Question about the squibs in WTC.

[Infoexcavator]

I really like conspiracy theories and theorists, but I have never been convinced that 9/11 was an inside job.

However, there is this one video of the puffs of smoke, which I think most of you have seen, that baffles me. I know the puffs come from air being compressed out, but there in this clip the puff is about 50 floors (I just made up this number) below the collapse and I just can't understand what creates it. It can't be the air pressure when its so far down so what could it be? One thing I have been thinking about is that it could be some sort of an elevator falling and crashing into another but still it seems unlikely it would create a puff like that.


The video, puff is at 00:27. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7cvjBViV7g

What is it? Sorry if this has been covered, but I did not find anything relating to this specific puff of smoke.

[Megalodon]

Given the apparent symmetry in both sides of the building, I would guess smoke and dust being pressurized through a ventilation duct.

ETA: viewing more of the video, there seem to be also ejections, that can be easily attributed to smoke and dust being pressurized through broken windows.

[Dave Rogers]

It can't be the air pressure when its so far down so what could it be?

Why, exactly, couldn't it be the air pressure?

But looking at the video it doesn't even look very much like a puff of smoke, and it appears to persist with very little change for about five seconds. So let's turn the question around: how can this object or phenomenon possibly be the blast from a demolition charge, when its behaviour bears no resemblance to such a thing?

This highlights a classic failure in conspiracist thinking: the belief that evidence which contradicts the conventional understanding of an event necessarily supports the conspiracy theory. In this instance, the conspiracy theory actually gives a poorer explanation of the phenomenon than the conventional understanding.

Dave

[twinstead]

Could the collapse be lower internally than it is externally?

[Bell]

Could the collapse be lower internally than it is externally?

Maybe elevators and machinery falling down the shafts. They would encounter (almost) no resistance, unlike all the floors.

[phunk]

There was millions of cubic feet of air being squeezed out of the collapsing floors, much of it would have flowed down the elevator shafts.

Maybe those lower windows were already broken, maybe they were just the weakest ones and failed first. Maybe those were the floors that had the elevator doors open and that's where the air pressure grew fastest. There are a lot of reasons that those windows could have popped, hard to say which really happened. The only thing I'm fairly certain of, they weren't explosives. Explosives wouldn't pop individual windows out and they wouldn't cause a continuous airflow out those windows.

[GlennB]

Maybe those lower windows were already broken, maybe they were just the weakest ones and failed first. Maybe those were the floors that had the elevator doors open and that's where the air pressure grew fastest. There are a lot of reasons that those windows could have popped, hard to say which really happened.

This would get my vote.

The plane impacts caused massive shocks to the buildings. Any window that was sub-par might be broken at that point, or later by the onset of collapse. Multiply the number of windows by the number of floors. Does it surprise you that a few might have popped ?

[sheeplesnshills]

Could the collapse be lower internally than it is externally?

Not by that much but it would have been a some floors below where the outside shell was falling apart. With the centre core being so open the entire building would have seen huge surges in air pressure as it pancaked down.

[MattTheTubaGuy]

when the tower is collapsing, wouldn't the undestroyed part of the tower be vibrating from all te forces from above?
My thought is that the 'squibs' that are seen are a result of the pressure from the collapse, and the vibrations causing weaker windows to shatter, which once the window is broken, it wouldn't take much pressure to blow the pieces out.

[sheeplesnshills]

when the tower is collapsing, wouldn't the undestroyed part of the tower be vibrating from all te forces from above?
My thought is that the 'squibs' that are seen are a result of the pressure from the collapse, and the vibrations causing weaker windows to shatter, which once the window is broken, it wouldn't take much pressure to blow the pieces out.

Possible but I think unlikely that far below collapse front. The internal pressure was high as the "squibs" are pretty big and sudden so I think more in line with an formerly intact widow popping out. Certainly, they look little like a explosive charge as windows right beside them stay intact and the "blast" is all wrong.

[triforcharity]

IIRC, the floors that the squibs appeared on, were the mechanical floors. Mechanical floors that had huge vents to the outside for HVAC and such.

Nonetheless, it wasn't from a CD. It's too slow, and progresses with the building collapse.

[cyclonic]

When flight 11 impacted WTC 1 the whole building swayed and twisted from the shock of impact,the shock wave traveled down the steel until it reached where the steel is embedded in concrete: the lobby. this shock wave resulted in broken windows and doors jammed in their frames throughout WTC 1. Frank De Martini claimed the tower swayed up to 20ft
source:
'inside the twin towers'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaeYrqy0EWU

http://members.iinet.net.au/~metalstorm/wtc%201%20before%20wtc2%20impact.png
image of WTC 1 taken from '102 minutes that changed america' moments before WTC 2 impact.

this shock wave more than likely popped off the marble on the walls in the lobby (my opinion).

the squibs are from the broken windows.

[Mancman]

The liftshafts would have been filled with dust and debris resulting from the plane impacts. Air pressure travelling down the shafts swept some of this up, hence the colour of the dust jets.

[Derek Johnson]

I know the puffs come from air being compressed out.

You KNOW? How?

[BigAl]

You KNOW? How?

That's what happens when a building collapses.

[CurtC]

When air is compressed by a piston in a cylinder, the air pressure gets higher throughout the cylinder, not just near where the piston is pushing. The whole interior of the building would have been at higher pressure after the collapse started at the top.