Josiah Thompson

David writes, "Are you on active duty, Mr. Lewis? Just curious." This stinks, David. With brilliance, Matt Lewis has demonstated that Jack White erroneously advertised the still as taken at 9:04 AM when it was taken at 9:59 AM. The dust cloud shown which Jack claims is an explosion in WTC6 is really from the collapse of the South Tower. Nothing could be clearer. It doesn't matter if Matt Lewis turned out the be the Director of the CIA. His point is true independent of who he is or whatever else he believes or who he works for. It simply stinks for you to attempt to smudge his reputation by innuendo. Fetzer tried the same with me some time ago and got his ass kicked by the community at large. You should be enough a person to recognize that what you did is ignoble and apologize for it. Otherwise, you end up appearing to be a punk! Is that how you want to appear? not to be picky but, mislabled (sic)? Can you provide verification/cite CNN mislabeled any graphics or lower third supers? Are you aware as to how international news organizations time-stamp their tv feeds and what free running time-code means? Are you on active duty, Mr. Lewis? Just curious.

I visited this intersection within the last two weeks. What Len said about the placement of traffic lights, etc. is correct and will be seen to be correct by anyone who takes the trouble to visit the scene. Will you never admit you are wrong, Jack? I do not know why I respond to such misinformation...except that people might actually believe it if not shown to be wrong. Jack Sorry Jack there are traffic lights and traffic cams like that through out the city. I could take a photo from Brooklyn or Harlem and draw lines claiming they were the corner of West and Vesey. But there is no need to go so far, because such lights can be found on Vesey St halfway between West St. and North End Av The light on the right in both images below is clearly in front of WFC 3. The one on the right appears to be the same size - actually slightly larger because it is closer to the camera. It appears slightly higher in both photos for the same reason, IF it were hundreds of feet away on West St. it would appear to be much smaller and would be lower down in the image due to perspective 2 questions remained unanswered: 1) Was Fetzer being truthful when he said you sent him a replacement for the "Calder" photo? 2) Do you acknowledge that in the image above "The time is clearly PM, since the sunshine is on the WEST faces of the buildings"? EDIT - TYPOS FIXED

Since Evan has given his permission, I am posting the three photos that Biggart took just before his death that show part of the west end of WTC6 during and after the collapse of the South Tower at 9:59 AM. Jack continues to post his contrast-enhanced version of one of the photos along with a caption that reads in part: "Biggert's photo shows that Building 6 at that time had already suffered major trauma to the exterior, with soot above broken windows, drapes dangling outside and a yellow glow that may be fire inside." Now let's take a look at the three photos. The first is the one which Jack posted: The next one was taken a few seconds later: The third was taken just after the debris cloud from the collapse of the South Tower has passed: The third shows no damage to WTC6. The GIF posted above on this thread by Dave Greer makes it easy to compare photos 1 and 2. Jack says the first photo shows WTC6 "had already suffered major trauma." Why? Because (1) it has "broken windows" (But the comparison of the two photos makes clear that no windows are broken.), (2) there is "a yellow glow that may be fire inside" (But the comparison of the two photos makes clear that the "yellow glow" is a reflection off the unbroken windows of the approaching debris cloud.) and (3) "soot above broken windows." Two of the three indicia of what Jack called "major trauma" are not there. They were simply the product of wrong photo interpretation. How about the third? How about the "soot" that Jack claims is above the windows? Craig Lamson makes the point that reflections change in time but soot doesn'tmove around. I see changes in the dark areas but not enough for me to say they either are or are not some feature of the building. Could what Jack sees as "soot" be simply the way the building looked that day in its normal state? I don't know. And if all the windows are unbroken, the purported "soot" could not have come from anything that happened in the building. What do you all think?

This is getting sillier and sillier. Yes, there is sunlinght on the west face of the Verizon Building (the telephone building) because it is afternoon. The North Tower collapsed at 10:29 AM hours before this photo was taken. Other photos post collapse (posted today on this thread) show that what Jack calls a "hole" is in fact part of a center and north face "hole" (if you will) that was caused by large parts of the North Tower dropping on WTC6. The photo shows no sign whatsoever of any explosion and was taken in the afternoon not the morning. Why not just admit that this, Jack, was just another "whoops!" on your part? Why continue to defend the indefensible with silliness? Jack as always you missed the point. I never said the photo was unreliable because of the distance but rather that it doesn't show dust or debris because of the distance from the north tower. The area around the abulance and the "calm" people are about 1000 feet from the North Tower and about 500 feet from WTC 6 Colby's eyesight is plainly deficient. He fails to see the sunlight on the phone building and on people standing at West and Vesey. The south tower has not fallen, because other photos show the huge dustcloud blocked sunlight from reaching ground level. Instead he attempts misdirection by misstating what I am showing, AND REFUSING TO ADMIT THERE IS A HUGE HOLE IN BUILDING 6. These are tactics of someone trying to obscure the truth. There IS a hole in the building. It faces away from both towers, so no debris from either of them could have caused the hole. Colby's refusal to admit the photo shows a hole exposes his mission here. Jack

This is a really elegant piece of analysis and demonstration, Dave Greer. When I looked at the two photos I saw something of what you demonstrated but I wasn't swift enough to figure out how to show it. This was really elegant... conclusion, no windows broken! A tip of the hat! Here's my comparison of the two Bill Biggart images he took as the south tower collapsed. It's a cropped GIF with the two crops aligned for easier comparison. Look at the area on the building circled in green. The dark/light areas clearly change from one crop to another. This is evidence that what we're seeing is a reflection, not smoke damage (the photos were taken from slightly different positions). I've highlighted a similar effect on the fire engine for comparison. http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/hea...11/wtc6-gif.gif There doesn't appear to be any broken windows, at least none that I can identify. Looking at the second image compared to the first, you can see the reflection of the dust cloud in several windows, as highlighted below. http://i142.photobucket.com/albums/r81/hea...11/wtc6-iii.jpg

Thanks very much, Evan. I was about to post the three photos I found, and, because of your advice, I won't. There are two photos taken within seconds of each other that show the South Tower collapsing and a portion of WTC6. Both are higher resolution than the one Jack posted. The pattern of light and dark on the wall of WTC6 changes between the two photos. Hence, what Jack takes to be smoke marks on the exterior wall are probably just a reflection. I see no drapes hanging out the window or other features that Jack associates with damage. The third photo was taken after the South Tower had completely collapsed and shows the North Tower with its fires and a portion of WTC6. Again WTC6 shows no damage. In addition to the firemen's recollections posted by Len who were in or around WTC6, there are additional reports which indicate no explosion in WTC6. With the best will in the world, I can't see how the photos produced by Jack show anything like that. What they do show is a sharply biased attempt at photo analysis to prove a point nothing else supports. I started this thread to criticize the latest Fetzer tome which charges controlled demolition of WTC7. Now I'm debunking photos that are supposed to show an explosion in WTC6. I never paid much attention to WTC6. Why would anyone blow WTC6 to begin with? In any case, thanks for your warning, Evan.

Jack would you be so kind as to give the provenance of the photo you posted. Where did you find it on the Internet? Or could you provide a higher resolution copy. Thanks.

Len Wrote: "The location of Jack’s photo is “clean because it is about 1000 feet around the corner from where WTC 1 once stood." He's quite correct about this. The photographer took this photo very nearly from the east bank of the Hudson River. Many post collapse photos show that this area was clean of debris. Jack's photo was taken considerably after the collapse of both towers as firefighting crews began fighting the fires that had broken out. No mystery here. Just Jack's (or somebody's) mistake in the caption for the photo. There is nothing incompatible between what is seen in Jack’s photo whose WTC 6 portion is very low resolution and the damage that building sustained due to collapse of WTC 1. Below are photos of the building taken on and after 9/11 by Steve Spak. We can’t discount the possibility that chunks of the Vesey St. façade fell off before the 2nd photo was taken http://www.stevespak.com/fires/manhattan/wtc.html http://www.stevespak.com/fires/manhattan/wtc3.html The location of Jack’s photo is “clean because it is about 1000 feet around the corner from where WTC 1 once stood. The people are “calm” because they are emergency personnel accustomed to dangerous situations and are about 500 feet from the nearest fires. We can’t really tell what their emotional states are because we only see the backs of their heads. There were hundreds of people in the area including many with cameras - If WTC 6 blew up before the collapse of the North Tower why do we have no witness accounts I provide links to dozens of FDNY/EMT interviews that mention the building most or those mention it before the 2nd collapse none mention and explosion in or damage to the building. Jack claims it blew at 9:03 or 9:04 but and EMT said she tried to enter the building during or just after the collapse and said there were police in park ranger style uniforms who wouldn’t let her in. Why would they still be there if building had been extensively damaged? The EMT who had parked in front of the building after the 2nd crash (i.e. after 9:03-4) said nothing about damage to the building. Why aren’t there any photos (apparently) which unambiguously show damage to 6 with 1 still standing? EDITED TO FIX A FORMATING ERROR

Charles, Thank you for your extremely thoughtful and intelligent response. You are certainly correct that the photos which surfaced from the government are filled with contradictions both internal and external. David Mantik has clearly shown that at least one of the head x-rays is a copy while all were supposed to be originals. There are conflicts between the x-rays and the autopsy photos. There are even valid doubts as to whether the socalled autopsy photos were taken with the same camera in use at Bethesda on November 22nd. I couldn't agree with you more that with this suspect x-ray and photo material it is extremely important to listen to what the eyewitnesses of the autopsy say, let alone the testimony of the Parkland witnesses. In addition, other pieces of physical evidence in government possession (just starting with CE 399, for example) are deeply suspect. My belief in the authenticity and probative value of photographs is restricted to those taken by press photographers and private individuals in Dealey Plaza. They form a tapestry of photo evidence that is self-authenticating. The indictment of these photos when they conflict with witness testimony is misplaced. For example, take the claim that the Zapruder film never shows the limousine to have come to a complete stop in Dealey Plaza while various witnesses said they saw it stop. Elizabeth Loftus, in her world-renowned book on eyewitness testimony, points out that reports as to the movement of motor vehicles is notoriously unreliable. I don't doubt for a minute given what was going on in Dealey Plaza that many witnesses believed they saw the limousine come to a halt. As in many violent or dramatic events, time seems to slow down or even stop for observers caught in the middle of such a situation. Then too, the Zapruder film shows that the limousine did slow down from 12 mph to 8 mph when the driver looked back over his right shoulder. Anyone with experience in the world of criminal defense knows the perils of using eyewitness testimony as a paradigm of objective truth. Many innocent people are languishing in jail cells because of its unreliability. Hence, if we're talking about Dealey Plaza... and only about Dealey Plaza... I think the self-authenticating web of photo evidence trumps eye-witness reports and hence should be seen as bedrock in the JFK shooting. Given the surreal nature of the 9/11 site, photographs gain even more importance when compared with eye or earwitness testimony. That's why full attribution of the photo with attention paid to the photographer, the place where he/she took the photo and the time when he/she took it is so important. In large part, then, I think we agree. Josiah, et al, I long have advocated for the applications of all we learn through our respective studies of the JFK murder as templates -- negative as well as positive, depending upon circumstances -- to our investigations of all deep political phenomena. To the degree that you have embraced this approach in a most practical manner for your WTC 7 work is hardly surprising. It makes sense, and since Six Seconds so, for the most part, have you. I am somewhat less enthusiastic about the segment of your response that I have highlighted above. Do you not agree that, in the JFK case, there are multiple, highly significant instances in which witness testimony not only is preferrable to photographic evidence, but in fact incontrovertibly trumps and puts the lie to certain officially sanctioned films? Need we move beyond the posterior post mortem JFK head views -- from conventional and X-ray films -- in their conflict with descriptions of that area by multiple, unimpeachable, truly expert first-hand observers and more contemporary analysts in order to make this point? In regard to Z-film alteration, I remain an agnostic. We agree that a counter-productive feeding frenzy resulted from initial arguments over falsification; I would go farther down that road and suggest that the misplaced energies and hard feelings that were generated by these conflicts may, in part, have been originated, directed, and/or encouraged by, and to this day neatly serve the agendas of the murderers of JFK, whose continued freedom and socio-political dominance are based upon similar manipulations of the majority's minds and emotions. But that is a tale for another cyber-campfire. Why my Z-film agnosticism, especially in light of your simple and compelling argument for multiple-film consistency? Quite simply, there are two reasons. 1. Not all motorcade films are created equal; if, for example, one were to obfuscate a massive wound of exit on JFK's posterior skull in the Z-film, one need only identify those few frames on those few alternate films' views of the rear of the head that need to be altered, and relatively quickly do so in order to maintain the consistency of which you write. 2. There are simply too many variances between witness statements and Z-film actions to dismiss with broad strokes and bromides. Yes, some pictures tell a thousand lies. Best, Charles

Thank you for making the correction.

Jack, please tell us why you think this latest photo is of Vesey Street. I don't think it is. You write: ".. firemen in West Street are spraying water on Building 6. The south tower has not yet fallen, because the firemen could not have been in that location... Firemen would not be standing and spraying water on Building 6 if the collapse had occurred...they would be fleeing to survive..." First off, as other photos make clear, the firemen are not spraying water from West Street but from a lower parapet next to WTC6. Secondly, since the photo you cite was taken after the collapse of both the South Tower and the North Tower the firemen, of course, could be in the location where they are shown to be. They wouldn't "be fleeing to survive" since both collapses were in the past. Are you mistaking smoke from fires in the aftermath of the collapse to be the debris cloud?

I appreciate very much Peter Lemkin's response. It is through such responses as his that we can make progress in discussion. I did not take his earlier post as an attack on me. I only meant to point out that labeling people who disagree with the truthers claims to be some sort of government stooges is just a canard. I have no unified field theory about what happened on 9/11. I was hired to find out why WTC7 collapsed and I think that job has largely been done. As for the rest... why the towers collapsed, why the CAP did not arrive at NYC in time, how it was that an airliner managed to get through air defenses to hit the Pentagon, whether the final airliner was shot down or brought to earth by a fight in the cockpit... I'm interested in all these questions but have no special knowledge or expertise. However, I find that the truther's claims about the collapse of WTC7 are debunked when you get down to a level of demonstrable fact. I had seen something like this go on with respect to Dallas when a number of easily falsiable claims about alteration of the Zapruder film gained currency. In that case, spirited debate showed rather swiftly that the claims of alteration were based on ignorance of technical details concerning the film or a mistaken preference for witness testimony over photographic evidence. Ultimately, a simple idea proved the authenticity of the Zapruder film and other films taken in Dealey Plaza: If you film the same event from multiple standpoints, all the different films have to fit together seamlessly with no anomalies beyond their difference in location. Since the Zapruder film fits seamlessly with all other films taken in Dealey Plaza that day, it is authentic (as are all the other films and photos). Their veracity trumps whatever various eye or ear witnesses say happened that day. The tone of suspicion (even paranoia) that gripped examinations of the Zapruder film a decade ago is replicated here in the discussion of WTC7. The North Tower devastated WTC6. Part of that devastation involved what has been described as "the hole" in the north wall of WTC6. No one doubts that the north wall of WTC6 was breached. What is doubted is that this damage was caused by an explosion and not just the collapse of the North Tower. Thus discussions of smoke emanating from the south face of WTC7 morph into questions as to whether the damage to WTC6 was caused by an explosion. In the background, one discerns the same atmosphere of suspicion that earlier characterized discussions of the Zapruder film. And, of course, the personnel are the same... Jack White and James Fetzer, Ph.D. Notable is the fact that in a thread which names Professor Fetzer, he has chosen not to defend his book or his views. This task he has left to Jack White. The adequacy of White's defense of Fetzer's book any of us can assess. I find it regrettable that Professor Fetzer, once again, has declined to defend his own work. It wasn't an attack on you Josiah, just generally and to some pretty tough characters on this subject on this Forum. You've been sensible and civil [mostly]. While WTC 6 did suffer a large 'defect' due to falling debis from the collapse, I don't see the dust/paper/debris that should be there if that photo is post collapse. There were also so many reports of explosions in various buildings and fires in buildings other than the twin towers before the collapse. It would be great if a group of decent souls would get all the photos and videos and try to find the times involved - but not likley. Like the JFK investigation it is this crazy kind of back and forth, with most of us having lots of other things to do in our lives, as well. Part of the reason IMO it is difficult in Dallas and at the WTC to definitively demonstrate something was the way the evidence was handled (sic) and efforts to obstruct access to information. Yes, in both there is much 'out there' and certainly contradictory. No easy job - either one. Good luck with the lawsuit. There should be many more..... But I still hold that the official version smells very fishy. I don't believe all those who hold to parts of it are in cahoots with the government or with those who did it or are covering it up. The truth probably lies somewhere between the extremes. As a scientist I find much of the official version simply beyond belief - violating physics, laws of thermodynamics and general deductive logic. You obviously believe otherwise or are not yet to a conclusion. As I said, I'd love not to feel, as I do now, that it was an inside job [no doubt by a very few who knew how to manipulate the systems involved]. I felt a knife in the back with Dallas and 911 is another similar blow - not to mention the sequelae of the (un)Patriot Acts and War without end on (of) 'terror'. I'd suggest reading Debunking 911 Debunking.

You write: " I personally think that Jack has found a big possible discrepancy in the hole in WTC6 before the collapses." The point is that either Jack White or someone else miscaptioned the photograph. It was taken after the collapse because it shows streams of water being trained on WTC6, something which did not happen until after WTC6 was virtually demolished by the collapse of the North Tower. The photo offered as evidence is not evidence of what Jack believes it to be since it was taken after the collapse not before it. Pointing this out is not any sort of personal attack but the sort of thing that intelligent people expect in discussion of historical events. Isn't this exactly what you have in mind when you advise us to "stick to the facts." I would add that in disregarding this point you are in fact disregarding your own advice. Secondly, the claim that people who disagree with the "truthers" interpretation of events are backing some "official version" and hence are some sort of pawns of the Bush administration... that claim itself is both insulting and way off the mark. I happen to be investigating this for one side in a lawsuit. If the "truthers" claims were remotely plausible, I'd jump on their bandwagon in a minute. Why? Because if Larry Silverstein and persons unknown brought down WTC7 with controlled demolitions and this was demonstrable. we'd win the case in a New York minute. The fact is that the truthers claims about the collapse of WTC7 just don't pass the elementary smell test when one tries to prove them in terms of witness testimony and photos. We know with fair exactitude now what happened to bring down WTC7 and it has to do with negligence not criminal conspiracy. None of this has anything to do with being government pawns or with political persuasions. It has to do with boring factual analyses and engineering calculae.

You posted a photo with the caption, "Building 6 before the tower collapsed." The photo was taken after the collapse of both towers. Why? Because in the photo hoses are spraying water on Building 6 and this did not happen until after both towers had collapsed. Of course, Building 6 is on fire. It was hit by the North Tower. Of course, there was damage to its north wall. It was hit by the North Tower. Why not just admit that you were mistaken and the photo does not make the point you were trying to make because it was taken after the collapse of both towers? You are not gaining credibility by continuing say over and over again the same thing. A genuine discussion requires that if you're wrong you admit you're wrong. Why not try it?

Elements in this photo indicate it was taken fairly early... say before 12:30 PM. It fails to show any fires on the east (or West Broadway) side of the building below floor 9. We have a remarkable series of photos and video taken by Steve Spak between 1:00 and 1:30 PM which show fires raging out of windows on the West Broadway (east) side of the building on floor 12. Since this photo does not show floor 12 and we don't know the time when it was taken, we can't tell whether the fires on floor 12 were just out of frame or whether it was taken before they broke through the windows. Once again, the time a photo was taken is critical. To simply post photos without attribution or time and place doesn't really show very much.

I agree. What is labeled "before" is actually a photo taken well after the collapse of both towers... so much after that firemen can be seen with hoses trained on WTC6. Because it was taken well after, smoke from fires is drifting upward and is clearly not a pyroclastic cloud. Actually, a lot of material is public record or in the public domain. 504 first responders were interviewed and transcripts of their interviews are found on the New York Times web site. (The Times had to file a lawsuit to pry them loose.) In addition, "Firehouse Magazine" has published a fascinating series of interviews with fire people who were there. They clearly look different to me. The smoke and steam one sees in the before photo is clearly going up and not coming down and not the collapse pyroclastic cloud IMO. I think it is time to find some firemen who were there [or other witnesses]. Some have spoken, but most firemen were given a blanket order not to discuss the day publicly....another suspicious item by itself. This was a huge crime scene indeed and many witnesses and responders; many photos and films - yet all these years later we are still fighting and trying to figure it all out - and the 'officials' don't care to help with a full investigation or even a full collection of statements, photos, films, etc. in one place (and with the photos having been determined in time). One might ask why - oh, probably just another one of those coincidences or they have better things to do.

The photo on the left is captioned "... Building 6 before tower collapse." This is a mistake. Features in the photo clearly show it was taken after the collapse of both towers. That's what the photographer would tell us if he were ever identified. Since I don't know who wrote the caption I can't tell if it was Jack or an Internet site that made the mistake. This points up a problem mentioned before by Len. It's easy as can be to throw up photos from the Internet with no identification as to place, time or photographer. Since there are multiple mistakes on most of the Internet sites, the captions that come with the photos are equally unreliable. Unless your eye is really educated, it's very easy to be misled by some of these photos. As Steve Spak's videos and still photos amply demonstrate, smoke roils out of the south face of WTC7 onto Vesey Street. That doesn't mean that some smoke from the burning WTC6 also got onto Vesey Street. It did. But most blew to the southeast with the prevailing wind.

Respectful disagreement is the life-blood of inquiry. It's how the disagreement is carried out that, I think, is important. By "chimney," I meant that given the conditions obtaining that day... many lacerations on the south face of the building... these openings downwind would function as a "chimney" for fires in the building. I guess you're right about the breeze. It was strong enough to blow the smoke away from the towers. I didn't know that there was a main chimney for drawing smoke out of the building on the south face. I still find it very difficult to believe the official story of collapse, given the manner of the collapse, Silverstein's "pull it" statement, and last but not least, the BBC reporting the collapse twenty minutes before it happened. I also find it funny that the live feed from New York, with WTC 7 still standing behind BBC reporter Jane Standley, was suddenly interupted by static as she was speaking. Just another coincidence, I'm sure. ps Your book "Six Seconds In Dallas" is one of the first books I read dealing with the JFK case (amazing that O.P. Wright recalled a pointed tip bullet). My mother was and is an inveterate JFK assassination book reader, and it rubbed off on me. It is one of the books that got me interested in the case. As far asbuilding 7 and 9/11 go, I must respectfully disagree. There are just too many strange and suspicious things to be accounted for by chance.

Nope, it wasn't a windless day. Since I don't know what you mean by "a gentle breeze," I don't know whether to agree or disagree. As all photos of 9/11 demonstrate, the wind was blowing from the northwest. Since the south face of WTC7 had been lacerated by impact damage from the collapse of the North Tower, there were many openings on that face. Although from time to time, smoke emanates from broken windows on the east face or even on the west face, the main chimney for drawing smoke out of the building was on the south face. The combination of wind from the northwest plus multiple airways on the south face meant that much of the smoke from fires in WTC7 vented through the south face. Do you agree?

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. The cloud purportedly emerging from what Jack thinks is an exploding WTC6 is simply the debris cloud blowing northward from the collapse of the South Tower. Witness reports show that after Jack thinks WTC6 blew up, fireman actually attached hoses to a "Siammese connection" right in front of WTC6. It was in reasonably good shape at this time. The lethal hit came later when the North Tower dropped on it and punched a huge hole in its center. The photos Jack cites are from Internet "truther" sites. The problem is that noone identifies photos by time, place and photographer. This leads to needless confusion.

This is getting sillier with each passing moment. Individual photos are snapshots in time. Videos however show moment to moment action. There's a lot of video taken by Steven Spak and others showing dark clouds of smoke roiling out of the south face of the building. It's not coming from WTC6 but is roiling out of the spaces on the south face of WTC7. What may not be clear in any particular photo becomes ever so clear in a video. I can't post what I have because I don't know whether or not its part of what's out there on the Internet. If someone could find some video of the south face it would settle this dispute once and for all. By the way, Jack, there never was an "explosion" in WTC6. A great hunk of the North Tower took out the center of the building when it fell.

Thanks an awful lot. The Judy Wood site had a bunch of "after" photos that were interesting. I tracked this one to the Magnum site. Apparently, it was taken by a photographer named Steve McCurry. This is a new name to us hence the lead is a fruitful on. Many thanks, again. Hi Josiah To get the URL for an image, just right click on it, then left click Properties. I first saw the image on Judy Wood's site. http://drjudywood.com/articles/dirt/WTC7.html The original is hosted at www.magnumphotos.com

Hi Dave Greer, This is a new photo to me. It's watermarked "Magnum". Could you give me the url where you obtained it? Thanks. Josiah Thompson Not smoke? If not smoke, then what? There are videos showing smoke streaming out of the windows on the south side (as well as other sides). Here's another angle showing the south side of WTC7.

There are tapes of all the first responder radio nets in operation that day. Nothing remotely like this can be found on any of them There is a social phenomenon that I ran into when I worked on the Oklahoma City bombing as McVeigh's defense investigator. Many "eye-witnesses" come forward after the event with reports that matched the most controversial of the theories that were out there in the media. It would take a lot of time and effort and money to run down these claims. I bet if anyone tried to run them down they would end up like so many I ran down ten years ago... the self-serving claims of people who somehow wanted to elbow in and get their place in the controversy. I don't know that this is the case with any of the reports that you mention. I do know that they resemble claims that wasted a lot of my time ten years ago. I guess the good Professor is so busy with so many things in his retirement that he can't be counted on to reply to anything. Right?

(1) As to the former point, I've talked with Chief of Department Nigro several times about this. He is adamant that he never talked to Larry Silverstein, that conditions were such that he probably could not have talked to him by phone, that whatever the owner of WTC7 wanted or didn't want it was irrelevant to him. Nigro's command staff echo this set of opinions. The statement by Larry Silverstein is somewhat self-serving. He gives the impression that to reduce the risk of further loss of life he graciously tells the chief to forget about fighting fires in the building. Given any conflict between Larry Silverstein and Daniel Nigro, I put my money on Nigro. 2. You may well be correct in your opinion about the overall responsibility for 9/11. I just find the actual claims about the collapse of WTC7 (something I know about since I've been working on the case for almost two years) to be preposterous. Josiah, I'm writing to seek clarification on two points. 1. In both the post excerpted above and in an earlier offering ("Larry Silverstein never talked to 'the fire commander' on 9/11. How do we know this? Because the 'fire commander,' Chief Daniel Nigro, said he never talked to Silverstein. Why did Silverstein say what he said? I don't know but I can guess." [emphasis added]), you indicate that, in order to reconcile conflicts in the accounts of Nigro and Silverstein, you simply have chosen to accept the former at his word and to resort to guesswork to account for what I assume you would characterize as the latter's misstatements. 2. Is there support for your hypothesis regarding what you term Silverstein's "mistranslation" of "pull back" into "pull it"? Forgive me, but you seem to be grasping at straws here. As am I, you may argue, when I note that, having heard Silverstein's comment scores of times and taken note of his inflections, tone, body language, and overall command of the English language, I can state that there is nothing in my experience of human cognition and behavior to support the likelihood of a "back" to "it" metamorphosis by this speaker under the circumstances at hand. I might add that even if the collapses of WTC 1, 2 and 7 were brought about by nothing other than the impacts of two jetliners, there remains sufficient reason to suggest that, as I previously wrote, "the attacks of 9-11 were planned and staged by those powerful political entities who sought a replacement for the Cold War and its revenue streams and control functionalities." In other words, I have no pressing need to believe that controlled demolition took place at the WTC on 9-11. Like you, I am searching for the truth. Best, Charles