There were all sorts of stuff going on during and after the buildings collapsed. Other buildings were on fire at the time and beams and supports were snapping, as well as gas tanks exploding. It’s not evidence for much of anything. There’s no direct evidence that it’s even an explosion, it could simply be the sound of something collapsing.
Have you ever heard of the theory that shaped nanothermite charges were used? They may or may not be the same thing as the ‘hush-a-boom’ silent explosives some people say were used, but in the middle of finding out I suddenly realized I’d rather be shaving tongue with a rusty piece of tinfoil.
I haven’t watched the clip you linked to (I just don’t like watching stuff with people dying) but I recall that someone mentioned in one of the (many, many, oh so many) previous threads that one clip showing firefighters in the lobby with “explosion” sounds was actually the sound of bodies hitting the ground. There was a link to a quote from the firefighters in the video explaining what was going on.
Again, not having watched your clip I can’t make any firm statements but I’ll just point out that big stuff falling down and making a hellacious BANG can sound just like an explosion. So does the sound a building makes in an earthquake (I’m in California and I’ve been through plenty, both in houses and skyscrapers), a door slamming on another floor, etc - any good shake can do it.
If your video is of something completely different please feel free to describe what happens.
When I first moved to DC one of my roommates was a Loose-Change watching truther. We went at it pretty often, since he was rather in your face about it. On the 5th anniversary of it, he had me and the other roommate sit down and watch the stupid movie on public access television. I walked out in the middle of it, after disassembling nearly every presented in the movie. It was the part about the lack of plane debris at the Pentagon that did it (there was clearly identifiable debris in the footage).
I’m getting off track… anyways he tried cornering me one last time. He mentioned the explosion thing. My rebuttal was to ask him what the sound is when there’s a car accident.
He said “Bang.”
This was also the conversation when I explained to him what Occam’s Razor is. He really thought a massive conspiracy involving the complacency of of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people was more simple than my competing “theory” that nineteen assholes with box cutters took over our planes and flew them into our buildings.
My guess is that you are hearing parts of the WTC “rubble pile” settling noisily…or explosions from the raging fire inside WTC 7 that lasted until it collapsed in the afternoon.
Most???
That can only mean one thing: William of Ockham is COINTELPRO sent to discredit brave Truthers like Dylan and Korey before they were even born! I mean, is it Occam or Ockham? Which is it? Why else would he need to change his name like that!!! And, since he was a Scholastic, a school-man if you will, the schools must be in on this as well, to further the evil Catholic (Cath-o-LICK, like LICKING LSD-IMPREGNATED DEATH COOKIES!) agenda to put George W Bush (GWB, like JWH, a FLAMING BUSH of PROPHECY) into power to build a pipeline through Iraq to enrich HELL-I-BURTON and CHAIN-EY (like the CHAINS of PROPHECY).
See, it’s all perfectly clear now.
There is a minor political party here in Quebec, fairly left wing and actually having some fairly good ideas whose leader, while not denying that planes were involved, believes that it was all a joint plot between Israel and US intelligence. He is a converted Muslim (I think his wife is Muslim by birth) and apparently cannot face the fact that militant Muslims were responsible. He is also reflexively anti-Semitic (as were nearly all French Canadians a couple generations ago–they still honor as a national hero a priest whose main claim to fame was to have supported Hitler during the war), so this is the natural consequence. Left unexplained is the euphoria among the Muslim community at the time.
You are a better person than me. I would have had to move to a country without extradition because I would have killed him and posted his head on a pike as a warning to other truthers.
I blame Loony Toons for this.
NIST’s explanation requires sustained temperatures in excess of 1,800 Fahrenheit to weaken the steel, but there’s no reason to think these fires would be as hot or hotter than other building fires, and many reasons–thick black smoke, the presence of people, sprinkler systems, a relative lack of visible flame–to conclude that the fire was not nearly that hot. Many tall buildings have burned much longer, even for days, without weakening steel supports, even burning right down to the steel frame.
NIST’s original explanation (and the 9/11 Commission report) omits discussion of WTC 7, which fell in the same manner as the two towers but was not hit by an airplane and did not show outward signs of massive fire damage. NIST’s separate report on WTC 7 came out two years later and, “neither explosives nor fuel oil fires played a role” in its collapse. Essentially, it was just a freaky coincidence that the same thing happened to a nearby building on the same day.
In the NIST information I’ve read, there’s also no discussion of the widely reported (including Chicago reporter Carol Marin, who happened to be on the scene, and several other participants interviewed on camera in the intial hours) explosions at ground level a few seconds before the first tower came down. Truthers point to these reports as evidence of a thermite reaction in the basement.
These three buildings are the only buildings in history to fall into their own footprint (rather than toppling over), not counting controlled demolitions. For a building to fall straight down, it would have to be weakened equally and simultaneously on all four sides.
Truthers are also disturbed at the rapid and secretive way that the debris was disposed of prior to significant fact-finding. NIST points out that despite its efforts to document the state of debris, it lacked jurisdiction to require that materials be retained for additional study until October 2002. That might sound like government as usual to you, but it sounds like a coverup to those inclined to believe in such things.
I could go on–the video evidence showing squibs is quite compelling if you’re inclined to believe in controlled-demolition theories–but I know I’m not convincing you. I have not found people who believe one thing or the other to be very open-minded when confronted with evidence that deviates from their beliefs. In case it’s not clear, I have not heard any theory, official or consipracy, that explains the structure failure of the buildings to my satisfaction.
I will make one other point, though–the NIST study you view as definitive was released after several years of study. It replaced–and debunked–the “pancake theory” that was the official story until then. So I have to ask: did you find that original theory persuasive until NIST debunked it; or did you harbor serious doubts about the official story for several years until NIST’s report soothed your mind?
And while you are thinking about that, remind me what the chances are of a passport owned by one of the terrorists being flung from the wreckage and landing barely damaged where it could conveniently be found? What were the chances of even finding it, bearing in mind the amount of debris strewn around?
“The biggest lies are the easiest to believe.”
Take religion, for instance.
Yes, those crazy conspiracy theorists who ranted about:
– the Nazis committing genocide against Jews during WWII
– the U.S. secretly bombing Cambodia during the Vietnam War
– Nixon’s cohorts having something to do with a break-in at the Watergate hotel.
– Medical researchers continued to use poor blacks as syphilis test subjects for years after determining that penicillin is an effective treatment
People in overnment do, in fact, commit atrocities and cover them up when others start to ask questions. It takes a great deal of courage for someone like Daniel Ellsberg or Woodward and Bernstein to bring facts to light in these situations, and there are undoubtedly situations where the truth has been sufficiently swept under the rug so as to create doubt. I’m not here to say 9/11 is one of those situations. But when people don’t question things that don’t add up in their minds, government malfeasance and cover-ups become the rule rather than the exception.
Thick black smoke does not indicate a cool fire. The claim that it does is a common meme among conspiracy theorists, but has no basis in reality. The sprinkler systems would not be expected to do much to the fires, since they were not even remotely sized to deal with multiple entire floors being on fire at once, and furthermore were apparently mostly or completely disabled by the airplane impacts. As for a lack of visible flame - there are photos showing multiple entire floors of the building on fire at once, and showing metal columns in the region of the fire sagging shortly before the collapse.
Furthermore I challenge you to show me a single example of a large steel-framed building burning for days without showing structural failure.
WTC 7 was struck by debris when the towers collapse, and suffered significant structural damage as a result. There are photos and video showing this. There is also video and photos showing large fires burning uncontrolled on multiple floors before it collapsed.
As pointed out previously on this thread, explosions don’t require explosives. Failing structural beams and falling debris or bodies will sound much like an explosion. That the tower was making loud noises shortly before collapse is quite consistent with a progressive collapse, if internal structure was failing and parts of the building breaking free before the entire thing fell down.
And, since thermite is not an explosive, how can explosions before the collapse be evidence of a thermite reaction?
The buildings did not fall in their footprint. They spilled out in all directions, causing secondary damage to other structures for hundreds of feet around. They didn’t topple over like a tree, but they wouldn’t ever be expected to. In order to tip over a structure either has to be pushed over sideways by some massive force, or fail in such a way that part of the structure acts like a hinge that the rest of the building pivots around. Skyscrapers don’t fail that way, and the only examples I’ve ever seen of a tall building that fell over rather than falling down were in earthquakes or landslides. Can you show any examples of tall buildings that fell over as a result of bomb or fire damage?
Why on earth would the [del]Jews[/del] government plant the passport?
As far as what the chances are… post facto, 100%, I suppose.
I’m am dying to know if this is willful ignorance, trolling, or some brilliant satirical act. You cannot possibly earnestly believe anything you said here, with so much photographic, video, testimonial, factual, and logical evidence directly contradicting it. You can’t possibly. I can’t believe that you believe this. Please give me another explanation. Your line “I have not found people who believe one thing or the other to be very open-minded when confronted with evidence that deviates from their beliefs” leans me in the direction that this is some kind of ironic meta post.
In none of these instances were the stories broken by “crazy conspiracy theorists”. None of these cases featured credulous citizenry doggedly formulating wildly improbable theories and persisting in belief for many years after their nutty hypotheses had been debunked.
Conspiracy theories depend on the existence of generic suspicion of government and science (sufficient that the default explanation for any event is that the “fix” is in), a desire to appear smarter than the common herd, and a willingness to blame difficult-to-understand events on some perceived world-dominating enemy, most commonly the Jews.
Only with these factors in place do you get more than a few demented crackpots seriously contemplating an incredibly massive and unwieldy conspiracy where no one spills the beans, and the completely undetected disappearance of multiple airline flights full of people whose vanishing has never been explained (except for mutterings about Secrut Government Camps and the like).
I recently watched a PBS program on 9/11 Truthers and it turned my stomach. How otherwise rational-appearing people can foment this garbage is difficult to fathom, even with the reasons cited above.
If a loved one drops dead in front of me from what appears to be a heart attack, but then a later autopsy shows the death resulted from a massive stroke, it will not render my prior assumption irrational and I will continue to find unconvincing “alternate” theories that it was murder by a psychic assassin, vengeful ghost, or invisible death-ray fired from Uranus.
None of these events occurred in the age of the internet.
Here’s another probability question:-
What are the chances that every Official Conspiracy Theorist is right, and every non-OCT’er is wrong?