Rebuttal Part Six draft: Iron microspheres, molten steel
Hi gang,
I worked extra hard on this one. I'm proud to say that because of my connections on multiple 911 threads (not just this one), after asking around I managed to find a "new" FDNY firefighter. I don't believe he has talked publicly about his experiences, but his firsthand on the ground knowledge is priceless. I want to thank the anonymous people who helped get me in touch with him. He has agreed to sign his name to his statements, but I am not releasing his name just yet. But you will see that his experience is very much in line with what we all already know from other things we've heard.
VI. Pulverize concrete & metal decking;
Eyewitness Accounts; Molten Iron/Steel
THREE REASONS SLIDE move this
Face: We’re now in part six of my respectful rebuttal of Richard Gage’s Blueprint for Truth. I have so far offered up 100000000000 reasons why the collapse of the Twin Towers is almost certainly a natural outcome of the plane crashes and the ensuing fires. Now we’ll look at Richard’s claims around the pulverization of the concrete and metal decking, eyewitness reports of explosions, and his allegations of molten metal in the debris. In our March 6, 2011 debate, Richard said, “We see a 2-story pile of debris. How many floors are found? None. What we see are core columns and perimeter columns. No concrete.” Let’s see if these three claims are true as we go along: remember, 2 stories of debris, no pancaked floors, and no concrete in the debris.
The view of thick dust clouds blanketing lower Manhattan are horrifying.
SLIDE OF DUST CLOUD
When the Twin Towers collapsed, 220 acres of gypsum, concrete and even some metal decking were ground into dust. Richard says, “It takes an incredible amount of heat to create these clouds,” that a simple collapse of these buildings would not have the energy to pulverize so much building into dust. If he is right, then his claim of controlled demolition providing that energy deserves a serious look.
Richard and the 911 investigators he cites assume that the concrete would have had to be pulverized immediately upon impact, but it is much more likely that for the first several floors, most of the dust that was ejected was from the gypsum wallboard. The concrete kept getting smashed, ground up and only gradually pulverized, and was ejected further down once it was finally crushed into fine dust by the shredded pieces of steel in the violently churning collapse zone. The three or four inch layers of concrete were no match for the tremendous gravitational energy of the collapsing buildings. Finally, even some of the steel itself became pulverized.
SLIDE REASONS: #34: Every physicist and engineer I have read or talked to except 911 activists like Gordon Ross and Jim Hoffman insist there was plenty of energy to gradually pulverize three-to-four-inch layers of concrete (show 3 inches with fingers).
Richard Gage asserts that "The available gravitational potential in the whole building is about 110,000 kilowatt hours. That's the weight of the building times its height above the ground. But the expansion of that cloud has been calculated to require ten times that energy in heat, which produces the expansion. The energy doesn't add up [for the collapse plus pulverization and ejection] ."
Is this true? The gravitational potential of one of the twin towers was indeed around 110,000 kilowatt hours, equivalent to the explosive energy of 98 tonnes of TNT. A small W-48 nuclear weapon is 72 tons, W-51 nuclear weapons are 22 tons, and Mk-54 nukes are only 10-20 tons.
Richard Gage’s dust calculations come from a 2004 paper by Jim Hoffman, in which Hoffman calculated the energy required for the dust cloud produced in the collapse to expand to the size it attained shortly after the collapse. Hoffman makes the false assumption that the initial expansion of the dust cloud cannot have been due to the dust mixing with the surrounding atmosphere.
Therefore, the initial expansion of the dust cloud must have been due to either (a) thermal expansion of the air from energy provided by the collapse, or (b) expansion of the cloud by steam from some unspecified source of water, boiled by energy provided by the collapse.
Since the dust cloud shortly after collapse occupied 3.4 times the volume of the tower, he claims the expansion of the dust cloud required in excess of a million kilowatt hours, and that this energy was not available from the collapse; it must therefore have come from explosives or incendiaries.
If the dust cloud expanded thermally by 3.4 times, it would have been over 1300 degrees, roasting anyone in it to death. If the expansion were due to steam, this requires over two million litres of water to have been boiled off during the collapse. In 2004 Hoffman said he was working on a revised version of the paper to address these problems, but as of 2011 he has not produced it.
The third problem, though, is that the amount of explosives required is about 1,000 tons of thermite. A blast that big wouldn't have made the tops fall; they'd have gone way way up.
REASON #35: If explosives were necessary to pulverize almost ALL the concrete, we would need explosives covering every inch of the building. Why would they do that?
REASON #36: Right after the collapse, rescue crews walked on cool surfaces. 4000o nanothermites on the top and on every two or three floors are inconsistent with this fact.
CONCRETE PICTURE: Richard Gage has a completely different take on the concrete. In our debate as well as in Blueprint for Truth he asserts that “There’s hardly any macroscopic pieces of concrete,” but this picture shows the debris pile was covered with concrete, originally from lower floors which didn’t have time in the collapse to be fully pulverized. The sandy surface is also concrete, ground into larger particles but not yet pulverized into dust because they came from lower floors.
Richard goes on to assert that the pulverizing nanothermitic destruction of the towers was so complete that there are no pancaked floors to be found anywhere: “What about those floors, those pancakes. If this was a pancake collapse, we’re looking for some pancakes down below. How many floors do we find at the bottom? Not 50, not 10, not even 1.”
PICTURE OF PANCAKED FLOORS Well, actually, here is a firefighter’s photo of 20 pancaked stories from an FDNY website, corroborated by several first responders:
"My gang cut away a section of a wall. We counted 14 floors compressed into eight feet." -Ironworker Terry Strobel, PBS, America Rebuilds
"Two weeks after 9/11, engineers Pablo Lopez and Andrew Pontecorvo are walking in the B2 basement level at the ruins... They discover a "solid, rocklike mass where the basement levels of the tower had been," and see "the recognizable traces of twenty floors, very much like geologic strata revealed by a road cut, compressed into a ten-foot vertical span. Nothing between the decks was recognizable except as a rocky, rusty mishmash. -by James Glanz and Eric Lipton, "102 Minutes."
GAGE SLIDE And I’m not sure, but I wonder if this picture on the lower right from Richard Gage’s video is actually another example of pancaked floor layers. Richard’s assertion that the floors were blown apart in every direction by explosive nanothermites instead of pancaked down in a natural collapse is flatly contradicted by photos and eyewitness testimony.
REASON #37: PYROCLASTIC SLIDE Now let’s talk more about those 4500 degree explosives. They would do a lot more than just blow the floors apart in every direction. If there were tons of superhot nanothermites, then it would have created pyroclastic dust flows of 1400o like the 2009 Indonesian volcano.
PYRO VIDEO Scalding dust killed people or burned their lungs, and thousands of them desperately needed ventilators. This may look like the density flow of 911, but at night you see this dust is red hot. Is there even such a thing as 4000o dust?
VIDEO OF PEOPLE RUNNING FROM DUST. Why did the people who were covered in fresh dust and debris not have third degree burns all over their bodies and scalded lungs? That never happened on 911.
SLIDE OF DUSTED GUYS I have hypothesized that the 911 dust would have been warm: maybe 20 or 30 degrees warmer because a few floors were very hot and the rest of the building dust was cool. Our March 6 debate moderator, Tom Kiely from Rule of Law Radio, was an eyewitness who got too close to the collapsing buildings, and he told me that when the dust engulfed him it was indeed warm but not scalding. Even these guys, who were closer in than Tom, had a horrible dusting but came out without burns or scalded lungs.
Reason # SLIDE If the steel was torn apart by nanothermites, then why are the flying beams all gray-colored? Wouldn’t they be red or even white hot on the edges where a second before they were heated up to over 4000o? Wouldn’t there be thousands of drops of liquid steel flying through the air and coalescing into large size pieces?
Reason # If those clean diagonal cuts on some of the debris left behind in the rubble after the collapse were nanothermitic cuts, then why aren’t these diagonal cuts visible in the pictures of the flying steel beams taken during the collapse?
(PAPER VIDEO) If 4500 degree thermitic explosives were used to pulverize almost every inch of concrete in the buildings, then how can Richard explain the millions of sheets of unburned paper flying from tens of thousands of filing cabinets
(PAPER AT NIGHT) even into the night, when paper burns at 451 degrees and 4500o nanothermites supposedly blasted apart almost 100% of the concrete?
Richard claims 4500-degree nanothermites instantly pulverized the concrete. That would require incredibly high heat globally or it couldn’t explain global collapse. But there were...
SLIDE No people with scalded lungs from the dust.
SLIDE No NASA images of over 1400 degrees in the hot spots in the debris
SLIDE No problems walking on the top of the cool debris even an hour after the collapse.
(SLIDE OF DEEP DIG) No problems digging deep into the debris pile because those rivers of molten metal were small and localized.
No loud or blindingly bright explosions able to hurl large objects hundreds of feet.
Eyewitness accounts of explosions at onset of destruction esp. in basement
Face: Richard Gage also offered several eyewitness accounts of the sounds of explosions at the onset of the destruction, especially in the basement of the Twin Towers.
Slide: More reasons this is not like a controlled demolition:
SLIDE of non-noisineess
SLIDE: The 911 Mysteries video shows an edited interview with Philip Morell where he talks of explosive sounds like bombs, but I went back to the complete original interview. The director cut out the part where he then explained that the explosive sounds were actually from a crashing freight elevator. Lou Cochioli also said he heard sounds LIKE bombs but is disgusted that his quote is exploited in 911 Mysteries.
24. If explosives were used to destroy the towers, then witnesses would have heard 140 db sounds a half mile away, 10 times louder than a rock concert. Thermates are less noisy, but less-noisy hot thermates would not have the explosive force to send large metal objects flying hundreds of feet through the air. And nanothermites are explosive and would be heard.
27. I read 50 randomly selected accounts out of some 118 or so accounts from firefighters of explosions...
ADD SLIDE LINK: Oral Histories of FDNY Firefighters:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/package...s_full_01.html
None were of explosions before the actual collapse. Those few accounts that Richard found concentrate around the core and the basement where small explosions from the jet fuel traveling down the elevator shafts caused several explosions and fireballs. I have been unable to find a single FDNY first responder who believes bombs were places in these buildings.
I also researched the original seismic evidence from the closest readings I could find. The seismograph at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory about 30 miles away showed four seismic events that morning: the two plane crashes and the two collapses. Major explosions are not confirmed by the seismic record. These waves shook the nearby buildings and generated small earthquakes in New York City. It seems that controlled demolition theorists minimize the power of these plane impacts while emphasizing the near-indestructibility of the towers themselves. [This article,
http://911research.wtc7.net/mirrors/guardian/WTC/Seismic/WTC_LDEO_KIM.htm,]
The rare eyewitness accounts of big explosions well before the collapse are not corroborated by seismologists. In real controlled demolitions, everyone hears loud explosions.
Blueprint for Truth shows a video of NYPD member Craig Barther saying “I think I know an explosion when I hear it... I didn’t see any reason for that building to fall down the way it did, and a lot of guys should be saying the same thing.” But the truth is, they are not. Are there any FDNY firefighters who, ten years later, have stated that they believe in controlled demolition?
Most pre-911 First responders couldn’t distinguish the sounds of bombs from the natural explosions that occur in a fire. In post 911 they are getting that training now. Richard Gage himself debated a guy who has to teach firefighters what a bomb sounds like because they don’t know!
Firefighters heard explosions, and firefighters tell us Explosions in office fires are not uncommon.
99 SLIDE OF THIS: Here is a list of a few things that explode in an office fire.
HVAC equipment including condensors and compressors
Cleaning supplies
CRT type TV's and computer monitors.
Large motors that have an oil resourvoir for lube. (Elevator lift motors)
hydraulic pistons found in office chair.
UPS battery backups
Tires in vehicles
Steam explosions when water hits a hot fire or molten aluminum
Propane tanks
A metal fire, possibly aluminum, as NIST proposed
And after the first collapse, an unknown amount of SCOTT pack bottles that the firefighters use.
Etc. etc. etc.
100 SLIDE OF THIS: If the FDNY thought there were BOMBS, they would have evacuated the area.
On 911, the Brooklyn dispatch tells firefighters to stay away from the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel because of a BOMB THREAT.
Why, if anyone from the FDNY thought there were bombs in the towers, did nobody advise the Manhattan dispatch to keep firefighters out of the area?
[Slide: Explosions: Random locations, intensities, effects]
In the meantime, I have a few eyewitness accounts of my own.
25. 72% of eyewitnesses in the North Tower recalled smelling jet fuel in the stairwells.
26. If explosives were going off, then there would be a pattern. Eyewitness accounts of explosions were random: fireballs, mere flashes of light, ground shaking with no other apparent effect.
26: Other random explosions followed the appearance of White smoke, a classic warning sign for an impending fire explosion that kills dozens of firefighters yearly. Yes, there were explosions. I have heard and seen explosions in fires myself. The sounds of explosions often occur in a raging fire and in this case do not show any evidence of being the sounds of bombs going off.
Molten Iron/Steel in debris / molten metal pouring out side of WTC2
Richard Gage claims that molten metal dripping from the side of the tower shortly before the collapse was evidence of 4500 degree nanothermites melting steel. But I have real problems with that assertion.
#40 First, A huge plane catches fire and 1200-degree melted aluminum soup discolored from brunt paper, office furniture, and curtains pours out of the hole. That’s natural. Richard asserts that melted aluminum would have to be bright and silvery but aluminum soup like this would be discolored.
Second, if superheated explosive nanothermites caused this, then they wouldn’t have gone off on this one side only. Why did we see nothing like this on the other tower? Why was this phenomenon so asymmetrical? Is he saying there is no possible connection between the aluminum jet crashing into the building and discolored molten aluminum pouring out an hour later?
In our March 6 debate, Richard asserted that there were “Several tons of molten steel or iron in the debris pile of all three buildings” and I had to explain them, .. . “or the debate is over.”
Richard Gage shows a video of NIST’s John Gross denying the presence of any molten metal in the Twin Towers debris. He was wrong, because the eyewitness accounts are undeniable. However, Richard goes way beyond asserting that there was molten metal in the debris pile. He asserts it had to be molten steel, and uses NASA thermal images and eyewitness accounts as evidence. For example, Leslie Robertson, a structural engineer and designer of the Twin Towers, is quoted as saying “As of 21 days after the attack... molten steel was still running.” When asked about this quote, however, Leslie Robertson briefly explained in an email that “I've no recollection of having made any such statements...nor was I in a position to have the required knowledge.”
James Williams, the reporter who quoted Robertson, showed his original notes from the Robertson address, where he wrote "molten metal - still running." No mention of molten steel in the actual notes. I take this quote with a grain of salt.
REASON (Show Slide NASA THERMAL IMAGES) Gage also uses NASA thermal images, The USGS sets the maximum temperature in the debris at more like 1400o . Richard claims in his video that deeper down it would be two to three times that temperature, but that is pure conjecture not supported by the facts. One fact is that there were many tons of Aluminum from Jets, 1000 Cars in underground Garages each with 286 pounds of aluminum in them, tens of thousands of Alcoa Aluminum Exterior Cladding pieces on all four sides of both buildings, and every aluminum window mullion in both buildings. Aluminum melts at only 1200 degrees, well below the temperatures attained by regular office fires.
http://www.alcoa.com/global/en/envir...aper_final.pdf
(PICTURE OF LOTS OF ALUMINUM DEBRIS) The debris had vast piles of aluminum, and indeed there were also several tons of melted aluminum discolored by debris. In addition to all that aluminum, Bronze, Brass, Magnesium , Zinc and for that matter Glass all melt at below 1400 degrees and could have been in the rivers of Molten metal. The steel beams that were in contact with these rivers of molten metal could well have been dipped in this hot soup, and it is impossible to know what may have been dripping off of them. I have not been able to find any metallurgic tests of this molten material or any evidence of thermite-level temperatures anywhere.
SLIDE OF CLAW LIFTING STEEL
This photo of a claw machine picking up “dripping molten steel” was shown to Alan Pense, professor emeritus of Metallurgical engineering at Lehigh University. He stated: "The photos shown to support melted steel are, to me, either unconvincing...or show materials that appear to be other than steel. One of these photos appears to me to be mostly glass with unmelted steel rods in it. Glass melts at much lower temperatures than steel."
Other people I’ve talked to have said, “It was not molten metal in the claw....not even close. I grew up near a steel mill, you would see shaped members that color all the time stacked, sitting out cooling. At night they were very obvious.”
“The heat would quickly travel up the arm and fail the hydraulic pistons.”
“ I'm a technician for almost 20 years on trucks and heavy equipment. This would absolutely destroy them. I'd hate to see what 2000+ deg hydraulic fluid would do to all the tiny seals in the manifold, the gland and piston packings. If you need a machine to pick things in the molten steel heat range, you would use special attachments. That's a normal grappler. It cannot pick up stuff that is at or beyond its own melting point. All the grease in the moving parts would be gone way before that temperature. I know people who had equipment working at ground zero. There is lots of damage to them, but nothing like you would see from trying to pick up molten steel.”
FACE: An eyewitness can credibly report the existence of molten metal, but no eyewitness can state with certainty that what they are looking at is molten iron or steel. You can't tell what a material is just by looking at its colour. A metallurgist personally told me that even he can’t identify molten metal by looking at it, especially with all the colorful impurities and burning debris mixed into the molten soup.
If it had been rivers of molten steel, all the water the firefighters were pouring on it would have caused incredible damage. Here are three firsthand accounts from people who work AROUND MOLTEN STEEL: “I worked across the street from a foundry that had their roof blown off by a poor mixture of good ol H2O and melted steel.” “Our foundry had a fatality and several burn injuries when a furnace tender added a metal "pig" to the heat that had a small void of water in it. It blew all of the metal out of the furnace. Took one guy over a year to return to work.” “People really don't understand just how dangerous liquid iron/steel really is. The steam explosions would blow molten steel all over creation. Google the expansion rate of water trapped under "molten steel". It's a situation you do not want.”
Richard Gage did find one report from The American Society of Safety Engineers stating that "the debris pile at Ground Zero was always tremendously hot. Thermal measurements taken by helicopter each day showed underground temperatures ranging from 400°F to more than 2,800°F." The "2800 F" reading was reported as coming from a DEA helicopter -- a system that is not calibrated to measure a temperature that high. It’s like weighing an elephant on a bathroom scale SHOW BROKEN SCALE. You need a specialty instrument like AVIRIS. The original article is simply not credible, and its conclusion is refuted by superior data from a combined effort of NASA/JPL, USGS, and the EPA. And that’s exactly what the 911 first responders whose lives depended on accurate temperatures did rely on.
It’s time that I now introduce you to a true 911 hero. As a New York firefighter with specialized safety training, he has the practical expertise to resolve this question. The temperature of the burning debris pile was not a debating point for him. His life and the life of his crew depended upon having the correct answer to this question:
“My name is... and on 9/11 I was the first grade firefighter from Engine 6. My job that day and for the next three months varied from day to day. On the day of September 11th, I was assigned as a nozzleman, and ended working with S&R (search and rescue) and various other duties.
“I spent from 9/11/01 until approximately December 8th at Ground Zero helping extinguish the fires, looking for survivors, removing debris and protecting the safety of my crew.
“The debris pile had hot spots, and every day we used USGS thermal imaging maps to determine the location and intensity of these hot spots. This was enormously helpful information for our firefighting efforts as well as to ensure the safety of my crew. The highest temperatures we ever had to deal with were in the vicinity of 1400 degrees. Had there been temperatures hot enough to melt steel (2800 degrees F or above), we would have been instructed not to go anywhere near it, ever. No such instructions were ever given. It was certainly hot in spots, but reports of firefighters going through three pairs of boots a day are completely false to my knowledge.”
SLIDE OF BENT STEEL WITH BURN MARKS
“I saw many steel girders with burn marks on them, girders bent in the fires, but I never saw evidence of a single melted steel girder among the hundreds of thousands of girders I worked my way through.”
911 a water slide “We firefighters poured incredible amounts of water on the fires. Had there been rivers of molten steel or iron, the thermal expansion of the water hitting 2800 degree liquid iron or steel would have caused major water explosions and loss of life, and we would have had to change our firefighting strategies immediately.”
FACE:
I believe him. Erik Lawyer, a Seattle fireman, has founded Firefighters for 911 Truth, but his group has almost no (very little? 40 firefighters? I’m trying to find out the truth) support from the FDNY first responders who were there.
PHOTO OF DIAGONAL CUTS The demolition experts who were on the ground dealing with the 911 debris don’t support the controlled demolition theory either. Remember, not one of them produced any actual evidence of bombs or thermites. Some of you may have also seen photos of big steel beams in the debris sticking our with clean diagonal cuts in them. You may have been told that those cuts were made by with thermitic demolition, because those diagonal cuts are indeed found in controlled demolitions when they want support columns to literally slide off of themselves. But the people who were there have a very different story. When I first saw this picture I was impressed. I was told that first responders would never have made diagonal cuts because that would have been inefficient! But Demolition Dave explains in this video that he and his crew did indeed make these cuts in the steel beams as part of the debris removal process.
SOUND VIDEO OF DEMO DAVE CUTTING STEEL COLUMNS
SLIDE: The rivers of Molten Metal were not a universal phenomenon, as you can see in this picture. Otherwise how could they have dug so deep? And by the way, this picture is evidence that the debris pile collapsed far into the subbasements and added up to 10 or twelve stories, not the two stories Richard claims.
Richard claims that 4500-degree nanothermites instantly pulverized the concrete and melted the steel. That would require incredibly high heat globally or it couldn’t explain global collapse. But there were...
SLIDE No people with scalded lungs from the dust.
SLIDE No NASA images of over 1400 degrees in the hot spots in the debris
SLIDE No problems walking on the top of the cool debris even an hour after the collapse.
(SLIDE OF DEEP DIG) No problems digging deep into the debris pile because those rivers of molten metal were small and localized. And by the way remember Richard’s claim that the debris pile was only two stories high, This picture shows debris far into the subbasement, making the debris pile more than 10 stories high. For a building that is 95% air, a height reduction of 90% after collapse is to be expected.
No loud or blindingly bright explosions able to hurl large objects hundreds of feet.
I would like to end with another statement from 911 firefighter... He has heard intimations that New York firefighters may be afraid to speak out about what they supposedly believe happened on 911. “If there were members of FDNY who thought there were bombs in those buildings, they would be many many dozens of members standing with [Firefighters for 911 Truth]. That's how we do it. That's who we are. Firefighters stand by each other through thick and thin. We have to trust each other. If we are brave enough to go into a burning building and save the life of a complete stranger, why are we not brave enough to stand up for the murder of 343 of our own family? Are we too cowardly to stand up for our family? They don't call it a brotherhood for nothing.”
So far, we are at 1333333333333333333 reasons favoring the natural collapse theory over controlled demolition... and counting. I brought up 100 of these reasons with Richard Gage in my March 6, 2011 debate. He did not respond to most of them. Instead, Richard made claims that certain observations could be attributed only to Controlled Demolition, and asserted that if I can’t explain them the debate is over. I purposely went along, and tracked down photos and explanations to explain what Richard put out. It was a game of Fetch. I could have debated by just attacking Richard’s position as unprovable but I voluntarily chose to fetch answers for his assertions instead. In this way I hope I can show you that the 911 Mysteries are not as mysterious as they seem to be at first.
In Part Seven I will continue our investigation of Richard’s claims around the Twin Towers by looking at the chemical evidence of controlled demolition. Let’s see if there is any truth to the assertions that controlled demolition can best explain the presence of sulfidized steel or iron-rich microspheres. Then I’ll look at the most compelling argument Richard Gage has: the alleged thermitic residue in the World Trade Center dust. From there we’ll move on to the question of whether Building 7 actually collapsed at faster than free-fall acceleration. That will be the silver bullet for the Controlled Demolition Theory.
Minor detail? Get serious. 
