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911 Mysteries
AND Facts
The
9-11Research
Companion to
911 Mysteries - Demolitions
by Jim Hoffman
A detailed point-by-point critique of the film
using an illustrated transcript
The film has also spawned its share of detractors, such as the
anonymous makers of the video
Screw 9/11 Mysteries.
A survey of reviews of the film shows
a striking tendency towards polarization into two camps:
one side showering the video with unqualified praise
and the other attacking it as the work of delusional conspiracy theorists.
This critique avoids consigning itself to the first camp
despite the fact that 9-11 Research
supports the central conclusion of the video:
that the three WTC skyscrapers were felled by controlled demolitions.
This is because we think it is vitally important to provide
constructive criticism of the video, criticism that:
Amplifies and supplements strong points with references
Clarifies ambiguous and incomplete points
Flags unsupported and erroneous points
This critique is a work in progress and is missing the final
section contained in the DVD: PROLOGUE.
That section addresses some of the criticisms in this critique.
This critique is not a substitute for the video itself,
a DVD of which can be ordered at
911WeKnow.com.
Brad:
"My name is Brad and I'm a conservative Republican.
Last summer I happened to come across a video on the Internet
about the World Trade Center demolition on September 11th.
As a kind of "demolition hobbyist,"
I downloaded it and watched it.
The title was "Painful Deceptions,"
by a guy called Eric Hufschmid.
The video made me very angry.
I was determined to prove the maker of the video wrong.
I purchased videos about 9/11 from CBS and PBS Nova,
including one made by the Naudet brothers.
These were considered the "official videos."
After watching them carefully,
and after researching thousands of websites and archives on the Internet --
literally not sleeping for an entire week --
I realized that [the] official story,
not Eric Hufschmid's "Painful Deceptions,"
was unprovable, unsubstantiated, absolutely wrong.
What you are about to see is information you should already know.
Our news reporters,
government and media should have made all this material available
to every one of us.
Ask yourself why you've never seen it."
That Brad had to research thousands of websites and archives
doesn't speak well for the persuasiveness of the material.
Indeed there are so many
false claims
promoted as 9/11 truth,
it's not easy to find a credible and concise case that
the attack was an inside job.
For such a summary Brad could have read the 9-11 Research
Top Anomalies page.
That 911 Mysteries'
opening passage highlights Eric Hufschmid
provides an easy target for the film's detractors:
Hufschmid is a self-described
Holocaust denier
whose unsupported accusations that most researchers of the attack
are part of the "Zionist criminal network"
allow him and his supporters to be dismissed as lunatics.
THE MYTH
0:01:54
On September 11th,
we learned that four passenger planes were hijacked and taken
radically off course.
Within an hour,
two of the planes had flown into the enormous steel
towers of the World Trade Center, creating fires and eventually toppling them.
Some media outlets, such as the New York Times,
reported that the Twin Towers had been "toppled".
This is description is blatantly false,
as each Tower exploded from near the top downward.
0:02:20
Dazed by the news,
the American public soon believed the fires in the towers had
burned so hot they caused the steel frames of the buildings to give way.
0:02:38
A myth developed,
fed by official sources through the media to a bewildered audience.
Elements of the myth: the impact of the airplanes,
gallons of burning jet fuel, steel melting,
the buildings failing and suddenly imploding.
In a mere 10 seconds, 110 stories hurtled earthward -- pulverizing into dust.
Critics of 911 Mysteries
have flagged this as an error, pointing out that the official story
blames collapses on the softening -- not melting -- of steel.
However, in the days following the attack,
the mainstream media featured
numerous experts
proclaiming that the fires had melted structural steel.
0:03:12
Eyewitnesses on street: "...we ran to the window..."
0:03:14
Right from the start, on the street itself, the official story was born:
0:03:19
Eyewitness on street:
"...come out of nowhere and just reamed right into the side of the
Twin Tower, exploding through the other side,
and then I witnessed both towers collapse
-- one first and then the second --
mostly due to structural failure because the fire was just too intense."
This is a particularly vivid example of someone on the spot
confidently proclaiming that he knows exactly why the Tower came down,
while almost everyone else is in a state of shock.
Is this man really just a bystander,
or is his purpose to seed the official story?
Contrast his pat explanation
to the failure of agencies such as NIST
to produce a plausible explanation of the collapse theory
with 20 million dollars and three years at their disposal.
0:03:35
The myth bled into the FEMA report ... and was echoed by the experts.
Text: "While it was impossible for the fuel-rich,
diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel,
its quick ignition and intense heat caused the steel to lose at least
half its strength and to deform, causing buckling or crippling.
This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall,
while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below,
initiating a domino collapse."
0:03:55
John Skilling and Les E. Robertson were the structural engineers
who designed the streamlined steel frames of the Twin Towers in the 1960s.
Because a wayward army bomber flew into the Empire State Building in 1945,
the towers were built with skyscraper crashes in mind.
Leslie Robertson is often represented as the lead engineer
in the engineering firm that designed the Twin Towers:
Worthington, Skilling, Helle and Jackson.
Robertson has become an apologist for the official story,
while the actual lead architect, John Skilling,
is not alive to defend his buildings, having died in 1998.
0:04:19
Les E. Robertson: "The airplane we were envisioning was the largest airplane
of its time, flying slowly and low, lost in the fog.
We designed the buildings to take the impact of the Boeing 707,
hitting the building at any location."
0:04:36
Official Story narrator:
"But the aircraft that hit the towers was a Boeing 767,
heavier than a 707, fueled for a transcontinental flight and traveling fast."
0:04:48
707s and 767s are comparable.
The maximum take-off weight of a fully loaded 707 is almost 334,000 pounds.
As airplanes only carry the fuel load they need,
the smaller-model 767s that struck the towers were not,
in actuality, maximally fueled OR close to their maximum take-off weight.
Even FEMA's report
admits that this is true,
but the opposite is often implied by defenders of the official story:
that the 767s were "jumbo-jets" far larger than the
jets whose crashes the designers had anticipated.
A 1964 white paper from Robertson's firm belies his claim that the Towers
were only designed for a plane flying slowly,
stating that their study had shown the buildings were
"found to be safe in an assumed collision with a large jet airliner
(Boeing 707—DC 8) traveling at 600 miles per hour."
0:05:13
As for the heat of the fires,
listen to the radio communications of these New York City firemen:
0:05:20
Firefighter: "Ladder One-Five, we've got two isolated pockets of fire.
We should be able to knock it down with two lines.
Radio that, 78th floor -- we've got two isolated pockets of fire..."
Text: Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire.
We should be able to knock it down with two lines.
Radio that, 78th floor... Two isolated pockets of fire.
0:05:32
Isolated pockets of fire.
"Two water lines" to knock them down.
FEMA's Executive Summary relays that much of the fuel in the planes
(jet-grade kerosene)
was consumed by the initial fireballs and the following few minutes of fire.
0:05:51
It then tells us that the burning jet fuel spread between floors
and ignited the buildings' contents, causing more fire and generating heat.
This was somehow enough to bring down the towers' 47-column steel core,
236 exterior columns and thousands of steel trusses all at the same time.
0:06:15
Watch the towers smoking in the aftermath of the plane strikes.
0:06:20
If you have ever tried to light a wood fire,
you will know that smoking logs tell you the fire is NOT burning successfully.
Smoke is the sign of an oxygen-starved fire.
The Twin Towers stood for over an hour, smouldering[sic] but not flaming.
During that time, thousands of people were evacuated by way of the stairwells.
This description over-simplifies the
situation.
Whereas fires in the South Tower appeared to dwindle over time,
those in the North Tower appeared to spread,
being far more extensive
after the fall of the South Tower,
with extensive regions of visible flames.
0:06:43
Others, trapped by debris,
stood in the smoke-filled windows and signaled for help.
0:06:51
In fact, the towers did what they were built to do.
0:06:55
Frank A. De Martini: "The building was designed to have
a fully loaded 707 crash into it -- that was the largest plane at the time.
I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple
impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on
your screen door -- this intense grid --
and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting --
it really does nothing to the screen netting."
The towers were built to withstand 140-mile-an-hour gusts
produced by winter storms.
Anyone in them on a windy day could feel them swaying.
The single impact of a jetliner
was no more of a blow than the continued battering of a hurricane.
Well, not exactly.
The jetliner impacts obviously caused a great deal of structural damage,
severing about 10-15 percent of each Tower's columns --
something a hurricane wouldn't do.
0:07:58
Eyewitness: "I was just putting my stuff away and
all of the sudden we heard a loud crash --
and the building started shaking, kind of moving like a wave..."
0:08:05
New Yorkers were stunned, one hour later, when the first tower fell.
0:08:13
Les E. Robertson: "To the best of my knowledge,
the considerations of the fuel in the airplane --
in terms of an explosion or a great fire -- was not considered.
Now ... we were not responsible for that aspect of the design..."
0:08:27
Imagine – building expressly for airplane impact,
but never thinking of the fuel.
As
Kevin Ryan points out,
there is an abundant documentation that
the WTC designers did consider the effect of fires,
including from lead engineer John Skilling.
STEEL BUILDINGS
0:08:41
Never before in the history of the world
has a steel building collapsed due to fire.
0:08:50
Jonathan R. Barnett, Ph.D.:
"I have not seen until recently a protected steel structure
that has collapsed in a fire."
9/11 Mysteries' assertion that fire has never caused
the collapse of a steel building is almost certainly false.
Barnett's statement is restricted to "[fire]-protected" steel structures.
It does appear to be true that no steel-framed high-rise building
has ever collapsed due to fire,
whether or not the building was fire-protected.
0:08:54
True infernos have raged hot and long in steel-framed buildings,
but not one of the buildings ever came down.
0:09:07
In 1975, the World Trade Center's North Tower suffered a nighttime
fire that flamed for three hours, spreading vertically from floor to floor.
It burned twice as long as the fires of 9/11,
without even a hint of a building collapse.
The
1975 fire
was indeed much longer-lasting than the 9/11/01 fires,
but, of course, it didn't involve structural damage from aircraft collisions.
0:09:20
In February 2005, the Windsor Tower in Madrid,
a skyscraper undergoing reconstruction, sustained a 20-hour fire.
This is what was left -- a standing building
strong enough to support a crane.
The Windsor fire isn't the best example for comparison
because, unlike the 100% steel-framed Twin Towers,
the Windsor building was framed partly with steel-reinforced concrete.
However, there are several other examples of
long-lasting fires in steel-framed skyscrapers
much more similar to the World Trade Center skyscrapers.
Parts of the Windsor building did collapse, but did so
gradually over several hours,
rather than precipitously like the WTC skyscrapers.
0:09:40
Compare a 20-hour inferno to 90 minutes of smoke.
Significant areas of flame were visible for extended periods of time
in at least the North Tower.
911 Mysteries weakens its case by failing to accurately
describe the extent of fires on 9/11/01, and failing to note the
differences between the severity of the fires
in the North and South Towers.
0:09:52
Why are buildings made of steel? Strong,
light and flexible, steel frames offer many advantages over wood and concrete,
especially where skyscrapers are concerned.
Steel makes big buildings relatively light,
with tremendous load-bearing capacity.
The upper floors won't crush the floors beneath them,
and steel holds up better to weather and fire.
WTC DESIGN AND CONSTRUCTION
Paul Goldberger: "Most skyscrapers are built on steel or concrete frames,
which is a
grid of columns and beams that goes all the way through the building.
The World Trade Center was different.
It was what engineers call a "tube structure".
It was a very very strong mesh of steel that surrounded the exterior."
The idea that the WTC Towers were radically different from other
skyscrapers is part of the official myth -- something
911 Mysteries fails to point out.
It's true that the structure was unique at the time,
but most modern skyscrapers employ a form of the "tube structure".
0:10:46
Inside, there was the core.
A rectangle of 47 columns made of 4-inch-thick steel at the base,
thinning with increasing height, the cores combined might with ingenuity –
anchoring the towers and allowing them to flex.
Look at the size of this steel.
The story we were told:
This rock-like steel grid gave way because fire warped the trusses,
causing the bolts to fail. As the trusses sagged and fell,
the floors dropped with them.
This was the explanation given by
FEMA
and
PBS,
but it has since been replaced by NIST's theory,
in which the bolts don't fail and the floors don't pancake.
0:11:42
In its 2002 documentary "Why the Towers Fell," PBS creates a video model.
0:11:54
PBS Narrator: "Once the trusses failed,
the floors they were holding cascade down with
a force too great to be withstood.
The result is what's called a progressive collapse,
as each floor pancakes down on the one below."
0:12:05
What remains standing? The tall, indestructible core.
Why does PBS fail to explain the complete disappearance
of the Twin Towers' cores?
0:12:20
Text: Where are the cores at Ground Zero?
0:12:20
The official story's central thesis is based on heat --
temperatures high enough to weaken steel.
But people in the towers did not report such heat.
Think about it -- neither steel, concrete, nor glass can burn.
So what, in those buildings, could have burned to make such heat?
As a general point it's fair to say that the severity
of the fires has been greatly exaggerated.
However, it's misleading to suggest that there were no areas of
intense fire -- particularly in the North Tower,
photographs of which show flames
extending nearly across entire
floors after the fall of the South Tower.
0:12:43
How do these firefighters describe the collapse of the North Tower?
0:12:52
Firefighter 1: "We started running...
Floor by floor, it started popping out..."
Firefighter 2: "It was as if they had detonators."
Firefighter 1: "Yeah, detonators, yeah..."
Firefighter 2: "As if they planned to take down a building.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom!"
Firefighter 1: "All the way down. I was watching it and running."
This excerpt is from the Naudet Brothers' film.
They are describing the destruction of the South Tower,
not the North Tower.
0:12:58
And others give similar descriptions:
There are many other such accounts,
particularly in the long-suppressed
oral histories
of emergency responders.
0:13:06
News reporter: "At 10:30 I tried to leave the building,
but as soon as I got outside I
heard a second explosion and another rumble and more smoke and more dust --
and then a fire marshall[sic] came in and said we had to leave because
if there was a third explosion, this building might not last."
0:13:23
Man in a hospital bed: "...like, it sounded like gunfire.
You know -- bang,
bang, bang, bang, bang! And then all of the sudden three big explosions..."
0:13:29
Man on street: "...started walking down the stairs to the 8th floor --
big explosion -- blew us back into the 8th floor..."
0:13:33
News reporter:
"Do you know if it was an explosion or if it was a building collapse?"
Police officer: "To me, it sounded like an explosion"
News reporter: "...but it was a huge explosion..."
0:13:44
Pat Dawson, NBC News: "Chief Albert Turi told me that he was here
after the events that took place this morning.
He tried to get his men out as quickly as he could,
but he said that there was another explosion which took place ...
and then an hour after, there
was another explosion in one of the towers here.
So, according to his theory, he thinks
there were actually devices that were planted in the building."
0:14:02
Reports of bombs in the buildings, explosions.
A CBS reporter to Dan Rather:
0:14:16
Carol Marin,
CBS News: "...but I was coming toward the World Trade Center looking for
CBS crews, and asked a firefighter if he saw any.
All of the sudden there was a roll,
an explosion, and we could see coming at us a ball of flame stories high."
0:14:28
Listen to the sound of a large explosion
right before the South Tower begins to fall.
0:14:46
Sound reaches us after what we see.
If the "boom" we just heard was the sound of the building collapsing,
it would FOLLOW the collapse.
Instead, the "boom" is heard before.
0:15:04
[voice of Dylan Avery:] "Ho,
whoa, whoa -- bring it back..."
FACTS ABOUT STEEL
0:15:15
Let's consider the characteristics of steel.
Steel is an alloy of iron, containing added carbon for flexibility,
workability and strength.
In the days of old, blacksmiths heated iron
till it was red and pounded it for hours to form it.
Horseshoes, knife blades and plowshares were typical creations.
Steel was introduced in the mid-1800s and, by the end of the century,
with the advent of the blast furnace, found widespread commercial use.
A blast furnace is known as a "controlled environment"
– high temperatures are reached as oxygen is pumped into a closed space.
The controlled environment of a blast furnace raises temperatures
far above what can be attained in random, open-air fires.
Blast furnaces typically do not use pure oxygen to achieve such temperatures,
but instead:
Pre-heat air used to aspirate the combustion
Contain heat by using a large vessel lined with refractory brick
0:15:58
How and when does steel melt?
Steel melts at temperatures of 2750 degrees Fahrenheit and above,
attained ONLY in a blast furnace or when a powerful incendiary
such as thermite is used.
Steel, or any substance that is burned, will never become hotter
than the temperature of the fire or heat applied to it.
0:16:24
An open-air hydrocarbon fire reaches a maximal temperature
of some 1200 degrees Fahrenheit in a "dirty"
or "uncontrolled" burn -- characterized by red-orange flames.
This is not strictly true.
The temperature reached by even an "uncontrolled" hydrocarbon fire
(one that has diffuse flames) is a function of the temperature
of its surroundings.
Temperatures of 2000 degrees Fahrenheit are reached in compartment fires,
a kind of uncontrolled fire in which heat is contained.
Nonetheless, the statement is essentially true for the
conditions that could have existed inside of the Towers.
0:16:37
Red-orange flames are what we saw on September 11th.
Even the fireball caused by the plane strike was red-orange.
0:16:54
A "controlled burn" falls between a "dirty burn"
(like a fireplace) and a "controlled
environment"
(the blast furnace).
A "controlled burn" employs a regulated mix of air and
fuel – an example being your gas stove or the engine in your car.
The critical factor in determining the flame temperature and color
is the amount of pre-mixing of air and fuel.
In a controlled flame such as that in a gas stove,
air and fuel are pre-mixed in a nearly stoichiometric (ideal) ratio
resulting in rapid and nearly complete combustion which ionizes gas molecules,
producing the blue flame.
In a random flame such as in a building fire or fuel tank explosion,
combustion occurs outside of the ideal ratio of fuel and air
resulting in a cooler, incomplete combustion,
and producing fine soot particles which incandesce
with a yellow or orange color.
0:17:12
You can fire up your gas stove all day long -- making soup,
roasting a duck or simmering a stew.
Made of steel, your stove will not melt ...
and nor will your pots and pans.
0:17:25
This is a kerosene heater, designed for use in any ordinary house.
The heater runs on jet-grade kerosene, contained in this tank.
Made of steel, the heater can operate all night and all day.
The kerosene fumes ignite and burn inside it,
never causing even the smallest part of this heater to weaken or melt.
This kind of appeal to common sense is one of the major
strengths of 911 Mysteries.
Everyone has experience with hydrocarbon-burning stoves,
but it's easy for people to fail to apply that experience
to the events of 9/11/01.
0:17:49
Yet we were led to believe that these tremendous buildings,
framed in steel and surfaced in aluminum,
totally collapsed from small,
scattered fires and 90 minutes of smoke.
Take note of these hurtling beams,
thrown laterally outward as the tower comes to earth.
Would fire have the strength to eject such huge hunks of metal?
0:18:12
MIT engineering professor Thomas Eagar's 2001 paper
is officially considered the
academic standard for explaining the World Trade Center collapses.
In it he tells us that steel loses half its strength at 650 degrees Celsius,
and that the fires that day did not get much hotter than this.
He stresses, however, that the fires did not burn evenly.
Eagar's paper
may have represented the state of the art
in explaining the collapses in 2001, but it has since been replaced by the
NIST Report.
0:18:40
It was the uneven temperatures that caused the steel to deform
and some of the floors to fail.
These falling floors brought down the whole building.
Text: "While it was impossible for the fuel-rich,
diffuse-flame fire to burn at a temperature high enough to melt the steel,
its quick ignition and intense heat caused the
steel to lose at least half its strength and to deform,
causing buckling or crippling.
This weakening and deformation caused a few floors to fall,
while the weight of the stories above them crushed the floors below,
initiating a domino collapse."
0:19:16
In plain language, straight from MIT:
Fires not hot enough to melt steel
Uneven fires deformed some of the steel
Some floors fell – smashing the entire building
Dr. Eagar ... what happened to the core?
0:19:41
What do falling buildings look like?
0:19:46
What do demolitions look like?
0:19:56
We are seeing typical implosions,
characterized by gutting a building's base and then pulling it into itself.
Computer-controlled sequencing fires the explosives in a rapid wave.
Notice the jets of shooting concrete, the flashes, the pops ...
the caving of the buildings as they fall into their footprint ...
the tremendous, billowing clouds of dust.
0:20:31
Now let's look at the collapse of the Twin Towers:
0:20:44
We are seeing explosions,
rather than implosions -- a first in demolition history.
A sequenced rumble becomes a roar as debris is thrown outward:
0:20:59
The damage is not contained.
Even the windows are blown from neighborhood
buildings.
0:21:07
What kind of energy enabled this?
Would fire hurl metal and concrete sideways into the air?
This is an obvious straw-man argument posed as a question.
Collapse theorists will blame the sideways hurling of rubble
on collapse-induced pressure, not the fires.
0:21:15
Here,
a 600,000-pound chunk of steel (twice the weight of a Boeing airliner)
was flung 400 feet,
wedging itself deep into Three World Financial Center on Vesey Street.
0:21:31
A FEMA photographer taking pictures of Ground Zero
wondered why so MANY steel beams were jutting from neighborhood buildings.
What shot pieces of the towers all the way across the street?
0:21:51
In April 2006 New Yorkers were distressed to learn
that bone fragments – human remains from 9/11 –
had been found on the roof of the nearby Deutsche Bank building.
0:22:09
First New Yorker: "And how in God's name did
those fragments get there?"
0:22:14
Second New Yorker: "It surprised me that
there was still bone fragments -- or human
remains -- that had not been discovered."
0:22:17
Third New Yorker: "How is it possible that after five years
they are finally looking on the rooftop of the Deutsche building? I mean,
that's crazy."
0:22:22
And bone fragments less than a centimeter long.
How could they be so SMALL?
The
condition of the human remains
indicates a consistent application of destructive force
that is difficult to reconcile with any scenario not involving explosives.
0:22:30
So much to be explained.
Why did the South Tower fall first, when it was the second tower to be hit?
0:22:40
Watch the top third of Tower 2 leaning outward, about to topple.
Then -- suddenly -- it disintegrates in mid-air.
What causes this giant slab of steel and concrete to turn into
dust before our eyes?
0:23:07
Watch both buildings collapsing straight down –
directly INTO the path of MOST RESISTANCE –
which is all the floors and all the mass of the building itself.
This is an excellent, easy-to-understand point
that goes to the absurdity of the official story.
The
symmetry
of the destruction is totally inconsistent with
a natural collapse.
0:23:25
The World Trade Center Towers came down in approximately 10 seconds.
Seismic data from Columbia University puts the North Tower collapse
at about 8 seconds and the South Tower at approximately 10.
Lynn Simpson, a survivor from the 89th floor of the North Tower,
describes the sight:
Lynn Simpson: "And I saw the Trade Center literally
collapse in upon itself floor by floor by floor --
and it took seconds for it to happen.
It was a massive building, and it just pancaked."
0:24:40
Here the South Tower is half its original height,
but wreckage from the upper collapse has not yet fallen this far.
We are watching a demolition moving faster than gravity itself
...
a building burst
0:24:00
10 seconds.
These are 110-story buildings, coming to earth at free-fall speed – the rate
at which an object drops through air.
The lower floors would need to give way
completely as the floors above them fell.
Can a person walk through a closed door as
quickly and smoothly as one that is open?
0:24:23
A 10-second collapse means the upper floors
encountered no resistance from the undamaged floors beneath them.
Watch the demolition wave rushing straight down.
0:24:40
Here the South Tower is half its original height,
but wreckage from the upper collapse has not yet fallen this far.
We are watching a demolition moving faster than gravity itself
...
a building bursting into powder from top to bottom.
0:25:03
Here, the core of the North Tower finally gives up.
700 remaining feet of giant steel columns, among the strongest ever erected.
What force acts upon the core to make it all of a sudden disappear?
0:25:23
Eric Hufschmid, author of the book "Painful Questions,"
is a metal-cutting software engineer.
Eric Hufschmid: "The floors of the World Trade Center towers
were a three-dimensional mesh of steel beams.
You have to keep in mind now, the floor is about an acre in size --
there are thousands of joints all over it.
In order for the floor to fall down,
thousands of joints would have to break simultaneously.
So then, if you look at the speed at which this
came down -- less th[a]n ten seconds -- you blink your eye
and thousand of joints just popped somehow.
The only way you can explain that is with explosives.
They had to have had explosives placed all over the floors
at the primary joints, and then that would
explain how all of the joints broke at such a rapid rate.
The debris was crashing from one floor to the next.
Debris cannot crash through steel
and concrete floors as fast as it falls through the air --
and there was no slowing.
Explosives had to be breaking the joints ahead of the falling rubble,
which is why the top half starts off collapsing slowly
and then it starts picking up speed..."
There are two points here:
How could so many structural connections have broken so rapidly
without the involvement of explosives?
Once the Tower began to come down,
how could rubble falling through intact structure have descended as fast
as rubble falling through the air
without the involvement of explosives?
The second point was one I
originally articulated
in my 2003 talk The Twin Towers Demolition.
0:26:38
This is a pancake collapse:
Not only does the aftermath of this pancake collapse look
nothing like Ground Zero,
the construction -- heavy concrete slabs --
was nothing like the WTC buildings.
There is apparently not a single example
of a pancake collapse of a steel-framed building.
And paper blown everywhere.
Wouldn't a pancake collapse have trapped the contents
inside? What blew this paper all over New York?
0:27:04
If you were to drop a billiard ball from the top of the Twin Towers,
it would hit the ground in just over 9 seconds,
the average time it took for the towers to fall.
Helped by gravity and falling through air, the ball will GAIN SPEED.
A billiard ball dropped from the roof of the Towers would
probably take closer to 12 seconds to reach the ground --
about the time it took the first rubble to reach the ground.
The ball would take significantly longer than the 9.2 seconds
it would take accelerating at free-fall speed in a vacuum,
because of air resistance.
0:27:22
The calculation for a "pure" pancake collapse of 110 stories,
with each floor pulverizing to get out of the way, is 96 seconds.
In the real world, with the floors creating resistance,
a pancake collapse would LOSE speed – never would it GAIN speed.
A pancake collapse could gain speed, and the figure of 96 seconds
doesn't appear to be based on any plausible collapse model.
A simple model
that takes into account the preservation of momentum
results in collapse times of 11-13 seconds, assuming that the
mass above the collapse zone stays aligned with the mass below.
Adding more realistic assumptions for the distribution of mass
increases collapse times to nearly 20 seconds.
Computations by Gordon Ross combining momentum transfer
and the energy sink of concrete pulverization result in
collapse times of around 30 seconds.
PRE-COLLAPSE SUB-BASEMENT EXPLOSIONS
0:27:52
The airplanes struck the towers high above the ground.
But down in the lobby of the North Tower,
marble facing flew off the walls -- the windows shattered,
all the glass blown out.
0:28:14
Narrator: "Right away,
a guy from the Port Authority told them the damage was
somewhere above the 78th floor, but all you had to do was look around.
It was obvious, something had happen right there in the lobby."
Firefighter 1: "And you just saw ... all the windows were blown out."
Firefighter 2: "The lobby looked like the plane hit the lobby."
0:28:38
"Like the plane hit the lobby."
What caused so much wreckage in the lobby?
Although it is counterintuitive that so much damage to the lobby
could be caused by the planes crashing so far above,
it is plausible when one considers
the nature of the crashes,
the properties of jet fuel,
and the design of the Towers.
When Flight 11 hit the North Tower in a dead-centered blow centered
around the 95th floor,
most of its fuel was carried into the Tower's interior,
and a good deal of it into the core.
The core contained the elevator shafts,
including several express elevator shafts that ran the height of the Tower.
Jet fuel could have descended these elevator shafts without burning
if its concentration was above its upper explosive limit
(too rich a mixture to burn).
By the time the fuel reached the lobby level, it may have been diluted
to below the upper explosive limit, where any spark would have caused
explosive ignition.
Such a fuel-air explosion could have easily produced the reported damage
in the North Tower's lobby.
0:28:36
William Rodriguez,
a maintenance employee at the World Trade Center and the last
human being to exit the towers alive,
describes a giant blast below his building.
0:28:47
William Rodriguez: "...and all of the sudden we heard an explosion.
It was a huge explosion that came from under my feet,
meaning that it came from the sub-levels between B2 and B3,
and there was a huge explosion at the top of the building."
Voice of office worker at 1 Liberty Plaza: "What the heck was that?"
William Rodriguez: "You could hear the difference from the bottom
and all the way through the top.
The one from the top -- which was actually seconds after --
was heard very far away.
The one at the basement was pretty loud,
and you felt your actual feet moving with the floor.
The tremor that is sent through the floors -- the walls cracked and
the false ceiling totally collapsed,
and that's when a person name Felipe David came running into our office saying,
'Explosion! Explosion! Explosion!' And when I saw him,
he has all his skin pulled from under his armpits
and missing pieces on his face."
0:29:43
An explosion deep down in the tower,
BEFORE the plane crash 95 floors above.
0:29:50
Others lived to report enormous explosions below the towers.
Construction worker
Phillip Morelli was in North Tower Sub-basement 4 at the time
of the first plane strike.
Phillip Morelli: "I go downstairs.
The foreman tells me to go to remove the containers.
As I'm walking by the main freight car of the building,
in the corridor -- that's, that's when I got blown.
I mean the impact of the explosion -- of whatever happened -- it threw me to
the floor -- and that's when everything starting happening..."
0:30:20
Blown to the floor.
Let's hear what happened next.
Phillip Morelli: "I was racing -- I was going towards the bathroom.
All of the sudden I
opened the door -- I didn't know it was a bathroom --
and all of the sudden a big impact happened again,
and all of the ceiling tile was falling down,
the light fixtures were falling,
swinging out of the ceiling ...
and I come running out the door ...
and everything -- the walls were down --
and now I start running towards the parking lots.
...There was a lot of smoke down there.
There was a lot of people screaming.
People came with us, running up the ramps..."
0:30:49
Philip then ran underground to the South Tower.
Phillip Morelli: "You know,
you gotta go clear across the hole from One to Two World Trade Center,
you know, I mean that's the way you got to run -- and then all of the
sudden it happen all over again.
Something else hit us to the floor.
Right in the basement you felt it.
Wall[s] were caving in, everything that was going on.
I mean, I know people that got killed in the basement,
I know people that got broken legs in there, in the basement.
People got reconstructive surgery because the walls hit them in the face..."
0:31:20
Engineer Mike Pecoraro, in the sixth sub-basement,
found the parking garage and machine shop reduced to rubble.
PRE-COLLAPSE INTERIOR BLASTS
0:31:34
Rescue firemen and civilians
spoke of hearing explosions throughout the towers.
Firefighter Lou Cacchioli told People Magazine
that as he and others evacuated workers,
bombs were going off inside the building.
Explosions stalled elevators and
filled entire floors with smoke and debris.
[Text from Greg Szymanski article]
0:31:57
Radio firefighter 1: "I got an eyewitness that said
there was explosion on floor Seven Eight, Seven Eight ..."
Radio firefighter 2: "...Warren Street because of the secondary explosion.
We've got numerous people covered with dust from the secondary explosion"
Radio firefighter 3: "...in the Tower...Ten Thirteen,
Ten Thirteen..." (Code = Fire Marshall Needs Assistance, Urgent Assist by NYPD)
Firefighter 4 on radio: "We have a bigger explosion
and what looks like a complete collapse -- surrounding the entire area."
Firefighter 5 on radio: "...involved in a secondary explosion..."
0:32:29
William Rodriguez, helping the firefighters,
reports blasts within the North Tower well before it fell.
William Rodriguez: "As I went up,
I remember listening to small explosions on the upper floors,
and these small explosions were not coming from the area of the impact --
it was coming from lower floors..."
0:32:48
And when the second plane hit the South Tower:
William Rodriguez: "We heard "boom."
When we heard "boom" -- inside our building --
the North tower -- we heard "pop-pop-pop-pop-pop-pop"
-- and on the security radio we heard,
"We lost 65! We lost 65!"
meaning the 65th floor collapsed ...
and as we went
down the stairwells you could hear the actual collapsing inside the building.
You heard rumble.
You heard the cracking of the walls.
I mean pieces falling, right next to us,
of the actual building..."
PRE-COLLAPSE GROUND-LEVEL EXPLOSIONS
0:33:35
What happened at the base of the towers just before they came down? ...
Smoke appeared at street level.
It is likely that there was burning debris at ground level
prior to the destruction of either Tower,
as the jet collisions had caused the ejection
of tons of flammable materials.
Thus, haze rising from the bases does not imply
ground-level explosions.
0:33:46
This video was shot from New Jersey.
An explosion is heard as white smoke rises at the base of the building.
Text: video filter applied
0:34:20
Watch the camera shake on its tripod
as a large energy source rocks the ground.
Nine seconds later, the North Tower falls.
Text: "I heard like an explosion and then a cracking type of noise,
and then it sounded like a freight train,
rumbling and picking up speed ...
I looked up and I saw it coming down."
-- Timothy Julian,
Firefighter, Ladder 118
Text: "As I came out of the North Tower,
everything started trembling under my feet like an earthquake.
The only thing I saw was a firetruck.
I ran towards the firetruck and slid right under,
when the building started to collapse right under the firetruck."
– William Rodriguez
PRE- AND MID-COLLAPSE EXPLOSIONS
0:35:06
Across the Hudson River,
Richard Siegel was filming an astonishing day.
0:35:13
The sound meter of Richard's camera caught something very significant.
Adjusted for the distance involved (as sound travels more slowly
than what we see), the camera registered multiple explosions in the towers.
Here is the South Tower record:
Let's look carefully at the collapse itself.
Notice the puffs of concrete issuing from the
sides of the building well ahead of the collapse wave.
Called "squibs" in demolition language,
these are actual explosives – charges firing visibly through the exterior as
gravity pulls the building down.
Here are more:
0:37:00
Shattering from the top, engulfed by banana-peel plumes,
these were no ordinary implosions.
0:37:10
The Twin Towers each consisted of three multi-story buildings
set on top of one another.
To sustain the weight of so many floors, the "sky lobbies"
had to be extra-heavily reinforced.
The Twin Towers have been described as stacks of three buildings
to visualize their
two-stage elevator system
consisting of express and local elevators.
This three-part division is not descriptive of their structural systems.
The mechanical equipment floors two floors below the sky lobbies
were heavier than typical floors, but the reinforcement was
to support the equipment, not to "sustain the weight of so many floors".
0:37:24
Watch a big squib coming from the sky-lobby band.
SHOCKWAVE
0:37:44
A powerful blast produces what is called a "shockwave."
Explosions generate extremely
high compressional waves that exceed the limits of surrounding air and space,
creating a violent force.
Eyewitness: "When the debris starting coming down
I was right in the shadow of the South tower.
I was less th[a]n a hundred yards away.
Everybody saw the video, over and over again,
of that cloud chasing people down the street.
It was like a tornado. It
was like being hit by a wave at the beach -- but the wave was intense --
it was hot -- it was noisy.
It was like getting hit in the back by gravel -- rocks -- like somebody had
picked up handfuls of rocks -- and was just throwing them at you.
And the noise just kept coming and coming,
and one second I was running, and the next second I was flying.
I was just -- I had no control over my feet,
no choice as to what direction I was going.
I was in the air,
and it seemed like I was being followed this -- this tornado ...
this tornado of darkness."
0:38:51
The South Tower fell first.
This is the shockwave blast as it rocks the tower next door:
PYROCLASTIC SURGE
0:39:04
As the buildings fell, they darkened Manhattan,
filling the air with billowing clouds of dust and ash.
What produces these huge,
scudding cauliflower-like masses of slowly moving dust?
0:39:31
True,
a 110-story building has just been reduced to a million tons of rubble ...
but is there anything in our experience we can compare it to?
0:39:44
A volcano.
Again, 911 Mysteries cuts through the official myth
by appealing to common sense.
The comparison to a volcano is the point of my 2003 poster
The North Tower Eruption.
0:39:57
911 Mysteries narrator: "The US Geological Survey website provides us with a
definition of a pyroclastic flow as a ground-hugging avalanche
of hot gas and debris.
The rising gas chimney is clearly visible in this photo
of the North Tower implosion, with pyroclastic flows between buildings.
The cauliflower shape of the debris cloud is a
telltale sign of pyroclastic flows generated by massive explosions,
typical of volcanic eruptions and controlled demolitions."
Reporter on radio: "This is the second building that has gone down..."
911 Mysteries narrator: "A pyroclastic surge can even flow
over water as hot gases carry dust created by explosive energy.
Here, the South Tower implosion creates a
pyroclastic surge, moving out over the Hudson River."
0:40:55
A volcanic eruption produces exactly the same thick,
scudding ash – heavy with debris,
hugging the ground as it flows out from a tremendous internal explosion.
THE SLURRY WALLS
0:41:16
On the southern tip of Manhattan, surrounded by water,
huge retaining walls were built
below the World Trade Center to hold back the ocean and Hudson River.
The "bathtub,"
as it was called, held 7 levels of parking garages,
maintenance rooms and the New Jersey PATH train station.
0:41:37
After September 11th,
the 3-foot-thick slurry walls were found to have shifted up to 18
inches inward.
0:41:49
Construction worker: "These walls are coming in.
These wall[s] hold back the river,
so if these wall[s] cave in,
this place is going to get flooded out b[y] the river."
0:41:57
Let's think about this.
A pancake collapse should have left the foundations in place.
They had always borne the weight of 110 floors.
But something happened in the sub-basements to disrupt them.
0:42:09
George J. Tamaro: "All the collapse had gone down to track level,
so we had 60, 70 feet of wall totally unsupported."
0:42:19
What kind of force could have dislodged so many stories deep underground?
911 Mysteries' description of the slurry walls is accurate.
See this
more detailed description.
However, the video implies here and elaborates on later that
the damage to the slurry walls was caused by something other than
the Towers' falling rubble.
What happened primarily in the sub-basements to disrupt the
steel-reinforced concrete floors that helped to support the slurry walls
was that they were hammered by tens of thousands of tons of steel
falling through the air from as high as 1300 feet.
MOLTEN METAL
0:42:32
Narrator: "The pile itself seemed to have a life of its own.
It spewed fire when we dug into it."
0:42:38
The ground continued to burn.
Les E. Robertson publicly reported that 3 weeks after the collapse,
live fires burned and molten metal still flowed underground.
If Leslie Robertson reported this,
as is suggested by an
2001 article in
SEAUNEWS,
The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah,
Robertson has since backtracked.
In a debate with Steven Jones broadcast on October 26, 2006
on KGNU Radio, Robertson stated:
"I've never run across anyone who said they had in fact seen molten metal."
Yet in the SEAUNEWS article, author James Williams,
after stating that Robertson
"was a guest of SEAU"
and presented to them
"a number of interesting facts"
including,
"as of 21 days after the attack,
the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running."
An e-mail senty by Gregg Roberts to the Seau.org contact e-mail address
asking for clarification of this point went unanswered.
0:42:53
Ground Zero Crew Member 1: "...you see how this (inaudible)
is still smoking? That's from the fire still burning.
Eight weeks later we still got fires burning."
0:43:01
Ground Zero Crew Member 2:
"Steel-toed boots is one of the biggest things. Out still
on the rubble it's still -- I believe -- 1100 degrees.
The guys' boots just melt within a few hours."
0:43:13
In November 2005,
physics Professor Steven Jones of Brigham Young University
published a 25-page treatise on the collapse of the Twin Towers and Building 7,
applying the laws of physics to the official story.
From an interview on MSNBC:
Jones: "As we read in the FEMA report,
it says here -- and I put this in my paper,
of course -- 'The best hypothesis' -- which is the only one they looked at -- fire -- 'has only a low probably of occurrence.
Further investigation and analysis are needed to resolve this issue' ...
and I agree with that."
Carlson: "I'm sorry that we are out of time,
and I'm not sure that you have fully..."
Jones: "Whoa! One other thing I want to mention --"
Carlson: "Okay, if you could hit it, just really quickly –"
Jones: "Okay, here we go.
Molten metal in the basements of all three buildings --"
Carlson: "Right."
Jones: "And yet all scientists now reasonably agree
that the fires were not sufficiently hot to melt the steel.
So what is this molten metal? It's direct evidence for the use of
high temperature explosives, such as thermite.
Thermite produces molten iron as an end product."
Carlson: "Okay, we appreciate your coming on,
even if I don't understand your theories.
We appreciate your trying to explain it.
Thanks."
Professor Jones barely got in his mention of "thermite."
An incendiary used by the military,
thermite is a compound of iron oxide and aluminum which, when ignited,
sustains an extreme heat reaction, creating molten iron.
In just 2 seconds, thermite can
reach temperatures over 4500 degrees Fahrenheit –
quite enough to liquefy steel.
0:45:05
We know that open-air fires cannot burn hot enough to melt steel.
But metal had melted at the base of the towers.
The second product of a thermite reaction is aluminum oxide
-- visible as white smoke.
0:45:23
Was thermite used in conjunction with explosives
on September 11th? Watch this very bright substance
pouring from the 81st floor of the South Tower:
And white smoke appeared at the base of the building ...
would this be aluminum oxide, the byproduct of a thermite reaction?
The white smoke from the base of the Towers
could be from any of a number of things -- most likely not thermite.
0:45:48
Appendix C of the FEMA Report describes sulfur residues
on the World Trade Center steel.
The New York Times called this the "deepest mystery" of all.
Sulfur slightly lowers the melting point of iron,
and iron oxide and iron sulfide had formed on the
surface of the structural steel.
Sulfur used with thermite is called "thermate"
-- producing even faster results.
Let's look at what happens in the demolition industry.
Taking down large structures requires preparation.
Powerful explosives and heavy equipment are used in advance to
weaken the foundation and bottom sections of a building
before additional explosives and gravity bring the rest of it down.
Conventional demolitions do not require the use of heavy equipment.
Holes are often drilled to place cutter charges adjacent to columns.
That is easily done with hand tools.
If heavy equipment is used, it's generally to gut the building
in order to reduce the dust produced during its demolition.
0:46:56
The words of a senior blaster:
Text: "We blow the basement -- all the columns in the basement.
Then we crack it up at the top to get it started.
We go every other floor all the way down.
Every explosive has a timer on it -- that's why it's "controlled."
When the columns go, each floor goes down
and impacts the one below and keeps going."
This description of the engineering of a controlled demolition
is fine and good,
but because 9/11 Mysteries
fails to point out how the demolition of the Twin Towers
differed from a typical demolition, it is misleading.
The demolition of the Twin Towers:
Was a top-down rather than a bottom-up process.
Almost certainly involved the use of telemetry
not timers, to detonate charges. (See below.)
0:47:17
Here's what demolition experts use in steel-framed buildings.
(pause) The linear shaped charge:
Mark Loizeaux: "It's a chevron-shaped or v-shaped charge
that you can focus at a specific target, and it's lethal.
It generates around 3 million pounds per square inch
pressure at a speed -- depending on the explosive inside the shaped charge --
in excess of 27,000 feet per second."
0:47:42
Besides the unfathomably powerful shaped charge,
blasters have a lot of tricks:
Comments from blasting videos:
Narrator: "There are over a thousand different types of explosives,
different because they detonate at varying speeds..."
Blaster 1: "This is detonating cord,
and this burns at about 21,000 feet per second.
Comes in all colors, pastels too..."
Blaster 2: "With the use of delays,
we can control pretty much where the debris lands;
we can control vibration; we can control noise levels.
Timing a delays are the keys to just about everything in our business."
911 Mysteries shows the laying of detonation cord
without explaining that its use isn't necessary
in a controlled demolition.
Wireless detonation systems
are available off the shelf.
This is an unfortunate omission since the difficulty in concealing
detonation cord is one of most common objections
to demolition theories.
0:48:24
And what is the result?
Jack Loizeaux: "The thing that pleases me is the fragmentation and the control.
When you take a building,
break it up into millions of pieces and put it into its basement,
as artfully as we do.
And it works just like clockwork.
So we've got it all down to a science.
It just -- it gives me goose bumps to talk about it."
9/11 WTC DEMOLITIONS
0:48:54
Were the underground explosions intended to blow out
the Twin Towers' basements ...
followed by blasts heard inside the buildings of shaped charges
slicing the core?
0:49:08
Demolition "pre-weakening"
usually takes place well in advance of the final blast, but at
the World Trade Center critical prep work might have had to occur in
a very compressed time frame – in the panicked aftermath of the plane strikes.
It's extremely unlikely and completely unnecessary that any
demolition preparation work was done after the plane strikes.
0:49:34
These core columns were discovered after the collapse.
The angled cut occurs exactly in the manner that shaped charges
slice through steel beams to control the way they fall.
The angled cuts could easily have been made by torches
during the cleanup operation.
0:49:48
Notice the hardened once-liquid metal.
Was thermite used with the shaped charge?
Narrator: "The job of the shaped charge is to cut steel H-beams."
Blaster: "They way we do this is by cutting the beam at an angle which,
through a series of beams cut at the same angle,
will tend to make the building shift over and walk."
0:50:15
Let's look at the rubble of two 110-story buildings
brought to the ground.
0:50:22
In a 7-story crater, lie nearly 2 million tons of debris.
Had the basements not been blown out,
where would 2 million tons have gone? Heaped on the ground,
ready to slide and spill?
Nonsense.
The downward force of falling rubble was itself sufficient
to crush structures in the basements.
0:50:38
The art of controlled demolition ...
0:50:47
Text: "...to take a building,
break it up into millions of pieces and put it into its basement."
Jack Loizeaux, Controlled Demolition Inc.
0:50:55
Remember the pre-collapse and mid-collapse explosions
caught by Richard Siegel's camera on the Jersey shore:
0:51:01
Were these the blasts that took the out core and upper basements ...
just before the final crumble ...
a mind-boggling sequence of computer-controlled delays that blew the
exo-skeleton ... pulverized the concrete ...
to bring the whole structure rolling to the ground?
Siegel's camera didn't capture any pre-collapse or mid-collapse explosions.
The interpretation of the (unverified) sound track is entirely speculative.
0:51:24
Was this the story of that day?
6-stage demolition wrap-up:
Text: 1 Pre-collapse sub-basement explosions (lower basements and substructure)
Text: 2 Pre-collapse interior blasts (endo-skeleton,
cutting core columns)
0:51:35
William Rodriguez: "Inside our building, the North tower,
we heard "pop-pop-pop-poppop," and on the ..."
Text: 3 Pre-collapse ground-level explosions
(upper basements and lower supports)
Text: 4 Top-level collapse initiation ("cracking the top")
Text: 5 Mid-collapse squibs (shooting sections ahead of collapse)
Text: 6 Final time-delayed roll (exo-skeleton and pulverization)
WHO KNEW?
0:52:03
Some people appear to have known the imminent future on that fateful day.
FEMA had arrived in New York on Monday night, ready for a bio-terror drill.
Spokesman Tom Kenney to Dan Rather:
0:52:22
Tom Kenney: "To be honest with you,
we arrived on late M
Paul Goldberger: "Most skyscrapers are built on steel or concrete frames,
which is a
grid of columns and beams that goes all the way through the building.
The World Trade Center was different.
It was what engineers call a "tube structure".
It was a very very strong mesh of steel that surrounded the exterior."
