Debunked: FEMA reported finding evidence that steel had melted.

[Marc Powell]

Conspiracy theorists claim that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) scientists reported finding evidence of melted structural steel in the World Trade Center rubble. Since temperatures reached in open hydrocarbon fires are not high enough to melt steel, it is suggested that an exotic incendiary such as "nanothermite" must have been at play. At the 25:20 mark in the 2014 David Hooper film, The Anatomy of a Great Deception (viewable in its entirety on YouTube at youtube.com/watch?v=l0Q5eZhCPuc ), a video clip featuring Technical Director, Richard Gage, is presented wherein Gage has this to say about the WTC rubble piles:

And what we find down there is pools of molten iron... what does that mean?... several tons... exactly, what is that doing there? First responders see it. The structural engineers see it. It's documented by FEMA, the melting of steel. Normal office fires is what is supposed to have brought these buildings down along with jet plane impacts. The jet fuel and office fires don't produce molten iron or molten steel. It doesn't begin to melt until 3,000 degrees.

The FEMA documentation that Gage was referring to is Appendix C of their World Trade Center Building Performance Study. It reports on two pieces of severely eroded structural steel found in the rubble piles... one from WTC 7 and the other from either WTC 1 or WTC 2. Despite Gage's inference that this was a wide-spread phenomenon, these were the only specimens found that had the peculiar pattern of erosion. The damage to the steel was caused by the presence of sulfur that allowed for the formation of a lower-melting-point eutectic mixture as the steel stewed for weeks in the burning rubble piles. The source of the sulfur is not known, but could have been any number of common building materials. And while Gage makes reference to FEMA Appendix C to back up his contention that the melting of steel at 3,000 degrees F was documented, he conveniently ignores the parts where FEMA reported the actual maximum temperatures attained by the steel specimens. Following is what it said in Section C.3 about the steel specimen from Building 7:

Heating of the steel into a hot corrosive environment approaching 1,000 °C (1,800 °F) results in the formation of a eutectic mixture of iron, oxygen, and sulfur that liquefied the steel.

For the steel specimen from WTC 1 or WTC 2 the FEMA report said this in Section C.4:

Temperatures in this region of the steel were likely to be in the range of 700–800 °C (1,290–1,470 °F).

So then, the maximum temperature attained by either steel specimen was 1,800 degrees F. That's pretty damned hot but still about 1,000 degrees cooler than required for outright melting of steel and several thousand degrees cooler than the temperature of burning thermite. What FEMA scientists observed and reported on in their Appendix C had no bearing on the collapse of the buildings and that's why NIST made no mention of it in its building performance investigations. One would expect that patriotic truth seekers such as David Hooper and Richard Gage would have actually read and understood the report they use to back their claims.

 

[DavidB66]

The jet fuel and office fires don't produce molten iron or molten steel. It doesn't begin to melt until 3,000 degrees.

The idea that iron cannot be melted by hydrocarbon fuels seems to fall foul of the major historical fact that cast iron or pig iron was traditionally produced by pouring liquid iron into molds, and the fuel used was charcoal, coal, or coke - all hydrocarbons.

How was this possible if the melting point of iron is too high to be produced by hydrocarbon fuels? I am no expert on metallurgy, but out of general historical interest I have read a few books on the history of iron and steel. The key points, as I recall, are:

a. in Europe before the 15th century cast iron was not produced. All iron and steel (e.g. for tools and weapons) was based on wrought iron. Wrought iron was produced by heating iron ore in charcoal furnaces, assisted by bellows, which brought the temperature up to a level hot enough to melt the stony part of the ore but not the iron itself. This produced a spongey mass called a 'bloom' which was hammered on an anvil by a smith to expel most of the non-iron components. After several rounds of heating and hammering the result was a very pure form of iron which could be softened by heat and forged (wrought) into the desired shapes (e.g. a sword). Wrought iron is tough but liable to bend. With expert skills a smith could also encourage the iron to absorb a small proportion of carbon (less than 2%), producing steel, which is stronger and more elastic than pure wrought iron.

b. if on the other hand iron ore is heated with charcoal in a large furnace for long enough, it eventually absorbs a higher proportion of carbon, between about 2% and 5%. Crucially, this reduces the melting point of iron enough for the fuel to melt the iron in the ore (or scrap iron), so that it can be 'tapped' to run out of the furnace and poured into moulds. The resulting cast iron is strong but relatively brittle, making it unsuitable for most tools and weapons. It has the economic advantage that it can be produced in relatively large quantities without the laborious and skilled forging process. It is thought that cast iron was first produced in China around 500 BC. In Europe it was first produced around the 14th century, using charcoal as the fuel. In England in the 17th and 18th century the use of coal and coke was pioneered as an alternative. It was also discovered that when the iron was molten, it could be stirred (puddled) to expose it to the air, which burnt off some of the carbon. By stopping the process at the right time, the mixture would solidify as steel. Roughly speaking, iron with less than 0.5% carbon makes wrought iron, between 0.5% and 2% produces steel, and over 2% produces cast iron.

For the present purpose the key point to take away is that if iron ore (or metallic iron) absorbs a sufficient amount of carbon, its melting point is reduced. In the technical terminology the carbon acts as a flux. The history shows that if iron is heated for long enough with a source of carbon it can perfectly well be melted by hydrocarbon fuels. I suspect that ideas to the contrary come from people looking up the melting temperature of iron or steel, and not realising that the figures quoted are usually for pure iron, or for steel with the standard (small) proportion of carbon.

None of this either proves or disproves that iron or steel was melted in the fires of 9/11, just that the idea that it is impossible to melt iron and steel with hydrocarbon fuels is fallacious and goes against historical facts.

 

[Keith Beachy]

The idea that iron cannot be melted by hydrocarbon fuels seems to fall foul of the major historical fact that cast iron or pig iron was traditionally produced by pouring liquid iron into molds, and the fuel used was charcoal, coal, or coke - all hydrocarbons.

How was this possible if the melting point of iron is too high to be produced by hydrocarbon fuels? I am no expert on metallurgy, but out of general historical interest I have read a few books on the history of iron and steel. The key points, as I recall, are:
...
None of this either proves or disproves that iron or steel was melted in the fires of 9/11, just that the idea that it is impossible to melt iron and steel with hydrocarbon fuels is fallacious and goes against historical facts.

Coal, did the terrorists bring coal? No.
Steel was not melted on 9/11 by the fires. There is was no melted steel. Jet fuel is not coal, and charcoal does not get that hot in an outdoor grill, the grill would melt. The only thing in my grill that melts in a over hot charcoal fire is aluminum.

The planes on 9/11 did not carry lots of coal. Jet fuel and coal are hydrocarbon fuels, but have a different maximum temperatures. 9/11 truth lied about melted steel. 9/11 truth got confused by corrosion attack on steel, and don't understand chemical engineering with respect to the term eutectic.

 

[Marc Powell]

For the present purpose the key point to take away is that if iron ore (or metallic iron) absorbs a sufficient amount of carbon, its melting point is reduced. In the technical terminology the carbon acts as a flux. The history shows that if iron is heated for long enough with a source of carbon it can perfectly well be melted by hydrocarbon fuels. I suspect that ideas to the contrary come from people looking up the melting temperature of iron or steel, and not realising that the figures quoted are usually for pure iron, or for steel with the standard (small) proportion of carbon.

I was following what you said right up to this paragraph. My understanding is that no amount of "flux" mixed with iron will allow it to become molten at temperatures as low as those of open hydrocarbon flame. Blown air (as in a forge) is necessary to get flame temperatures up to that point. At any rate, the steel in the WTC towers had a melting point in the 2,800 degree F range. There is no evidence that any of it melted in the raging fires before the collapse or in the smoldering fires in the weeks that followed.

 

[DavidB66]

Blown air (as in a forge) is necessary to get flame temperatures up to that point

Traditional furnaces did indeed use 'blown air' from bellows. The fuel needed a constant supply of oxygen to keep it burning at maximum intensity. I don't know whether the updraft of air in a chimney-like space (like the WTC Towers?) would be a sufficient substitute.

I didn't mean to imply that steel was likely to have melted in the 9/11 fires. I haven't studied that, but from what I have seen on Metabunk the evidence for melting seems very weak. I just wanted to point out the fallacy of assuming that iron and steel have a single fixed melting point. Historically, charcoal furnaces producing cast iron could, and did, melt iron at temperatures below 1500 C (2732 F). This was quite a lengthy process, taking hours if not days, as it took time for the iron to absorb a sufficient amount of carbon.

[Added: I looked up an old physics textbook with a table of melting points for various substances, including:
- cast iron ........... 1050 to 1250
- steel .................. 1300 to 1400
- wrought iron.. 1500 to 1600
All figures in degrees C. Source: A. P. Deschanel, Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy, London, 1875, p. 302.
The figures for wrought iron seem consistent with modern data. The figures for steel and cast iron seem surprisingly low.]

The history of metallurgy is complicated and some points are controversial. I recall seeing claims that cast iron was already produced in the Roman Empire, but I don't think this is generally accepted.

Incidentally, on re-reading my post I see that I didn't mention the term 'smelting'. The wrought iron process I described in my point (a) is often described as 'smelting' but this is apt to be confused with 'melting', so I think the term is best avoided. Indeed, my concise Oxford dictionary defines 'smelt' as 'to extract metal from ore by melting', so there may be some disagreement about what the term properly means.

 

[Oystein]

Traditional furnaces did indeed use 'blown air' from bellows. The fuel needed a constant supply of oxygen to keep it burning at maximum intensity. I don't know whether the updraft of air in a chimney-like space (like the WTC Towers?) would be a sufficient substitute.

I didn't mean to imply that steel was likely to have melted in the 9/11 fires. ...

From memory (I am not sure where this hypothesis came up; possibly the ARUP study for the Silverstein/ConEdison court case): It has been hypothesized that the large area that had burned on each floor would mean fresh air, travelling some distance through a hot space before reaching and being consumed by a fire, would get pre-heated - I think we are talking about an order of magnitude of 200 K. The maximum total gas temperature reached is not only a function of how much fuel, oxygen per time interval, but also of initial temperature. Resultant gas temperature would be up to 200 degrees higher, if the air feeding it oxygen was already 200 degrees higher.
This was not to explain melted steel, but the stronger effect of somewhat elevated maximum gas temperatures softening solid steel.

 

[Thomas B]

The FEMA documentation that Gage was referring to is Appendix C of their World Trade Center Building Performance Study.

I don't think this debunks the "molten metal" claim in its entirety. Gage was talking about "several tons" of molten steel or iron (25:20), not just the two samples discussed in Appendix C of the FEMA report. Gage no doubt likes them because they're in an official report, but he doesn't directly claim that they reached 3000 F. (And the 3000 is of course hyperbole in any case by rounding up from 2800.)

Moreover, A&E for 9/11 Truth has compiled a long list of eyewitness (and second hand) reports of molten metal at ground zero, which I think is what they want to build their case on. (Hooper includes some of these starting at 25:45, right after Gage's remark.)

https://www.ae911truth.org/evidence.../442-witnesses-of-molten-metal-at-ground-zero

Surely, if there were "pools" and "rivers" of the stuff (and it sounds like Gage's "tons" accurately captures the quantities that are being described) then they were well over 1800 F?

One would expect that patriotic truth seekers such as David Hooper and Richard Gage would have actually read and understood the report they use to back their claims.

If they were only using Appendix C to support their claims, I would grant the point. But I think they're just counting it among the many "reports" of unusually high temperatures for building fires. Appendix C does describe the samples as "unusual", and even suggests that whatever happened to them might explain the accelerated weakening of the structure (p. 13).

Gage and Hooper think that the existence multiple reports of molten metal is consistent with the use of thermite. I'm not quite sure what is gained by pointing out that Appendix C estimates temperatures well below 3000 F, when it does in fact suggest that the samples are "evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting" (p. 1).

I think we have to choose between debunking the existence of molten metal at ground zero as such, and providing a reasonable explanation for the melting of (many tons) of steel in the piles after the buildings had already collapsed.

 

[Marc Powell]

I don't think this debunks the "molten metal" claim in its entirety. Gage was talking about "several tons" of molten steel or iron (25:20), not just the two samples discussed in Appendix C of the FEMA report. Gage no doubt likes them because they're in an official report, but he doesn't directly claim that they reached 3000 F. (And the 3000 is of course hyperbole in any case by rounding up from 2800.)

Moreover, A&E for 9/11 Truth has compiled a long list of eyewitness (and second hand) reports of molten metal at ground zero, which I think is what they want to build their case on. (Hooper includes some of these starting at 25:45, right after Gage's remark.)

https://www.ae911truth.org/evidence.../442-witnesses-of-molten-metal-at-ground-zero

Surely, if there were "pools" and "rivers" of the stuff (and it sounds like Gage's "tons" accurately captures the quantities that are being described) then they were well over 1800 F?



If they were only using Appendix C to support their claims, I would grant the point. But I think they're just counting it among the many "reports" of unusually high temperatures for building fires. Appendix C does describe the samples as "unusual", and even suggests that whatever happened to them might explain the accelerated weakening of the structure (p. 13).

Gage and Hooper think that the existence multiple reports of molten metal is consistent with the use of thermite. I'm not quite sure what is gained by pointing out that Appendix C estimates temperatures well below 3000 F, when it does in fact suggest that the samples are "evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting" (p. 1).

I think we have to choose between debunking the existence of molten metal at ground zero as such, and providing a reasonable explanation for the melting of (many tons) of steel in the piles after the buildings had already collapsed.

Anecdotal reports by non-experts are of no forensic value without supporting evidence.

The FEMA Report Appendix C is frequently referred to by truthers to support their contentions that steel had melted but it does nothing of the kind. The intergranular melting noted by FEMA scientists was caused by the presence of sulfur that allowed for the production a eutectic mixture with a lower melting point. The fact that Richard Gage even mentions the FEMA report is an indication of his disingenuousness. And the other lies and fraudulent manipulations of evidence he indulges in are proof of his true agenda.

 

[Thomas B]

Anecdotal reports by non-experts are of no forensic value without supporting evidence.

Do you simply not believe that there was any molten metal at ground zero? There is no credible evidence to support the claim?

The fact that Richard Gage even mentions the FEMA report is an indication of his disingenuousness. And the other lies and fraudulent manipulations of evidence he indulges in are proof of his true agenda.

I don't quite see it, but I have to say that, if it's anything, this is the weakest of many indications of his disingenguousness. In any case, there are many sincere truthers who think Appendix C is, at the very least, a documented anomaly. By now, I don't think any of them would say that it's the best evidence of thermite they have.

 

[Marc Powell]

Do you simply not believe that there was any molten metal at ground zero? There is no credible evidence to support the claim?


I don't quite see it, but I have to say that, if it's anything, this is the weakest of many indications of his disingenguousness. In any case, there are many sincere truthers who think Appendix C is, at the very least, a documented anomaly. By now, I don't think any of them would say that it's the best evidence of thermite they have.

There is no doubt that molten (or previously melted) metal was seen by witnesses. However, there is no way to verify that it was steel and not another lower-melting-point metal. Witnesses may have even been reporting only red-hot steel, which is documented to have been dug from the rubble piles, or other materials such the "meteorites" of compressed floors which some mistakenly refer to as chunks of "molten metal." Without evidence, it is impossible to know what was seen and what it may have actually been. But one thing is certain, a material that was intended to burn (or was that silently explode?) for a few seconds as a demolition agent could not possibly continue to burn (or silently explode) for weeks afterward in the rubble piles turning steel beams into puddles of continuously molten metal. It's thermodynamically impossible and is a fantasy that has no place in a serious discussion of the events of 9/11.

Appendix C documents an unusual effect on steel that sat stewing in a fire for weeks with the presence of sulfur (and probably chimney effects). Only two pieces of steel affected by high-temperature corrosion were found. The many sincere truthers who think Appendix C is of interest in determining how the towers collapsed are mistaken. For a more obvious indication of Richard Gage's disingenuousness, please refer to the thread regarding his alterations to the Ginny Carr audio recording in order to fool his audience into believing there was an explosion before the Flight 11 crash.

 

[Oystein]

Do you simply not believe that there was any molten metal at ground zero? There is no credible evidence to support the claim?

Indeed, this is so. No credible evidence whatsoever for molten bulk steel.

I don't quite see it, but I have to say that, if it's anything, this is the weakest of many indications of his disingenguousness.

Then you haven't seen much.
Truthers, including AE911Truth and Richard Gage personally have pushed that Appendix C as evidence for both molten steel in bulk amounts and the use of thermite - for years and years and years and years, relentlessly, and more than a decade after it has been thoroughly explained that this is a lie, a sham, a hoax, a fraud.

In any case, there are many sincere truthers who think Appendix C is, at the very least, a documented anomaly. By now, I don't think any of them would say that it's the best evidence of thermite they have.

Why are you so vague, so luke-warm, so pussy-footed with the double-negations?
Say it out loud: Truthers claim Appendix C is evidence for thermate, when in fact it isn't.
Say it out loud: Truthers merely claim an "anomaly", and unvariably follow this up immediately with the lie by innuendo that this makes their sick fantasies respectable. It doesn't.

Trutherism - the art of LYING about 9/11 - is all about spinning subjectively imagined "anomalies" in to fully-flung fantasies and lies.

 

[Keith Beachy]

...
I think we have to choose between debunking the existence of molten metal at ground zero as such, and providing a reasonable explanation for the melting of (many tons) of steel in the piles after the buildings had already collapsed.

There is no evidence of tons of Melted Steel, Gage has no evidence. Hearsay is not evidence. Appendix C shows corrosion at 800C and 1000C, this is not melted steel, it is high temperature corrosion. High temperature corrosion, not high enough to melt steel. High temperature corrosion versus low temperature, or room temperature corrosion, we usually see as rust.

Where are the tons of melted steel? In Gage's imagination.

Here is a car shell, steel remains, but there are rivers, streams of melted metal, aka Al. There were tons of Aluminum in the WTC, the cladding was Al. There was melted metal at the WTC on 9/11, but no evidence steel melted.

Aluminum cladding - Rough-sorted aluminum cladding from the World Trade Center at the Staten Island recovery site. In photos of the WTC on fire, it looks like the Cladding was melting during the fires before collapse. In addition, there were tons of Aluminum from the aircraft used.

Are you saying there was melted steel? Steel would fail before it melts, and office fires usually top out at 1000C or so.

 

[Oystein]

...
I don't quite see it, but I have to say that, if it's anything, this is the weakest of many indications of his disingenguousness. ...

You want to see it?

Go no further than the AE911Truth homepage today.
They put on it, freshly, this old propaganda videos full of lies, narrated by Gage himself:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oVs_94VHk8


The titel is "Melted Steel Beams and Molten Iron", and Gage himself starts off with these words (starting at 17 s, after spooky music and opening titles):

In its report on the World Trade Center 7, which came out in May of 2002, FEMA documents, in Appendix C, steel that has been melted and even partially evaporated.

This "Experts Speak Out" series of propaganda videos was, and still is, one of Gage's prime propaganda vehicles - and as you can see, the Appendix C is the "evidence" he presents first when trying to fool and lie his viewers into the fraudulent claim that there were "Melted Steel Beams and Molten Iron".

Can you see it now, Thomas B.?

 

[Marc Powell]

This "Experts Speak Out" series of propaganda videos was, and still is, one of Gage's prime propaganda vehicles - and as you can see, the Appendix C is the "evidence" he presents first when trying to fool and lie his viewers into the fraudulent claim that there were "Melted Steel Beams and Molten Iron".

It is noteworthy that, in the clip of Ken Holden's testimony before the 9/11 Commission presented at the 2:25 mark in the the video you referenced, the last few words of his sentence were truncated. He said the following:

Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the walls.

In the more complete clip presented at the 31:01 mark in David Hooper's AOAGD film (of all places), Holden says:

Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the walls in Building 6.

So then, Richard Gage must have realized just how contrary to his controlled demolition argument it would be to present testimony of molten metal (not steel) in a Building other than WTC 1, 2 or 7. So, "in Building 6" was cut off. Just another manipulation of evidence by a patriotic truth seeker.

 

[Mendel]

So then, Richard Gage must have realized just how contrary to his controlled demolition argument it would be to present testimony of molten metal (not steel) in a Building other than WTC 1, 2 or 7. So, "in Building 6" was cut off. Just another manipulation of evidence by a patriotic truth seeker.

At some point, any architect or engineer with an AE911 membership should ask themselves about the company they keep.

 

[Thomas B]

But one thing is certain, a material that was intended to burn (or was that silently explode?) for a few seconds as a demolition agent could not possibly continue to burn (or silently explode) for weeks afterward in the rubble piles turning steel beams into puddles of continuously molten metal. It's thermodynamically impossible and is a fantasy that has no place in a serious discussion of the events of 9/11.

This sounds like the right approach. Whatever the witnesses observed, it can't have been the byproduct of a thermite reaction. It's difficult to discount the existence of something that looked to so many people on the scene like pools or rivers of molten steel. So it's more effective to debunk the explanation for it that truthers propose.

If I understand the consensus here: It wasn't steel. And it was produced after the collapses.

Can you see it now, Thomas B.?

I think my remark about "not seeing it" has been misunderstood a little. What I was trying to say is that you don't need a detailed technical debunk of Gage's spin on Appendix C to convince me that he's not entirely sincere. That has been obvious to me for a long time. And this Appendix C thing doesn't seem like a slam dunk on his sincerity.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

At some point, any architect or engineer with an AE911 membership should ask themselves about the company they keep.

My 911 story is sort of interesting and unique. I lived in NYC my whole life and became an architect. My first job out of college with with Emery Roth in 1970 who were the architects for the WTC. I did not work on that project at the time as it was largely completed.
I was as surprised as anyone that a skyscraper could collapse so quickly. I did hear the pancake theory rather soon after the event. It was not detailed enough to satisfy me... a cartoon really.
in 2009 I began to read on the web and came across an event being held on the 8th anniversary at St Mark's Church on 10th Street called "We Demand Transparency". Who doesn't want transparency? I decided to attend. It was actually, unbeknownst to me a "truther" event.... and the presentations were by people who I would come to know as 911 truthers... Barry Zwicker, Gage, and so on. I think I met the guys to made "Loose Change". and Graeme MacQueen. The speakers all had an air of professionalism. During a break I introduced myself to Gage who was talking with Tony Szamboti. I suggested to them they contact the engineer...Leslie Robertson who had an office downtown and get his thoughts on how they collapses happened.
They didn't do it but Gage did ask me to listen in on his weekly Thursday "strategy" call and gave me the teleconference call number and password. I thought... Why not? Let's hear was these architects and engineers were doing to explain the collapse.
I believe this was just about the time the nano thermite theory bubbled up. It turns out that the dust samples the truthers "used for the research (nonsense)" came from an apartment on 1 Hudson Street which was the same building that I had done work in. Coincidence.
The AE911T calls were about strategies to get more members... ie petition signers. Gage thought a lot of petition signers who be sufficient to have a congressional committee launch another investigation into 911. They of course dismissed the NIST reports as cover ups of an inside job CD.
Gage called me at home and asked me to consider being on the board of directors of AE911T. YIKES. I didn't want to do this and was not even sure what his group actually did. I emailed him and suggested he get his "professional" engineers and architects to embark on a "building performance study". I mention this idea on one of the calls. At this time I was not convinced that their claims were correct... and not aware that AE911T was simply a marketing operation to raise money to support Gage... not research! But very quickly the AE911T "volunteers"... none of whom were architects or engineers... began to tell Gage I was a spy sent in to destroy AE911T. David Griffin supported the idea and called me a cognitive infiltrator! YIKES.
I was voted off the board because I refused to resign and was replaced, IIRC by Kevin Ryan! HAHAHA.
In those two months of Fall 09 I was educating myself about WTC and was not a conspiracy believer. By December I was out of the group! Expelled! I continued to look for technical explanations and found the 911FreeForums which seems to be a collection of people who had engineering and physics backgrounds who were carefully studying the visuals from the vids and pics of the day. I believe Szamboti was a member there and presented his papers which were demolished... pun intended. He never backed away. Gage kept finding new "professionals" to bring on board. One of them was Robert McCoy. For a few months into the Spring of 2010 I attempted to share my own findings/research (from 911FreeForum) about what likely happened at the towers... with Gage and even McCoy. They refused to listen or engage. I believe on truther engineer from Scotland IRRC Gordon Ross, also left the 911 truth movement realizing that they were dead wrong. IIRC at the time the NIST theory was the collapse was caused by the floor trusses and Ross claimed it was the core. THAT may have been correct... but not CD.
I continued on drilling deeper and deeper into the causes of the collapse of WTC buildings and accepted the wisdom of the ROOSD explanation for the twin towers.
7WTC was not as clear to me as the collapse of the twins. The NIST simulation was a problem for many because it did not resemble real world. But of course it was simply a demonstration of how it might have collapsed not intended to be exactly how it DID collapse.
NIST didn't seem to develop the idea of runaway progressive unstoppable system failures. The point to a cause then write... global collapse ensued. That a cop out. YES they could not detail the chaotic sequence... but they could have show how structural failures go runaway. And 7WTC in a sense was primed candidate for this. It was a tower built over a power station and relied and many massive load transfer structures because columns could not pass straight down through the ConED sub station. But it does appear that there was a structural failure in the NE quadrant which rapidly propagated through out the interior structure, leading to a rapid floor collapse which undermined the (only) 7 story high 23 columns supporting the facade which essentially came down with no resistance dropping 108 feet and giving the look of a free fall collapse.
So after years of trying to pin down the mechanisms and the sequence I realized this is not knowable. It's far too complex and not possible without more data. We can't know the precise sequence... but we DO know the mechanisms in play. And these support the fact that there was no CD needed or used in the destruction of the WTC. The main culprit was the effect of unfought fires expanding steel. distorting. warping the frame, destroying connections... weakening steel to below needed capacity to support the loads.
ROOSD is the proper explanation for the over simplified "pancake" collapse. There were floor collapses preceding the column collapses in the collapse phases. There were column failures which initiated the floor collapses. Column failures seemed to be related to heat warping and weakening the frame to below capacity. Unbraced columns are weaker than braced ones. Columns can buckle without adequate bracing. Floor structures braced columns... columns supported floors.
The engineering and physics may be out of the intellectual reach for the average person. I suppose that is the same with how a plane flies. But one can understand with a basic science background from high school.
Don't listen to high school teacher Chandler... He's a science and engineering denier!
I do laugh at truther guys on radio and it is frustrating. They are obviously willfully ignorant because proper explanations are readily available.

But that raises the question... why are they willfully ignorant?

 

[Marc Powell]

My 911 story is sort of interesting and unique. I lived in NYC my whole life and became an architect. My first job out of college with with Emery Roth in 1970 who were the architects for the WTC. I did not work on that project at the time as it was largely completed.
I was as surprised as anyone that a skyscraper could collapse so quickly. I did hear the pancake theory rather soon after the event. It was not detailed enough to satisfy me... a cartoon really.
in 2009 I began to read on the web and came across an event being held on the 8th anniversary at St Mark's Church on 10th Street called "We Demand Transparency". Who doesn't want transparency? I decided to attend. It was actually, unbeknownst to me a "truther" event.... and the presentations were by people who I would come to know as 911 truthers... Barry Zwicker, Gage, and so on. I think I met the guys to made "Loose Change". and Graeme MacQueen. The speakers all had an air of professionalism. During a break I introduced myself to Gage who was talking with Tony Szamboti. I suggested to them they contact the engineer...Leslie Robertson who had an office downtown and get his thoughts on how they collapses happened.
They didn't do it but Gage did ask me to listen in on his weekly Thursday "strategy" call and gave me the teleconference call number and password. I thought... Why not? Let's hear was these architects and engineers were doing to explain the collapse.
I believe this was just about the time the nano thermite theory bubbled up. It turns out that the dust samples the truthers "used for the research (nonsense)" came from an apartment on 1 Hudson Street which was the same building that I had done work in. Coincidence.
The AE911T calls were about strategies to get more members... ie petition signers. Gage thought a lot of petition signers who be sufficient to have a congressional committee launch another investigation into 911. They of course dismissed the NIST reports as cover ups of an inside job CD.
Gage called me at home and asked me to consider being on the board of directors of AE911T. YIKES. I didn't want to do this and was not even sure what his group actually did. I emailed him and suggested he get his "professional" engineers and architects to embark on a "building performance study". I mention this idea on one of the calls. At this time I was not convinced that their claims were correct... and not aware that AE911T was simply a marketing operation to raise money to support Gage... not research! But very quickly the AE911T "volunteers"... none of whom were architects or engineers... began to tell Gage I was a spy sent in to destroy AE911T. David Griffin supported the idea and called me a cognitive infiltrator! YIKES.
I was voted off the board because I refused to resign and was replaced, IIRC by Kevin Ryan! HAHAHA.
In those two months of Fall 09 I was educating myself about WTC and was not a conspiracy believer. By December I was out of the group! Expelled! I continued to look for technical explanations and found the 911FreeForums which seems to be a collection of people who had engineering and physics backgrounds who were carefully studying the visuals from the vids and pics of the day. I believe Szamboti was a member there and presented his papers which were demolished... pun intended. He never backed away. Gage kept finding new "professionals" to bring on board. One of them was Robert McCoy. For a few months into the Spring of 2010 I attempted to share my own findings/research (from 911FreeForum) about what likely happened at the towers... with Gage and even McCoy. They refused to listen or engage. I believe on truther engineer from Scotland IRRC Gordon Ross, also left the 911 truth movement realizing that they were dead wrong. IIRC at the time the NIST theory was the collapse was caused by the floor trusses and Ross claimed it was the core. THAT may have been correct... but not CD.
I continued on drilling deeper and deeper into the causes of the collapse of WTC buildings and accepted the wisdom of the ROOSD explanation for the twin towers.
7WTC was not as clear to me as the collapse of the twins. The NIST simulation was a problem for many because it did not resemble real world. But of course it was simply a demonstration of how it might have collapsed not intended to be exactly how it DID collapse.
NIST didn't seem to develop the idea of runaway progressive unstoppable system failures. The point to a cause then write... global collapse ensued. That a cop out. YES they could not detail the chaotic sequence... but they could have show how structural failures go runaway. And 7WTC in a sense was primed candidate for this. It was a tower built over a power station and relied and many massive load transfer structures because columns could not pass straight down through the ConED sub station. But it does appear that there was a structural failure in the NE quadrant which rapidly propagated through out the interior structure, leading to a rapid floor collapse which undermined the (only) 7 story high 23 columns supporting the facade which essentially came down with no resistance dropping 108 feet and giving the look of a free fall collapse.
So after years of trying to pin down the mechanisms and the sequence I realized this is not knowable. It's far too complex and not possible without more data. We can't know the precise sequence... but we DO know the mechanisms in play. And these support the fact that there was no CD needed or used in the destruction of the WTC. The main culprit was the effect of unfought fires expanding steel. distorting. warping the frame, destroying connections... weakening steel to below needed capacity to support the loads.
ROOSD is the proper explanation for the over simplified "pancake" collapse. There were floor collapses preceding the column collapses in the collapse phases. There were column failures which initiated the floor collapses. Column failures seemed to be related to heat warping and weakening the frame to below capacity. Unbraced columns are weaker than braced ones. Columns can buckle without adequate bracing. Floor structures braced columns... columns supported floors.
The engineering and physics may be out of the intellectual reach for the average person. I suppose that is the same with how a plane flies. But one can understand with a basic science background from high school.
Don't listen to high school teacher Chandler... He's a science and engineering denier!
I do laugh at truther guys on radio and it is frustrating. They are obviously willfully ignorant because proper explanations are readily available.

But that raises the question... why are they willfully ignorant?

Why indeed are they willfully ignorant? Why do they push so hard to fool people into believing that the US Government was the instigator of 9/11 and that the terrorists were innocent schnooks roped into giving their lives so the US would have a pretext to invade and plunder their homelands? Even the best paid among the 9/11 "truth" liars, Richard Gage AIA, is only earning a fraction of what he could earn if he were successful in his profession. I am not usually one to offer speculation but I have heard an interesting theory that actually has some credible evidence behind it. It has been theorized that the 9/11 Truth Movement is actually a covert government operation intended to identify and track subversives. It would be entirely in character for the CIA to take advantage of the 9/11 tragedy in that way as a means of making up for its failure to detect what the terrorists were up to and prevent them from carrying out their plans. If 9/11 Truth is a CIA operation, then Richard Gage and his buddies actually are patriots working for the betterment of society. In any event, there is no truth whatsoever to their claims that the tragic events in NYC, at The Pentagon and near Shanksville, PA were caused by anything other than suicidal lunatics in hijacked airliners.

 

[Marc Powell]

You want to see it?

Go no further than the AE911Truth homepage today.
They put on it, freshly, this old propaganda videos full of lies, narrated by Gage himself:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9oVs_94VHk8


The titel is "Melted Steel Beams and Molten Iron", and Gage himself starts off with these words (starting at 17 s, after spooky music and opening titles):

This "Experts Speak Out" series of propaganda videos was, and still is, one of Gage's prime propaganda vehicles - and as you can see, the Appendix C is the "evidence" he presents first when trying to fool and lie his viewers into the fraudulent claim that there were "Melted Steel Beams and Molten Iron".

Can you see it now, Thomas B.?

I just watched the 2020 AE911Truth documentary entitled SEVEN. For the past few weeks, there has been an ad blitz for it on YouTube and I think I even saw an ad for it on TV. The subject is the UAF study and how its results are supposedly so important to the world. SEVEN has all the usual long-ago-debunked truther memes. And as one might have expected, there was an early mention of the two pieces of steel that exhibited the effects of high-temperature corrosion. Of course, it was insinuated that the corroded steel represents a widespread phenomenon with significant implications regarding the collapse of the buildings. Judging from the glowing reviews on Amazon Prime, it looks like Gage once again managed to pull the wool over his audience's eyes. Following is a snippet from the closed captioning for the film: I hope I am not violating copyright by posting this.

229
00:11:39,802 --> 00:11:42,460
- [Host] Despite the
rush to remove the debris

230
00:11:42,494 --> 00:11:45,705
from Building 7, a group of
engineers

231
00:11:45,739 --> 00:11:48,777
from the Worcester Polytechnic
Institute,

232
00:11:48,811 --> 00:11:52,228
volunteering for FEMA, managed
to secure

233
00:11:52,263 --> 00:11:56,888
a single piece of steel from
Building 7 for analysis.

234
00:11:56,923 --> 00:11:59,235
They were shocked to see
that the steel resembled,

235
00:11:59,270 --> 00:12:01,824
in their words, Swiss cheese.

236
00:12:01,859 --> 00:12:04,447
The Journal of the Minerals,
Metals

237
00:12:04,482 --> 00:12:08,072
and Materials Society stated
that there was evidence

238
00:12:08,106 --> 00:12:13,077
of a severe high temperature
corrosion attack on the steel.

239
00:12:15,286 --> 00:12:18,979
This strongly suggests that the temperatures in this region

240
00:12:19,014 --> 00:12:24,157
of the steel beam approached
around 1,000 degrees Celsius,

241
00:12:24,191 --> 00:12:26,676
or 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

242
00:12:27,608 --> 00:12:31,958
FEMA's hypothesis was a
liquid eutectic mixture

243
00:12:31,992 --> 00:12:36,169
containing primarily iron,
oxygen and sulfur formed

244
00:12:36,203 --> 00:12:40,000
during his hot corrosion
attack on the steel.

245
00:12:41,036 --> 00:12:44,453
The temperatures required
to produce liquid iron

246
00:12:44,487 --> 00:12:48,837
far exceed those achievable
from an office fire.

247
00:12:48,871 --> 00:12:50,804
- That shows there's this quite a bit

248
00:12:50,839 --> 00:12:54,877
of other chemicals involved
causing the steel to corrode

249
00:12:54,912 --> 00:12:58,053
and basically disintegrate like that.

250
00:12:58,087 --> 00:13:01,297
- [Host] FEMA referred to
these extreme temperatures

251
00:13:01,332 --> 00:13:04,438
as a very unusual event,

252
00:13:04,473 --> 00:13:06,647
and pointed out that this same
phenomenon

253
00:13:06,682 --> 00:13:10,375
was seen in samples from
one of the Twin Towers.

254
00:13:10,410 --> 00:13:12,861
This might be related to
the fact that Ground Zero

255
00:13:12,895 --> 00:13:15,622
became the site of the longest
burning

256
00:13:15,656 --> 00:13:18,280
structural fire in history.

257
00:13:18,314 --> 00:13:21,662
With extremely high temperatures located specifically

258
00:13:21,697 --> 00:13:26,702
in the footprint of the
Twin Towers and Building 7.

 

[Oystein]

They (almost) correctly state the temperature reached - 1,000 °C - and then go on to vaguely talking about "extreme" temperatures which "f °ar exceed those achievable from an office fire", but 1,000 °C are very well achievable in an office fire, and certainly also in a large underground fire of long duration.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

The vast majority of the destruction of the frame in the WTC collapses had no heat involvement. Heat WAS a driver in the initiation period which weakened and distorted the steel elements rendering THAT section of the frame incapable of supporting design loads... and THAT meant that a gravity driven collapse would ensue destroying floors and bracing. No part of the frame needed to melt... it would lose capacity and distort "fatally" long before it ever melted... and that applies to joints as well. The melted metal was identified as aluminum which can melt at the temperatures of the fires at WTC.

 

[Marc Powell]

They (almost) correctly state the temperature reached - 1,000 °C - and then go on to vaguely talking about "extreme" temperatures which "f °ar exceed those achievable from an office fire", but 1,000 °C are very well achievable in an office fire, and certainly also in a large underground fire of long duration.

The film is filled with similar false spins on inconsequential evidence. I also noticed that the "host" (Ed Asner) said "samples" of steel from one of the twin towers which gives the false impression that the high-temperature corrosion was widespread (rather than seen on only one specimen), and that whatever mysterious chemical reaction caused steel beams to "melt" was responsible for the immensity and long duration of the rubble fires.

 

[Thomas B]

I have heard an interesting theory that actually has some credible evidence behind it. It has been theorized that the 9/11 Truth Movement is actually a covert government operation intended to identify and track subversives. It would be entirely in character for the CIA to take advantage of the 9/11 tragedy in that way as a means of making up for its failure to detect what the terrorists were up to and prevent them from carrying out their plans. If 9/11 Truth is a CIA operation, then Richard Gage and his buddies actually are patriots working for the betterment of society.

I'm intrigued. Three questions.

What is the evidence for this theory that you find credible? As I'm sure you're aware, this sounds like a conspiracy theory of sorts, so I'm curious to know what sort of evidence you would use to support it.

Are such operations really for the betterment of society? Do you believe that only "subversives" could be drawn to the truth movement? I.e., that the operation has only affected the minds of people who are bad for society anyway? It seems to me that if 9/11 Truth is a lie invented by the CIA then this is a major scandal. Surely it has misled a lot of good people and, worse, troubled (and drawn in) a lot of grieving ones.

If this is "entirely in character for the CIA", aren't you living pretty much in the world the truthers imagine we live in? Where do you draw the line to what the CIA is (morally) capable of?

For my part, I reject conspiracy theories in part because I don't think our institutions work in a way that make them plausible. For example, even though I don't quite understand how the buildings collapsed, I don't think the engineering establishment -- including universities -- could conceal their "physical impossibility". I'm not naive about the CIA, of course; I have some understanding of its history. But this "op" sounds a little farfetched.

 

[Marc Powell]

I'm intrigued. Three questions.

What is the evidence for this theory that you find credible? As I'm sure you're aware, this sounds like a conspiracy theory of sorts, so I'm curious to know what sort of evidence you would use to support it.

Are such operations really for the betterment of society? Do you believe that only "subversives" could be drawn to the truth movement? I.e., that the operation has only affected the minds of people who are bad for society anyway? It seems to me that if 9/11 Truth is a lie invented by the CIA then this is a major scandal. Surely it has misled a lot of good people and, worse, troubled (and drawn in) a lot of grieving ones.

If this is "entirely in character for the CIA", aren't you living pretty much in the world the truthers imagine we live in? Where do you draw the line to what the CIA is (morally) capable of?

For my part, I reject conspiracy theories in part because I don't think our institutions work in a way that make them plausible. For example, even though I don't quite understand how the buildings collapsed, I don't think the engineering establishment -- including universities -- could conceal their "physical impossibility". I'm not naive about the CIA, of course; I have some understanding of its history. But this "op" sounds a little farfetched.

Okay, this is all very speculative and I usually like to only deal in hard facts, but since you asked, here's the story. At some point in its early existence, AE911Truth hired a firm called Health Wyze Media as their Information Technology specialists and as such, Health Wyze employees were privy to the inside workings of the AE911Truth organization. Health Wyze founders Thomas and Sarah Corriher also operate the website Healthwyze.org where they promote holistic medical products and publish a journal, The Health Wyze Report, devoted to politics and health care. As I understand it, there was a falling out between the Corrihers and Richard Gage because he suspected they were publishing inside information about AE911Truth. At any rate you can read about the Corrihers' experiences as AE911Truth insiders at:

https://healthwyze.org/tidbits/590-the-shaky-moral-foundation-that-ae911truth-is-built-upon

Here is some of what Sarah Corriher had to say (not necessarily in sequence):

One of the organization's biggest problems is its provocateurs who are propelled to the top positions. Discord-sowing provocateurs were the ones who screamed loudest, above the more scrupled people. It is worth mentioning that this is the textbook behavior of most governmental infiltrators. Such people have been promoted to managerial positions because Richard Gage personally made the core principle of the organization to be one of appeasement, which eventually led to the technical meltdown.

Even identified governmental agents are freely allowed to influence the organization and to gain access to the private data of its members, for the sake of comprehensive appeasement. We outed one of those governmental spies (Homeland Security), but Richard's reaction was to encourage us to shut-up. We also have reason to believe that a percentage of donations supporting AE911truth are actually governmental pay-outs, which are attributed to donors who do not really exist. AE911Truth is likely one of the U.S. Government's best honey pots for attracting trouble-makers who are in prestigious positions. Thus, it is in the interest of domestic spying operatives to ensure that the organization survives with their spooks in high positions. Such help is also likely to be involved in Richard Gage's easy ability to get interviews with major news networks, such as Fox.

We were supposed to manage security as the organization's techs, but they kept trying to put people on our technical team who were either incompetent or obviously governmental agents. It was a constant fight to prevent new people from having access to the private data. It was as if they wanted to share the information with anybody and everybody. The private information was about every individual who had signed AE911Truth's petition, donated, or volunteered. It included full names, addresses, schools, degrees, contact information, statements regarding each individual's views on 9/11, and statements about their level of interest in helping "the cause". Sometimes, more information would be extracted about people by calling them to ask private questions, the answers to which would then be added to the data. A governmental spying treasure trove was created.

Now, I am in no position to judge whether there is any truth to what Sarah Corriher had to say but it is an intriguing possibility and if true, would explain a lot.

In answer to your other questions, I believe the US Government is capable of just about any covert activity if its operatives thought it would be of value to the security of the country and they could get away with it. Whether it is a betterment to society for the government to secretly make a list of who the bad guys are and where they live is a philosophical question that might better be the subject of another discussion thread.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

OK this is pretty funny.

I had some up close and personal experience with AE911T and actually was on their board for I think two months before I was expelled from the board and AE911T This was in maybe October-December 2009. Gage, I believe was doing a tour of Asia with his "dog and pony show" called Pillars of truth There were also approaching their 2,000 member (or some milestone) as I recall and wanted to mark it somehow.

As I have written before I joined AE911T knowing nothing about the group other than it was supposedly a collection of architects (I was one) and engineers who had questions about how the towers fell. I did. However, more precisely AE911T and its signers doubted the official story and believed the buildings were brought down by an "inside job" (undefined) with demolition devices. I was new to the whole world of 911 ... or perhaps naive. I thought that AE911T was a totally legitimate group of professionals. Why would licensed professional belong to a "fringe conspiracy" group? I was aware of cults at the time and it didn't occur to me that AE911T was actually very similar to a cult. At the time I was actjually "pleased" that there was a group of professionals who would independently examine the towers and show / discover how they came down. The collapses shocked me at the time. I, like most, I had no experience with collapsing high rise towers except those that were taken down intentionally with explosives I had seen on TV.

Anyway, Gage, who I had met when I began to explore the collapse... was doing a presentation in NYC at St Mark's Church on 10th Street on the 8th anniversary of 911. I didn't know what to make of the talks which all appeared to try to make their point with what they thought was "convincing evidence". Essentially all the presenters... and they also discussed the anthrax attacks... introduced the public to each speaker's interpretation and conclusions using what each presenter believed was evidence to support their conclusion. At the time I don't think there was even much talk of "conspiracy theories". But YES there were groups like Scientology or Branch Dividians which operated like "religious cults" offering adherents the "truth" about something.

I did find Gage's approach at that "conference" reminded me of a "revivalist" meeting... which is defined as:... " a meeting or series of meetings led by a preacher to make people interested in a Christian religion". Gage "played the role" of the preacher... the religion was AE911T's CD theory and the audience were the people Gage was trying to bring into the "fold". I recall how in the beginning of his talk he would ask for a show of hands of those who "believed the official story" and at the end a show of hands of those who now doubted the official story. And the audience DID! And of course he mentioned his group were "professional" who were bringing the truth to the people.

I am a secular person... and not someone who is swayed by "religious" type arguments... ie faith. I am "swayed" by science, logic and facts. I think that applies to how engineers and scientists work.
So I was curious about his group and introduced myself to Gage to "find out more". Naive me didn't realize that he saw in me.... a NY architect, as someone to lend credibility to his organization and invited me "in". I was thinking I would meet professionals who were drilling down into the structure and science of tall building collapse. hahahaha. So I joined and in warp speed Gage introduced me to his board at his weekly "strategy" teleconference... and proposed I be added to their board. HAHAHA. How weird was that???? I didn't want this... it felt like a responsibility that I didn't need....and I had no experience with "boards".

Long story short... I rather quickly figured out what AE911T was (at least at that time). It was a marketing operation to get more people to sign their petition calling for a new investigation into the collapse of the WTC and send donations to AE911T. I presume they had reason to believe that the NIST explanations and all the others seen in the MSM were incorrect. Sure engineers and scientists do make mistakes.

BUT AE911T ALSO were proposing a dark conspiracy... an inside job and AE911T was clearly anti authority essentially claiming the event was a false flag to achieve a series of "goals" like start wars in the ME or make billions off of defense spending. They claimed the conspirators would have "means, motive and opportunity"... being rogue intel or whatever. I was really interested in the technical reasons for the collapse and non state terrorism seems a logical explanation to me. Why not?

The overarching memes of AE appealed to many people who rightfully so knew that USG is not transparent, spins and offers cover stories all the time... and the same is done in the media. So there are many people who are ripe for these sorts of conspiracy theories. We see the same memes with the covid pandemic and the antivaxxers. We the sheeple!

My initiation contribution to AE911T was to suggest that AE do a finite element analysis (FEA) and a building performance study enlisting their own professional signers to do it. WOW was that the wrong thing to say! Gage killed the idea by simply ignoring it. Other members felt it would be off message as they believed at the time the CD was done with the newly discovered nano thermite of Niels Harrit and Kevin Ryan IRRC. The other members who got wind of my ideas and thinking and along with David Griffin felt in no uncertain terms I was a spy and a cognitive infiltrator. This was totally crazy but I was quickly voted off the board and replaced by Kevin Ryan because I proposed that AE911T do an FEA!

My brief experience on the board showed me that AE911T was nothing but a cult. Gage was making a living as it's leader/guru. And they had absolutely no interest in a building performance study... or the truth. The "truth" was a great word to market the group and get donations. Who is for truth and transparency. (notice how they play with words)

I do recall Gage asking me to come up with the explanation for what they were calling squibs which aligned/supported their CD cause from placed explosives. This statement was iconic of the typical 911 conspiracist's approach. Identify some observation and then explain it with a cause consistent with a conspiracy. THIS is the pattern.

My experience was also iconic of how this group viewed someone like me who simply wanted to learn about the collapse - a spy, an infiltrator and likely a CIA operative. HAHAHA. So you have Griffin who is supposedly a theologian who writes a book on a topic he has no expertise whatsoever... The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center Seven and HE becomes a go to person in AE911T and the truth movement. How odd funny is that? It seemed like Gage was almost his puppet or in his "thrall".

I left this group of misguided people after 2 months and went on to find some good technical work. But I also was exposed to a range of people who were promoting 911 conspiracies and who were well educated... Graeme McQueen, Tony Szamboti, even a noted female scientist (biology??) whose name I can't recall and others like architect McCoy... frightfully many people who should have known better. To me it was a remarkable show of something akin to cognitive dissonance... These were intelligent people who saw rationality in 911 conspiracy. Their arguments would convince tens of thousands of people who had no background in science and especially engineering to believe in fantasies. (not unlike religion)...

And YES the CIA did have their MK Ultra program which explored how to "brainwash" people. Well religion sort of does the same thing... people are asked to suspend disbelief and accept "things" with no scientific basis.

My conclusion was that AE911T was a cult... hardly different in its attributes from Scientology.
I don't know whether Gage et al see AE911T as a cult. I am sure they would all deny this. But so would members of Scientology.

So... how do I and does society deal with cults? Are they left alone because of "free speech" rights and other constitutional rights? Should they be discredited and the people who follow them be informed that they were hoodwinked and "deprogrammed"?

Many engineers "debunked" the "junk science" of the 911Truth movement (thanks Mick West!). And in so doing have shed more light on the engineering of the collapse of the WTC. But the cults go on and on and the dumb is clearly not learning not learning a thing especially critical thinking,

 

[Mendel]

@Marc Powell Well, that proves DHS involvement, anyway. CIA seems like a strange guess to me, since their main focus is foreign intelligence.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

DHS was founded two years after 911 occurred. It was a response to 911.

 

[Marc Powell]

@Marc Powell Well, that proves DHS involvement, anyway. CIA seems like a strange guess to me, since their main focus is foreign intelligence.

Good Point. I will edit my response to Thomas B's query so as to be more generic.

 

[Nada Truther]

I have always thought that the intense friction of the collapse could have generated enough pressure and heat between metal pieces to melt the steel.... As in friction welding...

Friction Welding Video

Just a thought... Not my soapbox.. "I think that I have proved it!" moment...

Although, I doubt if there would have been "Pools" of the metal. But I would think that it could have created some melting and iron micro spheres and all of that...

 

[Marc Powell]

I have always thought that the intense friction of the collapse could have generated enough pressure and heat between metal pieces to melt the steel.... As in friction welding...

Friction Welding Video

Just a thought... Not my soapbox.. "I think that I have proved it!" moment...

Although, I doubt if there would have been "Pools" of the metal. But I would think that it could have created some melting and iron micro spheres and all of that...

I have also given thought to the energy equation. Each standing tower contained a tremendous amount of potential energy which was converted to kinetic energy as debris began to fall and then to heat and sound energy as the collapse progressed to completion. The resulting rubble certainly must have been heated by all the bending and crushing it had endured and I wouldn't be surprised if sparks had flown as steel was rent during the collapse. However, I doubt that such frictional heating could have been responsible for the high temperatures in the rubble piles, reports of pools of molten metal and the presence of iron-rich microspheres in the dust. There are much simpler explanations for these phenomena.

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

I have always thought that the intense friction of the collapse could have generated enough pressure and heat between metal pieces to melt the steel.... As in friction welding...

Friction Welding Video

Just a thought... Not my soapbox.. "I think that I have proved it!" moment...

Although, I doubt if there would have been "Pools" of the metal. But I would think that it could have created some melting and iron micro spheres and all of that...

Nada....first off... there was no melted steel and no cooled down / solidified steel that had been molten found at the WTC. There was aluminum which melted and perhaps lead or copper.
I am not metallurgist but your friction melting idea sounds implausible... and even if it was part of the collapse it could not be a cause if it was a consequence of the collapse.
Secondly the pile contain lots of combustible materials which smoldered for weeks
++++
Heat was probably the main driver which caused the collapse. It did so my weakening, and expanding the steel in the frame and mostly the beams, girders, trusses not the columns. Expansion of beams, girders and trusses pushed and pulled columns and caused connections to shear. Misaligned columns buckled and the floors supported collapse and the falling floor mass destroyed the floors below in an unstoppable "vertical landslide"... in all three buildings. Friction played no role in causing or promoting the collapses in my opinion.

 

[Oystein]

I have always thought that the intense friction of the collapse could have generated enough pressure and heat between metal pieces to melt the steel.... As in friction welding...

Friction Welding Video

Just a thought... Not my soapbox.. "I think that I have proved it!" moment...

Although, I doubt if there would have been "Pools" of the metal. But I would think that it could have created some melting and iron micro spheres and all of that...

Nope. Two reasons:

1. There is no actual "melting" in this Friction Welding - no liquid steel, or else you'd see droplets sputtering around. Those pieces only get to a temperature sufficient to "forge" them together - hot forging is done at more - but not much more! - than about 60% of the melting point (measured in Kelvin, i.e. from absolute zero). If your steel alloy has a melting temperature of 1800 K, that's 1,100 K = 827 °C = 1520 °F. More than red hot, but well below melting.
2. The available potential energy of the collapsing steel (delta-height = 1360 ft at most) is FAR below what would be needed to melt steel. Quick calculation:
At 1360 ft (415 m), potential energy per 1 g of iron (or any material) is 0.001 kg * 415 m * 9.8 m/s^2 = 4.067 J.
Heat capacity of iron is is 25.1 J/(mol*K) = 25.1 J / (55,845 g * K) = 0.45 J/(g*K).
4.067 J could thus heat 1 g of iron by 4.067/0.45 K = about 9 K or 16 °F. That's slightly warming it. Not enough to cause discomfort when you hold it in your hand.

It would take some process of concentrating the kinetic energy of a large mass into a small mass. This may happen when two masses collide a with a very small area of contact, and a small mass is chipped off by shear and plastic deformation - then this chip may carry off good deal of the kinetic energy lost and become - a spark. Sparks chippes off from iron do in fact typically end up as spheres - microspheres.

Another process that I have seen suggest is this: You may be aware that the actuall collapse progression of the twin towers largely bypassed te columns and instead hammered out the floors in rapid succession. As each floor gets slammed by the falling mass from below, some of the kinetic energy goes into the columns via the floor system and floor truss seats, from where much of that energy would continue as an elastic deformation wave down the column. With 90 floors thus getting hammered, you have 90 times the kinetic-to-seismic energy of one floor punch-out travelling down the columns. At each column splice, some of that wave energy would get reflected, dissipated... but as these are steel-steel connections, maybe it wouldn't be so bad - until you come to the foundation, where the last bit of steel structure meets rock. This is where a more significant percentage of the seismic energy would get converted to heat. And so, the speculation goes, perhaps the very bottom of the columns heated up?
But that, again, would be very far from melting. For starters, the lowest column sections are also the most massive (thickest), so lots of steel mass to distribute that thermal energy around. And 90 blows, or fewer, with a hammer aren't that much, really.

 

[Mendel]

DHS was founded two years after 911 occurred. It was a response to 911.

Yes. And AE911 was founded in 2007.
If the DHS wanted to do it, they could have.

 

[Marc Powell]

OK this is pretty funny.

I had some up close and personal experience with AE911T and actually was on their board for I think two months before I was expelled from the board and AE911T This was in maybe October-December 2009. Gage, I believe was doing a tour of Asia with his "dog and pony show" called Pillars of truth There were also approaching their 2,000 member (or some milestone) as I recall and wanted to mark it somehow.

As I have written before I joined AE911T knowing nothing about the group other than it was supposedly a collection of architects (I was one) and engineers who had questions about how the towers fell. I did. However, more precisely AE911T and its signers doubted the official story and believed the buildings were brought down by an "inside job" (undefined) with demolition devices. I was new to the whole world of 911 ... or perhaps naive. I thought that AE911T was a totally legitimate group of professionals. Why would licensed professional belong to a "fringe conspiracy" group? I was aware of cults at the time and it didn't occur to me that AE911T was actually very similar to a cult. At the time I was actjually "pleased" that there was a group of professionals who would independently examine the towers and show / discover how they came down. The collapses shocked me at the time. I, like most, I had no experience with collapsing high rise towers except those that were taken down intentionally with explosives I had seen on TV.

Anyway, Gage, who I had met when I began to explore the collapse... was doing a presentation in NYC at St Mark's Church on 10th Street on the 8th anniversary of 911. I didn't know what to make of the talks which all appeared to try to make their point with what they thought was "convincing evidence". Essentially all the presenters... and they also discussed the anthrax attacks... introduced the public to each speaker's interpretation and conclusions using what each presenter believed was evidence to support their conclusion. At the time I don't think there was even much talk of "conspiracy theories". But YES there were groups like Scientology or Branch Dividians which operated like "religious cults" offering adherents the "truth" about something.

I did find Gage's approach at that "conference" reminded me of a "revivalist" meeting... which is defined as:... " a meeting or series of meetings led by a preacher to make people interested in a Christian religion". Gage "played the role" of the preacher... the religion was AE911T's CD theory and the audience were the people Gage was trying to bring into the "fold". I recall how in the beginning of his talk he would ask for a show of hands of those who "believed the official story" and at the end a show of hands of those who now doubted the official story. And the audience DID! And of course he mentioned his group were "professional" who were bringing the truth to the people.

I am a secular person... and not someone who is swayed by "religious" type arguments... ie faith. I am "swayed" by science, logic and facts. I think that applies to how engineers and scientists work.
So I was curious about his group and introduced myself to Gage to "find out more". Naive me didn't realize that he saw in me.... a NY architect, as someone to lend credibility to his organization and invited me "in". I was thinking I would meet professionals who were drilling down into the structure and science of tall building collapse. hahahaha. So I joined and in warp speed Gage introduced me to his board at his weekly "strategy" teleconference... and proposed I be added to their board. HAHAHA. How weird was that???? I didn't want this... it felt like a responsibility that I didn't need....and I had no experience with "boards".

Long story short... I rather quickly figured out what AE911T was (at least at that time). It was a marketing operation to get more people to sign their petition calling for a new investigation into the collapse of the WTC and send donations to AE911T. I presume they had reason to believe that the NIST explanations and all the others seen in the MSM were incorrect. Sure engineers and scientists do make mistakes.

BUT AE911T ALSO were proposing a dark conspiracy... an inside job and AE911T was clearly anti authority essentially claiming the event was a false flag to achieve a series of "goals" like start wars in the ME or make billions off of defense spending. They claimed the conspirators would have "means, motive and opportunity"... being rogue intel or whatever. I was really interested in the technical reasons for the collapse and non state terrorism seems a logical explanation to me. Why not?

The overarching memes of AE appealed to many people who rightfully so knew that USG is not transparent, spins and offers cover stories all the time... and the same is done in the media. So there are many people who are ripe for these sorts of conspiracy theories. We see the same memes with the covid pandemic and the antivaxxers. We the sheeple!

My initiation contribution to AE911T was to suggest that AE do a finite element analysis (FEA) and a building performance study enlisting their own professional signers to do it. WOW was that the wrong thing to say! Gage killed the idea by simply ignoring it. Other members felt it would be off message as they believed at the time the CD was done with the newly discovered nano thermite of Niels Harrit and Kevin Ryan IRRC. The other members who got wind of my ideas and thinking and along with David Griffin felt in no uncertain terms I was a spy and a cognitive infiltrator. This was totally crazy but I was quickly voted off the board and replaced by Kevin Ryan because I proposed that AE911T do an FEA!

My brief experience on the board showed me that AE911T was nothing but a cult. Gage was making a living as it's leader/guru. And they had absolutely no interest in a building performance study... or the truth. The "truth" was a great word to market the group and get donations. Who is for truth and transparency. (notice how they play with words)

I do recall Gage asking me to come up with the explanation for what they were calling squibs which aligned/supported their CD cause from placed explosives. This statement was iconic of the typical 911 conspiracist's approach. Identify some observation and then explain it with a cause consistent with a conspiracy. THIS is the pattern.

My experience was also iconic of how this group viewed someone like me who simply wanted to learn about the collapse - a spy, an infiltrator and likely a CIA operative. HAHAHA. So you have Griffin who is supposedly a theologian who writes a book on a topic he has no expertise whatsoever... The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center Seven and HE becomes a go to person in AE911T and the truth movement. How odd funny is that? It seemed like Gage was almost his puppet or in his "thrall".

I left this group of misguided people after 2 months and went on to find some good technical work. But I also was exposed to a range of people who were promoting 911 conspiracies and who were well educated... Graeme McQueen, Tony Szamboti, even a noted female scientist (biology??) whose name I can't recall and others like architect McCoy... frightfully many people who should have known better. To me it was a remarkable show of something akin to cognitive dissonance... These were intelligent people who saw rationality in 911 conspiracy. Their arguments would convince tens of thousands of people who had no background in science and especially engineering to believe in fantasies. (not unlike religion)...

And YES the CIA did have their MK Ultra program which explored how to "brainwash" people. Well religion sort of does the same thing... people are asked to suspend disbelief and accept "things" with no scientific basis.

My conclusion was that AE911T was a cult... hardly different in its attributes from Scientology.
I don't know whether Gage et al see AE911T as a cult. I am sure they would all deny this. But so would members of Scientology.

So... how do I and does society deal with cults? Are they left alone because of "free speech" rights and other constitutional rights? Should they be discredited and the people who follow them be informed that they were hoodwinked and "deprogrammed"?

Many engineers "debunked" the "junk science" of the 911Truth movement (thanks Mick West!). And in so doing have shed more light on the engineering of the collapse of the WTC. But the cults go on and on and the dumb is clearly not learning not learning a thing especially critical thinking,

I suspected that the things that Sarah Corriher had to say might be of some interest to you. From your unique perspective, do you think that her reports about AE911Truth being infiltrated by government agents hold water, or do you suspect she is weaving a tall tale because she is pissed off for having been fired by Gage?

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

I suspected that the things that Sarah Corriher had to say might be of some interest to you. From your unique perspective, do you think that her reports about AE911Truth being infiltrated by government agents hold water, or do you suspect she is weaving a tall tale because she is pissed off for having been fired by Gage?

Of course AE911T et al seemed paranoid to me about what DRG called cognitive infiltators. When I was there for that very brief period... Gage was like a mafia dom... everyone deferred to him on everything. I think the board was essentially "for show".. and nothing more than a rubber stamp of what Gage wanted.
I have no idea but my opinion is that the CIA or the FBI was not interested in the truth movement or AE911T. Making such claims inflates egos and make them appear to be a threat to "the gov" and those in control. Likewise I don't think NIST took them seriously either because there was no there there.

 

[Mendel]

I have no idea but my opinion is that the CIA or the FBI was not interested in the truth movement or AE911T.

I can imagine someone thinking, "Here are some architects/engineers who know how to precision-bomb a skyscraper so that it collapses, something Al-Quaida has failed at; and they're anti-government." I'm sure that'd be enough reason for DHS and FBI to at least look into it. The CIA would have to think of it as counterintelligence, of trying to catch foreign agents trying to run a psy-op on the US citizenry.

 

[Thomas B]

Okay, this is all very speculative...

I think this is a very interesting theory for a debunker to be considering. Carriher is clearly a conspiracy theorist (and a truther, as far as I can tell). Health Wyze appears (haven't looked at it closely) to peddle ideas we'd dismiss as quackery. I don't think we'd normally take her testimony at all seriously.

And yet you originally described her story as "credible evidence" that AE911T might be some kind of CIA/government "op". @Mendel seems to go further when he says it "proves DHS involvement" and that he's "sure" they had reason for it. But I think you would both be much more skeptical if this was a story about CIA involvement in, say, the 9/11 Commission after the attacks, or WTC security in the days prior to the attacks.

To your credit, you also say this:

I am in no position to judge whether there is any truth to what Sarah Corriher had to say but it is an intriguing possibility and if true, would explain a lot.

I'm not sure I would describe something "I am in no position to judge whether there is any truth to" as "credible evidence" of anything. And I think I would treat the whole idea precisely as speculation.

The fact that you give this story credence (without, like I say, being in a position to judge its truth) calls your judgment into question. You do clearly mark it as a speculative lapse, so I guess there's that. I just don't understand why you're putting it on the table at all. If you can consider this sort of thing plausible, I'm not sure why you're so offended by the theories that truthers explore. You seem to live in roughly the same speculative universe when it comes to secret government operations and our knowledge of them. You seem to understand where they're coming from.

 

[Mendel]

@Mendel seems to go further when he says it "proves DHS involvement" and that he's "sure" they had reason for it.

I like how your stance is again that of someone channeling Richard Gage. ;-)

The Corriher blog post says, "When I outed one of their new volunteers as being an agent of Homeland Security", which is first-hand testimony to DHS involvement from someone in a position to actually determine this; in favor of its credibility is that it refers to a specific (unnamed) person, an event where that person was outed, and a specific agency for them to be attached to. There are more allegations in that blog post which are less specific and more speculative.
Obviously we'd want more details on the DHS thing, and some corroboration, but this has already passed a bar that most CTs (including 9/11) can't clear.

To re-iterate, if I was running an agency tasked with anti-terrorism, I'd definitely investigate an organization that was
a) anti-government,
b) discussing how skyscrapers could be demolished by terrorists.
You don't seem to argue against that.

I also speculated that the CIA could consider AE911 as a psy-op bankrolled by a foreign power; we've seen proof that this is actually happening in other areas of online misinformation.

What you do is pose the hypothetical of the CIA investigating the 9/11 commission or WTC security; but none of my reasons apply to these, so that's a detraction, a red herring.

 

[Thomas B]

What you do is pose the hypothetical of the CIA investigating the 9/11 commission or WTC security; but none of my reasons apply to these, so that's a detraction, a red herring.

No, I'm saying that if the story had been about something you don't think is true (like the CIA "running" the 9/11 Commission, pulling the strings behind the scenes) then you'd immediately point out that Carriher is a dubious character and that it's all hearsay anyway. Rightly so.

To re-iterate, if I was running an agency tasked with anti-terrorism, I'd definitely investigate an organization that was
a) anti-government,
b) discussing how skyscrapers could be demolished by terrorists.
You don't seem to argue against that.

I'm not arguing for or against the theory that Marc proposed. I'm arguing against the evidence he adduced.* I'm expressing my surprise that you'd take Carriher's blogpost as "credible evidence" for anything at all, let alone, to use your word again, as "proof".

I'm surprised that anyone here would form beliefs, or even hypotheses, on such a basis. I certainly don't.
___
*Edited "I adduced" to "he adduced".

 

[Jeffrey Orling]

Intel probably checks out any group which has an anti gov meme going on... and may infiltrate some if they feel the group may pose some sort of demonstrable threat. An assessment of AE911T would reveal they were more like Scientology than say, the Weather Underground.... monitor but not infiltrate. Just my opinion.