"Dear Phil – read NIST before replying to this"
Pained Scientist
This is a response to Philip Roddis’ article Incontrovertible – the “truth” about 9/11
Philip Roddis’ article on why people who question the official story of 9/11 are “pants” is not a good piece. In fact it’s a little embarrassing for its author. He doesn’t know the subject he comments on. He’s skimmed a few authoritative-seeming pronouncements from sources or people he admires (Alexander Cockburn), and assumed they knew what they were talking about. He’s never read the NIST report, and has only the vaguest clue what the official explanation of the collapse even is. Read this paragraph of his and cringe for him:
As a matter of fact the put-options issue, like WTC 7 freefall and ‘expert’ opinions that Boeing 707s could not have brought down WTC 1 and WTC 2, has been comprehensively addressed. Another recurring feature of conspiracy theories is the coexistence of shrill demands that Our Questions Be Answered with stone-deafness to empirical and logical answers convincing to all but the True Believer.
Ouch, right? This guy pontificating about “empirical and logical answers” thinks the official explanation for the collapse of the Twin Towers is that two Boeing 767s “brought them down”!
I urge Phil to try some research. No, scratch that, try some common sense. Suggesting a Boeing 767, weighing 157 tons, could on its own bring down WTC1 or 2, weighing 150,000 tons plus a piece, is like suggesting you could bring your house down by throwing a medium-sized rock through the window. That’s why NIST never made such a claim and why no competent scientist ever made such a claim.
What NIST says about the planes is their impact “severed and damaged support columns” It doesn’t claim the planes brought down the towers, because they know that’s stupid, being as the Towers were 1,000 times the mass of the planes.
And being as the towers clearly withstood the impact and survived it. NIST doesn’t say the towers were “badly built” either Phil. It can’t do that because steel framed “tube in a tube” skyscrapers have become an industry standard since the WTC complex was built (the Freedom Tower is the same basic design), and while nonsense about the Twin Towers being flimsy might go over in a squib in the press written by and for joe public no self-respecting NIST scientist or engineer is going to allow his name to be put to such stupidity.
part of the steel core on one of the twin towers under construction
What NIST relies upon as the actual initiator of collapse is fires, partly fueled by kerosene, partly by office furniture, which heated the steel core structure to a point where the struts connecting the inner core to the outer containing structure were “softened” and a “progressive collapse” ensued. It has to say “softened” not melted, because there was no agent officially present in the towers that could have produced fires hot enough to melt steel. Normal office fires don’t melt steel. Kerosene fires don’t melt steel. So NIST had to propose the steel was just “softened.”
NIST tried to prove the “softened steel” theory by experiment and failed. Numerous times. But they put the theory in their report even though they disproved it. That’s not good science Phil. They also had to add in some mickey mouse guesswork about the plane impact having dislodged all the insulation from all the steel just in order to explain how the fires could do even that much damage, but we’ll let that one slide.
You’re obviously not a science man Phil, so let me explain to you that in science anomalies do matter and have to be explained. Things that counter known physical laws can’t just be assumed to happen without real good evidence. Steel framed high rise buildings don’t collapse due to fire. That’s a fact upon which a great deal of engineering and architectural decisions are made. You know why? Because such a collapse has never happened on earth ever. Steel frame high rises have burned on every floor, like furnaces, for days, left nothing but blackened ruins, but they’ve never – ever – fallen down in total as a result.
That is apart from three times on one day in one place – Sep 11 2001, NYC.
Right there, Phil, any scientist, engineer, architect, reasonable human being, non- idiot will tell you that’s something that needs examining. Forget the put options, the living hijackers, the Bin Laden bullshit, the Bush did it rhetoric, and the rest of the bla-blah-blah. Just focus on the fact one day, in one place three buildings in one small part of NYC allegedly fell down in a way heretofore and ever after considered impossible. And one of those buildlings wasn’t even hit by a plane.
What does this mean? Do you know Phil? I don’t know. NIST doesn’t know. It tried to find an explanation but failed and just put its unvalidated assumption in the report. Is that good enough? Something completely unprecedented in engineering and science happened that day, and all NIST gives us is some guesswork about how the insulation was knocked off of the beams and a whole bunch of other stuff that failed experimentation? If kerosene or office fires are sufficient to soften steel and initiate collapse why the hell did it never happen before or since? How is the presentation of this untested conclusion in a report of this magnitude compatible with science or safety?
As things stand we all as individuals have a serious choice. Either we just assume three buildings in one place at one time all did something no comparable building has ever done before or since, or we think more data is needed before we can sign off on that as a first assumption.
Aside from your basic and pretty woeful misunderstandings of what the official case actually is you don’t spend much time discussing evidence. You mention it. You say there’s tons of it that proves the official case and none that counters it, but you don’t say what any of it is. I’d like to know more about that. Can you tell me what this evidence is?
I’d like you to read NIST (you probably should before commenting any more on the subject), then read the criticisms of their conclusions written by highly qualified architects, engineers and scientists, whom you condescendingly dismiss as basement-dwelling retards. Read the thermite paper by Harrit et al. Give them a chance Phil. Open your mind and let some science in among all that liberal arts epistemological blowhardery you’ve got going on. Then maybe we can talk some more.
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The author was clearly influenced by that earthquake disaster film last year, where sky scrapers were collapsing by the dozen at the slightest touch. If I’m not mistaken, a lady’s fart brought one down.
Still, journalists should not let popular culture influence their analysis too much.
Interesting piece and follow up discussion, thanks to everyone.
Could Pained Scientist or anyone familiar with the NIST findings provide some references for this claim ?
“NIST tried to prove the “softened steel” theory by experiment and failed. Numerous times. But they put the theory in their report even though they disproved it”
Here’s one reference from NIST itself. In particular see the last slide, which is a summary of the results of the floor assembly burn test. This is where they basically took a model of a WTC floor, put some fireproofing on it, although apparently not as much fireproofing as the building actually had, and then stuck it in a furnace for at least twice as long as the WTC actually burned, at temperatures much higher than it can be established that the WTC experienced. And still could not get the darn things to fail.
In every case the column “Failure to Support Load” is marked “Did Not Occur”.
https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/el/disasterstudies/wtc/6Treadway.pdf
Thanks, John.
Does the NIST report on the WTC reference these tests and if yes, how do they explain this apparent contradiction between the result of the tests and the content of their report ?
The slide of the steel trusses after the tests does show some severe deformation of the steel.
Can’t remember how explicitly they reference it in the final NIST report on WTC 1&2. As I recall they note the test faithfully in an appendix, but quietly, and then simply ignore its implications in the body of the work. I’m curious myself so I’ll look it up but not right now — do feel free to conduct your own research! 😉
As for the deformation, yes, exactly, steel in a furnace heated to 1300 degrees Fahrenheit for 3.5 hours would be expected to deform. If that had happened to the WTC, it would also be expected to deform — gradually, over time, as it got hotter and hotter and softened degree by degree. As opposed to sudden and total failure leading to a prom-dress drop and complete disintegration in 10 seconds. In the big raging towering-inferno style skyscraper fires that lasted upwards of 18 hours like One Meridian Plaza in Philly, some deformation occurred. The buildings stood, however. The overall structural integrity was never in question. The key point of the NIST research being the beams held. They did not fail.
Hi John, thanks again for taking the time to reply.
I take your point but I think that the deformation observed in the tests was consistent with footage of the towers prior to collapse i.e. inward bowing of perimeter columns in the area of the fires ?
To quote Kevin Ryan:
A)
For what follows: http://stj911.org/ryan/NIST_Responses.html
Quote begins,
[…] NIST was deceptive and unscientific at every step of their investigation. An excellent example of this is their computer manipulations to prove that perimeter columns could be bowed inward. After having eliminated all the fireproofing, and exaggerated the temperatures and fire duration times, NIST “disconnected” their virtual columns from the floors before applying an inward force. Where does the inward force come from when the floors are disconnected?
That’s one issue, eh: Where does the inward force, pulling in the exterior columns, come from if the floors are disconnected?
Quote ends.
This is not a trivial issue.
B)
For what follows: https://digwithin.net/2013/09/05/nist-and-towers/
Quote begins,
[…] UL performed additional tests as part of the NIST investigation in order to establish the fire resistance of models of the WTC floor assemblies. The results were that the floor assembly models not only didn’t collapse, invalidating the longstanding “Pancake Theory,” but the floors barely sagged―only about 3 inches―despite the use of double the known floor load and two hours of fire exposure.[7] NIST then added this 3-inch of sag result to its computer model, and by way of an unknown transformation, it suddenly became 42-inches of extreme sagging.[8] This appears to have been a direct falsification of test results.
Step six says that sagging floors pulled exterior columns inward. To support this, NIST evaluated nine different scenarios within its computer model, with just one of those producing any inward bowing. To do this, NIST had to take a computer mock-up of a 9-story high by 9-column wide section of steel wall and perform manipulations that had no relevance to the events at the World Trade Center. NIST removed the virtual steel from its web of support by “disconnection,” stripped off all the fireproofing, exposed it to twice the known fire time (i.e. 90 minutes), and then applied an unspecified, utterly miraculous inward pull.[9] It is difficult to understand how an inward pull force could be applied to.
Quote ends.
I do recall seeing some video where some bowing was visible in some columns immediately prior to the collapse. A quick search just now has not pulled it up, although I’ve taken the opportunity to watch several videos for the umpteenth time without noticing any bowing. If you had a link to a good video where the bowing is evident I’d be more than happy to give it another look.
From memory then: it was brief and minor to the point where it is barely discernible, and it was immediately before the building completely exploded/collapsed/imploded or whatever your preferred word is.
But yes: it did look like there was some amount of bowing. So let us count that as potential evidence in favor of the fire-induced collapse. To be fair, the bowing could possibly also have been caused by supports being exploded away, or so it seems to me, but let’s go ahead and chalk it up in the “fire-induced” column.
I’m not sure we have anything else to put in that column. It wasn’t a long fire, or a very big one. There weren’t the gradual deformations one would expect from steel being gradually heated to that alleged point. It didn’t sag towards the damage or anything. I want to be fair, am I leaving anything out? I can’t think of anything else that remotely suggests fire-induced, but do chip in with ideas.
So. In the meantime, against that single, somewhat frail bit of evidence in favor of an unprecedented fire-induced collapse, we must weigh whatever evidence we might be able to scrape together for the controlled demolition hypothesis. Off the top of my head, that would include the familiar list of just about everything else:
— consistent and compelling historical record
— suddenness of onset
— totality of destruction
— near-perfect symmetry
— the brevity and smallness of the fires
— explosive lateral ejections that planted steel beams into the sides of other buildings
— near free-fall speed of collapse along path of putatively greatest resistance
— mid-air absolute pulverization of concrete
— segmenting of steel into load-ready lengths
— discovery of unexploded nanothermite specimens in the dust
— various well-documented forms of evidence of molten (and evaporated) steel
— highly credible witness accounts of explosions from both within and outside the buildings
— deliberately shoddy investigation that refused even to consider the apparently obvious demolition hypothesis and relied on science that represents demonstrable fraud and misconduct in addition to laughable measures like making the bizarre computer model’s input data secret (!)
— NIST experiments that failed to make the floor assembly collapse even after hours in a furnace
Am I forgetting anything in this column? Anyway, we all perhaps have inclinations towards what we want to believe or what we’re capable of believing, and I suppose we’ll all have to weigh up the columns for ourselves and determine in our own minds if one hypothesis might be any better supported than the other one.
All good points , but still haven’t seen anything which directly supports this claim from Pained Scientist:
“NIST tried to prove the “softened steel” theory by experiment and failed. Numerous times. But they put the theory in their report even though they disproved it”
Clearly, there is plenty of disagreement over the temperature of the fires, how much if any fireproofing remained after the planes hit, etc. however, would it be accurate to say that the UL test disproves the “softened steel” theory even though the steel was indeed softened as evidenced by the bowing ?
Alternatively, Pained Scientist may have other evidence which supports his claim that the “softened steel” theory was disproved.
Let’s be clear about what the “softened steel” theory claims. It does not merely claim that steel softened. The point of it is to suggest that it “softened” to the point where it failed to support its load. The NIST link I provided above confirms Pained Scientist’s point, as it reports on multiple attempts, at various temperatures and lengths of time, to get a floor assembly to fail. In no case was it able to do so. Ergo, this quite specifically supports, indeed confirms, Pained Scientist’s assertion.
The larger point being: if you do experiments with the aim of generating support for your hypothesis, and the experiments fail to support your hypothesis, and you go ahead with your hypothesis anyway, in flagrant disregard of your own data as well as a substantial amount of contrary evidence, whatever it is that you’re doing, it is no longer science.
Absolutely fantastic article…..so truthful, so accurate! Just don’t understand why you haven’t been attacked or “set up” by the US military intelligence agencies yet….of course there watching and trying as we all know.
Of greater importance may well be the explanations and proof given by Dr Judy Woods in her book “Where did the Towers Go’. It does provide ONE rational explanation with the proviso that the technology required is not common knowledge yet ( ’cause if it was the US/UK/French/German military hardware factories would go broke and we would have 80% unemployment ( in the US especially…..)
Real culprits are the main steam media….cowards, agents for government and patsies for military/intelligence networks internationally.
Remember: “IGNORANCE is STENGTH”
Judy Woods “theories” are not science. She’s done no experiments, taken no measurements, proposed no hypothesis. The science has been done by Harrit et al. Their repeat experiments and discovery of what looks like thermite or nanothermite in the dust from the WTC is about the most conclusive evidence that the official story is a lie. Their work demonstrates the considerable likelihood explosives were pre-planted in the towers. Most important scientific breakthrough yet made on this matter.
Dear Pained Scientist,
I too am science trained.
The most important and primary process in science is meticulous OBSERVATION. This is what Dr Woods has done. Her hypothesis, in case you missed it from her book is that the Twin Towers fell from :” a directed weapon technology”-DWT-( as yet undefined). Her book EXCLUDES DWT from thermite, planes, bombs….which are all examples of DWTs by definition ANYWAY.
You MAY have noticed in the media that a “new” DTW is being tested by US military navy to destroy targets….. (hello!!!!)
ONLY from OBSERVATION can you draw a hypotheses to TEST. Without this primary process, any experiment planned or tested is flawed.
I trust you can now see:
a) she has fulfilled that criteria ( read her 500 page book with references) and
b) she is most qualified in understanding the natural properties of materials.
I don’t even know why I’m replying to “I too am science trained,” but now that I’ve started, I might as well hint at what needs to be said about Judy Wood: neither she, nor anyone else that I know of, has any idea what she is talking about.
Quote begins,
“In fact, the whole interview with Greg Jenkins was very troublesome to me because it was so clear that he was seeking to put words in Judy’s mouth and demand an exactitude of answers that she was going to be unable to provide which he knew going in.”, 44 Dr. James Fetzer during the Dynamic Duo radio broadcast on 02/06/07 regarding an interview conducted at the National Press Club on 01/10/07
Quote ends.
Source of the quote:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-558096240694803017
And the link to the document from which I myself retrieved that quote:
https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj0s6DYgPzOAhVC54MKHZjZDz4QFggeMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.journalof911studies.com%2Fvolume%2F200702%2FImplausibility-Directed-Energy-Beam-Demolish-WTC-by-Gregory-Jenkins.pdf&usg=AFQjCNGGXjqY8GSUn89ChhGzX28QNjDi9Q&sig2=fVC-b-K6UFnVFqK8DFmXHA
And since I have Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins’s (Ph.D. Physics) and co-author Matt Sullivan’s document up before me, I’ll quote just a few more excerpts that to my mind conclusively dispenses with whatever it is Judy Wood might be trying to peddle:
A)
Quote begins,
It is a simple matter to calculate the amount of energy required to vaporize the steel in the upper 110 floors in one of the WTC towers.
[see the .pdf document for (Equation 1) (see the foregoing link)]
The terms in the equation relate to the energy required to raise the steel from room temperature to the melting point, change phase from solid to liquid, raise the temperature from the melting point to the boiling point, and change phase from liquid to gas, respectively.3 If you consider that this amount of energy, 5.7 X 10^14 J , which is only 50% of the energy required to vaporize all the steel from both towers was pumped into the towers during the collapse time, approximately 10 seconds, then the power necessary to vaporize the steel would be 5.7 X 10^13 Watts. This is over 5 times the total power output of the entire earth26 including all carbon combustion, nuclear power, wind power, hydroelectric power, etc. This is with no loss.
Quote ends.
B)
Quote begins,
There are only two types of directed energy beams: those that have mass (particle beams such as protons, ions, neutral atoms, or electrons) and those that do not have mass (photons). Particle beams can be ruled out based upon direct observation. In order for particle beams to strike the metal and concrete in the towers, the dust and smoke that existed before and during the collapse would necessarily have to be driven out of the way before striking any part of the building. A beam of particles with mass certainly could not penetrate the dust without ‘pushing’ it out of the way via collisions. Simply put, if visible light cannot penetrate the dust, then a particle beam most certainly would not. If a particle beam were impinging the towers from above, the large number of highly energetic particles required to vaporize the steel would collide with the smoke and dust, rapidly accelerating the dust and smoke in a downward direction. This would have appeared like a gigantic wind blowing from above. This was not observed. Displacing a large percentage of the pulverized concrete and building material before impacting the steel would have required much more energy. 11
[. . .]
The largest known laser in the western hemisphere throughout the 1990’s was the MIRACL laser (Mid-Infrared Advanced Chemical Laser). A joint Israeli-American project located at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, the laser facility boasts the ability to destroy Katyusha rockets. The laser is continuous-wave with a maximum output of roughly 1 MW of power encompassing the wavelengths 3.6 to 4.0 m µ . Maximum run-time is 30 seconds at maximum power.
[. . .]
It is instructive to consider the logistics and sheer amount of resources utilized in an average run (not necessarily at maximum power for the maximum allowable time duration) of the laser: 340,650L of water, 11,355L of diesel fuel, 16 kg of deuterium gas, 4.5 kg of ethylene gas, and 381 kg of nitrogen trifluoride gas. Fluorspar sludge (630 kg) is generated as a byproduct. The facility, only including the actual housing of the laser as well as gas handling and water handling peripherals, occupies an area of approximately 1.48 sq km. Due to the logistical nightmare, only 6 to 10 laser tests were performed annually throughout the 1990’s.
Quote ends.
Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins (Ph.D. Physics) and co-author Matt Sullivan, too, were “science trained,” eh. So you who are “science trained” also should make an effort to read their joint refutation of Judy Wood’s science-fiction-based science. The parts that are written in plain English are also easy to understand for someone who might not be thoroughly “science schooled.”
Dr Wood invents her own words, like “dustification”. Her theory boils down to “space beams”. Hardly scientific.
What is interesting is whenever there is discussion around the science of 911 – drawing on the work of Prof Niels Harrit (University of Copenhagen) Dr Steven Jones (Brigham Young) , phsycis teacher David Chandler et al – you get people popping up trying to push Dr Woods’ unscientific theories.
Dr Judy Wood has been debunked a couple of times, including here by Architects & Engineers: http://911debunkers.blogspot.co.za/2011/05/architects-and-engineers-for-911-truth_9853.html
What really brought down the three buildings, still remains a mystery as far as I can see, which, by itself, is extremely unsatisfactory, as there are literally hundreds of these buidings all over the world. If a mere office fire can bring three down so dramatically and so catastrophically, why are these buildings still being used? Surely they represent an incredibly dangerous environment and have a series of fundamental, structural, design weaknesses that must be addressed? Shouldn’t they all after 9/11 have been evacuated across the world, regardless of the cost and disruption, until they were all examined and modified properly to ensure that a raging fire couldn’t result in a collapse leading to a disaster with thousands of casulaties to follow? Was 9/11 really such a unique event that the authorities across the world are convinced it couldn’t happen again in some other location after a fire?
The ‘uniqueness’ of the event is, to say the least, problematic. There have been raging fires in the same type of building, before and after 9/11, but none of the buildings collapsed into their own footprint. Why not? What made events that day so unique? The planes crashing into the buildings was incredibly dramatic, almost theatrical, like a macabre opera, where the audience links the planes to the fall of the buildings, yet, supposedly, it was the planes that brought the buildings down, but, rather, the fires the planes started, only people watching the collapse didn’t know that official explanation at the time; that came later.
So, what we saw with our own eyes, planes crashing into buildings, firese and then a series of collapses, wasn’t the whole story. We saw one thing, yet something else we didn’t see, or fully understand at the time, that day in fact, ‘really’ brought the buildings down… uncontrolled office fires fuelled by the contents of the buildings themselves, even though virtually everything inside them was designed not to burn and fuel a fire once it started, for obvious reasons. The buildings were designed and built with the idea of containing a fire and not letting it get out of control, as a design imperative, because no one wants a fire to destroy such an expensive building.
The very unusualness and uniqueness of the events on that day tend to divert our attention away from what isn’t unique about the destruction we all saw. The collapses were identicle to what one sees with a controlled demolition, when a building is brought down neatly in its own footprint by explosives, and there’s nothing ‘unique’ about those events, they happen over and over again. If one didn’t ‘know’ that the Twin Towers weren’t brought down by explosives, there’s no way by looking at the collapses, to tell the difference.
There are so many unanswered questions, unless one has been told what to think and one ‘knows’ what happened, even if one really doesn’t.
How would one get hundreds of tons of explosives into the buildings and all the miles of wiring and the detonators, without anyone noticing? How would one manage to coordinate the explosions, the controlled demolishion part, with the planes crashing into the towers? It seems like a logistical nightmare. Such a conspiracy would have taken months or years to plan and execute properly, and keep secret. How did this happen?
@michaelk – in answer to your last paragraph.
No one – particularly highly-trained teams working with best equipment – uses “miles of wiring” anymore. Since the late 1990s, remote wireless ignition has been available. Much easier.
Also, these days, cutting edge nano-incendiaries are much smaller, lighter and more powerful. They can also come in sol-gel application, ie. they can be painted on steel columns or inside lift shafts and no-one would know the difference.
How to keep secret, you ask? That’s a very good question.
How did Osama Bin Laden and his men keep this secret for so long, especially as they planned this from a cave in Afghanistan? And how did Osama’s 19 operatives sneak into the three towers and set up the demolition charges?
No heads did role for the ‘breaches in USA security’,quite the opposite,all those in positions of responsibility were promoted for their apparent ineptitude.
Listen to the testimony of the first responders that heard and felt the sequential explosions inside the buildings,none of whom were called to give their first hand evidence by the 9/11 Commission.
Thousands of whom are now dying of cancer from inhaling the powder reduced buildings on that day.
They want answers.
Truthers are well qualified to show up the inconsistencies,the bad science,the impossible flying skills,the telephone calls that could not have been made,the planting of false evidence etc.
Their remit is for a proper independent aircrash/murder inquiry. Not to challenge the power structures that were complicit,and even in these articles there is a reluctance to name the politicians,the security organisations,the companies and the other countries involved.
What happened to the 8 indestructible black boxes ? The $2.3 Trillion of unaccountable military expenditure Rumsfeld announced on 8/11 ? The tons of gold bullion in the basement of building 6 (which also had to be pulled down because of the massive hole mysteriously created through its central core) ?
Let’s start looking at some of the many unanswered questions raised beyond the imploding structures and do the finger pointing.
The evidence that Rebeka Roth is uncovering is worth listening to.
9/11 took years to plan,to get the right players in place with considerable expertise and insider information well beyond the capabilities of the Saudi supplied ‘patsies’.
Like Oswald,Bin Laden is the one character least likely to have pulled any trigger in the conspiracy.
In any such disaster, there are clear protocols and procedures that HAVE to be followed. Why were they all thrown out the window in the aftermath of 911?
The forensic evidence that could have/ should have been collected from the WTC site was immediately destroyed. If not to cover up a crime then why?
Corbett’s latest on Mayor Guiliani’s decisions and lies:
Fire arson should have been investigated, according to standard Fire Department protocols.
But the idea that ALL the evidence is destroyed is wrong.
Evidence (dust, steel used for sculptures) still exists.
Importantly, primary video photographic evidence exists – showing the very rapid and thorough pulverization of three iconic Manhattan buildings.
Hello all,
I only discovered Offguardian about three months ago, and I have to say I think it’s amazing. But personally, I hope Offguardian veers away from the majority of 9/11 conspiracy theories, as I feel Offguardian is far too good to focus on them.
I’m a little surprised and disappointed by the all the vitriol directed at Phillip Roddis. And I’m also a little surprised and disappointed by the willingness of so many offguardianistas to attach any credence to the 9/11 conspiracy theories. Do governments conspire? – of course they do, (in fact there is probably one conspiring somewhere behind closed doors as we I write). Are governments capable of killing 3000 of their own citizens? – no question about it. Is the official version of 9/11 100pc honest? Probably not 100 per cent. Something seismic like this happens, heads roll, people dive for cover, there are scapegoats, so therefore the truth gets affected. But I still feel the official version is generally more credible than many of the ridiculous conspiracy theories proposed, theories that seem to vary greatly depending on who you talk to. And watching some truthers getting torn apart with logic for their insane beliefs from time to time is rather sad … Alex Jones, Dylan Avery, Jason Bermas, etc.
My own opinions of the 9/11 conspiracy theories would be very similar to those of Noam Chomsky – youtube them if you’re not familiar. I think 9/11 conspiracy theories are b*llsh!t for the most part, even a horrendous waste of time and energy. Like me, Chomsky is also not an expert on metallurgy, explosives, demolition, etc, and like me he probably hasn’t read the NIST report. But I don’t think it’s arrogant to employ a bit of logic, without being an expert, and come to generally the same conclusion of the NIST report that yes, two planes crashing into those towers full of fuel, causing a massive impact and inferno lasting an hour with 20 stories of weight above the impact zone … well, why wouldn’t that be enough to bring down a tower?! Rather than controlled explosives.
But what about building 7 I hear you cry. Well again, it seems to me that when you have two adjacent 110 stories buildings come crashing down a few minutes apart, well that’s an untold amount of kinetic energy confined to a small area, enough to cause all sorts of extreme damage and reactions from nearby buildings. To suggest that a few conspirators managed to somehow rig WTC 7 with explosives within hours without being spotted by the firemen present, (or maybe ye think 100s of firemen are also in on the conspiracy,) just seems daft. Or if Larry Silverstein wanted the building destroyed – well Silverstein is filthy rich, he doesn’t need to do radical things like destroy buildings to for some ulterior motive or other – surely it’s easier he just use his team of fat-cat lawyers to clean up any of his messes that need cleaning.
Just my thoughts. Andrew
Andrew, NIST itself conceded that the planes had NOTHING to do with the Twin Tower’s sudden explosive demolitions.
These demolitions occurred 60 to 90 minutes after the initial jet fuel had burned off (according to NIST itself).
Building 7 wasn’t even hit by a plane.
NIST says fire alone was responsible for rapid levelling of three high-rises through the path of greatest resistance.
If fire alone was able to take buildings straight down through their vertical axes in between 7 to 11 seconds each, demolition companies would be out of business.
Any punter could Just light a couple of fires on a small percentage of floors and wait for full pulverisation
an hour later.
NIST also were quite clear that the impact damage of the falling towers played ‘no significant part’ in the demise of WTC7.
The building 7 theory is an office fire theory; a unique event, caused by wholly new phenomena unseen in any other building fire or failure.
Chomsky is simply wrong and deeply evasive on this matter, as he has consistently been on the subject of JFK’s assaination for fifty years. Why? I do not know, but it is deeply troubling.
Here is a point-by-point take-down of Chomsky’s nonsense public comments on 9-11-
https://digwithin.net/2013/11/29/chomsky
The guy who wrote the above linked article worked for Underwriter’s Labs. Argues that Chomsky is deliberately lying/playing dumb about 9-11 because he cannot afford to lose face/lose status/possibly fired by going public and saying 9-11 official story is bogus. He’s got too much to lose.
One final comment on Chomsky: people on the left need to stop blindly following him. Just because ‘Chomsky says ______’ doesn’t mean he’s wrong or lying about something. More recently look at his ‘vote for Clinton’ article: he said Clinton is the ‘lesser of two evils’. But this is not a good argument as many writers have since rebutted. I think Chomsky is way past his prime. He’s an old man, perhaps his mind is finally going, or he’s just had enough of the limelight. Regardless of the reason for his nonsense arguments on 9-11and the 2016 prez election, people need to think for themselves and stop blindly going along with what Chomsky says because ‘Chomsky said so’. Bollocks to that, thank for yourself.
ooops: “think for yourself”. God, I fucked that one up 😀
Interesting to note how this poster along with Philip Roddis essentially takes the position that they are on the side of “logic” against “insane beliefs”.
I take it that they see identifying with the establishment view as equated with “logic”, as equated with a respectable, intelligent, clear headed outlook.
The fact that the establishment view is propagated into the mass psyche on a level that includes no real detail or analysis belies this belief. As both this poster and Phil state they really have no idea about the actual forensic details as espoused by NIST, let alone any of the qualified professional opinions elucidated by dissenting voices such as Architects and Engineers, Pilots for 9/11 Truth etc.
What they have swallowed and are regurgitating with language like “ridiculous” “bullshit” “stupid” “clinically paranoid” and so on is essentially the shallow veneer of the officially constructed story that sinks its hooks into the emotional level of the mind. No logic in sight. There is an obvious fear in the way they express the need to distance themselves from “conspiracy theories” with pejoratives and disdain, rather than engage unemotionally. Fear of the excrement they are flinging out and on from the establishment being flung back onto them. The shadow in one’s own psyche, wrapped in emotional pain, is in this way projected outward rather than being truthfully recognised, owned and worked with. Inversion in unawareness is easy, emotions become logic, and logic becomes lizards.
Indeed it is odd to consider oneself on the side of logic and then go about creating obvious straw-men, conflating completely disconnected concepts, basing argument on authority and probability, not to mention the ad-hominems and essential infantilising of the whole subject.
It is not necessary to know the real truth to have doubts about the veracity of a story presented to you. If you take time to entertain the mass of detailed, measured and, dare I say it, logical thought that has been applied by many to this subject, those whose voices have to be sought out rather than being spoon-fed passively through the mainstream, both Phillip and Andrew may find space behind and below their liminal emotional defences that start to ring with a clarity impossible within the tall tales we have all been told.
If indeed Silverstein was ‘stinking rich’, it contributes nothing to your argument. Do the people who amass untold wealth suddenly stop wanting it? “Ok, I’m worth $10 billion, now I’ll retire” isn’t something you would hear these people saying because they are obsessed and addicted to increasing their wealth. The reckless indifference to who they hurt whilst procuring their riches actually goes against the feeble response you gave to the writer of this article. Apart from that, it’s not just money that these psychopaths crave, it’s power.
Your confident rebuttal isn’t supported by any facts you could have provided. Including Chomsky in your alliance that believes in the US government version of events and using the very convenient Alex Jones as a stick to beat the conspiracy ‘loons’ with is a worn out tactic. It is professional suicide to question 9/11. Finally, if we are going to think logically, those three buildings looked surprisingly like demolitions i’ve seen on the television … The ones done by explosive experts.
Dutch demolition expert Danny Jowenko was shown a video of Tower 7 coming down, and immediately identified its destruction as “Controlled Demolition”, no question about it. He died some time later in a ‘mysterious’ car accident.
A materials scientist — or anyone who works with materials — would know that steel loses strength significantly as it gets heated up. This is why they coat steel structural supports in fire-resistant material. (An example: the Twin Towers were being slowly refurbished and the asbestos shielding on the columns replaced.)
Failing to know very basis facts like this is what leads to a progressive structural collapse in the ability to comprehend why large buildings can, and do, get laid low by fires.
Jerome, as you know, heat wicks away fast. Get a crackling fire burning all day in a steel stove and the steel won’t lose strength. Temperatures from jet fuel fires aren’t high enough to compromise steel columns uniformly across acre-wide floor spans.
Large steel buildings have never totally imploded, through the path of greatest resistance, due to fires before.
Why do you believe they bother fire-proofing supports if that is unnecessary? Are building designers wrong about that basic requirement?
Name one high rise steel frame building that has collapsed as the three WTC buildings did after fires. There have been several extremely large fires in buildings since 9/11. Just tell us how many have collapsed in a totally symmetric way.
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/compare/fires.html
Plenty of structures have collapsed due to fire alone, without having been structurally compromised by impact first. A good example would be this: http://www.nfpa.org/news-and-research/publications/nfpa-journal/2009/may-june-2009/features/out-of-the-ashes
It isn’t just buildings that can collapse, either: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/30/us/30collapse.html
The WTC towers did not collapse “symetrically”. Look at photos and video.
Hi Jerome.
I’m afraid those articles are weak.
The McCormick building which burned in 1960 was a fairly low-rise exhibition centre, badly built.
From Wiki “Many lessons were learned [from McCormick] and the city’s building code was amended”.
The WTC Twin Towers and Building 7 were heavily redundant and well built. No significant building codes have been changed since 2001, as Kevin Ryan points out in his article “Are Tall Buildings Safer As A Result of the NIST WTC Reports?
http://www.foreignpolicyjournal.com/2012/09/10/are-tall-buildings-safer-as-a-result-of-the-nist-wtc-reports/
A bridge (your second example) is very far from a quarter-mile-high steel structure dropping through the path of greatest resistance: that comparison doesn’t stand.
The building was built with structural support of steel columns, with fireproofing applied, and nevertheless failed completely due to fire.
The overpass was destroyed by a truck full of gasoline burning beneath it, probable failure attributed to heat-weakened bolts shearing off.
The first example shows how fire can and does destroy heavily built steel structures (quite easily), while the second shows that any steel-reinforced structure can be susceptible to a fire in a manner that isn’t anticipated. In neither case was a 767 with nearly full fuel tanks ploughed into the structures to damage them before starting the fire.
And speaking of “plenty,” you need to get in touch with NIST, eh:
Quote begins,
This is the first known instance where fire-induced local damage (i.e., buckling failure of Column 79; one of 82 columns in WTC 7) led to the collapse of an entire tall building. P.62.
Quote ends.
https://www.nist.gov/sites/default/files/documents/el/disasterstudies/wtc/WTC7RevisedTechnicalBriefing_111908.pdf
“Plenty of structures have collapsed due to fire alone.”
Well, if plenty of “structures” have collapsed due to fire alone, you are presumably generalizing the “plenty” to include a category of buildings we can agree to call ‘skyscrapers.’ Since according to you examples abound, can you provide us with a list of more than a ‘few’ ‘skyscrapers’ that have collapsed “due to fire alone,” excluding, of course, the examples of WTC 1, 2, & 7.
To give you the benefit of the doubt, I visited the site you gave a link for, and that building in Chicago that burnt in 1967, was still standing after the fire was extinguished. The interior was burnt out, but the building structure was intact.
‘Must try harder’.
@Jerome Fryer
Please. Don’t try to be cute.
“WTC Towers and WTC 7 [were] the only known cases of total structural collapse in high-rise buildings where fires played a significant role.” – NIST report
BBQ’s are made of steel, so you can cook on them without the fire even bending them. Wake up.
They’re usually make of steel and cast iron components, reach temperatures intended to cook food (and not cremate it), and if you’ve used one for a while you’ll be aware that even at those relatively low temperatures they suffer damage over time.
You need an Australian BBQ by the sound of it………
You need to try cooking at around 1000 degrees C, then let us know how that turns out.
Sorry ‘Fryer’………I thought I was dealing with someone who is intelligent………..
barbeques arent under thousands of tons of load stress from floors of buildings resting on them though are they?
Good catch, Eric. And thousands of tons of steel make for a pretty good ‘heat sink,’ too, eh.
A few questions no–one has yet answered:
Why has Larry Silverstein not been subject to extraordinary rendition, torture and other standard CIA operating procedures to get some truth out of him?
Why has no-one demonstrated the characteristics of thermite by bringing down the buildings which house JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs etc in a post-facto investigation of what thermite-led detonations do to steel-structured buildings?
Why did no-one threaten to kidnap Prince Bandar bin Sultan and hand him over to the most extreme Iranian terrorists unless he spilled the beans about the Saudi role in 9/11 and generally funding Wahhabi Islam and Islamic terrorists the world over?
When will a serious expose of Mossad complicity in false flag terrorist incidents the world over take place, most notably focussing on their role in 7/7?
When will a non-US equivalent to Guantanamo Bay be set up housing Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Larry Silverstein, John Bolton and a host of other neocon nutcases who represent a far greater threat to world security than a rag-tag bunch of Islamic spear-throwers could ever do?
Etc etc…..
Dear Phil the Shill,
When you can’t bedazzle them with brilliance, then always baffle them with Bullshit. It’s the Politically correct thing they secretly really want anyway.
For anyone interested in the technicalities of the destruction of WTC1, 2 & 7 and the scientific impossibility of the cause being anything other than controlled demolition, the best site is AE911Truth.org (Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth). The site has a handy free downloadable 4-page brochure that can be printed out on two sides of an A4 sheet. Their evidence is irrefutable. But I find that it’s often the little details that are most revealing – like the faked phone calls, the obvious cover ups and the planted evidence such as landing wheels that don’t match the type of plane alleged to have crashed into the towers and the unsigned ‘hijacker’ passport that is supposed to have miraculously flown out of the inferno and fluttered to the ground etc. (7/7 gave us more classic examples of faked or planted evidence in the photoshopped CCTV picture from Luton and the alleged finding of Khan’s ID in no less than four different locations). Any one of these ‘little details’ is enough to prove an inside job
Well said, Pained Scientist! Well, Phil?
No – vary that: Study some of the actually-relevant technical/scientific material; and get competent help where your loose, post-modern ‘grasp’ of reality means that you don’t immediately understand it.
Then – Well, Phil?
But please: until you actually know something relevant, do just stay quiet. It will help you to stop making such an utter fool of yourself; and on the widely-read Off-Guardian site, of all places.
The shortest and most brilliant answer to Philip Roddis is recommended here: „Recommendation: The Corbett Report! & Nine Eleven in Five Minutes!“ https://wipokuli.wordpress.com/2016/06/28/recommendation-the-corbett-report/
Andreas Schlüter
Sociologist
Berlin, Germany
Thanks, Pained.
As an architect I finished writing a similar comment on the Roddis (who he?) thread just minutes before reading your piece.
Frankly I have zero interest in reading his October “answer” (October, when attention has shifted away, please note, to at the very least the US elections) because no doubt it will be more of the same once he has been supplied with the non-“answers” that have been trotted out for years to simple physical facts.
I’m just sorry OffG chose to publish this particular piece of nonsense.
Actually I’m glad Off-G published it, because it is a very good starting point for this debate/discussion of what really happened on 9-11. Ideally you have the strongest cases for both the pro-official 9-11 Commission/NIST side and for the side which questions the official version put forward for the most informative and satisfying reading.
Speaking of basement dwelling retards:
Dr. NIELS HARRIT ~ “9/11 & The Seventh Tower” [Age Of Truth*TV]
Dr Harrit is always interesting to listen to, no matter which programme hosts him. One needs to listen to what he says and check out the facts for oneself, independent of who interviews him.
That aside, i don’t rate this “Age of Truth” TV itself – it does itself no favours with the woo music…
Well said cause the other article is all establishment hasbra . More mud to muddy the waters. One thing is for sure. General Clarke blew their whole scheme and stated the facts . CHANGE THE GOVERNMENTS OF SEVEN COUNTRIES. That is enough evidence to suggest that they planned the whole thing. Historical facts tell us as much. . Look at Iraq today, Somalia, Egypt, Libya and let us not forget Syria..
Look at the economic facts. We in the west have never seen such a gap in wages and earnings between the little guy and the one percent since the guilded age. So historical facts on their own tell us a lot if we the sheeple analyse these facts alone tell’s us its all rigged game for the one percent. Just like the Lusitania, Pearl Harbour,The Gulf of Tonkien, Weapons of Mass Destruction the iranian Nuclear Bomb, The North Koreans threat and Assad gassing his own people are all fabricated events to suit the one percent and nobody else. CUI BONO
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
Please cut the crap! Two planes crashing into the twin towers did not bring them down, nor did they begin a process that brought them down. That is impossible so what did bring them down? That is the question to answer, not why or who but what!
“Controlled Demolition”……..It was invented to demolish buildings, rather than go to the horrendously expensive cost of “Deconstructing” obsolete high rise. And in a confined space, it is absolutely necessary that the building be brought down into its own footprint…………….Just as happened on 9/11.
Maximum impact, minimum cost. Larry Silverstein made an absolute fortune from his insurance policy on 9/11.
Dear Pained Scientist
thanks for this. I clearly have much to respond to, and ask that you read the holding response I’m about to make as a (quite lengthy) comment to my own post.
I do need to properly engage with the evidence and counter evidence. To pick up on a couple of lesser points, I agree there are questions to answer, some too uncomfortable to elicit adequate answers from corrupt politicians. On something this big there always are cover ups. And your understanding of the official account, melting steel and a ‘progressive collapse’ is also mine. “Planes bought them down” was always meant, ill advisedly no doubt on my part, as knockabout shorthand.
Best, Philip
You take your lumps Phil, and that’s a rare thing enough. I tip my hat to you on that. It’ll be nice to talk more. But remember the official account doesn’t say “melting steel”., they say “softened”, and it’s a hugely important distinction both scientifically and politically. Molten steel is inadmissible. Just like the detonations heard by firefighters and police and the apparent presence of some kind of ignition compound, probably thermite i,n the WTC dust. Strange times.
Generous response, PainedScientist. Thanks. Daunted as I am by the prospect of sifting claim and counter claim on this, I see it as a win-win. Whether I emerge saying “sorry, I was wrong” – something I’ve had a little practise in! – or saying “I still don’t buy it”, I’m going to know a lot more, that’s for sure.
Yes, it is time-consuming to sift through claim and counter-claim. But that’s what the people you are criticizing have been doing for 15 years now. That’s why they know so much more than you do. I appreciate your willingness to engage here but one might have hoped that somebody throwing the word “pants” around in a smugly self-satisfied fashion might actually have bothered to do a tiny bit of the research beforehand.
Classy responses from both Pained Scientist and Philip Roddis. Through such exchanges is the search for truth enhanced.
Great response! Exactly my position. I don’t know the answer, but I do know the official explanation beggars belief.
This Pained Scientist is an idiot