An angle of the WTC collapse I'd never seen

[sparky_1]

@begbert2

Actually, the real problem with the model is that his ‘walls’ were made with godlike strength, and that’s putting aside the facts that the floors were perfectly rigid and their ‘attachment’ to the walls doesn’t in any way model how the WTC’s did.

Putting aside the fact that his walls were made of a material many times stronger (and thicker) than the steel was, (accounting for scale), look at them. They are completely solid - no windows or other holes at all. And cylinders, without even corners to provide weak points. If that was scaled up to ‘life’ size, planes would just bounce off without scratching the paint. Heck, he had to drop the ‘upper floors’ from low orbit just to get enough momentum to crunch a few floors.

There’s nothing about this that resembles how the WTC was constructed. If we could construct buildings that way, there would be elevators to the moon by now.

ETA: if psikeyhackr redid his ‘model’ but cut out window-slits from each ‘ring’ from top to bottom, leaving only a millimeter at each end and only a milimeter or so apart, that might model the WTC’s walls a little better. Of course he’d never get it to stack up…

Exactly. Try making the model again using 4 square pieces of paper for the 4 walls. Don’t even bother with the window cut outs. Then let’s see how it holds up (it won’t).

Another thing: why is it assumed that the floors perfectly pancaked? Having a WTC floor above fall perfectly intact and perfectly level onto a floor below, thus having all the force distributed evenly over the whole area of the floor is one thing.

Instead, portions bent, portions collapsed, portions twisted. Structures are not designed to ever withstand such dynamic forces acting throughout.

I really don’t understand why it is so hard not to be able to understand this.

[sparky_1]

@begbert2

Missed edit - I’d like to add that the evidence that I have that New York exists at all is actually pretty suspect. Sure, my dad claims to have visited, but he seems to be suspiciously well off, and there’s no particular reason to think that being an electrical engineer had anything to do with that. Hmmm…

I was at the site back in November. The fence around it sure is big and certainly prevented me from getting over it. So, couldn’t it all be a hologram?

I’m just asking questions here, ya know?

[Johnny_L.A]

We don’t know you.

How do we know that you’re not a government agent tasked with spreading disinformation about the ‘destruction’ of the WTC? Just because you say you saw a hole doesn’t make it so.

Hey, I’m just asking the question.

[sparky_1]

psikeyhackr: take a look at the photo on the Popular Mechanics site that shows the first collapse in great detail. You can see the whole section tipping as one corner collapses. Likewise you can see the face above that area buckling.

Think of all the structural members peeling away, bending and collapsing onto the structure below, shearing away columns and beams, etc. Next more members collapse, bend, etc that causes a chain reaction.

In videos you can see portions of the building peeling away and twist as the collapse occurs.

I really do not understand how anyone could think it was anything other than the result of a very large aircraft hitting the building.

Edit: this is the first time I have ever really looked at any of the conspiracy sites and I don’t know why they infuriate me so much. There is so much that could use the energy all the conspiracy theorists waste on this nonsense.

[EasyPhil]

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/gopm/index.html

This site raises some interesting questions about the Popular Mechanics story.

Moreover, bold unsubstantiated claims in the article – such as PM’s assertion that there was only a single interception in the decade before 9/11/01 – don’t inspire confidence in PM’s professional fact checkers. It echoes the discredited assertions of official reports such as FEMA’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study and the 9/11 Commission Report. It provides no evidence PM investigated the attack – only evidence that it investigated the 9/11 Truth movement in order to determine how best to discredit it through misrepresentation.

[GIGObuster]

@EasyPhil

Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11 Truth

This site raises some interesting questions about the Popular Mechanics story.

I only got to his first “facts ignored by Popular Mechanics”

Six of the alleged suicide hijackers turned up alive after the attack – a fact that the 9/11 Commission failed to even acknowledge.

9/11 conspiracy theories

During the initial confusion surrounding the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the BBC published the names and identities of what they believed to be some of the hijackers.[109] Some of the people named were later discovered to be alive, a fact that was seized upon by 9/11 conspiracy theorists as proof that the hijackings were faked.[109][110] The BBC explained that the initial confusion may have arisen because the names they reported back in 2001 were common Arabic and Islamic names.[109] In response to a request from the BBC, the FBI stated:[109]

The FBI is confident that it has positively identified the nineteen hijackers responsible for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, the 9/11 investigation was thoroughly reviewed by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States and the House and Senate Joint Inquiry. Neither of these reviews ever raised the issue of doubt about the identity of the nineteen hijackers.

The New York Times also acknowledged these as cases of mistaken identity.[111]

According to John Bradley, the former managing editor of Arab News in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, the only public information about the hijackers was a list of names issued by the FBI on September 14, 2001. When the FBI released photographs four days after the cited reports on September 27, the mistaken identities were quickly resolved. According to Bradley, “all of this is attributable to the chaos that prevailed during the first few days following the attack. What we’re dealing with are coincidentally identical names.” In Saudi Arabia, says Bradley, the names of two of the allegedly surviving attackers, Said al-Ghamdi and Walid al-Shari, are “as common as John Smith in the United States or Great Britain.”[110]

I did not bother then with the rest, the author is playing fast with the facts.

[CurtC]

EasyPhil, what about that article do you find interesting? There really was only one interception in the decade before 9/11. While the FEMA report was preliminary and superceded by later analysis, it was OK as far as it went. The 9/11 Commission Report did a pretty good job, focusing on the human causes rather than any technical analysis. Do you have a problem with them?

[crypto]

@Peter_Morris

I’d say that’s a conspiracy theory by definition. You tell me, is there any specific part of the official version that you question? On what grounds?

[hijack continued]
I confess not reading the whole thread, so if this has been mentioned, my apologies. And if this has already spawned off another thread, please report the thread to a mod to have it moved. I just wanted to respond to this before I fell asleep.

I question one specific part of the official story.

I personally don’t believe that Flight 93, the plane that ended up in some Pennsylvania farmland, crashed the way we’ve been told.

I think a good place to start reading about this is to go to:

http:// flight93crash.com (I broke the link in case linking to a site like this breaks any of the SD rules. I don’t think it does, but just in case.)

Anyway, I always thought there was something that didn’t smell right about that plane’s demise. It made no sense to me that the US Air Force wouldn’t have shot it down, especially given what happened previously in the morning. Jets would have (or dammit the should have) been scrambled into the air to find Flight 93 long before it reached the DC area.

And this part is important for me to share. I believe if the USAF did shoot down the plane, it was absolutely the right thing to do. I know it sounds callous and there were many innocent lives lost, but I don’t see there being much of a choice. That plane could not be permitted to hit a building.

I remember after it first happening that there were some interviews on the scene with local people and what they had seen in the sky and what they had heard.

I won’t hijack this thread any further… but if you are interested, go to the website I’ve provided. The stories from eyewitnesses in that area are remarkably consistent on a number of issues, including the spotting of another plane in the air at the time when all planes were grounded over US air space, and the location of the debris field.

I can’t believe that the people who were interviewed right after this happened had any reason to lie, or to create a story just for the hell of it, although I suppose anything is possible.

Read the webpage and see what you think. The most interesting things are the local news articles that appeared the very next day. I haven’t been on that site for quite a while, but I believe there are either transcripts of radio/tv interviews or links to the interviews themselves.

This particular part of the official story has nothing to do with the buildings going down, or pre-installed charges to bring down the WTC. But it’s a part of the official story that still doesn’t sit right (to me, at least).

[/hijack continued]

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@Stink Fish Pot

[hijack continued]
I confess not reading the whole thread, so if this has been mentioned, my apologies. And if this has already spawned off another thread, please report the thread to a mod to have it moved. I just wanted to respond to this before I fell asleep.

I question one specific part of the official story.

I personally don’t believe that Flight 93, the plane that ended up in some Pennsylvania farmland, crashed the way we’ve been told.

I think a good place to start reading about this is to go to:

http:// flight93crash.com (I broke the link in case linking to a site like this breaks any of the SD rules. I don’t think it does, but just in case.)

Anyway, I always thought there was something that didn’t smell right about that plane’s demise. It made no sense to me that the US Air Force wouldn’t have shot it down, especially given what happened previously in the morning. Jets would have (or dammit the should have) been scrambled into the air to find Flight 93 long before it reached the DC area.

And this part is important for me to share. I believe if the USAF did shoot down the plane, it was absolutely the right thing to do. I know it sounds callous and there were many innocent lives lost, but I don’t see there being much of a choice. That plane could not be permitted to hit a building.

I remember after it first happening that there were some interviews on the scene with local people and what they had seen in the sky and what they had heard.

I won’t hijack this thread any further… but if you are interested, go to the website I’ve provided. The stories from eyewitnesses in that area are remarkably consistent on a number of issues, including the spotting of another plane in the air at the time when all planes were grounded over US air space, and the location of the debris field.

I can’t believe that the people who were interviewed right after this happened had any reason to lie, or to create a story just for the hell of it, although I suppose anything is possible.

Read the webpage and see what you think. The most interesting things are the local news articles that appeared the very next day. I haven’t been on that site for quite a while, but I believe there are either transcripts of radio/tv interviews or links to the interviews themselves.

This particular part of the official story has nothing to do with the buildings going down, or pre-installed charges to bring down the WTC. But it’s a part of the official story that still doesn’t sit right (to me, at least).

[/hijack continued]

For the people interviewed, remember that their words can be twisted, their memories wrong, and so forth.

As for Flight 93, we have a strong amount of evidence that the passengers tried to re-take the plane. Truthers have been trying to deny that evidence with claims of ‘voice generators’ and other magic technologies.

The debris field looks like what one would expect from a plane that hit the ground from pilot error, i.e was intact when it hit the ground. A plane shot down would have debris missing in all sorts of locations.

In military, it is hard to keep certain secrets. If an armed plane took off and returned short a missile, the pilot and his C.O. might be able to keep quiet about it, but the ground crew is going to notice the missing missile and you cannot expect that many people to not say anything.

[Mr.Miskatonic]

@EasyPhil

Popular Mechanics' Assault on 9/11 Truth

This site raises some interesting questions about the Popular Mechanics story.

It does not. It merely repeats assertions, some of which were debunked in the PM article.

Moreover, bold unsubstantiated claims in the article – such as PM’s assertion that there was only a single interception in the decade before 9/11/01 – don’t inspire confidence in PM’s professional fact checkers.

Because it is true. There were other interceptions but they were not over US airspace, a critical qualifier.

It echoes the discredited assertions of official reports such as FEMA’s World Trade Center Building Performance Study and the 9/11 Commission Report.

There is nothing ‘discredited’ about these. FEMA’s work was subplanted by NIST’s report but truthers had nothing to do with that.

It provides no evidence PM investigated the attack – only evidence that it investigated the 9/11 Truth movement in order to determine how best to discredit it through misrepresentation.

Translation: Wah!

I remember this article. It essentially was a huge retelling of debunked tales combined with whining about how PM chose their topics and dared to use the ones that started the truth movement - such as claims that there was no plane at the Pentagon.

[Garfield226]

@Stink Fish Pot

The stories from eyewitnesses in that area are remarkably consistent on a number of issues, including the spotting of another plane in the air at the time when all planes were grounded over US air space, and the location of the debris field.

Even if “the spotting of another plane in the air” part of this is accurate (and I have no idea whether it is or it isn’t), the amount of time between the FAA ordering U.S. airspace shut down and when Flight 93 crashed was only around a half hour (according to the Washington Post and the CNN timeline cited below). That really isn’t that long for all flights in the air to find the nearest airport that isn’t filled to capacity already and land. There were reportedly 4,500 flights in the air over the U.S. at the time the airspace was closed (with, I would guess, a pretty large concentration over the northeast).

CNN’s timeline released on Sept. 12 says the FAA reported 50 planes still in U.S. airspace at 12:30 that afternoon.

This doesn’t prove the “they shot it down” theory is wrong, obviously, but even if someone did say they saw another plane nearby at the time, it’s still a fairly big leap from there to “and it was a military plane and it was armed and it shot Flight 93 down,” especially when there are more plausible explanations.

I’m with you: I think if the government had good reason to believe it was hijacked and headed toward a target to kill people, shooting it down over an unpopulated area as a last resort shouldn’t be off the table as an option. But there’s absolutely no evidence anywhere that I’ve come across that suggests that’s what happened. Saying the Air Force “should have” shot it down, or that it would have made sense if they did or whatever, is all well and good, but there’s no credible evidence to support it.

There is, on the other hand, evidence that what most people think happened actually happened.

[SpaceDog]

@Mr.Miskatonic

In military, it is hard to keep certain secrets. If an armed plane took off and returned short a missile, the pilot and his C.O. might be able to keep quiet about it, but the ground crew is going to notice the missing missile and you cannot expect that many people to not say anything.

Of course here people have a pretty good reason not to spill the beans – who wants to rob people of the heroic story? You’d need to be a pretty special kind of dick to want to burst that bubble.

Not saying that’s what happened, just in this particular conspiracy theory the whole ‘too many people knew’ thing might not matter.

I could easily believe the flight was shot down, I could even go as far as saying that it’s likely. But I’ve not looked at the evidence and frankly I’m not sure it matters much either way in the grander scheme of things. It is slightly more interesting to discuss than the stupidity about mysterious controlled explosions and run-away trains time-travelling into the Pentagon.

Has anyone tried to suggest aliens are involved yet?

[crypto]

@Mr.Miskatonic

For the people interviewed, remember that their words can be twisted, their memories wrong, and so forth.

Sure, but we aren’t talking about a number years here. We are talking about minutes to a few hours after the event. Did you read any of the interviews or articles? I find it hard to believe that everyone would come up with a similar story and lie about the details just for shits and grins. At the time, there would be no reason to lie, at least not to me. If a plane came down out of the sky and I saw it, and I also saw another plane, I’d have no problem relaying what I saw to a reporter. I wouldn’t think I’d be doing anything wrong by sharing the story. And those are details I’m not likely to confuse.

@Mr.Miskatonic

As for Flight 93, we have a strong amount of evidence that the passengers tried to re-take the plane. Truthers have been trying to deny that evidence with claims of ‘voice generators’ and other magic technologies.

These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. There may well have been an attempt to take the plane over. That still wouldn’t preclude the government from taking it down.

@Mr.Miskatonic

The debris field looks like what one would expect from a plane that hit the ground from pilot error, i.e was intact when it hit the ground. A plane shot down would have debris missing in all sorts of locations.

Again, read the articles. If I have time, I’ll find the one that seemed to have some inconsistency with where a few of the pieces of the plane showed up. This could be explained by actual causes, or an incorrect version of events in the 9/11 report.

@Mr.Miskatonic

In military, it is hard to keep certain secrets. If an armed plane took off and returned short a missile, the pilot and his C.O. might be able to keep quiet about it, but the ground crew is going to notice the missing missile and you cannot expect that many people to not say anything.

Sure you can. Especially in the military. If you are told not to speak about an event, and that it is in the best interest of the country or national security, you are not going to speak about it. People can be convinced that staying silent is the right thing to do, without thinking they are part of a vast conspiracy.

@Garfield226

Even if “the spotting of another plane in the air” part of this is accurate (and I have no idea whether it is or it isn’t), the amount of time between the FAA ordering U.S. airspace shut down and when Flight 93 crashed was only around a half hour (according to the Washington Post and the CNN timeline cited below). That really isn’t that long for all flights in the air to find the nearest airport that isn’t filled to capacity already and land. There were reportedly 4,500 flights in the air over the U.S. at the time the airspace was closed (with, I would guess, a pretty large concentration over the northeast).

When I get some time, I’m going to take a look at the timeline you are referring to. It’s been so long since I’ve looked at 9/11 information. I do seem to recall that there was plenty of time for jets to be scrambled from Bolling AFB in DC and intercept it over Pennsylvania. I realize that just because they could have been scrambled doesn’t mean that they were.

@Garfield226

This doesn’t prove the “they shot it down” theory is wrong, obviously, but even if someone did say they saw another plane nearby at the time, it’s still a fairly big leap from there to “and it was a military plane and it was armed and it shot Flight 93 down,” especially when there are more plausible explanations.

I wouldn’t call it a huge leap. It’s plausible. It’s also plausible that it happened exactly like the 9/11 report indicates also.

@Garfield226

I’m with you: I think if the government had good reason to believe it was hijacked and headed toward a target to kill people, shooting it down over an unpopulated area as a last resort shouldn’t be off the table as an option. But there’s absolutely no evidence anywhere that I’ve come across that suggests that’s what happened. Saying the Air Force “should have” shot it down, or that it would have made sense if they did or whatever, is all well and good, but there’s no credible evidence to support it.

I agree with this statement. All I’m suggesting is for some of you to read a few of the local newspaper articles after the crash. Even if the USAF brought the plane down, that doesn’t indicate a larger cover-up.

And think about this from a (sort of) logical perspective. Telling the public about the 4th plane going down because the passengers tried to take the plane over was a huge morale boost to a country that was punched in the gut that day. It also put that scenario in the mind of everyone who would get on a plane AFTER 9/11. (i.e. if your plane is hijacked, the passengers will band together and not let the plane be used as a weapon). Just food for thought.

What I find fascinating is that people on the SDMB find it hard to believe that the government would not be able to lie to the general public about something like this. And to admit that the possibility even exists is to admit that you are a member of the tinfoil hat brigade. Not all conspiracies are created equal, but to even discuss one angle of one event makes folks think they are going to be labeled as a kook for life (or in this case, a “truther”.)

I am not a truther… at least I don’t think so. Although, until this thread, I never heard the term.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Sure you can. Especially in the military. If you are told not to speak about an event, and that it is in the best interest of the country or national security, you are not going to speak about it.

Something like this? Not a chance. Someone always talks, and more to the point, what’s the military leadership going to do if you blow the whistle on such a conspiracy? Court-martial you? You’ll be protected by everybody in the United States, and it will look every bit like the cover-up people will rightly suppose it to be.

The reason why it seems like such alleged “conspiracies” are “covered up” is because they are not conspiracies at all, and with nothing to hide people go looking for something that’s hidden when in fact it never existed. Oswald killed Kennedy, Roswell was a weather balloon, and Muslim terrorists perpetrated 9/11. Everything else is your imagination.

[crypto]

@Airman_Doors_USAF

Something like this? Not a chance. Someone always talks, and more to the point, what’s the military leadership going to do if you blow the whistle on such a conspiracy? Court-martial you? You’ll be protected by everybody in the United States, and it will look every bit like the cover-up people will rightly suppose it to be.

The reason why it seems like such alleged “conspiracies” are “covered up” is because they are not conspiracies at all, and with nothing to hide people go looking for something that’s hidden when in fact it never existed. Oswald killed Kennedy, Roswell was a weather balloon, and Muslim terrorists perpetrated 9/11. Everything else is your imagination.

This is incorrect. I know for a fact that information is not divulged to the public at large. And in this case, I certainly don’t have a problem with it if it happened.

Why do you think someone would talk? If you think this, you’ve never held a security clearance. Because if you did, you’d understand that talking about something you have been told (and agreed) not to would land you in jail. You think that a trial would have to be public? Not if the government could prove that any information leaked into the public domain would be a detriment to national security. And that is a slam dunk if someone has signed an information security oath and then decided to break it.

In the downing of Flight 93, if the USAF in fact brought it down, what good would it do to tell that information to the country? Hiding that information (and I’m not saying the USAF DID down the plane), is part of your agreement with the USAF and the defense department. The pilot and crew would also probably not want to be known as the folks that took out a US passenger airliner, even if it was the proper decision. If that was the decision of the policy makers in the Pentagon at the time, that is what is followed.

My imagination? You are living in a fantasy world if you don’t think this country’s government has lied for its own purposes. Gulf of Tonkin ring a bell?

Or how about the supposed reason we went into Iraq? Poor Colin Powell shows the world “facts” of development of WMD’s in Iraq, and we still haven’t found them.

The problem to me seems that for someone like you, if you admit that one of the “lies” is an ***actual ***lie, what else is a lie? So it makes it much simpler to assume everything is the truth.

[Czarcasm]

@Stink Fish Pot

The problem to me seems that for someone like you, if you admit that one of the “lies” is an ***actual ***lie, what else is a lie? So it makes it much simpler to assume everything is the truth.

How many times does this have to be said before you will acknowledge it?
Nobody here is saying that the government doesn’t lie.
They are saying that the government has a piss-poor record of keeping such lies secret.

[CurtC]

It’s true that there was another plane in the area of Flight 93’s crash site. After it crashed, there was another plane, a small business jet, which was on its way to land at a nearby airport after all planes were ordered to come down. Since the business jet was near, the controllers asked the pilot to go take a look where they lost Flight 93 to see if it had gone down. The jet circled the area, reported what they saw, and continued on. We know which jet this was and who was flying it, the pilots have been interviewed.

The main evidence against a shoot-down of 93 comes down to two things. One, there are no chunks of the plane located any distance from the crash site. Part of an engine bounced a couple hundred yards away, and some lightweight paper and fabrics from the plane were sent aloft by the fireball and floated somewhat further. With a shoot-down, you’d expect major chunkage a long way from the crash site.

But the other piece of evidence against it is that we have the Flight Data Recorder from 93, and it shows all systems functioning normally up to the moment of impact.

[crypto]

@Czarcasm

How many times does this have to be said before you will acknowledge it?
Nobody here is saying that the government doesn’t lie.
They are saying that the government has a piss-poor record of keeping such lies secret.

To be honest, that’s the first time someone has stated that POV so succinctly. Well done!

I’m not sure why you were expecting an acknowledgement from me. I’m not generally thinking conspiracy after every event. And in this particular case (9/11) the item I wonder about is tangential to the plot. Whether or not the plane was shot down or a fight in the cockpit caused the crash, the end result was the same. Not exactly something I lose sleep over. Just something interesting to discuss.

[Alessan]

The reason I belive Flight 93 couldn’t have been shot down is that I don’t think the Air Force would have taken down an American airplane in American airspace without a direct order from the President, and I don’t think Bush was capable of giving that order.

[CurtC]

We know that Bush did give that order, about the same time that 93 crashed. But at that time there were no fighters near it.