You also see, as it were, the bolts springing loose at each turn. It had a very strong core, and the beams were pretty long, but they’re joined, and it was 410 meters tall. The energy is very uneven. So, every vertical column has to carry a certain weight at a slightly different moment from its neighbor, so to speak. It can’t bear it, so it breaks to pieces across its entire length, bolts and all. It comes loose, all the way down. And the side structures, also strong because of the wind stress, which is how the building was built, were mainly pressed outward. … As the firefighter in the video says, it simply gave out. At every level the weight was too much.
Jowenko on the plausibility of rigging the building with explosives:
Don’t tell me they put explosives on all 100 floors. That’s not possible. … It would take a year to place all those explosives and prepare them and hook them up with all the cables down there.
If you accept this expert’s opinion on WTC7, why not accept his opinion on WTC1 and 2? This can be a very powerful argument to raise with your friend—largely because they have never heard of this before. They quite possibly have been showing Jowenko’s opinion on Building 7 to everyone but were totally unaware of his analysis of the other towers. Show then the conflicting opinions, and they have to pick one, or dismiss both, or start to think about things in a bit more depth. Dissonance sows the seed for escaping. Then ask them why AE911 Truth has this on their list of their best evidence. What does that say about their other “best evidence”?
The Plane That Hit the Pentagon
On September 11, 2001, American Airlines flight AA77 flew into the side of the Pentagon. It was 9:37 a.m. on a clear Tuesday morning. The Pentagon is one of the world’s largest office buildings where over twenty-five thousand people work. It’s surrounded by huge parking lots, then encircled by several major freeways packed with commuter traffic. Beyond the freeways there are tall office buildings, malls, apartment buildings, and hotels, all within two miles. Tens of thousands of people had a clear line of sight to the Pentagon, and hundreds of them saw the plane fly by, over Interstate 395, and into the side of the building.
And yet there are still many people who think that AA77 did not hit the Pentagon, and that, despite the impossibility of pulling it off without anyone noticing, the Pentagon was actually hit by a missile.
The Pentagon plane debate is a divisive and important issue in the world of 9/11 conspiracy theories. For many people it’s where they draw the line. They think it’s plausible (even obvious) that explosives brought down Building 7, but the idea that a missile hit the Pentagon without anyone noticing falls on the other side of the line in the “silly theories and disinformation” category.
If your friend also draws the line here, there’s two interesting things you can discuss. Firstly, you can ask why they don’t believe. What exactly is it that makes a missile hitting the Pentagon a less realistic scenario than sneaking tons of explosives into buildings and setting it off with millisecond precision after arranging for planes to fly into the buildings and having them burn fiercely for an hour, all without leaving any physical evidence? Is there anything about their reasoning around the Pentagon that might also apply to the World Trade Center?
Secondly, you can discuss why so many people believe in this Pentagon no-plane theory, or at least give it credence. As the more extreme theory you’d think it would be significantly less popular than the controlled demolition theory. But they are actually very close, with the line not needing to move very much. A 2006 Scripps Howard poll found the exact same percentage of Americans (6 percent) thought that it very likely that “The Pentagon was struck by a military cruise missile in 2001 rather than by an airliner captured by terrorists” as those who thought it very likely that “The collapse of the Twin Towers in New York was aided by explosives secretly planted in the two buildings.”20
The Pentagon no-plane contingent seems to encompass the majority of 9/11 “controlled demolition” Truthers. These people include founding luminaries of the 9/11 Truth movement,21 such as David Ray Griffin (by far the most popular 9/11 conspiracy author), Kelly David22 (Chief Operating Officer at Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth), Craig McKee (AE911Truth contributor and podcaster), and Niels Harrit (9/11 conspiracy scientist who popularized the idea that nanothermite was found in the rubble).
If your friend thinks that flight AA77 hit the Pentagon, then ask him why they think that all these “experts” got it wrong. Could it be that trust in their expertise was misplaced? Could it be that even architects and engineers, and scientists of all stripes, can also be sucked down the rabbit hole?
But if your friend thinks that without a doubt flight AA77 did not hit the Pentagon, and that instead it was a cruise missile, then you are going to have to explain why that is incorrect. The details are too complex to get into fully, but very briefly what you have to show to your friend is:
The eyewitness testimony: Read all the eyewitness reports. There’s strong and consistent accounts of an American Airlines jet hitting the Pentagon. These accounts match across dozens of independent people. Don’t just read them, watch and listen to the accounts of eyewitnesses given to the press on the day of the attack.23
The context of the eyewitnesses: Show your friend where the Pentagon is, next to the freeways. Show them Google Street View images of the Pentagon from the freeway. Show them that if it was not a plane, or if the plane flew away, then hundreds of people must have seen it.
The actual size of the hole: They frequently will have seen photos of either the small hole in an inner ring of the Pentagon where some piece of debris punched through, or the notch above the entry hole formed by the tail. Show them the actual lower hole on the ground floor,24 which matches the size of the plane.
The aircraft debris: There were lots of pieces of the aircraft scattered around both inside and outside the Pentagon—some visible in photos taken minutes after the attack. There were also lamp posts that were knocked over, one hitting a car. Was this all planted without anyone noticing?
The damage from the wings: To the left and the right of the bottom hole are columns that were damaged by the wings. You can see the damage in photos taken immediately after the impact, and in later photos.25
The relative ease of the maneuvers: The flight into the Pentagon was a descending 300° turn, then a straight-in shallow descent into the south wall. This sounds hard (and conspiracy theorists will tell you it was) but is actually a standard maneuver for reducing height, simply called a “descending turn.” All you have to do is reduce power a bit, turn the yoke to the right, and wait until the turn is done. It’s taught to pilots with only a few hours of experience.26
The ASCE report: The Pentagon Building Performance Report27 published by the American Society of Civil Engineers details exactly what happened in great detail, showing you on a column by column basis what was damaged by the plane’s fuselage, engines, and wings.
9/11 Truther reports: The more science-based 9/11 Truthers draw the line just this side of the Pentagon no-plane theory and have devoted substantial effort to explaining why it is false. Show your friend the paper “The Pentagon Event”28 by seven members of Scholars for 9/11 Truth (and Justice). In it they provide a detailed explanation of the evidence mentioned above. And these are people who think the World Trade Center buildings were destroyed by controlled demolition.
There are a lot more, but these are the core aspects of the false belief. Given time and care, discussing these with your friend can help move their line a bit closer to reality. When that happens (and it has settled in) then you can ask them why they trust AE911 Truth’s expertise when their COO and many of their members think that no plane hit the Pentagon.
The Missing $2.3 Trillion
One reason suggested for why the conspiracy had to include a precise missile or bomb attack on the Pentagon is to cover up $2.3 trillion of missing Pentagon money. Here’s David Ray Griffin:
The official trajectory of AA77 into the Pentagon was impossible to execute … so why would Pentagon officials choose to explode bombs in that part of the Pentagon and then claim it was struck by a hijacked airliner? … One suggested answer puts together two facts: First, the day before 9/11, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld stated at a press conference that the Pentagon was missing 2.3 trillion dollars. Secondly, one of the most damaged areas was the Army’s financial management/audit area.29
Much like the Pentagon missile issue, the $2.3 trillion issue is a wonderful opportunity to bring your friend some perspective. Nearly everyone in the 9/11 Truth movement (and quite a few outside it) think that $2.3 trillion was missing from the Pentagon. It was never missing; it never even really existed. Rumsfeld settled on the $2.3 trillion figure by adding up all the times transactions were recorded in the Pentagon’s accounting systems where transactions did not come up to code for accounting standards.
The first thing you’ve got to do is give your friend some perspective on large numbers. $2.3 trillion is a very large number, in fact it’s larger than the entire US budget spending for that year. It’s also ten times as large as the entire national defense budget ($274 billion in 1999, the accounting year in question). It’s literally impossible that the Pentagon could have lost ten times as much money as they actually spent.
How did they get to this number? Consider what would happen if you wrote down all the dollar amounts on your pay slip, bank deposit statements, W2 tax statement, transfer statements from checking to savings, ATM withdrawals, new car loan, checkbook record, credit card receipts, actual receipts, bills, mortgage statements, mortgage payment records, mortgage tax statement, credit card statements, credit card payments, monthly bank statements, receipt for a sale of an old car, deposit slip for sale of old car, title transfer for old car, payment schedule for new car, and your tax return. Maybe you make $60,000 a year, but this all adds up to $600,000 or more! Now let’s say you keep some of these records in a shoe box under the bed and lose the rest. You lose track of records totaling $300,000. Does that mean you’ve lost $300,000? Obviously not. Same thing with the Pentagon.
This was explained by the Department of Defense in April 2001:
For the FY 1999 financial statements, the auditors concluded that $2.3 trillion transactions of the $7.6 trillion entries to the financial statements were “unsupported.” DoD notes that many of these entries included end-of- period estimates for such items as military pension actuarial liabilities and contingent liabilities, and manual entries for such items as contract accounts payable and property and equipment values. DoD would further note that the “unsupported” entries are “not necessarily improper” and that documentation does exist in many cases, albeit, not adequate for the auditing standards imposed.30
There are very real problems with excessive and wasteful spending by the US military. There continue to be significant problems with accountability. However, these problems are being spun as money being “missing” when it is not. This was repeated by RT (Russia Today) in 2013, who promoted the false idea that $8.5 trillion was missing,31 when in fact $8.5 trillion was the entire US military spending over a period of sixteen years (1996 to 2012). The story that they spun was again about the accounting standards for the money that was spent, not about tangible money that went missing. RT has continued to push versions of this false story almost every year. The most recent instance was in December 2017; this time the amount in question ballooned to $21 trillion.32
This can be a difficult concept to convey to your friend, but it’s very worth giving it time. It’s a relatively simple error once you understand what is going on, and yet one that has been remarkably persistent at all levels of 9/11 Truth and the conspiracy world in general. Once your friend has moved this particular claim to the other side of their demarcation line, you can ask them what other things people might have gotten wrong. Ask them if their source made a genuine mistake, or are they misleading them? Given that so many people claim there actually is $2.3 trillion missing, despite it being explained many years ago, maybe they should exercise a little more caution about the other “facts” those people have been promoting for years.
Useful Information
Most people who subscribe to the 9/11 controlled demolition theories have a rough idea of what the evidence is. There’s lists on websites like AE911 Truth, but their acceptance of those lists of evidence is based on two things. Firstly, it’s based on the authority and expertise of AE911 Truth, which as we’ve seen does not always hold up to scrutiny. Secondly, it’s based on an incomplete understanding of what the items on the list actually mean. This incomplete understanding comes from a lack of information, and so to help your friend better assess those lists, you need to supply them with useful information and the necessary context to understand it.
A detailed explanation of the claimed evidence, the useful missing information, and the real explanation would comprise another book in itself. Here I’m just going to list a number of items and sources of information. There are also numerous other online sources of 9/11 debunking information available if you want more details.
The NIST Reports. The often denigrated NIST reports are an incredibly detailed account of the investigations into the collapses of the World Trade Center buildings.33 There’s quite a few of them, but if you just want to look at one to start, then I recommend “NCSTAR 1-9, Structural Fire Response and Probable Collapse Sequence of World Trade Center Building 7.”34 It’s long, but try to get your friend to just scan through it and get a sense of the detail and the amount of work that went into it.
The NIST FAQs. The FAQs are relatively short lists of questions that the general public and 9/11 Truthers frequently raise about the NIST investigations. There’s one for the Towers,35 and one for WTC7.36 If your friend has questions, then look them up here first. There’s a surprising amount of information in them that most Truthers are unaware of.
Vérinage. Demolition without explosives involves dropping the top part of a building on the lower part to destroy the entire thing.37 It’s similar to how the WTC Towers collapsed. If your friend is convinced only explosives can bring a building down then they might be unaware of vérinage. They should also look at it for “squibs” (expulsions of air, which Truthers claim are explosives) and “pyroclastic-like clouds” (expanding dust clouds which Truthers say must be from mid-air explosions).
Controlled Demolition with Explosives. These are VERY LOUD! Listen to actual controlled demolitions.38 They are a series of super loud bangs which would echo through the city and easily be captured on the audio portion of video tapes from half a mile away. Compare to the WTC collapse video tapes which have no such bangs.39
Rock Falls. When a large object like a rock, a concrete floor, or a building full of drywall falls and hits other objects, then firstly a lot of dust is produced, and secondly the dust billows upwards in cauliflower shaped clouds. AE911 Truth says this is suspiciously like a “pyroclastic flow” from a volcano. But look at video of giant rock falls in Yosemite (with no explosives) and you see the same effect.40 It’s just crushed rock (or concrete and drywall in the case of the WTC). The clouds form because of the displacement of air by a large falling object. It was hot in places because of the large fires.
Weakened Steel. When steel gets hot in a regular fire it weakens. Two great examples of this are the heating of an iron bar by Purgatory Ironworks,41 and the heating of a structural beam with jet fuel by National Geographic.42 In both cases the steel failed, just like it did in the World Trade Center. It’s a fun experiment to try yourself if you have a blowtorch.
Black Smoke. A common misunderstanding is that black smoke indicates “incomplete combustion, low temperature fires.” But if you look at fires of jet fuel in an open field,43 you see there’s lots of black smoke, but there’s obviously plenty of oxygen available, and the fire still heats the steel beam to over 1100°C, until it fails.
Slender Column Buckling. Tall columns need to be braced to maximize strength. In the World Trade Center this was done with floors. If the floors failed then the column strength was greatly reduced. Show your friend some video examples of slender column buckling with and without bracing.44 This was a significant factor in all the WTC collapses.
Static versus Dynamic Forces. A common misconception is that since the lower part of the building could support the upper part normally, then it should be able to stop it once it was falling. This misunderstanding is based on not knowing that a moving, dynamic load generates vastly more force than a non-moving, static load. Even a very short drop of a few inches will multiply the force many times. Show them some illustrations of static versus dynamic forces.45
The WTC Debris Pile. What’s interesting about the pile is the total lack of any evidence of controlled demolition. If you look at any failed connection in any photo, you see that it’s basically been ripped or snapped apart. The core columns do not have cut ends, they just snapped apart at the shallow welds after the floors were stripped away. There’s a lot of photos of the pile at various stages. Look at the columns. How did they fail?
Debunking Websites. Your friend probably spends a lot of time looking at videos and websites on one side of the argument. Try to get them to look at a broader range. Say you’ll read their website if they have a look at something like 911Myths.
Plasco. Since a mantra of the 9/11 Truth movement is that “no steel framed building has ever collapsed from fire alone,” then when the Plasco building collapsed from fire in Iran, killing twenty firefighters, AE911 Truth were forced to either walk back that particular piece of evidence, or also become Plasco Truthers. They choose to become Plasco Truthers, bizarrely adopting an obscure old commercial building in Iran as the fourth building to be covertly destroyed with secret nanothermite.
9/11 Summary and Resources
Key Points to Convey to Your Friend
• You’ve done your research, and are willing to listen to them.
• Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth seem largely no different from ordinary 9/11 Truthers, they are just architects and engineers who got sucked down the rabbit hole.
• Pools of solidified molten steel were not found in the debris, and physically could not have remained molten for weeks. Nor could nanothermite burn for weeks.
• They should at least read the NIST FAQs.
• AE911 Truth cherry-pick their expert testimony. R. J. Lee found microspheres, but also explained them. Jowenko said WTC7 was controlled demolition, but he insisted the Towers were not.
• A plane hit the Pentagon, but lots of Truthers think it did not.
• $2.3 trillion was not missing, but lots of Truthers think it was.
• When shown an example of a steel framed building collapsing from fire, AE911 Truth simply said that was nanothermite too.
• Most pieces of Truther evidence have answers you can google. At least consider the alternate