Why did the World Trade Centers create so much powdered concrete?

Our government conducted an investigation into the collapse of the buildings, but the magazine Fire Engineering is (as of Feb 2002) accusing the investigation of being "a half-baked farce". More about the half-baked farce: CrummyBuildings.html

Sure, the manner in which the WTC buildings collapsed looks just like a building being destroyed by explosives, but life is full of coincidences, as well as events beyond human understanding. We have to be careful not to find hidden meanings or conspiracies where none exist.

A good example is the field of astrology. Long ago our ancestors noticed the planets are moving and occasionally align in patterns. Some people assumed the movements of the planets must have significance to human life. Eventually their speculations developed into the field of astrology.

There are unexplained events in the World Trade Center attack. Some events may be coincidences, and some may be beyond our understanding simply because our knowledge of physics is not complete.

If we are not careful we could create the field of “World Trade Center-ology” in which we find hidden meanings in what were actually meaningless events.

At the other extreme, we would be foolish to dismiss unexplained events simply because we don't want to face the possibility that the WTC attack is an incredible scam; we would be foolish to ignore the firemen who tell us the official investigation is a half-baked farce.

On the Google "Politics" message board is a person named "Geeman" who often complains about unexplained issues and possible scams. Eventually his frequent postings got through to me and I decided to look more closely at the photographs of the attack and seriously consider the scam possibility (Geeman's web site can be found by clicking here.)

This document gives my analysis of these unexplained events. I will start with an overview of the events.

The North Tower is hit first

In this photograph the north tower is smoldering. It is important to note the black, sooty smoke coming from the building. The black smoke is an indication of the type of fire. The fire has been burning for 16 minutes, so much of the jet fuel may have already burned up. By this time many of office products, carpeting, and construction materials should be burning; ie, a lot of plastic, paper, rubber, and wood. These materials create much more soot and toxic pollutants than jet fuel.

Many people were running down the stairs to get out of the building when this photo was taken. The people were evacuating the building because of the fire, not due to a fear that the building was on the verge of collapse.

As far as I know, the building was quiet, stable, and motionless at this time. I am not aware of people making remarks about loud, creaking noises coming from the steel beams within the building. Nor remarks about loud noises caused by concrete floors breaking apart and falling down on the floors below it. The only noise was from the fire.

The South tower is hit

In the next two photographs the second plane just crashed into a corner of the south tower, at 9:03 am. Since it hit the corner of the building, most of the plane and its fuel traveled only a short distance through the building before flying out the other side. It created a spectacular display of flames. Another view of the south tower collision:
http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtcboom.jpg

After the collisions, before the collapse

Notice that there are very few flames; ie, neither building is engulfed in flames. Also notice that the smoke is black and sooty. Notice also that the south tower is burning only at the corner where the plane hit. Most of the south tower is completely undamaged.

Also notice that the smoke is black and sooty. Notice also that the south tower is burning only at the corner where the plane hit. Most of the south tower is completely undamaged.

At the time this photograph was taken, thousands of people were running down the stairs to escape. But both buildings still appeared to be quiet and stable. I am not aware of any people reaching the ground and then making remarks about the horrible creaking noises that they gave them the impression that the buildings were on the verge of collapse.

The South tower disintegrates

The top section of the building has suddenly severed off from the base. This top section is perhaps 300 tall, and each side is 200 feet wide. It breaks off from a location somewhere near where the plane hit.

This section will fall several hundred feet. By the time it hits the ground it will be traveling at a high speed. When it collides with the ground I would expect the concrete floors to break into pieces, and I would expect most of the steel to bend and twist. Probably every window will shatter, and every concrete floor will break.

However, this section of the building should continue to resemble a section of building after it hits the ground. It will be broken and twisted, but it should continue to resemble the top of the World Trade center. I would not expect every concrete floor to turn into powder, and I would not expect every steel beam to break at the joints, leaving each beam as independent as it came from the steel mill.

Click the thumbnail, then notice the enormous clouds coming out of the building. Look back at the other photographs and notice that the smoke was black and sooty just a few moments before. A large portion of these clouds are in a shadow, but they are still whitish.

These white clouds are not the smoke of a fire. Rather, they consist of powdered concrete. Obviously, something was occurring inside the building to turn the concrete into powder.

Another important thing to notice in the earlier photos is that the black, sooty smoke rises vertically out of both buildings, clinging to the surface of the buildings. There is a wind blowing, and as the smoke gets near the top of the buildings it starts to drift. My point is that the smoke comes out of the building, clings to the surface, and rises upward. This follows our laws of physics in which hot air rises upward.

Now compare that black sooty smoke to the white clouds of concrete powder. The concrete clouds are not rising vertically. Rather, they are expanding outward in all directions. Obviously, the air pressure inside the building has increased and is pushing clouds of concrete dust through the cracks of the building. The question is: why has the air pressure increased?

Since the top of the building has broken off and is falling down, it could be pushing the air in the building out the cracks as it crushes the building below. And since the building has broken off, there could be a lot of concrete dust at the point of rupture. In other words, the clouds of concrete in this photograph could be due to the collapsing of the top of the building.

The clouds of concrete become larger in these next two photographs. The top of the tower is becoming completely engulfed in these clouds. As I mentioned earlier, I would expect the top of the tower to continue to fall and hit the ground with a very loud noise. But as you can see, the entire top of the tower is turning into clouds of concrete.

The South Tower fireworks display

The clouds of concrete have expanded to what appears to be at least three times the diameter of the building. Also, no pieces of the building can be seen.

The top of the building fell, but never hit the ground. Rather, it turned into powder and small pieces of steel during the few seconds that it was falling.

What identifies a demolition?

	White-gray clouds of concrete can be seen expanding out of the building just before it disintegrates.
	Sometimes the top of the building breaks off and starts to fall down, but it turns to powder and short steel beams before it hits the ground.

Here is the home page of a company that destroys buildings with explosives. They insist the WTC collapse was not due to explosives.
Home page: http://www.implosionworld.com/
A building being demolished: http://www.implosionworld.com/hudson.html/

The North tower fireworks display

The north tower stood motionless and stable for nearly 1.75 hours. Now, suddenly, the tower starts to disintegrate from the top down. In a matter of seconds the entire building turned to dust. As with the south tower, all parts of the building turned to dust and pieces of steel before any of it hit the ground.

The way in which the north tower destroyed itself is more difficult to explain than the south tower. The south tower cracked a location near where the plane had hit, so we could say that the plane caused the top of the tower to sever off. The top of the tower was very heavy, and we could say that as it fell down it pulverized the portion of the building below it, as well as pulverizing itself.

But the north tower stood for nearly two hours with nothing more than a fire smoldering at the top of it. The official explanation of why this building came down is that the fire was so hot that the steel became too weak to hold up the weight of the concrete and steel above it. The steel beams then buckled and/or the joints broke. Then the concrete and steel crashed down onto the floor below it, turning the concrete into powder. A chain reaction had started; each floor pulverized the one below it.

The floors were not slabs of concrete!

They want us to believe that when one floor broke and fell down to the floor below it, it started a chain reaction in which every floor shatters to powder and breaks the rivets that hold all the steel beams together.

Before you believe anybody's explanation of what happened to the towers, I suggest you look at the design of those towers:
http://www.staff.ncl.ac.uk/john.knapton/WTC.htm

As is common for tall buildings in the USA, each floor consisted of a corrugated steel decking on top of a steel truss. The truss was connected to the vertical steel beams that ran through the building. The concrete was poured on top of the corrugated steel.

The concrete was not holding the building together. Rather, the concrete was just the flooring material that people walked on top of. The building was held together by a 3-dimensional network of steel beams.

The steel framework of the towers must have been very strong. After all, for 30 years it survived winds that put a lot of stress on the structure. The north tower even survived the airplane crash for nearly two hours.

When the towers crumbled, more than two hundred corrugated steel pans were ripped apart, and more than two hundred steel trusses that were holding those steel pans to the vertical beams were broken apart.

It is also interesting to note that photos of the rubble do not show any large pieces of office furniture, elevators, toilets, water pipes, or carpeting. Everything inside the towers was ripped into small pieces.

Furthermore, both towers had large water tanks at the top for their sprinkler system in case of fires. This is common practice in tall buildings. However, what evidence is there that the sprinkler system turned on? It is possible that the water tanks were drained before the airplanes hit the buildings.

Beyond Perpetual Motion

The only energy available to pulverize the concrete in the WTC was the "potential energy" of the buildings due to the force of gravity. However, the photos show that no piece of concrete fell more than a few feet before turning into powder. This means the concrete picked up enough energy during the fall of a few feet to convert itself to a fine grain powder.

Perpetual motion requires using energy without wasting any of it so that the same energy can be used over and over. The WTC towers went beyond merely using energy without wasting it; the WTC created energy. How much energy? We would have to know how much concrete was pulverized, how small the particles were, and how strong the concrete was.

Try pulverizing a 2 pound block of concrete with a hammer, and then consider that the WTC contained about 425,000 cubic yards of concrete. A lot of energy is needed to pulverize all the concrete in a building; that is why demolition companies use explosives. The WTC also contained about 200,000 tons of steel, and the steel beams broke at the joints. That required energy, also.

A Challenge for Students If science textbooks asked students to estimate the amount of energy needed to pulverize the concrete in the towers, then students could both practice science and do something useful. If you plan to design buildings after you graduate, what if one of your buildings collapsed into concrete powder? Would you be able to figure out if your structure truly "fell down" or if it was blown up with explosives? So how about it, students? Estimate the energy needed to pulverize the WTC, and offer the results in terms of the number of pounds of explosives. The problem is described more here: How much energy was needed to crumble the buildings?

The World Trade Center volcano

Click image for large photo. A smaller dust photo is: http://wtc.pkl.net/photos/wtc40.jpg

Forest fires produce large amounts of ash, but the ash is from the burning of wood. The ash in the streets of New York was not from the burning of paper, rubber, or wood. Rather, it was powdered concrete.

Building #7 disintegrates

However, the 47-story building that was at #7 World Trade Center turned into powder and small pieces of steel, just like the two towers.

I am not aware of what the official explanation for the collapse of building 7 is. It seems that the officials are trying to ignore this building.

The news reports mention that fires broke out in this building, supposedly due to falling debris. However, this building did not get injected with a large load of jet fuel. Therefore, the fires should have been small and extinguished by the building's sprinkler system.

Photos of Building #7 as it “burns”

	Here you see fires raging inside. The dust on the cars may mean at least one tower had exploded — I mean "collapsed".
	Between the white buildings is a small pile of rubble; all that remains of a 47-story steel and concrete building after the explosion — I mean after the "fire".
	So now you understand why Building 7 collapsed at 5:25 PM. The incredible fires raged all day long. They could not be stopped by the sprinkler system or “NYC's Bravest”.

Why pay a demolition company to turn a steel and concrete building into a small pile of rubble when a fire can do the exact same job?

Trivia question: Of all the fires in skyscrapers since 1950, how many caused the building to turn into powder?

Buildings 4, 5, and 6 held together

This photo shows building 6 (or is it building 4 or 5?) Notice the fire and debris damage.

Notice that the steel beams did not break apart at the joints, and the concrete did not turn to powder.

By comparison, building #7, which was further away from the towers, turned into powder because of a fire!

The site as it looked on October 3, 2001

Click the thumbnail for medium sized photo, or for the original, giant photo that shows the entire site, not just the beams click this: http://www.parrhesia.com/wtc/tn/wtc066.jpg.html

The official explanation of why the buildings collapsed is that the fire caused the temperature of these beams to rise to the point at which they could no longer support the load they had to carry.

If that explanation were true, then we could look through the rubble and find some of the pieces of steel that show signs of high temperature and buckling under the stress. When an airplane crashes the FAA will pick up the pieces and sometimes assemble them back into a plane. The pieces will be warped and bent, but they give an indication of what went wrong in the airplane, and at which location.

If we were to look at the rubble of the World Trade Center, we would be able to find the pieces of steel that the building was made from. We would be able to reassemble the building even though much of the steel would be twisted and bent. This would give us an idea of which beams failed in the building.

However, there does not seem to be any interest in analyzing the rubble. Rather, crews were called in immediately to begin hauling the rubble away. It reminds me of the Chappaquiddick incident in which the dead woman was buried the next day.

The police did not follow standard procedure with the Chappaquiddick woman, and they do not seem to be following standard procedure with the World Trade center. The media likewise does not seem to have any interest in understanding why the buildings fell down. Instead they are encouraging hatred of Arabs, and they remind us repeatedly of the number of people who died.

We are suppose to believe that the people who designed the World Trade center never provided enough of a safety margin to handle a rise in temperature caused by a serious fire. This could be true, but this would not explain why the building turned into powder and small pieces of steel. Rather, it would only explain why some of the steel beams buckled under the stress, and it could explain why some of the joints broke. It would not explain why every concrete floor disintegrated into tiny particles before it hit the ground, it does not explain why every piece of steel broke at its joint before it hit the ground.

Watch a videotape of a demolition of a high-rise building. Now compare that to the collapse of the World Trade center. And then compare it to a fire in a high-rise building. Next compare it to a high-rise building during an earthquake.

Also, look at this photograph of the Empire State Building after it was hit by a military bomber in 1945.

A lot of jet fuel sprayed inside the building, creating a high temperature fire that destroyed a lot of the interior. But eventually the fire was put out, and all that remained was all hole in the building. The steel beams remained connected together, and the concrete remained as solid blocks. The damage was limited to the crash area.

The official explanation for why the military bomber did so little damage to the Empire State Building is that the bomber was small and the Empire State Building was strong.

What does history show us?

Let's not forget that the military has dropped a lot of bombs on buildings also. Do you recall the bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Kosovo? Did that building turn to powder?

The building in Oklahoma City that Tim McVeigh blew up did not turn into powder, either. Rather, a portion of the walls were blown away. The steel structure and most of the concrete remained.

The only method I'm aware of to cause a building to turn into powder is to place explosives inside the building.

If our government had conducted a serious investigation of this attack, there would be thousands of photos, each one documented. The police and FBI certainly would have provided some photos to us. However, while there are thousands of photos on the Internet, most are undocumented, and some have been edited to show faces of the devil in the smoke, and who knows what other editing has been done.

If any of you info have good info or photos contact me or some of the other sites that collect them.

Lots of articles and links about the WTC and other events:
Serendipity

Conspiracy speculations:
Conspiracy Planet

So many articles and links you will be overwhelmed:
whatreallyhappened.com

Articles on remote control of airplanes, the WTC, and more:
public-action.com

Geeman has links and speculations:
Geeman's site

Every detail of why the US Military did nothing to stop the planes:
malcontentx

Photos with descriptions:
www24.brinkster.com

The photos of the site taken on Oct 3:
parrhesia.com

If you clicked the thumbnails the larger images should be in your cache, so you should be able to quickly load the same document but with the larger images instead of thumbnails (which makes it better for printing): CloudsOfConcrete.html