iron metal that will sustain itself burning hot may be quite small compared to the huge amounts of iron debris the WTC piles. This account of prolonged iron combustion also supports the conclusion that the main source of high heat in the piles of the WTC 1, 2 and 7, weeks and months after their collapse, was due to burning iron in these piles. This conclusion could be readily verified or disproved through simulation or experimentation.

The other interesting thing about "iron fire" (fast oxidation of iron) is that it creates a "vacuum" of sorts that "sucks" oxygen to itself. Ordinary carbonaceous "fire" creates carbon monoxide (CO) or carbon dioxide (CO2), which are gases that can take the place of consumed oxygen (02) gas. Carbon monoxide production releases two molecules of CO gas per one O2 molecule consumed. Thus, such a carbon fire requires a "convection" current to remove the hot carbon mon/dioxide (out the top) to make room for more cold oxygen to be brought in (at the bottom).
By contrast, an "iron fire" converts the oxygen gas (and possibly also nitrogen gas, but that is tangent) into a solid (rust). Thus, the burning iron metal effectively sucks atmospheric oxygen INTO the pile of burning metal, regardless of convection currents. Convection currents are a strong mechanism for REMOVING heat from a fire. Of course convection currents will also be present even in a huge iron pile furnace, but a result of direct conversion of oxygen gas into a solid (rust) is that there are weaker convection currents and that means that the heat of combustion escapes more slowly from the metal fire furnace than from a carbonaceous fire furnace. Thus, since the heat of combustion does not leave with the combustion products, a metal-air furnace could become much "hotter" faster than a carbon-air furnace of the same scale (e.g., at the same oxygen demand level).
Theoretically, there is no limit upon the temperature that such a large air-metal-fire could attain. It could, in theory, attain a temperature high enough to not only melt iron, but also to boil (vaporize) iron, but not at the same location at the same time. (You cannot maintain solid, liquid, and gaseous iron at the same location, because "melting" and "vaporization" occur at greatly different temperatures). The difficulty with that however is that the molten (burning) iron would tend to settle into a pool, having a smaller surface area (on its top surface only), thus reducing its rate of oxidation....
The first "molten" iron in the WTC piles was reportedly discovered WEEKS AFTER the collapse of the WTC towers, and molten iron was reportedly found regularly during the following MONTHS during excavations of the huge piles. The only rational explanation for this steady-state phenomenon is IRON BURNING. "Professor Jones" is not a rational man, and thus he fails to consider the fact that Iron Burns, and instead assumes that the reported "molten iron" was all created (by surreptitious "Thermite") on September 11, 2001 and that all this red-hot liquid metal just stayed clumped together on its chaotic descent down 70+ floors and then stayed in molten form until it was dug up weeks and months later.

Further, as an aside, it is total idiocy for Jones and his associates to assume that someone intent upon both bringing down the WTC towers and being undetected in doing so would go to the trouble of actually "melting" some of the iron (let alone allot of it) within the iron support columns (steel will not "melt" until reaching temperatures of nearly 3000F), rather than just heating some of them to the much lesser temperature point at which the iron would EXPAND and DEFORM (see photos linked below) and become worse than useless to support the enormous weight of the building. (That temperature can be scientifically calculated given the load parameters, and was evidently equal to or less than the core temperature of the carbonaceous office fires spanning an enormous area e.g., one square acre in size, on each of several floors of each WTC tower)....

2) The 110 story Twin Towers fell into their own footprints with breathtaking speed--less than 10 seconds from tower to rubble. The rate of free fall--the time required for a steel ball bearing dropped from the 110th story to hit the pavement--is 8 seconds. The collapse of each Tower allowed less than 2 seconds for each of 110 stories--only 4 of which were significantly damaged by the aircraft collisions--to delay the descent of floors above it. Film footage illustrates building material projected hundreds of feet outward; and many hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete were literally pulverized, we're supposed to believe, from the force of gravity.

In every photo and every video, you can see columns far outpacing the collapse of the building. Not only are the columns falling faster than the building but they are also falling faster than the debris cloud which is ALSO falling faster than the building. This proves the buildings fell well below free fall speed. That is, unless the beams had a rocket pointed to the ground.

Just look at any video you like and watch the perimeter columns.

Deceptive videos stop the timer of the fall at 10:09 when only the perimeter column hits the ground and not the building itself. If you notice, the building just finishes disappearing behind the debris cloud which is still about 40 stories high.

Below is a more accurate graphic using a paper written by Dr. Frank Greening which can be found at: http://www.911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf

The paper takes the transfer of momentum into account. Like a billiard ball being hit by another on a pool table, each floor transferred its momentum to the next as represented below. The more weight, the less resistance each floor gave.

The time required to strip off a floor, according to Frank Greening, is a maximum of about 110 milliseconds = 0.110 seconds. It is rather the conservation of momentum that slowed the collapse together with a small additional time for the destruction of each floor.

Below are calculations from a physics blogger...

When I did the calculations, what I got for a thousand feet was about nine seconds- let's see,
d = 1/2at^2
so
t = (2d/a)^1/2
a is 9.8m/s^2 (acceleration of gravity at Earth's surface, according to Wikipedia), [He gives this reference so you can double check him.]
d is 417m (height of the World Trade Center towers, same source)
so
t = (834m/9.8m/s^2)^1/2 = 9.23s
OK, so how fast was it going? Easy enough,
v = at
v = (9.8m/s^2 x 9.23s) = 90.4m/s
So in the following second, it would have fallen about another hundred meters. That's almost a quarter of the height it already fell. And we haven't even made it to eleven seconds yet; it could have fallen more than twice its height in that additional four seconds. If the top fell freely, in 13.23 seconds it would have fallen about two and one-half times as far as it actually did fall in that time. So the collapse was at much less than free-fall rates.


Let's see:
KE = 1/2mv^2
The mass of the towers was about 450 million kg, according to this. Four sources, he has. I think that's pretty definitive. So now we can take the KE of the top floor, and divide by two- that will be the average of the top and bottom floors. Then we'll compare that to the KE of a floor in the middle, and if they're comparable, then we're good to go- take the KE of the top floor and divide by two and multiply by 110 stories. We'll also assume that the mass is evenly divided among the floors, and that they were loaded to perhaps half of their load rating of 100lbs/sqft. That would be
208ft x 208ft = 43,264sqft
50lbs/sqft * 43264sqft = 2,163,200lbs = 981,211kg
additional weight per floor. So the top floor would be
450,000,000 kg / 110 floors = 4,090,909 kg/floor
so the total mass would be
4,090,909 kg + 981,211 kg = 5,072,120 kg/floor
Now, the velocity at impact we figured above was
90.4m/s
so our
KE = (5,072,120kg x (90.4m/s)^2)/2 = 20,725,088,521J
So, divide by 2 and we get
10,362,544,260J
OK, now let's try a floor halfway up:
t = (2d/a)^1/2 = (417/9.8)^1/2 = 6.52s
v = at = 9.8*6.52 = 63.93m/s
KE = (mv^2)/2 = (5,072,120kg x (63.93m/s)^2)/2 = 10,363,863,011J
Hey, look at that! They're almost equal! That means we can just multiply that 10 billion Joules of energy by 110 floors and get the total, to a very good approximation. Let's see now, that's
110 floors * 10,362,544,260J (see, I'm being conservative, took the lower value)
= 1,139,879,868,600J
OK, now how much is 1.1 trillion joules in tons of TNT-equivalent? Let's see, now, a ton of TNT is 4,184,000,000J. So how many tons of TNT is 1,139,879,868,600J?
1,139,879,868,600J / 4,184,000,000J/t = 272t

Now, that's 272 tons of TNT, more or less; five hundred forty one-thousand-pound blockbuster bombs, more or less. That's over a quarter kiloton. We're talking about as much energy as a small nuclear weapon- and we've only calculated the kinetic energy of the falling building. We haven't added in the burning fuel, or the burning paper and cloth and wood and plastic, or the kinetic energy of impact of the plane (which, by the way, would have substantially turned to heat, and been put into the tower by the plane debris, that's another small nuclear weapon-equivalent) and we've got enough heat to melt the entire whole thing.

Remember, we haven't added the energy of four floors of burning wood, plastic, cloth and paper, at- let's be conservative, say half the weight is stuff like that and half is metal, so 25lbs/sqft? And then how about as much energy as the total collapse again, from the plane impact? And what about the energy from the burning fuel? You know, I'm betting we have a kiloton to play with here. I bet we have a twentieth of the energy that turned the entire city of Nagasaki into a flat burning plain with a hundred-foot hole surrounded by a mile of firestorm to work with. - Schneibster edited by Debunking 911

Let me make this clear, I don't assume to know what the ACTUAL fall time was. Anyone telling you they know is lying. The above calculation doesn't say that's the fall time. That was not its purpose. It's only a quick calculation which serves its purpose. To show that the buildings could have fallen within the time it did. It's absurd to suggest one can make simple calculations and know the exact fall time. You need a super computer with weeks of calculation to take into account the office debris, plumbing, ceiling tile etc.. etc... Was it 14 or was it 16? It doesn't matter to the point I'm making, which is the fall times are well within the possibility for normal collapse. Also, the collapse wasn't at free fall as conspiracy theorists suggest.

For more analysis of the building fall times, go to 911myths free fall page.

Please refer to Dr Frank Greening's paper for detailed calculations.

http://www.911myths.com/WTCREPORT.pdf

The story...

The towers fell at or near free fall speeds, a possible sign of controlled demolition.

Our take...

Stage one in establishing this claim is to calculate the actual time it took for the towers to fall, but dust clouds obscuring the end of the collapse make this difficult.
Coming up with a final figure involves a degree of estimation, which is probably why the times you’ll find online range from 8.4 to 15 seconds..

The rate of free fall in a vacuum, at least, is easier to define. The towers were around 417 metres tall (excluding the spire), giving 417 = 0.5 gt^2, so with g = 9.8m/s^2 that gives a time of about 9.22 seconds. So if you dropped a ball off the roof, and there were no air resistance, then that’s the time it would take to reach the ground.

Now we have a basis for comparison. If the towers really did fall completely in 8.4 seconds, then that would actually be faster than gravity, requiring some major additional force to push from above (or pull from below). We’ve seen it suggested that explosives created a “powerful vacuum”, for instance, but that’s not apparent from the collapse videos and images. Like this one, for instance.

Collapse

Large chunks of rubble, which are in free fall, are clearly falling faster than the rest of the building. The base of the massive chunk lower left is, what, 20 storeys lower than the top of the right-hand corner of the building? (And there may be rubble below that, and the building may be intact higher higher still). This suggests we should be looking at a collapse time greater than our 9.22 second freefall figure, not less.

How much greater? If the video evidence gives such a great ranges of guesses, then maybe another approach is required, at least as a crosscheck. We tried looking at the audio of each collapse, and came up with a minimum of 14 seconds in each case (see our South Tower and North Tower pages for more), and the potential for them to have taken several seconds longer. Calculating these times involves far too many judgement calls for us to claim proof of anything, but we do think it adds significantly more support to the 15+ seconds collapse time, and makes the 8.4 second end of the spectrum look particularly unlikely.

We can cross-check this by looking at the seismic evidence. Although often presented as supporting the shortest 8-point-something time, in our view there’s a case for arguing that this, too, indicates the collapse time was much, much longer.

And if you look carefully, then you will find some videos that also back us up. Here’s one indicating to us that the first collapse took more than 12.5 seconds.

Where people have quantified the collapse time they thought should have arisen, it’s not always helpful to the conspiracy case. D.P. Grimmer, for instance, believes the towers demonstrably fell in around 10 seconds, and has this to say about the time it should have taken in one scenario (if 30% of the gravitational energy of the collapse was lost in pulverising the concrete):

Now the observed time t = 10 seconds (a free fall time, the fastest possible time under g = 9.8 m/sec/sec = 32 ft/sec/sec = 32 ft/s exp2). For the cloud debris creation to absorb 30% of the gravitational energy, the observed time of fall would be 10s x 1.195, or almost 12 seconds. This long a collapse time was observed by no one. Clearly, there are serious flaws in the official explanation/conspiracy theory.
http://www.physics911.net/thermite.htm

So Grimmer thinks a 12 second time might be more reasonable, in the case he describes? Yet we (and others) suggest a collapse time of 15 seconds or more is more accurate, significantly longer still.

Of course the main issue is still whether each tower fell faster than it should have done in air, not a vacuum. Read more on this in an extremely detailed and interesting paper from Dr Frank Greening, which he’s kindly agreed to let us host here.

And in the interests of balance, check out the “Refutation of the Official Collapse Theory”. Be sure to pay attention to their calculations of collapse time, and the way the pancaking towers are assumed to come to a dead stop as each floor is hit.

3) The 47 story World Trade Center building #7 mysteriously fell down at about 5:30 pm of that afternoon, in 6.5 seconds, after being struck by.....what? Building # 7 hosted a few small fires on its upper floors.

FACT: Many conspiracy theorists point to FEMA's preliminary report, which said there was relatively light damage to WTC 7 prior to its collapse. With the benefit of more time and resources, NIST researchers now support the working hypothesis that WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated. "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." NIST also discovered previously undocumented damage to WTC 7's upper stories and its southwest corner.

NIST investigators believe a combination of intense fire and severe structural damage contributed to the collapse, though assigning the exact proportion requires more research. But NIST's analysis suggests the fall of WTC 7 was an example of "progressive collapse," a process in which the failure of parts of a structure ultimately creates strains that cause the entire building to come down. Videos of the fall of WTC 7 show cracks, or "kinks," in the building's facade just before the two penthouses disappeared into the structure, one after the other. The entire building fell in on itself, with the slumping east side of the structure pulling down the west side in a diagonal collapse.

According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor. "What our preliminary analysis has shown is that if you take out just one column on one of the lower floors," Sunder notes, "it could cause a vertical progression of collapse so that the entire section comes down."

There are two other possible contributing factors still under investigation: First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed to transfer loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the south face apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been communicated to columns on the building's other faces, thereby exceeding their load-bearing capacities.

Second, a fifth-floor fire burned for up to 7 hours. "There was no firefighting in WTC 7," Sunder says. Investigators believe the fire was fed by tanks of diesel fuel that many tenants used to run emergency generators. Most tanks throughout the building were fairly small, but a generator on the fifth floor was connected to a large tank in the basement via a pressurized line. Says Sunder: "Our current working hypothesis is that this pressurized line was supplying fuel [to the fire] for a long period of time."

WTC 7 might have withstood the physical damage it received, or the fire that burned for hours, but those combined factors--along with the building's unusual construction--were enough to set off the chain-reaction collapse.

4) Numerous eye-witnesses--firemen, medical emergency workers, reporters, at least one Wall Streeter who observed the collapse from an adjacent building, and others--reported hearing numerous loud explosions just before the collapse and/or seeing what looked like sequential detonation plumes appearing around the perimeter of the buildings. The New York City fire department duly recorded these observations in 2001 and took steps to publish the results in 2001. However, Mayor Bloomberg suppressed publication, which necessitated a law suit by the Fire Department, assisted by the New York Times, to obtain legal permission to publish these reports! The NYCFD and Times prevailed in 2005, and published the eye witness accounts later that year. http://911truth.org/article.php?story=20060818104223192

Could transformers or other electrical equipment explain some of what the firemen saw and heard? What about an acre of concrete floor slamming into another? Would steel bolts snapping under tremendous tension make a pop or explosive sound? Assuming the towers weren't in the vacuum of space, we can be fairly safe to say the things I mentioned are good candidates to explain what the firemen heard. Even they think so...

Assistant Fire Commissioner: "I thought . . . before . . . No. 2 came down, that I saw low-level flashes. . . . I . . . saw a flash flash flash . . . [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they . . . blow up a building. . . ?”

But if you read on...

"I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever."

This is a quote taken out of context. Now the WHOLE QUOTE without the taking it out of context...

I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason -- again, I don't know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-leve] flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down.

Q.: Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?

A: No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too.

I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_
WTC_GRAPHIC/Gregory_Stephen.txt

Here is a fireman saying it could have been "electrical explosions".

What a transformer explosion looks like...

http://www.stupidcollege.com/items/Electric-Transformer-Explosion

These buildings, as most office buildings in America had transformers and other high voltage electrical equipment.
Electrical Fire Hurts 6 at Trade Center

Published: July 24, 1992
An air-conditioning transformer five stories below the World Trade Center caught fire after an explosion last night, the authorities said. Six people were injured, none of them seriously, but the 110-story twin towers did not have to be evacuated, the authorities said.

The fire was first reported at 10:02 P.M. in a 13,000-volt transformer in the Trade Center's refrigeration plant, which provides air conditioning and ventilation for the complex, the Fire Department and the Port Authority said. The electrical fire, which went to three alarms, was brought under control at 11:24 P.M., said a Fire Department official, Lieutenant Erick Weekes.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE0DF1031F937A15754C0A964958260

February 26, 1993. It started like most other days. A 4 A.M. wake up, coffee and a buttered roll while driving to work at the Manhattan Central Office. At 12:18 P.M., lunch was being served when we received a call via a street alarm box at the corner of West & Liberty Streets. At the same time Engine Company 10, whose quarters are across the street from the World Trade Center, called us via radio and reported a possible transformer vault explosion on West Street near the Trade Center.

Transformer vault (also called manhole) explosions are fairly common place in Manhattan, especially during wet weather. They're highly visible and normally generate numerous telephone calls to the Central Office. We didn't think this one was going to be any different. When Engine 10 advised us by radio they had a working fire in the Trade Center, we thought the transformer vault was located within the basement of the complex. Not a routine event, but still,it's only a transformer vault we thought.

http://www.fdnewyork.com/wtc.asp

"The Trade Center was never designed for the amount of emergency power necessary for all those trading floors they have there," Calabro said. "Tenants would come in and need emergency power, and it was not available."

To solve that problem, E-J Electric set four generators on the roof of Tower 5, which was nine stories, as opposed to the 110-story Towers 1 and 2. E-J then ran high-voltage feeder cable to Towers 1, 2, 4 and 5, installed three substations and distributed power to the tenants.

"We pulled 6,000 feet of high-voltage feeder cable from the roof of Tower 5, through the building, down through the concourse, through the parking garages and to the roof of Tower 1 and 2," Calabro said.

Current standard tenant power capacity is 6W up to 10W per usable square foot depending on location. The World Trade Center's electricity supply is segmented for greater reliability and safety. Eight dedicated 13,800-V feeders divide into 23 building substations. On-floor electrical distribution is routed via at least two electrical closets per floor, each with separate high- and low-voltage bus ducts for tenant-dedicated use."

http://september11.ceenews.com/ar/electric_towering_security_2/index.htm

This is a deceptive quote from a conspiracy theory site...

"When we got to about 50 feet from the South Tower, we heard the most eerie sound that you would ever hear. A high-pitched noise and a popping noise made everyone stop. We all looked up. At the point, it all let go...

...There was an explosion and the whole top leaned toward us and started coming down. I stood there for a second in total awe, and then said, "What the F###?" I honestly thought it was Hollywood."

Now let's examine what he said in the context he said it. Here is the part conspiracy sites leave out..

“When we got to about 50 ft from the South Tower, we heard the most eerie sound that you would ever hear. A high-pitched noise and a popping noise made everyone stop. We all looked up. At the point, it all let go. The way I see it, it had to be the rivets. The building let go, there was an explosion and the whole top leaned toward us and started coming down.

http://september11.ceenews.com/ar/electric_broadway_electrical_supplys/

He said "The way I see it, it had to be the rivets" but the conspiracy sites remove this important insight. They skipped over the sentence. There is only one reason to do something like that. To mislead the reader by removing all other possibilities for the sounds.

He also says he thinks the rivets caused the building to fall and not bombs. Interestingly, the NIST said most of the failures were at the bolts and connections.

Even bodies hitting the floor sounded like explosions.

“The sight was amazing. I was just totally awestruck. I reported to the command post, showed my ID and asked if I could be of use. They said ‘Absolutely. Stand off on the side with the other medical people.’ I couldn’t fight any fires because I did not have that kind of gear with me, but would have done it if asked.

“I decided to walk closer to the South Tower. I was about 100 ft from the South Tower looking up when the bodies started coming down. I counted 35. They were just piling up on the Marriott Marquis hotel. They were 10 to 15 thick piling up one after another. You could hear them hitting on the side streets. They were hitting cars, and there were lots of explosions.

“I have seen plenty of death in my life, and burned bodies and so forth, but this was incredible. As I was looking up, I saw a body coming down, hit a lamppost and explode like a paint ball. Its arms and legs got torn off and the head ripped off and bounced right by me.”

The person saying it was an explosion also says bodies hitting the floor sound like explosions. I'm sure they do. I'm sure an acre of concrete floor crashing down onto another acre of concrete floor also sounds like an explosion.

More here

The building was filled with electrical panels and cable feeding them. Some would be no different than a powerline...

It's not unreasonable to conclude, as at least one fireman did that the flashes might have been electrical in nature.

We may never know what exactly caused the flashes. But flashes alone do not mean explosives. You would see more than flashes if an explosive large enough to cut steel were set off. You would see ejecta coming from the same place as the flash.

Then their is William Rodriguez, a worker at the towers. He now says he heard explosions in the basement but that's not what he said before he became a media star and sued the government.

William Rodriguez worked on the basement level of the north tower and was in the building when the first plane struck his building.

"We heard a loud rumble, then all of a sudden we heard another rumble like someone moving a whole lot of furniture," Rodriguez said. "And then the elevator opened and a man came into our office and all of his skin was off."

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/new.york.terror/

Here he is describing something very different than an explosion. The change in his story came after he became a media star and plaintiff.

Conspiracy theorists take quotes out of context in order to sell the idea. An example of just how easy it is to take ear witness accounts out of context is below...

[Example video transcript:]

Government Train Wreck: How government covers up freight train accidents…

"The noise sounded like two freight trains going over a trestle right over your head; it was an ugly roar. My wife said the noise when the house went was like a giant pencil sharpener working.”

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/dtx/1953beecher/storiesFJ.php

[Did a fright train pass over their head? Was there a giant pencil sharpener really over there heads?]

“While I was in my kitchen I heard this terrible roar coming," she said. "It sounded like a freight train coming right down my road here”

"It looks like it's been bombed. There's just a lot of destruction, a lot of debris," said Michael Bartz, a state emergency official. "

http://archives.cnn.com/2002/WEATHER/09/02...nado/index.html

[Was it a bomb? Did a real freight train go down her road?]

"It indeed sounded like a freight train roaring past us, and when it was gone, we came out to find things a mess."

http://www.offenburger.com/farmarchive.asp?link=20040906

It came with "the roar of forty freight trains."

http://www.tornadochaser.com/UDALL/reports.htm

“It sounded like a freight train”.

http://www.disasternews.net/news/news.php?articleid=2954

“Before I reached the bottom of the stairs, I heard the sound of a roaring freight train”

[enter image of NOAA weather map an hour before the tornado touches down.]

As you can see, there was no tornado on that day, according to NOAA.

So why is the government covering up train derailments?

[enter sinister music]

In 2003 Amtrak was going bankrupt. They couldn't afford to rebuild the homes of Americans after a derailment.

ETC.. ETC..

Looks like someone had the same idea I did...

http://loosetrains911.blogspot.com/

While the Titanic was sinking, passengers heard explosions in the ship. In this case, the "Official Story" would be wrong, using the same conspiracy theory logic. To this day, no one really knows what exactly caused the sound, only that it sounded like an explosion. Some say it was the steel snapping as the ship broke in two. Others say it was the hot steam engines hitting the cold water which exploded. Using Conspiracy Theory logic, it was blown up because witnesses characterized the sound as an "Explosion".

“I saw a flash flash flash [at] the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building?”--Assistant Fire Commissioner Stephen Gregory

Now the WHOLE QUOTE without the taking out of context...

I know I was with an officer from Ladder 146, a Lieutenant Evangelista, who ultimately called me up a couple of days later just to find out how I was. We both for whatever reason -- again, I don't know how valid this is with everything that was going on at that particular point in time, but for some reason I thought that when I looked in the direction of the Trade Center before it came down, before No. 2 came down, that I saw low-leve] flashes. In my conversation with Lieutenant Evangelista, never mentioning this to him, he questioned me and asked me if I saw low-level flashes in front of the building, and I agreed with him because I thought -- at that time I didn't know what it was. I mean, it could have been as a result of the building collapsing, things exploding, but I saw a flash flash flash and then it looked like the building came down.

Q.: Was that on the lower level of the building or up where the fire was?

A: No, the lower level of the building. You know like when they demolish a building, how when they blow up a building, when it falls down? That's what I thought I saw. And I didn't broach the topic to him, but he asked me. He said I don't know if I'm crazy, but I just wanted to ask you because you were standing right next to me. He said did you see anything by the building? And I said what do you mean by see anything? He said did you see any flashes? I said, yes, well, I thought it was just me. He said no, I saw them, too.

I don't know if that means anything. I mean, I equate it to the building cowing down and pushing things down, it could have been electrical explosions, it could have been whatever.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/Gregory_Stephen.txt

Let me guess why they left that important part out..

“t was [like a] professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'."--Paramedic Daniel Rivera

SO WE WERE PRETTY MUCH-MOST OF THE WORKERS WERE INSIDE THIS BUILDING. I LIKE SAID, I DON'T KNOW IF ITS FIVE WORLD TRADE CENTER OR FOUR WORLD TRADE CENTER. MOST OF THEM WERE IN THE BUILDING BECAUSE THE CHIEF OR THE CAPTAIN SAID IF YOU WANT YOU CAN STAY INSIDE THAT BUILDING. BUT I DIDN'T FEEL SAFE BECAUSE I KNEW IT WAS TERRORIST ATTACK SO I WAS SCARED. EVERY TIME YOU HEAR PLANE EVERYONE WOULD RUN. SO I PRETTY MUCH STOOD AROUND HERE SOMEWHERE. I WOULD SEE TRIAGE, BUT I WAS PRETTY MUCH IN BETWEEN THE TWO BUILDINGS.

THEN THAT'S WHEN-I KEPT ON WALKING CLOSE TO THE SOUTH TOWER, AND THAT'S WHEN THAT BUILDING COLLAPSED.

Q: HOW DID YOU KNOW THAT IT WAS COMING DOWN?

A: THAT NOISE .IT WAS NOISE.

Q: WHAT DID YOU HEAR? WHAT DID YOU SEE?

A: IT WAS A FRIGGING NOISE. AT FIRST I THOUGHT IT WAS-DO YOU EVER SEE PROFESSIONAL DEMOLITION WHERE THEY SET THE CHARGES ON CERTAIN FLOORS AND THEN YOU HEAR "POP, POP, POP, POP, POP"? THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT-BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT WAS THAT WHEN I HEARD THAT FRIGGING NOISE, THAT'S WHEN I SAW THE BUILDING COMING DOWN.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/9110035.PDF

First, notice he and everyone else was scared of TERRORISTS. What do TERRORIST DO? So it's not unreasonable for someone who is thinking TERRORIST to hear the sound of huge concrete floors falling one on top of the other to think "BOMB" first. As I said, No one has ever seen an airplane hit buildings constructed like this and the collapse of this odd combination.

“There was what appeared to be at first an explosion. It appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides, materials shot out horizontally. And then there seemed to be a momentary delay before you could see the beginning of the collapse." --Chief Frank Cruthers

there was what appeared to be at first an explosion. it appeared at the very top, simultaneously from all four sides

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/Cruthers.txt

And why wouldn't floors falling around the building NOT APPEAR to be an EXPLOSION... :blink:

"I started walking back up towards Vesey Street. I heard three explosions, and then we heard like groaning and grinding, and tower two started to come down.” --Paramedic Kevin Darnowski

Again, just more sounds like explosions as floors ram into each other. Note he doesn't say he SAW three explosions.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/9110202.PDF

And here is the outright LIE...

“ we heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. . . . We then realized the building started to come down.” -- Firefighter Craig Carlsen

Note where these liars put the "...."

Now for the REAL quote...

I guess about three minutes later you just heard explosions coming from building two, the south tower. It seemed like it took forever, but there were about ten explosions. At the time I didn't realize what it was. We realized later after talking and finding out that it was the floors collapsing to where the plane had hit.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/9110505.PDF

With that alone I should rest my case. ;) These CT sites are dishonest.

Here is the other lie, they split up those quotes to make it seem like there are more people hearing explosions than there really are. You have paramedic Daniel Rivera's interview split in two and Stephen Gregory's interview split in two, as if there are different people hearing different explosions. They flood you with quotes hoping you won't notice. What other reason would they have for splitting them up???

“Then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode. The popping sound, and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then a red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as I could see. These popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger, going both up and down and then all around the building." -- Captain Karin Deshore

MY BACK WAS TOWARDS THE BUILDING, TRYING TO PUSH EVERYBODY UP.

GRASSY HILL WAS THERE AND UP UNDERNEATH THAT OVERPASS, WHEN SOMEBODY JUST SIMPLY SHOUTED AND I HAVE NO IDEA WHO IT WAS, "IT'S BLOWING".

I HAD NO CLUE WHAT WAS GOING ON. I NEVER TURNED AROUND BECAUSE A SOUND CAME FROM SOMEWHERE THAT NEVER HEARD BEFORE. SOME PEOPLE COMPARED IT WITH AN AIRPLANE. IT WAS THE WORST SOUND OF ROLLING SOUND, NOT A THUNDER CAN'T EXPLAIN IT, WHAT IT WAS. ALL I

KNOW IS -- AND FORCE STARTED TO COME HIT ME IN MY BACK. I CAN'T EXPLAIN IT. YOU HAD TO BE THERE. ALL I KNOW IS -- HAD TO RUN BECAUSE I THOUGHT THERE WAS AN EXPLOSION.

...I WAS UNAWARE WHAT WAS HAPPENING. I THOUGHT

IT WAS JUST MAJOR EXPLOSION I DIDN'T KNOW THE BUILDING WAS COLLAPSING

SOMEWHERE AROUND THE MIDDLE OF THE WORLD TRADE CENTER, THERE WAS THIS ORANGE AND RED FLASH COMING OUT. INITIALLY IT WAS JUST ONE FLASH. THEN THIS FLASH JUST KEPT POPPING ALL THE WAY AROUND THE BUILDING AND THAT BUILDING HAD STARTED TO EXPLODE. THE POPPING SOUND, AND WITH EACH POPPING SOUND IT WAS INITIALLY AN ORANGE AND THEN RED FLASH CAME OUT OF THE BUILDING AND THEN IT WOULD JUST GO ALL AROUND THE BUILDING ON BOTH SIDES AS FAR AS COULD SEE. THESE POPPING SOUNDS AND THE EXPLOSIONS WERE GETTING BIGGER GOING BOTH UP AND DOWN AND THEN ALL AROUND THE BUILDING.

It's time to see a transformer explosion.

http://www.stupidcollege.com/items/Electric-Transformer-Explosion

All these buildings had transformers and transformer vaults.

SO HERE THESE EXPLOSIONS ARE GETTING BIGGER AND LOUDER AND BIGGER AND LOUDER AND I TOLD EVERYBODY IF THIS BUILDING TOTALLY EXPLODES, STILL UNAWARE THAT THE OTHER BUILDING HAD COLLAPSED, IM GOING IN THE WATER.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/9110192.PDF

“I took a quick glance at the building and while I didn't see it falling, I saw a large section of it blasting out, which led me to believe it was just an explosion.” -- Captain Jay Swithers

When I was giving her the oxygen, setting up the tank, you could hear a loud rumble. Somebody said run for your life. I turned to see who was yelling "run".

At that point I looked back and most of the people who were triaged in that area with the triage tags on them got up and ran. I took a quick glance at the building and while I didn't see it falling, I saw a large section of it blasting out, which led me to believe it was just an explosion. I thought it was a secondary device, but I knew that we had to go.

But one thing that did happen was an ambulance pulled up which was very clean. So I assumed that the vehicle had not been in the - what I thought was an explosion at the time, but was the first collapse.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC
/9110172.PDF

First he heard the rumble. Not the so called "Explosion" which he never saw. Then he thought he heard an explosion because he saw the debris falling away from the building. He had TERRORIST on his mind and jumped to the conclusion that it was a bomb. You don't have to be a psychologist here.

Fire officer Paul Isaac Jr. asserted that 9-11 was an inside job last September 11 at ground zero where mourners and protesters were gathered; “I know 9-11 was an inside job. The police know it’s an inside job; and the firemen know it too”, said Isaac.

"there were definitely bombs in those buildings,” Isaac added that “many other firemen know there were bombs in the buildings, but they’re afraid for their jobs to admit it because the ‘higher-ups’ forbid discussion of this fact.” --Auxiliary Lieutenant Fireman Paul Isaac

Paul Isaac never said anything of the kind. Another Conspiracy Theorist deception.

A video is shown on just about every conspiracy web site which shows a few fireman discussing what they heard and saw.



fireman2: We made it outside, we made it about a block.
fireman1: We made it at least 2 blocks.
fireman2: 2 blocks.
fireman1: and we started runnin'
fireman2: poch-poch-poch-poch-poch-poch-poch
fireman1: Floor by floor it started poppin' out …
fireman2: It was as if as if they had detonated, det…
fireman1: yea detonated yea
fireman2: as if they had planned to take down a building,
boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom…

In the context of reading it off a conspiracy site, this may sound like damning evidence. They are saying “detonated” and “they had planned to take down a building”. They even say “Boom” to describe the sound. But if you hear the other things they’re saying, their body language and context outside the conspiracy theory setting, something else emerges. Before or after every description is “As if”. “As if they had planned to take down a building”. “It was as if as if they had detonated”. They also use body language to show it was the sound of the floors crashing into one another.



boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom- (hand moves down)

boom…

This could be just as powerful evidence of pancaking as the use of explosives. But the real evidence isn’t so much examining the video as examining the actions taken, or NOT taken, by the NYC Fire Department after the event. The NYC Fire Department hasn’t rallied its members to force an investigation into the possible murder of over 300 of its members. Some sites offer an explanation of this saying there was a gag order placed on the Fire Department. The only place you will find this is on conspiracy theory sites. No mention from main stream press about the hundreds if not thousands of fireman on the scene not being allowed to talk.

A glaring example of picking and choosing what to focus on is the interview with Mary Baldizzi... They point to a BBC article that says

The jet fuel caused the fire to spread so far and so fast that it effectively cut the building into two. For the 6,000 people below where the plane had hit the staircases still offered a means of escape, but for the 950 caught above the point of impact and the fire there was no way out.

The argument is made that towers fell because of separate detonations. As proof, they offered the case of Mary Baldizzi who supposedly had escaped the 104th floor of the World Trade Center's North Tower by elevator. Thus, the only way she could have escaped via elevator was if the core was intact at least to the 104th floor.

When I watched the video, I thought, if there had been a survivor from above the impact zone in Tower 1, it would have been widely broadcast. So, logically, I searched online for either confirmation or repudiation. I found neither. What I did find was the repeated use of Ms. Baldizzi's story as evidence in various alternative theories (i.e., other than fire) for the collapse of the towers.

Returning to the original video, I watched it several more times. After listening closely to Ms. Baldizzi's interview, I came to the conclusion that Mary Baldizzi was not on the 104th floor of the North Tower (WTC1) but was on the 104th floor of the South Tower (WTC2) and that this was a misrepresentation of her escape as having been from WTC1. Here are the reasons I came to this conclusion:

1. Although the newswomen began the interview stating that Mary Baldizzi had come down the elevators from the 104th floor and was in the "first tower when it was struck," at no time during the interview does Ms. Baldizzi state that she was in the North Tower. In addition, none of the graphics that accompany the interview claim that Ms. Baldizzi was in the North Tower. When Ms. Baldizzi is asked if she felt the impact, she says "Oh yeah." But the effects she describes -- feeling the heat, experiencing the shaking, hearing the explosion -- are all effects experienced by those who were in the South Tower on the floors adjacent to the impact zone (see:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2002-09-02-choices-usat_x.htm ). If she had been in the North Tower when it was hit then she would have described the impact in much less casual terms.

2. Around 5 minutes and 20 seconds into the interview, the interviewers ask about Ms. Baldizzi's coworkers. Ms. Baldizzi's states that she does not know the whereabouts of her fellow employees and proceeds to state, around 5:55 of the interview, that she has no way of contacting them other than to "call [the] main office in Illinois." Now, the offices on the 104th floor of the North Tower were occupied exclusively by Cantor Fitzgerald, while offices on the 104th floor of the South Tower were occupied by Sandler O'Neill (see: http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/tenants1.html). Cantor Fitzgerald does not have a main office in Illinois (see: http://www.cantor.com/contact/). Sandler O'Neill, on the other hand, does have a central office in Chicago (see: http://www.sandleroneill.com/). This suggests that Ms. Baldizzi was an employee of Sandler O'Neill (in the South Tower) rather than Cantor Fitzgerald (in the North Tower).

3. Finally, and conclusively, at 6:15 in the interview Ms. Baldizzi begins a discussion about what she and her coworkers did when they exited the building. She clearly says: "There were police officers, thank God, that were aiming us towards Liberty St. because we stupidly walked towards One World Trade because we didn't know; we had no idea it was a terrorist attack." Now, if Ms. Baldizzi had been in One World Trade Center (i.e., the North Tower) there is no way she would have described her egress as "towards One Word Trade" because no matter in which direction she walked she would have been going away from One World Trade. This point proves, beyond any doubt, that Ms. Baldizzi exited from the South Tower and that the mistaken announcement at the beginning of the interview that she was in the North Tower was just one of the miscommunications and misunderstandings in the chaos of those early days.

I concluded that Ms. Baldizzi exited Tower 2 at the same time many others in the building did: after the North Tower was hit but before the South Tower was hit. If she was "dragged" into the elevator within seconds after the first tower was hit, and if the elevator ride took about 4 minutes, she would've been out of the building well before the South Tower was hit.

USA Today

As you can see the South Tower core was not damaged as much because of large, heavily constructed elevator equipment which protected it anyway.

There were two freight elevators that serviced the 104th floor.

Cars #6 and #50 serviced the 104th floor, lobby and basement levels.

----------

• Car #5: B1-5, 7, 9-40, 44
• Car #6: B1-5, 44, 75, 77-107 *
• Car #17: B1-1, 41, 43-78
• Car #48: B1-7, 9-40
• Car #49: B1-5, 41-74
• Car #50: B6-108 *
• Car #99: 107-110

There were two express elevators to Windows on the World (and related conference rooms and banquet facilities) in WTC 1 and two to the observation deck in WTC 2.

pg 34 (adobe pg 72)

NIST NCSTAR 1-7 (Draft)

Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster
Occupant Behavior, Egress, and Emergency Communications (Draft)

There were firemen who radioed in after being stuck in the elevator moments before the south tower collapsed.

http://www.firehouse.com/terrorist/wtcaudio/wtcaudio8.html

So there were elevators working in the south tower AFTER the impact. But what's important here is that the interview is being taken out of context. A theme which seems to run strong with these conspiracy theorists.

Thanks to Scott S Coastal and Drval.

As to assertions that big coverups are simply a priori impossible, there is good and credible explanation as to how truth may be suppressed for a while, and powerful evidence that proves key players in both 911 and Pearl lied. Moreover, that many failings of the Big State, such as being wrong about WMDs in Iraq, get exposed is hardly proof that a State could never use deceit and treachery against its own subjects.

The Watergate scandal was over a simple office break-in, and in a matter of weeks the entire scandel unraveled in front of the public eyes for their scrutiny. The NSA wiretapping scandel, a relatively simple conspiracy, that was not hard to pull off (how hard is it to wiretap people without them knowing?) yet it was revealed to the public this had happened.

9/11 Conspiracy theories are the creationism myths of the loony left.