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An Essay-Review of
Where Did the Towers Go?
by
Judy Wood, Ph.D.
Part Twoi
Because Dr. Wood’s book contains so much materialii, and because I think that it is much more important to talk to the general public than to the Movement itself, I shall abandon the project of determining what is right and wrong in everything Dr. Wood and her detractors say about each other, and only address two issues in dispute between Dr. Wood and others within the Truth Movement (which she prefers not to be considered part of).
Nobody asked me, but following is what I think about nanothermite and explosives generally, on the one hand, and directed energy technology, on the other. I shall examine Dr. Wood on explosion, and AE911Truth on dustification. Of course, I speak only for myself, and not for any organization, and my opinions are subject to change with the coming to light of new evidence.
It is unfortunate that both sides of the disagreement between Dr. Wood and (what I hope she will forgive me for calling) the rest of the Truth Movement have been so affected by partisanship as to have become unfair to the other side; most often writing as if the use of explosives (of whatever kind) and directed energy (whose existence as a weapon in the arsenal of the United States is not denied by the United States), were mutually exclusive. The issue has some organizational significance since the phrase “explosive evidence” is one of AE911Truth’s most prominent logos and the title of their latest movie.
“Proving what hit the Pentagon is not essential to the campaign and publicizing the fact that opinions differ is patently harmful,” says Dr. Frank Legge.iii But almost nothing is essential to the campaign except exhibiting the implications of the Official Patsy Cline Theory. We do not need to talk about our ideas. We need to talk about the Government’s ideas and claims, and express them in ordinary, everyday language that will show people what they have been told and have accepted. We need to confront the claims with the photographs. It is not patent to me that publicizing the fact that opinions differ is harmful (and since it is not, that proves that it is not patent– that is what ‘patent’ means), and as far as I can see it may be a good thing. But a future in which the Truth Movement is largely occupied with an unnecessary disagreement about explosives versus directed energy would mean the diversion of a significant amount of energy (our energy) directed away from addressing the public.
“Mark observed that calling it simply “an explosive” would convey to most members of the public that it is “a high explosive” or, given it’s [sic] invocation by the “hard evidence” crowd, at least, has the ability to disintegrate concrete and even steel. Since that is the impression that has been indelibly implanted in the consciousness of the public, within and without the 9/11 Truth movement, until that claim is corrected, the 9/11 Truth movement will be based upon a provably false theory.” (VT).
But nothing can be indelibly implanted in the consciousness of the public, not even the idea that things don’t fall up. The public is wonderfully malleable. Whether something has a “central role” or is “the key to” something is a vague question not worth quarrelling over. Establishing the use of EITHER explosives or directed energy is enough by itself to demonstrate that the airplane strikes were unnecessary, and intended simply as a diversion and a scam; and I think that both can be established. However, it is not necessary to establish ANY mechanism for the aerosolization of the Towers. It is enough to establish that the Patsy Cline Theory is false.
Both Dr. Wood and Truthers who resist any talk of directed energy are correct, or at least plausible, in what they advance positively, and ineffective in their attacks on what the other side says. Dr. Wood describes the ecumenical attitude of that last sentence as “The Kitchen Sink.” (p. 126.) Both she and her detractors have made and will continue to make valuable contributions to the spread of the Truth, but they will not do it by warring on each other.
Dr. Wood to my knowledge does not explicitly deny the existence of nanothermite in the Towers’ dust, but simply remains unconvinced it is there. (Drs. Fetzer and Hightower, however, do admit the “probative force” of its existence.) AE911Truth, on the other hand, denies the existence of any evidence for the use of directed energy. Dr. Wood and AE911Truth are both convinced that there can be no reconciliation between directed energy use (‘dustification’) and explosion. I consider myself a friend of both sides, whatever they consider me, and I claim that each has failed in the area Dr. Wood has called “perceptual conformity.”iv
Dr. Jenkins states: “Dr. Wood’s hypothesis is predominantly based upon the premise that large amounts of debris were ‘missing’ from the post-collapse rubble.” I cannot agree. It seems to me that her hypothesis is based more on the undisputed photographs of, and testimony of eyewitnesses to, phenomena which are not otherwise explainable, comparable to the photographs of objects affected by “The Hutchison Effect” which she reproduces in her book (see especially pp. 358-363) and at: http://drjudywood.com/articles/erin/erin4.html .
Dr. Wood states: “…the gases from a C-4 explosion initially expand at about 26,400 feet per second, which is about 18,000 miles per hour, or 23.5 times the speed of sound. So detonating such an explosive in quantities great enough to destroy the Twin Towers would have produced significant blast waves. But nothing of the sort was reported by any witness on 9/11, nor was there any photographic evidence consistent with explosive forces of this nature.” (p. 104.) I must take issue with that last statement. In my opinion, all the photographic evidence is consistent with multiple explosions of relatively small size, and if she means that their sum total was not great enough to account for the subsequent absence of the Towers, I simply do not know whether it was or not. Dr. Wood does not address the audible evidence, both recorded and testified to, of explosions.
“With explosives (kinetic energy devices), chunks go flying and remain in the form of chunks until they land. They do not ‘dissolve’ into dust while traveling through the air.” (p. 174). But many Truthers have seen Sandia's airplane hitting the concrete wall and its fragments each leaving a trail (http://911review.com/errors/pentagon/crashdebris.html).
In one place Dr. Wood has spoken of the visible fragments of the Towers being “pulled” out, rather than being blasted out. At http://www.csi911.info/CSI911.html Joe Princiotta has assembled evidence for them being pushed. I note only that the trajectories seem to indicate an extremely brief initial impulse.
“A shock wave is a narrow region, of the order of the free path length of molecules, of a compressed substance propagating in space with supersonic speed. The time of increase in pressure (from zero to the maximum value) varies from 10-12 to 10-10 s, the time of exposure to high pressure varies about 10-6, and pressure drop (unloading) varies from 10-6 to 10-5 s.”v
None of the Hutchison effects I have seen operate in this way.
About the specific substance nanothermite Dr. Wood says: “Finding traces of chocolate, sugar, and nano-wheat (flour) in the dust would not prove that chocolate-chip cookies turned the buildings to dust.” (p. 124.) But, “nobody that I know of is pushing the idea that nanothermite was used *exclusively* in the demolitions.” (VT).
As late as May 3, 2011, on the Coast to Coast radio show
(http://www.coasttocoastam.com/show/2011/05/03, 1:46) Dr. Wood gave as explanation for the nanothermite found, the “rust and powdered aluminum” explanation used by “debunkers.” According to Dr. Harrit the nanoaluminum actually found is such an exotic material it can only be produced in national laboratories. The probative force of nanothermite recognized by Fetzer and Hightower is too valuable to do without, as Dr. Wood does, whether or not it was used as an explosive.
At the same time, it must be said that the probative force of her website is likewise too valuable to do without. There are too many facts and photographs there which are not to be found elsewhere. Individually they are not enough to make an impression on most newcomers to the subject, and so are probably not suitable as things to lead with, but that they are astonishing is not a reason to suppress them, or deny them.
I have mentioned in Part One the cumulative effect of the evidences Dr. Wood has assembled. Rather than repeat what she has said, I will confine attention simply to The Spire, and what the school represented by AE911Truth says about it.
“However, upon studying the video of the “spire,” we find that the steel did not “turn to dust” (see for example the next to last segment in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W0-W582fNQ). The spire clearly simply fell after being attacked by explosive charges, leaving behind, in mid-air, the pulverized concrete that had been resting on, or statically stuck to, the steel. As is well known, air resistance causes dust to fall slower than macroscopic pieces of structural steel (note the final remaining column falling faster than the dust in the third photograph of the sequence).” (http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/505-ae911truth-faq-6-whats-your-assessment-of-the-directed-energy-weapon-dew-hypothesis.html)
Below I reproduce in toto Dr. Legge's amplification of AE911Truth's account of The Spire, entitled “A Response to Reynolds and Wood,” (http://stj911.org/legge/Legge_Replyto_Reynolds_Wood.html)
which is intended as a refutation of Dr. Wood's assertions. He says:
“A few seconds earlier the metal standing here was enveloped in a very dense cloud of dust, largely concrete. This will have settled on every surface. Because the cloud was so dense it settled very fast leaving clear air in which we can observe what happened next. The next event would have been the explosive demolition of the steel lower down, out of sight. The impact of the explosion would have sent a shock wave up the steel, dislodging the dust. The steel then falls through the dust and disappears from view [!] leaving the dust, now widely scattered hence no longer so dense, falling slowly. There is no case here for anything hotter than thermite. There is a case for a high explosive to create a shock wave.”
Now here it is again with my additions and interpolations in red.
“A few seconds earlier the metal standing here was enveloped in a very dense cloud of dust, largely concrete. This will have settled on every surface. Because the cloud was so dense it settled very fast …
See the video at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=otgfwzA1ECc&feature=related .
You can stop and slow-motion the video by double-clicking.
One of the things that might be meant by calling a cloud “dense” is that you can't see through it, and that is certainly true of the cloud created in seconds out of the North Tower (by gravity, according to Patsy Cline theorists). But something else about being “dense,”¾ in the sense in which the word means “composed of relatively fine and relatively numerous particles”¾ militates directly against settling fast. The finer the particles, the more slowly they will settle; and obviously, the converse. There is no question that the dust settled fast. It's obvious from the video. Therefore the particles were not exceptionally fine; they quickly left a perfectly clear space through which you could see the blue sky.
Starting at about 0:10 on the video you can see that what became “the Spire” started as a rather chunky upright mass, evidently composed of several columns like the one which subsequently became “The Spire.” Some of these columns, a bundle in fact, fall over (NOT straight down like The Spire) to the left, and another, slightly shorter one falls over to the right. This rightward falling column can resemble an object shooting upward if not examined carefully, because its top has been left relatively unaffected, while its length has left a trail of particulates, giving the misleading impression that the bulb-like top is a projectile moving, or which has moved, up. Around 0:15-0:17 you can see the thinned-out lower length of the right column falling over while it has largely ceased to leave that trail of particulates, while the upper length continues to do that, creating a sort of flag-shaped impression.
By 0:20 you see The Spire sharply outlined and dense, against the sky. Two remaining columns of unequal length on the left bend and sway back and forth for no apparent reason, like objects in a Hutchison video, before falling straight down). Parts of their length seem at times to bend in different directions simultaneously.
Starting at about 0:10 what is left is plainly at first not “dusty” at all, in the sense in which that means: that it is composed of dust, and its outlines are correspondingly fuzzy. The fuzziness of the outlines which appear subsequently (but quickly) is replicated not just at the edges but in the interior too, which becomes visibly less dark.
leaving clear air in which we can observe what happened next. The next event would have been the explosive demolition of the steel lower down, out of sight.
But this explosive demolition would not have vaporized the steel, would it? An explosive demolition would have removed a relatively short length of column, hardly enough to accommodate the length of what we see sinking straight down. Of course, Legge sees this.
The impact of the explosion would have sent a shock wave up the steel, dislodging the dust.
This is Dr. Legge's explanation of the non-solid appearance of The Spire as it sinks straight down. It looks like a column of dust because it is one. It retains the shape of the steel column because what we are looking at now is the outside shell of dust that that column collected on itself. However, the dust was not dislodged very far, because no thickening or widening of the structure's outline is apparent until the area inside appears to start lightening, or disappearing. If the dust was dislodged so uniformly by the shock wave as to retain its previous shape, and produce a dust-twin of the column outside and around it, the steel beneath it should still have been visible through the now-thinner dust coating.
The steel then falls through the dust [!] and disappears from view [!] leaving the dust, now widely scattered hence no longer so dense, falling slowly.
The column itself, however, remains unaccounted for. According to Legge's information, the steel removed itself from beneath its coating of dust without disturbing the shape of that coating of dust. But how it is supposed to have taken off its dust-coat without altering its shape remains mysterious. Apparently, it not only slipped away through its dust covering intangibly, but invisibly as well. In all the clips there is no sign of anything solid “removing itself” at lightning speed, while the dust it leaves behind “falls slowly.” The dust falls as slowly, or quickly, as might be expected, and there is no visible trace of anything beneath it having “removed itself.” (To where?) What appears is simply that a solid object has TURNED INTO dust before our eyes. Legge's explanans is harder to believe than what it is supposed to explain away.
There is no case here for anything hotter than thermite.
Quite so. Nor has Wood suggested there was. Her suggestion of lack of heat has generated heat directed toward her.
There is a case for a high explosive to create a shock wave.”
The moral of the discussion has been that inability to see what is in front of your eyes is not just found in the Patsy Cline ranks.
i Part One is at:
ii Dr. Eric Larsen, who wrote the Foreword to Dr. Wood’s book, has a much more comprehensive discussion of it at:
The organization AE911Truth’s position with regard to Dr. Wood’s ideas is at:
http://www.ae911truth.org/en/news-section/41-articles/505-ae911truth-faq-6-whats-your-assessment-of-the-directed-energy-weapon-dew-hypothesis.html . Its response is largely taken from a paper of Dr. Gregory S. Jenkins, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200702/Implausibility-Directed-Energy-Beam-Demolish-WTC-by-Gregory-Jenkins.pdf , to which it links, along with other papers. I shall use Dr. Jenkins’ paper and the others as standard statements of the positions under consideration. Much further discussion and debate concerning thermite in all its varieties is found on the site of Veterans Today, where Dr. Fetzer has become a columnist:
http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/07/17/is-911-truth-based-upon-a-false-theory/ .
I shall draw upon that discussion in what follows by quoting bits and pieces of it thus: “ Bold”(VT).
iii Frank Legge, “A Response to Reynolds and Wood,” http://stj911.org/legge/Legge_Replyto_Reynolds_Wood.html .
iv Wood, pp. 347 f. Cf. Solomon Asch’s experiments.
v S.S. Batsanov, Effects of Explosions on Materials: Modification and Synthesis Under High-Pressure Shock Compression, (New York: 1994), p. 1.
Loony! The amount of output of power is relative to the input so the amount of power needed to “disappear” 3 gigantic structures would be absolutely astronomical, it isnt yet possible. Judy Woods may have the theory but she doesnt face the reality.
You call this a book review? What book did you review? It does not appear that you read WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO?, only debunker sites. You do not address what is actually in WHERE DID THE TOWERS GO? but instead you deny that it is in the textbook!
The truth is unifying. Too bad you are not interested in the truth.
Why do you use words that you do not know the meaning of? Interpolations is not the same as “interpretations”. The building was not “evaporated” nor was it “aerosolized”. You present yourself as some sort of authority figure but it is apparent that you have no scientific training. You are not looking for solutions nor are you looking for the truth. You are merely doing a smear job by muddling up and covering up.
The truth is knowable. One must ask why you do not want others to know what the truth is.
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