Richard Gage, AIA has been a practicing San Francisco Bay Area architect for more than 20 years, and is a registered member of the American Institute of Architects. Most recently he worked on a $400M mixed-use facility in Las Vegas NV. But he is also the founder and CEO of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, now numbering over 800 A/E’s, calling for a new investigation into the destruction of all 3 WTC high-rises on 9/11. Gage has spoken at over 100 events, reaching 20 U.S. states and 8 countries. He has been invited to present in 14 cities Australia, New Zealand, and Japan before the end of this year. As the anniversary of the events approaches, Gage tells WAN why he thinks there are hidden depths to the destruction of the World Trade Centre... In all likelihood, you are unaware of the most important facts involving the destructions of the World Trade Center buildings. Nearly all the mainstream information sources and government officials have kept crucial information hidden from the public. This brief article will provide a clear explanation as to what actually happened to the Twin Towers and Building 7 (WTC 7) on September 11, 2001.
Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) is a non-partisan, non-profit organization now numbering over 800 technical professionals and thousands of other supporters dedicated to exposing the facts that point to the explosive destruction of all three World Trade Center (WTC) high-rises.
We are calling for a new independent investigation empowered to subpoena and question witnesses under oath. Well-documented facts prove the WTC high-rises were destroyed by explosives. The implications are grave, but we ask that you look at the facts. AE911Truth is also concerned that evidence has been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency assigned to investigate the building collapses.
World Trade Center – Building 7
47-storey WTC 7 before destruction
WTC 7 was a 47-story steel-framed high-rise 100 yards from the North Tower. Even though no airplane hit it, it collapsed rapidly and totally on 9/11, in the manner of a controlled demolition. Despite its suspicious collapse, the 9/11 Commission report does not even mention WTC 7. NIST left its analysis of the WTC 7 collapse until 2008, seven years after the events, long after all the rubble was destroyed. NIST claims WTC 7 collapsed due to “normal office fires” which created a “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: collapse caused by thermal expansion of beams. NIST claims this caused the failure of a single column – the rest just followed.
Free-fall acceleration through 40,000 tons of structural steel?
NIST Forced to Acknowledge Free-Fall of WTC 7
In August 2008, NIST released the draft of its final report on Building 7. In that draft NIST claims that the building took 40% longer than "free-fall time" to collapse the first 18 stories. In a technical briefing that followed the release of the draft report Shyam Sunder, NIST’s lead investigator, denied that free-fall had occurred and stated that free-fall was incompatible with their analysis.
said, “… a free fall time would be an object that has no … structural components below it...And that is not at all unusual because there was [emphasis in original] structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had … a sequence of structural failures that had to take place and everything was not instantaneous.”
However, one of this article’s co-authors, David Chandler, used video analysis to show conclusively that for 2.5 seconds (about 100 feet) WTC 7 was in complete free-fall. He publicly challenged NIST’s claims at the technical briefing and he, along with others, filed formal requests for corrections.
NIST were forced to reverse themselves in their Final Report and acknowledged 2.25 seconds of absolute free-fall. Yet they did not reconsider how this was compatible with their analysis. A network of heavy steel girders had to be forcibly removed suddenly across the width of the building for eight floors. However, a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its path without slowing its own fall, so the structural support had to be removed by something else—explosives. The free-fall of Building 7 is a smoking gun.
World Trade Center – Commonalities in all Three Building Destructions
Complete Destruction Through the Path of Greatest Resistance
NIST claims that the Twin Towers collapsed due to the plane impacts and fire, and that WTC 7 collapsed due to fire alone. However, note that the Twin Towers survived the plane impacts and the jet fuel burned off in the first 10 minutes. Beyond that, all we have are not very large office fires. Over 100 steel framed buildings have suffered major fires, many much worse, yet none have collapsed. All three buildings on 9/11 fell through what should have been the path of greatest resistance – thousands of tons of steel – resulting in total dismemberment. This would require precisely timed removal of critical columns, which office fires cannot accomplish. Furthermore, a small falling top section would destroy itself before it could destroy a larger, stronger, undamaged lower section of the building. The impossible collapse is a smoking gun.
Molten Iron
The temperatures of the fires present a problem for NIST's claim that fire alone was involved. The melting point of steel is about 2800° F. According to NIST's own documents, hydrocarbon fires (e.g., jet fuel and office furnishings) generate temperatures only up to about 2,000° F under ideal conditions. NIST recognizes these fires could not melt steel, so they had to postulate elaborate mechanisms that might trigger collapse due to weakened columns and sagging girders.
Yet there is widespread evidence of molten iron in the rubble piles. Photos and numerous witnesses -- including fire fighters, cleanup crews, and structural engineers -- confirm the existence of several tons of molten metal under the debris. Some fire fighters described molten steel flowing like lava. Photos clearly reveal molten metal dripping as material is being lifted by excavation equipment.
Office fires are not hot enough to create the molten metal seen by dozens of witness
A video of the South Tower shows molten metal pouring out, glowing a radiant orange-yellow. Some have claimed this is molten aluminum, which melts at a lower temperature, but molten aluminum would be silvery in these conditions. This is molten iron or steel.
Jet fuel and office fires can’t create molten iron
At least three independent laboratory analyses of the dust that blanketed Lower Manhattan after the destruction of the Twin Towers reveal the presence of iron-rich “microspheres.” These spheres are formed when molten iron is sprayed into the air and forms droplets that cool before hitting the ground. The iron droplets indicate temperatures during the collapses much higher than hydrocarbon fires, in an explosive environment that could spray many tons of these droplets into the air.
In April 2002, the RJ Lee Company was hired to investigate environmental contaminants in the Deutsche Bank, across the street from the World Trade Center. It reports, “Many of the materials, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and various organic compounds, vaporized and then condensed during the WTC Event.” The problem here is that lead vaporizes at 3200° F, some 1200° F hotter than is possible in hydrocarbon fires. A study of the WTC dust by the USGS for the EPA observed molybdenum-rich spheres that can form only above 4750° F. The high temperatures are another smoking gun.
Unignited Nano-Thermite in the WTC Dust
NIST did not even look for physical evidence of explosives. In fact NIST did not look at the physical evidence at all, apart from a few selected samples of the steel. The rest was destroyed. However, physical evidence did remain: the dust. NIST did not look at the dust, but independent investigators did. They discovered, along with the microspheres, tiny red-grey chips. They examined samples of WTC dust from different parts of Manhattan. All contained the red-gray chips. They found that the red layer consisted of unignited nano-thermite. Ordinary thermite is an incendiary: it can burn through heavy steel in seconds. The tiny particles in nano-thermite (1/1000 the thickness of a human hair) causes a much faster reaction so it can be used as a high explosive. The discovery of nano-thermite in the WTC dust was published in The Open Chemical Physics Journal in April 2009.
Hundreds of Red/Grey chips of “Unignited thermite” in every WTC Dust sample
Nano-thermite particle sizes are 1,000 times smaller than a human hair. This material is not made in a cave in Afghanistan.
These scientists found not just a smoking gun, but a loaded gun.
Independent lines of evidence prove the official government claims are impossible. We see our role at AE911Truth as exposing the evidence official agencies and the corporate media are covering up. Following up on the implications is the responsibility of every citizen. Every citizen must face his or her own conscience when confronting these difficult facts -- especially when we consider that 9/11 is the foundation for two wars, the launching of an endless "war on terror," and the loss of our freedoms due to legislation pushed through amid the fog of war.
Following Up on the Evidence
Here are some starting points for action:
a) Send the AE911Truth.org link to your personal mailing list and every architect and engineer that you can find. b) Sign the petition and demand a new, independent investigation. Volunteer. Become a sustaining donor. c) Write your local news media and representatives. Tell them to address the evidence. Send them the DVD, “9/11: Blueprint for Truth.”
A video of initiation of explosive destruction is here for WTC 1 (North Tower) and here for WTC 2 (South Tower).
Poster Comment:
Friday is 8 years.