World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories

Aerial view of the debris field of the North Tower, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC (upper right). The damaged Verizon Building can be seen left of WTC 7's ruins.

Some conspiracy theories contend that the collapse of the World Trade Center was caused not solely by the airliner crash damage that occurred as part of the September 11 attacks and the resulting fire damage but also by explosives installed in the buildings in advance.[1] Controlled demolition theories make up a major component of 9/11 conspiracy theories.

Early advocates such as physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin proposed that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires themselves alone could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate the catastrophic collapse and that the buildings would have neither collapsed completely nor at the speeds they did without additional energy involved to weaken their structures.[2]

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the magazine Popular Mechanics examined and rejected these theories. Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, an explanation that does not involve the use of explosives.[3][4][5] NIST "found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to Sept. 11, 2001."[6] Professors Zdeněk Bažant of Northwestern University,[7] Thomas Eagar, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology[4] and James Quintiere of the University of Maryland,[8] have also dismissed the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory.

In 2006, Jones suggested that thermite or super-thermite may have been used by government insiders with access to such materials and to the buildings themselves to demolish the buildings.[9][10][11][12] In April 2009, Jones, Dane Niels H. Harrit and seven other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, causing the editor, Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni, to resign as she accused the publisher of printing it without her knowledge;[13][14] this article was titled 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe', and stated that they had found evidence of nano-thermite in samples of the dust that was produced during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.[15] NIST responded that there was no "clear chain of custody" to prove that the four samples of dust came from the WTC site. Jones invited NIST to conduct its own studies using its own known "chain of custody" dust, but NIST did not investigate.[16]

  1. ^ Clarke, Steve. "Conspiracy Theories and the Internet: Controlled Demolition and Arrested Development". Episteme, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 167-180.
  2. ^ "The 9/11 enigmas..." www.worldarchitecturenews.com. Retrieved September 14, 2021.
  3. ^ Bažant, Zdeněk P.; Mathieu Verdure (March 2007). "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions" (PDF). Journal of Engineering Mechanics. 133 (3): 308–319. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.121.4166. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2007)133:3(308). Archived from the original (PDF) on August 9, 2007. Retrieved August 22, 2007. As generally accepted by the community of specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering (though not by a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives), the failure scenario was as follows [...]
  4. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference Chronicle was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  5. ^ Asquith, Christina (September 7, 2006). "Conspiracies continue to abound surrounding 9/11: on the eve of the fifth anniversary, a group of professors say the attacks were an "inside job."". Diverse Issues in Higher Education: 12. Retrieved October 9, 2008.
  6. ^ "NIST's Investigation of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center Disaster". NIST. August 2006. Archived from the original on May 27, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2014.
  7. ^ Cite error: The named reference :0 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  8. ^ Cite error: The named reference :1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  9. ^ Dwyer, Jim (September 2, 2006). "2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11". The New York Times. Archived from the original on May 12, 2011. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  10. ^ Dean, Suzanne (April 10, 2006). "Physicist says heat substance felled WTC". Deseret Morning News. Archived from the original on May 10, 2009. Retrieved May 7, 2009.
  11. ^ Barber, Peter (June 7, 2008). "The truth is out there". Financial Times. Retrieved May 23, 2009.
  12. ^ "Great Day Talks To Architect Richard Gage About 9/11". KMPH Fox 26. Retrieved May 28, 2009.[permanent dead link‍]
  13. ^ Hoffmann, Thomas (April 28, 2009). "Chefredaktør skrider efter kontroversiel artikel om 9/11". Videnskab. Retrieved November 4, 2013. Mailen får hende til med det samme at smække med døren til tidsskriftet.
  14. ^ Oder, Norman. "Hoax Article Accepted by "Peer-Reviewed" OA Bentham Journal". Archived from the original on August 10, 2017. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
  15. ^ Harrit, Niels H.; Jeffrey Farrer; Steven E. Jones; Kevin R. Ryan; Frank M. Legge; Daniel Farnsworth; Gregg Roberts; James R. Gourley & Bradley R. Larsen (April 3, 2009). "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe". The Open Chemical Physics Journal. 2 (1): 7–31. Bibcode:2009OCPJ....2....7H. doi:10.2174/1874412500902010007.
  16. ^ Cite error: The named reference SBIndependent was invoked but never defined (see the help page).