Photographic Analysis of the WTC7 Hole - NIST Debunked

Originally posted by Griff


It proves that the NIST blobs are not correct.

No it doesn't. The photograph does not show the entire south face. Smoke from the fire is obsuring a large portion of the building.

Great work everyone!

I have a related question for those that want to consider it: when Lucky Larry' gave his infamous interview and was talking about WTC7 he said something to the effect of; 'we've already had such a terrible loss of life.'

He used this statement to sort of justify the 'pull it' comment he lead up to afterwards. Does anybody know what he is getting at by that comment or what he is referring to here?

I don't know why but that comment bothers me everytime I hear it and I believe it is not innocent nor just thrown out there as something to say.

What the smoke isn't obscuring shows enough intact face to prove NIST wrong. They show more damaged face than could necessarily exist, proven by that photo.






The damage could not have been centered, either.

Thanks for not reading the thread and making me sum it up again. Waste of time.

Originally posted by bsbray11
What the smoke isn't obscuring shows enough intact face to prove NIST wrong. They show more damaged face than could necessarily exist, proven by that photo.

Those photos show a very small intact portion on the lower half of the building.

The photo only has floors marked to the 23rd floor.

Building seven was fifty stories tall.

So not only does the picture not show much of anything, it is hardly proof that NIST intentionally lied.

Could they be mistaken in their damage estimate? Sure, that's why its called an estimate.

Does this provide any positive proof for explosives being used in 7? Absolutely not.

As wecomeinpeace has already pointed out, nothing says or indicates that NIST lied about their analysis, only that they got it wrong; and, as I understand, they did not have the benefit of the Steve Spak photograph when they wrote the interim report.

However, what remains an unknown is whether or not futher significant damage was done to the building, as stated in eye witness reports, in the areas the photograph does not show, i.e. either the 9th floor and below where it is hidden by, (I think), WTC 6 in the photograph or, behind the smoke.

What is undeniable, however, is that severe damage to the building was done prior to its collapse and the firefighter interviews on firehouse.com also make it clear that not only had large fires burned in the building for some hours, but the firefighters were fully expecting the building to collapse from quite an early stage in the afternoon.

(edit to clarify meaning - sorry)

[edit on 17-10-2006 by timeless test]

Originally posted by timeless test
What is undeniable, however, is that severe damage to the building was done prior to its collapse

I don't think this is undeniable at all. The only confirmed damage is the SW corner damage (aside from scrapes on the roof, etc.), which was away from any important structural components anyway. The rest of the building was perfectly fine except where there was fire, which was apparently not very widespread in the building. At least, there are no photos, or no other evidence of intense widespread fire.

and the firefighter interviews on firehouse.com also make it clear that not only had large fires burned in the building for some hours, but the firefighters were fully expecting the building to collapse from quite an early stage in the afternoon.

This is because they were TOLD it was going to come down. Police and civilian medics were also told, ie medic Indira Singh.


And again, we're brushing away the most obvious problem in my mind: it fell at free-fall speed. Don't even bring up the penthouse: that only affects collapse time, not velocity at any given point. Time is only used to measure velocity; the two are otherwise unrelated.

The building fell as if it were experiencing ABSOLUTELY NO RESISTANCE FROM TONS OF STEEL AND CONCRETE. Free-fall, straight down into the path of absolute maximum resistance, into a stack in its footprint.

They could have planted charges all over that building and it would STILL take a tremendous amount of skill and coordination to have that happen. Nothing like it, even remotely, has EVER happened outside of controlled demolition.

Fantastic analysis,Wecomeinpeace!
Thourough,well researched material-Exactlly what I think makes ATS the greatest.
Well done.
NIST well and truly debunked.
I give you the Way Above vote.

Edit:AAARgh Nooo,ive just voted thichheaded way above by mistake!!!
Apologies Wecomeinpeace.
Darn.

[edit on 17-10-2006 by Silcone Synapse]

Originally posted by bsbray11
What the smoke isn't obscuring shows enough intact face to prove NIST wrong. They show more damaged face than could necessarily exist, proven by that photo.

The damage could not have been centered, either.

Thanks for not reading the thread and making me sum it up again. Waste of time.

So, according to your overlay on the photo, there is an extensively damaged area running from about column 3 to at least column 6.

That seems to correspond pretty well with the NIST estimate that you have above it. (what part of "appoximate" don't you understand?)


[edit on 17-10-2006 by HowardRoark]

Howard,

Where do you get columns 3 through 6 in the NIST estimate? There is a corner column (1) then you can see 3 more columns (undamaged). The NIST estimate is from columns 5 through 10. How does this equate to columns 3 through 6?

To HowardRoark, "approximate" must mean anything goes so long as there's some damage somewhere.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
So, according to your overlay on the photo, there is an extensively damaged area running from about column 3 to at least column 6.

That area is obscured. You are assuming there is a giant hole there because you are biased and trying to come up with anything to explain WTC7's collapse. There is no evidence to support what you are suggesting.

It's amazing someone can say smoke obscured so much that we can't tell the damage from what is evident.

WE'VE GOT EYES, YOU KNOW.

And, sorry, the main damage on the south face of WTC7 was A LONG WAYS FROM COLUMN 80 and thereabouts!

This is a literal "hole" in NIST's prevarications about thee Smoking Gun of 9/11 --
the Achille's Heel of 9/11 = WTC7

Believe it.

Originally posted by bsbray11
I don't think this is undeniable at all. The only confirmed damage is the SW corner damage (aside from scrapes on the roof, etc.), which was away from any important structural components anyway. The rest of the building was perfectly fine

Sorry but this is simply not realistic. The Steve Spak photograph shows us more of the damage to the South side of the building than I've seen before but even this photograph shows only about 30% of the total South face and almost two thirds of that area is either damaged or totally obscured by smoke.

The damage to the corner is severe - not to the extent that it would compromise the whole building but still significant. Neither you or I can say whether there was further damage in the parts we cannot see but neither can we have any confidence that there wasn't particularly as there is eye witness testimony from firefighters to say that such damage was there.

Captain Chris Boyle's view...

There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it.
www.firehouse.com...

Deputy Chief Peter Hayden...

we were pretty sure that 7 World Trade Center would collapse. Early on, we saw a bulge in the southwest corner between floors 10 and 13, and we had put a transit on that and we were pretty sure she was going to collapse. You actually could see there was a visible bulge, it ran up about three floors. It came down about 5 o'clock in the afternoon, but by about 2 o'clock in the afternoon we realized this thing was going to collapse.
www.firehouse.com...

except where there was fire, which was apparently not very widespread in the building. At least, there are no photos, or no other evidence of intense widespread fire.

Sorry once again but this is simply not true.

Captain Chris Boyle says...

So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn't look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.
www.firehouse.com...

and Deputy Chief Peter Hayden says...

It was a heavy body of fire in there and then we didn?t make any attempt to fight it. That was just one of those wars we were just going to lose
www.firehouse.com...

and FF Steve Modica...

Buildings were burning, 7 World Trade was burning from the ground to the ceiling fully involved. It was unbelievable.
www.firehouse.com...

they were TOLD it was going to come down.

Yes, they were told by their own people because it had been clear for some time that the building was compromised - look again at the first quote from Peter Hayden above.

...it fell at free-fall speed. Don't even bring up the penthouse

I don't know about you but I'm yet to see a single video of the collapse that shows the ground level so how anybody is supposed to be able to tell me how long it took to fall to the ground is something of a mystery. If you have the video link I'll be pleased to look at it. By the way, who did your free fall speed calculations?

Nothing like it, even remotely, has EVER happened outside of controlled demolition.

More relevantly, (and more accurately), nothing like it has happened as a result of a controlled demolition. If this was a controlled demolition WTC7 would be twice as tall as any other building brought down in this way - a remarkable feat in the circumstances. But this wasn't a controlled demolition, don't take my word for it, read the analysis by a demolition professional who wrote this piece...

Implosion World Paper

edit to correct the html - thanks thickheaded - don't know what I was thinking of...

[edit on 18-10-2006 by timeless test]

I have nothing to contribute to this thread abut the guy above me.

its not an [ext] mark you want its an [ ex] stuff [/ ex] without the spaces

EXAMPLE HERE:

Yours
Captain Chris Boyle says...
[ext]So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn't look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.
www.firehouse.com...
[/ext]

Mine

Captain Chris Boyle says...

So we go there and on the north and east side of 7 it didn't look like there was any damage at all, but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors. Debris was falling down on the building and it didn't look good.
www.firehouse.com...

Anyway just helping.. I already added my 2 cents earlier on in this post.

www.firehouse.com...
...but then you looked on the south side of 7 there had to be a hole 20 stories tall in the building, with fire on several floors.
[...]
Firehouse: When you had fire on the 20 floors, was it in one window or many?

Boyle: There was a huge gaping hole and it was scattered throughout there. It was a huge hole. I would say it was probably about a third of it, right in the middle of it.

As I pointed out in the original post, Boyle's account of a 20-storey hole in the middle of the south face is flat out disproven by this photo:



The middle of the face has no 20-storey hole in it. If you insist that one is there, please point out to us precisely where it is by editing the image. The only 20-storey anything here is the damage to the south west corner which extends across at one point to column 5. Boyle either visually interpreted the location of the hole incorrectly at the time, or his later recollection from memory was incorrect. Boyle's account is also the ONLY account which mentions a hole in the middle of the south face - all other accounts describe the damage as being on the south west corner, or do not specify a location.




[edit on 2006-10-18 by wecomeinpeace]

Originally posted by wecomeinpeace
As I pointed out in the original post, Boyle's account of a 20-storey hole in the middle of the south face is flat out disproven by this photo:

As it happens, I'm inclined to partly agree with you I suspect Boyle's account has over simplified what he saw. If, for example there was 6 or 7 floors of damage centrally on the South face which extended into the many floors of the SW corner damage, (which is unquestionably represented incorrectly by NIST), would he describe it in full detail or simply refer to it as 20 floors of damage? My guess is he gave a simplistic summary of what he saw and I certainly wouldn't rule out that under the circumstances his memory may not have been entirely accurate with regard to the detail either.

Boyle's account is also the ONLY account which mentions a hole in the middle of the south face

Not strictly true, Deputy Chief Nick Visconti said...

I remember standing there looking over at building 7 and realizing that a big chunk of the lower floors had been taken out on the Vesey Street side
www.firehouse.com...

I'll grant you that he doesn't talk about this being in the centre of the South face but the clear implication of this statement is that there is very significant damage on the lower floors, which would be out of the view of Spak's photograph.

You are dead right, there is no 20 storey hole in your photograph and I've never suggested that there is but there is an awful lot of the South face not visible in that photograph.

[edit on 18-10-2006 by timeless test]

Agreed, and thanks for the clarification. Please stick around, your intellectual honesty and objectiveness is a breath of fresh air.

There may be a hole hiding behind the mezzanine there, but the quote you have there is the only one that vaguely hints at it. The account states "lower floors", which does not necessarily denote floors 1 - 10. On a 47 storey building, floors 1 - 20 could also be interpreted as the lower floors.

Furthermore, the assumption that this quote defines damage to the center of the face on floors 1-10 is in direct conflict with other fire fighter testimony which stated there was no heavy debris in the lobby, only a lot of white dust and some hanging wires, the lobby of course being smack bang in the middle of the face, which restricts NIST's blob to possibly being between floors 3 - 9.

The possible areas remaining where NIST's giant blob could be keep shrinking with each photo and each testimony assessed. Anyway, I'll wait and see what they pull out of the bag in their final report before making final judgment.

Originally posted by bsbray11
Don't even bring up the penthouse: that only affects collapse time, not velocity at any given point. Time is only used to measure velocity; the two are otherwise unrelated.

So, if the collapse time is actually longer than you estimated, then the average velocity would be less, is that correct?

Looking at limited time slices of the collapse, then stating that those limited time slices showed no resistance (but only because you deliberately eliminated the time slice where there was resistance) is intellectual dishonesty at its most inane level.

I still don't see how that photo disproves a hole in the middle of the building.

That photo barely shows what would be the middle of the buiding.

In a fifty story building, would it be fair to say a twenty story hole went from the 19th floor to the 39th floor?

Because if so then that photo, which only shows smoke around floor 19 and only goes to floor 23 only goes to show that a hole couldve have been there, but smoke was pouring out of it, so we can't see it.


Even a ten story hole would be quite a bit of damage to the building.

Originally posted by HowardRoark
So, if the collapse time is actually longer than you estimated, then the average velocity would be less, is that correct?

Lol, the average velocity doesn't matter old man. Calculate it and show me when the building was ever falling at the "average speed".

And once more, I'm referencing the SPEED of the collapse, ie the outer masonry walls held up by the inner structure.

[edit on 18-10-2006 by bsbray11]

Originally posted by bsbray11
the outer masonry walls held up by the inner structure.

And how do you know that the outer walls were still being held up by the inner strucutre?

Based on the colapse of the penthouses, the inner structure had failed several seconds earlier.