4um: Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

Title: Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
Source: whatreallyhappened.com
URL Source: http://whatreallyhappened.com/conte ... world-trade-center-catastrophe
Published: Apr 5, 2009
Author: whatreallyhappened.com
Post Date: 2009-04-05 01:25:36 by TwentyTwelve
Keywords: 9/11, 911, Thermite, WTC Collapses
Views: 12252
Comments: 690

Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe

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

This is a peer-reviewed report in a science journal which confirms the presence of a manufactured material consisting of tiny flakes of aluminum metal coated with iron oxide discovered at four different locations in the wreckage of the World Trade Center.

Aluminum and iron oxide, mixed equally by weight, is the classic recipe for thermite. This material is very fine, increasing its burn speed, and apparently has some additional components (besides the very fine granular size) which lower the ignition temperature.

This report directly contradicts the official government claim that there was no trace of internal explosives in the ruins of the World Trade Center.

CONCLUSIONS(from the original paper) We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in significant numbers in dust associated with the World Trade Center destruction. We have applied SEM/XEDS and other methods to characterize the small-scale structure and chemical signature of these chips, especially of their red component. The red material is most interesting and has the following characteristics: 1. It is composed of aluminum, iron, oxygen, silicon and carbon. Lesser amounts of other potentially reactive elements are sometimes present, such as potassium, sulfur, lead, barium and copper. 2. The primary elements (Al, Fe, O, Si, C) are typically all present in particles at the scale of tens to hundreds of nanometers, and detailed XEDS mapping shows intimate mixing. 3. On treatment with methyl ethyl ketone solvent, some segregation of components occurred. Elemental aluminum became sufficiently concentrated to be clearly identified in the pre-ignition material. 4. Iron oxide appears in faceted grains roughly 100 nm across whereas the aluminum appears in thin platelike structures. The small size of the iron oxide particles qualifies the material to be characterized as nanothermite or super-thermite. 5. Analysis shows that iron and oxygen are present in a ratio consistent with Fe2O3. The red material in all four WTC dust samples was similar in this way. Iron oxide was found in the pre-ignition material whereas elemental iron was not. 6. From the presence of elemental aluminum and iron oxide in the red material, we conclude that it contains the ingredients of thermite. 7. As measured using DSC, the material ignites and reacts vigorously at a temperature of approximately 430 °C, with a rather narrow exotherm, matching fairly closely an independent observation on a known super-thermite sample. The low temperature of ignition and the presence of iron oxide grains less than 120 nm show that the material is not conventional thermite (which ignites at temperatures above 900 °C) but very likely a form of super-thermite. 8. After igniting several red/gray chips in a DSC run to 700 °C, we found numerous iron-rich spheres and spheroids in the residue, indicating that a very hightemperature reaction had occurred, since the iron-rich product clearly must have been molten to form these shapes. In several spheres, elemental iron was verified since the iron content significantly exceeded the oxygen content. We conclude that a high-temperature reduction-oxidation reaction has occurred in the heated chips, namely, the thermite reaction. 9. The spheroids produced by the DSC tests and by the flame test have an XEDS signature (Al, Fe, O, Si, C) which is depleted in carbon and aluminum relative to the original red material. This chemical signature strikingly matches the chemical signature of the spheroids produced by igniting commercial thermite, and also matches the signatures of many of the microspheres found in the WTC dust [5]. 10. The carbon content of the red material indicates that an organic substance is present. This would be expected for super-thermite formulations in order to produce high gas pressures upon ignition and thus make them explosive. The nature of the organic material in these chips merits further exploration. We note that it is likely also an energetic material, in that the total energy release sometimes observed in DSC tests exceeds the theoretical maximum energy of the classic thermite reaction. Based on these observations, we conclude that the red layer of the red/gray chips we have discovered in the WTC dust is active, unreacted thermitic material, incorporating nanotechnology, and is a highly energetic pyrotechnic or explosive material.

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

Putting aside the absolutely incredulous nature of that statement, where was this Manhattan resident?

Why is it incredulous? Aren't you interested in knowing all the reasons why these magnificient buildings whose plans were passed with flying colors by the PTB had such an Achilles Heel?

And who knows.... maybe that Manhattan resident was already making plans for his next big sale.

I saved some dust off a stone wall outside a church a block away from ground zero a week after 9/11. I put it in a bag and tossed it in my car, but then I forgot about it being under the seat. I sold the car a month or so later, and now I regret not having that dust.

It was remarkable stuff, about 3/4" thick on the stone wall and came off in chunks.

The Achilles heel being planes impacting at over 400MPH, exploding and then multi floor fires burning out of control? Chyea...whoda thought? Obviously not the people who sent the planes into the buildings...

If you were within a block of GZ a week afterward, you're either FDNY, FEMA, NYPD or NG...

I got back into 1 Liberty on 9/20 and was escorted by a member of the US Army into the Lobby whereupon an NYPD took me up to my floor.

Yeah, and just moments before the collapse, a veteran battalion chief who would know what to look for if danger was present, calls down:

I used to make "thermite" when I was a kid by mixing powered alunimum and rust. Ihad to set if off with a Fourth of July sparkler since a match didn't work.

The stuff would be all over any building rubble and has nothing to do with "thermite."

Neither. Maybe it was a block and a half. It was 2:00am and a friend an I walked all around the perimeter trying to get a look at it.

I did a lot of security work at OLP back in the 80's. Is Walter Vianello still in the corp. security dept at ML?

You don't know if that is the absolute only contributing cause and you know it. What do you have against thorough investigations?

Maybe it was Canal Street...you were not "walking around" anywhere near GZ @ 2AM...Wall Street was open up from the NY Waterway from 7AM to 5PM but there were full body armor guards all the way up and then on Broadway you walked an absolute phalanx of US Army, National Guard and NYPD.

Five Israelis were seen filming from the van on the right as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA?

THERE was ruin and terror in Manhattan, but, over the Hudson River in New Jersey, a handful of men were dancing. As the World Trade Centre burned and crumpled, the five men celebrated and filmed the worst atrocity ever committed on American soil as it played out before their eyes.

Who do you think they were? Palestinians? Saudis? Iraqis, even? Al- Qaeda, surely? Wrong on all counts. They were Israelis - and at least two of them were Israeli intelligence agents, working for Mossad, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA.

Their discovery and arrest that morning is a matter of indisputable fact. To those who have investigated just what the Israelis were up to that day, the case raises one dreadful possibility: that Israeli intelligence had been shadowing the al- Qaeda hijackers as they moved from the Middle East through Europe and into America where they trained as pilots and prepared to suicide- bomb the symbolic heart of the United States. And the motive? To bind America in blood and mutual suffering to the Israeli cause.

After the attacks on New York and Washington, the former Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked what the terrorist strikes would mean for US-Israeli relations. He said: "It's very good." Then he corrected himself, adding: "Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy [for Israel from Americans]."

If Israel's closest ally felt the collective pain of mass civilian deaths at the hands of terrorists, then Israel would have an unbreakable bond with the world's only hyperpower and an effective free hand in dealing with the Palestinian terrorists who had been murdering its innocent civilians as the second intifada dragged on throughout 2001.

It's not surprising that the New Jersey housewife who first spotted the five Israelis and their white van wants to preserve her anonymity. She's insisted that she only be identified as Maria. A neighbour in her apartment building had called her just after the first strike on the Twin Towers. Maria grabbed a pair of binoculars and, like millions across the world, she watched the horror of the day unfold.

As she gazed at the burning towers, she noticed a group of men kneeling on the roof of a white van in her parking lot. Here's her recollection: "They seemed to be taking a movie. They were like happy, you know ... they didn't look shocked to me. I thought it was strange."

Maria jotted down the van's registration and called the police. The FBI was alerted and soon there was a statewide all points bulletin put out for the apprehension of the van and its occupants. The cops traced the number, establishing that it belonged to a company called Urban Moving.

Police Chief John Schmidig said: "We got an alert to be on the lookout for a white Chevrolet van with New Jersey registration and writing on the side. Three individuals were seen celebrating in Liberty State Park after the impact. They said three people were jumping up and down."

By 4pm on the afternoon of September 11, the van was spotted near New Jersey's Giants stadium. A squad car pulled it over and inside were five men in their 20s. They were hustled out of the car with guns levelled at their heads and handcuffed.

In the car was $4700 in cash, a couple of foreign passports and a pair of box cutters - the concealed Stanley Knife-type blades used by the 19 hijackers who'd flown jetliners into the World Trade Centre and Pentagon just hours before. There were also fresh pictures of the men standing with the smouldering wreckage of the Twin Towers in the background. One image showed a hand flicking a lighter in front of the devastated buildings, like a fan at a pop concert. The driver of the van then told the arresting officers: "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem."

His name was Sivan Kurzberg. The other four passengers were Kurzberg's brother Paul, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner and Omer Marmari. The men were dragged off to prison and transferred out of the custody of the FBI's Criminal Division and into the hands of their Foreign Counterintelligence Section - the bureau's anti-espionage squad.

A warrant was issued for a search of the Urban Moving premises in Weehawken in New Jersey. Boxes of papers and computers were removed. The FBI questioned the firm's Israeli owner, Dominik Otto Suter, but when agents returned to re-interview him a few days later, he was gone. An employee of Urban Moving said his co-workers had laughed about the Manhattan attacks the day they happened. "I was in tears," the man said. "These guys were joking and that bothered me. These guys were like, 'Now America knows what we go through.'"

Vince Cannistraro, former chief of operations for counter- terrorism with the CIA, says the red flag went up among investigators when it was discovered that some of the Israelis' names were found in a search of the national intelligence database. Cannistraro says many in the US intelligence community believed that some of the Israelis were working for Mossad and there was speculation over whether Urban Moving had been "set up or exploited for the purpose of launching an intelligence operation against radical Islamists".

This makes it clear that there was no suggestion whatsoever from within American intelligence that the Israelis were colluding with the 9/11 hijackers - simply that the possibility remains that they knew the attacks were going to happen, but effectively did nothing to help stop them.

After the owner vanished, the offices of Urban Moving looked as if they'd been closed down in a big hurry. Mobile phones were littered about, the office phones were still connected and the property of at least a dozen clients were stacked up in the warehouse. The owner had cleared out his family home in New Jersey and returned to Israel.

Two weeks after their arrest, the Israelis were still in detention, held on immigration charges. Then a judge ruled that they should be deported. But the CIA scuppered the deal and the five remained in custody for another two months. Some went into solitary confinement, all underwent two polygraph tests and at least one underwent up to seven lie detector sessions before they were eventually deported at the end of November 2001. Paul Kurzberg refused to take a lie detector test for 10 weeks, but then failed it. His lawyer said he was reluctant to take the test as he had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country.

Nevertheless, their lawyer, Ram Horvitz, dismissed the allegations as "stupid and ridiculous". Yet US government sources still maintained that the Israelis were collecting information on the fundraising activities of groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Mark Regev, of the Israeli embassy in Washington, would have none of that and he said the allegations were "simply false". The men themselves claimed they'd read about the World Trade Centre attacks on the internet, couldn't see it from their office and went to the parking lot for a better view. Their lawyers and the embassy say their ghoulish and sinister celebrations as the Twin Towers blazed and thousands died were due to youthful foolishness.

The respected New York Jewish newspaper, The Forward, reported in March 2002, however, that it had received a briefing on the case of the five Israelis from a US official who was regularly updated by law enforcement agencies. This is what he told The Forward: "The assessment was that Urban Moving Systems was a front for the Mossad and operatives employed by it." He added that "the conclusion of the FBI was that they were spying on local Arabs", but the men were released because they "did not know anything about 9/11".

Back in Israel, several of the men discussed what happened on an Israeli talk show. One of them made this remarkable comment: "The fact of the matter is we are coming from a country that experiences terror daily. Our purpose was to document the event." But how can you document an event unless you know it is going to happen?

We are now deep in conspiracy theory territory. But there is more than a little circumstantial evidence to show that Mossad - whose motto is "By way of deception, thou shalt do war" - was spying on Arab extremists in the USA and may have known that September 11 was in the offing, yet decided to withhold vital information from their American counterparts which could have prevented the terror attacks.

Following September 11, 2001, more than 60 Israelis were taken into custody under the Patriot Act and immigration laws. One highly placed investigator told Carl Cameron of Fox News that there were "tie-ins" between the Israelis and September 11; the hint was clearly that they'd gathered intelligence on the planned attacks but kept it to themselves.

The Fox News source refused to give details, saying: "Evidence linking these Israelis to 9/11 is classified. I cannot tell you about evidence that has been gathered. It's classified information." Fox News is not noted for its condemnation of Israel; it's a ruggedly patriotic news channel owned by Rupert Murdoch and was President Bush's main cheerleader in the war on terror and the invasion of Iraq.

Another group of around 140 Israelis were detained prior to September 11, 2001, in the USA as part of a widespread investigation into a suspected espionage ring run by Israel inside the USA. Government documents refer to the spy ring as an "organised intelligence-gathering operation" designed to "penetrate government facilities". Most of those arrested had served in the Israeli armed forces - but military service is compulsory in Israel. Nevertheless, a number had an intelligence background.

The first glimmerings of an Israeli spying exercise in the USA came to light in spring 2001, when the FBI sent a warning to other federal agencies alerting them to be wary of visitors calling themselves "Israeli art students" and attempting to bypass security at federal buildings in order to sell paintings. A Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) report suggested the Israeli calls "may well be an organised intelligence-gathering activity". Law enforcement documents say that the Israelis "targeted and penetrated military bases" as well as the DEA, FBI and dozens of government facilities, including secret offices and the unlisted private homes of law enforcement and intelligence personnel.

A number of Israelis questioned by the authorities said they were students from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, but Pnina Calpen, a spokeswoman for the Israeli school, did not recognise the names of any Israelis mentioned as studying there in the past 10 years. A federal report into the so-called art students said many had served in intelligence and electronic signal intercept units during their military service.

According to a 61-page report, drafted after an investigation by the DEA and the US immigration service, the Israelis were organised into cells of four to six people. The significance of what the Israelis were doing didn't emerge until after September 11, 2001, when a report by a French intelligence agency noted "according to the FBI, Arab terrorists and suspected terror cells lived in Phoenix, Arizona, as well as in Miami and Hollywood, Florida, from December 2000 to April 2001 in direct proximity to the Israeli spy cells".

The report contended that Mossad agents were spying on Mohammed Atta and Marwan al-Shehi, two of leaders of the 9/11 hijack teams. The pair had settled in Hollywood, Florida, along with three other hijackers, after leaving Hamburg - where another Mossad team was operating close by.

Hollywood in Florida is a town of just 25,000 souls. The French intelligence report says the leader of the Mossad cell in Florida rented apartments "right near the apartment of Atta and al-Shehi". More than a third of the Israeli "art students" claimed residence in Florida. Two other Israelis connected to the art ring showed up in Fort Lauderdale. At one time, eight of the hijackers lived just north of the town.

Put together, the facts do appear to indicate that Israel knew that 9/11, or at least a large-scale terror attack, was about to take place on American soil, but did nothing to warn the USA. But that's not quite true. In August 2001, the Israelis handed over a list of terrorist suspects - on it were the names of four of the September 11 hijackers. Significantly, however, the warning said the terrorists were planning an attack "outside the United States".

The Israeli embassy in Washington has dismissed claims about the spying ring as "simply untrue". The same denials have been issued repeatedly by the five Israelis seen high-fiving each other as the World Trade Centre burned in front of them.

Their lawyer, Ram Horwitz, insisted his clients were not intelligence officers. Irit Stoffer, the Israeli foreign minister, said the allegations were "completely untrue". She said the men were arrested because of "visa violations", adding: "The FBI investigated those cases because of 9/11."

Jim Margolin, an FBI spokesman in New York, implied that the public would never know the truth, saying: "If we found evidence of unauthorised intelligence operations that would be classified material." Yet, Israel has long been known, according to US administration sources, for "conducting the most aggressive espionage operations against the US of any US ally". Seventeen years ago, Jonathan Pollard, a civilian working for the American Navy, was jailed for life for passing secrets to Israel. At first, Israel claimed Pollard was part of a rogue operation, but the government later took responsibility for his work.

It has always been a long-accepted agreement among allies - such as Britain and America or America and Israel - that neither country will jail a "friendly spy" nor shame the allied country for espionage. Chip Berlet, a senior analyst at Boston's Political Research Associates and an expert in intelligence, says: "It's a backdoor agreement between allies that says that if one of your spies gets caught and didn't do too much harm, he goes home. It goes on all the time. The official reason is always visa violation."

What we are left with, then, is fact sullied by innuendo. Certainly, it seems, Israel was spying within the borders of the United States and it is equally certain that the targets were Islamic extremists probably linked to September 11. But did Israel know in advance that the Twin Towers would be hit and the world plunged into a war without end; a war which would give Israel the power to strike its enemies almost without limit? That's a conspiracy theory too far, perhaps. But the unpleasant feeling that, in this age of spin and secrets, we do not know the full and unadulterated truth won't go away. Maybe we can guess, but it's for the history books to discover and decide.

One floor which was below impact is indicative of the rest including the impact zone? How many more pictures of flames shooting out of WTC must I post before you folks get it?

Actually, no...most of us called it "One Liberty"...some called it "Old Merrill Lynch..."

NEW YORK CITY, N.Y.—On the morning of Sept. 11, 2005, New York City auxiliary fire lieutenant Paul Isaac Jr. asserted, yet again, that 9-11 was an inside job. “I know 9-11 was an inside job. The police know it’s an inside job; and the firemen know it too,” said Isaac.

The ramifications of this statement are immense: One of New York’s own firefighters says publicly that 9-11 couldn’t have been the work of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda, but instead was planned, coordinated and executed by elements within our own government.

He also added, after pointing to throngs of police officers standing around us, that, “We all have to be very careful about how we handle it.”

Isaac reiterated what a 9-11 survivor told this journalist during our protest at Ground Zero on Sept. 11, 2005—that emergency radios were buzzing with information about bombs being detonated inside the World Trade Center towers.

Also, Isaac directly addressed a gag order that has been placed on firemen and police officers in New York.

“It’s amazing how many people are afraid to talk for fear of retaliation or losing their jobs,” said Isaac, regarding the FBI gag order placed on law enforcement and fire department officials, preventing them from openly talking about any inside knowledge of 9-11. There is more information related to Isaac circulating in on-line and print reports, so here again we are hearing first-hand evidence from individuals who were on the scene, such as live witness William Rodriguez, saying that the World Trade Center towers were brought down not by the airliner’s impact or the resulting jet fuel fires, but instead by a deliberately executed controlled demolition.

Tragically, due to heavy-handed pressure from officials at the city, state and federal levels, we are still not hearing the entire story.

Researcher Vincent Sammartino, who was also at the WTC “open grave site” on the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2005, wrote the following on the on-line news web site APFN: “I just got back from Ground Zero. People know the truth. Half of the police and firemen were coming up to us and telling us that they know that 9-11 was an inside job. They were told not to talk about it. But they were supporting what we were doing. I had tears in my eyes.”

Yea so? Neither of them were constructed as WTC was...y7ou may as well be showing me Santa's Workshop... BTW, this is at least the 5th time that has been pointed out to you.

According to the Journal of Australian Fire Investigators, kerosene ignites at around 444°F. The temperature that the fire will eventually reach depends on both the combustion rate (based on O2) and the rate at which heat can be disbursed in the given scenario. Again, any firefighter can explain from experience and training that the black, sooty smoke (like that found on 9/11 at the WTC towers) were O2 deprived. Again, please contact professionals to verify this if you wish. In an oxygen deprived environment, higher temperatures cannot be reached. You can test this yourself by comparing a match in the open vs. a match in a bottle with a very small hole.

At the moment of collapse, there were isolated pockets of fire, and any heat that had been applied to the steel during the hottest periods of fire would have already been wicked off into the tons of above the fire zones.

A veteran battalion chief would have certainly been on the alert for danger signs and would have noted any extreme deformation, sagging of floors, or sounds that indicated that collapse was eminent, or even possible..

OUtright lie...any fireman will tell you that smoke is an indication of WHAT IS BURNING...ande it's fucking hilarious, given the GAPING holes in WTC to believe that anything was O2 deprived...

FUck you...prove that there is...in fact. I;ve asked you to prove all of your nonsense. To date you've responded 0 times.

The blueprints to the Twin Towers and Building 7 remained off-limits to the public for more than five years after the attack, despite the fact that the buildings were built with public money and that the engineering drawings of public buildings are supposed to be public information. 1 Incredibly, the team of engineers from the ASCE that conducted the only investigation of the building "collapses" before Ground Zero had been cleaned up lacked access to the buildings' blueprints -- at least until they signed waivers that they would not use the evidence in a lawsuit against the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. 2

In March of 2007, an extensive set of detailed architectural drawings of the World Trade Center became public through the actions of a whistleblower. The 261 drawings included detailed plans for the North Tower (WTC 1), the World Trade Center foundation and basement, and the TV mast atop the North Tower. The set of drawings does not include plans for the other six buildings in the World Trade Center complex. However, since the Twin Towers were of almost identical construction, it is safe to assume that the the structural details that the drawings shown for the North Tower are largely applicable to the South Tower.

The drawings contain a wealth of detail about the buildings, including the dimensions of structural members such as the core columns.

Most of the drawings can be viewed in this multiresolution browser. This 66th floor core plan included in the detailed architectural drawings shows that most of the core columns retained their full outside dimensions well above the midpoints of the Towers. Of the sixteen columns bounding the long faces of the core, thirteen have outside dimensions of approximately 54 by 22 inches in this 66th floor section. Official Reports Misrepresented the Towers' Construction Portion of photograph in the collection of the Skyscraper Museum

The detailed architectural drawings make clear what official reports have apparently attempted to hide: that the Twin Towers had massive core columns, and those columns ran most of the height of each Tower before transitioning to columns with smaller cross-sections.

Based on construction photographs exhibited in the Skyscraper Museum and illustrations from the Engineering News Record , 9-11 Research had established by mid-2005 that, low in the Towers, the sixteen core columns that bounded the long faces of the buildings' cores had dimensions of 54 by 22 inches. The detailed drawings show that these columns maintained these dimensions through about the 66th floor.

Both of the government-sponsored engineering studies of the Twin Towers' "collapses" -- FEMA's and NIST's -- are highly misleading about the core structures. Neither Report discloses dimensions for core columns -- dimensions that are clearly evident in the architectural drawings. Both Reports use a variety of techniques seemingly designed to minimize the strength of the cores or to conceal their structural role entirely.

So effective was FEMA at concealing the nature of the cores that the 9/11 Commission Report , citing the FEMA Report, denied the very existence of the core columns.

Figure 2-2 of of FEMA's Building Performance Study, labeled "Representative structural framing plan, upper floors", is one of five illustrations in the report that depict core columns. Each of these illustrations depicts the core columns at their minimum dimensions, and none depict them at their typical dimensions.

In May of 2005, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) released its Building Performance Study, of which Chapter 2, "WTC 1 and WTC 2", was devoted to explaining the "collapse" of the Twin Towers. It advances the "truss theory" or "pancake theory", in which the supposed failure of floor-truss-to-column connections is the initiating event in a series of chain reactions ending in total collapse. Added commentary in our archived copy exposes many deceptive techniques employed in the article. 3

Key elements of FEMA's theory depend on misrepresentations of the Towers' construction made possible by their vague descriptions. For example, to explain other collapse of the core their Study states:

As the floors collapsed, this left tall freestanding portions of the exterior wall and possibly central core columns. As the unsupported height of these freestanding exterior wall elements increased, they buckled at the bolted column splice connections, and also collapsed.

Contrary to the FEMA's hedged assertion that the core columns were freestanding, construction photographs clearly show that large horizontal beams cross-connected the core columns in a three-dimensional matrix of steel.

FEMA's report seems crafted to hide the structural significance of the core columns, if not their very existence. Examples of features of the Report that minimize or conceal the core structures include:

Figure D-13 from FEMA's Study, bearing the caption "WTC 1 or WTC 2 core column (C-74)", is the only photograph in the Study that shows an identified core column

* The repeated use of the term "service core" to describe the cores, and avoidance of terminology describing their structural role

* The use of illustrations that imply the cores didn't exist, such as Figure 2-20

* The only photograph of a core column in the Report (Figure D-13) being of an atypical column of very small dimensions

* The inclusion of only floor plans that show core columns of very small dimensions with no clarification that the core columns that ran most of the Towers' heights were of much larger dimensions

In 2005 NIST published its 'Final Report of the National Construction Safety Team on the Collapses of the World Trade Center Towers' -- a 280-page report that was extremely vague in a number of respects, including any description of the structural systems of the Towers. It contains very little information about the core columns, the following being one of the only passages describing them:

Figure 3-3 From NIST's Final Report drastically misrepresents the dimensions of the core columns on the 78th through the 83rd floors. The 47 columns in this rectangular space were fabricated using primarily 36 ksi and 42 ksi steels and also decreased in size in the higher stories. The four massive corner columns bore nearly one-fifth of the total gravity load on the core columns.

The passage implies that only the corner columns were "massive" when, in fact, the sixteen columns on the long faces of the cores shared the same dimensions for most of each Tower's height.

Illustrations in the Report depict the core columns at the North and South Tower crash zones as being the same size, when in fact the core columns were much broader around the 80th floor than around the 95th. NIST's failure to highlight this difference is especially interesting in light of its estimates of core column damage in the Towers. Those esimates show 10 of the South Tower's core columns severed, compared to only 6 of the North Tower's. How could the South Tower's core have had more damage when its impact-level columns were twice as large as the North Tower's and it sustained only a glancing rather than a head-on impact? Was NIST struggling to explain how the South Tower succumbed to "global collapse" almost twice as quickly as the North Tower despite having much smaller fires?

This illustration from 'Multi-Storey Buildings in Steel' shows a structural system that matches the drawings in the MASTER PLAN. Multi-Storey Buildings in Steel

Prior to the release of the detailed architectural drawings, 9-11 Research published the MASTER PLAN, dated December 16, 1963. The MASTER PLAN does not show structural details such as column dimensions, and shows an arrangement of core columns that was later changed. The obsolete core column arrangement indicated in the MASTER PLAN has been reproduced in other publications such as the book 'Multi-Storey Buildings in Steel'. 4

The February 13, 1975 North Tower Fire has been carefully hidden from you. Here are a few reports concerning it.

One floor...the 11th and there was no plane impact and explosiion and it diod not burn out of control...

A more realistic representation of the backbone of the WTC. The building's backbone that NIST and FEMA ignored

Five Israelis were seen filming from the van on the right as jet liners ploughed into the Twin Towers on September 11, 2001. Were they part of a massive spy ring which shadowed the 9/11 hijackers and knew that al-Qaeda planned a devastating terrorist attack on the USA?

nwsltr69C

9-11 Research: The Core Structures

The 1975 World Trade Center Fire