The Dumbing Down of AE911Truth, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth

This would need to be a different thread, but I'm very interested to hear in what sense One Meridian was "built much more robustly" than WTC7.
You can start a new thread if you'd like and I'll respond there, but you can also find that information on the internet freely available. A good place to start would be NIST 1-9, especially Chapter 8.5 and Table 8-1.

Edited to add a reference for your own research so we can avoid a separate thread.
 
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The last thing one would want to do with a building all nicely and neatly packed and wired up with explosives all set to go off in a controlled demolition....is fly a controlled demolition wrecking Jumbo jet into it.
 
If there's anything alarmingly wrong with the Hulsey report, I would expect his peers in the engineering community to publish a critique in a major journal. It's not like these are views he's been developing in secret. I've looked at quite a bit of the scientific literature on the WTC and the range of opinion is quite wide without, it seems, "alarming" anyone in the profession.
The report itself (while flawed in my opinion) isn't alarming. What I was getting at was that it's alarming that it was authored by someone who is in a position to teach future engineers about this topic.
Hulsey is probably wrong about a lot of things, but I'm sure he deserves his good standing, all things considered. He just did something a little kooky near the end of his career. Given that NIST discovered what Shyam Sunder described as "a new kind of progressive collapse", it wouldn't be suprising for there to be disagreements about it going forward. Where there's disagreement, someone must be wrong. That doesn't make them incompetent or dangerous. It just makes them "academic".
I'm also sure he deserves his good standing. We can disagree on just HOW kooky this was, but you're likely right that he earned his good standing over a long career. I never meant to imply that this should erase that good standing.

Honestly, I'm less alarmed about his good standing than I was when I was wondering aloud if he was actively teaching a new generation of engineers about his research into WTC7.
 
Ooof... I guess that answers my question (in no uncertain terms) about whether or not they are distancing themselves from his work.
It may not necessarily be so black and white. They could simply be pretending that his one last bold but crazy project didn't over-rule his achievements in his actual field of expertise. I don't think we are clear as to ho much the project was formally supported sponsored by the UAF. The UAF may never have been "close" to the project which could reduce the need to crate extra distance and make it easier for them to overlook his bit of an indiscretion..
 
Ooof... I guess that answers my question (in no uncertain terms) about whether or not they are distancing themselves from his work.
Hulsey was head of the Civil Engineering department at UAF during the time he worked on the WTC study. I think this means he had lots of freedom and discretion to choose his projects.
Hulsey was born in 1941 (according to the German Wikipedia, the only language version that has an article on Hulsey), so he was already 73 or 74 by the time he started the study in 2015. Not sure if he was still teaching then, but he may well have, as it always appeared to me that he was more a teaching than a researching professor.
He did a couple of presentations on the WTC7 project at UAF - including the presentation of the draft report last September, and I understand those talks were attended by engineering students there. No idea if any were "turned Truthers" by those talks.

Have you read the Public Comments on the draft report? The critique on pages 13 to 25 - I'd like your reaction to that!

All resources are linked here: https://ine.uaf.edu/wtc7
The Public Comments are here: https://www.ae911truth.org/images/PDFs/UAF-WTC7-Draft-Report-Public-Comments-Updated.pdf
The Draft Report is here: https://ine.uaf.edu/media/222439/uaf_wtc7_draft_report_09-03-2019.pdf
(Interesting that the Public Comments are hosted in the AE911Truth domain)
 
It may not necessarily be so black and white. They could simply be pretending that his one last bold but crazy project didn't over-rule his achievements in his actual field of expertise. I don't think we are clear as to ho much the project was formally supported sponsored by the UAF. The UAF may never have been "close" to the project which could reduce the need to crate extra distance and make it easier for them to overlook his bit of an indiscretion..
I should have been more clear. By "his work" I didn't mean his entire body of work. I meant this one last specific project. Then again that press release is likely "boilerplate", and pretty similar for anyone they are bestowing the title upon.

I'd love to hear a UAF representative's take on the actual report itself.

Hulsey was head of the Civil Engineering department at UAF during the time he worked on the WTC study. I think this means he had lots of freedom and discretion to choose his projects.
Hulsey was born in 1941 (according to the German Wikipedia, the only language version that has an article on Hulsey), so he was already 73 or 74 by the time he started the study in 2015. Not sure if he was still teaching then, but he may well have, as it always appeared to me that he was more a teaching than a researching professor.
He did a couple of presentations on the WTC7 project at UAF - including the presentation of the draft report last September, and I understand those talks were attended by engineering students there. No idea if any were "turned Truthers" by those talks.

Have you read the Public Comments on the draft report? The critique on pages 13 to 25 - I'd like your reaction to that!

All resources are linked here: https://ine.uaf.edu/wtc7
The Public Comments are here: https://www.ae911truth.org/images/PDFs/UAF-WTC7-Draft-Report-Public-Comments-Updated.pdf
The Draft Report is here: https://ine.uaf.edu/media/222439/uaf_wtc7_draft_report_09-03-2019.pdf
(Interesting that the Public Comments are hosted in the AE911Truth domain)

I've read some of the comments, but not thoroughly. I'll take a look when I have some more time.

Honestly I formed my own opinion of the piece just a few pages in, and it was clear to me that it was not a very valuable analysis of anything. I finished it anyway, and then I started looking for more resources online (which is how I stumbled upon metabunk). I read through many of the various threads here that were based on the report at different times of its development, and was not surprised to see the early AE911T request for a report that would fit their pre-determined outcome of choice. It's hard to take seriously any report that was initiated by what more or less equates to a bounty.

Wanted: A report that will prove a specific outcome that we have already determined ahead of time.
 
...
I'd love to hear a UAF representative's take on the actual report itself.
...
For what it's worth: I have contacted two other members of the UAF engineering department - Hulsey's successor as head of department, and the business manager of the "Institute of Northern Engineering", which provides the subdomain for the study. Both were careful to neither endorse nor criticize Hulsey's work, mainly pointing out that they were not qualified enough in that particular field of study to come to a judgement either way. I guess it's honorable not to opine against a colleague vis-a-vis a complete stranger like me, but neither did they come out in direct support.
 
I'd love to hear a UAF representative's take on the actual report itself.
I think you have it - in Oystein's post. The UAF will sit non-commitedly on the fence. So don't hold your breath waiting for an engineering professional assessment of the report from UAF staff. And several of us hear - from differing perspectives - are competent to offer comments on the merits of the project.
 
I know I'm a bit late to the party as well, but like @millman84, I have some catching up to do.

Reading this topic, I noticed how some obvious explanations for perceieved observations were skipped. Realizing @Christopher 7 hasn't been logged in for a wile, I still would like to address this quote for future reference.

The antenna started down just a little before the roofline started down.
1599601177094.png
Note that the antenna starts down in the last frame in the second row but the roof line doesn't start down until the second frame in the bottom row.

The original video was shot from the north. Although it might look the antenna is dropping just a little earlier/sooner than the roofline, what we actually see is the antenna (and with that the complete roof) is falling away from our point of view to the south. I can't imagine anyone having studied this, not having seen the tilts of both tops before the towers came down.

Here is a nice shot from the west, taken from a boat on the Hudson, that shows the tilting that results in what we have observed from the northern point of view:


Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HbD_Q6kmh8&list=PLNUStdCpyxT8TBfOCscomO6yEqQlpJxCT&index=17&t=98s
 
Fascinating. So the cover-up was doomed to fail it someone simply looked a close-up? Do you think the plotters simply did not consider the possibility that there would be eyewitnesses and people with cameras?

How was the scheme supposed to remain secret, if it's so incredibly obvious?
And why do it in the daytime?

And why make it overly complicated? Wouldnt simply blowing it up from the basement get the desired results, and simply saying "it was a truck bomb, like last time" make more sense?
 
Most people don't sign petitions.
A large number of architects and engineers still don't know that there is a controversy because the MSM studiously avoids talking about it.
I know you wrote this a year ago. But are you suggesting there is any adult on earth who isnt aware some people believe 9/11 was a fix?

Do you believe its a small portion of the population who has youtube, and the rest of the world only gets fox news?
 
Im not a regular here. I have no idea who hasnt posted in 11 months, or 11 minutes
For your info Christopher 7 is open about his identity so I'm not "doxing" stating his true name Chris (or Christopher) Sarns. A long term supporter of R Gage and the more traditional AE911 leading activists. He like they support CD at WTC but are against the more "kooky" extremes of the current dominant clique Kelly, Steel, McKee. "C7" as he has been called on other Forums and FBook Groups has posted episodically over many years. Often "tag teaming" with T Szamboti. I assess him as a competent and persuasive writer. He is a carpenter by trade. And, like Szamboti, has seemed to appear episodically in support of current AE911 agenda emphases. I havent seen him around for at least 12 months. Ditto Szamboti. Consistent with the change of AE911's de-facto change of marketing tactics to focus every couple of days on a recycled older claim. Sarns and the other AE911 person W Coste have appeared on FBook but not recently.
 
The report itself (while flawed in my opinion) isn't alarming. What I was getting at was that it's alarming that it was authored by someone who is in a position to teach future engineers about this topic.

I'm also sure he deserves his good standing. We can disagree on just HOW kooky this was, but you're likely right that he earned his good standing over a long career. I never meant to imply that this should erase that good standing.

Honestly, I'm less alarmed about his good standing than I was when I was wondering aloud if he was actively teaching a new generation of engineers about his research into WTC7.
What I find interesting is that for everyone on here that says the report is flawed and people are concerned whether or not the Dr. is teaching a new generation of engineers - as if teaching students to be free thinkers would be a bad thing, no one offers point by point critique or point by point areas of question/concern regarding the report on WTC Building 7 that the Dr. and his team put together.

So rather than just saying ("while it was flawed in my opinion") then seemingly to question his teaching capability, why don't you put your money where you mouth is and explain yourself.

I look forward to seeing your list of criticisms...

Regards,
 
What I find interesting is that for everyone on here that says the report is flawed and people are concerned whether or not the Dr. is teaching a new generation of engineers - as if teaching students to be free thinkers would be a bad thing, no one offers point by point critique or point by point areas of question/concern regarding the report on WTC Building 7 that the Dr. and his team put together.

So rather than just saying ("while it was flawed in my opinion") then seemingly to question his teaching capability, why don't you put your money where you mouth is and explain yourself.

I look forward to seeing your list of criticisms...

Regards,
The link below will show where the Hulsey report was discussed. Remember, the Posting Guidelines call for discussion of individual claims of evidence.
 
What I find interesting is that for everyone on here that says the report is flawed and people are concerned whether or not the Dr. is teaching a new generation of engineers - as if teaching students to be free thinkers would be a bad thing, no one offers point by point critique or point by point areas of question/concern regarding the report on WTC Building 7 that the Dr. and his team put together.

So rather than just saying ("while it was flawed in my opinion") then seemingly to question his teaching capability, why don't you put your money where you mouth is and explain yourself.

I look forward to seeing your list of criticisms...

Regards,
See the link below for a brief summary of one of Hulsey's team's modeling attempts. The kinds of errors they are making in their finite element models - violating the fundamental limitations of the types of analysis they are using - are the kinds that are made by under-graduate students. Their being presented and making it through to the report shows either a lack of understanding or a lack of oversight from someone who understands the mathematical principles being used in the software.

https://www.metabunk.org/threads/final-report-hulsey-ae911truths-wtc7-study.11169/post-270164
 
So rather than just saying ("while it was flawed in my opinion") then seemingly to question his teaching capability, why don't you put your money where you mouth is and explain yourself.
Here are several well-developed threads pertaining to Hulsey's terribly flawed report:
  1. High-level summary thread re major issues.
  2. Detailed general discussion thread covering many aspects of the drafting process and report.
  3. Thread re release of the draft report.
  4. Thread re the release of Hulsey's underlying data.
  5. Thread re the final report (also linked to above by FastIndy).
I think it's safe to say the many significant criticisms of Hulsey's report were substantiated in great detail throughout these threads.
 
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What I find interesting is that for everyone on here that says the report is flawed ... no one offers point by point critique or point by point areas of question/concern regarding the report on WTC Building 7 that the Dr. and his team put together.
You raise two areas of concern viz:
1) Technical claims that the report is flawed; and
2) Ethical issues arising from concerns about Hulsey misleading students.

Technical flaws have been discussed at some length as per the links @benthamitemetric has provided.

There are two overriding issues that are fatal to the technical credibility of Hulsey's report.

Recall that Hulsey's two major claims - stated simply are (a) He has proved that Fire could not cause collapse, and (b) NIST was wrong.

The first is a "global negative" claim which cannot be proven in the WTC7 scenario. That error is fatal without the multiple technical flaws which have been identified and rebutted in detail. That fundamental error of logic has not been afforded much attention in the several threads of previous discussions.

The second claim - "prove NIST wrong" - has been discussed. And it is strictly irrelevant to the technical question of what caused the collapse. What caused collapse does NOT depend on whether or not NIST's explanation is correct.
 
Mick says some pretty weird stuff in the video in the OP. Thought I would respond to some points. This is what he says about Shyam Sunder admitting that they were "having trouble" explaining WTC 7:

This was just an early admission by NIST that it was difficult to understand exactly what went on with building 7. Because it's actually very complicated, not because it's obvious what happened with building 7, but because it's quite complicated.

Firstly, this was not really an "early" admission. It's from 2006. At that point, they had already studied WTC 7 for quite some time I think, and obviously they were building on top of the report done by FEMA. But the real issue with this quote becomes apparent when you contrast it with the foreknowledge and certainty that WTC 7 would collapse on the day of 9/11. For example from the interview of Indira Singh, we know that people were already being moved away around noon because she was told the building was being "brought down". So you'd have to believe that the collapse was easily predictable five hours before it collapsed, but still a baffling engineering mystery five years later. This makes no sense at all, and is a blatant contradiction in the official narrative. I tried making a thread about this, but it got quickly removed with some excuse. I take it as a sign that nobody has a response to this argument. Then he says this about an AE911 meme about the buildings collapsing "essentially in free fall":

How does it crush itself essentially in free fall? Well, you know, like this! Perhaps you need to do a little bit of math.

Firstly, he doesn't seem to know that "essentially in free fall" is a direct quote from Sunder, but he correctly points out that they were coming down at about 2/3rds of free fall. But here's the thing, NIST didn't do that math on this either, by their own admission. This is pointed out by another AE911 meme. They present some math on their website about how much force a floor can withstand or whatever, but nowhere in their report do they do a calculation that works out why the acceleration of such a collapse would be 2/3rds of g. That's because they, by their own admission, did not analyse the behaviour of the building after collapse initiation. Perhaps they needed to do a little bit more math to convince people who were skeptical of their claims.

This also has a similar problem as the WTC 7 foreknowledge pointed out above... You can't simultaneously say that it's not that hard to explain why the buildings collapsed so quickly, and then defend NIST not doing any calculations about it. How long could it have taken them to do and include such calculations in their report? They were granted millions of dollars to explain the collapses. What justification is there for ending the study at collapse initiation, especially if they just needed to do a "little bit of math"? Then he says this about whether or not the collapses looked like demolitions:

You don't demolish buildings from the top down. (...) No, you plant some explosives at the bottom of the building and then you have the building come down.

This is pretty blatantly a bad faith argument... He knows very well that the claim by truthers is usually that the explosives were timed to go from top to bottom, to mimic a natural collapse due to plane impact. You can time a controlled demolition any way you want, there is no natural law of the universe that you have to blow up the bottom first. Then there's the elephant in the room of WTC 7 going down in the exact manner that he describes controlled demolitions work lol. I agree about the Simpsons meme being a bit distasteful, though. Then he says this about the strangely eroded steel studied by FEMA:

This isn't melted steel. This is steel that has undergone a complex chemical reaction over several days in the debris pile, which was burning, and had all kinds of stuff in it. *shrugs* It's complicated!

Okay, but what stuff specifically? Shouldn't it be the job of these scientists to figure that kind of stuff out? As far as I'm aware, nobody has done an experiment that has replicated this strange erosion. There are potential explanations floated around, like gypsum or acid rain, but no experiments actually showing either of these to be plausible. The only such experiment I'm aware of was done by 9/11 researcher Jonathan Cole, and he found no erosion from gypsum. Now he's an engineer but not a professional metallurgist, so perhaps he did the experiment wrong somehow, I don't know. But if that's the case, somebody should do it right before you can claim that "stuff" caused it.
 
Mick says some pretty weird stuff in the video in the OP. Thought I would respond to some points. This is what he says about Shyam Sunder admitting that they were "having trouble" explaining WTC 7:



Firstly, this was not really an "early" admission. It's from 2006. At that point, they had already studied WTC 7 for quite some time I think, and obviously they were building on top of the report done by FEMA. But the real issue with this quote becomes apparent when you contrast it with the foreknowledge and certainty that WTC 7 would collapse on the day of 9/11. For example from the interview of Indira Singh, we know that people were already being moved away around noon because she was told the building was being "brought down". So you'd have to believe that the collapse was easily predictable five hours before it collapsed, but still a baffling engineering mystery five years later. This makes no sense at all, and is a blatant contradiction in the official narrative. I tried making a thread about this, but it got quickly removed with some excuse. I take it as a sign that nobody has a response to this argument. Then he says this about an AE911 meme about the buildings collapsing "essentially in free fall":



Firstly, he doesn't seem to know that "essentially in free fall" is a direct quote from Sunder, but he correctly points out that they were coming down at about 2/3rds of free fall. But here's the thing, NIST didn't do that math on this either, by their own admission. This is pointed out by another AE911 meme. They present some math on their website about how much force a floor can withstand or whatever, but nowhere in their report do they do a calculation that works out why the acceleration of such a collapse would be 2/3rds of g. That's because they, by their own admission, did not analyse the behaviour of the building after collapse initiation. Perhaps they needed to do a little bit more math to convince people who were skeptical of their claims.

This also has a similar problem as the WTC 7 foreknowledge pointed out above... You can't simultaneously say that it's not that hard to explain why the buildings collapsed so quickly, and then defend NIST not doing any calculations about it. How long could it have taken them to do and include such calculations in their report? They were granted millions of dollars to explain the collapses. What justification is there for ending the study at collapse initiation, especially if they just needed to do a "little bit of math"? Then he says this about whether or not the collapses looked like demolitions:



This is pretty blatantly a bad faith argument... He knows very well that the claim by truthers is usually that the explosives were timed to go from top to bottom, to mimic a natural collapse due to plane impact. You can time a controlled demolition any way you want, there is no natural law of the universe that you have to blow up the bottom first. Then there's the elephant in the room of WTC 7 going down in the exact manner that he describes controlled demolitions work lol. I agree about the Simpsons meme being a bit distasteful, though. Then he says this about the strangely eroded steel studied by FEMA:



Okay, but what stuff specifically? Shouldn't it be the job of these scientists to figure that kind of stuff out? As far as I'm aware, nobody has done an experiment that has replicated this strange erosion. There are potential explanations floated around, like gypsum or acid rain, but no experiments actually showing either of these to be plausible. The only such experiment I'm aware of was done by 9/11 researcher Jonathan Cole, and he found no erosion from gypsum. Now he's an engineer but not a professional metallurgist, so perhaps he did the experiment wrong somehow, I don't know. But if that's the case, somebody should do it right before you can claim that "stuff" caused it.
The explanation for the collapse is unreasonable:

Heat from 7 hrs fires caused beams and girders on multiple floors on the Northeast quadrant to "disengage from their beam seats leading to section of floors dropping with enough impulse to destroy all the floors below down to grade leaving a massive debris pile which exerted an outward lateral impulse on the axial structures supporting the moment frame and attached curtain wall which "dropped" absent axial support. The NE side floor collapse dislodged the load transfer structures on floors 5-7 which led to a progression of footprint wide collapse of the floor slab. The "insides" of the building collapsed and the curtain wall / moment frame collapsed as well.
The exact sequence in the progression of "failures" is likely hard to pin down. It hardly matters. There was nothing in the design to arrest the progression of failures.
 
So you'd have to believe that the collapse was easily predictable five hours before it collapsed, but still a baffling engineering mystery five years later. This makes no sense at all, and is a blatant contradiction in the official narrative. I tried making a thread about this, but it got quickly removed with some excuse. I take it as a sign that nobody has a response to this argument.

It's not a mystery that it collapsed or why it collapsed. The only mystery left is precisely what initiated the collapse mechanism. And I wouldn't call it baffling, as there are many ways the collapse could have initiated. It's an absolute straw man to claim "No one knows how a lightweight steel skyscraper with uncontrolled and totally unfought fires on multiple floors could have collapsed; it's baffling."

This is a bit like saying that there's still discussion about the Titanic 100+ years later, therefore no one knows what caused it to sink. It sank because it had a big hole and it filled up with water.
 
What I find interesting is that for everyone on here that says the report is flawed and people are concerned whether or not the Dr. is teaching a new generation of engineers - as if teaching students to be free thinkers would be a bad thing, no one offers point by point critique or point by point areas of question/concern regarding the report on WTC Building 7 that the Dr. and his team put together.

So rather than just saying ("while it was flawed in my opinion") then seemingly to question his teaching capability, why don't you put your money where you mouth is and explain yourself.

I look forward to seeing your list of criticisms...

Regards,
As a result of discussions here (others linked them for you - waiting for you to acknowledge that many aspects of Hulsey's work and report have received highly detailed, competent and often devastating critique), one member submitted a "public comment" on the draft report. This was at first CENSORED (did not appear in the "Public Comments" document published by AE911Truth and Hulsey), but after some more weeks, was included in the Public Comments.

Here they are - note the document is hosted by AE911Truth:

https://www.ae911truth.org/images/PDFs/UAF-WTC7-Draft-Report-Public-Comments-Updated.pdf

Please take note, and carefully read, pages 13 to 25 in this PDF document, they are the critique of one Metabunk member, and they are very comprehensive at a top level.
Short version is:
  • Hulsey failed to deliver on any of the three objectives he spelled out specifically
  • Hulsey failed to validly prove his main conclusion
You're welcome.
 
This is pretty blatantly a bad faith argument... He knows very well that the claim by truthers is usually that the explosives were timed to go from top to bottom, to mimic a natural collapse due to plane impact.

Wait. What?

Are the truthers now saying that it *did* look like a natural collapse from a plane impact? I thought their evidence that it was CD was that it looked like CD?
If so, I think they've gished themselves into irrelevance, surely?
 
Wait. What?

Are the truthers now saying that it *did* look like a natural collapse from a plane impact? I thought their evidence that it was CD was that it looked like CD?
If so, I think they've gished themselves into irrelevance, surely?
Henka has left us @FatPhil. Forcibly repatriated.
 
Wait. What?

Are the truthers now saying that it *did* look like a natural collapse from a plane impact? I thought their evidence that it was CD was that it looked like CD?
If so, I think they've gished themselves into irrelevance, surely?
it looks like natural collapse from plane impact to a non discerning eye and laymen with no knowledge of skyscraper engineering or physics.
 
Wait. What?

Are the truthers now saying that it *did* look like a natural collapse from a plane impact?
Some are making or have made that claim. The ones making the claim in effect say "the CD was cleverly rigged to look like natural collapse". This implies a more sophisticated CT than the usual starting premise claim of:
I thought their evidence that it was CD was that it looked like CD?
"...because it fell straight down, at free fall, into own footprint..." etc etc.
If so, I think they've gished themselves into irrelevance, surely?
Yes BUT that only applies to rational thinkers.
 
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