1
Dr. Steven E. Jones, Revisiting 9/11/2001, p19-27
[ http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JonesWTC911SciMethod.pdf ]
2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nano-thermite
3
“Word about our Poll of American Thinking toward the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks,” Zogby International, May 24th 2006
4
FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, Chapter 5, Sec 6.2
5
“National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee 2003 Report to Congress”, p 4
6
Mark Jacobenson, “The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll,” New York Magazine, March 20th, 2006
Then there are the series of overturned speculations, many of which are still repeated by the public and main stream as
relevant, when the NIST final report (now offical theory) found them not to be in the end. In the 2004 “Interim Report on
WTC 7”, NIST suggested that its argument would be that it was the fires, plus the damage caused by debris from the col-
lapse of the North Tower, that caused the collapse. It also carried forward the suggestion, initially made by FEMA, that the
fires were fed by the building’s diesel fuel tanks and implied that this created enough heat to weaken the building substan-
tially. This idea that the diesel fuel played a large role was quickly ceased upon my Popular Mechanics and other main
stream media supporters of the Governments Official Conspiracy Theory, as a conclusive explanation, in part, for a fire
induced collapse. (Again, the other part of the explanation was the debris damage from the North Tower)
Yet, in 2008, NIST reversed its position in this context. It contended that the diesel fuel in WTC 7 did not explain the fires
and that “fuel oil fires did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7” 1 and that they no longer claimed that the collapse was
significantly caused by damage inflicted on it by the North Tower debris, saying “Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7,
the damage from the debris from WTC 1 had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.” 2 ( BTW, Popular Mechanics
has still not retracted its now dated, “unofficial” assertions)
So- What did bring down WTC 7, according to NIST’s final report? Fire. Nist states that WTC 7 was “the first known in-
stance of the total collapse of a tall building primarily due to fires.” 3 To clarify, NIST implies that for the first time in history,
a modern, structurally reinforced, steel frame high-rise came down at near free fall speed, in the path of most resistance,
due to fire. In his opening statement at the press conference in Aug 21 2008, he spoke of a “fire induced progressive
collapse” and that NIST had shown for the first time that “fire can induce a progressive collapse” and added “WTC 7 col-
lapsed because of fires fueled by office furnishings”. He also stated in the Technical Briefing held five days later how “the
fires that caused the collapse of World Trace Center 7...” and also stated “WTC 7 collapsed due to uncontrolled fires with
characteristic that are similar to previous fires in tall buildings.” 4
It isn’t the scope of this guide to delve into what would likely be found as an extremely complex physical description of
what happened to WTC 7, as claimed by NIST. What we will go into here is not what NIST has taken into account, but
rather what it has refused to take into account. Just understand that what NIST is claiming and describing is an occur-
rence which has no historical precedent in structural engineering- ever- that the collapse of WTC 7 was unique to itself
and it has never occurred before. The absurdity of this argument will become more clear as we proceed.
There are two statements made by NIST which reveal its “political” rather than “scientific” context here.
(1) In a press conference by NIST’s lead investigator, he states “[W]e knew from the beginning of our study
that understanding what happened to Building 7 on 9/11 would be difficult. It did not fit any textbook description
that you could readily point to and say, yes, that’s why the building failed.” 5
No text book description?
(a) The collapse can be seen starting from the bottom
(b) The onset was sudden and not gradual
(c) It was total collapse
(d) Its acceleration approximated was that of an object in free fall.
(e) Its concrete was clearly pulverized
(f) This fell into its own footprint in a very small pile a few stories tall.
What does this sound like to you? The text book, intuitive assumption is that it is clearly the characteristics of
a controlled demolition. This is compounded by the fact that no steel high-rise has ever collapsed from fire in
history.
Danny Jowenko, a Dutch controlled demolition expert, was shown the WTC 7 collapse without knowing it was
from the WTC on 911. He immediately declared it was a controlled demolition simply from the video evidence and
obvious controlled demolition characteristics. He stated: “They simply blew up columns and the rest caved in
afterwards...this is controlled demolition” 6
1
NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final report on the collapse of the World trade Center Building 7”, Nov 2008, p. xxxii.
2
NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final report on the collapse of the World trade Center Building 7”, Nov 2008, p. xxxvii.
3
NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final report on the collapse of the World trade Center Building 7”, Nov 2008, p. xxxv
4
Sunder, “Opening Statement”; “WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” at 1:18:20-1:18:25, and 1:23:41-1:23:48
5
Sunder, “Opening Statement”.
6
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7778438571360742389#
It is a basic scientific premise that most common and obvious hypothesis is likely the correct one and should
be first considered (Occam’s Razor). It would be different if NIST took the controlled demolition theory into
account- and then disproved it with evidence. No- it didn’t even consider a controlled demolition, even though it
gave lip service to claim it was “provably” not the cause. Not only is this in violation of basic scientific process, it
was also in violation of common legal/fire code practices, for the National Fire Protection Association’s “guide for
Fire and Explosion Investigation states that whenever there is “high-order” damage (which the Towers certainly
qualifed for), there should be a thorough search for evidence of explosives.1 This did not happen. Likewise, NIST
jumped straight to trying to explain the collapse via fire and debris damage.
(2) The 2nd statement which confirms this presupposed dismissal of a controlled demolition hypothesis,
was NIST’s thesis statement: “The challenge was to determine if a fire-induced floor system failure could
occur in WTC 7 under an ordinary building contents fire.” 2 And there you have the intent. Now, not only
they did they not conduct an investigation of the most likely hypothesis, which was controlled demolition, as
described by the characteristics denoted above, they also ignored a sea of other evidence which, learned about
or discovered later, further points to evidence of a controlled demolition. The following list shows just some of the
evidence ignored by NIST in its WTC 7 investigation. Please look up the sources (footnotes) to learn more about
each point:
- Evidence of Squibs 3
- Various Reports of Molten Metal under WTC 7 after the collapse. 4
- The WPI report that (FEMA appendix) a piece of steel recovered from WTC7 had been
sulfidized/vaporized/oxidized. 5 Also a Astaneh-Asl’s report that a WTC 7 beam was partially
vaporized. 6
- Reports by the EPA of “unexplained” elements in the air particles. 7
- Evidence for thermitic material/reactions, in uncontaminated samples of WTC dust. 8
- Testimony of Explosions Heard/Seen:
Besides the obviousness from the very appearance of the collapse of Building 7 that it was a
product of controlled demotion, there were testimonies about explosions in this building.
One of these was provided by Michael Hess, New York City’s corporation counsel and a close
friend of Mayor Rudy Giuliani. While on his way back to City Hall, Hess was stopped for an interview
at 11:57 that morning, during which he said:
“I was up in the Emergency Management Center on the twenty-third floor [of WTC 7], and when
all the power went out in the building, another gentleman and I walked down to the eighth floor
[sic] where there was an explosion and we were trapped on the eighth floor with smoke, thick
smoke, all around us, for about an hour and a half. But the New York Fire Department . . . just
came and got us out.” 9
Hess thereby reported a mid-morning explosion in WTC 7.
Another gentleman, Barry Jennings of the New York City Housing Authority, reported the same
thing during another on-the-street interview, reporting that he and “Mr. Hess” had been walking
down the stairs when they became trapped by a “big explosion.” 10 Jennings, in fact, said that
explosions continued going off while they were waiting to be rescued. 11
1
National Fire Protection Association, 921 Guide for fire and explosion Investigations, 2001 edition, Section 18
2
NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final report on the collapse of the World trade Center Building 7”, Nov 2008, p. 330
3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul3Eia4jPCM
4
See quotes by Tully and Loizeaux in “Molten Steel Flowed Under Ground Zero for Months after 9/11, 4-28-2008
5
FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, Appendix C
6
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/02/science/scarred-steel-holds-clues-and-remedies.html
7
http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/PDF/Newsday-9-10-03-FullEffectsOfWTCpollutionMayNeverBeKnown.pdf
8
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200704/JonesWTC911SciMethod.pdf
9
“Michael Hess, WTC7 Explosion Witness,” YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfiLbXMa64). Hess should have said
“down to the sixth floor.” As Barry Jennings later clarified, the explosion that blocked their descent occurred when they
reached the sixth floor, after which they walked back up to the eighth floor, where they waited to be rescued; see “Barry
Jennings-–9/11 WTC7 Full Uncut Interview,” Part 2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxUj6UgPODo), at 5:08-5:33.
10
See “Barry Jennings – 9/11 Early Afternoon ABC 7 Interview” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LO5V2CJpzI).
11
This statement could previously be seen in “Barry Jennings-–9/11 WTC7 Full Uncut Interview,” Part 1, at 3:57-4:05. But at the
time this essay was posted, this portion of the interview had been blocked from the Internet, because it is now in the film
Loose Change 9/11: An American Coup.
There were also reports of explosions in the late afternoon, just as WTC 7 started coming down.
Reporter Peter Demarco of the New York Daily News said:
“[T]here was a rumble. The building’s top row of windows popped out. Then all the windows on
the thirty-ninth floor popped out. Then the thirty-eighth floor. Pop! Pop! Pop! was all you heard
until the building sunk into a rising cloud of gray.” 1
NYPD officer Craig Bartmer gave the following report: “I was real close to Building 7 when it fell
down. . . . That didn’t sound like just a building falling down to me . . . . There’s a lot of eyewitness
testimony down there of hearing explosions. . . . [A]ll of a sudden. . . I looked up, and . . . [t]he
thing started pealing in on itself. . . . I started running . . . and the whole time you’re hearing
‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.’” 2
A New York University medical student, who had been serving as an emergency medical worker
that day, gave this report:
“[W]e heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder. . . . [T]urned around – we were
shocked. . . . [I]t looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows
all busted out. . . . [A]bout a second later the bottom floor caved out and the building followed
after that.” 3
Other Physical Evidence that points to explosives/incendiaries used:
Dr. Jonathan Barnett had during a BBC program on WTC 7 (in July 2008) discussed an “eroded and deformed” piece of
steel that he and his colleagues had studied in 2001, explaining that they knew “its pedigree” because “this particular kind
of steel” had been used only in WTC 7, not in the Twin Towers. 4
Melted Iron: Deutsche Bank, which had a building close to the World Trade Center that had been contaminated with dust,
hired the RJ Lee Group, a scientific research organization, to prove to its insurance company that the dust contaminat-
ing its building was not ordinary building dust, as its insurance company claimed, but had resulted from the destruction
of the World Trade Center. Reports issued by the RJ Lee Group in 2003 and 2004 proved that the dust was indeed WTC
dust, having its unique chemical signature. Part of this signature, the RJ Lee Group said in its final (2004) report, was
“[s]pherical iron . . . particles,” and this meant, it had pointed out in its 2003 report, that iron had “melted during the WTC
Event, producing spherical metallic particles.” 5 This was corroborated by Physicist Steven Jones who also found the iron
spheres. 6
Melted Molybdenum: Another study was carried out by scientists at the US Geological Survey. Besides also finding the
spherical iron particles, these scientists found that something had melted molybdenum 7 – which has an extremely high
melting point: 4,753°F (2,623°C). 8
1
Quoted in Chris Bull and Sam Erman, eds., At Ground Zero: Young Reporters Who Were There Tell Their Stories (New York:
Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002), 97.
2
Bartmer’s statement is quoted in Paul Joseph Watson, “NYPD Officer Heard Building 7 Bombs,” Prison Planet, February 10,
2007 (http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/100207heardbombs.htm).
3
This unnamed medical student can be seen making this statement in “911 Eyewitness” (at 31:30).
4
In NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, Damage and Failure Modes of Structural Steel Components, September 2005 (http://wtc.nist.gov/
NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-3C%20Damage%20and%20Failure%20Modes.pdf), the authors, Stephen W. Banovic and
Timothy Foecke, referred to “the analysis of the steel from WTC 7 (Sample #1 from Appendix C, BPAT/FEMA study) where
corrosion phases and morphologies were able to determine a possible temperature region” (233). The BBC program was
The Conspiracy Files: 9/11-The Third Tower, 7- 6-08 (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250#
and http://www.911blogger.com/node/16541); the statement by Barnett is at 48:00. I am indebted to Chris Sarns for both of
these discoveries.
5
40 RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature,” Expert Report, May 2004 (http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20
Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20WTC%20dust/WTCDustSignature_
ExpertReport.051304.1646.mp.pdf): 11; “WTC Dust Signature Study: Composition and Morphology,” December 2003 (http://www.
nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20
WTC%20dust/WTC%20Dust%20Signature.Composition%20and%20Morphology.Final.pdf): 17. For discussion of the differences be-
tween these two versions of the RJ Lee report, see Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse, 40-42.
6
http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
7
Steven E. Jones et al., “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction,” Journal of 9/11 Studies,
January 2008 (http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf): 8.
8
“Molybdenum,” WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web (http://www.webelements.com/molybdenum/physics.html).
We will stop here. Regarding the need to test the WTC dust/metal for evidence of explosives or incendiaries, NIST
spokesman Michael Newman, when asked why they did not test for this, replied:
“[B]ecause there was no evidence of that.” When the reporter asked the obvious follow-up question, “[H]ow can you know
there’s no evidence if you don’t look for it first?” Newman replied: “If you’re looking for something that isn’t there, you’re
wasting your time . . . and the taxpayers’ money.” 1
This above statement summarizes the attitude of the NIST investigation overall and confirms that NIST was not operat-
ing on the basis of scientific objectivity. It was operating on the basis of a biased, politically driven presupposition, which it
likely went out of its way to fabricate for the sake of coinciding with the Government’s Official Conspiracy Theory of 9/11.
Now, to conclude this highly abridged exploration of the failure of NIST to conduct a complete, objective investigation, let’s
examine the “miracle” element of NIST’s claim which catapults the explanation into pure, comedic fiction. We can also see
why NIST avoided submitting its reports for peer scientific review - it is simply too embarrassing - and they likely know it.
The “free-fall” quality of the collapse, while fairly obvious from the video analysis, was initially denied by NIST, saying that
the time it took for the upper floors – the only floors that are visible on the videos - to come down “was approximately 40
percent longer than the computed free fall time and was consistent with physical principles.” 2 This was stated in NIST’s
Draft for Public Comment, issued in August 2008.
Shyam Sunder even went on to state:
“[A] free fall time would be [the fall time of] an object that has no structural components below it. . . [T]he . . . time that
it took . . . for those 17 floors to disappear [was roughly 40 percent longer than free fall]. And that is not at all unusual,
because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural
failures that had to take place. Everything was not instantaneous.” 3
However after being challenged by David Chandler, a Physicist, NIST detracted this disposition and now, it is final report,
admits that there was, indeed, 2.25 second of free fall present in the collapse of WTC 7. Dividing the building’s descent
into three stages, NIST described the second phase as “a freefall descent over approximately eight stories at gravitational
acceleration for approximately 2.25 s[econds].” 4 So, after presenting over 600 pages of descriptions, photographs, testi-
monies, graphs, analyses, explanations, and mathematical formulae, NIST says, in effect: “Then a miracle happens.” As
described above with the Twin Towers, this phenomenon voids the law of conservation of momentum. Only in this case, it
is even more profound in implication for there are no planes or jet fuel to hide behind with WTC 7.
This can only be explained with controlled demolition. These is no scientific theory in existence which can explain this and
NIST certainly hasn’t. Needless to say, foreign terrorists could not have obtained access to the buildings for all the hours it
would have taken to plant incendiaries and explosives. Only insiders could have done this.
(8) Minor Fires/Limited Damage to WTC 7
Very quickly, as an aside, a common refutation with regard to WTC 7’s “limited fires/damage”, as expressed in Zeitgeist,
is that the diffuse office fires where rather “huge” and “engulfing” and this led to weakening and hence collapse, in combo
with the structural damage. All available photographic evidence shows that only one facade gives the appearance of pos-
sibly large fire(s). There are a few fires on the North side at the base, but these are indeed limited to only few floors by all
photographic evidence.
1
Jennifer Abel, “Theories of 9/11,” Hartford Advocate, January 29, 2008 (http://www.ae911truth.org/press/23).
2
NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2
(http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1-9_vol2_for_public_comment.pdf), 595-96. In “Questions and Answers about the
NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” which was issued August 21, 2008 (simultaneously with NIST’s Draft for Public Comment), NIST
repeated this denial, saying: “WTC 7 did not enter free fall.”
3
“WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” NIST, August 26, 2008. NIST has removed this video and the accompanying transcript from
the Internet. However, Nate Flach has made the video available at Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/11941571), and the transcript,
entitled “NIST Technical Briefing on Its Final Draft Report on WTC 7 for Public Comment,” is available at David Chandler’s
website (http://911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefing_Transcript.pdf).
4
NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2: 607. The same point is stated in the brief version of NIST’s WTC 7 report, NIST NCSTAR 1A, which
states: “In Stage 2, the north face descended at gravitational acceleration, as the buckled columns provided negligible support
to the upper portion of the north face. This free fall drop continued for approximately 8 stories”
“
(a) WTC 7, North Facade/Corner, moments before collapse.
It is not “engulfed in fire.”
(b) WTC 7 , South Facade/Corner
While it does show smoke coming from the South Facade, video evidence does not confirm a total
building “inferno” as some claim. In fact, in the next shot (c), we see the upper half of the building as the
smoke clears a bit to see the actual facade. One can watch the video footage of this, taken at around
1: 45pm , here: [ http://www.archive.org/details/abc200109111323-1404 [20:25]
(c) WTC 7 , South Facade,
There is no denying that fire is occurring, but if you look closely we do not see 20 floors of flames (or flames at all in this
video), as has occurred in other fires in other steel buildings, which did not collapse. 1 The appearence resembled more of
a “singed”