National Geographic - 9/11 Science and Conspiracy Special 8/31/09

Originally posted by twitchy
I'm posting totally from memory here, but Drex I think was CDI's technology that involved cutter charges that were capable of customizing the cutting of the steel beams during a demolition to fit the specific equipment of the clean up crew. There's a thread or a post on here somewhere by me I think that discusses the amazing phenomenon of neatly cut steel beams in the WTC rubble as well but it's late.

Before perspective gets lost here we're talking about a building complex that had not one but two fuel filled airliners traveling at 500 mph crash into it. No one can claim a more devastating bomb short of a nuke.

But still the argument goes there were explosives also planted inside. And get this new twist - decades ago.

So why didn't they just blow up the buidings and plant phony evidence fingering Iraq or whoever? Why didn't these explosives kick in when the WTC had explosoves set off in in 1993?

What exactly were the advantages of having explosions to collapse obviously destroyed buildings that would have to be torn down?

Would anyone unnecessarily risk their very existence just for that extra Hollywood style final scene?

Why can't anyone find any forensic evidence of controlled explosions beyond Dr Jones's paint chips, which in themselves wildly conflict with the implanted explosives theory?

M

reply to post by twitchy


"Semtex", huh??? SO, now it's NOT 'thermite', or 'thermate'???

Damn, I can't keep up, the spin is happening so quickly.

Well, let's examine "Semtex":

Semtex was invented in the late 1950s by Stanislav Brebera, a chemist at VCHZ Synthesia.

So far, so good....

...Semtex was similar to other plastic explosives, especially C-4, in that it was easily malleable; but it was usable over a greater temperature range than other plastic explosives. There are also visual differences: whereas C-4 is off-white in colour, Semtex is brick-orange.

OH, my! THAT is going to get people all excited....

The new explosive was widely exported, notably to the government of North Vietnam, which received 14 tonnes during the Vietnam War. However, the main consumer was Libya; about 700 tonnes of Semtex were exported to Libya between 1975 and 1981 by Omnipol. It has also been used by Islamic militants in the Middle East and by republican paramilitaries such as the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) and Irish National Liberation Army in Northern Ireland.

Not relevant, but interesting.

Also in response to international agreements, Semtex has a detection taggant added to produce a distinctive vapor signature to aid detection. First, ethylene glycole dinitrate was used, later switched to 2,3-dinitro-2,3-dimethylbutane (3,4-dinitrohexane, DMDNB), which is used currently. According to the manufacturer, the taggant agent was voluntarily being added since 1991, years before the protocol signed became compulsory.

Well. THEN, in order for it to be undetected in the WTC debris, then it MUST have been included in the construction, in the 1970s. I mean, what other conclusion can one reach???

(BTW...does anyone think it is STILL a "brick-orange" color after it explodes???)

Well, let's continue:

Batches of Semtex made before 1990, however, are untagged, though it is not known whether there are still major stocks of such old batches of Semtex. The shelf life of Semtex was reduced from 10 years guarantee prior to 1990s to 5 years now.

Uh, oh!! Wait a second....when it was made PRIOR to the 1990s, its shelf life was about 10 years....hmmmm

Let me do some math. Nope, won't add up, no matter how hard I try.

More non-relevant, but interesting info:

On May 25, 1997 Bohumil Šole, a scientist often said to have been involved with inventing Semtex, strapped the explosive to his body and committed suicide in the Priessnitz spa of Jeseník. Sole, 63, was being treated there for depression. Twenty other people were hurt in the explosion, while six were seriously injured. It should be noted, however, that the manufacturer, Explosia, states that he was not a member of the team that developed the explosive.

en.wikipedia.org...


Well, it certainly blows stuff up, especially if strapped directly to your body. BUT, others survived? He was IN a spa, so sounds like it was indoors...yet, the building didn't collapse and kill others? I'm assuming the building didn't collapse, although there is nothing in the article either way. Seems if it HAD collapsed it would have been worth mention.

OK...so, let's recap:

"Semtex' was invented BEFORE the WTC Towers were built. BUT, if it had been "installed" in the 1970s, it had a shelf-life of only about 10 years....hmmm.

Newer Semtex, made after 1991 had a distinctive chemical signature added to it, to aid in its detection, yet none of that is found in the WTC debris.

Semtex doesn't seem to "cut" metal in concise surgical ways, it seems it just blows stuff up.

How many more fantastic stories are now going to arise, and what's next in the arsenal of "Truth"???

BTW, the Wiki article mentions Semtex has been used in CD, so here's some more stuff to read:

Large buildings, tall chimneys, smokestacks, and increasingly some smaller structures may be destroyed by building implosion using explosives. Imploding a building is very fast — the collapse itself only takes seconds — and an expert can ensure that the building falls into its own footprint, so as not to damage neighboring structures. This is essential for tall structures in dense urban areas.

Any error can be disastrous, however, and some demolitions have failed, severely damaging neighboring structures. The greatest danger is from flying debris which, when improperly prepared for, can kill onlookers.

Even more dangerous is the partial failure of an attempted implosion.

Going to jump to this sentence....

... and filled with un-detonated but still primed explosives, making it difficult for workers to approach safely.

Everybody get that?? Seems there is sometimes a risk of some UNEXPLODED charges. How are they sure, each time? Would a building as loarge and a project as complicated as the WTC Towers be assured of EVERY charge going off as "planned"?? Did anyone here reports of explosions during the debris removal/clean-up process???


Anyway, how much work and effort goes into rigging a building for CD?

Preparation

It takes several weeks or months to prepare a building for implosion. All items of value, such as copper wiring, are stripped from a building. Some materials must be removed, such as glass that can form deadly projectiles, and insulation that can scatter over a wide area. Non-load bearing partitions and drywall are removed. Selected columns on floors where explosives will be set are drilled and nitroglycerin and TNT are placed in the holes. Smaller columns and walls are wrapped in detonating cord. The goal is to use as little explosive as possible; only a few floors are rigged with explosives, so that it is safer (fewer explosives) and less costly. The areas with explosives are covered in thick geotextile fabric and fencing to absorb flying debris.

en.wikipedia.org...

Ummm....wait a minute, once again. What was that??? Repeating:

...only a few floors are rigged with explosives...

OH, no!! NOW they're all gonna say "See!!" I knew it, it's inevitable....but can't avoid it. Thing is, the "Truthers" have all of these grand claims of explosions everywhere, all around, DURING the collapse, in the basement, the lobby, you name it...when, in fact, it isn't necessary.

SO...a few key points, with explosives, cause damage, let gravity do the rest. NO ONE ever saw, nor has come forth as accomplishing, these explosives plantings. BUT, per the article, it IS possible to bring down a structure by damaging key sections....JUST LIKE a large, heavy passenger jet may do, hmmmm??????

Guess the true "believers" will never accept the obvious.

\\

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Thing is, the "Truthers" have all of these grand claims of explosions everywhere, all around, DURING the collapse, in the basement, the lobby, you name it...when, in fact, it isn't necessary.

SO...a few key points, with explosives, cause damage, let gravity do the rest. NO ONE ever saw, nor has come forth as accomplishing, these explosives plantings. BUT, per the article, it IS possible to bring down a structure by damaging key sections....JUST LIKE a large, heavy passenger jet may do, hmmmm??????

You ignore the obvious solution. All that has to be found is an out of work prof somewhere who will claim knowledge of a long-life Semtex that doesn't go sour. Extra points for it having microscopic nano-particles developed in a secret Israeli lab.

Hey, a guy in white lab coat claims it's so. Prove it wrong!


Mike

[edit on 10-9-2009 by mmiichael]

the original sixties semtex was estimated to last indefinitley.
they are trying to get the shelf life down to 3 years, but are having trouble.

Originally posted by weedwhacker
Well, it certainly blows stuff up, especially if strapped directly to your body. BUT, others survived? He was IN a spa, so sounds like it was indoors...yet, the building didn't collapse and kill others?

I read that, chuckled at how ridiculous it was, and decided to let your post speak for itself rather than argue with your ambiguities.
You do know that they demolish buildings right? Thanks for posting, no really, you do us a credit.

Given that Semtex is a plastic explosive, which are extremely susceptible to shock, heat, spark, friction, and ignition, why did it not go off when the WTC was bombed in 1993? If that didn't set it off nothing would.

If Semtex was also in WTC 7, how could the building possibly burn all those hours and not go off?

Where were the blasting caps, detonators in the debris? Even Jones doesn't claim to have find any traces.

Supposedly long life Semtex, even though it has a reliability of 5 or max 10 years, planted in the early 70s and sitting there for 30 years waiting for detonation. And with an Arabian construction company that won't speak English, hadn't worked on anything even remotely comparable and doesn't appear in a list of associated companies.

Li'l Osama was just a teenager. He wouldn't get radicalized for many years to come.

Like none of this makes a lick of sense.


M



[edit on 11-9-2009 by mmiichael]

Considering the way the government-influenced media covers topics like disclosure, UFO's, JFK, etc. (i.e. you can hear the broadcaster chuckle when reading one of those types of reports) why is anyone surprised that the topic of 9/11 conspiracy would be treated any differently?

And considering the fact that the producer of the "inside 9/11" National Geographic is himself a former member of skull and bones (same as W. and his dad/grandad before him), I have to agree with what others stated: this is just a snow job to further support the official government explanation.

National Geographic Propaganda

So, to all of the sheeple who are in this thread trying to debunk evidence, hop back in your lifted pickup trucks and go have a beer with your buddies. You will never keep the truth from being exposed.

[edit on 11-9-2009 by IBeenThereDoneThat]

Originally posted by IBeenThereDoneThat
Considering the way the government-influenced media covers topics like disclosure, UFO's, JFK, etc. (i.e. you can hear the broadcaster chuckle when reading one of those types of reports) why is anyone surprised that the topic of 9/11 conspiracy would be treated any differently?

And considering the fact that the producer of the "inside 9/11" National Geographic is himself a former member of skull and bones (same as W. and his dad/grandad before him), I have to agree with what others stated: this is just a snow job to further support the official government explanation.

National Geographic Propaganda

So, to all of the sheeple who are in this thread trying to debunk evidence, hop back in your lifted pickup trucks and go have a beer with your buddies. You will never keep the truth from being exposed.

You're a bit behind the times. You linked to a Christopher Bollyn piece for American Free Press dated March 24 2006.

Bollyn was fired from American Free Press in October 2006 for various reasons apart from his kidnapping trial. American Free Press is part of an extreme Right Wing propaganda disinformation organization that includes the Hitler-praising Barnes Review.
Their specialty is race hatred promotion, Holocaust denial, etc.

Bollyn has been outed as a primary source of willful disinformation connected to 9/11.

Among the lies he's actively promoted - all disproven:

Zim Shipping Company broke its lease to move out of the World Trade Center just one week before the attack

Benjamin Chertoff, author of the Popular Mechanics attack piece is the cousin of Michael Chertoff, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Mossad infiltrated computer networks in the US using the start-up company known as Ptech

Misconstruing the seismic data from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, seeding the basement bombs theory

Misinterpreting WTC 2's rising dust cloud as an explosion in Building

Instigation of the Pentagon no-jetliner theory

The theory that crash of Flight 93 in PA was faked


M

[edit on 11-9-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by mmiichael


the history of semtex

excerpts:

“After Lockerbie, journalists started being interested in the product,” says Pulicar, Explosia’s Sales Manager. “It got a bad name. Business started dropping off.”

Furthermore, Pulicar says that it’s not even possible to reduce the compound’s lifespan. Recent tests of munitions from World War II which are similar to Semtex – but chemically less sophisticated – found them to be live. Sixty-year-old shells: still effective. While Semtex’s malleability can be modified, its potency cannot.

“Think of a car tire,” Pulicar says. “Put it in a field for twenty years. What do you think happens to it?” Maybe it’s a bit brittle, maybe a bit weather-worn, but it’s still a tire. And stored correctly, not in a field exposed to the elements, it will still hold air two decades down the line. A car tire is made from rubber, polymers, curatives, anti-degradents and carbon black. Semtex is made from variations of those same things, only with explosive instead of carbon.

When asked how many years he thought Semtex would remain effective, Pulicar replied, “Sixty, 70, 80...150, maybe 200 years, maybe more. No one knows.”

Ivo Varga, Explosia’s senior technologist, agrees.

and, as pointed out earlier, the FBI agrees that semtex has an indefinite shelf life.

the FBI agrees that semtex has an indefinite shelf life.

Then why didn't it go off in 1993? Can anything trigger an explosive more than an explosion?

M

reply to post by mmiichael


how about it wasn't in the basement? or, on the other hand, it DID go off.
you can give up the shelf life argument, at least.

reply to post by mmiichael


So are you conceding a point, or are you ignoring it with your new question and pretending it doesn't make any difference now? I swear to god people like you forgetting these conversations and coming back later to bring up shelf life again are what keeps these stupid discussions going for as long as they do. So I hope I don't see it; I hope you learned something and it sank in.

And why do you have to phrase your post as a question? Why not just SAY that an explosive going off in the building would necessarily set off any others, and that that didn't happen? Because you realize how illogical this "argument" (not even that since you phrased it as a question) is? Go ahead and explain why that would have to happen, if you feel like being antagonistic to every single thing we say. If you put as much thought into trying to see how the things we say could actually work, instead of automatically trying to antagonize us at every turn, you might actually engage in a REAL intellectual discussion that has actual relevance!


The comment about a charge on somebody not destroying the building. It didn't make me laugh, but it did make a little sick. I'm tempted to say there is nothing worth gaining in even talking to someone with such an understanding of how high explosives work. Maybe people think their own understanding is irrelevant to any of these discussions, that all they really need to know is how to type?

[edit on 11-9-2009 by bsbray11]

rely to bsbray11


I'm pretty much past the point of even taking seriously the supposed evidence being presented.

The Jones thermite thing has been done to death. The Truther community lights up because some prof and his lab managers claim there's thermite in the debris. It evolves to nano-thermite, some super grade military one, and inevitably it's found to come from an Israeli lab.

And now we have some guy who was a draftsman on a couple floors for an architecture firm working on the WTC in the 60s. But he now recalls clearly how the bin Laden family worked on construction, and how they pre-planted explosives in the building.

So the rush is on to find if there's a plastics explosive that would last that long. No forensic proof of this or other explosive characteristics. Just wishful thinking. And disturbingly morbid thinking at that. Desperately hoping to prove some buildings hit by airplanes, people roasting alive inside, were also bombed by the government.

Mike



[edit on 11-9-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by mmiichael


So when you can't answer me directly you retreat back to ranting.

You say this has been "done to death" but you can't answer my questions and you admit to not understanding a lot of the relevant science yourself.

Your argument consists of repeating the same old lie that all the experts are in consensus. And by convincing yourself everything is "done to death," all you are doing is closing your mind off from any further consideration, despite your incomplete knowledge and inability to address questions I take very seriously.

But just in this one particular instance, are you now aware that there are types of explosives without shelf lives (or at least with very long shelf lives)? I could go further and let you in on the fact that shelf lives and ignition temperatures/heat and all number of other things can be chemically/electronically/otherwise modified. But are you getting all this now?

[edit on 11-9-2009 by bsbray11]

reply to bsbray11

Where is there any evidence of a plastic explosives used to bring down the WTC buildings?

Even Jones doesn't claim it and he's great at finding stuff in debris.

This is going back to the days of the mini-nuke, space station, holograms.

Find something, anything, that will make the delusion possible.

Throw in a dollop of scientific data and you might even fool yourself.

The Bin Laden Construction Company installed Semtex while the WTC was being built.

And I was told it was the Evil Zionists.


M


[edit on 11-9-2009 by mmiichael]

reply to post by mmiichael


so what, is jones your truth guru, now? do you think jones is the be all end all of the "truth movement"?

"even jones blah blah"?

you have been shown a PERFECTLY PLAUSIBLE explanation to the demolition.
i'm not saying that's what happened, just that it is ONE workable scenario.

you see, for some of us, the moment we saw the towers fall, our science minds kicked in and said to us, "DUDE! those towers were demolished! the law of conservation of momentum says a building can't break itself apart that fast."
and, ever since, we have been in pursuit of not IF the towers were blown, but WHY? and HOW?
the WHY is more important than the HOW.
the HOW is important to know so we can find out the WHO.

once again, a debbie tries to put the onus on conspiracy observers to know ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING that DID happen.
the fact is, we only need to know what is physically impossible to know the official story is complete BS.
and from there, it is obvious there is a cover-up of MASSIVE proportions.

Originally posted by billybob
the FBI agrees that semtex has an indefinite shelf life.

The world of explosives is vast and complex. The existence of ones that have long shelf lives does not further the claim that they were used to bring down the WTC buildings any more than the existence of nuclear weapons does.

Evidence and the viability are competely lacking. Aside from the 60s architectural draftsmans claim of preinstallation by the bin Ladens, no one has come forward with any knowledge or material proof.

There is an interesting overview of the possiblity of explosives used to being down WTC 7, with the inevitable conclusions.

www.911myths.com/WTC_CD.pdf

First, explosives are very, very dangerous.[...] Many of them can be set off by small movements and low weights and temperatures that you can reach in your household oven.

Second, CD is designed for good conditions. The tools simply don’t exist to detonate a building upwards of 1000 degrees on fire being hit by tons of concrete. Very few explosives would survive seconds of being in that building, let alone seven hours, and even if they
did the detonators are not made to.

What you’d see if the explosives could survive the initial shock and fires isn’t the neat CD the CTers claim, but an extremely unpredictable blast pattern or no detonation at all.

M

Originally posted by billybob
reply to post by mmiichael

 

you have been shown a PERFECTLY PLAUSIBLE explanation to the demolition.
i'm not saying that's what happened, just that it is ONE workable scenario.

you see, for some of us, the moment we saw the towers fall, our science minds kicked in and said to us, "DUDE! those towers were demolished! the law of conservation of momentum says a building can't break itself apart that fast."
and, ever since, we have been in pursuit of not IF the towers were blown, but WHY? and HOW?
the WHY is more important than the HOW.
the HOW is important to know so we can find out the WHO.

buildings cant break up that fast? really?




I think reality would like to have a word with you. Crush down collapses are possible and can destroy an entire building quickly. Also depends on the design of the building.

reply to post by GenRadek


Interesting to note, that second video used no explosives.

Just a cable, yanking on the structure, initiating a failure, and collapse.

Radek I don't know if you know this or not, but you posted two videos of building demolition, which is a little different from a fire related collapse.
I apparently have to agree with you on one point then, the similarities between a demolition and wtc are well, similar aren't they?