Why 2,300 Architects & Engineers Demand Independent Investigation

PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth of WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories

Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST's manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The second installment (below) is PART 1: NIST and Popular Mechanics Fabricate Myth About WTC 7's "Scooped-Out" 10 Stories. The first installment was the INTRODUCTION. Stand by for the next four installments, to be published monthly.

A
Figure 2. We will be showing this "Plan View of Collapse Progression" graphic in three installments of this series of articles, starting with this installment, where we have labeled it "A." The identical graphic will be labeled "B" and "C" in the next two installments. NIST's 2004 Progress Report depicts a mythical hole supposedly "scooped out" of the center of the bottom 10 floors of Building 7. Figure L-31 in Appendix L of the report refers to the hole as the "Approximate Region of Impact Damage by Large WTC1 Debris." Since this damage did not exist in reality, NIST backpedaled and did not include its discredited Figure L-31 in the final 2008 report.

In its infamous 2005 article, "Debunking the 9/11 Myths," Popular Mechanics quoted NIST director Shyam Sunder asserting that falling debris from the North Tower poked a huge "gouge" in the front of WTC 7: "The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7." Sunder went on to say, "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom ― approximately 10 stories ― about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out." [Emphasis added]

Remarkably, Sunder made this definitive statement despite having no solid evidence to back it up. In fact, a careful reading of its 2004 preliminary report reveals that NIST simply cherry-picked one eyewitness statement, even though other witnesses refute this dramatic, specific, and provably false claim of damage.

Specifically, the statement about the 10-story gouge appears on page 18 of NIST's 2004 report, but NIST conveniently ignored two other comments on the same page that are in conflict with its conclusion:

Why 2,300 Architects & Engineers Demand Independent Investigation

INTRODUCTION

Editor's Note: This fascinating and provocative technical piece on NIST’s manipulation of the WTC 7 evidence is broken down into a series of six articles. The first installment (below) is the INTRODUCTION to the whole series. Stand by for the next five installments in subsequent articles, to be published monthly.

The United States government's official investigator of the destruction of the three skyscrapers on September 11, 2001, is the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), an arm of the Department of Commerce. The agency became highly politicized during a Clinton-era restructuring. "In essence," recalls a NIST whistleblower, "we lost our scientific independence, and became little more than 'hired guns.'"

NIST has made many false written and oral statements about the collapses of the three World Trade Center buildings on 9/11 — statements that have now caused 2,300 architects and engineers to question the government investigator's credibility and veracity. One of its most implausible claims is that a high-rise steel structure in New York City was destroyed by fire alone.

Figure 1. NIST's final report states that random office fires alone brought down Building 7. However, the collapse of WTC 7 compared, side by side, with an acknowledged professional controlled demolition reveals an entirely different story. Only a handful of companies have the ability to neatly implode a steel-framed skyscraper into its own footprint like this. Click on this video to see WTC 7 fall next to three acknowledged professional CDs.

Indeed, the fall of World Trade Center Building 7 is the third of the three only known "global collapses" of high-rise, steel-framed buildings ever recorded, and all three incredibly took place in one day: September 11, 2001.

NIST contends that the Twin Towers were brought down by the impact damage and consequent fires from the large airliner jets that hit them. But no jet struck WTC 7, and NIST claims that office fires alone demolished that building. The agency does admit that, if true, this would be the first and only time that an office fire brought down a steel skyscraper.

Ultimately, we are asked to accept on faith NIST's ever-changing, remarkable, and, frankly, suspect explanations for WTC 7's destruction.