Posted on 07/04/2008 5:31:02 PM PDT by 1066AD
9/11 third tower mystery 'solved' By Mike Rudin BBC, Conspiracy Files
The final mystery of 9/11 will soon be solved, according to US experts investigating the collapse of the third tower at the World Trade Center.
The 47-storey third tower, known as Tower Seven, collapsed seven hours after the twin towers.
Investigators are expected to say ordinary fires on several different floors caused the collapse.
Conspiracy theorists have argued that the third tower was brought down in a controlled demolition.
Unlike the twin towers, Tower Seven was not hit by a plane.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology, based near Washington DC, is expected to conclude in its long-awaited report this month that ordinary fires caused the building to collapse. That would make it the first and only steel skyscraper in the world to collapse because of fire.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology's lead investigator, Dr Shyam Sunder, spoke to BBC Two's "The Conspiracy Files":
"Our working hypothesis now actually suggests that it was normal building fires that were growing and spreading throughout the multiple floors that may have caused the ultimate collapse of the buildings."
'Smoking gun'
However, a group of architects, engineers and scientists say the official explanation that fires caused the collapse is impossible. Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth argue there must have been a controlled demolition.
FIND OUT MORE... The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 - The Third Tower is on BBC Two on Sunday 6 July at 2100 BST Visit website or catch up using the
The founder of the group, Richard Gage, says the collapse of the third tower is an obvious example of a controlled demolition using explosives.
"Building Seven is the smoking gun of 9/11… A sixth grader can look at this building falling at virtually freefall speed, symmetrically and smoothly, and see that it is not a natural process.
"Buildings that fall in natural processes fall to the path of least resistance", says Gage, "they don't go straight down through themselves."
Conspiracy theories
There are a number of facts that have encouraged conspiracy theories about Tower Seven.
Although its collapse potentially made architectural history, all of the thousands of tonnes of steel from the skyscraper were taken away to be melted down. The third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack. The destruction of the third tower was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report. The first official inquiry into Tower Seven by the Federal Emergency Management Agency was unable to be definitive about what caused its collapse. In May 2002 FEMA concluded that the building collapsed because intense fires had burned for hours, fed by thousands of gallons of diesel stored in the building. But it said this had "only a low probability of occurrence" and more work was needed. But now nearly seven years after 9/11 the definitive official explanation of what happened to Tower Seven is finally about to be published in America.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology has spent more than two years investigating Tower Seven but lead investigator Dr Shyam Sunder rejects criticism that it has been slow.
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The collapse of Tower 7
"We've been at this for a little over two years and doing a two or two and a half year investigation is not at all unusual. That's the same kind of time frame that takes place when we do aeroplane crash investigations, it takes a few years."
With no steel from Tower 7 to study, investigators have instead made four extremely complex computer models worked out to the finest detail. They're confident their approach can now provide the answers. Dr Sunder says the investigation is moving as fast as possible.
"It's a very complex problem. It requires a level of fidelity in the modelling and rigour in the analysis that has never been done before."
Other skyscrapers haven't fully collapsed before because of fire. But NIST argues that what happened on 9/11 was unique.
Steel structure weakened
It says Tower Seven had an unusual design, built over an electricity substation and a subway; there were many fires that burnt for hours; and crucially, fire fighters could not fight the fires in Tower 7, because they didn't have enough water and focused on saving lives.
Investigators have focused on the east side where the long floor spans were under most stress.
They think fires burnt long enough to weaken and break many of the connections that held the steel structure together.
Most susceptible were the thinner floor beams which required less fireproofing, and the connections between the beams and the columns. As they heated up the connections failed and the beams sagged and failed, investigators say.
The collapse of the first of the Twin Towers does not seem to have caused any serious damage to Tower Seven, but the second collapse of the 1,368ft (417m) North Tower threw debris at Tower Seven, just 350ft (106m) away.
Tower Seven came down at 5.21pm. Until now most of the photographs have been of the three sides of the building that did not show much obvious physical damage. Now new photos of the south side of the building, which crucially faced the North Tower, show that whole side damaged and engulfed in smoke.
Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/world/americas/7485331.stm
Published: 2008/07/04 21:11:07 GMT
Phttt! I can’t believe this is still being treated as though “REALLY IMPORTANT”.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Structural steel, in a fire, softens, weakens, and even twists.
Anyone saying otherwise doesn’t know what they are saying.
AND ........ controlled demolitions make a lot of explosion-like noises and explosion-like flashes, which no one saw or heard. The Bush Derangement Syndrome conspiracies turn my stomach.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
....cue the conspiracy nuts now...
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
No explanation, however well reasoned, will ever satisfy the 9/11 conspiracy nuts.
Ah, shoot. Since the “third tower was occupied by the Secret Service, the CIA, the Department of Defence and the Office of Emergency Management, which would co-ordinate any response to a disaster or a terrorist attack”, all the occupants figured they wanted a new more secure office building and helped collapse the building.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Dennis Leary says his NYC firefighter buddies who were there claim 1/4 to 1/3 of the lower floors of Tower 7 were decimated by debris from WTC 1 and 2.
My theory is that the 9/11 truthers knew all about the attack and planed it....
The bush haters would have us believe Bush is incompetent and has screwed up the war, the economy, the climate and so on. And yet he was able to engineer this attack/cover up without a single leak.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
exactly, and the amount of men and manhours (manhours sure to have been noticed and questioned by other tenants to the building management) to wire a building of this size for a controlled demo is considerable. with the amount of money being thrown around these days for “tell alls” by any number of media groups, the chance that EVERYBODY keeping quiet who was/is involved in the physical prepping of the structure is zero imho. even if there were no $$$ involved, as you said the secret would have not been kept.
Poppycock! There cannot possibly be a single real structural engineer who belongs to "9/11 Truth". I've yet to have any of the "truthers" explain to me as to how tower 7 was prepped for demolition without anyone who worked there knowing about it.
We've all seen programs about building demolitions. It takes thousands of man-hours to tear out walls and floors to get at all the columns and beams at each floor to prep them and plant the detonation charges and related wiring. The building would have had to have been totally evacuated for months, then remodeled to repair the accesses to the demo charges. Then, on top of that, everyone who worked on the demo prep -- hundreds of men and women -- would have to zip their lips, many of them knowing that people they knew or even family members would be unknowingly moving back into the doomed building to work.
Do you mean to say that two 110 story buildings falling down right across the street might actually impact this building? Shocking!!!!
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Rosie O’Donnell knows Bush did it!
When steel is heated by a wood fire it becomes “soft” and pliable.
Ask a blacksmith.
Two posts too soon.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
JOE DUNNE, First Deputy Police Commissioner (NYPD):
"I saw people walking around on the street, and they all had the look of shock on their face. They were walking slowly, and many of them were walking into harm's way. They were walking south on Church Street. Many of these people were coming out of (WTC) 7, 5, and other surrounding buildings that had suffered collateral damage. In fact, at this point in time, those buildings were now on fire."
HARRY MEYERS, Assistant Chief of Department (FDNY):
"We were all pretty much on board that tower 7 was going to fall. We just didn't know when or in which direction. Everybody forgets about 7, but that building was forty-seven stories, and that in itself would have been a very major event. We couldn't fight the fire in tower 7 because we didn't have enough water. All the water mains were down. What water we had was being supplied by the boats, through large-diameter hose. It would have been a chaotic situation, in any event, trying to get in there under those circumstances and fight that fire . . ."
JOHN NORMAN, Battalion Chief, Special Operations Command (FDNY):
"I started to go down Vesey toward West, but there was a lot of debris blocking the way and they were telling me no, you don't want to go down there. They're worried about that building collapsing. I looked at 7 World Trade Center. There was smoke showing, but not a lot and I'm saying that isn't going to fall. So I went up Church Street two more blocks and went across to West and went right down behind 7 and got a good look at three sides.
Again, there were a lot of fires on the ground, some crushed mail trucks, some burned-up engines. It was a scene out of a war zone. I continued around to West and Vesey and reported into the command post. They were very concerned about fire extending into the telephone company building.
They gave me a couple of companies and said get into the telephone company building and check on extension there. We had extension on the first and second floors, so we took some standpipe lines, put them in operation and knocked that down. From there, we looked out at 7 World Trade Center again. You could see smoke, but no visible fire, and some damage to the south face. You couldn't really see from where we were on the west face of the building, but at the edge of the south face you could see that it was very heavily damaged. But I never expected it to fall the way it did as quickly as it did, 7. But we took some defensive positions, actually tied the lines off and pulled the companies back from the building. I didn't feel too bad once we got back away from the perimeter just because that's a real, real heavy, old-style building. We knocked down any fire and checked for extension in the phone company building. We tied the lines off and left them flowing out into the street onto the debris piles that were burning out in the street there between the phone company and 7."
They're so dumb. Here's an excellent post from the Eject! Eject! Eject! blog that addresses this claim perfectly:
The 9/11 Truthers claim that the twin towers were brought down by controlled demolition. Okay.
Have you ever seen a controlled demolition? Shows like this are all over The Discovery Channel. Do these people realize how all of the insulation and paneling must be stripped away from the support beams? Do they not understand how these beams must be cut open and the explosives placed with great care? Have they not any idea of the amount of time this takes -- months -- and the forest of wires that runs through the structure to the detonating mechanism? Have they given no thought -- none? -- to what an enormous job this is, and how much work goes into getting these explosives exactly where they need to be?
Apparently not. They just figure someone leaves a suitcase somewhere, I guess.
Anyone who has ever -- ever -- seen what is required to bring down a building of that size knows that the site is a disaster area of det cord, pulled paneling, and huge bundles of explosives taped to the structural columns across many floors. Has no one considered that this all had to be started after everyone went home on Monday night and before people reported for work the next day? On multiple floors of two of the busiest public spaces in the world?
No one noticed this on Tuesday morning? Hey Jim, what do you suppose that huge bundle of plastic explosives is doing there where the water cooler used to be? And where do those wires go? Well, must be some logical explanation. Let's get some coffee and bagels.
Now you're talking!
Of all the people in those buildings that morning, no one -- no one -- saw any wires anywhere? No one asked why the drywall was torn down and replaced with grey stuff duct-taped into place? None of the firemen rushing into those burning towers, checking all those floors for survivors -- none of them noticed the building was rigged to explode? That it might possibly be worth a small call on the radio?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Thats what I was referring to. Amazing that anyone believes otherwise.
Will this will make Jesse “the brain” Ventura happy.
Maybe it was the nightly cleaning crews loading up the all the hibiscus plants with the explosives and laying the wires under the carpeting ..........Yea, thats it.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
If you will recall, News reports all day long kept wondering if and when that building would collapse. I read somewhere that it had a 20 story gash in the front and a collapse was inevitable.
But, if it was controlled demolition, news reporters must have been on it all along as it was they broadcasting the worry over a collapse all day long, until it did.
This stuff is such nonsense.
If explosives had been set off that day, there would have been residue all over lower Manhattan. Dozens or hundreds of police, fire and other investigators obtained samples and had the opportunity to analyze them independently.
Are we to believe that all of these ordinary people were “in on it?” Including those who lost friends and associates in the attacks? Taking into account that anybody who came up with genuine evidence of explosives would immediately become rich and famous?
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Conspiracy theories provide fools easy answers to often perplexing questions, but..they are the wrong answers.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
If someone wants to blame someone for the fall of tower 7, let it be the same Muslim brothers who brought down 1 and 2. There is no other explanation. All others are smoke screens designed to throw mud at us and GWB instead of the real culprits. How many people should be thanking GWB and the US Military this very day, for the domestic enemy instead of who we could be facing.
I mistakenly read Robert Scheer’s editorial today on how America is the bad guy, Dick Cheney, Haliburton, big bad business, our innate moral superiority, the war is all about oil, GWB blah blah blah. I’m sick of the doom and gloomers and I should have kept my nose out of the newspaper. So ho hum and left wing.
I remember the same thing. I believe they were also saying that Manhattan Island is mostly granite, too, so the energy of the towers collapsing was supposed to move fairly freely to other buildings' foundations. Supposedly that helped contribute to the collapse of Tower 7.
Please......I'd be ashamed if I were from MIT.
The truther theory is generally that all three towers were wired with explosives when they were built, as that is the only way explosives could have been in place as they would have needed to be without being seen.
I’ve never heard a logical explanation of why the contractors, workers and inspectors went along with this during construction. Anybody who’s been on an actual construction site knows that it is utterly impossible to do such a thing in secret.
I guess GWB was thinking way ahead, as the Towers were completed in 1973, when he was in the National Guard and getting ready to go to Harvard.
they also claim he stole the ‘00 election and the ‘04 election...
any irony the person they claim is the stupidest on the face of the earth could pull all this off without a shred of evidence??
Typical. They don’t want to admit that evil can strike at them with intent to do harm at any time. It implies that they cannot control the world around them.
And you know how liberals are about control.
So they just fabricate conspiracies and explanations, enabling them to blame the people who voted for Bush. At least then, they have some semblance of control; rock the vote and all that jazz can follow, because THEY know the truth.
Pitiful, is all it is. And self-delusional. Unwilling to face reality.
MIT?
What do you mean, Newbie?
The Truther’s ‘scientist’ is S. Jones from BrighamYoungU.
A KC-130 tanker was put up to refuel the CAP, and the pilot arrived in the D.C. area just in time to visually track the plane that hit the Pentagon. He was close enough to visually make out that it was an American Airlines plane. So much for the "it-was-a-missile" nonsense.
Ironically, this same pilot was moved further northwest a few minutes later, and visually saw United 93 as well, just before it went down!
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