Was 9/11 a controlled demolition?

[polyb]

This has been floating on the net for the last couple of days and it does prove to be intriguing. This will definitely be an affirmation for the conspiracy theorists out there because it is coming from a from a pretty interesting source.

Washington, DC, Jun. 13 (UPI) -- Insider notes from United Press International for June 8.

A former Bush team member during his first administration is now voicing serious doubts about the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9-11. Former chief economist for the Department of Labor during President George W. Bush's first term Morgan Reynolds comments that the official story about the collapse of the WTC is "bogus" and that it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7. Reynolds, who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas and is now professor emeritus at Texas A&M University said, "If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling." Reynolds commented from his Texas A&M office, "It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7. If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings."

http://washingtontimes.com/upi-breaking/20050613-102755-6408r.htm

It gets even better, here is the link to the Lew Rockwell post:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/reynolds/reynolds12.html

This article elaborates on his position.

Thoughts, speculations, anyone?

 

[Evo]

This makes absolutely no sense

More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an "inside job" and a government attack on America would be compelling. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right, "though heaven should fall." Unfortunately, getting it right in today’s "security state" demands daring because explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.

Attack by what government? Are they implying that the US government had airplanes fly into both WTC towers to cover up a planned implosion of both buildings? Or the terrorists just happened to fly airplanes into the buildings on the day the government planned to implode the buildings?

Even if the buildings were imploded (which from watching the videos of the towers and other intentional implosions, doesn't seem likely, I have never seen a building implode where the detonations were not clearly visible from the outside of the building) why would it implicate the government? Those weren't government buildings, thousands of people had free access to those buildings every day.

 

[Pengwuino]

Ah yes, more non-engineers (in this case, an economist) with conclusive proof that the building had to have been brought down by a controlled demolition!

Its not, "a credible source now believes the WTC was a conspiracy", its "a credible source how now fallen for the idea that the WTC was a conspiracy". This reminds me of when the AP picked up on a city trying to ban water and were also fooled.

And on a more engineering approach to the rhetoric... who on Earth thinks "Ok we just need to make sure the WTC collapses... let's put explosives on a mere 3 floors!". Of course, if they REALLY wanted to make a conspiracy out of it... why not do exactly what someone did the first time? A bomb at the base of the building... I mean itd be so much easier to topple the building with controlled explosions at the bottom then around the 80th floor.

 

[polyb]

Attack by what government? Are they implying that the US government had airplanes fly into both WTC towers to cover up a planned implosion of both buildings? Or the terrorists just happened to fly airplanes into the buildings on the day the government planned to implode the buildings?

That would seem to be one implication. Depending on who you listen to, there are many who seem to think that this was an "Operation Northwoods" type of event. Do you think that there could possibly be organizations that would instigate this for profit, power, etc.? Personally, I wouldn't put anything past anyone if the stakes were high enough.

There certainly some 'oddities' surrounding the whole event. For example, why did NORAD stand down that day? Who profited from shorting the airline stocks? What happened to that investigation? Why was most of the forensic evidence destroyed,i.e. apparently most of the steel from the wreckage was sent off for smelting shorlty after? How does JP-8 melt steel on a building designed to handle the impact of an airliner? Considering the story we were feed and what has transpired since, I have doubts about what happened. IMHO, this administration has no credibility and why should I believe what I was told about 9/11. Unfortunately I am in no position to thoroughly analyze the evidence and come to a conclusion that I would consider reliable and acceptable.

Ah yes, more non-engineers (in this case, an economist) with conclusive proof that the building had to have been brought down by a controlled demolition!

Well if engineers is what you want then here is a site that claims to be german engineers:

http://home.debitel.net/user/andreas.bunkahle/defaulte.htm

Not to say engineers are all knowing, hell I have seen quite a few screw up a lot of things!

He does propose an interesting conjecture on which is the more realistic and I think it does merit some inquiry. In light of the fact that this administration has no credibility and anything that they have said in the past does deserve to be scrutinized, I say so be it, let the debate and discourse ensue!

 

[Pengwuino]

That website has absolutely no credibility in my books. Its a home internet users website! If there was a real group of engineers who could actually come up with something like this, it would be on a real website and it woudlnt claim that a freaken US unmaned military aircraft took out the WTC.

Unfortunately, you seem to allow your bias to blind the necessary intellect requird to realize these people are nuts. Many websites (and threads in this forum for that matter) have the information that will hopefully make you realize the truth to this matter. But to hopefully make you realize that you have been fooled, let me ask you something. What exactly do you mean by "norad stood down" and what exactly does tha tmean to this? WHY is what NORAD is doing at all relavant? And remember, don't let your bias force you into ASSUMING anything means anything else (thats the basis for most conspiracies, your forced to assume something which makes u think ohhh, this is why this happened which means its the truth!)

And what in teh world is this?

If this is the rest of a Boeing the machine must have been smashed into little pieces of metal. For this a lot of energy is necessary. If it would have been a fight inside the cockpit there would have been larger metal parts visible after this

This quote is from a few very small pictures presented as proof "The bush administration is lieing to you". Look at the third line... look at it and tell me that this must be a scientifically derived website of complete credibility.

 

[Evo]

There certainly some 'oddities' surrounding the whole event. For example, why did NORAD stand down that day?

They didn't, that was already addressed in another conspiracy thread.

He does propose an interesting conjecture on which is the more realistic and I think it does merit some inquiry. In light of the fact that this administration has no credibility and anything that they have said in the past does deserve to be scrutinized, I say so be it, let the debate and discourse ensue!

I think this is a ridiculous waste of time and money. Exactly what groups trying to hurt the US would want. There just is no evidence to support any of this.

 

[polyb]

Why do you think I modified my statement with "claims to be german engineers"? I really do not not know if they are or not. Besides, who ever said engineers were born web gurus? Just because one has an engineering degree does not automatically make one a good web page designer!

Now let's get to your bias, OK. It is obvious that you are dead set against any of these conspiracy theories, which I definitively concur with you in terms of the skepticism that is due. But since skepticism is part of the game, then should we not also apply this to the 'official' story as well? In order to come to any conclusion that would that could be considered reliable and appropriate we have to apply the the same standards to all stories and claims.

Now for my bias, well I really do not have one either way because there is no way for me to determine what happened because I am in no position to do that. I am highly skeptical of the official story considering that the stories we were feed proved later to be false. I cite C.Rice where she had stated there was no way they could have known the attacks were going to happen. Yet later Clarke testifies before congress that they had sufficient warning that attacks were being planned. That is one reason why I think this administration has no credibility.

Now to address the 'stand-down' with NORAD. Here I'll refer you to WRH site and let you gander through his take on this whole thing:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/911stand.html

BTW, just a little FYI: Rivero, the site originator, claims to be a conservative republican who originally started this site when the Vince Foster case came up against Clinton. His take was that Foster was 'suicided'.

The details are pretty complicated and it really isn't as simple as NORAD stood down. My bad for any misrepresentation. It is interesting that NORAD/USAF was conducting some complicated drills on 9/11 and there was zero response to the highjackings. It gets more detailed and complicated from here though. Here is something to think about: Do you remember the Arnold Palmer flight incident? You know, his plane had decompressed and everyone aboard had died. Well if you remember the story, it did not take long for the USAF to scramble jets and check out what had happened after contact was lost. Point being is that there are protocols for these or any events. But that did not happen on 9/11?

Just to throw this odd part of the 9/11 story into the mix, did you hear about the five middle eastern men who were alleged to have been filming the event and dancing in the streets when it all happened?

As for complete crediblilty, it's a myth! I view all of these things with skepticism and in no way alluded to supporting or denying any claims, I was just posting here because I thought it was interesting that the author had some impressive credentials. Oh ya, you forgot to mention all of the author's credentials in your zeal, so here they are:


Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D., is professor emeritus at Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX. He served as chief economist for the US Department of Labor during 2001–2, George W. Bush's first term.

 

[polyb]

They didn't, that was already addressed in another conspiracy thread.

I missed that one! Gotta link?

I think this is a ridiculous waste of time and money. Exactly what groups trying to hurt the US would want. There just is no evidence to support any of this.

Perhaps the question of who stood to benefit, gain, and profit would be a good point of inquiry. BTW, that goes for any theory, be it al-queda, israel, the military-industrial-fast-food complex, or whomever. It isn't very pleasant to consider that anyone would instigate such atrocities in the name of profit, but look at history and you can see the same thing happening over and over again. So in a respect it wouldn't really be anything new. Hence why I said I thought if the stakes were high enough I would not put anything past anyone. It does certainly kind of diminish one's faith in humanity, but then again that may be healthy in some respects.

Interesting that you would waste your time with this thread, if you wanted to chat I could think of a million other things to discuss that would be much more pleasant than this stuff.

 

[Azimuth]

Perhaps the question of who stood to benefit, gain, and profit would be a good point of inquiry. :

i thought this thread was trying to point to the government not al-qaeda or anyone else who might try to 'benefit' from staging an attack. And why would the US murder her own citezens? what could possibly be gained by this? it was just for sport? ridiculous! oh but then they would have had to pay off like at the very VERY least, a few dozen ppl to say that their husbands, moms, whatev. died in a field after overpowering the terrorist who alledgedly invaded the plane... yes very sensible, and just to make sure no one suspected the government we immediatly put into affect the USA PATRIOT ACT, and paid a couple foriegn nationals to make threats and 'admit' they had planned this, not to mention that they of course filmed the footage we saw on tv on a model of the towers just to make all of us believe it was really a terrorist attack, then to top it all off they paid all of NYC to claim they saw these "attacks"...and none of these ppl ever siad anything...very reasonable i completely agree it HAD to have been the government

GET REAL! excuse the subtle sarcasm but this IS absurd

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=57420
Here is a thread where we went over various claims involving the WTC towers as well as a few other aspects. Oh.. and look... it appears you were the one who started that particular thread too... hmmm interesting.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/collapse.html
this was a good link I found that explains the collapse rather well.

 

[Pengwuino]

Hey poly, you'll have to excuse me and probably a lot of people on this forum. Its just that almost since day 1 (9/11/01), we've had to disprove conspiracies like this over and over and over be it in this forum, other forum, at work, school, at social events, etc etc and although many of us were quick to look into the evidence and everything and create well thought out responses and debunking efforts, its gotten to a point where we just don't care to give very reasonable responses anymore.

Anyhow, ill be nice because you didnt go off cussing at everyone for no responding like most people do lol. As for the website, if your a group of people and you have true compelling evidence for something that you seriously took time and most likely money to create a case for, you most likely have the $20 a month necessary to maintain a website that does not offer any downloadable stuff and the few hundred dollars ncessary to hire someone to make the website. If your truly a serious person and really care to get the "truth" out... this cost is a drop in the bucket (especially compared to what you probably paid in time and money to build your case).

Anyhow let's see here... ah yes, for one, they calculated flight speed going at sea level (yet what fighter flies at sea level? especially when your told to intercept a commercial jet in flight). The website also ironically ignored the fact that no interceptor aircraft were at AAFB at the time. You must also be foolish enough to assume that if an aircrafts transpoder goes off, NORAD (who wouldn't really be the first line of defense because local radars would pick it up first) instantly knows its a hijacked airplane doomed to hit a building. As we have found out through the years, NORAD was somewhat slow because people got lazy but this does not by any means conclude that they made it happen. I believe some experts say that on an average day, about a dozen aircraft have their transponder signals go out for a few seconds or a few dozen minutes and aircraft are scrambled about once a day (even before 9/11).

Also, the site thinks, ok, since htere was an operation specifically created to stop this kind of attack means that they should have been MORE prepared for it. In fact, if we look at how humans work, they would have been far less prepared for an actual attack if it happened those days (which it did). Think about the chain of command hearing there's an airplane that has gone off according to its transponder and your in a training exercise when something juuuuust like that might happen. Do you expect to carry out hte order at blazing speeds or are you going to have that "oh saw that coming, guess we should go do it" lazy, slow-witted response? Most peoples experiences iwth humans say the latter.

Sounds like your already completely convinced President Bush pushed the detonating plunger to blow up the towers however according to statutory so meh... doubt you could see the websites through clear, unbiased, scientific eyes.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Sounds like your already completely convinced President Bush pushed the detonating plunger to blow up the towers however according to statutory so meh... doubt you could see the websites through clear, unbiased, scientific eyes.

Just for the record I did not say that. I just posted a couple links. ;-p

 

[Pengwuino]

Dont deny it! ahhhh!

I think all these conspiracies are good for the government. If at anytime, any administration decides to pull some actual weird conspiracy, the onslaught of ignorant conspiracies in the last few years will make people think "oh pff, not agian... I am not even going to try to do a real investigation this time".

 

[chief]

Wow... are these theories still around? It's amazing what some people will convince themselves of if it makes for a better story or a fascinating mystery they can attempt to unravel.

I am a practicing structural engineer. I have an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, I also took 5 or 6 graduate level structural design courses, and I have plenty of experience in the structural design field. Trust me when I say there is no truth to these theories. All of my co-workers and colleagues agree. I could systematically go through and refute or explain away nearly every "point" Morgan Reynolds attempts to make, but I won’t waste time on that. It is glaringly obvious from his prose that he is not familiar with how a building is constructed, steel design, stress analysis, or load transfer. Maybe he can easily fool a semi educated lay person, but he isn’t fooling me. Hundreds of real experts conducted their independent detailed investigations (yes they did analyze the collapsed structural elements before they were recycled as well as the patterns of smoke leaving the building and all other evidence) and came to the same conclusion… http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_execsum.pdf (the original structural engineer) are among them. Yes, the ASCE Report was created in conjunction with FEMA, but ASCE is an independent organization made up of thousands of the most credible and ethical engineers we have. I was a member myself for many years and you could not convince me that they would be part of a cover-up.

Although the mode of collapse for the two buildings was slightly different due to the impact locations, the bottom line is this: Planes flew into the world trade center. The impact of the planes alone was not enough to cause collapse. The fire alone was probably not enough to cause collapse either. The most damaging thing was the explosion which blew the fireproofing off of the steel framing. (Fire proofing is typically sprayed on to steel framing to reach a certain thickness. This is to protect the steel which begins to lose strength as it heats up.) The problem was that although the fire proofing was fine for typical building fires (electrical fires, etc.) it was not blast resistant. The force of the explosion blew off all of the fireproofing in the surrounding areas. This left the steel defenseless against the flames which slowly heated it up and diminished its load carrying capacity. It has even been determined that the connection of the lightweight floor trusses probably failed first and separated from the exterior columns. This in turn caused the unbraced length of the column to grow. The taller the column becomes (between brace points.. i.e. the floors) the less load they can carry before they begin to buckle. Eventually the load became too much for the weakening steel and the floors above the impact point collapsed. This caused a chain reaction pancake collapse all the way to the ground. No bombs needed.

I enjoy researching a good conspiracy theory as much as the next guy but this one is dead… debunked. Show me just one credible structural engineer that believes this bomb theory. There aren’t any and there is a reason for that.


-chief

 

[Tarheel]

I have never seen a building implode where the detonations were not clearly visible from the outside of the building.

This is my 1st thought as well.
The demo charges are also sequenced from the ground up which would make it even more obvious.

What about the logistics of placing countless charges and wiring them all completely undetected. This is the most impossible part of the entire theory.
Portions of the building would need to be torn open to access structural members and place charges. There would be 100's of charges per floor and all of them wired together carefully.
A project like that takes months to complete (and that's without having to sneak around)

 

[Pengwuino]

This is the most impossible part of the entire theory.

But its George W. Bush! he can do annnnnnnnnnnnything!

As long as its evil

 

[quantumkevlar]

...
The most damaging thing was the explosion which blew the fireproofing off of the steel framing. ... The problem was that although the fire proofing was fine for typical building fires (electrical fires, etc.) it was not blast resistant. The force of the explosion blew off all of the fireproofing in the surrounding areas. This left the steel defenseless against the flames which slowly heated it up and diminished its load carrying capacity. \

...

The official NIST investigation into the collapse http://wtc.nist.gov/ is due to release its WTC Draft Report and Recommendations on June 23. This looks to have a lot of the results of the engineering simulation and analysis work done for the investigation. I read a preliminary draft a while back which seems to bear out your points.

The collapse of WTC7, on the other hand, is a bit more problematic. No aircraft impact , minor damage from WTC1 and 2 debris, and a significantly smaller fire. Therefore no explosive blowing off of fire proofing. Still, there was complete structural collapse. There seems to be a much stronger case for there having been unacknowledged mischief at WTC7 than at the other buildings. The 23 Jun NIST report will not address WTC7. The earlier draft I read did start to address it, but they never got very far in the investigation because of the emphasis being placed on WTC1 and 2. Their very tentative suggestions as to a possible cause of collapse were made without conviction.

quantumkevlar

 

[courageouslion]

Why Americans Refuse To Believe...

WHY AMERICANS REFUSE TO BELIEVE
THE 9/11 EVIDENCE...

An Analysis by TvNewsLIES.org - April - 2005

The attacks of 9/11 were so unthinkable that most Americans would refuse to believe the complicity of their own government, even if presented with a mountain of evidence.

Very simply, it is possible to escape blame if you do something that nobody in the world believes you could do.

tvnewslies.org/html/refusing_the_9_11_evidence.html

 

[chief]

The collapse of WTC7, on the other hand, is a bit more problematic. No aircraft impact , minor damage from WTC1 and 2 debris, and a significantly smaller fire. Therefore no explosive blowing off of fire proofing. Still, there was complete structural collapse. There seems to be a much stronger case for there having been unacknowledged mischief at WTC7 than at the other buildings. The 23 Jun NIST report will not address WTC7. The earlier draft I read did start to address it, but they never got very far in the investigation because of the emphasis being placed on WTC1 and 2. Their very tentative suggestions as to a possible cause of collapse were made without conviction.

quantumkevlar

Yes, the fire at WTC 7 may have been smaller than those in the twin towers, but I would still not classify as a “small” fire. (see picture below.)

A fire of this magnitude would be more than enough to bring down a steel framed building. WTC 7 didn't collapse until 5:20 pm which means the building burned in this manner for roughly nine hours. Fireproofing is rated in "hours" which is representative of how long it can protect the steel from the heat of a fire. I'm not familiar with the building code that was in effect in NY in the 1980s (when WTC 7 was built), but I would guess that it had no more than a 3 "hour" fire protection assembly. The building actually lasted much longer than this.

This fire was probably compounded by the fact that there were two full 6,000 fuel tanks (for an emergency power generator) on the fifth floor. These tanks were found damaged in the debris. The soil below the debris was tested and little evidence of the fuel was found (leading to the conclusion that it was probably burning before the building collapsed). There is also a good chance that the pump that powered the building’s sprinkler system was damaged by the falling debris of WTC 1 and 2 which interrupted the water supply. Here is a pretty good NIST presentation covering the details of the building 7 collapse.

There still isn’t one shred of evidence that any of the WTC buildings were brought down by explosives. As others have pointed out, it would have taken months to calculate and wire a building for that kind of controlled demolition. And it would have been impossible to do so without any of the thousands of workers in the buildings noticing.

I still haven’t seen any of these theories that put forth a reason why anyone would put bombs in these buildings. Why would the terrorists put bombs in a building that they are planning on flying planes into anyways? Why would the terrorists “waste time” on bombing WTC 7 when they have been working so long on elaborate plans to attack much larger targets (twin towers / pentagon / white house)? Why would the government secretly bring down WTC 7? It had already suffered un-repairable damage… Had it not collapsed, it would had to have been demolished eventually anyways. Why would the government rush to do it 9 hours after the attack? Call me a skeptic, but none of this even makes sense to me.


-chief

 

[chief]

WHY AMERICANS REFUSE TO BELIEVE
THE 9/11 EVIDENCE...

An Analysis by TvNewsLIES.org - April - 2005

The official government version of what happened loses so much credibility in the light of the available facts, films, testimony & chronicled history that it is almost impossible not to laugh in disbelief when we start to share what we know. The evidence that has been amassed is so persuasive as to rip the official version of 9/11 to shreds.

Could someone post a link to this incredible evidence please?

http://tvnewslies.org/ ---> Appears to be the work of a nutjob to me.


I'm not a Bush supporter or defending the government or anything of the sort. I am simply taking the available facts and drawing my own conclusions usinng my engineering knowledge. After a couple of google searches, I really find it astounding how many people seem to be convinced that this is a big conspiracy. Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.

 

[courageouslion]

Northwoods...

Well Chief, to me the nut jobs are the people who seriously believe that 19 Arabs following some guy living in a cave in Afghanistan took box cutters, trained and failed their flight tests, but were able to steal 4 airliners and guided them with BLue Angel precision into 3 high profile buildings in the US without any foreknowledge .

Chief, people like you are sad. I am still looking for the two nine foot diameter jet engines that managed to evaporate at the Pentagon. I am still trying to find evidence of ANY steel framed building collapsing because of a fire that took place.

And frankly Chief, the WTC leasor, Larry Silversteen ADMITTED on TV that the he and the fire chief had building seven "PULLED", a demoliton term.

I know, I know, your baal god government would NEVER pull crap like this!

Well, read the Northwoods document which was an OBVIOUS conspiracy by the Joint Chiefs of Staff back in the early 60's that only needed one more participant to make it real. Maybe that is why the killed Kennedy...because he refused to play ball.

Now go back to playing your video games and make sure your TV is in good working order so that your brain can be made into a sponge for the government propaganda you so readily accept as fact. I guess as long as that six pack is available everything is fine in the good ol' U.S.S.A. Isn't it cheif?

God, you people are hopeless. At least a few folks on this thread have brains that work...no, yours isn't one of them.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Very simply, it is possible to escape blame if you do something that nobody in the world believes you could do.

Wow... that's some rather convincing evidence there.



If you look around the internet you will find several sites with good information regarding all of the issues you have brought up. Or perhaps you could just go back to reading your comic books and make sure your hashpipe is in good working order so that your brain can be made into a sponge for the crackpot propaganda you so readily accept as fact. :-)

 

[GOD__AM]

I am still trying to find evidence of ANY steel framed building collapsing because of a fire that took place.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=U&star...tations/Historical_Collapse_Survey.pdf&e=9838

The paper above compares the collapse of 6 steel buildings as a result of fire from 1970 to 2002. Four of them were the wtc buildings obviously but there are two others one in 1970 and one in 1986 that had collapses due to fire.

So I guess your search is over, kind of hard to see though with your head up there.

 

[polyb]

Let us not digress into petty character assault, alright. That kind of subterfuge is useless.

The reason I posted this article and was intrigued by it was because of the source. We have one Morgan Reynolds, professor emeritus of Texas A&M University and former director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis. He was also the chief economist for the DOL during the first Bush term. Now for me, the question is begged to be asked: Why is this man putting this out? It would seem to me that he is risking not only his reputation but also possible retributions from people who do not like what he is saying. Pengwuino suggested that he had fallen for conspiracy theory nonsense, but I have to disagree, why say anything and risk reputation. It seems to me there are at least two possible reasons for him making this statement.

1) He really believes this and is acting out a sincere sense of what he thinks happened and his sense of justice. If this is the case then he would possibly risk his reputation for what he has published. Of course this is where penguiwno would say he is a sucker.

2) Since he is an economist he probably is familiar with what kind of market exists for books of this nature and is possibly looking to cash in on this market. If this is the case than we may see a publication of his about this topic coming around soon. My only doubt about this is it would seem that he probably has adequate pensions, retirements, and investments for his services at the institutions he worked. So the idea of this perhaps being a retirement bonus is a little flimsy, IMHO.

Though he is not a structural engineer, he does have a quite an impressive background and this raises my flag as to why he would bring these topics up for debate.

On another track, if we were to take an impartial approach to this subject then we would have to first forget about any 'conspiracy theory', which includes the official one. We would have to investigate everything with no prejudice and a willingness to follow the conclusion where they would take us. Unfortunately there are many impasses to deal with. For example: it would require many impartial experts from many fields; the fact that most of the forensics were destroyed before being investigated; there is also documentation that is not available for scrutiny, which may or may not be of use, because of 'national security'. This inquiry would also take many man hours to do and this is a major impedance. Because of these factors and more this would make any conclusion untenable through a discussion board. This is a major problem and is one reason why I say I cannot know what theory to be the most plausible.

Chief, though I respect your skepticism and accept your credentials, how sure can you be about those statements from these reports without going through the details yourself? This is important. Though I am nothing more than a physics guy(no phd yet), it seems that the details of the building structure, materials, etc. would be absolutely necessary to draw any conclusions. So here is a track of thought: On the case for WTC collapse, what would be necessary to do it? How hot and how long would a fire have to burn in order to weaken the support structures?
How about with and without the insulation? How much damaged would the planes have to impart in order to have the towers collapse? Also we could ask the question of 'if' it was a demolition, what kind of logistics would have to be worked out and could it be feasible? The details are very important and I for one do not really have that much expertise or time. I suspect that neither do you, but for the sake of argument let us speculate.

Anecdote: We had the Warren commission publicly state that a 'magic bullet' did all sorts of impossible things during the JFK assassination. They even had physicists 'prove' that it happened the way they stated. The documentation relevant to this case will not be open for scrutiny for quite some time. My question is this: Considering that an assassination of a president was pulled off and covered up quite effectively with the general public still being no wiser, who is to say that another atrocity could not be pulled off again? Except in this case a possible demolition made to look like a terrorist attack.

Perhaps more concisely to the point is this: What kind of holes can be punched into the 'official' story? If we are to play skeptically, then I say apply it to all stories regardless of the source. Perhaps then we may ascertain the truth behind the event. I for one have sufficient reason to doubt the official story as well as many of the competing stories out there. Unfortunately this leaves me unable to conclude much.

 

[Pengwuino]

Polyb, what you must realize is that since he has no background in such things, he is essentially as credible as a 3 year old. It's like a structural engineer commenting on the latest IMF decision regarding debt relief. No matter how much the guy knows about structural engineering, one cannot assume he knows anything about economics. This obviously works the other way around and explains why we are not convinced by this guy. His credentials are great and I'd give him my life savings to invest in the stock market, but I wouldn't let him build a tree house for me.

There have been numberous independant investigations apart from the government that shows the conspiracy theories to be untrue and deceitful. This man may have brought it up as some sort of revenge. Maybe he had something bad happen during his term in the administration and wanted to get revenge? We're all human and anyone could imagine doing things like that themselves.

As for your anecdote, some computer models have been made that replicate absolutely everything from the JFK assassination and showed that the assassination may have been the real deal. You also seem to show a bias against the government. You effectively did this. You saw a report that you didnt believe and immediately said the government was behind the assassination. 1) Just because you don't believe it doesn't mean its absolutely false and 2) Just because an investigation does not come out in a convincing manner does not mean there were some sort of conspiracy. You MUST provide a real source, a motive, methods, and everything else that would 100% explain the events. In order to be taken seriously, one must develope a theory that explains exactly what happened. Thats why say, the Pentagon conspiracies are very stupid. People will tell you "this is conclusive proof that a small luxury jet hit the pentagon" and then on the same page tell you "this is conclusive proof there was a truck bomb" and then later, an A3 fighter jet is the culprit.

If someone is to take the giant step to say someone lied and is responsible for something, they better have conclusive proof

 

[chief]

Well Chief, to me the nut jobs are the people who seriously believe that 19 Arabs following some guy living in a cave in Afghanistan took box cutters, trained and failed their flight tests, but were able to steal 4 airliners and guided them with BLue Angel precision into 3 high profile buildings in the US without any foreknowledge .

It doesn’t take Blue Angel precision to hit a 110 story building that is a block wide.

Chief, people like you are sad. I am still looking for the two nine foot diameter jet engines that managed to evaporate at the Pentagon. I am still trying to find evidence of ANY steel framed building collapsing because of a fire that took place.

I don’t understand how you think I am “sad” because I won’t buy into your theory. I gave these theories a fair chance when they first surfaced a few years ago. I read most of the websites and even watched the movie 911-In Plane Site. They just don’t hold up. As for the Pentagon, it was constructed out of thick and highly reinforced concrete walls (2 of them at the perimeter). When you fly a plane loaded with fuel at 300+ mph into this, there isn’t going to be much left. Here are a couple of pictures showing engine parts that you requested though.

http://www.biggerconversation.org.uk/images/picture/911_pentagon.jpg
http://69.57.144.30/ats/pentagon757/planeparts-1.jpg

Snopes Article

Just curious courageouslion… If you don’t think it was a plane that hit the Pentagon, what do you think it was? And what do you think happened to the plane and all the people that were on it?

And frankly Chief, the WTC leasor, Larry Silversteen ADMITTED on TV that the he and the fire chief had building seven "PULLED", a demoliton term.

Here is a quote of exactly what he said.

"I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were going to be able to contain the fire, and I said, 'We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.' And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse."

I take this to mean that they were no longer going to waste effort and risk lives by trying to combat this fire, not that they are going to demolish it. The building had already been damaged beyond repair. Why would they rush into demolish it? They could have waited a day or two until things died down and it would have been much easier and safer. Do you think they just ran back to the firehouse, picked up some plastic explosives, and sent people into a burning building to wire it up and bring it down? Why would they do that? And how could they do that undetected with so many video cameras in the area? Even if this was true, would it really matter? The building was damaged beyond repair and there was no one left inside anyways.

Chief, though I respect your skepticism and accept your credentials, how sure can you be about those statements from these reports without going through the details yourself? This is important. Though I am nothing more than a physics guy(no phd yet), it seems that the details of the building structure, materials, etc. would be absolutely necessary to draw any conclusions. So here is a track of thought: On the case for WTC collapse, what would be necessary to do it? How hot and how long would a fire have to burn in order to weaken the support structures?
How about with and without the insulation? How much damaged would the planes have to impart in order to have the towers collapse? Also we could ask the question of 'if' it was a demolition, what kind of logistics would have to be worked out and could it be feasible? The details are very important and I for one do not really have that much expertise or time. I suspect that neither do you, but for the sake of argument let us speculate.

polyb, it is possible to draw general conclusions only knowing the basic characteristics of the buildings (i.e. steel frame, lightweight concrete composite slabs, pre-stressed concrete framing, pan joists, etc.). Knowing what I do about the construction of the WTC plaza and the Pentagon, I feel I have enough to come to the conclusion of what (in general) caused the collapse. The specifics (i.e. column sizes and spacing, joist sizes, connection details, etc.) are not necessary. Of course many investigations have considered all of this information and a significant amount of time was spent calculating exact failure mode of each building. As I have said, I have reviewed these reports and conclusions and can find no reason to doubt them. The questions you pose about the “amount” of fire that the structures could take are difficult to answer without the specifics. For this, the details of the fireproofing assembly would have to be known. As I estimated above though, it was probably not rated for more than 3 hours of fire.

When wild claims such as these are made, the burden of proof lies on the shoulders those making the claims. Yet, these conspiracy theorists haven’t offered up the first piece of credible information that verifies their story. All I see are wild assumptions (by people who don’t understand structural mechanics no less), false claims of absent plane parts at the scenes of the attacks, and people twisting the words of interviewees. I would still like to know if there are any structural engineers that have bought into these conspiracies? I doubt it.


-chief


EDIT: typos

 

[mapper]

The guy that got fired from his job a week prior that worked at the wtc may be resposible for the collapse and 'Explosions'. Got pissed and went Timothy McVeigh on their asses.

 

[Pengwuino]

Well Chief, to me the nut jobs are the people who seriously believe that 19 Arabs following some guy living in a cave in Afghanistan took box cutters, trained and failed their flight tests, but were able to steal 4 airliners and guided them with BLue Angel precision into 3 high profile buildings in the US without any foreknowledge .

Who needs to pass a flight test when you don't plan on landing :) And how exactly is that blue angel precision? Where did you get that from or did you just make it up? The blue angels can do loops in formation 6 inches away from each other... THATS blue angel precision. Sending a passenger airline into a block wide building is NOT exactly precision. If it is precision... then basically every landing every commerical jet in history has ever made has been "with blue angel precision".

Chief, people like you are sad. I am still looking for the two nine foot diameter jet engines that managed to evaporate at the Pentagon. I am still trying to find evidence of ANY steel framed building collapsing because of a fire that took place.

I have seen the pathetic excuses for "other steel framed buildings that didnt collapse". One great example i saw were 2 high rises on fire that a conspiracy website goes "see, this is proof". Well, I am no structural engineer, but if there's a fire on the top few floors (as evident in the pictures)... i really don't think anything is going to be giving out anytime soon. And go look around, there are pieces of the jet in many pictures (however I am sure you'll go with the idea that "oh the government planted it there!")

Now go back to playing your video games and make sure your TV is in good working order so that your brain can be made into a sponge for the conspiracy propaganda you so readily accept as fact. I guess as long as that six pack is available everything is fine in the good ol' U.S.A. Isn't it cheif?

God, you people are hopeless. At least a lot of folks on this thread have brains that work...no, yours isn't one of them.

 

[NewScientist]

Hey guys - don't bite my head off because this is a genuine question.

I have seen flats (apartments) being imploded and to the 'casual' eye I could see that the implosion was triggered. However, on 9/11 with the histeria/dust/noise I doubt it would be so easy to see a planned implosion. Now, I have seen about 15 demolisions of large buildings (not of WTC size but 20-30 floors), and the limited footage I have seen of 9/11 shows the building folding in on the central core and collapsing inside it and then of course expelling dust, It was reminiscent of the implosions I had seen (I have said I have only seen limited footage so once again please correct me if I saw some bad camera work!),

On the other hand - the US government destroying a builfing for their own gain just doesn't wash with me. If they needed a reason to invade somebody or increase security they need only point to the terrorists they had supplied with weapons years before.

Therefore, I was thinking, what if a terrorist group had placed explosives in WTC - like in the previous attack that were to trigger (or be triggered) along with a plane flying into the building. This idea I find interesting (perhaps not true - but intruiging) as the visual appeal to the terrorist of seeing plans (symbols of the Modern West and also freedom) bringing down another symbol of America has far more impact than an implosion. Also, the skill and amount of demolition equipment to bring down a building of WTC size would be hard to smuggle in I woudl guess - so a combined attack would provide sufficient structural weakness and force to create collapse.

any thoughts? and please don't hurt me - i was just musing on it!

-NewScientist

 

[bross7]

You are being naive if you think any government is above doing something harmful to the a specific area of the population for the benefit of plans. It happens all the time, so I don't know why people get upset if the US government is accussed of this.

I haven't seen enough evidence that could honestly make me say that there is a conspiracy with the actual events...however I do have my doubts about the lack of knowledge of the event going to take place. There is a major paper trail leading to 9/11 as far back as the first bombing in 93'. Also the fact that there are so many holes in the 9/11 commission makes me wonder (and this isn't just spewing off Michael Moore...who is just as stupid).

 

[russ_watters]

I have seen flats (apartments) being imploded and to the 'casual' eye I could see that the implosion was triggered. However, on 9/11 with the histeria/dust/noise I doubt it would be so easy to see a planned implosion. Now, I have seen about 15 demolisions of large buildings (not of WTC size but 20-30 floors), and the limited footage I have seen of 9/11 shows the building folding in on the central core and collapsing inside it and then of course expelling dust, It was reminiscent of the implosions I had seen (I have said I have only seen limited footage so once again please correct me if I saw some bad camera work!)...

Well, there is a key difference between the way the towers fell and the way imploded buildings fall. From the videos it is plainly obvious that the buildings fell top down, starting at the site of the crash. Imploded buildings fall bottom up. That also means that dust wouldn't be a factor: there was no dust for the first 500 feet or so, so any implosion starting at ground level would have been obvious.

Quite frankly, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are some of the most absurd around. The reason is that while most conspiracy theories start with thin evidence and an imagination, the 9/11 conspiracy theories require fabricating or ignoring evidence and an imagination. I don't know how many times I've heard 'but there was no airplane debris at the Pentagon...' Uh - yeah, there's only no airplane debris if you choose not to look at all the pictures of airplane debris.

 

[NewScientist]

Hey russ - not trying to argue wit hyou but I've seen the videos from 9/11 and people diving into shops to avoid the dust that was flying down the street at ground level - so there was dust!

 

[russ_watters]

Hey russ - not trying to argue wit hyou but I've seen the videos from 9/11 and people diving into shops to avoid the dust that was flying down the street at ground level - so there was dust!

Well sure - the dust started at 500+ feet up and came down with the building as it fell. If the building had been imploded, the dust would have started billowing out at ground level first.

 

[Pengwuino]

Therefore, I was thinking, what if a terrorist group had placed explosives in WTC - like in the previous attack that were to trigger (or be triggered) along with a plane flying into the building. This idea I find interesting (perhaps not true - but intruiging) as the visual appeal to the terrorist of seeing plans (symbols of the Modern West and also freedom) bringing down another symbol of America has far more impact than an implosion. Also, the skill and amount of demolition equipment to bring down a building of WTC size would be hard to smuggle in I woudl guess - so a combined attack would provide sufficient structural weakness and force to create collapse.

Like you said, the amount of equipment to be smuggled in woudl be a huge amount and itd be impossible to hide. To effectively collapse steel, i believe you need shaped charges that i believe use a very high energy explosive that slashes through the steel... and i think you have to drill into place it but I am not sure at all. But yah, you need waaaaay too much equipment and way too many people have to be fooled in such an obvious manner. One way you could have actually done it however is put bombs on the plane! However... no indication of that plus it doesn't mean the government did it.

Also, the idea that the commotion and ruckus going on would make us unable to view the towers in a good enough manner is not correct. We can remove ourselves from the day and watch hte videos months or years later without the ruckus and commotion and scientifically and in detail, look at the videos and watch the towers for anything weird or suspicious.

 

[quantumkevlar]

Like you said, the amount of equipment to be smuggled in woudl be a huge amount and itd be impossible to hide.

Let me start off by saying that I attribute very low confidence to the probability that the collapse of the towers (or WTC 7 for that matter) was due to anything other than those factors described in the conventional, official NIST explanation.

There are, however, two elements here I'd like to discuss: (1) the amount (and type) of equipment and (2) the placement. At the risk of further fueling conspiracy theories, I would offer up for your collective consideration (before I shoot it down later in this post) the hypothesis that thermite packs, rather than high brissance explosive cutting charges, could have been used to precipitate the collapse by materially further weakening the core columns.

Some technical details regarding thermite (it burns at >2500 deg C and requires no external source of oxygen) and one theory of how it may have been used can be seen at:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/thermite.htm

The following remarks draw on NIST's intermin report Project 6 – Structural Fire Response and Collapse Analysis, dated October 19, 2004 (P6StructFireResp&Collapse3.pdf), which is available at their website (couldn't connect to it just now, but that's where I got it from a while back). (Page references below refer to pages numbers in the pdf file):

http://wtc.nist.gov/

One (of several) major problem with their scenario is that while they postulate placement of the thermite at, essentially, ground level, the collapse does seems to have had its initiating event at the upper stories. So I would amend their scenario by having the thermite packs placed on the central core columns just below the floors where the perimeter column buckling was observed shortly before initiation of the collapse (see p. 9 Inward Bowing of Perimeter Columns Some Minutes Prior to Collapse: WTC 1 South Face Minutes Prior to Collapse: WTC 1 South Face and p. 10 Inward Bowing of Perimeter Columns Some Minutes Prior to Collapse: WTC 2 East Face ).

If the idea was to "help things along" by taking additional measures to ensure a total collapse while avoiding any telltale indications of events outside the "official" plane crash -> building damage -> fuel fire -> building combustibles fire -> structural weaking past collapse threshold -> collapse scenario, then using themite could conceivably fill the bill. No evidence of unexplained explosions; smoke from the thermite reaction masked over by ongoing building combustibles fire; residual indications of molten steel (see whatreallyhappened.com article) explainable by the conversion of the considerable potential energy of the intact towers into heat during the collapse; no embarassing PETN, etc. explosive residue to explain. All observables would be consistent with the "official" scenario and would pass the smell test of knowledgeable observers, like Chief (see his previous posts above - to which I would add my observation that, "If Momma ain't happy, ain't *nobody* happy!).

Under my scenario, the "official" scenario would be "true", at least in terms of the collapse event sequence. It would exploit the relative uncertainties inherent in the the engineering analysis (e.g., estimates of damage due to aircraft impact ranging from "realistic" to "more severe" on p. 23 - Aircraft Impact Damage to WTC 1 and on p. 24 - Aircraft Impact Damage to WTC 2; and also estimates of temperatures reached during the office combusibles fire ranging from "realistic" to "more severe" pp. 45, 47, and 49) to provide cover for the effects of the thermite reaction.

So how many thermite packs would have been necessary in this scenario? If we make an estimate based on only having to melt core columns that either were not severed or did not sustain moderate or heavy damage, then, for WTC 1 (see p. 23), 34 packs (for the "realistic" aircraft induced damage estimate) or 30 packs (for the "more severe" estimate) would have been required (assuming 1 thermite pack per core column). For WTC 2 (see p. 24), the numbers would be 37 ("realistic") or 32 ("more severe").

So for both towers, using this estimation methodology, they would have "needed" between 60 and 74 packs. If they were planning it in advance, they might want to be able to take out all the columns on both towers, so they would have needed 94.

That would be to melt the columns in one place. In order to increase their confidence of effecting a total collapse, they might have decided to melt each column in 2 places (at least one floor apart), so that the total weight of the higher stories could get a good running start on things by ensuring that the initial drop was at least several 10's of feet. This would then indicate, for a high confidence attack, 2x94 or 188 packs.

My estimate, then, would be between 60 and 188 packs. They would have either (1) pre-positioned the packs somewhere below the floor level where they expected the aircraft to impact (and then actually deployed them once the aircraft had impacted) or (2) had them already in place on the columns at the floors they anticipated the aircraft impact to occur. I would rule out (2) because it really strains credibility (which has already been stretched to past homeopathic thinness at this point anyway) to claim that they would make the success of this operation contingent on the pilots being able to hit a specific floor (+/- a few). Hit a building a block wide, yes; but a particular floor? - no. The rest of the plan had kind of an elegant simplicity, which helped ensure its success, and I don't believe any operational planner (whether one of "theirs" or "ours") would risk the success of his enterprise on such a high precision manuever.

(I discount completely the possiblity of having a team large enough to carry 60-188 packs up 90 stories of stairs after the aircraft impacts.)

Using a pre-positioned stash (1) is only a little more credible. They would still have had to count on the pilots getting pretty close to the right floor, count on being able to cover their deployment operations using the confusion ensuing after the aircraft impact, and dealing with a raging fire on floors immediately above them. Oh, and committing near-certain suicide in the process - not one of the more distinguishing characteristics of your average, good-ol-American spook. That would leave having to have a fairly large team of crazed Middle-Easterners hanging around the water cooler that morning. Believe me, I notice it when that kind of thing happens at my office.

So, while the thermite scenario may answer some of the more technical difficulties of the non-mainstream scenarios, unresolved operational problems remain. There are potentially a number of "technically" plausible scenarios which could more or less fit the observed facts, but I haven't seen one yet that successfully challenges the conventional explanation when you consider all aspects of the problem.

quantumkevlar