March 16, 2011
The official report on 9/11 just doesn't add up
Scott Stockdale
More by this author...We must have a criminal investigation into the events of 9/11, according to Dr. Niels Harrit, Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Copenhagen.
At a presentation at the University of Toronto recently, Dr. Harrit outlined a number of reasons why, from a scientific perspective, the official report on 9/11 just doesn't add up.
The WTC complex consisted of seven buildings, of which the Twin Towers (WTC 1 & 2) were the highest. Seven hours after the Twin Towers collapsed, WTC 7—which had 47 floors and was 186 meters tall—collapsed completely, suddenly, symmetrically, and within 45 seconds.
Since WTC 7 was only slightly damaged after the fall of the Twin Towers, - it was never hit by an airplane - Dr. Harrit said its collapse can be regarded as the most remarkable in the history of architecture, at least if one chooses to accept the official explanation.
Tellingly, the 9/11 Commission official report, published in July 2004, didn't even mention WTC 7.
Dr. Harrit said when the authors of the report were asked why, they said: “We didn't think it was important.”
Subsequently, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) – whose leadership, under the Ministry of Commerce, is politically appointed and changes with each administration – delayed publication of their report on WTC 7 until October 2008.
The Report entitled “Final Report on the Collapse of WTC 7,” stated that “The NIST has seen no evidence that the collapse of WTC 7 was caused by bombs, missiles, or controlled demolition ... Structural damage to WTC 7 was minor and not decisive. WTC 7 collapsed primarily due to conventional office fires.”
Dr. Harrit said this has never happened before or after in the history of mankind. He gave examples of numerous high-rise fires around the world where the fires burned for many hours, but the structures of the buildings always remained standing. For example, the Mandarin Hotel in Beijing burned for 17 hours, on February 9, 2009, yet the structure of the building didn't collapse.
Showing a computer model of WTC 7, Dr. Harrit said NIST did experiments using burning building models and the floor didn't fall. “Floor beams don't fall due to fire; they sag.”
Moreover, he showed U.S. physics teacher David Chandler's video of the WTC 7 collapse, which Dr. Harrit said consisted of 25 frames per second, allowing scientists to determine the exact speed of the collapse.
“It was a free fall, as if there was nothing to support it. All the support structure was removed. If you released a stone out the window of the 47th floor, it would fall at the same rate. WTC 7 fell 100 meters in 45 seconds and it wasn't hit by an airplane.”
He said that WTC 7 fell completely symmetrically, in its own footprint, thus causing little damage to the surroundings.
“This is an implosion, not an explosion. It's like sucking the air out of a soda can. It will collapse inward,” Dr. Harrit said, adding “It's a fundamental property of nature: Asymmetrical damage doesn't give symmetrical collapse.”
As part of the presentation, he showed a clip from a documentary in which the Dutch expert on the demolition of high-rise buildings, Danny Jowenko, ruled out everything except for a professional demolition of the building.
Dr. Harrit then showed a video in which Larry Silverstein, a Republican Party insider, who purchased a 99 year lease on the WTC complex in July 2001, confirmed that the building had been “pulled.”
Dr. Harrit then showed a video, taken the next day in, which Mr. Silverstein contradicted his previous statement. Mr. Silverstein, had coincidentally purchased an insurance policy against terrorist attacks on the WTC complex, which granted him enormous sums of money as a result of 9/11. Dr. Harrit said, that after some legal wrangling, Mr. Silverstein settled for $6 billion.
Meanwhile, in a video of the collapse of the South Tower, Dr. Harrit pointed out that you can see an orange glow of red molten metal.
“This is not aluminum,” Dr. Harrit said. “It's molten iron. Iron only turns molten at 1,538 degrees Celsius, far beyond the temperature of an ordinary office fire or the temperature jet fuel burns at. There's only one chemical reaction that can reach these temperatures: Thermite – a mixture of aluminium and rust reaches a temperature beyond 2,500 degrees Celsius. It causes molten iron; it can melt steel. It's used in welding and weapons such as torpedoes. They found aluminium oxide on the South Korean ship that North Korea sank. That's how they knew it was hit with a torpedo.”
He added that 123 firefighters and police officers mentioned explosions when interviewed about 9/11 and Dr. Harrit counted 23 witness reports on 9/11 which said there was molten iron in pools and streams in the rubble of the WTC. Dr. Harrit said there was no mention of molten iron in the official report. Moreover, eight weeks after 9/11, the chemicals were still reacting in the rubble.
“NASA used infrared cameras to examine therma hot spots. On September 16, they got a reading of 750 degrees Celsius at WTC 1 and 730 degrees at WTC 7. And it had rained cats and dogs in New York on September 14. Despite pouring millions of gallons of water from the Hudson River on it, the official report said they had stopped the heat generating from the rubble on December 20, 2001, but it continued to react into February.”
When asked if the thermite he and eight other scientists have found in the debris of Ground Zero, could have been self-produced or been inherent in the buildings, he said, “definitely not.”