NIST's official "normal office fire" explanation for the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 does not explain the 47-story tower's stunning implosion and free-fall acceleration. That's because NIST has ignored the data that does explain these extraordinary features — the evidence of controlled demolition.
 

PART 5: How Skyscrapers Are Really Imploded

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical article on NIST’s mistreatment of the World Trade Center Building 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The sixth and final installment, below, is PART 5: How Skyscrapers Are Really Imploded. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. The second installment was PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The third installment was PART 2: NIST's Fictitious Gouge Launches Design Flaw Myth and Collapse Initiation Theory. The fourth installment was PART 3: Trusses & Tanks—Popular Mechanics Helps NIST Create More Myths. The fifth installment was PART 4: Independent Analysis Disproves NIST's New Thermal Expansion Hypothesis.

In PART 4, we demonstrated that NIST's hypothetical girder walk-off event contradicted its own data, and therefore that NIST's column #79 buckling scenario could not have happened. Thus, we proved that NIST had no evidence upon which to base its claim of how the collapse of WTC 7 was triggered.

Now let us ask: Did NIST's explanation of how this initiating event led to the observed collapse of the entire building also contradict its own data? The short answer: "Yes."

For a more detailed answer, we must first assume, for the sake of argument, that column #79 buckled and that this event did lead to NIST's hypothesis for how the complete collapse of WTC 7 occurred. NIST presumed that a localized collapse of the northeast section of the building set off a progressive collapse of the core, and that this 7.6-second core collapse sequence (see NIST's time line) occurred while the building's exterior remained undistorted. Specifically, NIST claimed that the buckling of core column #79 led to the subsequent buckling of columns 80 and 81, then to the collapse of the east penthouse, and finally to the failure of the entire core (see Figure 19).

NIST's presumption leaves us with this obvious question: Did the hypothetical progressive core collapse match the distinguishing features of the observed implosion of WTC 7?

The answer is a resounding "No," according to more than 2,350 architects and engineers and hundreds of other building professionals and physical scientists who belong to AE911Truth. In their expert eyes, NIST's computer simulation proved that WTC 7 most certainly did not collapse according to NIST's hypothetical progressive collapse scenario.

links to   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PEumpBtuy8

NIST's computer simulation of its progressive collapse sequence does not remotely resemble the actual collapse of WTC 7. Instead, its simulation exposes fundamental flaws in the progressive total collapse hypothesis. In particular, the computer simulated collapse sequence shows three glaring contradictions which, when compared to the real event, prove that a progressive collapse did not occur:

#1. The exterior would not remain undeformed during progressive core collapse

WTC 7's perimeter frame could not have remained virtually undeformed — as the Figure 20 video of the actual collapse proves was the case — during the 7.6-second progressive core collapse that NIST alleges. NIST's simulation of its progressive collapse shows the exterior deforming as soon as the east penthouse caves in. It also has the whole building twisting and deforming, in stark contrast to the real-life event (see Figures 20 and 21). NIST's contention that its alleged progressive collapse sequence explains the actual collapse of WTC 7 is, therefore, demonstrably false.

#2. A progressive core collapse would lead to an asymmetric fall instead of symmetric implosion

The actual videos of WTC 7's collapse show it falling symmetrically — straight down into its own footprint. To the eye of experts in controlled demolition, the collapse has all the hallmarks of an implosion. However, the alleged progressive core collapse claimed by NIST would have led to an asymmetric fall, not a symmetric implosion. Curiously, NIST stopped its animated simulation just after one second into the sequence of the 6.6-second global collapse, just as the folding-up motion on the bottom south side of the building's external frame became more acute (see Figure 20). Yet there was no legitimate excuse, scientific or otherwise, for NIST not to show the complete animation from start to finish. Was NIST purposely hiding the fact that, had the simulation continued, it would have showed the entire building twisting and folding up instead of imploding, as video snapshots (see Figure 21) show?

#3. The progressive core collapse sequence does not replicate observed free-fall acceleration

leftside quote "A free fall time would be an object that has no structural components below it . . . . [T]here was structural resistance that was provided in this particular case. And you had a sequence of structural failures that had to take place. Everything was not instantaneous." — NIST's lead investigator Shyam Sunder in his "WTC 7 Technical Briefing" of August 26, 2008

NIST's final draft for public comment in August 2008 denied that WTC 7 experienced free-fall acceleration during its collapse. Lead investigator Shyam Sunder explained in the Q&A period of NIST's "WTC Technical Briefing" that free fall would be impossible, because it would imply zero structural resistance by the 82 support columns (see quote above).

As a result of the forensic investigative work of physics teacher David Chandler, however, NIST was forced to admit in its November 2008 final report that there was indeed 2.25 seconds of free fall, during which time 100 feet, or eight stories, of WTC 7 collapsed. This meant that the entire steel supporting structure of eight floors had "vanished," which we all know is impossible — without the assistance of incendiaries and/or explosives. Unaccountably, NIST ignored the significance of the free-fall finding. And it never provided a credible explanation of how its "normal office fire"-based narrative could lead to the 6.6-second symmetrical collapse of WTC 7.

When taken together, the three contradictions outlined above clearly prove that the destruction of WTC 7 did not happen in the way NIST claims it did.

NIST's computer simulation proves that WTC 7's exterior could not have remained virtually undeformed during a progressive collapse of its core. Yet videos of WTC 7's collapse show that its exterior did remain virtually undeformed until the moment the whole structure started to fall uniformly to the ground. Thus, we know without a doubt that NIST's progressive core collapse scenario is neither plausible nor possible.

Of even more importance is the fact that NIST's simulation fails to replicate the two most prominent and unusual features of the collapse of WTC 7: the stunning 2.25 seconds of free-fall acceleration and the observed symmetrical implosion of the building. The 2.25 seconds of free fall tells us that approximately eight floors of the building's supporting structure were completely "removed." The symmetry tells us that their removal happened practically simultaneously.

HowStuffWorks.com

A "normal office fire" cannot cause a fireproofed steel frame to "vanish" in an instant. Incendiaries and explosives can. Symmetrically razing a steel-framed skyscraper in mere seconds, though, requires such extraordinary demolition skills that only a handful companies in the world will even attempt it (see Figure 24). Thus, the visual evidence remains uncontested. It is prima facie proof of the controlled demolition of WTC 7.

When reading this series, you have probably noticed how unscientific and false NIST's explanations have been. Now you will see that NIST has also ignored a plethora of crucial evidence that points to a radically different conclusion.

Caption to side of quote, "Did they actually use the word 'brought down' and who was it that was telling you this? The fire department, and they actually did use the word 'We're going to have to bring it down.'"

Caption to side of quote,"He takes his hand off and you hear '3, 2, 1, and it was boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.'"

Caption to side of quote,"And the whole time you're hearing, 'THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM! THOOM!' I think I know an explosion when I hear it."
                                                                                                      — 9/11 First Responders

Witness testimonies and Chandler's forensic research corroborate the visual evidence. First-hand observers saw and heard the classic symptoms of a controlled demolition — explosions. After the collapses of the Twin Towers, the rumor spread that WTC 7 would be the next to go down. Some witnesses said they were specifically told that the building would be taken down. One first responder reported hearing a controlled demolition-style countdown just before the building collapsed; others confirmed that the collapse sounded like a controlled demolition (see quotes above). Thus, from that afternoon on, it was clear that engineers investigating the destroyed WTC 7 would — or at least should — be tasked with determining and explaining how the 47-story tower was intentionally demolished.

Finally, since NIST did not adhere to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 921 investigative guidelines, let's do what NIST should have done — explore what kind of data is considered by the NFPA 921 as evidence of incendiaries and explosives, or, in this case, forensic evidence for controlled demolition.

Caption to Left of Quote "Mixtures of fuels and Class 3 or Class 4 oxidizers may produce an exceedingly hot fire and may be used to start or accelerate a fire. Thermite mixtures also produce exceedingly hot fires. Such accelerants generally leave residues that may be visually or chemically identifiable. . . . Indicators of exotic accelerants include . . . melted steel or concrete." — NFPA 921: 19.2.4 — Exotic Accelerants

The NFPA 921 has a special section on incendiary evidence. It explains that the presence of melted steel or concrete gives investigators a clue that thermite-type materials may have been used (see quote directly above). Traditional thermite materials can be configured into cutter charges that can slice through steel columns. Sophisticated patented devices were available prior to 2001. Modern variants can be made to be more explosive. NIST would have known all about the potential of thermitic materials. After all, some NIST employees and contractors who investigated the WTC collapses had helped develop those modern variants, as this article by Kevin Ryan explains.

Is there evidence that molten steel and/or molten concrete was present on 9/11? Yes, witnesses and physical evidence confirm the existence of both molten substances. Yet engineer John Gross, co-project leader of NIST's investigation, dared in a public meeting to deny the existence of this evidence, even though it seems he saw — and held — pieces of it (see Figure 25). Melted iron/steel was discovered under the rubble of WTC 1, WTC 2, and WTC 7. And billions of previously melted iron-based microspheres were found in the WTC dust. Some steel beams that were recovered from WTC 7 showed a unique, curled-up, Swiss-cheese appearance, indicating they may have been "partially evaporated" by an extremely high temperature sulfidation reaction, which happens to coincide with a thermite variant known as thermate. Previously melted concrete was also found in the rubble. And as if that weren't enough, still other evidence strongly suggested that thermitic materials had played a part in bringing down WTC 7. Videos that show side-by-side comparisons of the implosion of WTC 7 and an acknowledged professional demolition also support the contention that WTC 7 was professionally demolished (for example, see Figure 26).

YouTubeLink: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Rm6ZFROmc

Witness testimonies, visual evidence, and forensic evidence all point to the same conclusion: WTC 7 was imploded by a controlled demolition via incendiaries and explosives.

NIST, on the other hand, has offered no evidence to support its scenario of "normal office fire" initiating WTC 7's collapse. In fact, NIST's computer simulation disproves its own case.

It's troubling to contemplate the extent to which NIST went in omitting and distorting data in order to fabricate its illogical collapse initiation hypothesis, which we outlined in PART 4. It's equally disconcerting to uncover, as we have in this section, proof that NIST misrepresented or ignored actual evidence in order to assiduously avoid the logical conclusion of controlled demolition. According to the National Science Foundation, these sorts of omissions and distortions rise to the level of scientific misconduct or worse.

Danny Jowenko, a Dutch controlled demolitions expert, first saw a clip of WTC 7 collapsing in 2006, when a filmmaker showed it to him during an interview in The Netherlands. "This is a controlled demolition," Jowenko declared without hesitating. "Absolutely, it's been imploded." Having no ties to the US government or to US business interests may have given him the freedom to courageously speak his mind. Meanwhile, Americans with the same expertise have had good reason to stay silent on the subject: major federal contracts.

All in all, the official version of the failure of WTC 7 does not stand up to even the most elementary scrutiny. Yet with breathtaking chutzpah, NIST and the defenders of its theory continue to ask us all, paraphrasing a Chico Marx line in the movie Duck Soup, "Who are you going to believe, me or your own lying eyes?"

How would you answer?

According to this new hypothetical scenario, a fire in the northeast section (near column #79) of Floor 12 heated the beams of the floor above it, causing them to expand a few inches, and then . . . .

PART 4: INDEPENDENT ANALYSIS DISPROVES NIST's NEW THERMAL EXPANSION HYPOTHESIS

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical article on NIST’s mistreatment of the World Trade Center Building 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The fifth installment, below, is PART 4: Independent Analysis Disproves NIST's New Thermal Expansion Hypothesis. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. The second installment was PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The third installment was PART 2: NIST's Fictitious Gouge Launches Design Flaw Myth and Collapse Initiation Theory. The fourth installment was PART 3: Trusses & Tanks—Popular Mechanics Helps NIST Create More Myths.  Stand by for the sixth and last installment next month.

In 2008, the final report on World Trade Center Building 7 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) abandoned two myths that the 2005 Popular Mechanics article had misleadingly presented as the foundation of the official explanation for WTC 7's destruction. The first myth it discarded was the sensational story about the non-existent 10-story gouge. The second myth was about a non-existent seven-hour-long diesel fuel fire.

Instead, NIST's final report correctly acknowledged that the building endured normal office fires, none of which persisted more than 30 minutes in any given location.

Nevertheless, NIST insisted that WTC 7 was the first steel-framed skyscraper in history to be leveled by normal office fires (NCSTAR 1A, p. 47 [PDF p. 89] and NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2, p. 604 [PDF p. 266]). NIST had invented a new mundane explanation for how the equally mundane fires had heated up and expanded the floor beams, which in turn had caused a critical girder to "walk off" of its seat. According to this new hypothetical scenario, a fire in the northeast section (near column #79) of Floor 12 heated the beams of the floor above it, causing them to expand a few inches, and then . . .

• the expanded floor beams pushed a single horizontal girder sideways 6.25 inches, which . . .
• caused the girder to fall off the seat that connected it to vertical column #79, which . .
• resulted in the collapse of the northeast corner of Floor 13, which . . .
• set in motion a cascade of falling floors in the area, which . . .
• left several floors of column #79 without lateral support, which . . . 
• led to the buckling of column 79, which . . .
• led to the horizontal failure of all the interior columns and then the failure of all the exterior columns which . . .
• brought about the symmetrical sub-seven-second collapse of the whole building, including . . .
• 2.25 seconds of collapse in free-fall acceleration.

NIST's claim that a 6.25-inch shift of one girder could trigger the implosion of Building 7 is nothing short of remarkable. Can a sub-seven-inch movement of one girder really trigger a sub-seven-second destruction of a 47-story steel-framed skyscraper? Many scientists and other critical thinkers doubt it, and would like to see evidence to back up such a wild claim. They want to know, in short, whether NIST's final explanation of WTC 7's destruction is any more credible than the original fantasies presented in the infamous 2005 article by Popular Mechanics. Let us find out.

NIST's new magical thermal expansion hypothesis is plagued by a plethora of problems. We will list only some of the most obvious ones here. NIST based ​its work entirely on a computer simulation that ​was supposed to simulate the design of WTC 7 and its condition on that fateful day. But the alleged simulation was instead based on numerous false premises that were either not backed by any evidence or ​contradict​ed available evidence. In other words, NIST had once again inverted the scientific method in order to arrive at its preconceived conclusion.

 Below are ​10 of these false premises:​

False Premise #1. The allegation of a Floor 12 fire after 5:00 PM

NIST's new thermal expansion hypothesis would have needed evidence for a Floor 12 fire​ in the vicinity of column #79 ​after 5:00 PM, according the NFPA 921 (see Figure 10). Why? Because Building 7 collapsed at approximately 5:20 PM on September 11, 2001 — and NIST's explanation for that collapse was based on the assumption of a fire raging in that location. Yet NIST had no evidence for this alleged post-5:00 PM fire. Indeed, its photographic data (see Figure 11) demonstrated that the fire in this area had already burned out prior to 4:00 PM. ​​This is especially significant, because NIST had already admitted that Building 7 suffered normal office fires that lasted less than 30 minutes in each location before burning out — once the fuel (office furniture) had been exhausted — and moving on. Thus, judging by NIST's own data, another fire after 5 o'clock in that same location would have been impossible, because there was nothing left there to burn.

False Premise #2. The claim that shear studs failed due to "differential expansion"

The steel floor beams and the concrete floor slab that rested on them were made into one composite unit via the shear studs that were welded to the beams and encased in the cement. The alleged thermal expansion of the floor beams would not have been able to push the girder independently of the floor slab unless these shear studs had failed. Thus the NFPA 921 would have required evidence for this failure, but NIST had no valid evidence to suggest this failure was likely — or even possible. NIST did show shear stud failure in an interim analysis in Chapter 8, but it was invalid for two main reasons:

1) This supposed analysis was in fact a separate computer simulation (see Figure 12) that had been deceptively programmed to artificially induce the "differential expansion" phenomenon that resulted in broken shear studs. It showed the steel floor beams heated up to the maximum temperature while the concrete floor slab remained unheated — which would be impossible in the real world. Thus, the Chapter 8 model showed the maximum possible thermal expansion of the floor beams while simultaneously showing zero expansion of the slab. This trick maximized the different expansion rates (called "the differential expansion") of the beams and the slab. In other words, the model showed the shear studs breaking at the junction between the beams and the slab, because it had been manipulated to show the floor beams lengthening while the slab remained stationary.

2) NIST's official computer model that allegedly simulated the Building 7 collapse was based on its official fire simulation, shown in Chapter 10 (see Figure 12). Since this fire simulation was meant to be realistic, it had not been programmed to artificially keep the floor slab cold — which meant no computer model based on that simulation could show broken floor shear studs. In fact, NIST never repeated its Chapter 8 shear stud failure analysis with the Chapter 10 fire simulation data, which means NIST never had any evidence to support its assumption of broken shear studs. Nevertheless, NIST programmed its Building 7 "computer simulation" to take broken shear studs for granted.

False Premise #3. The insinuation that girder shear studs were missing

The girder most likely had shear studs that joined it to the concrete floor ​slab. These shear studs would have prevented expanding beams ​from pushing the girder off the seat plate. NIST's 2004 preliminary report even acknowledged the existence of the shear studs — perhaps because its collapse theory at the time did not rest on the notion that the shear studs had purportedly not been in place. Four years later, though, the final report made some subtle text modifications, which made the shear studs magically disappear. Structural engineer Ron Brookman M.S., S.E, has found fabrication and construction aspects for this particular girder that show 30 shear studs. He has also found structural drawings that show 30 shear studs on this girder on other floors. NIST has essentially insinuated that the shear studs either were not installed or were installed only on some floors. Both suggestions are extremely unlikely at best, and, more importantly, not supported by the NFPA 921 requirement for evidence: NIST has refused to release the "as built" drawings to prove it was justified in ignoring these shear studs in its 2008 report.

False Premise #4​.  The overlooking of beam sag in its calculations

NIST's fire simulation (Chapter 10 of the final report) concluded that the fire did not heat the critical ​floor beams beyond 600° C/1112° F (see Figure 14). By saying that, NIST was suggesting that these beams had been heated to 600° C/1112° F. This is a crucial point, because when NIST apparently plugged this maximum temperature into its thermal expansion formula (see NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 1, p. 343), the result was a maximum possible floor beam expansion of ​just over 5.5 inches. Thus, the original​ thermal expansion hypothesis (in the 2008 final report draft) appeared valid, because it was based on the erroneous notion that 5.5 inches would suffice to push that girder off its seat plate. But independent analysis in April 2012 (revised in December 2014) by professional mechanical engineer Tony Szamboti has demonstrated that the actual net expansion at 600° C/1112° F would have been​ less than ​5.4 inches (see Figure 15) due to beam sagging (see Figure 13). Did NIST purposely overlook the sagging factor in order to achieve a targeted 5.5-inch expansion?

False Premise #5.  The setting of an impossibly high floor beam temperature

Caption to large quote image: "The thermal analysis in Chapter 10 determined the temperature of structural members when subjected to the gas temperatures from the FDS analysis, but it did not account for thermally-induced damage. During the ANSYS analysis of structural response, structural members or their connections may have failed before reaching the temperatures shown in Chapter 10." — Footnote, NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2, p. 494

In Chapter 11 of its final report, NIST buried a stunning admission in a footnote, which revealed that Chapter 10 had neglected to mention that the thermal expansion hypothesis could not be based on a ​600° C/1112° F floor beam temperature (see quoted NIST footnote above). The Chapter 11 summary (NCSTAR 1-9, Vol. 2, p. 536) went on to conclude that the floor beams pushed the girder between columns 79 and 44 off its seat at column #79 prior to the beam temperature reaching 400°C. But NIST did not reveal the implication this lower beam temperature had for its thermal expansion hypothesis: As Figure 15 demonstrates, this lower beam temperature would have limited the floor beam expansion to about 3.3 inches, which would have proved NIST's original hypothesis untenable. Remember, the original hypothesis needed the 5.5 inches of expansion (caused by the higher 600° C/1112° F temperature) to pan out. The NFPA 921, had it been followed, would have forced NIST to list calculations to prove that the floor beam expansion could have reached the 5.5-inch target. NIST, however, did not address that basic scientific requirement.

False Premise #6. An incorrectly assumed 11-inch seat plate width

In June 2012, NIST quietly stretched the alleged expansion displacement from 5.5 inches to 6.25 inches. Why the change four years after its final report on WTC 7? It turns out that a small team of independent researchers had proved that the seat plate had been 12 inches wide (not 11 inches, as previously thought). NIST had assumed that the required expansion distance equaled half the width of the seat plate — the distance from the center of the seat plate (where the girder rested) to its edge. The corrected width of the seat plate changed this number from 5.5 inches to 6.0 inches, which meant NIST's 5.5-inch expansion limit had never been sufficient to cover the distance. Why did NIST change the number to 6.25 inches instead of 6.0 inches? To find out, see the next false premise.

False Premise #7. The revised 6.25-inch expansion number still insufficient

When NIST decided on its original 5.5-inch expansion requirement, it had neglected to take into account the 0.58-inch center section of the girder, called the web. Had it considered the web, NIST would've added half its thickness, or 0.29 inches, to the thermal expansion requirement (see Figure 18). So the initial required expansion distance would have been (5.5 plus 0.29) 5.79 inches. Then, with the correct seat plate width, it would have been (6.0 plus 0.29) 6.29-inches. NIST's revised 6.25 inches of claimed expansion distance didn't quite reach the required 6.29 inches, though, and was therefore technically insufficient to satisfy the most basic premise of the thermal expansion hypothesis. That fact, however, was the least troubling part of the revision. What was the most troubling? See the next false premise.

False Premise #8. The thermal expansion limit was exceeded

As we have already discussed, the NFPA 921 scientific method would not have allowed NIST to claim that the girder walked off its seat once it had been pushed laterally a certain distance, unless NIST were able to prove that the floor beams could have pushed the girder that far. When NIST revised its hypothesis in 2012 from 5.5 to 6.25 inches as the target lateral displacement number, it did not explain how it could exceed its own 5.5-inch expansion limit. And as the caption of Figure 15 explains, NIST could not have backed up its new 6.25-inch number, because the maximum possible thermal expansion of that beam length would have been about 5.73 inches, regardless of the beam temperature. NIST's excuse for its revision? It claimed that the 5.5-inch figure had been a typing error, where NIST had accidentally transposed the 5.5-inch lateral displacement number and the 6.25-inch axial number. But as Figure 16 demonstrates, that explanation does not add up​. Structural engineer Ron Brookman has confirmed that​ NIST's original identification of the axial walk-off displacement as 6.25 inches ​was correct. Curiously, NIST also insisted that it had actually been basing its computer simulation on the "correct" 6.25-inch lateral distance all along. That innocent-sounding assertion might seem reasonable — until, that is, one realizes that this would mean that NIST had consciously based its hypothesis on an expansion distance that was physically impossible according to its own data. A more blatant violation of the NFPA 921 would not be possible.​

False Premise #9. An assumption of unobstructed girder movement

NIST's fire simulation in Chapter 10 showed the girder heating up along with the floor beams, though to a lesser extent than the floor beams. Indeed, both in the simulation and in real life, the girder would have expanded along with the floor beams. An expanded girder would have pressed up against the face of column #79 — and, more importantly, against the side plate on the western side of the column. This side plate would have prevented the girder from being pushed more than 3.2 inches to the west, and therefore would have prevented the girder from falling off the seat plate (see Figure 17). NIST had encountered this problem in the computer analysis shown in Chapter 8 of the final report, but it did not mention or address it in later chapters that featured the thermal expansion hypothesis. The NFPA 921 scientific method would have forced NIST to address this issue.

False Premise #10. The non-inclusion of critical stiffener plates  

At no time did NIST reveal the fact that the girder flanges had stiffener plates (see Figure 18). These plates would have prevented the failure of the flange, even if thermal expansion numbers had vastly exceeded the already-impossible 6.25-inch movement. The presence of the stiffener plates alone invalidates NIST's thermal expansion hypothesis, even if one overlooks all of its other false premises. NIST has responded by claiming that including these plates was unnecessary, because they were designed to stiffen the web, not to stiffen the flanges. But Figure 18 shows that these plates obviously strengthened the flanges as well, since they were on the flanges at the end of the girder, directly over the seat plate. In its evasive answer, NIST didn't attempt to challenge this fact.

I-beam definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I-beam
 
PART 4 Discussion and Conclusion

The NFPA 921 scientific method specifically mandates that a theory be based on "facts that can be proven clearly by observation or experiment." But NIST's methodology violated this scientific methodology every step of the way to such a degree that NIST actually inverted the scientific method. It concocted a fairytale based on a collection of assumptions that were either not backed by any evidence or were in conflict with the available evidence. NIST's farfetched story was based on a fire that could not have existed according to its own data. Moreover, NIST had no proof that this fire, even if it had existed, could have led to broken shear studs on the floor beams. Consequently, NIST had no proof that those particular floor beams could in theory have thermally expanded and pushed that girder off its seated connection. It therefore had no scientific reason to waste time and money on the thermal expansion hypothesis. Yet NIST kept this charade going with a lot of suspicious errors, omissions, and distortions.

For example, in hindsight, it is clear that NIST's original 5.5-inch expansion hypothesis (made prior to its June 2012 revision to 6.25 inches) required the combination of several of the errors listed in this article in order to appear valid. Specifically, NIST (1) incorrectly measured the seat plate as 11 inches wide, (2) did not account for the 0.58-inch-thick web, and (3) omitted the stiffener plates, to come up with the artificially low 5.5-inch expansion distance that was allegedly needed to push the girder off its seat. Also, we notice that (4) NIST's initial — and incorrect — assumption of a possible 600° C/1112° F floor beam temperature just happened to yield the 5.5-inch floor beam expansion target, thanks to (5) a thermal expansion formula that neglected to subtract the loss of net floor beam expansion due to beam sagging, thus barely yielding the 5.5 inches of expansion NIST sought to prove.

This collection of errors, in other words, quite conveniently conspired to let NIST know that it needed 5.5 inches of expansion and that it did in fact have 5.5 inches of expansion.

Yet these aspects of NIST's suspicious methodology are minor compared to some of its other, more serious omissions and distortions, which also raise questions about potential scientific misconduct.

For instance, why did NIST refuse to release the "as built" drawing for the girder sheer studs? Would it reveal that the girder shear studs were actually there, as designed? Why else would NIST want to hide it?

Then there is the unscientific and suspicious switcheroo that NIST pulled with its computer simulation in Chapter 8, which gave the impression that the actual fire simulation in Chapter 10 could have led to broken floor shear studs. Did NIST choose to not repeat the Chapter 8 simulation with the real fire simulation data because it knew that it would not show the shear stud failure? Or did NIST in fact do the experiment, then not publish the result, because it showed no broken shear studs?

We may never know. The only thing we do know for sure is that NIST did not show any analysis proving that the actual fire simulation could lead to broken shear studs, even though its thermal expansion hypothesis would stand or fall on that one point alone.

When NIST decided to cherry-pick this one result from the Chapter 8 simulation, it meanwhile completely ignored the fact that this simulation indicated that the thermal expansion hypothesis could not work out, given that the side plate prevented the girder from being pushed off the western side. NIST should have pointed out that potential problem and addressed it, but instead it did not even mention it.

It should be noted that the interim experiment shown in Chapter 8 has caused a lot of confusion, because it led to a scenario where the floor beams buckled and pulled the critical girder backwards off of its column #79 seated connection, causing it to "rock off" the seat in the eastern direction (instead of being pushed forward off the seat in the western direction). Some have erroneously treated this scenario as a potential alternative to the thermal expansion hypothesis. However, it was no more than an artifact produced when the Chapter 8 shear-stud-failure model was allowed to run its course.

In addition, we have to question the mentality that NIST displayed when it neglected to mention and address the problem with its Chapter 11 conclusion. The thermal expansion hypothesis was flimsy enough when NIST was entertaining a potential 600° C/1112° F floor beam temperature and the consequent 5.5-inch expansion potential. The hypothesis was physically impossible, however, with NIST's much lower 400° C/750° F floor beam temperature, which would have limited the expansion potential to about 3.3 inches. NIST needed almost 2 more inches of expansion to validate its hypothesis, but it saw no reason to even mention that problem.

NIST showed equally perplexing behavior when it revised its hypothesis in 2012 to specify the alleged expansion distance as 6.25 inches instead of 5.5 inches, even though it had previously identified 5.5 inches as the expansion limit. Again, NIST saw no reason to mention that problem, let alone address it.

Simply put, NIST's official computer simulation could not possibly have shown the floor beams expanding and pushing the girder more than about 3.3 inches. Both 5.5 inches and 6.25 inches were off limits. NIST's computer simulation could therefore not possibly have shown the girder falling off its seat — even though NIST says it did.

Would you like to verify NIST's assertion with your own eyes? Well, you can't. Instead, NIST asks you to accept its word.

In the end, NIST's inability to prove that the 6.25-inch floor beam expansion would have been possible is not the main issue, considering that it omitted the crucial stiffener plates that would have rendered the alleged 6.25-inch expansion irrelevant. Had NIST included these plates, its thermal expansion hypothesis would have required almost 9 inches of beam expansion to pan out, which would quite obviously have been impossible. Did NIST exclude these plates from its analysis to save its hypothesis or did it have a legitimate reason for doing so? We find it impossible to believe NIST's claim that its engineers determined that those plates would not strengthen the flanges at all, and that they could therefore justifiably omit them. NIST cited no documents to back up this bold claim.

The NFPA 921 scientific method would not approve of NIST's thermal expansion hypothesis without proof from NIST that the floor beams could expand 6.25 inches and that the girder — with the stiffener plates in place — would then fall off its seat. Again, rather than showing any proof, NIST asks us to just accept its word.

So, do you think all this smacks of a deliberate effort to come up with data to support a preconceived conclusion? If NIST had intended to honestly explore the ramifications of a fire in that critical region of the building, it would have discarded the thermal expansion hypothesis once it became apparent that the presence of shear studs, the low temperature of the floor beams, the side plate restriction, and the stiffener plates each led to a dead end.

We cannot learn the full extent of the computer model fudging unless NIST allows independent verification of its alleged computer simulation. But this agency of the US Department of Commerce has refused to release crucial model input data, explaining that doing so "might jeopardize public safety." Translation: Apparently NIST believes that the data could get into the wrong hands and aid terrorists in bringing down more skyscrapers. That is absurd reasoning, since NIST has already given terrorists the message that normal random office fires can implode skyscrapers. Perhaps NIST's real concern is that independent scrutiny of its methodology would destroy its reputation for professional integrity?

That this government body has disregarded serious professional critiques that challenge its conclusions has not gone unnoticed. In fact, every time NIST's sanctimonious attitude is exposed, more building experts and scientists discover that its reports cannot be trusted, and they join the 9/11 Truth community in calling for a real, truly scientific investigation. Indeed, NIST's lack of professional integrity may be AE911Truth's best recruitment tool.

NIST's fairy tales about these two contributing factors to the collapse — the trusses and a diesel fire — were clearly as ill-founded as the story about the non-existent 10-story gouge.

PART 3: Trusses & Tanks — Popular Mechanics Helps NIST Create More Myths

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST's manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The fourth installment (below) is PART 3: Trusses & Tanks — Popular Mechanics Helps NIST Create More Myths. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. The second installment was PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The third installment was PART 2: NIST's Fictitious Gouge Launches Design Flaw Myth and Collapse Initiation Theory. Stand by for the next two installments, to be published monthly. 

C

Caption Figure 7. We will be showing this "Plan View of Collapse Progression" in three installments of this series of articles. This is the third and last time, and we have labeled it "C." NIST's December 2004 draft report based its WTC 7 collapse theory primarily on the buckling of column 79 (shown in the orange section above) due to fire damage. Nine months later, a 2005 PM magazine article cited comments made by NIST's Shyam Sunder to promote the myth that a seven-hour diesel fire on the fifth floor may have contributed to the collapse. The PM article did not specify it, but this imagined fire would have been in the vicinity of column 79 had it actually existed. PM did not ask Sunder to explain how the collapse of the east penthouse could have led to the implosion of the whole building, but PM's creative writing gave readers the impression that Sunder had in fact offered a credible explanation. Note trusses #1, #2, and #3 in this figure when reading PM's comment about the trusses in the text below.

The 2005 Popular Mechanics article referred to in PART 1 and PART 2 propped up NIST's myths about WTC 7 in yet other ways. It said, for instance, that NIST was continuing to investigate two possible contributing factors that may have helped the (non-existent) 10-story gouge destroy the building.
The first of these two alleged contributing factors, according to PM, was the supposed ability of the trusses on Floor 5 and Floor 7 to transfer stress from the damaged south face to the rest of the building.
 
PM wrote: "First, trusses on the fifth and seventh floors were designed to transfer loads from one set of columns to another. With columns on the south face apparently damaged, high stresses would likely have been communicated to columns on the building's other faces, thereby exceeding their load-bearing capacities."
 
The trusses did in fact transfer loads between core columns, but they had nothing to do with the perimeter frame. The PM magazine editors, however, gave that false impression when they paired together two unrelated statements about the trusses and the damage to the south face.
 
The magazine authors seem to have wanted readers to believe that localized failure of columns on the south face of the building would naturally lead, by way of the trusses, to failure of columns on other faces of the building, and thus the collapse of the entire building. But PM supplied few details, and with good reason: The claim conflicted with NIST's 2004 progress report, which had made the point that "[a]nalysis of the global structure indicates that the structure redistributed loads around the severed and damaged areas." Even more tellingly, the 2004 report had contended that the perimeter frame itself would redistribute loads due to damaged columns on the south face, and that this load distribution would prevent progressive failure and maintain the integrity of the "global structure." PM's alleged team of "professional fact checkers" missed this one too.
 
The second of these two contributing factors, according to the PM article, was a hypothetical seven-hour, diesel-fueled fire on the fifth floor.
 
Sunder told Popular Mechanics that this fifth-floor fire lasted up to seven hours, but the whole story was wishful thinking on his part.
 
Here's how Sunder apparently arrived at this fanciful conclusion: WTC 7's fifth floor had four emergency generators in a room on the northeast corner, in the vicinity of column 79. These generators were fueled by two large diesel tanks in the basement. Sunder speculated, unjustifiably, that the pressurized fuel line linking the tanks to the generators broke and that this break fed a long-lasting fire that somehow started in the generator room (as reviewed in PART 2). It would seem that Sunder was propagating this myth even though it contradicted the data in his own 2004 report. In fact, a previous AE911Truth article has demonstrated that certain information in NIST's 2004 report had ruled out the possibility that a diesel-fuel fire could have been a factor in WTC 7's demise. Moreover, at no time were there any eyewitness reports or photographs of fire on the fifth floor, so there never was any reason to think there may have been a fire there.
 
NIST finally publicly conceded this fact in a December 2007 summary statement: "The working hypothesis is based on an initial local failure caused by normal building fires, not fires from leaking pressurized fuel lines or fuel from day tanks." [Emphasis added.]
 
This point cannot be made strongly enough: The 2005 article in Popular Mechanics helped NIST propagate obvious falsities that contradicted the data in NIST's own 2004 preliminary report.
 
In short, NIST's fairy tales about these two contributing factors to the collapse — the trusses and a diesel fire — were clearly as ill-founded as the story about the non-existent 10-story gouge.
 
It is important to keep in mind the development of NIST's deceptive tactics as we continue our investigation toward its final collapse initiation hypothesis, which is outlined in PART 4.

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST’s manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The third installment, below, is PART 2: NIST's Fictitious Gouge Launches Design Flaw Myth and Collapse Initiation Theory. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. The second installment was PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. Stand by for the next three installments, to be published monthly.

PART 2: Fictitious Gouge Launches Design Flaw Myth and Collapse Initiation Fantasy

B

Caption Figure 4. We will be showing this "Plan View of Collapse Progression" in three installments of this series of articles. This is the second time, and we have labeled it "B." Note columns 76 to 81 and column 78A in the orange section. Also note the adjacent truss #1, truss #2, and the east transfer girder. NIST's report in early 2004 suggested that the east penthouse caved in primarily due to fire damage to column 79. It also suggested that the possible failure of the other structural components listed above could have made the critical column 79 more susceptible to fire damage. Also note that the mythical 10-story gouge "scooped out" column 78A, giving NIST the only "evidence" it had for the failure of one of those "other structural components." Finally, note that the debris that allegedly created the gouge would have provided NIST with the only remotely plausible explanation for the cause of the mythical diesel fire on the fifth floor.

Considering the lack of evidence, as we outlined in Part 1, NIST's early insistence on the 10-story gouge, as dramatized in the 2005 Popular Mechanics magazine article, makes no sense, until you realize that the agency was reverse engineering its theory for the demise of Building 7. In other words, because NIST's 2004 preliminary report contended that the east penthouse could cave in (as the videos show) if column 79 were to buckle, it had to make up a story to account for the failure of that column in order to sell its theory to the scientific community and to the public.

The trouble is, NIST had no legitimate reason to cite a failed column, since it had absolutely no evidence showing that any column under the east penthouse had been subjected to massive fires. What it did have, however, was what is referred to in polite company as "creative thinking."

"The gouge" could have ruptured a diesel fuel line

NIST had received no reports of fires on the fifth floor at any time, but in PM's 2005 article Sunder made a big deal of a supposed diesel-fueled fire on the fifth floor — a fire that, he claimed, may have lasted up to seven hours. The only excuse NIST had to cite a diesel fire was the fact that a room in the northeast corner of the fifth floor contained four diesel generators that were fed by a pressurized fuel line from two large tanks under the loading dock on the ground level. So, since there was fuel present, the agency reasoned that there could have been a fire there as well. But as we shall see in PART 3, NIST later admitted that this fire did not exist.

Caption Figure 5. This photo from the 2002 FEMA report shows WTC 7's northeast corner generator room louvers. Taken at about 2:10 PM on September 11, 2001, the photo proves that there was no fire in this part of the building (the northeast corner, floors five and six). If there had been, smoke would be pouring out through the louvers. Had the louvers been closed, some smoke would have escaped (see Figure 6), but any fire inside would not have had sufficient oxygen to burn hot enough to be a factor in the collapse of the building.

Some event would have been required to rupture the fuel line and ignite the fuel, but the agency was vague when it came to evidence for such an event. The report gave the impression that damage to the south face due to falling debris could somehow explain the fire, but it failed to cite a sequence of events that could lead to the fire. And as we shall see, even though NIST did not say so itself, it had no explanation for this fire that could look even remotely plausible — without concocting its mythical gouge, that is.

The only legitimate evidence for citing damage to the south face (see PART 1) were reports of damage to the southwest corner and reports of a large hole, around floor 14, near the center of the south face. Still, neither the corner damage nor the 14th-floor hole sufficed as a plausible explanation for damage to the fuel line feeding the generators in the northeast corner of the fifth floor. NIST must have surmised that a gouge from Floor 10 down to the ground in the middle of the south face would be a more plausible explanation, however, because any impact from the North Tower material responsible for that supposed gouge would have been a lot closer to the generator room and thus more likely to shake the generator room violently enough to rupture the fuel line. (The fuel line supposedly broke where it enters the junction box attached to the generator room ceiling.)

Debris supposedly caused critical fire

But even if the fuel line had been ruptured, what would have initiated the reported fifth-floor fire?

NIST implies that the fires in Building 7 were started by debris from the collapsing (and burning) North Tower. But debris fires at the southwest corner or at the hole around Floor 14 would not have been a satisfying explanation for a fire in the northeast corner on Floor 5.

Caption Figure 6. This photo, called Figure 5-142 in NIST's final report, is a frame taken from a video that was shot near the corner of West Broadway and Barclay Street. It shows the louvers that span the 5th and 6th floors in the northeast corner of WTC 7, and was taken between 3:55 PM and 4:04 PM on 9/11/01. (For a photo taken approximately two hours earlier, see Figure 5). The absence of black smoke — the color of smoke that always accompanies a diesel fuel fire — demonstrates that roughly 80 minutes before WTC 7 collapsed at 5:21 PM, there was no indication that a diesel fire had broken out in the building.

Sunder gave away NIST's thinking in the 2005 PM article when he claimed that this diesel fire lasted up to seven hours. It appears he made that observation to build his case that the North Tower debris, which supposedly created the gouge, must have somehow caused the diesel fire as it was creating that gouge, since Building 7 collapsed approximately seven hours after the North Tower collapsed. Though neither the 2004 NIST report nor the 2005 PM article ever said in so many words that WTC 1's debris caused WTC 7's diesel fire, NIST must surely have realized that the public would infer as much.

NIST's 2004 report also noted that the debris most likely caused damage to other structural components in the east penthouse area (see the orange section in Figure 4 above). The failure of these east penthouse components, NIST argued, would have transferred excessive stress to the critical column (#79) and made it more vulnerable to the claimed fire damage that supposedly buckled it in the end. Thus, in retrospect, it is easy to understand why NIST insisted on the 10-story gouge in the 2005 PM article: By referring to the gouge, NIST was supplying documented "evidence" that could account for the "falling of the first domino," in case anyone were to ask questions later.

Predictably, Popular Mechanics did not ask those questions, despite its alleged team of "professional fact checkers." But it is interesting to note that Sunder made sure that the magazine based the collapse explanation primarily on the 10-story gouge and that it cited fire damage only as a possible secondary contributing factor. PM's prioritizing of the 10-story gouge was a complete reversal of NIST's 2004 report, where fire was said to be the main factor in the building's collapse. This reversal shows how little confidence NIST really had in its 2004 report, even though the PM article was obviously set up to give the impression that NIST was on top of things.

Myth: Building 7 "Doomed to Fail"

The magazine authors did not seem to mind that NIST's theory had another fundamental flaw. Even if it accepted NIST's explanation for the collapse of the east penthouse, PM should have noticed that NIST did not address the main problem that it was tasked with solving: Why did the whole building fail catastrophically (neatly imploding in under seven seconds)?

PM's convenient absence of critical questions gave NIST the "out" it needed: It could circumvent the fatal flaws in its logic by allowing the magazine article to imply, on NIST's behalf, that Building 7's design was inherently unsound and weak — and thus "doomed to fail." As PM put it,  "According to NIST, there was one primary reason for the building's failure: In an unusual design, the columns near the visible kinks were carrying exceptionally large loads, roughly 2000 sq. ft. of floor area for each floor." [Emphasis added.]

PM was essentially pinning the blame on WTC 7's designers. But was it fair to imply that the architects and engineers of WTC 7 designed a building where the failure of only one column could trigger the implosion of the entire building?

Hardly. Modern steel-framed buildings are engineered to assure that they don't fall down, and none have, except on 9/11/2001. As Larry Silverstein, the owner of the building, told The New York Times in a 1989 interview: ''We built in enough redundancy to allow entire portions of floors to be removed without affecting the building's structural integrity, on the assumption that someone might need double-height floors. . . .''  

It is true that WTC 7 did have an unusual design: It was an irregular trapezoid and it was built over the ConEd electrical substation. But in its final report, NIST acknowledged that "[t]he transfer elements such as trusses, girders, and cantilever overhangs that were used to support the office building over the Con Edison substation did not play a significant role in the collapse of WTC 7." In fact, had Building 7 not provided a solid foundation, it would hardly have been chosen to house the mayor's emergency command center.

One could say that PM magazine was implicitly asking its readers to believe that, because of a flawed design, the collapse of only one column — out of 82 columns in total — brought down the whole building in the exact manner of a controlled demolition. In a pre-planned, pre-planted controlled demolition, carefully timed explosives are used to take out all the supporting columns. (We will review controlled demolitions in PART 5).

Granted, at the time, PM may not have known that NIST would refuse to share the input data for its computer analysis with the scientific community (on the completely spurious basis that it "might jeopardize public safety"), thus making independent verification of its conclusions impossible. Nonetheless, for the magazine authors to have accepted Sunder's narrative at face value was unprofessional and calls its motives into question.

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST's manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The second installment (below) is PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. Stand by for the next four installments, to be published monthly.

PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth of WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories

A

Caption Figure 2. We will be showing this "Plan View of Collapse Progression" graphic in three installments of this series of articles, starting with this installment, where we have labeled it "A." The identical graphic will be labeled "B" and "C" in the next two installments. NIST's 2004 Progress Report depicts a mythical hole supposedly "scooped out" of the center of the bottom 10 floors of Building 7. Figure L-31 in Appendix L of the report refers to the hole as the "Approximate Region of Impact Damage by Large WTC1 Debris." Since this damage did not exist in reality, NIST backpedaled and did not include its discredited Figure L-31 in the final 2008 report.

In its infamous 2005 article, "Debunking the 9/11 Myths," Popular Mechanics quoted NIST director Shyam Sunder asserting that falling debris from the North Tower poked a huge "gouge" in the front of WTC 7: "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7." Sunder went on to say, "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom ― approximately 10 stories ― about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." [Emphasis added]

Remarkably, Sunder made this definitive statement despite having no solid evidence to back it up. In fact, a careful reading of its 2004 preliminary report reveals that NIST simply cherry-picked one eyewitness statement, even though other witnesses refute this dramatic, specific, and provably false claim of damage.

Specifically, the statement about the 10-story gouge appears on page 18 of NIST's 2004 report, but NIST conveniently ignored two other comments on the same page that are in conflict with its conclusion:

• "No heavy debris was observed in the lobby area as the building was exited, primarily white dust coating and black wires hanging from ceiling areas were observed." This is no small detail. A 10-story gouge created by external debris being thrown into the building at “the bottom” would have left a huge pile of rubble in the lobby. Any legitimate investigator would go back and check to see if the lone witness reporting a 10-story gouge was perhaps referring to other damage to Building 7 or even to another building entirely.
  
  
• "[D]ebris damage across one-fourth width of the south face, starting several floors above the atrium ([which] extended from the ground to 5th floor), noted that the atrium glass was still intact." This, too, is no small detail. The witness described damage to the south face, but placed the damage higher up, and the intact glass on the bottom five floors certainly contradicted NIST's placement of the claimed 10-story hole at “the bottom” of the building. Tellingly, this statement didn't place the damage at the center of the south face, so this witness was probably describing the collective damage west of center and above the fifth floor, as shown in NIST's Figure 5-92 below (see our Figure 3 below).

In sum, these two statements strongly suggest that evidence known to NIST at the time contradicted the statements it made in its own report in 2004 and via Popular Mechanics in 2005. NIST has since abandoned the story about the center of the bottom 10 floors being "scooped out" its final 2008 report. Yet it remains, as myths are wont to do, in the minds of most who read the NIST-sanctioned PM piece.

Caption Figure 3. NIST's Figure 12-33, from its final 2008 report, depicts damage to the southwest corner that actually is supported by photographic evidence and witness reports. When this figure is compared to Figure L-31 in the 2004 preliminary report (see our Figure 2 above), it is apparent that NIST has abandoned the idea that there was a separate gouge that "scooped out" the center of the bottom 10 floors. Refer to PART 2 in order to discover why NIST initially fabricated the story about the gouge.

It may seem odd that a scientifically-oriented magazine like Popular Mechanics accepted Sunder's story about the huge (non-existent) gouge, since Sunder offered no photographs or clear witness statements to back up his claim. Then again, Popular Mechanics' severe lack of credibility has been previously addressed by AE911Truth in a series of damning articles.

It may seem even more peculiar that PM's editor at the time, James Meigs, wrote a piece titled, "The 9/11 Lies Are Out There: Editor's Notes," in which he bragged about the magazine's careful and thorough research. Meigs claimed that a team of editors, reporters, researchers, and "professional fact checkers" had "methodically analyzed, interviewed, and researched everything on the subject."

If the magazine did employ a team of competent, honest researchers, its work must have been tampered with or ignored. For even minimal truly scientific research would have revealed the bogus nature of Sunder's statements. To be fair, PM may have been completely unaware of the significance of Sunder's specific placement of the gouge, as will be discussed in PART 2. Still, that is no excuse for this journalistic failing, which comes across as more than simple naivety or mere incompetence.

Incredibly, when asked about the 2005 article, Popular Mechanics editor/researcher Davin Coburn could not have been telling the truth when he told Charles Goyette in a 2006 radio interview that he had seen photos of the 10-story gouge, even though they were never produced and "the gouge" claim was abandoned:

Coburn: "When the North Tower collapsed... there was damage to Building 7.... What we found out was... about 25% of the building's south face had been carved away from it.... We have seen pictures that are property of the NY Police Department and various other governmental agencies that we were not given permission to disseminate...."

Charles: "Popular Mechanics got to see them, but the average American citizen can't see them."

Davin: "Correct."

AE911Truth Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST’s manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The first installment (below) is the INTRODUCTION to the whole series. Stand by for the next five installments in subsequent articles, to be published monthly.

INTRODUCTION

The United States government's official investigator of the destruction of the three skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an arm of the Department of Commerce. The agency became highly politicized during a Clinton-era restructuring. "In essence," recalls a NIST whistleblower, "we lost our scientific independence, and became little more than 'hired guns.'"

NIST has made many false written and oral statements about the collapses of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11 — statements that have now caused 2,300 architects and engineers to question the government investigator's credibility and veracity. One of its most implausible claims is that a high-rise steel structure in New York City was destroyed by fire alone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7Rm6ZFROmc  Figure 1. NIST's final report states that random office fires alone brought down Building 7. However, the collapse of WTC 7 compared, side by side, with an acknowledged professional controlled demolition reveals an entirely different story. Only a handful of companies have the ability to neatly implode a steel-framed skyscraper into its own footprint like this. Click on this video to see WTC 7 fall next to three acknowledged professional CDs.

Indeed, the fall of World Trade Center Building 7 is the third of the three only known "global collapses" of high-rise, steel-framed buildings ever recorded, and all three incredibly took place in one day: September 11, 2001.

NIST contends that the Twin Towers were brought down by the impact damage and consequent fires from the large airliner jets that hit them. But no jet struck WTC 7, and NIST claims that office fires alone demolished that building. The agency does admit that, if true, this would be the first and only time that an office fire brought down a steel skyscraper.

Ultimately, we are asked to accept on faith NIST's ever-changing, remarkable, and, frankly, suspect explanations for WTC 7's destruction.

Why "suspect"? Because NIST ignored the National Fire Protection Association protocol — specifically, the NFPA 921 Guide for Fire and Explosion Investigations — and refused to perform a forensic investigation. As a consequence, NIST has no physical proof to back up its unusual explanation for WTC 7's destruction.

Even more concerning, NIST bases its finding on computer models whose input data it refuses to release to either the scientific community or the general public. Thus, it is impossible to independently verify NIST's work and its startling conclusion. AE911Truth contends that NIST's methodology is contrary to every tenet of legitimate scientific inquiry. In this article, we seek to show how the supporting "evidence" put forward by NIST in the 13 years since that fateful day has been consistently and deliberately misleading.

We will review NIST's progression from its 2004 preliminary report to its 2008 final report — a progression that will reveal a pattern of omissions and distortions that appear designed to arrive at a preconceived conclusion.

We will show, step by step, that NIST's final hypothesis of scattered office fires producing the gravitational collapse of a 47-story steel structure is a classic case of "cover-up" — designed to obscure the fact that the implosion of Building 7 was the result of controlled demolition.
 
NIST's pattern of omissions and distortions:

1. In its 2004 preliminary report, NIST fabricated the myth that debris from World Trade Center Building 1 (the North Tower) created a 10-story hole at a specific location at the base of WTC 7's south face. The following year it propagated that myth in Popular Mechanics, which defended NIST's work.
2. It turns out that NIST "needed" the 10-story hole to exist at this specific location to back up its explanation for the collapse of Building 7. This is an example of reverse engineering, where supposed evidence is constructed to fit a prearranged conclusion. NIST also used its Popular Mechanics (PM) platform to launch a second myth — namely, that Building 7 had a peculiar design, which purportedly made it vulnerable to collapse.
3. The PM article also helped NIST generate two more myths — namely, that diesel fuel tanks stored inside WTC 7 supposedly fueled an imaginary fire on the fifth floor, ostensibly helping to weaken the building at a strategic location, and that certain trusses helped to facilitate the collapse of the entire building by transferring stresses from supposedly damaged columns on the south side of the building.
4. NIST's final 2008 report discarded these self-constructed myths and introduced a new collapse initiation hypothesis that blames WTC 7's destruction on normal office fires. The final report is premised on the same shoddy investigative practices that the agency displayed in its 2004 report and in the 2005 PM article. Indeed, NIST's omissions and distortions are gross enough to discredit both its entire WTC 7 investigation and the agency itself as a viable 9/11 investigator.
5. NIST has consistently ignored evidence that would refute its preconceived conclusion. All the hard evidence demonstrates that Building 7 was brought down by classic controlled demolition.

We trust that a thorough perusal of this article will convince most readers that NIST's methodology and conclusions are not scientific and thus not credible. We also trust it will cause readers to declare "Enough is enough!" and demand a proper investigation.

Additional Parts of this Review

The introduction and the five parts of this review can be seen at these links:

Introduction
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) maintained in its August 2008 Final Draft Report, and the associated technical briefing, that WTC Building 7 took 40% longer to collapse than if it had been in free-fall.

NIST Project Leader Shyam Sunder explained that WTC 7 could not have come down in free-fall, because there was resistance to the fall provided by the steel structure underneath. But a determined high school physics teacher in central California, David Chandler, demonstrated that NIST was using fraudulently manipulated data to try to show a slower rate of collapse.

David Chandler - "There is ample evidence, from both witnesses and recordings, of explosions associated with the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7). NIST sidestepped investigating explosions and explosives by setting up an artificially high threshold of interest.

They swept aside any testimony or recordings of explosions that would not register 130-140 dB one kilometer away. They established this criterion using RDX (one of the loudest explosives) in a scenario that produced a far higher sound level than other possible uses of explosives to bring down the building. Then they turned around and used sound level as the sole criterion for deciding whether the use of explosives was a credible hypothesis. By this maneuver, they sidestepped investigating testimony of explosives or possible evidence of explosive residues. This is just one more instance of fraudulent behavior on the part of the NIST investigation of the World Trade Center disaster."

WTC Building 7 in Free-fall

NIST, when confronted publicly with evidence produced by Chandler, finally admitted in its November 2008 Final Report that WTC 7 fell for 2.25 seconds in free-fall, but they brushed off this newly acknowledged fact as being "consistent with the results of the global collapse analysis," despite Sunder's earlier statement. Thus, the NIST simulation and analysis represented a mufti-million-dollar effort to avoid explaining what really happened.

Physics teacher David Chandler uses simple scientific software to understand and show the free-fall demolition of WTC7, WTC 7, Building 7.

Published on Feb 16, 2013

In its draft report, released in August 2008, NIST attempted to cover up evidence that WTC7 fell at free fall, but the cover-up was transparent. In its final report, released in November 2008, NIST finally acknowledged free fall, but couched it in a bizarre framework that continues to deny its clear significance. This video displays the brazenness of the NIST WTC7 cover-up.

[The WTC7 series has elicited a number of questions from people unclear on the details of how I did the measurements, compared to how NIST did them and how the representatives of NIST described their measurements. I have therefore created a WTC7 Measurement FAQ page: http://www.911speakout.org/WTC7-Measu...

I will also use this FAQ as a place of reference

for other questions that arise as well.]

Please watch the following video evidence and draw you own conclusions.