9/11: mysterious collapse of third building

Eight years after the spectacular attacks of September 11, widespread skepticism continues to exit regarding the official version put out by the US government. And this is not confined to Muslims alone who never bought into the US allegation that Muslim hijackers, working for Osama bin Laden had carried out these attack. Western academics in the US, Canada and Europe, many of them leading scientists have expressed grave doubts about what the US has claimed about the perpetrators. Such skepticism is not based merely on the fact that 19 Arabs who could not even fly a single-engine plane properly commandeered jetliners and flew them into the World Trade Centre (WTC) buildings with pinpoint accuracy that would be the envy of highly trained air force pilots. Any questioning of the official version is immediately dismissed as “conspiracy theory” but serious doubts are being raised about US claims.

Several other questions also remain unanswered. Why no air force planes were scrambled to intercept the ‘hijacked’ aircraft once they went off their assigned flight path? This is standard operating procedure and followed globally. In the year before 9/11, US air force planes were scrambled at least 69 times within 20 minutes of a civilian airliner going off its assigned flight path to investigate why. In the early morning of 9/11 when the sky over Eastern United States was crowded with hundreds if not thousands of planes, such lack of res-ponse is unexplainable. On September 16, when then US Vice President Dick Cheney was asked about this on Meet the Press TV program, he deflected the question by saying, “Only the President could authorize the shooting down of a civilian airliner.” But the question was not about shooting a plane; it was about air force planes being scrambled to check why civilian airliners had strayed off their assigned flight path. There were also stories, now debunked, about passengers and aircrew making calls from cell phones from 35,000 to 40,000 feet when such technology does not exist. Canadian Professor A.K. Dewdney has debunked such claims. He said cell phones do not operate above 2,000 feet. A Japanese television crew was so intrigued by this that they came to Canada, chartered a small plane to investigate the professor’s claim. No cell operated above 1,000 feet!

But it is the collapse of three, not two buildings that has aroused the greatest degree of skepticism. After all, only two planes hit the World Trade Centre Towers; so how did Building No. 7, a 47-storey building collapse, the way it did when no plane had slammed into it? The “official” explanation that fire caused so much damage that it collapsed, does not stand up to scrutiny.

On April 6, 2009 Copenhagen’s Channel-2 News interviewed a Danish Scientist, Niels Harrit, professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen, regarding a well-researched article he and eight other scientists had just published in the respected peer-reviewed Open Chemical Physics Journal. Through their research, the scientists offered incontrovertible proof that the dust from the Twin Towers and Building-7 of the World Trade Centre contained small intact samples of un-reacted nanothermite. Professor Harrit referred to it as the “loaded gun” as opposed to merely the “smoking” gun, insisting that their work was based on scientific evidence compiled over a period of two years and not on speculation or “conspiracy” theories. Traces of nano-thermite were discovered when molten steel from the three buildings, collected within 10 minutes of one building’s collapse, was retrieved and later examined under microscope. To their astonishment, the scientists discovered traces of nanothermite.

Thermite is a highly explosive agent consisting mostly of aluminum and iron oxide, and is used to cut steel in controlled demolition of buildings, and is also used in welding and military applications. Nano-thermite has been used since 1893, but mostly for military purposes. In the Channel-2 News interview, Professor Harrit explained that molten steel had poured out of the South Tower several minutes before its collapse. This could not have been caused by aircraft fuel burning because that generates at best 285 degree centigrade temperature whereas Thermite can achieve temperatures up to 3500 degree centigrade, hence the molten steel (His interview can be viewed on Youtube using the following link: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_tf25lx_3o).

Using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy, X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry, the scientists were able to determine that the Thermite present was of a specialized type called Nanothermite or Superther-mite. It burns hotter and has a lower ignition temperature than normal Thermite, and is produced in laboratories such as Lawrence Livermore (It is thought to be the same lab that produced the anthrax sent out shortly after 9/11. That too, was blamed on Muslims!)

The scientists also ruled out the accidental presence of Nanothermite because dust samples were collected from four different sites. Further, it could also not be the result of clean-up operations at ground zero because one of the samples was retrieved a mere ten minutes or so after the collapse of the Second Tower. All samples showed the same consistency.

When asked how much nanothermite might have been used to demolish all three buildings, Professor Harrit said between “10 tonnes to 100 tonnes.” When pressed to explain how such huge quantities could be taken into various buildings without anyone noticing it, he said they would have had to use pallets mounted on trucks and it would have taken them several weeks to place these explosives in strategic locations. He was emphatic that this would not be possible without the security personnel at the WTC giving clearance. There have been confirmed reports that workers were involved in “repair” work inside various buildings throughout the weeks preceding the 9/11 attacks. Who were these “workers” and what were they doing?

All three buildings collapsed in a manner that indicated controlled demolition. This is a sophisticated operation and not many companies have the capability to achieve the desired results. Building-7 in particular, the 47-storey, 186-meter high building was not hit by any plane. It collapsed in 6.5 seconds and imploded inward. This could only be the work of controlled demolition with explosives placed at strategic points. Fire fighters and others that were in the Twin Towers and survived the ordeal have reported hearing explosions before the buildings collapsed. These reinforce the controlled demolition allegation. Not surprisingly, a clear majority of people outside the US does not subscribe to the official version of 9/11. Nor indeed do many families of the victims of 9/11.

The US government has a lot of explaining to do. It can no longer dismiss such evidence by branding it as “conspiracy theories”.