Scientists, Scholars, Architects, Engineers debunk NIST

[Winston]

http://www.911blogger.com/node/17794

[Winston]

Richard Gage's letter to NIST, listing many key discrepancies and unanswered questions in their report on the collapse of Building 7 on 9/11. Very impressive.

http://www.ae911truth.org/downloads/Let ... 20-09a.pdf

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Dr. Shyam Sunder
National Institute of Standards & Technology
100 Bureau Drive
Gaithersburg, MD 20899-1070
July 20, 2009
Re: Request for meeting regarding NIST Reports - WTC7 and Twin Towers
Dear Dr. Sunder,
We have heard you state publicly after the WTC 7 press conference that it “would not be
productive� for you to meet with the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. This is quite
disappointing – as we now have over 700 architects and engineers at AE911Truth calling for a
real investigation into the destruction of the three World Trade Center high-rises on 9/11. At
what point will you take us seriously? Perhaps when our rapidly growing numbers reach 1,000
A/E’s?
Here are our talking points:
1. The NIST November 2008 Final WTC 7 Investigative Report has many fatal flaws:
a. NIST was forced to acknowledge the free-fall collapse of Building 7 for 100 feet
of its 6.5 second fall only after being grilled publicly by experts who are petition
signers of AE911Truth. Yet you do not acknowledge the obvious implications of
such free-fall collapse – that the structure had to have been removed – forcibly –
by explosives. (Anyone knows that a building cannot collapse at the rate of a
freely falling object while simultaneously crushing 40,000 tons of structural steel
– because all of its gravitational potential energy has been converted to motion.)
b. The evidence of fires on the critical 12th floor is clearly falsified (video and photos
document that the fires had burned out at least an hour before collapse – at the
theorized area of collapse initiation).
c. NIST has eliminated the evidence of melted steel documented thoroughly in
Appendix C of the former FEMA BPAT report: “rapid oxidation, intergranular
melting, sulfidation… evaporation of steel.� The temperatures required for these
processes are simply not possible with “normal office fires� which of course the
NIST report cites as the cause of this building’s unprecedented catastrophic
failure.
d. Your computer simulations of WTC 7 look nothing like the straight-down
symmetrical collapse seen in all of the videos. The animations reveal the building
top “folding in on itself� – then the simulation is actually stopped – only half way
through – at the point at which the model appears to begin to behave like a natural
process of collapse – asymmetrically – falling “over.� Why won’t NIST show us
the whole 6.5 second collapse simulation?
2342 Shattuck Ave., Suite 189 Berkeley, CA 94704
AE911Truth.org
2
We provide the accompanying packet for your convenience. It includes the new version of our
DVD 9/11: Blueprint for Truth – The Architecture of Destruction, Companion Edition, with 10-,
30-, and 60-minute versions – and the two-hour public PowerPoint presentation.
We have carefully documented the evidence in our multimedia presentation1 and DVD that
exposes the fraud of NIST’s official explanation of events at the World Trade Center using
simple, rational forensic inquiry and basic physics. I travel the country, and recently nine cities in
Europe, speaking to building professionals and others to present the evidence and the facts of
9/11. The response to this presentation is stunning. A simple show of hands before and after2
consistently reveals that about 85% of audiences who believe the official hypothesis of “fireweakened
steel� come to accept the “explosive demolition with explosives� hypothesis after
hearing the fact-based presentation. They support us in the need for a new, independent
investigation with full subpoena power.
The official explanations of the destruction of the iconic Twin Towers and WTC Building 7
offered by FEMA and NIST defy the laws of physics. The existing prevalent physical evidence
shows that the official explanations offered cannot be true. That such serious inconsistencies and
unasked questions remain unaddressed is untenable. Every licensed architect and engineer
agrees to uphold a code of ethics when obtaining licensure. Our A/Es are meeting their ethical
obligation by challenging the false assumptions and lies underlying 9/11, without which there
would be no “post-9/11 era.� Even the FBI’s assistant director for counterterrorism, Michael
Heimbach, has found our work worthy, noting that it was “backed by thorough research and
analysis.�3
Our petitioners ask the questions and document the observations below, which are just a few of
many that remain unanswered and ignored:
 How did the elevated building mass destroy 80,000 tons of structural steel at nearly freefall
speed?4
 Given that open-air jet fuel fires and normal office fires both burn at a maximum of
around 1,500° F, and the melting point of steel is around 2,700° F, what thermal energy
source produced the several tons of molten metal5 observed flowing out of the South
Tower shortly before its collapse – and also seen for weeks after 9/11/01 in the basements
of the Twin Towers and Building 7 by numerous witnesses6, including the WTC
structural engineer, Leslie Robertson?
 What explains the chemical evidence of thermite7, an incendiary material found on the
ends of steel beams and in the leftover dust8? FEMA documented in Appendix C of its
BPAT Report9 “evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel,
including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting.� This is
clearly not a feature of gravitational collapse, or of hydrocarbon fuel or office fires.
NIST summarily dismissed this key evidence when they took over the investigation.
2342 Shattuck Ave., Suite 189 Berkeley, CA 94704
AE911Truth.org
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 What is the source of the billions of microspheres consisting of previously molten iron10
in the World Trade Center dust? The United States Geological Survey (USGS), in its
“Particle Atlas of World Trade Center Dust Report,� and RJ Lee Group, Inc., an
engineering firm, in its December 2003 “WTC Dust Signature Report: Composition and
Morphology,� both document these once-molten drops of metal without explanation.
These microspheres also contain the chemical signature of thermite, an incendiary
material used by the military to cut through structural steel.
 Why did Building 7 start its sudden and uniform collapse at free-fall acceleration rate11
for eight stories? Video analysis shows the upper portion of the structure accelerating at
the maximum rate gravity allows. Per NIST, this can only mean that the structure below
offered no resistance. It therefore must have been “removed.�
 What mechanism can account for the simultaneous failure of the critical number and
distribution of columns required to produce this rate of acceleration? NIST now attributes
the catastrophic collapse of Building 7 to a new phenomenon called “thermal expansion�
due to “normal office fires� with little to no contribution from falling debris or diesel
fuel. At this suggestion by NIST, are we to suddenly accept that our understanding of fire
science, materials and structural behavior has been deeply flawed all along? The
American Institute of Architects (AIA) has steadfastly resisted changes to building codes
that have been proposed after 9/11. Here is the potent 5-minute AE911Truth executive
summary testimony12 delivered to NIST on December 18, 2007.
 Why did more than 100 FDNY first responders describe, in great detail, the sounds of
explosions and flashes of light that they saw and heard just before and during each
tower’s collapse? Why did we not know about these thousands of pages of FDNY “oral
history� evidence until August, 2005 – and only then after a court order for their release?
FDNY’s own Chief of Safety, Albert Turi, and FDNY’s chief, Ray Downey, the
“premiere collapse expert in the country� according to a fellow chief, both spoke of the
presence of explosives in the Towers prior to their failures. More than 100 testimonies13
referring to multiple, violent explosions were ignored and unreported by the 9/11
Commission, NIST and FEMA.
 What was the energy source, and through what mechanism was it applied, that pulverized
400,000 cubic yards of concrete into a fine powder14 in mid-air that blanketed
Manhattan? Calculations15 show that the energy requirement for this pulverization and
the rapid expansion of the subsequent dust clouds was far greater than the available
gravitational potential energy of the structures. This simple energy imbalance alone
proves the official explanation impossible. Is this the same energy source that is
responsible for the vaporization of more than 10,000 steel file cabinets and 1,100 human
bodies that were never found, not even the smallest traces of DNA?
 How were 4 ton steel members ejected16 from the Twin Towers at 70 miles per hour –
and landing 600 feet away? A simple gravitational collapse would only allow up to 100
feet of “drift,� so what provided the energy required?
2342 Shattuck Ave., Suite 189 Berkeley, CA 94704
AE911Truth.org
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 Why were virtually no floors found17 at the base of either Twin Tower? There were
originally 110 floors in each Tower – each of them one acre in size. What explains the
disappearance of 220 acres of four-inch thick concrete (180,000 tons) and the steel
decking and trusses?
 What caused the explosive ejections of pulverized building materials18 as many as 60
stories below the rapidly descending “collapse� of each Tower? These so-called “squibs�
can be seen in many publicly available videos and show materials being ejected at over
160 feet per second.
 Why were most windows within 400 feet of each Twin Tower blown out19? This has
never been observed following other gravitational collapses. What was the energy source
here?
 Why has an international team of scientists found nanothermitic explosives residue20 (not
ordinary thermite) in the World Trade Center dust? NIST has refused to test for
explosives residue, saying that such tests “would not necessarily have been conclusive.�21
This was clearly nonsense, even before others found the residue, especially since NIST
did not test for ANY kind of explosives residue. NFPA 921 requires such testing when
there is “high order damage,� as there obviously was at the World Trade Center, and it
mentions ordinary thermite by name. Even if NFPA 921 is considered a guideline and not
a law, the failure to follow it in this case is inexcusable, and might very well have helped
allow as-yet unknown perpetrators to escape justice. See also his “Wake Up and Smell
the Aluminothermic Nanocomposite Explosives,� 3/3/09.
 Why couldn’t the NIST investigative team that was brought aboard specifically to
determine the cause of the destruction of the WTC high-rises find the above materials in
the dust? After all they were experts with the nano-composite explosives – having
developed them in the first place. Consult these NIST project leaders: Forman Williams,
Stephen Margolis, Arden Bement, Hratch Semerjian, Michael Zachariah, Richard Gann,
Andrzej Miziolek, at these corporations and institutions: Science Applications
International (SAIC), University of Maryland College Park (UMCP), NIST’s Center for
Nanoscale Science and Technology, Naval Surface Warfare Center at Indian Head
(NSWC-IH), and the NIST’s Reactive Flows Group. These “Top Ten Connections
Between NIST and Nano-Thermites,� by Kevin Ryan are documented at the Journal of
9/11 Studies, July 2, 2008. http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2008/-
Ryan_NIST_and_Nano-1.pdf
 Why does NIST manipulate its computer model data inputs – even acknowledging doing
so – until it, through the most “severe cases,� finally achieves “collapse initiation�? See
Jim Hoffman’s “Building a Better Mirage: NIST's 3-year $20M Cover-up of the Crime
of the Century.�
 Why does NIST stop its entire report at the “collapse initiationâ€� acknowledging that it
“does not actually include the structural behavior of the tower after the conditions for
collapse initiation were reached�? The capability of the structure below to resist any load
above is known. Such an analysis should have been well within a $20M project scope.
2342 Shattuck Ave., Suite 189 Berkeley, CA 94704
AE911Truth.org
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 Finally, how can we let the following September 2007 admission by NIST remain
unexplained?
“…we are unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse [of the Towers].�22
Forgive me for being so forward, but time is of the essence for our country now. On behalf of
the more than 700 Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth – and of the 2,744 victims and their
family members, and the millions of citizens becoming aware of the deceptive destruction of
these three high-rises on 9/11, I urge you, and your colleague, John Gross, to come clean with
your conscience and with the American people who have placed their trust in their government
and its National Institute for Standards and Technology. It is not too late to do the right thing.
Let’s meet and we’ll go from there.
We expect to be returning to the Washington DC area again on November 1 – 6 and could meet
with you at that time. Please let me know what date & time works best for you.
Sincerely,
Richard Gage, AIA
cc: Members of the Board, AE911Truth
References
1 http://www.ae911truth.net/ppt_web/slideshow.php
2 http://www.ae911truth.org/speakings.php#speak89
3 http://www.ae911truth.org/info/45
4 http://www.journalof911studies.com/arti ... erRoss.pdf
5 http://www.youtube.com/results?search_q ... type=&aq=f
6 http://nasathermalimages.com/#[[World%20Trade%20Center%20Hot%20Spots]]
7 http://www.journalof911studies.com/volu ... tryWTC.pdf
8 http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/conte ... 7TOCPJ.SGM
9 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidenc ... apndxC.htm
10 http://www.journalof911studies.com/arti ... hTemp2.pdf
11 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gC44L0-2zL8
12 http://www.ae911truth.net/downloads/AE9 ... -18-07.pdf
13 http://www.journalof911studies.com/arti ... Center.pdf
14 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysi ... crete.html
15 http://911research.wtc7.net/papers/dust ... umev3.html
16 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysi ... oming.html
2342 Shattuck Ave., Suite 189 Berkeley, CA 94704
AE911Truth.org
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17 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysi ... steel.html
18 http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/analysi ... quibs.html
19 http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/expulsion.html
20 http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/conte ... 7TOCPJ.SGM
21 http://wtc.nist.gov/pubs/factsheets/faqs_8_2006.htm
22 http://journalof911studies.com/volume/2 ... yEtal2.pdf