Totally re-written and new arguments added since yesterday.

http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2006/06/bombs-heard-in-twin-towers.html

Forget all of the videos and photos of the collapse of the World Trade Centers for a minute. Let's talk about an aspect of 9/11 that we've all glossed over: sound.

Remember that sound travels slower than light, and so witnesses who described hearing explosive sounds before seeing the collapse of the building cannot have been fooled about the sequence.

The following earwitness testimony indicates controlled demolition of the Twin Towers:

British newspaper stated "some eyewitnesses reported hearing another explosion just before the structure crumbled."

Unknown witness interviewed on television stating "it sounded like gunfire . . . . bang bang bang bang bang . . . and then three big explosions"

Highly-reputable astrophysicist wrote in an email that, immediately before the collapse of each of the twin towers, he heard explosions and low-frequency rumbles (he also uses the phrase "demolition-style implosion")

Fire chief from a nearby town heard a "high-pitched noise and a popping noise", right before or at the very start of the collapse of the South Tower (aren't high-pitched and popping noises created by certain types of high-explosives?)

Paramedic captain stated "somewhere around the middle of the world trade center there was this orange and red flash coming out initially it was just one flash then this flash just kept popping all the way around the building and that building had started to explode the popping sound and with each popping sound it was initially an orange and then red flash came out of the building and then it would just go all around the building on both sides as far as could see these popping sounds and the explosions were getting bigger going both up and down and then all around the building" (pdf file; Google's web version is here).

Firefighter “heard this huge explosion that sounded like a bomb [and] knocked off the lights and stalled the elevator . . . [then] another huge explosion like the first one hits. This one hits about two minutes later . . . [and] I’m thinking, ‘Oh. My God, these bastards put bombs in here . . . .”

Police officer stated "you would hear a loud boom go off at the top of tower one. As the building continued to burn and emergency equipment kept on responding stirring up the dust and debris in the streets. After approximately 15 minutes suddenly there was another loud boom at the upper floors, then there was a series of smaller explosions which appeared to go completely around the building at the upper floors. And another loud earth-shattering blast with a large fire ball which blew out more debris and at that point everyone began to run north on West Broad Street." (page 5, which is page 2 of a hand-written memorandum)

CNN producer stated "every few minutes you'll hear like a small sort of a rumbling sound, almost like an explosion sound and another chunk of it will come flying down into the street"; same producer stated "there was just a huge ... [explosion? word apparently erased from original CNN video] and enormous pieces of debris just falling - one right after the other"

NYC firefighter stated “It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit. . . [W]e originally had thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down.”

Port Authority Police Department officer, who was intimately familiar with the World Trade Center from his years of police duties patrolling there, described how the hallway began to shudder as a "terrible deafening roar" swept over him, then a giant fireball exploded in the street seconds before the south tower collapsed

MSNBC reporter stated "I heard a second explosion ... And then a fire marshal came in and said we had to leave, because if there was a third explosion this building might not last".

What could make the above-described sounds?

Indeed, even after demolition expert Van Romero retracted his testimony that intentionally-planted explosives brought down the towers, he stated:

"it is possible that the final collapse of each building was triggered by a sudden pressure pulse caused when the fire reached an electrical transformer or other source of combustion within the building."

So were the explosive sounds prior to the collapse of the Twin Towers caused by intentionally-placed explosives or by the explosion of "electrical transformer[s] or other source of combustion"?

Well, if exploding transformers caused these sounds and the collapse of the Twin Towers, why didn't we hear the same things and see the collapse of the the buildings in Madrid, Venezuela, Los Angeles and elsewhere which burned hotter and longer than the Twin Towers? Didn't those buildings contain transformers and other sources of combustion? Why were the Twin Towers the first modern steel-framed buildings to collapse due to exploding sources of combustion?

Any explanation other than demolition-type explosives sounds false.