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Indiana Daily Student
On Sept 11, 2001, World Trade Towers One, Two and Seven all collapsed via controlled demolition, according to Richard Gage of the Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth. Gage is the founding member of the group, and spoke about this theory at the Bloomington 9/11 Working Group's Monday night presentation in front of large crowd at the Buskirk-Chumley Theater. The group was created in an effort to encourage further probe of the Sept. 11 attacks. "It is important to understand it because it was a pretext for the invasion of two countries in which almost a million people have perished," Gage said. The group, along with others who believe the Sept. 11 attacks were part of a broad conspiracy, have often been questioned and criticized by others. "If it is a conspiracy, it is hard to believe they could pull it off," said Spencer resident Scott Ackerman, who attended the conference. However, he added that getting to the truth was important, especially on the eve of the tragedy's anniversary. "I don't think truth is ever disrespectful," he said. Kevin Ryan, former site manager of Environmental Health Laboratories, who spoke at the event, said the "official story" has changed several times in the past six years, but originally it was reported that "super-heated jet fuel melted the steel super-structure of these buildings and caused their collapse." However, this theory has long been debunked, Ryan said. Both Ryan and Gage argued that fires have never before or since Sept. 11 caused a high-rise building to collapse. Gage said the fire is not consistent with the type of collapse of the Twin Towers and Building Seven. Gage also spoke about reports that allegedly showed evidence of explosions, including eye-witness reports of typical signs of demolition. Gage presented multiple videos of demolitions to demonstrate the key signs of the methods used, then showed how the same signs could be seen in the collapse of all three World Trade Towers. The group said the "smoking gun" of Sept. 11 is World Trade Tower Building Seven, which was never mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report published after years of investigation. Though Building Seven had been hit by some debris from the North Tower, only the seventh, 12th and 13th floors were burning, Gage said. In Caracas, Venezuela, a building burned for 17 hours on 26 floors and did not fall down, he said. "It is virtually impossible, no, it is impossible, I'll say it," he said. Ryan, a former site manager for Environmental Health Laboratories, also spoke at the event. Environmental Health Laboratories is a division of Underwriters Laboratories, which had done tests to confirm the fire-resistance of the steel. Ryan said he was fired from his job after he wrote a letter to a government scientist pointing out flaws in the government scientist's theory of how the towers collapsed. Ryan also questioned the appointment of Phillip Zelikow to head the committee creating the 9/11 Commission Report, saying he was not objective. He had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice and worked with both George W. and George H.W. Bush. "His self-described area of academic expertise is the 'creation and management of public myths,'" Ryan said. Zelikow "controlled the 9/11 commission, picking areas of investigation, briefing materials, topics for hearings, witnesses … he set the agenda," Ryan said, stressing the amount of power Zelikow was given. Sen. Max Cleland, formerly a member of the commission, resigned in protest of the group's methods. Neither Ryan or Gage cared to speculate as to who might have orchestrated a demolition of the towers, instead preferring to talk about the inconsistencies of the government reports. "Tonight we are concerned with science," Gage said. Still, Gage called on the audience members to contact their local legislators and demand a new, objective probe into what happened on Sept. 11. "Twenty-seven hundred people were murdered in what we can now safely call demolitions," Gage said. "We need to honor them by getting at the truth of what happened."
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