PBS - Colorado broadcasts 9/11: Explosive Evidence - Experts Speak Out (2012 documentary)

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♪
>> I don't want to be involved
in conspiracy theories.
You know, there are lots of 'em
that could go on.
We could speculate on that
forever.
What we really need to know is
how, how those buildings came
down.
♪
>> My husband, Steve, was 48
years old when he was killed on
September 11, 2001.
He was in the North Tower on the
104th floor.
There are so many unanswered
questions and that's scary to
me.
We never had answers.
Nobody ever stopped to have a
scientific investigation.
A scientific investigation.
A scientific investigation.
♪
>> Tribute lights in the New
York skyline.
An annual memorial to the lives
lost on 9/11.
Yet there's still more light
that needs to shine revealing
truths that their family members
deserve to know.
September 11, 2001, a day that
changed history.
Four planes went silent and off
course.
Two of those planes crashed into
the World Trade Center Twin
Towers.
Several columns were severed
and the jet fuel ignited fires
that spread over several
floors.
About an hour later, millions
watched in shock as both towers
were suddenly and rapidly
destroyed, killing almost 3,000
people for whom truth and
justice may have yet to be
served.
♪
Hi, I'm Richard Gage, A.I.A,
licensed architect of over
twenty years and member of the
American Institute of
Architects.
I'm founder of Architects and
Engineers for 9/11 Truth, a
non-profit organization of well
over a thousand technical and
building professionals.
According to official government
reports, the fires weakened the
structural steel framing of both
Twin Towers, leading to sudden,
progressive, and total
collapses.
Unknown to most people, a third
steel-frame high-rise, World
Trade Center 7, was also
destroyed.
Critical questions have been
raised by more than 1,500
architects and engineers about
the official explanations for
the destruction of all three of
these buildings.
Along with more than 10,000
other concerned individuals,
these professionals,
collectively comprising more
than 25,000 years of experience,
have signed our petition.
They're calling for a new
investigation into the
destruction of these three World
Trade Center high-rises.
This call is based on evidence
that reveals a very different
destruction scenario than
reported by government
engineers.
As coherent sets of scientific
facts are brought into focus by
the experts, the data, and the
witnesses in this film, you'll
come to a much greater
understanding of the events of
9/11, and will be in a position
to draw your own informed
conclusions.
♪
♪
The new World Trade Center
Building 7 looms above the site
of its original.
Building 7 was a 47-story
high-rise not hit by an
airplane.
Yet it was the third modern
steel-frame skyscraper to
collapse rapidly and
symmetrically on 9/11.
It was a football field away
from the North Tower and
sustained minor damage from
falling debris.
Building 7's precipitous
collapse was blamed on normal
office fires.
>> I'm Steve Barasch, founder
and president of Barasch
Architects and Associates, Inc.,
a 33-year-old architecture
planning and engineering firm.
One of the things that, that
really interested me is how
quickly that Tower 7 fell.
It fell within seven seconds,
approximately, from top to
bottom.
This building was built in the
mid '80s and met all the codes
at the time.
>> From about 1965 until about
1985, my--
Most of my experience has been
in high-rise, multi-story steel
buildings.
NIST would have us to
believe that these were--
Was a typical office fire.
Scattered office fires, if you
will, that brought this building
down.
Since the mid '60s, I've tried
to follow high-rise fires
because they're something we
worry a lot about as we
design these buildings, and I'm
not aware of any high-rise
building that have come down as
a result of fires.
>> The coup de grâce for me was
when I found out that Building 7
had collapsed later that day,
and when I saw Building 7 come
down, to me, the fact that it
looks like a perfect controlled
demolition of an intact
building.
♪
I mean, that's what I call a
smoking gun.
♪
>> Was the structural steel from
World Trade Center 7 preserved,
documented, analyzed according
to standard procedures for
investigating engineering
failures?
>> Four hundred truck loads per
day of material were taken away
from the World Trade Center site
and sent to China for recycling.
>> There were laws violated in
the destruction of that
evidence, and for the American
Society of Civil Engineers to
ignore those events is extremely
disturbing and is a violation,
in my opinion, of their
professional code of ethics.
>> It was contrary to the way
all investigations are done.
If an airplane crashes, they
seal off the entire area.
Nobody touches anything.
They move it to a secure
location and they reconstruct an
aircraft.
>> Normally when you have a
structural failure, you
carefully go through the debris
field looking at each item.
Photographing every beam as it
collapsed and every column where
it is on the ground, and you
pick them up very carefully and
you look at each element.
We were unable to do that in the
case of Tower 7.
You can't do science when you
are deprived of the evidence and
when your hypothesis is the
least valid instead of the most
likely.
When the most likely hypothesis,
in the case of Building 7,
wasn't even mentioned, this is
not science.
It's trying to prove
preconceived ideas.
♪
>> Was a proper investigation
performed that might've
revealed the use of accelerants
or explosives in World Trade
Center 7's destruction?
>> NIST concedes that they
found no evidence for
explosives.
So then we ask them, "Well, did
you look?"
And they said, "No, we did not
look for explosives or residues
of explosives."
>> Big explosion.
Blew us back into the eighth
floor.
>> I'm okay, all right?
>> Here, hold on.
>> You wanna call your mother or
something?
Just the fact that there were
explosions means they need to be
investigated.
>> Oh my God.
>> Did you hear that?
>> Move it back.
>> We are walking back.
>> We don't have the real story
on what happened because there
wasn't a proper investigation
done.
♪
>> World Trade Center 7
collapsed because of fires
fueled by office furnishings.
It did not collapse from
explosives or from fuel oil
fires.
>> As reported by the "New York
Times", engineers were baffled
by the collapse of Building 7.
Since no steel-frame high-rise
has ever completely collapsed
due to fire, how are we to
understand this mysterious
event?
>> High-rise buildings simply do
not collapse due to fire.
There has never been, until
9/11, an experience where a
high-rise building that was
steel-frame completely
collapsed.
There have been fires burned
longer in similar
structures without any collapse.
>> This claims the fires were
very large, very hot, and long
lasting.
When in reality, observation,
which has been researched by
many people, shows these fires
that were--
Did not last very long.
They were not in the locations
where NIST claims they were
at given times.
>> I'm a fellow of The American
Institute of Architects.
For the forty plus years that
I've been practicing
architecture, I have designed a
variety of buildings from small
houses to high-rise office
buildings.
Some of the high-rises that I've
worked on are One Shell and Two
Shell here in Houston.
I was project manager for a
22-story office building in
Akron, Ohio.
Later in the day, when World
Trade Center 7 collapsed, they
had already showed us pictures
of a few fires in that building
and I mean, they weren't even
raging, and how could that
cause a building to collapse as
if it were imploded?
Couldn't happen.
♪
>> According to lead
investigator Shyam Sunder of
the National Institute for
Standards and Technology,
NIST, World Trade
Center 7 collapsed
at free-fall acceleration for
more than 100 feet of its fall.
What does the speed of the
collapse reveal to us?
>> Essentially, in less than
seven seconds Tower 7 came down
upon itself.
>> So it's like taking your car
keys out and just dropping 'em.
That's how fast the building
came down for over a hundred
feet.
Which--
And the only way you can get
that is when there's zero
resistance.
And so, what we're looking at is
a building just coming straight
down, falling right through
itself, with zero resistance.
Buildings don't have zero
resistance which is why you feel
comfortable walking into a
building.
>> This building had 40,000 tons
of structural steel in its
structural system and that is
intended to keep it from going
anywhere.
>> NIST is telling
us that the building
below it ceased to exist
for the first few seconds
of the collapse of the building.
Well, things in physics just
don't cease to exist and cease
to resist the forces that are on
them.
The building didn't disappear so
the building can fall for a
hundred feet at free-fall speed.
That's impossible.
That's a violation of the
fundamental law of physics that
says that for every action
there's an equal and opposite
reaction.
>> If floors fall, they tend to
fall and are braced by the floor
directly beneath it and there's
some delay there.
>> Because of redundancy,
because of all the other columns
in the building that were not
affected.
>> Even if a floor
were to collapse, it still
wouldn't be able to collapse all
of the connections
simultaneously at the rate that
it did without a secondary
explosions.
♪
>> We might anticipate that an
unevenly damaged building would
fall over.
Yet videos of the collapse of
Building 7 show a fairly
symmetrical fall.
How do we make sense of this?
>> If the buildings had come
down by fire, we would've seen
a more natural progression of
collapse.
>> And clearly a more
asymmetrical pattern should have
been present.
♪
>> The symmetry is the smoking
gun.
It cannot happen that when you
have asymmetric damage, you will
get a perfectly symmetrical
collapse.
>> The exterior columns on the
outside, on the outside, as well
as on the inside at the bottom,
would have to be severed almost
at the same time.
>> I worked for Controlled
Demolition Incorporated,
C.D.I., the top rated explosive
demolition firm in the world.
What I saw it was a classic
implosion.
The center of the core, the
penthouse area, starts to move
first and then the building
follows along with it.
That's another indicator that
this report is very suspect.
>> When it's all finished, the
outside walls are piled one on
top of the other right in the
middle of the building.
Just like a house of cards if it
were coming down.
>> According to NIST, the
failure occurred at column 79 on
level 12.
This means, basically, they're
talking about a single column
collapse, or failure, that
resulted in a total collapse of
the building.
That just does not make any
sense.
♪
>> The explanations from
FEMA and from NIST don't
add up.
But there is enormous
circumstantial evidence,
circumstantial and actually
physical evidence as well, that
would lead us to a different
conclusion, and the conclusion
is controlled demolition.
>> [speaking foreign language]
♪
>> Building 7, to me, is really
what gives it away because
that's a classic case of
controlled demolition.
♪
>> This is the original site of
the World Trade Center Twin
Towers.
Construction is now underway
where dramatic new facilities
are being erected.
Just ten years years ago, the
planes hit the towers, cutting
through some exterior and
interior supporting structural
steel columns.
The fuel from the planes ignited
office fires across several
floors.
According to the official
reports, the structural steel
frame was weakened and failed,
causing a total progressive
collapse of each tower.
Does the official explanation
make sense?
Was there a comprehensive
investigation that examined all
of the evidence?
>> I walked into the office and
the first words that I heard
was, "A plane's just run into
the World Trade Center."
And my initial thought was,
"Well, that's okay.
It's built to withstand a 707.
>> It did not seem possible that
these towers that were designed
to withstand the impact of a
707 could possibly collapse in
such a short order of time from
the time that they were hit.
>> The majority of the jet fuel
was burnt up instantly in the
big fireball and it was gone.
♪
The fires that were left were
office furnishings and carpet
and things like that.
A lot of things in these kind
of buildings have to be
fire-resistant by nature.
It's required by code.
So there really isn't a whole
lot of fuel in there to begin
with.
>> The media portrayed these
fires as being extremely hot,
but the fires were not that hot
in World Trade Center 1 and 2.
If you look at the NIST's
own data, you can see this.
And to use our own powers of
observation, you could tell by
seeing these fires and seeing
black smoke come out the
windows.
That means that the fires were
oxygen starved and there was
incomplete combustion.
And so, it was a low-temperature
fire.
>> The heat from the fire
supposedly softened the steel
and thereby brought the
buildings down.
You have a flame at 750 degrees,
you can hold that flame under a
steel beam forever and you'll
never reach a high enough
temperature to bend steel, let
alone melt it.
So immediately I knew at that
point that the official
explanation was dead wrong.
♪
>> Rather than a slow groaning
collapse that we might
anticipate, the Twin Towers show
in the videos a very rapid,
sudden onset of destruction.
What does this imply?
>> This claim that the upper
section of each of the towers
crushed the lower section.
However, when you watch video
closely in the case of World
Trade Center 1, you'll see that
the upper section disintegrates
itself.
It appears to be a controlled
demolition of its own of the
upper section.
>> The top section pushing on
the bottom section it's gonna
meet equal forces as it goes.
Both sections are gonna be
demolished at the same rate.
So by the time you've crushed up
15 stories below it, the top 15
stories are also gonna be
crushed, and so there's nothing
left now to crush the rest of
the building.
You're looking for a jolt that
this thing, if it actually
comes down and hits, you should
be able to see the point at
which they actually impact
because it would actually slow
down the motion of the falling
block.
>> Before the tower started
collapsing from the top, the
antenna started to fall and the
antenna, of course, was over the
middle of the elevator shafts.
I'm very familiar with the
interior structure that
surrounded the elevator shafts
and the accessibility which
the elevator companies had
24/7.
>> It wouldn't be a problem
once you gained access to the
elevator shafts.
Then a team of loading experts
would have access to all the
core columns and beams.
The rest could be accomplished
at that point by just the right
kind of explosives for the job
at hand.
>> The only way that I can see
that the towers could have
collapsed is that the interior
columns were compromised.
♪
>> Over a hundred first
responders reported sounds of
explosions and flashes of light
at the onset of destruction of
both towers.
These were not discussed in the
NIST report.
What did these eyewitnesses
actually see and hear?
>> As we were getting our gear
on and making our way to the
stairway, there was a heavy-duty
explosion.
>> Inside the lobbies.
>> And we stuck on the stairs
for a while.
We finally got down to the
lobby, and then we get to the
lobby there was this big
explosion.
>> There were numerous
secondary explosions
taking place in that building.
There were continuous
explosions.
>> Floor by floor it started
popping out.
>> It was as if they had
detonators that were planted to
take down a building.
Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom.
>> And it just started going
pop.
It just started going boom,
boom, boom, boom, boom.
And he goes, "How fast?"
And I go, "Like firecrackers."
>> They're reporting exactly
what I would expect.
You're hearing boom, boom, boom,
boom, boom.
Waves of explosions going off.
Not one massive, big boom.
>> There's so many videos of
witnesses from that day that
report explosions.
There's radio transmissions from
the F.D.N.Y.
We have the transcripts that
were recorded, you know, back in
2001 of all these firefighters
and first responders reporting
explosions.
>> This testimony should've
caused the presumption that
there was a good chance
explosive residue would be found
and justified testing for it,
rather than the opposite.
>> It doesn't look like a
collapse.
It's like a huge mushrooming,
billowing kind of an event.
That whole thing looks nothing
like a building falling down.
It's a building being blown up.
That's what the physics shows.
>> Yet they refuse to consider
the possibility of explosives,
or some other form of demolition
device, could've been used to
cause the collapses of the
towers, and the fact that
controlled demolition is
consistent with all the
available technical evidence,
and the response to that request
for correction is this simply
saying, "They're unable to
provide a full explanation for
the total collapse."
Even though that was their task
given to them by Congress.
♪
>> FEMA documents a 1,200
foot diameter debris field
around each tower.
Videos show multi-ton steel
sections of hundreds of
individual steel pieces ejecting
out of the towers at sixty miles
an hour for a distance of 600
feet.
They also show clouds of debris
pulverized in midair.
An isolated explosive ejections
as many as sixty stories below
the so-called "crush zone".
Videos also show the near total
destruction of both towers.
What does all this tell us about
the forces and energies involved
in the destruction?
>> Large multi-ton beams were
hurled hundreds of yards
laterally.
Gravity works vertically,
not laterally.
♪
>> So something's happening to
throw these things horizontally
at those kinds of speeds, and
here it is trailing white smoke
the whole time.
It really is indicative of some
kind of explosion.
>> The individual explosions
that I had noticed twenty and
thirty and forty stories below
the collapsing structure.
>> And naysayers tend to say,
"Well, that's just air being
blown out the windows."
I mean, it doesn't really work
to say it's just air pressure.
Some of these are coming out
faster than a hundred miles an
hour.
>> As an architect, I would
expect to see larger portions of
the building floors, the
decking, the steel decking, the
concrete topping.
Much larger remnants of what
the structural components of
this building was.
>> What happened to the--
>> The concrete was pulverized
and I was down here at Tuesday
and it was like you were on a
foreign planet.
All of lower Manhattan, not
just this site, from river to
river there was dust powder two,
three inches thick.
The concrete was just
pulverized.
♪
>> In its report on World Trade
Center 7, which came out in May
of 2002, F.E.M.A. documents in
Appendix C, steel that has been
melted and even partially
evaporated resembling Swiss
cheese.
What are we to make of this?
>> I would like to know why
NIST excluded the evidence
of melting steel.
Why is this not included?
Why is this forensic evidence
not being included in the
report?
♪
>> First of all, let's go back
to your basic premise that there
was a pool of molten steel.
I know absolutely nobody, no
eyewitnesses who said so, nobody
who's produced it.
>> You'd get down below and
you'd see molten steel, molten
steel running down the channel
rails.
Like you're in a foundry.
>> Yep.
>> Yeah.
Like lava almost.
>> Like lava.
>> There are actually melted
beams where it was molten steel
that was being dug out.
>> Underground it was still so
hot that molten metal dripped on
the sides of a wall.
>> This is fused element of
steel, molten steel, and
concrete and all of these things
all fused by the heat into one
single element.
♪
>> Many witnesses, firemen and
lots of people, described the
flowing molten metal, iron or
steel, at extremely hot
temperatures, and John Gross
categorically denied their
observations.
So that because their
observations don't fit his
preconceived notion, he not only
ignored evidence, he denied
evidence.
♪
>> In an office fire, you cannot
generate enough heat to melt
steel, and yet we have evidence
of molten iron in the
microspheres, in the rubble
pile, and the metal pouring out
of the side of the tower.
>> So what is this molten metal?
It's a direct evidence for the
use of thermite.
>> An incendiary used by the
military, thermite is a compound
of iron oxide and aluminum
which when ignited, sustains an
extreme heat reaction, creating
molten iron.
In just two seconds, thermite
can reach temperatures over
4,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
Quite enough to liquefy steel.
We know that open air fires
cannot burn hot enough to melt
steel, but metal had melted at
the base of the towers.
>> I found a pore in the steel
that had pure sulfur.
>> There's a government theory
that calcium sulfate from
gypsum boards was the source of
sulfur and that's wrong.
Calcium sulfate cannot undergo
any kind of a chemical reaction
that produces the element
sulfur, and we're not dealing
with any kind of compound of
sulfur when we're talking about
sulfurization.
We're dealing with the element
sulfur.
>> There's a version of
thermite, called thermate, which
has sulfur in the thermate, and
what the sulfur does is it's
sort of like salt on ice.
>> And it just basically makes
the steel melt at a lower
temperature.
>> And if you do a search on
Google for thermite and building
demolition, you can find devices
that have been fabricated and
invented that use thermite for
building demolitions.
>> In the case of thermite
cutting charges, you would've
heard far less noise since they
are worked by thermal heating,
melting of the steel, rather
than explosive cutting as in
R.D.X. charges.
>> Over flights had detected,
with infrared camera, 1,400
degree Fahrenheit hotspots on
the surface of Ground Zero,
and that being, therefore,
a week, you know,
indicates that there
was something very hot going on
below the surface.
>> So thermite would also
explain, potentially, the fact
that the fires could not be put
out at Ground Zero.
The fires lasted for quite a
while, but most importantly,
they were deep within the pile
where people would expect
that the environment was oxygen
starved, and thermite could
explain this because it has its
own oxidant within.
It's actually the metallic oxide
that provides the oxidant to
allow the incendiary thermite
reaction to occur even under
water.
♪
>> As much as six percent of the
World Trade Center dust
consisted of tiny previously
molten iron spheres.
What does this tell us about the
temperatures generated in the
towers' destruction?
>> When the U.S.G.S. collected
samples of the World Trade
Center dust, they found the iron
microspheres.
Insofar, the U.S.G.S. does not
have a valid explanation for the
presence of these iron
microspheres.
>> So what do the microspheres
contain?
Iron is the main element
and then it has smaller portions
of aluminum, sulfur, a trace of
manganese.
Most of 'em are less than about
a tenth of an inch in diameter
and they're spherical and
they're found in all of the dust
blown out of the buildings
during collapse, no matter
where in Manhattan that dust is
picked up.
>> You must've had a much hotter
heat source for you to get 2,700
degrees Fahrenheit in order to
melt the iron to get these
molten spheres.
Your heat source must be
something like a chemical
reaction.
An exothermic chemical reaction
that reacts, in the case of
thermite, reacts at 4,500
degrees Fahrenheit.
>> My contention based on
finding thermite residue in the
dust is that it happened before.
It didn't happen after in the
fires that ensued in the rubble
pile afterwards.
All the characteristics of the
microspheres along with what I
see in the attack of the beams
that were actually found, tell
me that thermite was involved in
melting those steel beams.
♪
>> Out of the ashes of the World
Trade Center devastation rises
the Freedom Tower, whose
foundation, however, is shrouded
in question.
For example, in the World Trade
Center dust an international
team of scientists find an
advanced form of highly
energetic nano-thermite
composites.
What is it?
And where does it come from?
>> In the dust we found what we
characterize as unreacted
thermitic material in the shape
of some very tiny red/gray
chips, and in the reaction, they
produce molten iron which is the
prime indication of a thermitic
reaction, and such a reaction
can be used to destroy
steel structures.
What we have found is a modern
version of thermite which we
call nano-thermite, which is
produced in a different way.
It is not just two powders being
mixed.
The material is actually built
from the atom scale up.
We call it the bottom up
procedure which is what you do
in nanotechnology.
The ingredients are much smaller
which means they're reacting
faster and they are more easily
ignited.
>> The primary elements in the
red material are aluminum, iron
oxide, as well as silicon and
carbon.
The iron oxide appears in
fasted grains, approximately a
hundred nanometers across.
The aluminum appears in thin
platelets about forty
nanometers thick.
This is discussed in our paper
in "The Open Chemical Physics
Journal" published in April of
2009.
So far none of these papers
have been refuted in the
literature, the scientific
literature.
So that means they are
unchallenged in the scientific
sense.
They stand as an indictment,
really, of the official story of
9/11.
>> We also took paint that came
off of the W.T.C. steel and
looked at that in the S.E.M. and
did a compositional analysis of
that and found that it was not
similar to the red/gray chip or
the red layer of the red/gray
chips.
>> This cannot be paint.
Paint does not have these exotic
properties.
That's impossible.
This is material that is,
is of military use that really
shouldn't be there.
♪
>> You don't need to be an
engineer or an architect to see
what happened to those
buildings.
♪
>> Any honest investigator would
be looking at this and looking
for explosives and so forth.
The NIST investigation
didn't go there.
They just would not look for
explosives.
This has been the work of
independent researchers, not
NIST.
>> So the preconceived notion of
NIST is that there's no
evidence for explosives and so
there's no point in looking.
That is the most unscientific
thing that you can possibly
think of not to look because
you don't expect to find
evidence, and in fact, the
evidence is overwhelming that
these red/gray crystals are
very high temperature
incendiaries.
They state these conclusions for
which there's virtually no
evidence, and then they ignore
conclusions that can be drawn
from the evidence.
♪
>> The only way that a building
can accelerate as it collapses
is by having pre-engineered
precisely timed and precisely
placed explosives.
In other words, controlled
demolition.
>> We have a professional
responsibility, and I urge every
engineer and architect and
demolitions expert, and anybody
that has any knowledge in this
field, to examine the evidence
and stand up and be counted,
because the rest of the world is
depending upon us.
>> We know we've been lied to
about 9/11.
We don't know for sure who did
it.
We don't know exactly how they
did everything and that's why we
need a new investigation to find
out.
We do know that there was a
massive cover up.
That there was evidence hidden
and destroyed.
The American people absolutely
need the truth of 9/11.
♪
>> It took some kind of
consciousness raising on my part
before I was willing to look at
the possibilities, and really
you need to go where the
evidence leads.
>> Let's look at it objectively.
Let's look at the evidence,
not these fabricated computer
models and hearsay and all these
predetermined conclusions.
Let's really open it up again
and investigate this thing
properly and then come to
conclusions.
>> I strongly support an
independent investigation that
would be independent of the
government.
Independent of all of the
influences that, obviously, were
in effect during the NIST
investigation.
>> What happened on 9/11 is not
something that is just gonna go
away.
This is very pertinent to us
today.
I wish to further the
investigation, and I want to
make a difference because I want
this to be a safe and better
place for my children.
>> Sign the petition on the
Architect and Engineers 9/11
Truth website mainly because I
wanted to stand behind the
families that lost people on
9/11.
The 9/11 Truth Movement was
started by the families that
lost loved ones on that day, and
they were all out there alone
screaming for help, and our own
country was ignoring them and
ignoring their needs and not
taking care of them the way we
should have after that
happened.
♪
>> Most of us who have lived
with the events of 9/11 have, as
a result, experienced some kind
of trauma.
It can be very difficult to come
to terms with what actually
happened at the World Trade
Center.
In fact, someone told me
recently, "I wouldn't believe
what you're telling me even if
it were true."
Our petition signers with
psychological expertise have
stepped forward to offer their
insight.
While this segment is clearly
outside the knowledge base of
The Architects and Engineers for
9/11 Truth, these experts in
psychology highlight their
valuable experience for us as to
why this evidence can still be
so difficult for people to
accept.
>> As we know, the horrors of
what happened on 9/11 were
televised all over the world and
they were televised, in fact,
live.
We witnessed the deaths of
almost 3,000 of our fellow
Americans.
We know this had a very severe
and traumatic impact on a large
majority of the population.
At this point, we have nine
years of hard scientific
evidence that disproves the
government theory about what
happened on September 11, and
yet, people continue to be
either oblivious to the fact
that this information exists or
completely resistant to looking
at this information.
So the question becomes why?
Why is it that people have so
much trouble hearing this
information?
From my work, I think we would
be remiss not to look at the
impact of trauma.
>> Many people respond to these
truths in a very deep way.
Some have a visceral reaction
like they've been punched in the
stomach.
To begin to accept the
possibility that the government
was involved is like opening
Pandora's box.
If you open the lid and peek in
a little bit, it's gonna
challenge some of your
fundamental beliefs about the
world.
>> If we can think of our world
view as being sort of our mental
and emotional home, I think all
of us will do just about
anything to defend our homes, to
defend our families.
And so I see that with
people and I saw that
with myself when my brother
tried to talk with me about it.
Of don't mess with me.
Don't mess with my home.
Don't mess with my comfort with
how things are.
About a week later, I read a
lengthy article by Professor
Griffin about why he believes
the official account of 9/11
cannot be true, and it was a
very well researched article.
It was in my office at the time.
I sat there and I felt my
stomach churning.
I thought maybe I was going to
be sick, and I leaped out of my
chair and ran out the door and
took a long walk around the
block, around several blocks,
and just broke down.
I understand now that what was
happening was my worldview
about my government being in
some way my protector, almost
like a parent, had been dashed,
and it was like being cast out
into the wilderness, I think is
the closest way to describe that
feeling, and I sobbed and I
sobbed.
Felt like the ground had
completely disappeared beneath
my feet and, and I knew at
some point during the walk that
I knew that I was going to have
to become active in educating
other people about this.
That there was--
That for me to retain any sense
of integrity, I was going to
have to take some action.
I couldn't just let something
like this go.
>> When we hear information that
contradicts our worldview,
social psychologists call the
resulting insecurity "cognitive
dissonance".
For example, with 9/11 we have
one cognition which is what the
official story of 9/11.
What our government told us.
What our media repeated to us
over and over that 19 Muslims
attacked us.
On the other hand, we have what
scientists, researchers,
architects, engineers are now
beginning to tell us which is
that there is evidence that
shows that the official story
cannot be true.
So now we've lost our sense
of security.
We are starting to feel
vulnerable.
Now we're confused.
>> 9/11 Truth challenges the
beliefs that our country
protects us and keeps us safe
and that America is the good
guy.
When your beliefs are
challenged, fear and anxiety are
created.
In response to that, our
psychological defenses kick in
and they protect us from these
emotions.
Denial, which is probably the
most primitive psychological
defense, is the one most likely
to kick in when our beliefs are
challenged.
>> And it's a very, very
uncomfortable state to be in,
and eventually our mind shuts
off.
Just like when a computer is
overloaded, our minds get
overloaded.
We can't handle it anymore and
we shut down.
>> And what some of us will tend
to do is deny the evidence
that's coming our way and
stick to the original story, the
official story, and to try to
regain our equilibrium in that
way.
Another thing we can do is
decided to look at the
conflicting evidence and be
sincere and be open minded and
look at both sides of the issue,
and then make up our own mind
about what reality is.
Here are a few of those,
those spontaneous initial
reactions to hearing
the contradictory evidence
about 9/11.
>> "I don't want to know the
truth or I become too negative
and psychologically go
downhill.
I'm not sure I want to know.
If this is true, then up would
be down and down would be up.
My life would never be the
same."
>> "Fran, I refuse to believe
that that many Americans could
be that Satanically treasonous.
Someone would have talked."
But these are beliefs.
They are not scientific facts.
But these beliefs do keep us
from looking at the empirical
evidence.
Whenever we say, "I refuse to
believe."
We can be sure that the evidence
that's coming our way is not
bearable and that's it's
going--
It's conflicting with our
worldview much too much.
As I thought about all of these
responses, I realized that what
is common to everyone of them is
the emotion of fear.
People are afraid of being
ostracized.
They're afraid of being
alienated.
They're afraid of being shunned.
They're afraid of their lives
being inconvenienced.
They'd have to change their
lives.
They're afraid of being
confused.
They're afraid of psychological
deterioration.
They're afraid of feeling
helpless and vulnerable,
and they're afraid that they
won't be able to handle the
feelings that are coming up.
None of us want to feel helpless
and vulnerable.
>> Healing comes through facing
the truth, experiencing it,
allowing the feelings to come in
so that if there are feelings of
fear that perhaps these events
were caused by something that we
haven't thought about yet, dark
elements within our society, for
example, we let that come in and
explore it.
Let the light shine on whatever
happened.
This will be the most healing
process.
>> After World War Two, part of
the way that Jewish people
honored the dead was by making
sure that the truth was known
and that the value of these
people was respected.
Not pursuing the truth about
9/11 disrespects the value of
the life of the people that
died.
Thinking that we're above such
things.
That it could happen in other
countries but it couldn't happen
here, that's a lack of humility
and that's excessive pride, and
so not being able to see our
dark side, or our weaknesses, is
the most dangerous thing.
>> A feature of American history
that makes us particularly
liable to this pride is this
notion that's called
exceptionalism.
That America is the exceptional
nation, and that began from the
beginning as this country was
formed.
The people would say, "Well,
there was so much evil in the
European countries.
So much cheating.
So much lying.
So much using the people for the
ruler's purposes, but not in
America.
We have leaders that are free
from those sins."
So I think this has made 9/11
particularly difficult for
Americans.
>> So we need to understand that
questioning is, is patriotic.
Questioning is what we're
supposed to do as citizens.
That's our duty.
>> When something like 9/11
happens, we need to be sure that
we have a real investigation
into who the perpetrators are
and then we need to be sure that
those perpetrators are held
legally accountable.
It's part of the healing process
on the individual level as on
the collective level.
We need the truth in order to
heal.
♪
>> My name's Bob McIlvaine.
I'm from right outside the
Philadelphia area and I'm the
father of Bobby McIlvaine who
was killed in the lobby of the
North Tower on September 11,
2001.
Bobby was one of the first ten
bodies found.
We took him home that week.
We were one of the few.
When I finally found a doctor
who would examine him, all of
his injuries were in the face,
the front of his face.
His face was blown off.
Massive cuts in his chest and
his right arm were blown off.
To me that means explosion.
>> What happened on September
11th, was a tragedy.
Where Neal was on Flight 175
and it crashed into the second
tower and I can't imagine what
happened to him.
>> My brother was my best
friend.
David has always been a
firefighter.
My brother went in to save
people's lives.
I'm a family member trying to
find out the answers to the
murder of 3,000 plus people.
>> I'm Jane Pollicino.
My husband, Steve, was 48 years
old when he was killed on
September 11th.
I have no identification.
You know, why is that?
It seems to me we should know
why over a thousand victims
there are no trace for and no
identification.
No trace of over a thousand
victims.
>> Just a few years ago they
were still finding body parts on
the roofs of buildings.
What is that?
>> We should know why there are
over 700 bone fragments found on
the top of Deutsche Bank
building less than half
an inch long.
We should have that information.
Why were they up there?
Why weren't they found?
What kind of explosion was
there?
>> And the explosions were
brought up many a times.
Talking to firemen, talking to
medics, talking to everyone.
Everybody talked about these
explosions.
>> I want the officials that are
in power to ask the questions.
I want answers.
>> Please look at architects and
engineers.
People all around the world.
Scientists all around the world
are questioning this.
When you bring science into the
equation, that's so important
because you can't argue against
science, and there's some deep,
deep explaining to do.
>> The bottom line is that it
needs to be investigated
properly.
>> We will never heal.
This country will never ever,
ever forget that day.
We have to demand a new
investigation.
I want justice here.
♪
>> The forensic evidence that
you've seen is very real.
New light has been shown.
A third beam now reaches into
the pitch black sky and stands
in for the still officially
unexplained free-fall
destruction of the World Trade
Center Building 7.
The obvious dark truth about
Building 7 may very well provide
the key to justice for the
victims of family members of the
destruction of the Twin Towers.
♪
>> The country owns this.
We were all victims.
You would all--
You all should want answers.
It's not just, it's not just
ours.
Not just mine.
We all lost something that day.
♪
>> [singing in foreign language]
♪
♪
♪
Captioned by Video Caption Corporation www.vicaps.com