Case Closed on 911? Not So Fast


By Reginald Johnson
March 2, 2010



More than 1,000 architects and engineers are demanding a new investigation of 911, in the wake of evidence that explosives may have been used to bring down the World Trade Center towers.

The group Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth say the evidence they’ve uncovered calls into question the official version of how the towers came down --- namely that fires sparked by the crashes of two hijacked planes damaged higher floors in the buildings to the point where they collapsed, setting off a chain reaction of floors falling on each other, in a “pancake effect.”

Richard Gage, a San Francisco architect and founder of the group, said that dust samples taken from the World Trade Center site after the destruction of the New York City buildings on Sept. 11, 2001, showed the presence of “advanced explosive nano-thermitic composite material.” The powerful explosive could explain why the buildings fell in a manner similar to controlled demolition, Gage believes.

Gage and many other critics of the official version of 911 maintain that fires set off by exploding jet fuel could not have burned hot enough to weaken the steel beams in the buildings to the point where they would have collapsed.

Other forensic evidence the group has brought forth also casts doubt on the official version:
· Complete destruction of both Twin Towers in just 10-14 seconds, in near free-fall acceleration;
· Over 100 first responder reports of explosions and flashes;
· A 1200-foot-diameter debris field: but “pancaked” floors not seen in the debris;
· Several tons of molten metal found in debris.

Gage and others in the group recently held press conferences around the country to announce their findings and state that they are sending petitions to Congress demanding a new inquiry to “uncover the full truth surrounding the events of 9/11/01 – specifically the collapse of the World Trade Center towers and Building 7.”

Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth are also calling for a grand jury investigation of officials of the National Institute of Standards and Technology which studied the collapse of the WTC twin towers, and Building 7, which was not hit by a plane.

“The official FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Administration) and NIST reports provide insufficient, contradictory and fraudulent accounts of the towers’ destruction,” the group said in a press release.

None of the official investigations of the events of Sept. 11, 2001 --- including those by the 911 Commission, a U.S. Senate committee, FEMA and NIST --- examined the possibility that explosives were used to bring down the trade center buildings or that there might have been collusion between the hijackers and other parties to facilitate the attacks.

The government’s storyline holds that 19 al-Qaeda terrorists, acting alone, hijacked four U.S. commercial airliners, crashing two into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon, and a fourth into a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 people died in the attacks.

Michael Donly, a member of Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth, said in an interview with “Russia Today” that some of the evidence that the group looked at was originally found by government investigators, but never adequately pursued.

Donly said FEMA scientists and engineers took dust samples at the World Trade Center site and found evidence of molten steel. That pointed to the possibility that other factors besides airplane crashes and fires could have been responsible for the building collapses, and the FEMA team recommended further investigation. But that was never done, and the information on the samples was put in an appendix in the FEMA report, Donly said.

Since authorities arrived at their final conclusions on what happened on 911, critics have charged that the government’s version of events had numerous flaws. Some have even charged that 911 was an “inside job,” with government involvement.

But people raising doubts about the official story have routinely been dismissed as “conspiracy nuts” or “kooks.” Critics have generally gotten little play in the mainstream press.

However, groups like Architects and Engineers for 911 Truth and others press on, demanding a new and more thorough investigation of 911.