Controlled demolition started as a somewhat controversial theory within the 9/11 truth movement. But since 2005, it has become increasingly accepted, and according to supporters, validated by solid research. At the same time, the controlled demolition hypothesis continues to be used by the mainstream media to frame the movement as wild and sensational. There is a danger that 9/11 skepticism is now equated with the simplistic and sensational argument, “They blew up the Towers with explosives!!!”
Controlled demolition is a very interesting subject with a lot of research and compelling photographic documentation. Nevertheless, we must remember that it’s just one piece of a huge, cumulative argument for official complicity which convincingly counters every major part of the official story. At TruthMove, we feel that many in the movement have focused too myopically on controlled demolition, at the expense of other evidence, historical precedence, and context.
The time and mental resources dedicated to controlled demolition have been tremendous. Lecture after lecture and website after website have laid out various arguments concerning such details as the melting point of steel, the structural engineering of the buildings, “free-fall” collapse, pulverization, pyroclastic flows, nano-thermite, and so on. While much of this information may be compelling, we are left with the conclusion that most of us are not structural engineers, chemists, architects, or explosives experts. We do not necessarily have the expertise to evaluate the evidence or to make a cohesive argument. We may appeal to the “common sense” view that the towers and WTC 7 simply could not have come down so quickly and cleanly without the assistance of explosives or some other means, but then we are getting in to the territory of opinion and not fact. The defenders of the official story will always have their own experts, engineers, and scientists who will claim to have scientific proof that the towers collapsed as advertised.
Researchers such as Professor Steven Jones have claimed such “conclusive” evidence as “traces of nano-thermite,” but this supposed breakthrough evidence has resulted in zero traction for the movement. We tend to see the controlled demolition theory as a never-ending vortex of details, speculation, and confusion. We encourage curious people to look into it, but not to get stuck in it.
Some early and respected 9/11 researchers, including Michael Ruppert and John Judge expressed skepticism over controlled demolition claims. Some of the Rebuttals listed below are taken from OilEmpire.US.
Arguments and Counterarguments
Below are some of the key points put forward in favor of the controlled demolition theory:
No modern steel-framed high-rise building has ever collapsed due to fire. The official explanation given by the government teams is that fire destroyed both towers and building 7. The damage from the aircraft and debris are said to have played an insignificant role.
Rebuttal: The damage from the aircraft impacts and initial explosions played a significant role. Debris from the falling towers caused major damage to many surroundings buildings.
The collapse of all three buildings occurred in a symmetrical, straight down fashion. While dust and debris may have been ejected outwards and significant damage was done to other buildings in the WTC complex, the structures appeared to essentially fall in on themselves.
Rebuttal: The design of the buildings and the character of the damage caused them to collapse vertically rather than fall over. Many surrounding buildings were hit with large debris. The collapses also began at the site of the plane impacts, indicating that explosives were not the source of the collapse.
The buildings collapsed at almost free-fall speed. This means that each building must have experienced some spontaneous global structural failure so that there was no resistance or delay in the collapse. The official “pancake theory” for the towers is untenable because as upper floors supposedly collapsed onto those below, there would have been structural resistance. Instead the collapses began almost instantly and showed no signs of resistance. NIST’s pancake theory has also been superceded by their new “column failure” theory, revealing their own failures in providing a solid explanation.
Rubuttal: There is no reason to expect the lower floors to substantially slow down 100,000 tons (or more) of material from falling down.
All three buildings were essentially completely destroyed. The resulting piles of rubble were only a few stories high and there were no large, structural pieces left. If you consider the structural engineering strength and redundancy put into the buildings, it can be difficult to attribute this result to a “structural failure” or simple “collapse.”
Rebuttal: There is no reason to assume that the collapse would somehow stop once started.
Nearly all the concrete and non-metallic substances in the towers were pulverized into a fine powder. It has been argued that the gravitational energy of a simple “collapse” would not have been sufficient to cause this pulverization.
Rebuttal: Controlled demolition is not an explanation for this either, unless you assume each floor was blown up, which is not credible. Some of it may have become ash from the fire.
Molten Steel was also supposedly observed by multiple witnesses at ground zero, even weeks after 9/11. Some argue that the energy needed to melt steel would only been possible through the use of explosives or other foreign, high-energy devices. Supposedly, jet fuel and the collapse of the buildings could not have created enough heat or energy to leave molten steel.
Rebuttal: To our knowledge, claims of molten steel have never been proven.
Firefighters, initial news reports and other witnesses prominently reported secondary explosions within the towers.
Rebuttal: These sounds or explosions could have been caused by the ongoing fires and damage from the impacts.
WTC 7 housed the New York offices of the CIA, Secret Service, SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), and Rudy Giuliani’s Office of Emergency Management bunker. This can be seen as the circumstantial evidence of a “paranoid conspiracy theorist” or as an interesting and telling fact.
Rebuttal: This isn’t proof that the building was demolished.
The [New York Times on WTC 7]: “no building like it, a modern, steel-reinforced high-rise, had ever collapsed because of an uncontrolled fire… Because of those doubts, engineers hold open the possibility that the collapse had other explanations, like damage caused by falling debris or another source of heat….A combination of an uncontrolled fire and the structural damage might have been able to bring the building down, some engineers said. But that would not explain steel members in the debris pile that appear to have been partly evaporated in extraordinarily high temperatures, Dr. Barnett said.”