Have the 9/11 Truth movement made a case for controlled demolition of the Twin towers that stands up to scrutiny?
Introduction
One of the main components of the 9/11 Truther movement is the claim that the twin towers did not, and could not, collapse due to being struck by aircraft, or the fires that resulted. The Truth movement argue that no steel framed buildings had collapsed due to fire prior to the events on September 11th, nor since.
They argue that the laws of physics would not allow the South and North towers to have collapsed the way they did unless a controlled demolition weakened the structure. They also make the claim that forensic examination of samples of dust collected after the events demonstrates that thermite was used. In addition damage identified on steel structures recovered from the collapse show that a derivate of thermite, called thermate, was also used.
In addition to the forensic evidence and physics, the 9/11 Truth movement point out that explosions were heard by witnesses to the collapse. In particular there is the evidence from interviews with firefighters and first responders who report hearing bangs and seeing flashes that they, or others, interpret as resulting from explosive demolition.
The 9/11 Truth movement point out the failing of the NIST investigation: the removal of debris and not checking for explosive residues as indicative of an attempt to cover up the facts of what happened to the Twin Towers.
The claim that the Twin Towers were brought down by controlled demolition is only one element of the claims made by the 9/11 Truth movement that the official account of the events of September 11th is false.
This article does not seek to examine all of the strands of the 9/11 Truth debate, it focusses on the single claim made by the 9/11 Truth movement that they can demonstrate that the Twin Towers were brought down through controlled demolition.
What this article will not do is demonstrate that the twin towers were NOT brought down by controlled demolition.
That is not the purpose of the article, and it would be beyond the ability of the author to do so. The article will simply address the question; “Have the 9/11 Truth movement made a case for controlled demolition of the Twin towers that stands up to scrutiny?”
Part 1 — Newton’s third law and the physics of collapse.
Some 9/11 Truthers make a claim that the Twin Towers could not have fallen down the way they did without controlled demolition. They argue that Newton’s third law prevents this.
Newton’s third law states that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction.
This means that as the upper section of The North Tower collapsed onto the lower section of the North Tower, the falling section of the tower would experience the same crushing force as the lower section of the building.
According to the model adopted by many 9/11 Truthers, the damage done to the lower section of the building would be matched by damage done to the falling section of the building. This would slow the decent of the upper section of the building, and bring the collapse to a halt.
This model relies on a presumption that once the falling section of the building had been crushed, it would cease to have the energy and force required to continue crushing the lower section of the building. 9/11 Truthers go on to point out that the design of the core columns in the twin towers involved making the lower core columns thicker and stronger than the upper core columns, and this would have made it harder still for the falling sections to crush through the lower part of the buildings.
R. Gage from the organisation Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth has compared the situation to a Volkswagon car crushing its way through a Truck.
The authors of 9/11 Truth videos and articles do not provide any calculations of the strength of the building to justify this claim. They present the claim that Newton’s laws are in themselves sufficient to establish the claim.
The author suggests that the claim that crushing the falling upper sections of the towers would prevent them from crushing the lower sections of the towers needs to be substantiated by the 9/11 Truthers making these claims.
The internet has many examples of buildings, vehicles and other structures being destroyed by the weight or force of things that lack a solidity of structure:
For example buildings destroyed by wind, waves, mud slides, or the loosely packed flakes of an avalanche of snow.
Some videos illustrate this by using water tipped from the bucket of a excavator to crush a car. (11) The weight and momentum of the water being sufficient to apply a crushing force.
Domino Towers
There is a source for examining the proposal from the 9/11 Truthers that Newton’s Laws would have prevented the collapse of the Twin Towers — The attempts by individuals to build high domino towers. More specifically the collapse of these Domino towers.
While there are some videos of domino towers which have set out to examine the events of 9/11, many of the domino towers are built without any thought of examining the events on 9/11.
Before going further, let us acknowledge that the construction of the North and South towers of the World Trade Centre are quite different to the construction of a domino tower. Let us also acknowledge that the laws of physics apply equally to both.
Observation of the events in the collapse of a domino tower.
Please view the following video to see the process of collapse:
Guinness world record: The tallest domino structure on earth: 10.05 meter (32.9 feet) (9a)
When the builders of the domino tower have assembled a tower consisting of approximately 18500 dominoes, one of them misplaces a domino.
The tower is capable of taking the weight of this extra domino. This is demonstrated by the fact that the bottom layers of the tower are not crushed by the weight of the additional domino.
The tower begins to collapse because the misplaced domino applies a force to the adjacent dominoes that they are unable to resist, which causes them to topple.
The failure of the tower is initiated by a relatively small force that happens to be operating in a direction that the tower is not designed to cope with.
The weight of the misplaced domino is sufficient to dislodge one or more dominoes, and these dominoes toppling, (and the original weight of the original misplaced domino, cause further dominoes to fall.)
Some of the dominoes fall out and away from the tower, their momentum causing them to fall away from the tower until gravity slows their sideways movement.
These dominoes fall faster than the decent of the main tower, demonstrating that the tower is not falling at freefall. Unseen by the camera the falling dominoes are scattered to a distance several tower widths away.
Despite the loss of the kinetic energy of these ‘escaping’ dominoes, the weight of the remaining falling dominoes is sufficient to maintain the process of collapse.
The collapse of the tower continues down to ground level. Dominoes are left scattered for some distance around the base of the tower once the collapse has completed.
A similar pattern can be observed in the video LARGEST DOMINO TOWER IN AMERICA! (295 Layers, 23 Feet!). (9b)
What might have prevented the collapse of the domino tower?
When dominoes are lined up to be collapsed they are stood on their short edge so that they stand in the profile orientation. When people stack them into a tower formation, they tend to place them on their long edge in landscape orientation.
The question is why?
The answer is that people who want to make a row of dominoes collapse what them to fall relatively easily, while those building towers wish them to have more stability. A tower built with the dominoes in portrait orientation is likely to be both more difficult to build, and to collapse more quickly than one built with them in landscape orientation. The reader may wish to try this at home to test the authors hypothesis.
There are other ways that the builders of a domino tower can change the dynamics and make it less likely to collapse. They could use dominoes with a different profile, they could cross brace the dominoes or glue the joints between the dominoes.
They could, in short, make a building that would not collapse if a single domino was misplaced. They might even potentially build a domino tower that would survive if a section of tower containing 1500 dominoes was dropped on to one containing 17000 dominoes.
In order for the tower builder to know if they had eliminated the possibility of their tower collapsing they would need to either make a calculation or run a series of trials while varying the method and design of the construction.
They could not just presume that Newton’s third law would prevent the tower from collapsing.
Given the evidence that Newton’s third law is not sufficient to determine if a domino tower will collapse, how do 9/11 Truthers assert that Newton’s third law in itself determines that the twin towers would not have fallen down without explosive demolition?
How do 9/11 Truthers justify that no calculation is required to demonstrate that a controlled demolition would have been required to allow the Twin Towers to fall as they did?
Returning to the claim made by many 9/11 Truthers — that the falling section of the twin towers would be crushed as fast as it crushed the standing sections of the twin towers, and therefore the collapse would be brought to a standstill as the crushed upper floors would no longer be capable of demolishing the floors below.
The domino tower in the video was brought down by a single domino being misplaced. Had a section of domino tower been dropped on top of the tower, that would have been crushed as it crushed the standing section of the domino tower. Would that have caused the collapse to have come to a standstill?
If a single domino could bring down the domino tower, then it is only reasonable to assume that a falling section of the domino tower would also have caused a total collapse.
So is there any reason why the same wouldn’t apply to the twin towers?
The collapse of the domino tower differs from the collapse of the Twin Towers.
One 9/11 Truther corresponding with the author used a tracking programme to graph the collapse of the domino tower in the video. They compared this with the track of the North Tower (19) produced by David Chandler from Architects and Engineers from 9/11 Truth.
The correspondent pointed out that the collapse of the domino tower did not match the collapse of the North tower, and so the collapse of the domino tower did not demonstrate anything about the collapse of the Twin Towers.
The point the author would like to make is that differences would be expected between the way the domino tower and the twin towers collapsed as they are structurally very different.
The laws of Newtonian physics are the same for all three towers: The South tower, The North Tower and the domino tower. What varies is the structure.
The point the author wishes to make id that Newton’s third law is NOT the sole determining factor of how each of the towers collapses. The structure of the tower also influences how the tower collapses.
Therefor some calculation of the energy and forces generated by the collapse, and of the energy and forces preventing the collapse is required before the 9/11 truthers can legitimately claim that an explosive demolition was required.
The reliance on the pile driver model as the tool for examining the dynamics of the collapse of the twin towers.
NIST’s use of the Pile Driver model to envisage the collapse of the twin towers is mirrored by many 9/11 Truther organisations.
They endeavour to present a case which demonstrates that the pile driver model could not have allowed the upper part of the twin towers to crush the lower parts of the buildings.
In doing so they attempt to prove that NIST has presented a flawed examination of what happened. They argue that NIST’s flawed examination is proof of a cover up, and they sometimes use this to justify the accuracy of their own model of what happened on 9/11.
In doing so they perhaps fetter their thinking, and fail to note that one model of collapse being incorrect does not prove another theory to be correct. Both theories / models can be incorrect.
Both theories have to be tested with rigour, and if neither theory withstands scrutiny then an alternative must be found.
The presence of the standing core columns (discussed below) that can be seen standing some time after the perimeter panels and floors have collapsed from around them, possibly brings the pile driver model into question.
Part two — the 9/11 Truther evidence for explosive demolition.
The starting point of an examination of the evidence for an explosive demolition, as proposed by the 9/11 Truth movement, should start with an examination of the timeline given by them.
This timeline is largely based on the version given by Architects and Engineers for 9/11 truth as they represent themselves as a leading organisation within the 9/11 Truth movement.
Time line for collapse of World Trade Centre towers one and two — per 9/11 Truther’s model
(The author has sought confirmation of the timeline below from the organisation Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth but this has not been received at the time of publication.)
8.46 and 24 seconds — an explosion occurred in the basement area of WTC1 — the North Tower — which registered on the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory as a 0.9 event on the Richter scale. An eye witness (Mike Pecoraro) was quoted as describing “the whole building seemed to shake and there was a loud explosion.” The witness and a colleague found “The machine shop on level C was completely gone. With nothing left but rubble and a 50 tonne hydraulic press -gone.” The parking garage was also “gone” and on the floor below they found a 300 pound fire door wrinkled up like a piece of aluminium foil.”
This account of an explosion in the basement was confirmed by some other witnesses.
8:46:30 per NIST (8:46 and 40 seconds per NTSB Radar)
(see notes regarding the effects of choosing different chronological sources for the timing of events.)
A plane impacts on WTC2 penetrating the building and exploding.
This explosion does not register on the seismic recording, but could be seen and heard from some distance away.
The exploding plane threw debris right through the building, and the burning fuel erupted through multiple window opening in the form of squibs. Many smaller pieces of material were seen erupting at speed from the building, but the wall panels stayed in place.
9:02 and 54 seconds — An explosion occurs in the WTC2 building — South Tower) which registers as 0.7 on the Richter scale releasing about half the energy of the explosion in the North tower.
9:02:59 per NIST , 9:03:02 per 9/11 commission report, or 9:03 and 11 seconds per NTSB radar
The South tower is hit by the second plane which explodes.
This explosion does not register on the seismic recording, but could be seen and heard from some distance away.
The exploding plane threw debris right through the building, and the burning fuel erupted through multiple window opening in the form of squibs.
Many smaller pieces of material were seen erupting at speed from the building, but the wall panels stayed in place.
At some point after the impact of the plane, the time line is not clear on this, thermite and thermate charges were set of to cut through the steel framework of both the South and North towers to pre-weaken the structure prior to explosive demolition. This was demonstrated by a hot liquid, probably molten metal, is seen pouring from the North west corner of the North tower.
9:58: 59 WTC2 -South tower — starts to collapse.
9:59 and 4 seconds — A seismic event is recorded with a magnitude of 2.1 on the Richter scale at the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. R. Gage identifies this as being caused by an explosion but does not identify where within the South tower the explosion occurs. It would be easier to examine the time line if the position within the tower of this explosion were detailed
9:59 and 11 seconds — Debris from the collapse of the South tower starts to impact the ground — this does not cause a seismic trace.
As the tower collapses explosions occur which cut away the strength of the building below the point of collapse.
These are represented by spurts of smoke, dust and debris that emerge from the openings in the external walls of the tower. These are described as squibs.
In addition explosions occur at, or above, the crush line of the building and larger pieces of metal are ejected at up to 50mph, emerging horizontally from the building.
Witnesses are quoted as hearing a series of bangs or explosions. “Bang, bang bang.”, ”like fire crackers”
10.28:22 — WTC1 — North tower — starts to collapse
10.28 and 31 seconds — The Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory registers the start of an event registering as 2.3 on the Richter scale. According to R. Gage this is an explosion, but he does not identify where in the building the explosion occurs.
10.28 and 32 seconds — The first debris from the North tower hits the ground.
As the tower collapses explosions occur which cut away the strength of the building below the point of collapse. These are represented by spurts of smoke, dust and debris that emerge from the openings in the external walls of the tower. These are described as squibs. In addition larger pieces of metal are ejected at up to 50mph, emerging horizontally from the building.
According to some 9/11 Truthers, the explosions causing the squibs occurred every two or three floors. They were set of at an accelerating rate to allow the structure to collapse in a way akin to a natural collapse, and disguise the fact that a controlled demolition was taking place.
Higher up the building larger explosions throw wall panels out of the building and pulverise the concrete
10.28 and 36 seconds — The heavier debris from the North Tower hits the ground. These objects impacted the ground but according to R. Gage, did not register on the seismograph.
Richter scale
The Richter scale is non-linear. A reading of 1.9 on the scale represents an event releasing 31.6 times as much energy as one of 0.9. A reading of 2.1 represents an event releasing about 63 times as much energy as one reading 0.9.
A reading of 2.3 represents about twice this amount of energy being released as one of 2.1 on the scale, or 125 times as much energy as would have been released by an event registering as 0.9 on the Richter scale
Timing difference
The timings given for the impact of the planes on 9/11 appear quite variable depending on the source of the times. There appears to be a difference between the NTSB times, and the times given by NIST, with some authors using different timings to these.
This leaves open the risk that apparent differences in the timing of events are not really differences in when the events occurred, but are merely differences in which time piece was used to record the timing of the event.
In the UK a time signal is given in some radio broadcasts, but the digital broadcasts are delayed a few seconds compared to the FM broadcasts. Two listeners might believe that they heard the firing of a gun a few seconds differently from each other if one related it to a digital time signal and the other related it to an FM time signal.
There is a danger in stating that the differences between the NIST, NTSB and Lamont Observatory evidence of the timing evidence of the timing of the explosions is due to them recording different events without establishing they are running to an identical chronology.
Discussion — Why use thermite?
Most 9/11 Truth publications claim that Thermite (and Thermate) were used to pre weaken the steel structure of the twin towers. Most suggest that Thermite was used to cut the beams through thermal action. Other publications suggest that it was used as an explosive cutting charge. A demonstration of these two options was given in (10), 9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate.
Evidence in support of these claims comes from the dust collected after 9/11 in the form of the red/grey chips that are said to be unignited thermite and by the presence of iron microspheres that are said to be condensed iron from the use of thermite.
9/11 Truth videos and publications suggest that a large amount of both were found in the samples of dust and so indicate that large amounts of Thermite were used in the demolitions. R Gage (3a-f ) indicated that the dust samples indicate that about 10 Tonnes of the Red Grey chips were present in the dust formed by the collapse of the WTC buildings. Elsewhere there is a claim that the weight of the iron microspheres present the dust would also have been about 10 Tonnes.
The author has no way of knowing how efficiently the thermite was ignited, or how efficient the cutting process was. If 80% of the thermite was ignited then before the ignition process started then the calculation would be that 50 tonnes of red grey chips of nano-thermite were installed into the buildings. (The author lacks the information to make a calculation in relation to the iron microspheres.)
Evidence of sulphur in various samples of the metal recovered, and the evidence of the way some sample of recovered structural steel had been affected are given as evidence of the use of thermate. “Evidence of severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting was readily visible in the near surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulphur formed during this hot sulphur attack on the steel.” (15) Thermate, as described in many videos is thermite with an addition of sulphur.
The red grey chips do not contain sulphur and are therefore not the source of thermate.
The iron microspheres are pure iron and do not contain the manganese that is used in the production of steel beams. This allows 9/11 Truthers to identify that these iron microspheres are not ‘spatter’ from the cutting of the beams. Instead they are identified as particles of thermite that have reacted, creating blobs of molten iron, that have then condensed. The cohesive attraction causing the molten steel to form a sphere prior to cooling.
Based on the evidence of the flow of molten metal from the South tower, the suggestion is that the Thermite was used some time prior to the explosives that were used to explosively demolish the building ‘pulverising’ the concrete floors and throwing large parts of the towers outwards.
This raises some questions;
Why bother to weaken the structure with thermite before using the complicated mix of explosions described above to bring the building down? There already seems to be a great deal of high explosive being used, so why would there be any need to complicate the process by adding thermite and thermate into the process of demolition?
9/11 Truth videos also claim to demonstrate the presence of thermite and thermate by arguing that the temperature within the twin towers was insufficient to melt the steel structure. The claim that the temperature within the towers was lower than the melting point of steel allows a low enough temperature to allow the iron spheres to solidify, but raises a significant question.
Why did the steel melted by the thermite and thermite flow out of the building and not solidify? If the temperature was low enough to solidify the sparks from the thermite, why did it not also solidify steel that had been melted by the thermite?
The account of the fire crews who were caught in the collapse of the Twin towers (17) does not include any description of them experiencing any thermitic fires or molten steel. This raises questions as to where within the structure the thermite was used?
Discussion point Aluminium Oxide
At this point the author would remind the viewer of the formula for a thermite reaction:
Fe2O2 + 2Al -> Al2O3 + 2Fe
The iron microspheres are represented within the 2Fe, along with the iron that would have bonded to the steel beams. What is not accounted for in the 9/11 Truth descriptions seen by the author is what happened to the Al2O3, the aluminium oxide, that should also have been produced. If the red grey chips and the iron microspheres were found to be in abundance within the dust from the collapse of the twin towers, then so should the aluminium oxide.
Discussion point — thermite explosions.
One of the explanations given for the use of thermite was as an explosive. The explanation being given that thermite used as an explosive would make less noise than the explosions created by high explosive equivalents.
Any veteran cartoon watcher will know that a trail of gunpowder burns without too much drama, but when the contents of the barrel ignite, there is a big band, and a mighty flash. The same applies to thermite as demonstrated in the video 9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate (10) about 10 minutes 30 seconds in.
For an explosive to either cut structural steel, or to throw large sections of wall panel out from the collapsing building, it must produce a force in the form of pressurised fluid. The noise that results from an explosion, the “Bang!” is a wave of compression through the air.
This can come from the explosion of gunpowder, jet fuel or thermite.
The author is yet to read an explanation of how a thermite based explosion could generate the pressure sufficient to throw the wall panels of the tower, while making less noise than the equivalent conventional explosive required to do the same amount of work.
Discussion point — How did the explosions in the basements of the twin towers contribute to the eventual fall of the towers?
The collapse of the twin towers can be seen to start at the point if impact of the planes. The upper section of each building collapses down through the lower sections of the towers and, applying the time line above, a series of sequenced explosions that cut away the strength of the building just in advance of the falling structure.
It is not apparent to the author how the explosions in the basements ties in with this?
The author has not seen any proposal suggesting how blowing up the basement changed the dynamics of the collapse of the rest of the building. The explosions in the basement described in the timeline clearly did not bring down the Twin Towers, not does it appear to have initiated the collapse. So how do 9/11 Truthers integrate the explosions in the basements into their model of the destruction of the north and South Towers.?
Discussion point — the evidence of explosions
The primary 9/11 Truth theory in relationship to the explosions is that the sequenced to make it appear that the twin towers had collapsed as a result of the plane impacts, and the sequential detonations that cut the building apart were designed to disguise the fact that this was a controlled demolition, it seems counterproductive for the plotters to set off the basement explosions.
9/11 Truth videos report eyewitnesses hearing explosions and seeing flashes of explosions. This would hardly be surprising given the description of the destruction given in the timeline above.
Perhaps it is more surprising that so few witnesses reported hearing the explosions?
In R Gage’s videos (3a-f) he reports on a survey of fire fighters and first responders (5) . 503 were interviewed. Of those 180 of those interviewed observed flashes, sounds of explosions, and other phenomena indicative of explosive demolition.
Given that the time line indicates that the collapses included two explosions that registered as 2.1 and 2.3 on the Richter scale it is interesting that three hundred and twenty three of the firefighters and first responders who were working on close proximity to the towers did not report observing any flashes or sounds of explosions indicative of explosive demolition.
For comparison: On 11th December 2006 The Buncefield oil depot in the UK exploded. This explosion registered as 2.4 on the Richter scale and should therefore have released about 50% more energy than the second major explosion on 9/11. It woke people 25 miles away and was heard up to 125 miles away.
The transcripts of the firefighters are available on line (5) but the author has not located the source of the analysis indicating that 180 of those interviewed observed flashes, sounds of explosions, and other phenomena indicative of explosive demolition. A dedicated reader may wish to read some of the accounts at random and determine if one in three describe the situation as summarised above.
Extracts from some of the interviews:
My name is Ralph Ramos, EMT-D, assigned to 01 Charlie Tour 2, Battalion 4.
My vehicle exploded. I was heading over to my vehicle to get — to use the radio, because I had lost my HIP radio. I went inside my vehicle to get on my vehicle radio, but by the time I went over there, the vehicle exploded. Then we just continued to look around see, you know, how many people we could find. It is a little bit of a blur. I don’t recall how many people we might have run into. At that time, then, in the process of doing that, we heard another loud rumble and it was the second tower coming down. We both started — you know, we hugged, locked arms. Both started running, but we didn’t make it too far. Again, we got covered with the cloud and everything got black again. We couldn’t breathe and we were panicking. Again, I closed my eyes and mapped my way out of there and made it to a Subway sandwich shop that’s on Fulton Street and banged on the glass.
The author has highlighted in bold his description of his vehicle exploding, which contrasts with the rumble of the second tower coming down.
FIREFIGHTER THOMAS LYNN
We ended up walking down Liberty Street, past the World Trade Center, which is Two world Trade Center. We basically saw a lot of body parts and plane wreckage that was just all over the street. We just basically walked by that……
Then the south tower came down, and everybody just ran. We ran into the building where the Winter Garden theater was, and the debris was coming down
In this example, the description of the South Tower coming down makes no mention of any explosion(s)
FIREFIGHTER KEVIN GORMAN
there was a cop I knew who came by and gave me a drink of water, and then as he was standing there, he said, “Aviation just reported that the north tower is leaning.” I said, “Which way is it leaning?” He said, “This way.” So we started to turn around walking. John Malley, who was right behind me, I turned around for him, because he was doing something, either putting his coat on or something, and as I was looking at him I heard the explosion, looked up, and saw like three floors explode, saw the antenna coming down, and turned around and ran north. Q. About how long would you say it was from when the police officer told you it was leaning? A. Within 30 seconds
In this example the fire officer reported hearing an explosion and saw three floors explode. He mentions that at the time he was with firefighter John Malley and his account is given below
FIREFIGHTER JOHN MALLEY :
As we walked through those revolving doors, that’s when we felt the rumble. I felt the rumbling, and then I felt the force coming at me. I was like, what the hell is that? In my mind it was a bomb going off. The pressure got so great, I stepped back behind the columns separating the revolving doors. Then the force just blew past me. It blew past me it seemed for a long time. In my mind I was saying what the hell is this and when is it going to stop? Then it finally stopped, that pressure which I thought was a concussion of an explosion. It turns out it was the down pressure wind of the floors collapsing on top of each other. At that point everything went black, and then the collapse came. It just rained on top of us. Everything came. It rained debris forever. I was semiburied. I thought I might be the only one alive at that point, because it was just an incredible amount of debris falling around us.
There were secondary explosions, I don’t know, aerosol cans or whatever. But we’re in the darkness. We see basically the glow of a flashlight and still things coming down. The noise, the explosions, whatever it was. I know, we just realized we had to get the heck out of there.
While I was there I saw a few guys, Kevin Gorman and Camacho. I told them we have to work our way north from here. I don’t know where the other guys were. I just remember pretty much at that point hearing on the police radio that the building looked like — the north tower was going to come down. At that point I didn’t know the building came down. I thought I was still in the explosion. I didn’t know the whole building had come down. So while I was on the corner of Vesey and West, the police, everybody, started herding everybody north of there, saying that the building was coming down, the building was coming down.
So I got to about Barclay and west, and I looked up and I started to see the building crumbling down. That’s when I turned around and just started running. I believe I dove in the bushes around Murray Street and was engulfed again in the cloud
Fire officer John Malley describes thinking that what he experienced when the first tower came down was an explosion, but then concluded it was air expelled from the collapsing building. His statement that the wind “blew past him for a very long time.” Perhaps supports an image of the air being blown out by a collapsing building better than the sudden passing of a pressure wave from a large explosion.
His description of his experience of the collapse of the second tower, when he was with officer Gorman, does not describe him seeing an explosion (which given that he was running away may not be surprising) but also makes no mention of hearing an explosion.
This is just a small sample, but it does illustrate the difficulty in making an accurate interpretation of the events from the witness reports.
When 9/11 Truthers claim that there are witnesses who confirm that explosions occurred, they need to go one step further and demonstrate that the witness’s accounts confirm the model of the explosions that they are proposing.
They need to also deal with the contradictions between the accounts and not rely on selectively accepting the evidence of one witness whose evidence appears to support the conspiracist’s theory and ignore the witnesses whose evidence contradicts it.
The analysis maybe needs to recognise that when Ralph Ramos describes hearing the rumble of a building coming down, when John Malley talks of the building crumbling, and when Kevin Gorman describes the building exploding they are all witnessing the same event and describing their interpretation of it. The same is true for Thomas Lynn who doesn’t mention any noise.
The phrase phenomena “indicative of explosive demolition,” also needs to be treated with caution. Describing a “bang” or “flash” could be taken as indicative of explosive demolition despite the person describing the phenomena not believing that what they witnessed was an explosion.
A child seen trick or treating on Halloween while dressed as a vampire may well show signs indicative of being dressed as a clown — face paint and outlandish clothing — without the witness describing the child as having looked like a clown.
Video evidence in support of the explosions.
One way of examining the witness reports is to review the video evidence.
To witness the event yourself the author would recommend that you watch an extract from the video (2) Unique, rare 9/11 material shot from the Hudson. This video has better audio of the collapse than many. In the video the initiation of the collapse of the North tower starts at 1 minute 43 seconds. According to the timeline, 3 seconds later an explosion occurs that causes a seismograph to register an event measuring 2.3 on the Richter scale.
The author has watched the video many times without hearing or seeing evidence of this explosion.
The reader might wish to review the video to make their own assessment.
It needs to be kept in mind the scale of this explosion. According to the witness an explosion registering 0.9 on the Richter scale “the whole building seemed to shake and there was a loud explosion.” The witness and a colleague found “The machine shop on level C was completely gone. With nothing left but rubble and a 50 tonne hydraulic press -gone.” The parking garage was also “gone” and on the floor below they found a 300 pound fire door wrinkled up like a piece of aluminium foil.”
According to R. Gage’s description of an explosion registering as 2.4 on the Richter scale, the viewer should be able to observe an explosion releasing one hundred and twenty five times the energy that apparently tore apart much of the basement are of the North Tower. He doesn’t identify where in the building the explosion occurs, but given the nature of the collapse it seems unlikely that it occurs below the region of collapse.
At this height up the building there is nothing to obscure the view of the flash of an explosion and block the sound.
Allowing the video to continue, the video from the Hudson allows the viewer to hear the sounds of the collapse, something that is not available from most videos of the collapse of the twin towers. The witnesses described a series of explosions “Bang, Bang, Bang,“ “like firecrackers.”
These explosions should be observable to the viewer of the video, but the author did not identify either the flashes or the bangs. A correspondence from one of the 9/11 Truth organisations wrote to me
“What you call the sound of descending debris in this video is actually the sound of explosions. Neither falling debris nor collapsing floors would make that sound. The explosions can be heard as a series of explosions, as several witnesses reported. Every second or third floor was blown up in rapid succession at an accelerating rate.”
The reader will have to make their own mind up on this. Does the noise in the video sound more like a large explosion followed by a series of lesser explosions, or what Ralph Ramos describes hearing — the rumble of a building coming down?
The reader can try something similar with the reports of the explosions in the basements of the twin towers prior to the impact of the plane hitting the South Tower. Having been alerted to the events of the day by the plane hitting the North Tower, many recordings exist of the impact of flight 175 into the South Tower.
The video — 18 Views of “Plane Impact” in South Tower (12) — is a good source for this. (See number 6 Clifton cloud and 8 FDR Drive.)
The reader can make their own judgement and decide if they hear an explosion before the plane impacts as well as the sound of the plane exploding.
Discussion point — the wall panels
The reader should keep in mind that the perimeter walls were designed to take 40% of the load of the building, with the core columns taking 60%.
Below is a picture from ground zero after the collapse. It shows the remains of part of two sides of the south tower. The individual wall panels can be seen above the trees, and like most photographs from the scene, it can be noted that the panels have not been cut, they have separated at the bolted joints between the panels. Nor is there any evidence of anything attached to the panels to focus explosives.
Film of the collapse also tends to support this, with images of falling wall panels that appear to be essentially intact. This is further confirmed by the film from the Fresh kills site, and the film released by the New York Fire Department that had been filmed during the recovery operations. They show lots of wall panels, that have come apart from their neighbours, some are bent, but the author has seen very few that show any signs of being cut.
The reader can review this for themselves and see if they agree.
The timeline indicates that a sequence of explosions took place a few floors below the visual collapse line of the building. This is indicated by bursts of air emerging from random window openings, known as squibs.
These ‘squibs’ are unlikely to represent explosions that are cutting through the exterior wall panels.
If the panels were cut from explosives placed within the box section of the panels, the explosions would show on the outside. If the squibs resulted from explosions spreading out from explosives set off inside the building then multiple squibs would emerge from multiple windows. Either way there would be wide spread evidence of ‘shrapnel’ and cut beams falling from the building or present in the wreckage following collapse.
(Many 9/11 Truthers propose that this evidence was hidden during the clearance of the site, but it would have been evident to those clearing the site, and probably evident in the many videos of the collapse, wreckage, and recovery operation.)
If the purpose of the explosives causing the squibs was designed to cut the internal columns, how would this be achieved without disrupting the explosives that subsequently exploded throwing large sections of wall panel out of the building?
Discussion point — The larger explosions that pulverised the concrete and ejected large panels of the building at speed.
David Chandler states that “Girders weighing several tonnes were found 600 feet from the North tower. How fast they were ejected depends on where they originated. If they came from high up in the building they were thrown out at 150mph, if they came from lower down the speed had to be even greater.” (4a, 4b)
The first thing the author would like to point out is that the explosions that 9/11 Truthers identify as the cause of the wall panels being ejected from the collapsing building are not the same explosions that cause the squibs.
This is evidenced by the different timing of the explosions — the squibs were seen well below the line of collapse while the bigger ejections of wall material appeared above the line of the collapse. Also explosions that were sufficient to blow out large steel wall panels would not just blow out squibs from individual windows.
The author has discussed the nature of the explosive devices with correspondents from the 9/11 Truth movement without gaining an insight into what is being proposed.
The key point that remains unclear to the author is what kind of explosion would take several tonnes portions of the wall panels and expel them from the building at speed without being seen in disturbance to the dust cloud, and without also picking up smaller pieces of debris and throwing them out, very much quicker, and very much further?
The commentary on one video of the collapse describes material being thrown in all directions, but the author failed to notice any material being thrown upwards. Nor did he note any flashes showing through the dust cloud. (Watch the video (4a) and look for any signs of material being ejected upwards as well as outwards.)
The reader will need to review this for themselves, and determine if they can see these things, and if not, what kind of explosions would work that way?
Discussion point — The issue of the standing core columns
In the video footage taken from the boat on the Hudson river (2) the tower starts to collapse at a time point approximately one minute and forty three seconds in. At two minutes twelve seconds in, twenty nine seconds later the image shows the start of the collapse of some of the core columns.
These core columns are clearly being supported by a structure below or they would not be there, but the dust and smoke hide the remains of the structure below until the columns collapse five seconds later.
This can also be seen in the video September 11, 2001 attack — The Towers Fall: Rare Raw Video: No commentary, Natural sound. (13)
In this footage the collapse starts at 3 minutes and 5 seconds and an the image below of the standing core columns is captured at 3 minutes 33 seconds, 29 seconds later. This fits with the footage from the Hudson River. Further images of the standing core columns can be seen in the video 9/11 — Rabbit Holes — “The Spire” [WTC North Tower Core Column] (14) (see image below)
This is an image of the core columns from the North Tower exposed after the wall panels have fallen, taken from 9/11 The Rabbit holes (14) . The floor panels are missing. The dust and smoke are clearing. These core columns are seen to collapse into the debris pile a few seconds later, although some have claimed they turned into dust.
This image, and the presence of the core columns standing for some time after the collapse of the walls and floor panels raises questions about the pile driver model: regardless of whether there was explosive demolition or not?
The presence of the core columns standing after the floors and walls have been stripped away possibly suggests that the towers came apart in a piecemeal way.
Summary
The author has looked at much material produced by the 9/11 Truth movement in connection with the collapse of the Twin Towers, and their proposal that the collapse should be attributed to a controlled demolition.
This article has highlighted some issues relating to this claim, and perhaps these are addressed in articles and videos that the author has not accounted.
The author considers that further clarity is needed from the 9/11 Truthers before it can be accepted that a case has been made that stands up to the same level of scrutiny that the 9/11 Truthers expose the official account to.
The main points that the author feels need to be clarified are:
How can the 9/11 Truthers claim that Newton’s laws would have prevented the twin towers from collapsing the way they did without there having been a controlled explosion, without having provided any calculation of the forces involved?
How does the use of Thermite (and Thermate) fit into their model of a controlled demolition?
How did the explosions in the basements tie into the proposed model of a controlled demolition?
What was the nature of the explosions in the Twin Towers that caused the seismic recordings measuring 2.1 and 2.3 on the Richter scale?
How do we reconcile the witness accounts that describe explosions with the more numerous accounts that do not, and with the video evidence published since?
How did the explosive charges which went off later in the process of demolition survive the earlier thermite ignitions, and the earlier explosions?
What type of explosions explain the ejection of the wall panels while not also throwing myriad smaller components up and out of the building?
Do all the claims of the use of different types thermite and explosives tie together into a coherent explanation of what the witnesses, and the readers of this article observed?
To quote one 9/11 Truth video: “Any analytical model of the collapse of the Twin Towers, no matter how complicated, or how simple, is a bad model and bad science, if it does not come back full circle to explain the actual observations.”
Reader, what do you see and hear when you watch the videos of the collapses of the Twin Towers?
Do you see flashes and hear the sounds of explosives exploding?
Do you see a process of controlled demolition?
Does the 9/11 Truth model of a controlled demolition provide a coherent explanation of what you can see in the videos of the tragic events on the 11th September 2001?
References
(1) Building the World Trade Center Towers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jwc49cZKunQ
(2) Unique, rare 9/11 material shot from the Hudson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbD_Q6kmh8
(3a) 9/11: An Architect’s Guide — Part 1 — World Trade Center 7 (8/15/19 webinar — R Gage) (see 3f below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7ZYOPtOqUU
(3b) 9/11: An Architect’s Guide — Part 2 — Twin Towers’ Explosive Destruction 3/14/19 Webinar — R Gage) (see 3f below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LQu1Ihi3AM
(3c) 9/11: An Architect’s Guide — Part 3 — The Twin Towers and Extreme Heat (8/29/19 Webinar — R Gage) (see 3f below)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yak_hQFMMeU
(3d) Debunking the Debunkers of the 9/11 Truth Movement
https://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2018/07/the-wtc-seismic-evidence-by-ae911truth.html
(3e) The WTC Seismic Evidence by AE911Truth — Richard Gage — 2–9–18
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZQhItjqkiI
(3f) Architects and engineers for 9/11 Truth web site now contains the videos ( 3a, 3b, 3c) following a decision by the governing body of the American Institute of Architects that has caused the videos to be removed from their original referenced locations.
https://www.ae911truth.org/continuing-ed/ae911-aag-l
(4a) 9/11 — North Tower Exploding by David Chandler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D9USAgTvuQ
(4b) The Physics of 9/11 — David Chandler
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FAadMpvDyQ
(5) New York Times — Oral histories of 9/11 emergency workers
(6) 9/11 Collapses Violated Fundamental Laws of Physics — Explained
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xSVHWiZu8NM
(7) 9/11 Experiments: The Force Behind the Motion
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TJNzaMRsN00
(8) 9/11: Hard Evidence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nX8xt5YOjg
(9a) Guinness world record: The tallest domino structure on earth: 10.05 meter (32.9 feet)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ni70KXe5jPo
(9b) LARGEST DOMINO TOWER IN AMERICA! (295 Layers, 23 Feet!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyAR4nz2AaA
(10) 9/11 Experiments: The Great Thermate Debate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5d5iIoCiI8g
(10b) Thermite explosion over 100lbs!!! Massive!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xQeF_EM7WU
(11) Crushing a car with water — Wild Weather with Richard Hammond: Episode 2 — BBC One
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93nBQQyHDhc
(12) 18 Views of “Plane Impact” in South Tower | 9/11 World Trade Center [HD DOWNLOAD]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YLm3pkAiJQ
(13) September 11, 2001 attack — The Towers Fall: Rare Raw Video: No commentary, Natural sound.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ft2uIYucsXo
(14) 9/11 — Rabbit Holes — “The Spire” [WTC North Tower Core Column]
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r_mbfOCj14k
(15) FEMA — Limited metallurgical examination https://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf
(16) DAVID CHANDLER — 9/11: THE HARD EVIDENCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HNIIdpMhFg
(17) Miracle of Stairway B (History Channel)