September 11, 2001 Revisited: Act III, Part I

ACT III: PART I

Demolishing a highrise office building that has outlived its usefulness is a daunting task. As a general rule, tall buildings tend to grow in clusters, much like mushrooms, and the owners and occupants of the surrounding buildings usually frown upon having their own buildings damaged or destroyed in the process of bringing down a neighboring building. The trick then is to get the unwanted building to drop straight down, forming a neat pile that doesn’t extend much beyond the structure’s original footprint.

That is not something that tall buildings are naturally inclined to do. A large structure can be brought down in that manner, but it is an extremely difficult trick to pull off. A considerable amount of study, planning and preparation is required. Specific quantities of explosives have to be precisely placed at key structural locations throughout the building, and those explosive charges have to be programmed to detonate in a specific pattern. There is almost no margin for error. Only a handful of companies have the technical expertise to take on such a project.

When one of these highly specialized demolition companies does their job properly, the result is a spectacular show during which the targeted building seems to self-destruct and simply drop away from the skyline, as though it had never been there at all. The show is generally over in just a few seconds, making the entire process appear to be very quick and easy. But it is decidedly not easy.

When a building implodes (like the one to the left, which you can click on to view a short video of another controlled implosion), all that we as spectators see is the end result of months of research and preparation by a team of specialists with decades of training and experience. Buildings never implode by accident — at least they never did before September 11, 2001. But the south WTC tower did, at 9:59:04 AM that fateful day. And the north WTC tower did as well, at 10:28:31 AM. And then WTC7 did the very same thing, at about 5:20 PM. In less than eight hours time, three separate highrise office buildings allegedly did what no buildings in history have done before: spontaneously collapsed into their own footprints.

The inexplicable collapse of the twin towers has always been the single most compelling aspect of the events of that day — compelling because the controlled collapses point directly to inside involvement, and compelling because this evidence of direct U.S. sponsorship of the attacks has always been brazenly displayed for all to see.

The evidence suggesting that Flight 77 did not hit the Pentagon was not immediately available, but rather was developed over a considerable period of time. It was immediately apparent that routine procedures for responding to potential emergencies were not followed that day, but grasping that concept required exercising a little independent thought, rather than just robotically processing the propaganda blizzard of words and images that followed the attacks.

Most people, reeling from the media assault, were unable to connect the dots and recognize that a stand-down had occurred. And most people have never seen the body of photographic evidence that overwhelmingly suggests that a passenger plane did not hit the Pentagon. Even many skeptics have not seen that evidence, thanks to the zealous efforts of the 911 gatekeepers. But virtually everyone saw the twin towers brought down in controlled demolitions. In fact, most people have likely seen footage of the twin collapses replayed dozens of times.

Perhaps what is most compelling then about the collapse of the towers is that the very images that were seared into our brains as reminders of the horrific nature of the attacks are the same images that should have been presented as “Exhibit A” in the people’s case against the real perpetrators of the crimes committed that day. The collapsed towers, in other words, are iconic symbols of the power of media and information control.

The tower collapses, airing as the dramatic final acts in the 9-11 production, were meant to be seen. And with the knowledge that we were witnessing, in real time, the tragic deaths of untold numbers of victims, the images were meant to horrify and traumatize. A traumatized subject, you see, is a receptive subject, and when you are trying to sell the need for a fundamental shift in our collective reality, it helps to have as many traumatized, compliant subjects as possible. And it helps to provide images that aren’t easily forgotten.

Imagine if the twin towers had not collapsed that day. Imagine no endlessly replayed footage of the spectacular collapses. Imagine no footage of massive devastation. No “Ground Zero.” No footage of dazed, dust-covered New Yorkers. No instantaneous revision of the New York skyline. No tributes to the scores of dead firefighters. No heart-wrenching appeals from family members desperately seeking information on relatives likely buried deep in the rubble.

Without the collapses, would the events of September 11 have had the same impact? Would Americans, with their notoriously short memories, still vividly recall the images and the human drama from that day, or would we have largely moved on, giving little more thought to September 11 than we do to the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building? Is it the loss of life that causes the events of that day to linger in our collective memory, or is it the harrowing and ubiquitous images of massive property destruction?

In order for the attacks of September 11 to serve as the catalyst for a realignment of the ‘group mind,’ the events of that day had to play out on a grand scale. The spectacular collapses of the towers were, therefore, undoubtedly the most important component of the production. But they were also the riskiest aspect of the production, since there was no way to disguise the fact that the collapses were, by necessity, the result of controlled demolitions.

The collapses then represented a fundamental weakness in the master plan. Were it not for the virtually complete control exercised by Washington over the media, both mainstream and ‘alternative,’ the twin collapses would almost certainly have been recognized as an obvious smoking gun. Of course, the perpetrators never had any reason to doubt their ability to thoroughly control the flow of information, both in the media and in the so-called ‘skeptics community.’

Many in that community have harshly denounced those intrepid souls who have questioned the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center towers, just as they have cast aspersions on those who question whether it was really a commercial airliner that struck the Pentagon. From the Wilderness set the tone very early on with a post that was up barely 48 hours after the towers hit the ground:

Credible Evidence, Expert Witness Testimony Convincing: No Explosives Hidden in WTC Sept 13, 2001 — 1500 PDT http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/09_13_01_No_Explosives.html) FTW – Based upon a detailed review of an interview with a NY architect who is expert on high rise construction and upon today’s BBC story which I have linked at the bottom of this page, I am now virtually certain that there were no explosives placed within the WTC buildings. The motive for such a move would have been unclear in light of the drama and the security risks for “pre-event” compromise posed by dual efforts that would have accomplished the same ends. Discovery of the explosives before the hijacking would have emptied the buildings and placed the nation on alert before the hijackings could have been carried out. The WTC towers would have been evacuated and that would have reduced the impact of the crashes. Gravity would have taken all of the unburned fuel down central shafts of the building and the physics in this story are consistent with both witness statements and other expert interviews I have read. In addition, my ex-wife Mary lives a block away and witnessed both the second crash and the collapse of both towers from a close distance. Neither she, nor any other person she knows, heard any explosions or believe that secondary charges were a factor in of the collapses. I will be posting a more detailed bulletin for my subscribers on this shortly. Mike Ruppert http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1540000/1540044.stm

The phantom New York architect was never identified. The alleged “expert interviews” never actually existed. The BBC report was shown to be littered with errors. And the “more detailed bulletin” never surfaced. Instead, Ruppert allowed his hastily assembled initial post to stand for over two years as his only commentary on the collapse of the towers. The dust from the World Trade Center hadn’t even settled yet and already the 9-11 gatekeeper position had been established, courtesy of Mike Ruppert and the BBC.

Before the spin had fully set in, there was one early media report, published in the relatively obscure Albuquerque Journal, that accurately identified the cause of the collapse of the towers:

Televised images of the attacks on the World Trade Center suggest that explosives devices caused the collapse of both towers, a New Mexico Tech explosion expert said Tuesday. The collapse of the buildings appears “too methodical” to be a chance result of airplanes colliding with the structures, said Van Romero, vice president for research at New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. “My opinion is, based on the videotapes, that after the airplanes hit the World Trade Center there were some explosive devices inside the buildings that caused the towers to collapse,” Romero said. Romero is a former director of the Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center at Tech, which studies explosive materials and the effects of explosions on buildings, aircraft and other structures … Romero said the collapse of the structures resembled those of controlled implosions used to demolish old structures. “It would be difficult for something from the plane to trigger an event like that,” Romero said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. … “It could have been a relatively small amount of explosives placed in strategic points,” Romero said. (Albuquerque Journal, September 11, 2001)

Journal ran a follow-up report that found Mr. Romero radically reversing his position: That report would have been quickly lost in the blizzard of media coverage of the attacks were it not for the work of Internet researchers, particularly Jared Israel of emperors-clothes.com , who first called attention to the story on September 14 ( http://emperors-clothes.com/news/albu.htm 9-14-01 ). A week later, theran a follow-up report that found Mr. Romero radically reversing his position:

A New Mexico explosives expert says he now believes there were no explosives in the World Trade Center towers, contrary to comments he made the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attack. “Certainly the fire is what caused the building to fail,” said Van Romero, a vice president at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology … Romero supports other experts, who have said the intense heat of the jet fuel fires weakened the skyscrapers’ steel structural beams to the point that they gave way under the weight of the floors above … Conspiracy theorists have seized on Romero’s comments as evidence for their argument that someone else, possibly the U.S. government, was behind the attack on the Trade Center. Romero said he has been bombarded with electronic mail from the conspiracy theorists. “I’m very upset about that,” he said. “I’m not trying to say anything did or didn’t happen.” (Albuquerque Journal, September 21, 2001)

Those damn conspiracy theorists! What is it with them? They seem to be forever insisting that the stories told to the American people by our media guardians actually make sense and reflect some kind of objective reality. On September 14, the same day that the Albuquerque Journal article hit the Internet, The Financial Times added further fuel to the conspiracy fire:

The owners of the demolished World Trade Center in lower Manhattan acquired the buildings just two months ago under a 99-year lease allowing them to walk away from their investment in the event of “an act of terrorism.” The owners, Silverstein Properties and Westfield America – a shopping mall specialist – purchased the buildings from the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey for $3.2bn in July and completed the financing just two weeks ago … It is understood that the buildings are insured for more than $3bn, enough to cover rebuilding costs. (The Financial Times Limited, September 14, 2001)

Though it seems to be forgotten now, it was only through their destruction that the twin towers were transformed into beloved symbols of America. Prior to September 11, 2001, most New Yorkers would have been quite happy to see the towers disappear from the city’s skyline, albeit in a less deadly and destructive manner. Controversial when first proposed and considered an eyesore upon completion, the towers never really captured the hearts of the city’s inhabitants. And they were never really necessary, judging by the chronically high office vacancy rates in lower Manhattan.

On the morning of September 11, the World Trade Center towers hit the ground at an estimated 124-miles-per-hour, less than ten seconds after they first began to collapse. They were, in other words, virtually in free-fall. Once the collapses had begun, the 200,000 tons of steel and nearly 500,000 cubic yards of concrete that supported the massive structures seemed to offer no resistance at all. In just seconds, 10,000,000 square feet of commercial office space simply ceased to exist.

We all watched it happen, just three short years ago, but it is still difficult to believe that two 110-story monoliths, stretching a quarter-mile into the sky, were reduced to a 1.8-million-ton pile of rubble that stood, at its tallest points, just 60 feet high. In under ten seconds.

What has never been in dispute is that the fall of the south tower, just 56 minutes after it had been hit, marked the first time in history that a steel-framed highrise structure had suffered a total collapse due to fire. Never before had such a building suffered even a partial collapse due to fire. At 10:28 AM, the north tower became the second steel-framed highrise structure to suffer a total collapse due to fire.

The twin towers were certainly not the first highrise structures to ever sustain significant damage from a fire. Nor were they the first steel-framed buildings to be struck by errant aircraft. Various buildings around the world, including the Empire State Building, have been hit by airplanes of various size. And countless steel-framed buildings around the world have been hit by U.S.-launched cruise missiles and guided bombs. None of them have ever suffered a complete collapse, even after sustaining multiple impacts.

To explain the unprecedented series of events that unfolded on September 11, 2001, ‘experts’ trotted out by the media have posited that the photogenic collapses resulted from an historically unique combination of three factors: the initial damage inflicted on the towers by the airplane crashes; the damage caused by what were said to be intense fires; and the unconventional “tubular” design of the twin towers.

These experts, however, have offered no explanation for why the building known as #7 World Trade Center – a conventional steel-framed highrise structure that was not hit by a plane – became, at approximately 5:20 PM on September 11, 2001, the third highrise structure in recorded history to suffer a complete collapse due to fire. FEMA struggled to find an explanation to include in a report on the collapses, but came up short: “The specifics of the fires in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain unknown at this time.” ( http://www.fema.gov/library/wtcstudy.shtm

Though dwarfed by the massive twin towers, WTC7 was an imposing structure that would have dominated the skyline of many large cities. Built in 1985, it was a modern, 47-story structure that housed 1,868,000 square feet of commercial office space, much of it occupied by governmental agencies bearing three-letter acronyms, including the CIA.

Some have suggested that WTC7 collapsed due to damage caused by debris from the falling towers, particularly the north tower. That does not appear to be the case, however, since photos and video of the building taken in the hours after the collapse of the towers show that WTC7 was quite intact prior to its collapse. There is also the curious fact that WTC6, which sat between WTC7 and the towers, somehow managed to avoid suffering a complete collapse that day.

Some reports, including the BBC report cited earlier by Ruppert, seemed to imply that the building’s foundation had perhaps been “weakened by the earlier collapses.” But if that had been the case, WTC7 would not have dropped straight down, as though sinking into the ground; it would have toppled over, taking out neighboring buildings in the process. The BBC report also warned that “more nearby buildings may still fall,” as though it had suddenly become commonplace for tall buildings to spontaneously convert themselves into neat piles of debris.

Fires purportedly raged within WTC7 for hours before the building collapsed, but the source of the fires remains largely a mystery, as does the complete failure of the building’s modern sprinkler system, which should have been more than adequate to contain any fires. Considering the intense media attention that was focused on lower Manhattan that day, still photos or video footage of WTC7 engulfed in flames are curiously hard to find. Photos of the building taken not long before the collapse (such as the one to the upper right) reveal only small pockets of fire that were confined to two floors.

World Trade Center #7 hit the ground, reduced to a neat pile of rubble, in approximately seven seconds. Like the twin towers, it was in virtual free-fall. Also like the towers, WTC7 collapsed into its own footprint with absolutely uncanny precision. It is no accident that the American people, although bombarded with images of the collapsing towers, have never seen footage of the collapse of WTC7. It is nearly impossible to watch video footage of the collapse and fail to recognize it for what it is: a deliberate, and perfectly executed, controlled implosion. [Click on the two small animated gifs to view video clips of the collapse from two different vantage points.]

The official explanation for the collapse of the twin towers (WTC7 is rarely mentioned) is that the steel and concrete floor slabs, in the areas of the towers damaged by the initial plane crashes, broke free and collapsed down upon the floors below, which then in turn broke free and collapsed, thus creating an alleged ‘pancake’ effect that quickly gained mass and speed. Once the floors broke free, so the story goes, the outer steel shells of the towers lost structural integrity and collapsed in upon the pancaking floor sections.

There are a few very obvious problems with this ‘pancake’ theory. First, there is the question of whether fires raged in the towers at sufficient intensity, and for a sufficient amount of time, to cause the failure of the floor trusses. All of the images captured that day show that at the time of the collapses, the towers were billowing copious amounts of thick, black smoke — indicative not of raging infernos, but of low intensity, smoldering office fires. Transcripts of fire department audiotapes indicate that firefighters on the scene reported only pockets of low intensity fire that posed no danger to the structural integrity of the building.

The graphic to the left, published with the previously cited BBC report, was supposed to help the public understand what caused the collapse of the towers. The illustration, however, contained obvious errors, including the claim that the fires reached “800° C – hot enough to melt steel floor supports.” There is no indication that the fires burning in the towers reached such temperatures — and even if they did, steel doesn’t actually melt at 800° C (about 1,500° F); it melts at about 1,500° C (about 2,750° F).

The text of the BBC report contained this curious claim: “the towers’ ultimate collapse was inevitable, as the steel cores inside them reached temperatures of 800C – raising questions as to why hundreds of rescue workers were sent into the doomed buildings to their deaths.” Actually, if the claim about the core temperatures were true, it would have raised questions as to how hundreds of rescue workers were sent into the doomed buildings to their deaths, since the only way up was through the building cores, where all the stairwells and elevators were located.

Perhaps the best evidence refuting the notion that the fires in the WTC towers were burning at extremely high temperatures can be found through close examination of the pre-collapse photos to the left. Near the center of the gaping entry wound (which looks much different, by the way, than the phantom entry wound in the Pentagon) stands the tragic figure of an apparently young woman still very much alive — and seemingly unaware that she is clinging to a piece of nearly molten metal.

Technically speaking, the ‘pancake’ theory does not require that the fires reached temperatures capable of melting steel; it requires only that temperatures were high enough to substantially weaken the steel floor supports. A 1500° F fire could conceivably accomplish that task, if that temperature was maintained for a considerable amount of time. But there is no indication from firefighter reports, survivor reports, or the photographic evidence that there were any fires of that magnitude that burned for any appreciable length of time.

Another problem with the ‘pancake’ theory is that it fails to address the fate of the cores of the two towers. Contrary to the deceptive BBC graphic, the cores of the WTC towers occupied a considerable portion of the buildings’ footprints, as can be seen in the accurately scaled graphic on the lower left, and in the photo on the lower right, taken while the towers were under construction. These configurations of 47 massive steel support columns, heavily cross-braced, were designed to not only be self-supporting, but to support the floors and exterior walls as well.

Even if we accept that the floor slabs somehow ‘pancaked,’ and that the outer steel and aluminum shells then buckled and collapsed, we are left with no explanation of what happened to those massive concrete and steel cores. Clearly, the floor slabs were hardly the wide-open ‘pancakes’ depicted in deceptive media graphics. In truth, the ‘pancake’ theory, at best, offers only an explanation of how the floor and exterior wall sections may have collapsed. Even if such an extremely unlikely event had occurred, the end result would not have been a 60-foot-high mound of rubble; it would have been two 137′ x 87′ x 1,360′ towers standing in place of two 208′ x 208′ x 1,360′ towers.

Yet another problem with the ‘pancake’ theory is that it is wholly dependent on a perfectly symmetrical failure of the floor slabs, even though the initial damage to the buildings was clearly asymmetrical, and the fires certainly did not burn uniformly throughout the damaged floors. And yet we know that for the destruction to be complete, the collapse of the initial floor slabs would have had to be perfectly uniform; every point of connection around the perimeter of the core, and every point of connection around the exterior shell, would have had to fail at precisely the same moment in time. And each successive floor would have had to fail in exactly the same perfectly uniform manner, unerringly, all the way down the line. When the ‘pancake’ effect has to course through 110 floors, there isn’t really any margin for error. And yet both towers, as we all know, ‘pancaked’ into oblivion in matching, perfectly choreographed collapses.

Remarkably enough, the two towers somehow collapsed in exactly the same manner even though the initial damage to each tower was quite different. The plane that hit the north tower plowed straight into the center of the north face of the tower, and then straight into the center of the tower’s core. The south tower, however, was hit with more of a glancing blow, through the southeast corner of the building, in such a way that the plane likely did minimal damage to the tower’s core. Nevertheless, the damage to the south tower may have been more significant than the damage to the north tower. In the north tower, the weight of the upper floors was transferred to the remaining structural elements of the north wall of the tower. But in the south tower, since it was a corner of the building that was blown out, there was nowhere for the load to be transferred. Also, the south tower was hit at a lower elevation, so there was more weight bearing on the damaged area.

It is interesting to note here, by the way, that in both tower crashes, the initial impacts caused structural damage on at least six floors. The south tower was impacted on floors 78-84, and the north tower on floors 93-98. The Pentagon, on the other hand, miraculously sustained impact damage on just two floors.