September 11th Conspiracies - What Do We Know? - Page 2

This is page two of the September 11th: What Do We Know? article. If you were linked here by mistake, please refer to page one in this section.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Part 1: World Trade Center Towers--Basic Facts
3. Part 2: Hijack and Collapse--Cause and Effect
4. Part 3: Responsibility
5. Part 4: Peripheral Issues--What's Not Covered Here And Why
6. Part 5: This Account of What Happened vs. Alternative Theories--Why You Can't Be Agnostic Anymore
7. Conclusion: What Can We Know?

Part 2: Hijack and Collapse--Cause and Effect

We now have enough evidence to form a hypothesis regarding what happened to the World Trade Centers. We know for sure the planes struck the towers. We know for sure which planes struck the towers. We know for sure why they struck the towers (because they were hijacked). We can now surmise that it is likely that a cause-and-effect relationship exists between hijacking, plane strikes, and tower collapses, especially since it happened twice, not just once. However, this is a hypothesis; we now need to determine if (A) if we can determine that this cause-and-effect relationship exists, and (B) if there is any other evidence out there that explains the result better than the cause-and-effect relationship we are supposing.

Obviously, whether the plane strikes caused the towers to collapse depends on the sort of damage the strikes did to the WTC towers. Let's look at some evidence regarding this.

Document 6: Collection of WTC survivors' eyewitness accounts of damage to the towers.

http://sites.google.com/site/911stories/insidethetowers:summaryofwitnessaccounts

This paper collects and collates statements of people who got out of the World Trade Center towers, both WTC1 and WTC2, about the damage done to the towers. This paper is very extensive. Just a few of the reports collected here include:

• Jet fuel detected on 40+ floors below the impact zones.
• "Fireballs" and other burning materials seen in elevator shafts.
• Fires burning as many as 19 floors below the impact zones.

The second page of the paper includes numerous direct quotes from survivors.

Purpose: direct eyewitness evidence of severe damage to the WTC towers, not just at the impact zones, but all up and down the buildings. Also, corroborates Carol Paukner that the plane strikes caused severe damage throughout the buildings.

I am unaware of any evidence that disputes the statements made by these witnesses, and they corroborate each other--as well as corroborating Carol Paukner.

● Conclusion 9: the plane strikes caused severe damage throughout both WTC towers, and the damage was not confined to the impact zone.

Document 7: Report of New York Fire Department Assistant Chief Joseph Callan regarding instability of WTC1.

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Callan_Joseph.txt

Callan stated:

"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."

Purpose: evidence that the damage to WTC1 was so severe as to threaten the structural integrity of the building, and that collapse was thought to be likely before it happened.

I am unaware of any evidence that disputes Chief Callan's statement.

Document 8: Report of EMS Division Chief John Peruggia regarding instability of WTC1.

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110160.PDF

Peruggia stated:

"I was in a discussion with Mr. Rotanz and I believe it was a representative from the Department of Buildings, but I'm not sure. Some engineer type person, and several of us were huddled talking in the lobby and it was brought to my attention, it was believed that the structural damage that was suffered to the towers was quite significant and they were very confident that the building's stability was compromised and they felt that the north tower was in danger of a near imminent collapse."

Purpose: corroborates Joseph Callan that damage to WTC1 was so severe as to threaten structural integrity, and that collapse was predicted before it happened.

I am unaware of any evidence that disputes Chief Peruggia's statement.

Document 9: Report of EMT Mary McMillan

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110078.PDF

McMillan was in WTC2. She stated:

"As I was gathering it, I was saying to Mala, that I'm looking up at the building and I said to her, this is going to fall. She says I know. I think we are in the wrong place. I tried to tell Chief Grant and Chief McCracken I think it's going to fall, but they were so busy talking among themselves, I didn't have a chance to tell them what I was feeling."

Purpose: evidence that damage to WTC2 was so severe as to threaten the structural integrity of the building, and that collapse was predicted before it happened.

I am unaware of any evidence that disputes McMillan's statement.

Document 10: Report of EMT Peter Constantine

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/9110122.PDF

Constantine was in WTC2. He stated:

"We were helping any way we could. A lot of people wanted to help. At that time, I don't know what time it was, we heard across the radio the tower's gonna fall, the tower's gonna fall."

Purpose: corroborates McMillan that the damage to WTC2 was so extensive that it threatened the structural integrity of the building, and that collapse was predicted before it happened.

I am unaware of any evidence that disputes Constantine's statement.

● Conclusion 10: the damage from the plane strikes was so severe in both towers that many people believed at the time that collapse of both towers was imminent.

Our hypothesis is getting stronger. Let's hear from some experts.

Document 11 [Expert Testimony]: Statement of Mark Loizeaux, a controlled demolition expert who was involved in the demolition of several large buildings, as reported in an article in The New Yorker, by John Seabrook, 11/19/2001

http://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/thetowerbuilder:newyorkerportraitoflesli

Loizeaux explains precisely why the towers collapsed as a result of the plane strikes:

"First of all, you've got the obvious damage to the exterior frame from the airplane--if you count the number of external columns missing from the sides the planes hit, there are about two-thirds of the total. And the buildings are still standing, which is amazing--even with all those columns missing, the gravity loads have found alternate pathways. O.K., but you've got fires--jet-fuel fires, which the building is not designed for, and you've also got lots of paper in there. Now, paper cooks. A paper fire is like a coal-mine fire: it keeps burning as long as oxygen gets to it. And you're high in the building, up in the wind, plenty of oxygen.

"So you've got a hot fire. And you've got these floor trusses, made of fairly thin metal, and fire protection has been knocked off most of them by the impact. And you have all this open space--clear span from perimeter to core--with no columns or partition walls, so the airplane is going to skid right through that space to the core, which doesn't have any reinforced concrete in it, just sheetrock covering steel, and the fire is going to spread everywhere immediately, and no fire-protection systems are working--the sprinkler heads shorn off by the airplanes, the water pipes in the core are likely cut. So what's going to happen? Floor A is going to fall onto floor B, which falls onto floor C; the unsupported columns will buckle; and the weight of everything above the crash site falls onto what remains below--bringing loads of two thousand pounds per square foot, plus the force of the impact, onto floors designed to bear one hundred pounds per square foot. It has to fall."

Purpose: engineering/scientific explanation of how and why the plane strikes resulted in the collapse of both towers.

Document 12 [Expert Testimony]: Scientific analysis by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure, engineering scientists, in a peer-reviewed paper published by the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Northwestern University

http://www.debunking911.com/ProgressiveCollapseWTC-6-23-2006.pdf

These engineering experts state:

"The combination of six effects: a) overload of some columns due to initial stress redistribution, b) lowering of yield limit and creep, c) lateral deflections of many columns due to sagging floor trusses, d) weakened lateral support due to reduced in-plane stiffness of sagging floors, e) multi-story buckling of some columns (for which the critical load is an order of magnitude less than it is for one-story buckling), and f) local plastic buckling of heated column webs finally led to buckling of columns (Fig. 1b). As a result, the upper part of tower fell, with little resistance, through at least one floor height, impacting the lower part of tower. This triggered progressive collapse because the kinetic energy of the falling upper part far exceeded the energy that could be absorbed by limited plastic deformations and fracturing in the lower part of tower."

Purpose: scientific explanation for how and why the plane strikes resulted in the collapse of both towers; corroborates Mark Loizeaux.

These scientific conclusions have been disputed.

Rebuttal Document: Analysis by Dr. Steven E. Jones published in Journal of 9/11 Studies.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/WhyIndeedDidtheWorldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

In this paper, Dr. Jones questions the hypothesis that plane strikes caused the collapses. He states:

"In this paper, I call for a serious investigation of the hypothesis that WTC 7 and the Twin Towers were brought down, not just by impact damage and fires, but through the use of pre-positioned cutter-charges. I consider the official FEMA, NIST, and 9-11 Commission reports that fires plus impact damage alone caused complete collapses of all three buildings. And I present evidence for the controlled-demolition hypothesis, which is suggested by the available data, and can be tested scientifically, and yet has not been analyzed in any of the reports funded by the US government."

Okay, now we have conflicting views on the science regarding the hypothesis.

Cross-Examination Document 1: Statement of Dr. David Rogers, Physicist, regarding Dr. Jones's paper

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2442775&postcount=118

Dr. Rogers states:

"Speaking as a person with a PhD in Physics who has peer reviewed papers, I would have advised rejection of this paper for publication in any serious scientific journal, quite possibly without the option of a re-write...Suffice it to say, this is not a scientific paper, follows nothing remotely similar to scientific methodology, contains numerous obvious errors, unsupported assertions and misceptions about many subjects including the nature of controlled demolitions, contradicts its own findings in places, and appears at times to be deliberately attempting to mislead the reader. It has been extensively criticised elsewhere, and I have little to add except one point I haven't seen emphasised:

Jones claims that the liquid running from one of the corners of one of the WTC towers cannot be aluminium and must therefore be molten steel. From the emission colour he estimates its temperature at 1000 C. Elsewhere in the paper he quotes the melting point of structural steel as 1510 C. His own analysis therefore contradicts his own conclusions. For him to have published such a thing suggests a serious loss of ability for self-criticism that is unacceptable in a serious scientist.

Overall this paper is an appallingly bad piece of scientific analysis."

We now have two competing hypotheses:

Hypothesis A: the plane strikes caused the WTC collapses.

Hypothesis B: the WTC collapses were caused by pre-positioned cutter charges.

We know these cannot both be true. Therefore, we must decide which of them is more likely to be true.

Logical Analysis.

Dr. Steven Jones, and those who agree with him (Richard Gage, Kevin Ryan etc.), attack Hypothesis A on scientific grounds. However, let's view Hypothesis A versus Hypothesis B on logical grounds, and then return to the scientific question.

Which is more likely?

Hypothesis A...

• Is entirely consistent with Conclusions 1-10, which, as you remember, we already know must be true.
• Is logical, because it makes sense, given the evidence we've seen, that hijacked planes caused severe damage in the towers.
• Is internally consistent, meaning, it does not require something to happen that doesn't make sense in light of what we already know happened.
• Involves a result that was predicted before it happened (the collapse) by many people based upon the evidence they saw while they were actually there.
• Is supported by scientific evidence and almost 100% of scientific opinion in the field--the only dissenters being Dr. Jones and his supporters.

In order for Hypothesis B to be true, by definition someone must have planted cutting charges in both WTC1 and WTC2 sometime before the morning of September 11, 2001. Hypothesis B cannot be true without this having happened.

Consider:

• Not a single witness has ever indicated having seen cutting charges in the towers at any time.
• Not a single person has ever come forward stating that they planted the charges there or have direct knowledge of who did.
• The charges themselves have not been found.
• Detonators needed to explode the charges have not been found.
• Question: is there any evidence at all of these cutting charges? (This will be dealt with in a moment)

Also consider, regarding Hypothesis B:

• Is inconsistent with what we already know to be true--specifically, Conclusions 9 and 10 (why didn't the severe damage to the towers set off the charges prematurely?)
• Is illogical. Specifically:
  • Why, if cutting charges were used to destroy the towers, would the conspirators use hijacked planes at all?
  • How could the conspirators have coordinated the plane strikes with the demolition charges? The only way it's possible is if they were in communication--no evidence of this.
  • How was it possible to have planted the charges in the first place, in such large buildings with so many workers?
  • How could such a conspiracy remain secret, needing so many people to carry out, and not a single one has ever come forward?
• Is internally inconsistent. If the terrorist scenario is an artifice, why use planes at all to achieve it? That adds a layer of needless complexity, which is that much more than can go wrong. Why not simply chalk up the attack to bombs, which is much easier to achieve logistically, and which we know from the 1993 WTC truck bomb attack nearly succeeded once before?
• Is a result totally contrary to what could have been predicted on the site given the information at hand. (Keep in mind, Dr. Steven Jones was not there on 9/11; Peruggia and McMillan, who predicted the towers would fall before they did, were actually on the scene).
• Is supported only by two supposedly scientific papers (the second one is the Rebuttal Document shown below), the veracity of which have been severely criticized, which reach a conclusion almost universally rejected by the scientific community.

On logical grounds alone it is clear that Hypothesis A must be correct and Hypothesis B cannot be. However, let's examine the question...

Is there any evidence of these "cutting charges," which by definition must have been present if Hypothesis B is true?

This is the linchpin of Hypothesis B. Because there is no evidence of these explosive charges, there is no reason to believe that they existed. If they did not exist, Hypothesis B cannot be true.

Rebuttal Document: further analysis by Steven Jones published in Journal of 9/11 Studies.

http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM

Steven Jones states he believes he has found minute particles of explosives in WTC debris:

"We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic."

Cross-Examination Document 2: Email Exchange between Dr. Frank Greening and Dr. Steven Jones

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=3279843&postcount=115

In this email exchange, Dr. Frank Greening indicates serious scientific problems with the "thermitic material" claims.

"And as for coal fired boilers, a little research will show you that iron-rich microspheres are a well documented component of coal fly ash even though pulverized coal combustion temperatures are less than 1400 deg C. So you must accept that iron-rich microspheres do not need temperatures of 1538 deg C or higher to form in a coal/wood/paper combustion environment. If you cannot accept this fact there is no point in continuing this "debate"...We can debate this in the New Year, if you wish, but until you can show me that iron-rich microspheres COULD NOT be present in the WTC dust without "added" thermite, I think we won't have much to talk about!"

This is anecdotal and not very authoritative. It cannot be regarded as conclusive. However, it does illustrate that Dr. Jones's scientific credibility is open to serious question.

Let's zoom out for a moment and set aside whether Dr. Jones is a credible expert. We already know that Hypothesis B is pretty unlikely. However, is there any scientific evidence we can bring to bear directly on whether Hypothesis B is possible, much less likely?

Document 13 [Expert Testimony]: Paper by Zdenek P. Bazant, Jia-Liang Le, Frank R. Greening and David R. Benson.

http://wtc7lies.googlepages.com/Bazant_WTC_Collapse_What_Did__Did_No.pdf (download)

In this peer-reviewed paper written for the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of Northwest University, four prominent engineers conclude that Hypothesis B is scientifically impossible. These researchers state:

"Previous analysis of progressive collapse showed that gravity alone suffices to explain the overall collapse of the World Trade Center (WTC) towers. However, it remains to be checked whether the recent allegations of controlled demolition have any scientific merit. The present analysis proves that they do not. The video record available for the first few seconds of collapse is shown to agree with the motion history calculated from the differential equation of progressive collapse but, despite uncertain values of some parameters, it is totally out of range of the free fall hypothesis, on which these allegations rest...The calculated crush-down duration is found to match a logical interpretation of seismic record, while the free fall duration grossly disagrees with this record."

Purpose: direct evidence, from scientific experts, that Hypothesis B is scientifically impossible and that Hypothesis B has no scientific merit.

Therefore, to sum up:

Regarding Hypothesis A:

• Is entirely consistent with Conclusions 1-10, which, as you remember, we already know must be true.
• Is logical.
• Is internally consistent.
• Depends upon evidence we have already proven to have occurred (the plane strikes).
• Involves a result that was predicted before it happened by many people based upon the evidence they saw while they were actually there.
• Is supported by scientific evidence and almost 100% of scientific opinion in the field--the only dissenters being Dr. Jones and his supporters.

Regarding Hypothesis B:

• Is inconsistent with what we already know to be true.
• Is illogical.
• Is internally inconsistent.
• Depends upon evidence that has never been found (the demolition charges).
• Is a result totally contrary to what could have been predicted on the site given the information at hand.
• Is supported only by two papers, the veracity of which have been strongly criticized, which reach a conclusion almost universally rejected by the scientific community.
• According to expert testimony, scientifically impossible.

We have thoroughly examined these competing hypotheses. It is very clear that Hypothesis A is correct and Hypothesis B is incorrect. We have proven Hypothesis A, which means it is no longer a hypothesis, but a conclusion.

● Conclusion 11: the damage from the plane strikes, and not controlled demolition, was the cause of the towers' collapse.

Before we move on to the next section let's sum up the conclusions that we now know must be true:

● Conclusion 1: WTC1 was struck by an airplane.

● Conclusion 2: WTC2 was struck by an airplane.

● Conclusion 3: WTC2 collapsed.

● Conclusion 4: WTC1 collapsed.

● Conclusion 5: American Airlines Flight 11 was hijacked.

● Conclusion 6: American Airlines Flight 11 was the plane that struck WTC1.

● Conclusion 7: United Airlines Flight 175 was hijacked.

● Conclusion 8: United Airlines Flight 175 was the plane that struck WTC2.

● Conclusion 9: the plane strikes caused severe damage throughout both WTC towers, and the damage was not confined to the impact zone.

● Conclusion 10: the damage from the plane strikes was so severe in both towers that many people believed at the time that collapse of both towers was imminent.

● Conclusion 11: the damage from the plane strikes, and not controlled demolition, was the cause of the towers' collapse.

We have already eliminated almost all of the leading conspiracy theories. This (intentionally limited) analysis is nearly concluded, but for the sake of completeness we'll look (briefly) at a few other subjects.

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