(ANTIMEDIA) — Christmas has come early for “conspiracy theorists” around the world. An academic report published by Europhysics News in time for the anniversary of 9/11 is questioning the official explanation for the collapse of all three World Trade Center buildings on September 11, 2001, and their conclusion may make even the most rational person rethink their outlook. As the report from Europhysics News, a “ magazine of the European physics community,” notes:
“It bears repeating that fires have never caused the total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise before or since 9/11. Did we witness an unprecedented event three separate times on September 11, 2001? The NIST [U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology] reports, which attempted to support that unlikely conclusion, fail to persuade a growing number of architects, engineers, and scientists. Instead, the evidence points overwhelmingly to the conclusion that all three buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition. Given the far-reaching implications, it is morally imperative that this hypothesis be the subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities.”
Entitled “15 Years Later: On the Physics of High-Rise Building Collapses,” the investigation was conducted by Steven Jones, a former professor of physics at Brigham Young University; Robert Korol, a professor emeritus of civil engineering at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada and a fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering and the Engineering Institute of Canada; Anthony Szamboti, a mechanical design engineer; and Ted Walter, author of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth’s Beyond Misinformation: “What Science Says About the Destruction of World Trade Center Buildings 1, 2 and 7.”
The Europhysics News report begins by questioning the official explanation for the collapse of the three buildings on September 11, 2001, as determined by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). NIST began carrying out an investigation in August 2002, and their findings are still questioned to this day. The report reminds us that:
“Indeed, neither before nor since 9/11 have fires caused the total collapse of a steel-framed high-rise—nor has any other natural event, with the exception of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake, which toppled a 21-story office building. Otherwise, the only phenomenon capable of collapsing such buildings completely has been by way of a procedure known as controlled demolition, whereby explosives or other devices are used to bring down a structure intentionally.”
The report explains why this would be the case, offering four main explanations why steel-framed high rises have endured large fires in the past without undergoing total collapse: (1) the heat of a fire and its duration do not typically generate enough energy to heat the large structural members to the point where they would fail; (2) most high-rise buildings have fire suppression systems (such as water sprinklers) that would further inhibit the fire from reaching anywhere near the heat necessary to create a total collapse; (3) the structural members are protected by fireproofing materials, which are designed to prevent the structure from reaching failure temperatures within specified time periods; (4) steel-framed high-rise buildings are designed to be highly redundant, meaning that the buildings can suffer a partial collapse due to a fire but would not result in a disproportionate collapse of the entire structure.
“Countless other steel-framed high-rises have experienced large, long-lasting fires without suffering either partial or total collapse,” the report points out.
It goes on to confirm the scientists’ doubts regarding the official explanation by referencing the head structural engineer of the buildings, John Skilling, who was interviewed by the Seattle Times following the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Skilling, who was concerned about a possible airplane attack, performed an analysis that proved the towers would withstand the impact of Boeing 707:
“Our analysis indicated the biggest problem would be the fact that all the fuel (from the airplane) would dump into the building. There would be a horrendous fire. A lot of people would be killed…The building structure would still be there…However, I’m not saying that properly applied explosives—shaped explosives—of that magnitude could not do a tremendous amount of damage…. I would imagine that if you took the top expert in that type of work and gave him the assignment of bringing these buildings down with explosives, I would bet that he could do it.”
To put it politely, Skilling believed the only thing that could bring down the Twin Towers was controlled demolition, certainly not a fire alone – not even a “horrendous fire.”
A controlled demolition would better explain how the buildings were able to collapse in the manner that they did, the report argues:
“In general, the technique used to demolish large buildings involves cutting the columns in a large enough area of the building to cause the intact portion above that area to fall and crush itself as well as crush whatever remains below it. This technique can be done in an even more sophisticated way, by timing the charges to go off in a sequence so that the columns closest to the center are destroyed first. The failure of the interior columns creates an inward pull on the exterior and causes the majority of the building to be pulled inward and downward while materials are being crushed, thus keeping the crushed materials in a somewhat confined area—often within the building’s ‘footprint.’ This method is often referred to as ‘implosion.’”
The lesser-known WTC building 7, which also collapsed that day, is “remarkable because it exemplified all the signature features of an implosion.” According to the report:
“The building dropped in absolute free fall for the first 2.25 seconds of its descent over a distance of 32 meters or eight stories. Its transition from stasis to free fall was sudden, occurring in approximately one-half second. It fell symmetrically straight down. Its steel frame was almost entirely dismembered and deposited mostly inside the building’s footprint, while most of its concrete was pulverized into tiny particles. Finally, the collapse was rapid, occurring in less than seven seconds.”
In relation to WTC Building 7, the report criticizes the official NIST explanation by pointing out some heavy flaws with their investigation. The NIST investigation began with the conclusion that fires brought down WTC building 7 but then had trouble trying to reconcile the evidence with that predetermined conclusion. The NIST report also attempted to deny the building fell at free-fall speed. However, independently verifying NIST’s computer modeling is currently impossible because NIST refuses to release a large portion of its data, arguing doing so “might jeopardize public safety.”
The most surprising aspect of this report, however, is that it goes further than any “conspiracy theorist” would ever have expected it to by questioning the explanation for the collapse of the Twin Tower buildings, as well. The report acknowledges:
“Thus, the definitive report on the collapse of the Twin Towers contains no analysis of why the lower sections failed to arrest or even slow the descent of the upper sections—which NIST acknowledges ‘came down essentially in free fall’—nor does it explain the various other phenomena observed during the collapses. When a group of petitioners filed a formal Request for Correction asking NIST to perform such analysis, NIST replied that it was ‘unable to provide a full explanation of the total collapse’ because ‘the computer models [were] not able to converge on a solution.””
Lastly, the report briefly argues that to this day, there is still a significant volume of unexplained evidence that further supports the theory controlled demolitions took place on that tragic day fifteen years ago, including the fact that videos and photographs show numerous high-velocity bursts of debris being ejected from “point-like sources”; the well-documented presence of molten metal throughout the debris field; and a number of eyewitness accounts (some 156 witnesses) stating they saw, heard and/or felt explosions prior to and during the collapses.
As the authors of the report note, until their hypothesis is the “subject of a truly scientific and impartial investigation by responsible authorities,” we will never know the truth of what happened for sure. People will continue to speculate, and those of us who question the official story will continue to be labeled “crazy” despite the fact that there are many unanswered questions.
For example, if it’s crazy to question why media outlets reported on the collapse of WTC Building 7 before it even collapsed, then perhaps we should never question anything.
As rapper Lupe Fiasco wrote in his song “Words I Never Said”:
“9/11, Building 7, did they really pull it?”
This article (Physicists Say Twin Towers Destroyed by Controlled Demolition on 9/11) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Darius Shahtahmasebi and theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11 pm Eastern/8 pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, please email the error and name of the article to edits@theantimedia.org.