con·spir·a·cy (kən-spîr'ə-sē)
n., pl. -cies.
1. An agreement to perform together an illegal, wrongful, or subversive act.
2. A group of conspirators.
3. Law. An agreement between two or more persons to commit a crime or accomplish a legal purpose through illegal action.
4. A joining or acting together, as if by sinister design: a conspiracy of wind and tide that devastated coastal areas.
An Open Letter to Terry Allen, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, David Corn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi
by David Ray Griffin July 6, 2010 GlobalResearch.ca
According to several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, some of its central claims, especially about the destruction of the World Trade Center, show its members to be scientifically challenged. In the opinion of some of these critics, moreover, claims made by members of this movement are sometimes unscientific in the strongest possible sense, implying an acceptance of magic and miracles.
After documenting this charge in Part I of this essay, I show in Part II that the exact opposite is the case: that the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center implies miracles (I give nine examples), and that the 9/11 Truth Movement, in developing an alternative hypothesis, has done so in line with the assumption that the laws of nature did not take a holiday on 9/11. In Part III, I ask these left-leaning critics some questions evoked by the fact that it is they, not members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who have endorsed a conspiracy theory replete with miracle stories as well as other absurdities.
I The Charge that 9/11 Truth Theories Rest on Unscientific, Even Magical, Beliefs
Several left-leaning critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, besides showing contempt for its members, charge them with relying on claims that are contradicted by good science and, in some cases, reflect a belief in magic. By “magic,” they mean miracles, understood as violations of basic principles of the physical sciences.
For example, Alexander Cockburn, who has referred to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “9/11 conspiracy nuts,”3 quoted with approval a philosopher who, speaking of “the 9-11 conspiracy cult,” said that its “main engine . . . is . . . the death of any conception of evidence,” resulting in “the ascendancy of magic over common sense, let alone reason.”4 Also, Cockburn assured his readers: “The conspiracy theory that the World Trade Centre towers were demolished by explosive charges previously placed within them is probably impossible.”5 With regard to Building 7 of the World Trade Center, Cockburn claimed (in 2006) that the (2002) report by FEMA was “more than adequate.”6
Likewise, George Monbiot, referring to members of the 9/11 Truth Movement as “fantasists,” “conspiracy idiots,” and “morons,” charged that they “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.”7
Matt Taibbi, saying that the “9/11 conspiracy theory is so shamefully stupid” and referring to its members as “idiots,” wrote with contempt about the “alleged scientific impossibilities” in the official account of 9/11; about the claim that “the towers couldn’t have fallen the way they did [without the aid of explosives]”; of the view (held by “9/11 Truthers”) that “it isn’t the plane crashes that topple the buildings, but bombs planted in the Towers that do the trick”; and of “the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.” He had been assured by “scientist friends,” he added, that “[a]ll of the 9/11 science claims” are “rank steaming bullshit.”8
Chris Hayes, writing in The Nation in 2006, did not stoop to the kind of name-calling employed by Cockburn, Monbiot, and Taibbi. Also, he knew, he admitted, of “eyewitness accounts of [people] who heard explosions in the World Trade Center.” And he was aware that “jet fuel burns at 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit [whereas] steel melts at 2,500.” He asserted, nevertheless, that “the evidence shows [a 9/11 conspiracy] to be virtually impossible,” so that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is “wrongheaded and a terrible waste of time.”9
Noam Chomsky has also declared that the available facts, when approached scientifically, refute the 9/11 Truth Movement. Speaking of evidence provided by this movement to show that 9/11 “was planned by the Bush Administration,” Chomsky declared: “If you look at the evidence, anybody who knows anything about the sciences would instantly discount that evidence.”10 In spite of his dismissive attitude, however, Chomsky in 2006 gave some helpful advice to people who believe they have physical evidence refuting the official account:
“There are ways to assess that: submit it to specialists . . . who have the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, building construction, etc., for review and analysis. . . . Or, . . . submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication. To my knowledge, there isn’t a single submission.”11 In These Times writer Terry Allen, in a 2006 essay entitled “The 9/11 Faith Movement,” assured her readers that “the facts [do not] support the conspiracists’ key charge that World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by pre-positioned explosives.”12
In an essay posted at AlterNet a few months after 9/11, David Corn used a purely a priori argument to demonstrate – at least to his own satisfaction – that 9/11 could not have been an inside job: “U.S. officials would [not have been] . . . good [capable] enough, evil enough, or gutsy enough.”13 In 2009, after having been silent about 9/11 for the intervening years, he addressed the issue again. Referring to “9/11 conspiracy silliness,” “9/11 conspiracy poison,” and “9/11 fabulists,” Corn declared:
“The 9/11 conspiracy . . . was always a load of bunk. You don’t have to be an expert on skyscraper engineering . . . to know that [this theory] make[s] no sense.”14 Corn thereby implied that, whereas anyone can know that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s conspiracy theory is false, those people who are “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering” would have even more certain knowledge of this fact.
As to how people (such as himself) who are not experts on such matters could know this movement’s conspiracy theory to be “a load of bunk,” Corn again employed his three-point a priori argument, as re-worded in a later essay, according to which the Bush administration was “not that evil,” “not that ballsy,” and “not that competent.”15 Corn even referred to his three-point argument as “a tutorial that should persuade anyone that the 9/11 theory makes no sense.” Although this “tutorial” does not, of course, convince members of the 9/11 Truth Movement, Corn explained this fact by saying: “I have learned from experience that people who believe this stuff are not open to persuasion.”16
In any case, although his argument against the inside-job theory was almost entirely a priori, he did make the above-mentioned suggestion that one’s a priori certitude would be reinforced by people, such as “expert[s] on skyscraper engineering,” who have relevant types of expertise to evaluate the empirical evidence.
A fuller statement of the general claim made by these authors - that the 9/11 Truth Movement is based on unscientific claims – was formulated by Matthew Rothschild, the editor of The Progressive. In an essay entitled “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Already,” Rothschild wrote:
“Here’s what the conspiracists believe: 9/11 was an inside job. . . . [T]he Twin Towers fell not because of the impact of the airplanes and the ensuing fires but because [of] explosives. Building 7, another high-rise at the World Trade Center that fell on 9/11, also came down by planted explosives. . . . I’m amazed at how many people give credence to these theories. . . . [S]ome of the best engineers in the country have studied these questions and come up with perfectly logical, scientific explanations for what happened. . . . At bottom, the 9/11 conspiracy theories are profoundly irrational and unscientific. It is more than passing strange that progressives, who so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming, are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”17 However, in spite of the confidence with which these critics have made their charges, the truth is the complete opposite: It is the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, which has been endorsed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), that is profoundly unscientific (partly because it ignores a massive amount of evidence pointing to use of explosives18 ), and it is precisely for this reason that the 9/11 Truth Movement has come up with an alternative explanation – namely, that the WTC buildings were brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.”
II Miracles Implied by NIST’s Explanation of the WTC’s Destruction
The main reason why NIST’s theory of the destruction of the World Trade Center is profoundly unscientific is that it cannot be accepted without endorsing miracles, in the sense of violations of fundamental principles of physics and chemistry. I will demonstrate this point in terms of nine miracles implied by NIST’s accounts of the destruction of Building 7 of the World Trade Center (WTC 7) and the Twin Towers (WTC 1 and 2).
1. The Fire-Induced Collapse of WTC 7: An Apparent Miracle
WTC 7 was a 47-story building that, although it was not hit by a plane, came down at 5:21 PM that day. Unlike the collapse of the Twin Towers, the collapse of this building was not publicized. The 9/11 Commission Report, for example, did not even mention it.19 Many people have, accordingly, never heard of this building’s collapse. A Zogby poll in 2006, for example, found that 43 percent of the American people were still unaware that a third WTC building had collapsed, and even though NIST’s report on its collapse appeared in 2008, many people today still do not know that this building also came down.20 For the purposes of the present essay, in any case, the main point is that, insofar as people profess belief in the official account of this building’s collapse as articulated by NIST, they imply an acceptance of several miracles.
I begin with a fact about WTC 7’s collapse that at least appears to entail a miracle: that it was (according to the official account) the first steel-frame high-rise building in the known universe to be brought down solely by fire. The Twin Towers were hit by airliners, so the official account could attribute their collapses to the airplane impacts as well as to the ensuing fires. But WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, so its collapse apparently had to be attributed to fire alone.
The unprecedented nature of a fire-induced collapse of a steel-frame high-rise building was expressed a couple of months after 9/11 by New York Times reporter James Glanz. Calling the collapse of WTC 7 “a mystery,” Glanz reported that “experts said no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire.” Glanz also quoted a structural engineer as saying: “[W]ithin the structural engineering community, [WTC 7] is considered to be much more important to understand [than the Twin Towers],” because engineers had no answer to the question, “why did 7 come down”21
The mystery was not lessened in 2002 when FEMA issued the first official report on this building’s collapse. Saying that its “best hypothesis” was that flaming debris from the collapse of the North Tower had ignited diesel fuel stored in the building, resulting in large, steel-weakening fires that made the building collapse, FEMA admitted that this hypothesis had “only a low probability of occurrence”22 (although Alexander Cockburn years later, as we saw above, would declare this report to be “more than adequate”).
This cautionary statement by FEMA did not, however, prevent defenders of the official account from claiming that WTC 7’s collapse was not really very mysterious after all. In a 2006 book, Popular Mechanics told its readers what they could probably expect to find in the report on this building to be put out by NIST – which had taken over from FEMA the responsibility for issuing the official reports on the Twin Towers and WTC 7. Citing NIST’s “current working hypothesis,” Popular Mechanics said that WTC 7’s diesel fuel had probably fed the fires “for up to seven hours.”23
Also, using NIST’s then-current thinking in order to claim that “WTC 7 was far more compromised by falling debris than the FEMA report indicated,” Popular Mechanics argued that critics could not reject the official account on the grounds that it would make WTC 7 the first steel-frame high-rise to have failed “because of fire alone,” because, Popular Mechanics claimed, the causes of WTC 7’s collapse were analogous to the causes of the collapses of WTC 1 and WTC 2: “A combination of physical damage from falling debris [analogous to the damage caused in the Twin Towers by the airplane impacts] and prolonged exposure to the resulting [diesel-fuel-fed] fires [analogous to the jet-fuel-fed fires in the Twin Towers].”24
Popular Mechanics called this twofold explanation a “conclusion” that had been reached by “hundreds of experts from academia and private industry, as well as the government.” This claim evidently impressed many people, including Chris Hayes and Matthew Rothschild, both of whom said that Popular Mechanics had disproved the claims of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Rothschild, repeating Popular Mechanics’ twofold explanation, wrote:
“Building 7 . . . is a favorite of the conspiracy theorists, since the planes did not strike this structure. But the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers. ‘On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom - approximately ten stories – about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out,’ Shyam Sunder, the lead investigator for the National Institute of Standards and Technology, told Popular Mechanics. What’s more, the fire in the building lasted for about eight hours, in part because there were fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.”25 Hayes, saying that “Popular Mechanics assembled a team of engineers, physicists, flight experts and the like to critically examine some of the Truth Movement’s most common claims,” reported that these experts “found them almost entirely without merit.” This counter-claim by Popular Mechanics evidently settled the matter for Hayes.26
Also, although Terry Allen did not mention Popular Mechanics, her article was apparently dependent on it. Assuring her readers that she had found it “relatively easy” to undermine the “facts” employed by the 9/11 Truth Movement, she wrote:
“Many conspiracists offer the collapse of WTC Building 7 as the strongest evidence for the kind of controlled demolition that would prove a plot. Although not hit by planes, it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”27 Like Rothschild, therefore, she gave the same twofold explanation for WTC 7’s collapse that had been provided by Popular Mechanics.28
However, when NIST finally issued its WTC 7 report in 2008, it did not affirm either element in the twofold explanation that had been proffered by Popular Mechanics. With regard to the first element, NIST said: “[F]uel oil fires did not play a role in the collapse of WTC 7.”29 With regard to the second element, NIST said: “Other than initiating the fires in WTC 7, the damage from the debris from WTC 1 [the North Tower] had little effect on initiating the collapse of WTC 7.”30
This second point means that, contrary to what Popular Mechanics had claimed it would say, NIST actually asserted that WTC 7 was brought down by fire, at least primarily. In NIST’s words, the collapse of WTC 7 was “the first known instance of the total collapse of a [steel-frame] tall building primarily due to fires.”31
One ambiguity needs clearing up: Although in these just-quoted statements, NIST seemed to indicate that the debris damage had a “little effect” on initiating the collapse, so that this collapse was only primarily (rather than entirely) due to fire, NIST generally treated fire as the sole cause: Besides repeatedly speaking of a “fire-induced” collapse,32 Also, in a press release announcing its Draft for Public Comment in August 2008, NIST called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building.” This press release, moreover, quoted lead investigator Shyam Sunder as saying: “Our study found that the fires in WTC 7 . . . caused an extraordinary event.”33 The brief version of NIST’s final report said: “Even without the structural damage, WTC 7 would have collapsed from fires having the same characteristics as those experienced on September 11, 2001.”34 The long version said: “WTC 7 sustained damage to its exterior as a result of falling debris from the collapse of WTC 1, but this damage was found to have no effect on the collapse initiating event.”35
It is not wrong, therefore, to say that NIST portrayed WTC 7 as the first (and thus far only) steel-frame high-rise building to have come down because of fire alone. NIST said, in other words, precisely what Popular Mechanics, knowing that claims about unprecedented physical events are deeply suspect, had assured people it would not say.
In doing so, moreover, NIST contradicted both parts of Popular Mechanics’ explanation for WTC 7’s collapse, which, according to Rothschild and Allen, had provided the basis for discounting the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about this collapse. To review: Rothschild said that the official account was credible, contrary to the Truth Movement’s claims, because “the building did sustain damage from the debris of the Twin Towers” and the “fire in the building lasted for about eight hours,” due to the “fuel tanks in the basement and on some of the floors.” Allen likewise said the official account was believable because, although WTC 7 was not hit by a plane, “it was damaged by debris, and suffered fires eventually fueled by up to 42,000 gallons of diesel fuel stored near ground level.”36
But then, when NIST later denied that either the debris-damage or the diesel fuel played a role in the collapse of WTC 7, Rothschild and Allen did not retract their prior assurances. It seems that they, in effect, simply said – like Gilda Radner on Saturday Night Live in the 1970s – “Never mind.” Their attitude seemed to be, in other words, that whatever the government says, that is what they will believe. Whatever kind of journalism this is, it is certainly not truth-seeking journalism.
In any case, NIST’s claim that WTC 7 suffered an unprecedented, fire-induced collapse is made even more problematic by the fact that the fires in this building were relatively unimpressive, compared with fires in some other steel-frame high-rises. In 1991, a huge fire in Philadelphia’s One Meridian Plaza lasted for 18 hours and gutted eight of the building’s 38 floors. In Caracas in 2004, a fire in a 50-story building raged for 17 hours, completely gutting the building’s top 20 floors. In neither case, however, did the building, or even a single floor, collapse.37 In WTC 7, by contrast, there were long-lasting fires on only six of the building’s 47 floors, according to NIST, and by “long-lasting,” NIST meant only that they lasted up to seven hours.38 It would be exceedingly strange, therefore, if fire had produced a total collapse of this building. The claim becomes even stranger when one discovers that NIST had no evidence that the fires on any of the floors lasted for much over three hours.39
Accordingly, besides undermining the confident explanations of WTC 7’s collapse offered by Popular Mechanics, NIST’s conclusion about this building - that it was the first steel-frame high-rise building ever to be brought down by fire – appears to constitute a rather remarkable miracle-claim.
2. WTC 7’s Collapse: A Perfect Imitation of an Implosion
More clearly miraculous, given the official account, was the precise way in which WTC 7 collapsed: symmetrically (straight down, with an almost perfectly horizontal roofline), into its own footprint. In order for this symmetrical collapse to occur, all the (vertical) steel columns supporting the building had to fail simultaneously. There were 82 of these columns, so the fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse entails that the fires in this building caused all 82 of these columns to fail at the same instant.
Even if otherwise possible, such a symmetrical failure would have been essentially impossible even if the building had been entirely engulfed by fire, so that all the floors would have been evenly covered with fire. As it was, however, there were fires on only a few floors, and these fires never covered an entire floor at the same time. The official account implies, therefore, that a very asymmetrical pattern of fires produced an entirely symmetrical collapse. If that is not a genuine miracle, it will do until one comes along.
Another problem is the fact that, even if a symmetrical, total collapse could be caused by an asymmetrical pattern of fires, a fire theory could not explain the sudden onset of WTC 7’s collapse. Popular Mechanics, which is unreliable on every aspect of 9/11 (as I showed in my 2007 book, Debunking 9/11 Debunking40 ), apparently misled Chris Hayes on this point by suggesting otherwise. Attempting to illustrate his claim that Popular Mechanics had shown the core ideas of the 9/11 Truth Movement to be “almost entirely without merit,” Hayes wrote:
“To pick just one example, steel might not melt at 1,500 degrees [Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”41 However, even if the fire could have heated the steel up to this temperature in the time available (which would have been impossible42 ), the fire would have weakened the steel gradually, causing it to start sagging. Videos would, therefore, show deformations in the building before it came down. But they do not. One moment the building was perfectly immobile, and the next moment, as videos show,43 it was accelerating downward in free fall (the significance of free fall will be discussed below). As Australian chemist Frank Legge has observed: “There is no sign of the slow start that would be expected if collapse was caused by the gradual softening of the steel.”44
Because of these two features of the collapse, anyone knowing anything about such things can tell, simply by seeing a video of WTC 7’s collapse, that it was brought down in the procedure known as “controlled demolition.” For example, Daniel Hofnung, an engineer in Paris, has written:
“In the years after [the] 9/11 events, I thought that all I read in professional reviews and French newspapers was true. The first time I understood that it was impossible was when I saw a film about the collapse of WTC 7.”45 Kansas City civil engineer Chester Gearhart wrote:
“I have watched the construction of many large buildings and also have personally witnessed 5 controlled demolitions in Kansas City. When I saw the towers fall on 9/11, I knew something was wrong and my first instinct was that it was impossible. When I saw building 7 fall, I knew it was a controlled demolition.”46 Jack Keller, emeritus professor of engineering at Utah State University (who had been named by Scientific American as one of the world’s leaders in using science and technology to benefit society), wrote simply of WTC 7’s collapse: “Obviously it was the result of controlled demolition.”47
In revealing the collapse of WTC 7 to be an example of controlled demolition, moreover, the videos show it to be the type of controlled demolition known as “implosion,” in which explosives and/or incendiaries are used to slice the building’s steel support columns so as to cause the building to collapse into its own footprint.
In 2006, for example, a Dutch filmmaker asked Danny Jowenko, the owner of a controlled demolition company in the Netherlands, to comment on a video of the collapse of WTC 7, without telling him what it was. (Jowenko had been unaware that a third building had collapsed in New York on 9/11.) After viewing the video, Jowenko said: “They simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . This is controlled demolition.” When asked if he was certain, he replied: “Absolutely, it’s been imploded. This was a hired job. A team of experts did this.”48
Moreover, the reason to implode a building, rather than simply causing it to fall over sideways, is to avoid damaging nearby buildings, and engineering an implosion is no mean feat. An implosion, in the words of a controlled demolition website, is “by far the trickiest type of explosive project,” which “only a handful of blasting companies in the world . . . possess enough experience . . . to perform.”49 Mark Loizeaux, the president of the afore-mentioned demolition firm, Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained why: “[T]o bring [a building] down . . . so . . . no other structure is harmed,” the demolition must be “completely planned,” using “the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges.”50
Would it not be a miracle if a fire-induced collapse, based on scattered fires on a few of WTC 7’s floors, had produced a collapse that perfectly imitated the kind of planned, controlled demolition that can be carried out by only a few companies in the world
Chris Hayes suggested that the 9/11 Truth Movement, by doubting the government’s account of 9/11, exemplifies a resurgence of the “paranoid style” in American politics. But in accepting the government’s account, as defended by the pseudo-scientific Popular Mechanics, he illustrated the other target of his article, the “credulous style,” which, he pointed out, is generally exemplified by the American media.51 Surely, however, his credulity does not extend to the acceptance of miracles.
3. WTC 7’s Descent in Absolute Free Fall
Even if some readers question whether the two previously discussed features of the collapse of WTC 7, when understood within the framework of NIST’s fire theory, imply miracles, there can be no doubt about a third feature: the now-accepted (albeit generally unpublicized) fact that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds.
Although members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had long been pointing out that this building descended at the same rate as a free-falling object, or at least virtually so, NIST had long denied this. As late as August 2008, when NIST issued its report on WTC 7 in the form of a Draft for Public Comment, it claimed 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.”52
As this statement implied, any assertion that the building did come down in free fall, assuming a non-engineered collapse, would not be consistent with physical principles – meaning basic laws of Newtonian physics. Explaining why not during a “WTC 7 Technical Briefing” on August 26, 2008, NIST’s Shyam Sunder said:
“[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.”53 In saying this, Sunder was presupposing NIST’s theory that the building was brought down by fire, which, if it could have produced a collapse of any type, could have produced only a progressive collapse.
In response, high-school physics teacher David Chandler, who was allowed to submit a question at this briefing, challenged Sunder’s denial of free fall, stating that Sunder’s “40 percent longer” claim contradicted “a publicly visible, easily measurable quantity.”54 Chandler then placed a video on the Internet showing that, by measuring this publicly visible quantity, anyone understanding elementary physics could see that “for about two and a half seconds. . . , the acceleration of the building is indistinguishable from freefall.”55 (This is, of course, free fall through the air, not through a vacuum.)
In its final report on WTC 7, which came out in November 2008, NIST – rather amazingly - admitted free fall. 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].”56 NIST thereby accepted Chandler’s case – except for maintaining that the building was in absolute free fall for only 2.25, not 2.5, seconds (a trivial difference). NIST thereby affirmed a miracle, meaning a violation of one or more laws of physics.
Why this would be a miracle was explained by Chandler, who said: “Free fall can only be achieved if there is zero resistance to the motion.”57 In other words, the upper portion of Building 7 could have come down in free fall only if something had suddenly removed all the steel and concrete in the lower part of the building, which would have otherwise provided resistance (to make a considerable understatement). If everything had not been removed and the upper floors had come down in free fall anyway, even if for only a fraction of a second, this would have been a miracle – meaning a violation of physical principles. Explaining one of the physical principles involved, Chandler said:
“Anything at an elevated height has gravitational potential energy. If it falls, and none of the energy is used for other things along the way, all of that energy is converted into kinetic energy – the energy of motion, and we call it ‘free fall.’ If any of the energy is used for other purposes, there will be less kinetic energy, so the fall will be slower. In the case of a falling building, the only way it can go into free fall is if an external force removes the supporting structure. None of the gravitational potential energy of the building is available for this purpose, or it would slow the fall of the building.”58 That was what Sunder himself had explained, on NIST’s behalf, the previous August, saying that a free-falling object would be one “that has no structural components below it” to offer resistance. But NIST then in November, while still under Sunder’s leadership and still defending its fire theory of WTC 7’s collapse, agreed that, as an empirical fact, free fall happened. For a period of 2.25 seconds, NIST admitted, the descent of WTC 7 was characterized by “gravitational acceleration (free fall).”59
Besides pointing out that the free fall descent of WTC 7 implied that the building had been professionally demolished, Chandler observed that this conclusion is reinforced by two features of the collapse mentioned above:
“[P]articularly striking is the suddenness of onset of free fall. Acceleration doesn’t build up gradually. . . . The building went from full support to zero support, instantly. . . . One moment, the building is holding; the next moment it lets go and is in complete free fall. . . . The onset of free fall was not only sudden; it extended across the whole width of the building. . . . The fact that the roof stayed level shows the building was in free fall across the entire width. The collapse we see cannot be due to a column failure, or a few column failures, or a sequence of column failures. All 24 interior columns and 58 perimeter columns had to have been removed . . . simultaneously, within a small fraction of a second.”60 For its part, NIST, knowing that it had affirmed a miracle by agreeing that WTC 7 had entered into free fall, no longer claimed that its analysis was consistent with the laws of physics. Back in its August draft, in which it was still claiming that the collapse occurred 40 percent slower than free fall, NIST had said – in a claim made three times – that its analysis was “consistent with physical principles.”61 In the final report, however, every instance of this phrase was removed. NIST thereby almost explicitly admitted that its report on WTC 7, by affirming absolute free fall while continuing to deny that either incendiaries or explosives had been employed, is not consistent with basic principles of physics.
Accordingly, now that it is established that WTC 7 came down in absolute free fall for over two seconds, one cannot accept the official theory, according to which this building was not professionally demolished, without implying that at least one miracle happened on 9/11.
George Monbiot, as we saw, described members of this movement as “morons” who “believe that [the Bush regime] is capable of magic.” Unless Monbiot, upon becoming aware of NIST’s admission of free fall, changes his stance, he will imply that al-Qaeda is capable of magic.
Matthew Rothschild said he was “amazed” at how many people hold the “profoundly irrational and unscientific” belief that “Building 7 . . . came down by planted explosives.” Given the fact that progressive members of the 9/11 Truth Movement “so revere science on such issues as tobacco, stem cells, evolution, and global warming,” Rothschild continued, it is “more than passing strange that [they] are so willing to abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”
NIST’s report on WTC 7, however, provided the final proof that the 9/11 Truth Movement had been right all along – that those progressives who credulously accept the Bush-Cheney administration’s explanation for WTC 7’s collapse are the ones who “abandon science and give in to fantasy on the subject of 9/11.”
4. The Twin Towers: Descending in Virtual Free Fall
Miracles are implied not only by the official account of WTC 7’s collapse but also by the official account of the destruction of the Twin Towers. According to this account, the North Tower (WTC 1) and the South Tower (WTC 2) came down because of three and only three causes: (i) the airplane impacts, which caused structural damage; (ii) the ensuing fires, which were initially fed and spread by jet fuel from the planes; and (iii) gravity. NIST’s negative claim here is that neither explosives nor incendiaries helped bring the buildings down.
One of the miracles implicit in this account is that, although each building had 287 steel support columns - 240 perimeter columns and 47 massive core columns – and although neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to destroy these columns, each building came down, as NIST itself put it, “essentially in free fall.”62 How would that have been possible
According to NIST, each airliner took out several perimeter and core columns at its area of impact and also created huge fires, which began weakening the steel. After a period of time (56 minutes for the South Tower, 102 minutes for the North Tower), “the massive top section of [each] building at and above the fire and impact floors” fell down on the lower section, which “could not resist the tremendous energy released by [the top section’s] downward movement.”63 Accordingly, NIST’s report said:
“Since the stories below the level of collapse initiation provided little resistance to the tremendous energy released by the falling building mass, the building section above came down essentially in free fall, as seen in videos.”64 Trying to describe more fully its theory of how this happened, NIST wrote:
“The potential energy released by the downward movement of the large building mass far exceeded the capacity of the intact structure below to absorb that energy through energy of deformation. . . . As the stories below sequentially failed, the falling mass increased, further increasing the demand on the floors below, which were unable to arrest the moving mass. In other words, the momentum [of the top stories] falling on the supporting structure below . . . so greatly exceeded the strength capacity of the structure below that [the latter] was unable to stop or even to slow the falling mass.”65 Even before we think about any specific law of physics violated by this account (assuming that no explosives or incendiaries were used to remove the steel columns), we can see intuitively that this explanation implies a miracle: As NIST critic Jim Hoffman has pointed out, it “requires us to believe that the massive steel frames of the [lower structure of the] towers provided no more resistance to falling rubble than [would] air.”66
As to why physics rules out NIST’s account, William Rice, who has both practiced and taught structural engineering, pointed out that NIST’s account “violates Newton’s Law of Conservation of Momentum,” which requires that, “as the stationary inertia of each floor is overcome by being hit,” the speed of descent must decrease.67 A paper by physicists and engineers published in an engineering journal agreed, stating:
“NIST evidently neglects a fundamental law of physics in glibly treating the remarkable ‘free fall’ collapse of each Tower, namely, the Law of Conservation of Momentum. This law of physics means that the hundreds of thousands of tons of material in the way must slow the upper part of the building because of its mass.”68 A letter to NIST signed by physicist Steven Jones, chemist Kevin Ryan, and architect Richard Gage, among others, made a similar point, saying:
“Basic principles of engineering (for example, the conservation of momentum principle) would dictate that the undamaged steel structure below the collapse initiation zone would, at the very least, resist and slow the downward movement of the stories above. There is, indeed, a good chance that the structural strength of the steelwork below would arrest the downward movement of the stories above.”69 NIST, as we saw above, claimed that the lower portion would not retard – let alone arrest - the downward movement of the upper part, because the “tremendous energy” of the upper part’s downward momentum would be irresistible. Let us examine this claim with regard to the North Tower. It was struck at the 95th floor, so the upper portion consisted of only 16 floors. Also, the structure at this height had relatively little weight to bear, compared with the structure lower down, so the steel columns in the upper part, above the area of impact, were much thinner than those in the lower part. This means that the upper 16 floors probably constituted less than 15 percent of the building’s total weight. Also, the top portion would have fallen only a story or two before hitting the lower portion, so it would not have acquired much velocity before striking the lower portion. For these reasons, the top portion would have not had much momentum, so its energy would not have been so “tremendous,” it would seem, as to be irresistible by the lower part, with its millions of pounds of interconnected steel.
This conclusion, based on a purely commonsense analysis, was confirmed by a technical analysis of the North Tower collapse by mechanical engineer Gordon Ross. Far from failing to retard the downward movement of the building’s upper portion, his analysis showed, the lower portion would have quickly and completely stopped the top portion’s descent. Having made the necessary calculations (which NIST failed to do), Ross concluded that the “vertical movement of the falling section would [have been] arrested . . . within 0.02 seconds after impact. A collapse driven only by gravity would not continue to progress beyond that point.”70
If Ross’s calculations are even close to accurate, then NIST’s account – according to which the Twin Towers came down “essentially in free fall,” even though they were not professionally demolished - implied two enormous miracles (one for each building).
Another element in NIST’s account, to be sure, is the claim that the fires in the buildings weakened the steel, so that it provided less resistance than normal. “[W]hen bare steel reaches temperatures of 1,000 degrees Celsius,” NIST wrote, “it softens and its strength reduces to roughly 10 percent of its room temperature value.”71 NIST thereby, without actually saying it, implied that the steel columns had been heated up to the point where they lost 90 percent of their strength.
NIST was in this way able to mislead some nonscientific journalists into thinking that fire could have caused the Twin Towers to collapse. Alexander Cockburn, stating that the collapses did not require preplaced explosives, said: “High grade steel can bend disastrously under extreme heat.”72 Chris Hayes, stating that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims about the Twin Towers are without merit, wrote (in a passage quoted earlier): “[S]teel might not melt at 1,500 degrees (Fahrenheit], the temperature at which jet fuel burns, but it does begin to lose a lot of its strength, enough to cause the support beams to fail.”73
However, the idea that steel heated up by fire could account for the collapses of the Twin Towers is wrong for at least two reasons. In the first place, even if the steel had indeed lost 90 percent of its strength, it would still have offered some resistance, because the law of conservation of momentum would not have taken a holiday. So a collapse “essentially in free fall” would have been impossible.
In the second place, there is no empirical basis for claiming that either tower’s steel had lost any strength, let alone 90 percent of it. On the one hand, as MIT engineering professor Thomas Eagar has pointed out, structural steel only “begins to soften around 425°C [797°F].”74 On the other hand, scientific studies on 16 perimeter columns carried out by NIST scientists found that “only three [of these perimeter] columns had evidence that the steel reached temperatures above 250˚C [482˚F].” These NIST scientists also found no evidence that even this temperature (250˚C [482˚F]) had been reached by any of the core columns.75
Accordingly, far from having evidence that any of the steel in the columns reached the temperature (1,000°C [1,832°F]) at which it would have lost 90 percent of its strength, NIST had no evidence that any of the columns would have lost even one percent of their strength. If neither explosives nor incendiaries were used to remove the 287 steel support columns, therefore, the top portion of the building came down through the lower portion as if it were not there, even though the steel in that portion was at full strength.
In claiming, therefore, that both of the Twin Towers came down essentially in free fall without the aid of either incendiaries or explosives, NIST implied enormous violations of the physical principle known as the conservation of momentum. Although Rothschild accused the 9/11 Truth Movement of being “irrational and unscientific,” this characterization applies instead to NIST’s report on the Twin Towers and anyone who accepts it.
5. The South Tower’s Mid-Air Miracles
Having illustrated the previous miracle primarily in terms of the North Tower, I turn now to a miracle unique to the South Tower. It was struck at the 80th floor, so that its upper portion consisted of a 30-floor block. As videos of the beginning of this building’s collapse show, this block began tipping toward the corner that had been most damaged by the airplane’s impact. According to the law of the conservation of angular momentum, this section should have fallen to the ground far outside the building’s footprint. “However,” Jim Hoffman and fellow 9/11 researcher Don Hoffman have observed,
“as the top then began to fall, the rotation decelerated. Then it reversed direction [even though the] law of conservation of angular momentum states that a solid object in rotation will continue to rotate at the same speed unless acted on by a torque.”76 And then, as if this were not miraculous enough:
“We observe [wrote physicist Steven Jones] that approximately 30 upper floors begin to rotate as a block, to the south and east. They begin to topple over, not fall straight down. The torque due to gravity on this block is enormous, as is its angular momentum. But then – and this I’m still puzzling over – this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air! How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives”77 If someone were to ask how even explosives could explain this behavior, we could turn to a statement by Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. In response to an interviewer’s question as to how he made “doomed structures dance or walk,” Loizeaux said:
“[B]y differentially controlling the velocity of failure in different parts of the structure, you can make it walk, you can make it spin, you can make it dance. We’ve taken it and moved it, then dropped it or moved it, twisted it and moved it down further - and then stopped it and moved it again. We’ve dropped structures 15 storeys, stopped them and then laid them sideways. We’ll have structures start facing north and end up going to the north-west.”78 If we suppose that explosives were used, therefore, we can understand the mid-air dance performed by the upper portion of the South Tower.
If we refuse to posit explosives, however, we are stuck with a major miracle: Although the upper block was rotating and tipping in such a way that its angular momentum should have caused it to fall down to the side, it somehow righted itself by disintegrating.
This disintegration, incidentally, further undermines the official theory, according to which the “tremendous energy” of this block’s downward momentum caused the lower part of the South Tower to collapse. This theory requires that the upper part smashed down, as a solid block, on the lower part. Videos show, however, that it did not. As Gage, Jones, Ryan, and other colleagues pointed out to NIST:
“[T]he upper portion of WTC 2 did not fall as a block upon the lower undamaged portion, but instead disintegrated as it fell. Thus, there would be no single large impact from a falling block . . . [but only] a series of small impacts as the fragments of the disintegrating upper portion arrived.”79
6. Horizontal Ejections from the Twin Towers
Dwain Deets, former director of the research engineering division at NASA’s Dryden Flight Research Center, has written that the “massive structural members being hurled horizontally” from the Twin Towers “leave no doubt” in his mind that “explosives were involved.”80
Deets was referring to the fact that the collapse of each of the Twin Towers began with a massive explosion near the top, during which huge sections of perimeter columns were ejected out horizontally so powerfully that some of them traveled 500 to 600 feet. Although this feature of the collapses was not mentioned in NIST’s (2005) report on the Twin Towers, there could be no doubt about it, because some of these sections of steel implanted themselves in neighboring buildings, as can be seen in videos and photographs.81
These ejections are now, in any case, part of the official account, because NIST, apparently finding them necessary to explain how fires got started in WTC 7, mentioned them in its report on this building. In Shyam Sunder’s opening statement at the August 2008 press briefing to announce the release of NIST’s final report on WTC 7, he said: “The debris from Tower 1 . . . started fires on at least 10 floors of the building.”82 NIST’s WTC 7 report said: “The fires in WTC 7 were ignited as a result of the impact of debris from the collapse of WTC 1, which was approximately 110 m[eters] (350 ft) to the south.”83
NIST thereby admitted that debris had been thrown out horizontally from the North Tower at least 350 feet.84 NIST’s report also stated:
“When WTC 1 collapsed at 10:28:22 AM, . . . some fragments [of debris] were forcibly ejected and traveled distances up to hundreds of meters. Pieces of WTC 1 hit WTC 7, severing six columns on Floors 7 through 17 on the south face and one column on the west face near the southwest corner. The debris also caused structural damage between Floor 44 and the roof.”85 Debris that caused such extensive damage, including the severing of seven steel columns, had to be quite heavy. NIST seemed to be granting, therefore, that sections of steel columns had been hurled at least 650 feet (because “hundreds of meters” would mean at least 200 meters, which would be about 650 feet). Enormous force would be needed to eject large sections of steel that far out.
What could have produced this force According to NIST, as we saw earlier, there were only three causal factors in the collapse of the Twin Towers: the airplane impacts, the fires, and gravitational attraction. The airplane impacts had occurred 56 minutes (South Tower) and 102 minutes (North Tower) earlier, and gravitational attraction pulls things straight downward. Fire could, to be sure, produce horizontal ejections by causing jet fuel to explode, but the jet fuel had, NIST pointed out, burned up within “a few minutes.”86 Therefore, although NIST admitted that these horizontal ejections occurred, it suggested no energy source to explain them.
High explosives, such as RDX or nanothermite, could explain these horizontal ejections. According to NIST, however, explosives did not contribute to the destruction of the Twin Towers. Those who accept NIST’s account must, therefore, regard these horizontal ejections as constituting yet another miracle.
7. Metal-Melting Fires
In light of the above-discussed unprecedented effects produced by the fires in the WTC buildings (according to the official account), it would seem that these fires must have had miraculous powers. This conclusion is reinforced by an examination of still more extraordinary effects.
Swiss-Cheese Steel: Within a few months of 9/11, three professors from Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) had issued a brief report about a piece of steel recovered from the WTC 7 debris, stating that it had undergone “microstructural changes,” including “intergranular melting.”87 A greatly expanded version of this report, which contained a description of a similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, was included as an appendix to the first official report on the destruction of the World Trade Center, which was issued by FEMA in 2002.88
A New York Times story, noting that parts of these pieces of steel had “melted away,” even though “no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to melt steel outright,” said that these discoveries constituted “[p]erhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.”89 Describing these mysterious pieces of steel more fully, an article in WPI’s magazine, entitled “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” said:
“[S]teel – which has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit – may weaken and bend, but does not melt during an ordinary office fire. Yet . . . [a] one-inch column has been reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges – which are curled like a paper scroll – have been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes – some larger than a silver dollar – let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion and bending – but not holes.”90 One of the three WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, was quoted by the Times as saying that the steel “appear[ed] to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.”91
That the steel had actually evaporated – not merely melted – was also reported in another New York Times story. Professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl of the University of California at Berkeley, speaking of a horizontal I-beam from WTC 7, reportedly said: “Parts of the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.”92
Why do these phenomena involve miracles Because the fires could not possibly, even under the most ideal conditions (which did not obtain), have been hotter than 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit (the maximum possible temperature for hydrocarbon-based building fires, which these fires were said to be), whereas the melting and boiling points of steel are only slightly lower than those of iron, which are 2,800°F and 5,182°F, respectively.93 So if one accepts the official account, according to which all the heat was produced by the building fires, then one must believe that these fires had miraculous powers.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which took over from FEMA the task of writing the official reports on the WTC, avoided this issue by simply not mentioning any of these pieces of steel, even though two of them had been discussed in a FEMA report appendix. NIST even claimed that no recovered steel from WTC 7 could be identified, because the steel used in this building, unlike that used in the Twin Towers, “did not contain . . . identifying characteristics.”94
In making this claim, however, NIST was clearly not being truthful. For one thing, it had previously published a document in which it had referred to steel recovered from WTC 7 – including the piece discussed by the WPI professors.95 Also, NIST’s claim about not identifying any WTC 7 steel was made in August 2008, shortly after the airing in July 2008 of a BBC program on WTC 7, in which one of those WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, had discussed an “eroded and deformed” piece of steel from WTC 7, which he and his colleagues had studied in 2001. These professors knew “its pedigree,” Barnett explained, because “this particular kind of steel” had been used only in WTC 7, not in the Twin Towers.96
So, although it called the collapse of WTC 7 “the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building,”97 NIST had demonstrated its awareness of a recovered piece of steel from this building that only a very miraculous fire could have produced. NIST was surely also aware of the similarly eroded piece of steel from one of the Twin Towers, which had likewise been reported by the WPI professors in their paper included as an appendix to the 2002 FEMA report.
If the fires in WTC 7 and the Twin Towers had miraculous powers, we would expect still more miraculous effects to have been discovered, and this was indeed the case.
Melted Iron: The RJ Lee Group, a scientific research organization, was hired by Deutsche Bank, which had a building close to the World Trade Center, to prove that the dust contaminating its building after 9/11 was not ordinary building dust, as its insurance company claimed, but had resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center. The RJ Lee Group’s reports showed that the dust in the bank’s building shared the unique chemical signature of the WTC dust, part of which was “[s]pherical iron . . . particles.”98 There were, moreover, an enormous number of these particles: Whereas iron particles constitute only 0.04 percent of normal building dust, they constituted (a whopping) 5.87 percent of the WTC dust.99 The existence of these particles, the RJ Lee Group said, proved that iron had “melted during the WTC Event.”100 The scientists conducting the EPA’s WTC dust signature study, incidentally, had at one time considered including “iron spheres” among the components to be mentioned; it would be interesting to learn why this idea was dropped.101
In any case, the identification of iron spheres by both the EPA and the RJ Lee Group was another miraculous discovery, for the reason given above: The melting point of iron is 2,800°F, whereas the WTC fires could not possibly have gotten above 1,800°F.102
Melted Molybdenum: Scientists at the US Geological Survey, in a study intended to aid the “identification of WTC dust components,” discovered an even more miraculous effect of the fires. Besides finding the spherical iron-rich particles, these scientists found that molybdenum, the melting point of which is 4,753°F (2,623°C), had also melted. Although these USGS scientists failed to mention this discovery in their published report,103 another group of scientists, having obtained the USGS team’s data through a FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request, reported evidence showing that the USGS scientists had devoted serious study to “a molybdenum-rich spherule.”104
8. Inextinguishable Fires
Besides having the power to produce the miraculous effects already reported, the World Trade Center fires were also miraculously inextinguishable. The fact that fires continued burning in the Ground Zero rubble for many months, in spite of every attempt to put them out, was widely reported. The title of a New York Times story in the middle of November, two months after the attacks, referred to the “Most Stubborn Fire.” A New Scientist article in December was entitled “Ground Zero’s Fires Still Burning.” Very hot fires continued to burn in the Ground Zero debris piles, these stories reported, even though heavy rains came down, millions of additional gallons of water were sprayed onto the piles, and a chemical suppressant was pumped into them.105
According to Greg Fuchek, vice president of a company that supplied computer equipment to identify human remains at the site, the working conditions at Ground Zero remained “hellish” for six months, because the ground temperature ranged from 600 to 1,500 degrees Fahrenheit.106
These inextinguishable fires were a mystery. Assuming the truth of the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, there would have been nothing in the debris pile other than ordinary building materials, and these can burn only in the presence of oxygen. There would have been little oxygen available in the densely packed debris piles, and wherever it was available, the fires should have been easily suppressed by the enormous amounts of water and chemical suppressants pumped into the piles. The fires’ seemingly miraculous power to keep burning could not be explained by the airplanes’ jet fuel (which some people seem to think of as having miraculous powers, even though it is essentially kerosene), because it would have all burned out, as mentioned above, within a few minutes.
A non-miraculous explanation is suggested by the discovery of a large amount of nanothermite residue in the WTC dust, which was reported in a peer-reviewed scientific journal in 2009.107 Being both an incendiary and a high explosive, nanothermite is one among several types of “energetic nanocomposites” – described by an article in The Environmentalist as “chemical energetic materials, which provide their own fuel and oxidant and are not deterred by water, dust or chemical suppressants.”108 The discovery of nanothermite residue in the dust provided, therefore, an empirical basis for a non-miraculous explanation of the long-lasting fires at Ground Zero.
According to the official account, however, the buildings were all brought down without the aid of any incendiaries or explosives. WTC 7 was said by NIST, as we saw above, to have been brought down by fire alone, and this fire, NIST added, was “an ordinary building contents fire.”109 As for the Twin Towers, they were brought down through the combined effects of the airplane impacts and the ensuing fires: NIST explicitly rejected “alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives.”110
For anyone who accepts the official account, therefore, the inextinguishable underground fires at Ground Zero provide still another demonstration of miraculous powers that must have been possessed by the World Trade Center fires.
9. Supernatural Sulfur
In the seventh section, I discussed the two Swiss-cheese-appearing pieces of steel that had been recovered from the World Trade Center rubble – one from WTC 7, the other from one of the Twin Towers. In that discussion, however, I ignored one of the central features of these pieces of steel, which was central to the reason they were said by the New York Times to constitute “the deepest mystery.”
This was the fact that the thinning of the steel had resulted, according to the three WPI professors’ report, from sulfidation, but there was no explanation for the source of the sulfur or the mechanism through which it entered into the steel. According to a preliminary analysis reported by the professors, said the NYT article, “sulfur released during the fires – no one knows from where – may have combined with atoms in the steel to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures.”111
This phenomenon was discussed more fully in the article, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” in WPI’s magazine, which attributed the holes and the thinning to “a eutectic reaction” that “occurred at the surface, causing intergranular melting capable of turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese.”112
In summarizing their findings in the paper included in the FEMA report, the three professors wrote:
“1. The thinning of the steel occurred by a high-temperature corrosion due to a combination of oxidation and sulfidation.
“2. Heating of the steel into a hot corrosive environment approaching 1,000°C (1,832°F) results in the formation of a eutectic mixture of iron, oxygen, and sulfur that liquefied the steel.
“3. The sulfidation attack of steel grain boundaries accelerated the corrosion and erosion of the steel.”113 Then, having mentioned sulfidation in each of these three points, the professors added: “The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified. . . . A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon is needed.”114
However, although Arden Bement, who was the director of NIST when it took over the WTC project from FEMA, said that NIST’s report would address “all major recommendations contained in the [FEMA] report,”115 NIST ignored this recommendation. Indeed, as we saw earlier, it did not even mention these Swiss-cheese pieces of steel.
Also, when NIST was later asked about the sulfidation, it tried to maintain that the source of the sulfur was not actually a mystery, saying that “sulfur is present in the gypsum wallboard that was prevalent in the interior partitions.”116
But there are three problems with this explanation. First, gypsum is calcium sulfate, so if all the sulfur discovered had been from gypsum wallboard, it would have been matched by about the same percentage of calcium. That, however, was not the case.117
Second, the WPI professors reported not merely that there was sulfur in the debris, but that the steel had been sulfidized. This means that sulfur had entered into the intergranular structure of the steel (which the New York Times article had indicated by saying that sulfur had “combined with atoms in the steel”). As chemist Kevin Ryan has said, the question NIST would need to answer is: “[H]ow did sulfates, from wallboard, tunnel into the intergranular microstructure of the steel and then form sulfides within”118 Physicist Steven Jones added:
“[I]f NIST claims that sulfur is present in the steel from gypsum, they should do an (easy) experiment to heat steel to about 1000°C in the presence of gypsum and then test whether sulfur has entered the steel. . . . [T]hey will find that sulfur does not enter steel under such circumstances.”119 Chemistry professor Niels Harrit has explained why it would not: Although gypsum contains sulfur, this is not elemental sulfur, which can react with iron, but sulfur in the form of calcium sulfate, which cannot.120
The official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center, therefore, implies that the sulfidized steel had been produced by a twofold miracle: Besides the fact that the fires, as we saw earlier, could have melted steel only if they had possessed miraculous powers, the sulfur in the wallboard could have entered into this melted steel only by virtue of supernatural powers.
Once again, a non-miraculous explanation is available: We need only suppose that thermate, a well-known incendiary, had been employed. As Steven Jones has written:
“The thermate reaction proceeds rapidly and is in general faster than basic thermite in cutting through steel due to the presence of sulfur. (Elemental sulfur forms a low-melting-temperature eutectic with iron.)”121 Besides providing an explanation for the eutectic reaction, thermate could also, Jones pointed out, explain the melting, oxidation, and sulfidation of the steel:
“When you put sulfur into thermite it makes the steel melt at a much lower temperature, so instead of melting at about 1,538°C [2,800°F] it melts at approximately 988°C [1,820°F], and you get sulfidation and oxidation in the attacked steel.”122 NIST, however, insists that no incendiaries were employed: WTC 7 was brought down by fire alone; the Twin Towers by the fires combined with damage from the airplane impacts. Those who endorse the official account, therefore, are stuck with yet another miracle.
III Which 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Is Truly Discrediting and Distracting
In light of the above facts, I ask Terry Allen, David Corn, Noam Chomsky, Alexander Cockburn, Chris Hayes, George Monbiot, Matthew Rothschild, and Matt Taibbi: Are you still comfortable with endorsing the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center
A symposium on “State Crimes Against Democracy” in one of our major social science journals, American Behavioral Scientist,123 has recently addressed this issue. Likening Orwell’s “secret doctrine” that 2 + 2 = 4, which intellectuals must safeguard in dark times, to unquestioned laws of physics, one of the symposium’s authors criticized “the awesome intellectual silence making permissible the blithe dismissal of more than one law of thermodynamics in the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”124 Part of this silence has involved the failure of the academy to protest when “Professor Steven Jones found himself forced out of [a] tenured position for merely reminding the world that physical laws, about which there is no dissent whatsoever, contradict the official theory of the World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”125
I wonder if you are still comfortable with giving your own consent to NIST’s “blithe dismissal” of otherwise unquestioned physical principles – as did Cockburn, when he ridiculed the 9/11 Truth Movement for its “delirious litanies about . . . the collapse of the WTC buildings,” and Taibbi, when he wrote contemptuously of people who have tried to educate him “on the supposed anomalies of physics involved with the collapse of WTC-7.”126 I would think that, if there are good reasons to suspect that these physical principles have been dismissed in the interests of covering up a major state crime against democracy, you would be especially uncomfortable with giving your consent to it.
Some of you have expressed fear, to be sure, that the left will be discredited insofar as it is seen as endorsing a 9/11 conspiracy theory. Having asked in 2007, “Why do I bother with these morons” George Monbiot replied: “Because they are destroying the movements some of us have spent a long time trying to build.”127 In 2009, David Corn wrote: “[W]hen the 9/11 conspiracy theories were first emerging on the left, I wrote several pieces decrying them [for] fear . . . that this unsound idea would infect the left and other quarters – discrediting anyone who got close to it.”128
Some of you, moreover, have objected to the 9/11 Truth Movement on the grounds that it has served as a distraction from truly important issues. The 9/11 conspiracy theories, Corn wrote in 2002, serve to “distract people from the real wrongdoing.”129 Cockburn, writing in 2006, agreed, saying: “The Conspiracy Nuts have combined to produce a huge distraction.”130 That same year, Chomsky said: “One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state.”131 And Monbiot, naming in 2007 some truly important issues from which, in his view, the 9/11 conspiracy theory has distracted us, mentioned “climate change, the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation, inequality, . . . [the fact] that corporate power stands too heavily on democracy, [and] that war criminals, cheats and liars are not being held to account.”132
I will address these two fears – of being discredited and of being distracted – in order.
1. The Fear of Being Discredited
You are certainly right to fear that the left would be discredited by being aligned with a conspiracy theory that is scientifically unsupportable and even absurd. It is hard to imagine, however, what could discredit the left more than having many of its recognized leaders endorsing the Bush-Cheney administration’s 9/11 conspiracy theory, especially at a time when more and more scientists and people in relevant professions are pointing out its absurdities.
Conspiracy Theories and the Official Account of 9/11: I realize, of course, that most of you do not like to acknowledge that the official account of 9/11 is itself a conspiracy theory, given the one-sided, propagandistic meaning with which this term is now commonly employed. As New Zealand philosopher Charles Pigden has pointed out in a superb essay entitled “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom”:
“[T]o call someone ‘a conspiracy theorist’ is to suggest that he is irrational, paranoid or perverse. Often the suggestion seems to be that conspiracy theories are not just suspect, but utterly unbelievable, too silly to deserve the effort of a serious refutation.”133 However, Pigden continues, using the term in this way is intellectually dishonest, because “a conspiracy theory is simply a theory that posits a conspiracy - a secret plan on the part of some group to influence events by partly secret means.”134 And, given this neutral, dictionary meaning of the term:
“[E]very politically and historically literate person is a big-time conspiracy theorist, since every such person subscribes to a vast range of conspiracy theories. . . . [T]here are many facts that admit of no non-conspiratorial explanation and many conspiracy theories that are sufficiently well-established to qualify as knowledge. It is difficult . . . to mount a coup [or an assassination] without conspiring. . . . Thus anyone who knows anything about the Ides of March or the assassinations of Archduke Franz Ferdinand or the Tsar Alexander II is bound to subscribe to a conspiracy theory, and hence to be a conspiracy theorist.”135 In light of the neutral meaning of the term provided by Pigden, everyone is a conspiracy theorist about 9/11, not only people who believe that the US government was complicit. According to the government’s theory, the 9/11 attacks resulted from a conspiracy between Osama bin Laden, other al-Qaeda leaders (such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed), and 19 young members of al-Qaeda who agreed to hijack airliners.136
Failure to recognize this point can lead to absurd consequences. For example, after an article about 9/11 by former Minnesota Governor Jesse Ventura, which had been posted at the Huffington Post, was quickly taken down, the HP editor gave this explanation: “The Huffington Post’s editorial policy . . . prohibits the promotion and promulgation of conspiracy theories — including those about 9/11. As such, we have removed this post.”137 In response, I pointed out that this policy entails that the HP “cannot accept any posts that state, or imply, that al-Qaeda was responsible for the 9/11 attacks, for that is a conspiracy theory.” This fact has been acknowledged, I added, by former Harvard law professor and current Obama administration member Cass Sunstein – who referred to the above-quoted article by Charles Pigden. One implication of this fact combined with HP’s policy, I concluded, is that HP “cannot allow President Obama to say that we are in Afghanistan to ‘get the people who attacked us on 9/11,’ because he’s thereby endorsing the Bush-Cheney conspiracy theory about 9/11.”138 But HP, evidently not bothered by logical inconsistency, has not changed its policy.
In any case, once it is acknowledged that both of the major theories about 9/11 are conspiracy theories, the 9/11 Truth’s Movement’s theory cannot rationally be rejected on the grounds that it is a conspiracy theory. Making a rational judgment requires comparing the two conspiracy theories to see which one is more plausible. And when the issue is posed in this way, the official theory does not fare well, whether viewed from a scientific or a merely prima facie perspective.
The Prima Facie Absurdity of the Official Conspiracy Theory: Even when viewed only superficially (prima facie), the central elements in the official story, if evaluated in abstraction from the fact that it is the official story, is certainly implausible – it probably would have been even too implausible to pass muster as the plot for a bad Hollywood movie. Matt Taibbi has made such a statement about the story implicit in the various claims made by the 9/11 Truth Movement, saying that if you combine those claims into a coherent script, “you get the dumbest story since Roman Polanski’s Pirates.”139 However, aside from the fact that Taibbi failed to support this claim, he simply ignored the absurdity of the official story, which, boiled down to a one-sentence summary, says: Inexperienced Muslim hijackers, armed only with knives and box-cutters, took control of four airliners, then outfoxed the world’s most sophisticated air defense system, then used two of these airliners to bring three skyscrapers down (indeed, straight down, in virtual free fall),140 and then, almost an hour later - when the US air defense system would have been on highest alert - flew a third one, undetected, from the mid-west back to Washington DC, where – thanks to heroic piloting by a man who had never before flown an airliner and who was, according to the New York Times, known as a “terrible pilot,” incapable of safely flying even a tiny plane – this third airliner went through an extremely difficult trajectory (even too difficult for them, said some experienced airline pilots) in order to strike the first floor of the Pentagon – surely the most well-protected building on the planet – without scraping the Pentagon lawn. What could discredit “the left” more than the fact that you, some of its leading spokespersons, have endorsed such nonsense
The Scientific Status of the Two Conspiracy Theories. Actually, there is one thing that would be even more discrediting: If, after having it pointed out to you that at least nine miracles are implied by this story, you fail to renounce your former acceptance of it.
Also, it is not only the miracles implicit in the official account that undermine your apparent assumption that good science supports the official account rather than that of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Although that assumption was less obviously unreasonable a few years ago, at least by people who either could not or would not look at the evidence for themselves, that assumption is now completely and obviously unreasonable, due to developments that have occurred in the past few years.
In 2006, as we saw above, Chomsky suggested that there would be two decisive tests for the physical evidence touted by the 9/11 Truth Movement: (i) “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” (ii) “submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication.”
To begin with the second test: A few months before December 2006, when Chomsky made this suggestion, physicist Steven Jones, at that time a professor at Brigham Young University, and some other scientists started a new online outlet, the Journal of 9/11 Studies. By now, it has published dozens of peer-reviewed papers, five of which were cited earlier: “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse” (by Jones himself); “9/11: Acceleration Study Proves Explosive Demolition” (by Frank Legge); “Revisiting 9/11/2001: Applying the Scientific Method” (by Jones); “Momentum Transfer Analysis of the Collapse of the Upper Storeys of WTC 1” (by Gordon Ross); and “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction” (by Jones and seven other scientists).
Of course, people who are skeptical of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s claims may assume – albeit wrongly, from what I have learned - that this journal, being favorable to such claims, may have a less than rigorous peer-review process. And what Chomsky had suggested, in any case, was that 9/11 Truth Movement scientists should submit articles to mainstream science journals, to see if they could pass their peer-review processes.
Jones and other scientists, deciding to take up Chomsky’s challenge, started working on papers to submit, and since 2008, at least six papers disputing the official account of the WTC have been published in mainstream journals:
•”Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” by Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, published in 2008 in the Open Civil Engineering Journal.141
•“Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” by Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, published in 2009 in The Environmentalist.142
•“Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” by University of Copenhagen chemistry professor Niels Harrit and eight colleagues (including Jones, Ryan, Legge, and Gourley), published in 2009 in The Open Chemical Physics Journal.143 •“Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” by physicist Crockett Grabbe, published in 2010 in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics, which is published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).144 •“Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” by chemical engineer James R. Gourley, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.145 •”Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York’ by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and David B. Benson,” by Anders Björkman, published in 2010 in the ASCE’s Journal of Engineering Mechanics.146 Given the time it takes to write scientific papers and get them through the peer-review process, combined with the relatively small number of scientists writing about these issues, this is an impressive achievement. It would seem that this part of Chomsky’s test has been met.
These publications demonstrate, moreover, that many of the same scientists who had been publishing in the Journal of 9/11 Studies have now written papers that have gotten through the peer-review process of mainstream science journals. There is no empirical basis, accordingly, for the assumption that the Journal of 9/11 Studies’ peer-review process is any less critical. We can, therefore, add the 25 scientific papers about the WTC collapses in the Journal of 9/11 Studies to the six recent papers in mainstream journals, giving us a total of over 30 peer-reviewed scientific articles challenging the official theory about the destruction of the WTC that have appeared since 2006.
I turn now to Chomsky’s other suggested way for members of the Truth Movement to test physical evidence that they see as disproving the official story: “submit it to specialists [with] the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, [and] building construction.” This has now been done and, as a result, the movement has large and continually growing numbers of physical scientists, engineers, and architects.
The physical scientists (beyond those already mentioned) include:
•Dr. A. K. Dewdney, professor emeritus of mathematics and physics, University of Western Ontario. •Dr. Timothy E. Eastman, Consultant, Plasmas International, Silver Spring, Maryland. •Dr. Mark F. Fitzsimmons, senior lecturer in organic chemistry, University of Plymouth. •Dr. David L. Griscom, former research physicist at the Naval Research Laboratory; principal author of 100 papers in scientific journals; fellow of the American Physical Society and of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. •Dr. Jan Kjellman, research scientist in nuclear physics and nanotechnology, École Polytechnique Federale, Lausanne. •Dr. Herbert G. Lebherz, professor emeritus, Department of Chemistry, San Diego State University.
•Dr. Eric Leichtnam, professor of mathematics and physics, University of Paris.
•Dr. Terry Morrone, professor emeritus, Department of Physics, Adelphi University. •Dr. John D. Wyndham, former research fellow, California Institute of Technology.147 With regard to architects and engineers: In December 2006, when Chomsky issued his suggestion, there were few if any architects and engineers who had publicly questioned the official account of the destruction of the World Trade Center. But in January, 2007, architect Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects (AIA), began Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and by now its membership includes over 1,200 professional architects and engineers.
Here are a few of the architects:
•Daniel B. Barnum, AIA fellow; founder of the Houston AIA Residential Architecture Committee. •Bertie McKinney Bonner, M. Arch; AIA member; licensed architect in Pennsylvania. •David Paul Helpern, AIA fellow; founder of Helpern Architects.
•Cynthia Howard, M. Arch; licensed architect in Maine and Massachusetts; past president, AIA’s New England Chapter.
•David A. Johnson, PhD, internationally known architect and city planner; chaired the planning departments at Syracuse and Ball State universities; former president of the Fulbright Association of the United States.
•Kevin A. Kelly, AIA fellow; author of Problem Seeking: An Architectural Programming Primer, which has become a standard textbook.
•Anne Lee, M. Arch, AIA member; licensed architect in Massachusetts.
•Dr. David Leifer, coordinator of the Graduate Program in Facilities Management, University of Sydney; former professor at Mackintosh School of Architecture.
•Paul Stevenson Oles, fellow of the AIA, which in 1989 called him “the dean of architectural illustrators in America”; co-founder of the American Society of Architectural Perspectivists.
•David A. Techau, B. Arch., MS; AIA member; licensed architect in Hawaii.148 Here are a few of the engineers:
•John Edward Anderson, PhD; professor emeritus, Mechanical Engineering, University of Minnesota; licensed Professional Engineer (PE).
•Robert Bowman, PhD; former head, Department of Aeronautical Engineering, US Air Force Institute of Technology; director of Advanced Space Programs Development (“Star Wars”) under Presidents Ford and Carter. •Ronald H. Brookman, MS Eng; licensed Professional Civil and Structural Engineer in California< •Dwain Deets, former Director for Research Engineering and Aerospace Projects, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center, which awarded him the NASA Exceptional Service Award. •Joel Hirschhorn, PhD; former professor, Metallurgical Engineering, University of Wisconsin, Madison; former staff member, Congressional Office of Technology Assessment. •Richard F. Humenn, licensed PE (retired); senior Project Design Engineer, World Trade Center electrical systems. •Fadhil Al-Kazily, PhD; licensed Professional Civil Engineer. •Jack Keller, PhD; professor emeritus, Civil Engineering, Utah State University; member, National Academy of Engineering; named one of the world’s 50 leading contributors to science and technology benefiting society by Scientific American. •Heikki Kurttila, PhD; Safety Engineer and Accident Analyst for Finland’s National Safety Technology Authority. •Ali Mojahid, PhD, Civil and Architectural Engineering; licensed PE. •Edward Munyak, Mechanical and Fire Protection Engineer; former Fire Protection Engineer for California and the US Departments of Energy and Defense. •Kamal S. Obeid, MS, licensed Professional Structural and Civil Engineer.149 In addition to Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, many other 9/11 organizations of professionals with relevant types of expertise have been formed, including Firefighters for 9/11 Truth,150 Intelligence Officers for 9/11 Truth,151 Medical Professionals for 9/11 Truth,152 Pilots for 9/11 Truth,153 S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven,154 and Veterans for 9/11 Truth.155
Less obviously relevant, but surely not entirely irrelevant, are some other professional organizations, including Journalists and Other Media Professionals for 9/11 Truth,156 Lawyers for 9/11 Truth,157 Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth,158 Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth,159 and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice.160 If we combine the membership of these organizations with those in the previous paragraph, we can see that several thousand professional people have publicly announced their alignment with the 9/11 Truth Movement.
In light of the above-mentioned developments, could any fair-minded person deny that the 9/11 Truth Movement’s evidence has passed Chomsky’s twofold test with flying colors
Given the make-up of the 9/11 Truth Movement, could any such person agree with the claims about this movement quoted in Part I of this essay, according to which its members are “conspiracy nuts,” “idiots,” and “morons,” who, being devoid of “any conception of evidence,” are “willing to abandon science” in favor of “magic” In one of his 2009 essays, David Corn expressed concern about “9/11 conspiracy silliness.”161 But it is hard to imagine anything sillier, and hence more self-discrediting, than making such claims about the scientists, architects, engineers, intelligence officers, lawyers, medical professionals, political leaders, and other professionals who have publicly aligned themselves with the 9/11 Truth Movement.
As I stated on a lecture tour in early 2009:
“Among scientists and professionals in the relevant fields who have studied the evidence, the weight of scientific and professional opinion is now overwhelmingly on the side of the 9/11 Truth Movement. Whereas well over 1,000 such people have publicly supported the stance of this movement, there are virtually no scientists or professionals in the relevant fields who have gone on record in defense of the official story—except for people whose livelihood would be threatened if they refused to support it. This caveat is important, because, as Upton Sinclair famously observed: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”162 Except for such people, virtually everyone who has expertise in a relevant field, and who has seriously studied the evidence, rejects the official conspiracy theory. It is time, therefore, for journalists and everyone else to take a second look.”163 A More General Problem with the Official Conspiracy Theory: In addition the twofold fact that the official conspiracy theory’s account of the WTC destruction implies miracles and has been increasingly rejected by informed and independent people in relevant professions, this theory is rendered unworthy of belief by a more general problem: when its various details are subjected to critical scrutiny, the entire story falls apart – as I showed in my 2008 book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited164 (which, incidentally, was a Publishers Weekly “Pick of the Week” in November 2008,165 an honor not normally bestowed on books written by morons and idiots).
One of the things that falls apart is the idea that there were al-Qaeda hijackers on the airliners. Having in my book examined the various types of evidence for this idea, I will here focus on the type of evidence usually considered the strongest: the alleged phone calls from the planes, during which the presence of hijackers was reported. All of you have evidently accepted these calls as genuine.
For example, Matthew Rothschild, defending the government’s account of what happened on United Flight 93, wrote: “we know from cell phone conversations that passengers on board that plane planned on confronting the hijackers.”166 However, about ten of the reported calls from this flight were said to have been made on cell phones, most of them when the plane was at 35,000 feet or higher, and the technology at that time did not allow cell phone calls to be made from airliners at such altitudes, as pointed out by members of the 9/11 Truth Movement – most definitively by A. K. Dewdney and Michel Chossudovsky in 2003 and 2004.167
Chris Hayes faulted the Truth Movement for focusing on what he called “physical minutiae,” such as “the altitude in Pennsylvania at which cellphones on Flight 93 should have stopped working.”168 It would appear, however, that the FBI took such “minutiae” seriously: When it issued a report in 2006 on the (alleged) phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI designated only two of them as having been made on cell phones, and both of those, the FBI said, had been made from Flight 93 when it, about to crash, was at a low altitude. All the other reported calls from this flight (as well as all the reported calls from the other flights) were said to have been made from onboard phones, including three to five calls that Deena Burnett reported having received from her husband, Tom Burnett.169
This change of story got rid of the problem of technologically impossible (miraculous) phone calls, but it created another problem: How to explain the reports of approximately ten calls from this flight that, according to the recipients, had been made on cell phones In some cases, we might assume, the recipients had misunderstood, or misremembered, what they had been told. But Deena Burnett said – and she reported this to the FBI on 9/11 itself – that she knew her husband had used his cell phone, because she recognized his cell phone number on her own phone’s Caller ID. If Tom Burnett had really called his wife using an onboard phone, as the FBI now claims, the fact that his cell phone number repeatedly showed up on her Caller ID would have to count as a miracle.
I would think people generally skeptical of the claims made by the government, especially claims from which the military-industrial complex is benefiting, would consider this problem – which is documented at length in The New Pearl Harbor Revisited170 - worthy of investigation.
I have also raised questions about the alleged phone calls from CNN correspondent Barbara Olson, which had been reported that day by her husband, US Solicitor General Ted Olson. She had phoned him twice, he claimed, from American Flight 77 (which allegedly crashed into the Pentagon shortly thereafter).
In a list of my views treated derisively by Rothschild, he said: “Griffin casts doubt on whether the phone calls actually happened.”171 Perhaps Rothschild will be more impressed by the fact that, in its 2006 report on phone calls from the 9/11 airliners, the FBI did not support the claim that the calls from Barbara Olson “actually happened.” Although Ted Olson said he had received two calls from his wife, with the first call lasting “about one (1) minute”172 and the second one lasting “two or three or four minutes,”173 the FBI report on calls from American Flight 77 says that Barbara Olson attempted one call, which was “unconnected,” so that it (of course) lasted “0 seconds.”174
The reported calls from Barbara Olson were very important: They provided the first evidence given to the public that the planes had been hijacked; they were instrumental in getting the American public ready to strike back at Muslims in a “war on terror”; and they were also the only source for a piece of information that everyone “knows” – that the hijackers had box-cutters. One would think, therefore, that it would be of more than passing interest to people concerned about the direction of US foreign policy since 9/11 that an FBI report in 2006 indicates that these calls never happened.
This is the same FBI that – in spite of Rothschild’s confident claim that there is no doubt of Osama bin Laden’s responsibility for the attacks, because he (allegedly) claimed responsibility for them in a video (allegedly) found in Afghanistan by the US military – does not list him as wanted for 9/11. Why Because, an FBI spokesman explained, “the FBI has no hard evidence connecting Bin Laden to 9/11.”175 The FBI must be less certain than Rothschild about the evidentiary value of that so-called confessional video – and for good reason, as I have shown elsewhere.176
Accordingly, insofar as you left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement have been concerned not to discredit yourselves by endorsing an unsupported, implausible, irrational, and even scientifically impossible conspiracy theory, that is precisely what you are doing so long as you stand by your endorsements of the Bush administration’s – and now the Obama administration’s – 9/11 conspiracy theory.
2. The Fear of Being Distracted
The second fear – that the focus on a false conspiracy theory has been distracting many people from more important matters – is equally valid. But this fear has been directed toward the wrong conspiracy theory. Nothing has distracted the United States and its allies from issues such as global apartheid, the ecological crisis, nuclear proliferation, and corporate power more than the “war on terror” - with its huge operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, its incessant terror alerts and stories of attacks prevented, and its depletion of our national treasuries. Lying at the root of this so-called war on terror, both historically and as present justification, is the official account of 9/11. So it is, as I wrote in response to Cockburn in Le Monde Diplomatique three years go, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory.”177
Had the falsity of this account been exposed within weeks – as it certainly could and should have been – the war in Afghanistan, which has now been using up our time, talent, and treasury for almost a decade, could have been avoided altogether. If the falsity of the Bush-Cheney 9/11 conspiracy theory had at least been exposed within a year, the fiasco in Iraq could have been avoided. If the truth had been exposed within three years, those wars could have been closed down long ago and the Bush-Cheney administration dismissed before it had a second term. If so, the next administration, not distracted by two major wars and exaggerated fears about terrorist attacks on the “homeland,” might have focused on the fact that many environmental regulations needed to be tightened up. One consequence might have been that the Gulf oil blowout (not “spill”), which could turn out to be extremely destructive to our planet’s ecosystem, might never have occurred. The fact that the official conspiracy theory about 9/11 has distracted the United States and its allies from the ecological crisis is, therefore, no trivial matter – and this is merely one of many illustrations that could be given.
That the 9/11 Truth Movement, by contrast, cannot be rationally considered a distraction from more important matters was persuasively expressed in August 2006 by former CIA official Bill Christison, who by the end of his 28-year career had risen to the position of Director of the CIA’s Office of Regional and Political Analysis (and who, sadly, died while this essay was being written178 ). In an article entitled “Stop Belittling the Theories About September 11,” Christison wrote:
“After spending the better part of the last five years treating these theories with utmost skepticism, I have devoted serious time to actually studying them [and] have come to believe that significant parts of the 9/11 theories are true, and that therefore significant parts of the ‘official story’ put out by the U.S. government and the 9/11 Commission are false.”179 Then, after listing nine judgments that had led him to this conclusion – one of which was that the “North and South Towers of the World Trade Center almost certainly did not collapse and fall to earth because hijacked aircraft hit them” - he added:
“If [these] judgments . . . are correct, they . . . strongly suggest that some unnamed persons or groups either inside or with ties to the government were actively creating a ‘Pearl Harbor’ event, most likely to gain public support for the aggressive foreign policies that followed – policies that would, first, ‘transform’ the entire Middle East, and second, expand U.S. global domination.” Then, explaining why the evidence for this conclusion cannot reasonably be dismissed as a distraction from more important matters, he wrote:
“A manageable volume of carefully collected and analyzed evidence is already at hand . . . that elements within the Bush administration, as well as possibly other groups foreign or domestic, were involved in a massive fraud against the American people, a fraud that has led to many thousands of deaths. This charge of fraud, if proven, involves a much greater crime against the American people and people of the world than any other charges of fraud connected to the run-up to the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is a charge that we should not sweep under the rug because what is happening in Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, Syria, and Iran seems more pressing and overwhelming. It is a charge that is more important because it is related to all of the areas just mentioned – after all, the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11. It is a charge that is more important also because it affects the very core of our entire political system. If proven, it is a conspiracy, so far successful, not only against the people of the United States, but against the entire world.” In this passage, Christison expressed this charge of fraud conditionally, saying “if proven.” He later made clear, however, that he had personally found the evidence convincing, referring to the 9/11 attacks as “an inside job.”180
In any case, besides saying that 9/11 is more important than America’s crimes in the Middle East because “the events of 9/11 have been used by the administration to justify every single aspect of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East since September 11,” he also, in saying that the 9/11 fraud “affects the very core of our entire political system,” anticipated the above-cited symposium in the American Behavioral Scientist, which treated 9/11 as a probable instance of its topic: State Crimes against Democracy. Christison’s implicit message to Chomsky, therefore, was: Given your concern with “real and ongoing crimes of state,” I would respectfully suggest that you do what I finally did: Actually examine the evidence that 9/11 was one of these crimes.
As for the concern to prosecute war criminals, what bigger war criminals could there be than people within our own government who engineered these attacks, then used them as a pretext for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which have killed millions181
As for the hope of stopping these horribly deadly and terribly expensive wars, what better means could be had than proof – which scientists, architects, engineers, firefighters, and pilots in the 9/11 Truth Movement have provided – that the official account of 9/11 is a lie and that the attacks had to be, at least in part, an inside job
Concluding Statement
I recently completed a 15-city tour, presenting a lecture entitled “Is the War in Afghanistan Justified by 9/11”. My hope was that, by providing clear evidence that it is not – because the official account of 9/11 is false from beginning to end – “the 9/11 Truth Movement and more traditional Peace and Anti-War groups [would] be able to combine forces to oppose this illegal and immoral war.”182 I have written the present essay with the same hope. But if this hope is to be fulfilled, erstwhile left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement will need to prove that Cockburn’s charge about this movement’s members – “They’re immune to any reality check” – and Corn’s charge – they “are not open to persuasion”183 – are not instead true of themselves.
Notes
1 As those who know the history of modern theology are aware, one of its seminal writings was Friedrich Schleiermacher’s Speeches on Religion to Its Cultured Despisers (1799). These “cultured despisers” of religion were people whom Schleiermacher admired and with whom he agreed on most issues. He believed, however, that they had a blind spot with regard to religion, mainly because they did not understand its true nature and the experience on which it is based. I address those I call “left-leaning despisers of the 9/11 Truth Movement” in the same spirit.
2 David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books dealing with various subjects: philosophy, theology, philosophy of religion, philosophy of science, and 9/11 and US imperialism. In September 2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among “The 50 People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to thank four scientists – Jim Hoffman, Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, and John Wyndham – and three other superb critics - Matthew Everett, Tod Fletcher, and Elizabeth Woodworth – for help with this essay.
8 Matt Taibbi, “The Idiocy Behind the ‘9/11 Truth’ Movement,” AlterNet, September 26, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/42181). This date, incidentally, refers to the original posting of the article at Rollingstone.com. It was not posted on AlterNet until May 7, 2008. In another article, posted on Rollingstone.com a couple of weeks earlier (September 14, 2006), Taibbi had offered a different diagnosis, saying that people who thought that the towers had been wired with explosives were “clinically insane” (Matt Taibbi, “Americans in Denial about 9/11,” AlterNet June 6, 2008 [http://www.alternet.org/story/41635]).
17 Matthew Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already,” The Progressive, September 18, 2006 (http://www.alternet.org/story/41601/).
18 David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2009), Chs. 4 and 5.
19 See David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch Press [Interlink Books], 2005), 29.
22 See FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, ed. Therese McAllister, ed. (Washington D.C., and New York: Federal Emergency Management Agency, 2002), Chapter 5, by Ramon Gilsanz, Edward M. Depaola, Christopher Marrion, and Harold “Bud” Nelson (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf), 31. As the title of Glanz’s article in the previous note indicates, he had already suggested that the diesel fuel might provide an explanation.
23 Debunking 9/11 Myths: Why Conspiracy Theories Can’t Stand Up to the Facts: An In-Depth Investigation by Popular Mechanics, ed. David Dunbar and Brad Reagan (New York: Hearst Books, 2006), 53, 56.
24 Ibid., 53-54, 29.
25 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.”
26 Hayes, “9/11: The Roots of Paranoia.”
27 Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.”
28 As this example shows, Allen’s rejection of the 9/11 Truth Movement’s empirical claims seems to be based entirely on her taking on faith the claims of the Bush-Cheney administration as mediated through Popular Mechanics. It is quite ironic, therefore, that she caricatures the 9/11 Truth Movement as the “9/11 Faith Movement.” But she seems to have a special knack for getting things backwards: With regard to an In These Times editor’s question about me, “What could have transformed this sober, reflective scholar into a conspiracy theorist” (which was his way of asking why I had rejected the government’s conspiracy theory in favor an alternative conspiracy theory), she replied: “I think part of it is that he’s a theologian who operates on faith” (quoted in Salim Muwakkil, “What’s the 411 on 9/11” In These Times, December 21, 2005 [http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/2444]). Given the fact that the primary issue at hand was my belief “that the towers were toppled by a controlled demolition,” for which there is (as we have seen) an overwhelming amount of empirical evidence, it is especially strange that she would say that the reason I believe this must be that I am “a theologian who operates on faith.” Besides the fact that she was obviously the one who was operating on faith with regard to 9/11, she was also assuming that, because I am “a theologian,” I must operate in the way she assumes all theologians operate. Since the 18th-century Enlightenment, however, there has been a great methodological divide within theology. Many theologians still do operate on the traditional basis, in which questions of truth are settled by appeals to authority, the pronouncements of which are taken on faith. But I have always practiced the Enlightenment-based type of theology, which, as I explained in a book subtitled A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith, rejects the “method of authority” in favor of the method of “settling questions of truth and falsity on the basis of common experience and reason – that is, by reasoning on the basis of experience that is at least potentially common to all people” (David Ray Griffin, Two Great Truths: A New Synthesis of Scientific Naturalism and Christian Faith [Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004], 62). Also central to this type of theology is the rejection of “miracles,” in the sense of “supernatural interruptions of the world’s most fundamental causal processes” (ibid., 98). The centrality of this element in my theology is illustrated by the titles of two of my other books, Religion and Scientific Naturalism: Overcoming the Conflicts (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000), and Reenchantment without Supernaturalism: A Process Philosophy of Religion (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2001). My explicit rejection of miraculous interruptions of the world’s normal causal processes may make me more sensitive to this issue than are some left-wing critics of the 9/11 Truth Movement, who to me seem puzzlingly unconcerned about the official account’s cavalier violations of principles that have long been considered inviolable laws of nature.
29 NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (brief version), National Institute of Standards and Technology, November 2008, xxxvi (http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf). This document is henceforth cited simply as NIST NCSTAR 1A, which will always refer to the final (November 2008) version (as distinct from the Draft for Public Comment, which was issued in August 2008).
36 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already”; Allen, “The 9/11 Faith Movement.”
37 J. Gordon Routley, Charles Jennings, and Mark Chubb, “High-Rise Office Building Fire, One Meridian Plaza, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,” FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), 1991 (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/pdf/Tr-049.pdf); Robin Nieto, “Fire Practically Destroys Venezuela’s Tallest Building,” Venezuela News, Views, and Analysis, October 18, 2004 (http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/741).
38 Sunder, “Opening Statement.”
39 Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: 170-77.
40 David Ray Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory (Northampton, Mass.: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], 2007), Chap. 4.
53 “WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” NIST, August 26, 2008. Although NIST originally had a video and a transcript of this briefing at its Internet website, it recently removed both of them. However, Nate Flach has made the video available at Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/11941571), and the transcript, under the title “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).
64 NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, 146.
65 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 6. In the italicized portion of this statement, NIST was quoting NIST NCSTAR 1, Final Report on the Collapse of the World Trade Center Towers, Section 6.14.4 (page 146).
68 Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, and James R. Gourley, “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction,” Open Civil Engineering Journal, 2/1 (2008): 35-40 (http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.phpTOCIEJ/2008/00000002/000000…).
7 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 7.
72 Alexander Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook,” Counterpunch, September 9/10, 2006 (http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn09092006.html).
88 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and R. D. Sisson, Jr., “Limited Metallurgical Examination,” Appendix C of World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA, 2002 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf).
91 James Glanz, “Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,” New York Times, November 29, 2001 (http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/29TOWE.html). I have here quoted Glanz’s paraphrase of Barnett’s statement.
95 See 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%2…), in which 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).
96 The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – The Third Tower, BBC, July 6, 2008 (available at http://video.google.com/videoplaydocid=9072062020229593250# and http://www.911blogger.com/node/16541); the statement by Barnett is at 48:00. I am indebted to Chris Sarns for this discovery as well as the one in the previous note. Barnett during this interview, incidentally, speculated that the steel had “cooked” in the underground fire. This explanation was, however, deceptive at best, for three reasons: First, the effects being discussed by Barnett could have been caused only by something producing much higher temperatures than ordinary hydrocarbon fires could have produced – fires fueled, for example, by nanothermite or some other energetic nanocomposites, as explained below in Section 8. The second and third reasons also involve facts discussed in that section: Ordinary hydrocarbon fires would not have been able to keep burning underground without oxygen; and they would, in any case, have been extinguished by the water and chemical suppressant that were pumped into the rubble.
97 “NIST WTC 7 Investigation Finds Building Fires Caused Collapse.”
103 Heather A. Lowers and Gregory P. Meeker, U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust,” 2005 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/508OF05-1165.html).
107 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2: 7-31 (http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm).
108 Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” The Environmentalist, 29 (2009): 56-63, at 58, 56.
109 NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1: 330.
110 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” Question 2.
111 Glanz and Lipton, “A Search for Clues in Towers’ Collapse.”
112 Killough-Miller, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel.”
113 Barnett, Biederman, and Sisson, “Limited Metallurgical Examination.”
114 Ibid., C-13.
115 Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., Testimony before the House Science Committee Hearing on “The Investigation of the World Trade Center Collapse,” May 1, 2002 (http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/official/nist/bement.htm). In the quoted statement, the name “FEMA” replaces “BPAT,” which is the abbreviation for “Building Performance Assessment Team,” the name of the ASCE team that prepared this report for FEMA.
116 “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” NIST, Question 12.
117 Jones et al., “Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade Center Destruction,” 3.
118 Email letter from Kevin Ryan, October 16, 2008.
119 Email letter from Steven Jones, October 17, 2008.
120 Personal communications from Niels Harrit, May 8, 2009, and June 25, 2010.
124 Matthew T. Witt, “Pretending Not to See or Hear, Refusing to Signify: The Farce and Tragedy of Geocentric Public Affairs Scholarship,” American Behavioral Scientist 53 (February 2010): 921-39 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6), at 934.
127 “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns.”
128 Corn, “How 9/11 Conspiracy Poison Did in Van Jones.”
129 Corn, “When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad.”
130 Cockburn, “The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Slip Off the Hook.”
131 “Chomsky Dismisses 9/11 Conspiracy Theories As ‘Dubious.’”
132 Monbiot, “9/11 Fantasists Pose a Mortal Danger to Popular Oppositional Campaigns.”
133 Charles Pigden, “Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom,” Episteme, 4 (2007), 219–32, at 219.
134 Ibid., 222.
135 Ibid., 223.
136 Although political leaders, the mainstream press, and even much of the left-leaning press have been reluctant to admit that the official account of 9/11 is a conspiracy theory (often because they like to use this label to discredit people without examining their evidence), former Harvard law professor Cass Sunstein, who was appointed to a senior post in the Obama administration, acknowledged this fact in a co-authored essay: Cass R. Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule, “Conspiracy Theories: Causes and Cures,” Journal of Political Philosophy, 17/2 (June 2009), 202-27, at 208. Sunstein also helpfully referred to Charles Pigden’s above-quoted article, which criticizes the widespread use of the “conspiracy theory” label to avoid substantive issues. I deal with the Sunstein-Vermeule essay in Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (Northampton: Olive Branch [Interlink Books], September 2010).
141 Jones et al., “Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction.”
142 Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, and Steven E. Jones, “Environmental Anomalies at the World Trade Center: Evidence for Energetic Materials,” The Environmentalist, 29 (2009): 56-63 (published online, August 4, 2008 (http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/fulltext.html).
143 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, and Bradley R. Larsen, “Active Thermitic Material Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” The Open Chemical Physics Journal, 2009, 2: 7-31 (http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm).
144 Crockett Grabbe, “Discussion of ‘Progressive Collapse of the World Trade Center: A Simple Analysis’ by K.A. Seffen,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics 136/4 (April 2010): 538-39 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000025).
145 James R. Gourley, “Discussion of ’Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions’ by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure,” Journal of Engineering Mechanics 134/10 (October 2008): 915-16 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(915)).
146 Anders Björkman, “Discussion of ‘What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York’ by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening, and David B. Benson,” ASCE, Journal of Engineering Mechanics, 136/7 (July 2010): 933-34 (http://dx.doi.org/10.1061/(ASCE)EM.1943-7889.0000090).
147 Some of these scientists belong to Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (http://stj911.com); others belong to S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel Investigating Nine-Eleven (http://physics911.net); and still others have been quoted on Patriots Question 9/11 (http://patriotsquestion911.com). The remainder will be announcing their affiliation with the 9/11 Truth Movement in the near future.
166 Rothschild, “Enough of the 9/11 Conspiracy Theories, Already.”
167 A. K. Dewdney, “The Cellphone and Airfone Calls from Flight UA93,” Physics 911, June 9, 2003 (http://physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm); Michel Chossudovsky, “More Holes in the Official Story: The 9/11 Cell Phone Calls,” Global Research, August 10, 2004 (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html). For discussion of this issue, see Griffin The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, 112-14.
176 See David Ray Griffin, Osama bin Laden: Dead or Alive (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2009), 22-36.
177 Dr. David Ray Griffin, “The Truly Distracting 9/11 Conspiracy Theory: A Reply to Alexander Cockburn,” Le Monde Diplomatique, Nordic Edition, March 2007 (http://www.lmd.no/index.phparticle=1408); a response to Alexander Cockburn, “US: The Conspiracy That Wasn’t,” Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2006 (http://mondediplo.com/2006/12/02conspiracy), which was headlined: “Distractions from Awful Reality.”
181 Mainstream sources estimate the total number of deaths due to the invasions and occupations at about one million for each country. But Dr. Gideon Polya, author of Body Count: Global Avoidable Mortality Since 1950, has put the numbers much higher. See his “Iraqi Holocaust: 2.3 Million Iraqi Excess Deaths,” March 21, 2009 (http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210309.htm); and “January 2010 – 4.5 Million Dead in Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide,” Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide, January 2, 2010 (http://afghangenocide.blogspot.com).
183 Cockburn, “The Decline of the Left”; Corn, “Van Jones and the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory Poison.”
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NASA Flight Director Confirms 9/11 Aircraft Speed As The "Elephant In The Room"
06/22/2010 - (PilotsFor911Truth.org) Recently Pilots For 9/11 Truth have analyzed the speeds reported for the aircraft utilized on 9/11. Numerous aviation experts have voiced their concerns regarding the extremely excessive speeds reported above Maximum Operating for the 757 and 767, particularly, United and American Airlines 757/767 Captains who have actual flight time in all 4 aircraft reportedly used on 9/11. These experts state the speeds are impossible to achieve near sea level in thick air if the aircraft were a standard 757/767 as reported. Combined with the fact the airplane which was reported to strike the south tower of the World Trade Center was also producing high G Loading while turning and pulling out from a dive, the whole issue becomes incomprehensible to fathom a standard 767 can perform such maneuvers at such intense speeds exceeding Maximum Operating limits of the aircraft. Especially for those who research the topic thoroughly and have expertise in aviation.
Co-Founder of Pilots For 9/11 Truth Rob Balsamo recently interviewed a former NASA Flight Director in charge of flight control systems at the NASA Dryden Flight Research facility who is also speaking out after viewing the latest presentation by Pilots For 9/11 Truth - "9/11: World Trade Center Attack".
Retired NASA Senior Executive Dwain Deets published his concerns on the matter at the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) as follows:
A Responsibility to Explain an Aeronautical Improbability Dwain Deets NASA Dryden Flight Research Center (Senior Executive Service - retired) AIAA Associate Fellow
The airplane was UA175, a Boeing 767-200, shortly before crashing into World Trade Center Tower 2. Based on analysis of radar data, the National Transportation and Safety Board reported the groundspeed just before impact as 510 knots. This is well beyond the maximum operating velocity of 360 knots, and maximum dive velocity of 410 knots. The possibilities as I see them are: (1) this wasn’t a standard 767-200; (2) the radar data was compromised in some manner; (3) the NTSB analysis was erroneous; or (4) the 767 flew well beyond its flight envelope, was controllable, and managed to hit a relatively small target. Which organization has the greater responsibility for acknowledging the elephant in the room? The NTSB, NASA, Boeing, or the AIAA? Have engineers authored papers, but the AIAA or NASA won’t publish them? Or, does the ethical responsibility lie not with organizations, but with individual aeronautical engineers? Have engineers just looked the other way?
The above entry remained at the moderated AIAA Aerospace America Forum for approximately two weeks before being removed without explanation. Click "Who is Ethically Responsible" submitted by Dwain Deets at the Pilots For 9/11 Truth Forum for discussion on this entry at AIAA.
Dwain Deets credentials and experience are as follows:
Dwain Deets MS Physics, MS Eng Former Director, Aerospace Projects, NASA Dryden Flight Research Center Served as Director, Research Engineering Division at Dryden Recipient of the NASA Exceptional Service Award Presidential Meritorious Rank Award in the Senior Executive Service (1988) Selected presenter of the Wright Brothers Lectureship in Aeronautics Associate Fellow - American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) Included in "Who’s Who in Science and Engineering" 1993 - 2000 Former Chairman of the Aerospace Control and Guidance Systems - Committee of the Society of Automotive Engineers Former Member, AIAA Committee on Society and Aerospace Technology 37 year NASA career
It is established based on corroborated expert statements, raw data, and precedent, that the extremely excessive speed reported for the 9/11 aircraft is truly the "Elephant In The Room" and needs to be thoroughly investigated.
To view the scene from "9/11: World Trade Center Attack" analyzing the reported speeds in more detail, please click here.
For full detailed analysis covering the events which took place in New York City on September 11, 2001, interviews with experts, including analysis of "Hijacker" pilot skill, Black Box recovery and more… please view the latest presentation from Pilots For 9/11 Truth, "9/11: World Trade Center Attack".
Founded in August 2006, Pilots For 9/11 Truth is a growing organization of aviation professionals from around the globe. The organization has also analyzed Flight Data provided by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) for the Pentagon Attack and the events in Shanksville, PA. The data does not support the government story. The NTSB/FBI refuse to comment. Pilots For 9/11 Truth do not offer theory or point blame at this point in time. However, there is a growing mountain of conflicting information and data in which government agencies and officials refuse to acknowledge. Pilots For 9/11 Truth Core member list continues to grow.
Seismic Signals Reveal Explosives Were Used at the WTC on 9/11, according to geophysicist André Rousseau (*)
Doctor André Rousseau, former researcher in geophysics at CNRS and specialist in sound waves, presents us with the results of his analysis of the seismic signals recorded on September 11, 2001 in New York and gives his point of view as a specialist on the question of the destruction of the three towers at the World Trade Center.
[Translated from the original French by SOTT.net]
Seismic signals were recorded on September 11 2001 during the period when the North and South Towers (respectively WTC1 and WTC2) were penetrated and collapsed, as well as during the collapse of Building 7 of the WTC (also known as WTC7), a building which had not been hit by a plane.
Among the seismic data published on this subject, it is the Palisades recording station, located 34 km north-east of Manhattan, which gives us the data most apt for analysis, particularly for determining their source. These wave graphs are taken from the publications of the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University (LDEO), as shown in figure 1 and figure 2.
Seismologists are puzzled in their analysis of signals recorded at this time, as the contradictions are significant. They are particularly intrigued by the presence of seismic "peaks" before the collapses (see figure 4). This text focuses on the study of seismic signals and aims to demonstrate that consistency only appears once we leave the official version of events. It gives rise to a new interpretation that renders the assertions of the "official version" null and void.
Study of the Composition of the Different Wave Graphs
The graphs that we have are the following:
The signals in figures 1a & 1b match the moment when the planes hit WTC1 and WTC2 respectively.
The signals in figures 2a and 2b match the collapsing of WTC1 and WTC2 respectively.
The signal in figure 2e shows the collapse of WTC7.
Determination/indetermination of the Temporal Shocks from the Point of Origin of the Signals.
In the five examples, the origin of the signals was attributed, by the seismologists who published the data, to the impacts of the planes and the collapses of the buildings (Kim et al., 2001; Irvine, 2001; Hoffman, 2006). A study of the propagation of such seismic signals really belongs to applied geophysics, which examines the distance of propagation in relation to the nature of the sources. Normally in this type of study, the time of origin is known with great precision (down to the millisecond), necessary in order to calculate the propagation speed of the different waves. That isn’t the case here. In this case, the video used for the North Tower (WTC1) was from a recording made by CNN with a time stamp on the screen (Hoffman, 2006), and the results were compared with the method utilized by Lamont (Kim et al., 2001). A second method consisted of giving an approximate speed of 2km/s for a Rayleigh wave that traversed several stations (see figure 3) situated at various distances from the point of origin. The major inconvenience of this method is that the stations are not situated on a rectilinear line, that the surface terrain - in which the surface waves move - are different, and, moreover, they don’t have the same speed of propagation. The Hudson River is located on a fault line that separates to the west the sedimentary terrains of the Trias and Jurassic, with intrusions of dolerite, all of which are covered by recent Holocene sediment; and to the east, the crystalline and metamorphic formations of the Proterozoic, the Cambrian, and the Ordovician eras that are found there. These last formations are more rapid than those found to the west, which explains why the path WTC-MANY, the only site to the east of the Hudson, was more rapid than all the other paths, situated to the west. The speed of these formations closely depend upon the sedimentary cover traversed. In other words, it isn’t surprising to find that only the stations at Palisades (34 km), at Arny (67.5 km) and TBR (51 km) provide similar results because they are situated on similar geological formations. Also, the enormous indetermination of 2 seconds in the calculations fixing the time origin of each of the signals, attributed by the authors themselves (Kim et al.), oblige us to take some distance from the official conclusions.
Wave Graphs Attributed to the Planes Crashing Into the Towers
In the first place, we must pose a question about the meaning of such signals’ function with the cause attributed to them. Although the cause of the two signals is similar, the crashing of a plane, the magnitude (reflected by the amplitudes) of the two signals is different and the wave generated by the two do not have the same apparent speed (see figures 1a and 1b), even if the Twin Towers could be considered identical in terms of the spatial origin relative to their distance from the recording sites. The calculation of the propagation speeds, as shown in the graphs of figures 1a and 1b, where the origin was fixed according to the corresponding crash, indicates 2900 m/s for WTC1 and 2150 m/s for WTC2: we are obviously dealing with Rayleigh waves. Even if they were considerably amplified, these signals could not have been generated by the crashes into the Twin Towers - the actual waves generated by the crashes were deadened before hitting the ground (assuming that we were dealing with the same (low) frequencies). Frequencies of waves generated by explosions are on the order of Hertz - which is the case here - while those of crash impacts are above 10 Hertz, often around 100 Hertz. Furthermore, the range of the recording instruments cited does not allow for the recording of such waves. As to the theory of the oscillation of the Towers to explain these signals, as defended by Irvine (2001), it doesn’t hold water because in such a case we would have had a "square" signal of long duration and a constant amplitude, while in actuality we observe a "bell" signal, representing a strong and brief explosion, which is particularly evident in the case of WTC2.
To the degree that it is geophysically impossible to have two different propagation speeds for the same wave at the same frequency - because the surface waves are dispersive, which means that their speed depends upon their frequencies - travelling the same path at a few minutes interval, one must bow to the evidence that the supposed origins of the recorded waves are incorrect, and that they are not linked to the crashes but to another origin, such as an explosion, with a non-identical time displacement for the two towers in relation to the impacts of the two planes. As well, the difference in the magnitude of the two signals can only be linked to different parameters relative to the volume of explosives and/or their distance from the surface.
Wave Graphs Attributed to the Collapse of the Towers (fig. 2a, 2b and 2c)
While the Twin Towers have approximately the same mass, the same height and size, and the same type of internal structure (as well as identical points of origin of the wave in terms of distance to the recording station) the signals attributed to WTC1 (fig 2a) and to WTC2 (fig 2b), instead of being similar as one would suppose from the official thesis which attributes the source of the seismic waves simply to the collapsing of the Towers, they are in fact very different from the point of view of their "form", their composition and especially their apparent speed.
In fact, the recording for WTC1 demonstrates the three types of wave characteristic of a brief explosive source ("Dirac" type) confined in a compact, solid material: a P wave with a speed of 6000 m/s, the typical value for a very consolidated crystalline or sedimentary terrain (which is the case in the bedrock of Manhattan), an S wave with a speed of 3500 m/s and a surface wave with a speed of of 1800 m/s (Rayleigh wave). These values match with those registered by an earthquake or seismic drilling.
On the other hand, the recording linked to the WTC2 shows none of the type P or S waves observed for WTC1, but only the surface wave, for which the spreading of the amplitudes over the duration is different from that of WTC1. Relative to the determined origin of the signal, the propagation speed of 2125 m/s (Rayleigh wave) is also markedly different from that of WTC1. This wave seems to be followed by a second Rayleigh wave four seconds later.
We find the same thing in the figure for WTC7 where the calculation of the speed of the wave according to the determined point of origin is similar to a Rayleigh wave with a 2200 m/s speed. Note that the amplitudes are comparable to those of the waves emitted at the time of the crashing into the Towers by the airplanes. This wave seems to be followed by a second Rayleigh wave 6.7 seconds later.
Discussion
The problem of the above-named "displacements" between the time of origin of the seismic waves and the times that the planes crashed into the Towers, particularly that for WTC1, is certainly the key question which is emblematic of all the contradictions of the official version of September 11, 2001. In their publication on the Web (Kim et al., 2001), the LDEO published two different timetables of sources, which are indicated in the table below. The first timetable (LDEO [1]) is that furnished without the published graphs, then the LDEO modified them (LDEO [2]) to obtain coherent seismic speeds. What is the indisputable data here? There are two: the time that the waves reached the Palisades station, which is relatively easy to determine, and the distance from the WTC to Palisades (34 km). If the recorded wave is actually a Rayleigh wave, its speed is around 2000 m/s. Therefore, this wave was created 17 seconds before its arrival at Palisades. Where the problem deepens for the adepts of the official version is that the time for the source of the Rayleigh wave attributed to the crash into WTC1, which officially arrived at Palisades at 8.46.42±1, must in fact be 8.46.25±1! Compare that time with the times given in the first column of the table below.
The data given by the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) comes from radars at ground level and are reliable to one second. If we consider the time of the impact of the plane into WTC1 furnished by the NTSB, 8.46.40 (Ritter, 2002), the only reliable data because it doesn’t come from any hypothesis, there is a hiatus of 15 seconds between the plausible time of the origin of the Rayleigh wave and the time - afterwards - of the crash of the plane into WTC1. What else but an explosion could be the origin for this seismic wave in the absence of an earthquake?
Concerning the generation of the seismic waves following the crash into the Towers by a Boeing, the transformation of the kinetic energy into seismic waves would only make sense if we were dealing with a crash between two full, solid, and in-deformable objects. In this case, the kinetic energy of a moving body would in part be transformed into heat and the rest would be transmitted to the pierced object in the form of vibrations, that is, seismic waves. However that is not the case here because we have two hollow and deformable objects. During the crash, the whole of the energy is transformed into heat and the deformation of the envelopes (exterior walls). In the case where a little mechanical energy would remain, the waves created in the pierced envelope would be quickly dispersed because of the absence of continuity in this alveolar envelope. The necessary condition for the creation of seismic waves by such a crash would be the direct impact of the central columns by a full body. Even if a Boeing engine had succeeded in hitting a central column, it would have been with an energy lessened by the envelope. In conclusion, even if a seismic wave could be created in a metallic column, it would hit the ground in the form of a sound, and as the passage from metal to rock is a refraction that absorbs energy, there wouldn’t be much left to propagate in the ground.
Could the collapse of the towers be the source of these seismic waves? In the case of a crash on the ground that generates seismic waves, the enormous mass of the Twin Towers could hypothetically be taken into account if the Towers had fallen in a compact block, like a meteorite. But in the present case, it was scattered remains that fell, largely transformed into dust, and the fall lasted several seconds. We are far from a Dirac-type force that can create seismic waves; in this case, the magnitudes simply don’t add up.
Given that neither the crash into the tower nor its vibration, nor the fall of debris can be the source of the seismic waves registered 34 kilometres away, and that the low frequencies could not have been provoked other than by explosions, we must research why the wave graphs are different. Various things must be considered. We must distinguish between subterranean explosions, subaerial explosions (close to the ground without touching it) and aerial explosions.
Subterranean explosions are similar to earthquakes in that mechanical energy is transmitted to the earth in the form of volume waves (P and S) - either directly in the latter case, or by conversion of the waves due to a cavity in the former case - and surface waves (Rayleigh and Love), when the signal reaches a solid-fluid interface (in the case of the atmosphere, for example) (Case 1). Aerial explosions give off all of their energy in the air (P waves, or sound waves), and what remains upon hitting the ground - if it hits it - is thus too weak to create volume waves (although there can be surface waves over a small distance) (Case 2). Subaerian explosions give off an energy that splits into sound waves, mainly in the air, and surface waves on the ground. The volume waves dispersed in the air don’t end up lessened on the ground, but surface waves are certainly present (Case 3).
In brief, a subterranean explosion would not be heard in the air, but the ground would shake and initiate a series of waves (volume and surface waves), while if we hear an explosion, it is because it is either "aerial" and doesn’t give a seismic signal, or it is subaerial and surface waves could be generated.
Therefore we can affirm that explosions qualified as "subaerial" were set off close to the base of the Towers simultaneously with the crashes into each by the planes. The sound coming from these explosions would have been mixed with the sounds generated by the impacts of the planes (Case 3). The Towers were thus weakened by the breaking of the load-bearing columns. The explosion at the base of WTC1 was heard by eyewitness Walter Rodriquez (2006) (see also Spingola (2005)).
As to the collapse of the Towers, we must distinguish between WTC1 and those of WTC2 and WTC7. Based upon the tips of waves coming from these last two towers, they underwent a very large "subaerial" explosion (Case 3), heard by witnesses. For example, regarding WTC2, a fireman witnessed an explosion before the building collapsed into an enormous cloud of dust (See [1]), apparently not too far from the base of the tower accompanied by flashes of light and noise, according to an "Assistant Commissioner" (see [2]). Another fireman, present at the base of WTC2, stated there was a large explosion about 20 floors below the impact zone of the plane just before the summit of the Tower collapsed (see [3]). These explosions were too high to generate volume waves in the ground, and the Rayleigh wave recorded probably comes only from the explosion closer to the ground. Among the other explosions heard at the base of WTC2 (Anonymous, 209), one of them generated the second Rayleigh wave four seconds after the first. The same thing happened at WTC7. A witness watching this tower heard something like a "thunderclap" that caused the windows to explode outwards, while the base of the burning building gave way a second later, before the whole building followed the movement (see [4]), aided by a second explosion that generated the second Rayleigh wave 6.7 seconds later.
As for WTC1, the collapse of which began after that of WTC2 in spite of the fact that it had been hit earlier, it was a subterranean explosion (Case 1) that preceded its collapse. This explosion was thus logically not heard by the witnesses outside at 10:28 EDT, except for those located next to the tower (see [5]), but it was "felt" by a camera filming the tower that was solidly on the ground and was shaken by the vibration of the ground at the moment of the explosion (see [6]). On the other and, it is also logical that the many explosions shown in videos in the upper floors before and during the collapse didn’t provoke any seismic waves (Case 2) because of the fragmentation in time of the detonated energy with the multiplication of successive sources, each of which had only a limited force, insufficient to generate seismic waves in the ground.
Even if controlled demolitions do not create seismic waves (aerial explosions), it is useful to compare these observations with seismic data obtained during the controlled demolition of the Kingdome in Seattle (see Anonymous, 2009) and at Oklahoma City (US) (Holzer et al., 1996). The case of the Kingdome is particularly interesting because seismologists expressly asked that the explosions be measured (they wanted to take advantage of the occasion), and those in Oklahoma City were part of a reconstruction using explosives of the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building. These two examples fit into Case 3 cited above, with a powerful subaerian explosion and the emitting of Rayleigh waves, and where the falling of the debris had no seismic consequences, even at distances under 34 km (less than 7 km and 26 km respectively). Only the seismic equipment situated close to the source during the reconstruction of the bombing in Oklahoma City reacted to the seismic energy created by the collapse of the building.
The local magnitudes (ML) that the seismologists calculated from the surface waves gave results that consolidate our analysis. Effectively, on the Richter scale, they were higher than 2 for the waves emitted at the moment of the collapse. It is impossible to get such a magnitude only from the falling of the debris, more especially over a duration of ten seconds!! Even if the entire tower had been compacted into a tight ball, it would have necessitated the speed of a meteorite, in any case, more than that caused by the Earth’s gravity, to even approach such a magnitude!! Moreover, we must note that the magnitude attributed to the subterranean explosion at the WTC1 is ML=2.3 - comparable to the earthquake that hit New York January 17, 2001 (ML=2.4) - while the magnitude coming from the WTC2 explosion is ML=2.1, thus weaker, and this disparity - consistent with the explosions described - is particularly appreciable in this logarithmic scale. Given the Twin Towers were of similar height and mass, the falling debris should have generated similar magnitudes, if they were the source of the waves…
Note that applied geophysics knows how to generate seismic waves in the ground, using non-explosive sources such as "weight dropping" - which consists of letting a three ton weight fall to earth - or else using "vibrators" attached to the ground. But the energy of the waves developed in the ground are too weak for the waves to go further than several hundred meters.
The Relation between the Seismic Waves/Process of Collapse
Observation of the collapse of each tower shows they were each different, and this correlates with the corresponding measures of the seismic waves.
The collapse of WTC7 is the one that comes closest to a classic controlled demolition, with the successive collapsing of the floors starting from the base which had been weakened by a subaerial explosion. As for the Twin Towers, they were first weakened by explosions at their base at the moment the airplanes crashed into them. After that we must distinguish between the parts of the building above the impact zone of the planes and those located below. If the seismic waves couldn’t have been generated by the small explosions visible in the floors (which allowed for the gradual collapse from the bottom up to the impact zone) then only a powerful explosion at the base of both buildings could have accelerated the process of total ruin and produce the observed seismic waves.
In the case of WTC1, FEMA (Federal Emergency management Agency) implicitly confirms this scenario. They note that "Review of videotape recordings of the collapse taken from various angles indicates that the transmission tower on top of the structure began to move downward and laterally slightly before movement was evident at the exterior wall. This suggests that collapse began with one or more failures in the central core area of the building." (FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study, chapter 2). As this transmission tower was a lattice of I Beams posed diagonally, called a "hat stress", it connected the walls of the edge to the central structure between the 107th stage and the roof and therefore reinforced the centre structure. It also supported the tower installed on the top of the building. Contrary to the official version which declared that it was the hat stress that transferred the instability of the central columns to those of the perimeter, which then gave out after they were deformed because of the pulling of the floors, the logic of the events forces us to consider that the "rupture" of the central columns came from an explosive "cutting" prior to the collapse of the building.
Conclusion
At the moment of the impact by the planes on the Twin Towers and their collapse, as well as that of WTC7, seismic waves were generated. To the degree that (1) seismic waves are only created by brief impulses, and (2) that low frequencies are associated with an energy (magnitude) that is comparable to a seismic event, these waves undeniably have an explosive origin. Even if the planes’ impact and the fall of the debris from the Towers onto the ground could have generated seismic waves, their magnitude was insufficient to be recorded 34 km away, and they should have been similar.
However, the composition and magnitude of the seismic signals show significant differences, above all in their propagation speed, even though their paths were identical under identical conditions. This last difference being physically unexplainable in the official version, we must put into question the calculation of the speeds effectuated from the origin shown on the video images. We can only conclude that in reality, the (explosive) source was manually detonated, thus accounting for the variable shift for each origin in relation to the videos.
The composition of the waves is revealing both in terms of the location of the source and the magnitude of the energy transmitted to the ground. The subterranean origin of the waves emitted when WTC1 collapsed is attested by the presence of the P and S volume waves along with the Rayleigh surface waves, which are present in all five explosions. The placement of the source of the four other explosions is subaerial, attested by the unique presence of Rayleigh waves. The aerial explosions visible on the videos of the upper floors of the Twin Towers do not produce seismic waves 34 km from the source.
There is a factor of ten between the power of the explosions at the time of the impacts on the twin Towers (as well as at the time of the collapse of WTC7) and the strength of those more powerful ones at the time of their collapse, the subterranean explosion under WTC1 being the one that transmitted the most energy to the ground.
Note as well that the degree to which the surface waves disperse (their speed depends upon their frequency), the duration of the recorded signal is not representative of the duration of the signal at the source.
Finally, the controlled demolition of the three towers, suggested by the visual and audio testimony, as well as by observations of their collapse, is thus demonstrated by the analysis of the seismic waves emitted at the moments of the plane impacts and at the moments of the collapse.
Kim Won-Young, Sykes L.R., Armitage J.H., Xie J.K., Jacob K.H., Richards P.G., West M., Waldhauser F., Armbruster J., Seeber L., Du W.X., and Lerner-Lam A (2001) : Seismic Waves Generated by Aircraft Impacts and Building Collapses at World Trade Center, New York City, Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union, Vol. 82, No. 47, pages 565, 570-571, November 20, 2001
(Please note that for reasons of readability, these figures are shown without modification of their scales, which have a relation of one to ten between the recording at the moment of the collapse of WTC1 and WTC2 and those at the moment of the impacts, as well as for the recording of the collapse of WTC7.)
Figure 1a: Signal recorded at Palisades during the impact on WTC1.
Figure 1b: Signal recorded at Palisades during the impact on WTC2.
Figure 2a: Signal recorded at Palisades during the collapse of WTC1.
Figure 2b: Signal recorded at Palisades during the collapse of WTC2.
Figure 2c: Signal recorded at Palisades during the collapse of WTC7.
Figure 3: Shift of origin time of WTC1.
Figure 4: Seismic ‘peaks’.
(*) André Rousseau, Docteur d’État, is a retired researcher at CNRS where he studied the relations between the characteristics of progressive mechanical waves and geology. He published numerous peer-reviewed articles on geophysics and participated in numerous conferences, including selection committees. In this article he puts forward evidence that the seismic waves recorded on September 11, 2001 in New York are the result of subterranean and subaerial explosions that were part of the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers and WTC7.
Curriculum Vitae
André Rousseau
Faculté des Sciences de Paris:
- Second cycle en Sciences de la Terre, Géophysique interne et externe, - DEA de Tectonophysique-Océanographie, - DEA de Géophysique Appliquée
Université de Rennes 2 : thèse de 3ème cycle
Université de Bordeaux 1 : thèse d’Etat (voir ci-après). Ancien Chercheur titulaire au CNRS
List of Publications
Theses
[1] ROUSSEAU A. (1971) Géologie du Plateau continental nord-espagnol entre 2°20′ et 3°35′. Considérations théoriques sur l’interprétation d’enregistrements de sismique-réflexion (sparker). Thése 3ème cycle, Université de Rennes, 146 p.
[2] ROUSSEAU A. (1980) Apport de la gravimétrie à la connaissance de la lithosphère du Bassin d’Aquitaine. Thèse d’Etat, Université de Bordeaux I, 98 p., 27 fig. H.T.
Publications
Participation a ouvrage collectif avec comite de lecture
[3] ROUSSEAU A. and JEANTET D. (1997) Some improvements in the processing of borehole acoustic signals for the characterization of geological structures. in "Modern Geophysics in Engineering Geology", editor : D. M. McCann, Geological Society Engineering Publication No. 12, p.75-88, London.
Reviews with Peer-review Committees
[4] DUPEUBLE P.A. et ROUSSEAU A. (1971) Stratigraphie des terrains affleurant sur le plateau continental nord-espagnol entre Santander et Guernica. C.R.A.S.,série D, 272, p.1952-1955
[5] BOILLOT G. et ROUSSEAU A. (1971) Etude structurale du plateau continental nord-espagnol entre 2°20′ et 2°30′ de longitude Ouest. C.R.A.S.,série D, 272, p.2056-2059
[6] ROUSSEAU A. (1976) Carte des anomalies de Bouguer dans la zone sud-orientale du Golfe de Gascogne (densité : 2,3). Bull. B.R.G.M. (2), II, 3, p.285-294
[7] MALZAC J. and ROUSSEAU A. (1978) A "processing density" to calculate marine bouguer gravity free of topographic variations in case of unknown bottom density. Geophysical Prospecting, 26, p.853-867
[8] MALZAC J. and ROUSSEAU A. (1982) Gravimétrie des Pyrénées ariègeoises : quelques conséquences structurales. Bull. Soc. géol. France, (7), t. XXIV, n° 4, p.739-753
[9] LAQUECHE H., ROUSSEAU A. and VALENTIN G. (1986) Crack propagation in mode I and mode II in Slate Shist. Int. J. Rock Mech. Min. Sci. and Geomech. Abst. Vol.23, No.5, p.347-354
[10] ROUSSEAU A. (1992) A new geodynamical model for the seismicity and in-situ stresses of the mediterranean region. Tectonophysics,202, p.183-201
[11] ROUSSEAU A. (1993) How to point out easily the data enclosed in the "full waveforms" (sonic logs). Examples from the Balazuc 1 deep borehole. Publications du BRGM (Documents n°223). VI Symposium international sur l’observation de la croute continentale par forage, p.319-333
[12] ROUSSEAU A. and JEANTET D. (1994) Contribution of the 3-D visualization of acoustic borehole signals (full waveforms) to a quick formation evaluation. Journal of Applied Geophysics,31, p.213-260
Conferences Invitées
[13] ROUSSEAU A. (1987) (communication invitée) Application of the G.K.S. software to the study of signals : two examples in well-logging data processing. Colloque International de Bordeaux sur le Graphique et l’Image, 5-7 mai 1987, Université de Bordeaux I
[14] ROUSSEAU A. (1987) (communication invitée) Présentation de produit normé GKS : analyse interactive de spectres. Réseau REUNIR : réunion nationale sur la norme CGI, Lille, 6-8 oct. 1987
[15] ROUSSEAU A. (1989) (sur invitation) A new geodynamical model for the seismicity and in-situ stresses of the mediterranean region. International Symposium : Geodesy and Seismology : deformation and prognosis, Erevan (URSS), Oct. 1989
[16] ROUSSEAU A. (1995) (sur invitation) Contribution des diagraphies soniques à la caractérisation des formations géologiques traversées en forage (fracturation, compétence et porosité) et estimation de la qualité de la cimentation. Réunion Technique S.A.I.D., I.F.P. (Rueil-Malmaison), 7 février 1995, intervenant unique
[17] ROUSSEAU A. et MARI J.L. (1995) (sur invitation) Acquisition de données en forage : conséquences sur la modélisation. Journée thématique du Pôle Modélisation du Centre de Ressources Informatiques de Bordeaux I : Sols et sous-sols (6 Avril 1995)
[18] JEANTET D., MARI J.L. and ROUSSEAU A. (1996) (sur invitation) Use of borehole acoustic and seismic waves in environment geophysics. The Internal Congress on Environment/Climate (UNESCO), Rome, March 4-8,1996, p.89
[19] ROUSSEAU A. (1997) (sur invitation) Borehole acoustic signals and formation petrophysics : contribution and limits. EAGO / EAGE / SEG International Geoscience Conference & Exhibition, 15-18 September 1997, Moscow (Russia), abstract C2.5.
[20] ROUSSEAU A. (1998) (sur invitation) Borehole acoustic signals and formation petrophysics : contribution and limits. International Conference & Exhibition on Well Logging, SPWLA / EAGO / RGUNG, 8-11 September 1998, Moscow (Russia), Technical Abstracts F2.1.
[21] JEANTET D. and ROUSSEAU A. (1998) (sur invitation) A new method for calculating acoustic body wave velocities. First results. International Conference & Exhibition on Well Logging, SPWLA / EAGO / RGUNG, 8-11 September 1998, Moscow (Russia), Technical Abstracts B1.7
[22] ROUSSEAU A. (1998) (sur invitation) Diagraphies acoustiques et pétrophysique : présentation historique. Réunion Technique commune S.A.I.D.-Association Française des Techniciens du Pétrole, section Exploration-Gisement, 1 décembre 1998, I.F.P. (Reuil-Malmaison) : Apport des diagraphies acoustiques aux études pétrophysiques. Application aux réservoirs fracturés, anisotropie et modélisation. Lettre de la SAID n°129 (mars-avril 1999), Paris, p.3-4.
[23] ROUSSEAU A. et JEANTET D. (1998) (sur invitation) Vitesses ultrarapides des ondes de pression en domaine d’anisotropie de contraintes horizontales (formations compétentes). Réunion Technique commune S.A.I.D.-Association Française des Techniciens du Pétrole, section Exploration-Gisement, 1 décembre 1998, I.F.P. (Reuil-Malmaison) : Apport des diagraphies acoustiques aux études pétrophysiques. Application aux réservoirs fracturés, anisotropie et modélisation. Lettre de la SAID n°129 (mars-avril 1999), Paris, p.55-67.
[24] ROUSSEAU A et BARAUD R. (2003) (sur invitation) Caractérisation des décharges abandonnées par une méthode géophysique : le radar géologique. Présentation des Projets de Partenariat Recherche/Industrie (Conseil Régional et DRIRE d’Aquitaine), Pau, 17 juin 2003. Actes, Pôle Environnement Aquitain, p.26-30.
Congres et Colloques Avec Comite de Selection
[25] ROUSSEAU A. (1982) Structural deductions concerning the lithosphere of the Aquitaine Basin from the gravimetry of the vertical intrusions. Proc. of the 17th general assembly of the European Seismological Commission, Budapest, 1980. Rev. of the Hungarien Academy of Sciences, p.549-555
[26] ROUSSEAU A. (1989) Représentation 3-D de signaux acoustiques. Assemblée Générale du Club GKSBx, Montpellier, mai 1989
[27] ROUSSEAU A. (1990) Caractérisation géométrique de failles rencontrées en forage dans un granite, à l’aide d’une visualisation en 3-D des signaux acoustiques ("full waveforms"). Colloque : Diagraphies et Mécanique des terrains, Bordeaux, nov. 1990, p.67-88
[28] ROUSSEAU A. (1991) Apport d’une visualization 3-D des signaux acoustiques pour l’étude des terrains traversés par forage. Soc. Géol. Fr.-Soc. Int. Stéréologie : Journée du 8 février 1991, Paris. Objets géologiques : description quantitative et modélisation, p.77-80
[29] ROUSSEAU A. (1992) Contribution of the 3-D visualization of acoustic logs ("full waveforms") to the geological interpretation. VI Intern. Symp. Continental Scientific Drilling Programs, Paris, April 1992, P.227
[30] ROUSSEAU A. (1992) Using of 3-D sonic images ("full waveforms") in order to distinguish the main zones and characterize them ; the example of the deep borehole Balazuc 1 (Ardèche, France). VI Intern. Symp. Continental Scientific Drilling Programs, Paris, April 1992, P.229
[31] ROUSSEAU A. and JEANTET D. (1993) Contribution of the 3-D visualization of acoustic borehole signals (full waveforms) to a quick formation evaluation. Intern. Symp. on Applications of Geophysics to Environmental Problems, Lausanne, April 1994, p.56-57
[32] ROUSSEAU A. and JEANTET D. (1994) Caractérisation des fractures par visualisation 3-D des diagraphies acoustiques. Réunion Technique S.A.I.D., Schlumberger (Montrouge), 5 avril 1994 : Diagraphies et formations fracturées.
[33] ROUSSEAU A. and JEANTET D. (1994) Some improvements in the processing of borehole acoustic signals. 30th Annual Conference of the Engineering Group of the Geological Society (Liège, sept. 1994) : Modern Geophysics in Engineering geology, p.243-260
[34] JEANTET D. and ROUSSEAU A. (1995) Body wave dispersion in formations crossed by boreholes : consequences on velocity calculation. Proceedings of 1rst Meeting Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, European Section, 25-27th Sept., Torino (Italy), p.222-225
[35] ROUSSEAU A. (1996) Characterisation of formation heterogeneities by new parameters of borehole acoustic waves. Proceedings of 2nd Meeting Environmental and Engineering Geophysics, 2-5th Sept., Nantes (France), p.31-34
[36] ROUSSEAU A. (1997) Two causes of the deformation of borehole acoustic full waveforms : resonance and distortion. EAGE 59th Conference and Technical Exhibition, 26-30 May 1997, Geneva (Switzerland), extended abstract P177
[37] JEANTET D. and ROUSSEAU A. (1998) A new method for calculating acoustic body wave velocities : First results. Proceedings of IVth Meeting of the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society, 14- 17 September 1998, Barcelona (Spain), p.613-616.
[38] JEANTET D. and ROUSSEAU A. (1999) 3D visualisation of borehole acoustic signals using animation techniques. GEOVISION 99, International Symposium on Imaging Applications in Geology, University of Liège (Belgium), p.133-136.
[39] ROUSSEAU A., BARAUD R., and JEANTET D. (1999) 3D imaging processing of borehole acoustic signals applied to GPR signals. GEOVISION 99, International Symposium on Imaging Applications in Geology, University of Liège (Belgium), p.205-208.
[40] ROUSSEAU A., BARAUD R., and JEANTET D. (1999) Contribution of the 3D display of GPR signals in a noisy environment. Proceedings of Vth Meeting of the Environmental and Engineering Geophysical Society, 6-9 September 1999, Budapest (Hungary), Gr5, 2p.
[41] ROUSSEAU A., and JEANTET D. (1999) Signaux acoustiques en champ total (full waveforms) et pétrophysique. Journées Scientifiques de l’ANDRA 1999, Nancy, 7-9 déc. 99. Résumé des Conférences et des Communications par Affiches, p.67-69
[42] ROUSSEAU A. (2000) Consequences on body wave velocities of the stress distribution modifications around a borehole. EAGE 62nd Conference and Technical Exhibition, Glasgow, Scotland, 29 May-2 June, Abstract D-43.
[43] ROUSSEAU A. (2001) Relationship between acoustic body waves and in situ stresses around a borehole. EAGE 63rd Conference and Exhibition, Amsterdam, The Netherlands,11-15 June 2001, Extended Abstract M-029.
[44] ROUSSEAU A. (2003). Horizontal stress anisotropy determined from acoustic full waveforms in borehole. EGS-AGU-Joint Assembly, Nice, 6-11 April 2003, Geophysical Research Abstracts, Vol.5, 03564, 2003, European Geophysical Society 2003
Autres Reunions et Publications Scientifiques
[45] ROUSSEAU A. (1977) Anomalies de Bouguer dans le S-E du Golfe de Gascogne : quelques déductions structurales en fonction du champ gravifique du Bassin aquitain et des Pays basco-cantabriques. 5ème Réunion Annuelle des Sciences de la Terre, Rennes (19-22 avril 1977)
[46] ROUSSEAU A. (1978) Anomalies gravimétriques circulaires : méthode permettant l’unicité de solution avec abaques par la détermination successive des paramètres du cylindre vertical : rayon, profondeur de la base et du sommet, densité. 6ème Réunion Annuelle des Sciences de la Terre, Orsay (25-27 avril 1978)
[47] MALZAC J. and ROUSSEAU A. (1978) Method of computing a "processing density" variable in the horizontal space, for setting up Bouguer gravity free from broken topography. 5th European Geophysical Society meeting, Strasbourg (29 august-5 sept.1978)
[48] ROUSSEAU A. (1979) Calculs des profondeurs et des densités des intrusions verticales du Bassin Aquitain et de ses environs. Déductions tectoniques et structurales sur la lithosphère de cette région. 7ème Réunion Annuelle des Sciences de la Terre, Lyon (23-25 avril 1979)
[49] MALZAC J. et ROUSSEAU A. (1979) Méthode de calcul d’une "densité de traitement" variable dans l’espace horizontal, pour l’établissement d’anomalies de Bouguer affranchies d’une topographie accidentée. 7ème Réunion Annuelle des Sciences de la Terre, Lyon (23-25 avril 1979)
[50] ROUSSEAU A. (1979) Circular gravimetrical anomalies : method permitting to know separately the geometry and the density of a vertical cylinder (unique solution). EOS, American Geophysical Union, vol.60, 32, p.565 (6th European Geophysical Society meeting, Vienne, 11-14 sept.1979)
[51] ROUSSEAU A. (1980) Structural deductions about the lithosphere of the Aquitain Basin from the gravity of vertical intrusions. 7th European Geophysical Society meeting, Budapest (21-29 august 1980)
[52] MALZAC J. et ROUSSEAU A. (1981) Gravity of the Central Pyrenees (France) : an example of its usefulness for resolving some tectonic problems. 8th European Geophysical Society meeting, Uppsala (24-29 august 1981)
[53] LAQUECHE H., ROUSSEAU A. and VALENTIN G. (1984) Crack propagation in mode I and mode II in Slate Shist. 10th European Geophysical Society meeting, Louvain-la-Neuve (30 july-3 august 1984)
[54] AMOKRANE K. et ROUSSEAU A. (1986) Reconnaissance et surveillance par diagraphies soniques et mécaniques. GRECO Rhéologie des Géomatériaux : rapport scientifique 1986
[55] ROUSSEAU A. (1987) A conjectural explanation of some seismic observations in the mediterranean region ; a new hypothesis and its quantitative analysis after comparing the seismicity, the geoid and the Earth’s surface present motions of the mediterranean region. A possible key for seismic prediction in this region. Ed. IUT A de Bordeaux, 49p., 30 fig. H.T.
[56] AMOKRANE K., ROUSSEAU A., AZZOUZ R., FAUGERAS J.C. et BACONNET C. (1987) Structure spatiale de la variabilité des propriétés des sols : fonctions d’autocorrélation et analyses variographiques. GRECO Rhéologie des Géomatériaux : rapport scientifique 1987
[57] MORLIER P., ROUSSEAU A., AMOKRANE K. et DUCHAMPS J.M. (1988) Analyse statistique des diagraphies de forage. GRECO Rhéologie des Géomatériaux : rapport scientifique 1988
[58] ROUSSEAU A., and JEANTET D. (1999) Signaux acoustiques en champ total (full waveforms) et pétrophysique. Poster présenté au 9ème Congrès International de Métrologie à Bordeaux, 18-21 oct.1999
[59] ROUSSEAU A., and JEANTET D. (1999) Peut-on construire des capteurs de pression azimutaux fonctionnant en milieu fluide pour l’acquisition de trains d’onde complets en forage ? Poster présenté au 9ème Congrès International de Métrologie à Bordeaux, 18-21 oct.1999 (Online)
Vaccines: prophylaxis or anaphylaxis? (n) anaphylaxis (hypersensitivity reaction to the ingestion or injection of a substance (a protein or drug) resulting from prior contact with a substance) (n) prophylaxis (the prevention of disease) If you’re wondering about the definitions above, all is explained in tonight’s show, which features an extended interview with Bronwyn Hancock, director of the Vaccination Information Service. Bronwyn [...]
(n) anaphylaxis (hypersensitivity reaction to the ingestion or injection of a substance (a protein or drug) resulting from prior contact with a substance) (n) prophylaxis (the prevention of disease)
If you’re wondering about the definitions above, all is explained in tonight’s show, which features an extended interview with Bronwyn Hancock, director of the Vaccination Information Service. Bronwyn has worked closely with Dr. Viera Scheibner, a leading researcher in the anti-vaccination field who has been writing and giving lectures on the subject matter of vaccines and vaccinations since her retirement from the Department of Mineral Resources, New South Wales, Australia in 1987.
Vaccination Information Service will inform you primarily about the key fundamentals, indeed critical flaws, of vaccination (or “immunisation”) that apply to every type of vaccine.
In summary… “Immunizations” do not immunize! They do the exact opposite
The term “immunization” (US, Canada) or “immunisation” (UK, Australia, NZ), often substituted for the term “vaccination”, is false and should not be used in place of “vaccination”, because it is well documented in medical research that vaccination, the direct injection of foreign proteins and other toxic material (particularly known immune-sensitising poisons such as mercury and aluminium compounds, formaldehyde and phenol) sensitises, meaning makes the recipient more, not less, susceptible, i.e. more easily affected, by what he/she encounters in the future.
Please be aware that this is a highly politically charged topic, and you are likely to find biased and defamatory statements about anti-vaccine campaigners in prominent journals and websites. The wikipedia entry for Viera Scheibner is a prime example.
MONTREAL — Three Canadian universities will be used as a venue for a speaking tour by prominent 9-11 skeptics.
Americans Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin dispute the conventional wisdom that foreign terrorists linked to al-Qaida brought down the Twin Towers on Sept. 11, 2001.
They will give lectures at the University of Toronto, Carleton University and the University of Quebec in Montreal over the coming days.
Faculty members at the Montreal university told a city newspaper they are upset the institution is being used for the event.
One says it harms the school’s credibility. <!–break–> This tour comes right on the heels of a free-speech controversy that erupted when U.S. pundit Ann Coulter had an appearance cancelled at the University of Ottawa.
One speaker believes the World Trade Centre buildings were destroyed by explosives, not the impact of two airplanes.
He wants the U.S. Congress to launch an independent investigation into the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
The other speaker is a retired theology professor and author of several books on an alleged 9-11 cover up.
His discussion will focus on the legal and moral aspects of the war in Afghanistan, which was a response to the Sept. 11 attacks.
In her memoir, “Spoken from the Heart,” former first lady Laura Bush shares a detailed account of being in the White House during the terrorist attacks. An excerpt.
Goodness in the land of the living Tuesday morning, September 11, was sunny and warm, the sky a brilliant cerulean blue. The day before, I had hosted a lunch for Janette Howard, wife of the Australian prime minister, while George met with her husband, John. My friends who had come for the National Book Festival had all flown home, and even George was gone, in Florida for a school visit. George H. W. Bush and Bar had spent the night, but they had already left at 7:00 a.m. to catch an early flight. And I had what I considered a big day planned. I was set to arrive at the Capitol at 9:15 to brief the Senate Education Committee, chaired by Edward M. Kennedy, on the findings of the early childhood development conference that I’d held in July. In the afternoon, we were hosting the entire Congress and their families for the annual Congressional Picnic. The South Lawn of the White House was already covered with picnic tables awaiting their fluttering cloths, and Tom Perini from Buffalo Gap, Texas, was setting up his chuckwagons. Our entertainment would be old-fashioned square dancing and Texas swing music by Ray Benson and his classic band, Asleep at the Wheel. <!–break–> I finished dressing in silence, going over my statement again in my mind. I was very nervous about appearing before a Senate committee and having news cameras trained on me. Had the TV been turned on, I might have heard the first fleeting report of a plane hitting the North Tower of the World Trade Center at the tip of Manhattan as I walked out the door to the elevator. Instead, it was the head of my Secret Service detail, Ron Sprinkle, who leaned over and whispered the news in my ear as I entered the car a few minutes after 9:00 a.m. for the ride to the Russell Senate Office Building, adjacent to the Capitol. Andi Ball, now my chief of staff at the White House; Domestic Policy Advisor Margaret Spellings; and I speculated about what could have happened: a small plane, a Cessna perhaps, running into one of those massive towers on this perfect September morning. We wondered too if Hillary Clinton might decide not to attend the committee briefing, since the World Trade Center was in New York. We were driving up Pennsylvania Avenue when word came that the South Tower had been hit. The car fell silent; we sat in mute disbelief. One plane might be a strange accident; two planes were clearly an attack. I thought about George and wondered if the Secret Service had already hustled him to the motorcade and begun the race to Air Force One to return home. Two minutes later, at 9:16 a.m., we pulled up at the entrance to the Russell Building. In the time it had taken to drive the less than two miles between the White House and the Capitol, the world as I knew it had irrevocably changed.
Senator Kennedy was waiting to greet me, according to plan. We both knew when we met that the towers had been hit and, without a word being spoken, knew that there would be no briefing that morning. Together, we walked the short distance to his office. He began by presenting me with a limited-edition print; it was a vase of bright daffodils, a copy of a painting he had created for his wife, Victoria, and given to her on their wedding day. The print was inscribed to me and dated September 11, 2001.
An old television was turned on in a corner of the room, and I glanced over to see the plumes of smoke billowing from the Twin Towers. Senator Kennedy kept his eyes averted from the screen. Instead he led me on a tour of his office, pointing out various pictures, furniture, pieces of memorabilia, even a framed note that his brother Jack had sent to their mother when he was a child, in which he wrote, “Teddy is getting fat.” The senator, who would outlive all his brothers by more than forty years, laughed at the note as he showed it to me, still finding it amusing.
All the while, I kept glancing over at the glowing television screen. My skin was starting to crawl, I wanted to leave, to find out what was going on, to process what I was seeing, but I felt trapped in an endless cycle of pleasantries. It did not occur to me to say, “Senator Kennedy, what about the towers?” I simply followed his lead, and he may have feared that if we actually began to contemplate what had happened in New York, I might dissolve into tears.
Senator Judd Gregg of New Hampshire, the ranking Republican on the committee and one of our very good friends in the Senate—Judd had played Al Gore for George during mock debates at the ranch the previous fall—was also designated to escort me to the committee room, and he arrived just as I was completing the tour. Senator Kennedy invited us to sit on the couches, and he continued chatting about anything other than the horrific images unfolding on the tiny screen across the room. I looked around his shoulder but could see very little, and I was still trying to pay attention to him and the thread of his conversation. It seemed completely unreal, sitting in this elegant, sunlit office as an immense tragedy unfolded. We sat as human beings driven by smoke, flame, and searing heat jumped from the tops of the Twin Towers to end their lives and as firemen in full gear began the climb up the towers’ stairs.
I have often wondered if the small talk that morning was Ted Kennedy’s defense mechanism, if after so much tragedy—the combat death of his oldest brother in World War II, the assassinations of his brothers Jack and Robert, and the deaths of nephews, including John Jr., whose body he identified when it was pulled from the cold, dark waters off Martha’s Vineyard—if after all of those things, he simply could not look upon another grievous tragedy.
At about 9:45, after George had made a brief statement to the nation, which we watched, clustered around a small television that was perched on the receptionist’s desk, Ted Kennedy, Judd Gregg, and I walked out to tell reporters that my briefing had been postponed. I said, “You heard from the president this morning, and Senator Kennedy and Senator Gregg and I both join his statement in saying that our hearts and our prayers go out to the victims of this act of terrorism, and that our support goes to the rescue workers. And all of our prayers are with everyone there right now.” As I turned to exit, Laurence McQuillan of USA Today asked a question. “Mrs. Bush, you know, children are kind of struck by all this. Is there a message you could tell to the nation’s—” I didn’t even wait for him to finish but began, “Well, parents need to reassure their children everywhere in our country that they’re safe.”
As we walked out of the briefing room, the cell phone of my advance man, John Meyers, rang. A friend told him that CNN was reporting that an airplane had crashed into the Pentagon. Within minutes, the order would be given to evacuate the White House and the Capitol.
I walked back to Senator Kennedy’s office and then began moving quickly toward the stairs, to reach my car to return to the White House. Suddenly, the lead Secret Service agent turned to me and my staff and said that we needed to head to the basement immediately. We took off at a run; Judd Gregg suggested his private office, which was in the lower level and was an interior room. The Secret Service then told John that they were waiting for an Emergency Response Team to reach the Capitol. The team would take me, but my staff would be left behind. Overhearing the conversation, I turned back and said, “No, everyone is coming.” We entered Judd’s office, where I tried to call Barbara and Jenna, and Judd tried to call his daughter, who was in New York. Then we sat and talked quietly about our families and our worries for them, and the overwhelming shock we both felt.
Sometime after 10:00 a.m., when the entire Capitol was being emptied, when White House staffers had fled barefoot and sobbing through the heavy iron gates with Secret Service agents shouting at them to “Run, run!” my agents collected me. They now included an additional Secret Service detail and an Emergency Response Team, dressed in black tactical clothing like a SWAT force and moving with guns drawn. As we raced through the dim hallways of the Russell Building, past panicked staffers emptying from their offices, the ERT team shouted “GET BACK” and covered my every move with their guns. We reached the underground entrance; the doors on the motorcade slammed shut, and we sped off. The Secret Service had decided to take me temporarily to their headquarters, located in a nondescript federal office building a few blocks from the White House. Following the Oklahoma City bombing, their offices had been reinforced to survive a large-scale blast. Outside our convoy windows, the city streets were clogged with people evacuating their workplaces and trying to reach their own homes.
By the time I had reached my motorcade, Flight 93 had crashed in a Pennsylvania field and the west side of the Pentagon had begun to collapse. Judd Gregg walked alone to the underground Senate parking garage and retrieved his car, the last one left there. He pulled out of the garage and headed home, across the Fourteenth Street Bridge and past the Pentagon, thick with smoke and flame.
In the intervening years, Judd and I, and many others, were left to contemplate what if Flight 93 had not been forced down by its passengers into an empty field; what if, shortly after 10:00 a.m., it had reached the Capitol Dome?
We arrived at the Secret Service building via an underground entrance and were escorted first to the director’s office and then belowground to a windowless conference room with blank walls and a mustard yellow table. A large display screen with a constant TV feed took up most of one wall. Walking through the hallways, I saw a sign emblazoned with the emergency number 9-1-1. Had the terrorists thought about our iconic number when they picked this date and planned an emergency so overwhelming? For a while, I sat in a small area off the conference room, silently watching the images on television. I watched the replay as the South Tower of the World Trade Center roared with sound and then collapsed into a silent gray plume, offering my personal prayer to God to receive the victims with open arms. The North Tower had given way, live in front of my eyes, sending some 1,500 souls and 110 stories of gypsum and concrete buckling to the ground.
So much happened during those terrible hours at the tip of Manhattan. That morning, as the people who worked in the towers descended, water from the sprinkler system was racing down the darkened stairwells. With their feet soaked, for some the greatest fear was that when they reached the bottom, the rushing water would be too high and they would be drowned. A few walked to safety under a canopy of skylights covered with the bodies of those who had jumped. Over two hundred people jumped to escape the heat, smoke, and flames. I was told that Father Mychal Judge, the chaplain for the New York City Fire Department, who had come to offer aid, comfort, and last rites, was killed that morning by the body of someone who had, in desperation, hurled himself from the upper floors of one of those towers.
Video: Bush memoir to revisit 9/11, 2000 election
The early expectation was for horrific numbers of deaths. Manhattan emergency rooms and hospitals as far away as Dallas were placed on Code Red, expecting to receive airlifted survivors. Some fifty thousand people worked inside the towers; on a beautiful day, as many as eighty thousand tourists would visit an observation deck on the South Tower’s 107th floor, where the vistas stretched for fifty miles. Had those hijacked planes struck the towers thirty or forty or fifty minutes later, the final toll might well have been in the tens of thousands.
Inside Secret Service headquarters, I asked my staff to call their families, and I called the girls, who had been whisked away by Secret Service agents to secure locations. In Austin, Jenna had been awakened by an agent pounding on her dorm door. In her room at Yale, Barbara had heard another student sobbing uncontrollably a few doors down. Then I called my mother, because I wanted her to know that I was safe and I wanted so much to hear the sound of her voice. And I tried to reach George, but my calls could not get through; John Meyers, my advance man, promised to keep trying. I did know from the Secret Service that George had taken off from Florida, safe on board Air Force One. I knew my daughters and my mother were safe. But beyond that, everything was chaos. I was told that Barbara Olson, wife of Solicitor General Ted Olson, had been aboard the plane that hit the Pentagon. At one point, we also received word that Camp David had been attacked and hit. I began thinking of all the people who would have been there, like Bob Williams, the chaplain. Another report had a plane crashing into our ranch in Crawford. It got so that we were living in five-minute increments, wondering if a new plane would emerge from the sky and hit a target. All of us in that basement conference room and many more in the Secret Service building were relying on rumors and on whatever news came from the announcers on television. When there were reports of more errant planes or other targets, it was almost impossible not to believe them.
George had tried to call me from Air Force One. It is stunning now to think that our “state-of-the-art” communications would not allow him to complete a phone call to Secret Service headquarters, or me to reach him on Air Force One. On my second call from the secure line, our third attempt, I was finally able to contact the plane, a little before twelve noon. I was grateful just to hear his voice, to know that he was all right, and to tell him the girls were fine. From the way he spoke, I could hear how starkly his presidency had been transformed.
We remained in that drab conference room for hours, eventually turning off the repetitive horror of the images on the television. Inside, I felt a grief, a loss, a mourning like I had never known.
A few blocks away, in the Chrysler offices near Pennsylvania Avenue, a group of White House senior staff began to gather. After the evacuation, some of those who were new to Washington had been wandering, dazed and shaken, in nearby Lafayette Park. By midafternoon, seventy staff members had congregated inside this office building, attempting to resume work, while Secret Service agents stood in the lobby and forbade anyone without a White House pass from entering. Key presidential and national security staff and Vice President Cheney were still sealed away in the small underground emergency center deep below the White House.
As the skies and streets grew silent, there was a debate over what to do with George and what to do with me. The Secret Service detail told me to be prepared to leave Washington for several days at least. My assistant, Sarah Moss, was sent into the White House to gather some of my clothes. John Meyers accompanied her to retrieve Spot, Barney, and Kitty.
Then we got word that the president was returning to Washington. I would be staying as well. Late in the afternoon, I spoke to George again. At 6:30 we got in a Secret Service caravan to drive to the White House. I gazed out the window; the city had taken on the cast of an abandoned movie set: the sun was shining, but the streets were deserted. We could not see a person on the sidewalk or any vehicles driving on the street. There was no sound at all except for the roll of our wheels over the ground.
We drove at full throttle through the gate, and the agents hopped out. Heavily armed men in black swarmed over the grounds. Before I got out, one of my agents, Dave Saunders, who had been driving, turned around and said, “Mrs. Bush, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.” He said it with the greatest of concern and a hint of emotion in his voice. He knew what this day meant for us.
I was hustled inside and downstairs through a pair of big steel doors that closed behind me with a loud hiss, forming an airtight seal. I was now in one of the unfinished subterranean hallways underneath the White House, heading for the PEOC, the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, built for President Franklin Roosevelt during World War II. We walked along old tile floors with pipes hanging from the ceiling and all kinds of mechanical equipment. The PEOC is designed to be a command center during emergencies, with televisions, phones, and communications facilities.
I was ushered into the conference room adjacent to the PEOC’s nerve center. It’s a small room with a large table. National Security Advisor Condi Rice, Counselor to the President Karen Hughes, Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Bolten, and Dick and Lynne Cheney were already there, where they had been since the morning. Lynne, whose agents had brought her to the White House just after the first attack, came over and hugged me. Then she said quietly into my ear, “The plane that hit the Pentagon circled the White House first.”
I felt a shiver vibrate down my spine. Unlike the major monuments and even the leading government buildings in Washington, the White House sits low to the ground. It is a three-story building, tucked away in a downward slope toward the Potomac. When the White House was first built, visitors complained about the putrid scent rising from the river and the swampy grounds nearby. From the air, the White House is hard to see and hard to reach. A plane could circle it and find no plausible approach. And that is what Lynne Cheney told me had happened that morning, a little past 9:30, before Flight 77 crossed the river and thundered into the Pentagon.
At 7:10 that night, George strode into the PEOC. Early that afternoon, he had conducted a secure videoconference from Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska with the CIA and FBI directors, as well as the military Joint Chiefs of Staff and the vice president and his national security staff, giving instructions and getting briefings on the latest information. Over the objections of the Secret Service, he had insisted upon returning home. We hugged and talked with the Cheneys a bit. Then the Secret Service detail suggested that we spend the night there, belowground. They showed us the bed, a foldout that looked like it had been installed when FDR was president. George and I stared at it, and we both said no, George adding, “We’re not going to sleep down here. We’re going to go upstairs and you can get us if something happens.” He said, “I’ve got to get sleep, in our own bed.” George was preparing to speak to the nation from the Oval Office, to reassure everyone and to show that the president was safely back in Washington, ready to respond.
By 7:30 we were on our way up to the residence. I have no memory of having eaten dinner—George may have eaten on the plane. He tried to call the girls as soon as we were upstairs but couldn’t reach them. Barbara called back close to 8:00 p.m., and then George left to make remarks to the nation.
We did finally climb into our own bed that night, exhausted and emotionally drained. Outside the doors of the residence, the Secret Service detail stood in their usual posts. I fell asleep, but it was a light, fitful rest, and I could feel George staring into the darkness beside me. Then I heard a man screaming as he ran, “Mr. President, Mr. President, you’ve got to get up. The White House is under attack.”
We jumped up, and I grabbed a robe and stuck my feet into my slippers, but I didn’t stop to put in my contacts. George grabbed Barney; I grabbed Kitty. With Spot trailing behind, we started walking down to the PEOC. George had wanted to take the elevator, but the agents didn’t think it was safe, so we had to descend flight after flight of stairs, to the state floor, then the ground floor, and below, while I held George’s hand because I couldn’t see anything. My heart was pounding, and all I could do was count stairwell landings, trying to count off in my mind how many more floors we had to go. When we reached the PEOC, I saw the outline of a military sergeant unfolding the ancient hideaway bed and putting on some sheets.
At that moment, another agent ran up to us and said, “Mr. President, it’s one of our own.” The plane was ours.
For months afterward at night, in bed, we’d hear the military jets thundering overhead, traveling so fast that the ground below quivered and shook. They would make one pass and then, three or five minutes later, make another low-flying loop. I would fall asleep to the roar of the fighters in the skies, hearing in my mind those words, “one of our own.” There was a quiet security in that, in knowing that we slept beneath the watchful cover of our own.
Waking the next morning, I had the sensation of knowing before my eyes opened that something terrible had happened, something beyond comprehension, and I wondered for a brief instant if it had all been a dream. Then I saw George, and I knew, knew that yesterday would be with us, each day, for all of our days to come.
A recent bombshell in Quebec’s newspaper “La Presse” talking about the World911Truth conference on May 3rd in Montreal with Richard Gage, AIA and Dr. David Ray Griffin has created a coast to coast storm in the mainstream media. From major TV in Quebec, to mainstream radio, to the most popular newspaper in Canada, the Toronto Star, this 9/11 truth debate is being carried out this week-end and is not over.
We also invite you to read this article from the Toronto Star:
U.S. skeptics to speak of 9-11 cover-up at three Canadian universities
by Andy Blatchford The Canadian Press
As seen in the Toronto Star, Canada’s highest circulation newspaper.
MONTREAL—Three Canadian universities will be used as a venue for a speaking tour by prominent 9-11 skeptics who believe controlled explosions — not airplanes — brought down the Twin Towers.
Americans Richard Gage and David Ray Griffin dispute the conventional wisdom that foreign terrorists linked to al-Qaeda destroyed the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
They are scheduled to give lectures titled “9/11: Explosive Evidence and the War in Afghanistan” at the University of Toronto, Carleton University and the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM) over the coming days.
The Ontario Association of Architects is inviting students in its continuing education program to take in the event for extra credit.
This tour comes right on the heels of a free-speech controversy that erupted when U.S. pundit Ann Coulter had an appearance cancelled at the University of Ottawa.
UQAM says the conference is not a school-sponsored activity; it’s simply renting out a 700-person auditorium.
“The university is a place of thought and free expression of certain opinions and I think that’s one of guiding principles,” spokeswoman Francine Jacques said Friday.
Faculty members at the Montreal university told La Presse they are upset the institution is being used for the event.
One told the newspaper it harms the school’s credibility, calling the speakers “liars, impostors and conmen.”
Published on Mar 17 - 2010 Two-thirds of respondents stand by the conclusions of the 9/11 Commission, which blamed al-Qaeda for the attacks.
The recent suggestion by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the 9/11 attacks were a “fabrication” is rejected by a large proportion of Americans, a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll has found.
In the online survey of a representative national sample of 1,007 American adults, 62 per cent of respondents disagree with Ahmadinejad’s claims that the “Sept. 11 incident was a big fabrication as a pretext for the campaign against terrorism and a prelude for staging an invasion against Afghanistan.” Only 26 per cent of respondents agree with this notion, and 12 per cent are undecided.
Republicans (80%) are more likely to reject the statement than Independents (66%) or Democrats (55%). <!–break–> The 9/11 Commission
In all, two-thirds of Americans (67%) agree with the commission that investigated the events of Sept. 11, 2001, which concluded that an attack was carried out by 19 hijackers who were members of the al-Qaeda terrorist organization, led by Osama bin Laden. Only 12 per cent of respondents reject the commission’s findings, and one-in-five Americans (21%) are undecided.
Four-in-five Republicans (80%) stand by the commission’s findings, while two-thirds of Democrats (66%) and Independents (65) concur.
Conspiracy Theories
The survey asked respondents whether four things that have been said and written about the events of 9/11 are actually credible. Just 15 per cent of respondents think the collapse of the World Trade Center was the result of a controlled demolition, and the same proportion believe that United Airlines Flight 93, which crashed in Pennsylvania, was shot down.
In addition, 13 per cent of respondents think no airplane actually crashed at the Pentagon on Sept. 11, and six per cent claim that no airplanes crashed into the World Trade Center at all.
Analysis
A majority of Americans are on the same side when it comes to 9/11, stating that the event was not a fabrication, that the conclusions of the 9/11 commission are correct, and that the conspiracy theories are not credible.
While one-in-four Americans believe 9/11 was a fabrication designed to facilitate the campaign against terrorism, the proportion of respondents who openly reject the conclusions of the 9/11 commission—and who find the conspiracy theories as credible—is far lower.
Full Report, Detailed Tables and Methodology (PDF) CONTACT:
Mario Canseco, Vice President, Public Affairs +604 647 3570 mario.canseco@angus-reid.com
The idea of such an attack was well known [and] had been wargamed as a possibility in exercises before September 11.
- Professor John Arquilla of the Naval Postgraduate School, Monterey, California
In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 attacks, senior U.S. government and military officials repeatedly claimed that what happened that day was unexpected. In May 2002, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said, “I don’t think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon; that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile.” [1] Two years later, President Bush stated, “Nobody in our government, at least, and I don’t think the prior government, could envision flying airplanes into buildings on such a massive scale.” [2] General Ralph Eberhart, the commander of NORAD on September 11, said, “Regrettably, the tragic events of 9/11 were never anticipated or exercised.” [3]
TNRA 25 July 2008 In tonight’s show we take a look at a variety of current stories in Australia and overseas, with special attention given to the ongoing global warming / carbon trading controversy and the pending execution of the convicted Bali bombers. In the second half of the show we have two special guests, Emily and Matilda, with whom [...]
In tonight’s show we take a look at a variety of current stories in Australia and overseas, with special attention given to the ongoing global warming / carbon trading controversy and the pending execution of the convicted Bali bombers.
In the second half of the show we have two special guests, Emily and Matilda, with whom we engage in an extended open discussion of the question of responsibility in relation to the task of questioning official truth. In the discussion we express our views in regard to the criteria which are needed to distinguish valid investigative research from fantasy and speculation, and we take a look at a few fringe ideas such as the theories of David Icke and UFO’s.
Links to all major stories are provided below.
Next week we will be interviewing Glen Clancy, creator of the film Fool Me Twice, for a discussion of his ground breaking research into the Bali Bombings.
Thanks for listening!
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Australian Greenhouse Expert David Evans Blows Whistle on CO2
Dr David Evans was a consultant to the Australian Greenhouse Office from 1999 to 2005.
But since 1999 new evidence has seriously weakened the case that carbon emissions are the main cause of global warming, and by 2007 the evidence was pretty conclusive that carbon played only a minor role and was not the main cause of the recent global warming. As Lord Keynes famously said, “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”
There has not been a public debate about the causes of global warming and most of the public and our decision makers are not aware of the most basic salient facts:
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Media Statement Sunday 1st July 2007
A new organisation called “The Carbon Sense Coalition” has been set up to defend the role of carbon on earth and in the atmosphere.
Chairman of the new group, Mr Viv Forbes, a pasture manager, soil scientist and geologist from Rosevale in Queensland, says the group is concerned at the growing and unjustified vilification of carbon by politicians and the media.
More information on The Carbon Sense Coalition can be found on our web site at www.carbon-sense.com.
“The impetus for the formation of the group was, firstly the proposal that carbon dioxide be labelled as a pollutant in the Federal National Pollutant Inventory, and secondly a set of wholly destructive policy proposals from the Queensland government in their document Climate Smart 2050 – Queensland climate change strategy 2007 – a low carbon future.”
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Two student activists have won a court challenge to special World Youth Day laws that allowed police to detain people or fine them $5,500 for annoying or inconveniencing Catholic pilgrims.
No To Pope Coalition members Amber Pike and Rachel Evans took the New South Wales Government to the Federal Court, arguing the laws were unconstitutional because they would make their peaceful protest illegal.
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Bali bombers waive right to seek presidential pardon
Indonesia’s Attorney-General has confirmed the three convicted Bali bombers have waived their right to seek a presidential pardon and he hopes their executions go ahead in the next few weeks.
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Cynthia McKinney has won the presidential nomination of the Green Party of the United States www.911oz.com/weblogid/145
CHICAGO — Former Georgia congresswoman Cynthia McKinney reassumed the national political stage Saturday, winning the presidential nomination of the Green Party of the United States at the party’s national convention here.
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Navy Prosecutor In Gitmo Case: “If they hadn’t shot down the fourth plane it would’ve hit the dome”
Though the trial the man, dubbed “Osama bin Laden’s driver”, is primarily functioning as a show piece for the Bush administration’s “war on terror”, some interesting information emerged from the Guantanamo Bay naval base yesterday in the form of a direct admission from a US prosecutor that the fourth plane was “shot down”.
The post-9/11 airline watch list that is supposed to keep terrorists off of airplanes has swelled to more than 1 million names, including at least one investigative reporter who had been critical of the Transportation Security Agency, which maintains the watch list
Here is a story so bizarre and so ridiculous that it sounds like either a hoax or a monty python script: a “shock bracelet” which combines RFID tracking with electro-shock weapon technology all in one handy package now being assessed by the United States Department of Homeland Security for use in passenger aircraft.
A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal, Inc. website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers (video also shown below). This bracelet would: • Take the place of an airline boarding pass • Contain personal information about the traveler • Be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage • Shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
