My exchange with Morgan Reynolds, re: WTC demolitions

I recently had Morgan Reynolds on my radio show to explain/debate his article “WTC Destruction: Five Facts Falsify Five Theories.”  (Listen to the interview.)

Morgan followed up with “Bombs Did Not Unravel the Towers.”

I think Morgan’s articles are very much worthy of discussion, as is Judy Wood’s book Where Did the Towers Go, its main reference. One of Morgan’s (and Judy’s) strongest points is that the 9/11 truth movement has failed to hammer hard enough at one of the most obvious indications that the destruction of the Towers was not a natural collapse: The fact that it left no debris pile. The “rubble” at ground zero was basically at ground level, as Wood reminds us, with plenty of evidence, in chapter 9.  Sure, some pieces of the Towers crashed through into the sub-basements, and others were projected beyond the perimeter of the buildings’ footprint. But any symmetrical collapse, whether from (absurdly improbable) fires or from (much more probable) demolition charges, should have left far more debris than this!

My main problem with Morgan’s article is the way he selectively presents evidence in order to deny that explosions played a role in the demolitions (or annihilations – for if a demolition brings the pieces of a building to the ground, then the Towers were not demolished, but annihilated). According to Morgan, there were no eyewitnesses to explosions.  Oh really? Ever met William Rodriguez? Or the hundreds of others?

These are just a few of a huge number of similar accounts.

I responded to Morgan:

Morgan, the problem here is that you aren’t acknowledging all the people who DID hear huge explosions, and described them as sounding like a typical demolition sequence. I’m sure you’ve watched all the big 9/11 truth films and seen the firefighters describing the “boom-boom-boom, all the way down.”  And I’m sure you’ve seen the WTC-7 first responder who cites his military background and says “I think I know the sound of explosions when I hear them.”  Those are just two of a great many examples of witnesses who cut against the grain of your thesis. You just ignore them, and cherry-pick evidence that supports your pre-established conclusion.

When we keep in mind how easy it would be for well-funded military experts to engineer cutter charges (and perhaps other kinds of explosives) to minimize the bang, along with claims that virtually all the extant footage has had explosion sounds removed through sound editing, I don’t think you’ve proved your case. You’d be better off arguing more tentatively, and acknowledging the contradictory evidence and arguments.

Kevin

Morgan replied:

Kevin,

    Explosions happened, true.  Huge?  No, that did not happen. 
    I have no reason to be “tentative.”  I write about what the evidence tells us, especially when laid out by a meticulous scientist/engineer like Dr. Wood.  I shall leave “tentativeness” to you and other humanities scholars.  The best approach is to focus on the evidence and science of the case, not beliefs, assertions or accusations. 
    Things exploded at the WTC on 9/11, yes, we agree on that fact, but you must concede the following fact or look the fool: most explosions are not the result of bombs.  The vast majority of daily explosions, for example, occur inside internal combustion engines.  My article did not ignore explosions but rather cited many: eggs exploding inside microwaves, water/steam explosions, Scott Paks and cars exploding around the WTC plus pressurized vessels shooting out horizontal squibs in the towers (highly likely given Scott Pak and car explosions at ground level).  So the article did discuss reported explosions.  I did not ignore them.  You are either a careless reader or a liar.   Yes, bombs explode, but not all explosions are from bombs.  These are incontestable propositions.
    Nor did I ignore witnesses.  I discussed some of them.  Look, for example, at my reference to Andrew Johnson’s assessment of the 502 first responders.  I quoted witnesses as well.  How about Kevin Cosgrove as he died five floors from the top of the South Tower without a loud blast?  Abed?  Ober?  Heaney?  D’Angelo?  I consider the Cosgrove audio tape a devastating piece of evidence, good luck on refuting that.
    By contrast, to use your language, you “cherry pick evidence” to support your belief in bombs and cutter charges, overlooking the obvious fact that the towers (somehow) turned to dust in mid-air.  You are not being scientific.  Yes, under the stress of extraordinary and murderous events, witnesses reported explosions (so stipulated) and some probably believe to this day that bombs destroyed the towers.  Some may be military veterans, as you say, who “know the sound of explosions.”  OK, fine, most of know the sound of an explosion when we hear it but witnesses beliefs (especially about causation) do not determine what really happened on 9/11.  People on the scene had little idea of the what and how of the incredible events of 9/11, and latched onto whatever answer they could find or were given.  Truth is not determined democratically.  The totality of the facts tell us what happened via patient and thorough collection and scientific review of all the evidence. 
    Let me be plain: witnesses who claim the towers were destroyed by bombs planted inside are wrong.  Just like you are.  It is easy to understand why some witnesses would get it wrong: they heard and/or saw explosions and saw destruction, and put the two together.  They assume bombs exploded and destroyed the towers or they learned it on the internet from “truthers” like Kevin.  But here’s the fundamental problem: presence at the event does not confer analytical infallibility about what happened.  Presence does not qualify witnesses as scientific experts.  Witnesses who believe explosives destroyed the towers understandably have it wrong because they simply latched onto “the obvious” or what they were told to make sense of events.  They are wrong but it’s quite natural, but with you, Kevin, not so much.  You have the immense advantage of Dr. Wood’s textbook and my articles, and therefore access to the relevant facts, not to mention your obvious savvy and intelligence.  Somehow, you are unable to process the facts and learn what happened?  What is wrong with this picture?
    The ABC News team puzzled over the lack of debris after the WTC buildings disappeared on September 12, 2001, and George Stephanopoulos tried to explain it thusly: “The reason there’s so little rubble is that all of it simply fell down, into the ground, and was pulverized, evaporated.”  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjyQk941tXQ  This is gibberish of course.  Evaporate means to change from a liquid or solid state into a vapor or gaseous state.  But who can blame him?  Steel and concrete had turned to fine dust in mid-air in mere seconds. 
    The towers’ destruction simply does not match the behavior of buildings collapsing or blowing up from planted, shaped explosives.  First, the towers did not collapse but turned to dust (impossible for bombs), and second, the sound of explosions heard at the WTC were not loud enough by half nor frequent enough to point to nukes or the enormous sequence of conventional explosives that would have been required to blow up a 110-story steel tower.  You apparently endorse claims that “the extant footage has had explosion sounds removed through sound editing.”  In the videos I cite?  You have no proof, only an allegation.  A belief about sound editing is not proof.  I bring evidence for my conclusions, so please offer specific facts to support your editing allegation.  Do not bother with the likes of an assertion by (bomb non-expert) Sophia. 
    You fail to appreciate the multiple facts that completely and utterly refute conventional explosives.  For example, rigging the towers and WTC7 with conventional explosives without detection would be impossible.  It would take weeks if not months of research, test blasts “to assess the strength needed to fracture or eliminate” columns, assessment of “the number and types of holes to be drilled to house the explosives,” drilling holes in exposed columns (steel of course) and load bearing walls, insertion of explosives and charges necessary to ignite them, insertion of wood-clay-sand-foam to shape the charge (guide the explosive force), all the detonator wiring (explosive cord), and a careful sequence of electrical timing necessary to orchestrate a building folding in on itself, especially two towers 110-stories tall each (!) in downtown Manhattan when the tallest demolition ever attempted (that I know of) was the Hudson Department Store in Detroit, less than 1/3 the height of WTC 1 or 2 (quotations are from Helene Liss, “Demolition,” p. 44).  Of course demolition experts like Mark Loizeaux scoff at 9/11 truthers like you who assert “demolition” but display little or no knowledge about it. 
    Explosives propel material at supersonic speed, thus the BOOM.  Preparing a CCD requires that all “stuff” be stripped in advance, including window glass, furniture, coke cans, anything that could become a projectile and shoot into adjacent buildings and people.  Yet no one noticed the removal of WTC windows or anyone carrying port-a-potties with them on the subway or PATH trains that morning.  Cantor Fitzgerald wasn’t asking employees to use the toilets across the street, was it?  Employees would spend a lot of time going up and down elevators.  The U.S. Post Office right across the street from WTC 7 was untouched by projectiles.  How many reports do we have of people cut up by flying glass or porcelain toilets?  None that I know of. 
    Preparing the Seattle Kingdome in 2000 for demolition took a crew of 20 people five weeks to drill 5,905 holes for the explosives, 4,728 pounds of explosives and 21.6 miles of detonating cord (p. 108).  For the sake of argument, imagine people working in the WTC towers wondering who all those blue-collar guys were drilling into exposed steel support columns throughout the towers (10,000+ holes up and down, all around each tower) for weeks, trucking in tons of explosives and detonators, strategically planting them, stuffing in tons of shaping materials followed by explosive cord connecting detonators throughout the towers with all those cords ultimately extending to…where?  To Demolition Central (otherwise known as “D.C.”) across Liberty, West, Vesey or Church St., to some unspecified location?  Do you have evidence that WTC 7 was D.C. until it came time for the perps to relocate?  Where were their cords?  You are the proponent of explosives in the towers, so you tell me.  Are we to believe that WTC office workers and executives shrugged their shoulders and ignored all this prepping activity despite the 1993 bombing and daily threats against the WTC?  To my knowledge, nobody reported any such prepping of three WTC towers for demolition.  Despite frequent patrols, the Port Authority PD, WTC security and bomb-sniffing dogs never detected anything out of the ordinary either.  You invoke “military experts” in demolition.  They can minimize the bang of RDX and other conventional kinetic energy weapons you say?  KE devices suddenly release big energy and necessarily involve light, heat and supersonic blast waves.  Can these experts minimize all the physcial properties of KE devices?  Who are these magicians?  How do they defy physical laws with KE devices?  What is on their resume?  They know more than Mark Loizeaux about CCD?  Prove it.  You invoke “military experts” without documentation, proof of concept or any form of evidence.  Like most 9/11 leaders, you advocate hocus-pocus. 
    While we’re on thie topic, 9/11 was a psyop, correct?  The U.S. military employs experts in psychology, no?  Try this: When we keep in mind how easy it would be for well-funded “military experts” to engineer a “9/11 Truth Movement” and plant leaders in it to control public opinion, I don’t think you’ve proved your case.
    The remaining four of five facts I cited remain uncontested–slight debris, intact bathtub, small seismic impact and immense amounts of fine dust—and these alone prove five popular theories of WTC destruction wrong.  The popular theories are exposed for the hopeless bushwa they are.  A scientific approach begins with what happened and the most important fact is that the towers turned to fine powder in mid-air.  Bombs cannot do that.  Impossible.  KE bombs fragment materials into chunks.  Prove that false.  You cannot.
    Time to change your mind Kevin.  I’d suggest changing your team too.  Or don’t you care about being on the winning side?  Remember journalism’s mantra: get it first, get it right.
  
Best regards,
Morgan Reynolds