Saturday, March 31, 2007

THERE IS PLENTY OUT THERE

that is what the simpleton, reptillian, ben stein says in the advert he does for the alaskan fishery.

eat as much as you want, ben says, there is more out there.

hmmmmm.

is there?

i have been studying the world's fisheries for almost 30 years and i dispute reptillian ben stein.

at a later date, i shall discuss the depredations of the world's fisheries in greater detail.

a history that thoroughly blows ben stein out of the water.

Friday, March 23, 2007

les chansons des roses

it was 4 years ago. i was driving the back roads from houston to corpus christi. and kuhf aired this piece of morten lauridsen.

it is a knock out of choral music.

tune into it. i think that you will like it.

CONSPIRACY THEORIST

it is a pejorative construction. intended to throw the individual labeled with that epithet into a hole.

let me make it clear, the study of history is the investigation into conspiracies. that is what history is, in the main, a record of conspiracies.

i have never heard barbara tuchman described as a CONSPIRACY THEORIST. still, her histories concerning the origins of the first great war deal with conspiracies amongst the great powers.

then there is izzie stone. he wrote a very insightful analysis into the origins of our invasion of korea[THE HIDDEN HISTORY OF THE KOREAN WAR]. i recall he was labelled a communist, unamerican, for this analysis. but never a conspiracy theorist. even in the 1950's, he was viewed as a historian, albeit wrong-headed.

oddly enough, in the early 1980's, a princeton scholar and historian, by the name of bruce cumings, under the imprimatur of the princeton university press, published a two volume history entitled THE ORIGINS OF THE KOREAN WAR. in a very real sense, this exhaustively comprehensive investigation validated stone's "conspiracy theory".

how was cuming's analysis/history reviewed by the amerikan arbiters of the record of the past? i think that it was ignored.

was there a conspiracy amongst the cognoscenti, the controllers, to hide historical reality from the amerikan populace? you bet there was.

the story of the united states of amerika-orchestrated coup in chile is another instance of how analysts of that event are labeled, pejoratively, as conspiracy theorists. i would like to think that we all recognize now that nixon, kissinger, and the intell apparat, the military apparat, conspired to effect the coup in chile .... destroying one of the older democratic republics in the western hemisphere.

how do they get away with the labeling of analysts of the events as conspiracy theorists? and this "they" encompasses the right as well as the purported "left". consider how it is that alexander cockburn, noam chomsky, david barsamian, disparage this analysis, those analysts.

who are the real conspirators?

let me mention once again, pete brewton. writing for the houston post, he analyzed the bushit family, organized crime, and the s&l crisis of the 1980's. pretty amazing stories. but astonishingly, oddly written. the lede was always buried. still, it became pretty stinky when the nyt and the wapo continued to ignore his stories. the implication was that brewton was crazed, didn't know what he was talking about. but it got so bad, that the columbia journalism review came to houston to review brewton's sources, notes. this was done with the intention to destroy brewton and his investigation.

well, brewton gave the cjr unlimited access to his files. and afterwards, in print, the cjr admitted that brewton's research was unassailable.

still, the nyt, the wapo, the ap, et alia, continued to ignore brewton's stories.

clearly there was a conspiracy to snuff pete brewton's work.

a similar conspiracy to snuff afflicted bob parry. and gary webb.

an overlooked conspiracy is how the press snuffed alan friedman's investigation into the reagan/bush arming of saddam hussein[SPIDER'S WEB: THE SECRET HISTORY OF HOW THE WHITE HOUSE ILLEGALLY ARMED IRAQ].

i want you to get over how the usg lied to you about panam 103. those prevarications were a part of a conspiracy. if you doubt that, here are some resources for you...

TRAIL OF THE OCTUPUS: FROM BEIRUT TO LOCKERBIE-INSIDE THE DIA

COVER-UP OF CONVENIENCE: THE HIDDEN SCANDAL OF LOCKERBIE

PANAM 103: THE LOCKERBIE COVER-UP

i was in ayrshire then. i an assure you that the us press functioned as a pr agency for the usg.

a conspiracy to impose disinformation, i think.

i close this way, if you adopt the position that the usg is always lying to you, you would be correct.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

P SAINATH

at this site...http://www.alternativeradio.org/

listen. he tells the story of how this country is killing everywhere.

EXPLORING MUSIC

one of the losses in my life was the death of karl haas, whose radio show ADVENTURES IN GOOD MUSIC was a daily friend.

for the last year, i have been listening to EXPLORING MUSIC, the successor.

initially, i didn't think that karl haas could be equaled. this WFMT show is proving that it can equal karl's broadcasts.

over the last several weeks, there has been a concentration on composers for whom i have had a passionate affection over the years. richard strauss, samuel barber.

the close of the richard strauss retrospective was jessye norman singing im abendrot from the vier letzte lieder. too sad that all these songs weren't aired. i have always considered them the zenith of 20th century lieder. if you don't know them, i urge you to know them. gorgeous music sung by a fabulous voice at its peak with the great kurt masur conducting the leipzig gewandhaus.

i recall when i first heard the barber piano concerto. john browning was playing it with the columbus symphony orchestra. i was in high school. the adagio for strings is well known. but i have always considered the piano concerto one of the beacons of american music. along with the violin concerto. bill mcGlaughlin[sic] played a whole lot more of barber's stuff.

if you don't know this show, and it is broadcast in your area of the usa, tune in. it is a wonderful examination of what i consider to be the most mysterious of the deity's gifts, music.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

TORTURE

i think that torture will give you any answers that are demanded. don't you?

after KSM's admissions that he was a party to most of the assassination plots of the 20th century, we now have another poltroon, after months of torture, admitting that he orchestrated the assault on the USS COLE.

who could believe this if they knew anything about that assault?

1. who in their right mind, knowing the anti-imperialist history of yemen, would authorize a harboring of an aegis destroyer in aden?

2. no bomb in a lighter blew that hull. that was an exocet-style missile launched from a shore safe house. who launched it? the mossad or the shin-bet or some other branch of the israeli armed forces.

why? it was supposed to stimulate bill clinton to more acts of war against arabs.

3. the fbi was tasked to investigate. who was the investigator? an agent by the name of john o'neill.

the amerikan ambassedress, a perfervid zionist, by the name of babs bodine, now teaching at ucsantabarbara, didn't like o'neill's investigation.

i am sure that she recognized that he would be discovering that the assault on the cole was similar to the 1967 assault on the liberty.

4. as some of you may know, babs bodine raised such a fuss about the o'neill investigation that he was pulled and the investigation into the assault on the cole was terminated.

5. o'neill left the fbi after someone of his associates stole his computer at an fbi conference. the issue at that time was that o'neill was so negligent that he had to resign.

in my view, his computer was stolen so that the mossad/and its amerikan associates could learn what he knew about the assault on the cole.

6. 11/09/01 was o'neill's first day on the job at the WTC. as the chief of security.

he was eliminated with extreme prejudice that day.

7. oh, i know, you don't think it works that way. but it does.

the best way to cover a "hit" is in a catastrophe.

i urge you to think upon these aircraft accidents....many were killed to obscure the hit of the real "targets".

panam103, swissair111, twa800, egyptair990, alaskaair261. to name but the most recent.

think upon these realities for a moment.

Saturday, March 17, 2007

KHALID SHEIK MOHAMMED WAS IN DALLAS

though unreported, as he responded to the magneto driving his testicles, he was the real shooter that day. in the grassy knoll.

after more turns of the magneto's crank, he related how he shot malcolm.

more turns, he shouted out how he shot martin in memphis.

winding down the magneto, but still being shocked to shitting, he confessed that he was the shooter at the ambassador hotel, taking our RFK.

babbling, he also confessed to being in cholon and "offing" NGO DINH DIEM. and his brother, NGO DINH NHU.

he also confessed to assassinating sam giancana and johnny robustelli.

and george de mohrenschildt.

and it really wasn't jack rubenstein taking out the patsy, he did that deed, too.

it's amazing what we have learned from this man imprisoned at gitmo...

he has confessed to having been a member of the corsican mafia/oas and trying to assassinate president degaule.

he also claims to have been responsible for the extermination of dag hammerskold and patrice lumumba.

yes, it is amazing how the interrogators at gitmo have solved so many of the mysteries of the 20th century.

i wonder, will khalid get a wax sculpture at madame tussauds?

Friday, March 16, 2007

AIRPHONES

so, when it became proven that cellphone calls could not have been made on 11/09/01, the defenders of the deception promoted the notion that the calls from the aircraft were made from the airphones.

once again, i am compelled to ask, have any of you ever been on a commercial aircraft and used an airphone?

i ask this because i put this issue to some researchers and none knew that in order to make an AIRPHONE call, you must swipe a credit card....the call cannot be initiated until a credit card is accepted.

as the defenders of the usg's prevarications would have you believe it, all one would have to do is pick up the airphone and dial....virtually an instantaneous connection.

doesn't work that way.

as i view the timings of the calls, correlated to the purported timings of the hijacking events, this has to be fictional. consider that on flight 93 a call is completed within a minute of the purported seizure of the aircraft.

since that call could not have been a cellphone call, it must have been an airphone call. but, no airphone call could have been initiated that rapidly.

think on the airphone process....and the timing.

1. the phone is removed from its fixture.

2. a wallet would have to be removed to obtain a credit card.

3. the credit card would have to be swiped and the airphone service provider would have to approve it.

having used airphones, this would take longer than a minute.

4. if approved, then the call would have to be completed.

5. my experience with airphones is that they rarely are operative. and generally, if they are operative, it will take more than 5 minutes to effect a connection. this reality does not jibe with the official timing.

6. since a credit card must be used to make an airphone call, there must be credit card records of these calls. have these been provided? are they available for review?

i seem to recall that verizon, the inheritor of gte's airphone business, refused to make 11/09/01 airphone records available....calling them an invasion of the callers' privacy. is that how it ended?

no telephonic records made public?

VALERIE PLAME WILSON

valerie wilson was outed not to injure joe, but to destroy the undercover proprietary, her notional employer, brewster-jennings.

brewster-jennings was getting very close to proving the bushit-cheney-mossad links to the pakistani a q khan operations. that is the story that keeps being obfuscated - the nuclear materials trafficking in which many prominent reptillians[perhaps even some demtillians] are engaged.

it would be my guess that at least 1 or 2 brewster-jennings employees overseas have been eliminated with extreme prejudice. it would also be my guess that the bushit/cheney reorganizatin of the cia has resulted in the elimination of any successor research program into nuclear materials trafficking. the mossad and the israeli maffiyah are very pleased.

MICHAEL CUSCUNA

what a great archivist.

saving, revivifying great jass.

at the mosaic label.

listening to a recapturing of bobby hutcherson's stuff, which i missed the first time, i can only say, thank you.

FLYING IN THE NORTHEAST CORRIDOR

t was a long time ago[1965] that i last flew a baron in the northeast corridor on instruments, on a clear weather day. i was flying from logan to teterboro, then teterboro to columbus,ohio. it was a nerve-wracking flight. lots of traffic in that area, and even though we were on instruments, on a flight plan, we had to use swiveling heads to watch out for vfr traffic. i never wanted to fly in that area again.

by 2001, i am more than certain that the congestion was worse, and that the radio/controller disciplines were considerably more complex.

i might not be getting it accurately, but as i view the "official" scenario, these four aircraft were essentially streaking along in very crowded airspace in a vfr mode. how was it that they were so blessed as to not collide with another aircraft?

it is my understanding that the fbi seized the controller tapes. and that the 911 cover-up committee never heard them. t or f?

if true, it makes me wonder if some of the tapes are controllers vectoring other aircraft out of the way of the airliners off transponder, deviating from flight plans. any thoughts on that issue?

as to the issue of the real skills of these saudi's, at one point i recall reading that they were saudi military trained in the usa...in fact, lived in military assistance housing at pensacola. t or f?

the most interesting stories about some of these saudis is being reported by a danny hopsicker. he has concentrated on atta and his time in venice, sarasota, naples, FL. rudy dekkers flight school and the strange drug-trafficking of wally hilliard[a friend of jeb's]. the msm avoids these investigative bits like the plague...the nyt owns the sarasota paper and refrains from discussing these issues[in fact, they attack hopsicker].

hopsicker's book is entitled WELCOME TO TERRORLAND. his previous book was an investigation into barry seal, BARRY AND THE BOYS. i think his website is madcowprod.com.

if you don't know of his investigation, i recommend it to you. it reveals what may be a significant part of the story concerning that day in september that the msm, and even a lot of the web, works assiduously to avoid.

i care to close this way, 11 september is an interesting date. 11/09/73 was the day that the nixon[reptillian] regime initiated the coup in chile - replacing one of the oldest constitutional republics in the hemisphere with a totalitarian dictatorship. i wonder if the 11/09 date has some significance for "gulps".

can we retrieve this republic? unfortunately, not via the ballot box. the demtillians area as keen on running a totalitarian state as the reptillians.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

ZINO FRANCESCATTI

how is it that someone owns a piece of music?

but when it comes to the beethoven violin concerto, signor francescatti owns it.

no one else comes close.

if you want to hear it, he recorded it on columbia with bruno walter conducting the columbia symphony orchestra.

NO PANCAKING

don't put words in my mouth.

what my eyes reveal is the "blowing-up" of two skyscrapers[wtc 1,2]. a "blowing-up" that caused them to fall into their foundations in virtual free-fall speed.

if you concentrate on the demolition, i think that you will notice that it is possibly the most extraordinary destruction of a pair of buildings. it would appear to be a combination of techniques, implosion and explosion.

but perhaps the discrepancies of a classical implosion demolition were the consequence of a hasty deployment of charges. perhaps the explosive evidence was created so as to mask the principal mechanism, implosion demolition.

suffice it to say, unless the basements were explosively cratered, the debris from the collapsing would have been 20-40 stories high. but the tower's debris was less than 8 stories high. where was all the debris? a lot of it was explosively pulverized and explosively shot out into lower manhattan, to be sure. but another major component ended up in those basement craters that were created by explosives.

oh, i understand, that you resist this reality. but it is the reality.

i think that wtc 6 is the bell cow for subterranean demolition. there were no fires in wtc 6, it was explosively hollowed out. no debris caused this 'hollowing".

wtc 7 is a classical demonstration of implosion demolition. and everyone in the demolition industry knows it. there is no other explanation for that collapse. and even NIST recognized it...that is why NIST refrained from making any scientific conclusions about that demolishing. and NIST will never render an opinion concerning this building's collapse if it can help it...it prays that everyone will forget.

i close this way, as i have closed in the past.

these manhattan sites were deserving of being secured as crime scenes. and a full investigation of the debris was warranted[ordinarily, would have been the normal procedure]. but that normal procedure was obviated in all the aircraft "collisions with terrain" of that day. on whose orders? on the orders of the president of the united states.

so, instead of collecting the aircraft debris for analysis[as was done with TWA800], the debris in manhattan was taken to the phd of landfills, FRESHKILLS, and buried.

the structural steel was collected, hauled off by CONTROLLED DEMOLITIONS, INC. and sold as scrap to china/india for reprocessing.

by the way, the secure controlling of this steel was so critical that the FBI monitored all the truckloads. any significant deviation from a delivery timing resulted in the firing of the driver. there is the instructive story of a driver who stopped for a sandwich, leaving the steel unattended for a 30 minute interval. this dereliction caused him to be fired.

this has always led me to ponder, were some people at the highest levels of the usg scared that someone might acquire/photograph some of the evidence?

in the history of post ww2 commercial aviation, these 4 collisions with terrain that day, 11/09/01, are the only ones that i know of that were not investigated. and that those investigations did not occur was by order of the potus.

you cannot argue with that.

but you must ask the question, why did the potus not want normal investigatons to occur?

would a real forensic investigation repudiate the usg's fictional story of the events of that day? would it reveal that the aircraft debris did not belong to the aircraft purportedly colliding with the towers? i think so.

anyway, so much more could be said...

but time to cook dinner.

if you still doubt demolition as the modality, you might care to tune into...

911mysteries.com

check out the demolition dvd

and then there is this new compilation of the news footage of that day...

http://youtube.com/watch?v=yIgoXQWiSlM

HOW MANY MERCENARIES IN IRAQ

it was reported today, that according to jeremy scahill, probably the best student of mercs, in an interview on cbc's the currents today, the number is at least 100,000.

why do i bother bringing this up? because someone at the left coaster site went crazy when i used the figure 100,000 - 200,000. he insisted that the figure was closer to 20,000. i found that insistence pretty astonishing - clearly that poster was trying to minimize the roles of mercenaries in iraq.

since scahill also asserts that these mercenaries are not controlled by the us iraqi commmand structure, the big question is still out there: who do the mercenaries report to? george walker bush?

how do they fit into the us order of battle?

hearings need to be held concerning these issues. i have no congressperson that i can write to concerning this issue. i live in metro-Houston. senators are reptiles. as is my congressman.

but, perhaps some of you out there with a democratic rep/senator might write urging hearings into the mercenary issue.

here are some of the mercenary outfits that are operating in iraq...

blackwater, aegis[formerly sandline], dyncorp. undoubtedly there are others.

ERIC GILLEN

eric gillen. THE BAG. April 2007 Esquire. page 133.

it's an interesting account.

but if floats some FALSE information.

on page 137, for instance, eric gillin says this, " The building burned uncontrollably at up to 1800 degrees Fahrenheit for sixty-two minutes."

sorry, eric, you are way off the mark. temperatures probably never exceeded 650 F[even the NIST report says this]. and as for the south tower, according to NYFD recorded assessments, the fire was confined to only a couple of floors and was virtually OUT before the demolition of the building. in fact, most of the jetA burned outside of the building[as all the photos reveal].

NO 1800 F. NO building burning uncontrollably.

eric continues to tell a false story. on page 141, he says this, "When the south tower came down, the massive concrete floors fell like a giant stack of pancakes..."

really wrong again, eric. you ought to have kept up with the NIST report. though there is much that is wrong with the NIST report, even NIST had to repudiate the falsity of the "pancake" theory.

it is so discouraging after all these years that so much bullshit about that day continues to be written, published.

you and your editor are either uninformed, idiots, or disinformation agents. which is it?

HOMOSEXUALS SHOULD RESIGN

now, that would put the military's knickers in a twist.

and most of amerika.

when they become forced to realize how the defense of the usa is in the hands of "queers".

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

ALL ALONE

no one else sees it my way.

so sad. just a pariah dog.

not.

there are many of us who see the lies of the bushits.

just a few.

http://www.patriotsquestion911.com/

Sunday, March 11, 2007

FLYING HEAVIES

let's talk about flying, mastering an aircraft, for a moment.

i have written previously on this topic. what i had to say then was greeted by the ignorants as some kind of elitist pronouncement. to those objectors, anyone could step into the flight deck of a commercial airliner and fly it.

as i read the comments, flying a commercial airliner is tantamount to flying an airborne automobile. therefore, the purported hijackers, with only limited flying experience, would have no problem in mastering a commercial airliner[on their first flying experience in a commercial airliner, by the way].

now, i never flew a commercial airliner. i started in a piper tri-pacer. then graduated to a beech banana, then a twin banana, a travelair, and finally a b model baron.

each one of these aircraft had its own peculiarities. just because you could fly a tri-pacer did not mean that you could master the bonanza.

to the best of my recollection, mastering each one of these recip light planes, in the 1960's, required some hours of "hands-on" experience. the baron was the toughest to master.

cockpit/flight deck familiarity is an important issue. that has been overlooked. just because i might have hundreds of hours in a light twin, i would have no capability to climb into the left seat of any commercial airliner and fly it.

have you ever observed the "office" of a md80, 737, 757, 767, et alia? i can assure you that my light twin experience would never have prepared me to fly any one of these commercial jet airliners.

so, imagine, the joker who couldn't fly a single-engine, recip, cessna[comparable to my old tri-pacer]. the joke that usg tells you is that this joker commandeered a 757 and flew it into the pentagram.

if you believe that could happen, you have been watching way too much television. or you are a bushitophile. or a zionist.

what is even more discouraging is to learn how fixed the amerikan press is on sustaining the fictions of that day. consider that after all these years, the press/media has never illustrated for you the flight deck complexities of a "heavy" as opposed to the little cessna that hamjour[sic] could not master.

recognizing this, i think that you would be compelled to conclude that the "official" story of that day is a crock of shit.

i wrote this some years ago. posting it at eschaton. wow. what an education. here was this purportedly "leftist" blogspot, and yet, posters there wanted to dispute my disquisition on what is required to fly a commercial jet airliner. the prevailing pov was that anyone could seize and fly a commercial airliner....that airline pilots falsely enhanced the skills that were required to fly them.

were these posters disinformation agents? or just supremely ignorant?

i think disinformation agents. i think that there is an office dedicated to disparaging truth tellers on the net.

i had abandoned this topic. abandoned eschaton. principally because aviation reality did not want to be recognized.

so, why have i resurrected this issue? because i tuned into an interview with john lear at pilotsfor911truth.org today.

john lear has the most certs for aircraft of any pilot. and he says, with a more professional background, what i have said....the notion that any one of the purported hijackers could fly those aircraft is beyond laughable.

and once you understand that reality, then perhaps you will understand how thoroughly the bushit regime has been lying to you about the events of that day.

Thursday, March 08, 2007

WHEW

here is what continues to astound me...why would anyone care about what i have to say about the events of 11/09/01? this site is a virtual backwater. i established it because steve gilliard[all forgotten, i pray for your recovery] erased me from the dailykos site - because i devastated a wrong-headed analysis of his concerning john kerry. and i encountered erasures at eschaton - i had become a troll[in retrospect, that seems to have been the result of my newspaper style of paragraphing].

but,in a very real sense, it is a vanity site.

virtually no one has visited it since i established it.

and then, some weeks ago, i wrote a bit on the leftcoaster site concerning the taliban and al-fresco and the perpetrators of 11/09/01. basically asserting that our invasion of afghanistan was as much a war crime as our invasion of iraq.

that seems to have been a shit magnet.

their vitriol is essentially composed of half-truths and well-crafted distortions of engineering realities.

and it blows me away. why would anyone waste their time deploying their agitprop to injure this backwater site?

even though i think that i reveal truths about that day, why would anyone bother with those truths that i reveal? virtually no one will be reading them?

so, it makes me wonder, does the state monitor the internet exhaustively? and has the state ordered its agents to go after anyone who contradicts the "official" story?

and are coa, coyote, snark usg agents? probably.

so, let us think about that day once again......

1. for me, as a former aviator, the most disturbing aspect of the four "collisions with terrain" was that there was no effort made to secure the collision sites and conduct an investigation. i consider this a conspiracy to obstruct justice, ordered at the potus level. a misprision of a felony, at the very least. in reality, treason.

2. an aspect of the wtc site that always commanded my attention, but mostly goes undiscussed, was the small rubble piles. imagine, multi-story buildings[1,2,7] collapse leaving virtually no rubble. and i say that in this sense, for 1 & 2, the rubble should have been 20-40 stories. how high was it really, no more than 8 stories.

now, why was that? well, for one reason, the towers were deposited into their basements that were blown-away. cratered for 5-10 stories. perhaps even deeper.

but, there is the reality that significant structural aspects of the building were pulverized into dust, small particles.

coa attacked me for saying that virtually all of the concrete was pulverized, turned into dust. and he used steve jones to support that. in one sense, he is correct...in another sense he is incorrect. as steve jones said, not all of the concrete was reduced to dust. according to jones, there were some fragments that measured 5cm X 2cm. not dust, to be sure. but smaller residue than could be expected.

3. the issue of symmetricity. three buildings collapse into their foundations. all within hours. none of them are subjected to any events severe enough or symmetrical enough to cause this.

you must know what it takes to put a building into its footprint. it requires a very skillful application of demolition technologies.

for a fine illustration of this, i recommend 911mysteries.com and their part 1 dvd entitled DEMOLITIONS.

4. BUT, it is the craters caused by demolitions of the basements, the subbasements of virtually all of these buildings that reveal that no aircraft "collisions with terrain" caused these collapsings.

5. the conventional wisdom is that jetA fires caused the collapsing of 1&2.

that is propaganda. the jetA fire in 1 was virtually out before its collapse.

and the jetA fire in 2 was mostly outside of the building.

both of these fires were virtually extinguished before the collapse.

these minimal fires could not cause the collapsing of the towers.

6. some say that the individuals that suicided by leaping out of the towers is proof that the fires were an inferno.

for a human being on a certain floor, yes it was. for structural steel, it wasn't.

650F for a human being is one thing. for a structural steel it is virtually unnoticeable.

my guess is that it wasn't the temperatures, however. it was the smoke from the dying fires. smoke kills more people in a fire than do the flames.

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

FAITH

FAITH is a powerful force. and in the history of humankind, faith has, more often than not, squelched reality.

bruno was subjected to the stake because he refused to relinquish/renounce his empirical observations...observations that contested the worldview of the FAITHFUL, observations that were more accurate than the doctrine of the FAITHFUL.

the events of 11/09/01 appear to stimulate a similar hatred amongst the FAITHFUL for those who question the bushit catechism.

now, i think that there is no sense in arguing with these two crazed individuals. arguing with idiots is a fool's game.

i learned my lesson on this score when i posted my analyses of the completely bogus bushit assertion that saddam and iraq were acquiring yellowcake and constructing nuclear weapons. perhaps these two crazies were some of those who attacked me then.

concerning that issue, you had to be monstrously ignorant to believe that iraq was engaged in the construction of nuclear weapons.

similarly, you have to be monstrously ignorant to believe that the events of 11/09/01 occurred as the bushit regime told you that they occurred.

and had any investigation of the "collision with terrain" sites occurred, i think that we would know the dimensions of the deception.

for so many years[since the beginning of aviation], aircraft accidents have been investigated. with such regularity that i had come to an understanding that aircraft investigations had to be examined, and that the examiners had instant control of the accident site.

and perhaps that was the way it was until the formation of the NTSB. though the investigation protocols for the NTSB investigations of aircraft accidents would dictate a comprehensive examination, TODAY i discovered that there is an interesting escape clause in the protocols that prohibits the NTSB from controlling an accident site, if other authorities have taken control.

undoubtedly that is why joe albaugh's FEMA prepositioned itself in lower manhattan on 10/09/01. it was there to take control of that "collision with terrain" site.

that operation, secret for some months, was styled as OPERATION TRIPOD[1,2,7]

was it just joe albaugh's[a bushit acolyte and an iraqi profiteer] FEMA alone that took control of the site? no, ashcroft's FBI was a co-conspirator.

and that is how it was that the NTSB was prevented from conducting an investigation into the WTC catastrophes.

the NTSB was also prevented from investigating the pentagram accident site. as well as the shanksville site.

i thought that the prevention of this investigation would have required a residential order. apparently not. all that was required was the seizure of the accident site[s] by a law enforcement entity[FBI] and the NTSB could be excluded.

and that is what happened.

that is why the amerikan public have no empirical proofs of what happened that day.

and we know how diligently the bushit regime fought to prevent any investigation. and when the jersey girls finally forced one on them, i think most of us know it was a "fast-food" investigation. no nutrition.

two aircraft, carrying less than 10,000 lbs of jetA[kerosene] could not have caused the demolition, the freefall of the towers into their footprints.

no aircraft colliding with wtc 7, there is no other explanation for that building's collapsing into its footprint other than a controlled demolition.

no 757 collided with the pentagram. no matter what they tell you.

and shanksville. just another lie.

and the american public are realizing this now. they know that they have been lied to by the bushit regime so as to implement the invasion of iraq.

but there are these disinformationists that will say anything, anywhere to try and keep the populace enlisted in the imperialist objectives.

Tuesday, March 06, 2007

IS AL COA THE ENERGIZER BUNNY?

who could have imagined that anyone would be so manic.

as to investigations of aircraft accidents....

"decades ago, when i first became an aviator, i subscribed to a publication, AIR FACTS. edited by richard collins, if my memory serves me accurately.

it was an interesting periodical. it was devoted to recounting FAA investigations into aircraft accidents. with a focus on general aviation.

over the years, the investigations into the causes of aircraft accidents has fascinated me.

now, there have been investigations that i think became compromised[panam103, sr111, ea990, as261, to name but a few] but at least there were investigations.

my recollection is that investigations of aircraft accidents has been mandated by regulation/statute since the earliest days of aviation.

one of the most salient aspects of 11/09/01 was that the normal investigation[s] into the "collision with terrain" sites was prohibited by the potus.

i know of only one other aircraft accident investigation that was similarly squelched. jfk jr's "collision with terrain".

from my perspective, instantly upon an aircraft "collision with terrain", by statute/regulation, the collision site[s] becomes a "crime" scene[s] and should have been handled accordingly. and i know this because of my cousin's accident...immediately, the farmer's field where he went down was cordoned off. and it was cordoned off until the investigation was finished. the fields were combed for parts. all parts of his bell ranger were identified by serial numbers. and all parts of the airframe were trailered to an FAA site for examination, reconstruction. this is the normal practice. and has been for decades.

but that didn't happen that day. why would the potus have prohibited the normal investigations of "collision with terrain" sites?

what would the american public have learned had there been a real investigation that commenced that day? well, we might have learned whether aircraft debris was a part of the purported colliding aircraft tail numbers.

let it not be forgotten,virtually all critical aircraft components are serialized. and that serial number can be traced to a registered airframe. because of the potus' prohibitions of an investigation, significant components at the collision sites, which would have been serialized, were collected and buried[at fresh kills?].

did the potus prohibit the normal investigation because significant component debris would reveal that the colliding aircraft were not the ones the state has told you were the colliders?

i do not doubt that aircraft collided with terrain that day. there is just no good probative evidence that the colliders were the aircraft according to the official story.

i want to close this way, i think this manic bastid asserted that the pentagon site was littered with aircraft debris. what an odd assertion. the salient aspect of that "collision with terrain" site was the absence of significant debris.

what you should have seen in that collision site was the engines, the tail assembly, most of the wings, lying on the ground in front of the building. as a lt col[karen kwiatkowski] reported, to her eyes, the most amazing aspect of that collision site was the absence of debris.

the bushit explanation for the disappearance of AA77 debris is that totality of that aircraft vaporized. let me say this, in the history of aviation accidents, no colliding aircraft has ever vaporized.

and i think that the usg's explanation of this site become even more fanciful. though the aircraft vaporized, the military's autopsists claim to have recovered passenger bodies and examined them.

though i think it true that a human being might require higher temperatures to become vaporized than would a 757, the usg account remains a story that doesn't meet the smell test.

the official story stinks.

Sunday, March 04, 2007

ALUMINUM HAT-4/3/07

there seem to be a lot of brain-damaged individuals out there. and any effort to reveal some of the realities of the events of 11/09/01 seems to summon them.

AL COA is one. when he first erupted, i was supposed to be the wearer of the aluminum foil. but, i think, as COA has continued to erupt, that he has revealed his hattery.

let us consider mr aluminum, for a moment.

1. observe the aerial photos of WTC 6. DO YOU REALLY THINK THOSE CRATERS WERE CAUSED BY THE NORTH TOWER DEBRIS? if you do, you are as much as a fruitcake as mr aluminum.

more to the point, those craters were created before the fall of the south tower, the furthest away from WTC 6.

2. i hear some say that there would have been no way for explosives to have been installed. huh? hello....

WTC 6 was exclusively a usg-tenanted building. much like the murrah building, a major tenant was the ATF.

3. and how about fixing explosives in the towers and WTC 7? how could that have been accomplished.

some say that it would have been impossible because of the 24/7 access to the buildings. but that wasn't always the case. in fact, several days prior to 11/09/01 the buildings were closed, for a weekend, upon little or no notice. ostensibly for the installation of communication wiring. hmmmmm. could it have been detonation wiring, instead?

4. many who poohpooh the possibility of shaped charges being installed, assert that no group of demolition techs could have had access to a public building. hmmm

let's think about that for a moment.

how many floors of the towers were vacant? 20? 40? suffice it to say, the towers were not 100% occupied. on those empty floors, could shaped charges be fitted? you bet.

5. how could the buildings be accessed? the most interesting method would be for demolition experts to access the buildings as moving crews. moving crews have access to the entirety of most office buildings. they can park their vans outside on the street. security gives them unlimited access. they might even be given exclusive access to an elevator.

let us not forget, now, that the israeli intell services were operating in the usa at this time under the cover of a "moving" company.

6. but, you could also access the entirety of the buildings with "credentials". con-ed, etc et alia. wear the right coveralls, have the right forged id's and you could go anywhere throughout the buildings.

7. and then there is the issue of the entity that controlled security for those buildings.

my recollection is that it was a company controlled by the resident's brother, marvin bush, and his cousin, will walker. securacom?

do you think it a matter of serendipity that this same company was responsible for concourse security at boston's logan airport, and dc's dulles international? the sites from which the purportedly "striking" airliners launched?

8. under statute, as soon as the the north tower was the victim of an airliner strike, the entirety of the wtc complex would have been a de jure crime scene. everyone would have been escorted out of that tower immediately. that didn't happen. why? upon whose order was that regulation erased?

9. the same strictures applied to all the other "collision with terrain" sites.

who suspended those rules?

the potus. or was it the vpotus?

10. by the way, had those rules been adhered to, the loss of life in the towers would have been significantly mitigated.

11. the fires were very low intensity[less than 650°F] and of short duration. completely unable to soften or melt structural steel.

12. an issue that goes undiscussed is the requirement for symmetricity if the towers and wtc 7 are to collapse as they did. what this means is that every bit of the structure had to fail simultaneously. not only couldn't happen. didn't happen. could never happen. unless there was a programmed demolition.

13. how has the media obfuscated engineering realities? exhaustively. NPR, THE HISTORY CHANNEL both produced shows[that they have not amended - and this is interesting since NIST HAS REPUDIATED THEIR STORY] that propounded the 'PANCAKE" theory of structural failure.

of even greater interest was the BBC broadcast on this subject of last week. despite the NIST repudiation of this scenario in 2005, the BBC asserted this methodology of the towers' collapse. hello.....

what is the reason that the BEEB continues to float a fiction?

14. now the NIST study has to be understood. explosive demolition was excluded from the investigation.

that is why the NIST conclusions as to the towers' collapse don't add up. without explosives, there isn't enough energy for the take-down.

and WTC 7 is so contradictory to the desired conventional reality, that NIST avoided it...NIST said that this building collapse was so anomalous that it had to be subjected to further study. STUDY THAT WILL NOT BE OCCURRING!


15. and to the best of my recollection, NIST didn't even consider the explosive blow-out of WTC 6. hmmmmm.

16. when i investigated the shoot-down of AS 261, what intrigued me the most was the destruction of the most probative evidence, the controller tapes. neither the NTSB, nor any plaintiff attorney, subpoened them within the 14 day statutory interval. hmmmmm.

it is my understanding that the fbi seized all controller tapes within hours of the 11/09/01 events. and that they have never been heard. t or f?

17. passenger manifests. no al-fresco's appear on those records. passenger manifests are the gold standard of accounting, by the way.

18. proofs of hijackings are predicated upon cellphone communications. a grotesque mistake. cellphone communications could not have occurred then. can't happen now.

i could say so much more. but i shall just close this way...there have been many discussions of FAITH recently. even at many irreligious blogs.but the most extraordinary illustration of FAITH is the individual who believes the bushit lies about 11/09/01.

that individual is a true believer in bullshit.

THE RUBBLE PILES

you have to be able to think logically.

how high do you think the towers' rubble piles should have been? had explosives not blown up the subbasements? had not the towers' been subjected to a very sophisticated demolition?

somewhere between 10-20 stories. if the building could have completely collapsed. without explosives, the towers would probably have experienced a suspension of collapsing....not enough energy/nor structural weakness to effect a complete collapse.

how high were the actual rubble piles? less than 6 stories, to the best of my recollection. and why was that? because the basements had been blown out and most of the debris descended into subbasements that may have been 8 stories deep.

oh, and of course, the concrete was atomized. turned into dust. there was virtually no significant concrete residue in the rubble.

DID NIST CONSIDER WTC 6?

i don't think that it did. hmmmmmmm.

do you think that NIST was trying to avoid considering uncontestable evidence that explosives were used on 11/09/01?

more photos of WTC 6....

http://killtown.911review.org/wtc6.html

WHAT CAUSED THIS CRATER WITHIN WTC6?

this hole was blown virtually in synch with the aircraft collision into the south tower.

these are photos that i don't recall ever getting any significant air in the media.

were there explosives used to demolish buildings in the WTC complex of buildings?

the damage to this building would seem to be prima facie evidence that there was explosive-induced demolition involving WTC 6.

for the pix, go here

http://www.911studies.com./911photostudies120.htm

Saturday, March 03, 2007

HERE IS WHAT MARK GAFFNEY SAYS

No I don't know him.
You should tell the guy that I consulted with structural engineers, including Ron Hamburger, one of the leading structural engineers in the nation. Hamburger wrote one of the chapters in the FEMA report on the WTC collapse. I also consulted with engineers at the international code council (ICC), one of whom read over a key part of my report -- dealing with factor of safety -- and found no mistakes. I also consulted with staff at the NIST. In short, I did my homework.

MHG

On Mar 3, 2007, at 9:49 PM, albert champion wrote:

Is Mark H. Gaffney a structural engineer?

No. Of course he isn't. There isn't a single structural engineer who has challanged the NIST analysis of the collapse of the towers.

And of course, there's not a single shread of physical evidence of controlled demolition.

putz.

his nom de guerre is al coa. know of him?

FASCIST BASTIDS DON'T LIKE IT

need i say more?

YOU CAN DECIDE FOR YOURSELF

do you support assholes? or do you support reality?

for your reading pleasure.....

Dead On Arrival
The NIST 911 Report On The World Trade Center Collapse
By Mark H. Gaffney
12-15-6

Note to the reader: The following is a critique of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) report on the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse. The 43 volume NIST report was the result of a 3 year investigation, and was released in September 2005. It remains the official US government explanation for why the WTC collapsed on 9/11. As you are about to discover, the report itself collapses under scrutiny. There is no doubt that the NIST investigation was politically controlled by limiting its scope. This is one way to kill an investigation.

* * *

Fires raged at ground zero for many weeks after 9/11. In fact, it was not until December 19, 2001 that the NYC fire marshall declared the fires extinguished.

The fires burned long into the cleanup. The removal of steel beams and debris from the top of the pile allowed oxygen to reach the fires smoldering below. As a result, the flames often flared up, hampering worker on site. Joel Meyerowitz, a photographer, made note of this in his 2006 retrospective book, AFTERMATH. Armed with his trusty camera Meyerowitz roamed ground zero for months following the attack. Police repeatedly ejected him, but he kept returning in order to document what had happened. Eventually Meyerowitz amassed an impressive photographic record. In his fine book he remarks that the ground in places was so hot it melted the workmen's rubber boots.

But Meyerowitz was hardly the first to comment on the pile's incredible residual heat. The first accounts of molten steel came just hours after the attack: from the search and rescue teams who were among the first on the scene. Sarah Atlas, a member of New Jersey Task Force One Search and Rescue, was one of these emergency responders. Sarah reported seeing molten steel in the pile even as she searched in vain for survivors.[1]

Many have denied the existence of molten steel at ground zero. But there are too many eyewitness accounts to dismiss, including the testimony of engineers, city officials and other competent professionals who toured the ruin. One of these, Dr Keith Eaton, Chief Executive of the London-based Institution of Structural Engineers, later wrote in The Structural Engineer about what he had seen, namely: "molten metal which was still red-hot weeks after the event," as well as "four-inch thick steel plates sheered and bent in the disaster."[2]

A similar account came from Leslie E. Robertson, an engineer who helped design the WTC. He is currently a partner at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, a structural consulting firm that was under contract to the WTC at the time of the tragedy. In a keynote address Robertson reportedly told the Structural Engineers Association of Utah that: "...as of 21 days after the attack the fires were still burning and molten steel still running."[3] Public health officials/experts also toured the scene of destruction. Alison Geyh Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Johns Hopkins, was with one of these teams. She wrote that "In some pockets now being uncovered they are finding molten steel."[4] The fact was even reported to the 9/11 Commission by Kenneth Holden, Commissioner of the city of New York. He told the panel about seeing "molten metal" during a walkthrough.[5]

The evidence accumulated even as the cleanup progressed. Work crews removing the mountain of debris, piece by piece, discovered pools of molten steel beneath the pile, where the towers had stood. One pool was found at the bottom of the elevator shafts. Some of the pools were not found until 3, 4, even 5 weeks after 9/11.

Contractors working on site confirmed these discoveries. Such as Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing New York, who was one of four contractors engaged by New York City to handle the cleanup. During an August 2002 interview Tully told the American Free Press that indeed workmen had seen the molten pools.[6] The same interview included a statement by Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc., who, years before, ramrodded the cleanup of the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Loizeaux was called in by Tully to draft the cleanup plan for the WTC site. Loizeaux said, "Yes, hot spots of molten steel were seen in the basements." Molten steel was also found under WTC 7.

These pools of molten metal have never been explained. Loizeaux told the American Free Press that the continuing fires were fueled by "paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they 'pancaked' into the basement." Manuel Garcia, a physicist, has suggested that cars left in parking garages under the WTC contained gasoline that may have fueled the fires.[7] Both are probably correct. But none of these fires were hot enough to melt steel. Indeed, none of the combustibles in the wreckage burned anywhere near the melting point of construction grade steel beams (2800 °F). As noted, the smoldering fires for the most part were oxygen-starved.

sprayed on the pile long before it ever reached the bottom.

The Official Reports

the testimony of the New York city commissioner.

contradicted by the eyewitness accounts of the emergency responders, engineers, officials, and health experts already cited, not to mention the lead contractors who accomplished the cleanup.[9] After brushing aside the issue as irrelevant to the WTC collapse, the NIST report then suggests that:

Under certain circumstances it is conceivable for some of the steel in the wreckage to have melted after the buildings collapsed. Any molten steel in the wreckage was more likely due to the high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile than to short exposure to fires or explosions while the buildings were standing. [my emphasis] [10]

The NIST never clarifies what the "certain circumstances" might be that produced molten steel after the collapse. Its statement about "long exposure to combustion" is absurd on its face, given that there was no energy source in the pile of wreckage remotely capable of melting steel. In fact, the NIST's above statement is an affront to our intelligence, since the hot spots identified by the US Geological Survey immediately after 9/11 and the molten pools were surely one and the same. There is no way to avoid the conclusion that the molten materials under the wreckage, as well as the smoldering fires, were a residual product of whatever caused the collapse of the WTC. Something on September 11, 2001 burned hot enough to melt steel in the basement of both towers. But such a deduction is too simple, evidently, or too provocative for the NIST, which made a decision not to go there.

When asked about what caused the molten pools Peter Tully suggested that perhaps jet fuel was responsible. But on this point, at least, the NIST report is surely correct. It's easy to show that jet fuel was not the causative agent. There were reports that burning jet fuel leaked into the WTC elevators moments after the first impact. A descending fireball possibly caused explosions many floors below. Witnesses saw critically burned people emerging from elevators. Something ripped through the WTC 1 concourse lobby at about the time of the impact, blowing out windows and crumpling steel doors like they were paper. The same blast knocked marble slabs off the walls in the lobby. Custodians also heard explosions in the WTC 1 basement. A machine shop was wrecked, as well as a car garage.[11]

world press erred in this respect. Indeed, in the emotional aftermath of the 9/11 attack the press often mangled the science as badly as the twisted steel beams of the WTC. One report posted by the BBC on September 13, 2001 quoted experts who stated matter-of-factly that the burning jet fuel actually melted the central columns, leading to the collapse.[12] Another report on The History Channel, The Anatomy of September 11th, claimed that the inferno turned the steel piers in in the WTC to "licorice." A 2002 PBS NOVA special "Why the Towers Fell" showcased a similar theory, and suggested that the fires reached 2000°F, which caused the steel columns to lose 80% of their strength.[13]


The same day NewScientist.com asserted that "raging fires melted the supporting steel struts."[15] On September 13, 2001 BBC radio interviewed Chris Wise, an engineer who explained that...

"It was the fire that killed the buildings. There's nothing on earth that could survive those temperatures with that amount of fuel burning. The columns would have melted, the floors would have melted, and eventually they would have collapsed one on top of the other."[16]

Elmer Obermeyer, the president of an Ohio engineering firm, also endorsed the meltdown theory in a story in the Cincinnati Business Courier. The paper noted that Obermeyer was a "guru in his field."[17] In October 2001 Scientific American.com posted an article summarizing the results of a 9/11 panel of MIT experts, one of whom, Eduardo Kausel, stated "that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements- floor trusses and columns -so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse.[18]

This is but a small sampling of many such reports that appeared in those first days. All of them were wrong. As Frank Gayle, one of the NIST's lead scientists, later pointed out: "Your gut reaction would be [that] the jet fuel is what made the [WTC] fire so very intense. A lot of people figured that's what melted the steel. Indeed, it did not, the steel did not melt."[19] Gayle was seconded by Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials engineering at MIT:

"The Fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true....The temperatures of the fire at the WTC were not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel."[20]

2,800°F melting point of steel. Even this 1,000°C upper limit is very difficult to achieve, since, as Thomas Eagar pointed out, it requires the optimal mixing of fuel with oxygen during combustion, which can only be achieved in a laboratory. In fact, the clouds of black smoke that poured out of the twin towers on 9/11 were an obvious sign that the WTC fire burned at much lower temperatures, probably around 650°C (1,202°F) range, or even lower. This was due to the inefficient mixing of oxygen. It's why most building fires burn no hotter than around 500-650°C. (932 -1,202°F)



The NIST Report

Since the primary stated objective of the NIST 9/11 investigation was to determine the cause of the WTC collapse, the NIST should have conducted a forensic examination of the full spectrum of evidence.[21] Ground zero was a crime scene, was it not? Yes, and because many credible eyewitnesses, including firemen who were on duty that fateful day, reported that they heard and/or saw explosions, the NIST should have investigated this without bias.[22] It should have viewed this testimony as hard evidence: a starting point in its investigation. Instead, the NIST did a gloss. It posted a statement on its web site asserting that it had considered a number of hypotheses, including a planned demolition, but had found no corroborating evidence.[23] This disclaimer was no more than a last-minute attempt to deflect criticism, since a close reading of the NIST report shows that the agency never entertained other alternatives. It certainly never investigated the eyewitness accounts of explosions.

The NIST report assumes, start to finish, that the Boeing 767s were responsible for the collapse of the twin towers. The agency took it for granted that the impacts set in motion a chain of events leading to catastrophic structural failure. The assumption is even stated explicitly in the Executive Summary:

The tragic consequences of the September 11, 2001 attacks were directly attributable to the fact that terrorists flew large jet-fuel laden commercial airliners into the WTC towers. Buildings for use by the general population are not designed to withstand attacks of such severity; building codes do not require building designs to consider aircraft impact.[24]

The 43 volume NIST report confines itself to the sequence of events from the first plane impacts to the onset of collapse; and is governed throughout by ipso facto reasoning. Because the agency never entertained the possibility of a planned demolition, it never bothered to look for evidence of same. For example, it never tested steel samples recovered from ground zero for telltale traces of explosives. These omissions were irresponsible and smack of political interference, since in addition to the eyewitness accounts two scientific papers, one published in 2001, and another by FEMA in May 2002, had already detected sulfur residues on samples of WTC steel.[25] As Dr. Steven Jones, a physics professor at BYU, has pointed out, sulfidation of steel can be an indicator of the use of thermate (or other closely related compounds) developed by the military and commonly used to cut steel in demolitions work.[26] The possibility needed to be checked, if only to rule it out; but the agency, again, chose not to go there.

Let us now examine the NIST report in detail.

Why the WTC Survived the 767 Impacts

the WTC was hugely overbuilt: redundant by design. The towers simply transferred the load from the severed/damaged members to other undamaged columns.

Upon its completion in 1970 the World Trade Center was not only the world's tallest twin-skyscraper (1,368 feet), it was also a state-of-the-art achievement of modern construction.[27] Although the WTC's soaring lines gave the impression of a relatively light frame, in fact, the towers were extremely rugged, engineered to withstand hurricane-force winds and to survive a direct hit by a Boeing 707, the largest commercial jetliner of the day. In a 1993 interview the WTC's principal structural engineer, John Skilling, stated that prior to construction he performed an impact analysis of a 600 mph Boeing 707 impact, and concluded "that the building structure would still be there."[28] The architectural firm that worked with Skilling described his 1,200 page structural analysis as "the most complete and detailed ever made for any building structure."[29] Frank A. Demartini, onsite manager during the construction of the WTC, seconded this view during a January 25, 2001 interview, in which he noted that the study involved "a fully loaded 707." Demartini even declared 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."[30] Demartini kept an office in the North Tower and was last seen on 9/11 assisting evacuees on the 78th floor.[31]

The original WTC design, the work of architect Minoru Yamasaki, was one of the first architectural plans to call for open space within a steel-frame building. This meant doing away with the forest of columns so typical of the steel high-rise buildings of former years. Chief engineer Skilling achieved the objective with a double support system: a dense array of 236 columns around the perimeter, and a network of 47 massive piers at the core. The creation of large expanses of unobstructed floor space within the WTC was a novel idea in the 1960s, but is commonplace today.[32]

slab of lightweight concrete. Probably Skilling's greatest innovation was to extend the truss diagonals up into the concrete floor, which added stiffness and strength. Each truss assembly/concrete floor behaved as a single unit.

all possible. In fact, the WTC had tremendous reserve capacity. An early article about the project in the Engineering News-Record declared that "live loads on these [perimeter] columns can be increased more than 2,000 percent before failure occurs."[33]

generated heat. Construction-grade steel begins to lose its tensile strength at 425°C (~800°F), and is only about half as strong at 650°C (1,202°F). The lightweight truss assemblies were especially vulnerable, since they consisted of rather thin steel members. During construction they were coated with spray-applied insulation. The much larger steel piers and columns had a fire-barrier of gypsum wallboard.

NIST's Official Explanation


which pulled the perimeter columns inward, causing them to buckle. The fires also weakened the central piers. The combination of these effects destabilized the structures and at a critical point the towers simply collapsed. The NIST concluded that the WTC would have survived the fires if the Boeing 767 impacts had not dislodged/damaged the fireproofing material, which, therefore, according to the NIST, was the critical factor on 9/11.

There are a number of serious problems, however, with this official narrative. In the first place, it is sharply at odds with the video record, which plainly shows that during each collapse perimeter columns and other structural members didn't simply fall to the ground. In many cases they were ejected up and out of the disintegrating structure at nearly a 45 degree angle: a cascade that hurled steel beams weighing 20 tons or more as much as 600 feet from the base of the buildings. One remarkable photo of ground zero taken from above shows that entire sections of WTC 1's western perimeter wall were thrown 500+ feet toward the Winter Garden.[34] Could a gravitational collapse do this?

Pulverization

workers found more than 700 body parts, e.g., slivers of bone, on the roof and within the doomed structure.[35] The question is: why? This bizarre report remains a mystery.

there were no resistance whatsoever. From start to finish they fell in only about 12 seconds, just 2 seconds longer than the time for a billiard ball to drop from the WTC roof to the plaza below. The question is why?

The NIST report failed to address any of these anomalies. In fact, it didn't even try. The NIST sidestepped the ejection of material, the vast pulverization of concrete, the many testimonials and other evidence of explosions, and the near-free fall by limiting its investigation to the sequence of events from the Boeing 767 impacts to the onset of the collapse. Incredibly, the NIST chose not to examine the collapse itself. The report makes reference to the "global collapse" of the WTC, but we never learn what this means because the NIST report never tells us. Once again, the agency decided not to go there. Evidently we are supposed to assume that gravity alone was responsible. But could gravity transform enormous slabs of concrete, hundreds of thousands of tons of material, into fine dust, in midair? Extremely doubtful. The NIST's decision not to investigate these important questions add up to more grave omissions.

But we haven't yet examined the NIST report itself. Let's do that, now.

The Special Projects

very little of it lends credence to the NIST's final, and official, explanation of the cause of the WTC collapse.

One of the most serious and persistent problems NIST investigators faced was the admitted lack of information about conditions at the core of the towers.[36] To be sure, thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of videotape made it possible to study in detail the damage to the WTC exterior, and to gain a reasonable understanding about conditions in the outer offices. Fires were often visible through the windows, despite dense smoke, and sagging floors and other structural damage was discernible through gaping holes in the damaged exterior. However, as the NIST report states, "Fires deeper than a few meters inside the building could not be seen because of the smoke obscuration [sic] and the steep viewing angle of nearly all the photographs."[37] Thus, except for steel samples gathered after the fact the NIST had almost no other information about the dynamic conditions at the core of the WTC on 9/11.[38]

The agency sought to overcome this shortfall of information with computer simulations. This was problematic from the outset, since computer models are no better than the quality of input and the accuracy of the programmer's assumptions. As architect and critic Eric Douglas points out in his 2006 analysis of the NIST report: "a fundamental problem with....computer simulation is the overwhelming temptation to manipulate the input data until one achieves the desired results."[39] Did the NIST investigators fall prey to this insidious tendency? And did this lead them to overestimate the impact damage to the WTC interior? Let us now consider this question.

NIST's Global Impact/Collapse Analyses

In one of its most important projects (NCSTAR 1-2), NIST scientists developed a global impact analysis: to estimate the structural damage to the WTC caused by the Boeing 767s. In this study the NIST considered three different scenarios. These ranged from less damage to extreme damage, with a moderate alternative (described as "the base") in the middle. As it happened, all three scenarios accurately predicted the impact damage to the WTC exterior at the point of entry; although with regard to WTC 1 the moderate case was a slightly better match.[40] The three differed greatly, however, in predicting the number of severed columns at the WTC core, a datum obviously of great importance. In the case of WTC 1 the lesser alternative predicted only one severed core column, the moderate alternative predicted three, while the extreme alternative predicted five to six. In the case of WTC 2 the disparity was even greater: The lesser alternative predicted three severed columns, the moderate five, and the extreme case no less than ten.[41]

Although the NIST never satisfactorily resolved these differences, it immediately threw out the less severe alternatives, citing two reasons in the Executive Summary report: first, because they failed to predict observable damage to the far exterior walls; and second, because they did not lead to a global collapse.[42]

that none of the alternatives accurately predicted the exit damage.[44]

This admission, deeply buried in the 43 volume report, is fatal to the NIST's first rationale for rejecting the lesser alternative, since it was no less accurate than the moderate and extreme cases. (Or, put differently: It was no more inaccurate.) Which, of course, means that the NIST rejected the lesser alternative for only one reason: because it failed to predict a global collapse. The simulations for WTC 2 suffered from the same modeling defect. As the supplementary documentation states, "None of the three WTC 2 global impact simulations resulted in a large engine fragment exiting the tower."[45] Yet, here again, the NIST rejected the lesser alternative. We can thank researcher Eric Douglas for digging deeper than the summary report. Otherwise, this flaw, tantamount to the devil lurking in the fine print, might never have come to light.

from a predictive standpoint, than the extreme cases. In fact, with regard to predicting the entry damage to WTC 1, as noted, the moderate alternative was actually a better match.

The NIST report offers no scientific rationale for this decision, only the pithy comment that the moderate alternatives "were discarded after the structural response analysis of major subsystems were compared with observed events."[46] And what, pray tell, were these "observed events"? The report explains that "structural models....indicated that....the buildings would have continued to stand indefinitely."[47] Here, at least, the NIST is more forthright than in the case of the lesser alternatives.

Things only get worse.

As it happened, even the extreme alternatives required further tinkering to be acceptable. The report informs us that "Complete sets of simulations were then performed for cases B and D [the extreme alternatives]. To the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports, the investigators adjusted the input, but only within the range of physical reality."[my emphasis][48] In other words, NIST scientists worked backwards from the collapse, tweaking the extreme alternatives until their computer model finally spat out the desired result consistent with their assumption, which never wavered, that the 767 impacts ultimately were at the root of everything on 9/11. Of course, the NIST report never tells us what the "additional inputs" were.

That the NIST's impact study and subsequent global collapse analysis were biased, hence, unscientific, ought to be obvious. But I will go even further: The impact simulations were very nearly a waste of time, since by its own admission the NIST had almost no information about actual conditions at the WTC core. The NIST had no sound basis for rejecting the lesser and moderate impact alternatives; both were at least as plausible as the extreme alternative. Why were they not given equal weight? The reason is obvious: That would have compelled NIST investigators to entertain the unthinkable, i.e., the possibility that some other causative agent was responsible for the WTC collapse. Still, one has to admire, in a perverse sort of way, the NIST's triumph of circular reasoning..

The Metallurgical Studies

The NIST's metallurgical and fire studies were among the most important projects, and involved testing 236 samples of steel columns, panels, trusses, and other smaller parts recovered from ground zero. Thanks to the original labeling system used during the construction of the WTC, the NIST was able in many cases to identify individual steel members, and thus to determine their exact locations in the WTC. As it happened, some of the samples were from the impact zones and fire-damaged areas.[49] The collection represented only 0.25 - 0.5 % of the 200,000 total tons of structural steel used the two towers. But the NIST believed it had enough samples to determine the quality of the steel and evaluate its performance on 9/11.[50]

view of many about how and why the trusses failed on 9/11:

"...the steel had plenty of strength, until it reached temperatures of 1,100º to 1,300ºF. In this range, the steel started losing a lot of strength, and the bending became greater. Eventually the steel lost 80 percent of its strength, because of this fire that consumed the whole floor....then you got this domino effect. Once you started to get angle-clips to fail in one area, it put extra load on other angle-clips, and then it unzipped around the building on that floor in a matter of seconds. If you look at the whole structure, they are the smallest piece of steel. As everything begins to distort, the smallest piece is going to become the weak link in the chain. They were plenty strong for holding up one truss, but when you lost several trusses, the trusses adjacent to those had to hold two or three times what they were expected to hold."[51]

out.

Because the NIST did not have the necessary facilities, it contracted Underwriter Laboratories to conduct a series of fire endurance tests on trusses like those in the WTC. (The recovered truss samples were too badly deformed during the collapse to test them directly, so NIST fabricated new trusses identical in design.) The purpose of the tests was to establish a baseline, and the results were surprising. Not one of the truss assemblies failed during a series of four tests, not even the truss sprayed with the minimum amount of fireproofing. "The floors continued to support the full design load without collapse for over two hours."[52] The investigative team cautiously noted that the exposure of the floor systems to fire on 9/11 was "substantially different" than the conditions in the test furnaces, which was true enough. Yet, the team noted that "this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11."[53] The UL tests not only laid to rest the theory that the trusses were the cause of the collapse on 9/11, if anything, the tests demonstrated the fundamental soundness of the WTC truss design.

these findings support the NIST's official explanation for the WTC collapse. On the contrary.

The Fire Tests:
Core Weakening?

range where significant loss of strength occurs. When the test was repeated again with an insulated column, the steel did not reach 600ºC even after ten hours. The NIST concluded that "the fires in WTC 1 and WTC 2 would not be able to significantly weaken the insulated....columns within the 102 minutes and 56 minutes, respectively, after impact and prior to collapse."[my emphasis][56]

The NIST interpreted these results as validating its favored hypothesis that the critical factor on 9/11 leading to the global failure of the WTC's support columns was the damage to the fireproofing insulation caused by the Boeing 767 impacts. But was this an unwarranted leap? It certainly was not supported by the NIST's metallurgical analyses, which showed that not even one of the 236 steel samples, including those from the impact areas and fire-damaged floors, showed evidence of exposure to temperatures in excess of 1,110ºF (600ºC) for as long as 15 minutes.[57] In fact, out of more than 170 areas examined on 16 recovered perimeter columns, only 3 reached temperatures in excess of 250ºC (450ºF) during the fires.[58] And why ? Well, perhaps, in part, because, as Shyam Sunder, the lead NIST investigator, admitted, "the jet fuel....burned out in less than ten minutes."[59] Also, NIST scientists made another surprising discovery: The actual amount of combustibles on a typical floor of the WTC turned out to be less than expected, only about 4 lbs./sq. foot. Furthermore, "the fuel loading in the core areas....was negligible."[60] The shocking fact is that the World Trade Center was fuel-poor, compared with most other buildings. The NIST estimated that a fire in a typical area of the building would have burned through the available combustibles at maximum temperatures (1,000ºC) in about 15-20 minutes.[61] Not nearly long enough even at that temperature to cause exposed steel to lose 80% of its strength.

Nor is this all. I searched the NIST report in vain for any acknowledgment that here, as in the case of the truss assembly test, the actual fire conditions on 9/11 were substantially different from the UL laboratory furnace. In fact, with respect to the columns the differences were at least as significant as with the truss assembly test, and call into sharp question the NIST's conclusion that damaged insulation was the critical factor. Although the NIST took the position that "temperatures and stresses were high in the core area,"[62] as I've noted the investigation suffered from a persistent lack of information about real conditions at the core. The NIST had no hard evidence about the actual amount of protective insulation damaged/dislodged during the impacts. The NIST report acknowledges this,[63] then goes on to assume that all structural members in the debris path at the time of impact suffered 100% loss of insulation.[64] Surely, we are safe to conclude that the Boeing 767 impacts did cause damage to, or strip away, a substantial portion of the fireproofing material. Exactly how much is not knowable. But even if the NIST estimate of total loss of fireproofing is correct, there is virtually no chance that the fires on 9/11 weakened the WTC's core piers within the allotted span of time: 56/103 minutes.

A Vast Heat Sink

The reason for this, nowhere acknowledged in the NIST report, ought to be obvious: The WTC's support columns did not exist in isolation. This was no laboratory furnace. The columns in each tower were part of an interconnected steel framework that weighed at least 100,000 tons; and because steel is known to be an excellent conductor of heat this massive steel superstructure functioned on 9/11 as an enormous energy sink. The total volume of the steel framework was vast compared with the relatively small area of exposed steel, and would have wicked away the fire-caused heat almost as quickly as it was generated. Anyone who has repaired a copper water pipe with a propane torch is familiar with the principle. One must sit and wait patiently for the pipe temperature to rise to the point where the copper finally sucks the solder into the fitting. While it is true that copper is more conductive than steel, the analogy holds, regardless. The fact that only three recovered steel samples showed exposure to temperatures above 250ºC indicates that the steel superstructure was indeed behaving as a heat sink. The fires on 9/11 would have taken many hours, in any event, much longer than the brief allotted span of 56/103 minutes respectively, to slowly raise the temperature of the steel framework as a whole to the point of weakening the exposed members.

after the impact and waned thereafter. Temperatures were actually cooling across most of floor 96, including the core, at the moment of the collapse. But if this is true, the central piers were not losing strength at that point but regaining it.[66] How, then, did they collapse? Finally, the NIST's insistence that "temperatures and stresses were high in the core area" is not consistent with their finding that the fuel load of combustibles in the core was negligible.[67] On this point the NIST contradicts itself.

In short, the NIST report fails to explain how transient fires weakened WTC 1's enormous central piers in the allotted span of 103 minutes and triggered a global collapse.

The Fires in the Second Tower

more extensive impact damage of the core columns, helps to explain why WTC 2 fell first, even though it was impacted after WTC 1. Videos filmed on 9/11 do show inward bowing of WTC 2's eastern wall, although its actual extent and significance remain disputed. But perhaps the most serious challenge to the official view that fires were gravely weakening WTC 2 comes from an audiotape released in August 2002 by the Port Authority of New York. The tape, which was lost or neglected for more than a year, is the only known recording of firefighters inside the towers. When city fire officials belatedly listened to it they were surprised to discover that firemen actually reached the impact/fire zone of WTC 2 about 14 minutes before the building collapsed. On climbing to the 78th floor sky lobby Battalion Chief Orlo J. Palmer and Fire Marshall Ronald P. Bucca found many dead or seriously injured people, but no raging inferno. The audio transmission between Palmer and another fireman shows no hint of panic or fear, as the following transcript shows:

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... 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 numerous 10-45 Code Ones.

Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."

Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Tower one. Battalion Seven to Ladder 15."

Battalion Seven Chief: "I'm going to need two of your firefighters Adam stairway to knock down two fires. We have a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock it down, okay."

Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're coming up the stairs. We're on 77 now in the B stair, I'll be right to you."

Battalion Seven Operations Tower One: "Battalion Seven Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay."

Battalion Nine: "Alright, I'm on my way up, Orio."[68]

Here, Battalion Chief Orlo Palmer calls for hoses to be brought up to put out the fires. His expression "10-45 Code Ones" is a reference to dead bodies, of which, evidently, there were many. The tape shows that the firemen were not turned back by heat, smoke, or a wall of flames. They were able to function within the impact zone and were prepared to help the injured and combat the small fires they found. Palmer even mentions that the stairwell up to the next floor, i.e., 79, was passable. Minutes later the building came down on their heads.

Inexplicably, the NIST never considered this important evidence. The question is why? Their omission is especially damning, since, as I've stressed, the NIST investigation suffered from a persistent lack of information about actual conditions at the core.[69] Here was real-time testimony from firefighters who were on the scene, and the NIST simply ignored it.

outside the path of Flight 175. Both samples were physically damaged, but the NIST reported no evidence of the kinds of distortion, i.e., bowing, slumping, or sagging that are typical of heat-weakened steel. Nor was the NIST able to glean any evidence of high temperatures from the columns.[70] On what, then, do they base their conclusion that "Dire structural changes were occurring in the building interior"?[71] If anything, the paucity of evidence calls into question the NIST's declaration that their sampling effort was adequate.

Moreover, as we've already noted, the NIST's computer simulation predicting extreme damage to the core of WTC 2 is dubious, since it is also unsupported by hard evidence. In fact, the NIST's preferred extreme alternative was, from a predictive standpoint, no better than the lesser alternatives, which the NIST rejected. Even the extreme alternative failed to predict a global collapse, without "additional inputs." As for the inputs, it would be interesting to know more about them. Unfortunately, the NIST's global collapse analysis is so highly technical as to be almost incomprehensible to a non programmer. I was struck by the number of assumptions it makes, one piled on another.

The Issue of Reserve Capacity

In order to show just how weak the official 9/11 narrative is, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that local fires did burn long and hot enough to weaken exposed columns in the impact zone of WTC 2. As I will now show, even if this did occur it still fails to account for the global collapse of the second tower. As the NIST report states,

both towers had considerable reserve capacity. This was confirmed by analysis of the post-impact vibration of WTC 2, the more severely damaged building, where the damaged tower oscillated at a period nearly equal to the first mode period calculated for the undamaged structure.[my emphasis][72]

to several of the project reports and supplementary documents. I also consulted with experts at the International Code Council (ICC) and with a leading structural engineer. I learned that estimating the overall reserve capacity of a steel structure is no simple task. Numerous factors are involved. Moreover, there are different ways to approach the problem.

Perhaps the simplest measure of reserve capacity are the standards for the material components of a building. In the late 1960s when the WTC was constructed the applicable standard was the New York City Building Code, which required a builder to execute computations for the various structural members to show that they met the specified requirements. However, the code also allowed for actual testing of members, in the event that computations were impractical. The testing standards applicable in 1968 give a good idea of the required level of reserve strength in the steel columns and other materials used in the WTC. For example, in the most stringent test a steel member had to withstand 250% of the design load, plus half again its own weight, for a period of a week, without collapse.[73]

Factor of Safety

Another widely used measure of reserve capacity is the so called "factor of safety." This varies for different structural elements, but for steel columns and beams typically ranges from 1.75-2.0.[74] The NIST report actually breaks this more general figure down into two separate and slightly different measurements for stress: yielding strength (1.67) and buckling (1.92).[75] For our purposes, however, the more general figure is adequate. So, for example, a steel column with a factor of safety of 1.75 must support 1.75 times the anticipated design load before it begins to incur damage. While this value is typical of steel beams in general, the actual reserve strength of the steel columns in the WTC was higher. When the NIST crunched the numbers for the 47 core columns of WTC 1 (between the 93rd and 98th floors) it found that the factor of safety ranged from 1.6 to 2.8, the average value being 2.1.[76] This means that the average core column in WTC 1 could support more than twice its design load before reaching the yield strength, i.e., the point where damage may begin to occur.

improbable worst case, in which many of the WTC columns lost half of their strength, there was still plenty of reserve capacity to support the building.

The Perimeter Wall

structure's gravity load, which overall did not change. Of course, the wrecked jetliner added substantial mass. On the other hand, due to the successful evacuation of people the live load, i.e., the total body mass of the occupants, was reduced by 75%.[82]

counts, due to insufficient evidence. Indeed, I would go further and call the evidence woefully insufficient.

Some Fire History:
For Sake of Comparison

Numerous steel beams also sagged and columns buckled.[83] But the overall superstructure, which was largely unprotected, never collapsed. The steel framework withstood the disaster, though gravely weakened. By contrast, most of the WTC's massive central piers and perimeter columns were never even touched by the fires of 9/11, which were confined to a few upper floors.

The Cardington Fire Tests

heat. The Cardington fire tests had relevance to the WTC collapse. The results were readily available and might have informed the NIST investigation. But to the best of my knowledge NIST scientists never considered the Cardington lab test data.

Conclusion:
Back to the Future

times on a single day. I say "three times" because, notice, I have not even discussed the case of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, hence, had no spillage of jet fuel, and suffered only some exterior damage and minor fires. Yet, at 5:20 PM on the afternoon of 9/11 the building suddenly collapsed in the manner of a controlled demolition. The video of this, captured on film for the world to see, clearly shows that the 47-story steel-frame structure dropped from the bottom up, into its own footprint. The collapse has never been explained, certainly not by the NIST, which has yet to release a final report about WTC 7.

others who have called for a NEW and truly independent 9/11 investigation, one empowered with the necessary resources and with subpoena authority. It's the only way we will ever finally answer the important question: Why did the WTC collapse? Only the truth about 9/11 can free us from the current tyranny of secrecy, lies and deceit which today is a far greater threat to our liberty than any foreign enemy.


Mark H. Gaffney's first book, Dimona the Third Temple (1989), was a pioneering study of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
http://www.gnosticsecrets.com/pages/dimona.htm Mark's latest is Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (2004) Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net Or: visit his web site at www.gnosticsecrets.com

Notes

1. Penn Arts and Sciences, Summer 2002. www.sas.upenn.edu/sasalum/newsltr/summer2002/k911.html
2. Dr Keith Eaton, The Structural Engineer 3, September 2002, #6.
3. James Williams, "WTC a Structural Success," SEAU NEWS, The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah, October 2001, #3.
4. Magazine of Johns Hopkins Public Health, late fall, 2001. When I contacted Dr Geyh she confirmed the report. She stated that people involved in the clean up effort told her they had seen molten steel in the debris.
5. Commissioner Holden's testimony before the 911 Commission is posted at http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/9-11_commission/030401-holden.htm
6. Christopher Bollyn, "Seismic Evidence Points to Underground
Explosions Causing WTC Collapse" American Free Press, August 28, 2002.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bollyn2.htm
7. Manuel Garcia, "The Thermodynamics of 9/11," November 28, 2006. posted at http://www.counterpunch.org/thermo11282006.html
8. The results are posted at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/thermal.r09.html
9. NIST is a nonregulatory agency of the Department of Commerce. The NIST investigation/report of the WTC collapse was conducted under the authority of the National Construction Safety Team Act, which was signed into law on October 1, 2002.
10. See question 13, Frequently Aasked Questions, posted at http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
11."We Will Not Forget, A Day of Terror", The Chief Engineer, October 26, 2006. http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029
12. Sheila Barter, "How the World Trade Center Fell", BBC news, September 13, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1540044.stm
13. A summary of the points presented in the NOVA special are still posted at PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/dyk.html
14 Kamikaze attackers may have known twin sisters' weak spot," Sundaytimes.com posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/collapse/sundaytimes_kamikaze.html
15. Kamikaze attackers may have known twin sisters' weak spot," Sundaytimes.com posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/collapse/sundaytimes_kamikaze.html
16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1604348.stm
17. "Carew Tower couldn't tolerate similar strike", Business Courier, September 14, 2001. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2001/09/17/story6.html
18. Steven Ashley, "When the Twin Towers Fell", October 09, 2001, originally posted at www.Scientific American.com. See the annotated version posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/sciam01/sci_am1.html
19. Andy Field, "A Look Inside a Radical New Theory of the WTC Collapse," Fire/Rescue News, February 7, 2004.
20. T.W. Eagar and C. Musso, "Why Did the WTC Collapse? Science, Engineering and Speculation," Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12 (2001): 8-11. This paper is also posted at http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html
21. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, Preface, xxxi.
22. After a FOIA request advanced by the New York Times the City of New York had to release the FDNY testimonials, which are posted as pdf files at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html For a convenient look at some of them go to http://www.911review.com/coverup/oralhistories.html
23. See the NIST response to question two at http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
24. NIST NCSTAR, Executive Summary, p. xlvii.
25. J.R., Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson Jr., "An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7," Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12 (2001): 18; also see FEMA, "World Trade Center Building Performance Study," May 2002, Appendix C.
26. Steven E. Jones, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?", in 911 and American Empire, edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, Olive Branch Press, Northhampton, Mass., 2006.
27. In July 1971 the WRC won a national award when the Amercan Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) named it "the engineering project that demonstrates the greatest engineering skills and represents the greatest contribution to engineering progress and mankind." in Angus K. Gillespie, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center, New Brunswick, Rutger's University Press, 1999, p. 117.
28. James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center, New York, Times Books, 2003, p. 138.
29. City in the Sky, p. 134-136.
30. cited at http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html
31. Richard Korman and Debra Rubin, "Painful Losses Mount in the Construction 'Family'", posted at http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20011001a.asp
33. "How Columnss Will be Designed for 110-Story Buildings," Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964, p. 48-49.
34. The photo is posted at http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/columnd.jpg
35. This strange development came to light in July 2006, long after the cleanup of the Deutsche Bank had supposedly been completed. The announcement prompted a sharp letter of protest from the attorney representing the families of the victims. For more details go to http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=906
36. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 118; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
37. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 124.
38. The NIST recovered 12 core columns from the WTC, but only one (in two separate pieces) from WTC 2 turned out to be from the area affected by the impacts/fires. A number of flanges from the core were also recovered. See Table 5-2 in NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 35.
39. Eric Douglas, R.A., "The NIST WTC Investigation -- How Real Was The Simulation?", A review of NIST NCSTAR 1, October 2006, p. 8. Posted at www.nistreview.org
40. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Sumary, p. lxxxvii. The NIST also admitted this in its global impact study., which states "in terms of structural damage condition in exterior columns, Case Ai and Case Bi and similarly Case Ci and Case Di damage sets were identical." NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC Investigation, p. 10.
41. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. lxxv.
42. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. lxxv.
43. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC Investigation, p. 344.
44. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B , WTC Investigation, p. 345.
45. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC Investigation, p. 353.
46. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 142.
47. NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC Investigation.
48. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 142
49. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 39.
50. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation p. 39.
51. The NOVA special "Why the Towers Fell" aired in 2002. The text of the NOVA interview with Thomas Eagar is posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/eagar_nova/nova_eagar2.html
52. NIST NCSTAR 1, Executive Summary, p. xlvi.
53. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 141.
54. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 67.
55. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 67.
56. NIST NCSTAR 1, WRC Investigation p. 130.
57. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 88.
58. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 176.
59. Andy Field, "A Look Inside a Radical new Theory of the WTC Collapse," Fire/Rescue News, February 7, 2004. Sunder made a similar statement during an October 19, 2004 presentation. See "World Trade Center Investigation Status," S. Shyam Sunder, lead investigator, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, NIST. This paper can be downloaded as a pdf file at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/agenda_oct192004.htm
60. The NIST makes this important point in two seperate places in the text. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, pp. 49 and 51.
61. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 127.
62. NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. lxvix.
63. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
64. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. xliv.
65. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 126-127.
66. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. 121.
67. NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. lxvix; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. 51.
68. Jim Dwyer and Ksvin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, Times Books, 2005, p. 206; also see Jim Dwyer and Ford fessenden, "Lost Voices of Firefighters, Some on 78th Floor," New York Times, August 4, 2002; Christopher Bollyn, "Feds Withhold Crucial WTC Evidence," American Free Press, August 8, 2002.
69. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 5.
70. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 95.
71. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 43.
72. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 144.
73. In the code his was sub-article 1002.0, adequacy of the structural design. See NIST NCSTAR 1-1A, WTC Investigation, p. 32.
74. Conversation with Ron Hamburger, structural engineer, Dec 7, 2006.
75. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
76. My thanks to the NIST WTC Investigative Team for helping me to understand the numbers. Although the calculations are expressed as demand/capacity ratios in the NIST report, this easily translates into a value, i.e., factor of safety, which is more comprehensible to the average lay person, which is why I'm stayed with factor of safety. Personal communication, December 14, 2006. See NIST NCSTAR WTC Investigation 1-6, Figure 8-9, p. 233.
77. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
78. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. cxii; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 84.
79. The NIST report states: "on the day of the attack the towers were subjected to in-service live loads (a fraction of the design live loads) and minimal wind loads." NIST NCSTAR 1-2 WTC Investigation, p. liv.
80. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
81. I received clarification about this from the NIST WTC Investigation Team. Personal communication, December 14, 2006. The number 5.7 is derived from values presented in Figure 4-35, NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. 101.
82. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
83. Al Goodman, "The Windsor Tower Fire, Madrid," posted at http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm
84. Kevin Ryan, a site manager for Underwriter Labs, was terminated after publicly questioning the conclusions of the NIST report.


Dead On Arrival
The NIST 911 Report On The World Trade Center Collapse
By Mark H. Gaffney
12-15-6

Note to the reader: The following is a critique of the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) report on the World Trade Center (WTC) collapse. The 43 volume NIST report was the result of a 3 year investigation, and was released in September 2005. It remains the official US government explanation for why the WTC collapsed on 9/11. As you are about to discover, the report itself collapses under scrutiny. There is no doubt that the NIST investigation was politically controlled by limiting its scope. This is one way to kill an investigation.

* * *

Fires raged at ground zero for many weeks after 9/11. In fact, it was not until December 19, 2001 that the NYC fire marshall declared the fires extinguished.

The fires burned long into the cleanup. The removal of steel beams and debris from the top of the pile allowed oxygen to reach the fires smoldering below. As a result, the flames often flared up, hampering worker on site. Joel Meyerowitz, a photographer, made note of this in his 2006 retrospective book, AFTERMATH. Armed with his trusty camera Meyerowitz roamed ground zero for months following the attack. Police repeatedly ejected him, but he kept returning in order to document what had happened. Eventually Meyerowitz amassed an impressive photographic record. In his fine book he remarks that the ground in places was so hot it melted the workmen's rubber boots.

But Meyerowitz was hardly the first to comment on the pile's incredible residual heat. The first accounts of molten steel came just hours after the attack: from the search and rescue teams who were among the first on the scene. Sarah Atlas, a member of New Jersey Task Force One Search and Rescue, was one of these emergency responders. Sarah reported seeing molten steel in the pile even as she searched in vain for survivors.[1]

Many have denied the existence of molten steel at ground zero. But there are too many eyewitness accounts to dismiss, including the testimony of engineers, city officials and other competent professionals who toured the ruin. One of these, Dr Keith Eaton, Chief Executive of the London-based Institution of Structural Engineers, later wrote in The Structural Engineer about what he had seen, namely: "molten metal which was still red-hot weeks after the event," as well as "four-inch thick steel plates sheered and bent in the disaster."[2]

A similar account came from Leslie E. Robertson, an engineer who helped design the WTC. He is currently a partner at Leslie E. Robertson Associates, a structural consulting firm that was under contract to the WTC at the time of the tragedy. In a keynote address Robertson reportedly told the Structural Engineers Association of Utah that: "...as of 21 days after the attack the fires were still burning and molten steel still running."[3] Public health officials/experts also toured the scene of destruction. Alison Geyh Ph.D., an Assistant Professor of Environmental Health at Johns Hopkins, was with one of these teams. She wrote that "In some pockets now being uncovered they are finding molten steel."[4] The fact was even reported to the 9/11 Commission by Kenneth Holden, Commissioner of the city of New York. He told the panel about seeing "molten metal" during a walkthrough.[5]

The evidence accumulated even as the cleanup progressed. Work crews removing the mountain of debris, piece by piece, discovered pools of molten steel beneath the pile, where the towers had stood. One pool was found at the bottom of the elevator shafts. Some of the pools were not found until 3, 4, even 5 weeks after 9/11.

Contractors working on site confirmed these discoveries. Such as Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing New York, who was one of four contractors engaged by New York City to handle the cleanup. During an August 2002 interview Tully told the American Free Press that indeed workmen had seen the molten pools.[6] The same interview included a statement by Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc., who, years before, ramrodded the cleanup of the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Loizeaux was called in by Tully to draft the cleanup plan for the WTC site. Loizeaux said, "Yes, hot spots of molten steel were seen in the basements." Molten steel was also found under WTC 7.

These pools of molten metal have never been explained. Loizeaux told the American Free Press that the continuing fires were fueled by "paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they 'pancaked' into the basement." Manuel Garcia, a physicist, has suggested that cars left in parking garages under the WTC contained gasoline that may have fueled the fires.[7] Both are probably correct. But none of these fires were hot enough to melt steel. Indeed, none of the combustibles in the wreckage burned anywhere near the melting point of construction grade steel beams (2800 °F). As noted, the smoldering fires for the most part were oxygen-starved.

sprayed on the pile long before it ever reached the bottom.

The Official Reports

the testimony of the New York city commissioner.

contradicted by the eyewitness accounts of the emergency responders, engineers, officials, and health experts already cited, not to mention the lead contractors who accomplished the cleanup.[9] After brushing aside the issue as irrelevant to the WTC collapse, the NIST report then suggests that:

Under certain circumstances it is conceivable for some of the steel in the wreckage to have melted after the buildings collapsed. Any molten steel in the wreckage was more likely due to the high temperature resulting from long exposure to combustion within the pile than to short exposure to fires or explosions while the buildings were standing. [my emphasis] [10]

The NIST never clarifies what the "certain circumstances" might be that produced molten steel after the collapse. Its statement about "long exposure to combustion" is absurd on its face, given that there was no energy source in the pile of wreckage remotely capable of melting steel. In fact, the NIST's above statement is an affront to our intelligence, since the hot spots identified by the US Geological Survey immediately after 9/11 and the molten pools were surely one and the same. There is no way to avoid the conclusion that the molten materials under the wreckage, as well as the smoldering fires, were a residual product of whatever caused the collapse of the WTC. Something on September 11, 2001 burned hot enough to melt steel in the basement of both towers. But such a deduction is too simple, evidently, or too provocative for the NIST, which made a decision not to go there.

When asked about what caused the molten pools Peter Tully suggested that perhaps jet fuel was responsible. But on this point, at least, the NIST report is surely correct. It's easy to show that jet fuel was not the causative agent. There were reports that burning jet fuel leaked into the WTC elevators moments after the first impact. A descending fireball possibly caused explosions many floors below. Witnesses saw critically burned people emerging from elevators. Something ripped through the WTC 1 concourse lobby at about the time of the impact, blowing out windows and crumpling steel doors like they were paper. The same blast knocked marble slabs off the walls in the lobby. Custodians also heard explosions in the WTC 1 basement. A machine shop was wrecked, as well as a car garage.[11]

world press erred in this respect. Indeed, in the emotional aftermath of the 9/11 attack the press often mangled the science as badly as the twisted steel beams of the WTC. One report posted by the BBC on September 13, 2001 quoted experts who stated matter-of-factly that the burning jet fuel actually melted the central columns, leading to the collapse.[12] Another report on The History Channel, The Anatomy of September 11th, claimed that the inferno turned the steel piers in in the WTC to "licorice." A 2002 PBS NOVA special "Why the Towers Fell" showcased a similar theory, and suggested that the fires reached 2000°F, which caused the steel columns to lose 80% of their strength.[13]


The same day NewScientist.com asserted that "raging fires melted the supporting steel struts."[15] On September 13, 2001 BBC radio interviewed Chris Wise, an engineer who explained that...

"It was the fire that killed the buildings. There's nothing on earth that could survive those temperatures with that amount of fuel burning. The columns would have melted, the floors would have melted, and eventually they would have collapsed one on top of the other."[16]

Elmer Obermeyer, the president of an Ohio engineering firm, also endorsed the meltdown theory in a story in the Cincinnati Business Courier. The paper noted that Obermeyer was a "guru in his field."[17] In October 2001 Scientific American.com posted an article summarizing the results of a 9/11 panel of MIT experts, one of whom, Eduardo Kausel, stated "that the intense heat softened or melted the structural elements- floor trusses and columns -so that they became like chewing gum, and that was enough to trigger the collapse.[18]

This is but a small sampling of many such reports that appeared in those first days. All of them were wrong. As Frank Gayle, one of the NIST's lead scientists, later pointed out: "Your gut reaction would be [that] the jet fuel is what made the [WTC] fire so very intense. A lot of people figured that's what melted the steel. Indeed, it did not, the steel did not melt."[19] Gayle was seconded by Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials engineering at MIT:

"The Fire is the most misunderstood part of the WTC collapse. Even today the media report (and many scientists believe) that the steel melted. It is argued that the jet fuel burns very hot, especially with so much fuel present. This is not true....The temperatures of the fire at the WTC were not unusual, and it was most definitely not capable of melting steel."[20]

2,800°F melting point of steel. Even this 1,000°C upper limit is very difficult to achieve, since, as Thomas Eagar pointed out, it requires the optimal mixing of fuel with oxygen during combustion, which can only be achieved in a laboratory. In fact, the clouds of black smoke that poured out of the twin towers on 9/11 were an obvious sign that the WTC fire burned at much lower temperatures, probably around 650°C (1,202°F) range, or even lower. This was due to the inefficient mixing of oxygen. It's why most building fires burn no hotter than around 500-650°C. (932 -1,202°F)



The NIST Report

Since the primary stated objective of the NIST 9/11 investigation was to determine the cause of the WTC collapse, the NIST should have conducted a forensic examination of the full spectrum of evidence.[21] Ground zero was a crime scene, was it not? Yes, and because many credible eyewitnesses, including firemen who were on duty that fateful day, reported that they heard and/or saw explosions, the NIST should have investigated this without bias.[22] It should have viewed this testimony as hard evidence: a starting point in its investigation. Instead, the NIST did a gloss. It posted a statement on its web site asserting that it had considered a number of hypotheses, including a planned demolition, but had found no corroborating evidence.[23] This disclaimer was no more than a last-minute attempt to deflect criticism, since a close reading of the NIST report shows that the agency never entertained other alternatives. It certainly never investigated the eyewitness accounts of explosions.

The NIST report assumes, start to finish, that the Boeing 767s were responsible for the collapse of the twin towers. The agency took it for granted that the impacts set in motion a chain of events leading to catastrophic structural failure. The assumption is even stated explicitly in the Executive Summary:

The tragic consequences of the September 11, 2001 attacks were directly attributable to the fact that terrorists flew large jet-fuel laden commercial airliners into the WTC towers. Buildings for use by the general population are not designed to withstand attacks of such severity; building codes do not require building designs to consider aircraft impact.[24]

The 43 volume NIST report confines itself to the sequence of events from the first plane impacts to the onset of collapse; and is governed throughout by ipso facto reasoning. Because the agency never entertained the possibility of a planned demolition, it never bothered to look for evidence of same. For example, it never tested steel samples recovered from ground zero for telltale traces of explosives. These omissions were irresponsible and smack of political interference, since in addition to the eyewitness accounts two scientific papers, one published in 2001, and another by FEMA in May 2002, had already detected sulfur residues on samples of WTC steel.[25] As Dr. Steven Jones, a physics professor at BYU, has pointed out, sulfidation of steel can be an indicator of the use of thermate (or other closely related compounds) developed by the military and commonly used to cut steel in demolitions work.[26] The possibility needed to be checked, if only to rule it out; but the agency, again, chose not to go there.

Let us now examine the NIST report in detail.

Why the WTC Survived the 767 Impacts

the WTC was hugely overbuilt: redundant by design. The towers simply transferred the load from the severed/damaged members to other undamaged columns.

Upon its completion in 1970 the World Trade Center was not only the world's tallest twin-skyscraper (1,368 feet), it was also a state-of-the-art achievement of modern construction.[27] Although the WTC's soaring lines gave the impression of a relatively light frame, in fact, the towers were extremely rugged, engineered to withstand hurricane-force winds and to survive a direct hit by a Boeing 707, the largest commercial jetliner of the day. In a 1993 interview the WTC's principal structural engineer, John Skilling, stated that prior to construction he performed an impact analysis of a 600 mph Boeing 707 impact, and concluded "that the building structure would still be there."[28] The architectural firm that worked with Skilling described his 1,200 page structural analysis as "the most complete and detailed ever made for any building structure."[29] Frank A. Demartini, onsite manager during the construction of the WTC, seconded this view during a January 25, 2001 interview, in which he noted that the study involved "a fully loaded 707." Demartini even declared 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."[30] Demartini kept an office in the North Tower and was last seen on 9/11 assisting evacuees on the 78th floor.[31]

The original WTC design, the work of architect Minoru Yamasaki, was one of the first architectural plans to call for open space within a steel-frame building. This meant doing away with the forest of columns so typical of the steel high-rise buildings of former years. Chief engineer Skilling achieved the objective with a double support system: a dense array of 236 columns around the perimeter, and a network of 47 massive piers at the core. The creation of large expanses of unobstructed floor space within the WTC was a novel idea in the 1960s, but is commonplace today.[32]

slab of lightweight concrete. Probably Skilling's greatest innovation was to extend the truss diagonals up into the concrete floor, which added stiffness and strength. Each truss assembly/concrete floor behaved as a single unit.

all possible. In fact, the WTC had tremendous reserve capacity. An early article about the project in the Engineering News-Record declared that "live loads on these [perimeter] columns can be increased more than 2,000 percent before failure occurs."[33]

generated heat. Construction-grade steel begins to lose its tensile strength at 425°C (~800°F), and is only about half as strong at 650°C (1,202°F). The lightweight truss assemblies were especially vulnerable, since they consisted of rather thin steel members. During construction they were coated with spray-applied insulation. The much larger steel piers and columns had a fire-barrier of gypsum wallboard.

NIST's Official Explanation


which pulled the perimeter columns inward, causing them to buckle. The fires also weakened the central piers. The combination of these effects destabilized the structures and at a critical point the towers simply collapsed. The NIST concluded that the WTC would have survived the fires if the Boeing 767 impacts had not dislodged/damaged the fireproofing material, which, therefore, according to the NIST, was the critical factor on 9/11.

There are a number of serious problems, however, with this official narrative. In the first place, it is sharply at odds with the video record, which plainly shows that during each collapse perimeter columns and other structural members didn't simply fall to the ground. In many cases they were ejected up and out of the disintegrating structure at nearly a 45 degree angle: a cascade that hurled steel beams weighing 20 tons or more as much as 600 feet from the base of the buildings. One remarkable photo of ground zero taken from above shows that entire sections of WTC 1's western perimeter wall were thrown 500+ feet toward the Winter Garden.[34] Could a gravitational collapse do this?

Pulverization

workers found more than 700 body parts, e.g., slivers of bone, on the roof and within the doomed structure.[35] The question is: why? This bizarre report remains a mystery.

there were no resistance whatsoever. From start to finish they fell in only about 12 seconds, just 2 seconds longer than the time for a billiard ball to drop from the WTC roof to the plaza below. The question is why?

The NIST report failed to address any of these anomalies. In fact, it didn't even try. The NIST sidestepped the ejection of material, the vast pulverization of concrete, the many testimonials and other evidence of explosions, and the near-free fall by limiting its investigation to the sequence of events from the Boeing 767 impacts to the onset of the collapse. Incredibly, the NIST chose not to examine the collapse itself. The report makes reference to the "global collapse" of the WTC, but we never learn what this means because the NIST report never tells us. Once again, the agency decided not to go there. Evidently we are supposed to assume that gravity alone was responsible. But could gravity transform enormous slabs of concrete, hundreds of thousands of tons of material, into fine dust, in midair? Extremely doubtful. The NIST's decision not to investigate these important questions add up to more grave omissions.

But we haven't yet examined the NIST report itself. Let's do that, now.

The Special Projects

very little of it lends credence to the NIST's final, and official, explanation of the cause of the WTC collapse.

One of the most serious and persistent problems NIST investigators faced was the admitted lack of information about conditions at the core of the towers.[36] To be sure, thousands of photographs and hundreds of hours of videotape made it possible to study in detail the damage to the WTC exterior, and to gain a reasonable understanding about conditions in the outer offices. Fires were often visible through the windows, despite dense smoke, and sagging floors and other structural damage was discernible through gaping holes in the damaged exterior. However, as the NIST report states, "Fires deeper than a few meters inside the building could not be seen because of the smoke obscuration [sic] and the steep viewing angle of nearly all the photographs."[37] Thus, except for steel samples gathered after the fact the NIST had almost no other information about the dynamic conditions at the core of the WTC on 9/11.[38]

The agency sought to overcome this shortfall of information with computer simulations. This was problematic from the outset, since computer models are no better than the quality of input and the accuracy of the programmer's assumptions. As architect and critic Eric Douglas points out in his 2006 analysis of the NIST report: "a fundamental problem with....computer simulation is the overwhelming temptation to manipulate the input data until one achieves the desired results."[39] Did the NIST investigators fall prey to this insidious tendency? And did this lead them to overestimate the impact damage to the WTC interior? Let us now consider this question.

NIST's Global Impact/Collapse Analyses

In one of its most important projects (NCSTAR 1-2), NIST scientists developed a global impact analysis: to estimate the structural damage to the WTC caused by the Boeing 767s. In this study the NIST considered three different scenarios. These ranged from less damage to extreme damage, with a moderate alternative (described as "the base") in the middle. As it happened, all three scenarios accurately predicted the impact damage to the WTC exterior at the point of entry; although with regard to WTC 1 the moderate case was a slightly better match.[40] The three differed greatly, however, in predicting the number of severed columns at the WTC core, a datum obviously of great importance. In the case of WTC 1 the lesser alternative predicted only one severed core column, the moderate alternative predicted three, while the extreme alternative predicted five to six. In the case of WTC 2 the disparity was even greater: The lesser alternative predicted three severed columns, the moderate five, and the extreme case no less than ten.[41]

Although the NIST never satisfactorily resolved these differences, it immediately threw out the less severe alternatives, citing two reasons in the Executive Summary report: first, because they failed to predict observable damage to the far exterior walls; and second, because they did not lead to a global collapse.[42]

that none of the alternatives accurately predicted the exit damage.[44]

This admission, deeply buried in the 43 volume report, is fatal to the NIST's first rationale for rejecting the lesser alternative, since it was no less accurate than the moderate and extreme cases. (Or, put differently: It was no more inaccurate.) Which, of course, means that the NIST rejected the lesser alternative for only one reason: because it failed to predict a global collapse. The simulations for WTC 2 suffered from the same modeling defect. As the supplementary documentation states, "None of the three WTC 2 global impact simulations resulted in a large engine fragment exiting the tower."[45] Yet, here again, the NIST rejected the lesser alternative. We can thank researcher Eric Douglas for digging deeper than the summary report. Otherwise, this flaw, tantamount to the devil lurking in the fine print, might never have come to light.

from a predictive standpoint, than the extreme cases. In fact, with regard to predicting the entry damage to WTC 1, as noted, the moderate alternative was actually a better match.

The NIST report offers no scientific rationale for this decision, only the pithy comment that the moderate alternatives "were discarded after the structural response analysis of major subsystems were compared with observed events."[46] And what, pray tell, were these "observed events"? The report explains that "structural models....indicated that....the buildings would have continued to stand indefinitely."[47] Here, at least, the NIST is more forthright than in the case of the lesser alternatives.

Things only get worse.

As it happened, even the extreme alternatives required further tinkering to be acceptable. The report informs us that "Complete sets of simulations were then performed for cases B and D [the extreme alternatives]. To the extent that the simulations deviated from the photographic evidence or eyewitness reports, the investigators adjusted the input, but only within the range of physical reality."[my emphasis][48] In other words, NIST scientists worked backwards from the collapse, tweaking the extreme alternatives until their computer model finally spat out the desired result consistent with their assumption, which never wavered, that the 767 impacts ultimately were at the root of everything on 9/11. Of course, the NIST report never tells us what the "additional inputs" were.

That the NIST's impact study and subsequent global collapse analysis were biased, hence, unscientific, ought to be obvious. But I will go even further: The impact simulations were very nearly a waste of time, since by its own admission the NIST had almost no information about actual conditions at the WTC core. The NIST had no sound basis for rejecting the lesser and moderate impact alternatives; both were at least as plausible as the extreme alternative. Why were they not given equal weight? The reason is obvious: That would have compelled NIST investigators to entertain the unthinkable, i.e., the possibility that some other causative agent was responsible for the WTC collapse. Still, one has to admire, in a perverse sort of way, the NIST's triumph of circular reasoning..

The Metallurgical Studies

The NIST's metallurgical and fire studies were among the most important projects, and involved testing 236 samples of steel columns, panels, trusses, and other smaller parts recovered from ground zero. Thanks to the original labeling system used during the construction of the WTC, the NIST was able in many cases to identify individual steel members, and thus to determine their exact locations in the WTC. As it happened, some of the samples were from the impact zones and fire-damaged areas.[49] The collection represented only 0.25 - 0.5 % of the 200,000 total tons of structural steel used the two towers. But the NIST believed it had enough samples to determine the quality of the steel and evaluate its performance on 9/11.[50]

view of many about how and why the trusses failed on 9/11:

"...the steel had plenty of strength, until it reached temperatures of 1,100º to 1,300ºF. In this range, the steel started losing a lot of strength, and the bending became greater. Eventually the steel lost 80 percent of its strength, because of this fire that consumed the whole floor....then you got this domino effect. Once you started to get angle-clips to fail in one area, it put extra load on other angle-clips, and then it unzipped around the building on that floor in a matter of seconds. If you look at the whole structure, they are the smallest piece of steel. As everything begins to distort, the smallest piece is going to become the weak link in the chain. They were plenty strong for holding up one truss, but when you lost several trusses, the trusses adjacent to those had to hold two or three times what they were expected to hold."[51]

out.

Because the NIST did not have the necessary facilities, it contracted Underwriter Laboratories to conduct a series of fire endurance tests on trusses like those in the WTC. (The recovered truss samples were too badly deformed during the collapse to test them directly, so NIST fabricated new trusses identical in design.) The purpose of the tests was to establish a baseline, and the results were surprising. Not one of the truss assemblies failed during a series of four tests, not even the truss sprayed with the minimum amount of fireproofing. "The floors continued to support the full design load without collapse for over two hours."[52] The investigative team cautiously noted that the exposure of the floor systems to fire on 9/11 was "substantially different" than the conditions in the test furnaces, which was true enough. Yet, the team noted that "this type of assembly was capable of sustaining a large gravity load without collapsing for a substantial period of time relative to the duration of the fires in any given location on September 11."[53] The UL tests not only laid to rest the theory that the trusses were the cause of the collapse on 9/11, if anything, the tests demonstrated the fundamental soundness of the WTC truss design.

these findings support the NIST's official explanation for the WTC collapse. On the contrary.

The Fire Tests:
Core Weakening?

range where significant loss of strength occurs. When the test was repeated again with an insulated column, the steel did not reach 600ºC even after ten hours. The NIST concluded that "the fires in WTC 1 and WTC 2 would not be able to significantly weaken the insulated....columns within the 102 minutes and 56 minutes, respectively, after impact and prior to collapse."[my emphasis][56]

The NIST interpreted these results as validating its favored hypothesis that the critical factor on 9/11 leading to the global failure of the WTC's support columns was the damage to the fireproofing insulation caused by the Boeing 767 impacts. But was this an unwarranted leap? It certainly was not supported by the NIST's metallurgical analyses, which showed that not even one of the 236 steel samples, including those from the impact areas and fire-damaged floors, showed evidence of exposure to temperatures in excess of 1,110ºF (600ºC) for as long as 15 minutes.[57] In fact, out of more than 170 areas examined on 16 recovered perimeter columns, only 3 reached temperatures in excess of 250ºC (450ºF) during the fires.[58] And why ? Well, perhaps, in part, because, as Shyam Sunder, the lead NIST investigator, admitted, "the jet fuel....burned out in less than ten minutes."[59] Also, NIST scientists made another surprising discovery: The actual amount of combustibles on a typical floor of the WTC turned out to be less than expected, only about 4 lbs./sq. foot. Furthermore, "the fuel loading in the core areas....was negligible."[60] The shocking fact is that the World Trade Center was fuel-poor, compared with most other buildings. The NIST estimated that a fire in a typical area of the building would have burned through the available combustibles at maximum temperatures (1,000ºC) in about 15-20 minutes.[61] Not nearly long enough even at that temperature to cause exposed steel to lose 80% of its strength.

Nor is this all. I searched the NIST report in vain for any acknowledgment that here, as in the case of the truss assembly test, the actual fire conditions on 9/11 were substantially different from the UL laboratory furnace. In fact, with respect to the columns the differences were at least as significant as with the truss assembly test, and call into sharp question the NIST's conclusion that damaged insulation was the critical factor. Although the NIST took the position that "temperatures and stresses were high in the core area,"[62] as I've noted the investigation suffered from a persistent lack of information about real conditions at the core. The NIST had no hard evidence about the actual amount of protective insulation damaged/dislodged during the impacts. The NIST report acknowledges this,[63] then goes on to assume that all structural members in the debris path at the time of impact suffered 100% loss of insulation.[64] Surely, we are safe to conclude that the Boeing 767 impacts did cause damage to, or strip away, a substantial portion of the fireproofing material. Exactly how much is not knowable. But even if the NIST estimate of total loss of fireproofing is correct, there is virtually no chance that the fires on 9/11 weakened the WTC's core piers within the allotted span of time: 56/103 minutes.

A Vast Heat Sink

The reason for this, nowhere acknowledged in the NIST report, ought to be obvious: The WTC's support columns did not exist in isolation. This was no laboratory furnace. The columns in each tower were part of an interconnected steel framework that weighed at least 100,000 tons; and because steel is known to be an excellent conductor of heat this massive steel superstructure functioned on 9/11 as an enormous energy sink. The total volume of the steel framework was vast compared with the relatively small area of exposed steel, and would have wicked away the fire-caused heat almost as quickly as it was generated. Anyone who has repaired a copper water pipe with a propane torch is familiar with the principle. One must sit and wait patiently for the pipe temperature to rise to the point where the copper finally sucks the solder into the fitting. While it is true that copper is more conductive than steel, the analogy holds, regardless. The fact that only three recovered steel samples showed exposure to temperatures above 250ºC indicates that the steel superstructure was indeed behaving as a heat sink. The fires on 9/11 would have taken many hours, in any event, much longer than the brief allotted span of 56/103 minutes respectively, to slowly raise the temperature of the steel framework as a whole to the point of weakening the exposed members.

after the impact and waned thereafter. Temperatures were actually cooling across most of floor 96, including the core, at the moment of the collapse. But if this is true, the central piers were not losing strength at that point but regaining it.[66] How, then, did they collapse? Finally, the NIST's insistence that "temperatures and stresses were high in the core area" is not consistent with their finding that the fuel load of combustibles in the core was negligible.[67] On this point the NIST contradicts itself.

In short, the NIST report fails to explain how transient fires weakened WTC 1's enormous central piers in the allotted span of 103 minutes and triggered a global collapse.

The Fires in the Second Tower

more extensive impact damage of the core columns, helps to explain why WTC 2 fell first, even though it was impacted after WTC 1. Videos filmed on 9/11 do show inward bowing of WTC 2's eastern wall, although its actual extent and significance remain disputed. But perhaps the most serious challenge to the official view that fires were gravely weakening WTC 2 comes from an audiotape released in August 2002 by the Port Authority of New York. The tape, which was lost or neglected for more than a year, is the only known recording of firefighters inside the towers. When city fire officials belatedly listened to it they were surprised to discover that firemen actually reached the impact/fire zone of WTC 2 about 14 minutes before the building collapsed. On climbing to the 78th floor sky lobby Battalion Chief Orlo J. Palmer and Fire Marshall Ronald P. Bucca found many dead or seriously injured people, but no raging inferno. The audio transmission between Palmer and another fireman shows no hint of panic or fear, as the following transcript shows:

Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... 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 numerous 10-45 Code Ones.

Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."

Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"

Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."

Battalion Seven Chief: "Tower one. Battalion Seven to Ladder 15."

Battalion Seven Chief: "I'm going to need two of your firefighters Adam stairway to knock down two fires. We have a house line stretched we could use some water on it, knock it down, okay."

Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're coming up the stairs. We're on 77 now in the B stair, I'll be right to you."

Battalion Seven Operations Tower One: "Battalion Seven Operations Tower One to Battalion Nine, need you on floor above 79. We have access stairs going up to 79, kay."

Battalion Nine: "Alright, I'm on my way up, Orio."[68]

Here, Battalion Chief Orlo Palmer calls for hoses to be brought up to put out the fires. His expression "10-45 Code Ones" is a reference to dead bodies, of which, evidently, there were many. The tape shows that the firemen were not turned back by heat, smoke, or a wall of flames. They were able to function within the impact zone and were prepared to help the injured and combat the small fires they found. Palmer even mentions that the stairwell up to the next floor, i.e., 79, was passable. Minutes later the building came down on their heads.

Inexplicably, the NIST never considered this important evidence. The question is why? Their omission is especially damning, since, as I've stressed, the NIST investigation suffered from a persistent lack of information about actual conditions at the core.[69] Here was real-time testimony from firefighters who were on the scene, and the NIST simply ignored it.

outside the path of Flight 175. Both samples were physically damaged, but the NIST reported no evidence of the kinds of distortion, i.e., bowing, slumping, or sagging that are typical of heat-weakened steel. Nor was the NIST able to glean any evidence of high temperatures from the columns.[70] On what, then, do they base their conclusion that "Dire structural changes were occurring in the building interior"?[71] If anything, the paucity of evidence calls into question the NIST's declaration that their sampling effort was adequate.

Moreover, as we've already noted, the NIST's computer simulation predicting extreme damage to the core of WTC 2 is dubious, since it is also unsupported by hard evidence. In fact, the NIST's preferred extreme alternative was, from a predictive standpoint, no better than the lesser alternatives, which the NIST rejected. Even the extreme alternative failed to predict a global collapse, without "additional inputs." As for the inputs, it would be interesting to know more about them. Unfortunately, the NIST's global collapse analysis is so highly technical as to be almost incomprehensible to a non programmer. I was struck by the number of assumptions it makes, one piled on another.

The Issue of Reserve Capacity

In order to show just how weak the official 9/11 narrative is, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that local fires did burn long and hot enough to weaken exposed columns in the impact zone of WTC 2. As I will now show, even if this did occur it still fails to account for the global collapse of the second tower. As the NIST report states,

both towers had considerable reserve capacity. This was confirmed by analysis of the post-impact vibration of WTC 2, the more severely damaged building, where the damaged tower oscillated at a period nearly equal to the first mode period calculated for the undamaged structure.[my emphasis][72]

to several of the project reports and supplementary documents. I also consulted with experts at the International Code Council (ICC) and with a leading structural engineer. I learned that estimating the overall reserve capacity of a steel structure is no simple task. Numerous factors are involved. Moreover, there are different ways to approach the problem.

Perhaps the simplest measure of reserve capacity are the standards for the material components of a building. In the late 1960s when the WTC was constructed the applicable standard was the New York City Building Code, which required a builder to execute computations for the various structural members to show that they met the specified requirements. However, the code also allowed for actual testing of members, in the event that computations were impractical. The testing standards applicable in 1968 give a good idea of the required level of reserve strength in the steel columns and other materials used in the WTC. For example, in the most stringent test a steel member had to withstand 250% of the design load, plus half again its own weight, for a period of a week, without collapse.[73]

Factor of Safety

Another widely used measure of reserve capacity is the so called "factor of safety." This varies for different structural elements, but for steel columns and beams typically ranges from 1.75-2.0.[74] The NIST report actually breaks this more general figure down into two separate and slightly different measurements for stress: yielding strength (1.67) and buckling (1.92).[75] For our purposes, however, the more general figure is adequate. So, for example, a steel column with a factor of safety of 1.75 must support 1.75 times the anticipated design load before it begins to incur damage. While this value is typical of steel beams in general, the actual reserve strength of the steel columns in the WTC was higher. When the NIST crunched the numbers for the 47 core columns of WTC 1 (between the 93rd and 98th floors) it found that the factor of safety ranged from 1.6 to 2.8, the average value being 2.1.[76] This means that the average core column in WTC 1 could support more than twice its design load before reaching the yield strength, i.e., the point where damage may begin to occur.

improbable worst case, in which many of the WTC columns lost half of their strength, there was still plenty of reserve capacity to support the building.

The Perimeter Wall

structure's gravity load, which overall did not change. Of course, the wrecked jetliner added substantial mass. On the other hand, due to the successful evacuation of people the live load, i.e., the total body mass of the occupants, was reduced by 75%.[82]

counts, due to insufficient evidence. Indeed, I would go further and call the evidence woefully insufficient.

Some Fire History:
For Sake of Comparison

Numerous steel beams also sagged and columns buckled.[83] But the overall superstructure, which was largely unprotected, never collapsed. The steel framework withstood the disaster, though gravely weakened. By contrast, most of the WTC's massive central piers and perimeter columns were never even touched by the fires of 9/11, which were confined to a few upper floors.

The Cardington Fire Tests

heat. The Cardington fire tests had relevance to the WTC collapse. The results were readily available and might have informed the NIST investigation. But to the best of my knowledge NIST scientists never considered the Cardington lab test data.

Conclusion:
Back to the Future

times on a single day. I say "three times" because, notice, I have not even discussed the case of WTC 7, which was not hit by a plane, hence, had no spillage of jet fuel, and suffered only some exterior damage and minor fires. Yet, at 5:20 PM on the afternoon of 9/11 the building suddenly collapsed in the manner of a controlled demolition. The video of this, captured on film for the world to see, clearly shows that the 47-story steel-frame structure dropped from the bottom up, into its own footprint. The collapse has never been explained, certainly not by the NIST, which has yet to release a final report about WTC 7.

others who have called for a NEW and truly independent 9/11 investigation, one empowered with the necessary resources and with subpoena authority. It's the only way we will ever finally answer the important question: Why did the WTC collapse? Only the truth about 9/11 can free us from the current tyranny of secrecy, lies and deceit which today is a far greater threat to our liberty than any foreign enemy.


Mark H. Gaffney's first book, Dimona the Third Temple (1989), was a pioneering study of the Israeli nuclear weapons program.
http://www.gnosticsecrets.com/pages/dimona.htm Mark's latest is Gnostic Secrets of the Naassenes (2004) Mark can be reached for comment at markhgaffney@earthlink.net Or: visit his web site at www.gnosticsecrets.com

Notes

1. Penn Arts and Sciences, Summer 2002. www.sas.upenn.edu/sasalum/newsltr/summer2002/k911.html
2. Dr Keith Eaton, The Structural Engineer 3, September 2002, #6.
3. James Williams, "WTC a Structural Success," SEAU NEWS, The Newsletter of the Structural Engineers Association of Utah, October 2001, #3.
4. Magazine of Johns Hopkins Public Health, late fall, 2001. When I contacted Dr Geyh she confirmed the report. She stated that people involved in the clean up effort told her they had seen molten steel in the debris.
5. Commissioner Holden's testimony before the 911 Commission is posted at http://www.globalsecurity.org/security/library/congress/9-11_commission/030401-holden.htm
6. Christopher Bollyn, "Seismic Evidence Points to Underground
Explosions Causing WTC Collapse" American Free Press, August 28, 2002.
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bollyn2.htm
7. Manuel Garcia, "The Thermodynamics of 9/11," November 28, 2006. posted at http://www.counterpunch.org/thermo11282006.html
8. The results are posted at http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2001/ofr-01-0429/thermal.r09.html
9. NIST is a nonregulatory agency of the Department of Commerce. The NIST investigation/report of the WTC collapse was conducted under the authority of the National Construction Safety Team Act, which was signed into law on October 1, 2002.
10. See question 13, Frequently Aasked Questions, posted at http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
11."We Will Not Forget, A Day of Terror", The Chief Engineer, October 26, 2006. http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029
12. Sheila Barter, "How the World Trade Center Fell", BBC news, September 13, 2001. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/1540044.stm
13. A summary of the points presented in the NOVA special are still posted at PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/wtc/dyk.html
14 Kamikaze attackers may have known twin sisters' weak spot," Sundaytimes.com posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/collapse/sundaytimes_kamikaze.html
15. Kamikaze attackers may have known twin sisters' weak spot," Sundaytimes.com posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/disinfo/collapse/sundaytimes_kamikaze.html
16. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/1604348.stm
17. "Carew Tower couldn't tolerate similar strike", Business Courier, September 14, 2001. http://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/stories/2001/09/17/story6.html
18. Steven Ashley, "When the Twin Towers Fell", October 09, 2001, originally posted at www.Scientific American.com. See the annotated version posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/sciam01/sci_am1.html
19. Andy Field, "A Look Inside a Radical New Theory of the WTC Collapse," Fire/Rescue News, February 7, 2004.
20. T.W. Eagar and C. Musso, "Why Did the WTC Collapse? Science, Engineering and Speculation," Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12 (2001): 8-11. This paper is also posted at http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0112/Eagar/Eagar-0112.html
21. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, Preface, xxxi.
22. After a FOIA request advanced by the New York Times the City of New York had to release the FDNY testimonials, which are posted as pdf files at http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/met_WTC_histories_full_01.html For a convenient look at some of them go to http://www.911review.com/coverup/oralhistories.html
23. See the NIST response to question two at http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
24. NIST NCSTAR, Executive Summary, p. xlvii.
25. J.R., Barnett, R.R. Biederman, and R.D. Sisson Jr., "An Initial Microstructural Analysis of A36 Steel from WTC Building 7," Journal of the Minerals, Metals and Materials Society, 53/12 (2001): 18; also see FEMA, "World Trade Center Building Performance Study," May 2002, Appendix C.
26. Steven E. Jones, "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Collapse?", in 911 and American Empire, edited by David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott, Olive Branch Press, Northhampton, Mass., 2006.
27. In July 1971 the WRC won a national award when the Amercan Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) named it "the engineering project that demonstrates the greatest engineering skills and represents the greatest contribution to engineering progress and mankind." in Angus K. Gillespie, Twin Towers: The Life of New York City's World Trade Center, New Brunswick, Rutger's University Press, 1999, p. 117.
28. James Glanz and Eric Lipton, City in the Sky: The Rise and Fall of the World Trade Center, New York, Times Books, 2003, p. 138.
29. City in the Sky, p. 134-136.
30. cited at http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/design.html
31. Richard Korman and Debra Rubin, "Painful Losses Mount in the Construction 'Family'", posted at http://www.construction.com/NewsCenter/Headlines/ENR/20011001a.asp
33. "How Columnss Will be Designed for 110-Story Buildings," Engineering News-Record, April 2, 1964, p. 48-49.
34. The photo is posted at http://www.geocities.com/debunking911/columnd.jpg
35. This strange development came to light in July 2006, long after the cleanup of the Deutsche Bank had supposedly been completed. The announcement prompted a sharp letter of protest from the attorney representing the families of the victims. For more details go to http://www.911citizenswatch.org/print.php?sid=906
36. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 118; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
37. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 124.
38. The NIST recovered 12 core columns from the WTC, but only one (in two separate pieces) from WTC 2 turned out to be from the area affected by the impacts/fires. A number of flanges from the core were also recovered. See Table 5-2 in NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 35.
39. Eric Douglas, R.A., "The NIST WTC Investigation -- How Real Was The Simulation?", A review of NIST NCSTAR 1, October 2006, p. 8. Posted at www.nistreview.org
40. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Sumary, p. lxxxvii. The NIST also admitted this in its global impact study., which states "in terms of structural damage condition in exterior columns, Case Ai and Case Bi and similarly Case Ci and Case Di damage sets were identical." NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC Investigation, p. 10.
41. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. lxxv.
42. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. lxxv.
43. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC Investigation, p. 344.
44. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B , WTC Investigation, p. 345.
45. NIST NCSTAR 1-2B, WTC Investigation, p. 353.
46. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 142.
47. NIST NCSTAR 1-6D, WTC Investigation.
48. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 142
49. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 39.
50. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation p. 39.
51. The NOVA special "Why the Towers Fell" aired in 2002. The text of the NOVA interview with Thomas Eagar is posted at http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/eagar_nova/nova_eagar2.html
52. NIST NCSTAR 1, Executive Summary, p. xlvi.
53. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 141.
54. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 67.
55. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 67.
56. NIST NCSTAR 1, WRC Investigation p. 130.
57. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 88.
58. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 176.
59. Andy Field, "A Look Inside a Radical new Theory of the WTC Collapse," Fire/Rescue News, February 7, 2004. Sunder made a similar statement during an October 19, 2004 presentation. See "World Trade Center Investigation Status," S. Shyam Sunder, lead investigator, Building and Fire Research Laboratory, NIST. This paper can be downloaded as a pdf file at http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/agenda_oct192004.htm
60. The NIST makes this important point in two seperate places in the text. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, pp. 49 and 51.
61. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 127.
62. NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. lxvix.
63. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, Executive Summary, p. xli.
64. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. xliv.
65. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 126-127.
66. NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. 121.
67. NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. lxvix; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-5, WTC Investigation, p. 51.
68. Jim Dwyer and Ksvin Flynn, 102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers, Times Books, 2005, p. 206; also see Jim Dwyer and Ford fessenden, "Lost Voices of Firefighters, Some on 78th Floor," New York Times, August 4, 2002; Christopher Bollyn, "Feds Withhold Crucial WTC Evidence," American Free Press, August 8, 2002.
69. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 5.
70. NIST NCSTAR 1-3, WTC Investigation, p. 95.
71. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation, p. 43.
72. NIST NCSTAR 1, WTC Investigation p. 144.
73. In the code his was sub-article 1002.0, adequacy of the structural design. See NIST NCSTAR 1-1A, WTC Investigation, p. 32.
74. Conversation with Ron Hamburger, structural engineer, Dec 7, 2006.
75. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
76. My thanks to the NIST WTC Investigative Team for helping me to understand the numbers. Although the calculations are expressed as demand/capacity ratios in the NIST report, this easily translates into a value, i.e., factor of safety, which is more comprehensible to the average lay person, which is why I'm stayed with factor of safety. Personal communication, December 14, 2006. See NIST NCSTAR WTC Investigation 1-6, Figure 8-9, p. 233.
77. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
78. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. cxii; also see NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 84.
79. The NIST report states: "on the day of the attack the towers were subjected to in-service live loads (a fraction of the design live loads) and minimal wind loads." NIST NCSTAR 1-2 WTC Investigation, p. liv.
80. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
81. I received clarification about this from the NIST WTC Investigation Team. Personal communication, December 14, 2006. The number 5.7 is derived from values presented in Figure 4-35, NIST NCSTAR 1-6, WTC Investigation, p. 101.
82. NIST NCSTAR 1-2, WTC Investigation, p. 66.
83. Al Goodman, "The Windsor Tower Fire, Madrid," posted at http://www.mace.manchester.ac.uk/project/research/structures/strucfire/CaseStudy/HistoricFires/BuildingFires/default.htm
84. Kevin Ryan, a site manager for Underwriter Labs, was terminated after publicly questioning the conclusions of the NIST report.