Not in the link given earlier in the thread. He said the first he knew was when someone shouted, and he looked up and the building was coming down, so he contradicts your other winesses. His hearing loud explosion-like noises coming from a collapsing building is hardly surprising. Would you expect a 47-story building to fall in silence?

This is a pointless discussion but let me try to clear up where I am coming from. The definition of “surprise” reads: -

1. to strike or occur to with a sudden feeling of wonder or astonishment, as through unexpectedness: Her beauty surprised me.
2. to come upon or discover suddenly and unexpectedly: We surprised the children raiding the cookie jar.
3. to make an unexpected assault on (an unprepared army, fort, person, etc.).

A surprise by definition is an unexpected event. You said, “I would not have been surprised if a subsequent fire had led to a collapse.” Therefore you are saying a subsequent fire resulting in collapse would not have been unexpected to you. Following that, if it was not unexpected to you, then to some degree it must have been expected! Your question above answered.

You, at least in part, expected the Bankers Trust building to fall due to fire and when it did not, it proved your statement above to be misguided.



You are correct about the reports on this event becoming harder to come across. The link I supplied gives the most comprehensive source of information I can find on the Israelis arrested. It is admittedly a conspiracy website but it does contain links to news articles, video and witness statements. Here is the link again: -

The Five Dancing Israelis Arrested On 9-11

I can find a reference to the Israeli American newspaper Forward, reporting that the Israelis may sue for false arrest, but not the article itself. This seems irrelevant.

The fact remains that Israelis were seen celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers. They videoed and photographed the event. They were reported to police and detained attempting to leave New York with a van of explosives. A number of the Israelis were Mossad agents (one of the Israeli’s lawyers admits as much). The company the men were working for packed up and fled the US days after the attack. The FBI found reason to hold these men for 71 days before they were quietly deported back to Israel.

It was big news on 9/11 with the detentions being linked to the attacks. Then.... silence. Why is it that we have had no official explanation of the Israelis? When information like this is covered up for whatever reason why should anyone assume it is innocent when all the pieces fit indicating the Israelis played a part in the attacks?

So your final answer on the subject - a shrug of the shoulders and “How should I know?” I guess that is fairly in line with how the official story treats this event also. Unacceptable. Not just to myself, but to every decent person who would like and deserves a full and detailed account of 9/11 and its surrounding events.

You are still quibbling. There is a whole spectrum of possibilities from being certain something will happen to being certain it won't. In normal English usage "I expected it" denotes a position close to the "certain it will" end of the spectrum, while "I wouldn't have been surprised" covers a very broad range of the spectrum, only ruling out positions near the "certain it would not" end. One statement implies a strong opinion on the matter, the other does not.

There was a lot of confusion on the day and a lot of stories going round, some of which proved true and others of which did not. The lack of any major follow-up for your Mossad story and the conflicting versions - eg "sniffer dogs excited" becoming in a later version "van with tonnes of explosives" and no report anywhere of whether the van was chemically tested - or the conflicting reports of where the van was - makes it difficult to decide how much truth there was in it. In view of this I think "How should I know?” is a perfectly reasonable position to take.

Look at the "Watch this" thread in conspiracies & Secret Societies.... It contains a lot of eye-witness accounts from the day where many people heard explosions prior to to the planes impacting the WTC. (about 30 mins in). The whole thing is nearly 2 hours long but really fascinating.

Q24 I had a good read of your link and I cannot see anything 'suspicious' (well, certainly not as suspicious as you're trying to make out). In the article there are 14 separate links to the story about the Israelis celebrating (it looks like there are more, but the second half of the article is not about that particular story and some of the relevant links are repeated up to five times).

Out of those 14 links TEN don't mention anyone being caught with explosives at all. Of the remaining four:

• One article (written on September 12th 2001) explicitly states no explosives were found but explosive sniffing dogs reacted. This dog story is not picked up in any of the 13 other links.
• Two articles were both three-sentence 'Breaking News' written within a couple of hours of each other (0427-0645GMT or 2327-0145 New York time , both written on September 12th 2001) both saying a van loaded with explosives was stopped near or on the George Washington bridge
• One link provided is a clip from a news report (not explicitly stated but it starts with 'Word late tonight..." so it would be either late night 11th, early morning 12th) mentioning the van full of explosives.

One other article was written on November 2001 and again makes no mention of explosives being found, but does mention the above reports

So the only time explosives were ever mentioned was in the morning of September 12th, by the time the other articles were written (from the 14th onwards) no one mentions the explosives. This is very common on big stories - unsubstantiated reports coming in, news teams want to get the scoop and put it on air for it to later be found out not be true. Happens all the time and I can think of plenty of examples it happening on other occasions. So you claiming 'Mossad agents found with a van of explosives' like it's a fact is completely wrong.

As for the other points, well, the guys being Mossad and them cheering at the towers falling has never been explicitly proved, but from what I've read I'm happy to accept those bits. Even if they were cheering and laughing, whilst not being good behaviour, it's hardly incriminating or even uncommon behaviour. I don't know about you but any big celebrity death or big disaster that happens it's only a matter of sometimes minutes until I get an email or text joke sent to me about it.

In my opinion a couple of vaguely Middle Eastern looking guys were found acting inappropriately when the towers went down. They were reported and arrested and found to have inappropriate visas and/or to be Israeli intelligence and were kicked out. End of story.

I do not mean to quibble, I simply took what you said in the truest sense of its meaning, not surprised = expected.



Although it is difficult to ascertain the exact details of the event, the facts below are not in dispute: -

The Israelis were seen celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers. They videoed and photographed the event. They were reported to police and detained attempting to leave New York with a van of explosives (or I will accept a van recently containing explosives). A number of the Israelis were Mossad agents (one of the Israeli’s lawyers admits as much). The company the men were working for packed up and fled the US days after the attack. The FBI found reason to hold these men for 71 days before they were quietly deported back to Israel.

Or are you suggesting that one report stating sniffer-dogs detected explosives and another stating a van of explosives, actually means there was somehow no explosives involved with the Israelis?

“How should I know?” is a weak answer, suggesting that you have no idea what the Israelis were doing. You have no idea what these individuals implicated in 9/11 were doing, yet you find that acceptable?



I am not ‘making it out’ to be anything. I just repeat the facts and state the most logical conclusion. From the above, you do see that it is at least to a small degree suspicious though, so same question to you as to flyingswan – how is it acceptable we do not have a full explanation of these suspicious individuals detained as suspects of the 9/11 attacks?



I understand news reporters can make mistakes sometimes but these mistakes usually have an underlying truth. There were initial reports a ‘small’ plane had crashed into WTC1 – this was because a plane had indeed crashed into the Tower. There were reports a truck bomb had gone off at the Pentagon – this was because there had been a large explosion at the site. With these two examples, the reports were quickly corrected and details given.

There were reports explosives were found in the Israeli’s van – this was because…? There were no follow-up reports correcting the ‘error’ because… ? Fill in those two blanks with something reasonable and I may see your point of view.

Also the two reports mentioning explosives say their source was the FBI/authorities. That substantiates the reports.

You're willing to accept the press can make mistakes but are unwilling to accept they made a mistake that there was explosives (or traces) inside the van. You also say that it has to be true because authorities confirm it. Here is a link to another article from the time which states "A car bomb exploded outside the State Department, according to State Department sources." The article has already mentioned the Pentagon so they mean a completely separate explosion. And the State Department is a completely different building to the Pentagon. And it's not just any explosion, specifically a car bomb. And the article isn't just a random report, it is specifically a State Department explosion confirmed by State Department source.

You and I both know that it's likely that this is just a mix up with the Pentagon attack but by your own logic that this was an 'officially confirmed' report you should be demanding an investigation into this car bomb too.

I had a bit more of a root around on this issue. One of the three sources in your article for explosives being found is this, written at 0427 (2327 NY time)
Reports from New York are saying three people have been arrested with a van of explosives.
The van was stopped along the New Jersey turn-pike near the George Washington Bridge.
It was not clear why police stopped the van but when they did they found it was laden down with tonnes of explosives.

Having a look at this source I also found this, written at 0434 (2334 NY time)
NYPD officers have confirmed the arrest of three men on the New Jersey turn-pike.
However officials denied any explosives were found in the van.
Officials declined to say why exactly the men had been arrested.
So for this source it took a whole seven minutes for the original report to be corrected.

You say you just report the facts and give the most logical conclusion. The facts of this case, according to the sources we have, is that the only time any mention of explosives is made is very early on (within hours of the arrest) and then explosives are never mentioned again in any article. For you to reach your logical conclusion you have to assume that explosives (or traces) were found in the van, this was reported to the press, then, within minutes or at least hours some conspiring agency or other becomes involved, swears all the police who were involved in finding the explosives and those they discussed the case with to secrecy (which to this very day they have never broken), then informed the press that there were no explosives found in such a convincing manner that no journalist even decided to look into it and report on it any more.

For my logical conclusion all I need is ‘the press made a mistake’. Which they’ve done before and will do again.

ETA: Hmmmmm, looks like CBS was responsible for this van full of explosives story. Link (Ironically, given it was my other example, it also mentions the State Department bomb!)

Ifisurvive's answer is in line with my take on the matter, too. The evidence for explosives seems very weak.

You have fallen in line with Ifisurvive’s ‘take’ would be more accurate.



As you say above, the State Department bomb was most likely misreported because there had been an explosion at the Pentagon. I still do not see how a report of explosives in the Israelis van came from thin air.



Quite possible. If the inside job of 9/11 involved elements of the CIA, they would have been ‘listening in’ for any situation that may compromise the concealment of their operation. If they were quickly on the scene and informed the original arresting FBI officers that findings and details of the case were to remain confidential, I cannot see there being an argument.



You need a lot more than a dispute over the reporting of explosives to roll out the, “nothing to see here, move along” line.

The way I see it, what are the odds of any Israeli randomly being in New York as the events of 9/11 unfolded? What are the odds of any random Israeli being a member of the Mossad? What are the odds of any random person recording the event? What are the odds of any random person celebrating the attacks? What are the odds of any random person arrested being reported as possessing explosives? What are the odds of someone denying responsibility for an act before they know why they are being arrested? What are the odds of the company you work for fleeing the country if you are innocent? I would say the combined odds of all this occurring by random chance and absolutely innocently are astronomical. Far more likely this series of events had a purpose/reason behind them.

I guess either you are willing to believe in sheer against the odds coincidences, suspicious as you admit they are, or you are not.

See my post #398 where I first queried the evidence for the story.

The Pentagon attack had been originally described as a truck bomb. The ‘State Department attack’ had been reported as a car bomb. A van heading in the direction of a major NY bridge is stopped by police and a load of Middle-Eastern looking men are arrested. The press jumping to the conclusion that it was a truck bomb is hardly ‘pulling it from thin air’.


This is a bit inconsistent. You are suggesting the CIA manage to hush up all aspects of explosives but completely fail to suppress the idea that these guys were Mossad. Journalists are officially told explosives are found and then CIA men turn up and deny all existence of explosives and no journalists are even vaguely suspicious. Six years after the events you see two three-sentence paragraphs and one 20-second wmv file and can see through the lies, but any investigative journalists with direct access to eyewitnesses and police/FBI authorities reporting the story at the time and in any subsequent articles never have any curiosities.


It’s where your suspicions are leading you I have an issue with Q24. I think from the sources we have there is no evidence that there was any explosives found with the Israelis. Once that is out of the equation all the other ‘random odds’ you have don’t add up to any conspiracy with 911 (well, frankly, even with explosives it’s a leap).

Let’s look at what could happen if the Israelis were completely innocent of any conspiracy with the 911 attacks.

• If the guys were innocent would they have watched, taken pictures and videos of the WTC collapse? Well, yes – half of New York was probably doing that.
• If they were innocent would they act the inappropriate way they did? No reason why not – as I previously mentioned anytime any disaster or celebrity death happens I hear loads of jokes.
• If it had been a bunch of white guys, speaking in clearly understood English then the story probably would have ended there. Witnesses would have been offended, but probably not called the police. But the fact is they were Middle-Eastern looking guys speaking in a language the witnesses could not understand and sounded Middle-Eastern so it got reported to the police.
• I’ve already said earlier that, from the sources we have, I think it’s possible that at least some of the Israelis were Mossad. So let’s assume they are Mossad. Once arrested the FBI figure out they are foreign spies and / or have dodgy visas. If they were completely innocent of anything to do with 911 would the FBI still detain, question and then kick out of the country people who they know to be foreign spies (especially during a time of national emergency). I would think so, surely that would be what they would do before 911, why not now? What would you expect them to do – pat them on the head and let them back into the country to carry on spying?

No doubt there are foreign spies from loads of different countries in the US, or the UK, or Russia, or any other country at any time. If these guys were then they acted stupid, got caught and got kicked out. I get that you believe there was a conspiracy on 911, I just don’t get why you insist that there’s any reaon these guys had anything to do with it when there’s nothing that actually links them to the events.

The “How should I know?” in said post and lack of decisive responses elsewhere, led me to believe you did not have a firm opinion on the Mossad agents.



This still is not falling into place. You say, the press reported explosives in the van because some 6-7 hours before the arrests there had been a long since proven wrong report of truck/car bombs at the Pentagon/State Department?



They did not completely fail to suppress the fact that the Israelis were Mossad agents; the authorities have covered it up well except notably for a leak by one of the lawyers in which he laughably attempts to say they were only working for the Mossad in other countries but not the US.

Why do you expect journalists to be suspicious when only a few on the scene were privy to the initial report of explosives and the rest informed there was nothing found. If journalists were like yourself and told, “nothing to see here, move along,” their response would be, “oh ok”.



No evidence there was explosives, except for the reports indicating explosives. Ignoring the explosives for a moment though, there are still plenty of questions to be answered. Why celebrate the Towers falling? Why blame the attacks on another group when stopped? Why resist arrest? Why did the ‘company’ they worked for shut down and flee home after the attacks?



The link could not be any clearer - there had just been a controlled demolition of the Towers and then Mossad agents with a history of deceptive operations and with all the motive in the world are celebrating and reported arrested with a van of explosives. You do understand these operatives were never going to give a written confession of their involvement?

Thank you for clarifying the official fairytale stance on this issue though, ifisurvive. It was a 'non-event'; it did not happen; it does not warrant a full explanation by the authorities. More fool anyone who buys that explanation.

I can use the exact same logic here to ask the question of why was there the report of the State Department car bomb. By the time that was reported it had already been cleared up that the Pentagon had been attacked. It had already been established that the Pentagon explosion was due to a plane crashing into it not a car bomb. That was even specified in the link I provided. It was long since proven no part of the reported attacks were car bomb related, why would the press report a car bomb had exploded elsewhere? It was long since proven that an attack had been made on the Pentagon, why would they report on an attack on the State Department? The attack on the state department had been verified by a State Department source – an official authority source reporting on a seemingly non-existent event, why would they do that?

You are perfectly happy to just wave away these questions as the press made a mistake but to you the idea of the press making another mistake is absolutely impossible, there had to be explosives because the press said there were explosives. For all you know the press could have turned up, some over-keen eyewitness could have said ‘hey look a bunch of Arabs have been stopped with a truck bomb’ and that could have kicked it off. There could a dozen reasons like that. But no, press said explosives, must be explosives.

No, you’re reporting that wrong, the quote is that one “had once worked for Israeli intelligence in another country”. That’s one person, who in the past had worked for intelligence outside the US, not “all are Mossad, but only do it outside the US guv’nor” like you are saying.

Why celebrate the Towers falling? Why do I get email/text jokes any time a major disaster occurs / celebrity dies? I don’t think my friends making inappropriate jokes mean they are celebrating, nor does it make them complicit.
Why blame the attacks on another group when stopped? The quote you are referring to is "We are Israeli. We are not your problem. Your problems are our problems. The Palestinians are the problem." This is not ‘blaming the attacks on another group’. If Arabs are meant to have just attacked the US it’s understandable that a bunch of Israelis would want to point out that they are not Arabs. I have a friend who is a Sikh who has to point out to people that just because his skin is the same colour it does not mean he’s a Muslim.
Why resist arrest? You have one story which says they were asked to get out of their van, they refused and then when one guy put his hand in a bag (presumably for documentation or any other innocuous reason given they did not have guns), the police pulled their guns and forced them to get out. Technically this is ‘resisting arrest’, but it’s hardly like they kicked and screamed and attacked the police.
Why did the ‘company’ they worked for shut down and flee home after the attacks? As I mentioned before, if they were part of Mossad then the actions of them being kicked out of the country and their front company shutting down is perfectly logical without them having anything to do with 911.

See, this is just tedious. You stated that Israelis were found with a van full of explosives like it was a completely undeniable fact and said this needed proper investigation. I was interested, so I read through your linked article, followed all the sources and analysed where and when everything had come from. I looked at the evidence, I came to a conclusion. Even though you raised the point and stated it needed looking into I obviously did more research into the original article than you did and when we got into the discussion I even did more work, found further sources and saw that they backed up my argument. Yet you imply that I’m some sort of mindless sheep that believes anything ‘the authorities’ tells me. If I find a viewpoint that I don't think meets the evidence and am in the mood to debate it I will do so, so please drop the patronising crap that I’m not actually thinking for myself just because I disagree with you.

When you first mentioned the story it was new to me and I took it at face value. As you kept on pushing the story and seemed to think it was evidence for Mossad involvement in 9/11, I tried to find out more about it. This is when I came across the conflicting versions, the lack of any real evidence for explosives and the story that the Israelis were suing for wrongful arrest. It now seemed to me that the story was somewhat short of firm evidence for anything at all. Ifisurvive's piece about the false rumours going around on 9/11 and more detailed description of the variations on the Mossad story confirmed my opinion. I certainly have no idea what they were doing, but as the evidence of explosives is poor, I feel there is considerably less to this that you led me to believe in the beginning.

Ok flyingswan, I was simply pointing out that you seemed to fall in line with ifisurvive’s take, rather than vice versa. He has certainly put forward a better argument in his last 4 posts than you could muster in weeks of me asking the questions.



The State Department and Israeli events are completely unlike. The State Department car bomb report proved to be absolutely unfounded and had no bearing on any other event; it stood alone without undoubted suspicions surrounding it. The Israeli arrests on the other hand were surrounded by a string of suspicious and coincidental explanations. Perhaps that is where our differences come from – you look at each aspect as an entirely individual event and write off each one by one, whereas I take every aspect together as a whole, giving a fuller picture of what is most likely.



Not just because the press said there were explosives. If the press had reported Fred and his wife from New York had been stopped in a routine traffic check on the way back from their weekly shopping trip and found with explosives, then rescinded the statement, I would be quite willing to write off the story. When the press report, in the aftermath of the Towers exhibiting characteristics of a controlled demolition, that Israeli Mossad agents seen celebrating and recording the attacks, are arrested, found to be working behind the disguise of a removals company and in possession of explosives, it is an entirely different matter.



The Israelis were not sending email/text jokes though. They took the time to setup a camera to record the attacks, were described as celebrating, happy, jumping for joy, giving high fives and went to extreme lengths to photograph themselves in front of the Tower wreckage. You seem to be trying to disregard this as a normal event when it is in actual fact highly suspicious to say the least.



Why ever would the Israelis assume they were being stopped in connection with the attacks in the first place? Why would anyone even consider they were being implicated in the attacks, when obviously all the ‘hijackers’ had been killed on the planes? Yet these Mossad agents somehow know what they are being detained for, immediately protest their innocence and blame another group. Guilty conscience.



The point stands – they refused initially to co-operate with the FBI officers.



So you say they were covertly doing something they should not have been, but despite their arrest in relation to 9/11, being linked to the attacks and fitting in with the profile of part of a team who could have carried out a controlled demolition of the Towers, this ‘something’ was actually a different operation. Yet for some reason the authorities declined to tell us what this other operation was.



I was not patronising you and did not imply you are a ‘mindless sheep’. I could claim you are patronising me every time you say the Israelis were irrelevant. I respect your opinion differs from mine, I just do not agree with it or accept your conclusion as logical in any way.

Debating and attacking each other's arguments is all part and parcel of the forums and I have no issue with any of that. The two comments I highlighted seemed to me to be implying thoughtlessness which is why I raised them. If that was not how they were attended then I apologise.

We seem to agree that two people can look at the same evidence and come to different conclusions. We could debate the fine points back and forth for a very long time, but I think we can both agree that it would be pointless so unless you have something specific you want me to answer from my point of view I think we can draw a line under it.

What I will say though is I am not viewing each aspect individually, I am looking at it as a whole as well. The explosives aspect, perhaps I've been debating individually but that is simply because of the nature of it being separate from the rest of the evidence (i.e. only initially reported, never discussed ever again etc). But I have explained a number of times in my posts that the rest of the evidence, viewed as a whole, still can be explained away with the Israelis being innocent of any 911 involvement.

What do you expect to be done about this though? You are suspicious of the actions of the Israelis - I assume it's not realistic for you to start any deep investigation of your own (interviewing police / witnesses yourself, getting down exactly what they saw, trying to find out their reasons no one was ever suspicious of the initial explosives reports etc) but have you raised it to any investigative journalists? Or if there was any way you could get the authorities to conduct a further investigation on the Israelis if they concluded they were Mossad but innocent of 911 involvement what would you expect them to report (and would you believe it)? If they were involved in 911 what would you expect the authorities to say?

As you raised the issue, it's a pity you could not have done some research and brought up the contradictions and lack of evidence yourself. If you use this story to prop up your position, you should first find whether it will bear any weight. It's yet further demonstration of your total lack of understanding of structural matters.

Whatever happened to the RICO lawsuit ?

the fatcs of the matter concerning bldg 7 is that there is now a high level security official coming forward saying there were bombs that went off before the main towers had collapsed and that there were casualties that were covered-up,the bbc reported the buildings collapse while it was standing right behind them proving they were reading a script,the video of the collpase shows an undeniable demolition in a conventional method complete with squibs,crimp and perfect symetrical freefall into its own footprint,eye witness testimony cooberating everything AND an insurance scam involving the owner of bldg 7 buying the damaged twin towers just weeks prior to 9/11 and the rediculous insuring of said damaged buildings with an unprecedented insurance clause that propelled the owner larry silverstein to the TOP of the worlds richest men list with a 7 billion dollar payoff and if thats not motive to you NOTHING wil be

Well, that summarises one half of the last 28 pages...

I have seen this before from this poster...in matters aeronautical. That structural fails him is certainly not an odd occurrance.

Lacking basic knowledge of structural engineering, forces and energy unfortunately seems to be very common in some of the present threads, even though it is rather basic.

Best,
Badeskov

Yes.
People don't seem to understand that it doesn't require but basic physics to comprehend these things. One need not be a civil engineeer.

I sometimes feel like I am the only person who at about 9:30am on 11 September 2001 was praying they'd get those building's evacuated ASAP...because (as I've related several times on these threads) I knew they could very likely come crashing down.

I made the comment to a group of non-technicaly educated business folks who were watching events unfold. They looked at me like I was nuts when I said "They're going to come down."

It wasn't that difficult an extension.
A 767...what, maybe 135-140 tons loaded. 550 KTS, that's around 900 FPS! (Jesus...). What's that, something like 3 billion ft-lb kinetic???!

If that inconceivable energy degrades the support structure of the impacted floor(s) and it collapses somehow, there's about 10-15 floors...maybe 30 million pounds static, which is going to come down at 1g over a distance of maybe 10-15 feet onto the next lower floor which was designed to support the static load, but not what would be an extremely larger dynamic load ( 10 floors falling like that would have maybe 300 million ft-lb of energy).

This is high school level reasoning. With a little knowledge of the building's structure and mass...well, it becomes rather easy to see the potential disaster.

Of course, a half hour later, we all saw it happen...just like that.

Indeed. I think many sat with that thought that the towers would come down. I did the basic back-of-a-napking calculations on another thread relating to this last week or the week before, and looking at the energy release (even without counting the fuel) is astounding. As you mentioned earlier, it is a testament to the thoughts that went behind the design of the buildings that they lasted that long.

Best,
Badeskov

Lets just for the fun of it do the math

Boeing 767-200 specs:

Maximum takeoff weight: 450,000lbs (204,120kg).
Max fuel load: 23,980 US gal. (90,770l).

Lets err downwards and use a weight of 180,000kg. It was coming in at a little lower than cruise speed (851km/h), so lets say 700km/h = 194m/s. That gives us an energy (E) release on impact at:

E=0.5*m*V^2=0.5*180,000kg*(194m/s)^2=90,000kg*37,636(m/s)^2=3,387,240,000J ~ 3.4GJ.

One kg of TNT has an equivalent energy release of 4.184×10^6J ~ 4.2MJ (e.g., see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaton). By simple division we get 3.4GJ/4.2MJ ~810kg of TNT. That's a lot of energy released on just a few floors. And that is very simple math to compute using high school physics...

Best,
Badeskov

I was a little low on the 767 mass, wasn't I? Woops.

...(yea, this guy knows his airplanes )




I am so glad I wasn't the only nut figuring those things could come down!

Even so, the released energy would incur catastrophic damage..and better err downwards



On 9/11 I was watching it in the over morning coffee and ran down to a coworker (west coast time) to watch it with him; and while none of us really knew the WTC inside out, we were both agreeing that the towers were coming down sometime soon. So I honestly think a lot of people had that feeling.

And, in my humble opinion, it should be fairly obvious. We have a plane with a wingspan of almost 52m slamming into a building 64m wide. It'll slice a lot of support columns over and the successive fire will weaken the rest. I honestly don't see the big mystery in this. Also, if one actually draws the WTC (including the inner core) and right next to it a 767, there should be no doubt how much damage an impact would incur.

Best,
Badeskov

Actually, I did that math as well and as I recall it the equivalent energy release came out just a tad lower than the impact from the airliner, i.e. coming in at around 700kg of TNT. That means that the impacted floor would have 700kg of TNT dispersed over it - no floor can take that. And obviously that would happen to the floor below as well...and the next one and so on...

But one issue I don't think has really been touched on, and that is in relation to WTC 7 and others. When WTC 1 and 2 came down, they transferred a lot of the kinetic energy to the bedrock in which they were anchored. That would have been transferred to any building in the vicinity also anchored in the bedrock, including WTC 7. I don't know what the influence would actually be, but I am guessing that it can't have been insignificant.

Best,
Badeskov

No...I don't see the mystery either, Bade...I honestly don't.

No, and that probably constitutes the biggest mystery of all...well, I guess the human mind have no limits of imagination

Best,
Badeskov

No it really doesn't have many limits.
That aspect can be of great benefit when applied properly, or of great detriment when not!

Exactly...this imagination was was build our society as we know it and brought us to the moon...unfortunately it also brought a lot of horrific parts of our history...

Best,
Badeskov

Agreed The only question I would have – how can you be so satisfied with the lack of comprehensive information released and a final conclusion on the Israeli case by the authorities?



I do not have to guess on this one as an investigate journalist has already been on the case. This is what James Bamford had to say about the situation: -

“People I've talked to at the CIA were outraged at what was going on. They thought it was outrageous that there hadn't been a real investigation, that the facts were hanging out there without any conclusion.”

Also a former counterterrorism officer said: -

“There was no question but that [the order to close down the investigation] came from the White House. It was immediately assumed at CIA headquarters that this basically was going to be a cover-up so that the Israelis would not be implicated in any way in 9/11. Bear in mind that this was a political issue, not a law enforcement or intelligence issue. If somebody says we don't want the Israelis implicated in this - we know that they've been spying the hell out of us, we know that they possibly had information in advance of the attacks, but this would be a political nightmare to deal with.”

Link to the full article - What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? I do not expect you to believe the article as it is not from a mainstream news source and the names of CIA officials which the quotes above derive from are withheld.

There is no lack of evidence that Israelis, some of them Mossad agents, were seen celebrating the collapse of the Twin Towers and subsequently arrested, reported with a van of explosives, resisted arrest and tried to blame another group, before their ‘cover’ company packed up and fled back to Israel while the men themselves were quietly released back home after much questioning into their relationship with 9/11. As ifisurvive and myself have agreed - the evidence is all there, it is just how you wish to interpret it that makes the difference.

The story, far from ‘propping up’ my position, is just one amongst literally hundreds of irregularities, coincidences and impossibilities surrounding 9/11.

What do the Israelis have to do with anyone’s understanding of structural matters? They certainly do not support your theory that giant structural columns 'bounce' ( ) around the lower floors of WTC7 after the penthouse collapse.

In ‘matters aeronautical’, it ‘is certainly not an odd occurance’ that you cannot logically answer a straightforward series of relevant questions without your posts degenerating into incoherent rants.



Do not let flyingswan hear you say that – he believes only structural engineers can say what happened to the Towers and WTC7 on 9/11. In fact I am surprised he is not admonishing you now for giving an opinion without a structural engineer by your side. Perhaps though he only does that when someone disagrees with his faulty viewpoint.

The fact is the Towers coped with the airliner crashes very well, as they were specifically designed to do and as is evident by the lack of sagging of columns around the impact site. There is no reason that a complete, virtually symmetrical and near freefall collapse should have followed.

In any case, with this thread aimed at WTC7, the airliners cannot be used as an excuse.

Just a question here, nothing major.

The problem I see, is that the impact and the dispersal of fuel and energy from the planes was not distributed out evenly among the floors that were impacted. The impact on tower 2 I think was in the corner. That would have me thinking (but what do I know) that one side or 1/4 of several floors of the tower sustained the majority of the impact. I know what you mean about the transfer of kinetic energy, but to me when I rationalize this the building should have toppled not collapsed. To me it looked like alot of the fuel went right through the building like tossing a cup of burning gas at a screen door, ok I'm off track here.

Second if the collapse of both towers had the kinetic energy to aid in the collapse of building seven even though it was damaged, shouldn't have other building have fallen as well that were not as well constructed in the immediate area? I will admit that I am not well versed in this but I have my doubts about the official story. Again just my 2 cents worth, I do look in on this thread quite often but do not comment, so please don't think i haven't been trying to keeping up.

Keep up the awsome posts, evryone.

edit: spelling errr

Agreed, somewhat off topic, sorry But yes, there is a very good reason to why it would exhibit a symmetrical collapse. And that is because it was the core that was carrying the weight and not the perimeter columns. But that is for another thread

Best,
Badeskov

Yes, there are a lot of considerations going into this that I am not qualified to make and I can only do some simplified assessment. However, it all comes down to whether the planes could incur sufficient damage to the core of the buildings, which was the element carrying the weight of the structure. And in both cases it is my assessment that they could. But as you say, we are off topic



Oh, no worries, I appreciate your questions, which are actually very good and relevant! I don't don't know how much energy was actually transferred through the bedrock from the collapse, but I would expect it would be quite a bit. One regularly hears about houses that have sustained cracks due to pillars being hammered into the ground nearby and the energy in the WTC 1/2 collapse would be significantly more powerful. Why it was WTC 7 that collapsed and not others would in my humble opinion be because WTC 7 had already sustained significant structural damage from the WTC 1/2 collapse, sporting a 10 story high gash.





Best,
Badeskov

evidence and expert testimony-- find the counters to prof jones's analysis or accept its validity

YouTube - "Seven is Exploding"


YouTube - WTC7, Professor Jones & Thermite


YouTube - Jowenko WTC7 Demolition Interviews, 1 of 3

part 2
part 3

I've looked at the evidence that we have and made my conclusions based off that. I've already stated that I'm happy at least some of these guys were probably Mossad. I see nothing that would link them to being directly involved with the attacks, and them being Mossad covers the rest of the issues you raised. To me, if intelligence agencies were involved I would not expect "comprehensive information released and a final conclusion", I would not expect the FBI / CIA / Mossad getting together and telling the world what they've been up to. Which is why I was asking you what you were expecting.

I've been debating with you because I see your argument as one where we have very limited information on what happened and yet you are completely certain there must have been explosives and the Israelis must have had had direct involvement in the 911 attacks. I could ask you the same question, giving the limited information we have, why are you so satisfied the Israelis had to be involved? As I've said before you could be 100% correct that there was a conspiracy and explosives were used to bring down the WTCs and the Israelis could still be innocent. I think you are looking at the facts that we don't know everything that happened, and there are suspicious points that the authorities aren't telling us about and leaping to the conclusion that this must absolutely mean that the Israelis were involved, when it just doesn't.


Thanks for the link, it was interesting reading. Personally I think this strengthens my viewpoint. One point of note is, even though there is substantially more detail, names and information in this article and plenty of inferences and views on what happened and why, there is still absolutely no mention of explosives being found.

The biggest conclusions that this article is pushing is that the guys were Mossad, they were part of a team tracking the terrorists and they either didn't know exactly what was happening or they did know what was going to happen but didn't tell the US, either way they cheered when the attacks happened because they thought it would help the Israeli cause. This still falls into my conclusions of them not being directly involved and me not being surprised that the authorities wouldn't want to publicise the 'truth' of the case.

I think Swanny completely understands what I'm saying.

...in fact, if you actually read what we were discussing from a position of logic and understanding, rather than a position based on emotion and distrust, you might have gathered that we do indeed understand each other...and that neither of us needed a structural engineer by our sides to come to conclusions based upon fundamental physics...


...Oh, and incidentally, he did hear me say that. I was talking to HIM!

He also understands that a structural engineer is in fact required to explain in technical detail what happened to the towers in toto. And, those folks have done so.

We were not discussing the detailed technical aspects and mechanics of the collapse, simply the basic knowledge required to understand that the potential for collpase was present in the situation which occurred on 11 September 2001.


He is an engineeer. His viewpoint is not faulty. It is based upon sound principals and understandings.


As to incoherent rants, you have ignored explanations given, have bent things to fit your skewed world view, and have called an engineeer's viewpoint on really rather basic physics...faulty (I would love to see you actually argue that with coherence).

I believe that sort of behavior defines incoherency.

Don't put words into my mouth. I am an engineer, though not a structural one, and I have put forward a number of arguments based on my understanding as an engineer. You have refused to take my word on engineering matters, even though you have no engineering expertise, so I have frequently suggested that since you do not believe me, you ask a qualified structural engineer if I am right or not.

For some reason, you seem very reluctant to do this.

Fair deal flyingswan...


... so long as you stick to it in future as well.



What type of engineer exactly are you? What qualifications and experience do you have of construction work? How much of this was with steel framed structures? Answer as little or as much as you like here as I will understand if you do not want your personal history posted on the internet (obviously the more the better in backing up your credentials).



It is not reluctance; it is the impracticality, as I have explained before.

It is interesting you say that. For what reason would the FBI/CIA want to conceal a Mossad operation on US soil? The obvious justification I can think of, is if it was a joint FBI/CIA/Mossad operation. That fits very nicely: -

• Mossad agents celebrating the collapse of the Towers and reported with explosives.
  
  
• FBI agents backing off the Bin Ladens pre-9/11 and living with the 'hijackers'.
  
  
• CIA agents met with Osama Bin Laden 2 months prior to 9/11 and five of the 'hijackers' lived in a motel outside the gates of the NSA.

Yes I agree, ifisurvive - looking at the above, I would not expect the FBI/CIA/Mossad getting together and telling the world what they had been up to either!



I am not certain there must have been explosives; I am certain it was reported the Israelis had explosives and I find it highly possible that they did. Also I am not certain they were involved in the 9/11 attacks (if I had absolute proof we would not be having this discussion); but I am 95% confident. What I am pointing out is, that if ever there was a profile of a team tasked with setting up a covert controlled demolition of the Towers and WTC7, the Mossad agents are it.

I am not satisfied 100% the Israelis had to be involved but that is what much evidence surrounding 9/11 would indicate. The theory the Mossad agents were involved is the most logical I currently have, therefore it is the premise I must go with. Please do provide me with a better theory tying up all the loose ends of the events we have discussed, if you have one.

And equally I can point out no matter how nefarious you believe Mossad to be does not mean they had any involvement either.


Again this is just differing opinions. You see Mossad as being a particularly evil organisation, see a lot of secrecy and unexplained questions and thus your logic says the evil organistion was responsible for an evil event. Personally I don't see anything linking Mossad to the events of 911 so whether Mossad are capable of it or not makes little difference. I've said before, I can think of dozens of different scenarios of what happened with the Israelis without them having any involvement in 911 and have stated various possibilities in previous posts.

I have never said the Mossad are "nefarious" or "evil" - they simply shape events to benefit the long term future and survival of their country. The same goes for the CIA.



You stated the possibility that the Mossad agents were simply spies. This is very vague and does not tie up with any of their movements or actions on 9/11, nor that of their cover company and the following silence on the case from the FBI/CIA. Even if you do not believe it, there is no denying that Mossad involvement in 9/11 is a very logical conclusion to draw.

I'm an aerospace engineer with 40 years experience. I've got an MA, I'm a Member of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a qualified Chartered Engineer. My engineering education consisted of two years of general engineering, including structures, and a third year which specialised in aerospace.

If you have no experience of a technical subject and it is impractical for you to ask an expert, how can you be so set in your opinions?

You took exception to Pericynthion saying "Real structures aren't rigid", what else am I to presume about your beliefs on the matter?

Logical to you perhaps, but not to me. Anything I've suggested is vague because we do not know a great detail of the events that day or the background of what the Israelis were doing. I could quite easily come up with a highly detailed story but you'd quite rightly point out that parts of it were based on guesswork or opinion and that you think your version is more believable to you. But your story is based on guesswork and opinion as well, so it's just as valid as mine. In fact the informationclearinghouse article you recently posted pretty much comes up with a detailed alternative to your scenario and you've obviously rejected its opinion (or at least have pushed further in your conclusions).

If I understand correctly your opinion is that Mossad are the type of agency that does dod