Critique of Michael Shermer:‘The Truth About 9/11 Truth
A Critique of Michael Shermer: ‘The Truth About 9/11 Truth
Note: Shermer quote in italics | My commentary in bold
Claim #1: The collapse of the towers looked exactly like controlled demolitions.
“Instead, what you see is what demolition experts tell us is how it is done: the charges are set to explode from the bottom up, the opposite of what was seen on 9/11.” ~Shermer
“Actual implosion demolitions always start with the bottom floors. Photo evidence shows the lower floors of WTC 1 and 2 were intact until destroyed from above.”~ Protec Demolition
This is not true. Only building 7 looked like a standard demolition, because it was. The two large WTC towers were wired throughout the entire building, sequenced to blow from the top down to make it appear that the plane impact spots had something to do with the so-called collapses.
The floors that were hit were specific targets where financial organizations had offices. These planes were flown by remote control and hit exactly where they were meant to. See: Aidan Monaghan – flight engineer, flight analysis of planes that struck the WTC Towers.**
Claim #2: The World Trade Center buildings fell right down into their own footprint.
Shermer is making a strawman argument, with pretense that demolitions can only be successful by standard placement of charges. Trade Center 1&2 were blown up by massive explosions. The pattern of explosions travel down the building throwing steel beams and box columns weighing tons. These were thrown hundreds of feet beyond the original perimeter of the buildings, we can see this is all of the videos of the buildings coming down a map of the debris field shows steel members blocks away from the location of the towers.
However a huge amount of steel was found in basement inside the footprint of the buildings.
Claim #3: Explosive charges are seen shooting out of windows from several floors just prior to collapse.
“Answer: Air and debris can be seen being violently ejected from the building but not because of explosive charges but as a natural and predictable effect of rapid structure collapse of the upper floors on the lower floors thereby pushing out the smoke from the burning fires”
This is absurd because anyone viewing the videos of photographs can plainly see huge steel I-beams being flung laterally within the cloud of debris. Photo evidence proves Shermer and his Protec source are wrong.
Claim #4: Witnesses heard explosions.
– Naudet Brothers 9/11 Documentary
Claim #5: A heat generating explosive (thermite?) melted steel at ground Zero.
Answer: No demolition workers report encountering molten steel, cut beams, or any evidence whatsoever of explosions or explosive charges.
– “Molten steel…like you were in a foundry” — firemen 9/11
Claim #6: Ground Zero debris—particularly the large steel columns from towers 1 and 2—were quickly shipped overseas to prevent scrutiny.
Shortly after the attacks, New York City sold 175,000 tons of World Trade Center steel scrap to be made into something else. Some went to cities in the United States; about 60,000 tons went to companies in China, India, and South Korea.
https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2015/09/where-the-twin-towers-ended-up/404884/
Claim #7: WTC Building 7 was intentionally “pulled down” with explosives. The building owner himself was quoted as saying he decided to “pull it.”
Answer: Building owners do not have authority over emergency personal at a disaster scene. We have never heard “pull it” used to refer to an explosive demolition.
Who has never heard the term “pull it”? Shermer’s source who had been wrong in every case so far.
– Larry Silverstein WTC7 "pull it" Statement
Debris Map of Aftermath Radius of Heavy to Lighter Debris
Claim #8: Steel-frame buildings do not collapse due to fire.
Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands caught on fire and burned, and shortly thereafter collapsed nearly straight-down collapse almost precisely into its own footprint” ~Shermer
I have a hard time believing that Shermer is simply wrong about this. Using this as his prime example he must have known that the TU Delft Architecture building was only a partial collapse and had to be taken down by controlled demolition to remove the rest of it:
--Demolition of TU Delft Architecture - Partial collapse
Cardington fire test data British Steel
*Despite atmosphere temperatures of over 1200°C and temperatures on the unprotected steel beams of 1100°C in the worst case, no structural collapse took place.*
Cardington fire test data British Steel carried out four fire tests on the Cardington frame between 1995 and 1997. An additional two test were carried out by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). These test underpin much of the modern science of structural fire engineering in steel framed buildings with composite steel deck floors The first test was carried out on a single unprotected beam and surrounding area of slab. Further tests were carried out in compartments varying in size from 50m² to 340m² with fire loadings provided by gas, wooden cribs and standard office furniture. Columns were protected but beams were not.
*Despite atmosphere temperatures of over 1200°C and temperatures on the unprotected steel beams of 1100°C in the worst case, no structural collapse took place.*
https://www.steelconstruction.info/Cardington_fire_test_data
Claim #9: Anyone who denies that explosives were used is ignoring evidence.
Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe
Abstract:
“We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the
destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The red material contains grains approximately 100 nm across which are largely iron oxide, while aluminum is contained in tiny plate-like structures. Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 ˚C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic.”
Entire article:
https://benthamopen.com/contents/pdf/TOCPJ/TOCPJ-2-7.pdf
“The collapse of World Trade Center building 7 (WTC-7) has grown in importance to conspiracy theorists, especially since standard non-conspiracy explanations for the demise of WTC buildings 1 and 2 became accepted.” ~Shermer
What does Shermer mean by “explanations for the demise of WTC buildings 1 and 2 became accepted.”? Accepted by whom? No one who knows the real facts accepts the official narrative of the ‘collapse’ of WTC 1 and 2. They were blown up by Nanothermite charges as shown in the Harrit – Jones paper cited above.
"The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences."~Carroll Quigley