Explained: "Smoke Trails" On 9/11 World Trade Center Falling Debris [Dust/Powder]

Mick West

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Trailing Dust metabunk WTC 911.jpg

When the World Trade Center towers collapsed they produced many tons of dust, powder, and granular material. This was from two main sources: drywall and concrete. After the initial collapse the bottom half of the core of the building was still standing. It was covered in tons of this material. As parts of it toppled and fell they left trails of this dust.

Some people think that the core was destroyed with tons of carefully placed and detonated pyrotechnics. They say that these trails are evidence of this, as they leave white smoke. There's a lot of reasons why the "explosives" theory would not work, but that aside, the simplest explanation for these trails is that it's dust. We know there was a lot of dust (lower Manhattan was coated in it). That giant cloud you see flowing around World Trade Center (the tall brown building on the right) is all this dust.

However in discussing this with some 9/11 "Truth" activists, they said that dust would not leave a trail like smoke. So I did some experiments to check this. I used cold ash from a fire for the dust. This is probably finer grained than you would see on 9/11, but then the scale is smaller. I dropped a scoop of dust on top of a hammer, held it up in the air, and then let it topple.


Source: https://giphy.com/gifs/l4Epg0lDmWHfeoNy0/html5

20171125-155116-n2pu2.jpg
As you can see it leaves a trail, and it looks like it's burning. This demonstrates that the simplest explanation for these trails is just dust. No nanothermite required.

A bit more detail: Here's the dust I used:
20171126-082020-bx20q.jpg

That was from an earlier attempt, but the brick was not falling fast enough yet when it hit the ground. So only a short trail had formed.
20171126-082106-z9mre.jpg

I also tried using the 2 foot square of wood. One of the things people think is that the dust would instantly blow off something falling. But in fact it does not - initially it falls with the object, and then gradually gets stripped away. This is because the object itself shields the dust from the air. It's not exactly dragging the dust down - the dust is actually just falling under gravity, the object is pushing the air out of the way. With the square of wood this effect was even more dramatic, and in a six foot drop very little dust was lost.
20171126-082650-hvayx.jpg

The falling pieces of the World Trade Center were much bigger than this, and the amount of dust was much greater. So it make perfect sense that they would leave a long trail as the dust was stripped away at the edges by the air flow.
 
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Some people think that the core was destroyed with tons of carefully placed and detonated pyrotechnics. They say that these trails are evidence of this

Here is someone who says that such trails were evidence of explosives: David Chandler. However, he does not claim that the similarity to smoke in appearance is what evidences explosives. He claims that the acceleration of certain chunks of debris at rates greater than gravity beginning the same moment that trails appear is an indication that such chunks have been given a push by a chemical reaction.

He explains it here:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvw0_i1rGns


He focuses on this beam fragment which was accelerating faster than most debris:

A1.png

By plotting the descent of the beam fragment every few frames, he found that the onset of smoke trailing coincided with a change in direction (kinks to the right) and a change in acceleration (to above g):

A2.png

In case you think this is a small piece of metal fluttering in the wind, he includes another angle showing it to be several feet across:

A3.png
 
Here is someone who says that such trails were evidence of explosives: David Chandler. However, he does not claim that the similarity to smoke in appearance is what evidences explosives. He claims that the acceleration of certain chunks of debris at rates greater than gravity beginning the same moment that trails appear is an indication that such chunks have been given a push by a chemical reaction.

However he misses the fact that the trail does not "appear". It's always there, just more visible in when it falls into the sunlight.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxdNwslTmHA


His velocity variations are likely just noise. This appears to be simply a falling piece that fell before most of the debris. The trailing dust looks just like the other trailing dust.

Fascinating how far people have taken this theory.
 

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His velocity variations are likely just noise. This appears to be simply a falling piece that fell before most of the debris.

If it did fall first, and if the apparent acceleration was just noise, then there is nothing special to it. However, we can see that there is a consistent slope up to the eighth data point, and a steeper slope after the eighth data point. I'd be interested to see how that could be caused by noise.
 
The idea that something acting like rocket propellant - i.e. burning constantly for several seconds and adding a force to the object its attached to that's on the order of, or less than, gravity - was attached to members of the towers as part of a larger plan to destroy them is ... mind-boggling.
Does Chandler have even the slightest idea what the purpose of such propellants could be? Any theory at all?

Mick, I admire your experiments. But what are you debunking, really? In science, falsification is something you do on theories, but Truthers HAVE no theories what these dust trails are, and what their meaning is within an greater over-all theory, which also does not exist.

On the face of it, it is overwhelmingly obvious that we see smoke and dust there. No experiment needed.
 
Mick, I admire your experiments. But what are you debunking, really? In science, falsification is something you do on theories, but Truthers HAVE no theories what these dust trails are, and what their meaning is within an greater over-all theory, which also does not exist.

On the face of it, it is overwhelmingly obvious that we see smoke and dust there. No experiment needed.

If someone thinks it's not obvious then it's still worthwhile clarifying it for them. They do have a theory - burning nano-thermite.

Many aspects of the collapse seem very obvious to you and I. However for many truthers it's so blindingly obvious that it's a controlled demolition that they think you and I are either mentally ill or paid shills.

Getting through to them is a slow grind. But if you skip over points like this they will just return. Now I've got this demonstration, and I can just refer people back to it.
 
I was wondering whether Chandler thought the rocket effect was accidental or on purpose.

Some of the debris from the South Tower at the World Trade Center shot downward faster than gravity. This is literal, visible proof of explosive materials painted onto perimeter wall units.
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So, it looks as if he thinks it was accidental. "Explosive material" "painted" on the end of a beam, (or something), is producing enough thrust to accelerate this beam, (or something). His next step is to show us that is possible. It doesn't seem credible that an uncontained layer of "explosive material" would produce enough thrust to accelerate this large mass. Three issues I can think of:

-Burn rate too slow - uncontained propellant burns slower than contained propellant.
-Too little surface area on the beam - a rocket chamber has much more surface area. An uncontained burn would mostly accelerate into the air.
-The burn wouldn't last long enough - a layer of propellant thick enough to burn for a significant time wouldn't hold together while burning. It would fragment.

Even the simplest rockets, e.g. bottle rockets, have the propellant contained in some sort of rocket chamber.
 
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In case you think this is a small piece of metal fluttering in the wind, he includes another angle showing it to be several feet across:

A3.png[/QUOTE]

That "chunk" of material in this picture looks a lot like a person. Can anyone verify what it is for sure? The size/length? If it is a person.... They could have been burning and jumped from the building as their only possible hope for survival. There could have been some form of force to their jump, possibly accelerating them faster that falling due to gravity. This would also explain the fact that "the object" seems to be smoking for the entire duration. Because it might be a person on fire that is actually smoking. If it is a person on fire, would we see flames while they are jumping? Would they be extinguished from the rushing of air during the jump? Maybe their clothes had all burned up and most of the immediate, quick burning material had been burned down.

Either way, if it is a girder falling or a person, how would something make it accelerate without an explosion? I am sure that this wouldn't have been the only one. How much of an explosion would be needed to rocket a steel beam out? Why would it accelerate downward and not outward? Are we to believe that this piece of steel had some sort of rocket propellant to push it to the ground faster? Are we just saying that the object is moving faster than gravity because it is ahead of the floor collapse? I think it has been well established that the building does not come down at the speed of gravity, or free fall... as many truthers will want you to believe. Couldn't the object be just falling a free fall, and the building at its slower (not free fall) speed?
 
That "chunk" of material in this picture looks a lot like a person.
I believe this is way to big to be a person (as seen in pic two in the following. green line for crude comparison)


This would also explain the fact that "the object" seems to be smoking for the entire duration. Because it might be a person on fire that is actually smoking.
Also, doesnt seem like smoke. a few frames more and the "smoke" mostly vanishes (last pic with arrows)
Couldn't the object be just falling a free fall, and the building at its slower (not free fall) speed?
thats exactly what it is.
 
Also, doesnt seem like smoke. a few frames more and the "smoke" mostly vanishes (last pic with arrows)

thats exactly what it is.

Keep in mind that the building, whilst under collapse is being retarded and resisted by the yet unfallen structure below it.
That piece, having been ejected, is now subject to a regular rate of freefall.
 
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