This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Arguments Regarding the Collapse of the World Trade Center Evaporate Upon Inspection
Preface: Bill Black writes today that Wall Street apologists say that calling for prosecution of Wall Street fraud is like saying the Twin Towers were brought down by controlled demolition.
Now that Bin Laden has been confirmed to be dead, it has been established that Saddam Hussein was not behind 9/11 (one of the main reasons for the Iraq war), and Iran
has been accused of having a hand in 9/11 - potentially forming the
basis for a war against Iran - it is time to revisit some important,
unanswered questions.
This essay does not argue that bombs brought down the Twin Towers or World Trade Building 7, even though many top structural engineers believe that is what happened, and people could easily have planted bombs in the trade centers without anyone noticing and without the conspiracy being discovered.
It simply addresses the frequent argument that fires caused the metal
to sag, which brought down the 3 buildings, and that the case is closed.
The Fires at the World Trade Centers Were NOT Very Hot
The
government agency in charge of the investigation of why three buildings
collapsed on 9/11 - the National Institute of Standards and Technology
(NIST) - says that paint tests indicated low steel temperatures -- 480 Fahrenheit -- "despite pre-collapse exposure to fire". NIST also said that microstructure tests showed no steel reached critical (half-strength) values of 600 Celsius (1112 degrees Fahrenheit) for any significant time.
Numerous top fire protection engineers have said that the fires in the World Trade Centers were not that hot. For example:
- A
mechanical engineer with 20 years experience as a Fire Protection
Engineer for the U.S. Departments of Energy, Defense, and Veterans
Affairs, who is a contributing Subject Matter Expert to the U.S.
Department of Energy Fire Protection Engineering Functional Area
Qualification Standard for Nuclear Facilities, a board member of the
Northern California - Nevada Chapter of the Society of Fire Protection
Engineers, currently serving as Fire Protection Engineer for the city of
San Jose, California, the 10th largest city in the United States
(Edward S. Munyak) says that the fires weren't big enough to bring down
Building 7:
- The
former head of NIST's Fire Science Division, who is
one of the world’s leading fire science researchers and
safety engineers, a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering
(Dr. James Quintiere), called
for an independent review of the World Trade Center
collapse investigation. "I would really like
to see someone else take a look at what they've done; both
structurally and from a fire point of view. ... I
think the official conclusion that NIST arrived at
[that fire and damage from the attacks brought down the buildings] is
questionable.
In addition, Thomas Eager, a
Professor of Materials Engineering and Engineering Systems at MIT and a
defender of the official story, concluded
that the temperatures in the Twin Towers never exceeded 800 Celsius
(1472 degrees Fahrenheit). Eager pointed out that, contrary to popular
belief, jet fuel from the planes did not increase the temperature of the fires.
Structural engineer Antonio Artha notes:
Fire and impact were insignificant in all three buildings.
Structural engineer Graham John Inman points out:
The fire on this building [World Trade Building 7] was small & localized therefore what is the cause?
Thermal
images also suggest that the temperature of the steel in the north
tower at the time of the fire was not much more than 250 degrees Fahrenheit (and see this).
The Argument Evaporates Upon Inspection
Defenders
of the "official" version of 9/11 say, in rebuttal, that the fires
didn't have to be that hot, because - while not hot enough to melt steel - they were hot enough to cause the metal to sag.
It
is irrelevant (and beyond the scope of this post) whether or not their
argument is correct. Specifically, since even defenders of official
story admit that the fires were not hot enough to melt steel, then it is
impossible to explain the huge quantify of molten steel which was
observed under Ground Zero for months after the attacks (see next
section, below).
Indeed, not only was structural steel somehow melted on 9/11, but it was EVAPORATED. Specifically, as the New York Times reports, an expert stated about World Trade Center building 7:
A
combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might
have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But
that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to
have been PARTLY EVAPORATED in extraordinarily high temperatures.
(pay-per-view).
Note that evaporation means conversion from a liquid to a gas; so the steel beams in building 7 were subjected to temperatures high enough to melt and evaporate them.
It is simply impossible that fires from jet fuels and office materials could do that.
Molten Metal Under Ground Zero for MONTHS After Attacks
There was molten metal under ground zero for months after 9/11:
- The structural engineer responsible for the design of the WTC, described fires still burning and molten steel still running 21 days after the attacks (page 3)
- A structural engineer who worked for the Trade Center's original designer saw "streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole." (pages 31-32)
- An engineer stated in the September 3, 2002 issue of The Structural Engineer, "They showed us many fascinating slides ranging from molten metal, which was still red hot weeks after the event."
- New York firefighters recalled in a documentary film, "heat so intense they encountered rivers of molten steel."
- A NY firefighter described molten steel flowing at ground zero, and said it was like a "foundry" or like "lava".
- A public health advisor who arrived at Ground Zero on September 12, said that "feeling the heat" and "seeing the molten steel" there reminded him of a volcano.
- An employee of New Jersey's Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue witnessed "Fires burn[ing and molten steel flow[ing] in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet."
- The head of a team of scientists studying the potential health effects of 9/11, reported, "Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense. In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel."
- According to a worker involved with the organizing of demolition, excavation and debris removal operations at ground zero, "Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6."
- A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams."
- According to a member of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing, who was at Ground Zero from September 22 to October 6, "One
fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the
towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but
the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots."
- A retired professor of physics and atmospheric science said "in
mid-October when they would pull out a steel beam, the lower part
would be glowing dull red, which indicates a temperature on the order
of 500 to 600 °C. And we know that people were turning over pieces of
concrete in December that would flash into fire--which requires about
300 °C. So the surface of the pile cooled rather rapidly, but the bulk
of the pile stayed hot all the way to December."
- A fireman stated that there were "oven" like conditions at the trade centers six weeks after 9/11.
- Firemen and hazardous materials experts also stated that, six weeks after 9/11, "There
are pieces of steel being pulled out [from as far as six stories
underground] that are still cherry red" and "the blaze is so 'far beyond
a normal fire' that it is nearly impossible to draw conclusions about
it based on other fires." (pay-per-view)
- A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for
about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its
regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything
from molten steel beams to human remains...."
- New York mayor Rudy Giuliani said "They were standing on top of a cauldron. They were standing on top of fires 2,000 degrees that raged for a hundred days."
- As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel."
- A rescue worker "crawled through an opening and down crumpled stairwells to the subway five levels below ground. He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam"
- See also witness statements at the beginning of this video.
The
fact that there was molten steel under ground zero for months after
9/11 is very odd, especially since firefighters sprayed millions of
gallons of water on the fires and applied high-tech fire retardants.
Specifically, 4 million gallons of water were dropped on Ground Zero within the first 10 days after September 11, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories:
The
spraying continued for months afterward (the 10 day period was simply
the timeframe in which the DOE was sampling). Enormous amounts of
water were hosed on Ground Zero continuously, day and night:
This photograph may capture a sense of how wet the ground became due to the constant spraying:
Moreover, the fires were sprayed with thousands of gallons of high tech fire-retardants.
It was not the collapses which caused steel to melt. Specifically, a professor emeritus of physics has proven that the collapses themselves could not have melted steel. And Brent Blanchard - a recognized expert in controlled demolition - stated in a telephone interview with physicist Steven Jonesv that he has witnessed hundreds of controlled demolitions, but has never seen molten metal at any of the demolition sites.
So how does NIST explain the molten metal? It denies its existence:
»
- advertisements -
None of this explains the coincidence of the other two planes. Of course there are stories about a missle at the Pentagon but the story about the flight that went down in PA would be consistent with the MSM story. If it was all a conspiracy, was there also a device ready to blow up the WH that was not used because the plane didn't make it? Real question is, who really benefited? Isreal? Military Industrial Complex? Seems like there would be easier methods than something this complex.
easier methods to achieve what? Lots of things flowed and could have only flowed with this "attack." Do you think anyone would have approved the Patriot Act? How about a ten year war to remove a dictator who turned out not to have WMDs or attack connections? Do you think the Iraqi's would let us build the biggest military base in the world on their front porch? Would we gladly forgive AT&T for conspiring with our government to capture every single private communication in violation of the fourth amendment? Waterboarding? It's a long list
To add to that: the war on terror is the new threat replacing communism. They will get a lot of mileage out of this one just like they did with communism. Every country that we have a problem with will be connected with terrorism. That message was sent on 9/11. Many obstacles will be overcome by the threat of terrorism. It will be ressurected everytime they need it. This is the never ending Vietnam on a global scale.
Don't forget what a convenient threat it is to dangle over pesky American citizens who ask inconvenient questions.
Since it is the government's conspiracy theory we are assured is fact, they must prove everything is factual. One major flaw anywhere in the theory brings the entire stinking edifice down faster than the Twin Towers.
The government's conspiracy theory isn't even a good theory. A good theory deals with all known facts efficiently and effectively. The only way you can make the government's egregious conspiracy theory work is ignore half the facts, suspend the physical laws of the universe and believe what you are told.
I burned my sheep draft card in '69.
None of what? GW's article was simply that the boxcutter conspiracy theory fails miserably to explain the facts regarding the physical collapse of WTC 1, 2, and 7. No one here even started on the Pentagon or PA. A whole other can of worms. Now if only Hank Kissenger had become the top dog of the 9/11 commission. Too bad he couldn't release his clientele publicly. Now there is a war criminal one can have confidence in.
Hi Amigo,
Nice to see you in this rowdy crowd, not just Automatic Earth.
It is very scary to realize that Americans are feeding Americans into the wood chipper to scare the remaining Americans into supporting global military domination of the declining resources.
Red pill, it is...
John Day
They all would have to be coordinated. Planes hijacked, detonation devices placed, etc. Phone conversations and recordings of passengers of the other two planes would be consistent with the hijack story. I'm not suggesting that I can explain WTC 1,2 and 7, certainly not the latter, but who and why still aren't addressed. You could also go back to the first attempt on the towers and suggest that was part of the same conspiracy but Islamic terrorists have attacked the US, unless that is also part of the big conspiracy.
I had a neighbor that was washed out of flight school because he just couldn't handle a Cessna 172. Did I believe it when he told me a month later he was flying a Boeing 767?
Did he have an Arab name? Was his passport found without a scratch at ground zero? Did you believe it?
Did he have an Arab last name? Was his passport found without a scratch at ground zero? Did you believe it?
Just look up 'Thermobaric Weapon' at Wikipedia.org.
A strong case could be made for the use of weapons grade thermobaric materials in the controlled demolition of the World Trade Centre towers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermobaric_weapon
OK. Thanks. Interesting. But also doesn't answer the molten pools of steel in October. Also doesn't answer the photos of the diagonal clean cuts on the girders before they were all shipped off to China for melt down.
That's the easy part to explain. Its obvious thermate was used as you would in every demolition. There is key evidence in the video record.
The hard part was explaining how a massive concrete column comprising the elevator shafts were turned to dust and how. How did everything, including the elevator shafts inside the building mange to turn to dust? What on earth can cause this?
The only material available that can accomplish the very task of turning concrete to dust and everything in its implosion has to be thermobaric materials. Thermobaric materials were found in the dust that fell into the surrounding buildings and collected and analyzed.
OK. The girders were cut with nanothermite and, obviously, a form of high explosive was used which instantly pulverized the buildings. This is quite obvious from the videos of the collapses. If you say it was thermobaric, I am not going to argue. Despite being a chemist in my younger days, I never really studied explosives. Do you have any ideas though about molten pools of steel 6 weeks later? While the article in Wikipedia indicates that thermobaric explosives are designed for a longer duration, my impression was this was about seconds and not weeks.
Cutting steel and demolishing concrete require two specific strategies to demolish a building.
You would not use thermate to pulverize concrete to dust, nor would you use thermobaric materials to melt steel.
Thermobaric materials dispersed in an oxygen atmosphere will take a microsecond longer to explode compared to conventional explosives. They also draw in as if in a vacuum all of the available oxygen.
Temperatures though are similar to thermate because of the similarity of action, namely metals being used to oxidize very rapidly.
Molten pools of metal by products(probably a mixture of iron, aluminum and structural steel) can collect in the bottom of any collapsed structure depending on the quantity used, whether they come from the use of thermate demolition pipes, or from the burning of thermobaric materials inside a building.
And then there are these images to try and explain
http://www.znakovi-vremena.net/Slike/steel-dust.jpg
Interesting how the "debunkers" are incapable of presenting rational arguments. I imagine some of them receive their checks from Cass Sunstein, who was specifically hired by Obama out of Harvard Law on a leave of absence to disrupt internet discussions and "truther" organizations regarding 9/11. He is Orwell's Minister of Truth. Because 9/11 lies at the heart of the trashing of the Constitution and the ensuing, apparently senseless wars, it forms the keystone in an arch of deception. But it also takes a fair amount of courage to wake up one morning, look the facts straight in the eye, and discover that Daddy is really Hannibal Lecter. And friends and relatives will tell you that you have a fetish or have flipped out into paranoia. I occasionally look for the blue pill but they are all placebos. So a little sympathy is in order as well (I guess). While the American public has become so passive and lame brained that they can accept almost any revelation regarding government malfeasance without putting down the remote to the plasma and getting off the couch, the one thing that they simply couldn't accept without action would be that 9/11 was an orchestrated inside job. OTOH, they would have never attempted it if they didn't feel sure that they could control mass perception.
The cAsswipers
psychopaths in suits
blew up them towers..
for profit and patriotism ....
Where the fuck was NORAD?
Payne Stewarts plane depressurized two years before 9/11 and NORAD was on it like flies on shit. Major commercial heavies leave flight paths and no one cares?
Bull is Bull.
Anyone in the service knows that national defense does not take a day off...ever.
I use the Payne Stewart example to illustrate this point quite often. All my meathead jock friends know about Stewart's plane so it drives the point home. Alas, I usually get a flicker of a couple neurons making the connection, before they revert back to, "What channel's the ball game on, and can someone grab me another beer? Now what were you saying about Payne Stewart?"
Although it's difficult to name one piece of evidence as the most overwhelming, I'd say, without a doubt, it's NORAD. You don't get into a nano physics or structural engineering debate with this one. You don't try to discredit someone hearing explosions or seeing molten steel. You don't even have to look at Dick's behavior that historic day (and the days leading up). You just ask yourself how a terrorist could make NORAD do this.....
I can't imagine anybody planning and executing what is proposed in building 1 & 2, but #7 is very suspicious. #7 is certainly the most planned looking, but not actually planned implosion I think we'll ever see :)
A lack of imagination is a sign of low intelligence, or more likely, a member of the conspiracy to coverup G. W. Bush's ordering and execution of 9-11.
Too many different conspiratorialists being given credit for 911. G.W. Bush, Mossad, CIA, Rothschilds, Dick Cheney, Enron people, the Silverstein family, MI6, the "Illuminati", and we even have one person on ZH who claims it was the KGB/FSB.
The only fair way to settle this is to have all the challengers fight an elimination, like the way the finalist is determined in the America's Cup in sailing. The winner of the elimination round then takes on al Qaeda for the win.
if i was batshit crazy, i would begin to suspect that you personally would be in that ring as well. lucky for me, i've been following doctor's orders with my lithium & thorazine regimen to dial down the guano knob, so i don't.
actually, the only fair way to settle this is a truly independent investigation done by impartial parties that could care less about the outcome either way. fat chance i know unless we can dig up a sherlock holmes type somewhere in the New Guinea bush. question is: would you & the others still be throwin folks off the scent by your constant pumplechooking if that were to ever happen or are you comfortable enough with the facts as you perceive them to allow the investigation to proceed impartially whatever road it chooses to travel?
I know the 9/11 buildings collapse was an inside job. How, I did some "remote viewing" back to the early morning of 9/11 recently and saw litle green men placing bombs in hidden locations inside the buildings. Also, they were using some kind of device to zap the memory of anyone who saw them.
Here's some truth to go with your bullshit.
http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/911security.html
Might explain how placing demo was possible...?
Happy Trolling.
Funny, you don't talk like Sherlock
It's been very clear for a long time.
The awkward stage is over.
9/11 Largest gold heist in history. http://snardfarker.ning.com/video/911-wtc-biggest-gold-heist-in
GW makes Mulder look like Ward Cleaver
Thanks for the example of number 5!
Twenty-Five Rules of Disinformationlol...self referential arguments don't work, George. Keep writing this stuff. though. It's fun to read!
Wow,
You've been here on Zero Hedge for a full year yet you've only posted comments on two article threads, one 26 weeks ago and one today?
So whose hand is up your sock puppet ass?
Now THAT'S what I call a subject change! Nice use of number 5, as GW would say.
GW did nothing but post links to news stories. You don't like those facts because they force your little pea brain to think. So your pea brain shuts down and you go into angry chimp attack mode
sun, you would probably be the first to say that news stories may not always be accurate. There are plenty of news stories to refute GW's news stories. But you think that his stories are the only accurate ones. How can that be? Because they seem to back up your pet paranoid conspiracy theory?
By the way, I have written nothing in an angry tone. But you and CD have spewed a steady stream of profanity and insults in response to my comments. So I actually think that the angry chimp is in your bathroom mirror, my friend.
I'm glad all you guys are preccupied with this conspiracy theory nonsense. It keeps you from screwing up something important.
Is a pet paranoid conspiracy anything like a domesticated Monsanto fed policy animal?
It seems like threads regarding 9-11 and the Federal Reserve brings out the entire troll army of the ministry of propaganda.
Might want to tell ur handlers to get cracking on the internet killswitch.
Asking you "So whose hand is up your sock puppet ass?" is only an insult if it isn't true.
Considering your Zero Hedge commenting record (a grand total of two threads posted on in one year) speaks louder than any other measure of bullshit, I would say the burden of proof that you are not bullshit is on you since you do nothing to refute facts.
BTW no anger here Ray Bones. I was smiling when I typed my first message just as I'm doing with this one.
And whose fist is up your sock puppet ass? Anybody who disagrees with your “proof” is always a paid shill, psy-op, false flagger, or disinformation agent? Paranoid, delusional and hypocritical is no way to go through life. Mr. Anti-Confirmation Bias cannot see in himself what he sees so readily in others, nor can he accept that people could do their own study and arrive at completely different conclusions.
And what, truthers can’t have paid shills, too? Truthers are so pure of mind and body?
Hey, there’s a guy up there with a moniker “Arnolds Love Child”. He’s on your side in the truther thing. How long do you think a guy with a name like that has been around? Why haven’t you called him out, since you seem to be the self-appointed time stamper on this site?
I can always count on chindit13 to stop by and say high.
just wish he would stop his thirteen year old from banging on his computer
Hey, did you hear that JFK was NOT killed by Lee Harvey Oswald? It's true! There were like 60 dudes on the grassy knoll with rifles and automatic weapons. They did it! Yeah, and just to be sure no one ever got a clue, there was all kinds of monkey business at the hospital and at the autopsy! Man, those bad guys are smart! Same ones must have done the WTC, too!
You messed up there because even typical nonconspiracy people don't believe the official JFK story.
Did you hear about the official magic bullet theory and about how they lost the President's brain after the assassination? Did you hear about how LHO was able to get a perfect headshot on a moving target? Did you hear about how Kennedy's head snapped backwards and the exit wound was in the back of his head instead of the front? I guess someone just decided to dump his brain in the ocean. Evidence can be a messy thing when trying to figure out what happened.
Don't believe your lying eyes and common sense. Believe the story the government tells you.
+1
Don't worry, sun. I have the brain. It's in good hands.