[THS] !!!!!! David Ray Griffin: Collapse of WTC 7 Created an Extraordinary Problem

[The Harder Stuff in news and commentary]

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25569.htm


Building What? How SCADs Can Be Hidden in Plain Sight

By David Ray Griffin

May 28, 2010 "Information Clearing House" -- At 5:21 PM on 9/11, Building 7 of the
World Trade Center collapsed, even though it had not been hit by a plane – a fact
that is important because of the widespread acceptance of the idea, in spite of its
scientific absurdity, that the Twin Towers collapsed because of the combined effect of
the impact of the airliners plus the ensuing jet-fuel-fed fires. The collapse of World
Trade Center 7 (WTC 7) thereby challenges the official account of the destruction of
the World Trade Center, according to which it was accomplished by al-Qaeda
hijackers, even if one accepts the government’s scientifically impossible account of
the Twin Towers. This fact was recently emphasized in the title of a review article
based on my 2009 book, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7,1 by
National Medal of Science-winner Lynn Margulis: “Two Hit, Three Down – The
Biggest Lie.”2


1. Why the Collapse of WTC 7 Created an Extraordinary Problem

The collapse of WTC 7 created an extraordinary problem for the official account of
9/11 for several reasons.


An Unprecedented Occurrence

One reason is that, because of the collapse of WTC 7, the official account of 9/11
includes the dubious claim that, for the first time in the known universe, a steel-
frame high-rise building was brought down by fire, and science looks askance at
claims of unprecedented occurrences regarding physical phenomena. New York
Times writer James Glanz, who himself has a Ph.D. in physics, wrote: “[E]xperts said
no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because
of an uncontrolled fire.” Glanz then quoted a structural engineer as saying: “[W]ithin
the structural engineering community, [WTC 7] is considered to be much more
important to understand [than the Twin Towers],” because engineers had no answer
to the question, “why did 7 come down?”3


Visual Evidence of Implosion

Equally remarkable, besides the mere fact that this building came down, was the way
it collapsed: straight down, in virtual free fall, making the destruction of this building
appear to be an example of the type of controlled demolition known as “implosion,”
in which explosives and/or incendiaries are used to slice the building’s steel support
columns in such a way as to cause the building to collapse into its own footprint. CBS
anchor Dan Rather, not one to let a remarkable fact go unremarked, said:

    “[I]t’s reminiscent of those pictures we’ve all seen . . . on television . . . , where a
building was deliberately destroyed by well-placed dynamite to knock it down.”4

Dan Rather, moreover, was not the only reporter to make such a comment. Al Jones,
a reporter for WINS NYC News Radio, said: “I turned in time to see what looked like
a skyscraper implosion – looked like it had been done by a demolition crew.”5

Moreover, whereas Jones and Rather, being laymen in these matters, merely said
that the collapse of Building 7 looked like a controlled demolition, experts, upon
seeing the video, could tell immediately that it actually was a controlled demolition. In
2006, for example, a Dutch filmmaker asked Danny Jowenko, the owner of a
controlled demolition company in the Netherlands, to comment on a video of the
collapse of WTC 7, without telling him what it was. (Jowenko had been unaware that
a third building had collapsed on 9/11.) After viewing the video, Jowenko said: “They
simply blew up columns, and the rest caved in afterwards. . . . This is controlled
demolition.” When asked if he was certain, he replied: “Absolutely, it’s been
imploded. This was a hired job. A team of experts did this.”6


Testimonies about Explosions

Besides the obviousness from the very appearance of the collapse of Building 7 that it
was a product of controlled demotion, there were testimonies about explosions in this
building.

One of these was provided by Michael Hess, New York City’s corporation counsel and
a close friend of Mayor Rudy Giuliani. While on his way back to City Hall, Hess was
stopped for an interview at 11:57 that morning, during which he said:

    “I was up in the emergency management center on the twenty-third floor [of WTC
7], and when all the power went out in the building, another gentleman and I
walked down to the eighth floor [sic] where there was an explosion and we were
trapped on the eighth floor with smoke, thick smoke, all around us, for about an hour
and a half. But the New York Fire Department . . . just came and got us out.”7

Hess thereby reported a mid-morning explosion in WTC 7.

The other gentleman, Barry Jennings of the New York City Housing Authority,
reported the same thing during another on-the-street interview, reporting that he
and “Mr. Hess” had been walking down the stairs when they became trapped by a
“big explosion.”8 Jennings, in fact, said that explosions continued going off while
they were waiting to be rescued.9

There were also reports of explosions in the late afternoon, just as WTC 7 started
coming down. Reporter Peter Demarco of the New York Daily News said:

    “[T]here was a rumble. The building's top row of windows popped out. Then all
the windows on the thirty-ninth floor popped out. Then the thirty-eighth floor. Pop!
Pop! Pop! was all you heard until the building sunk into a rising cloud of gray.”10

NYPD officer Craig Bartmer gave the following report:

    “I was real close to Building 7 when it fell down. . . . That didn't sound like just a
building falling down to me . . . . There's a lot of eyewitness testimony down there of
hearing explosions. . . . [A]ll of a sudden. . . I looked up, and . . . [t]he thing started
pealing in on itself. . . . I started running . . . and the whole time you're hearing
‘boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.’”11

A New York University medical student, who had been serving as an emergency
medical worker that day, gave this report:

    “[W]e heard this sound that sounded like a clap of thunder. . . . [T]urned around
– we were shocked. . . . [I]t looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the
building and the windows all busted out. . . . [A]bout a second later the bottom floor
caved out and the building followed after that.”12


Physical Evidence

In addition to the visual and testimonial evidence, there was clear physical evidence
that explosives and incendiaries were used to bring down WTC 7.

Swiss-Cheese Steel: Within a few months of 9/11, three professors from Worcester
Polytechnic Institute (WPI) had issued a report about a piece of steel from Building 7
that was described in a New York Times story by James Glanz and Eric Lipton as “[p]
erhaps the deepest mystery uncovered in the investigation.”13 Part of the mystery
was the fact that the steel was “extremely thin,” indicating that the steel had “melted
away,” even though “no fire in any of the buildings was believed to be hot enough to
melt steel outright.” Another part of the mystery was that atoms in the steel seemed
to have combined with sulfur “to form compounds that melt at lower temperatures,”
but as to the source of the sulfur, “no one knows.”14

Describing this mysterious piece of steel more fully, an article entitled “The ‘Deep
Mystery’ of Melted Steel” in WPI’s magazine, said:

    “[S]teel – which has a melting point of 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit – may weaken
and bend, but does not melt during an ordinary office fire. Yet metallurgical studies .
. . reveal that . . . a eutectic reaction . . . caus[ed] intergranular melting capable of
turning a solid steel girder into Swiss cheese . . .. A one-inch column has been
reduced to half-inch thickness. Its edges – which are curled like a paper scroll – have
been thinned to almost razor sharpness. Gaping holes – some larger than a silver
dollar – let light shine through a formerly solid steel flange. This Swiss cheese
appearance shocked all of the fire-wise professors, who expected to see distortion
and bending – but not holes. A eutectic compound is a mixture [involving sulfur]. . . .
‘The important questions," says [one of the professors], ‘are how much sulfur do you
need, and where did it come from?’”15

The thinning and the holes even suggested that the steel had vaporized. Explaining
as early as November 2001 why fire could not account for this mysterious steel, Glanz
paraphrased one of the three WPI professors, Jonathan Barnett, as saying that it
“appear[ed] to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures.”16

Another New York Times story reported that the same phenomenon was described
by Professor Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl of the University of California at Berkeley, who
had received a National Science Foundation grant to spend two weeks at Ground
Zero studying steel from the buildings. According to reporter Kenneth Change,
Professor Astaneh-Asl, speaking of a horizontal I-beam from WTC 7, said: “Parts of
the flat top of the I, once five-eighths of an inch thick, had vaporized.”17

These reports clearly showed that something other than fire had been making things
happen in the buildings, because the fires could not possibly have been higher than
1800 degrees Fahrenheit, while the boiling point of steel is roughly the same as that
of iron, which is 5182°F. But even if the steel had not evaporated but had simply
melted, that by itself would have proved the point, because the melting point of steel
is only a little less than that of iron, which is 2800°F. (An obvious source of both the
melting and the sulfidation would be a well-known incendiary, thermate – a “mixture
of thermite and sulfur . . . which lowers the melting point of iron it contacts when
reacting by forming a eutectic system,” which is “useful in cutting through steel.”)18


Evidence in Plain Sight

Therefore, clear evidence against the official account of Building 7, according to
which it was brought down by fire, existed in plain sight in the form of videos of its
collapse, published testimonies about explosions in the building, and physical
evidence reported in the New York Times. The reasonable inference to draw from
this evidence – namely, that the official account is false – was reinforced by the first
official report on this building’s collapse, which was issued in 2002 by FEMA. Besides
including as an appendix the paper by the WPI professors containing the study of the
Swiss-cheese piece of steel recovered from WTC 7 – a study that attributed the
erosion to “oxidation and sulfidation” while adding: “No clear explanation for the
source of the sulfur has been identified”19 – the engineers who wrote the FEMA
report admitted that their “best hypothesis” about why WTC 7 collapsed had “only a
low probability of occurrence.”20


Failure to Become Well Known

In addition to all these facts, WTC 7 was a very big building, being 47 stories high
and having a base about the size of a football field. Although it was dwarfed by the
110-story Twin Towers, it would have been the tallest building in half of the states in
the nation. For all of these reasons, the collapse of this building should have become
one of the best-known facts about 9/11. But it did not.


2. Widespread Ignorance about WTC 7

A Zogby poll in May 2006 found that 43 percent of the American people were
unaware that WTC 7 had collapsed,21 and that same year, as mentioned earlier,
Danny Jowenko of the Netherlands still did not know about it, even though controlled
demolition was his field.

A dramatic example of the fact that this building’s collapse has not been prominent in
the public consciousness was provided in a New York City courtroom in September
2009. Judge Edward Lehner was hearing arguments about a petition sponsored by
NYC CAN to allow residents to vote on whether New York City should have its own
investigation of the World Trade Center attacks. After Judge Lehner had observed
that the 9/11 Commission had carried out an investigation and issued a report,
Dennis McMahon, a lawyer for NYC CAN, said that this report left many unanswered
questions. “One of the biggest questions,” he added, “is why did Building 7 come
down” – at which point Judge Lehner asked: “Building what?” McMahon replied:
“World Trade Center Seven. There were three buildings that came down.” When the
judge, continuing to illustrate his ignorance about this building, asked if it was owned
by the Port Authority, McMahon replied that it was owned by Larry Silverstein.22

Judge Lehner, it should be emphasized, was not simply an ordinary American citizen.
Besides being a judge presiding in New York City, he had been assigned to a case
involving the 9/11 attacks in this city. So his ignorance about this building was
surprising. And yet it was typical. With his query - “Building what?” – he expressed
the ignorance manifested in 2006 by controlled demolition expert Danny Jowenko
and almost half of the American people. How can we account for this ignorance?


Abnormal Circumstances

In a New York Times story in November 2001, James Glanz wrote that the collapse of
WTC 7 was “a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably have
captured the attention of the city and the world.”23 Clearly these were not normal
circumstances.

Part of the abnormality was the fact that Building 7, while huge, was overshadowed
by the Twin Towers, which were over twice as tall. This fact by itself, however, would
not account for the enormous ignorance of this third building’s collapse.
Knowledgeable people had said right away, as Glanz pointed out, that there was a
sense in which the collapse of Building 7 should have been the bigger story. Why was
it not?


Deliberate Suppression

The answer seems to be that it was a deliberately suppressed story. This conclusion is
supported by the following facts:

First, after 9/11 itself, our television networks played videos of the Twin Towers being
hit by planes, then coming down, over and over, but the collapse of Building 7 was
seldom if ever shown.

Second, when The 9/11 Commission Report was issued in 2004, it did not even
mention that Building 7 came down.

Third, after NIST – the National Institute of Standards and Technology – took over
from FEMA the task of explaining the destruction of the World Trade Center, it
repeatedly delayed its report on WTC 7. In 2003, NIST said that this report would be
issued along with its report on the Twin Towers, the draft of which was to appear in
September 2004.24 However, even though NIST’s report on the Twin Towers did not
actually appear until 2005, the promised report on WTC 7 was not included: NIST
said that it would appear in 2006. But when August of 2006 came, NIST said: “It is
anticipated that a draft report [on WTC 7] will be released by early 2007.”25 But it
was not released in 2007 – either early or late. Instead, NIST in December 2007
“projected” that it would release draft reports on July 8, 2008, followed by final
reports on August 8, 2008.26 Instead, the draft report did not appear until August,
and the final report not until November of that year – when the Bush-Cheney
administration was about to leave office.

Moreover, when in 2008 NIST was accused of having deliberately delayed its report
on WTC 7 (which the 9/11 Truth Movement had long considered the “Achilles Heel”
or “Smoking Gun” of the official account of 9/1127), NIST lied, saying that it had
worked on this report only since 2005 and hence for only three years – the same
length of time it had worked on its Twin Towers report. Actually, however, NIST had
filed progress reports on WTC 7 in December 2002 and May 2003;28 in June 2004, it
published an Interim Report on WTC 7;29 and in April 2005, NIST released another
preliminary report on WTC 7.30 Then, after ceasing work on this building until after
the report on the Twin Towers was issued in October 2005, NIST reported, “the
investigation of the WTC 7 collapse resumed.”31 In truth, therefore, NIST had
worked on its report on WTC 7 for almost six years, not merely three. So there was
good reason to suspect that this report had been deliberately delayed for as long as
possible.

3. NIST’s Draft for Public Comment: Mystery Solved?

Be that as it may, when the Draft for Public Comment did finally appear in August
2008, it was announced at a press conference with much bravado. Shyam Sunder,
NIST’s lead investigator for its World Trade Center projects, said:

    “Our take-home message today is that the reason for the collapse of World Trade
Center 7 is no longer a mystery. WTC 7 collapsed because of fires fueled by office
furnishings. It did not collapse from explosives.”32

The mainstream media for the most part simply repeated Sunder’s claims. For
example, an Associated Press story entitled “Report: Fire, Not Bombs, Leveled WTC 7
Building,” began by saying: “Federal investigators said Thursday they have solved a
mystery of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: the collapse of World Trade Center building 7,
a source of long-running conspiracy theories.” Then, after reinforcing this message
by quoting Sunder’s assurance that “the reason for the collapse of World Trade
Center 7 is no longer a mystery,” this story concluded by quoting his claim that the
science behind NIST’s findings is "incredibly conclusive," so that “[t]he public should
really recognize that science is really behind what we have said.”33

Reporters, however, could easily have discovered that this was not so. They could
have seen, in fact, that NIST’s WTC 7 report repeatedly committed scientific fraud in
the technical sense, as defined by the National Science Foundation.

4. NIST's Falsification of Evidence

One type of fraud is falsification, which includes “omitting data.”34 While claiming
that it “found no evidence of a . . . controlled demolition event,”35 NIST simply
omitted an enormous amount of evidencefor that conclusion.


Omitting Testimonial Evidence

NIST failed, for one thing, to mention any of the testimonial evidence for explosions.
Besides claiming that the event described as a mid-morning explosion by Michael
Hess and Barry Jennings was simply the impact of debris from the collapse of the
North Tower – which occurred at 10:28 and hence about an hour later than the
explosion they had described – NIST failed to mention any of the reports of
explosions just as the building started to come down.


Omitting Physical Evidence:

NIST’s report on this building also omitted various types of physical evidence.

The Swiss-Cheese Steel: One of these was the piece of Swiss-cheese steel reported
by the three WPI professors in a paper that was, as mentioned earlier, included as an
appendix to the 2002 FEMA report. After describing the erosion of this piece of steel,
the professors had said: “A detailed study into the mechanisms of this phenomenon
is needed.”36 When NIST took over from FEMA the responsibility of issuing the
official reports on the World Trade Center, NIST’s director promised that its reports
would address “all major recommendations contained in the [FEMA] report.”37
However, when NIST’s report on Building 7 appeared in 2008, it did not even
mention this mysterious piece of steel, let alone explain how it had been produced.
NIST even claimed that no recovered steel from WTC 7 had been identified, because
the steel used in this building, unlike the steel used in the Twin Towers, “did not
contain . . . identifying characteristics.”38

NIST made this claim, incidentally, even though it had previously published a
document in which it had referred to steel recovered from WTC 7, including the piece
discussed by the WPI professors in the appendix to the FEMA report. This claim
about not identifying any steel was made by NIST (in August 2008), moreover, even
though one of these professors, Dr. Jonathan Barnett, had during a BBC program on
WTC 7 (in July 2008) discussed an “eroded and deformed” piece of steel that he and
his colleagues had studied in 2001, explaining that they knew “its pedigree” because
“this particular kind of steel” had been used only in WTC 7, not in the Twin
Towers.39

Melted Iron: Deutsche Bank, which had a building close to the World Trade Center
that had been contaminated with dust, hired the RJ Lee Group, a scientific research
organization, to prove to its insurance company that the dust contaminating its
building was not ordinary building dust, as its insurance company claimed, but had
resulted from the destruction of the World Trade Center. Reports issued by the RJ
Lee Group in 2003 and 2004 proved that the dust was indeed WTC dust, having its
unique chemical signature. Part of this signature, the RJ Lee Group said in its final
(2004) report, was “[s]pherical iron . . . particles,” and this meant, it had pointed out
in its 2003 report, that iron had “melted during the WTC Event, producing spherical
metallic particles.”40

The RJ Lee reports thereby provided additional evidence that temperatures had been
reached that significantly exceeded those that could have been produced by fire.
These reports, which were made known in an article published in January 2008 by a
group of scientists led by physicist Steven Jones,41 were simply ignored by NIST.

Melted Molybdenum: Another study was carried out by scientists at the US Geological
Survey. Besides also finding the spherical iron particles, these scientists found that
something had melted molybdenum42 – which has an extremely high melting point:
4,753°F (2,623°C).43 Although these USGS scientists failed to mention this discovery
in the published version of their report, a group of scientists led by Steven Jones,
having obtained the USGS team’s data through a FOIA request, reported evidence
that this team had devoted serious study to “a molybdenum-rich spherule.”44 NIST,
however, failed to mention this discovery by the US Geological Survey, although it is
another federal agency.

Nanothermite: A peer-reviewed report by University of Copenhagen chemist Niels
Harrit and several co-authors, including physicist Steven Jones and chemist Kevin
Ryan, showed that the WTC dust contained unreacted nanothermite. Unlike ordinary
thermite, which is an incendiary, nanothermite is a high explosive.

This report by Harrit, Jones, Ryan, and their colleagues did not appear until 2009,45
so it could not have been mentioned in NIST’s final report, which came out at the
end of November 2008. However, given the standard guidelines for the investigation
of building fires, NIST should have tested the WTC dust for signs of incendiaries,
such as ordinary thermite (including thermate), and explosives, such as
nanothermite.46
When asked whether it had carried out such tests, NIST said it had not.47 When a
reporter asked NIST spokesman Michael Newman why not, he replied: “[B]ecause
there was no evidence of that.” When the reporter asked the obvious follow-up
question, “[H]ow can you know there’s no evidence if you don’t look for it first?”
Newman replied: “If you’re looking for something that isn’t there, you’re wasting your
time . . . and the taxpayers’ money.”48


5. NIST’s Fabrication of Evidence

Besides omitting and otherwise falsifying evidence, NIST also committed the type of
scientific fraud called fabrication, which means simply “making up results.”49


No Girder Shear Studs

For example, in offering its explanation as to how fire caused Building 7 to collapse,
NIST said that the culprit was thermal expansion, meaning that the fire heated up
the steel, thereby causing it to expand. Expanding steel beams on the 13th floor,
NIST claims, caused a steel girder connecting columns 44 and 79 to break loose.
Having lost its support, column 79 failed, starting a chain reaction in which all the
other columns failed.50

Leaving aside the question of whether this is even remotely possible, let us simply
ask: Why did that girder fail? NIST’s answer was that it was not connected to the
floor slab with sheer studs. NIST wrote: “In WTC 7, no studs were installed on the
girders.”51 In another passage, NIST said: “Floor beams . . . had shear studs, but
the girders that supported the floor beams did not have shear studs.”52

However, NIST’s Interim Report on WTC 7, which it published in 2004 before it had
developed its girder-failure theory, said shear studs were used to anchor “[m]ost of
the beams and girders,” including the girder in question.53


A Raging 12th Floor Fire at 5:00

Although in its 2004 Interim Report on WTC 7, NIST said that by 4:45 PM, “the fire
on Floor 12 was burned out,”54 it claimed in its 2008 report that at 5:00, just 21
minutes before the building collapsed, the fire on this floor was still going strong.55


6. NIST’s Final Report: Affirming a Miracle

NIST’s final report on WTC 7, which appeared in November 2008, was for the most
part identical with its draft report, which had appeared in August. But NIST did add
a new element: the affirmation of a miracle, meaning a violation of a fundamental
law of physics.

This issue is treated in a cartoon in which a professor has written a proof on a
chalkboard. Most of the steps consist of mathematical equations, but one of them
simply says: “Then a miracle happens.”56 This is humorous because one thing
scientists absolutely cannot do in their scientific work is appeal to miracles, even
implicitly. And yet that is what NIST does. I will explain.


NIST’s August 2008 Denial of Free Fall

Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement had long been pointing out that Building 7
came down at the same rate as a free-falling object, or at least virtually so. But in
NIST’s Draft for Public Comment, issued in August 2008, it denied this, saying that
the time it took for the upper floors – the only floors that are visible on the videos - to
come down “was approximately 40 percent longer than the computed free fall time
and was consistent with physical principles.”57

As this statement implies, any assertion that the building did come down in free fall
would not be consistent with physical principles – meaning the laws of physics.
Explaining why not, during a “WTC 7 Technical Briefing” on August 26, 2008, Shyam
Sunder said:

    “[A] free fall time would be [the fall time of] an object that has no structural
components below it. . . . [T]he . . . time that it took . . . for those 17 floors to
disappear [was roughly 40 percent longer than free fall]. And that is not at all
unusual, because there was structural resistance that was provided in this particular
case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place.
Everything was not instantaneous.”58

In saying this, Sunder was, of course, presupposing NIST’s rejection of controlled
demolition – which could have produced a free-fall collapse by causing all 82 columns
to fail simultaneously – in favor of NIST’s fire theory, which necessitated a theory of
progressive collapse.


Chandler’s Challenge and NIST’s November Admission of Free Fall

In response, high-school physics teacher David Chandler, who was able to speak at
this briefing, challenged Sunder’s denial of free fall, stating that Sunder’s “40
percent” claim contradicted “a publicly visible, easily measurable quantity.”59
Chandler then placed a video on the Internet showing that, by measuring this
publicly visible quantity, anyone knowing elementary physics could see that “for
about two and a half seconds. . . , the acceleration of the building is indistinguishable
from freefall.”60

Amazingly, in NIST’s final report, which came out in November 2008, it admitted free
fall. Dividing the building’s descent into three stages, NIST described the second
phase as “a freefall descent over approximately eight stories at gravitational
acceleration for approximately 2.25 s[econds].”61 So, after presenting over 600
pages of descriptions, photographs, testimonies, graphs, analyses, explanations, and
mathematical formulae, NIST says, in effect: “Then a miracle happens.”

Why this would be a miracle was explained by Chandler, who said: “Free fall can only
be achieved if there is zero resistance to the motion.”62 In other words, the upper
portion of Building 7 could have come down in free fall only if something had
suddenly removed all the steel and concrete in the lower part of the building, which
would have otherwise provided resistance. If everything had not been removed and
the upper floors had come down in free fall anyway, even for only a second, a
miracle – meaning a violation of laws of physics - would have happened.

That was what Sunder himself had explained the previous August, saying that a free-
falling object would be one “that has no structural components below it” to offer
resistance. But then in November, while still defending its fire theory of collapse,
NIST agreed that, as an empirical fact, free fall happened. For a period of 2.25
seconds, NIST admitted, the descent of WTC 7 was characterized by “gravitational
acceleration (free fall).”63

Knowing that it had thereby affirmed a miracle, NIST no longer claimed that its
analysis was consistent with the laws of physics. In its August draft, in which it said
that the collapse occurred 40 percent slower than free fall, NIST had repeatedly said
that its analysis was “consistent with physical principles.” One encountered this
phrase at least three times.64 In the final report, however, every instance of this
phrase had been removed. NIST thereby almost explicitly admitted that its report on
WTC 7, by admitting free fall while continuing to deny that explosives and
incendiaries were used, is not consistent with the principles of physics.


Implications

NIST thereby implicitly acknowledged that Building 7 was intentionally demolished. It
also thereby implicitly admitted the same about the Twin Towers, because the
collapses of these buildings manifested many of the same tell-tale signs of controlled
demolition as did WTC 7, plus some additional ones, including the horizontal ejection
of sections of steel columns, weighing many thousands of pounds, more than 500
feet from the towers. (These ejections occurred at the outset of the collapses, after
which the Towers came straight down.).65

And with this implicit admission that the collapses were examples of controlled
demolition, NIST undermined the al-Qaeda theory of 9/11. Why?

For one thing, the straight-down nature of the collapses of the Twin Towers and
Building 7 means that the buildings were subjected to the type of controlled
demolition known as “implosion,” which is, in the words of a controlled demolition
website, “by far the trickiest type of explosive project,” which “only a handful of
blasting companies in the world . . . possess enough experience . . . to perform.”66
Al-Qaeda terrorists would not have had this kind of expertise.

Second, the only reason to go to the trouble of bringing a building straight down is to
avoid damaging nearby buildings. Had the World Trade Center buildings toppled
over sideways, they would have caused massive destruction in Lower Manhattan,
crushing dozens of other buildings and killing tens of thousands of people. Does
anyone believe that, even if al-Qaeda operatives had had the expertise to make the
buildings come straight down, they would have had the courtesy?

A third problem is that foreign terrorists could not have obtained access to the
buildings for all the hours it would have taken to plant incendiaries and explosives.
Only insiders could have done this.67


7. Explaining the Ignorance about WTC 7

NIST’s admission that Building 7 came down in free fall for over two seconds should,
therefore, have been front-page news. The same is true, moreover, of the various
other things I have reported – NIST’s fabrications; NIST’s omission and distortion of
testimonial evidence; NIST’s omissions of physical evidence, such as the Swiss-cheese
steel and the particles showing that iron and molybdenum had been melted; and the
later discovery of nanothermite particles in the WTC dust. Especially given the fact
that the collapse of Building 7 had been declared a mystery from the outset, the
world should have been waiting with baited breath for every new clue as to why this
47-story building had come down. Upon hearing Building 7 mentioned, nobody in the
world with access to CNN should have asked, “Building what?” How do we explain
the fact that five and even nine years after the mysterious collapse of this building,
ignorance about it was still widespread?

To begin answering this question, let us return to James Glanz’s statement that the
collapse of WTC 7 was “a mystery that under normal circumstances would probably
have captured the attention of the city and the world.”68 As I stated before, the
abnormality seems to have been such that videos and even the very fact of this
building’s collapse were deliberately suppressed. What was this abnormality?


SCADs

A symposium in the February 2010 issue of American Behavioral Scientist, one of our
leading social science journals, argues that social scientists need to develop a
scientific approach to studying an increasingly important type of criminality: State
Crimes Against Democracy, abbreviated SCADs,69 understood as “concerted actions .
. . by government insiders intended to manipulate democratic processes and
undermine popular sovereignty.” Having the “potential to subvert political institutions
and entire governments . . . [SCADs] are high crimes that attack democracy itself.”70

Distinguishing between SCADs that have been officially proven, such as “the
Watergate break-ins and cover-up . . . , the secret wars in Laos and Cambodia . . . ,
the illegal arms sales and covert operations in Iran-Contra . . . , and the effort to
discredit Joseph Wilson by revealing his wife’s status as an intelligence agent,” on the
one hand, and suspected SCADs for which there is good evidence, on the other, the
symposium authors include in the latter category “the fabricated attacks on U.S. ships
in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964 . . . , the “October Surprises” in the presidential
elections of 1968 . . . and 1980 . . . , the assassinations of John Kennedy and Robert
Kennedy . . . , the election breakdowns in 2000 and 2004 . . . , the numerous
defense failures on September 11, 2001 . . . , and the misrepresentation of
intelligence to justify the invasion and occupation of Iraq.”71

Besides regarding 9/11 as one of the suspected SCADs for which there is good
evidence, this symposium treats it as its primary example. The abstract for the
introductory essay begins by asserting: “The ellipses of due diligence riddling the
official account of the 9/11 incidents continue being ignored by scholars of policy and
public administration.”72 The symposium’s final essay, criticizing the majority of the
academic world for its “blithe dismissal of more than one law of thermodynamics”
that is violated by the official theory of the World Trade Center collapses,73 also
criticizes the academy for its failure to protest when “Professor Steven Jones found
himself forced out of a tenured position for merely reminding the world that physical
laws, about which there is no dissent whatsoever, contradict the official theory of the
World Trade Center Towers’ collapse.”74

The authors of this symposium point out, moreover, that the official theory of the
destruction of the three World Trade Center towers has serious implications for
science and engineering. If NIST’s explanation “provides the most robust account of
the Towers’ collapse, based on known science,” then some previously accepted
physical laws would need to be revised:

    “[These laws] would have to succumb, at some point, to the theoretical claims
purported to explain the Towers’ collapse: New laws determining when steel melts
and the phases at which such material loses its tensile strength would have at some
point to replace existing science-based presumptions.”75

This revision of physical laws would also have practical implications for building
codes: “[T]he specifications of design for all skyscrapers ought, in the public interest,
to be subjected to major review.” The acceptance of NIST’s account, therefore,
creates an “obvious crisis,” which should be evoking scientific and practical
responses.76

The practical crisis that should have been caused by NIST’s report on WTC 7 had
previously been addressed by four of the “Jersey Girls,” who had been instrumental
in getting the 9/11 Commission created. In a statement released in September 2008,
they wrote:

    “Over the past seven years, the Families of the 9/11 Victims have been repeatedly
told by fire experts, engineers and architects that we should NOT FOCUS our efforts
on advocating for building and fire code changes based on the collapse of the WTC 1
and 2 towers. We were continuously reminded that the crashing of airplanes into
buildings was a unique event. Additionally, we were told that the design and
construction of WTC Towers 1 and 2 was unique and that there were no other
buildings of that particular height or design in the world. We were repeatedly told
that the key was WTC 7 since this building was of conventional design and height,
yet it too collapsed without the unique event of an airplane striking it. . . .

    “Dr. Shyam Sunder of NIST . . . stated that WTC 7 met all New York City codes.
Yet, WTC 7 is the first steel high-rise building of traditional construction in the United
States -- and the world, to completely collapse as a result of fire. According to . . .
Dr. Sunder, "there were no flaws with the construction of the building."

    “We don't how the rest of the country is feeling about this news, but we are very
scared! These findings suggest that ANY EXISTING building is prone to a progressive
collapse if a fire should start and the sprinkler system fails for whatever reason. . . .

    “The ultimate purpose of advocating for the $16 million to have NIST study this
event was to determine how to make buildings safer in the future. If we are now to
believe that any skyscraper is subject to total collapse from fire, why isn't NIST
emphasizing the impact on EXISTING buildings? . . . NIST needs to . . . provide
guidance for EXISTING buildings.

    “NIST should put the most important conclusion in plain English and announce it
to the entire country: UNCONTROLLED FIRES IN HIGH-RISE BUILDINGS CAN LEAD
TO THEIR TOTAL COLLAPSE. . . . NIST must address this dangerous issue
immediately. The future safety of the public and the fire services hangs in the
balance.”77

Like the SCADs symposium, this brilliant piece of satire makes clear that NIST’s
explanation of WTC 7’s collapse should have created a crisis in many fields, both
theoretical and practical. The implications of NIST’s explanation should have been
extensively discussed in technical journals of various types and then in newspapers
and on television programs and radio talk shows. But no such discussion occurred.
The worlds of physics, engineering, building codes, and public safety continued on as
if the report had never been issued. How can we understand this?


Hiding the Most Obvious Evidence that 9/11 Was a SCAD

If the reason why the collapse of WTC 7 did not occur “under normal circumstances”
is the fact that it was part of 9/11, which was a SCAD, then it would not be surprising
that the collapse of this building, which “under normal circumstances would probably
have captured the attention of the city and the world,” did not do so.

If 9/11 was a SCAD, the collapse of WTC 7 would not have been allowed to capture
the world’s attention for the reasons mentioned earlier: Unlike the Twin Towers, it
was not hit by a plane; because of this, there was no jet fuel to spread big fires to
many floors; its collapse, unlike that of each of the Twin Towers, looked exactly like a
classic implosion, in which the collapse begins from the bottom and the building folds
in upon itself, ending up almost entirely in its own footprint; and the videos show that
it came down, at least part of the way, in absolute free fall. The fact that Building 7
was brought down by controlled demolition was, therefore, more obvious.

This greater obviousness is illustrated not only by Danny Jowenko’s response, but also
by the many engineers and scientists who joined the 9/11 Truth Movement only after
seeing a video of this building’s collapse. For example, Daniel Hofnung, an engineer
in Paris, wrote:

    “In the years after the 9/11 events, I thought that all I read in professional reviews
and French newspapers was true. The first time I understood that it was impossible
was when I saw a film about the collapse of WTC 7.”78

Likewise, civil engineer Chester Gearhart wrote:

    “I have watched the construction of many large buildings and also have personally
witnessed 5 controlled demolitions in Kansas City. When I saw the towers fall on 9/11,
I knew something was wrong and my first instinct was that it was impossible. When I
saw building 7 fall, I knew it was a controlled demolition.”79

This video was also decisive for University of Copenhagen chemist Niels Harrit, who
later became the first author of the nanothermite paper. When asked how he
became involved with these issues, he replied:

    “It all started when I saw the collapse of Building 7, the third skyscraper. It
collapsed seven hours after the Twin Towers. And there were only two airplanes.
When you see a 47-storey building, 186 meters tall, collapse in 6.5 seconds, and you
are a scientist, you think “What?” I had to watch it again...and again. I hit the button
ten times, and my jaw dropped lower and lower. Firstly, I had never heard of that
building before. And there was no visible reason why it should collapse in that way,
straight down, in 6.5 seconds. I have had no rest since that day.”80

Given these reactions, it is obvious why, if 9/11 was a State Crime Against
Democracy, the fact of Building 7’s collapse, especially the video of this collapse, had
to be suppressed as much as possible.


WTC 7 as a Dud?

Having made this point, I need to respond to an obvious objection: If those who
were responsible for bringing down Building 7 were going to need to suppress the
video of its collapse, why did they wait until late in the afternoon, when the air was
clean and cameras would be trained on this building, with the consequence that we
have perfectly clear videos of the collapse of this building from various angles, each
one showing its straight-down free-fall descent? Why did they not bring it down in
the morning, shortly after one of the Twin Towers had collapsed, when the resulting
dust cloud would have made any images impossible? After the collapse of the North
Tower at 10:28, for example, visibility did not return sufficiently for film crews to
come back to the area, NIST reported, until 11:00.81 Had Building 7 been imploded
at, say, 10:45, its collapse would still have been a big mystery, but there would have
been no videos showing that it had come straight down and, for over two seconds, in
absolute free fall.

There are many reasons, as I showed in an appendix to The Mysterious Collapse of
World Trade Center 7, to believe that this had indeed been the plan, but that this
building was, as one researcher put it, “a dud”82 – meaning that “the demolition
system in WTC 7 simply did not respond as intended and the building defiantly
remained intact.”83 As a result, agents were perhaps sent into the building to set
fires to provide the basis for a cover-story saying that fires had brought the building
down. This hypothesis -- that fires were set in the building only after a controlled
demolition system had failed to bring it down in the morning -- would explain why,
although the fires in Building 7 were supposedly started by burning debris from the
North Tower’s collapse at 10:28, no flames are visible in this building, as NIST admits,
until after noon, and on some floors there is no photographic evidence of fire until
3:40 PM or even later.84

I have emphasized this likelihood – that the destruction of WTC 7 was a botched
operation – because if true it provides the clearest possible illustration of the theme of
this essay, namely, that SCADs can be hidden in plain sight. There are literally dozens
of problems in the official account of 9/11 sufficiently serious to show the official story
to be false. But the clearest proof is provided by the video of this enormous building
coming straight down in absolute free fall. And yet even though this proof has existed
in plain sight for all these years, the fact that 9/11 was an inside job, and hence a
State Crime Against Democracy, has remained a hidden fact, at least in the sense
that it is not part of the public conversation. If the destruction of WTC 7 was a
botched operation, then the hiding of the fact that 9/11 was a SCAD is even more
impressive. How has this hiding been achieved?


Hiding SCADs: The Role of the Mainstream Media

Peter Dale Scott, discussing the erosion of the US Constitution in recent times,
suggests that “this erosion has been achieved in part through a series of important
deep events in [post-World-War-II] American history – events aspects of which . . .
will be ignored or suppressed in the mainstream media.”85 Indeed, Scott adds:

    “[T]he mainstream U.S. media . . . have become so implicated in past protective
lies . . . that they, as well as the government, have now a demonstrated interest in
preventing the truth about any of these events from coming out. This means that the
current threat to constitutional rights does not derive from the deep state alone. . . .
[T]he problem is a global dominance mindset that prevails not only inside the
Washington Beltway but also in the mainstream media . . . , one which has come to
accept recent inroads on constitutional liberties, and stigmatizes, or at least responds
with silence to, those who are alarmed by them. . . . [A]cceptance of this mindset’s
notions of decorum has increasingly become a condition for participation in
mainstream public life.”86

Referring thereby to events such as the JFK assassination, the Tonkin Gulf hoax, and
9/11, Scott by “deep events” means the same types of events called SCADs by the
authors of the symposium on that topic. Indeed, one of those authors explicitly cites
Scott’s writings, treating his “deep events” as examples of SCADs and quoting his
statements about the complicity of the mainstream media in covering up the truth
about these events.87

These authors also make the same point themselves, remarking that “the U.S.
government’s account of 9/11 [is] parroted by the mainstream media”88 and
commenting on “the profound disavowal of still burning, molten questions originating
at 9/11 Ground Zero gone begging by the American media.”89

Besides parroting the government’s account of 9/11 and stigmatizing those who
provide alternative accounts with the discrediting label “conspiracy theorists,” how
has America’s mainstream media kept the truth about WTC 7 hidden from the
majority of the American people? Through various means, including the following:

First, by never replaying the statements by Dan Rather and other reporters about
how the collapse of WTC 7 looked just like a controlled demolition.

Second, by seldom if ever replaying the video of this building’s collapse.

Third, by never mentioning credible critiques of the official account. For example,
The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about
9/11 is Unscientific and False, which has been endorsed by prestigious scientists and
engineers, has never been reviewed in the mainstream media, even though my
previous 9/11 book, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited, was a Publishers Weekly “Pick of
the Week” in 2008.90

Fourth, by never mentioning, except for one story that apparently slipped through,91
the existence of an organization called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, which
by now has some 1,200 professional architects and engineers calling for a new
investigation of WTC 7 as well as the Twin Towers.92

Fifth, by never reporting scientific evidence contradicting the official account of these
buildings’ destruction, such as the reported discovery of nanothermite in the WTC
dust.

Sixth, by overlooking the fact that NIST’s report on WTC 7 omitted an enormous
amount of evidence showing that explosives and/or incendiaries must have been
used. For example, although the New York Times in 2002 called the piece of Swiss-
cheese steel recovered from this building “the deepest mystery uncovered in the
investigation,” it did not issue a peep when NIST’s 2008 report on this building failed
to mention this piece of steel and even claimed that no steel from this building had
been identified: The Times clearly knew better but said nothing.

Seventh, by not mentioning the fact, even after it was reported in my 2009 book, The
Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7, that NIST had used various types of
fabricated evidence to support its theory of a fire-induced collapse.

Eighth, by reporting NIST’s August 2008 press briefing, in which Shyam Sunder
announced, triumphantly, that the “the reason for the collapse of World Trade Center
7 is no longer a mystery” and that “science is really behind what we have said,” but
then not reporting on NIST’s final report in November of that year, in which NIST
almost explicitly admitted that science does not stand behind, but instead contradicts,
its theory of this building’s collapse.

Ninth, by systematically ignoring the fact that the official account of WTC 7’s collapse
has implications for many fields that, if taken seriously by leaders in those fields,
would demand revolutionary changes in both theory and practice.93


Conclusion and Proposal

Through these and related means, the truth about the collapse of WTC 7 has been
effectively hidden, even though it has existed in plain sight all these years. Even the
bare fact of the collapse itself has been so effectively hidden that in 2006 over 40
percent of the American public did not know about it, and in 2009 a judge in New
York City, upon hearing a reference to Building 7, asked: “Building what?”

I offer this essay as a case study in the power of the forces behind SCADs or deep
events to hide things that exist in plain sight, because if they can hide the straight-
down free-fall collapse of a 47-story building captured on video in broad daylight,
they can hide almost anything.

I say this, however, not to instill despair, but to point to the seriousness of the
problem, and also to pave the way for making a proposal. Recognizing the high
correlation between those who know about the collapse of WTC 7 and those who
believe that a new – or rather real – 9/11 investigation is needed, I propose that the
international 9/11 Truth Movement initiate, starting this September, a world-wide,
year-long “Building What?” campaign. Through this campaign, we would seek to
make the fact of its collapse so widely known that the mention of Building 7 would
never again evoke the question: “Building What?”94

----

David Ray Griffin is the author of 36 books on various topics, including philosophy,
theology, philosophy of science, and 9/11. His 2008 book, The New Pearl Harbor
Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up, and the Exposé, was named a “Pick of the Week” by
Publishers Weekly. In September 2009, The New Statesman ranked him #41 among
“The 50 People Who Matter Today.” His most recent book is The Mysterious Collapse
of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final Official Report about 9/11 is Unscientific and
False (2009). His next book will be Cognitive Infiltration: An Obama Appointee’s Plan
to Undermine the 9/11 Conspiracy Theory (September 2010). He wishes to thank Tod
Fletcher, Jim Hoffman, and Elizabeth Woodworth for help with this essay.


Notes

1 David Ray Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7: Why the Final
Official Report about 9/11 Is Unscientific and False (Northampton: Olive Branch
[Interlink Books], 2009).

2 Lynn Margulis, “Two Hit, Three Down – The Biggest Lie,” Rock Creek Free Press,
January 24, 2010 (
http://rockcreekfreepress.tumblr.com/post/353434420/two-hit-three-down-the-
biggest-lie).

3 James Glanz, “Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade
Center: Diesel Fuel,” New York Times, November 29, 2001 (
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/nation-challenged-site-engineers-
have-culprit-strange-collapse-7-world-trade.html).

4 Rather’s statement is available on YouTube (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nvx904dAw0o).

5 See the video 911 Eyewitness (
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=65460757734339444) at 29:05.

6 See “Danny Jowenko on WTC 7 Controlled Demolition,” YouTube (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=877gr6xtQIc), or, for more of the interview,
“Jowenko WTC 7 Demolition Interviews,” in three parts (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k3DRhwRN06I&feature=related).

7 “Michael Hess, WTC7 Explosion Witness,” YouTube (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUfiLbXMa64). Hess should have said “down to
the sixth floor.” As Barry Jennings later clarified, the explosion that blocked their
descent occurred when they reached the sixth floor, after which they walked back up
to the eighth floor, where they waited to be rescued; see “Barry Jennings-–9/11
WTC7 Full Uncut Interview,” Part 2
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxUj6UgPODo), at 5:08-5:33.

8 See “Barry Jennings – 9/11 Early Afternoon ABC 7 Interview” (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5LO5V2CJpzI).

9 This statement could previously be seen in “Barry Jennings-–9/11 WTC7 Full Uncut
Interview,” Part 1, at 3:57-4:05. But at the time this essay was posted, this portion of
the interview had been blocked from the Internet, because it is now in the film Loose
Change 9/11: An American Coup.

10 Quoted in Chris Bull and Sam Erman, eds., At Ground Zero: Young Reporters Who
Were There Tell Their Stories (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002), 97.

11 Bartmer’s statement is quoted in Paul Joseph Watson, “NYPD Officer Heard
Building 7 Bombs,” Prison Planet, February 10, 2007 (
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/february2007/100207heardbombs.htm).

12 This unnamed medical student can be seen making this statement in 911
Eyewitness (at 31:30).

13 James Glanz and Eric Lipton, “A Search for Clues in Towers’ Collapse,” New York
Times, February 2, 2002 (
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=
9C04E0DE153DF931A35751C0A9649C8B63).

14 Ibid.

15 Joan Killough-Miller, “The ‘Deep Mystery’ of Melted Steel,” WPI Transformations,
Spring 2002  (http://www.wpi.edu/News/Transformations/2002Spring/steel.html).

16 James Glanz, “Engineers Suspect Diesel Fuel in Collapse of 7 World Trade Center,”
New York Times, November 29, 2001 (
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/11/29/nyregion/29TOWE.html). I have here quoted
Glanz’s paraphrase of Barnett’s statement.

17 See Kenneth Change, “Scarred Steel Holds Clues, And Remedies,” New York
Times, October 2, 2001 (
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=
9B05E6DC123DF931A35753C1A9679C8B63).

18 For the melting point of iron, see “Iron,” WebElements: The Periodic Table on the
Web (http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html). The description of thermate
is from “Thermite,” Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite), as of May 25,
2010.

“Iron,” WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web (
http://www.webelements.com/iron/physics.html).

19 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and R. D. Sisson, Jr., “Limited
Metallurgical Examination,” Appendix C of World Trade Center Building Performance
Study, FEMA, 2002 (http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_apc.pdf); also
available on Jim Hoffman’s website (
http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/metallurgy/WTC_apndxC.htm); see “C.2:
Sample 1 (from WTC 7),” pages 1-5.

20 See FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study (
http://www.fema.gov/pdf/library/fema403_ch5.pdf), Chap. 5, Sect. 6.2, “Probable
Collapse Sequence,” at page 31.

21 “A Word about Our Poll of American Thinking Toward the 9/11 Terrorist Attacks,”
Zogby International, May 24, 2006 (
http://www.zogby.com/features/features.dbm?ID=231).

22 In the ensuing exchange, Judge Lehner showed that he was not completely
unaware of this building’s destruction, asking if it was “the one that has been
rebuilt.” Shortly thereafter, however, the judge confused this building with the Twin
Towers. See pages 16-19 of “Proceedings, Christopher Burke et al, Petitioners. vs.
Michael McSweeney as City Clerk of New York and Clerk of the City Council of New
York and the Board of Elections in the City of New York, before Honorable Edward H.
Lehner, J. S. C., Supreme Court of the State of New York, September 29, 2009.”

23 Glanz, “Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade
Center.”

24 “National Construction Safety Team Advisory Committee 2003 Report to Congress”
(http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTAC2003ReporttoCongressFinal.pdf), 4.

25 NIST, “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” August 30, 2006 (
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html), Question 14. This is
the original version of the document, which contained what is stated in the text. But
NIST, never a stickler for retaining past statements that later prove embarrassing,
“updated” this document over two years later, on January 28, 2008 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm). This “updated” version of this
2006 document gives the reader the impression that NIST in 2006 – instead of having
said, “It is anticipated that a draft report will be released by early 2007” – actually
said: “It is anticipated that a draft report will be released for public comment by July
2008 and that the final report will be released shortly thereafter.” The original
document, as updated August 30, 2006, has been preserved in Jim Hoffman, “NIST’s
World Trade Center FAQ” (
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html).

26 NIST, “WTC Investigation Overview,” December 18, 2007 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTAC_December18(Sunder).pdf). Like the NIST 2006
document discussed in the previous note, this one has also been revised, so that it
now says merely July and August, 2008, respectively, without giving exact dates.

27 See “WTC 7: The Smoking Gun of 9/11” (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwSc7NPn8Ok), and Paul Joseph Watson, “BBC’s
9/11 Yellow Journalism Backfires: Building 7 Becomes the Achilles Heel of the Official
Conspiracy Theory,” Prison Planet, March 5, 2007 (
http://infowars.wordpress.com/2007/03/05/bbcs-911-yellow-journalism-backfires).

28 “Progress Report on the NIST Building and Fire Investigation into the World Trade
Center Disaster,” National Institute of Standards and Technology (henceforth NIST),
December 9, 2002 (http://www.fire.nist.gov/bfrlpubs/build03/PDF/b03040.pdf);
“Progress Report on the Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World
Trade Center Disaster,” NIST, May 2003 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/MediaUpdate%20_FINAL_ProgressReport051303.pdf).

29 Interim Report on WTC 7, NIST, June 2004 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixl.pdf).

30 “WTC 7 Collapse,” NIST, April 5, 2005 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/WTC%20Part%20IIC%20-%20WTC%207%20Collapse%20Fi
nal.pdf).

31 “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” NIST, August 30, 2006 ((
http://911research.wtc7.net/reviews/nist/WTC_FAQ_reply.html), Question 14 (see
note 25, above).

32 Shyam Sunder, “Opening Statement,” NIST Press Briefing, August 21, 2008 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/opening_remarks_082108.html).

33 Associated Press, “Report: Fire, Not Bombs, Leveled WTC 7 Building,” USA Today,
August 21, 2008
(http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-08-21-wtc-nist_N.htm).

34 National Science Foundation, Office of Inspector General, “What is Research
Misconduct?” in New Research Misconduct Policies, (
http://www.nsf.gov/oig/session.pdf). This document is undated, but internal
evidence suggests that it was published in 2001.

35 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of
World Trade Center Building 7, November 2008, Vol. 1 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%201.pdf): 324.

36 Jonathan Barnett, Ronald R. Biederman, and Richard D. Sisson, Jr., “Limited
Metallurgical Examination,” FEMA, World Trade Center Building Performance Study,
May 2002, Appendix C (http://wtc.nist.gov/media/AppendixC-fema403_apc.pdf): 13.

37 Dr. Arden L. Bement, Jr., testimony before the House Science Committee Hearing
on “The Investigation of the World Trade Center Collapse,” May 1, 2002 (
http://911research.wtc7.net/cache/wtc/official/nist/bement.htm). In the quoted
statement, “FEMA” replaces “BPAT,” which is the abbreviation for “Building
Performance Assessment Team,” the name of the ASCE team that prepared this
report for FEMA.

38 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” August 21, 2008 (
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html). In response to the
question, “Why didn't the investigators look at actual steel samples from WTC 7??”
NIST replied: “Steel samples were removed from the site before the NIST
investigation began. In the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, debris was removed
rapidly from the site to aid in recovery efforts and facilitate emergency responders’
efforts to work around the site. Once it was removed from the scene, the steel from
WTC 7 could not be clearly identified. Unlike the pieces of steel from WTC 1 and WTC
2, which were painted red and contained distinguishing markings, WTC 7 steel did
not contain such identifying characteristics.” This document was originally available
on NIST’s website
(http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.html). However, like
some other NIST reports, it has been removed. But is preserved at Jim Hoffman’s
website (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html). This
statement was repeated in a version of this document that was updated April 21,
2009, which is also preserved at Hoffman’s site (
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html).

39 In NIST NCSTAR 1-3C, Damage and Failure Modes of Structural Steel
Components, September 2005 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-3C%20Damage%20and%20Failure
%20Modes.pdf), the authors, Stephen W. Banovic and Timothy Foecke, referred to
“the analysis of the steel from WTC 7 (Sample #1 from Appendix C, BPAT/FEMA
study) where corrosion phases and morphologies were able to determine a possible
temperature region” (233). The BBC program was The Conspiracy Files: 9/11 – The
Third Tower, July 6, 2008 (available at
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9072062020229593250# and
http://www.911blogger.com/node/16541); the statement by Barnett is at 48:00. I am
indebted to Chris Sarns for both of these discoveries.

40 RJ Lee Group, “WTC Dust Signature,” Expert Report, May 2004 (
http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC
%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20WTC%20dust/WTCDustSign
ature_ExpertReport.051304.1646.mp.pdf): 11; “WTC Dust Signature Study:
Composition and Morphology,” December 2003 (
http://www.nyenvirolaw.org/WTC/130%20Liberty%20Street/Mike%20Davis%20LMDC
%20130%20Liberty%20Documents/Signature%20of%20WTC%20dust/WTC%20Dust
%20Signature.Composition%20and%20Morphology.Final.pdf): 17. For discussion of
the differences between these two versions of the RJ Lee report, see Griffin, The
Mysterious Collapse, 40-42.

41 Steven E. Jones et al., "Extremely High Temperatures during the World Trade
Center Destruction," Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008 (
http://journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf): 8.

42 Ibid., 4-5.

43 “Molybdenum,” WebElements: The Periodic Table on the Web (
http://www.webelements.com/molybdenum/physics.html).

44 For the published USGS report, see Heather A. Lowers and Gregory P. Meeker,
U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Department of the Interior, “Particle Atlas of World
Trade Center Dust,” 2005 (http://pubs.usgs.gov/of/2005/1165/508OF05-1165.html).
The USGS’s evidence for the molybdenum-rich spherule is reported in Steven Jones
et al., “Extremely High Temperatures,” 4.

45 Niels H. Harrit, Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, et al., “Active Thermitic Material
Observed in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe,” The Open
Chemical Physics Journal 2 (2009): 7-31 (
http://www.bentham.org/open/tocpj/openaccess2.htm).

46 According to the Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations, put out by the
National Fire Protection Association, investigators should, in seeking to determine the
cause of a fire, look for evidence of accelerants, which are any substances that could
be used to ignite a fire or accelerate its progress (National Fire Protection
Association’s 921 Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations, 1998 Edition, Section
12-2.4 (http://www.interfire.org/res_file/92112m.asp), and thermite mixtures are
explicitly classified as accelerants (Section 19.2.4, “Exotic Accelerants” and “Thermite
Mixtures”).

47 “Answers to Frequently Asked Questions,” NIST, August 30, 2006 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm), Question 12 (NIST’s answer to
this question has not been “updated” [see note 25, above]).

48 Jennifer Abel, “Theories of 9/11,” Hartford Advocate, January 29, 2008 (
http://www.ae911truth.org/press/23).

49 National Science Foundation, “What is Research Misconduct?”

50 See Griffin, The Mysterious Collapse, 150-55.

51 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1: 346.

52 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%202.pdf), 462.

53 See NIST, Interim Report on WTC 7 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/progress_report_june04/appendixl.pdf): L-6-7, and Griffin, The
Mysterious Collapse, 212-15.

54 Interim Report on WTC 7: L-26. This contradiction is pointed out in a video, “NIST
Report on WTC7 Debunked and Exposed!” YouTube, December 28, 2008 (
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qFpbZ-aLDLY), at 0:45 to 1:57.

55 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2: 384, Figure 9-11.

56 This cartoon can be seen on the Internet (
http://www.sciencecartoonsplus.com/pages/gallery.php).

57 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2 (
http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NIST_NCSTAR_1-9_vol2_for_public_comment.pdf), 595-96.
In “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” which was issued
August 21, 2008 (simultaneously with NIST’s Draft for Public Comment), NIST
repeated this denial, saying: “WTC 7 did not enter free fall.” As pointed out in note
38, above, NIST has removed this document from its website, but it has been
preserved by Jim Hoffman (
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_082108.html).

58 “WTC 7 Technical Briefing,” NIST, August 26, 2008. NIST has removed this video
and the accompanying transcript from the Internet. However, Nate Flach has made
the video available at Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/11941571), and the transcript,
entitled “NIST Technical Briefing on Its Final Draft Report on WTC 7 for Public
Comment,” is available at David Chandler’s website (
http://911speakout.org/NIST_Tech_Briefing_Transcript.pdf).

59 Ibid.

60 David Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall - No Longer Controversial,” September 4, 2008
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVCDpL4Ax7I), at 2:45.

61 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2: 607. The same point is stated in the brief version of
NIST’s WTC 7 report, NIST NCSTAR 1A, which states: “In Stage 2, the north face
descended at gravitational acceleration, as the buckled columns provided negligible
support to the upper portion of the north face. This free fall drop continued for
approximately 8 stories” (45).

62 Chandler, “WTC7 in Freefall – No Longer Controversial,” at 3:27.

63 “Questions and Answers about the NIST WTC 7 Investigation,” NIST, updated
April 21, 2009 (http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html). (This
version was “updated” from the original, which was posted August 21, 2008: see
notes 38 and 57, above.) This updated document, originally available at NIST’s
website (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/factsheet/wtc_qa_082108.html), has
been removed it. It is preserved, however, at Jim Hoffman’s website (
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/nist/wtc_qa_042109.html).

64 NIST NCSTAR 1-9, Draft for Public Comment, Vol. 2: 595-96, 596, 610.

65 See my discussion in Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor Revisited: 9/11, the Cover-Up,
and the Exposé (Northampton: Olive Branch, 2008), 30-31.

66 “The Myth of Implosion” (http://www.implosionworld.com/dyk2.html).

67 As to how domestic terrorists could have gotten access, an answer becomes
possible if we are aware that Larry Silverstein, who owned Building 7 and had
recently taken out a lease on the rest of the World Trade Center, stood to make
several billion dollars if it was destroyed in a terrorist attack, and that a brother and a
cousin of George W. Bush were principals of a company that handled security for the
World Trade Center (Griffin, Debunking 9/11 Debunking: An Answer to Popular
Mechanics and Other Defenders of the Official Conspiracy Theory [Northampton:
Olive Branch, 2007], 111).

68 Glanz, “Engineers Have a Culprit in the Strange Collapse of 7 World Trade
Center.”

69 Symposium on State Crimes Against Democracy, American Behavioral Scientist 53
(February 2010): 783-939 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6). Online
access is expensive, but the entire issue can be purchased for $24
(journals at sagepub.com).

70 Lance deHaven-Smith, “Beyond Conspiracy Theory: Patterns of High Crime in
American Government,” American Behavioral Scientist 53 (February 2010): 795-825 (
http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6), at 796.

71 Ibid. 797.

72 Ibid., 783.

73 Matthew T. Witt, “Pretending Not to See or Hear, Refusing to Signify: The Farce
and Tragedy of Geocentric Public Affairs Scholarship,” American Behavioral Scientist
53 (February 2010): 921-39 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6), at 934.

74 Ibid., 932 (emphasis in original).

75 Ibid., 932.

76 Ibid.

77 “Statement of September 11th Advocates Regarding the Release of the NIST Final
Draft of Collapse of WTC7” (signed by Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy
Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken), September 26, 2008 (
http://www.911truth.org/article.php?story=20080927030009489).

78 Daniel Hofnung, Patriots Question 9/11 (
http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Dhofnung).

79 Chester W. Gearhart, Patriots Question 9/11 (
http://patriotsquestion911.com/engineers.html#Gearhart).

80 “Danish Scientist Niels Harrit, on Nanothermite in the WTC Dust (English
subtitles),” YouTube, April 6, 2009 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tf25lx_3o).

81 NIST NCSTAR 1A, Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7
(brief report), November 2008
(http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201A.pdf): 51; NIST NCSTAR 1-9: 119.

82 Jeremy Baker, “Was WTC 7 a Dud?” Serendipity, 2005 (
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/wtc7_dud.htm).

83 Jeremy Baker, “Last Building Standing,” Serendipity, 2007 (
http://www.serendipity.li/wot/last_building_standing.pdf). This is a revised and
updated version of Baker, “Was WTC 7 a Dud?”

84 NIST NCSTAR 1: 1-9: 194, 243, 244, 247.

85 Peter Dale Scott, “9/11, Deep State Violence, and the Hope of Internet Politics,”
Global Research, June 11, 2008 (
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9289).

86 Ibid. More recently, Scott has ceased speaking about a “deep state,” because it
suggests an organized entity with a location, and speaks instead only of “deep
events” brought about by “deep forces.” This revised language is reflected in his
forthcoming book, American War Machine: Deep Events, the CIA’s Global Drug
Connection, and the Road to Afghanistan (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010),
in which he refers to “deep events” as “events that are systematically ignored,
suppressed, or falsified in public (and even internal) government, military, and
intelligence documents as well as in the mainstream media and public
consciousness,” and says that underlying these events “is frequently the involvement
of deep forces linked either to the drug traffic or to agencies of surveillance (or to
both together).” He then adds: “A clearly defined deep event will combine both
internal features – evidence, such as a discernible cover-up, that aspects are being
suppressed – and external features – an ongoing and perhaps irresoluble controversy
as to what happened.”

87 Laurie A. Manwell, “In Denial of Democracy: Social Psychological Implications for
Public Discourse on State Crimes Against Democracy Post-9/11,” American Behavioral
Scientist 53 (February 2010): 848-84 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6),
at 867-70.

88 Ibid., 863.

89 Matthew T. Witt and Alexander Kouzmin, “Sense Making Under ‘Holographic’
Conditions: Framing SCAD Research,” American Behavioral Scientist 53 (February
2010): 783-94 (http://abs.sagepub.com/content/vol53/issue6), at 789.

90 Publishers Weekly, November 24, 2008 (
http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/1-legacy/15-web-exclusive-book-
reviews/article/6017-web-exclusive-reviews-week-of-11-24-2008-.html).

91 Jennifer Harper, "Explosive News," Washington Times, February 22, 2010 (
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/feb/22/inside-the-
beltway-70128635/?feat=home_columns).

92 Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (http://ae911truth.org).

93 On the failure of the press release about WTC 7 by the Jersey Girls (see note 77,
above) to receive any press coverage: Email letter from Lorie Van Auken, May 23,
2010.

94 This essay is based on a lecture of the same title delivered at a conference,
“Understanding Deep Politics,” held May 14-16, 2010, in Santa Cruz, California, which
was organized by Gabriel Day, Cheryl Curtiss, Jason King, and Kevin Zenzie.

This article was first published at http://911truth.org