4th Generation MicroNukes Used on WTC1,2 and 7

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

I'm not sure what happened - but we were kicking it around here as to what it might be if there was something going on, and the comment came up that if you could weaken the core structure in the center a bit, the bang at the top sort of looked like a small load of high-impulse thermobaric like the HIT in the SMAW-D HIT warheads, which is sort of like a SMAW-NE on steroids.

The joke was going around that the helicopters in the video were firing SMAW-D's into the windows below the strike with some sort of time delay fuzing.

i 'could' consider that except that given the nature of how they work....i just dont think the warhead has enough....ummm "oomph" shall we say to fill up that much empty space and STILL have the power to take oiut the core without busting out every window pretty spectacularly. lets face it, the smaw is NOT a subtle weapon lol. its as much a shock and awe weapon as it is a killing weapon and cover denial weapon.

so while ill concede its a better theory than (in my opinion) mini nukes, i just dont see it.

posted by labtopYou and me are a bit handicapped, since it is difficult to address classified materials.
And there will be some, we both don't know about, and nobody in these forums will know about for a long time to come.

isnt that the truth

[edit on 20-5-2007 by Damocles]

Originally posted by Damocles

i 'could' consider that except that given the nature of how they work....i just dont think the warhead has enough....ummm "oomph" shall we say to fill up that much empty space and STILL have the power to take oiut the core without busting out every window pretty spectacularly. lets face it, the smaw is NOT a subtle weapon lol. its as much a shock and awe weapon as it is a killing weapon and cover denial weapon.

so while ill concede its a better theory than (in my opinion) mini nukes, i just dont see it.

Naw, I don't think a SMAW-D warhead's big enough. You'd have to lug up a few footlockers full of HIT slurry with dispersal charges.

Still, it's faster to do than placing thermite or HE all over, and it's sort of nuclear in its effects.

Yeah, I agree on the windows. But SMAW-D is my favorite toy now, it took over from the Mk19 when we got to fart around one last year as part of a project.

You can tell the sorts of things I like, sad I guess, I myself am not subtle. Something caveman visceral about whump! BANG! and the building falls down in a heap.

But as far as the core itself goes, there's definitely been some research into squirting NE slurry into box members and using them as big pipe bombs. So if you hypothesize for the sake of tossing ideas around that the core was compromised mechanically with injected thermobarics a few hundred milliseconds before, then you don't need a really big charge up top to sort of smack things down.

Can you give more info on the "novel explosive", Tom, like the velocities? Is it two-stage in that it shatters masonry and then pushes everything out with a more sustained blast, or have I gotten things confused?

I'm also wondering what actual explosive substances are used in it, but I'm not sure this is really public-access. What I really wonder is for how long these substances have been known and how much they degrade over time after you set them up somewhere. I think I read/heard somewhere (maybe "Future Weapons") that some kind of metal reactant is used.

The NE is featured on this clip from Future Weapons:




Around 5:30 there are clips of the SMAW firing this "novel explosive" into a small building to serve as an example of what it does.

How loud would you say these things are compared to conventional high explosives, Tom?

Originally posted by bsbray11
Can you give more info on the "novel explosive", Tom, like the velocities? Is it two-stage in that it shatters masonry and then pushes everything out with a more sustained blast, or have I gotten things confused?

I'm also wondering what actual explosive substances are used in it, but I'm not sure this is really public-access. What I really wonder is for how long these substances have been known and how much they degrade over time after you set them up somewhere. I think I read/heard somewhere (maybe "Future Weapons") that some kind of metal reactant is used.

How loud would you say these things are compared to conventional high explosives, Tom?

I don't have the numbers at hand, but if I did I couldn't post them, I don't think, which is why I've been whining about not finding them in an open source.

NE is a first-generation reactant metal slurry. The HIT in a D is different in that you get a very sharp impact at first followed by a breaching charge second component. So you get more of a masonry buster followed by a charge to shove the rebar apart.

Compared to C4, NE sounds a lot more smooth and low pitched, more of a whump than a crack. The two-stage thermobarics have a sharper sound up front with a whump at the end. It's hard to compare the sound pressures, C4 hurts your ears more but NE is plenty loud.

I can probably get that paper I sent you the abstract URL for, about pumping various grades of iron and steel tubes full of thermobarics and shattering them, is it possible to attach one to a U2U?

Yes, they use various reactive metals and halogens, in various particulate sizes. It's the new thing.

[edit on 21-5-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Thermobarics and SMAWs are cool toys, no doubt, and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of other kinds of weapons, but do they have any serious relationship to the WTC?

First off, if you take thermobarics, and pump the cores and blow them--that is going to blow out the entire building in one big whump--not what happened. You had a progressive collapse, almost floor by floor blowing out. Can you really fine-tune such a one-off production so that the core is taken out but the outer skin remains intact, and you can still drop it top down, smoothly, as the record shows? And get that lucky not once, but twice?

Sounds very problematic at best.

And SMAWs--how are they going to turn the concrete to particulate? They look great for blowing stuff up, but they don't look to have the ability to match the record in this regard either.

There the most logical answer is still nukes superheating the trapped moisture content in the the concrete so that it essentially vaporizes. Fits the observed effect like a glove.

BTW TB, the Wizard in his earlier post was not saying that the dust clouds coalesced into concrete, he was describing what I just stated above. You got that entirely backward.


[edit on 21-5-2007 by gottago]

Originally posted by gottago
Thermobarics and SMAWs are cool toys, no doubt, and it was fascinating to get a glimpse of other kinds of weapons, but do they have any serious relationship to the WTC?

First off, if you take thermobarics, and pump the cores and blow them--that is going to blow out the entire building in one big whump--not what happened.

Not at all. It goes along with you guys (you all seem to be a little different, so excuse me for lumping you all together) thinking that the cores are just gone, so what better way than to shatter them? And with a large majority of core members compromised, then it's far easier to drop the rest. In fact, you don't even have to do the entire building, I suspect you can just take out the bottom section and then knock it down from the top, detaching the intermediate floors from the core as the structure pancakes from the top.

You had a progressive collapse, almost floor by floor blowing out. Can you really fine-tune such a one-off production so that the core is taken out but the outer skin remains intact, and you can still drop it top down, smoothly, as the record shows? And get that lucky not once, but twice?

Sure, as long as the goal isn't to blow the building to smithereens, as you seem to be visualizing. It's a lot more interesting to knock out the supports and let it fall by its own weight.

And SMAWs--how are they going to turn the concrete to particulate? They look great for blowing stuff up, but they don't look to have the ability to match the record in this regard either.

You're seeing the NE, which isn't bad but it's not the latest by far.

There the most logical answer is still nukes superheating the trapped moisture content in the the concrete so that it essentially vaporizes. Fits the observed effect like a glove.

Well, no it doesn't, really. Talk about having to fine tune so you don't blow the building out in a whump, there's an issue you won't ever get past with nukes, for several reasons which I intend to address. And how did they fine tune it to only do the floors and not the walls? And how did they do 120 stories worth, more or less, in a handful of microseconds that the fireball would last? It wouldn't be so hard if you were just blowing it to shreds - but you're proposing that you rendered it back into Portland cement without overt explosive damage. You've posed yourself an incredibly complex problem, which will vary depending on what version of the story you believe. I like WITW's with the vaporized silica. I hope that's what you believe as well.

When you say "trapped moisture content" are you saying the incident moisture, or the water of hydration? WITW was explicitly saying it would boil off the water used to make the concrete. That's not exactly true - that water no longer exists as "trapped water" but is a part of a set of chemical bonds. You can certainly heat concrete to a higher temperature than 100 C and it won't degrade back to Portland cement.

BTW TB, the Wizard in his earlier post was not saying that the dust clouds coalesced into concrete, he was describing what I just stated above. You got that entirely backward.

Nope, I'm afraid you read it entirely wrong.

Now, as I said, you guys all seem to believe in the nuke conjecture but you all are a little different. What WITW said was that he believes that the neutron flux heated the building so that the water used in the hydration reaction of the cement in the concrete was driven off, returning the Portland cement in the concrete to its anhydrous state, and then "vaporizing the silica" in the concrete.

My comment was, if that was true, then the dust would be, in large part, Portland cement and not just ground up concrete. In which case, it should rehydrate and once more become hard the first time it got wet, much as a sack of Portland cement would do. So all the dust accumulations on the cars, in the windows, and most certainly in the pit, should once more become hardened cement as soon as it rains or the firefighters hose it down. It did not. Therefore, the material was in fact ground up concrete and not nuclear Portland cement, and WITW's theory is invalidated.

Now I've heard in the thread from various and sundry that the steel vaporized, the concrete vaporized, the water in the concrete vaporized (And by this, did you mean the water of hydration or just moisture that the concrete had absorbed after curing? Two different things altogether.), the silica in the concrete vaporized etc, and at times you guys seem to espouse first one thing and then another. I can't keep track of it.

So, I'll ask you, gottago, what do you believe? Are you a vaporized silica guy? A water of hydration guy? A 90% of the building was vaporized guy? It makes a difference.

Take WITW's "vaporized silica" thing, for example. Why the silica? Why not the material with the largest neutron cross section, or the lowest vaporization point? Apparently it makes sense to him that the silica vaporized but other things did not. Are you a "vaporized silica" believer?

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

Originally posted by gottago

First off, if you take thermobarics, and pump the cores and blow them--that is going to blow out the entire building in one big whump--not what happened.

Not at all. It goes along with you guys (you all seem to be a little different, so excuse me for lumping you all together) thinking that the cores are just gone, so what better way than to shatter them? And with a large majority of core members compromised, then it's far easier to drop the rest. In fact, you don't even have to do the entire building, I suspect you can just take out the bottom section and then knock it down from the top, detaching the intermediate floors from the core as the structure pancakes from the top.

Thanks for your feeble attempt in trying not to lump us all together--otherwise it'd get awful crowded in the back of the bus. Really, don't be so condescending. But I'll move on.

Here you describe a nice scenario that you and I know is pretty much how things went, based on your own suspicion that thermobaric explosions could be fine-tuned to create exactly the effects you want them to exhibit in the cores. Well. Other than your suspicion, what proof do you have?

You had a progressive collapse, almost floor by floor blowing out. Can you really fine-tune such a one-off production so that the core is taken out but the outer skin remains intact, and you can still drop it top down, smoothly, as the record shows? And get that lucky not once, but twice?

Sure, as long as the goal isn't to blow the building to smithereens, as you seem to be visualizing. It's a lot more interesting to knock out the supports and let it fall by its own weight.

Ok, now here you're going to have to get your hands dirty for once. How'd they do it? I assume they'd have to access the core throughout the bldgs to drill into each core column and somehow cap them at a certain floor level, then pump them up. It would have to be a precise operation, with no guarantee that the requisite floor was empty to hide the work. How'd they pull that job off?

Are the core columns even continuously hollow, or did they have to do this in sections? Any proof that this occurred? Also, the core columns taper in thickness, meaning the top of any given section is going to blow before the bottom. Adds more difficulties to the mix. Sketch a convincing scenario please.

There the most logical answer is still nukes superheating the trapped moisture content in the the concrete so that it essentially vaporizes. Fits the observed effect like a glove.

Well, no it doesn't, really. Talk about having to fine tune so you don't blow the building out in a whump, there's an issue you won't ever get past with nukes, for several reasons which I intend to address. And how did they fine tune it to only do the floors and not the walls?

I think this is a problem--fine-tuning--that any scenario must address. Including yours.

And how did they do 120 stories worth, more or less, in a handful of microseconds that the fireball would last? It wouldn't be so hard if you were just blowing it to shreds - but you're proposing that you rendered it back into Portland cement without overt explosive damage. You've posed yourself an incredibly complex problem, which will vary depending on what version of the story you believe. I like WITW's with the vaporized silica. I hope that's what you believe as well...

Now I've heard in the thread from various and sundry that the steel vaporized, the concrete vaporized, the water in the concrete vaporized (And by this, did you mean the water of hydration or just moisture that the concrete had absorbed after curing? Two different things altogether.), the silica in the concrete vaporized etc, and at times you guys seem to espouse first one thing and then another. I can't keep track of it.

So, I'll ask you, gottago, what do you believe? Are you a vaporized silica guy? A water of hydration guy? A 90% of the building was vaporized guy? It makes a difference.

I'm an evidence guy, and by that I mean all of it. The list I posted is what I believe, and it has evolved as I've read here and elsewhere. And it's one very disturbing list. IMO there was an exotic witch's brew employed to take the towers down. Mini-nukes are not my wife; I'm not married to them. I for one certainly don't pretend to know everything in the govt's black ops arsenal, but I'm sure that 50+ years of spending at a rate estimated to be equal to the known (and inflated/partially diverted) Pentagon budget has added some pretty remarkable toys. Some maybe you don't even know about.

Really, you may be right that thermobarics are part of the cocktail, but I don't see them as the magic bullet and they come with their own huge problematics, as to set them up properly is obviously much more invasive and difficult than you want to let on. Easy to glide over the how.

Planting even dozens of small bombs is by a huge margin much easier to pull off. They may have been exotic but conventional in most of the towers, shaped-charge mini-nukes to get them going and to take out the cores--deep in the basements and high in the air, minimizing your well-documented qualms, which have also been an object of classified nuke research for decades.

And do thermobarics & those 4G bunker busters you favor match up with the observed and documented effects? The molten steel in the basements and lingering thermal hotspots for example? The blast wave? The tritium found in the basements? And what about WTC 7? It had the same hotspots, but did not have box columns. What went on there?

BTW I'm not avoiding the question of concrete/dust--I've been looking into it and will post soon re: its analysis & components, since everyone here wants to see in it what they want.

[edit on 21-5-2007 by gottago]

The ANFO bomb : made from a mixture of Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer and diesel Fuel Oil (ANFO).
There are two identifying signatures from a blast of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil: one is widespread fire, the other is a stationary, heavy cloud of nitrate gas.

The reason given for many terror blasts, was Ammonium Nitrate fertilizer, bought at farm supply stores.
An "easy bomb".

Well, this next one is in fact not so far more difficult, but it's devastation effects are far greater.

Electro-Hydrodynamic Gaseous Fuel Device, or Barometric Bomb.
The factual explosive is ammonium nitrate, which is detonated approximately ten seconds later than the primary blast, in a secondary blast.
The complete assembly resembles a propane tank with a zig-zag shaped wedge surrounding the outside diameter of the tank. When the primary initial blast takes place, the top of the tank flies upwards and the bottom of the tank opens up into a flower petal shape. Immediately, the ammonium nitrate mixes with the shattered micro-encapsulated aluminum silicate to create an even more devastating explosion fuel cloud. This cloud is then energized with a high potential electrostatic field resulting in the creation of millions of micro fronts. The cold cloud is then detonated a second time with another PETN charge, which was previously cushioned from the first blast due to a shock- absorbing cavity. This time the cold cloud ignites, creating a shock wave surpassing the traditional effects of TNT. The most astounding effect of this type of detonation is the immediate atmospheric overpressure, which has a tendency to blow out the windows of any structure within the vicinity of the blast.
Remember the squibs photographed in all WTC tower collapses.

One strange indicative of an a-neutronic bomb blast front. It can skip around and pass over some, but not all obstacles. It also can be omni-directional or set low enough to encompass only a 15 degree pattern, which can cut through core columns like butter. And you can hear an audible "pop" from the Barometric Bomb primary blast. And there appears a faint gold and blue flash when the electrostatic field is energized. And there is a 10 second space between the primary and secondary blast.
Nickname : "Blue Death".

Originally posted by gottago

Thanks for your feeble attempt in trying not to lump us all together--otherwise it'd get awful crowded in the back of the bus. Really, don't be so condescending. But I'll move on.

There's a pile of you in the thread and not only do each of you have a different - in some cases quite different - concept of what a nuke can/could/did do, but many of you seem to be changing your ideas constantly as to what and what did not vaporize. It's really tough to not only keep each of you straight, but which thing you appear to believe this week. This makes it nearly impossible to address specifics with any one of you. Sorry if it comes out condescending, it's mainly confusion - and I end up having to sort of make a composite nuke believer to address. Thus do I occasionally ask which thing someone in particular believes, specifically, and then they don't come back.

Here you describe a nice scenario that you and I know is pretty much how things went, based on your own suspicion that thermobaric explosions could be fine-tuned to create exactly the effects you want them to exhibit in the cores. Well. Other than your suspicion, what proof do you have?

In the positive sense, no more than you. In the negative sense, it doesn't have half the difficulties that the nuke theory has.

Ok, now here you're going to have to get your hands dirty for once. How'd they do it? I assume they'd have to access the core throughout the bldgs to drill into each core column and somehow cap them at a certain floor level, then pump them up. It would have to be a precise operation, with no guarantee that the requisite floor was empty to hide the work. How'd they pull that job off?

Probably not throughout the building - but you'd want either offices that abut the core columns, or (I don't have a drawing) there may be utility accesses in the building core that also provide some access to the core structure. A lot of buildings put the elevators, wiring, plumbing and what not in this area. Also, you wouldn't need to cap them or pump them full, NE is a slurry, sort of an oily goop. Think taking cake sparkles and mixing them into a pancake batter with motor oil. You'd need a dispersal charge at the bottom and goop on top. You could probably put the firing charge at the bottom too but it would be better up top. You don't need a seal or pumping, except to insert the goo, you sure wouldn't need to fill them to the top. So, one hole at the bottom of the box girder would do. You probably wouldn't need to do them all either.

Are the core columns even continuously hollow, or did they have to do this in sections? Any proof that this occurred? Also, the core columns taper in thickness, meaning the top of any given section is going to blow before the bottom. Adds more difficulties to the mix. Sketch a convincing scenario please.

You wouldn't need to do the entire building. Knocking out a section would probably work, especially if you subsequently punched the thing down from the top, but if you wanted to use a gaseous FAE sort of thermobaric, you might want to flood the entire structure. Remember that the TV antenna dropped before the building did - implying that the central core had a chunk knocked out.

Same issues as before - it has less difficulty and as much proof as an anti-matter magic neutron bomb that only targets water in concrete without emitting radiation.

I think this is a problem--fine-tuning--that any scenario must address. Including yours.

Yet, mine doesn't have to deal with magic neutrons that vaporize concrete somehow decollimating and touching the building sides with obvious bad side effects. I agree that any scenario must address it, but explosives are something fairly well known whereas the amount of testing of magic neutrons on building structures is probably limited.

I'm an evidence guy, and by that I mean all of it. The list I posted is what I believe, and it has evolved as I've read here and elsewhere. And it's one very disturbing list. IMO there was an exotic witch's brew employed to take the towers down. Mini-nukes are not my wife; I'm not married to them. I for one certainly don't pretend to know everything in the govt's black ops arsenal, but I'm sure that 50+ years of spending at a rate estimated to be equal to the known (and inflated/partially diverted) Pentagon budget has added some pretty remarkable toys. Some maybe you don't even know about.

See, here's my point. You're espousing a position that a nuke somehow powdered some percentage of the concrete in the building without blowing out the walls from various effects. And we're ignoring the nasty radiation side effects altogether. But when I ask you what exactly you think happened, and by that I don't mean down to the number of greys or something, I mean do you think the concrete vaporized, the steel vaporized, what percentage of that material do you think (someone said 90% upthread?) vaporized and so on, and you don't answer. But when I say I can't keep track of which of you believes what this week you say I'm condescending. I'm more caught between confused and tickled.

I'll say the same thing I said to BSBray - the device itself doesn't matter so much as what it puts out. If you're embracing fusion devices, then there's only so many things that can be put out by it. I'll buy any device you want. It's a black box to me. But it's sort of like playing Clue - if you say it was Professor Neutron in the basement, with the 90% vaporization of the floor concrete, then I have something to address.

Blowing the crap out of something is an effect that nukes are good for. Gently tickling the water out of concrete in 100 nsec is a bit more difficult to argue, and doing it the full length of a building without blowing out the walls or taking the top off like Mt Pinatubo on a bad day is probably not possible. Adding in the lack of secondary radiation (if you're using neutrons) is the icing on the cake.

Really, you may be right that thermobarics are part of the cocktail, but I don't see them as the magic bullet and they come with their own huge problematics, as to set them up properly is obviously much more invasive and difficult than you want to let on. Easy to glide over the how.

Originally I was thinking you could do it all from just below the strike. I think BSBray had a point, though, and you would have to soften up the core first.

But I think it's much easier than thermiting/shaped charging the entire building floor by floor. Certainly more controllable than a nuke.

Planting even dozens of small bombs is by a huge margin much easier to pull off. They may have been exotic but conventional in most of the towers, shaped-charge mini-nukes to get them going and to take out the cores--deep in the basements and high in the air, minimizing your well-documented qualms, which have also been an object of classified nuke research for decades.

Actually, the shaped charge thing might stand a chance. Issues I see with it are spreading and over-running, you didn't see the top of the building blow off in a big flaming spike, for example. But - let's say for the purposes of speculation - you'll have a tradeoff between the size of the device and the damage radius caused by the jet. It's sort of the same thing with WITW's directed neutron hypothesis. You can't have a small radius device put out a large radius but collimated Munroe-effect jet. It tends to be a cone. If you wanted a big straight hole punched, you'd need a physically big device. So it's tough to get 90% dustification of the insides of the building. You also have a problem with overpressure from the device blowing the walls straight out. But probably not as much as trying to neutron them to death. Still, you didn't see all the windows blow out a split second before the collapse started, so whatever it is can't create a residual overpressure of more than a psi or two.

And they mostly are fission devices, although you could probably make a dandy shaped charge out of WITW's antimatter. So something off the shelf would leave traces, and radioactive residue, but probably not as much as you'd think. Still, I'm pretty sure you could detect it.

In both cases, they put out a lot of gamma and x-rays. You'd have to have a pretty husky casing to reduce that, some would get out anyway, and it would survive the bang. So you'd have to bring in someone to make sure it got removed. You also couldn't sneak it in. Maybe on a fork lift.

And do thermobarics & those 4G bunker busters you favor match up with the observed and documented effects? The molten steel in the basements and lingering thermal hotspots for example? The blast wave? The tritium found in the basements? And what about WTC 7? It had the same hotspots, but did not have box columns. What went on there?

Does anyone know for sure what it was that was molten in the basement? I'm asking seriously. Were there any samples taken? And how much was it? If it was 2 inches deep in aluminum, the explanations would probably be different than if it was 10 feet deep in molten steel. I've never heard for sure.

As far as the tritium, I've seen a pretty indepth analysis of where that came from in terms of stuff on the planes and in the buildings. The issue with it as something coming from a fusion bomb is that most of them make their tritium as they go instead of having it in a big tin can or something. Where you'd see a lot of tritium getting flung around would be in a boosted primary, which uses lots. But the yield on this thing is so small that I don't see the need for a secondary at all, and one of WITW's antimatter weapons wouldn't have boost gas. So I'm not really sure what it tells you, if you don't believe the exit sign analysis.

The yield of whatever you like has to be pretty small or the building would just have flown apart. You boost to get more efficiency and a bigger yield, the little weapons don't typically boost. You need about 1kT rule of thumb to set off a holraum, and probably not much more than that in terms of total explosive power was used, if something was. Why would you need a fusion secondary? You already see that the building didn't fly to bits. How much yield could you put in there?

"Tiny" and "thermonuclear" are tough to put together. "Tiny" and "unboosted fission" have been around a few years. And if you're postulating antimatter, a much bigger leap than using thermobarics in the center columns, you don't need it to drive a fusion reaction, you could use it as is.


[edit on 21-5-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

labtop

i dont know about that specific arrangement, but the PETN secondary makes a lot more sense now lol.

thing is, when its talking about forming clouds etc, thats becuase these are arial bombs...they disperse their contents while they fall, unless they got terribly clever, you cant really use one indoors.

i could be wrong on that but id be hard pressed to know an 'official' configuration that allowed that to be used inside a facility. for the most part you wouldnt need to even bother...C4 sachel charges are GREAT for doing indoors what those will do over an area or around caves. kill by overpressure

Dear Nuke Theory Doubters:

In searching for an alternative to the antimatter triggered hydrogen fusion bombs as a means of destruction at the WTC’s you are overlooking one critical fact — the visibility/invisibility of the explosions. All the devices you’ve been discussing are essentially ‘fire-bombs’ and very, very conspicuous. Nearly 100% of their effects are overtly perceptible by the naked eye and ear.

In a fusion nuclear weapon, there is a large visible and audible blast, but it’s a SMALL 15% relative to the 80% invisible silent neutrons’ share of the total destructive yield of the explosion. The WTC’s were pulverized in a way which was practically entirely hidden from our natural sensory organs.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

[edit on 5/22/2007 by Wizard_In_The_Woods]

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam
Probably not throughout the building - but you'd want either offices that abut the core columns, or (I don't have a drawing) there may be utility accesses in the building core that also provide some access to the core structure. A lot of buildings put the elevators, wiring, plumbing and what not in this area. Also, you wouldn't need to cap them or pump them full, NE is a slurry, sort of an oily goop. Think taking cake sparkles and mixing them into a pancake batter with motor oil. You'd need a dispersal charge at the bottom and goop on top. You could probably put the firing charge at the bottom too but it would be better up top. You don't need a seal or pumping, except to insert the goo, you sure wouldn't need to fill them to the top. So, one hole at the bottom of the box girder would do. You probably wouldn't need to do them all either.

Just how much goo and sparklies are we talking about here? A rough estimate--say to blow out one 20-30 ft long section of 4-inch thick core box column? And one section of 1-inch thick upper core column? Multiplied out to do the deed, is this on the level of tanker-loads full?

You wouldn't need to do the entire building. Knocking out a section would probably work, especially if you subsequently punched the thing down from the top, but if you wanted to use a gaseous FAE sort of thermobaric, you might want to flood the entire structure.

Wouldn't you have an amazing flash when that went off?

Remember that the TV antenna dropped before the building did - implying that the central core had a chunk knocked out.

Good you bring this up as what went on at the tops of the towers is very important about the nature of the destruction. As you point out, the antenna mast dropping on the north tower shows the upper core was taken out just before the onset of collapse. Likewise, the mass of 25 or so upper floors of the south tower begins to topple en masse but then explosively disintegrates within a second or so of the onset of collapse. So something took out the upper cores, causing these effects, then with a short delay shatters the upper building mass.

I'll say the same thing I said to BSBray - the device itself doesn't matter so much as what it puts out. If you're embracing fusion devices, then there's only so many things that can be put out by it. I'll buy any device you want. It's a black box to me...

Blowing the crap out of something is an effect that nukes are good for. Gently tickling the water out of concrete in 100 nsec is a bit more difficult to argue, and doing it the full length of a building without blowing out the walls or taking the top off like Mt Pinatubo on a bad day is probably not possible. Adding in the lack of secondary radiation (if you're using neutrons) is the icing on the cake.

Well in one sense we agree fundamentally. I don't care either what what the device/devices were, but they've got to jive with the evidence. My point is that you've got declassified evidence--scraps, but clear--that very advanced fusion nukes have been developed. I don't pretend to be any expert on nuclear weaponry or weaponry period but I think you are positing devices with far more minimum yield and blunt effects than apparently have been developed. We're not talking Mt. Pinatubo, all indications are that these devices can have low yields that mimic conventional charges.

That they can be made this small, shaped as well, and the radiation emissions also controlled (which again has been a subject of decades of classified research), then it seems quite logical that they could be used in the areas of the buildings where the most bang-for-buck was necessary--placed high in the towers to take out the tops (shaped charge going up, and radiation, too) and deep in the sub basements to take out the cores (great shielding there).

Really, you may be right that thermobarics are part of the cocktail, but I don't see them as the magic bullet and they come with their own huge problematics, as to set them up properly is obviously much more invasive and difficult than you want to let on...

Originally I was thinking you could do it all from just below the strike. I think BSBray had a point, though, and you would have to soften up the core first.

Well yes, obviously. And you have exactly that happening with the seismic evidence about 10 secs. before collapse and the white clouds coming from the bases of the towers.

There are two critical areas of major destructive effort--the cores and the tops: the cores to take it down/soften it up, and the tops to get it rolling and shatter the dangerous bulk of building mass above the impact areas.

(rest to follow)

[edit on 22-5-2007 by gottago]

I have to agree with Wizard. Whilst barometric bombs etc do sound like a novel way of demolishing the towers, i can immediatly pick up a few questions/niggles that would need to be answered;

-There were no visible explosions, contary to whats been said by conspiracy sites. The "flashes" could easily be the aluminium casing on the outer core columns coming lose, and relfecting sunlight as they spin. Due to poor quality vids, it makes it hard to tell the differece between that, and anything else that mite occur.

-To much potential for something to go wrong with a complex demolishion using a barometric/s bomb. The more devices they use, the greater potential for error, which obviously is not what they want.

-The freefall time. Why engineer a collapse to be at freefall speed? If they used barometrics, surely they could increase the collapse time to make it more realistic, if even by only 5 seconds or so.

-The squibs. Barometrics powerful enough to pulverize those floors, yet only strong enough to brake ONE window on each side? And do this ahead of the blast wave? The squibs don't fit the barometric/air-fuel device explosions IMHO.

-The core columns standing after collapse. Barometric bombs powerful enough to explode the surrounding floors completely, yet leave the "spire" standing..which then collapses 10 seconds later on its own accord.. this is another piece of evidence i can't see fitting the barometric idea.

-The molten metal in the basement/pit of hell..

-The melted engine blocks of cars

Originally posted by Wizard_In_The_Woods
Dear Nuke Theory Doubters:

In searching for an alternative to the antimatter triggered hydrogen fusion bombs as a means of destruction at the WTC’s you are overlooking one critical fact — the visibility/invisibility of the explosions. All the devices you’ve been discussing are essentially ‘fire-bombs’ and very, very conspicuous. Nearly 100% of their effects are overtly perceptible by the naked eye and ear.

In a fusion nuclear weapon, there is a large visible and audible blast, but it’s a SMALL 15% relative to the 80% invisible silent neutrons’ share of the total destructive yield of the explosion. The WTC’s were pulverized in a way which was practically entirely hidden from our natural sensory organs.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

[edit on 5/22/2007 by Wizard_In_The_Woods]

But you see, what you're showing is that you don't understand your subject. The neutrons coming off of a DT fusion reaction come in one speed - 14.1meV. They're going to be decelerating in the concrete they hit, trading their energy for gamma rays, x-rays and ultimately heat. And that heat is going to happen so fast you might as well call it instantaneous. That causes something that we like to call "an explosion". Heat is pressure, as Ulam once said.

Without reviewing the thread, I'm pretty sure you said that the water involved in the hydration reaction was "boiled out", a grossly inaccurate portrayal, and the concrete decomposed into its original components, one of which you specifically stated was anhydrous Portland cement. Then the silica (for some reason) "vaporized".

I note that you didn't answer my question. If the alite was rendered back into its components, why did the Portland cement not rehydrate from rain or the firefighters' hoses and form hardened cement chunks? Or did it not, as plain concrete dust would not?

Second, are you very sure that you want to espouse the position that the silica vaporized? And what else do you think vaporized while we're at it, this should be fun.

Originally posted by gottago
Just how much goo and sparklies are we talking about here? A rough estimate--say to blow out one 20-30 ft long section of 4-inch thick core box column? And one section of 1-inch thick upper core column? Multiplied out to do the deed, is this on the level of tanker-loads full?

A valid question. I'm going to have to go get the articles wherein they were doing this test. But the explosion was contained, so you are expending the total energy on bursting the walls. I don't think it would be tanker loads full.

Wouldn't you have an amazing flash when that went off?

It isn't all that flashy. Not to mention, you're not after brute power to blow the building to bits, you're knocking over the first domino. The real damage would come when the core became unstable.

Good you bring this up as what went on at the tops of the towers is very important about the nature of the destruction. As you point out, the antenna mast dropping on the north tower shows the upper core was taken out just before the onset of collapse. Likewise, the mass of 25 or so upper floors of the south tower begins to topple en masse but then explosively disintegrates within a second or so of the onset of collapse. So something took out the upper cores, causing these effects, then with a short delay shatters the upper building mass.

That's sort of what I'm envisioning. Damage the core structure, then give it a big knock at the top. More finesse than brute power sort of thing.

Well in one sense we agree fundamentally. I don't care either what what the device/devices were, but they've got to jive with the evidence. My point is that you've got declassified evidence--scraps, but clear--that very advanced fusion nukes have been developed. I don't pretend to be any expert on nuclear weaponry or weaponry period but I think you are positing devices with far more minimum yield and blunt effects than apparently have been developed. We're not talking Mt. Pinatubo, all indications are that these devices can have low yields that mimic conventional charges.

That they can be made this small, shaped as well, and the radiation emissions also controlled (which again has been a subject of decades of classified research), then it seems quite logical that they could be used in the areas of the buildings where the most bang-for-buck was necessary--placed high in the towers to take out the tops (shaped charge going up, and radiation, too) and deep in the sub basements to take out the cores (great shielding there).

The driver in the shaped charges tend to be of as low a yield as you can get, and tailored to produce x-ray and gamma, because that's what makes the magic happen. There are a lot of issues still, for instance, what are they being directed against. If you fire one laterally at the core then you are asking to punch through the building. Firing straight up doesn't direct the jet against anything but floor. If you use a minimal enough charge then you might as well use something conventional.

[edit on 22-5-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Originally posted by shrunkensimon

-To much potential for something to go wrong with a complex demolishion using a barometric/s bomb. The more devices they use, the greater potential for error, which obviously is not what they want.

Nukes are less controllable than conventionals, and there are too many bits of evidence missing if you used them other than as large conventional charges, thus while I still think there are a lot of problems with gottago's shaped charge speculation, it at least dodges the radiation and Boyle's law issues while trading it for an overpressure/lack of target one.

-The freefall time. Why engineer a collapse to be at freefall speed? If they used barometrics, surely they could increase the collapse time to make it more realistic, if even by only 5 seconds or so.

The idea is not to blow the thing to bits by force as it is to let it destroy itself.

-The squibs. Barometrics powerful enough to pulverize those floors, yet only strong enough to brake ONE window on each side? And do this ahead of the blast wave? The squibs don't fit the barometric/air-fuel device explosions IMHO.

And you think a nuke wouldn't break windows?

-The core columns standing after collapse. Barometric bombs powerful enough to explode the surrounding floors completely, yet leave the "spire" standing..which then collapses 10 seconds later on its own accord.. this is another piece of evidence i can't see fitting the barometric idea.

Actually it would - as BSBray pointed out, you most likely couldn't cut them with a set of charges detonated on one floor. In any event, if you just knocked them loose at the bottom, it would leave the "spire" intact but detached from the floors, after the floors fell, the spire would also.

-The molten metal in the basement/pit of hell..

Does anyone know what it was or how much of it there was? Again, if it's molten aluminum and pot metal from office stuff, it's a different picture than if it's 10 feet deep of steel.

It's easy enough to get molten aluminum to do that if you have some gallium and mercury to chunk in - were these found in excess?

-The melted engine blocks of cars

Cannot possibly have been from radiation.

Originally posted by Tom Bedlam

Originally posted by gottago
Planting even dozens of small bombs is by a huge margin much easier to pull off. They may have been exotic but conventional in most of the towers, shaped-charge mini-nukes to get them going and to take out the cores--deep in the basements and high in the air, minimizing your well-documented qualms, which have also been an object of classified nuke research for decades.

Actually, the shaped charge thing might stand a chance.

Ah! A ray of hope! ...

Issues I see with it are spreading and over-running, you didn't see the top of the building blow off in a big flaming spike, for example. But - let's say for the purposes of speculation - you'll have a tradeoff between the size of the device and the damage radius caused by the jet. It's sort of the same thing with WITW's directed neutron hypothesis. You can't have a small radius device put out a large radius but collimated Munroe-effect jet. It tends to be a cone. If you wanted a big straight hole punched, you'd need a physically big device. So it's tough to get 90% dustification of the insides of the building. You also have a problem with overpressure from the device blowing the walls straight out. But probably not as much as trying to neutron them to death. Still, you didn't see all the windows blow out a split second before the collapse started, so whatever it is can't create a residual overpressure of more than a psi or two.

And they mostly are fission devices, although you could probably make a dandy shaped charge out of WITW's antimatter. So something off the shelf would leave traces, and radioactive residue, but probably not as much as you'd think. Still, I'm pretty sure you could detect it.

In both cases, they put out a lot of gamma and x-rays. You'd have to have a pretty husky casing to reduce that, some would get out anyway, and it would survive the bang. So you'd have to bring in someone to make sure it got removed. You also couldn't sneak it in. Maybe on a fork lift.

I think clearly that, to reduce observable effects and gain maximal control over the destruction, you'd want a number of small devices dedicated to doing a number of specific tasks. And set off in a "believable" sequence to mimic a collapse or its onset. Still I'd rather side with some version of clean fusion than fission; the evidence is sparse but there.

And do thermobarics & those 4G bunker busters you favor match up with the observed and documented effects? The molten steel in the basements and lingering thermal hotspots for example? The blast wave? The tritium found in the basements? And what about WTC 7? It had the same hotspots, but did not have box columns. What went on there?

Does anyone know for sure what it was that was molten in the basement? I'm asking seriously. Were there any samples taken? And how much was it? If it was 2 inches deep in aluminum, the explanations would probably be different than if it was 10 feet deep in molten steel. I've never heard for sure.

Here's one of my favorite photos:



A thermal map of the site from NASA/US Geological Survey satellite on 9/16/01. Highest recorded temp is 1377 deg. F. Molten steel pulled out of the wreckage as late as late October.

As for an analysis, I'm pretty certain none was ever done, for the obvious reasons. I've never seen one in any event.

Simple question, could thermobarics cause this?

As far as the tritium, I've seen a pretty indepth analysis of where that came from in terms of stuff on the planes and in the buildings. The issue with it as something coming from a fusion bomb is that most of them make their tritium as they go instead of having it in a big tin can or something. Where you'd see a lot of tritium getting flung around would be in a boosted primary, which uses lots. But the yield on this thing is so small that I don't see the need for a secondary at all, and one of WITW's antimatter weapons wouldn't have boost gas. So I'm not really sure what it tells you, if you don't believe the exit sign analysis.

No I don't buy exit signs and watch faces for the levels recorded. They were pumping millions of gallons water into the site for over a week before they took the measurements on the 21st, and they were really off the charts in percentage terms. Normal background levels of 0.12 and 3.53 in the highest sample from WTC6, which wasn't even "directly" involved. How'd all those exit signs manage to fall into the sub-basement of WTC 6 for chrissakes?

And well, doesn't all that tritium --and molten metal swamps being hosed down for over a month-- simply tell you you've just had a fusion hydrogen nuke go off? of whatever new/exotic flavor? What else can bring about these results?

Link here.

The yield of whatever you like has to be pretty small or the building would just have flown apart. You boost to get more efficiency and a bigger yield, the little weapons don't typically boost. You need about 1kT rule of thumb to set off a holraum, and probably not much more than that in terms of total explosive power was used, if something was. Why would you need a fusion secondary? You already see that the building didn't fly to bits. How much yield could you put in there?

"Tiny" and "thermonuclear" are tough to put together. "Tiny" and "unboosted fission" have been around a few years. And if you're postulating antimatter, a much bigger leap than using thermobarics in the center columns, you don't need it to drive a fusion reaction, you could use it as is.

Here again yes, low yield as I've been saying, probably several very low yield to do the job. better mimics conventional and less mess. Again, from what's been let out, they can be extremely low yield. And yet again I'm no expert on this, but isn't the principle of a fusion device that you don't need the secondary? that's to drive your grandma's nukes, no?

Originally posted by gottago
I think clearly that, to reduce observable effects and gain maximal control over the destruction, you'd want a number of small devices dedicated to doing a number of specific tasks. And set off in a "believable" sequence to mimic a collapse or its onset. Still I'd rather side with some version of clean fusion than fission; the evidence is sparse but there.

What do you feel the evidence is? I would say exactly the opposite.

A thermal map of the site from NASA/US Geological Survey satellite on 9/16/01. Highest recorded temp is 1377 deg. F. Molten steel pulled out of the wreckage as late as late October.

As for an analysis, I'm pretty certain none was ever done, for the obvious reasons. I've never seen one in any event.

Simple question, could thermobarics cause this?

Not everything that happens in a complex event is directly related to the root cause. In fact, most of the 'post mortem' failure analyses I've been involved in, it's actually pretty tough sometimes to unravel what came from the root cause and what from all the other things that were going on.

That seems to be not understood in this case - but I'll say it again. No matter what it was that happened, every little bit of evidence does NOT have to point back directly to the root cause. There are chains of effects that spread in all directions. If you had the big picture you could see why everything happened but in a lot of cases that takes a lot of data, analysis and time, which none of us have in this case. Thus do we get bombs that have to melt cars blocks away - which is probably not true. But the fuzzy picture you're getting may be related to trying to bring every little scrap of evidence directly back to the root. Think "Chad Gadya" instead of wonder bomb.

In this case, there were a lot of burnable organics as well as whatever jet fuel may have made it down. And if you have molten aluminum in there to start with, then you can get a hydration reaction that provides tons of heat for a long time, especially if you're trying to wet it down. That works lots better if there's some gallium and/or mercury in it. That would do the trick, if it were true. Which is why I asked if anyone knew how much metal there was and what was in it. Again, it's way different if it's a pool an inch deep than 10 feet. I don't know, personally, how much there was.

(edit: I said hydration but it's actually an oxidation reaction that emits heat as the aluminum turns back into alumina, then releases hydrogen which burns. So you get a lot of heat for a long time. The gallium and/or mercury is there to prevent the molten aluminum from assuming a stable surface configuration. It's sort of like LMET only it works in molten metals to make them burn for a long time and very difficult to put out. If it's got air or water it's going to burn either way)

So, probably not directly, but through a Chad Gadya sort of event chain, possibly. Were there gas lines underneath the WTC?

The big issue with your shaped charge nukes is that they are not designed to put out a lot of heat, certainly not like this. The original design was for quickly cutting tunnels in hard rock. Melting it would not be productive.

No I don't buy exit signs and watch faces for the levels recorded. They were pumping millions of gallons water into the site for over a week before they took the measurements on the 21st, and they were really off the charts in percentage terms. Normal background levels of 0.12 and 3.53 in the highest sample from WTC6, which wasn't even "directly" involved. How'd all those exit signs manage to fall into the sub-basement of WTC 6 for chrissakes?

Oh, they don't need to, just rupture and burn. That forms tritiated water, which ends up in the basement. Easy, peasy.

And like I say, your typical nuke doesn't have direct tritium in it, you'd have to liquefy it which is a pain in the tukhas, which just adds to your misery with the nuke conjecture. (edit: other than for boost gas in the primary and in the initiator which do use tritium - but not in the secondary)

Modern secondaries make their own by fissioning Li6. But they don't leave a huge amount laying around afterwards.

And well, doesn't all that tritium --and molten metal swamps being hosed down for over a month-- simply tell you you've just had a fusion hydrogen nuke go off? of whatever new/exotic flavor? What else can bring about these results?

Well, no. Like I said, having a lot of leftover tritium might be a sign of a heavily boosted fission primary, especially if it fizzled, but that obviously didn't happen. And you don't need any for WITW's antimatter wild-hare. And a modern secondary makes it out of Li6 on the spot, which is a lot easier to keep around than liquid tritium. And you'd be finding deuterated water as well - and in the same proportions, if you were right. Did they find a lot of deuterium? I sure didn't hear about it.

Finally, shaped charges have intentionally minimized side effects, otherwise, why not just blow the s--t out of the target? Melting things would be a side effect you'd want to minimize.

Fusion weapons also emit mostly neutrons, which have appalling side effects you wouldn't be able to hide. And they're far from desirable for shaped charges which mainly want x-rays and gamma for their input. You could secondarily make your EM by putting in something to swap neutron kinetic energy for Bremsstrahlung but why? If you had an antimatter primary (unlikely, and with its own issues) then you have gamma right off the bat. No need to add in the secondary.

Here again yes, low yield as I've been saying, probably several very low yield to do the job. better mimics conventional and less mess. Again, from what's been let out, they can be extremely low yield. And yet again I'm no expert on this, but isn't the principle of a fusion device that you don't need the secondary? that's to drive your grandma's nukes, no?

Nope, sorry. The secondary is the fusion part of your complete breakfast.

You have to supply an appalling amount of pressure to get it to go. Generally, you use Li6D wrapped around a crunchy center of Plutonium. The primary compresses the secondary to the point that the plutonium goes critical and detonates in a tiny little fission reaction, this provides the neutrons, heat and pressure to convert some fraction of the Li6 to tritium and start the fusion reaction.

Seeing that it takes a goodly bang to make it go, and that there wasn't that much of a bang anyway, it's tough to argue for teeny tiny little fusion weapons, as they can't be smaller than the primaries, and they make a huge glut of very energetic neutrons which cause their own issues.

On the other hand, you can in fact make very tiny little fission weapons. If you wanted to. Not saying they did.

Even with WITW's magic antimatter, you still need a sizey primary to get the reaction to go. And the antimatter emits a lot of gammas. Not to mention it would take a heinous amount of power to manufacture, and you can't store it in any quantity without it wanting to get out and give you trouble.

[edit on 22-5-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

[edit on 22-5-2007 by Tom Bedlam]

Dear Tom Bedlam:

For the sake of all the readers of this thread, is there any way you might could possibly state what YOU think brought down the WTC’s? Can you do this in a clear concise way of say, two paragraphs maximum? Five sentences maximum would be better. This would greatly facilitate the ‘discussion’ here and allow me and others to properly address your ‘questions’.

Alright, I do have an ‘ulterior’ motive here. I’m trying to determine if it’s worthwhile responding to your endless stream of objections or if you are somehow purposely attempting to wear people out. We all lead busy lives and at times it seems like a Sisyphean effort to deal with the never-ending protest from the no-way-were-nukes-used-on-911 crowd.

E. g. your latest suggestion that the rubble pile somehow was somehow an exothermic reaction fueled amongst other things possibly by molten aluminum generating heat for months aided by gallium or mercury…You lost me on that one. But hey, that’s why I (and surely others) are highly interested in an executive summary version of your-what-destroyed-the-WTC’s theory.

You have my undivided attention.

Greetings,
The Wizard In The Woods

[edit on 5/22/2007 by Wizard_In_The_Woods]

originally posted by gottago: A thermal map of the site from NASA/US Geological Survey satellite on 9/16/01. Highest recorded temp is 1377 deg. F. Molten steel pulled out of the wreckage as late as late October.

um, if that not hot enough to melt the steel, how is it hot enough to keep it molten? metalurgy was never my strong point. i mean most of my post secondary education was dedicated to blowing things up more than keeping them standing and my couple years in college were mostly dedicated to rock climbing....so im a little fuzzy on this one.

also, for the sake of argument...im kind of piecing everyones posts together here.

for a nuke device, are ya'll envisioning something thats less a bomb and more of an "emitter" per se, more like an Xray machine that gives off more than xrays vs a bomb?

cuz honestly i could buy into something like that before i could a mini nuclear bomb.

of course thats just me