An open letter to Richard Gage and AE911Truth
Dear Mr. Gage and members of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth,
I am a member of AE911Truth (pending verification) and Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice. I have
also contributed articles to the Journal of 9/11 Studies. While I appreciate the work you and others
are doing to examine the events of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, I am concerned that many arguments
put forth are incorrect. Please don’t mistake me for a NIST apologist or an official cover-up story
believer. The truth movement needs to be very sure of its claims to avoid being dismissed as ignorant
fools, nut-jobs or politically motivated manipulators. Justice is clearly dependent on the truth, the
whole truth and nothing but the truth. Because of the large number of fallacious claims purveyed by
various groups within the movement, my approach has been and will continue to be to examine
claims on both sides of the argument and take them at their own merit. I hope others will embrace
this approach so that the truth movement can live up to its basic values and achieve its well meaning
goals.
There are clearly problems with the official story and these are well covered by truth movement.
However, after spending many 100s of hours examining and discussing evidence, analyses and claims
on both sides of the argument, I have found that a large portion of the truth movement’s claims are
unsubstantiated or incorrect. These need to be corrected. With this in mind, I have looked at the
AE911Truth claims given below and I offer criticism where I feel it can be helpful.
From AE911Truth with my comments interspersed:
”As seen in this revealing photo the Twin Towers' destruction exhibited all the characteristics
of destruction by explosions: (and some non-standard characteristics)
1. Extremely rapid onset of “collapse”
The validity of this claim rests on the definition of “extremely rapid”. NIST provides
evidence of growing instability 10 min prior to collapse including smoke expulsions
from partial floor collapses and bowing of the exterior wall on the south side of WTC1.
2. Sounds of explosions and flashes of light witnessed near the beginning of the "collapse" by
over 100 first responders
Surely, there were explosive sounds and flashes of light as there are too many
witnesses to deny this. Nonetheless, the only videos of the collapses with sound do
not have any explosive sounds. In the following video, one can hear people talking and
the sound of the collapse. In videos of actual demolitions the explosive charges are at
least ten times louder than collapse sounds. Compare:
http://www.911research.com/wtc/evidence/videos/docs/wtc2_south_below.mpg
to these actual demolitions:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79sJ1bMR6VQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XG-l3N1YfQ&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwMkJmnyDuQ
This evidence directly contradicts the controlled demolition theory, at least by conventional
means. Nonetheless, the witness testimonies should be taken seriously. It is possible that
people heard or saw something else, for example, reflections of lights from emergency
vehicles or cars exploding.
3. Squibs, or “mistimed” explosions, 40 floors below the “collapsing” building seen in all the
videos
This argument would only favor controlled demolition if the pressures inside the
building in a gravitational collapse are not sufficient or cannot propagate fast enough
to cause the observed phenomena. To my knowledge, this has not been
demonstrated.
4. Mid-air pulverization of all the 90,000 tons of concrete and steel decking, filing cabinets &
1000 people – mostly to dust
This claim is not correct and in no way favors controlled demolition over gravitational
collapse. Engineers at Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice (STJ911), including Greg
Jenkins, Tony Szamboti and Gregory Urich, have demonstrated that the upper bound
for concrete pulverized to dust was 15%. We have also calculated that the amount of
dust attributable to easily crushed materials like gypsum and SFRM (thermal
insulation) was equivalent to 5 lbs per square foot over an area of 200 acres. We have
also calculated that no extra energy source would be needed to create this amount of
dust. The pressures approached 100,000 psi late in the collapse. How could these
pressures not result in humans and other materials being crushed to dust?
5. Massive volume of expanding pyroclastic dust clouds
Is the cloud really pyroclastic, or is it just dust? Engineers at STJ911 have calculated
that 15% of the concrete together with fireproofing and gypsum would result in
massive volumes amounting to 10 lbs of dust per square foot over an area of 200
acres. Engineers at STJ911 have calculated that the air being expelled from the
collapsing building was approaching velocities of 200 m/s. This is the primary engine
driving the expanding dust clouds. The dust cloud was given even more energy from
debris falling outside the perimeter.
6. Vertical progression of full building perimeter demolition waves
This is only one interpretation of the visual records of the collapses. Another
interpretation is that the pressures due to impacts were blowing out the windows. The
characterization as “demolition waves” has no support in the evidence or scientific
analyses to date.
7. Symmetrical collapse – through the path of greatest resistance – at nearly free-fall speed —
the columns gave no resistance
This is simply incorrect. Neither collapse was symmetrical. In WTC2, most debris falling
outside the footprint went east and south. In WTC1, most debris falling outside the
footprint went north and west. Engineers at STJ911 have calculated that the structure
provided resistance to the extent that 40-60% of the original PE was dissipated prior to
debris impact at the foundation.
8. 1,400 foot diameter field of equally distributed debris – outside of building footprint
This claim in no way favors CD over gravitational collapse. The size of the debris field is
not surprising considering that the exteriors peeled outward (see also #10). The debris
was not equally distributed.
9. Blast waves blew out windows in buildings 400 feet away
The characterization of blast waves is not supported. Since most of the broken
windows were broken lower down on the surrounding buildings, the most likely cause
was winds caused by the expulsion of air from the building as described in #5. The
winds described above would certainly be capable of blowing in windows.
10. Lateral ejection of thousands of individual 20 - 50 ton steel beams up to 500 feet
Close inspection of some of the videos reveal that most exterior columns fell still
connected as the exterior peeled outward. Since the exterior was 1400 ft. high it is not
surprising that they reached 500 ft. away. In fact, there exist photos of the nearly
intact exterior stretching all the way from WTC1 to the World Financial Center.
11. Total destruction of the building down to individual structural steel elements – obliterating
the steel core structure.
It has not been demonstrated that this is uncharacteristic of a gravitational collapse
that initiates high up in a 110 floor, high rise, tube/core structure building. Since the
world has never seen such a collapse prior to or after 9/11, there are no empirical
results to compare to. Often, the collapses are compared to gravitation collapses due
to earthquakes resulting in pan-caking or toppling. These comparisons are not relevant
to the Twin Towers because the initiation of the collapses is low in the building due to
lateral forces. Nonetheless, it has been demonstrated that there was plenty of
potential energy to enable buckling of all columns at every floor. In reality, the core
columns broke mostly at the welded connections every 36 ft, which takes even less
energy.
12. Tons of molten Metal found by FDNY under all 3 high-rises (What could have produced all
of that molten metal?)
Does any evidence for “tons of molten metal” exist? What metals comprise this
molten metal? This author is only aware of witness statements regarding molten
metal and only small pieces of previously molten metal. Can molten metal observed in
the pile weeks after the collapse be attributed to a thermate attack weeks before? The
fires in the pile would not be hot enough to ignite any unburned thermate and any
thermate burning in the pile would give off a characteristic bright white light, which
was not observed. If there is in fact evidence of tons (i.e. more than one ton), this is a
reasonable issue to investigate. Until this claim is supported by evidence, it cannot be
considered indicative of a thermate attack.
13. Chemical signature of Thermate (high tech incendiary) found in slag, solidified molten
metal, and dust samples by Physics professor Steven Jones, PhD.
I believe that this is a valid issue which should be pursued by independent researchers
and NIST alike. However, there may be alternative explanations other than a
preplanned demolition and these should receive at least as much attention.
14. FEMA finds rapid oxidation and inter-granular melting on structural steel samples
I believe that this is a valid issue which should be pursued by independent researchers
and NIST alike. However, there may be alternative explanations other than a
preplanned demolition and these should receive at least as much attention.
15. More than 1000 Bodies are unaccounted for — 700 tiny bone fragments found on top of
nearby buildings”
This does not favor the CD hypothesis over the gravitational collapse hypothesis. See
#4.
And exhibited none of the characteristics of destruction by fire, i.e.
1. Slow onset with large visible deformations.
See #1 above.
2. Asymmetrical collapse which follows the path of least resistance (laws of conservation of
momentum would cause a falling, intact, from the point of plane impact, to the side most damaged
by the fires).
Has any rigorous analysis of the “path of least resistance” been done? An application of the
principle of least action would probably be more appropriate. Mechanical dynamics are
governed by inertia, force, momentum and material properties. This author has seen no
dynamic analyses showing that the top parts of the towers should have fallen off. Unless this
argument is supported by careful analysis it is only conjecture.
3. Evidence of fire temperatures capable of softening steel.
It is well proven that temperatures in building fires can soften steel. This is why buildings
have thermal insulation applied to the steel structural components.
4. High-rise buildings with much larger, hotter, and longer lasting fires have never “collapsed”.
These buildings were not structurally damaged to begin with and had different structural
designs than the Twin Towers. It would be meaningful to examine whether or not the
buildings, which survived serious fires, had concrete cores or not. Does any evidence exist
that buildings with similar structural design, damaged in the manner of the world trade
center, should not collapse due to fires?
My conclusion is that there is no claim favoring the controlled demolition hypothesis over NIST’s
impact/fire/gravitational collapse hypothesis. Most important, there are no tell-tale sharp cracking
sounds in the sound video given above and there is no comparison between the sounds in that video
and the sounds in videos actual demolitions. This means we can rule out demolition using
conventional means.
I hope that your commitment to the truth is such that you take my criticisms seriously. If the truth
movement is going to be successful, we will need to distance ourselves from fallacious claims and
avoid conjecture. I would welcome constructive discussion of these issues in any forum. I am
regularly available on the STJ911 and JREF forums, and you have my e-mail address.
Sincerely,
Gregory Urich
P.S. Some wordings have been changed for clarity and small errors have been corrected in this
published version.
