Government Controversies – World Trade Center 9/11 (September 11th, 2001)
Table of Contents
Overview
“Did the events that happen on 9/11 occur because terrorists wanted to attack America, was the event properly documented; or is there evidence that points to additional questions that have not been properly answered?” – 9/11 Questions
Statement of Facts
A tragic day for American, the day the World Trade Center, the Twin Towers in NYC, where hit by two 747 Boeing planes; their flight numbers identified as Flight 11 and Flight 175. Within two hours of the crash, the two towers collapsed by the September 11 attacks. The event killed almost 3000 people and caused over $10 Billion dollars in damage. Along with destruction of the two towers, identified as WTC 1, and WTC 2; significant damage was done to 10 other structures surrounding the twin towers. Today there is a wtc memorial in place
Detailed Events
At 8:46am, Flight 11 crashed into the northern facade of WTC1 north tower. At 9:03am flight 175 crashed into the southern facade of the south tower of WTC2.
The south tower collapsed at 9:59am after burning for 56 minutes. The North tower collapsed at 10:28am after burning for 102 minutes.
The Marriott Hotel was also destroyed (WTC3), of which collapsed due to debris hitting the building from the other 2 towers. WTC building 4, 5, 6 and the Deutshe Bank where all severely damaged, condemned, and had to be demolished, of which began to take place in 2007.
WTC 7 collapsed at 5:21pm after getting hit by debris and having the top floors caught on fire.
Claims
ORIGINAL INVESTIGATIONS
The original investigation performed by various U.S government officials concluded that the events that occurred on 9-11 where performed by the Islamic terrorist organization known as Al-Qaeda, and was ultimately planned and supported by Iraqi leader Osama Bin-Laden.
Four official reports all came out by various government supported organizations as well as an independent study done by the insurance agency of the business centers owner:
- NIST – National Institute of Standards and Technology completed its 43 volume study on the twin tower with over 200 technical experts whom reported they reviewed tens of thousands of documents, interviewed more than 1000 people, viewed over 7000 videos and photographs and analyzed over 250 piece of steel form the structure.
- FEMA – Federal Emergency Management Agency completed their own investigation and pushed for multiple new safety laws to prevent further incidents from happening.
- ASCE – American Society of Civil Engineer complete their own investigation.
- Silverstein’s Properties Inc. Investigation – In the summer of 2001, it acquired the WTC insurance policy, and as part of its claim it hired Weidlinger Associates Inc to commission a study of the disaster.
- Weidlinger Associates – Tod Rittenhouse gave a CNN Report. Since 1996 Applied Science division of Weidlinger has had significant contracts with the Department of Defense.
Osama Bin-Laden
It has been stated that Osama Bin Laden who originally denied involvement in the 9-11 attacks, later in 2004 claimed responsibility for the attacks. He stated that U.S involvement in Saudi Arabia, Israel and sanctions against Iraq where motives for the attack. Bin Laden was captured and kill in 2011. Various taped statements from Osama have been recovered, revealing his involvement in the incident.
The idea for the attack is said to have originally come from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who presented the idea to Osama in 1996, later Osama approved the plan and began preparation to carry it out in 1999.
NIST WTC Disaster Study
On August 21, 2002, with funding from the U.S. Congress through FEMA, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced its building and fire safety investigation of the World Trade Center (WTC) disaster that occurred on September 11, 2001. The NIST WTC Investigation was conducted under the authority of the National Construction Safety Team Act.
Their goals where to:
- Investigate the buildings construction, materials and conditions that determined the outcome of the WTC disaster.
- To serve as a basis for improvements on the way building are designed, and reform revisions to current code standards.
FBI PENTTBOM Investigation
The FBI, under the investigative title PENTTBOM, claimed to launch their largest investigation in history. With more than half their agents working on identifying every possible lead to identify the hi-jackers and any other involved members.
Controversial Investigations
A large number of professional Architects and Engineers have recognized what they claim to be severe flaws in the conclusions concerning many of the claims in the official reports that came out from the involved agencies and government officials concerning the entire incident.
AE911Truth.Org
Founder: Richard Gage, Architect; member of American Institute of Architects
The most prevalent of the organizations that question the official reports is the Non-Profit Organization AE911truth, which stands for Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. This organization has a large number of supporters that are professional in the field of architecture and structural engineering. Over 3000 professional architects and engineers in fact support this theory, besides thousands of others.
Their primary statement, or claim, is that the events that took place on 9/11, in reference to the destruction of the twin tower (WTC 1&2), appears to coincide more closely with a controlled demolition rather than destruction by fire from the planes that hit the towers. Their research into this investigation provides evidence that was either deliberately missed or not reported in any of the official reports, which lead to additional questions. Their objective is to use the evidence they have provided and demand a more thorough independent investigation be conducted.
Data / Evidence
Evidence is anything presented in support of an assertion. This support for the assertion maybe strong or weak, as strong evidence provides direct proof of the assertion, weak evidence only works to infer indirectly to the assertion, typically relying on assumptions.
The following data is the assimilation of all the evidence in favor for the controversial topic at hand. Namely, everything pertaining to the question of the events related to the 9/11 incident was indeed a controlled demolition. Contrary to the official report that states it was destroyed by fire from the planes.
Description of Events
According to the officials of AE911, fires and controlled demolitions act very differently. Primary assertions point to the fact that these buildings where steel and concrete structures build to support millions of tones of weight. Build with a supportive core frame structure, extending out to the rest of the building.
Whenever structural collapses do occur, fires historically cause slower deformation to cause the collapse, while demolitions cause a building to pulverize and explode following the path of least resistance vertically.
One of the biggest problem engineers have while examining the videos of the building collapse is the fact that the building is falling through every structural support system designed to prevent the very incident that took place, all of which are put in place to resist the forces of gravity. A fire should have slowly burned through the structure causing gradual damage rather than the complete, systematic collapse that is witnessed in the video tapes.
Architects and Engineers that are critical of the official investigation have a problem with the chain of events that took place that caused the collapse of the twin towers. As they consider scientifically what it would take to reproduce the events that collapsed the buildings, they say you would literally have to cut all of the support beams on each level simultaneously in order to produce the collapse of these large structures, each of which were specifically designed to prevent such an effect.
Government Documentation
Max Cleland (former 9/11 commissioner) who resigned from the 9/11 investigation commission stated that the U.S. government did not allow all of the independent investigation commissioners to view all of the official government documentation concerning the investigation. The deliberately cause an obstruction of a full investigation for some reason, without explanation.
“It is a scandal… This investigation has been compromised” – Max Cleland
Explosions
Both eye witness accounts and video recordings shows evidence of explosions going off during the collapse of the WTC. People in the area heard officials talking about controlled demolitions even before the towers fell, mostly in reference to building 7. The eye witnesses of these events include professional fire fighters and those in the construction industry, people that are experienced with controlled demolitions. Massive clouds of pulverized concrete dust where observed and examined after the events.
Squibs
A squib is a mini explosion that occurs during the demolition of a building. It occurs when the high pressure from the explosive device ejects and emits air-pressure and/or debris from it detonation. In the videos recording the collapse of the twin towers, you will see puffs of smoke ejecting from the building, up to 30-60 stories below the collapse of the top part of the building.
These squibs are estimated to have been moving at over 200 feet per second, ejecting horizontally from the building. The interpretation of these puffs of smoke is debated to be either explosive devices that went off early, or ejection of debris and high pressures that where building up from the collapse of the upper floors.
Explosive Residue
WTC dust samples contain small chips and fragments of highly energetic nano-thermite composite materials. Thermite is a pyrotechnic composite of metal powder fuel and metal oxide. When ignited by heat it undergoes an exothermic oxidation reaction causing a very high temperature explosion. Thermite is a composite of iron oxide and aluminum.
Thermite reach temperature of over 4500 degree F and leaves behind iron oxide and iron sulfide, the same residue that was found throughout the debris of the WTC. Nano-thermite does not produce large sounds like traditional TNT, and it leaves behind residue constituents similar to those found in building materials.
“Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with sequential intergranular melting was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure… A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel… No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.” – FEMA Official Report, WTC Study
A sample of the molten steel was sent to a physics professor Steven Jones at Brigham Young University. He found characteristic burn patterns that contained elements of fluorine and manganese in abundance, elements commonly found in thermite burn patterns. This residue was found throughout the debris of each of the WTC buildings. Additionally, active thermitic material was discovered in the debris. Conclusive evidence shows the presence of unignited aluminothermic explosives in the dust. The chemical signature matched that of documented aluminothermic residues found in the dust.
Pulverization of Victims
Out of the 2740 victims, fewer than 300 whole bodies were found. Fewer than 1600 victim where able to be identified, over 1100 victim remain unidentified. Over 800 victims were only able to be identified by DNA alone with over 20,000 pieces of bodies found, 6000 of which small enough to fit into test tubes. Over 200 fragments found at different locations belonged to a single person. 700 bone fragments were found at the top of the Deustsche building.
Rate of Fall
When a building collapses in a controlled demolition, the support columns are cut to cause the building to being falling in a ‘free-fall’ state. This causes the entire building to come down very quickly, and most building are calculated to fall in a freefall state when demo’ed correctly, meaning there is literally no resistance as it falls by the stories below.
When you plot the graph calculating the fall of the WTC 1,2 & 7; each of the buildings seem to fall at almost a free fall speed, there is literally no resistance from the structure below the falling portion of the building. There should be some sort of a crashing down of each of the floor, but as documented in the videos, there is literally no resistance by the stories underneath the damaged portion of the building.
“The prevailing theory would have us believe that each of the Twin Towers inexplicably collapsed upon itself crushing all 287 massive columns on each floor while maintaining a near free-fall acceleration as if the 100,000, or more, tons of supporting structural-steel framework underneath didn’t exist.” –William Rice, P.E., Structural Engineer.
Molten Metal
Steel melts at temperature of roughly 2700 degree F, and office fires typically only reach a maximum temp of 1700 degrees F, in fact the official reports remained consistent with a typical building fire reporting temperature of 1200-1700 degrees F, and they deny the idea of molten metal.
All of this evidence contradicts the actual findings on site at ground zero, the collapse site. Even with jet fuels, the temperature could not have reached the critical levels required to melt structural steel, especially in the quantities discovered by firefighters and officials on site. Large elements of fused molten steel and metals have been dug up on the site.
The molten iron and steel that was found on site was analyzed, and the results concluded by controversialists as evidence for explosive materials operating at high temperatures. Microsphere formed from molten iron and other elements where found in the dust of the WTC.
WTC Building 7
The building WTC7 was never hit by any plane, yet it was completely demolished the same way the other 2 WTC towers were destroyed, by a complete collapse. Debris from WTC1 hit the building and did cause a fire, however it was burning only on the top floor and only on the one side. After 5 hours the report said the fire cause the entire building to collapse in only 6 seconds.
Buildings that collapse due to fire and structural failure typically do so falling towards their damaged area. The WTC7 building completely collapsed, universally throughout the entire structure at the same time. Official reports even after 3 years of study still state that they cannot determine exactly how the fire in the build could have cause the building to collapse.
“The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time. The best hypothesis has only a low probability of occurrence. Further research, investigation, and analyses are needed to resolve this issue.” – Official FEMA Report
A report by NIST regarding the collapse of Building 7 is officially underway, but such a report has yet to be published. The 9/11 Commission Report makes no mention of WTC 7. The truth about what happened to building WTC7 is revealed on the PBS special report on the 9/11 event. This documentary retells the event in which Larry Silverstein, leaseholder of the WTC, received permission from his insurance company, worked together with the chief of FDNY to ‘pull’ the building.
Now the very phrase and events around what he means by ‘pull’ continue to stir up more controversy. His supporters claim ‘pull’ simply means a controlled demolition of the building in which the FDNY attached cables to the bottom column of the building in order to manually demolish the building due to the fact it was already in such bad condition. Further questions involve the ideas of why there was so much cover up in the first place about this incident, and why does the building look like it as demolished by explosives, and why did it fall apart the exact same way as WTC 1 & 2.
Testimonies / Opinions
There are various testimonies of eye-witnesses on the site of 9-11 event. The eye-witnesses stated orally that they saw flashed of light and hear explosions. Citizens, police officers, and fire fighters all state they saw and hear explosions from WTC 1, 2 & 7. Firefighters confirm many points of the conspirators data as they personally witnessed molten metal’s and molten steel on all different levels of the building as they were on site trying to clean up the debris and search for lives.
Analysis
The events that happened on Sept 11th have cause various groups to rise up in question of what really happened that day. We have those that question the official reports concerning the events. Debunkers and critics of those whom question the official reports. Additionally we have those who enter into the 9/11 debates to add their own theories, some of which are very extreme and go outside ordinary thinking into paranormal theories. This is why it is critically important to understand all the information, view both the critical and controversial information as a whole and deliberately look at the subjects that cannot be explained by one side to see if there are faults in any of the claims.
Criticism / Debates
There are continued debates by those that take each of the extreme points of view based on the interpretation of the evidence found at the WTC:
Explosive Controlled Demolition (ECD) Theory – as taken by truthers of the AE911 – believe the building of 9/11 collapsed due to controlled demolitions.
Natural Collapse (NC) Theory– position as taken by Chris Mohr – believe the collapse of the build was a natural occurrence due to the gravitational forces and malfunction of the building.
The critics of the ECD Theory, so calling themselves the debunkers, call into order the data presented by the various organization questioning the official report into the following categories:
Gravity Theory & Freefall
According to the Natural Collapse (NC) theorists, or the debunkers, the answer as to how the buildings collapsed was due entirely to the force of gravity. Calculating the evidence seen in the videos we have a fall speed maximum of 12.8 seconds for the longest drop (WTC1), while freefall speed for these towers based on their estimated weight is calculated at about 9.2 seconds. There is some variation of course because the total weight would drop as debris is being lost on the sides of the building. Debunkers also pointed out that the exact fall time cannot be known as all documentation and video footage is obscured by clouds of debris at the time of the fall.
Explosion Theory & Thermite Explored
Critics and debunkers find it absurd that when you calculate the amount of explosive material needed to destroy the building, it comes out to over 235 tons of TNT. This would take weeks of work to load and install the amount of explosives necessary to destroy the entire building.
Debunkers point out that thermite residue can also be left by a variety of other applications from the building being build such as welding tools, etc. Sulfur and aluminum could have been the byproduct of the original construction crew that build the WTC, as this residue would be similar to that of thermite remains.
Squibs and Eye-Witnessed Explosions
Critics point out that the theories proposed by conspirators are often difficult to prove with conclusive evidence, in the case of the squibs, it could be that these pressures of gas’ could just be natural phenomenon based on the gravitation push of each collapsing floor of the WTC. This has become known as the pancaking effect. The effects of the force between each floor as they continue to crash down on top of each other, cause an extremely high rush in pressure, as the air begins to jettison outward. This was formally documented in the NIST report.
Problems
As with any debate, the evidence for and against each subject is pushed back and forth between the critics and theorists. Here we will continue to explore the explanation each side has for problems found in each of their theories or explanations.
Rebuttal of Criticism
Many of the accounts demonstrated in the debates do have problems, pointed out by the opposing side.
NISTS Refusal to Conduct Tests For Explosives
One of the problems for critics of the ECD Theory is that NIST refused to test for explosive residue or even consider explosive demolition in their report. Further it is a standard regulation that during any incident a formal investigation for explosive material is supposed to be performed after the incident, this is per the National Fire and Protection Agency NFPA 921 Guidelines. FEMA admits it was never done.
NIST Censored Information
NIST censored specific point of information such as the findings of molten steel and iron. NIST report also specifically leaves out the entire incidence related to build WTC 7.
Rate of Fall
It is difficult for anyone to determine the exact rate of fall due to the fact that the clouds obscure visibility after a certain point.
Critics follow the official report: that the floor below held a 1300 ton weight capacity and could not support the roughly 45k tons of the top ten floors crashing down. This started the domino effect cause the building to collapse in 10 seconds with an estimated speed of 200km/ hr. – NIST Official Report.
Theorists show this hypothesis is flawed by showing that the measurements of the collapsing upper portion of the tower never exerts any force on the lower sections, as it begins to accelerate through the lower sections. Due to the height of the building, and the fact that each floor underneath was supposed to be intact, as pointed out by physicist David Chandler; as the top portion of the tower fell into the lower sections it began to speed up, not experiencing and resistance at all.
There was no evidence of a load being exerted on the bottom floors to cause them to collapse. The observational evidence seems to show that the lower floors fell by themselves without the assistance of the falling, upper floors.
Collapsing of the Tower
Critics and debunkers rely on the official FEMA & NIST reports that state the building collapsed due to the fire causing the steel beams to sag and loose its structural support. The problem still remains that each of the 42 support columns would have to be completely severed, simultaneously, to cause a total collapse of the upper portion of the building in order for it to come down all at once.
There is no plausible way the fire could have caused this even with elevated temperatures of the jet fuel. This is no explanation for the molten steel that was found throughout the debris of ground zero that seem to reside as evidence that the steel somehow reached those critical temperature to completely melt at over 2500 degrees F.
Residue of Explosive Material
Critics and Debunker have a difficult time with the evidence of thermite reside, and the evidence of extreme temperatures at ground zero. Molten iron was found on site, not just steel, but complete molten iron. Popular Mechanics stated that the molten iron could have been the chemical result of aluminum from the plane interacting with any oxide near it to account for the evidence observed.
This is not true however, aluminum MUST mix with iron oxide to produce these extreme temperatures and the thermite residue. It is statistically impossible that the random chaotic event like the plane hitting the tower could have produced the complex , highly engineered, multi-layered nano-thermite composite material needed to produce what we find in the debris of the WTC.
Conclusion / Alternative Theories
The problem with most conspiracies is that typically two sides rise up creating a black and white scenario; stating, either person A did it, if not then person B did. Sometimes, it is the unknown person C that was involved that made everything cloudy from the beginning, then sits back because no one ever suspected him.
i.e. For instance, WTC 7 was at first caught up in debate of two ideas; it was either blown up by the government or destroyed by the debris of the other WTC. However, when we put together all the documentation, we find it was Larry Silverstein and the FDNY that gave the order to ‘pull,’ the building. This incident itself is controversial but it does prove the fact that people get caught up in a very narrow point of view until additional evidence is discovered. All of the evidence, if one of the controversial investigation concerning this matter proves to be accurate could imply one or more of the following conclusions:
Lackadaisical Official Investigation
It could come down to a the group of individual whom performed the investigation not only did a poor job of documenting all their finding, but had very little care to properly do their job because they felt the incident was a simply an open and shut case.
Some organization, and some group of individuals collected a decent amount of money to conduct the incident report following the 9/11 attack. They may have simply done a very poor job at what they were supposed to investigate, collected the money and thought there would be very little accountability on their part to do a proper investigation.
Poor Construction
The builders of the WTC structures would be in very hot water if it was found out they cut corners in building these structures. Is it possible the multi-billion dollar CEO’s that build these structures may have left out key components to building the entire structure up to code. Additionally, it may be that the info-structural understanding of today is not sufficient for the physical reality of large buildings when random abnormal variables are introduced.
Government Ulterior Motive
The possibility remains that the U.S. government at the time had wanted to stimulate some sort of eternal purpose or motivate the citizens to support actions that where a direct result of this event, such as war with Iraq. It surely wouldn’t be the first documented case. Support for invading Saudi Arabia, the pursuit of Osama Bin Laden, any number of events could have been a motive for the government to conduct severe actions as an excuse for an ulterior motive. Each of the official reports that came out where by agencies and associations that are paid by and does contracts with the federal government.
Pre-Installed Bomb Theory
Another idea is that many government building are already pre-installed with bombs for security against intelligence theft. This would cause the government to cover up any incidents that would cause suspicion and to prevent liability from falling on them including public backlash for such implementations.
Alternatively, a part of this idea also includes the hypothesis that that months or years before the attack, the bombs where installed in and throughout the building.
References
Architects and Engineers for Truth on 9-11
911myths.com/html/other_contributions.html
NIST.Gov – Disaster Study on the World Trade Center
FBI Famous Cases – 9/11 Investigation
FEMA.Gov – Guiding Helping Hands