9/11 was 'inside job'

[zenith-nadir]

...the 5th anniversary is coming up and sure enough the "woo woo" crowd is making noises...again.

Quote:

15:47pm on 6th September 2006

The 9/11 terrorist attack on America which left almost 3,000 people dead was an "inside job", according to a group of leading academics.

Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

I know... lets fly two planes into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth into the White House, (which didn't make it)...we'll have passengers make fake cellphone calls - to be recorded - from the allegedly doomed aircraft just to make it all look legit...then we'll kill them all....that'll secure that Middle Eastern oil.


p.s. Do these so-called crack-smoking "academics" really think that is a plausible scenario? Really? Do they - "The 9/11 Scholars for Truth" - really think the US government staged 9-11? That is soooooooooo frikkin' wack.

p.p.s. Of course they have a website : http://www.st911.org/

[Lurker]

A very good friend of mine believes this quite strongly despite my arguments. It is quite frustrating.

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized. I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition. I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

Anyone want to help me out? I'm looking for either pictures showing large concrete portions in the aftermath OR explanations why there would not be.

[brodski]

we know http://forums.randi.org/forumdisplay.php?f=64

[zenith-nadir]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A very good friend of mine believes this quite strongly despite my arguments. It is quite frustrating.

I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

Forget the "chunks of concrete", that happened after the planes hit the towers. Ask your friend who exactly was flying the aircraft into the buildings on that day. You know the aircraft that were filmed by many different sources. I bet he'll claim it was remote control.

Secondly ask him how all those cellphone calls from the aircraft to loved ones were faked. You know the many independant cellphone calls that coroberated that the planes had been hijacked. I bet he says those were faked too.

After that he can address the "chunks of concrete" from the "controlled explosions".

{edited to add}

From the Conspiracy Theories section:

When 9/11 Conspiracy Theories Go Bad - By David Corn, AlterNet. Posted March 1, 2002.

[FreeChile]

Originally Posted by zenith-nadir

...the 5th anniversary is coming up and sure enough the "woo woo" crowd is making noises...again.
...

You mean to tell us you are not aware that there is a conspiracy theory forum here?

Moderator please help this individual by moving this thread to its appropriate location.

Thank you.

[Moon-Spinner]

And then there was the controlled landing of the cross-beams to look like a cross, so that the true believers can be in awe and have un-ending faith in George W. Bush (and his policies)!

[zenith-nadir]

Originally Posted by FreeChile

You mean to tell us you are not aware that there is a conspiracy theory forum here?

Yes I am aware of that but I am not posting "a conspiracy theory" Einstein, I am posting a current event which involves "The 9/11 Scholars for Truth" saying there was a conspiracy theory.

Originally Posted by FreeChile

Moderator please help this individual by moving this thread to its appropriate location.

Thank you.

There is nothing I dislike less than a know-it-all who wants the forum run according to his whims. How about you not read my threads so that I do not break the yet-to-be-adopted FreeChile rules at JREF? Sound good?

[WildCat]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A very good friend of mine believes this quite strongly despite my arguments. It is quite frustrating.

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized. I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition. I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

In a controlled demo, gravity brings the building down ans makes little pieces out of the big ones. The explosives only destroy the support columns. Indeed, it would take an enormous amount of explosives spread evenly across every floor to have the explosives pulverize the concrete.

Quote:

Anyone want to help me out? I'm looking for either pictures showing large concrete portions in the aftermath OR explanations why there would not be.

Hard to believe there's people here who haven't seen it yet, but there are many threads on all of this over in the conspiracy section. Probably where this one belongs also.

[Luke T.]

Originally Posted by zenith-nadir

...the 5th anniversary is coming up and sure enough the "woo woo" crowd is making noises...again.



I know... lets fly two planes into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth into the White House, (which didn't make it)...we'll have passengers make fake cellphone calls - to be recorded - from the allegedly doomed aircraft just to make it all look legit...then we'll kill them all....that'll secure that Middle Eastern oil.


p.s. Do these so-called crack-smoking "academics" really think that is a plausible scenario? Really? Do they - "The 9/11 Scholars for Truth" - really think the US government staged 9-11? That is soooooooooo frikkin' wack.

p.p.s. Of course they have a website : http://www.st911.org/

"Around 75 top professors and leading scientists".

Okay.

http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/WhoAreWe.html

What's a top professor doing at Tunxis Community College, CT?

Or College of Education East Carolina University?

And Philip Berg makes a big deal out of having been a candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania, but I can't seem to find an election with his name on it.

[Luke T.]

I gotta say the best one on that list of "Who Are We?" has to go to:

David Benson (AM)

Actor; Conspiracy Theories; Edinburgh Fringe Festival

[Azrael 5]

Came across a site recently claiming the French brothers who made the firefighter documentary were in on it! can't find link,but along the lines of they just happened to be only ones who had footage of first plane hitting!! bonkers.

[a_unique_person]

Originally Posted by zenith-nadir

...the 5th anniversary is coming up and sure enough the "woo woo" crowd is making noises...again.



I know... lets fly two planes into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and a fourth into the White House, (which didn't make it)...we'll have passengers make fake cellphone calls - to be recorded - from the allegedly doomed aircraft just to make it all look legit...then we'll kill them all....that'll secure that Middle Eastern oil.


p.s. Do these so-called crack-smoking "academics" really think that is a plausible scenario? Really? Do they - "The 9/11 Scholars for Truth" - really think the US government staged 9-11? That is soooooooooo frikkin' wack.

p.p.s. Of course they have a website : http://www.st911.org/

How top is

Quote:

Professor Steven Jones, who lectures in physics at the Brigham Young University in Utah, says the official version of events is the biggest and most evil cover up in history.
He has joined the 9/11 Scholars for Truth whose membership includes up to 75 leading scientists and experts from universities across the US.

?

How 'leading' are they? Apparently you can always find some nutcase scientists and academics, just look at the OISM petition against AGW.

[Beerina]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A very good friend of mine believes this quite strongly despite my arguments. It is quite frustrating.

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized.

Well in excess of a hundred thousand tons comes careening downward, heavy girders and big blocks by the thousands, bumping and grinding each other for 1000 feet, and he can't grasp that? Just a small fraction needs to be pulverized to create that dust cloud.

Quote:

I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition. I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

They didn't have sidewalks or roadways on every floor going up. What size is he looking for?

And explosives would not pulverize all the concrete either, unless they were located throughout the building for the purpose of ensuring complete pulverization, a process magnitudes larger than just bringing down the building. Remind him of that. Blowing up a building to bring it down will pulverize only a miniscule fraction more material than if the building were to just fall on its own.

[Beerina]

Quote:

Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

Like Afghanistan.

Or Saudi Arabia. Oh, wait, we didn't invade them.

Why would Texas oilmen want governmental control of the Middle East when they don't profit from it, even if the US government invaded. They don't, because turbulence there, and OPEC restrictions, benefit them! Texas went bust (remember the $450 billion Savings & Loan bailout?) because gas prices plummeted. The harder-to-extract oil in Texas became unprofitable. And don't suggest the oil companies want the contracts to extract the oil from the Middle East because they've already got those contracts.

[BPSCG]

Originally Posted by Lurker

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized. I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition. I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

Anyone want to help me out? I'm looking for either pictures showing large concrete portions in the aftermath OR explanations why there would not be.

Sadly, I don't think there is any evidence that would satisfy your friend. Not even this.

But you can try.

[marksman]

Originally Posted by FreeChile

Moderator please help this individual by moving this thread to its appropriate location.

In the future if there is a post you find objectionable, you should simply click on the "report" button (the exclamation point in the red triangle on the lower left corner of each post) rather than post a public reply that a moderator might not see.

Thank you.

[CurtC]

Originally Posted by Lurker

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized. I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition.

There was a conspiracy author who claimed that the potential energy available from just the falling mass of the building was not nearly enough to pulverize the concrete (1/10 as much); that it would take explosives to pulverize the other 90% of the concrete. Others have calculated how much explosives this would take:

Quote:

Hoffman states that 4 x 10^11 joules of energy would be available due to gravity. 9 times that is 36 x 10^11 joules.

TNT has 4.18 x 10^6 joules/Kg therefore it would require the equivalent to 861,244 kilograms(1,894,737 pounds) of TNT in addition to the gravity energy in order to do what Hoffman states happened.

Now C4 which is 18% more powerful that TNT would of course use less(C4 is 91% RDX) so that would be the equivalent of 1,605,709 pounds of C4(802 tons)

The premise is then that more than one million pounds of explosives were surreptiously installed in the steel and concrete of the WTC towers prior to 9/11. That dentonators and control devices were attached to the explosives as well. That these explosives were somehow protected from prior discovery, and premature destruction or detonation due to the plane impacts and subsequent fires, and that they all functioned perfectly on 9/11/01.

[CurtC]

Originally Posted by Beerina

Why would Texas oilmen want governmental control of the Middle East when they don't profit from it, even if the US government invaded. They don't, because turbulence there, and OPEC restrictions, benefit them! Texas went bust (remember the $450 billion Savings & Loan bailout?) because gas prices plummeted. The harder-to-extract oil in Texas became unprofitable. And don't suggest the oil companies want the contracts to extract the oil from the Middle East because they've already got those contracts.

I guess a more effective conspiracy theory would be that the current situation, where the whole Middle East is completely FUBAR, was really the goal of the administration. It looks like a total screw-up to the rest of us, but it's resulted in higher oil prices. Everyone just thinks Bush is an idiot - really he's a shrewd manipulator!

[Hutch]

Originally Posted by FreeChile

You mean to tell us you are not aware that there is a conspiracy theory forum here?

Moderator please help this individual by moving this thread to its appropriate location.

Thank you.

Apparently the moderators agree with you, FC, as it seems this thread has been moved.

Poor ZN; now he will have to post outside of the Politics Forum; I hope he does not find the move to traumatic...

[Gravy]

Originally Posted by Lurker

A very good friend of mine believes this quite strongly despite my arguments. It is quite frustrating.

One of his main arguments that we are discussing right now is how all that concrete became so pulverized. I don't have an adequate response right now sadly. He claims that there are no large chunks of concrete in the aftermath and this is evidence of a controlled demolition. I can't find pictures of large chunks of concrete so cannot refute this although why he thinks explosives are the only answer to this query.

Anyone want to help me out? I'm looking for either pictures showing large concrete portions in the aftermath OR explanations why there would not be.

The first question I would ask your friend is, "On what basis do you make that claim?" In my experience, this claim is something CTs parrot without having done the least bit of research. Occasionally one of them will cite a study that showed the dust particle size to be average somewhere between 60 and 300 microns. Then they'll claim that the entire contents of the towers were pulverized to dust that small. That's wrong. Those studies only measured the dust. They made no attempt to calculate what percentage of the total rubble was dust, what the "average" size of concrete rubble was, etc. The bottom line is, no one knows.

The only way to make any determination is to talk to people who spent a lot of time in the piles. I've corresponded with a guy who was there for three months. I sent him several photos of the rubble and asked him to choose the the one that best represents what he dealt with. He chose this one:

It's not easy to get a sense of scale, though, without knowing how large that motor or steel plate are. My contact said that of course not everything turned to dust, and reminded me that some people survived who were in the towers (like the cops in the Oliver Stone movie). He said they had several concrete breakers, mounted on excavators, on hand for the big jobs. He also pointed out that several of my photos showed areas that were wetted by fire hoses and compacted by heavy machinery, which made everything look like a dirt road, but when you dug that stuff up, you got chunks of everything in every size.

Here's a photo of rubble at Fresh Kills Landfill. I assume that the larger chunks are pieces of foundations of other buildings, of the plaza, parking garages and esplanade area, or of the concrete "bathtub" itself. The concrete in the floors of the towers was only 4-5" thick.

[EvilBiker]

Originally Posted by Gravy

It's not easy to get a sense of scale, though, without knowing how large that motor or steel plate are.

Actually, there is a yardstick in the pic. That steel plate is a common enough item - it's walkway sheeting. The bumps would typically be around and inch and a half long, I suspect.

I've tried doing a cursory search for the plating, but have not found anything so far (lack of time). The material could be aluminium, but is most probably steel.

That would make that motor/alternator thingy in front maybe a foot long? <thumbsuck>

[CurtC]

Originally Posted by Gravy

He chose this one:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting...01ee78db7b.jpg

OMG! The rock on the right side of the photo (at the same vertical as the motor) looks like a screaming human head! Someone needs to notify icantakepicturesofdemons immediately!

[pgwenthold]

Long ago, in another thread, I used the original report to show that, even if it were completely pulvarized into dust, the CTers claims about the energy required were off by a factor of about 8 because they used a wrong average particle size. Taking that into account, I concluded there was enough energy to pulverize everything even if it were completely destroyed.

Which it of course wasn't

[Hellbound]

I'd agree with EvilBiker. The "motor" looks an awful lot like a vehicle alternator...even looks like part of the brackets are attached, and you can see groves for a belt (apparently). Of course, I could be wrong

[pgwenthold]

OK, I don't usually play the "what are your credentials" game, but in this case, the article brings it up, not me:

Quote:

Around 75 top professors and leading scientists believe the attacks were puppeteered by war mongers in the White House to justify the invasion and the occupation of oil-rich Arab countries.

By what measures are these "top" professors and "leading" scientists?

What the heck makes a "top" professor in the first place? I can get a good handle on "leading scientists" (publication record, funding support (indicating peer recognition), national awards), but I don't know that any of these stand out in those regards, as would be expected for a "leader." And I have no idea what a top professor is. My best guess is that it would be a professor at a top university. The closest I can see is Jones at BYU, but that's not anywhere near the very top.

[Hellbound]

Originally Posted by pgwenthold

OK, I don't usually play the "what are your credentials" game, but in this case, the article brings it up, not me:



By what measures are these "top" professors and "leading" scientists?

What the heck makes a "top" professor in the first place? I can get a good handle on "leading scientists" (publication record, funding support (indicating peer recognition), national awards), but I don't know that any of these stand out in those regards, as would be expected for a "leader." And I have no idea what a top professor is. My best guess is that it would be a professor at a top university. The closest I can see is Jones at BYU, but that's not anywhere near the very top.

No, you misunderstand.

They mean top professors. You know, professors who study those little spinning children's toys. And leading scientists, as in asking leading questions of nature and formulating biased theories.

[Blackwell]

Originally Posted by Beerina

Well in excess of a hundred thousand tons comes careening downward, heavy girders and big blocks by the thousands, bumping and grinding each other for 1000 feet, and he can't grasp that? Just a small fraction needs to be pulverized to create that dust cloud.

I think a lot of CTers look at the videos of the towers collapsing and assume the large amount of dust is merely from the concrete. I don't think any of them take into consideration the THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of sheets of drywall that must have been in the towers. Anyone who's worked with the stuff can tell you that you'll get a fair amount of dust simply from dropping a small chunk of it from only a few feet up. Imagine how much dust will result from thousands of sheets being crushed by tons and tons of steel and concrete falling at the Speed of Gravity™.

[WildCat]

Originally Posted by CurtC

OMG! The rock on the right side of the photo (at the same vertical as the motor) looks like a screaming human head! Someone needs to notify icantakepicturesofdemons immediately!

I just noticed that too...

[Mycroft]

That would make a cool avatar.

[Dog Town]

I saw the Pompeii stuff in Dallas first, while in highschool. I will never forget that look. I saw it too first time, in that pic. Nice to see others see the clouds in life like me.