Is anyone interested in Apollo missions...

[John Geraghty]

I bought the book in stansted airport today and I look forward to reading it. Indeed, this information is not new. Nafeez Ahmed, in his book 'the war on truth', references Litvinenko's research on the apartment bombings.

John

[Ron Ecker]

Was there a suspicious bombing in London back in Margaret Thatcher's day? This thread has jogged my memory about something to that effect, but I can recall no details and may be mistaken.

[Len Colby]

Don't be deterred on this forum by the presence of about five or six full-time

provocateurs who support "official govt stories" like the SBT, 911, and the Apollo

hoax. I suggest that you not even respond to their personal attacks. A few

of them are from faraway places like Australia, Brazil, Norway, etc. Their mode

of operation is personal attack, not facts.

Actually truth be told as we can see here Jack is normally the one to instigate personal attacks. If you go through the existent threads you will observe that those of us question the 9-11 CT's rebutt such theories with the facts. Jack all to often runs away when his pet theoroes have been disproven and neither defends them or admits error.

I welcome you to the forum as well. You will find that if you are polite yourself and debate fairly we (or atleast I) won't attack you personally.

[Sid Walker]

I am a veteran researcher who would like to open a discussion of the events of 9-11 on this website. I know that many of you who have done research in other conspiracy areas (JFK, MLK, Watergate) also have done work and have opinions about the events of 9-11.

My name is Wallace Milam, and I was a JFK and MLK researcher from 1968 until recently. I did over 500 speeches in colleges and civic organizations, worked for almost two years with the HSCA, assisted the ARRB, and wrote a lot of Internet pieces and one short treatise on NAA and the Kennedy case. I knew some of the people who post here - Jack White, John Newman, and Larry Hancock (who shares my wife’s passion for office supply stores).

My interest in 9-11 began two years ago. Before that time, I had developed a decided and deliberate “non-interest” in the events. I had backed away from JFK research, had married, had been devastated by the death of my long time friend, Mary Ferrell, and had decided to study more light-hearted and simple things, to write about things that didn’t require a forest of footnotes and larger appendices than body of text. Several of my JFK friends sent me materials about 9-11, wrote me essays about how something had to be wrong with the government’s accounts. I put them aside without reading them.

Like the nation (and like the nation was supposed to react), I was outraged and bought the government’s line completely. It was not until I saw the first televised public hearings of the 9-11 Commission in 2004 that I snapped out of my funk. I looked on in amazement - it was, in Yogi Berra’s words - déjà vu all over again. It was the Warren Commission and HSCA replayed - only worth. Once a person has seen a government commission coverup from within, you never forget it and recognize that animal when it appears again. After the initial shock, I began to read everything I could find, to watch videos, and to prowl the Internet. I set up files and began a new research life. In the past month, I have presented 4 audio-visual programs in colleges in this area. The reception has been both good and tumultuous. Far more people note an aroma from Denmark that you might have thought, even conservatives….but there is also a strong barrier of denial and scorn, I have to admit.

I feel especially guilty about my response (or lack of response) to 9-11. So often during the JFK research days, we would talk about how much false information was injected into the public record in the first few days after Kennedy was killed. I remember that Mary Ferrell often spoke of how she got the first Dallas newspapers off the docks in the days following November 22, clipped and filed them. I always swore that if anything like JFK ever happened again, I would make it a point to look behind the scenes from the first, to jerk the curtain aside before it became so firmly set in place, to gather evidence from between the lines. . So what happened? Nearly forty years passed, I grew older and tired, the most important event of my lifetime unfolded before my eyes - and I relied on Fox News and the New York Times for the truth!! That is certainly cause for guilt.

In “Kennedy Time,” this is 1968-69, 5 years after the event. Some of you remember what was going on in New Orleans, in Washington and with JFK research at that early stage. Today, I think people are not as well educated, are more cynical yet more gullible, less inclined to use logic, but the Internet is the great equalizer, so maybe the playing field is equal to JFK research in those years. . (If the Internet and FOIA had existed in 1964, matters would have been expedited indeed.)

I invite you to join me.

Very interesting to read your account of what brought you to this point.

It's almost the reverse of my own case.

I tracked 9-11 closely - using the internet extensively - because the official story seemed bogus to me from very early on. Within a few months it became clear to me there were huge problems with the official story. Moreover, while I'd never been a great fan of the western mass media's honesty before, I never saw just how dishonest it can be until after 9-11. That was a revelation to me.

Only after that did I start look backing at other 'conspiracy' debates such as the Kennedy killings. Until that time, I'd vaguely imagined something might be wrong about the official accounts but wasn't sure - and in any case, I thought that, given the passage of decades, it would be impossible to ascertain the truth with any confidence.

I've changed my mind abou that. It is, I believe, easier than I initially thought.

Once one accepts that these killings were not carried out in the manner claimed in the official stories, a key part of the mystery becomes: how could the mass media get it so wrong?

One is then led to inquire who owns and controls the western mass media, what biases thse folk might they have and why?

The answer is, I believe, not too difficult to figure out - but it's too much for most people to stomach or accept.

In my opinion, each one of these crucial events (JFK, RFK, MLK, OKC, 9-11, 7/7... the list goes on) is a potential portal into the netherworld of clandestine power politics. The starting point, for each of us in each of our cases, is usually that our credulity over the specifics of a given case is pushed too far and something snaps.

As to the real nature of the netherworld that resides on the the other side of these portals - that's the really contentious issue...

It's my belief that active shepherding of opinion on that most crucial of issues takes place 'in real time'. You'll find it goes on in this forum - and practically every other public or semi-public space where these issues are discussed.

So much is at stake it would indeed be surprising if that were not the case.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Sid Walker]

I'd missed this piece by Justin Raimondo when it was first published.

Well worth a read, IMO (emphasis added)

Did the Russian Mafia Kill Alexander Litvinenko? Looks like it…

by Justin Raimondo December 27, 2006

They're making a movie about the Litvinenko affair, but if Hollywood hews to the narrative dished out by the British tabloids, then I wouldn't count on it being a box office hit. After all, the idea that the Kremlin would assassinate such an insignificant "dissident" by poisoning him with $10 million worth of rare polonium – and leaving a radioactive trail a mile wide back to the Kremlin's doorstep – is so implausible that no one could possibly believe it. Unless, of course, it is presented as "news," rather than entertainment – two categories that are often indistinguishable from each other, at least in the U.S.

The journalistic lynch mob that jumped on Vladimir Putin, tying him to the alleged murder of Alexander Litvinenko, is wiping egg off its collective face as new evidence comes to light. Not that this crowd needs much in the way of evidence to convince them of the Kremlin's utter perfidy: in the case of Litvinenko's bizarre poisoning with a radioactive substance, polonium-210, they didn't need any. All they had to do was print press releases handed out by Boris Berezovsky's slick public-relations operation and decry the supposed degeneration of Russian "democracy" from the good old days of Boris Yeltsin, when it was possible to steal entire industries without worrying about going to jail.

To really get a handle on the truth about this mysterious affair, what we have to do is look at what Charles Krauthammer and Max Boot are saying – and then draw the opposite conclusion. The two of them, naturally, accuse Putin of murdering Litvinenko, without – of course – bothering with such mundane details as the extremely odd method of utilizing such an unusual weapon, or what the Kremlin could possibly hope to gain. Their fact-free screeds are all supposition, and both evade the central reality of this case: as the Moscow Times points out, "The common thread linking all the players in Litvinenko's death is that they have all worked for Berezovsky."

Now that the radioactive trail has been followed to Germany, however, the investigation is taking a new turn:

"German investigators are considering the possibility that polonium-210 was smuggled through the country and might be connected to the radioactive poisoning of a Russian security service defector in London. …

"'Alongside several other versions behind this crime, we are seriously considering the possibility that Litvinenko's death could have been connected to the illegal trade in nuclear materials,' a police source told the German newspaper Berliner Zeitung, adding that no clear evidence had been uncovered yet."

On a trip to Germany, Dmitry Kovtun – who met with Litvinenko on the day of his poisoning, along with Andrei Lugovoi, a former "security" man for Berezovsky – shed radioactivity in several Hamburg locations. The German trip was undertaken before the meeting with Litvinenko. Kovtun is now apparently in a hospital in Moscow, along with Lugovoi. The Berliner Zeitung quotes a police source as saying: "'We know that there has been a demand for nuclear materials in terrorist circles for several years,' … adding that Litvinenko's partners could have been involved in smuggling schemes."

Litvinenko, we know, was desperate for cash, and was reportedly involved in a blackmailing scheme targeting several Russian mafia figures and politicians. Now we learn, according to the London Times,

"Sources in Spain last week said he had crossed Russian mafia figures. They claimed he had provided information that helped lead to the arrest in May of nine mafia members, including a senior gang leader with interests in Russia and Spain."

The nine include Alexander Gofstein, a lawyer for the Yukos oil company of Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and Oleg Vorontsov, a former high-ranking adviser to Boris Yeltsin; they are charged with money-laundering. Another figure in this murky drama, scamster and professional Russophobe Mario Scaramella, was recently arrested for… weapons smuggling.

We don't know the specifics of what exactly happened: a horrible accident that resulted from an attempt to smuggle polonium, a mafia hit against a stool pigeon, or, perhaps, a little of both. What we do know, however, is that the accusations lodged against Putin and his government by major media outlets in the West are completely without any basis in fact, and that coverage of this bizarre affair has been absolutely shameful.

Big Western oil companies, barred from scarfing up Russian energy reserves by Putin's invocation of "national security," are busy ramping up a campaign to smear the Russian president as the reincarnation of Stalin, and – absurdly – portray the Russian mafia chieftains as "political prisoners" sitting in the "gulag." If only the Russians would let the Westerners in, they would no longer be bothered by accusations of neo-Stalinism, and known criminals – such as Berezovsky and the Chechen terrorist "government-in-exile" being given shelter in Londongrad – would be quickly extradited to face the music. Instead, criminals like Khodorkovsky, Berezovsky, and Leonid Nevzlin, who looted the Russian economy and then stashed their stolen wealth overseas, are treated as if they are Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov rolled into one.

One needn't approve of Putin or his policies to note that the Russian president and his government are victims of a setup, and a rather obvious one at that. As former Ambassador David Fischer, posted in several Eastern European countries during the Cold War era, remarked, the story being put out by the Berezovsky spin machine "just doesn't add up." What does add up, however, is that powerful economic and political interests, both here and in Britain, have targeted Putin's Russia for "regime change" – and are apparently willing to go to any lengths to accomplish their ends.

[Jack White]

Few persons are aware of the Internet PR firm the Bivings Group, which

provides internet propaganda on behalf of major companies and THE US

GOVERNMENT...to counter unfavorable publicity.

A partial list of admitted Bivings govt clients from a "wrongdoing watchdog"

website:

Air National Guard

Army National Guard

Broadcast Media & Technology Center

Bureau of Land Management

Bush administration

Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States

Election Assistance Commission

Federal Emergency Management Agency

Federal Trade Commission

Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services

Government-industry revolving door

Michael Griffin*

NASA

NORAD

National Guard Bureau

National Planning Scenarios

National Science Board

National Sex Offender Public Registry

Operation FALCON

U.S. Army

U.S. Department of Agriculture

U.S. Department of Justice

U.S. Department of Labor

U.S. Department of the Interior

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

U.S. Food and Drug Administration

U.S. General Services Administration

U.S. House of Representatives

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

U.S. Senate

I would not be surprised if Bivings monitors internet groups like this forum

and employs assets worldwide to prop up false stories like Apollo and 911.

The tactics of these provocateur publicists are easy to spot...personal attacks

and embracing EVERY ASPECT of clearly false official stories.

Jack

* I had no idea who Michael Griffin is...so I googled him.

"NASA - Michael Griffin Takes Helm as NASA Administrator

NASA Administrator Michael Griffin takes the Oath of Office Michael Griffin is

returning to NASA as the Agency's 11th Administrator"

Notice that Bivings works for both NASA and for its administrator. Interesting.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Jack White

[Jack White]

Putting it all together...the odd string of "coincidences" that led up to 911:

Click on:

http://killtown.911review.org/oddities.html

Recommended.

Jack

[Brian Smith]

I knew something was radically wrong with 911 as I watched the events unfold on live TV. Nothing I have seen in the years since has changed my mind, and after reading all the different facts and theories, I am completely convinced the whole thing was staged by nefarious elements within the U.S. military/intelligence apparatus.

That is an interesting list of clients. I wonder if a couple of the disruption agents on this forum work for the Bivings Group. These people never saw a government pronouncement they didn't believe. Or so they claim, anyway. lol

[Evan Burton]

Hi Wallace (is that your preferred name?),

Welcome to the Forum.

I don't have the knowledge about the events surrounding JFK / RFK to be able to form a credible opinion on it, and to tell the truth - I don't have the enthusiasm to learn about them.

I have a passing interest in 9/11, and to this day have not seen any worthwhile evidence to suggest that the events of that day did not happen essentially as portrayed by the official reports. I would agree that errors occurred and that people responsible have not been held accountable, but I have yet to be convinced that there was anything other than four hijacked airliners flown into various buildings or crashed that day. I do not subscribe to any "no plane", "pod", or "controlled demolition" theories.

I suspect that I am one of the Australian people that Jack mentioned in his post.

My interest is in refuting claims of an Apollo "hoax".

Cheers and again, welcome!

Evan

Edited January 23, 2007 by Evan Burton

[Guest Stephen Turner]

Hello Wallace, and welcome to the debate. My main research in this area has been around flight 93(I have a thread on this subject, please feel free to paticipate) And the level of knowledge, in and around the Bush administration, and agencies pre 911, as to the likelihood of attacks happening, and further, why, given the apparent longevity, and depth of this knowledge, did said administration claim the attacks came as "A complete surprise" I dont however subscribe to the "no passengers" bombs in the towers" pod planes" conspiracies. Steve.

[Wallace Milam]

Hello Wallace, and welcome to the debate. My main research in this area has been around flight 93(I have a thread on this subject, please feel free to paticipate) And the level of knowledge, in and around the Bush administration, and agencies pre 911, as to the likelihood of attacks happening, and further, why, given the apparent longevity, and depth of this knowledge, did said administration claim the attacks came as "A complete surprise" I dont however subscribe to the "no passengers" bombs in the towers" pod planes" conspiracies. Steve.

QUESTIONING 9-11

I do not know what happened on 9-11. I do not pretend to have the answers. I feel, after two years of intensive research, that I know what didn’t happen: Nineteen Middle Eastern terrorists with some sort of allegiances to al-Qaeda did not hijack four airliners and crash three of them into buildings which were American symbols—not without a lot of help. The official story defies facts, common sense and logic—and it keeps changing.

I will list in brief thumbnail sketches the major reasons I must doubt the government’s story of 9-11.

1. THE FAILURE TO CONFRONT OR INTERCEPT ANY OF THE HIJACKED AIRLINERS. Even in the most generous of timelines, the FAA and NORAD knew an airliner had been hijacked by 8:24 A. M., Eastern Time. Flight 93, the last of the 4 hijacked airliners, crashed at 10:06 (10:03, if you wish to accept the 9-11 Commission’s time instead of that indicated by seismic data). So we must face the fact that hijacked airliners flew for over an hour and a half in the busiest air corridor in the world, were observed on radar, and never approached or intercepted. Not a fly-by, not a wing-waggle, not a warning burst of automatic gunfire. In my speeches at colleges, some misunderstand my statement and ask, “How could they shoot it down?” or “Who could authorize a shootdown?” This is not what I am saying at all. I am pointing out the absurdity (in my view) of the airliners not being trailed, challenged or even observed. We know that the FAA had established phone bridges linking the White House with NORAD, the Secret Service, and the FAA by just after 8:30. Information was shared among the designated decision makers from this time forward (or at least should have been shared). The key to understanding this inaction is the fact that at least 5 wargames were in progress on 9-11, intruding on the NORAD system. I will write much more about the wargames of 9-11 later. As a final note on NORAD’s failure, I would add that NORAD has furnished at least 4 different timetables for its activities on 9-11, the last not unveiled until just before the 9-11 hearings. Suffice it to say that each succeeding revision attempts to shorten its own response time and to blame others for the inaction in the air. In the first two days after 9-11, spokesmen for NORAD and the military stated on at least two occasions that NORAD made no airborne response at all until after the Pentagon was hit at 9:38. They later came forward with “improved” timetables for NORAD responses.

2. THE COLLAPSE OF WTC 7. Hardly any Americans know that a third building collapsed on September 11, becoming the third steel framework building over 10 stories in height to ever collapse except as a result of earthquakes or demolition. WTC 7, a 47-story building a block from Towers 1 and 2, was not hit by a plane. The fires burning inside did not appear to be serious. At 5:20, the building imploded and collapsed into its footprint in what would be a tribute to any demolitions expert’s skills. Later, the building’s owner, Larry Silverstein (who owned all the WTC complex) stated on a national televised program that the decision was made to “pull it,” referring to WTC 7. “Pull it,” as I can easily show, is the construction industry’s term for demolishing a building. The problem is that to “pull” a building with demolitions properly requires days of careful research and placement of charges. WTC 7 housed an interesting collection of offices—Secret Service, SEC, IRS, American Express, and Mayor Giuliani’s “fortress,” the OEM for New York City, located on the 23rd floor.

3. THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PRESIDENT AND THE SECRET SERVICE AT EMMA BOOKER SCHOOL IN SARASOTA. Much has been made of the President’s continuing to read the pet goat story with a class at the school, even after word that a second plane hit the WTC. Two years later, Bush would relate a completely untrue account of seeing on TV the first plane hit the WTC. He did this is a town meeting in Orlando, Florida.

In fact, Bush could not have seen either plane hit the WTC towers that morning. Why did the President remain at the school, endangering himself and all the students (His presence was public knowledge and widely reported.)? Why did the Secret Service not take over and whisk him to the motorcade and to Air Force One? We now know that an attack by al-Qaeda within the U. S. was being widely considered within the intelligence agencies. We know that scenarios in which hijackers used planes as weapons to attack public buildings were considered and “wargamed” against. Why would anyone privy to the intelligence we had consider—even after the first plane—that this was anything other than a terrorist attack? Two other pieces of information about the President in Sarasota will be the subject of later writings. I will add here that the mystery of Sarasota deepens when it is realized that a threat to “Angel” (Air Force 1) was received just before takeoff from Sarasota (Takeoff was at about 9:55—WTC and Pentagon both hit by this time and another hijacked plane still in the air. This threat made reference to the President’s nuclear code for the day and was taken very seriously. Yet, for at least an hour, AF 1 flew randomly over north Florida, without military escort. Even though Homestead AFB, Tinker AFB, Pensacola Naval Station, Eglin AFB, and Tyndall AFB (NORAD Southeastern headquarters) were nearby. When fighter escort came, it was from Ellington AFB near Houston! The President then flew to Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, then to Offutt near Omaha before arriving back in Washington in early evening. On what is arguably the most important day in the life of any American president, George Bush was out of the office all day!

4. THE FINANCIAL MANEUVERINGS RELATED TO THE SELL AND INSURING OF THE WTC BY LARRY SILVERSTEIN. In July, 2001, just 7 weeks before the 9-11 attacks, the entire WTC complex was sold by the New York Port Authority to Silverstein Properties and the Westfield Group (nationally known as mall developers). The Port Authority had been trying to unload the WTC for years. Occupancy of the buildings had never been high, the buildings had not been profitable to New York, and there was now the issue of asbestos removal, which was expected to cost $1 billion. Silverstein and Westfield actually were the second highest bidders, but the high bidder (by $50 million) pulled out. On July 24, the WTC complex became Silverstein’s property for $3.2 bllion. He insured the complex for just over $3.5 billion. Twenty-five insurance carriers were involved. The policies contained a clause that the in case of destruction of the buildings by a terrorist attack, the amount of $3.5 billion would be paid. After 9-11, Silverstein’s lawyers argued that what happened on 9-11 constituted TWO attacks for insurance purposes. After much court wrangling, Silverstein was awarded $5 billion, with the courts agreeing that there were 2 terrorist acts against his property. He is now using this insurance fund to rebuild in lower Manhattan. Oh, each year he must pay the NY Port Authority $102 million dollars on his 99-year lease, 1/49th of what he has collected in insurance!

5. THE REMARKABLE ABSENCES AND BEHAVIOR LEADING U. S. OFFICIALS ON 9-11. Colin Powell, Secretary of State, was in Peru, General Shelton, head of the JCS, was flying to Asia, AG Ashcroft was in the Mid-West (and had stopped flying on commercial planes by FBI orders a few weeks earlier), Bush was in Sarasota. General Myers, who had been nominated to succeed Shelton (and who would be confirmed on Thursday) was visiting Senator Max Cleland of Georgia at his Capitol Hill office. Robert Mueller had become Director of the FBI—7 days before. Ben Sliney was Operations Manager for the FAA at its Herndon, Virginia headquarters (His first day.) At the Pentagon, the National Military Command Center was in the hands of Captain Charles Leidig, who was standing watch for the first time, and who had only qualified to stand watch the previous month. On the day before, Brigadier General Montague Winfield had asked Leidig if he would stand Winfield’s watch on September 11, beginning at 8:30. So, as Flights 11 and 175 were hijacked and heading for New York, Winfield stood down. He did not resume the watch until 10:30, after the fourth plane had gone down in Pennsylvania. Myers’ behavior is perhaps even stranger. As he was about to enter Cleland’s office, he and a secretary watched Flight 11 collide with the North Tower. Incredibly, Myers went ahead with the meeting. Worse, when TV showed the second plane hitting the WTC, the secretary did not interrupt the Cleland-Myers meeting, and we are told that no one communicated to a member of the JCS that the nation was under attack! Myers said he learned of this after emerging from the meeting. By this time, WTC 2 and the Pentagon had been hit! Myers would insist for the next two days that NORAD and the military had taken no steps to attempt to intercept planes until the third plane—Flight 77—had struck the Pentagon. Incidentally, on September 10, the front page news in Washington was that Donald Rumsfeld had announced that the Pentagon could not account for $2.3 trillion dollars in spending. By the end of the next day, this was “old news.”

6. THE ATTACK SET IN MOTION EVENTS WHICH WERE DESCRIBED AND DESIRED BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRTION’S KEY POLICYMAKERS AND SUPPORTERS. Neo-Cons had called for increased military spending and expansion, the weaponization of space, and deployment of U. S. troops in such places as to assure protection of Middle Eastern and Caspian Sea oil and natural gas resources. In a remarkable document called “Policy For A New American Century,” the Neo-Cons noted the high cost of such military imperialism, and commented that the only way Americans could be led to such spending was in the event of an attack on America, a “second Pearl Harbor,” in the words of PNAC. Curiously, the Bush administration—and the President himself—frequently used the “second Pearl Harbor” label many times in the days just after 9-11. So, on 9-11, we had a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Age of Terrorism was born. We were told that the struggle would be a long one (longer than our lifetimes), that the enemy would not fly any one flag, that all who supported this international terrorism would be our enemies, that we would have to spend a lot of money, and that we would have to make changes in “the American way of life.” Which, euphemistically meant we would have to surrender some rights. Terrorism, the Perfect Bogey-Man, was born. I am aware that correlation does not prove causation, but the fact is that the 9-1l attacks were a Neo-Con’s wet dream, and set in motion a world which key members of the administration keenly desired.

7. THE ANTHRAX ATTACKS. These are often forgotten, since they came so mysteriously and went so quickly. Middle Easterners sealing deadly envelopes reinforced the image of Middle Easterners flying airliners and represented another face of the Age of Terrorism. Five people died, the anthrax strain turns out to have come from Ft. Detrick Army Medical Research Unit, and the FBI has apparently has lost any leads as to who may have distributed it.

I apologize for the length of this post. In days to come, I will add more details to many of these 7 points.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Wallace Milam

[Ron Ecker]

THE REMARKABLE ABSENCES AND BEHAVIOR LEADING U. S. OFFICIALS ON 9-11.

The behavior of the Secretary of Defense was just as remarkable as Myers's. After both towers had been hit, Rumsfeld holed up in his office - declining an invitation to accompany Victoria Clark and other DOD officials to the War Room - just like Myers holed up in Cleland's office. And after the Pentagon was hit, the War Room couldn't even find him. (He went outside to look around.)

Meanwhile Rumsfeld's deputy secretary Paul Wolfowitz, after both towers were hit, continued with a routine meeting in his office rather than trying to gain any "situational awareness."

Thus Bush, Myers, and Rumsfeld, the top men in America's defense structure, were essentially unavailable during the attacks. Did they wish to avoid being in positions of having to "do something"? And meanwhile, according to the testimony of Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta, VP Cheney was in a White House bunker tracking Flight 77 as it headed to the Pentagon, where Rumsfeld (on the other side of the building from the impact area) was ostensibly left totally unaware of the aircraft's approach.

In a remarkable document called “Policy For A New American Century,” the Neo-Cons noted the high cost of such military imperialism, and commented that the only way Americans could be led to such spending was in the event of an attack on America, a “second Pearl Harbor,” in the words of PNAC.

The document's title is "Rebuilding America's Defenses," setting forth the agenda of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

[Jack White]

Simple high school physics proves the official BUILDING COLLAPSE THEORY false:

...........................

Free-Falling Bodies

Simple Physics Reveals The Big Lie

Collapse Theory Fails Reality Check

On September 11, 2001, most of the world watched in horror as the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center (WTC) collapsed. People did not have to be tuned in at the time in order to have seen it; it was repeated ad nauseam on television for days.

In June 2005, in an apparent response to an article by Morgan Reynolds, Robert Gates, the former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and current Secretary of Defense stated (cached), "The American people know what they saw with their own eyes on September 11, 2001. To suggest any kind of government conspiracy in the events of that day goes beyond the pale."

Well, first of all, the American people saw things not with their own eyes but on television, which is comprised nowadays of digital information, which can be manipulated by computers. So, right off the top, Gates' premise is flawed. And while the towers are gone, people have, both with their own eyes and on TV, seen magic performed before; eyes can be deceived. So let's just examine his other premise: whether or not it is true that people know what they saw.

(The following must be said before we can get to the physics.)

The government and the media told us what we saw. The government told us that we had witnessed a "gravitational" collapse; what is now referred to as a "pancake collapse". According to the government's, and PBS's, and Popular Mechanics', and Scientific American's theory, airplane crashes and subsequent kerosene (like lamp oil; jet fuel is NOT exotic) fires heated steel to the point where it was weakened, which is already very difficult to believe, nevermind repeat in an experiment. According to their "pancake theory", this imagined purported (all the evidence was subsequently illegally destroyed) weakening supposedly caused part of the tower to collapse downward onto the rest of the tower, which, we've been repeatedly told, somehow resulted in a chain reaction of lower floors, sequentially, one at a time, yielding to the floors falling from above.

There are at least 2 problems with that theory; it does not fit the observed facts: It cannot account for either the total failure of the immense core columns, nor the too-rapid-to-blame-it-all-on-gravity collapse times. This article focuses on the latter of these two mentioned discrepancies.

The scientists who've concocted this "pancake theory" made a fatal error: they forgot to check their work! Which is an easy thing to do, even without any physical evidence to forensically examine. Anyone, at any time, can check the work of the scientists -- that incredible pancake theory of theirs -- using simple, high-school physics!

And that's what we're about to do here. We're going to check the work -- something every grade-schooler is taught to do -- of those "scientists".

We will use a simple, unassailable, incontrovertible conservation-of-energy analysis to perform a simple, basic reality check that establishes, once and for all, that the U.S. government, PBS, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American have misrepresented the true nature of the events of 9/11.

How Gravity Acts

Sir Isaac Newton noticed, centuries ago, that apples fell (down! never up...) from trees. Lots of others, before him, had also noticed this, but none had ever devised a theory of gravity from the observation. Over the years, mankind has learned that the force of gravity comes from an acceleration of known constant magnitude, depending only upon mass and separation. (That doesn't mean we know HOW it works, or WHY, but we have managed to be able to predict its effects with a high degree of precision and an even higher degree of certainty -- gravity has always had the same, predictable, effect.)

Of course, people didn't figure this stuff out immediately. According to legend, Galileo Galilei used the leaning tower of Pisa to demonstrate that a large ball and a small one (of lesser mass) fell (accelerated) at the same rate. Prior to Galileo, people had just assumed that heavier objects fell faster (much the way mankind had long assumed that the Earth was flat!).

So while an object of greater mass will exert more force upon anything which is supporting it against gravity's pull (ie, it's heavier), it does not experience any greater acceleration when gravity's pull is not opposed (ie, when it's falling). Earth's gravity can only accelerate objects downward at one known, constant, maximum rate (1 g). Heavier objects are not accelerated any quicker than are lighter objects, as Galileo demonstrated centuries ago.

The Simplest Case

From experimentation, it has been discovered that, near the surface of the Earth, Earth's gravity will produce a downward acceleration of 32 feet per second per second.

What that means is that an object, after falling one second, will be falling at 32 ft/sec.

After the 2nd second, it will be falling at 64 ft/sec.

After the 3rd second, it will be falling at 96 ft/sec.

And so on.

Further, since gravity's acceleration is constant, and it's falling at 32 ft/sec after one second has elapsed, we know that it has averaged 16 ft/sec for the entire distance, which, after one second, is 16 feet.

As you might imagine, after quite a few such thought experiments, some simple free-fall equations have been derived which can be used to harness this knowledge via numbers and arithmetic:

Velocity = Gravity x Time

and

Distance = 1/2 x Gravity x Time(squared)

So if we want to know how far the object has free-fallen after 3 seconds:

Distance = 1/2 x 32 x 9 = 144 feet

So after 3 seconds, in Earth's gravity, an object will have fallen 144 feet and will be falling at 96 ft/sec.

Checking Our Work

OK, we've just solved a simple physics problem! Now let's check our work, using conservation of energy.

We know that energy is neither created nor destroyed. It merely changes forms. If we take the potential (chemical) energy in a barrel of oil and burn it, we get heat energy. When we take refined oil and burn it in our car's engine, we get kinetic (ie, motion) energy (plus some heat; an engine's not 100% efficient). When we use our car's brakes to bleed off some of that kinetic energy (ie, slow down), the energy is converted into heat (the brakes get HOT).

In the case of the free-falling body, the two kinds of energy we are concerned with are kinetic energy and potential energy. Examples of potential (gravitational) energy are the water stored way up high in a water tower, or a boulder perched atop a hill. If whatever's holding them up there is removed, they will come down, under the influence of gravity's pull.

So, as an object falls, it gives up potential energy for kinetic energy.

It turns out that the equation for potential energy is as follows:

Potential Energy = Mass x Gravity x Height

It turns out that the equation for kinetic energy is as follows:

Kinetic Energy = 1/2 x Mass x Velocity(squared)

So let's just say, for the sake of simplicity, that our falling object has a mass of 1. (Remember, the object's mass will affect its energy, and its momentum, but not its rate of free-fall.)

The potential energy given up by falling 3 seconds (144 ft) is 1 x 32 x 144 = 4608

The kinetic energy gained after falling 3 secs is 1/2 x 1 x 96(squared) = 1/2 x 9216 = 4608

So, all of the available potential energy was converted to kinetic energy. Seeing that energy was, in fact, conserved is how we know that the answer in The Simplest Case, above, was correct. We've checked our work, using an independent analysis, based upon the sound principle of conservation of energy. Now, and only now, we can be certain that our answer was correct.

One Little Complication

Air resistance.

The free-fall equations reflect a perfect, frictionless world. They perfectly predict the behavior of falling bodies in a vacuum. In fact, some of you may have seen a science class demonstration in which the air is pumped out of a tube and then a feather will fall, in that vacuum, as fast as will a solid metal ball.

That's how parachutes work: much of the falling object's potential energy gets expended doing the work of pushing a lot of air out of the way in order for the object to fall. As a result, not all of the potential gravitational energy can go towards accelerating the object downward at gravity's maximal rate of 32 ft/sec/sec.

In other words, only when there is zero resistance can any falling object's potential energy be completely converted into kinetic energy. Anything which interferes with any falling object's downward acceleration will cause its acceleration to be reduced from the maximum gravitational acceleration of 32 feet per second per second, as some of gravity's potential energy is consumed doing work overcoming resistance.

That's why you may have heard the term "terminal velocity". The free-fall equations predict that a falling object's velocity will continue to increase, without limit. But in air, once a falling object reaches a certain speed, it's propensity to fall will be matched by air's resistance to the fall. At that point the object will continue to fall, but its speed will no longer increase over time.

A Quick Recap

Earth's gravity causes objects to fall. They fall according to precise, well-known equations. The equations assume no (air) resistance. Any resistance at all will cause the object to fall less rapidly than it would have without that resistance.

It is that last sentence which bears repeating.

There is a maximum possible rate at which objects fall, and if any of gravity's potential energy is consumed doing anything other than accelerate the object downward -- even just having to push air out of the way -- there will be less energy available to accelerate the object downward, and so that object's downward acceleration will be diminished.

And if an object's downward acceleration is diminished, it will be going slower along the way, and thus it will take longer to fall a given distance.

The towers were 1350 and 1360 feet tall. So let's start by using our trusty free-fall equation to see how long it should take an object to free-fall from the towers' former height.

Distance = 1/2 x Gravity x Time(squared)

or

Time(squared) = (2 x Distance) / Gravity

Time(squared) = 2710 / 32 = 84.7

Time = 9.2

So our equation tells us that it will take 9.2 seconds to free-fall to the ground from the towers' former height.

Using our simpler equation, V = GT, we can see that at 9.2 seconds, in order to reach the ground in 9.2 seconds, the free-falling object's velocity must be about 295 ft/sec, which is just over 200 mph.

But that can only occur in a vacuum.

Since the WTC was at sea level, in Earth's atmosphere, you might be able to imagine how much air resistance that represents. (Think about putting your arm out the window of a car moving half that fast!) Most free-falling objects would reach their terminal velocity long before they reached 200 mph. For example, the commonly-accepted terminal velocity of a free-falling human is around 120 mph. The terminal velocity of a free-falling cat is around 60 mph. (source)

Therefore, air resistance alone will make it take longer than 10 seconds for gravity to pull an object to the ground from the towers' former height.

Observations from 9/11

On page 305 of the 9/11 Commission Report, we are told, in the government's "complete and final report" of 9/11, that the South Tower collapsed in 10 seconds. Here is the exact quote: "At 9:58:59, the South Tower collapsed in ten seconds". (That's the government's official number. Videos confirm that it fell unnaturally, if not precisely that, fast. See for yourself: QT Real)

But as we've just determined, that's free-fall time. That's close to the free-fall time in a vacuum, and an exceptionally rapid free-fall time through air.

But the "collapse" proceeded "through" the lower floors of the tower. Those undamaged floors below the impact zone would have offered resistance that is thousands of times greater than air. Recall that those lower floors had successfully supported the mass of the tower for 30 years.

Air can't do that.

Can anyone possibly imagine the undamaged lower floors getting out of the way of the upper floors as gracefully and relatively frictionlessly as air would? Can anyone possibly imagine the undamaged lower floors slowing the fall of the upper floors less than would, say, a parachute?

It is beyond the scope of the simple, but uncontested, physics in this presentation to tell you how long the collapse should have taken. Would it have taken minutes? Hours? Days? Forever?

Perhaps. But what is certain, beyond any shadow of a doubt, is that the towers could not have collapsed gravitationally, through intact lower floors, as rapidly as was observed on 9/11.

Not even close!

Because, as you may recall, not only was much energy expended in causing the observed massive high-speed sideways ejections, but virtually all the glass and concrete was "pulverized" -- actually "dissociated" is a much better word. (Nevermind what happened to all the supporting steel core columns...!!!) And the energy requirements to do anything even remotely like that rival the total amount of potential energy that the entire tower had to give. (source) So while gravity is nearly strong enough to cause some things to fall that far, through air, in the observed interval, and while gravity is probably not strong enough to have so thoroughly disintegrated the towers under their own weight, gravity is certainly not strong enough to have done both at once.

Conclusions

In order for the tower to have collapsed "gravitationally", as we've been told over and over again, in the observed duration, one or more of the following zany-sounding conditions must have been met:

* The undamaged floors below the impact zone offered zero resistance to the collapse

* The glass and concrete spontaneously disintegrated without any expenditure of energy

* On 9/11, gravity was much stronger than gravity

* On 9/11, energy was not conserved

However, none of these physics-violating conditions can be accounted for by the official government conspiracy theory of 9/11, nor by any of the subsequent analyses designed to prop up the official theory of 9/11.

Bottom line: the government/PBS/PM/SA explanation for the WTC collapses fails the most basic conservation-of-energy reality check. Therefore the government/PBS/PM/SA theory does not fit the observed facts; the notion of a "pancake collapse" cannot account for what happened. The "pancake collapse theory" explanation is impossible, and thus absurd.

It is utterly impossible for a "gravitational collapse" to proceed so destructively through a path of such great resistance in anywhere near free-fall times. This fact debunks the preposterous contention that the observed WTC collapses can be blamed solely upon damages resulting from aerial assaults.

So, to the extent that people accept the ridiculous "pancake collapse" explanation, Gates' other premise, that people know what they saw, is also incorrect. It is left to the reader to decide if his conclusion, which was based upon two incorrect presumptions, is also flawed.

The purported "gravitational" collapse (video) of World Trade Center building 7, which was hit by zero aircraft, and which also vertically collapsed in within a second of free-fall-time-in-a-vacuum later that same day, similarly fails this same conservation-of-energy analysis.

The explanation for how and why so many highly-accredited and credentialed people all so miserably failed to check the "pancake collapse" theory, by giving it this basic reality check, is beyond the scope of this simple physics discussion.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Jack White

[Sid Walker]

The purported \"gravitational\" collapse (video) of World Trade Center building 7, which was hit by zero aircraft, and which also vertically collapsed in within a second of free-fall-time-in-a-vacuum later that same day, similarly fails this same conservation-of-energy analysis.

The explanation for how and why so many highly-accredited and credentialed people all so miserably failed to check the \"pancake collapse\" theory, by giving it this basic reality check, is beyond the scope of this simple physics discussion.

I\'m no physicist, Jack, but I feel you are pursuing a key point here.

I understand that the collapse of a steel framed tower block at near free-fall velocity has only ever occured under the circumstances of a controlled demoliion.

If anyone disagrees with that and has evidence to the contrary, please post a reference.

If it\'s true, that alone is key to disproving the official theory of 9-11.

I wonder if you noticed - as I did - that all the \'9-11 conspiracy first responders\' - that is, the folk who first blew the whistle about 9-11 and suggested it might be not what it was purported to be - deflected attantion away from that aspect of the case.

I\'m thinking of characters such as Mike Ruppert, Jared Israel and Greg Szymanski.

I believe this was part of the conspirators\' gameplan.

It helped ensure that those who doubted the official story were directed away from the tower collpase issue. In the weeks and months following 9-11, that was crucial.

They had to get the forensic evidence cleaned up and out of reach ASAP. Any calls - such as those of the NYC firemen who complained bitterly through their in-house journal - that the forensic evidence (eg. the steel from the buildings) NOT be shipped off, would have been an embarrassment. It was crucial that the \"9-11 conspiracy movement\" looked in other directions for the first few months.

That was achieved, partly through their efforts.

Unless the matter is ultimately dealt with via a \'Truth and Reconciliation Commission\' (my prefered option), obvious disinfo agents who helped throw us off the trail should, IMO, be put on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity. At the risk of stating the obvious, it\'s a most serious crime to help the real perpetrators of mass murder escape justice.

The author of the Popular Mechanics beat-up is a case in point... a certain Mr Ben Chertoff, as I recall.

So are those responsible for the 911myths website.

Edited January 23, 2007 by Sid Walker

[Peter McKenna]

The purported \"gravitational\" collapse (video) of World Trade Center building 7, which was hit by zero aircraft, and which also vertically collapsed in within a second of free-fall-time-in-a-vacuum later that same day, similarly fails this same conservation-of-energy analysis.

The explanation for how and why so many highly-accredited and credentialed people all so miserably failed to check the \"pancake collapse\" theory, by giving it this basic reality check, is beyond the scope of this simple physics discussion.

I\'m no physicist, Jack, but I feel you are pursuing a key point here.

I understand that the collapse of a steel framed tower block at near free-fall velocity has only ever occured under the circumstances of a controlled demoliion.

If anyone disagrees with that and has evidence to the contrary, please post a reference.

If it\'s true, that alone is key to disproving the official theory of 9-11.

I wonder if you noticed - as I did - that all the \'9-11 conspiracy first responders\' - that is, the folk who first blew the whistle about 9-11 and suggested it might be not what it was purported to be - deflected attantion away from that aspect of the case.

I\'m thinking of characters such as Mike Ruppert, Jared Israel and Greg Szymanski.

I believe this was part of the conspirators\' gameplan.

It helped ensure that those who doubted the official story were directed away from the tower collpase issue. In the weeks and months following 9-11, that was crucial.

They had to get the forensic evidence cleaned up and out of reach ASAP. Any calls - such as those of the NYC firemen who complained bitterly through their in-house journal - that the forensic evidence (eg. the steel from the buildings) NOT be shipped off, would have been an embarrassment. It was crucial that the \"9-11 conspiracy movement\" looked in other directions for the first few months.

That was achieved, partly through their efforts.

Unless the matter is ultimately dealt with via a \'Truth and Reconciliation Commission\' (my prefered option), obvious disinfo agents who helped throw us off the trail should, IMO, be put on trial for complicity in crimes against humanity. At the risk of stating the obvious, it\'s a most serious crime to help the real perpetrators of mass murder escape justice.

The author of the Popular Mechanics beat-up is a case in point... a certain Mr Ben Chertoff, as I recall.

So are those responsible for the 911myths website.

I remember reading about the design of the World Trade Center Bldgs. A while ago, so I looked it up and it’s corroborated on Wikipedia and several other sites, just Google it; anyway:

The WTC bldgs. Are curtain wall design, which means that the floors are supported by the outside walls instead of interior columns like almost all high rise buildings. This was the method the architects used to provide the great height of the buildings since, what is known as the “radius of inertia”, would be the greatest possible value, that is, the structural supports are the farthest distance possible from the building centerline, making the building strong as possible against side loading, such as from wind.

This also means that the walls would shear off from the floors prior to collapse and fall straight down, different from the collapse of a standard column and pier design, which must be imploded to make way for the inward collapse of the structure. I’m not a demolition expert, but I do know something of structural design.

Provided the walls sheared off from the floors prior to falling, which they would have to, the floors would be (for all intensive purposes) unsupported, and would collapse (just like a stack of pancakes, as someone referred to it). The walls would fall straight downwards quickly, like a dropped knife.

This would explain the timing and mode of the WTC collapses.

The third, 47 story bldg., would be another story, however, like Wallace identified. I don’t know how this Bldg. was designed, but it sounds like a demolition job.