Many people are commenting on Morgan Reynolds's comments that the WTC collapse was controlled demolition and not the planes flying into the towers. Let's take a look at some facts...
Many people are commenting on Morgan Reynolds's comments that the WTC collapse was controlled demolition and not the planes flying into the towers. Let's take a look at some facts...…
Article comments
— go to most recent comments76 - Dave Nalle
LOL, prisonplanet.com is an Alex Jones website. He's the king of insane and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories. Check out his main site at infowars.com for some real, broadband lunacy.
Dave
77 - Karl Jackson
>>>"He's the king of insane and unsubstantiated conspiracy theories."
So shoot the messenger.
He actually does an excellent job of substantiating what he says. As opposed to... I dunno, pigeonholing valid questions and issues as "conspiracy theory" to avoid having to look at or answer them?
Seriously, there more than enough valid issues and questions to justify, no, necessitate a hard investigation into the events of that day, and by a truly independant group of engineers, pilots and criminal investigators. Not a whitewash comission led by an oilman.
78 - Chance Artanis
I'm very interested by what i've read here. However, it seems as though the ardent defenders of the accepted story of 9/11 have, instead of arguing logical points and deductions, turned to wild accusations of "conspiracy theories" and other slander. What have you to say in defense of the accepted theory? Or to disprove this "conspiracy" theory? I would like to hear it. Thanks.
79 - Jeremy
You guys are ALL a bunch of deranged lunatics. I'm sure I'm going to get shouted down for this but did anyone actually look into the how and why the towers were designed the way they were? No? Didn't think so. Here's a lesson.
1. The towers were built to withstand the direct hit of a Boeing 747 with moderate fuel. The planes that crashed were 757's with full fuel supplies.
2. The external structure was built as a ridgid steel frame with an internal core. This frame would withstand the heat and force of the 757 plane attack.
3. The individual floors were "floating" floors that were anchored to the ridgid steel frame of the towers. These could withstand the force of a 747 but not anything larger. They designed the entire capacital structure around a plane hit by a 747.
4. Why a floating floor? something of that size is bound to be effected by swaying in the wind. If you've ever been to the top you understand this. Solid floors would have cracked and need to be replaced.
5. since we have a heat over the structural capacity contained within a ridgid steel frame the heat does not dissipate but insensify, causing the first floor to completely combust and make things even hotter on the inside, as well as destroying the supports.
6. The Collapse of the floating supports creates an added friction to the next floor down and the overall mass causes the supports of the already heated next floor to collapse as well.
7. This whole time the external structure has been building heat and close to the heat required for a class delta (Metal) fire, aka molten, flaming metal. Since the external supports are long beams running the length of the building they are already heating the lower and upper floors and weakening the floating supports for them as well.
8. The dominoe effect happens due to the reason stated above. The internal floors collapse, one by one. This increased heat finally reaches the heat required to turn the external structure into a class delta fire. The external structure begins to melt and combust.
9. Since the internal floors are already falling in an enclosed space it creates a vacuume for the newly liquifying external metal. It is the path of least resistance. The building collapses in on itself from top to bottom.
Does this help with explaining why the building went straight down? The internal class alpha fire sucked the external class delta fire into itself.
If you completely disagree with me I understand. There are those that just refuse to believe the truth because it is just too devastating...to your theories that Bush is evil.
Have a nice day guys!
80 - Karl Jackson
>>>"1. The towers were built to withstand the direct hit of a Boeing 747 with moderate fuel. The planes that crashed were 757's with full fuel supplies."
I only got that far.
They were built to withstand the crash of a 707 (the largest passenger jet of the day). The planes that crashed into the towers were both 767s, which are hardly "jumbo jets".
>>>"3. The individual floors were "floating" floors that were anchored to the ridgid steel frame of the towers. These could withstand the force of a 747 but not anything larger."
Larger? Like what? A 767 is much smaller than a 747. It's actually closer to a 707 in size. The bigger the number doesn't mean the bigger the jet.
>>>"The external structure begins to melt and combust."
Sorry, that's just ridiculous.
>>>"There are those that just refuse to believe the truth because it is just too devastating...to your theories that Bush is evil."
No, there are some who actually consider the facts, after taking the time to find out what they are. Looking at your response, I'd say you have some homework to do. Not because I disagree with your conclusion, but because your points are riddled with the most basic factual errors.
And what does ones personal opinion of President Bush have to do with any of this?
Right, because you're "either with us or you're with the terrorists".
I thank you all for the discussion.
Good night.
81 - Jeremy
Hay, you asked for an explanation and you make excuses.
..and the conspiracy goes to point the finger at Bush. Don't switch at the last moment.
707, 747, 757, whatever.
combustion. Do you even comprehend what a class Delta fire is? If you've been through your b acis damage control on a big grey ship you would understand the effects of a burning jet on a carrier's runway. If you don't dump it off the side it burns through the ship...all the way through. Look into the Forrestall and you'll understand a bit more.
82 - Karl Jackson
I didn't make excuses, I pointed out that your "facts" were mostly wildly inaccurate.
As far as the USS Forrestall, this page seems to claim that most of the damage was from exploding ordnance, not burning JP5. Do you agree with that?
As far as the Twin Towers go, in the attack on the South Tower, most of the jet fuel combusted outside the building, in that huge fireball that we all saw on television. It was almost a near miss (catching the corner of the tower), as opposed to the North Tower strike, which was almost a direct hit.
And yet the South Tower collapsed first.
Why?
And what do you mean by: "the conspiracy goes to point the finger at Bush"?
He's an idiot and a liability, and I personally question how much he knew. He was in Florida; Dick Cheney was effectively in charge. Maybe he and Rumsfeld and Rove sent Bush down there so he couldn't screw things up, eh?
Again, good night.
83 - andy marsh
so what are we saying here? That the WTC was just a parking lot for 757's and right after the arabs parked their two jets the govt decided they weren't paying the proper fee?
84 - andy marsh
alright..I confess! I did it...from my living room in AZ! morons!
85 - Eric Olsen
Sorry I got so testy.
In all seriousness, I can appreciate how much time and effort you Don Quixotes have invested in this crusade, but why don't you do yourselves and the world a favor and turn that energy toward something positive?
86 - Phillip Winn
Don't back off now, Eric! Nutcases who pronounce judgement from their lofty perches ("You just can't face the truth...") deserve nothing more than puncturing. The arguments being advanced here are simply silly, the stuff of children's games.
87 - Shark
"Reality is the opposite of whatever the Voice of Authority is saying." -- Robert Anton Wilson
EricO, I think a healthy dose of skepticism is a good thing, but one must be prepared to use it on all sides, including one's Standard Reality Tunnel that accepts everything the 'government' says as gospel.
PS: I suggest you read Woodward's book "Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA " if you think all conspiracy folks are daffy. You'd be surprised what your government does in "your name".
PPS: In SOME WAYS, the Reichstag fire has always reminded me of 9/11.
Anyway, this is some fun reading!
BTW: IMHO, the WTC bldg #7 has always been problematic. It's just too weird and doesn't seem to fit in with the Standard Story.
Carry on!
88 - Prism Knight
I also called them "tin-foil hat conspiracy theorists" until I started reading those articles and looking at the evidence. The moment of truth came to me when I read the the 9/11 Commission Report that said the investigations into some of the so called "hijackers" was obstructed by orders from higher-ups in the CIA & FBI.
I thought, why would people in charge of protecting us want to endanger American lives by giving these scum a free pass? It became clear to me as I pieced all the evidence together, these "terrorists" who could only dream of hijacking one airliner let alone hijack four and attack the Pentaton and WTC were being set-up to act as patsies. I remembered how the months before 9/11 there was an increase in chatter about Osama and terrorists in general, I read about the War Games that took place on the week of 9/11 for the purpose of dealing with airplane hijackings and the complete hypocrisy and lies of the administration as they told the American people they had no idea of anything and were responsible for nothing!
Even if you refuse the believe the truth, you cannot ignore the criminal 'negligence' that took place.
89 - Eric Olsen
surely there was negligence, there usually is when something this monumentally terrible happens
Phillip, I am backing off nothing, just being more polite about it.
Shark, my government does not conspire to blow up two buildings full of its own citizens on its own soil.
Skepticism is fine - direct it at these "theories"
90 - Prism Knight
Its more than negligence, its a criminal act.
Even now the FBI protects Osama Bin Laden's RIGHT TO PRIVACY over the American public's right to know about the involvement this human filth had. It always smelled like bull to me when the "osama tapes" were released at the most opportune times including right before the elections. Yet they cant catch this criminal who is reported to be alive and well?
I refuse to become fodder for these corrupt powers.
91 - Rocker
Boys and girls,
WTC not demolished with explosives?
Ha!
Trust your eyes... I DARE you
watch LOOSE CHANGE, which has beeeeaaauuuutiful footage and enlargements of the
ACTUAL CHARGES GOING OFF
CLICK HERE
ACTUAL CHARGES GOING OFF
Watch it, and ask whats wrong
with your eyes... or blame the
messenger.
further research:
- Remote Control 767 757 egyptair 990
- wargames northern vigilance leidig
are your google words.
Actual documentary videos can be downloaded from:
watch LOOSE CHANGE
92 - aj
Right, our government that can't seem to keep a secret from anyone, has been able to keep this secret for this long. Something this big would have taken dozens, maybe hundreds of people to pull off, not one of them has stepped forward. To bad deepthroat came out of hiding.
93 - John Bambenek
Ok, for the sake of refuting this, let's assume you are right. The WTC was demolished.
The crew that set it up was so intelligent as to sneak in the explosives under everyone's nose. They managed to outfit 4 commercial airliners with remote control underneath the flight and maintenance crews noses. They managed to have Arab looking men on planes pretend to hijack the plane (phone calls prove this happened, and I'm not talking about the ones to the operator, I'm talking about people talking to their spouses). They were so brilliant they have the whole world except a few people believing this story that took place under the gaping eyes of a nation.
Yet, they were so stupid that:
1) They couldn't sequence the explosions correctly having the tower hit second come down first,
2) They blew up a building that wasn't hit, and
3) They couldn't make sure none of their own people was on the plane (Ted Olsen, the solicitor general's wife was on the plane that hit the Pentagon. Ted Olsen is an administration insider who has access to most all of our government's dirty laundry).
Which is it guys? Are the frighteningly brilliant or a bunch of clumsy oafs who just got real lucky?
The theory is internally inconsistent.
94 - NJT
I am a licensed professional engineer with years of experience in structural steel quality assurance.
I have witnessed structural steel that was scorched for hours by fuel fires. I have studied collapses of major steel bridges. And I just cannot believe that the towers fell like that as the result of fires. I will reserve final judement until someone actually builds a scale model and recreates the impact and fire. Maybe one of the "every engineering school in the country" that supposedly "has either been looking into the collapse or using it as a case study" would be willing to do so. But on the evidence I've seen, I'd say 99 to 1 it was more than the planes and ensuing fuel fire that took those buildings down. But don't believe me, just because I spent years studying and working on structural steel. Get someone to build the scale model and do everything you can to recreate the failure mode. Then and only then can you convince me, that the "official conspiracy theory (the man in the cave did it!)" is true.
Someone talks about nutcases "who pronounce judgement from their lofty perches" -- well how is that any different than what you folks are doing?
95 - NJT
For those of you interested in refuting 9/11 theories, please visit this interesting site:
There are many, many facets of the official 9-11 story which should make anyone with half a brain wonder if they are being lied to.
But those of you on your lofty perches can keep casting your nutcasings, and keep your tin foil hats firmly in place if you blindly insist on believing the conspiracy theory that the "man in the cave did it."
I prefer to look at all the evidence and reserve final judgement until i see some proof. The coverups do make me wonder... As of yet, I've not seen proof one way or the other. Your theories & your derision is not proof, neither are news stories and CIA directors denouncing everything but the official conspiracy theory.
96 - Phillip Winn
Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Relying on "[a]nyone with a basic understanding of the laws of physics" despite the fact that a good number of us have watched the footage many times doesn't constitute evidence. When someone disagrees with you, "[y]ou can't bring yourself to confront the evidence presented" isn't a valid answer. I've looked at all of this stuff, and I simply don't agree.
I've been through it all with Waco, with the Pentagon, with OK City, and so I've seen the conspiracy theories roll in from the right and the left and on and on. From the "faked moon landings" to this, it has so far all worked out roughly the same: because life doesn't work like television does, with every single plot element carefully scripted and every question answered in 42 minutes or at least 22 episodes, people imagine the worst. People take little things here and there that don't look like they do in the summer blockbuster movies and put them together to mean something more. And it's just false.
We landed on the moon. The was sunlight reflecting off of the tank. Yes, a truck full of fertilizer took down that whole building. Yes, that was an airplane hitting the Pentagon. And yes, crashing two airplanes full of jet fuel into the World Trade Center towers caused all of that destruction.
I don't trust experts just because they're experts. But I don't mistrust the government just because it's the government either. There are some nasty people in government who make poor decisions and don't have my best interests at heart -- I understand that. But that doesn't overwhelm the rest of the evidence which clearly demonstrates what happened on 9/11.
We can stack up all of the engineers and firefighters who believe the party line on one side, and all of the engineers and firefighters who believe the conspiracy theory on the other side, and we'll have a lot of engineers and firefighters, but no real answers.
Better yet, write up the two stories. Put them side by side. Which one makes more sense? That Osama bin Laden claimed credit for something the US government did? This isn't a courtroom, where all you have to do to acquit your client is introduce "reasonable doubt." You need to make a positive case, explain what did happen. And the positive case simply doesn't add up in any way.
97 - Eric Olsen
well put Phillip - sometimes there ARE conspiracies, but they are almost always found out
98 - andy marsh
I check out all these links and now I see what really is wrong with blogging....any wacko can write any conspiracy theory he wants and be able to find moonbats to follow him or her!
99 - Eric Olsen
which is exactly why it is so important to call a moonbat a moonbat
100 - andy marsh
We landed on the moon???
101 - andy marsh
Is that were the bats came from???
102 - Eric Olsen
I went to college with Armstrong's son - he's pretty sure his dad made the trip.
103 - NJT
Phillip wrote "You need to make a positive case, explain what did happen."
Anyone who claims to know "what did happen" is lying to themselves, because no one (that's talking, anyway) knows for sure what did happen.
I know the official version doesn't add up (to me, anyway, and I am a structural steel expert, more or less). Until someone can take the time and money (and why not, in the most important attack on US soil ever?) to build a scale model and prove that it could have happened this way, I will continue to disbelieve that the fuel fire caused that collapse. Where were the protruding steel columns immediately after the collapse? Crushed? Melted? You want syrup with your pancakes?
Sorry, maybe that makes sense for you. But not for me. But unlike you folks, I'm not claiming to know exactly what happened. I just know how steel behaves and I don't see why WTC steel would behave any differently than bridge steel or structural steel subjected to fire in many other skyscraper fires both before and since.
Sorry I don't buy it.
104 - Eric Olsen
enjoy your obsession and may it keep you warm at night
105 - NJT
Thanks!
Enjoy your closed mind, may it keep you safe from bad men in caves everywhere.
106 - Venice-13
If you simply are unable to accept or believe that OUR GOVERNMENT is capable of something like 9-11, then please do yourself a huge favor and search out your own information on "OPERATION NORTHOODS" ... and also read Woodwards "VEIL: The Secret Wars of the CIA" ... as folks here have already suggested. "Northwoods" goes back to 1962 ... if you don't know about it, then I suspect you really don't care to know about things that are true.
A correction to someone's earlier posting. It was Marvin Bush (not Neil) who was a principal in a company that provided security for the WTC. While that doesn't prove anything, it's worth considering. Bomb sniffing dogs that had been used at the WTC were called off a week or so prior to 9/11.
Why did a passport belonging to one of the hijackers survive the crash (found near the WTC) while the plane's Black Boxes didn't survive?
Where were our military planes that are supposed to scramble when an airliner goes off course??? There are hundreds of legitimate questions that the 9/11 Commission didn't answer, and that Washington isn't going to address.
Call this "conspiracy" if you must ... hell, call it anything. If you wanna be the fool who doesn't question his government, you're potentially more dangerous than a conspiracy theorist.
107 - Brent
The government uses intimidation, gag orders and murder to supress anyone trying to come forth with the truth about 9/11. I dont expect sheep who want to get spoonfed by the government to change their minds. Those who are intelligent enough will be able to dismiss the BS created by the administration. This is no f'ing joke. The American government committed the biggest crime on its own citizens and not a single person involved is being held accountable. They no longer care about the war on terror either, they are ignorant enough to feel everything being justified by bombing afghanistan and iraq, and waving their cheap made in china US flags. They direct their anger towards anonymous poster on this blog than the criminals who let Saudi Arabia become exempt from nuke inspections and prevent the borders from being protected. Even though they keep telling us a terrorist can easily bring in a nuke from the Mexican or Canadian border and kill millions of Americans.
108 - Eric Olsen
Please answer this very simple question: what possible reason would the U.S. government have to do something like this?
109 - Phillip Winn
NJT, so because you didn't see the physical evidence you expected, you reject what most of us saw in favor of... what? I'm not saying you have to know every detail; that's precisely my point. Unlike television and the movies, life is never that neat. But surely you must have some idea?
For example, one possibility would be that because you don't see the exposed steel beams you expect, you believe that the building was demolished with explosives. Of course, we don't see the normaly tell-tales of controlled demolition either, so isn't that a problem?
If each of the many competing conspiracy theories was submitted to even a fraction of the scrutiny the official story has undergone, each would fall apart quickly. It isn't a matter of whether or not our government would or could do such a thing, but whether or not it makes any sense. And it doesn't.
110 - NJT
Phillip wrote "because you don't see the exposed steel beams you expect, you believe that the building was demolished with explosives."
Given that the building collapsed as if it was made only of concrete, that seems like a likely alternative (explosives on the steel columns below).
However I really don't know. What I do know, and what I hope you are not disputing, is that the Bush administration fought tooth and nail against the formation of a commission, against the funding of the commission, and against testifying before the very commission they had created. Those things really make me wonder what really did happen.
Personally, I would like to build a scale model and prove (at least to myself) one way or the other, if this failure mode we witnessed, is indeed possible given the official story of airplanes and their fuel bringing down a structural steel skyscraper. But I don't have the immense resources for such an undertaking. As I mentioned above, perhaps one of the supposedly "every engineering school in the country who has been looking into the collapse or using it as a case study" would care to do so. It was only the most important building collapse ever. So why don't they do it? I'll be very interested to read the results.
111 - NJT
Eric Olsen wrote "what possible reason would the U.S. government have to do something like this?"
Are you familiar with the PNAC and their declared need (prior to 9-11) for a new "Pearl Harbor"?
I'm not claiming anything, other than that this PNAC's new Pearl Harbor answers your question above.
112 - Brent
Phillip, you poor [removed]. A building with a corner side fraction and diminishing fires WOULD HAVE NEVER fallen in a linear manner at that speed.
Why do you dismiss the accounts of the firefighters inside the towers who saw and heard explosions?
Why are you overlooking the evidence of an explosion at the the basement of tower?
From: http://www.chiefengineer.org/article.cfm?seqnum1=1029
"They decided to ascend two more levels to the building's lobby. As they ascended to the B Level, one floor above, they were astonished to see a steel and concrete fire door that weighed about 300 pounds, wrinkled up "like a piece of aluminum foil" and lying on the floor. "They got us again," Mike told his co-worker, referring to the terrorist attack at the center in 1993. Having been through that bombing, Mike recalled seeing similar things happen to the building's structure. He was convinced a bomb had gone off in the building."
Or what about the gag order placed on them?
Care to explain away those incidents and facts, [removed].
113 - John Bambenek
If I put up a website the said the tides were a part of the international Zionist conspiracy, would you link to it?
114 - aj
People see what they want to see, and are blind to the facts. Crazy things happen all the time, and most of them are not conspiracies. Your parents were probaly to strict with you all when you were young, and you felt helpless and wanted to rebel against athority in any way you could. Now any chance you can, you take out your hostility on the government. You couldn't trust your parents then, you never grew up, and you can't trust parental figures (the government) now. It's time to grow up, the buildings were hit by planes, the designers of the buildings didn't think of everything, the buildings came down. And just because someone claims he is an expert in a blog, doesn't make him one in real life.
115 - NJT
hey aj - thanks for clearing it all up - i feel so much better now with an all-knowing poster like you on board. You've explained everything here with your post; why we didn't see structural steel columns and why the Bush admin stonewalled their own commission. And why I've been skeptical all this time - it's my parents fault for being too strict! That supercedes years of structural steel analysis, any day. Thanks a lot.
116 - Phillip Winn
Brent, if you rephrase your comment without the personal insults, I'll answer. We have a comment policy on this site, and personal insults are not allowed.
117 - Victor Plenty
Only a jackass calls someone a jackass.
... oops.
118 - andy marsh
I would John...but I'm like that!
119 - Phillip Winn
Never mind, Brent, I edited the comment to bring it in line with site policy.
As I have said, I disagree with your conclusions. In fact, I worry about people who are so sure they're right in every detail that everyone who disagrees must be stupid or simply refusing to face fact. Isn't that called 'fundamentalism' these days?
Again, nobody is bothering to explain how any alternative theory makes any more sense than the "official" theory. Not only should people who live in glasses houses not throw stones, but people dancing on clouds shouldn't try to poke holes in balloons.
You know that there were dimishing fires in the WTC? How on earth did you observe that and still make it out in time? Or are you basing that on external observation? It was a big building, and what you see from the outside gives little or no indication of what's going on inside.
I don't "dismiss" accounts by people on the scene, but I view with them a certain amount and type of skepticism. I'm sure that they believe that what they heard were explosions, and for all I know they might have been, though not necessarily caused by planted explosives. But let us also remember that these people were not exactly observing dispassionately, but were in a high-strees situation. People also initially claimed to have seen explosives strapped to the basement support beams at the Murrah mederal building in OK City -- do you believe that, too? The initial reports from any major disaster area are always the least reliable. Since all later reports, physical evidence, photos, etc, all line up one way, it seems reasonable to believe that -- as is often the case -- the initial reports were heavily tinged by preconceptions.
It was eminently reasonable for firefighters on the scene to assume that the WTC had been hit by a bomb. It had happened in 1993, and it would have been my first assumption as well. However, based on other evidence, we now know better.
Again, where is the counter-theory? What is supposed to have happened? Sigh.
120 - NJT
oh boy, here we go:
"People also initially claimed to have seen explosives strapped to the basement support beams at the Murrah mederal building in OK City -- do you believe that, too?"
I recall that while i was at work that April 19, we immediately tuned in to the news of the Murrah bombing. I specifically remember that the news reporters stated that (while showing the activity on screen) "unexploded bombs" were being removed from the Murrah building by bomb squads.
Now I allow that these initial news reports might have been wrong. But seeing the damage pattern in the building, it does look like explosives went off inside the building, in addition to whatever was in the truck that McVeigh brought there. And John Doe #2? That wasn't Terry Nichols. John Doe #2 (recorded that day with McVeigh on surveillance cameras), was never found and quickly forgotten.
But oh yeah, believing what I specifically remember is all my "too-strict" parents fault and this just proves that I am nuts, right?
121 - Phillip Winn
NJT, can you tell the difference between 'Phillip Winn' and 'aj'?
How about the moon? Did we really land on the moon? I'm just trying to get a sense of how deeply into the rabbit hole you've gone.
122 - NJT
It's really easy (and fun!) to crap all over "conspiracy theorists" while remaining ignorant of the actual evidence.
Are you at all familiar with the water board tape or the seismological record?
Do you understand non-symetric structural damage from a point source?
Once you are and if you do, then we can have a serious discussion. In the meanwhile, keep your tin foil hats firmly in place or these conspiracy theories (I prefer to consider them unanswered questions) might get into your brains.
123 - NJT
Phillip - the moon, i don't know. I've read some interesting questions that have been raised. My belief is that we went there, but I allow that anything's possible.
124 - Eric Olsen
so this "Pearl Harbor," that our own government created, was done so for the purpose of ... ? giving them an excuse to invade Afghanistan and Iraq? To create the War on Terror?
Doesn't this strike you as a bit convoluted? A bit operatic, and certainly insane (on their parts, I mean). And how many government officials were in on this?
Doesn't reading these words make you feel a bit, um, sheepish about believing in a theory so screamingly impossible on so many different levels?
125 - Victor Plenty
You really believe in any such thing as a "moon"?