Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

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  • delirious
    Addiction started
    • Jun 2004
    • 288

    Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

    Aside from the alleged cases of 9/11, fire has never caused large steel-frame buildings to collapse. This reverse truth is that every previous total collapse has been caused by the procedure known as ?controlled demolition,? in which explosives capable of cutting steel have been placed in crucial places throughout the building and then set off in a particular order. Just from knowing that the towers collapsed, therefore, the natural assumption would be that they were brought down by explosives.

    This a priori assumption is, moreover, supported by an empirical examination of the particular nature of the collapses. Here we come to the second major problem with the official theory, namely, that the collapses had at least eleven features that would be expected if, and only if, explosives were used. I will briefly describe these eleven features.

    Sudden Onset: In controlled demolition, the onset of the collapse is sudden. One moment, the building is perfectly motionless; the next moment, it suddenly begins to collapse. But steel, when heated, does not suddenly buckle or break. So in fire-induced collapses---if we had any examples of such---the onset would be gradual. Horizontal beams and trusses would begin to sag; vertical columns, if subjected to strong forces, would begin to bend. But as videos of the towers show, there were no signs of bending or sagging, even on the floors just above the damage caused by the impact of the planes. The buildings were perfectly motionless up to the moment they began their collapse.

    Straight Down: The most important thing in a controlled demolition of a tall building close to other buildings is that it come straight down, into, or at least close to, its own footprint, so that it does not harm the other buildings. The whole art or science of controlled demolition is oriented primarily around this goal. As Mark Loizeaux, the president of Controlled Demolition, Inc., has explained, ?to bring [a building] down as we want, so . . . no other structure is harmed,? the demolition must be ?completely planned,? using ?the right explosive [and] the right pattern of laying the charges? (Else, 2004). If the 110-story Twin Towers had fallen over, they would have caused an enormous amount of damage to buildings covering many city blocks. But the towers came straight down. Accordingly, the official theory, by implying that fire produced collapses that perfectly mimicked the collapses that have otherwise been produced only by precisely placed explosives, requires a miracle.

    Almost Free-Fall Speed: Buildings brought down by controlled demolition collapse at almost free-fall speed. This can occur because the supports for the lower floors are destroyed, so that when the upper floors come down, they encounter no resistance. The fact that the collapses of the towers mimicked this feature of controlled demolition was mentioned indirectly by The 9/11 Commission Report, which said that the ?South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds? (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, p. 305). The authors of the report evidently thought that the rapidity of this collapse did not conflict with the official theory, known as the ?pancake? theory. According to this theory, the floors above the floors that were weakened by the impact of the airliner fell on the floor below, which started a chain reaction, so that the floors ?pancaked? all the way down.

    But if that is what happened, the lower floors, with all their steel and concrete, would have provided resistance. The upper floors could not have fallen through them at the same speed as they would fall through air. However, the videos of the collapses show that the rubble falling inside the building?s profile falls at the same speed as the rubble outside (Jones, 2006). As Dave Heller, a builder with degrees in physics and architecture, explains:
    the floors could not have been pancaking. The buildings fell too quickly. The floors must all have been falling simultaneously to reach the ground in such a short amount of time. But how?. . . In [the method known as controlled demolition], each floor of a building is destroyed at just the moment the floor above is about to strike it. Thus, the floors fall simultaneously, and in virtual freefall. (Garlic and Glass 6)
    Total Collapse: The official theory is even more decisively ruled out by the fact that the collapses were total: These 110-story buildings collapsed into piles of rubble only a few stories high. How was that possible? The core of each tower contained 47 massive steel box columns. According to the pancake theory, the horizontal steel supports broke free from the vertical columns. But if that is what had happened, the 47 core columns would have still been standing. The 9/11 Commission came up with a bold solution to this problem. It simply denied the existence of the 47 core columns, saying: ?The interior core of the buildings was a hollow steel shaft, in which elevators and stairwells were grouped? (Kean and Hamilton, 2004, 541 note 1). Voila! With no 47 core columns, the main problem is removed.

    The NIST Report handled this most difficult problem by claiming that when the floors collapsed, they pulled on the columns, causing the perimeter columns to become unstable. This instability then increased the gravity load on the core columns, which had been weakened by tremendously hot fires in the core, which, NIST claims, reached 1832?F, and this combination of factors somehow produced ?global collapse? (NIST, 2005, pp. 28, 143).

    This theory faces two problems. First, NIST?s claim about tremendously hot fires in the core is completely unsupported by evidence. As we saw earlier, its own studies found no evidence that any of the core columns had reached temperatures of even 482?F (250˚C), so its theory involves a purely speculative addition of over 1350?F. Second, even if this sequence of events had occurred, NIST provides no explanation as to why it would have produced global?-that is, total--collapse. The NIST Report asserts that ?column failure? occurred in the core as well as the perimeter columns. But this remains a bare assertion. There is no plausible explanation of why the columns would have broken or even buckled, so as to produce global collapse at virtually free-fall speed, even if they had reached such temperatures.

    Sliced Steel: In controlled demolitions of steel-frame buildings, explosives are used to slice the steel columns and beams into pieces. A representative from Controlled Demolition, Inc., has said of RDX, one of the commonly used high explosives, that it slices steel like a "razor blade through a tomato." The steel is, moreover, not merely sliced; it is sliced into manageable lengths. As Controlled Demolition, Inc., says in its publicity: ?Our DREXSTM systems . . . segment steel components into pieces matching the lifting capacity of the available equipment.?

    The collapses of the Twin Towers, it seems, somehow managed to mimic this feature of controlled demolitions as well. Jim Hoffman (2004), after studying various photos of the collapse site, said that much of the steel seemed to be ?chopped up into . . . sections that could be easily loaded onto the equipment that was cleaning up Ground Zero.?

    Pulverization of Concrete and Other Materials: Another feature of controlled demolition is the production of a lot of dust, because explosives powerful enough to slice steel will pulverize concrete and most other non-metallic substances into tiny particles. And, Hoffman (2003) reports, ?nearly all of the non-metallic constituents of the towers were pulverized into fine power.? That observation was also made by Colonel John O?Dowd of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. ?At the World Trade Center sites,? he told the History Channel, ?it seemed like everything was pulverized? (History Channel, 2002).

    This fact creates a problem for the official theory, according to which the only energy available was the gravitational energy. This energy would have been sufficient to break most of the concrete into fairly small pieces. But it would not have been anywhere close to the amount of energy needed to turn the concrete and virtually all the non-metallic contents of the buildings into tiny particles of dust.

    Dust Clouds: Yet another common feature of controlled demolitions is the production of dust clouds, which result when explosions eject the dust from the building with great energy. And, as one can see by comparing videos on the Web, the collapses of the towers produced clouds that are very similar to those produced by controlled demolitions of other structures, such as Seattle?s Kingdome. The only difference is that the clouds produced during the collapses of the towers were proportionally much bigger.

    The question of the source of the needed energy again arises. Hoffman (2003), focusing on the expansion of the North Tower?s dust cloud, calculates that the energy required simply for this expansion---ignoring the energy needed to slice the steel and pulverize the concrete and other materials---exceeded by at least 10 times the gravitational energy available.

    The official account, therefore, involves a huge violation of the laws of physics---a violation that becomes even more enormous once we factor in the energy required to pulverize the concrete (let alone the energy required to break the steel).

    Besides the sheer quantity of energy needed, another problem with the official theory is that gravitational energy is wholly unsuited to explain the production of these dust clouds. This is most obviously the case in the first few seconds. In Hoffman?s words: ?You can see thick clouds of pulverized concrete being ejected within the first two seconds. That?s when the relative motion of the top of the tower to the intact portion was only a few feet per second.?Jeff King (2003), in the same vein, says: ?[A great amount of] very fine concrete dust is ejected from the top of the building very early in the collapse. . . [when] concrete slabs [would have been] bumping into each other at [only] 20 or 30 mph.?

    The importance of King?s point can be appreciated by juxtaposing it with the claim by Shyam Sunder, NIST?s lead investigator, that although the clouds of dust created during the collapses of the Twin Towers may create the impression of a controlled demolition, ?it is the floor pancaking that leads to that perception" (Popular Mechanics, 2005). The pancaking, according to the official theory being defended by Sunder, began at the floor beneath the holes created by the impact of the airliners. As King points out, this theory cannot handle the fact, as revealed by the photographs and videos, that dust clouds were created far above the impact zones.

    Horizontal Ejections: Another common feature of controlled demolition is the horizontal ejection of other materials, besides dust, from those areas of the building in which explosives are set off. In the case of the Twin Towers, photos and videos reveal that ?[h]eavy pieces of steel were ejected in all directions for distances up to 500 feet, while aluminum cladding was blown up to 700 feet away from the towers? (Paul and Hoffman, 2004, p. 7). But gravitational energy is, of course, vertical, so it cannot even begin to explain these horizontal ejections.

    Demolition Rings: Still another common feature of collapses induced by explosions are demolition rings, in which series of small explosions run rapidly around a building. This feature was also manifested by the collapses of the towers.

    Sounds Produced by Explosions: The use of explosives to induce collapses produces, of course, sounds caused by the explosions. Like all the previous features except the slicing of the steel columns inside the building, this one could be observed by witnesses. And, as we will see below, there is abundant testimony to the existence of such sounds before and during the collapses of the towers.

    Molten Steel:
    An eleventh feature that would be expected only if explosives were used to slice the steel columns would be molten steel, and its existence at the WTC site was indeed reported by several witnesses, including the two main figures involved in the clean up, Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction, and Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Incorporated. Tully said that he saw pools of ?literally molten steel? at the site. Loizeaux said that several weeks after 9/11, when the rubble was being removed, ?hot spots of molten steel? were found ?at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels? (both statements quoted in Bollyn, 2004).

    Leslie Robertson, a member of the engineering firm that designed the Twin Towers, said: ?As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running? (Williams, 2001). Knight-Ridder journalist Jennifer Lin, discussing Joe "Toolie" O'Toole, a Bronx firefighter who worked for many months on the rescue and clean-up efforts, wrote: "Underground fires raged for months. O'Toole remembers in February seeing a crane lift a steel beam vertically from deep within the catacombs of Ground Zero. 'It was dripping from the molten steel," he said'" (Lin, 2002). Greg Fuchek, vice president of sales for LinksPoint, Inc., which supplied some of the computer equipment used to identify human remains at the site, described the working conditions as "hellish," partly because for six months, the ground temperature varied between 600 degrees Fahrenheit and 1,500 degrees or higher. Fuchek added that "sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel" (Walsh, 2002). And still more witnesses spoke of molten steel.

    This testimony is of great significance, since it would be hard to imagine what, other than high explosives, could have caused some of the steel to melt.

    The importance of the nature of the collapses, as summarized in these 11 features, is shown by the fact that attempts to defend the official theory typically ignore most of them. For example, an article in Popular Mechanics (2005), seeking to debunk what it calls some of the most prevalent myths about 9/11 fabricated by ?conspiracy theorists,? completely ignores the suddenness, verticality, rapidity, and totality of the collapses and also fails to mention the testimonies about molten steel, demolition rings, and the sounds of explosions.
    This is by David Ray Griffin, a Christian Theologian.

    Interesting - not a conspiracy theorist myself but how did the building fall down at freefall speed if the floors were collapsing on each other? And how does a collapse cause concrete to be pulverised to dust?

    It doesn't make for proper science.

    Does anyone have some refutations for me?
  • toasty
    Sir Toastiness
    • Jun 2004
    • 6585

    #2
    Re: Christian Theologian addresses New York on 9/11

    There is an easy answer to all of this "controlled demolition" B.S. -- it looked like controlled demolition because it was controlled demolition, but not in the conspiracy theorist, tinfoil hat sort of way.

    When the WTC towers were designed, they were specifically engineered in such a way that if they ever had to be demolished or god forbid fell, they would fall into themselves and go straight down to minimize damage to the surrounding structures. Could you imagine the damage two 100+ story buildings would do if they were just falling free?

    As we unfortunately learned, those efforts to control the demo worked. I'll see if I can find a source for this, but I thought this was pretty widely understood.

    Comment

    • thesightless
      Someone will marry me. Hell Yeah!
      • Jun 2004
      • 13567

      #3
      Re: Christian Theologian addresses New York on 9/11

      please come to NYC, look at pics of the aftermath, see how big the tub was before you ask things like this.

      1, jet fuel burns hot.
      2. they were 110 and 112 floors high.
      3. it wasnt pulverized to dust, it actually took about 7 months to clear it.
      4. the ""TUB"" was 4 blocks long and 3 avenues wide, 70-78 feet deep. the tub was filled to the brim.
      5. i was there, there was at least 50-60 feet high of debris. add in the fact that it was spread over about 40 square blocks, not just on the site.


      can we please drop it.
      cheney, bush, clinton, powell, rice, cia, fbi, neo con nuts, uber left nuts.... all people who had nothing to do with a group of religiously fueled assholes who had problems with every american leader since the post WW2 period hijakcing 4 planes and landing 3 of them into humoungous buildings with thousands of people who were just working.

      and dont say we do things like this, nor have we since the A bombs. we never randomly attacked innocents, we sent in a military that, 99% of the time, only shoots when shot at. yes we occupied, but we went after government installations, not everyday people.
      your life is an occasion, rise to it.

      Join My Chant. new mix. april 09. dirty fuck house.
      download that. deep shit listed there

      my dick is its own superhero.

      Comment

      • thesightless
        Someone will marry me. Hell Yeah!
        • Jun 2004
        • 13567

        #4
        Re: Christian Theologian addresses New York on 9/11

        -100 points to every idiot who has a conspiricy theory beyond religion vs american governmental interference.
        your life is an occasion, rise to it.

        Join My Chant. new mix. april 09. dirty fuck house.
        download that. deep shit listed there

        my dick is its own superhero.

        Comment

        • Jenks
          I'm kind of a big deal.
          • Jun 2004
          • 10250

          #5
          Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

          delirious, did you just recently get electricity?

          Comment

          • delirious
            Addiction started
            • Jun 2004
            • 288

            #6
            Re: Christian Theologian addresses New York on 9/11

            Originally posted by thesightless
            jet fuel burns hot.
            Jet fuel can melt steel and keep it molten for weeks?

            Comment

            • delirious
              Addiction started
              • Jun 2004
              • 288

              #7
              Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

              Originally posted by Jenks
              delirious, did you just recently get electricity?
              Hey Jenks... that made me laugh!!! Will have to buy a generator to keep on [ms]

              Comment

              • thesightless
                Someone will marry me. Hell Yeah!
                • Jun 2004
                • 13567

                #8
                Re: Christian Theologian addresses New York on 9/11

                Originally posted by delirious
                Jet fuel can melt steel and keep it molten for weeks?
                actually yeah, call your local fire dept and ask them what a fual with over 1000 octance will burn like. or take a 93 octane fuel, pour it into a cup and drop a match, being careful of course. add in 200 floors of office supplies, electrical currents flowing steel and rebar, a few thousand tons of paper and wood desks, propane and gas from the restaurants and cafes in the buldings, the oil use to heat the building...... ill stop now.
                your life is an occasion, rise to it.

                Join My Chant. new mix. april 09. dirty fuck house.
                download that. deep shit listed there

                my dick is its own superhero.

                Comment

                • runningman
                  Playa I'm a Sooth Saya
                  • Jun 2004
                  • 5995

                  #9
                  Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                  the top fell on the bottom. mass in motion at the speed of gravity. grinding each floor on its way down.

                  Comment

                  • davetlv
                    Platinum Poster
                    • Jun 2004
                    • 1205

                    #10
                    Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                    The conspiracy sites have been pushing this for a few days now - Delerious just because someone is a theologian doesnt necessarily mean that they are smart.

                    I'm disgusted how sections of American society believe that their government could do this, even after OBL admitted responsibility. Playing this type of politics with the memory of the 3000+ victims is like murdering them all over again.

                    Are we all familiar with Occam's Razor folks.

                    Comment

                    • runningman
                      Playa I'm a Sooth Saya
                      • Jun 2004
                      • 5995

                      #11
                      Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                      no..^^ fill me in

                      Comment

                      • delirious
                        Addiction started
                        • Jun 2004
                        • 288

                        #12
                        Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                        Originally posted by runningman
                        the top fell on the bottom. mass in motion at the speed of gravity. grinding each floor on its way down.
                        So each floor gave no resistance? How is that possible?

                        Originally posted by davetlv
                        The conspiracy sites have been pushing this for a few days now - Delerious just because someone is a theologian doesnt necessarily mean that they are smart.
                        Ok - but just because something's appeared on a conspiracy site doesn't disprove it. If you have a clear article rebutting the facts Griffin mentions, please link to it.

                        Originally posted by thesightless
                        actually yeah, call your local fire dept and ask them what a fual with over 1000 octance will burn like. or take a 93 octane fuel, pour it into a cup and drop a match, being careful of course. add in 200 floors of office supplies, electrical currents flowing steel and rebar, a few thousand tons of paper and wood desks, propane and gas from the restaurants and cafes in the buldings, the oil use to heat the building...... ill stop now.


                        In combustion science, there are three basic types of flames, namely, a jet burner, a pre-mixed flame, and a diffuse flame.... In a diffuse flame, the fuel and the oxidant are not mixed before ignition, but flow together in an uncontrolled manner and combust when the fuel/oxidant ratios reach values within the flammable range. A fireplace is a diffuse flame burning in air, as was the WTC fire. Diffuse flames generate the lowest heat intensities of the three flame types... The maximum flame temperature increase for burning hydrocarbons (jet fuel) in air is, thus, about 1000 ?C -- hardly sufficient to melt steel at 1500 ?C."
                        "But it is very difficult to reach [even] this maximum temperature with a diffuse flame. There is nothing to ensure that the fuel and air in a diffuse flame are mixed in the best ratio... This is why the temperatures in a residential fire are usually in the 500 ?C to 650 ?C range [Cote, 1992]. It is known that the WTC fire was a fuel-rich, diffuse flame as evidenced by the copious black smoke.... It is known that structural steel begins to soften around 425 ?C and loses about half of its strength at 650 ?C [Cote, 1992]. This is why steel is stress relieved in this temperature range. But even a 50% loss of strength is still insufficient, by itself, to explain the WTC collapse... The WTC, on this low-wind day, was likely not stressed more than a third of the design allowable... Even with its strength halved, the steel could still support two to three times the stresses imposed by a 650 ?C fire." (Eagar and Musso, 2001; emphasis added.)


                        Even if we accept this to be the case - why did the steel also melt and become molten in Building 7, which was not even hit by an aircraft?

                        Comment

                        • runningman
                          Playa I'm a Sooth Saya
                          • Jun 2004
                          • 5995

                          #13
                          Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                          do you know how much weight that is?? those floors wouldn't be able to do a thing about that. snap like twigs. how strong do you think steel is?

                          Comment

                          • davetlv
                            Platinum Poster
                            • Jun 2004
                            • 1205

                            #14
                            Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                            Originally posted by runningman
                            no..^^ fill me in
                            one should not increase, beyond what is necessary, the number of entities required to explain anything


                            Comment

                            • delirious
                              Addiction started
                              • Jun 2004
                              • 288

                              #15
                              Re: Christian Theologian says WTC towers were demolished, cites evidence

                              Originally posted by runningman
                              do you know how much weight that is?? those floors wouldn't be able to do a thing about that. snap like twigs. how strong do you think steel is?
                              No other steel building in history has collapsed due to fire except on 9/11. That's how strong steel is.

                              Experts said no building like it [WTC7], a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire. (Glanz, 2001; emphasis added.)

                              Comment

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