Common Sense and NIST's "New Phenomenon"

The videos we see showing the collapse of WTC 7 (aka the Salomon Brothers building) appear, for all the world, to mimic perfectly a controlled demolition. I don't know anyone who disputes this fact. News reporters on the day of 9/11/2001 remarked upon it. YouTube video makers show WTC 7 falling down side-by-side with valid demolition videos. The similarities are obvious. Here they are:

1. Rapid onset
   
2. Rapid collapse (approaching free-fall speed)
   
3. Symmetrical collapse (building exterior does not exhibit deformations)
   
4. Sounds of explosions
5. Debris field is basically within the building's original footprint (the goal of a controlled demo)
6. Foreknowledge of collapse, including warning to get away from premises
7. Massive pyroclastic-type dust clouds following collapse

In order to account for these classic signs of a controlled demolition, NIST had to come up with a theory that would produce the same visible effects. I'll leave alone, for now, the fact that even with total control of their own computer simulation software inputs, they could not show us a picture that matched the reality.

NIST's theory states that fire caused certain steel members to expand enough to break their connections to adjacent steel members. (How the heat was retained by these specific members, or why this steel failed to disperse and dissipate the heat is not covered.) These local failures somehow spread (like the flu?) to neighboring columns, girders, and beams until the entire inner structure of Building 7 failed. At this time, the outer shell, or facade, had no choice but to follow suit, producing the massive total collapse we witnessed.

I'd like to take a look at this theory and apply a bit of common sense. Take a look at this image of a table. It is supported by four legs, or columns.

Let's say one of this table's legs is cut out from under it. What would happen? Maybe nothing. But we can see that the table would be weak if someone leaned on the corner that no longer had a leg. Alright! What if two adjacent legs failed? What would happen? Would not the table fall over, in the direction of the failed legs?

Now, take a look at this table. It has more legs.

If one leg of this table were removed, the table would still be relatively sound. If two legs were removed, the table might lean some, depending on whether the absent legs were adjacent or not... and if three legs were removed, the table would probably tilt... in the direction of the removed legs, right? (As long as those three legs were neighbors.)

How about this table?


It would probably take 3 or 4 legs being removed before this table would become unstable, and again, if it "collapsed," we'd expect that it would definitely lean in the direction of the removed legs.

One more example:

What if one leg between one story was removed? Nothing would happen in this multi-story table. What about two legs on the same level? Maybe we'd see a slight lean, toward the side that lost two legs. Would you expect that all the rest of the legs would simultaneously give way?

Neither would I.

World Trade Center 7 had 24 core columns. That means, in the middle of this table tower, you would have to add 24 internal columns, or legs. World Trade Center 7 had 57 external, or perimeter columns (legs). Not four. Not eight. Not 24, not even 48... but 57 columns around the perimeter.

NIST is telling us that a single connection failed between column 79 and one girder that connected to it, and as a result, a "domino" effect caused the failure of every other column, girder and beam in the entire building within a mere few seconds. And that's why we saw, from the outside, a total, rapid, symmetrical collapse that looked just like a controlled demolition would.

If you want to plant a tinfoil hat on me for shaking my head in disbelief, be my guest. But I was endowed with old world common sense from my immigrant mother and grandmother, and I can smell bovine excrement from miles away.

NIST's "new phenomenon" is nothing more than a feeble, pathetic attempt to explain away a controlled demolition with false science. Science does not start with a conclusion and then manufacture numbers to plug into computers that eventually come close to the desired result. Science, true science, does not ignore or discount valid observations and real evidence. Science seeks truth, and is not limited by taboos. Science starts with physical evidence... something NIST never had.

It is definitely taboo, within the world of government science, to even approach the notion that the events of 9/11/2001 were aided or caused by people we are supposed to trust.