September 11th Conspiracies - Twin Towers

Often the Twin Towers are referred to as the "World Trade Center (WTC)", but the WTC was actually seven buildings of varying height, but the highest were the Twin Towers and in a way, really brought the whole thing together. In any case, it is gone now, but theories persist as to what really happened, and this page addresses the most common and popular of those theories related to the Twin Towers.

If you are curious about the theories related to the airplanes themselves, you should go to the Flight 175 and Flight 11 articles.

Table of Contents

1. Impact and Damage
2. No Inferno in the South Tower
3. Black Smoke shows Oxygen Starved Fires
4. Fire Engineering Editorial
5. Madrid Windsor Building did not Fall
6. Fire and Collapse
7. The Towers were Designed to take Direct Aircraft Hits
8. The Empire State Building Survived a Crash with a B-25, why not the Twin Towers?
9. Giuliani knew the towers were going to collapse... before it happened
10. A Member of the Bush Family had links to the WTC and Airline Security
11. Bomb Sniffing Dogs Removed
12. It Looked Like a Controlled Demolition
    1. Pancaking is Wrong
    2. Suspicious Power-outage
    3. Accounts of Explosions Prove Demolition
    4. Pulverized Concrete
    5. Mike Pecoraro
    6. 30 Foot Lengths of Steel
    7. The Towers Collapsed at Free Fall Speeds
    8. Explosive Force
    9. Puffs of Dust Show that Bombs were Detonated
13. Thermite and Metal Theories
    1. Professor Jones Examination
    2. D.P. Grimmer Theory
    3. Column Damage
    4. Dust Clouds
14. General Conclusion

Impact and Damage

A FEMA 2005 study of the World Trade Center and its collapse, released by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, a branch of the US Department of Commerce reveals that plane debris sliced through the various utility shafts -- such as elevators and stairs -- of the towers' cores, creating a conduit for burning jet fuel and thus burning fires throughout the building. 

It goes without saying that burning jet fuel traveling down elevator shafts and various other services areas would have caused disruption of elevators and extensive damage to the lobbies. First person testimony of the events stated that "some elevators slammed right down [to the ground floor]. The doors cracked open on the lobby floor and flames came out and people died."[1]

This research and testimony, I believe, is enough proof needed. It does not take an engineer to know that gravity pulls things down, that includes jet fuel. While I do like to go in depth on subjects, I do not have much else to say about this. You do not see this claim much anymore, but I thought I would cover it anyway.

No Inferno in the South Tower

The above claim made by the film is based on recordings of radio messages from the New York Fire Department Chief Orio J Palmer, who was climbing the south stairway in the South Tower. Here is the whole portion[2].

9:52 a.m.
Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven to Battalion Seven Alpha."
"Freddie, come on over. Freddie, come on over by us."
Battalion Seven Chief: "Battalion Seven ... Ladder 15, we've got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor numerous 10-45 Code Ones."
Ladder 15: "What stair are you in, Orio?"
Battalion Seven Aide: "Seven Alpha to lobby command post."
Ladder 15: "Fifteen to Battalion Seven."
Battalion Seven Chief: "... Ladder 15."
Ladder 15: "Chief, what stair you in?"
Battalion Seven Chief: "South stairway Adam, South Tower."
Ladder 15: "Floor 78?"
Battalion Seven Chief: "Ten-four, numerous civilians, we gonna need two engines up here."
Ladder 15: "Alright ten-four, we're on our way."

So while the quote is true that he did only see "two isolated pockets of fire" at this point, there is no proof that there was not other fires. Not to sound mocking, but I doubt Orio J Palmer had X-Ray vision, could see through walls and the like. The theory, based on transcripts, in no way proves that the fire was much weaker than claimed. Regardless, the NIST did not claim that the 78th floor was a "raging inferno". In fact the NIST fire reconstruction report says "there was only light fire activity on the 78th floor"[3]. 

Pictures of the South Tower show that the floor was at the base of the fire-affected area. You can click the pictures for a larger image.

The 80th floor was not the worst affect by fire as you can see in the photographs above. Where is the evidence that he was referring to the 80th floor? Here is Brian Clark's account as told to the BBC:[5]

Brian Clark: So we started down that stairway and we only went three floors. There was a group of seven of us, myself and six others. We met two people that had come up from the floor 80, a heavy set woman and, by comparison, a rather frail male. She said stop, stop, you've got to go up and she labored up to join us moving very slowly, she was such a big woman. She said you've got to go, you've got to go up, you can't go down, there's too much smoke and flame below.

Narrator: Clark then heard cries for help coming from an office nearby. It was banker Stanley Praimnath. Clark pulled him free and together they carried on down the tower, but their progress was hampered by one of the things that was meant to protect them: the fireproof drywall.

Brian Clark: Drywall had been blown off the wall and was lying on, you know propped up against the railing here and, and we had to move it, shovel it aside. You could see through the wall and the cracks and see flames just, just licking up, not a roaring inferno, just quiet flames licking up and smoke sort of eking through the wall.

As seen above he started on the 84th floor, came to the 81st floor, and then heard cries for help and freed Stanley Praimnath. They "carried on down", then ran into an obstruction, but he does not say which floor this happened on. There is another account that gives some insight into this[6]:

I guess it took me 30 seconds to a minute to get most of the stuff away from the trapped person, until this last thing we couldn't move. That's when I encouraged him to do the jumping. I reached over the top and I looked at him and I said, "You must jump. You've got to jump out of there." He jumped once and I couldn't connect with him. He jumped again and I grabbed him. I pulled him over the top and we fell in a heap and hugged. I said, "I'm Brian," and he said, "I'm Stanley," and we made our way back to the stairs.

They started down:

Some of the firewall, or maybe it had come from ceilings, I don't know, had blown in on the stairs. Sheets were lying, or leaning on angle up against the railing. So we had to move those. Some were lying on the stairs. Water seemed to be dribbling out somewhere, I don't know where, and making the stairs wet. And it was running sometimes on this drywall that was lying flat on the stairs making it like a slide. So we had to be very careful. We were holding onto the railing, hand-over-hand, kind of going down those slippery areas because we were standing on slippery drywall.

Somewhere around the 77th floor, the stairway walls were cracked, and you could look through the cracks and see flames. They were just quietly licking up, not a roaring inferno. And there was some smoke there, but again I think the stairs were pressurized, pushing the air out so we had less smoke in the stairway than you might imagine.

"Somewhere around the 77th floor" shows that the fires were not seen on the 80th floor, there is no mention of the 80th floor at all. The fact that Brian Clark saw no "inferno" on any of those floors does not tell us anything new, but it does not show there was not a larger fire stories above them.

Black Smoke shows Oxygen Starved Fires

I am not sure how this conclusion is reached, considering there is no rule that black smoke means oxygen starved fire. Large fires involving plastics also create black smoke[7]. Experienced fire investigator John J Lentini does not back up the claim that black smoke shows a lack of oxygen, nor that you can tell much about a fire from the color of the smoke[8].

While it is true that flammable liquids produce black smoke, so does any petroleum-based product. The color of the initial flame and smoke might have been important in the 1940s and 1950s when our furniture was made of cotton and wood, but most furniture today is made of nylon, polyester, and polyurethane. Even wood fires, deprived of oxygen, will produce black smoke. 

According to NFPA 921, Paragraph 3.6:

"Smoke color is not necessarily an indicator of what is burning. While wood smoke from a well ventilated or fuel controlled wood fire is light colored or gray, the same fuel under low-oxygen conditions, or ventilation-controlled conditions in a post-flashover fire can be quite dark or black. Black smoke can also be produced by the burning of other materials including most plastics or ignitable liquids."

Light smoke may indicate that there are no petroleum products burning. Black smoke indicates nothing meaningful.

So, as you can see, smoke color really indicates nothing. If one burns a plastic chair -- as I have -- one will see the flames will also be very dark, perhaps even black. A tall office building filled with plastic computers, desks, chairs, shelves, and countless other items will naturally burn a dark, black color.

Fire Engineering Editorial

The quote above is taken out of context. It was published before the 9/11 Commission Report in January 2002. A reader's letter a few issues later took issue with Manning's comments, and Manning subsequently wrote an editorial welcoming the NIST investigation. Nonetheless, the quote is still misleading because the other parts of the paragraph have been removed by the conspiracy theorists, here is the full paragraph[10]:

However, respected members of the fire protection engineering community are beginning to raise red flags, and a resonating theory has emerged: The structural damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel in themselves were not enough to bring down the towers. Rather, theory has it, the subsequent contents fires attacking the questionably fireproofed lightweight trusses and load-bearing columns directly caused the collapses in an alarmingly short time. Of course, in light of there being no real evidence thus far produced, this could remain just unexplored theory.

Subsequent Fire Engineering articles shed some light on the magazine's position. An example being that they ran a detailed report later supporting the "fire-induced" claim[11]. And In 2003 they produced an article suggesting that the collapse was in part due to overly-relaxed building codes[12].

The Towers, Fire-Induced Collapse and the Building Codes

Scheurman explains that the buildings' failures were in part due to fire codes that had been too far relaxed when the city of New York revised them in 1968. " The city is presently in the process of upgrading the Building Codes in the wake or the World Trade Center disaster, and this essay is my perspective, as a retired NYC Fire Chief, in furtherance of that process," writes Scheurman.

His report concludes with, "The World Trade Center's vulnerability to fire, as confirmed by the fire spread and mode of collapse, is partially the result of the building industry's competition for, real estate dominance and financial reward, affecting the building codes over the years. The Port Authority of New York, New Jersey using corporate and public bond financing and the governmental power of the two-state agency to sidestep the already weakened, city building code requirements effectively reduced the fire resistance and suppression capabilities and collapse resistance, in the Towers. The Government should disqualify itself from competing in the real estate industry and concentrate on regulating the competition between developers to assure fire safe building construction standards and the life safety of the people. The actual fire is the ultimate test of codes and construction practices and at the World Trade Center Towers, failed the test twice."

And a later editorial shows the true focus point for Manning's anger, after the release of the 9/11 Commission Report:[13].

THE TAINTED BRUSH OF 9/11 POLITICS
BY BILL MANNING

In early August it was revealed by New York Newsday that New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a month before the final 9/11 Commission Report, dispatched a strong memo lobbying the Commission for language that would cast a more favorable light on the city -- and, by extension, on city management, past and present. With respect to the hottest hot-button issues surrounding the 9/11 response -- radio inoperability, lack of police-fire cooperation and coordination, and the city's poor excuse for a new, "integrated" incident management system -- Bloomberg's wish was granted. The Commission's final report coats the three issues with a layer of political honey.

City management had almost three years to circle the wagons to deflect obvious ineptitude and irresponsibility for which it could and should have been held accountable. Capitalizing on an accommodating and docile press, they've controlled critical information, dismissed many concerns of 9/11 families/survivors groups as grief-driven hysteria, and, with great cunning, used the firefighters who perished in the Towers for political cover...

As we can see, Manning believes that there is a cover-up, however not the kind the conspiracy theorists promote. He believes the cover-up is related to politicians lessening their responsibility in terms of the emergency response to the events, the failure of firefighters' radios to carry the vital evacuation order, and so forth. A very import point when conspiracy theorists use the "damage from the planes and the explosive ignition of jet fuel was not enough" quote completely out of context.

 Madrid Windsor Building did not Fall

Perhaps it was inevitable that another building fire would occur and could be compared to the disaster at the Twin Towers. The Madrid Windsor Building fire is sometimes cited as being evidence of something else going on in the Twin Towers than what was formally stated. Reality, however, is not very forgiving to such a hypothesis, considering several major differences.

Firstly, no plane flew into the Windsor building, and did not sustain any structural damage prior to the fire beginning. Secondly, the Windsor building was much smaller, at only 29 stories above ground and 3 below[15]. It had a concrete structure, not completely steel one like the Twin Towers, though steel columns were in use above the 17th floor, but those suffered complete collapse -- just like what happened in the Twin Towers[16]. In all, the Windsor building was completely different than the Twin Towers -- the steel parts of the Windsor building collapsed like the Twin Towers, but the concrete parts did not. I hardly see how the buildings are similar, outside weakened metal due to fire.

 Fire and Collapse

This is a complicated question that has a more complicated answer than conspiracy theorists would let on. There are several theories from engineers, architects, and others as to why this happened. Some suggest that the fire proofing was too thinly applied, saying "One WTC had 1 1/2 inch fireproofing, which fell in 104 minutes while, Two WTC had 3/4 inch fireproofing [and] crumbled in only 56 minutes [...] The insulation used [was] too little, according to our calculations."[17] Yet others suggested that even this level of fireproofing was not consistently applied[18]:

Roger Morse, an architect who investigated the WTC's fireproofing from the early 1990s to June 2001, said that the towers suffered from the same sorts of deficiencies as many other high-rise office buildings in the United States and Europe. He noted that fireproofing on long-span joists was often "extremely thin" (less than the 3/4 inch specified in the FEMA/ASCE report) and that some structural elements were never fireproofed in places because ductwork prevented ready access. Moreover, he observed that fireproofing on the columns had been coming off because it had been applied over the rust that had built up on the columns, and the rust was flaking from the steel.

There is also the position at which the towers were hit, that many assumed was another factor[19]:

Solomon questions whether the thickness of fireproofing is related to how fast the buildings collapsed. He notes that Two WTC, which fell first, was struck at a lower point than One WTC, and thus the damaged Two WTC had more weight to support. The relative times to collapse "probably had more to do with the additional weight that [Two WTC] was trying to support," he says.

NIST said several factors were involved, in "Finding 58" of the official report[20]:

Finding 58: The time it took for each WTC tower to collapse was due primarily to the differences in structural damage, the time it took the fires to travel from the impact area across the floors and core to critical locations, and the time it took to weaken the core and exterior columns. WTC 2 had asymmetric structural damage to the core including the severing of a corner core column and WTC 1 had more symmetrical damage. The fires in WTC 2 reached the east side of the building more quickly, within 10 to 20 minutes, than the 50 to 60 minutes it took the fires in WTC 1 to reach the south side.

It is clear that there is no ideal theory as to why they fell at different times, but most are pretty clear and seem fairly accurate. This conspiracy theory only exists to further other conspiracy theories, as to say "They shouldn't have fallen so far apart, which means .... "

The Towers were Designed to take Direct Aircraft Hits

This argument typically is not too clear. To clarify the building was "designed" to take a hit from a 707, not the 767 which the planes were. This all can be best explained by Leslie Robertson, lead structural engineer of the World Trade Center. According to his account the assumption was that the collision would be with a relatively slow-moving 707, lost in fog[21]:

The two towers were the first structures outside of the military and nuclear industries designed to resist the impact of a jet airliner, the Boeing 707. It was assumed that the jetliner would be lost in the fog, seeking to land at JFK or at Newark.

The full document includes a graphic indicating the 707 impact speed was indeed estimated to be approximately 180 miles per hour, which compares with the flight speeds of the 9/11 airplanes, going more than twice that fast, between 470 and 590 miles per hour on impact[22].

This account later appeared to be contradicted by NIST[23]:

The investigators also said that newly disclosed Port Authority documents suggested that the towers were designed to withstand the kind of airplane strike that they suffered on Sept. 11.

Earlier statements by Port Authority officials and outside engineers involved in designing the buildings suggested that the designers considered an accidental crash only by slower aircraft, moving at less than 200 miles per hour. The newly disclosed documents, from the 1960's, show that the Port Authority considered aircraft moving at 600 m.p.h., slightly faster and therefore more destructive than the ones that did hit the towers, Dr. Sunder said.

The level of disagreement between the Port Authority and Robertson on this point is revealed in a further article[24]:

Robertson took the time to calculate how well his towers would handle the impact from a Boeing 707, the largest jetliner in service at the time. He says that his calculations assumed a plane lost in a fog while searching for an airport at relatively low speed, like the B-25 bomber. He concluded that the towers would remain standing despite the force of the impact and the hole it would punch out. The new technologies he had installed after the motion experiments and wind-tunnel work had created a structure more than strong enough to withstand such a blow.

Exactly how Robertson performed these calculations is apparently lost -- he says he cannot find a copy of the report. Several engineers who worked with him at the time, including the director of his computer department, say they have no recollection of ever seeing the study. But the Port Authority, eager to mount a counterattack against Wien, seized on the results -- and may in fact have exaggerated them. One architect working for the Port Authority issued a statement to the press, covered in a prominent article in The Times, explaining that Robertson's study proved that the towers could withstand the impact of a jetliner moving at 600 miles an hour. That was perhaps three times the speed that Robertson had considered. If Robertson saw the article in the paper, he never spoke up about the discrepancy. No one else issued a correction, and the question was answered in many people's minds: the towers were as safe as could be expected, even in the most cataclysmic of circumstances.

There were only two problems. The first, of course, was that no study of the impact of a 600-mile-an-hour plane ever existed. ''That's got nothing to do with the reality of what we did,'' Robertson snapped when shown the Port Authority architect's statement more than three decades later. The second problem was that no one thought to take into account the fires that would inevitably break out when the jetliner's fuel exploded, exactly as the B-25's had. And if Wien was the trade center's Cassandra, fire protection would become its Achilles' heel.

According to all of this, the towers were not even specifically designed to survive the impact from a plane. Robertson, instead, carried out some calculations on the existing design to assess what the results of an impact might be. Further, whatever the truth about the speed of the plane, there is no indication that the design considered the effects of the fire. Leslie Robertson says the towers were not designed to handle it[25]:

To the best of our knowledge, little was known about the effects of a fire from such an aircraft, and no designs were prepared for that circumstance. Indeed, at that time, no fireproofing systems were available to control the effects of such fires.

And even the later documents reported by NIST apparently left the issue open to question[26]:

Potentially challenging other statements by Port Authority engineers, Dr. Sunder said it was now uncertain whether the authority fully considered the fuel and its effects when it studied the towers' safety during the design phase.

"Whether the fuel was taken into account or not is an open question," Dr. Sunder said

In all what matters is that the towers did withstand the impact: it is claimed that the combination of that damage and the resulting fire is what brought them down. What is clear from Robertson is that he believe the "robustness of the towers was exemplary", and that "the fact that the structures stood long enough for tens of thousands to escape is a tribute to the many talented men and women who spent endless hours toiling over the design and construction of the project." To clarify, he appears to be saying the performed better than expected, not worse.

So, the towers did survive the impact, but not the impact and raging fires.

The Empire State Building Survived a Crash with a B-25, why not the Twin Towers?

I think the primary cause behind this conspiracy theory is that people are confused (or are confusing others) between the B-25 which is a about the size of a small airplane versus the size of the B-52, the plane most people are familiar with, which is the size of a jet liner. The fact is, since the B-25 was so small, the damage was very minimal. Here is a graphical chart detailing the size, weight, fuel, and speed of the B-25, 707, and a 767. Click for a larger picture.

The size of a B-25 bomber is much smaller than a Boeing 767, with smaller wingspan and smaller fuel capacity. A B-25 bomber has a wingspan of 67 feet, compared with 156 feet for a Boeing 767. The fuel capacity of the B-25 bomber was 1,000 gallons, as compared with 24,000 gallons for a Boeing 767. As well, the speed at which a B-25 bomber traveled was far less than the ~500 mph than the speed that the two Boeing 767's were traveling when they hit the World Trade Center.

As I discussed earlier, the engineer of the Twin Towers stated that the buildings were only supposed to take an impact of a Boeing 707, lost in fog, and traveling at a relatively slow speed of 180 miles per hour. Some others say the buildings were not designed to take a hit at all, rather these calculations were done later, as a worst case scenario. Regardless, there was no chance of the buildings standing up to a plane nearly 11 and a half times the size of a B-25, full of jet fuel, hitting at around 500 miles per hour.

The Boeing 767 aircraft that hit the World Trade Center were significantly heavier, with fuel for transcontinental flights. American Airlines Flight 11 was traveling at 470 miles per hour when it crashed into the North Tower at 8:46 a.m. United Airlines Flight 175 was traveling at 590 miles per hour when it crashed into the South Tower[22].

The energy contained in an airplane or other moving object is proportional to the velocity.

Where m is the object's mass (in kg) and v is the object's speed (in m·s⁻¹).

Aircraft	Boeing 767 - North Tower	Boeing 767 - South Tower	Boeing 707
Calculation	(179,168 kg * 210.12)/2	(179,168 kg * 263.72)/2	(163,293 kg * 80.46722)/2
Energy	3,954,417,824	6,229,464,421	528,658,660

The engineers also did not consider how fires resulting from a crash would affect the buildings. It was a combination of the damage from the impact of the Boeing 767s, and the resulting fires that ultimately caused the steel columns to weaken to the point where they failed and the building collapsed.

Matthys Levy, an architect at Weidlinger Associates and the author of "Why Buildings Fall Down" (Norton, 1992), watched the first tower collapse while standing at Seventh Avenue and Houston Street, some 20 blocks away. "I saw the beginning of the top moving down, and the whole thing collapsed in a cloud of smoke," Mr. Levy said. "From what I saw, it seemed to come straight down." Mr. Levy said the situation was much different from the one that occurred in 1945 when a much smaller plane slammed into the Empire State Building. That plane, a bomber with a smaller impact and less fuel, ripped a 20-foot hole in the structure, but the building remained standing.[27]

But Anthony G. Cracchiolo, director of priority capital programs for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owned the buildings, said little thought had been given to the possibility of a plane crash into the towers. "We never were asked to consider trying to protect the building from such a threat," said Mr. Cracchiolo, who was among those who coordinated the reconstruction after the 1993 bombing. "As structural engineers, there is nothing we could have done to protect the building from a direct impact from a plane as large as these." Melvin Schweitzer, a member of the Port Authority board of commissioners from 1993 to 1999, said, however, that the board repeatedly inquired about that possibility. "We were just told that architects had explained that the building was designed to withstand a jet," Mr. Schweitzer said. "Frankly, when we raised that question, most of us were thinking of a small plane."[27]

Giuliani knew the towers were going... before it happened

The presumption here is that no one could have possibly have suggested the towers would collapse, unless he or she had advanced knowledge of a demolition. But why not? The "collapses were unprecedented", yes, but so were the initial impacts. There is absolutely no reason someone might have no have expressed their personal view that the tower would collapse. John Peruggia of the FDNY is reported to have heard warnings about the towers prior to the first collapse:

An engineer from the Department of Buildings reported that the structural damage appeared to be immense. The stability of both buildings was compromised. In particular, the engineer was worried about how long the north tower would stand[29].

Peruggia found this an "astounding possibility", this account tells us, but could not ignore it. He sent a messenger to tell Chief of Department Peter Ganci ("and Chief Ganci only") "that the building integrity is severely compromised and they believe the building is in danger of imminent collapse".

That messenger turns out to be Richard Zarillo, who takes up the story[30]:

As I was walking towards the Fire command post, I found Steve Mosiello. I said, Steve, where's the boss? I have to give him a message. He said, well, what's the message? I said the buildings are going to collapse; we need to evac everybody out. With a very confused look he said who told you that? I said I was just with John at OEM. OEM says the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get out.

He escorted me over to Chief Ganci. He said, hey, Pete, we got a message that the buildings are going to collapse. His reply was who the fuck told you that? Then Steve brought me in and with Chief Ganci, Commissioner Feehan, Steve, I believe Chief Turi was initially there, I said, listen, I was just at OEM. The message I was given was that the buildings are going to collapse; we need to get our people out. At that moment, this thunderous, rolling roar came down and that's when the building came down, the first tower came down.

So we have at least two reports from what would have been an authoritative source on the day, of the potential for collapse, and there's no reason to believe this might not have filtered through to Giuliani. There are also reports of others who shared this opinion, including a New York Linguistics professor, who said he'd thought this after witnessing the fires[31]:

My Thayer School engineering training came back, and I realized that with that intensity of heat in a building in which the steel girders were insulated with asbestos, it had to collapse within one hour. I called the fire department, police, etc. and told them the building was guaranteed to collapse.

Assistant Chief Joseph Callan of the FDNY also reported his concerns about conditions in the North Tower before it collapsed[32]:

Approximately 40 minutes after I arrived in the lobby, I made a decision that the building was no longer safe. And that was based on the conditions in the lobby, large pieces of plaster falling, all the 20 foot high glass panels on the exterior of the lobby were breaking. There was obvious movement of the building, and that was the reason on the handy talky I gave the order for all Fire Department units to leave the north tower.

It is far from inconceivable that someone might have suggested to Giuliani that the WTC might collapse, but there is another potential explanation for this claim that could be even simpler. Let's look at other accounts from those around Giuliani at the time[33].

I received a radio transmission from FDNY Captain Joe Folino, an OEM responder, who informed me that the Mayor had requested that I join him and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik at 75 Barclay Street, where they were establishing a temporary executive command center. I left the North Tower lobby and went to Barclay Street.

In addition to the Mayor and the Police Commissioner, several Deputy Mayors and Senior City Hall staff were at the command post. The Mayor was on the phone with the White House, and had been told the White House was being evacuated. Suddenly, the building began to shake, and someone yelled the towers were coming down. We could hear the roar of the building collapsing, and then there was silence and darkness.

FORMER COMMISSIONER OF THE NEW YORK CITY
OFFICE OF EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT
RICHARD J. SHEIRER

Here "someone yelled the towers were coming down" only just before (or even as) they collapsed. Could this be the warning Giuliani referred to? Let's try another version[34]:

From there Giuliani, needing phone lines, commandeered a Merrill Lynch back office at 75 Barclay Street. After 45 minutes someone yelled, "Get down! It's coming down!" The force of the collapse flattened the building across the street

And another[35]:

...Lhota says. "We got through to the governor's office and peppered them with questions: Is this terrorism? Are more planes on the way? Are the airports closed? Should we close the tunnels? The mayor also wanted to talk to the White House. As I handed him the phone, saying, 'Vice President Cheney is about to get on the line,' a police official ran in yelling, 'Get down! Everybody get down! It's coming down!'"

The collapses were indeed unprecedented, however it seems there were several possible warnings that Giuliani may have received, no mysterious phone calls required. This also explains a point that is often ignored, if Giuliani did receive earlier notification of the collapse from a reliable source concerned about his safety, then why was he still in the building? Why would such an evil, calculating person, risking the lives of tens of thousands of people, wait around to keep up the facade of a hero?

A Member of the Bush Family had links to the WTC and Airline Security

While it is true that Marvin Bush and Wirt Walker III both worked for a company called Securacom (later Stratesec), and that company did do some security work for the WTC, they were not "in charge of security". But even without researching this, you might wonder about such a claim. After all, the WTC had its own security head, John O'Neill, who took up the job on August 23rd, 2001 and died when the towers collapsed. And at least some of the security was provided by the Port Authority: David Lim, a Port Authority police officer, was stationed at the WTC with his bomb-sniffing dog Sirius. In fact Lim told the 9/11 Commission that the Port Authority police were responsible for the safety of those at the complex[38]:

Statement of David Lim to the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
March 31, 2003

I am a Police Officer in the employ of the Port Authority of NY & NJ. I have been such for the greater part of the last 23 years. On Sept. 11th, 2001, our Police Department suffered the greatest single day loss in Law Enforcement history @ the World Trade Center. 37 Officers from every rank (Superintendent to Police Officer) as well as my partner, explosive detector K-9 Sirius were killed in the attack. Many would ask what the PAPD was doing in the World Trade Center. A little known fact was that we were always there. Since the Port Authority owned the buildings, we (the Police) were responsible for the public safety therein...

It is fairly obvious that the security arrangements at the World Trade Center are not as simple as Mr. Griffin would have you believe. What is the real story about Securacom, though? For that we must go back in time to 1996[39]:

A terrorist bomb exploded underneath the World Trade Center on Feb. 26, 1993, ripping out a three-story high crater, shutting down most of the electrical power and causing $500 million in structural damage.

The bombing, the first international terrorist attack on U.S. soil, claimed the lives of six people, injured more than 1,000 and forever changed the level of security at the landmark complex.

"Because of the bombing, they were looking for something that had the security of a nuclear facility," said E-J President Tony Mann. "But it's also a commercial office building that needs to be responsive to its tenants. The system provides an operating office building with the highest level of security."

E-J Electric Installation Co., the country's oldest independent electrical contractor, won a $28 million contract in 1996 to tighten security at the World Trade Center. The Long Island City, N.Y.-based contractor installed 2 million feet of fiber-optic cable, hundreds of security cameras, access control and 110 turnstiles, including systems integration. The parking garage also became restricted after a terrorist drove a van, containing a bomb, into the underground parking garage in 1993.

The Port Authority naturally wanted to improve World Trade Center security after the 1993 bombing. Though it took a while they finally began to spend money in 1996, and E J Electric were the major contractor. Securacom, got a share as well, but not for very long[40]:

Securacom got the $8.3 million World Trade Center security contract in October 1996 and received about $9.2 million from the WTC job from 1996 (a quarter of its revenues that year) to 1998. But in 1998, the company was "excused from the project" because it could not fulfill the work, according to former manager Al Weinstein, and the electronic security work at the WTC was taken over by EJ Electric, a larger contractor.

If this is correct, then Securacom's interest in the World Trade Center ended in 1998, which you might have expected Mr. Griffin to tell you. But is that true? There is one article that suggests otherwise[41]:

According to its present CEO, Barry McDaniel, the company had an ongoing contract to handle security at the World Trade Center "up to the day the buildings fell down."...

Barry McDaniel, CEO of the company since January 2002, declines on security grounds to give specific details about work the company did at the World Trade Center. According to McDaniel, the contract was ongoing (a "completion contract"), and "not quite completed when the Center went down." The company designed a system, but -- as he points out -- obviously that "didn't have anything to do with planes flying into buildings."..

The first line of the quote talks about "handling security" and the second about "designing a system". The "not quite completed" suggests they were working on a particular project, rather than "running security".

Incidentally, the "up to the day the buildings fell down" line is sometimes used as a basis for saying that "the contract ran out on September 11th", but I think that's a real stretch. Having major contracts end on a Tuesday in the middle of the month sounds odd to me, and it seems much more likely that McDaniel meant the contract was active at the time, and only ceased because the towers collapsed. In the same way that a doctor saying "I treated him from the day he was born up to the day he died" doesn't necessarily mean the patient in question was about to be transferred somewhere else.

We can speculate about this completion contract, but that's never going to provide any solid leads. A better approach might be to look at the SEC filings for Securacom, and see what they tell us about the company's revenue and clients.

Here's what the annual report for 1997 tells us[42]:

Revenues increased by 108.6% from $5.8 million in 1996 to $12.1 million in 1997. The increase was due to work completed for new clients and an increase in work completed on existing projects. Revenues from the World Trade Center project, which commenced in October 1996, increased from $1.6 million in 1996 to $6.6 million in 1997.

And 1998[43]:

Revenues decreased by 45% from $12.1 million in 1997 to $6.6 million in 1998. The decrease was due to the closeout of the World Trade Center Project.

Just as mentioned earlier, the company left the WTC project in 1998, and no more revenues from that time can be found, suggesting that McDaniel's contract was comparatively recent. It could still be argued that the company were involved in some very sensitive areas, however, even if they only spent two or three years at the WTC[44]: 

Stratesec installed the initial security-description plan—the layout of the electronic security system—at the World Trade Center.

The contractors for the permanent security system are E.J. Electric and Electronic Systems Associates, both of New York. Securacom, Woodcliff Lakes, N.J., is responsible for system integration.

Access Control & Security Systems Integration
July 1997
SECTION: Editor's Letter; ISSN: 1084-6425
LENGTH: 3516 words
HEADLINE: World Trade Center
BYLINE: By CAROL CAREY

If there was still some contact with the WTC through McDaniel's "completion contract", however minor, then maybe it's significant that Marvin Bush worked there? Possibly not, as he left his directors job in the fiscal year 2000[45][46].

Marvin Bush was reelected annually to Securacom's board of directors from 1993 through 1999. His final reelection was on May 25, 1999, for July 1999 to June 2000. Throughout, he also served on the company's Audit Committee and Compensation Committee, and his stock holdings grew during the period. Directors had options to purchase 25,000 shares of stock annually. In 1996, Bush acquired 53,000 shares at 52 cents per share. Shares in the 1997 IPO sold at $8.50. Records since 2000 no longer list Bush as a shareholder.

As you can see, Bush had little interest in the World Trade Center by this point. Others point the finger to Wirt D Walker, President of the company through this time, and say he was related to Bush as well. These claims are sometimes made in a very definitive way[47]:

The chairman of the board of Stratesec is Wirt D. Walker III, a cousin of Marvin and George W. Bush.

However, they all appeared to be sourced from a single Margie Burns article[48]: 

Stratesec and Aviation General shared top executives, including Wirt D. Walker III, a distant relative "in the Walker branch of the Bush family," according to a former colleague...

Here he's a "distant relative", not a cousin, and even this is only an unsourced comment from a "former colleague". I can find no supporting references for any Bush - Wirt D Walker III family relationship outside of this story, and looking at the Bush family tree reveals no obvious links. What's more, even Margie Burns now appears to downplay the link[49]: 

A former colleague of the head of the company, Wirt Dexter Walker III, suggested to me that Walker is a distant relative of the Bush family. While any blood relationship to the Bush Walkers would have to be remote (the first Wirt D. Walker, two generations ago, was based in Chicago; the second in McLean, Virginia, in the DIA), there is no doubt that the company, Kuwait's Al Sabahs, and Bush financial interests were closely linked for years. Management and control at Wirt Walker's other companies, a small airplane company named Commander Aircraft (also bankrupt) and a private investment firm named KuwAm (short for Kuwait-American Corporation), were inextricably linked to management and control at Securacom.

We have gone from he "is a cousin", to being a "distant relative", to it just being "suggested" that he is a distant relative, and there is still not the slightest verifiable evidence to support any of that. Until someone can get in touch with Walker to get a comment, or some definitive evidence appears, we might as well view this as "not proven".

What is the story, then? There is no evidence that Stratesec/Securacom "ran" or "were in charge of" security at the WTC. They were just a contractor, who did have a major role once, but were replaced by another company in 1998. The only evidence of further contact after that time is a couple of quotes from Barry McDaniel in one article, where he seems to be talking about designing a system that wasn't yet finished, and nothing as major as managing the security of the complex.

Even if McDaniel's contract was significant, there's no obvious connection to Marvin Bush, as he left the company in June 2000. No-one has yet presented any proof to support the assertion that Wirt Walker is Bush's cousin, either. And before we get too deep into family trees, how does being related to Bush act in any way as evidence of your willingness to conspire to commit mass murder, anyway?

Once again, an apparently significant point becomes much weaker once you look at the details. And in no way can this be regarded as even beginning to provide an explanation for how the WTC could have been prepared for demolition.

Bomb Sniffing Dogs Removed

The conspiracy theorists seem to be suggesting that the World Trade Center was running at below normal security levels just before the attacks, but I cannot find direct proof of this. There is, however, a story from newsday.com that is the probable basis for this theory[87]:

The World Trade Center was destroyed just days after a heightened security alert was lifted at the landmark 110-story towers, security personnel said yesterday.

Daria Coard, 37, a guard at Tower One, said the security detail had been working 12-hour shifts for the past two weeks because of numerous phone threats. But on Thursday, bomb-sniffing dogs were abruptly removed.

"Today was the first day there was not the extra security," Coard said. "We were protecting below. We had the ground covered. We didn't figure they would do it with planes. There is no way anyone could have stopped that."

Note that the story talks about a "heightened security alert" being lifted, and "extra security" being taken away. So the security was not weakened at all, instead they were normal as usual after being heightened for whatever reason. Regardless, the assumption is completely incorrect, the bomb-sniffing dogs were in fact at their posts that entire time and even on September 11th[88].

Police K9 Sirius... ...was an Explosive Detection Dog with the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Police Department. Sirius, along with his partner, Police Officer David Lim, were assigned to the World Trade Center in New York, where their primary duty was to check vehicles entering the Complex, clear unattended bags and sweep areas for VIP safety... On the morning of September 11, 2001, Sirius and Officer Lim were at their Station located in the basement of Tower Two...

As you can see, this theory holds no water. If the security was higher than usual, but is reduced back to usual, that does not mean that security was "weakened", and as per the dogs, clearly at least one was there, more were probably on different shifts.

It Looked Like a Controlled Demolition

I have already discussed in various sections above that a fire did, in fact, bring down the Twin Towers, but there are some subsections and some sub-theories that should be addressed here, namely pre-planted explosives and the whole controlled demolition debacle.

Pancaking is Wrong

The pancake theory is not necessarily incorrect, but how it is presented is. The NIST said that heat from the fires sagged the trusses, which bowed the columns inward, causing the building to collapse. After it began to collapse the inevitable pancaking ensued due to the tremendous force from above. The force from above and the pancaking itself took the rest of the building down with it[51]. Regardless, pancake style collapses are not as rare as the conspiracy theorists would have you believe, a prime example is the L'Ambiance Plaza, which collapsed in 1987, before it was even completed[52]. 

Two other incidents happened, also during construction, in 1985 and 1973, where pancaking floors collapsed both buildings[53]. There is also the Lian Yak building in March 1986[54]. Civic Center of Pavia in 1989, Cathedral in Goch, Germany; Campanile in Venice, Italy in 1902[55]. Ronan Point flats, where a gas explosion on the 18th floor blew out the perimeter structural panels, resulting in the floors collapsing on top of one another[56].

As you can see, pancaking is hardly a rare occurrence only happening in terrorist attacks.

Suspicious Power-outage

Some conspiracy theorists claim that this provided an opportunity for explosives to be planted. However, there are some problems with this account. Firstly it is only sourced by a single person, Scott Forbes, and corroboration is not there. In an interview, he said[58]:

Only a single person? Where is this backup? The World Trade Center held the offices of many large, important companies, and to have their central computers turned off would have been extremely inconvenient. Thousands of people would have known about this, from local employees to staff in other parts of the company, so where are they? Actually there may be a clue as to this in another Forbes interview[59]:

Forbes does not appear to have any direct knowledge of conditions on floors below his own or even above it seems. If only one or two companies were affected, then this would make sense as to why one would not heard about it, however it brings up more issues and really comes together when you consider these tickets[60]:

Forbes says that the "power down condition was in effect approximately 12 noon on Saturday September 8, 2001...", yet it appears from the ticket that it was still business as usually for visitors heading to the top of the tower. These tickets are not fatal to Forbes's story, as he already has admitted he can only confirm the power-down condition on his floors. However, they do suggest that the original claim, "there was no electrical supply for approx 36 hours from floor 50 up", is completely false.

If only his floor was affected, it would not be much of an opportunity to add explosives the the other 109 floors of the building, if that was indeed the time to do it. Regardless, 50 floors without power for 36 hours is something you would probably hear about on the news, or at least from the web sites or employees there, considering First Commercial Bank (78), Fuji Bank (79-82), Fiduciary Trust, Atlantic Bank of New York, and others were above floor 50.

I also have a hard time believing that this could be a good time, considering most security systems have backup power, so it would make more sense to disable the security system, not cut the main power to the building. Even so, there is no mention of the North Tower or Seven World Trade power outages. The power down time was reported by Forbes as 36 hours, and later he stated it was 26 hours[61]:

In reality, preparing for a controlled demolition takes very much longer than 26 or 36 hours[62].

That is 24 days to prepare a smaller building (33 stories including basements) for demolition. Not to mention they did not have to hide the 4,118 charges or the 36,000 feet of detonation cord, either. I am also curious as to how they could have secured the charges and cables so that they would not fall off or explode when the planes hit later on.

Even so, we are told by the conspiracy theorists that it is suspicious that "all the concrete was pulverized". I find it hard to believe a "relatively small amount of explosives" can explain how concrete was pulverized. Then we are told that the towers collapsed "too quickly," that the only way that could have happened is if the resistance were removed. This might involve using explosives to blow them out of the way.

There seems to be a large fallacy in these arguments.

Conspiracy theorists claim that the condition, timing, pulverized concrete, and so forth of the collapse of the towers shows a controlled demolition, however if one points out to them that it would be difficult to hide all of the explosives required, they claim only a small amount were used. A small amount cannot bring down one of the world's largest buildings, much less pulverize all of the concrete to dust.

Accounts of Explosions Prove Demolition

Conspiracy theorists frequently take comments made by people and firefighters out of context. When someone describe something as an "exposition" or "sounded like a bomb", does not mean that what it was. For example, an exploding spray paint can sounds like a bomb to some and a shotgun to others, but that does not make the can a bomb or a gun.

When a controlled demolition takes place, the charges are extremely loud and follow each other. In this video[youtube.com] you can watch the Tencza Apartments, a 12 story building, being demolished professionally. The charges go off for 10 seconds before the building starts to collapse. This was not heard or described by anyone on 9/11, nor during the collapse of Seven World Trade. It is not in any videos or heard by any witnesses.

The logistics of such an undertaking, as demolishing the Twin Towers is something that conspiracy theorists have yet to explain. Demolition is done from the bottom of buildings, not the top, in order to take advantage of gravity, and there is little dispute that the collapse of the towers began at the top, where the airplanes struck.

A demolition project on such a scale would have required the tower walls to be opened on dozens of floors, followed by the insertion of thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses, and ignition mechanisms, all sneaked past the security stations, inside hundreds of feet of walls, on all four sides of the building. Then the walls would have to be closed up.

This all taking place without attracting the notice of any of the thousands of tenants and workers in either building, no witnesses have ever reported such activity. Then on the morning of September 11th, the demolition explosives would have had to withstand the impact of the airplanes, since the collapse did not begin for 57 minuets in one tower and 102 in the other.

As I stated earlier, conspiracy theorists claim that the condition, timing, pulverized concrete, and so forth of the collapse of the towers shows a controlled demolition, however if one points out to them that it would be difficult to hide all of the explosives required, they claim only a small amount were used. A small amount cannot bring down one of the world's largest buildings, much less pulverize all of the concrete to dust.

Pulverized Concrete

FEMA did not tell us how the figure above is calculated or what it does or does not includes. That is, the word "construction" suggests they are talking about the building structure and not including all of the office contents, desks, etc. Therefore, there really is no way that we can tell whether this key figure is accurate or not, and there are widely differing figures: an ACSE article reports[65]:

For example, the construction of WTC 1 resulted in the storage of more than 3 x 10^12 J of potential energy over the 1,360 ft height of the structure.

That is around 7 1/2 times the figure that FEMA provides in their report, and in a strangely nearly identical sentence. I would venture to say the official FEMA figure is correct, but as neither FEMA or ACSE show any calculations, nobody can be for sure. It does seem illogical and ignorant to take either figure as a meaningful maximum. Regardless, whatever the energy in the building, there were other sources of energy released as heat, such as the exploding airplanes, burning jet fuel, and so forth.

The conspiracy theorist asserts that most of the dust was concrete, but another source says otherwise[66]:

Microscopic analysis of WTC dust by Nicholas Petraco, BS, MS, DABC, FAAFS, FNYMS at The New York Microscopic Society lecture held at AMNH 28 May 2003

45.1% Fiberglass, rock wool (insulation, fireproofing)
31.8% Plaster (gypsum), concrete products (calcium sulfate, selenite, muscodite)
7.1% Charred wood and debris
2.1% Paper fibers
2.1% Mica flakes
2.0% Ceiling tiles (fiberglass component)
2.0% Synthetic fibers
1.4% Glass fragments
1.3% Human remains
1.4% Natural fibers
trace asbestos (it became illegal to use during the construction of the WTC)

Other trace elements: aluminum, paint pigments, blood, hair, glass wool with resin, and prescription drugs were found.

It is claimed that most of the concrete was reduced to tiny 10-60 micron particles, but there is no clear explanation as to where this figure was taken. Even so, there is some disagreement on this issue. While Dr. Steven Jones has described concrete being pulverized to "flour-like powder":

Jones' January 2007 "Hard Evidence" article suggests otherwise[69]:

As we examined the WTC-debris sample, we found large chunks of concrete (irregular in shape and size, one was approximately 5cm X 3 cm X 3cm) as well as medium-sized pieces of wall-board (with the binding paper still attached). Thus, the pulverization was in fact NOT to fine dust, and it is a false premise to start with near-complete pulverization to fine powder (as might be expected from a mini-nuke or a "star-wars" beam destroying the Towers). Indeed, much of the mass of the MacKinlay sample was clearly in substantial pieces of concrete and wall-board rather than in fine-dust form.

[...]

It seems that the 9/11 truth community likewise "has been slow to understand" that the WTC dust particles in greatest abundance are the "supercoarse" variety rather than "fine" particles, and that significant chunks of concrete were also found in the WTC rubble.

The conspiracy theorist's calculations on pulverizing then heating the dust miss one major point, and although he assumes the dust cloud expansion is heat-driven, there may have been other contributing factors, such as when velocity of the debris hitting the ground during collapse was 120 mph. Perhaps more interesting, what is going to happen when the chunks of concrete hit the ground? They will shatter, creating dust, shooting outwards. This also leaves out all the air inside the buildings being pressed out tremendously fast.[70].

If we assume for a second that the conspiracy theorist is correct, and his article reads 4 x 10^11 joules was the amount under a gravitational collapse, and according to him it is less than one 10th of the energy required. Following this, we need to multiply this figure by at least 9, giving us 36 x 10^11 joules of energy required from some other source, and keep in mind he is being conservative, so this is his absolute minimum.

Now, if we were to put this much energy into explosives, how much would someone need to create this much energy? A metric ton of TNT has 4.184 x 10^9 joules[71]. This is a lot of explosives, but not as much as we need to create the 36 x 10^11 joules. This suggests we would need 860,420kg of TNT to produce the collapse of the Twin Towers and the observed results. Incase you were wondering, that amount is 40.9 times that of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima[72]. Need I say more?

Mike Pecoraro

Just like the "Accounts of Explosions Prove Demolition", because someone says it sounds like an explosion, does not automatically mean that they are talking about a bomb. Mike Pecoraro is probably the most often quoted, saying[73]:

Being in the 6th sub-basement level, it is extremely likely he could not see an airplane crashing into the building, and the only thing he could conceive of or compare the situation to was the 1993 bombing. He also said he smelled kerosene, which is what jet fuel is made of. As explained earlier, jet fuel almost certainly poured down the utility shafts and caused explosions and fires on lower levels of the World Trade Center[73].

30 Foot Lengths of Steel

Interesting claim that never has any references or sources to back it up. Who measured each column after it collapsed? Are we sure that this applies to all the columns? Where is any evidence at all?

The picture to the left, which you can make larger by clicking on it, does not seem to show a great deal of consistency as far as length goes. There are small ones, large ones, and most seem fairly broken. Other places seem to have spots where large sections have fallen over after riding the rest of the debris down to the bottom.

For the sake of proper research and investigation, let's pursue the conspiracy theorists' hypothesis that there were more 30 foot sections after the collapse than any other length. If that is the case, why in the world would that happen? Perhaps we can look to the construction of the peripheral columns, as described in FEMA's report[74]:

The structural steel used in the exterior 14-inch by 14-inch columns that were spaced at 3 feet 4 inches on center around the entire periphery of each of the WTC towers was fabricated from various grades of high-strength steel [...] The cross-sectional shape of the columns can be seen in Figure B-1. These varied in length from 12 feet 6 inches to 38 feet, depending on the plate thickness and location.

So the columns were a maximum of 38 feet long in the first place. If they were to break at the point where one column met another, naturally they would have had a strong probability of being around 30 feet long. This does not require demolition to explain.

The Towers Collapsed at Free Fall Speeds

First let's establish how fast they actually did collapse. There are a lot of sources and most have different times (in seconds): ~8 and 10[75], 8.4 to 12[76], <= 10 [77][78], 10[79], 10 to <14 seconds[80], 14 to 16[81], and 15[82][83][84].

Most times listed are above "free fall speed", but that can easily be explained[85]:

The buildings are 70 percent just air in volume and all of the columns are not solid steel, they are steel boxes in which the thickness of the steel varies from 1/4 inch (at the top) to 1 1/2 inches (at the bottom). But they were properly designed to carry the weight of the steel itself, the weight of the partitions, the occupants, the furnishings... those are all things that the structure can withstand very well, but they are not designed to accommodate the failure of a 20 floor section in a dynamic impact on the structure below. If it's moving down in a dynamic fashion, the magnitude of the energy unleashed is so large that no structure can withstand that kind of force that is applied, and the building came down in essentially free fall.

Once the collapse initiated on the one floor, the kinetic energy of the top part of the tower impacting on the floor beneath was 8.4 times larger than the plastic energy absorption capability. At that point, the subsequent progressive collapse was inevitable. The amount of resistance or absorption capability that each floor beneath could provide was minuscule in comparison to the amount of kinetic energy from the above structure collapsing. This explains why the collapse happened as quick as it did -- not free fall speed, but perhaps twice the amount of time than free fall[86].

Explosive Force

The photo on the left, which you can click to make larger, shows what is claimed to be steel columns cut into pieces on the far right. The main problem with this claim is that one cannot tell where the debris came from. The bars on the right do not appear to have been ejected horizontally from the tower, because it still looks intact. Therefore, they probably came from above, but from where exactly? It matters if one is trying to determine the force required, and whether it exceeds that available from the downward momentum of the collapse.

However another issue must be raised. The Twin Towers had an extremely light aluminum face on them, and it is almost certain that is what is in the far right of the debris, at least it seems so when one looks at other shots before the collapse; you can see this in the picture to the right, you can click it for a larger size. In this photograph you can see strips of the face hanging loose, and it looks like they are about a floor high. It is not difficult to deduct by the size, this are the debris in question in the first photo. Of course, however, it is natural that during the collapse some steel might get propelled outward, this reason was explained in Pulverized Concrete section.

Puffs of Dust Show that Bombs were Detonated

As explained in the Pulverized Concrete and Pancaking sections, once each floor began to collapse, the weight of all the floors above the collapsed area bore down with a massive force. Unable to absorb the massive energy, that floor would fail, again transmitting the force to the next floor below, thus causing a chain reaction, which does not require an explosion to begin.

Like any building the Twin Towers were full of air, and a lot of it, thus when the floors began collapsing the air was ejected below with a tremendous amount of energy, thus shooting out concrete, dust, and everything else it could. It may look like bombs going off, but that is hardly the situation.

Thermite and Metal Theories

The claim that fires had to be hot enough to melt steel to cause the collapse is completely false. Jet fuel burns at 800F to 1500F[89], which is not hot enough to melt it, but it is hot enough to weaken it. Like all metals, steel is not 100% intact or 100% melted depending on the environment. Steel loses about 50% of its strength at 1100F, well within the range of jet fuel and massive amounts of office debris[90].

While fires caused by jet fuel do not melt steel, this does not mean they do not melt other things, such as Copper, Aluminum, Tin, Zinc, and others, all melting within the range of jet fuel fires[91]. This obviously does not include other melted objects in the buildings that were not exactly metals. We will examine claims of thermite below.

Professor Jones Examination

The Professor claims that he performed tests on "WTC dust samples" and "previously molten-metal samples" and reports that he found chemicals that are associated with thermite, and suggests that thermite was deliberately placed in the Twin Towers and Seven World Trade[92].

The last line of the text really makes me call the whole thing into question. How can anyone be sure that Professor Jones' delivery man is accurately representing the origin of the samples? I am not implying it is a hoax -- though it could be -- but rather an error, thus making the entire basis of the study incorrect. That is not the only problem, however. The comment that the metal samples came from a monument constructed "primarily" from WTC steel. Did some of it come from elsewhere? A quick search online revealed this[94]:

Air Force ROTC cadets in the 536 Detachment salute World Trade Center beams as the National Anthem is played on Sept. 11, 2006, during a memorial ceremony at Clarkson University in Potsdam, N.Y. Clarkson alumnus Michael Bielawa, who supervised cleanup efforts at ground zero, donated three pieces of structural steel to the school, two of which were identified as part of the 55th floor of the south tower.

Two were identified as pieces of the 55th floor, but the third is of unknown origin. However if Jones' delivery man is correct, then this steel could have originated from the towers. Establishing their origin is just the start, however, the next point is to consider how they may have been treated since September 11th and whether anything may have affected the results.

Treatment such as whether the metal was cut during the cleanup process or otherwise treated in a way that could cause contamination? How was the metal stored afterwards? Regarding the dust sample, how sure can we be that it reflects the dust from September 11th and the days afterwards? How sure can we be that it was not contaminated in some way?

At ground zero during cleanup, the individuals doing cleanup were using primarily oxy-acetylene torches, but no thermite what so ever, considering thermite ejects globs of molten white and orange-hot iron, and would be very dangerous.[95] So it would be safe to assume that contamination could not happen during cleanup.

So, let's assume for a second that the Professor's claims are true and the samples are pure, and look at what direction that takes us. Professor Jones estimates the total amount of explosives required to bring down the WTC here[96]:

1,000 pounds of explosives is a convenient figure if one is hoping to prove how easy it would be to plant the explosives, but it does pose a problem when it comes to detecting traces later. The Professor suggests that sulfur is typically only 2% of thermite by weight -- but more can be added he says --, which is 20 pounds of sulfur per tower. Let's say that 60 pounds was used for One, Two, and Seven World Trade, and take into account that around 1 million tons of dust enveloped lower Manhattan[97]. That seems like a lot, but even if we divide by 10 to be super conservative it will still swamp any thermite residue.

Could there have been other sources of these chemicals? The Professor makes a finding of "uncommon chemical elements in abundance" a very big deal, however this really is not a surprise. The destruction of more than 250 floors, perhaps 20 million square feet of office space, and following fires burning for months might surely be expected to produce many different chemicals. In fact, that is exactly what it did[98]:

The total element compositions of the dust samples reflect the chemical makeup of materials such as: glass fibers (containing silicon, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, sodium, and other elements); gypsum (containing calcium and sulfate); concrete and aggregate (containing calcium and aluminum hydroxides, and a variety of silicate minerals containing silicon, calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium); particles rich in iron, aluminum, titanium, and other metals that might be used in building construction; and particles of other components, such as computers, etc. Organic carbon in the dusts is most likely from paper, wallboard binder, and other organic materials.

The trace metal compositions of the dust and girder coatings likely reflect contributions of material from a wide variety of sources. Possibilities include metals that might be found as pigments in paints (such as titanium, molybdenum, lead, and iron), or metals that occur as traces in, or as major components of, wallboard, concrete, aggregate, copper piping, electrical wiring, and computer equipment. Further detailed SEM studies of dust and beam coating samples are needed to develop a better understanding of the residences of metals in the samples. A detailed review of the materials used in construction, and the elemental composition of materials commonly found in office buildings would also be useful to understand more completely the potential sources and compositions of the materials in the dusts.

Another survey finds similar results[99]:

The levels of many of the elements are consistent with their presence in building materials, including chromium, magnesium, manganese, aluminum, and barium. The very high levels of titanium (> 0.1%) were due to their presence in paint, especially white paint. The lead levels are elevated due to the use of lead-based paint on metallic surfaces during construction of the building. The detected lead dust concentrations were lower than would be found outdoors in older cities affected by tailpipe emissions from leaded gasoline...

So uncommon chemicals at the site are not as unusual as the Professor would have one believe. In fact the Professor did not even find thermite, rather he found other chemicals which are sometimes associated with thermite, and therefore in conjunction wit the evidence above, it is hardly sufficient to claim that thermite was used with the samples gathered -- that is even if we were sure they were pure samples that were properly gathered from the World Trade Center and were in no way contaminated afterwards. It is interesting to note that other dust surveys found the same chemical traces as the Professor, but no one else has been surprised by the results. This is not proof of thermite, just assumptions and avoidance of alternative and more logical explanations for the presence of these elements. 

D.P. Grimmer Theory

While Grimmer's article is commonly used to show that thermite could have been used to bring down the Twin Towers and Seven World Trade, he makes several comments showing he does not have all of the correct details.

Too bad Grimmer's theory is essentially broken by the time he says "Measured times are all around 10 seconds", because as we discussed in the "The Towers Collapsed at Free Fall Speeds", video, seismic, audio, and other evidence typically says it was closer to 15 seconds, or sometimes even so long as 17 seconds.

Even though Grimmer could be proven wrong by this point, we should go ahead and test his numbers, just to be sure[100]:

He states 762.5kg needs to be used for only one of the lesser columns. That really is a problem, considering for 4 large columns and 6 average size columns gives us 10674.6kg (or 24,484.12 pounds) of thermite required. As we have discussed previously, such massive amounts of thermite would have been a large undertaking, making it hard to believe nobody would have noticed anything. However, he has some suggestions as to how it could have been done[100]:

There are several issues that Grimmer fails to address. Firstly he sets a single value for the heat required to melt a column, however[101]:

The values of C [specific heat] do depend on temperature with those of common metals such as aluminum and brass increasing a few percent as the temperature increases from 20°C to 100°C, for example, while that for iron or steel increases about 10% over the same range.

The specific heat increased with temperature, which means Grimmer requires more energy (and therefore even more thermite) than he is suggesting. However, a second issue exists as well. He seems to believe that the energy released by the thermite reaction will be used to heat the column, however this seems unlikely, especially if it's coated around the outside of these columns. Even if the thermite has an insulating layer over the top of it, that insulation is going to absorb some of the heat, then probably be destroyed by it. After that destruction, what will stop the heat from radiating out away from the column? Grimmer does not account for any of this, so one would require even more thermite.

Thirdly, there is no discussion by Grimmer as to what will happen to the heat that does reach the steel column. Specifically, heat will be conducted away to other parts of the building. Steel is not a great conductor of heat, but this will happen to some degree, however Grimmer does not account for it at all. This, as well as the above, means even more thermite must be added to cope with this.

Fourthly (this list is getting long), in order for thermite to be coated to the columns, it must be sticky like honey. I'm curious to how this would happen. If some other substance is added to the mix, then it may reduce the efficiency of the thermite reaction, again meaning you would need much more, even assuming the thermite did not burn this sticky stuff away instantly than fall with gravity.

Fifthly, he does not discuss how long it would take for the thermite to burn, and whether that amount of time will be long enough to melt steel. One cannot address these issues without using more thermite with each amount problem. Grimmer has this to say about the volume available for keeping thermite inside the largest sized box columns:

Grimmer is essentially pointing out that his estimated volume required is already near the maximum available space to store it. If it would actually take 21% more thermite than Grimmer's estimate then it would no longer fit inside the largest box columns. The number 21% comes from that is about how much space is left, because the average sized columns could hold "2.76 times to do the job", however if we took out only those then we'd presumably need to melt more columns anyway.

Thermite coating is not a good idea and would not help someone trying to commit a conspiracy. You could add the same volume again, but as I pointed out above, most of the energy would not even go into the column. The larger the coating of thermite, the bigger its surface area will be, and the more it will radiate head away. 

Grimmer fails to include many addition factors into his calculations, leaving a large hole in his theory. In all, to make up for the loss of heat, having insulating materials will not help, considering it will be burned away, and whatever the sticky material is holding it to structure will be burned away rather quickly as well.

Grimmer's theory holds as much water as the Twin Towers held thermite. None.

Column Damage

The picture to the left, which you can make larger by clicking it, shows what conspiracy theorists claim is proof of thermite usage. It seems to them that the angular cut shows what is left behind by a thermite reaction. The photo is often claimed to be proof of several things. Firstly that the picture was taken during the rescue operation because it has firemen, because according to them firemen would not be there after the rescue operations. This, according to them, says that because this was the rescue operation, these columns had to be cut on September 11th, and the way it looks must have been caused by a thermite reaction.

Firemen Need Not Look Here

There are several problems with this theory, the first being that it seems as though the conspiracy theorists believe firefighters to be inhuman, as if they had no desire to stick around after they attempted to rescue people. The fact is they did stick around, and could be seen at the site months after the rescue operation had ended. I, unlike the conspiracy theorists, understand that one would want to look for the bodies of your fallen comrades, not just go home and sulk[103]:

October:

December:

The fact that firemen were on the scene does not mean the picture was taken during the rescue operation, that original photograph could have been taken any time from the rescue well into the cleanup.

Angle and Yellow Residue

Conspiracy theorists use the original photo at the top of this section to show that perhaps the columns were cut at an angle so the building fell in a certain direction, like trees are often cut. It seems horribly more likely that this was done during cleanup, so the columns would fall away from the people doing the work. Actually, that is exactly what happened, here is a photograph of a person cleaning up the debris, with yellow residue and yellow-like smoke, and a close up of an angular cut. This photograph is from the same location the conspiracy theorists got their photograph:

In this picture you can see a close-up of the cut being performed by the man on the left photograph, including the yellow smoke and residue.

This is from the photograph the conspiracy theorists allege is proof of thermite or something else suspicious. It looks the same thing being done in the photograph on the left.

 Thermite is a powder that undergoes a violent chemical reaction, and it does not leave nice cuts, it creates molten metal blobs. You can search the Internet for video and photographs of thermite on cars and other things to see for comparison.

Dust Clouds

Conspiracy theorists claim that to dust clouds prove thermite was being used. Typically they show pictures or videos of thermite usage in a controlled location, next to similar footage of smoke and dust at the World Trade Center. I would venture to say that the dust had more to do with the 11.2 million square feet of concrete that had just fallen[102]. Plenty of falling buildings create dust clouds, just as a man falling on the ground can sometimes blow up dust, that does not mean every falling building or falling man is thus covered in thermite. Regardless, we discussed tests done on the dust above in the Professor Jones Examination section, essentially nothing surprising was found that would indicate thermite was being used.

General Conclusion

So what does all this information mean? Well, it means that the planes, the fuel powered fires, and the designs of the buildings brought down the buildings, not some massive conspiracy and cover-up. While this does article only disproves conspiracy theories related to the Twin Towers, I recommend reading the other articles related to the September 11th attacks.