At the International Hearings on the Events of September 11, 2001, held in Toronto, Canada, in September 2011 (The Toronto Hearings), high school physics teacher David Chandler gave a presentation explaining how the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) resorted to scientific fraud to obfuscate the implication of free fall acceleration in the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7).
During his talk, Chandler cited a paper I published in July 2011 titled "Video Analysis of NIST’s Claim of a 5.4 s Collapse Time Over 18 Stories for WTC 7", in which I showed how NIST fraudulently attempted to obfuscate the implications of the admitted free fall acceleration of the building.
I first blogged about his presentation in this post from September 16, 2011, but with the recent 24th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it occurred to me to excerpt the clip for readers unfamiliar with my past work on that topic. Here it is with subtitles:
Of course, questioning the official narratives about that day gets you automatically labelled a "conspiracy theorist", but let me be clear: neither Chandler nor I proposed any conspiracy theory. Rather, we took a scientific approach to the question of the building's collapse. The acceleration of the building is measurable. And if it follows from the observation that free fall occurred that there must have been a conspiracy, then that's just dictated by logic. Draw your own conclusions!
The point is we must allow our conclusions to be premised on the facts rather than distorting facts to conform to predetermined beliefs.
As Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes says, "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth."
Here's the crux of the issue, scientifically speaking:
The free fall collapse of WTC 7 means that all the building's potential energy was converted to kinetic energy, which means that there was no energy available to do the work of buckling columns as required by NISTS's fire-induced collapse hypothesis.
As Chandler accurately observes in the above clip, NIST elevated its computer model over real-world observations because observations falsify the hypothesis its model was designed to support.
That bears repeating: NIST's admission that the building achieved free fall acceleration was a tacit acknowledgment that its hypothesis could not be true, and yet it proclaimed its hypothesis to be true anyway. That is scientific fraud.
NIST's report is riddled with other examples of fraud, but they are all superfluous given measurable free fall.
Now, again, I'm not proposing any conspiracy theory here. I am simply observing that to support its hypothesis for the collapse of WTC7, NIST relied on demonstrable scientific fraud. Draw your own conclusions!
The Context
For background, NIST in its August 2008 draft report, stemming from its "investigation" into the collapse of WTC 7, denied free fall acceleration through obfuscation, calculating that it took 5.4 seconds to fall 18 stories and averaging the "descent speed" over that duration. It stated that an object falling at gravitational acceleration would take 3.9 seconds to travel the same distance, and so the collapse was 40% longer than "free fall time". This was "consistent with physical principles", the draft stated, evidently meaning that it was consistent with idea that the building's load-bearing columns would offer measurable resistance. (See pages p. 595-596.)
But David Chandler had already published a video on YouTube using software to measure the velocity over time and showing that acceleration occurred that was indistinguishable from the acceleration of gravity (9.8m/s²), within the margin of error introduced by the resolution of the video.
After NIST published its draft report, Chandler submitted a public comment noting how NIST's analysis was scientifically invalid because it assumed uniform acceleration instead of properly measuring the the instantaneous acceleration at numerous data points by plotting velocity over time.
Citing his own analysis, he submitted that there were approximately 2.5 seconds in which "the acceleration was indistinguishable from free fall to the resolution of the video evidence." He called on NIST to acknowledge that free fall occurred.
Consequently, NIST was compelled to do a proper calculation, and in its final report acknowledged that for approximately 2.25 seconds, the downward acceleration of the building was "equivalent to the acceleration of gravity". The wording that this was "consistent with physical principles" was removed, replaced with the wording that the overall "collapse time"—which was "40 percent longer than that of free fall for the first 18 stories of descent", by NIST's measurement—was "consistent with the results" of its computer modelling. (See pages 600 - 603.)
The reason for this change of wording becomes obvious when you simply compare the observed collapse with their computer simulation, which failed to reproduce free fall and otherwise looked nothing like the actual collapse.
Here is a compilation I made of videos of the observed collapse:
And here is NIST's computer simulation of the collapse:
And here's a helpful video from Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth comparing reality with NIST's model side-by-side:
Even just on the face of it, NIST's hypothesis, represented by its computer model, is false.
Here's a video Chandler later made about how NIST first tried to deny but then was forced to acknowledge free fall:
In the instances when I have been confronted by individuals who choose to believe NIST's fire-induced collapse hypothesis and I've pointed out that this is inconsistent with the observation of free fall acceleration and the laws of physics, the only response I've received is the denial of free fall.
The problem with such denials is that the downward acceleration of the building is measurable. It's observable. And it's been measured, and even NIST—which initially also tried to deny it for the obvious reason—was finally forced to admit that it happened.
So, if anyone wants to dispute that free fall occurred, it isn't enough to simply declare so a priori based on the premise that the columns must have offered resistance. That is the fallacy of begging the question (presuming the proposition to be proven, or the petitio principii fallacy).
If it isn't true that free fall occurred, then some error in the published measurements—including NIST's own calculations—must be shown, and a more valid calculation presented in their place.
It has been 17 years since NIST admitted free fall. In all that time, I have never seen anyone dispute their calculation scientifically—only a priori denials. Chandler's and NIST's analyses have withstood the test of time and public scrutiny. The collapse of WTC 7 at a rate indistinguishable from the acceleration of gravity within the margin of error introduced by the video resolution is an observable fact.
So, whatever explanation there is for the building's collapse, it must account for this observed free fall while remaining consistent with the laws of physics.
I'm open to suggestions and do not claim to be able to explain it. All I'm saying is that free fall is observable, so people have to deal with that fact.
Chandler's full presentation at The Toronto Hearings can be viewed on YouTube or Odyssey. Watch it here:
And here is the abstract from my paper that Chandler cites:
ABSTRACT
NIST, in its draft report for public comment, initially denied that WTC 7 collapsed at the acceleration of gravity with the claim that an overall collapse time of 5.4 seconds was 40 percent longer than a free-fall time of 3.9 seconds for the first 18 stories. After being confronted with analysis of the collapse clearly demonstrating that free-fall had occurred, NIST acknowledged this fact in its final report, yet still maintained that the overall collapse time was 5.4 seconds. NIST explained in the final report that this measurement was obtained by examining a single pixel of a video towards the center of the roofline. It is argued in this paper that NIST’s chosen methodology for determining the point in time representing the onset of global collapse is not merely fallacious, but indicative of a willful and deliberate effort to deceive the public and obfuscate the implications of free-fall through scientific fraud.
I’ve seen film of the head honcho at WTC saying, “Let’s pull it.” which is the terminology for controlled demolition. Where is that film?! Not only was it controlled demolition, it was the most perfect one I’ve ever seen! ??♂️
Yes, I’m familiar. Larry Silverstein said in that interview that they’d made the decision “to pull it” and then watched the building collapse. At about 1:08 in this documentary, America Rebuilds:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUzHoHqhEoA
He later said he’d meant they decided to pull the firefighters from the building. The fire department had evacuated the area around WTC 7 at around 2:30 pm, according to NIST (p. 655):
https://web.archive.org/web/20090509013048/http://wtc.nist.gov/NCSTAR1/PDF/NCSTAR%201-9%20Vol%202.pdf
From https://www.ae911truth.org/wtc7 — On March 25, 2020, researchers at the University of Alaska Fairbanks issued the final report of a four-year computer modeling study on the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7…Contrary to the conclusions of NIST, the UAF research team found that the collapse of WTC 7 on 9/11 was caused not by fires but by the near-simultaneous failure of every column in the building.
Thanks, Scott. I’m aware of that report but am sure most others are not!
1. The Twin Towers consisted of 4 primary structural elements that together formed an integrated system where each relied on the others. 47 hollow box-section steel Core Columns carry the majority of the gravity loads. The 236 hollow box-section steel Perimeter
Columns carry the remainder and ALL of the lateral (wind) loads. Long-span
Lightweight Steel Trusses connect the core and perimeter column together at each floor with a Hat Truss on top to tie the structure together as an integrated unit where no element can survive without the others. There was no structural load bearing concrete and most components were bolted together.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u70grC74Dm4
2. The impact of 120 tons of airplane (= to about 12 dump trucks) at speeds up to 589 mph with the energy of a ton of TNT completely destroys the aircraft. This in no way implies the Towers come out unscathed. Many perimeter columns are damaged or destroyed as are some core columns (example; 33 of 59 perimeter and 20 of 47 core columns damaged or destroyed at the impact floors in the North Tower), This damage is primarily through bolt-shearing failures at the end connecting flanges, as well as bending, twisting and fracturing of weld seams. There was no cutting or slicing.
3. The impacts destroy or damage fire insulation, fire breaks and sprinkler systems on multiple floors. Huge fires are started across multiple floors simultaneously and allowed to spread rapidly with no effective firefighting or fire suppression. This was an unprecedented fire event.
4. The hotter steel gets the weaker it gets. With fire insulation stripped away and no sprinklers the survival time of the steel greatly reduced. Gradually over time heat causes the lightweight steel Floor Trusses at the impact damaged floors to sag, which was observed and recorded. No steel melted or needed to.
Structural steel fails long before it becomes a puddle. It just needs to bend.
5. Sagging floor trusses pull on the increasingly weak and overloaded
Perimeter Columns, causing some of them to bow inward by up to 5 feet. A straight column is up to 4 times stronger than a bent column. The bowed Perimeter Columns buckle and fail, quietly initiating collapse. The formerly static mass above which the structure below could easily support is converted to a dynamic mass up to 30 times greater. Because they have buckled, the Columns above and below the failure point are no longer aligned. The load bearing structure below no longer bears any load as it falls past the lower columns, NOT onto them.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULdiD6gYZO0
6. Thousands of tons of debris fall within the four outer walls, down through the open office space, crashing onto the first intact floor it encounters, immediately breaking the bolted column connections as the amount of resistance the Floor Trusses can offer is negligible. The falling debris slows only marginally and briefly.
Note:
6a. This is NOT a solid top block crashing into and “crushing” a solid bottom block .
6b. The debris falls past the columns not onto them. The columns provide no resistance to the falling debris.
7. This floor-led collapse progression within the four outer walls can only go straight down.
7a. This process is often incorrectly referred to as “pancaking”. The catchy name stuck but nobody knows what it really means and “pancaking” is too simplistic and inaccurate anyway. I prefer Kaiserschmarrn.
8. Collapse progresses through the floor systems past the columns, through the path of least resistance. The resistance offered by each floor is always the same while the mass of debris and its velocity – thus its energy – increases with each floor failure. Each floor offers the exact same resistance to the falling mass while with each failure the falling debris constantly gains both mass and velocity. *This process of floor-by-floor destruction cannot be arrested, it can only speed up. Rate of floor failures increases with each floor as momentum increases, reaching an average acceleration of 0.65 of GA, or 35% slower than true free fall. Bam, bam, bam down the building until there are no more floors to fail. The resistance offered by each successive floor is always the same. More mass, more velocity, same resistance with each floor. Don’t get stuck on the but the lower floors weren’t on fire nonsense. They weren’t and didn’t need to be.
9. The Towers were 95% air by volume.
As that air was compressed inside the building it is forced down the tower and blown out the sides in reaction to the building collapsing. Those were not
“explosions”, it was expulsions of compressed air caused by the collapsing building, explaining the low velocity, lack of flash, blast, supersonic pressure waves and lethal high-velocity ejecta.
10. Perimeter Columns become detached and peel away like a banana behind the collapse front, playing out to the four points of the compass extending to more than 800 feet from the base of the towers. This was quite obvious from examination of the debris pile.
11. Core Columns fail last as their internal beam bracing is stripped away by falling debris and lateral support from the floor to perimeter columns is lost.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpHXj62Ylw0
12. For those who care about how long this whole process took; 31-34 seconds from the moment the perimeter columns buckled until the last core columns hit the pile, or 1/3 the rate of true free fall.
Don’t believe me? Just watch any video of the collapses and note the loose truly free-falling debris dropping much faster than the towers themselves.
13.Each Tower had a 1-acre footprint. Far from collapsing inside their own footprints the debris pile spread out over 17 acres in a pile up to 14 stories deep. 8 surrounding buildings were destroyed and scores more damaged by the falling debris.
14.NOT observed were the 180-190 dB bangs of thousands of high explosive devices or the blinding bright flashes of burning thermite.
Neither explosives or thermite could have survived the impacts and subsequent fire nor could have caused the (silent) perimeter column buckling that clearly initiated collapse either. A video of a shocked and injured firefighter casually using the magic word explosion is in no way proof of explsolVES and the demolition_ case relies entirely on that sort of thing. There is zero tangible physical evidence and it would be technically impossible, totally impractical and completely unnecessary.
No one would bother. In 24 years zero structural engineers of tall buildings, including the 1/3 that have retired in that time, have made any statements in support of pre-planned demolition claims. NONE. The lack of any such citations in the engineering literature (published in any country worldwide) is telling.
15. Twin Towers were perfectly safe within their design envelope. They only collapsed when taken far outside design parameters by an extraordinary and unprecedented event
👉🏿Impact + Fire (heat) + Time + Gravity =
Collapse.
Remove any one of those 4 elements and there is no collapse. Ignore any of those elements (as many do) and you will never understand the collapses.
The Twin Towers were an integrated system in which no one component could survive without the others. One fails, the rest follow, through the path of least resistance – DOWN – through the open space, bypassing the path of greatest resistance – the columns. Nothing I just described violates any laws of physics.
All of the above is true no matter who planned and carried out the 9/11 attacks or why.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=p9CGShSP14I&lc=UgyLdSsoBFSTY3XlOId4AaABAg.ASwtlKvnVsFASzRKWFZaO4&si=0WJ8Ra6YA00fVngF
This article is not about the Twin Towers. It is about the collapse of WTC 7 and the scientific fraud of NIST’s final report.
Though I’m a great fan of your work in general, I admit long being allergic to those phrases “free fall speed”, “into their own footprints”, and “melted steel” as use by proponents of 9-11 truth. I don’t claim any special credentials, but just my right as a member of the public not to be subjected to manipulative claims. Maybe “right” is too strong a word here, but exposing such manipulations is your specialty – and in general you do it very well. Obviously, you say nothing here regarding the second and third phrases that irk me – I just give them in addition to “free fall speed” as an indication of where I’m coming from.
A treatment of this subject that is fair to an audience of readers ought, or so it seems to me, to treat seriously the question of how it can be possible for a _controlled demolition_ of a tall building to exhibit collapse at free fall accelleration, in whole or in part. I assume that this is in some way a characteristic of controlled demolitions, but it certainly isn’t self-evidently true. I presume that such demolitions involve simultaneous destruction of main structural supports near the bottom of a building. But nor is it self-evidently true that measured free-fall collapse, such as Chandler has documented, even if “like” a controlled demolition in that one respect, must have _been_ a controlled demolition (i.e. could not have resulted from a structural failure that was initially asymmetrical and non-simultaneous).
In fairness, you don’t yourself state that as an implication, your main claim being the allegation of fraud. Again, I’m not someone immersed in 9-11 truth literature, but going on what you present here I don’t really see the draft report’s initial “denial” of free fall acceleration, or the final report’s “admission” of free fall acceleration as actually being in mutual conflict. Hence it seems rather mind-reading to construe the former as showing the lenghts NIST would go to “hide” what they eventually admitted.
Here are the facts as I do take them from what you present:
(1) Chandler’s analysis showing a collapse at a speed indistinguishable from free-fall seems reasonable (though many of his insinuations seem overdrawn).
(2) Your video compilation usefully shows manifestations of the collapse occuring in the structures above the main roofline for about eight seconds prior to the initiation of the general collapse analyzed by Chandler.
(3) First the left-most structure (above the main roofline) collapses, then a couple more seconds elapse, then the next above-main-roofline structure collapses, the collapse propagating from left to right, upon which time the general collapse Chandler analyzes begins.
(4) Later in the visible sequence, the left-most side of the building is seen lagging behind the collapse speed of the rest of the building, as if encountering significant resistance.
Here are what seem to be reasonable inferences from the above facts:
(5) The propagating collapse of the topmost structures were only the visible manifestations of structural failures deep within the building, presumably near its base, that must have begun earlier than these visible effects.
(6) The observable asymmetrical propagation must be indicative of asymmetrical and non-simultaneous structural failures.
(7) Nevertheless, once general collapse was initiated, such asymmetries ceased to be evident (apart from that noted in (4)).
It’s easy to cast aspersions on fancy (and therefore inherently less transparent) simulation models. It seems to me the facts and rational inferences enumerated above ought to be treated seriously in any discussion of WTC 7 that aims to be convincing.
Hi Steven,
Thanks for your compliment to my work.
Your summation of facts to take away is basically correct. You can see that core columns, by whatever means, lost structural integrity first because the east penthouse is the first observable sign of it. Then you see the whole building collapse as a single unit as exterior columns also lost structural integrity.
The observed nature of that collapse is not an asymmetrical and non-simultaneous loss of column support. It is rather an observable loss of all exterior columns virtually instantaneously, thus resulting in a sudden onset of free fall with downward acceleration initiating at once across the roofline and visible corners of the building.
You are technically correct to suggest that the draft report’s denial and final report’s admission aren’t necessarily conflicting. The draft presented unscientific gibberish while the final report presented a legitimate analysis.
The clearest evident of intent to deceive in my mind is the fraudulent “Stage 1” of collapse NIST claimed to obfuscate the significance of the sudden onset of free fall.