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How Strong Is The Evidence For A Controlled Demolition?
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“Some 185,101 tons of structural steel have been hauled away from Ground Zero. Most of the steel has been recycled as per the city's decision to swiftly send the wreckage to salvage yards in New Jersey. The city's hasty move has outraged many victims' families who believe the steel should have been examined more thoroughly. Last month, fire experts told Congress that about 80% of the steel was scrapped without being examined because investigators did not have the authority to preserve the wreckage.”
N.Y. Daily News, 4/16/02
The first chapter of Eric Hufschmid’s book “Painful Questions” offers a more detailed discussion of this extraordinary scrubbing of the crime scene.
New York authorities' decision to ship the twin towers' scrap to recyclers has raised the anger of victims' families and some engineers who believe the massive girders
should be further examined to help determine how the towers collapsed. But New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg insisted there are better ways to study the tragedy of
September 11. "If you want to take a look at the construction methods and the design, that's in this day and age what computers do," said Bloomberg, a former
engineering major. "Just looking at a piece of metal generally doesn't tell you anything."
From Eastday.com, 1/24/02 http://www.china.org.cn/english/2002/Jan/25776.htm How is it possible
that this uniquely horrific event has been subjected
to so little rigorous investigation or forensic engineering analysis?
And what
possible innocent motivation could there be for the great haste with which so
much irreplaceable physical evidence was destroyed?
Could
there be something going on here that is so awful and yet so obvious that any serious investigation
would threaten its exposure? I believe that, even in the almost complete
absence of physical evidence,
there is enough photographic and video evidence and corroborating eyewitness
reports to raise very serious questions
about the official theories, and to point strongly to a controlled demolition. A controlled demolition
on this scale would of course imply the existence of a powerful and
well-connected group of insiders with access to the buildings over a long
period of time. And most important of all, they would have to be in enough
positions of power and authority to ensure that there could be no real
forensic analysis of the collapses, a task that was well and truly accomplished.
As we begin to look at the evidence that survived this purge, which
comprises a considerable body of photos and video clips, we see more and
more major objective features of the collapses that are simply not consistent
with a gravitational collapse triggered by plane crashes and fires. The
complex gestalt of first impressions is often our truest reading of a situation,
the more so when that gestalt is informed by appropriate technical knowledge.
For many people, including some of the leading demolition experts in their
first unguarded moments, the initial appearance of the collapses alone left no
question that these were controlled demolitions. I believe
that this first impression was in fact a glimpse of the truth.
The Available
Evidence
Gallery of Explosion Pictures
One of the best sources for still photos of the collapses and their
aftermath is Here Is New York,
the source of several of the pictures on this page. This collection
of pictures can be searched by topic, with a very large number of actual
collapse pictures. Many of these images show the explosive nature
of the collapses, the violent ejection of large amounts of powdered concrete
and shattered steel and the huge pyroclastic clouds formed.
WTC-1 collapse picture from Eric
Huffschmid's "Painful Questions"
What is especially striking in the collapse
of both towers is the enormous volume of material being ejected early in
the collapse, and the quantity of shattered steel thrown out ahead of the
dust clouds.
Much of this broken steel consists of neatly chopped one-story long pieces
of the perimeter columns, 14" square steel box columns that are assembled
in three-story sections. These columns are also welded to 52" deep
plates along each floor, but have somehow been broken free of these at
the same time they are chopped up and ejected at high speed.
This combination of shattered debris with dust and smoke ejected at high
speed makes for a textbook picture of the effects of high explosives.
The above is one of a remarkable series of pictures taken by Bill
Biggert, a photographer who was killed by the dust cloud from the WTC-1
collapse.
It shows large numbers of 12' sections of perimeter columns flying out
ahead of the dust cloud in what is very clearly an explosive event. He got very close to the North Tower just
before it fell, and captured some amazing pictures of its collapse and
of the previous damage from the WTC-2 collapse. What is clear especially in Biggert's pictures is that the building is
turning to dust as or even before it falls, as for example here.
Because so much very fine powder is produced very quickly and mixed with air, it
becomes a pyroclastic
cloud, capable of very rapid and destructive flow after
falling from its original height. This earlier
article of mine (also referenced below) discusses the issue of pyroclastic
flow as it applies to the WTC.
2.8mb MPEG of collapse from the east This is the most widely seen video of the WTC-2 collapse, seen from
east and slightly north of the towers. As can be seen in the still
above,
there are what appear to be rows of explosions on the east face at the
level of the initial collapse, and the building begins to fall by toppling
to the south. The top section (~30 floors) continues tilting to the
south, but quickly it can also be seen to start collapsing on itself, losing
about half its height before the bottom of it reaches the bottom of the
frame. This article
(originally at http://www.nerdcities.com/guardian) gives a good frame-by-frame analysis of the rows of explosions that precede
the actual collapse, and discusses the rotation and collapse of the top section.
As the author notes it is very peculiar that the top section, having begun
tilting to the south, did not continue to topple and land far to the south
of the tower. Needless to say, had this happened the damage to other
buildings in the area would have been vastly greater.
Conservation of angular momentum requires that an object continue to
rotate around its center of mass once set in motion, unless acted on by
an outside force. Even if the tower beneath it had completely given
way, leaving it nothing more to push against laterally, the rotation once
started would not abruptly stop. But the top section does not stop
rotating and drop straight down, as some have claimed. What does
in fact happen is that the top section breaks up internally so that it
no longer behaves as a rigid object, relieving it of the obligation to
conserve angular momentum.. By turning into a slurry of concrete
dust and shattered steel the rotation becomes dissipated into the motion
of what is essentially a fluid. Why the top would collapse on itself
in this manner is very difficult to explain on the basis of a simple plane
damage and heat-induced collapse. It would require the entire top
section to lose all internal mechanical strength just at the moment it
started to topple, at the same time that its thirty one-acre slabs of 4"
thick concrete were turned to dust. To accomplish this without explosives
would be very difficult indeed.
Flashes from cutting charges?
A crucial detail in the above clip is a series of bright localized
flashes that can be seen superimposed on various structural members just before
they fail. Further discussion can be found here: http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/flashes.htm
Close-up of South Tower collapse The link above is a capture of European broadcast video of the WTC-2
collapse, with the north tower in the foreground but shot from a little
east of north so you can see quite a bit of the south tower. At the start
of the collapse the south tower begins to lean to the south, away from
us in this view, so there should be no significant compression (and possibly
some traction, if the core has any resistance) on the side closest to us.
This means that there is no way from the action of gravity to generate
the high pressures it would take to pulverize and eject material in the
manner seen. Instead of the kind of slow start we would expect near the
beginning of a gravitational collapse we see high speed “demolition waves”
coming directly toward us, with another set shooting out to the left, from
the east side of the building. These are exactly the sort of confluent
rows of small explosions that are so characteristic of a controlled demolition,
and can be seen emerging in flat rings extending all the way around the
tower and propagating rapidly downward.
Demolition wave
- Divx codec needed to play Explosive ejections early in the WTC-2 collapse can be seen even more clearly in
this video, shot by Evan Fairbank from almost beneath the south tower.
Very energetic ejections of dust and debris occur floor by floor , moving
rapidly down the tower. He photographs the collapse briefly, then
turns and runs from the pyroclastic cloud.
A clip German television (SAT-1, Spiegel TV) showing three slightly different
views of the WTC-2 collapse, all viewed from the south and close to the building.
Good close-ups of explosive events and other anomalies.
Two close-up views of the south tower
collapse
ABC News Footage of the South Tower Collapse A bit blurry but unique footage seen from very close to the
WTC-2 collapse. Excellent examples of dust trails and very clear views of
demolition waves.
North Tower Collapse from the
Northeast: This clip was part
of a PAX/NBC compilation of
views of the North Tower collapse, and is shot from east and a bit north of
the tower,
with the Woolworth
Building in the foreground. Notice the large number of small bright
flashes that can be seen throughout the mushroom cloud as it unfolds, very
similar to the flashes seen in the first WTC-2 footage seen above (www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/Flashes/flashes.htm).
Another close-up the top of WTC-1: This clip is from a remarkable
silent documentary, "WTC
The First 24 Hours". It shows the North Tower from almost exactly
due north, and is another fixed camera almost level with the top of the
building. About four seconds into the clip there is a strong
ground tremor that shakes the building the camera is mounted on.
About 12 seconds after this the building begins to fall.
Smoke jets well below collapse level: This short
clip of the North Tower collapse, taken from a 9-11 timeline done by
KTLA in Los Angeles shows two sharply defined jets emerging from the side
of the building. Seen in profile, they extend far from the building
while remaining as narrow streams.
Squibs in slow motion: 1.3mb
.mpeg (above) and a 250k
.mov showing two localized puffs of smoke well below the actual
collapse being ejected at high velocity. These cannot be explained by pressure from the collapse,
as they are taking place at a level too far below the actual collapse for
pressure to be transmitted. Their velocity
and localization are most consistent with explosive charges within the
buildings, perhaps large cutter charges on the core columns.
WTC-7, which collapsed on the afternoon of 9/11, looks like a
classic controlled demolition, almost uncannily smooth. The picture
above links to a 12mb MPEG of the collapse taken from the Naudet
brothers' documentary. For those with limited bandwidth here
is a smaller (3.8mb) version in animated
GIF format.
Close-up of squibs along southwest corner from the
above video clip - notice the row of small squibs from cutting charges going off
in sequence from bottom to top just as the building starts to fall.
WTC-7 from West Broadway: Street-level view shows the dust and
smoke blowing out from the bottom of the building as the top settles.
A live CBS broadcast (from the WJHL.COM
video archive) with Dan Rather beginning just after WTC-7 falls, with a
video replay of the collapse about one minute into the clip, repeated again
later in the clip. This is an interesting segment that shows
the collapse of WTC-7 in surprisingly good detail despite the small image size. After some
preliminary banter from Rather the replay of the collapse begins at about
58 seconds - this is when we first see the intact building. At 63
seconds the left end of the "penthouse" on top of the building starts to
fall, and by 64 seconds this small section is down, level with the other
side of the roof. There is no visible movement for six seconds, at
which point the actual collapse begins. At 70 seconds we see the
top of the building begin to drop, and by 77 it appears to be all the way
down.
This sort of collapse is precisely what would be expected from
a classical controlled demolition, with the charges going off at ground
level to allow the building to settle into its own footprint. Of
all the collapses WTC-7 was the most precise, with almost all the wreckage
confined to the footprint of the building. It appears that some internal
charges were set off to "adjust" the internal structure of the building
for an orderly collapse, causing the left end of the penthouse to drop.
The building had an unusual design because it had to be built over an existing
three story tall electrical substation, leading to a large transfer truss
through the middle of the building above the electrical gear. Such
a non-homogeneous structure would not fall perfectly straight without some
preparation.
From 9/11 Review - lots of
good links...
This is a link to my earlier discussion of collapse dynamics,
which was formerly hosted on the IndyMedia Ontario server. In it I
attempted to give a detailed but non-mathematical discussion of the significance of the pyroclastic flows seen
in the WTC 1 and 2 collapses, as well as the physical significance of other
anomalous features of the collapses. (warning: most of the video
links no longer work, but the same clips appear elsewhere on the site)
A
look at the strange behavior of part of the North Tower core
-.jpg)
Close-up of start of WTC-1 collapse: A broadcast video clip of
the beginning of the North Tower collapse, seen from the north and a little
west. We clearly see that the collapse starts with the roof and antenna,
which begin to move before anything else. The antenna remains almost
perfectly vertical as it descends, with bands of smoke blowing out in rings
around the upper section of the tower. A large jet of flame appears
as the collapse moves down through the damaged area ~20 floors below the
roof. As the dust cloud settles we see the remains of perimeter columns
a little to the right of center, a little to the right of where the corner
of the building was, probably consisting of perimeter columns from the
west wall. These stand briefly, then seem to buckle and sag as they
fall, trailing thick clouds of dust behind them.
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