WTC 7: WTF^7

The National Institute of Standards and Technology has issued a report that looked at the collapse of the third skyscraper that imploded and fell just below the speed of gravity on 9/11. This skyscraper called the Salomon Brothers Building at the address of Seven World Trade Center fell straight down into its footprint seven hours after the twin towers fell.



The NIST report--almost four years in the making--decided that there were no explosives in the building to explain its collapse. The report is mostly based on "unprecedentedly complex" computer models and makes a number of shocking admissions about the investigation. According to NIST, not only was there no physical evidence examined for the report, the thesis of the report is that this is the first time in history that such a steel-framed skyscraper has collapsed due to a fire that burned sporadically and at temperatures hundreds of degrees below the integrity test strength of the steel. It also admits this in light of mentioning the story of a similar building--One Meridian Plaza in Philadelphia--that was left standing after burning in an inferno for 18 hours.

The One Meridian Plaza Fire of 1991

There were "design differences" between the two buildings that account for this, we're told. The reason they can hold this seemingly improbable explanation is that they "discovered a new principle" that would account for the collapse--thermal expansion. That is, minute but fatal thermal expansion of massive steel girders due to fires of office furnishings at a relatively low temperature and in key places that lead to the total symmetrical failure of the building's structure in a rapid, cascade manner.

But most galling is that the only evidence they provide that the building was not imploded with a compound known as thermite--one of the most fitting theories--is assumptive and in some places simply an uncited and unscientific consensus opinion. NIST writes that they collectively agreed that the thermite theory would not be investigated because "[The chemical building blocks of thermite] compounds also would have been present in the construction materials making up the WTC buildings," so it would be useless to test for any evidence of thermite. They ignore the molten metal pools found under the towers and Professor Stephen Jones' paper which finds evidence that strongly suggests thermite was used to collapse the twin towers--including forensic evidence in the form of tiny iron "spherules" found in the towers' dust. Also, NIST states that thermite was discounted as impossible because it would take 100 lbs. of thermite to melt a foot of steel and this was so improbable that thermite as a theory of the building's demolition was not investigated. This seems to assume certain knowledge of how to use thermite in building demolitions, and really should be cited, though such a citation does not appear in the report for public comment, indeed thermite is not even mentioned in the report.

For those who discount this as "conspiracy theories," I ask: does this report come up with a convincing enough case needed in a "world's first" structural failure? Does it adequately and scientifically examine evidence that strongly suggests thermite was used in the towers? Is it indeed a new and very subtle principle of thermal expansion at office fire temperatures 200 degrees Fahrenheit or more below the test rating for the steel's integrity that caused the building to suddenly implode straight down seven hours after the fires started--many of these office fires having burned out already? Does a totally virtual simulation on a computer with no physical evidence examined constitute an adequate investigation? Moreover, is there anything about 9/11 that doesn't raise ten questions for every one "answered" in favor of the official story?