10 story hole in WTC 7

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Problem 1 - nobody else in the world takes "glowing with great heat" as any kind of definition of molten. Molten is from the same root as melt. Use a better dictionary.

Problem 2 - you cannot possibly know that there's molten anything falling off that glowing lump. You merely want to believe it and are prepared to make the assertion.

Problem 3 - why can't it be aluminium? Why can't it be a burning cupboard or cubicle partition with cinders falling off it?
1) Numerous witnesses saw molten metal [liquid]. The glob in the crab claw was 900-1200ºC. It is consistent with the photos Mark Loizeaux described.
If you don't want to use the word 'molten' to describe it, that's OK, but that doesn't change the fact that it was molten at one time and formed the glob after being cooled somewhat from all the water being applied.

2) The white hot metal dripping from the bottom is consistent with reports of beams dripping molten metal as they were removed.

3) Aluminum becomes a liquid at 660ºC. The glob is 900-1200ºC.

Why can't it be a burning cupboard or cubicle partition with cinders falling off it?
In your dreams.


The point here is:

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200ºC.

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.
 
1) Numerous witnesses saw molten metal [liquid]. The glob in the crab claw was 900-1200ºC. It is consistent with the photos Mark Loizeaux described.
If you don't want to use the word 'molten' to describe it, that's OK, but that doesn't change the fact that it was molten at one time and formed the glob after being cooled somewhat from all the water being applied.

2) The white hot metal dripping from the bottom is consistent with reports of beams dripping molten metal as they were removed.

3) Aluminum becomes a liquid at 660ºC. The glob is 900-1200ºC.

In your dreams.


The point here is:

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200ºC.

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.


And yet, not a single demolition expert takes your uninformed fantasies about thermite seriously.
 
[/B][/SIZE] The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.

I'm going to attack your postulation from the roots. If the only explanation for your molten metal observations is thermite perhaps you'd be capable of answering to the following:

  • How does the thermite sustain a reaction for an extended period of time?
  • How does the thermite retain a coherent form, or sufficient concentration to react now that the buildings have collapsed?
  • How does the thermite ignite if the fires in the debris pile are insufficient to ignite the postulated charges?
  • How does thermite account for the supposed molten metal weeks later? Did it magically ignite? Did it sustain a continuous reaction for several weeks?
  • If the previous question is a 'no', then how does the metal remain in a molten state without a sufficient heat source?
  • How does molten metal found weeks after the fact account for pre-collapse conditions?

Notice, that this doesn't even begin addressing pre-collapse... and the very UNLIKELY logistics of just 'sneaking' the postulated thermite in. I've yet to see viable photographic evidence that would corroborate the witness accounts of 'rivers of steel'.
 
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And yet, not a single demolition expert takes your uninformed fantasies about thermite seriously.
You cannot dispute or deal with;

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200ºC.

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.


so you shift to an argument about who believes what.
 
You cannot dispute or deal with;
Wrong...

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.
Clearly not hot enough to ignite it if we assumed thermite were there in the first place. So what ignites it? Thermite requires a very hot flame to igniote the magnesium fuse. You can't have both a fire below 1000 oC and a high enough flame to ignite such components if we assumed you were correct.

The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200ºC.
Were any samples taken of that to determine its exact composition or is color the only evidence you're using to determine it's material make-up?


The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.
Reread my last post
 
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I'm going to attack your postulation from the roots. If the only explanation for your molten metal observations is thermite perhaps you'd be capable of answering to the following:

  • How does the thermite sustain a reaction for an extended period of time?
  • How does the thermite retain a coherent form, or sufficient concentration to react now that the buildings have collapsed?
  • How does the thermite ignite if the fires in the debris pile are insufficient to ignite the postulated charges?
  • How does thermite account for the supposed molten metal weeks later? Did it magically ignite? Did it sustain a continuous reaction for several weeks?
  • If the previous question is a 'no', then how does the metal remain in a molten state without a sufficient heat source?
  • How does molten metal found weeks after the fact account for pre-collapse conditions?

Notice, that this doesn't even begin addressing pre-collapse... and the very UNLIKELY logistics of just 'sneaking' the postulated thermite in. I've yet to see viable photographic evidence that would corroborate the witness accounts of 'rivers of steel'.
You are using reverse logic, demanding answers that require speculation and are therefore endlessly debatable.
Let's start at the beginning and look at what we know.

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

There was molten metal under all three buildings.

Are you with me so far?
 
You are using reverse logic, demanding answers that require speculation and are therefore endlessly debatable.
Let's start at the beginning and look at what we know.

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

There was molten metal under all three buildings.

Are you with me so far?
Connecting the molten metal found post-collapse to thermite requires that the thermite was able to not only ignite under the given conditions, but be able to survive for several weeks, and sustain a reaction for an extended period of time. You are the one who states the only explanation for this is thermite. Given that very little of anything survived the collapses in any coherent form the same conditions would have been applied to thermite.

As for Mark Louzeaux, I am assuming you're talking about the controlled demolition's inc manager correct? I keep searching for his statements, and none of the sites that have them provide a source to refer back to:

Such as this one:
"Loizeaux confirmed this: “Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements,” he said, “at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”
Source

And

Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of “literally molten steel” in the rubble.

Loizeaux confirmed this: “Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements,” he said, “at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”

The molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,” he said. He confirmed that molten steel was also found at WTC 7, which mysteriously collapsed in the late afternoon.

Which was exerpted by Thia site, from an American Free Press Article.

and

"These reports came from two men involved in the removal of the rubble: Peter Tully of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., and Mark Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, Md.
Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of “literally molten steel” in the rubble.
Loizeaux confirmed this: “Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the basements,” he said, “at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven levels.”
The molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,” he said. He confirmed that molten steel was also found at WTC 7 [...]"
And 911blogger which also cites the American free press source

So apparently for your Mark Loizeaux testimony the websites I've seen either leave the source of the quote out, or those that do provide it all come from American free press. I think you should start reading up on the sources you're using to get an idea of what their histories are. Mark is actually unsupportive of the controlled demolition theory.


'And others': You mean fire fighters describing rivers of molten steal? Definitely heard the testimony, not extensively though, and no source has shown pictures of this apparently totally fluid steel and some sites, like one of the ones I linked to here use images like this one:
http://i.ixnp.com/images/v3.38/t.gif
To support the claims, except, at least for that one, those are work lights... If they were that close to a river of molten steel their faces would have burned off like the fourth of July.


Yes, I am with you... but barring the claims of molten metal, there's quite a few leaps just to assert thermite is even responsible for any genuine findings
 
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You are using reverse logic, demanding answers that require speculation and are therefore endlessly debatable.
Let's start at the beginning and look at what we know.

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

There was molten metal under all three buildings.

Are you with me so far?

Ah, so maybe you can go to the posts in this thread that appear every 10 pages or so explaining that no Mark did not see molten metal and the letter he wrote confirming this. And the reference was also to the South tower, NOT WTC 7. This is where you have just been caught fibbing Chris. And then also the little fact that metal is not the same as steel. Steel is just one of many metals.

OK ppl, who got Chris started again?
 
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You cannot dispute or deal with;

The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.

The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200ºC.

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

The ONLY known explanation for the molten metal is Thermite.


so you shift to an argument about who believes what.


Molten metal "cooked" under the rubble pile for many weeks. Nobody disputes that fact, but it lends no support whatever to your fantasies.

You haven't the faintest idea of the temperature of the "glob" in the crab claw or the fires in the debris.

Your ignorance of the properties and uses of thermite hardly qualifies you to speculate on the causes of the molten metal. Again, demolition professionals dismiss your fabrications as uninformed rubbish.
 
Clearly not hot enough to ignite it if we assumed thermite were there in the first place.
Let's not assume anything.

So what ignites it? Thermite requires a very hot flame to igniote the magnesium fuse. You can't have both a fire below 1000 oC and a high enough flame to ignite such components if we assumed you were correct.
Don't change the subject.

Were any samples taken of that to determine its exact composition or is color the only evidence you're using to determine it's material make-up?
You are avoiding the simple fact that:

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.
 
Let's not assume anything.

Don't change the subject.

You are avoiding the simple fact that:

The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

I'm confused. How can you be arguing that material was pulled out of the fire at 1200C and at the same time say that the fire it was pulled from was no where near 1200C?
 
but that doesn't change the fact that it was molten at one time and formed the glob after being cooled somewhat from all the water being applied.

How do you establish that the red-hot metal pulled from the fire was once molten and then cooled, rather than just being heated to red-hot (but never molten) temps?
 
Let's not assume anything.
You said:
The fires in the debris pile were no where near 1200ºC.

I'm not assuming anything, I responded accordingly to the weakness in your claim. You are avoiding my question.
Thermite requires a very high activation temperature, the fires inside the debris pile would be insufficient to ignite anything that you assume to be in there. If the fires are of an insufficient temperature to ignite your proposed therm?te, then what leads to its ignition to ultimately connecting it as a cause for molten metal?

If they had an activation source how did such sources remain functioning after experiencing a building collapse?


Rather important detail that conflicts with your claim...

Once again this still assumes the massive logistical difficulties of getting it inside the buildings could have even been cleared.
 
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Connecting the molten metal found post-collapse to thermite requires that the thermite was able to not only ignite under the given conditions, but be able to survive for several weeks, and sustain a reaction for an extended period of time.
Reverse logic again. How the metal stayed molten for weeks is debatable.
How it got that hot in the first place is what we are discussing now.

You are the one who states the only explanation for this is thermite.
Do you have another explanation?

Given that very little of anything survived the collapses in any coherent form the same conditions would have been applied to thermite.
That has nothing to do with what melted the metal.

As for Mark Louzeaux, I am assuming you're talking about the controlled demolition's inc manager correct?
Correct
American Free Press asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. "Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon.

Mark Loizeaux later qualified and extended his statement. He did not refute anything in his first statement.

Mr. Bryan:

I didn't personally see molten steel at the World Trade Center site. It was reported to me by contractors we had been working with. Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

Sorry I cannot provide personal confirmation.

Regards,
Mark Loizeaux, President
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, INC.
2737 Merryman's Mill Road
Phoenix, Maryland USA 21131
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=30926

'And others': You mean fire fighters describing rivers of molten steal?
Abolhassan Astaneh is a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and was one of the leading structural engineers who studied the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Describing the Oakland freeway overpass collapse he said:
ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH: Here, it most likely reached about 1,000 to 1,500 degrees. And that is enough to collapse them, so they collapsed. So the word "melting" should not be used for girders, because there was no melting of girders. I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june07/overpass_05-10.html


Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center. (source)

[FONT=&quot]
Joe Allbaugh, the Director of FEMA, was interviewed by Bryant Gumbel of CBS news on October 10 2001:
GUMBEL: We’re seeing a lot of video of smoke pouring up from the debris.
ALLBAUGH: Correct.
GUMBEL: And we’re hearing there are places where temperatures are still approaching and sometimes exceeding a thousand degrees.
ALLBAUGH: That’s right.
GUMBEL: Why? Why do we have these hot spots? What’s going on?
ALLBAUGH: Well, you have normal debris, you know, computers, paper, you have some areas that are hot pockets because of fuel. It’s just too hot for rescuers to get into those areas. So we do not know yet what’s in those areas, other than very hot, molten material. (source_FEMA.gov)

Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for World Trade Centers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and all subgrade levels, stated "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running." (source_SEAU.org)

"I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center." said the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel. (source) (audio)

"I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat." said Chaplain Herb Trimpe (source) (audio)

A NY firefighter described steel flowing at ground zero. "You'd get down below and you'd see molten steel — molten steel! — running down the channel rails. Like you're in a foundry... like lava... from a volcano. (source) (source) (hi-res_source)

A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." (source) (cached_copy)

The owner of Controlled Demolition Inc., Mark Loizeaux stated the molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,”. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. (source)

Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. -Sarah Atlas of New Jersey’s Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue (source_upenn.edu)

"Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel." (source_jhsph.edu)

A veteran of disasters from the Mississippi floods Mt. St. Helens, Burger said it reminded him most of the volcano, if he forgot he was in downtown Manhattan. “Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster,” he said. Additionally he stated "Shards of steel lay upon shards of steel, shifting and unstable, uncovering red hot metal beams excavated from deep beneath layers of sub-floors, exposing further dark crevasses." (source_neha.org)

"They showed us many fascinating slides" he continued, "ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster." -Dr Keith Eaton (source_istructe.org.uk)

"Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots." -Guy Lounsbury of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing (source)

A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains...." (source)

"the ominous groaning of weakened structures overhead, or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole." -William Langewiesche (source_p32) (cached_copy)

He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life. -Lee Turner of The Boone County Firefighters (source)

“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel,” Fuchek said. (source)

As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel." (source)

...numerous fires were still burning and smoldering. Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6. (source_9-11commission.gov) (2) (3)

Richard Garlock, a structural engineer for LERA said "Going below, it was smoky and really hot... The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running." (source)

Vance Deisingnore, OSHA Officer at WTC, reported the following to Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, on September 11, 2002 "a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel." (source)

Father Edward A. Malloy, on site 40 days after the disaster stated "Firefighters atop a number of ladder trucks were spraying in the areas of greatest smoke. The average temperature beneath the rubble is said to be 1500F so that when steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down." (source_nd.edu)

Ed Pfister, a veteran of three hurricanes and two flood relief efforts, and a member of the elite Disaster Medical Assistance Team, wrote in his diary "deep below ground a portion of the pile was still on fire and boiled with molten material. Sometimes, open flame would erupt as a crane pulled debris out and air rushed in. Fire hoses constantly poured streams of water causing huge billowing steam clouds to rise up over the site into the huge lights above." (source_NIH.gov)

Guy Lounsbury with the 109th Air Wing of the New York Air National Guard wrote "The men who work on this must constantly change their boots as the heat melts them. Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains." (source)

A group of veteran ironworkers eating lunch while staring at the steel skeleton of a new building going up on West Third Street when one commented on "how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris." (source)

Fire Department Chief Mike Donoho of Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue described the scope of the destruction, "Everything had its own look. In the area surrounding what was the two twin towers, there were several buildings still standing that were burned from top to bottom, and some of them were damaged by the collapse. But the two towers — they were 110-story buildings. And there was nothing that you could put your hands on that resembled anything that would tell you this once was two 110-story office buildings. What you had were large columns of steel that were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals, that had just fused together from the heat and bonded together from the strength of the collapse. We dug and we dug and we dug, and we cut and we cut and we cut, and we did not see anything that resembled any type of furniture, any type of personal belongings. We found some pieces of things like a telephone, things like that. I think we found credit cards a few times, and we found a couple of stuffed animals. But you would expect to see, like, a bunch of desks, a bunch of chairs. The only way I can explain it is, if you take a car and put it in one of those machines where they crush it and make it look like a cube, and you can’t recognize what it is, that’s what the whole area looked like. It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together, like a car that had been cubed and crushed. With all that heavy, heavy stuff, there were wires, rebar, concrete. Most of it was just steel. A lot of what we were walking on was just molten steel. (source)

The workers go through three pairs of rubber boots a day because they melt in the three-week-old fire of molten metal and jet fuel. The health hazards are everywhere: the fire, molten metal, the lack of breathable air and 3000+ decomposing bodies. (source)

[/FONT]
http://nasathermalimages.com/#[[World Trade Center Hot Spots]]

You can rack your brain trying to find reasons to doubt all these reports or you can accept the reality that:

There is absolutely no doubt that there was molten metal under all three buildings.

 
Reverse logic again. How the metal stayed molten for weeks is debatable.
How it got that hot in the first place is what we are discussing now.

Do you have another explanation?

That has nothing to do with what melted the metal.

Correct
American Free Press asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. "Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon.

Mark Loizeaux later qualified and extended his statement. He did not refute anything in his first statement.

Mr. Bryan:

I didn't personally see molten steel at the World Trade Center site. It was reported to me by contractors we had been working with. Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

Sorry I cannot provide personal confirmation.

Regards,
Mark Loizeaux, President
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, INC.
2737 Merryman's Mill Road
Phoenix, Maryland USA 21131
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=30926

Abolhassan Astaneh is a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and was one of the leading structural engineers who studied the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.
Describing the Oakland freeway overpass collapse he said:
ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH: Here, it most likely reached about 1,000 to 1,500 degrees. And that is enough to collapse them, so they collapsed. So the word "melting" should not be used for girders, because there was no melting of girders. I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june07/overpass_05-10.html


Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center. (source)

[FONT=&quot]
Joe Allbaugh, the Director of FEMA, was interviewed by Bryant Gumbel of CBS news on October 10 2001:
GUMBEL: We’re seeing a lot of video of smoke pouring up from the debris.
ALLBAUGH: Correct.
GUMBEL: And we’re hearing there are places where temperatures are still approaching and sometimes exceeding a thousand degrees.
ALLBAUGH: That’s right.
GUMBEL: Why? Why do we have these hot spots? What’s going on?
ALLBAUGH: Well, you have normal debris, you know, computers, paper, you have some areas that are hot pockets because of fuel. It’s just too hot for rescuers to get into those areas. So we do not know yet what’s in those areas, other than very hot, molten material. (source_FEMA.gov)

Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for World Trade Centers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and all subgrade levels, stated "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running." (source_SEAU.org)

"I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center." said the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel. (source) (audio)

"I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat." said Chaplain Herb Trimpe (source) (audio)

A NY firefighter described steel flowing at ground zero. "You'd get down below and you'd see molten steel — molten steel! — running down the channel rails. Like you're in a foundry... like lava... from a volcano. (source) (source) (hi-res_source)

A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." (source) (cached_copy)

The owner of Controlled Demolition Inc., Mark Loizeaux stated the molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,”. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. (source)

Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. -Sarah Atlas of New Jersey’s Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue (source_upenn.edu)

"Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel." (source_jhsph.edu)

A veteran of disasters from the Mississippi floods Mt. St. Helens, Burger said it reminded him most of the volcano, if he forgot he was in downtown Manhattan. “Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster,” he said. Additionally he stated "Shards of steel lay upon shards of steel, shifting and unstable, uncovering red hot metal beams excavated from deep beneath layers of sub-floors, exposing further dark crevasses." (source_neha.org)

"They showed us many fascinating slides" he continued, "ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster." -Dr Keith Eaton (source_istructe.org.uk)

"Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots." -Guy Lounsbury of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing (source)

A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains...." (source)

"the ominous groaning of weakened structures overhead, or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole." -William Langewiesche (source_p32) (cached_copy)

He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life. -Lee Turner of The Boone County Firefighters (source)

“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel,” Fuchek said. (source)

As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel." (source)

...numerous fires were still burning and smoldering. Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6. (source_9-11commission.gov) (2) (3)

Richard Garlock, a structural engineer for LERA said "Going below, it was smoky and really hot... The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running." (source)

Vance Deisingnore, OSHA Officer at WTC, reported the following to Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, on September 11, 2002 "a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel." (source)

Father Edward A. Malloy, on site 40 days after the disaster stated "Firefighters atop a number of ladder trucks were spraying in the areas of greatest smoke. The average temperature beneath the rubble is said to be 1500F so that when steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down." (source_nd.edu)

Ed Pfister, a veteran of three hurricanes and two flood relief efforts, and a member of the elite Disaster Medical Assistance Team, wrote in his diary "deep below ground a portion of the pile was still on fire and boiled with molten material. Sometimes, open flame would erupt as a crane pulled debris out and air rushed in. Fire hoses constantly poured streams of water causing huge billowing steam clouds to rise up over the site into the huge lights above." (source_NIH.gov)

Guy Lounsbury with the 109th Air Wing of the New York Air National Guard wrote "The men who work on this must constantly change their boots as the heat melts them. Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains." (source)

A group of veteran ironworkers eating lunch while staring at the steel skeleton of a new building going up on West Third Street when one commented on "how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris." (source)

Fire Department Chief Mike Donoho of Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue described the scope of the destruction, "Everything had its own look. In the area surrounding what was the two twin towers, there were several buildings still standing that were burned from top to bottom, and some of them were damaged by the collapse. But the two towers — they were 110-story buildings. And there was nothing that you could put your hands on that resembled anything that would tell you this once was two 110-story office buildings. What you had were large columns of steel that were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals, that had just fused together from the heat and bonded together from the strength of the collapse. We dug and we dug and we dug, and we cut and we cut and we cut, and we did not see anything that resembled any type of furniture, any type of personal belongings. We found some pieces of things like a telephone, things like that. I think we found credit cards a few times, and we found a couple of stuffed animals. But you would expect to see, like, a bunch of desks, a bunch of chairs. The only way I can explain it is, if you take a car and put it in one of those machines where they crush it and make it look like a cube, and you can’t recognize what it is, that’s what the whole area looked like. It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together, like a car that had been cubed and crushed. With all that heavy, heavy stuff, there were wires, rebar, concrete. Most of it was just steel. A lot of what we were walking on was just molten steel. (source)

The workers go through three pairs of rubber boots a day because they melt in the three-week-old fire of molten metal and jet fuel. The health hazards are everywhere: the fire, molten metal, the lack of breathable air and 3000+ decomposing bodies. (source)

[/FONT]
http://nasathermalimages.com/#[[World Trade Center Hot Spots]]

You can rack your brain trying to find reasons to doubt all these reports or you can accept the reality that:

There is absolutely no doubt that there was molten metal under all three buildings.


Correct. Good Job.
 
I'll address the lighter parts of your post first and then respond to the testimony...

Reverse logic again. How the metal stayed molten for weeks is debatable.

How it got that hot in the first place is what we are discussing now.
You stated that the only explanation is for it to have been made by thermite. You need to establish that any such thermite would be capable of function in the first place. I'm asking this for a reason. Metal will not stay in a molten state if the heat source sufficient is unavailable.


Do you have another explanation?
Corrosion reactions ranging from combustion, chemical reactions, all of which generate heat as an out put. Portions of the debris pile were already hot from the initial fires that were once in the upper floors.
Quite numerous causes possible, but beyond my field of knowledge. You want a better explanation ask someone who knows more about oxidation reactions than I do.

I am only working on establishing whether your claims of thermite are viable.

That has nothing to do with what melted the metal.
Your conclusion ultimately leads to thermite. For the cause to be thermite requires that it cleared such conditions. Simple as that.



To be continued....................
 
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You haven't the faintest idea of the temperature of the "glob" in the crab claw or the fires in the debris.
You missed this:
[FONT=&quot]Molten metals glow orange to yellow at roughly 900-1100°C.
They glow white at about 1200°C.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]The molten metal is most likely steel.
However, it does not matter.
Planck’s Radiation Law
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Planck’s Law gives the spectral radiance of electromagnetic radiation of a black body. This is a function of frequency (or, equivalently, wavelength) and temperature. This law embodies the concept that the radiated spectrum as a function of frequency at a given temperature is the same shape for all radiating materials. The only factor affecting the radiated spectrum that depends on the nature of the material is emissivity, a constant, independent of frequency.
[/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/MoltenWhat2.pdf[/FONT][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
colortempchartyq6.png


[/FONT]
clawph1.jpg


Your ignorance of the properties and uses of thermite hardly qualifies you to speculate on the causes of the molten metal. Again, demolition professionals dismiss your fabrications as uninformed rubbish.
Thermite burns at about 2500[FONT=&quot]°[/FONT]C [4500[FONT=&quot]°[/FONT]F] and can melt steel.
That is a fact, not a fabrication.

Thermite is a possible cause of the molten metal.

There are NO other possible causes.
 
I'm confused. How can you be arguing that material was pulled out of the fire at 1200C and at the same time say that the fire it was pulled from was no where near 1200C?
The fires could not and did not melt the metal.
Thermite burns at 2500°C.
Smoldering fires burn at about 500-600°C*.
Steel melts at 1400-1500°C.
The glob in the crab claw is 900-1200°C.

*http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=3699111#post3699111


Thermite is one possible explanation for the molten metal.

Do you know of another
explanation?
 
Correct
<snip for brevity>

Mark Loizeaux later qualified and extended his statement. He did not refute anything in his first statement.

Mr. Bryan:

I didn't personally see molten steel at the World Trade Center site. It was reported to me by contractors we had been working with. Molten steel was encountered primarily during excavation of debris around the South Tower when large hydraulic excavators were digging trenches 2 to 4 meters deep into the compacted/burning debris pile. There are both video tape and still photos of the molten steel being "dipped" out by the the buckets of excavators. I'm not sure where you can get a copy.

Sorry I cannot provide personal confirmation.

Regards,
Mark Loizeaux, President
CONTROLLED DEMOLITION, INC.
2737 Merryman's Mill Road
Phoenix, Maryland USA 21131
http://www.libertypost.org/cgi-bin/readart.cgi?ArtNum=30926

His later statement is less specific than you implied:
The existence of molten metal is confirmed by Mark Loizeaux and many others.
At best his confirmation is anecdotal, based on second hand testimony. According to the email he did not see it personally, while interesting it only marginally lends to your claim.


Abolhassan Astaneh is a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and was one of the leading structural engineers who studied the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

Describing the Oakland freeway overpass collapse he said:
ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH: Here, it most likely reached about 1,000 to 1,500 degrees. And that is enough to collapse them, so they collapsed. So the word "melting" should not be used for girders, because there was no melting of girders. I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/science/jan-june07/overpass_05-10.html
Marginally interesting, but not very specific on the molten steel claims. More than anything, the article describes that the collapse of the bridge, that is, the failure mode of the steel was similar to that of the trade centers:

The damage closed two heavily traveled freeways and caused commuters to alter their routes. The collapse of the freeways was more than just a local traffic nightmare; it was an object lesson in freeway construction and destruction. And it had many similarities to the obliteration of the World Trade Center.

Abolhassan Astaneh should know. He's a professor of civil engineering at the University of California at Berkeley and was one of the leading structural engineers who studied the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11.

ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH, University of California, Berkeley: In both of them, basically, the fire was the reason why steel got soft and weak and collapsed. In both of them, I feel that we, as engineers, if we had looked at them and learned the lessons, we could really apply these lessons to build safe structures.

and a continuation to the quote you gave me:

SPENCER MICHELS: But they got soft, though, didn't they?

ABOLHASSAN ASTANEH: Yes. When steel gets to 1,000 degrees, it loses its strength.


SPENCER MICHELS: Astaneh spent a lot of time attempting to make sure Caltrans didn't recycle the damaged steel, clues to the collapse.

CALTRANS EMPLOYEE: They've been cut; a lot of them have been cut.

CALTRANS EMPLOYEE: Yes, 40 foot. We cut them about in hal
Could the similarities between the tower mean that the bridge is yet another conspiracy!? Wow...

In all, he doesn't seem to have the same sentiment on the issue as you do.



Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., told AFP that he saw pools of “literally molten steel” at the World Trade Center. (source)
Are there any non-conspiracy sources which corroborate this? The only sources I've found statements like this one is AFP, I try to find multiple sources, political, CT, and in between before making a decision. You should do some research on some of the sources you use before you decide on their credibility: AMP


Added comments in red
[FONT=&quot]
Joe Allbaugh, the Director of FEMA, was interviewed by Bryant Gumbel of CBS news on October 10 2001:
GUMBEL: We’re seeing a lot of video of smoke pouring up from the debris.
ALLBAUGH: Correct.
GUMBEL: And we’re hearing there are places where temperatures are still approaching and sometimes exceeding a thousand degrees.

Fahrenheit or celsius? This is not specified. If this were 1000 oC the maximun temperature would equate to 1800 oF, in in celsius, then roughly ~510-520 oF. Neither unit of measure is hot enough to make molten steel

ALLBAUGH: That’s right.
GUMBEL: Why? Why do we have these hot spots? What’s going on?
ALLBAUGH: Well, you have normal debris, you know, computers, paper, you have some areas that are hot pockets because of fuel. It’s just too hot for rescuers to get into those areas. So we do not know yet what’s in those areas, other than very hot, molten material. (source_FEMA.gov)


The quote you posted here says nothing about molten metal. To be more specific it does not specify whether it is referring to molten steel molten plastic, molten lead... the term used is ambiguous, and doesn't really add to your claim.


Leslie Robertson, the structural engineer responsible for World Trade Centers 1, 2, 4, 5, 6 and all subgrade levels, stated "As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and molten steel was still running." (source_SEAU.org)
Not much to criticize here other than it's not specific. The claims' there, but doesn't specify a location or details surrounding it. Simply mentions molten steel. While interesting it only marginally adds to your argument.


"I saw melting of girders in World Trade Center." said the first structural engineer given access to the WTC steel. (source) (audio)
This is largely a repeat of another quote addressed earlier...


"I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat." said Chaplain Herb Trimpe (source) (audio)
Quote in full:

The fires burned, up to 2,000 degrees, underground for quite a while before they actually got down to those areas and they cooled off.

I talked to many contractors and they said they actually saw molten metal trapped, beams had just totally had been melted because of the heat. So this was the kind of heat that was going on when those airplanes hit the upper floors. It was just demolishing heat.

Another account which isn't terribly specific, and reliant on second hand testimony. Marginally interesting, but non-specific, and doesn't imply a conclusion to the degree which you have made.

I'm still listening to the RM file linked...

A NY firefighter described steel flowing at ground zero. "You'd get down below and you'd see molten steel — molten steel! — running down the channel rails. Like you're in a foundry... like lava... from a volcano. (source)

(source)
Link doesn't work

(hi-res_source)
Link doesn't work

Saw the video so I know the claim is there... but the other links don't work...

A reporter with rare access to the debris at ground zero "descended deep below street level to areas where underground fires still burned and steel flowed in molten streams." (source)

(cached_copy)
Link doesn't work


The owner of Controlled Demolition Inc., Mark Loizeaux stated the molten steel was found “three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,”. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon. (source)
Repeat quote... source cited is American Free Press


Fires burned and molten steel flowed in the pile of ruins still settling beneath her feet. -Sarah Atlas of New Jersey’s Task Force One Urban Search and Rescue (source_upenn.edu)

Again, only marginally supportive, as like many of the sources thus far it's unspecific about the details... The claim is there, but otherwise little information following up on it.


"Fires are still actively burning and the smoke is very intense," reports Alison Geyh, PhD. "In some pockets now being uncovered, they are finding molten steel." (source_jhsph.edu)
-----------------------------

A veteran of disasters from the Mississippi floods Mt. St. Helens, Burger said it reminded him most of the volcano, if he forgot he was in downtown Manhattan. “Feeling the heat, seeing the molten steel, the layers upon layers of ash, like lava, it reminded me of Mt. St. Helen’s and the thousands who fled that disaster,” he said. Additionally he stated "Shards of steel lay upon shards of steel, shifting and unstable, uncovering red hot metal beams excavated from deep beneath layers of sub-floors, exposing further dark crevasses." (source_neha.org)
Context of the molten steel claim seems more analogous than literal.... 'red hot' certainly does not indicate molten in the other portion of the quote...


"They showed us many fascinating slides" he continued, "ranging from molten metal which was still red hot weeks after the event, to 4-inch thick steel plates sheared and bent in the disaster." -Dr Keith Eaton (source_istructe.org.uk)

Red hot indicates a temperature of no greater than 600 oC. Now I know this one isn't a literal interpretation....


"Smoke constantly poured from the peaks. One fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers' remains. Firemen sprayed water to cool the debris down but the heat remained intense enough at the surface to melt their boots." -Guy Lounsbury of New York Air National Guard's 109th Air Wing (source)


A NY Department of Sanitation spokeswoman said "for about two and a half months after the attacks, in addition to its regular duties, NYDS played a major role in debris removal - everything from molten steel beams to human remains...." (source)

....... will be addressed in general comment


"the ominous groaning of weakened structures overhead, or, in the early days, the streams of molten metal that leaked from the hot cores and flowed down broken walls inside the foundation hole." -William Langewiesche (source_p32) (cached_copy)
Marginally interesting, but molten 'metal' is ambiguous, and can be interpreted in any number of materials from aluminum, to lead, ect... this doesn't corroborate your claim of steel...


He remembers seeing in the darkness a distant, pinkish glow–molten metal dripping from a beam–but found no signs of life. -Lee Turner of The Boone County Firefighters (source)

pinkish glow indicates a temperature well below 600 oC, which would be far too 'cold' to be liquid steel. I am beginning to wonder how ambiguosly the term 'molten' has been used by multiple parties during the eye witness account....

“In the first few weeks, sometimes when a worker would pull a steel beam from the wreckage, the end of the beam would be dripping molten steel,” Fuchek said. (source)
If the beam is 'dripping' with liquid steel then the host beam must be in thermal equilibrium with the liquid portion. In other words, by pulling it out the beam would be heavily distorted or pulled apart like soft putty....

The only thing that is clear from his testimony is that he was in the area and not working to recover the steel, it's not clear if he has any expertise in metalurgy.


As late as five months after the attacks, in February 2002, firefighter Joe O'Toole saw a steel beam being lifted from deep underground at Ground Zero, which, he says, "was dripping from the molten steel." (source)
Same as above:
If the beam is 'dripping' with liquid steel then the host beam must be in thermal equilibrium with the liquid portion. In other words, by pulling it out the beam would be heavily distorted or pulled apart like soft putty....


...numerous fires were still burning and smoldering. Underground it was still so hot that molten metal dripped down the sides of the wall from Building 6. (source_9-11commission.gov) (2) (3)
marginally interesting but not supportive of your claim. The term 'metal' in this context is ambiguous. Is it steel? Is it aluminum? Is it lead? etc?


Richard Garlock, a structural engineer for LERA said "Going below, it was smoky and really hot... The debris past the columns was red-hot, molten, running." (source)
Red hot indicates a temperature at or below 600 oC. The metal would not be 'molten' at this temperature as this is well below steels' melting point.



Vance Deisingnore, OSHA Officer at WTC, reported the following to Jim McKay, Post-Gazette Staff Writer, on September 11, 2002 "a fire truck 10 feet below the ground that was still burning two weeks after the Tower collapsed, its metal so hot that it looked like a vat of molten steel." (source)
I didn't realize analogies could be taken so literally...


Father Edward A. Malloy, on site 40 days after the disaster stated "Firefighters atop a number of ladder trucks were spraying in the areas of greatest smoke. The average temperature beneath the rubble is said to be 1500F so that when steel is brought up it is molten and takes two or three days to cool down." (source_nd.edu)

1500 oF is well below the melting point of steel. I'm wondering once again if the term is being used ambiguously by the witnesses. This is the 2nd instance where this seems to prove itself to be the case.


Ed Pfister, a veteran of three hurricanes and two flood relief efforts, and a member of the elite Disaster Medical Assistance Team, wrote in his diary "deep below ground a portion of the pile was still on fire and boiled with molten material. Sometimes, open flame would erupt as a crane pulled debris out and air rushed in. Fire hoses constantly poured streams of water causing huge billowing steam clouds to rise up over the site into the huge lights above." (source_NIH.gov)

Molten material is an ambiguous term, which can mean metal, plastic, or something else. While interesting, it doesn't add to your claim.


Guy Lounsbury with the 109th Air Wing of the New York Air National Guard wrote "The men who work on this must constantly change their boots as the heat melts them. Two weeks after the attack, one fireman told us that there was still molten steel at the heart of the towers’ remains." (source)

Covered at end comment


A group of veteran ironworkers eating lunch while staring at the steel skeleton of a new building going up on West Third Street when one commented on "how much easier it was to eat a sandwich in front of steel that was strong and straight and new, not molten and mangled and laden with debris." (source)
'molten' in this quote appears to be used in the context of an analogy, again... not specific, and leads me to ask if the term 'molten' has been used ambiguously throughout witness accounts.


Fire Department Chief Mike Donoho of Texas Task Force 1 Urban Search and Rescue described the scope of the destruction, "Everything had its own look. In the area surrounding what was the two twin towers, there were several buildings still standing that were burned from top to bottom, and some of them were damaged by the collapse. But the two towers — they were 110-story buildings. And there was nothing that you could put your hands on that resembled anything that would tell you this once was two 110-story office buildings. What you had were large columns of steel that were just stuck into massive amounts of molten steel and other metals, that had just fused together from the heat and bonded together from the strength of the collapse. We dug and we dug and we dug, and we cut and we cut and we cut, and we did not see anything that resembled any type of furniture, any type of personal belongings. We found some pieces of things like a telephone, things like that. I think we found credit cards a few times, and we found a couple of stuffed animals. But you would expect to see, like, a bunch of desks, a bunch of chairs. The only way I can explain it is, if you take a car and put it in one of those machines where they crush it and make it look like a cube, and you can’t recognize what it is, that’s what the whole area looked like. It looked like a massive, molten mess that had been fused together, like a car that had been cubed and crushed. With all that heavy, heavy stuff, there were wires, rebar, concrete. Most of it was just steel. A lot of what we were walking on was just molten steel. (source)

The end of this quote peeks my interest, if the steel is molten and 2000+ oF I'm not so sure I'd be walking ON the molten steel.... At least not if I wanted to keep my legs, or even my life... Again context of the terms seems to be ambiguous.....

The workers go through three pairs of rubber boots a day because they melt in the three-week-old fire of molten metal and jet fuel. The health hazards are everywhere: the fire, molten metal, the lack of breathable air and 3000+ decomposing bodies. (source)
Again... the context suggests that they were walking on top of this debris pile melting their boots... If this metal is a 2000 oF inferno, would you be walking on it?

You can rack your brain trying to find reasons to doubt all these reports or you can accept the reality that:

I don't doubt all of them... nothing I can do about firefighters who claim to have seen rivers of molten steel... debunking the claims wasn't really what I had in mind, but many of your witness accounts are either non-specific (mentioning molten steel once in the entire article and not commenting further), or using the term molten is a very vague context. On top of that, many of your sources have forced me to question if some of the witness definitions of 'molten' are the same interpretations as the definition you or me place on it.

Statistics of the quotes
  • Claims w/no added commentary: 4
  • Based on second hand witnesses: 2
  • Claims involving analogies/similes/ambiguous term use: 9
  • Quotes taken from AFP: 2
  • Quotes which do not indicate liquid steel based on thermal color: 4

But you've yet to prove that any genuine claims are a result of thermite reactions.... and while some testimony is interesting, there have been no visual renditions shown to further corroborate the motel steel claim presented thus far.
 
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