Molten Steel and 9/11: The existence and implications of molten steel in "the pile".

reply to post by jambatrumpet


My viewpoint is that I don't know. Analysis of the rubble is a good method in determining how much concrete turned to dust. If that analysis shows most did I have no issues with accepting it.

So there isn't actually any proof of molten steel? There's evidence, but that amounts to some people saying they saw it? People whose expertise in the matter is not necessarily absolute?

Originally posted by Devino
The one image you linked could be argued to not be molten steal, I agree with that. But what about the testimonies from the eyewitnesses? This picture may or may not show evidence of molten steel but the firemen and iron workers claim to have seen molten material in the debris pile. These claims need to be addressed and were ignored!

Why should they be addressed?

NIST says molten metal is possible at the temperatures of this fire, so there's no reason to doubt anyone saying they saw molten metal.

NIST says molten steel would not be expected and the people who say they saw molten steel have no credible way to determine that it's actually steel and not some other metal that melted.

I also wonder if there is some confusion about what "molten" means among the witnesses, there is certainly lots of confusion about that in this thread where people have pointed to hot steel or bent steel and claimed it was molten, when obviously the person making that observation doesn't know what the word "molten" really means.

Originally posted by TrickoftheShade
So there isn't actually any proof of molten steel? There's evidence, but that amounts to some people saying they saw it? People whose expertise in the matter is not necessarily absolute?

Exactly. How do they know it was steel? When someone says they saw molten steel, we should interpret that to mean molten metal, unless they can convince us it was steel and nobody has convinced most of us they know for sure what metal it was they saw molten. And the people who are convinced by these witness statements apparently have no reason to be convinced it was really steel that melted, that I have seen.

Originally posted by airspoon
Could an airplane fly into the upper floors of a skyscraper and cause explosions in the basement?

Just because this one is relatively easy to answer, I'll pick it out. Not saying I can convince anyone that it makes sense to have an airliner crash, explode, and cause fires, but when the planes crashed, they exploded and caused fires. It was reported that flaming jet fuel came down the elevator shafts and made it all the way to the bottom floors, blasting out elevators and windows and such. It isn't wildly speculative to think a fire just MAY have been started as a result on a lower floor. And just MAY have caused something combustible to pop.

Honestly, the only way I see support for the arguments about explosives and such is when fallacy is utilized. You ask about how "this" and how "that," but you don't explain your line of reasoning that got you to the point of your conclusion that it couldn't have happened the way it was explained. You rely on the gullibility of the audience to think that since you assert it so firmly that you have sound reasoning they haven't yet seen. The problem is, some people actually think when they read and look deeper into a person's words.

Honestly, I'm getting to the point that I'm beginning to think there is a truther conspiracy afoot.

reply to post by airspoon


There is no evidence for thermite or thermate. Jones' paper proves nothing because of the incompetence of the authors. The elemental analyses of the red chips don't allow for much of anything other that red paint and the energetics in the paper say the chips were combusting in air.
If you want to claim that thermite was involved, you should provide some evidence.

reply to post by pteridine

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by airspoon

 

There is no evidence for thermite or thermate. Jones' paper proves nothing because of the incompetence of the authors. The elemental analyses of the red chips don't allow for much of anything other that red paint and the energetics in the paper say the chips were combusting in air.
If you want to claim that thermite was involved, you should provide some evidence.

You should take your own advice, pteridine, and provide some evidence for your claims. No doubt it's your own independent research and testing that you're referring to but somehow I suspect that you've been reading from some of the same sources that I have.

By the way, I agree with you about the red paint.

Originally posted by Arbitrageur

Originally posted by Devino
...but the firemen and iron workers claim to have seen molten material in the debris pile. These claims need to be addressed and were ignored!

Why should they be addressed?

Regardless of what some might say here in this thread the testimony of eyewitnesses at a crime scene is credible evidence and most certainly needs to be addressed. Several people claim to have seen molten iron flowing in the debris pile and I feel that we should take them for their word until it is proven otherwise.

NIST says molten metal is possible at the temperatures of this fire, so there's no reason to doubt anyone saying they saw molten metal.

Are you paraphrasing here or are you quoting from a different part of the report? I thought we covered this already?
I feel that we are in a circular argument here. Either there was molten iron found under the debris pile or there was not! Steel does not melt from office fires alone so if there was molten iron where did it come from. Perhaps this was some other molten material that was seen, if that is the case why didn't anyone confirm this?

What did the NIST report have to say about molten iron in the WTC?

In no instance did NIST report that steel in the WTC towers melted due to the fires.

I know we are talking about after collapse so here is a more direct question. What temperatures were these underground fires? What could have caused underground fires to get hot enough to melt steel? Does NIST cover this in their report.

NIST says molten steel would not be expected and the people who say they saw molten steel have no credible way to determine that it's actually steel and not some other metal that melted.

Yes, molten steel would not be expected because office fires can not melt steel! I agree with you here.
The only real credible way we have of determining what this material was or even if it was in a molten state would be to take samples or to physically examine this stuff. Were any samples taken from the debris pile to either confirm or deny this? Did anyone actually examine this supposed molten material?

This was a crime scene and the observation of molten steel is evidence of something other than office fires. To deny these eyewitness reports is negligence on the part of the commission, in my opinion, and is not a good basis for an argument against a CD. "It shouldn't have been there so they did not look. Because they did not look they did not find anything and because they did not find anything it must not have been there." This is what we are left with and it makes me angry. A huge lack of evidence in what appears to be a coverup to try and sell the official story.

I also wonder if there is some confusion about what "molten" means

We don't need a lesson in semantics here. I think for the most part we all know what the word "molten" means. I would be willing to bet that NY firemen, the cleanup crew and iron workers know what "molten" means as well. It appears as though you are attempting to follow the NIST commission and deny these eyewitness testimonies as well. Doing this will not make the problem go away.

So let me recap. There is evidence of molten iron before and after collapse of the two towers yet this does not prove that this material was iron. Even if this was another type of metal why did it glow yellow hot as seen falling from the south tower? Why did they find molten metal and extremely high temperatures underground several weeks after collapse? Where is this energy coming from? And the big question is why none of this evidence was addressed in the official report?

I'm sorry it's taken me so long to reply to this post, I've been busy and only been able to pop on for a few minutes at a time.

Originally posted by airspoon
You should speak for yourself, as just about everyone I know, evaluates each piece of evidence for what it is. Are there some people who believe in a conpsiracy just to believe in a conspiracy, especially one without evidence? Absolutely, as is often evident in the UFO field. As is also evident with the OS. Baasically, almost the entire OS is the government saying "trust us".

This is not accurate, while you are correct about what some people will believe in, you can't categorise the 'official story' as a narrative put out soley by the government. It is the cumulative impact of hundreds of different investigations, experiments, videos and photographs etc.

Regardless, that is somebody else and irrlevant to the discussion here. I can't speak for everyone, nor can I speak for the "truth movement", though I think that the term "truth movement" is often confused (and sometimes intentionally) with people who come up with either wild or unsubstantiated claims and theories as to what happened. This often leads the media or even official conspiracy theorists to claim that they have debunked the "truth movement" when they have only debunked one of these wild and unsubstantiated theories.

The biggest problem with this section is that there is no non-'wild and unsubstantiated' theory to fall back on. The only coherent theories that exist are incredibly sparse, essentially consisting of little more than 'There was thermite and it kept metal molten and it also destroyed the building'.

The "truth movement" does not advocate a theory as to what happened, as the movement only advocates that the official conspiracy theory is wrong, therefore a real, independent and transparent investigation is needed. Now some people in the "truth movement" like to theorize about what could have happened but they are certainly not speaking for the "truth movement". So, if you are looking for one thing that "truthers" have in common, it's that they want the truth and believe that the OS or official conspiracy theory is wrong. As the quote in my signature suggests, it's not that truthers have the truth, it's that they want the truth.

In principle and in many cases in reality, this is true, so I won't argue with it.

Furthermore, to believe the OS, you basically have to trust the word of the government, the same government who brought us Iraq, which is a whole package of lies in of itself. First that Al Qeada was affiliated with Saddam, then with the WMD and even with the financing of the war. This is the same government that lied to us about the air quality in New York after the attacks.

You really don't have to believe everything the US government says to understand the 'official story'. However, if you believe some conspiracy theory and you believe that organisations like NIST were part of the cover up, you do have to believe in some pretty bizarre ulterior motives. Why would people from NIST lie? They can't be prosecuted for making information about such a horrific crime public.

I don't know about you, but I'm not simply going to trust them that they are telling us the truth, especially when the motive is there, as is a precedent (actually, many), as is also a ton of red flags with the story that they feed us.

Neither am I, that's not why I believe the 'official story'.

I'll tell you, most of the "truthers" that I know, would simply go away if there was a real and independent investiagtion, whatever the findings of that investigation reveal. In fact, I personally would be extremely happy if a real investigation was done and the evidence revealed that certain elements within government were shown to be nothing more than unintentionally negligent.

The problem with NIST and why people may not hold them as credible as other experts who have come out against NIST and their findings, is the response of NIST itself. For instance, take this exchange between a Hartford Advocate reporter, Jennifer Abel and a NIST spokesperson, Michael Neuman:

Except that isn't really the whole exchange is it? Before that it was pointed out that the debris had been inspected and it seems clear enough to me from the part that was cut off that he was saying they did not look for explosive residue because they could not find any evidence to support explosives in their inspection.

It would be like a homicide detective coming upon a mutilated body and ruling out murder right away (because it implicates their boss). Instead of saying "well, this could be murder so lets investigate it", they simply say "spontaneous combustion" without even considering that it may have been a homicide. Then when asked why they didn't look for evidence of foul play, they simply respond "there is no need to because it didn't happen". Do you think people are going to take that homicide detective seriously, especially when it is his boss that is implicated?

More exactly it's like a homicide detective having a quick look over a body, finding no evidence of gunshot wounds and investigating the other possibilities. There's no need to look for gunshot residue because there were no obvious signs of gunshot wounds, and the subsequent investigation found a cause of death that did not require a gunshot.

Furthermore, we have all seen what happens to people who even merely question the OS, they lose their careers and livelihoods and they become chastised.

Such as? Dylan Avery has made his career off questioning the OS. David Ray Griffin, Richard Gage, William Rodriguez, Kevin Ryan, Steven Jones and more literally tour the world giving presentations about their questions of the 'official story'. Does that really count as losing their careers and life to you?

Finally, it's not just this one piece of evidence [Jones' paper], rather it is everything, to include the circumstantial evidence. When you add everything up, it certainly doesn't look for the official conspiracy theory.

This is entirely inaccurate. There is no competing hypothesis that has any more detail than I illustrated above. If you really believe you have a good and reasonably complete hypothesis, feel free to start a thread about it and I will participate in the debate.

Remember, we shouldn't have to be able to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the official conspiracy theory is wrong, though that criteria has been met in my opinion, rather we should only have to prove that it could be wrong, thus warranting an investigation.

That doesn't warrant an investigation. You have to have evidence that it is wrong, not just suspicion that it might be wrong.

The people of the world, especially Americans and even the British, deserve to know what happened and why it happened.

As long as there are valid question, there should be an attempt to answer those questions, instead of just ignoring them. There really is no viable reason that we should ignore them or not investigate them.

Hey, I do what I can!

Seriously though, if you want such an investigation, tell me who it would be conducted by, and how. The only attempts I've seen at planning this gave people who already believe in some controlled demolition hypothesis a controlling vote, and a salary of hundreds of thousands of dollars etc.

I am not in principle opposed to a new investigation, and as I wouldn't be paying for it I am not fiscally opposed to it either. My only opposition is that I think it would literally be a huge waste of time and money to achieve nothing other than people claiming that the 'independent' investigation wasn't independent enough.

PS. I still have pretty much an outstanding challenge to anyone who believes their theories can pass scrutiny to debate me in the formal debate forum. I'll pretty much accept any topic at this point.

reply to post by exponent

he was saying they did not look for explosive residue because they could not find any evidence to support explosives in their inspection.

This is circle reasoning and I think it was the point of airspoon's reply. They did not find any evidence because they did not look. You are making the same point as airspoon did yet I get the feeling you're attempting to sell it as something else. This is circular reasoning and therefore false.

You continue on in a reply to airspoon to compare the analogy of a gun shot wound in a homicide investigation to that of explosive demolitions being used in the WTC collapse. It appears as though you don't believe that there was any evidence of a CD in the collapse of the WTC towers.

There is in fact a lot of evidence of a CD which can be found throughout this thread. I suppose if you need me to I can quote myself again. To say that there is no evidence is simply BS, what is needed here is to define the words evidence, proof and fact. I have a difficult time understanding how people can mess this up in such a way.

There is evidence of a CD in all three collapses of the WTC towers, in fact just about every hallmark for a CD was present. This does not prove that this was a CD but it is evidence none-the-less. All of these 'hallmarks' have been countered with other possible explanations that do not require a CD. The problem here is that we are speculating either way but the fact remains that there is evidence of a CD.

Here is another question about the investigation that was done. What was the delay? Why did it take over 18 months to start? An investigation of this event should have started on day one especially considering the circumstances. Because it took so long to do an official investigation of this site we lost the opportunity to do a good investigation of all available evidence. This is another huge problem I have with 9/11.

reply to post by JohnJasper


In many posts, I have analyzed Jones data and showed the inconsistencies and misinterpretations in his work. I don't use other sources; they may refer to my comments or the comments of others. The only person I know that has paint samples to analyze is henryco at www.darksideofgravity.com , who has not been able to reproduce Jones results.

Originally posted by Devino
This is circle reasoning and I think it was the point of airspoon's reply. They did not find any evidence because they did not look. You are making the same point as airspoon did yet I get the feeling you're attempting to sell it as something else. This is circular reasoning and therefore false.

If you read my post more carefully you will find that the reasoning is not circular, that engineers were on site and got to inspect the steel from the WTC almost immediately and found no evidence to support explosives being involved.

You can claim that they still should have tested for explosive residue, but from the way I read the conversation it doesn't seem remotely circular to me.

You continue on in a reply to airspoon to compare the analogy of a gun shot wound in a homicide investigation to that of explosive demolitions being used in the WTC collapse. It appears as though you don't believe that there was any evidence of a CD in the collapse of the WTC towers.
...
There is in fact a lot of evidence of a CD which can be found throughout this thread. I suppose if you need me to I can quote myself again. To say that there is no evidence is simply BS
...
There is evidence of a CD in all three collapses of the WTC towers, in fact just about every hallmark for a CD was present.

Unfortunately this is just untrue. If you want to discuss it with me specifically then please lets start a new thread or take it to the formal debate forum, it's already a pretty crowded thread. I'd be happy with either option.

Here is another question about the investigation that was done. What was the delay? Why did it take over 18 months to start? An investigation of this event should have started on day one especially considering the circumstances. Because it took so long to do an official investigation of this site we lost the opportunity to do a good investigation of all available evidence. This is another huge problem I have with 9/11.

It didn't take 18 months to start, various agencies began their investigations immediately. Over time a number of different investigations were performed as were needed, could you be more specific about your complaint?

NLP

"you have not proved a thing"
"You have no evidence".
"What are your (their, his) qualifications?"
"Paroting a darn fool website"
"obviously wrong/right"
'idiotic"
"fool"
"brainwashed"
"crazy conspiracy nuts"

There was a significant amount of steel hot enough to glow orange and yellow.
Metal that hot still rtains its shape in a solid form.


Metal that is heated to liquid state of matter will always, like water, run downhill to its lowest level.

Of course a backhow will only be able to pick up steel that is very hot, and still cool enough to be in its solid state of matter.

The backhoe bucket will not be able to pick up liquid steel, and that steel will have sought the lowest level, namely as close to the ground as possible.

The backhoe bucket would disturb the liquid steel and it would be a difficult to pick up as mercury with your fingers.

reply to post by slugger9787


You are assuming that any liquid metal was steel. The temperature of the underground fires was hot enough to melt aluminum but not steel. To claim that steel was molten, you need evidence of molten steel.

reply to post by pteridine

Originally posted by pteridine
reply to post by JohnJasper

 

In many posts, I have analyzed Jones data and showed the inconsistencies and misinterpretations in his work. I don't use other sources; they may refer to my comments or the comments of others. The only person I know that has paint samples to analyze is henryco at www.darksideofgravity.com , who has not been able to reproduce Jones results.

Which is why I don't give any credence to your recurring use of the phrase "there is no evidence" and other unsubstantiated claims. You may be completely correct but just saying so is of no use to anyone and puts you in the same league as dereks except that you write as though you have a brain.

reply to post by pteridine


I am asuming that FIREMEN and FIREWOMEN, with collectively thousands of years experience in and around fires, some of which were hot enough to MELT metals, including but not limitd to Aluminum, steel, iron, copper, brass, magnesium, chrome, and antimony, woukd know the difference between molten liquid steel and aluminum.

They would also know the difference between hot steel and hot aluminum.

Then there is the meteor, and other steel items found that were in a melted state.

Firearms, and other items.

Originally posted by slugger9787
reply to post by pteridine

 

I am asuming that FIREMEN and FIREWOMEN, with collectively thousands of years experience in and around fires, some of which were hot enough to MELT metals, including but not limitd to Aluminum, steel, iron, copper, brass, magnesium, chrome, and antimony, woukd know the difference between molten liquid steel and aluminum.

They would also know the difference between hot steel and hot aluminum.

Then there is the meteor, and other steel items found that were in a melted state.

Firearms, and other items.

Why would you assume that? What firemen deal with molten steel and chrome? Do you realize that chrome melts above 1900 C? Firemen and firewomen know how to extinguish various classes of fires; there is no evidence that they can determine the difference between molten metals by sight.
The "meteor" in the photo that I saw did not appear to have been melted.

reply to post by pteridine

I assume thy know more about hot or molten metals.

You assume they are either stupid or liars.

Which assumption has the greater probability of truth?

Yours or mine pterdine?

reply to post by slugger9787


Well, I did type a good reply to you about the steel, but my darn connection failed and pressing backspace doesn't recover my text.

The basics of what I was trying to make a point about is that steel doesn't need to be molten in order to bend and fuse. It just needs to be very hot, especially if the fireproofing isn't effective. Considering the collapse probably killed fireproofing, and even if it didn't, what I've read says it lasts only about 6 hours, it seems logical that the pressure of the debris on top and the underground fires would be enough to make the steel malleable. The towers themselves were explained to have fallen in part because the fireproofing was broken off by the impact and explosion of the planes, after all.

Originally posted by slugger9787
I assume thy know more about hot or molten metals.

You assume they are either stupid or liars.

This is a false dichotomy, these aren't the only two options. It's entirely possible that they were mistaken, there's no reason to think they are stupid as it's extremely difficult to tell the difference between these metals.

reply to post by slugger9787


Your assumption is that they can tell the difference between molten metals just by sight because they have fought fires before. This seems a stretch to me and is apparently without substance. I made no statement about whether they were lying or stupid; you did.
Do you have any evidence that anyone can tell the difference between molten metals, by sight, in a complex mix of material exposed to underground fires in the rubble of collapsed high rise buildings? How many of the firefighters that you refer to had any experience with such before the events of 911?