Parihaka

WTC7 suffered considerable damage from debris from the collapsing north tower. This can be seen in this photo.

It suffered further damage from a fire fueled by flamable office equipment and large quantities of diesel stored within the building. There are numerous eyewitness testimonies from fire fighters and rescue workers describing severe damage to WTC7's southern face but no photos were taken because no-one on site had the time to take those photos and it was difficult to see due to the dust and smoke. You can see the dust and smoke clouds moving south from the building in the photo.
The fire departments considered it impossible to save the building and left it to burn.
NISTA's ? report didn't go into the physical damage because there wasn't a way to ascertain how severe that damage was and so left an open verdict.
It did not fall, as is claimed, on it's own footprint but in fact spewed debris across the road, damaging the tops of buildings opposite.

gunnut

There was a very good show on the History Channel talking about the collapse of the WTC7.

WTC7 was built on top of a power substation. The engineers had to design load bearing beams to transfer the weight of the building off to the columns on the side so they don't disturb the existing substation.

The damage from the falling debris damaged some of this supporting structure.

Due to the collapse of the twin towers, fire fighters were forbidden from entering WTC7 for obvious reasons.

The diesel stored at the substation was ignited from the damage of the twin towers. This fire burned uncontrolled for 7 hours, weakening the supporting structure, resulting in the collapse.

This is as much as I remember from the show. I didn't even know about WTC7 until I watched this show.

I'm surprised that you didn't bring up the "it wasn't a jetliner, it was a cruise missile that hit Pentagon" theory.

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Trooth

I was not saying that the building fell within their footprint on the day so mch as pointing out that part of their design is to facilitate controlled demolition. Clearly this wasn't controlled. But a lot of conspiracy theorists try to make capital out of "well they collapsed so neatly" and, whilst it wasn't actually that neat, it was broadly vertical and the design was contributry.

That and the massive vertical loadings of course.

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Pragnosis

The evidence that you've put forward is great and I am starting to feel as though the programs that I've watched have not shown both sides of the story. The documentaries that I've seen seem to be quite biased towards a conspiracy and not showing it fairly.

highsea

This is not at all true. No high-rise structure in the world has seen worse fires and survived, and none would.

Buildings fall straight down because that's the only way they can fall. The WTC towers were 208 feet on a side. In order for them to come down sideways, the top of the building would have to be displaced over 100 feet! Try it with a box of saltines- stand it on one end and push it over. See how far over it has to go before if becomes unstable. If you get close to the tipping point and let go, it will stand back up. This is how buildings react. Even if it starts over on one side, it will straighten back up as it falls.

The '93 bombing was an attempt to get one tower to fall over and land on the other one, by weakening one side of the building at the basement. Even if they had succeeded in taking down one tower, it still would have fell in it's own footprint.

The collapses were progressive failures. As the upper floors collapsed, they landed on the floors below, overstressing the structure below. Once it began, there was no stopping it. Compression causes a lot of debris to be ejected, but the structure itself comes straight down.

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gunnut

The "pancaking" effect. A hospital in Mexico City came down like this after a strong earthquake (forgot the year). It collapsed entirely within its own foot print. It looked almost like a controlled demolition.

Parihaka

Understood Trooth, I was just addressing the general conspiracy theory that "they fell in their own footprint therefore it must have been controlled demolition" blah blah. Highsea put it much better than I

Pragnosis

I'm curious to know how you would argue this point. Looking from the point of view of the conspiracy theorists out there, if you look at the official documents explaining the thorough report of 9/11, they are from websites with the .gov suffix, which are 'official' government websites. If there is a huge cover-up, the documents on the official government website are obviously going to match the official story.

I'd also like to know what people think about the Skull & Bones secret society of which George Bush and John Kerry were members. According to people such as Jordan Maxwell, Alex Jones, David Icke and Alex Ansary, this is an elite secret society and they claim that the God worshipped within Skull & Bones is Lucifer. I know that David Icke comes across as insane with his reptile theory and that Alex Jones seems as though he is acting, but they all share the same beliefs that we are ruled by a secret elite and that all of these events (such as 9/11 and Iraq) are pre-planned and are all connected, as part of the global plan of the New World Order.

I think the reason that conspiracy theorists are so successful is because the information that they give seems to make so much sense, it's very cleverly put together and explained. If the conspiracies theories are just lies, then conspiracy theorists should be punished because they are brainwashing a lot of people. I am lucky that I am very open minded and never quite buy too much into anything. If somebody can put across a very good argument with hard evidence to defend their beliefs, then I will always stand corrected.

gunnut

OK, let's say those .gov suffixes publish government version of the story and can be used as part of the cover up.

Here's my question, how many people are there in the government? How many are involved in the cover up? How many of them belong to the "secret society" you're talking about?

With the number of people involved in the US bureaucracy, it's impossible to hide something this big, this perfectly, for this long. People talk. People see things. And not all of them belong to this secret society or want to see this new world order.

The conspiracy theory is successful because:

1. Bush government was never good at communicating to the people.
2. There are a good number of people who absolutely hate Bush and think he stole the presidency.
3. They cannot understand that their guy can lost fair and square. It must be a conspiracy.
4. They translate this conspiracy to everything they see as wrong.
5. Some people need a little excitement in their lives. 19 hijackers dropping 2 towers and a wing of the Pentagon is just too straight forward. They want some plot twists.

Tell me this, which do you find more exciting? The official story? Or the conspiracy theory? I think the conspiracy theory is infinitely more exciting and great for movies and books.

Pragnosis

I see what you're saying, however, I feel that one of your points is a bit flawed-if you see it from the point of view of those conspiracy theorist. Certain conspiracy theorists argue that the whole of the western media is ultimately controlled by these elitist groups and it would be impossible for the information to leak because it would not be displayed to the country through the media. They say that people in positions of power have spoken out, but it never gets shown on a mass scale, only circulates through certain groups of people and most people don't believe and pass it off as the people being insane or whatever.

Shek

Pragnosis,
There are deliberate leaks and planned leaks. Here's a short list of leaks during the Bush Administration. Which category would you see them falling into?

Abu Ghraib abuse photos
NSA terrorist surveillance program/domestic spying
Terrorist financial transaction data mining

If people are willing to risk jail time (debatable given the enforcement of laws, but that's another story) over the potential that the government might listen to a phone conversation, why would people not be willing over deliberate government murders, which can't even compare to a hypothetical privacy issue?

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Trooth

Pragnosis:
The groups you have mentioned may be trying to pervert our society, but does it not occur to you that other groups may have different ideas? In any group where there is an advantage to be gained two people will want it and will compete for it. So how come all the these powerful and shadowy groups are apparently working together?

HAve you not seen this in school? Work? Golf Clubs and all sorts of other societies. So all these powerful groups just want to get along and secretly run the world? Then why is there more then one group if they all share the same goals?

I am all for healthy scepticism and don't get me wrong, dodgy stuff does go on, but sometimes people just can't see the wood for the trees.

And, even when dubious things happen, it doesn't mean they are linked sometimes its just a coincidence. Or, as the psychologists say, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

gunnut

Not in Billy's case.

Pragnosis

That's a very good point, I never thought of it like that. I suppose the reason that I even gave the conspiracy stuff the time of day is because people like the guys I've mentioned earlier seem to have researched (or at least the claim they have) for years. It all made sense to me. If outrageous conspiracy theories are non-sense (which I'm starting to believe they are), I think it should be out-lawed, people like Icke, Maxwell and Jones should stop what they're doing because they turning Americans against their own country. Wouldn't it be a self-fulfiling prophecy if these conspiracy theorists actually made matters with other countries heat up to the point of a potential war. George Bush was concerned enough to address the issue at the UN:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5I7NFracPU

Trooth

Those guys have done research. But it hasn't necessarily come to the right conclusion - in fact a lot of it doesn't come to a conclusion it merely states that there is a conspiracy and gives you several what-ifs.

And it is compelling. Oliver Stone's JFK is compelling. The fact huge chunks are concations doesn't stop one from being swept along.

And it isn't always with malice that people do these things. Some of the stuff i have read about fake moon landings has very compelling research that to my untrained eye makes sense. The problem is the conspiracy theory people, often doing the best work they can, are also untrained.

When you then read the expert's analysis you think - ah that makes more sense.