Sept. 11 Conspiracy Theorist Offers $100,000 Prize

[russ_watters]

Missed this before and now Fred got it:

Sniff, I thought the most important thing was that the fuel was nowhere near compromising the structure to justify that kind of collapse, especially since it wasn't burning when the wtc's went kaput. And if you can't even use your imagination...

Well, imagination is what you need: the towers were burning when they collapsed. There was thick, black smoke pouring out of both, so thick it partially obscured the collapse. Just look at the pictures!

The buildings did catch on fire, but it was quite contained when they collapsed. And fire tends to go up, if it didn't die after so long I don't see what the fire could do. Did you read the articles we linked?

That just plain isn't how it happened. One at a time:

-"it was quite contained when they collapsed" - Of course: it was contained between thick layers of concrete floor. And what happens when you concentrate, but still feed a fire? It burns very, very hot.

-"And fire tends to go up" - One of the flaws in that first article is this very fact. They added the mass of the concrete floor, when the concrete floor won't heat up much at all. You can light a bonfire on a frozen lake (I've done it) and it won't melt through. But at the same time, the concrete floor above contained the fire and kept it from spreading to higher floors. And when you contain a fire but still feed it...see above.

-"if it didn't die after so long I don't see what the fire could do" - Huh? The longer it burns, the more the heat has a chance to build up. With the fire that contained, it will keep the fuel from all burning right away and contain the heat, allowing it to get very, very hot.

Like I said before, the article was crap. One of the keys to crackpottery is to make it complicated and sound good (to make it sound intelligent) while paying no attention whatsoever to reality. A perfect example of that is the common claim that there was no noticeable airplane wreckage in the Pentagon site. This claim is supported by pictures that show no identifiable airplane wreckage: but they ignore the fact that there was airplane wreckage and there are plenty of pictures that show it.

Basically, Esperanto, these sites are lying to you and you are choosing to believe it despite evidence to the contrary.

 

[cronxeh]

http://www.the7thfire.com/jet-fuel-WTC.htm

This is a very nice try, but its completely wrong

He manipulated the data in his favor and he has no proof about any quantities or any temperatures. Its his 'best' guess, and its wrong. When an airplane slammed into the building - it slammed not into one floor but many - thus already creating an unstable structure. The burning fuel and the fact that the fire protective coating was blown off from the steel exposed the steel to burning hot temperatures. The amount of heat the air plane carried is not important - the fact that the building collapsed is. He tries to quantify something with at least 2 or 3 degrees of freedom on his hands - he doesn't know the temperatures each substance burned at and how much heat was absorbed by steel. He doesn't know how many floors there were burning - he only assumed one. He doesn't take into account the stress and strain of materials - concreate is good if you press on it but not if you stretch it. The floors were held by bolts that absorbed most of the weight of the airplane plus the steel that was rapidly loosing its strenght. Therefore the floors simply collapsed from top to bottom like pancakes

In the end only results matters - the building collapsed and that's the only truth. There were no explosives in the building and no government cover up. This is pathetic and rediculous, close this thread please

 

[Esperanto]

OK I believe I have taken the wrong route. Instead, I'll say 2+2=4. Oh, yess, not 3. Very, very, hot? Call people who make steel and ask them if they use kerosene to forge their goods. Haha. Okay, no accolades for you, let's talk about this clip http://reopen911.org/video/painful_deceptions-an_analysis_of_the_911_attack_part2.wmv ,that has my kudos, starting at sixteen minutes into it. And I'm trying hard to find images of flight 77 that supposedly made a mess at Pentagon.

One of the keys to crackpottery is to make it complicated and sound good (to make it sound intelligent) while paying no attention whatsoever to reality.

Sounds like what Bush and friends attempt and fail at doing! Hahahahaha.

Look as they spread their venom! http://www.muchosucko.com/viewlink5516.html

More videos!

 

[russ_watters]

Call people who make steel and ask them if they use kerosene to forge their goods.

Not that I like argument from authority, but I'm a mechanical engineer: I've had both thermodynamics and materials science. And so have the engineers who did the reports for the media in the days following the attack. The people who promulgate conspiracy theories never have the expertise required to say the things they say: what they say may sound reasonable, but it isn't. There is a reason why real structural engineers buy into the conventional explanation.

...let's talk about this clip http://reopen911.org/video/painful_deceptions-an_analysis_of_the_911_attack_part2.wmv , that has my kudos, starting at sixteen minutes into it.

I downloaded it and watched bits and pieces of it totaling about 5 minutes - that's all I could stand: its really, really bad. Pretty much everything he says is a misrepresentation of the conventional explanation or a made-up or misunderstood piece of evidence for his explanation. Just a few examples:

-He misrepresents the "pancake" theory (with a pretty diagram) by saying that the floors would pancake one on top of another all the way down inside the shell of the building without disturbing the shell. That's pretty rediculous - the shell doesn't have any structure of its own, so that's not what the conventional explanation says would happen. What would (did) happen is when each floor collapsed, the entire floor, including the shell went with it.

-He uses the example of the steel in your fireplace to prove that fire doesn't weaken steel. Wood fires and kerosene fires are two very different things.

-His claim is that explosives were used on every floor - a monumental engineering task in and of itself. It couldn't possibly have gone unnoticed.

-He notes that the building fell at very near its theoretical maximum rate and claims air resistance and the strength of the building would slow it down. That's a pretty basic misunderstanding of structural mechanics: when things like a buiding column fail, they fail quickly and completely. And since the building is dense and fell straight down, air resistance was insignificant.

-He claims the high temperature of the rubble is evidence of explosives. If you've ever seen a show where they explain demolitions, you know that's not true: demolitions use very small quantities of explosves, shaped to cut structural members like a an axe - you can touch a severd beam seconds after its blown up. It also happens fast, which does not provide enough time to heat up and melt a beam. The fact that there were hot-spots means there were pools of jet-fuel burning. It is not evidence of explosives.

And I'm trying hard to find images of flight 77 that supposedly made a mess at Pentagon.

They are easy to find. If you want to find them, you will - if you don't want to, you won't.

And let me just re-highlight a common conspiracy theory tactic:

especially since it wasn't burning when the wtc's went kaput.

This was a clear and obvious lie and you know it: so you ignored the response. That's what conspriacy theorists do. When their lies and errors are pointed out, they just move on to the next lie misunderstanding/misrepresentation. Pretty soon, most people realize that a conspiracy theory is just a never-ending stream of lies and misunderstandings/misrepresentations.

 

[jammieg]

Walters is probably looking for the next big book deal or some disreputable way to make money off of people doing the reaseach and theorizing for him, otherwise he wouldn't have a lot of money now...besides that, are you really going to get the truth by offering people money for it?

 

[Esperanto]

The amount of fire is much less and smoke much more than during the initial impact and resulting flames. What I meant by there was no fire was that it was neither raging nor able to spread to lower floors considering how contained it was after 15 seconds.

The pancake diagrams were from FEMA's own report. The one where lower floors get pancaked while upper ones stay the same might be because there were 236 exterior columns which the speaker says "were literally on the outside of the building."

Kerosene fire isn't magical enough to break steel. Otherwise, a Nobel Prize is in order.

He did not say all the floors were rigged, and since the trucks could carry 24 foot-long steel beams you might be able to place explosives every other floor. But I don't see what's so monumental about that. And I've read they can be placed much more economically than what you're saying.

He only brings up air resistance to say if the girl leaning outside of the hole tossed a steel beam at the 94th floor it'd take about eight seconds to reach the ground when not taking into consideration resistance. He talks about explosives going off slightly faster than the rubble was falling, but I don't see him giving much importance to either air resistance or structural strength.

He says the heat was at over 1300 F at the south wtc and the building #7 according to NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey thermal image taken five days after the event. The heat has nowhere to go so perhaps the steel-melting kerosene (that magically gets into building #7), or explosives, could be the answer?

Please watch it beginning at 16 minutes all the way through.

You get a point across through advertising. Anti-drug ads do a great job promoting drugs.

 

[brewnog]

I've saved you the bother of watching it from start to finish.

I think the fact that the video is narrated by a Speak & Spell (or is it Microsoft Sam?) should make everyone at least slightly sceptical...

(and the Comic Sans font on the annotations almost made me piss myself!)

And finally, at 20 minutes the voice-over says "there should be large, twisted pieces of steel assemblies in this rubble" right as it's showing large, twisted pieces of steel assemblies in the rubble.

 

[cronxeh]

honestly I am sick of these crackpots. i think your problem is that you don't understand what engineering mean when they talking to you. allow me to elaborate this in terms you'll understand

the first diagram with sheer forces (for wind resistance) and that number is ONLY applicable if whole building is in one piece and nothing slams into it and no fires are burning and disintegrating steel's quantum structure by exciting electrons so much that they start flying off the atoms and breaking up the whole material.

as for the argument for steel beams being of nice size so they fit in the trucks (implying that explosives were used to cut it up) - how do you think these steel beams got up there in the first place? each steel beam that got up there also got down in one form or the other and no explosives were used to 'cut them up'

as far as building #7 is concerned - yes FDNY imploded it. so what? it was done for safety considerations - either you take it out or it falls on everything that's in the surrounding area - it was safer to simply implode it in a controlled manner.


as far as the video tape of security camera is concerned.. first of all the date says september 12 so WTF IS ALL THE *****ING ABOUT?

its fake, get it? 5 frames don't make it right.

 

[russ_watters]

honestly I am sick of these crackpots. i think your problem is that you don't understand what engineering mean when they talking to you.

I'm more cynical: it doesn't take much common sense to be able to evaluate the expertise and credibility of your sources of information. That video and sites like Rense practically reach out of the screen, slap you upside the head and say 'Hey! I'm a crackpot!

as far as building #7 is concerned - yes FDNY imploded it.

Did they? I must admit I didn't pay much attention to the building 7 thing.

 

[Overdose]

Jimmy Walter seems to have James Randi syndrome

 

[Curious3141]

Jimmy Walter seems to have James Randi syndrome

But I suspect on this matter Walter and Randi would be at cross-purposes. Randi would regard Walter as a crackpot while Walter would regard Randi as a paid government mouthpiece and disingenuous "skeptic".

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

http://www.rense.com/general32/phot.htm

Right there... from rense even.. photos and eyewitness accounts of the pentagon crash including a plane and not a missle or truck filled with explosivs or whatever the hell the stupid theory is.

 

[Esperanto]

Ape, http://www.rense.com/general61/EPENT.HTM is more recent than that one on the Pentagon Strike.

One thing your linked article doesn't bring up is that extraterrestrials are trying to turn us into cows. Hahaha, just kidding, so I guess rense.com has updatted information as more investigation goes on. I wonder if that means I lose on the other thread ;p.

cronxeh, 1. I like who you consider crackpots.
2. I think his section of the video talking about the strength of the structure was to give you an idea of how little the impact and resulting fire affected the structures.
3. The beams are glued together and only a few of the thousands needed to be cut.
4. If you so believe FDNY imploded it (as supported by the video's clip of that building's owner saying the department pulled it) do you have anything to say about FEMA saying they don't know why it died?
5. I also wondered about the date, but can't remember what time in the clip it was again. Tell me? If he was lying or faking it, he would conceal it by making it another date, eh? Listen, it is totally impossible for the camera's owner to set the video camera's date incorrectly. O.K.?

Brewnog, I understand your frustration, but just because he presents the information in a way you don't appreciate does not mean you should say you are sceptical. Maybe he's come to the conclusion that people only understand violence and... teachers. He says the structure ingredient is 100% steel. You see a picture with a few whole but a lot was shattered by something. maybe kerosene?

 

[russ_watters]

Esperanto, you're hopeless - that article has nothing to do with the previous article. It doesn't address the question at all. You're utterly ignoring obvious evidence that doesn't fit what you want to see.

Beyond that - an A-3? Firing a missile at a range of 200 yards? Laughably absurd. Its so bad it doesn't require debunking.

 

[Esperanto]

It does address the commercial airliner idea. It points out it's tough for an airliner to do the things we say it did. Like trail black smoke and not look like a commercial airliner. Here is one possible idea: the burning parts of an airliner might have been planted there.

Where does it say an airplane shot a missile 200 yards from that place?

 

[brewnog]

It points out it's tough for an airliner to do the things we say it did.

NO IT DOESN'T!

Skyscrapers just aren't designed to withstand the heat provided by a couple of burning airliners. It's that simple.

 

[Esperanto]

For this I was talking about the pentagon strike.

 

[russ_watters]

Jumping around again, huh? That link is just new crap (and worse crap than the old crap). With the old crap thoroughly debunked, you're just jumping to the next crap and avoiding the obviousness of the crap you already posted.

The 'where did the wings go?' argument is even more pathetic than the baseless and obviously wrong claims about the WTC. Planes (even big planes) have flown into buildings before. The wingtips may as well be made of tissue paper: they never survive and do virtually no damage. Case in point: http://www.evesmag.com/empirestatecrash.htm

Where does it say an airplane shot a missile 200 yards from that place?

That's just my estimate from the pathetic sketch at the bottom of the page you posted.

 

[Esperanto]

Whoa, accusing me of changing topics for answering questions "off-topic"? If you look again at the mucho sucko pentagon strike flash you'll get photos of airplanes, crashed, and still with tissue paper strong wings that, in a sense, survived. I agree with the idea of wings not doing much damage. I do not believe anything I said has been successfully debunked. Ape may have posted rense.com's article showing evidence pointing to an airliner, but I believe it was only an article touching on how similar the pieces found looked like parts of that type of commercial airliner and not contrary evidence for simplicity's sake. And I think there's a difference between the empire state building and the pentagon when talking about the certain death of wings in crashes, especially since the article you gave me has the word wing once, in the word "harrowing".

See me making such comparisons?

 

[Overdose]

But I suspect on this matter Walter and Randi would be at cross-purposes. Randi would regard Walter as a crackpot while Walter would regard Randi as a paid government mouthpiece and disingenuous "skeptic".

I didnt say they were the same person, just the same approach to different ends

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Whoa, accusing me of changing topics for answering questions "off-topic"?

I think he was referring to how you very rarely reply to the comments we make on what you post but continue to post new and different material instead.
So far as the rense article is concerned it's just another take on the incident not an "updated" version of the story. Like what was said on the other thread(and I have no need or intention to "win" anything) they just post stories that apeal to their audience not because they are well researched or imply their own aproval of the material.
At any rate you can introduce this new piece of "evidence" regarding the pentagon attack but it just doesn't jive and doesn't do much damage to the integrity of the article that I posted. In that one article there were upclose and clear photographs of debris from the crash as well as 10 or so links to articles with eyewitness accounts of what happened. The article you posted has one really blurry low res picture and lots of conjecture by one guy who has probably never even been to the crash site.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Also I think Russ was referring in that article to the picture. A plane crashed into that building and left that hole that apears to be no more than ten feet wide. Obviously if the plane crashed "into" the building through that hole the wings didn't accompany it. The Empire State Building definitely isn't nearly as well reinforced as the Pentagon so the wings of the airliner that hit the Pentagon most likely would not have done much damage either. You might say that in the article you posted nothing was mentioned of the wings of the airliner in regards to the Pentagon but if you have really read up much at all on the theories about it having been a missle instead of the airliner you'd know that one of their main arguements is that the hole left in the pentagon was not wide enought to account for damage done by the wings.

At anyrate there are a lot of problems in these theories about the pentagon not having been hit by the airliner. What of all the people that saw an airliner fly at/into the pentagon? How about all the people that were in the pentagon or on the grounds that saw it was a plane and saw the debris? How would they have all the sudden planted debris from an airliner on the scene without anyone noticing? What happened to Flight 77 and all the people on board if it didn't hit the pentagon?
You may think that the the "official story" lacks certain pieces of evidence in certain key points. But if you're going to accuse them of lacking evidence then show me a theory that has more evidence behind it. No phantom airliners and airliner passengers or phantom bomber jets with missles or phantom evidence planters.

 

[russ_watters]

Also I think Russ was referring in that article to the picture. A plane crashed into that building and left that hole that apears to be no more than ten feet wide. Obviously if the plane crashed "into" the building through that hole the wings didn't accompany it. The Empire State Building definitely isn't nearly as well reinforced as the Pentagon so the wings of the airliner that hit the Pentagon most likely would not have done much damage either.

Thanks, I wasn't even going to bother explaining it - its useless.