The Lie of 9-11 and it's after effects

[TruthSeeker112125]

I find it interesting that this is still discussed 25 years later. I never wasted much time with 9/11 because I always had better things to do. I have a BS in Engineering and an MBA. I remember a very large panel of engineers, physicists and architects all presented tons of very credible evidence that was always ignored. Their take home message is that it is almost impossible to bring down a skyscraper, especially with fire, and for it to come down at the speed of free fall. Hard to ignore that. Then as someone with financial knowledge, all I can say is if you want to truly understand something, don't listen to and trust the government, the media, and people in general. Instead, follow the money. There are a few people that got incredibly rich because of 9/11. Why?

Greetings Dorian,... If I remember correctly, didn't the WTC Complex get sold before 9-11, & the New Owner insured it for more than it was worth?

 

[TruthSeeker112125]

I've been wondering this myself for about 25 years, especially since I take about 4 or 5 flights per year myself, and only once in that time was I ever able to connect, even briefly, with a ground tower while in flight.

Greetings Both,..... That is one piece of the "Thousand piece puzzle" of 9-11. I have an article, that was made several years after 9-11, that made a Cell Phone Company very profitable due to their finding a way for Cell Phones to operate on Air Liners.

 

[TruthSeeker112125]

There is a certain little country who hates its Islamic neighbors, which gained an active ally in the U.S. as a result of 9/11. Very very convenient.

I Agree Both,..... If One were to study the "Cause & Effect" of 9-11,.... If by now they haven't been "Totally Dumbed Down", by Our Government, Media, & Educational System, I'm Thinking that they would be thoroughly enraged, by what America has done for that "Little country", at the astronomical expense of "We the People".

 

[Soupnazi630]

I find it interesting that this is still discussed 25 years later. I never wasted much time with 9/11 because I always had better things to do. I have a BS in Engineering and an MBA. I remember a very large panel of engineers, physicists and architects all presented tons of very credible evidence that was always ignored. Their take home message is that it is almost impossible to bring down a skyscraper, especially with fire, and for it to come down at the speed of free fall. Hard to ignore that. Then as someone with financial knowledge, all I can say is if you want to truly understand something, don't listen to and trust the government, the media, and people in general. Instead, follow the money. There are a few people that got incredibly rich because of 9/11. Why?

There never was any such panel with credible evidence

First of all it is no where near impossible for fire to bring down a skyscraper expecially when half the supports have been wrecked.

Second of all NONE of the buildings came down at free fall speed

There is always someone who gets rich, why dont you name those few people instead of hinting at it.

 

[Soupnazi630]

I've been wondering this myself for about 25 years, especially since I take about 4 or 5 flights per year myself, and only once in that time was I ever able to connect, even briefly, with a ground tower while in flight.

That is because they did not use CELL phones they used satellite phones which are built into the seat backs of every airliner.

No one ever claimed they used CELL phjones.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Greetings Both,..... That is one piece of the "Thousand piece puzzle" of 9-11. I have an article, that was made several years after 9-11, that made a Cell Phone Company very profitable due to their finding a way for Cell Phones to operate on Air Liners.

Which is all irrelevant

No one claimed they used cell phones

They used satellite phones

 

[Dorian Mode]

Greetings Dorian,... If I remember correctly, didn't the WTC Complex get sold before 9-11, & the New Owner insured it for more than it was worth?

Follow the Larry Silverstein rabbit hole. I would also say to look into the financials of the Port Authority and the financials of the WTC pre- 9/11. I seem to remember the WTC was losing a lot of money because the asbestos problem kept tenants away and there weren't enough tenants to make the towers profitable. And the costs of asbestos removal were astronomical. There was a lot of incentive to just bring those two towers down. I'm not an expert on this and never thought about it again shortly after, but I had my doubts. Anyway. when in doubt, follow the money and follow good science. They always lead to the truth. Never believe politicians and governments. They are paid to lie, and are very good at it.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Follow the Larry Silverstein rabbit hole. I would also say to look into the financials of the Port Authority and the financials of the WTC pre- 9/11. I seem to remember the WTC was losing a lot of money because the asbestos problem kept tenants away and there weren't enough tenants to make the towers profitable. And the costs of asbestos removal were astronomical. There was a lot of incentive to just bring those two towers down. I'm not an expert on this and never thought about it again shortly after, but I had my doubts. Anyway. when in doubt, follow the money and follow good science. They always lead to the truth. Never believe politicians and governments. They are paid to lie, and are very good at it.

You seem to remember?????????????

That is a worthless claim.

Instead of saying follow the money YOU need to follow it and identify where it leads.

You know who else lies? Conspiracy theorists.

Otherwise you are posting proven bullshit

 

[TruthSeeker112125]

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel​

Adam Taylor March 1, 2012
Popular Mechanics (PM) next turns to the issue of the plane impacts and fire damage and their roles in the WTC event.

>>>Though PM acknowledges that the fires in the buildings could not have become hot enough to melt steel,<<< the magazine nonetheless rehashes the argument from other defenders of the official story—namely, that the steel did not need to melt to cause collapse. According to PM, the steel only had to be weakened by the fires just enough to cause collapse.

PM argues that “When the planes hit the buildings and plowed into their centers, a large section of the exterior load-bearing columns as well as some crucial core columns were severed” (pg. 37-38). Though this may be true, the collapse of the Towers appears to have actually started at floors that had minimal structural damage.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">1</a>

PM also discusses the theory from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that “the impact stripped fireproofing insulation from the trusses that supported 80,000 square feet of floor space” (pg. 38).

This assertion, however, is greatly flawed, as noted by UL whistleblower Kevin Ryan:

>>>[NIST's] test for fireproofing loss, never inserted in the draft reports, involved shooting a total of fifteen rounds from a shotgun at non-representative [structural steel] samples. . . . t's not hard to see that these tests actually disproved their findings. One reason is that there is no evidence that a Boeing 767 could transform into any number of shotgun blasts. Nearly 100,000 blasts would be needed based on NIST's own damage estimates, and these would have to be directed in a very symmetrical fashion to strip the columns and floors from all sides. However, it is much more likely that the aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones, and that it was directed asymmetrically.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">2</a><<<

Photo from Ground Zero shows a portion of the airplane fuselage, which contradicts the framework of NIST's “shotgun test” for fireproofing loss in the Twin Towers.Ryan's assertion that “. . . aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones” is well grounded, as photographs show that large portions of the planes exited the Towers, and eyewitnesses who escaped from the Towers reported seeing intact portions of the plane in the building.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">3</a>

PM next goes on to discuss NIST's assertions that the fires in the buildings were sufficient to weaken the steel to the failure point. However, NIST's own tests show no evidence of this. While PM asserts in their book that “[steel] loses roughly 50 percent of its strength at approximately 600 degrees Celsius (1,100 Fahrenheit)” (pg. 38), NIST cites no evidence that the steel in the Towers sustained temperatures anywhere near this range. The highest temperatures NIST estimated for the steel samples was only 250 °C (482 °F), according to the metallographic paint tests they performed on WTC core column specimens.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">4</a>

PM attempts to make a case that the combination of the aircraft impacts and the ensuing fires were sufficient to cause both of the structures to collapse.

Conspiracy theorists point to other high-rise fires, such as the one in 1991 at the 38-story Meridian Plaza hotel in Philadelphia, as proof that fire alone cannot bring down a skyscraper. And, in a sense, they are right: Fire alone did not bring down the towers (pg. 40).

It is important to note that the term “conspiracy theorists” is a derogatory term used here to discredit the forensic evidence of controlled demolition brought forward by technical professionals. The experts at AE911Truth do not speculate on possible theories regarding who brought down the WTC skyscrapers.

In the case of Building 7, the NIST report tells us that structural damage played no role in initiating the collapse of the building, and that its collapse was due to “normal office fires.”<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">5</a>&nbsp;One then has to wonder why PM does not consider the 9/11 Truth Movement “in a sense right” about Building 7.

But that aside, it is important to quantify how the structural damage played a role in the collapse of the Towers. We previously noted that the collapse of the Towers started on floors with less damage than other floors. In the case of the North Tower, the collapse started at the 98th floor,<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">6</a> which had the least amount of structural damage out of all the damaged floors.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">7</a> Not only that, but the upper section of the North Tower started to collapse on the side of the building opposite to where the plane impacted.

Impact zone of the North Tower (shown from the north side)

Initiation of collapse of the North Tower (shown form the south side)

But PM notes other issues regarding the Towers' collapses, quoting structural engineer Jon Magnusson as saying:

[T]he impact struck out sprinklers and fireproofing, and the fire elevated the temperature of steel. Then you start to weaken the steel by heating it up (pg. 40).

As we have already seen, NIST has not provided evidence that demonstrates that the fires were hot enough to cause structural failure and collapse — nor that the fireproofing was widely dislodged. As for the sprinklers being “knocked out,” NIST doubts that the sprinklers would have done much to fight the fires.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">8</a>

PM provides the One Meridian Plaza building as an example that members of the 9/11 Truth Movement cite to demonstrate that fires have never brought down a steel-framed high-rise, but they provide very little information on the specifics of the incident. The One Meridian Plaza building burned for 18 hours over eight floors. This is a vastly more severe fire than the fires that would have existed in the Towers. (Remember that NIST acknowledges that the jet fuel was burned up after only about 10 minutes.) What's more, the Meridian building was also constructed similarly to the Twin Towers and Building 7, having a core and perimeter “tube within a tube” columnar structural system.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">9</a> This was also the case for the First Interstate Bank, a 62-story building in California, which burned for nearly four hours but did not collapse.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">10</a>

Melted Steel​

PM next addresses physics professor Dr. Steven Jones' findings regarding molten metal in the debris at Ground Zero, which Jones calls evidence of melted steel and/or iron. To counter his contention, PM's asserts that the fires in the debris piles cooked the steel and other metals to the point where they melted. They quote Jon Magnusson as saying:

When we're talking about the debris pile and the insulating effect, the fires down there are completely different than the factors [affecting the steel] in the building (pg. 41).

However, the idea that the molten metal could have somehow formed in the debris afterwards is actually addressed in Jones' paper:

Notice that the molten metal (probably not steel alone; see discussion below) was flowing down in the rubble pile early on; so it is not the case that the molten metal pools formed due to subterranean fires after the collapses.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">11</a>

PM provides no technical analysis in their book to show that the fires could have become hot enough to melt steel in the debris piles. The temperatures that existed in the debris piles were vastly hotter than what any sort of natural fire could have produced. In fact, the temperatures were evidently high enough:

• To form Fe-O-S eutectic (with ~50 Mol % sulfur) in steel [1,000 °C (1,832 °F)]
• To melt aluminosilicates (spherule formation) [1,450 °C (2,652 °F)]
• To melt iron (III) oxide (spherule formation) [1,565 °C (2,849 °F)]
• To vaporize lead [1,740 °C (3,164 °F)]
• To melt molybdenum (spherule formation) [2,623 °C (4,753 °F)]
• To vaporize aluminosilicates [2,760 °C (5,000 °F)]<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">12</a>
• To melt concrete [1,760 °C (3,200 °F]

The conditions at Ground Zero simply could not have produced these types of temperatures.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">13</a> However, the extreme heat in the piles is indeed consistent with thermitic reactions.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">14</a>

In PM's next attempt to undermine the case for molten metal in the debris, they cite the analysis of Alan Pense, a professor of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University. They quote Pense saying:

The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing . . . or show materials that appear to be other than steel. One of these photos appears to me to be mostly of glass with unmelted steel rods in it. Glass melts at much lower temperatures than steel (pg. 41).

First off, it is not clear from this statement which photograph Pense is referring to, though it's likely the popular “crane shot.”

Regardless of whether the obvious molten material shown above is molten steel, iron, or even glass, its color indicates temperatures exceeding 2,300°F. The jet fuel and office fires in the Twin Towers never reached such temperatures.

Second, we have already seen that there were metals that were either melted or evaporated at temperatures well above the melting point of steel and iron. Third, even if the crane photo did show molten glass, it would still need to have been heated to extremely high temperatures, since glass does not begin to give off any visible light until it approaches temperatures of 2240 ºF.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">15</a>

PM next takes issue with Steven Jones' claim that the molten metal can be accounted for by incendiaries that could have been used to destroy the buildings. They counter this claim by quoting Controlled Demolition, Inc. president Mark Loizeaux as saying the explosives used in demolitions do not produce molten metal, noting that the heat from the explosives would not last long. While this may be true for conventional explosives, the use of thermate and nanothermite based devices could certainly account for the molten metal. Molten iron is the main byproduct of a thermite reaction, and the reaction can produce extreme heat that lasts longer than conventional explosives. Nanothermite is a very high tech variation of thermite, and could account for all of these phenomena.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">16</a>

In fact, both the USGS and RJ Lee, an environmental consulting firm, found ubiquitous, previously-molten iron microspheres in all of the WTC dust samples. These, like the thermite, can only be the result of temperatures reaching 2,800°F. Up to 6% of some of the dust samples recovered in the nearby skyscraper, the Deutsche Bank building, are composed of these iron spheres — most of which are only the size of the diameter of a human hair.

It is quite evident that PM has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

Part 3: Collapse Times of the Twin Towers

---

1 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/FentonWTCInitiationFloors.pdf

2 Quoted from: What is 9/11 Truth? — The First Steps, by Kevin Ryan, pg. 2-3 http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Article_1_Ryan5.pdf

3 See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRwNJmQw1MY

4 See: NIST Conceals the Controlled Demolition of the Twin Towers

5 “The debris from WTC 1 caused structural damage to the southwest region of WTC 7—severing seven exterior columns—but this structural damage did not initiate the collapse. The fires initiated by the debris, rather than the structural damage that resulted from the impacts, initiated the building's collapse after the fires grew and spread to the northeast region after several hours.” Quoted from: FAQs - NIST WTC 7 Investigation

6 According to NIST NCSTAR 1, pg. 87: “First exterior sign of downward movement of building at floor 98.”

7 Although it is true that the NIST report never specifically states that the 98th floor was the least damaged, the information provided in their report clearly demonstrates this. The 98th floor had only five perimeter columns severed, and one need only look through the table provided in NCSTAR 1-2, pg. 205 to see that NIST does not list floor 98 as having any of its core columns severed.

8 “Even if the automatic sprinklers had been operational, the sprinkler systems—which were installed in accordance with the prevailing fire safety code—were designed to suppress a fire that covered as much as 1,500 square feet on a given floor. This amount of coverage is capable of controlling almost all fires that are likely to occur in an office building. On Sept. 11, 2001, the jet-fuel ignited fires quickly spread over most of the 40,000 square feet on several floors in each tower. This created infernos that could not have been suppressed even by an undamaged sprinkler system, much less one that had been appreciably degraded.” Quoted from: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_faqs_082006.cfm

9 See: One Meridian Plaza Fire

10 See: http://www.iklimnet.com/hotelfires/big_fires1.html

11 Quoted from: Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse? by Dr. Steven Jones, pg. 5 http://www.journalof911studies.com/...rldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

12 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

13 For a detailed discussion of the high temperatures at Ground Zero, see:
http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dreger/GroundZeroHeat2008_07_10.pdf

14 See: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/

15 See: http://wiki.naturalfrequency.com/wiki/Colour_temperature

16 A detailed explanation of aluminothermic technology is given here:
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysis/theories/thermitetech.html

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel

It is quite evident that Popular Mechanics has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

www.ae911truth.org

 

[Soupnazi630]

You seem to remember?????????????

That is a worthless claim.

Instead of saying follow the money YOU need to follow it and identify where it leads.
Otherwise you are posting proven bullshit

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel​

Adam Taylor March 1, 2012
Popular Mechanics (PM) next turns to the issue of the plane impacts and fire damage and their roles in the WTC event.

>>>Though PM acknowledges that the fires in the buildings could not have become hot enough to melt steel,<<< the magazine nonetheless rehashes the argument from other defenders of the official story—namely, that the steel did not need to melt to cause collapse. According to PM, the steel only had to be weakened by the fires just enough to cause collapse.

PM argues that “When the planes hit the buildings and plowed into their centers, a large section of the exterior load-bearing columns as well as some crucial core columns were severed” (pg. 37-38). Though this may be true, the collapse of the Towers appears to have actually started at floors that had minimal structural damage.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">1</a>

PM also discusses the theory from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that “the impact stripped fireproofing insulation from the trusses that supported 80,000 square feet of floor space” (pg. 38).

This assertion, however, is greatly flawed, as noted by UL whistleblower Kevin Ryan:

>>>[NIST's] test for fireproofing loss, never inserted in the draft reports, involved shooting a total of fifteen rounds from a shotgun at non-representative [structural steel] samples. . . . t's not hard to see that these tests actually disproved their findings. One reason is that there is no evidence that a Boeing 767 could transform into any number of shotgun blasts. Nearly 100,000 blasts would be needed based on NIST's own damage estimates, and these would have to be directed in a very symmetrical fashion to strip the columns and floors from all sides. However, it is much more likely that the aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones, and that it was directed asymmetrically.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">2</a><<<

Photo from Ground Zero shows a portion of the airplane fuselage, which contradicts the framework of NIST's “shotgun test” for fireproofing loss in the Twin Towers.Ryan's assertion that “. . . aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones” is well grounded, as photographs show that large portions of the planes exited the Towers, and eyewitnesses who escaped from the Towers reported seeing intact portions of the plane in the building.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">3</a>

PM next goes on to discuss NIST's assertions that the fires in the buildings were sufficient to weaken the steel to the failure point. However, NIST's own tests show no evidence of this. While PM asserts in their book that “[steel] loses roughly 50 percent of its strength at approximately 600 degrees Celsius (1,100 Fahrenheit)” (pg. 38), NIST cites no evidence that the steel in the Towers sustained temperatures anywhere near this range. The highest temperatures NIST estimated for the steel samples was only 250 °C (482 °F), according to the metallographic paint tests they performed on WTC core column specimens.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">4</a>

PM attempts to make a case that the combination of the aircraft impacts and the ensuing fires were sufficient to cause both of the structures to collapse.

Conspiracy theorists point to other high-rise fires, such as the one in 1991 at the 38-story Meridian Plaza hotel in Philadelphia, as proof that fire alone cannot bring down a skyscraper. And, in a sense, they are right: Fire alone did not bring down the towers (pg. 40).

It is important to note that the term “conspiracy theorists” is a derogatory term used here to discredit the forensic evidence of controlled demolition brought forward by technical professionals. The experts at AE911Truth do not speculate on possible theories regarding who brought down the WTC skyscrapers.

In the case of Building 7, the NIST report tells us that structural damage played no role in initiating the collapse of the building, and that its collapse was due to “normal office fires.”<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">5</a>&nbsp;One then has to wonder why PM does not consider the 9/11 Truth Movement “in a sense right” about Building 7.

But that aside, it is important to quantify how the structural damage played a role in the collapse of the Towers. We previously noted that the collapse of the Towers started on floors with less damage than other floors. In the case of the North Tower, the collapse started at the 98th floor,<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">6</a> which had the least amount of structural damage out of all the damaged floors.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">7</a> Not only that, but the upper section of the North Tower started to collapse on the side of the building opposite to where the plane impacted.

Impact zone of the North Tower (shown from the north side)

Initiation of collapse of the North Tower (shown form the south side)

But PM notes other issues regarding the Towers' collapses, quoting structural engineer Jon Magnusson as saying:

[T]he impact struck out sprinklers and fireproofing, and the fire elevated the temperature of steel. Then you start to weaken the steel by heating it up (pg. 40).

As we have already seen, NIST has not provided evidence that demonstrates that the fires were hot enough to cause structural failure and collapse — nor that the fireproofing was widely dislodged. As for the sprinklers being “knocked out,” NIST doubts that the sprinklers would have done much to fight the fires.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">8</a>

PM provides the One Meridian Plaza building as an example that members of the 9/11 Truth Movement cite to demonstrate that fires have never brought down a steel-framed high-rise, but they provide very little information on the specifics of the incident. The One Meridian Plaza building burned for 18 hours over eight floors. This is a vastly more severe fire than the fires that would have existed in the Towers. (Remember that NIST acknowledges that the jet fuel was burned up after only about 10 minutes.) What's more, the Meridian building was also constructed similarly to the Twin Towers and Building 7, having a core and perimeter “tube within a tube” columnar structural system.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">9</a> This was also the case for the First Interstate Bank, a 62-story building in California, which burned for nearly four hours but did not collapse.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">10</a>

Melted Steel​

PM next addresses physics professor Dr. Steven Jones' findings regarding molten metal in the debris at Ground Zero, which Jones calls evidence of melted steel and/or iron. To counter his contention, PM's asserts that the fires in the debris piles cooked the steel and other metals to the point where they melted. They quote Jon Magnusson as saying:

When we're talking about the debris pile and the insulating effect, the fires down there are completely different than the factors [affecting the steel] in the building (pg. 41).

However, the idea that the molten metal could have somehow formed in the debris afterwards is actually addressed in Jones' paper:

Notice that the molten metal (probably not steel alone; see discussion below) was flowing down in the rubble pile early on; so it is not the case that the molten metal pools formed due to subterranean fires after the collapses.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">11</a>

PM provides no technical analysis in their book to show that the fires could have become hot enough to melt steel in the debris piles. The temperatures that existed in the debris piles were vastly hotter than what any sort of natural fire could have produced. In fact, the temperatures were evidently high enough:

• • To form Fe-O-S eutectic (with ~50 Mol % sulfur) in steel [1,000 °C (1,832 °F)]
  • To melt aluminosilicates (spherule formation) [1,450 °C (2,652 °F)]
  • To melt iron (III) oxide (spherule formation) [1,565 °C (2,849 °F)]
  • To vaporize lead [1,740 °C (3,164 °F)]
  • To melt molybdenum (spherule formation) [2,623 °C (4,753 °F)]
  • To vaporize aluminosilicates [2,760 °C (5,000 °F)]<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">12</a>
  • To melt concrete [1,760 °C (3,200 °F]

The conditions at Ground Zero simply could not have produced these types of temperatures.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">13</a> However, the extreme heat in the piles is indeed consistent with thermitic reactions.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">14</a>

In PM's next attempt to undermine the case for molten metal in the debris, they cite the analysis of Alan Pense, a professor of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University. They quote Pense saying:

The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing . . . or show materials that appear to be other than steel. One of these photos appears to me to be mostly of glass with unmelted steel rods in it. Glass melts at much lower temperatures than steel (pg. 41).

First off, it is not clear from this statement which photograph Pense is referring to, though it's likely the popular “crane shot.”

Regardless of whether the obvious molten material shown above is molten steel, iron, or even glass, its color indicates temperatures exceeding 2,300°F. The jet fuel and office fires in the Twin Towers never reached such temperatures.

Second, we have already seen that there were metals that were either melted or evaporated at temperatures well above the melting point of steel and iron. Third, even if the crane photo did show molten glass, it would still need to have been heated to extremely high temperatures, since glass does not begin to give off any visible light until it approaches temperatures of 2240 ºF.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">15</a>

PM next takes issue with Steven Jones' claim that the molten metal can be accounted for by incendiaries that could have been used to destroy the buildings. They counter this claim by quoting Controlled Demolition, Inc. president Mark Loizeaux as saying the explosives used in demolitions do not produce molten metal, noting that the heat from the explosives would not last long. While this may be true for conventional explosives, the use of thermate and nanothermite based devices could certainly account for the molten metal. Molten iron is the main byproduct of a thermite reaction, and the reaction can produce extreme heat that lasts longer than conventional explosives. Nanothermite is a very high tech variation of thermite, and could account for all of these phenomena.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">16</a>

In fact, both the USGS and RJ Lee, an environmental consulting firm, found ubiquitous, previously-molten iron microspheres in all of the WTC dust samples. These, like the thermite, can only be the result of temperatures reaching 2,800°F. Up to 6% of some of the dust samples recovered in the nearby skyscraper, the Deutsche Bank building, are composed of these iron spheres — most of which are only the size of the diameter of a human hair.

It is quite evident that PM has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

Part 3: Collapse Times of the Twin Towers

---

1 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/FentonWTCInitiationFloors.pdf

2 Quoted from: What is 9/11 Truth? — The First Steps, by Kevin Ryan, pg. 2-3 http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Article_1_Ryan5.pdf

3 See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRwNJmQw1MY

4 See: NIST Conceals the Controlled Demolition of the Twin Towers

5 “The debris from WTC 1 caused structural damage to the southwest region of WTC 7—severing seven exterior columns—but this structural damage did not initiate the collapse. The fires initiated by the debris, rather than the structural damage that resulted from the impacts, initiated the building's collapse after the fires grew and spread to the northeast region after several hours.” Quoted from: FAQs - NIST WTC 7 Investigation

6 According to NIST NCSTAR 1, pg. 87: “First exterior sign of downward movement of building at floor 98.”

7 Although it is true that the NIST report never specifically states that the 98th floor was the least damaged, the information provided in their report clearly demonstrates this. The 98th floor had only five perimeter columns severed, and one need only look through the table provided in NCSTAR 1-2, pg. 205 to see that NIST does not list floor 98 as having any of its core columns severed.

8 “Even if the automatic sprinklers had been operational, the sprinkler systems—which were installed in accordance with the prevailing fire safety code—were designed to suppress a fire that covered as much as 1,500 square feet on a given floor. This amount of coverage is capable of controlling almost all fires that are likely to occur in an office building. On Sept. 11, 2001, the jet-fuel ignited fires quickly spread over most of the 40,000 square feet on several floors in each tower. This created infernos that could not have been suppressed even by an undamaged sprinkler system, much less one that had been appreciably degraded.” Quoted from: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_faqs_082006.cfm

9 See: One Meridian Plaza Fire

10 See: Big Industrial Fires

11 Quoted from: Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse? by Dr. Steven Jones, pg. 5 http://www.journalof911studies.com/...rldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

12 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

13 For a detailed discussion of the high temperatures at Ground Zero, see:
http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dreger/GroundZeroHeat2008_07_10.pdf

14 See: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/

15 See: http://wiki.naturalfrequency.com/wiki/Colour_temperature

16 A detailed explanation of aluminothermic technology is given here:
9-11 Research: Aluminothermic Technology

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel

It is quite evident that Popular Mechanics has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

www.ae911truth.org

The analysis by PM was not flawed it was spot on

They did not need to explain any molten steel at ground zero because it was found much later, under the debris, and was not caused during the collapse.

Conspiracy theory idiots always lose onthat point. No where does not one cklaim that the fires melted steel nor did it have to melt steel to cause the collapse.

This bullshit aboyt melting steel was disproven decades ago much liek the fictitious claim about cell phones anf the bald faced lie about free fall speed

 

[TruthSeeker112125]

Follow the Larry Silverstein rabbit hole. I would also say to look into the financials of the Port Authority and the financials of the WTC pre- 9/11. I seem to remember the WTC was losing a lot of money because the asbestos problem kept tenants away and there weren't enough tenants to make the towers profitable. And the costs of asbestos removal were astronomical. There was a lot of incentive to just bring those two towers down. I'm not an expert on this and never thought about it again shortly after, but I had my doubts. Anyway. when in doubt, follow the money and follow good science. They always lead to the truth. Never believe politicians and governments. They are paid to lie, and are very good at it.

I absolutely Agree Dorian!

 

[wist43]

Larry Silverstein is a complete scumbag... he leveraged the insured value into twice the payout.

My guess would be that these monies were used to pay some of the contractors involved in bringing the buildings down and in operating some aspects of the cover up thereafter.

 

[TruthSeeker112125]

Larry Silverstein is a complete scumbag... he leveraged the insured value into twice the payout.

My guess would be that these monies were used to pay some of the contractors involved in bringing the buildings down and in operating some aspects of the cover up thereafter.

I wonder if that "Possible Money Trail" would get buried like the Epstein Files.

 

[Soupnazi630]

Larry Silverstein is a complete scumbag... he leveraged the insured value into twice the payout.

My guess would be that these monies were used to pay some of the contractors involved in bringing the buildings down and in operating some aspects of the cover up thereafter.

Who are these contractors you guess about?

 

[candycorn]

I've been wondering this myself for about 25 years, especially since I take about 4 or 5 flights per year myself, and only once in that time was I ever able to connect, even briefly, with a ground tower while in flight.

Were you flying at 500 feet? If so, you probably should change airlines.

 

[candycorn]

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel​

Adam Taylor March 1, 2012
Popular Mechanics (PM) next turns to the issue of the plane impacts and fire damage and their roles in the WTC event.

>>>Though PM acknowledges that the fires in the buildings could not have become hot enough to melt steel,<<< the magazine nonetheless rehashes the argument from other defenders of the official story—namely, that the steel did not need to melt to cause collapse. According to PM, the steel only had to be weakened by the fires just enough to cause collapse.

PM argues that “When the planes hit the buildings and plowed into their centers, a large section of the exterior load-bearing columns as well as some crucial core columns were severed” (pg. 37-38). Though this may be true, the collapse of the Towers appears to have actually started at floors that had minimal structural damage.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">1</a>

PM also discusses the theory from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that “the impact stripped fireproofing insulation from the trusses that supported 80,000 square feet of floor space” (pg. 38).

This assertion, however, is greatly flawed, as noted by UL whistleblower Kevin Ryan:

>>>[NIST's] test for fireproofing loss, never inserted in the draft reports, involved shooting a total of fifteen rounds from a shotgun at non-representative [structural steel] samples. . . . t's not hard to see that these tests actually disproved their findings. One reason is that there is no evidence that a Boeing 767 could transform into any number of shotgun blasts. Nearly 100,000 blasts would be needed based on NIST's own damage estimates, and these would have to be directed in a very symmetrical fashion to strip the columns and floors from all sides. However, it is much more likely that the aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones, and that it was directed asymmetrically.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">2</a><<<

Photo from Ground Zero shows a portion of the airplane fuselage, which contradicts the framework of NIST's “shotgun test” for fireproofing loss in the Twin Towers.Ryan's assertion that “. . . aircraft debris was a distribution of sizes from very large chunks to a few smaller ones” is well grounded, as photographs show that large portions of the planes exited the Towers, and eyewitnesses who escaped from the Towers reported seeing intact portions of the plane in the building.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">3</a>

PM next goes on to discuss NIST's assertions that the fires in the buildings were sufficient to weaken the steel to the failure point. However, NIST's own tests show no evidence of this. While PM asserts in their book that “[steel] loses roughly 50 percent of its strength at approximately 600 degrees Celsius (1,100 Fahrenheit)” (pg. 38), NIST cites no evidence that the steel in the Towers sustained temperatures anywhere near this range. The highest temperatures NIST estimated for the steel samples was only 250 °C (482 °F), according to the metallographic paint tests they performed on WTC core column specimens.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">4</a>

PM attempts to make a case that the combination of the aircraft impacts and the ensuing fires were sufficient to cause both of the structures to collapse.

Conspiracy theorists point to other high-rise fires, such as the one in 1991 at the 38-story Meridian Plaza hotel in Philadelphia, as proof that fire alone cannot bring down a skyscraper. And, in a sense, they are right: Fire alone did not bring down the towers (pg. 40).

It is important to note that the term “conspiracy theorists” is a derogatory term used here to discredit the forensic evidence of controlled demolition brought forward by technical professionals. The experts at AE911Truth do not speculate on possible theories regarding who brought down the WTC skyscrapers.

In the case of Building 7, the NIST report tells us that structural damage played no role in initiating the collapse of the building, and that its collapse was due to “normal office fires.”<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">5</a>&nbsp;One then has to wonder why PM does not consider the 9/11 Truth Movement “in a sense right” about Building 7.

But that aside, it is important to quantify how the structural damage played a role in the collapse of the Towers. We previously noted that the collapse of the Towers started on floors with less damage than other floors. In the case of the North Tower, the collapse started at the 98th floor,<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">6</a> which had the least amount of structural damage out of all the damaged floors.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">7</a> Not only that, but the upper section of the North Tower started to collapse on the side of the building opposite to where the plane impacted.

Impact zone of the North Tower (shown from the north side)

Initiation of collapse of the North Tower (shown form the south side)

But PM notes other issues regarding the Towers' collapses, quoting structural engineer Jon Magnusson as saying:

[T]he impact struck out sprinklers and fireproofing, and the fire elevated the temperature of steel. Then you start to weaken the steel by heating it up (pg. 40).

As we have already seen, NIST has not provided evidence that demonstrates that the fires were hot enough to cause structural failure and collapse — nor that the fireproofing was widely dislodged. As for the sprinklers being “knocked out,” NIST doubts that the sprinklers would have done much to fight the fires.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">8</a>

PM provides the One Meridian Plaza building as an example that members of the 9/11 Truth Movement cite to demonstrate that fires have never brought down a steel-framed high-rise, but they provide very little information on the specifics of the incident. The One Meridian Plaza building burned for 18 hours over eight floors. This is a vastly more severe fire than the fires that would have existed in the Towers. (Remember that NIST acknowledges that the jet fuel was burned up after only about 10 minutes.) What's more, the Meridian building was also constructed similarly to the Twin Towers and Building 7, having a core and perimeter “tube within a tube” columnar structural system.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">9</a> This was also the case for the First Interstate Bank, a 62-story building in California, which burned for nearly four hours but did not collapse.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">10</a>

Melted Steel​

PM next addresses physics professor Dr. Steven Jones' findings regarding molten metal in the debris at Ground Zero, which Jones calls evidence of melted steel and/or iron. To counter his contention, PM's asserts that the fires in the debris piles cooked the steel and other metals to the point where they melted. They quote Jon Magnusson as saying:

When we're talking about the debris pile and the insulating effect, the fires down there are completely different than the factors [affecting the steel] in the building (pg. 41).

However, the idea that the molten metal could have somehow formed in the debris afterwards is actually addressed in Jones' paper:

Notice that the molten metal (probably not steel alone; see discussion below) was flowing down in the rubble pile early on; so it is not the case that the molten metal pools formed due to subterranean fires after the collapses.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">11</a>

PM provides no technical analysis in their book to show that the fires could have become hot enough to melt steel in the debris piles. The temperatures that existed in the debris piles were vastly hotter than what any sort of natural fire could have produced. In fact, the temperatures were evidently high enough:

• • To form Fe-O-S eutectic (with ~50 Mol % sulfur) in steel [1,000 °C (1,832 °F)]
  • To melt aluminosilicates (spherule formation) [1,450 °C (2,652 °F)]
  • To melt iron (III) oxide (spherule formation) [1,565 °C (2,849 °F)]
  • To vaporize lead [1,740 °C (3,164 °F)]
  • To melt molybdenum (spherule formation) [2,623 °C (4,753 °F)]
  • To vaporize aluminosilicates [2,760 °C (5,000 °F)]<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">12</a>
  • To melt concrete [1,760 °C (3,200 °F]

The conditions at Ground Zero simply could not have produced these types of temperatures.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">13</a> However, the extreme heat in the piles is indeed consistent with thermitic reactions.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">14</a>

In PM's next attempt to undermine the case for molten metal in the debris, they cite the analysis of Alan Pense, a professor of metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University. They quote Pense saying:

The photographs shown to support melting steel are, to me, either unconvincing . . . or show materials that appear to be other than steel. One of these photos appears to me to be mostly of glass with unmelted steel rods in it. Glass melts at much lower temperatures than steel (pg. 41).

First off, it is not clear from this statement which photograph Pense is referring to, though it's likely the popular “crane shot.”

Regardless of whether the obvious molten material shown above is molten steel, iron, or even glass, its color indicates temperatures exceeding 2,300°F. The jet fuel and office fires in the Twin Towers never reached such temperatures.

Second, we have already seen that there were metals that were either melted or evaporated at temperatures well above the melting point of steel and iron. Third, even if the crane photo did show molten glass, it would still need to have been heated to extremely high temperatures, since glass does not begin to give off any visible light until it approaches temperatures of 2240 ºF.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">15</a>

PM next takes issue with Steven Jones' claim that the molten metal can be accounted for by incendiaries that could have been used to destroy the buildings. They counter this claim by quoting Controlled Demolition, Inc. president Mark Loizeaux as saying the explosives used in demolitions do not produce molten metal, noting that the heat from the explosives would not last long. While this may be true for conventional explosives, the use of thermate and nanothermite based devices could certainly account for the molten metal. Molten iron is the main byproduct of a thermite reaction, and the reaction can produce extreme heat that lasts longer than conventional explosives. Nanothermite is a very high tech variation of thermite, and could account for all of these phenomena.<a href="Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel">16</a>

In fact, both the USGS and RJ Lee, an environmental consulting firm, found ubiquitous, previously-molten iron microspheres in all of the WTC dust samples. These, like the thermite, can only be the result of temperatures reaching 2,800°F. Up to 6% of some of the dust samples recovered in the nearby skyscraper, the Deutsche Bank building, are composed of these iron spheres — most of which are only the size of the diameter of a human hair.

It is quite evident that PM has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

Part 3: Collapse Times of the Twin Towers

---

1 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/FentonWTCInitiationFloors.pdf

2 Quoted from: What is 9/11 Truth? — The First Steps, by Kevin Ryan, pg. 2-3 http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/Article_1_Ryan5.pdf

3 See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRwNJmQw1MY

4 See: NIST Conceals the Controlled Demolition of the Twin Towers

5 “The debris from WTC 1 caused structural damage to the southwest region of WTC 7—severing seven exterior columns—but this structural damage did not initiate the collapse. The fires initiated by the debris, rather than the structural damage that resulted from the impacts, initiated the building's collapse after the fires grew and spread to the northeast region after several hours.” Quoted from: FAQs - NIST WTC 7 Investigation

6 According to NIST NCSTAR 1, pg. 87: “First exterior sign of downward movement of building at floor 98.”

7 Although it is true that the NIST report never specifically states that the 98th floor was the least damaged, the information provided in their report clearly demonstrates this. The 98th floor had only five perimeter columns severed, and one need only look through the table provided in NCSTAR 1-2, pg. 205 to see that NIST does not list floor 98 as having any of its core columns severed.

8 “Even if the automatic sprinklers had been operational, the sprinkler systems—which were installed in accordance with the prevailing fire safety code—were designed to suppress a fire that covered as much as 1,500 square feet on a given floor. This amount of coverage is capable of controlling almost all fires that are likely to occur in an office building. On Sept. 11, 2001, the jet-fuel ignited fires quickly spread over most of the 40,000 square feet on several floors in each tower. This created infernos that could not have been suppressed even by an undamaged sprinkler system, much less one that had been appreciably degraded.” Quoted from: http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_faqs_082006.cfm

9 See: One Meridian Plaza Fire

10 See: Big Industrial Fires

11 Quoted from: Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse? by Dr. Steven Jones, pg. 5 http://www.journalof911studies.com/...rldTradeCenterBuildingsCompletelyCollapse.pdf

12 See: http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf

13 For a detailed discussion of the high temperatures at Ground Zero, see:
http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dreger/GroundZeroHeat2008_07_10.pdf

14 See: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/

15 See: http://wiki.naturalfrequency.com/wiki/Colour_temperature

16 A detailed explanation of aluminothermic technology is given here:
9-11 Research: Aluminothermic Technology

Part 2: Plane Impacts, Fire Damage & Melted Steel

It is quite evident that Popular Mechanics has failed to explain away the extreme heat and molten metal that clearly existed at Ground Zero. They have also failed to show the temperatures inside the buildings were sufficient to cause collapse.

www.ae911truth.org

Wrong.

Any word on what took down the light poles if it wasn’t AA77?

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Wrong.

Any word on what took down the light poles if it wasn’t AA77?

There were fake poles in nearby cars that they secretly dragged out of trunks during the attack.

DURR.

 

[candycorn]

Follow the Larry Silverstein rabbit hole. I would also say to look into the financials of the Port Authority and the financials of the WTC pre- 9/11. I seem to remember the WTC was losing a lot of money because the asbestos problem kept tenants away and there weren't enough tenants to make the towers profitable. And the costs of asbestos removal were astronomical. There was a lot of incentive to just bring those two towers down. I'm not an expert on this and never thought about it again shortly after, but I had my doubts. Anyway. when in doubt, follow the money and follow good science. They always lead to the truth. Never believe politicians and governments. They are paid to lie, and are very good at it.

The whole “asbestos angle” was overplayed nonsense.

The fact that the profitability of the WTC complex was waning is not.

I do think it’s rather hilarious that anyone with 2 working brain cells would entertain the idea that someone came up with a solution that involved crashing airliners into a building to get rid of a white elephant property though.

“Follow the money” is a sound investigative technique. It doesn’t apply here though.

 

[Dorian Mode]

I do think it’s rather hilarious that anyone with 2 working brain cells would entertain the idea that someone came up with a solution that involved crashing airliners into a building to get rid of a white elephant property though.

Maybe, maybe not. Let's throw more jet fuel on the fire. Didn't the Project For A New American Century, written by the neocons, state that in order to just go in and bomb 7 middle eastern countries, something catastrophic needs to happen on American soil? Then, less that 2 years later the towers come down and GW Bush starts his bombing campaigns. Convenient coincidence? Now there's a BIG motive. There seemed to have been a lot of convenient coincidences with this event. I don't have a dog in this 9/11 fight, but I am not stupid enough to just blindly trust a government narrative just as I am not stupid enough to blindly trust conspiracy theorists. I can't say one way or another, and really don't care at this point.

 

[candycorn]

Maybe, maybe not. Let's throw more jet fuel on the fire. Didn't the Project For A New American Century, written by the neocons, state that in order to just go in and bomb 7 middle eastern countries, something catastrophic needs to happen on American soil? Then, less that 2 years later the towers come down and GW Bush starts his bombing campaigns. Convenient coincidence? Now there's a BIG motive. There seemed to have been a lot of convenient coincidences with this event. I don't have a dog in this 9/11 fight, but I am not stupid enough to just blindly trust a government narrative just as I am not stupid enough to blindly trust conspiracy theorists. I can't say one way or another, and really don't care at this point.

Well, how many “researchers” have looked at 9/11?

How many major points in the 9/11 Commission Report (aka the “government narrative”) have been proven to be false? Zero. You’ve seen here...the local nutjobs won’t go anywhere near it.

As for a conspiracy theory....I have one.

Look, the physical evidence confirms the following:​

​

19 men from the Middle East hijacked​

4 airplanes and crashed them into​

3 buildings and​

1 field in Pennsylvania.​

​

This is known to be the case...no ifs, ands, or buts about it.​

​

We have Atta's voice saying they had planes. We have receipts after receipts from flight schools. We have the precise passenger airplanes hijacked that had the pilots trained on them. We have the DNA of the passengers, eye witness accounts of the planes hitting the towers, wreckage from all four crash sites, martyrdom tapes from the hijackers themselves, KSM admitting he planned it. This on top of all of the radar tracking, personal effects from the crash sites, and the acid test of the Moussaui trial where the evidence was not contested...you’d think that Zach could have gotten one of the “experts” to blow apart the evidence. He didn’t .​

​

There is no question that the 9/11 Commission Report is 100% right on all of the major points and the rest is just trivia brought up by the trivial pieces of shit known as "twoofers". They're no more interested in the truth than they are able to spell simple words. Again...there is no attempt to contest the 9/11 Commission report...there was no attempt when it first came out and there is no attempt 20 years later. That should tell you something about the veracity of the text.​

​

However, if you want to ask about a conspiratorial possibility that fits in with all of the evidence, the only one that makes sense is a scenario something like the following (which lets you know right off just how far fetched a conspiracy theory it is...):​

​

There is absolutely no debate about one thing concerning the US action in the Middle East: it has resulted in record profits for the oil companies. One need only look at the reports of the corporations. Records everywhere. Distress in the middle east raises the price of retail gasoline, jet fuel, transportation costs, etc...​

​

​

Now, I am not saying that the CEO of Chevron or BP or any of the retail gasoline giants was behind it. But consider someone whom we'll call Mr. Big (all good conspiracies have a Mr. Big somewhere). Mr. Big in the late 1990's is profitable in his oil interests, not overly successful in expanding his oil business, and isn't necessarily someone you'd call ethical. A CEO of a good sized company but nobody most people would know on first glance.​

​

Maybe he met someone while he was overseas once who either knew or knew someone who knew Osama Bin Laden. This isn't entirely implausible since at one time Osama Bin Laden was avowed by his family in Saudi Arabia. So a mover and shaker in the oil industry may very well have crossed paths with a confederate of OBL at some point.​

​

A contact is made and OBL agrees to wreak havoc in the Middle East. No details are discussed about the who's or the how's. Just something that will drive the price of oil upward.​

​

A transfer of money is made. I'm guessing something in the realm of 100-500 million dollars over a few years time. Pocket change for the anonymous oil man. Mostly corporate monies but maybe some personal assets as well over 3-5 years.​

​

Then 9/11 happens.​

​

OBL gets his holy war in the Middle East. Mr. Big gets a nervous nation and profits skyrocket.​

​

All illegal conspiracies are predicated on keeping the number of the involved as low as possible. The group is 3 or 4 at this point: Mr. Big and his intermediary and OBL. Quite possible that OBL doesn't know who Mr. Big is at all during this entire thing. Why would he care, the money spends the same way. It isn't as if he's worried that he's being set up as some sort of sting operation...​

​

Look where we are now. Mr. Big knows that OBL will be public enemy #1 and will likely be dead soon after hostilities start. That it took so long is probably a detail unforeseen but manageable. He's dead now.​

​

The intermediary is likely dead or too satisfied to care much about disclosure.​

​

Mr. Big, the oil company executive, is likely ensuring the estate of his great-great-great grandchildren about right now.​

​

Obviously, the question becomes who would do this? A man like Oscar Wyatt comes to mind: Here is a story from 2007:​

​

(NEWSER) A prominent Texas oilman will spend about a year in prison for paying off Saddam's regime to secure a big oil contract. Oscar Wyatt, 83, admitting violating the UN's oil-for-food program by paying a secret Iraqi surcharge of $200,000essentially a bribe. A judge sentenced Wyatt to a year and a day, though he can get about 2 months off for good behavior, the Houston Chronicle reports.

"I was wrong and for that I am truly sorry," Wyatt said. Among the evidence submitted by the prosecution: a tape that recorded Wyatt asking a compatriot, "Did you check to see whether they've approved that $200,000 I've already paid to the bastards over there?"​

​

It's a long way from doing that to working with terrorists. But...again this is all speculation....if he thought that OBL wasn't going to hit American cities, if he thought OBL would do something in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Libya instead of Virginia, New York, and what was supposed to be Washington DC.....I can see something like this happening as a one-off thing.​

​

"Whats the worst that can happen" asks Mr. Big...."A few dozen refinery workers are killed when he blows up the Aramco complex?" Or, "He blew up some off shore platforms in the Indian Ocean....big deal." At no point did he think his "investment" would be used on a 9/11 scale operation on domestic soil. So in a way, OBL screwed Wyatt to an extent by striking in the United States.​

​

Anyway, it's a kookie theory but it has the one thing that other theories don't have; it jives with all of the facts that we know to be true.​

​

Wyatt sold Coastal Energy in 2013. He died in 2025. His personal worth was upwards of a billion dollars.​