An alternative theory to the destruction of the buildings is necessary because of the utter failure of NIST to explain them. As just one example for Building 7, thermal expansion is not a plausible explanation for the collapse of WTC 7, for numerous reasons, beginning with the fact that free-fall acceleration means that all of the building’s potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns, as required by the fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis. There is also the fact that NIST’s own analysis of the photographic and video evidence of fires showed that the fires in the northeast on the 12th floor had already burnt out long before the collapse, which is also fatal to its hypothesis; it dealt with this by ignoring its own evidence and inputting fraudulent data into its computer fire simulations. There is also the fact that even if there had been fires in that area, they could not have produced the hypothesized failure. It’s claim of no shear studs on the key girder is contradicted by its own interim report and design drawings (Salvarinas 1986). Even assuming the requisite high temperatures, no shear studs, no differential between the steel beams and the concrete slabs, no thermal gradient within the beams, no bowing, etc., the beams could not have expanded enough to have caused the key girder to have come off its seat (in addition, it was constrained by the flange of key Column 79). The fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis fails at every point, and cannot account for free-fall, the eutectic steel sample recovered from WTC 7, the molten steel witnessed in the rubble, or the nano-thermite and iron-rich microspheres found in the dust. The fire-induced progressive collapse hypothesis is no longer is no longer a plausible hypothesis, and a real investigation is required to look at the only existing alternative.