[Winstonm]

I have spent the evening reading some eye-opening articles about the collapse of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. I must be like most Americans in that I didn't seriously question the government's assertion that the planes caused fires that collapsed the buildings. And I didn't really want to watch more video of those times....

But now I am in a quandry. Very bright people, as in an MIT professor and well as others of his ilk, are claiming that the only thing that explains the collapse is detonation.

And I learned a lot, if it is true.

1) Three buildings, not two, went down. The third, WTC 7. was a 47 story steel structure across the street and not impacted by the planes. And it too fell into it's own footprint. It was suffering from only minimal fires when it too collapsed.

2) Explosions were heard before the collapse began - I heard the tapes from the fireman calling in with reports of numerous explosions.

3) The videos show lateral explosive looking plumes many floors below and leading the actual collapse - it looked a lot like the Dunes Hotel implosion that I witnessed except for the lack of movie pyrotechnics.

4) Jet fuel cannot burn hot enough to melt steel. (I didn't know this and no one on the news or newspapers or magazines has so informed me.)

5) Molten metal pools were discovered weeks after the collapse but it was not steel.

6) The residue on what little steel was left to examine is consistent with the use of thermite-type explosives.

7) The collapse of all three buildings straight down with accompanying bursts below the collapse is consistent with explosive demolition.

8) Shortly before the attacks, the security system within the WTC was shut down allowing engineers and workers into the building without being observed or recorded by security cameras.

9) All three building fell at near free-fall speed, which would indicate no supporting structures beneath gave any resistance to the fall - which is not consistent with the concept of the upper towers collapsing onto each successive floor in a pancake effect.

And much more. But my quandry is the usual - we have been besieged by so many crackpot conspiratorial ideas that this seems like one more - until you see that many of these "experts" are not claiming conspiracy per se, but only asking what's going on?

How much is really known about the collapse of these three buidlings? Are these questions about the credibility of government's reports just more crackpot conspiracy weirdos?

Should the investigation into the collapse be reopened? If so, where is the press? Why aren't these questions being probed by investigative reporters? Why don't Time and Newsweek ask these questions until answered?

If ariplanes didn't bring down the WTC, who and what did? Does anybody really know what the heck is going on?

[mike777]

Do you believe that burning jet fuel can melt Iron? Burning Jet fuel in a tight space? Iron that holds up the Towers? If you do then that explains alot.

Of course they heard explosions there were many many explosions, look up the definition of explosion.

[Winstonm]

mike777, on Aug 16 2006, 10:40 PM, said:

Do you believe that jet fuel can melt Iron? Iron that holds up the Towers? If you do then that explains alot.

Of course they heard explosions there were many many explosions, look up the definition of explosion.

When PhDs and physics professors say it can't be done, I have to acknowledge their intelligence enough to listen.

Have you looked at their side? It makes your have serious doubts, especially when what they state is consistent with the video evidence, the eyewitness accounts, and the history of high rise fire damage.

So how do you explain the third building collapse? It wasn't hit by planes. It wasn't engulfed in flames. It wasn't even up to Sao Paulo fire standards - which didn't bring down that high rise.

If you buy the official version of the big buildings, how do you explain the third? If there is not a logical explanation for the third, that casts even more doubt on 1 and 2 does it not? It there is no logical reason for 3 to collapse, yet it fell in identical fashion to 1 and 2, there is reason to believe 1 and 2 fell for the same reasons as 3, not the other way around.

I'm not saying these guys are right - I'm just encouraging all to have a thorough look into what they have to say.

[mike777]

You better provide that link.

Let me put it another way, MIT prof say jets cannot bring down buildings and cable tv says sorry not interested.

I do remember a bunch of PHd's saying they can and did but admit I do not remember the names or details. Only that jet fuel can easily burn through rebars.

Ok maybe now they will not be interested with this Jon Benet story but before that?

[Winstonm]

There are so many different links I wouldn't point out just one - some are crackpots but some seem solid.

I didn't start out to read about this but was led by a link - and then it got interesting. Many of these bright types are not claiming conspiracy per se, but are saying the official version can't be right so what is going on?

Here it is almost 5 years after the fact, and I just found out that 3 buildings collapsed and not just the two towers - I wonder how many of us know that?

It is worth researching I believe because it makes you take pause and question if we are being told the truth, from 9/11 to Iraq to the Blair water bottle bombs scare.

"We have met the enemy and he is us." Pogo.

[jtfanclub]

And I learned a lot, if it is true.

[QUOTE] 1) Three buildings, not two, went down. The third, WTC 7. was a 47 story steel structure across the street and not impacted by the planes. And it too fell into it's own footprint. It was suffering from only minimal fires when it too collapsed. [/QUOTE]

Almost as if a giant bulding had crashed into its foundation.

[QUOTE]2) Explosions were heard before the collapse began - I heard the tapes from the fireman calling in with reports of numerous explosions.

3) The videos show lateral explosive looking plumes many floors below and leading the actual collapse - it looked a lot like the Dunes Hotel implosion that I witnessed except for the lack of movie pyrotechnics.[/QUOTE]

Ever seen a building getting demolished? Notice all of those lateral explosive looking plumes in the middle floors, before the actual collapse? Those aren't caused by explosives- all the explosives are down in the basement and first floor. That's the building collapsing from the inside. Eventually, the outside collapses.

[QUOTE]4) Jet fuel cannot burn hot enough to melt steel. (I didn't know this and no one on the news or newspapers or magazines has so informed me.)[/QUOTE]

Absolute horsecrap. You need me to find a picture of Dresden for you? Jet fuel is plenty hot enough to burn steel (and it would bend it, and burn it, but not melt it). You can burn iron with a candle, as long as you grind the iron finely enough and use a chimney. Haven't you ever seen a big warehouse fire where the building's collapsed? What do you think did that?

Or here, think of it this way. They had asbestos around the structural supports. Why would they do that, if the supports wouldn't be affected by fire?

[QUOTE]5) Molten metal pools were discovered weeks after the collapse but it was not steel.[/QUOTE]

You gotta be kidding. What, aliens created it? What possible metal is this that the govenment put in the building just so it could be found?


[QUOTE]6) The residue on what little steel was left to examine is consistent with the use of thermite-type explosives.[/QUOTE]

This has to be the best one. Thermite is a mixture of iron oxide and aluminum. I'm sure there wasn't any of that in the buildings. BTW, Thermite is not an explosive.

[QUOTE]7) The collapse of all three buildings straight down with accompanying bursts below the collapse is consistent with explosive demolition.[/QUOTE]

That was the only thing that surprised me about it at the time...answer below.

[QUOTE]8) Shortly before the attacks, the security system within the WTC was shut down allowing engineers and workers into the building without being observed or recorded by security cameras.[QUOTE]

And your evidence for this is....

[QUOTE]9) All three building fell at near free-fall speed, which would indicate no supporting structures beneath gave any resistance to the fall - which is not consistent with the concept of the upper towers collapsing onto each successive floor in a pancake effect.[QUOTE]

Great, now they hollowed out the World Trade Center before they blew it up, and nobody noticed. Some of this is just stupid...even if you believed the government blew it up, what would be the point of that?

[QUOTE]How much is really known about the collapse of these three buidlings? Are these questions about the credibility of government's reports just more crackpot conspiracy weirdos?[/QUOTE]

In a word, yes.

A month after the attacks, I asked my uncle, who is an architectural engineer, how it was that the building collapsed in on themselves. He explained that when the buildings were built, it was expected that some day, they would be demolished. They were actually deliberately designed so that in the event of an explosion, they'd collapse in on themselves just as it happened, so that they could be demolished safely. That's why it looked like a demolition- it was predesigned to be easily demolished.

I think that's a record for the word 'demolish' in a paragraph.

[DrTodd13]

If we take a step back and honestly look at things, we cannot really be sure of anything unless we have done all the work ourselves. People will claim that they are sure that lots of things have happened or not happened and their only proof is that it was written in a book somewhere. While this perhaps does make it more likely to be true, it by no means conclusively proves anything. Are any of us a structural engineer or a metallurgist? I doubt any of us really have all the first hand expertise required to talk about whether planes can bring down buildings or melt steel, etc. Having said that, the rest of us can look at evidence presented by all sides of a debate and weigh trustworthiness, intellect, motive, etc. Is the "official" reason for 9/11 the true reason? Like I said, I'm not sure that anybody can claim with 100% certainty that they know the answer. Many will nonetheless claim to believe the government answer is 100% correct which in essence is taking the goverment's word for it. Personally, I think the official explanation is more likely to be correct but I think there is something like a 5 or 10% probability that the official answer isn't the true answer.

On to the issues. The owner of the WTC complex is on tape as saying that they "pulled it" meaning that they destroyed building 7 with demolition charges. I have seen the tape. Tapes can be faked so take it for what it's worth. Occam's razor would dictate that the tape is real. The claim was that WTC 7 was badly damaged and at risk of spontaneous collapse and that a planned collapse would be safer than a spontaneous one. This is despite another building that still stands to this day located BETWEEN WTC 7 and WTC 1 & 2. Is it possible for the building in the middle to be spared somehow? It seems very unlikely and I can't rule it out but again occam's razor would seem to suggest that WTC 7 shouldn't have been that heavily damaged by debris if the building in the middle was not similarly damaged. I also find it strange that they could do a planned demolition of building 7 that quickly. I thought these sorts of demolitions usually were planned and prepped for weeks in advance.

From what I have heard, again second or third hand knowledge, the smoke that was caused by the jet fuel burning was densely black and the temperature of a fire that produces black smoke is limited to a temperature much less than that required to melt steel. The temperature is enough to _soften_ steel and cause it to lose up to 50% of its strength but WTC 1 & 2 were massively overengineered and the winds were relatively calm and even a decrease of 50% in steel strength still left around 2x as much strength that was needed to keep the buildings up. Also, there is so much steel in the core of the WTC and the fire really only last 10 minutes or so from what I recall...that steel is a huge heat reservoir. Anybody know how well steel conducts heat? Seems hard to get it up to molten temp in just 10 minutes.

There is tape of a yellowish molten material flowing out of a WTC window. The official explanation I believe is that this was molten aluminum from parts of the plane. The problem as others have pointed out is that aluminum will melt and will flow well before it gets hot enough to give off a yellowish glow. What was this molten material? Why was yellow hot metal still being pulled from the crater 3 weeks later? Why was there sulphur mixed with this material? There could be perfectly reasonable answers to these questions but I haven't heard them. I'd love for an expert to explain all these things. At this point I just have questions and things that don't seem to match the given explanation. Perfectly willing to be educated.

I'm sure at the time, most everyone in Germany bought their goverment's explanation that some retarded drifter set fire to the Reichstag. Who would believe that a goverment would destroy one of its own buildings? Well, sure enough Hitler was behind the fire at the Reichstag and he used it as a propaganda tool to expand his powers. WTC happens and government increases its powers...sound familiar? Don't say it can't happen. I'm not saying it did happen I'm just saying that nobody should put this kind of behavior past any government. Look at the Northwoods documents or the USS Liberty.

[mike777]

If the true answer by the government is terroists did it, not the USA government and you think this is only 90-95% possibly correct God help us.

If after 5 years of study and discussion you are only 90-95% certain than how can you be certain of anything in your life. This sounds like a prescription to go crazy with doubt.

This sounds like a plan to study this to death while we lose the war and die.

[Gerben42]

Whoever has come up with this story is completely crazy. This story is about the same level as saying the Earth is flat or that Neil Armstrong has never been on the moon.

[helene_t]

Right, Gerben. I'd love to see a proof that the WTC was blown up by Texan gulf players and that the airplane were just a cover story. But I'm afraid this story won't do it.

[kenrexford]

Even assuming arguendo that someone were able to locate video records of explosives being triggered inside the WTC to bring it down, why conclude that anyone except the same people who tried to collapse the WTC with explosives, a few years earlier, placed these explosives there?

Am I to assume that the U.S. government has wired all buildings to explode, ready for the next attack? This is brilliant. I imagine that Dick Cheney snuck into the WTC, perhaps the Sears Towar, and maybe even Disneyland, and wired everything up to explode. Then, he sat back and waited for a plane to crash into one of them. When he heard the good news, he pushed his big red button, and WWIII was finally a go!

[mike777]

The real conspiracy is what is going on with Pluto and Xena.
Now I read in my local paper not only are "they" fooling around with my planets but there may not even be a continent called Europe.

I wondered why I never got a response when I asked where the Eastern edge of that continent is, there may not be one...hmmmmmm this is all very very strange!

This is all per a Physics Professor at the City University of New York.

Hmmm hey is that the place where the twin towers were?

I see all of this coming together now.....Yes.....

[hrothgar]

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, however, this one makes no sense what-so-ever...

In particular, I'm incredulous that anyone would wire both towers of the World Trade Center with explosives and an then launch an extremely complicated hijacking plot as a "cover". Consider what would have happened if either (or both) of the hijacking attempts had failed. (Maybe the hijackers got caught, perhaps they missed on of the towers, whatever). The authorities - the ones not "in" on the plot would immediately know that WTC was the target of the hijacking attempt. Furthermore, they'd have one or both towers available for inspection. How do you think that they would have explained all those explosives "conveniently" hidden in the upper floors? Despite what Ludlum and the writers of 24 might think, complex plans are not a virtue in and of themselves.

I'm also extremely skeptical about the ability of large groups of people to keep a secret... Something this "big" would have leaked in a real form.

[Al_U_Card]

Seems to me that the expert explanation given on a documentary program called, I think, "Failure Analysis". indicated that the steel" "trusses" softened just enough to weaken and bend so that their ends, previously secured, lost their moorings and provoked the collapse. It is logical that, although it appeared to occur in slow motion, that the first floor to collapse would pancake onto the one below it. This might just preceed the "visible outer shell" of the building giving way and the fall would cause the windows on the floor below to blow out as that first floor to give way started the pancaking action. This would also explain the "demolition style" fall, as gravity would pull the building straight down. The "pulverizing" of the contents is simple mechanical force applied at the end of the fall of each floor into the next below.

[mikeh]

Al_U_Card, on Aug 17 2006, 10:19 AM, said:

Seems to me that the expert explanation given on a documentary program called, I think, "Failure Analysis". indicated that the steel" "trusses" softened just enough to weaken and bend so that their ends, previously secured, lost their moorings and provoked the collapse. It is logical that, although it appeared to occur in slow motion, that the first floor to collapse would pancake onto the one below it. This might just preceed the "visible outer shell" of the building giving way and the fall would cause the windows on the floor below to blow out as that first floor to give way started the pancaking action. This would also explain the "demolition style" fall, as gravity would pull the building straight down. The "pulverizing" of the contents is simple mechanical force applied at the end of the fall of each floor into the next below.

I am not sure if I saw the same programme, but, if not, I saw one very like it. It also demonstrated that the insulation applied to the steel skeleton of the WTC would have been blown off the members by the force of the impact and resulting jet fuel explosion, thus exposing considerable sections of the steel to immersion in fire... and the fire lasted far, far more than 10 minutes. I vividly remember that morning: I was pulling out of my driveway to go to a meeting more than an hour and a half away, and the announcers on the radio were already covering the story... and I saw the broadcast of the towers falling at the meeting: which was spent, for the first hour+ simply watching a television in the conference room.

It all made sense then, and still does.... and I am NOT adverse to believing the worst of some segments of the Amercian political establishment.... but not that anyone used explosives to blow up the building.

[DrTodd13]

mikeh, on Aug 17 2006, 07:30 AM, said:

Al_U_Card, on Aug 17 2006, 10:19 AM, said:

Seems to me that the expert explanation given on a documentary program called, I think,  "Failure Analysis". indicated that the steel" "trusses" softened just enough to weaken and bend so that their ends, previously secured, lost their moorings and provoked the collapse.  It is logical that, although it appeared to occur in slow motion, that the first floor to collapse would pancake onto the one below it.  This might just preceed the "visible outer shell" of the building giving way and the fall would cause the windows on the floor below to blow out as that first floor to give way started the pancaking action.  This would also explain the "demolition style" fall, as gravity would pull the building straight down.  The "pulverizing" of the contents is simple mechanical force applied at the end of the fall of each floor into the next below.

I am not sure if I saw the same programme, but, if not, I saw one very like it. It also demonstrated that the insulation applied to the steel skeleton of the WTC would have been blown off the members by the force of the impact and resulting jet fuel explosion, thus exposing considerable sections of the steel to immersion in fire... and the fire lasted far, far more than 10 minutes. I vividly remember that morning: I was pulling out of my driveway to go to a meeting more than an hour and a half away, and the announcers on the radio were already covering the story... and I saw the broadcast of the towers falling at the meeting: which was spent, for the first hour+ simply watching a television in the conference room.

It all made sense then, and still does.... and I am NOT adverse to believing the worst of some segments of the Amercian political establishment.... but not that anyone used explosives to blow up the building.

The truss theory was the original theory I believe. They made some documentaries about it claiming that it was the answer. I believe that subsequently this explanation has been disproven and that the current accepted explanation is that the fire melted through the core vertical supports.

With regards to mike777's comment, I believe that he is right to a degree for most people. Most people want certainty and would go crazy if they didn't have it. These people instinctly see things in black and white for their own sanity. Just because they believe something with 100% certainty does not mean that they are in anyway justified to believe that. I don't think acknowledgement of uncertainty is a recipe for inaction. If you need to make a decision you go with the odds.

[luke warm]

Winstonm, on Aug 16 2006, 10:37 PM, said:

I have spent the evening reading some eye-opening articles about the collapse of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks. I must be like most Americans in that I didn't seriously question the government's assertion that the planes caused fires that collapsed the buildings. And I didn't really want to watch more video of those times....

But now I am in a quandry. Very bright people, as in an MIT professor and well as others of his ilk, are claiming that the only thing that explains the collapse is detonation.~~snip~~

i'll admit i haven't read or seen anything about this, but what exactly is their theory? did the usa know ahead of time about bin laden's plans, and planted explosives to "take advantage" of those plans? were the explosives themselves planted by terrorists?

[Winstonm]

luke warm, on Aug 17 2006, 12:41 PM, said:

Winstonm, on Aug 16 2006, 10:37 PM, said:

I have spent the evening reading some eye-opening articles about the collapse of the World Trade Center after the 9/11 attacks.  I must be like most Americans in that I didn't seriously question the government's assertion that the planes caused fires that collapsed the buildings.  And I didn't really want to watch more video of those times....

But now I am in a quandry.  Very bright people, as in an MIT professor and well as others of his ilk, are claiming that the only thing that explains the collapse is detonation.~~snip~~

i'll admit i haven't read or seen anything about this, but what exactly is their theory? did the usa know ahead of time about bin laden's plans, and planted explosives to "take advantage" of those plans? were the explosives themselves planted by terrorists?

Depends on what sites you look at. Sure, there are conspiracy sites but the sites that got my attention were from seemingly sane people who expressed a high degree of doubt about the scenario.

And the other thing is, I never knew 3 building went down - this shocked me.

The intelligent sites will say x, y, and z happened. Why?

For the non-conspiracy questions:

WTC 7. No explanation has ever been given as to why it fell. As Dr. Todd noted, there is tape saying that it was "pulled". It fell at 5:30 p.m, give or take a few minutes. If it was done on purpose, how was it rigged and executed so fast? Who ordered it done? If it was not on purpose, then what caused its collapse?

Every expert is in agreement that the jet fuel fire simply could not have been hot enough to melt steel - jet fuel cannot burn that hot. What caused the collections of pooled liquid metals found?

What was the cause of the firemen's reports of explosions before the buildings
started to collapse?

For the conspirator theory, the claim is reversed - someone or some group within the government learned of the terrorist plan in advance and simply allowed it to happen while ensuring utter destruction. I can only assume that if all planes or some planes did not make contact then (according to conspiracy theory) the charges planted would not have been set off and been retrieved the same way as placed.

[Winstonm]

please remove

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on Aug 17 2006, 08:03 AM, said:

I love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person, however, this one makes no sense what-so-ever...

In particular, I'm incredulous that anyone would wire both towers of the World Trade Center with explosives and an then launch an extremely complicated hijacking plot as a "cover".  Consider what would have happened if either (or both) of the hijacking attempts had failed.  (Maybe the hijackers got caught, perhaps they missed on of the towers, whatever).  The authorities - the ones not "in" on the plot would immediately know that WTC was the target of the hijacking attempt.  Furthermore, they'd have one or both towers available for inspection.  How do you think that they would have explained all those explosives "conveniently" hidden in the upper floors?  Despite what Ludlum and the writers of 24 might think, complex plans are not a virtue in and of themselves. 

I'm also extremely skeptical about the ability of large groups of people to keep a secret...  Something this "big" would have leaked in a real form.

I am not saying there was any conspiracy. I only say some very bright people question the veracity of the official story. It is enough for me to at least examine the evidence and not ask "uncle charlie" or blindly accept the official story.

As for the conspiracy theory, it goes like this and the other way round: the very real terrorist attack was uncovered and used as a backdrop for the collapse of the towers to make it so immense and horrific that everyone would forget about the questioned presidential election, uniting the divided country against a common enemy while giving up more freedoms, and initiate a reason to eventually attack Iraq.
According to theory, if the attacks had not worked whatever devices used would have been removed the same way they were placed.

I am with you, though, on the idea of conspiracies - the human factor - seems no way these things could be kept so quiet.