PROOF OF THERMATE QUESTIONED: Prof. Fetzer vs. Prof. Jones

James H. Fetzer and Steven E. Jones

6 May 2007

NOTE: This exchange was initiated by a post from Nila Sagadevan endorsing “proof of thermate” in a post included at the end. Steve's replies to my original are identified, as are my new responses. I have edited asides in order to focus on the important issues, where anyone who has received the originals can verify the difference for themselves. I have had the great benefit of expert advice from Judy Wood, Ph.D., in preparing this reply. In my opinion, the most serious question facing the 9/11 truth movement is the adequacy of this line of research.

ORIGINAL (3 May 2007):

Nila,

I am fascinated with the seemingly unqualified endorsement of Steve Jones' thermite/thermate hypothesis. I hope that some of the members of this list can help me figure this out, because I must be missing something not to recognize that his approach holds the key to understanding what happened at the World Trade Center. Please ask your list if someone could help me figure out what I have wrong. Thanks!

JONES (4 May 2007):

The latest evidence supporting the use of thermite analogs in the destruction of the WTC Towers and WTC 7 comes from the iron-aluminum-sulfur (Fe-Al-S) rich droplets which I found in the WTC dust sample provided by Janette MacKinlay. I reported the existence of these metal droplets based initially on my visual observation of shiny droplets in the WTC dust at the Arizona 9/11 conference in February 2007, and showed electron-microscope micrographs. (Perhaps Jim missed the discussion somehow?)

FETZER (6 May 2007):

No doubt, my comments will be naive since I am neither a chemist, nor an applied physicist, nor a materials structure scientist, areas of expertise that are far better positioned to evaluate these questions than am I as a philosopher of science. Nevertheless, I now pose the following questions:

(a) Even if we assume that this dust sample is authentic and that it was properly stored without contamination, what precisely does it prove? What strikes me as most important about it is that it is A SAMPLE OF DUST. That you have found remnants of iron (Fe), which is the principal ingredient of steel, suggests to me that this is because the steel was turned into dust! This is not molten metal. The most obvious inference to be drawn from your studies of WTC dust is that some portion of the steel was turned into dust.

(b) Your mention of "thermite analogs" puzzles me in the extreme. I have in the past assumed that you had found traces of THERMITE (or of THERMATE), but now you are talking about THERMITE ANALOGS. Is this a defined term? If I made a cup of coffee without coffee beans, for example, would that qualify as a "coffee analog"? Or would residue of cream or sugar qualify as evidence of "coffee analogs"? How much in the way of ingredients of thermite are enough to be "analogs"?

(c) You do not seem to have found BARIUM NITRATE, Ba(NO3)2, an ingredient in military versions of thermite, yet you have used videos of the use of military versions of thermite to illustrate its cutting power relative to engine blocks. I presume those exercises included Barium Nitrate among the ingredients. Don't these videos have to be redone relative to these analogs? How do experiments with thermite relate to work on thermite analogs? How do these “analogs” work?

(d) Even a thorough and painstaking stuffy of a singe sample cannot possibly warrant the conclusions you are basing upon it. It is indispensable to control for background factors and possible contamination by obtaining a larger number of samples from a wide variety of locations. It may be the case that the iron-aluminum-sulfur (Fe-Al-S) rich droplets you found in this sample had independent origins, where the iron came from the steel, the aluminum from glass fibers, and the sulfur from gypsum board, where the absence of calcium from your sample was an incidental feature that does not support the inference you have drawn. Even though you are not a chemist, I assume you appreciate the importance of background controls and random samples. Am I right?

JONES (4 May 2007):

I ask Jim if he saw my UT-Austin presentation of data before making his disparaging remarks about the “thermite/thermate hypothesis.” If not (as I suspect), then this is evidently what he has been missing, perhaps among other things – such as the numerous fine papers in the Journalof911Studies.com. There are several papers which deal with the directed-energy beam and no-planes-hit-Towers hypotheses, for example, which Fetzer, Wood and Reynolds recently promoted.

FETZER (6 MAY 2007):

(a) If I make "disparaging remarks" about the thermite/thermate hypothesis, it is because I have become convinced that you are promising more than you can deliver. Anyone who has not viewed our exchange in Chandler ought to do so (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9046804812765633069), because it baffled me then that you were so unresponsive to the issues that I raised. I am confident every question I that I have advanced about thermite/thermate carries over to your new hypothesis of your undefined concept of thermite analogs/thermate analogs. If not, why not?

(b) Moreover, your allusion to the "fine papers" in the journal astounds me. As you know, Judy Wood was your original co-editor and I the managing editor. I encouraged you to put together a first-rate editorial board dominated by hard-science types, which you have never done. Judy resigned after she was convinced you were not going to enforce suitable standards of academic rigor. You tout "peer review" while relying upon close friends and associates in the role of referees, which does not accord with standard academic practice. I have a great deal of editorial experience. Don’t you appreciate that the journal needs to have a higher-quality board?

(c) You have published intellectual rubbish like Gregory Jenkins' ad hominem “hit piece” on Judy Wood (http://journalof911studies.com/volume/200702/Implausibility-Directed-Ene...), where the author used a quote of mine in which he had deleted the final phrase and inverted its meaning. He knew going in that Judy was not going to be in the position to address very specific questions about the properties of very specific weapons, because she had not committed herself to such specific hypotheses. This grotesque abuse has been corrected after my vigorous complaints, with a self-serving endnote perpetuating the charade that he had acted appropriately. Is this your conception of responsible scholarship?

(d) Not only was this piece published with your approval, but also you appear to have recruited Greg Jenkins and solicited the submission. Judy Wood has degrees in civil engineering (with a focus on structural engineering), engineering mechanics (also known as applied physics), and materials engineering science. To the best of my knowledge, no one else in the 9/11 research community has credentials that can match hers with regard to her qualifications for investigating the events at the World Trade Center. Why have you gone out of your way to promote irresponsible attacks on a highly qualified scientist? That is both inappropriate and unprofessional.

(e) Editing my quote may have been subtle enough that it could slip by your team of experts. But his contentions that, “The percentage of iron in dust samples shows that no significant amount of steel was dissociated into dust. The minimum amount of power required to dissociate the steel in one of the WTC towers is astronomically large, over 5 times the total power output of the world,” not only appear to contradict your own work on dust samples but to have no basis in reality. Since a single atomic bomb could have turned both buildings into dust, how could that task impose such stunning demands? How can such a preposterous claim have passed a competent editorial review?

(f) Moreover, in your chapter of 9/11 AND AMERICAN EMPIRE (pp. 47-48), you observe that, "most of the material (concrete, carpet, computers, steel, and so on) was converted to flour-like powder while the buildings were falling." You further elaborate upon this point by observing that, when the top 30 floors of the South Tower began to topple over, "this block turned mostly to powder in mid-air!" I find it difficult to reconcile Jenkins' opinions about pulverization and concerns about the energy required with those that follow from your own analysis. In publishing his paper, did it ever occur to you that, if Jenkins were right, then you must be wrong? Doesn’t this phenomenon suggest the possibility that directed energy weapons (DEWs) MIGHT have been used in the destruction of the Twin Towers and other buildings in the World Trade Center?

(g) You frequently assert that the controlled demolition hypothesis accounts for all the available data rather easily, but you have not actually demonstrated that this is the case. You have surmised the existence of a new form of “super thermite”, which in concert with carefully placed explosives might have this effect, but there is nothing I have seen to substantiate this. If thermite/thermate was used, there should have been hundreds upon hundreds of cut columns. WHERE ARE THEY? Moreover, many of the effects observed at the World Trade Center appear to require causal mechanisms that go beyond those you have advanced in your speculations, which leads me to ask why you feign to explain phenomena for which you have only speculation? Why are you denigrating the investigation of alternative explanations that might be able to account for the hard evidence?

(h) Indeed, as you emphasize in your EMPIRE paper (p. 35), thermite reactions can result in temperatures up to 3,632 degrees Fahrenheit, which suggests that, not only should there have been hundreds upon hundreds of cut columns, but also there should be massive quantities of steel that has been exposed to high temperatures. What are we to make of the NIST’s report that, of 236 samples subjected to test, only three reached temperatures in excess of about 500 degrees Fahrenheit and none had reached temperatures above 1,200 degrees Fahrenheit? Do you agree that, unless these samples, which were deliberately selected for study, were nevertheless grossly unrepresentative, the quantity and the quality of these samples undermines your thermite/thermate hypothesis?

JONES (4 May 2007):

Note that I have never said that ONLY thermite analogs were used to bring down the WTC buildings. Quite to the contrary, in my early paper on the WTC collapses, the reader finds this statement:
“I maintain that these observations [of molten metal] are consistent with the use of high-temperature cutter charges such as thermite, HMX or RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel.” http://journalof911studies.com/volume/200609/Why_Indeed_Did_the_WTC_Buil...

FETZER (6 May 2007):

(a) OK. To what extent do you claim thermite/thermate (thermite analogs/thermate analogs), if it was used on the Twin Towers, could account for the observable evidence (the kind of destruction, the rate of demolition, and the degree of pulverization, for example)? You have said (in your EMPIRE paper, p. 39) that "Roughly 3,000 pounds of RDX-grade linear-shaped charges (which could have been pre-positioned by just a few men) would then suffice in each tower and WTC 7 to cut the supports at key points so that gravity would bring the buildings straight down." A gravitational collapse appears inconsistent with the hard evidence. Since we fault the NIST for not modeling its "collapse" theory, have you modeled yours for different combinations of explosives?

(b) Tossing in a giant fudge factor like HMX or RDX raises many interesting questions about your hypothesis and its testability. There were 47 core columns as well as 240 peripheral columns. That suggests the number of “cutter charges” must be immense. Some of these were as much as five inches thick. The only patents we have found are for cutting 2 inches of steel. If thermite can only cut through 2 inches of steel, were charges placed inside as well as outside the core columns? How many inches of steel can be cut by thermite analogs? And my understanding is that RDX, for example, has chemical tags that would enable its manufacturer to be traced; yet no residue of RDX has been found in studies of the dust by you or by any other source. Isn't the principal evidence for your hypothesis really the molten metal pools, the waterfall, and several questionable photographs?

(c) In suggesting that “observations [of molten metal] are consistent with the use of high-temperature cutter charges such as thermite, HMX or RDX or some combination thereof, routinely used to melt/cut/demolish steel”, you leave open the possibility that their absence may also be “consistent” with the hard evidence. If the reports of molten metal, the waterfall phenomenon, and alleged photographic evidence of molten metal should turn out to be undermined by the discovery that there are more plausible alternative explanations for that “hard evidence”, would you not concede that the case for high-temperature cutter charges might be greatly reduced?

(d) Insofar as you explicitly allow the use of other demolition mechanisms, do you acknowledge that DEWs might be among them and that there is nothing inconsistent about hypotheses that combine alternative causal mechanisms? Since your own account involves a mixture of different forms of destruction, why should you refuse to acknowledge that some kinds of high-tech, directed energy weaponry—involving lasers, masers, or plasmoids, for example—might also have been involved and, indeed, that certain aspects of the phenomena, such as the pulverization of the Twin Towers, invite consideration of that possibility? Those investigating the possible use of high-tech devices don’t rule out conventional methods have been used, too. Why should you?

(e) It is surprising that someone who has spent his career as a professional physicist and who has devoted time researching energy and also been funded by the Department of Energy is unaware of the state of technology development in this area over the past 30 years. Judy Wood, whose area of expertise is not even in energy development, has been accumulating quite a lot of information on this subject, which is available in the public domain. You might want to read up on it. Try http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/DEW_Contractors.html Are you really as unaware of the possible alternatives for directed energy weaponry as you feign? This troubles me.

(f) You frequently extol the virtues of your “scientific” approach and impugn the integrity of those, such as Dr. Wood, who are exploring alternative explanations of the hard evidence. As a philosopher of science, I have observed that your conception of scientific method—where science begins with observation, formulating an hypothesis, testing that hypothesis, and peer review—not only offers no measures of evidential support and specifies no conditions for acceptance but implies that investigations can be conducted without comparing alternative hypotheses or following some kind of "fault tree"! This is an indefensible conception. You are a physicist and not a philosopher, but any student who completed a course of mine on the philosophy of science would know better. And yet you fault others who are implementing more adequate models. How do you respond to comments like the following?
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I am absolutely baffled by the assertions by Dr. Jones and his fans that the methodology and the evidence presented by Wood and Reynolds is unscientific and incomplete. As far as the possibility that DEWs of sufficient power to destroy two one hundred and ten story office towers exist, there is abundant documentation provided by Wood and Reynolds that weapons development in this area, which is customarily many years ahead of what is released to the public, may have created just such monstrous devices. Wood and Reynolds document this area of weapons development with considerably more specificity than Jones does his all-purpose causal agent "super thermate".

You may disagree with their analysis of the bathtub, their analysis of the relative volumes of material before and after the disintegration of the towers, their analysis of seismic evidence, their analysis of the evidence of a no flight order that created a window of opportunity, their analyses of anomalous damage to vehicles and structures in the vicinity, but just how is this unscientific or incomplete? The visual evidence they have provided is extensive and Wood and Reynolds invite our examination of it, invite us to ask questions and do not ask us to make an unconditional commitment to their theory. Compare this to Dr. Jones who asserts that the controlled demolition hypothesis satisfies all of the available data—this is an absurd and wholly unscientific conceit on his part. And as far as I am concerned Wood and Reynolds theory actually comes closer to satisfying all of the available data than Jones' theory, which if you look at it closely, is really rather incomplete and tenuous. Even Jones finds it necessary to tag on the need for unspecified explosives to account for all of the phenomena.

Your thoughtful comments are certainly welcome. But I find the hostile treatment by Dr. Jones of Wood and Reynolds ideas really disturbing. In my view, all of the articles posted in the "Journal of 9/11 Studies" addressing the work of Dr. Wood are an atrocious act of petty intellectual vandalism. Scientific inquiry, if it is to accomplish anything, requires an open mind and a willingness to keep questioning assumptions and conclusions however convenient or appealing they may be.
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JONES (4 May 2007):

Following my talk in that academic setting, I am now working on two papers to provide detail in the usual manner of publishing important discoveries.

FETZER (6 May 2007):

It is unclear to me what "discoveries" you have made much less how they can possibly qualify as "important". I think you need to address these issues. After all, twelve months ago you said the same thing and we have yet to see any "important new evidence" that supports your “hypothesis." You have only supplied speculation, which is now compounded by the introduction of the undefined concepts of thermite analogs and thermate analogs! In technical philosophical language, you appear to be devoted to a degenerating research program that is spawning no new experiments, no new explanations, and no new discoveries. I lost faith in your approach when, after six months of research (from December 2005 to June 2006), you appeared to have made no significant advance.

ORIGINAL (3 MAY 2007):

(1) Some time ago, I contacted Professor Thomas Eagar of MIT, who advised me that sulfur could have been produced many ways relative to the destruction of the towers, including from gypsum board. Has this alternative been excluded in establishing the Jones hypothesis?

JONES (4 May 2007):

Gypsum is comprised of calcium sulfate, so that when sulfur is associated with gypsum as suggested by Eagar, then calcium will also be present. In my talk at UT-Austin one finds that sulfur is present in the Fe-Al-S-rich microspheres with an absence of calcium, thus ruling out the gypsum-origin notion. I specifically looked for Ca, but it was absent in these iron-rich microspheres.

FETZER (6 May 2007):

(a) In your EMPIRE paper (p. 41), you explain not only that it could have come from gypsum but imply that other alternative explanations are possible: “Sulfidation could also have occurred if the steel member had been exposed to a molten metal pool, since there were sulfur-bearing materials, such as gypsum, in the buildings.” What have you done to exclude the possibility that the sulfur originated from other sources? Surely there are other potential explanations not only of sulfidation but of the presence of calcium, are there not? For example, have you studied the US Geological Survey’s “Open File Report 01-0429 on WTC Bulk Chemistry Results”?

(b) Your claim of an absence of calcium appears inconsistent with extensive studies of the dust by the USGS, which reported, “The total element compositions of the dust samples reflect the chemical makeup of materials such as: glass fibers (containing silicon, aluminum, calcium, magnesium, sodium, and other elements); gypsum (containing calcium and sulfate); concrete and aggregate (containing calcium and auminum hydroxides, and a variety of silicate minerals containing silicon, calcium, potassium, sodium, and magnesium); . . . ih,” where four different sources of calcium were reported to have been detected in the large and varied samples that it studied.

(c) The USGS reports support the inference that your sample, the origins of which you have elaborated upon at considerable length in portions of your response to my original questions not retained here, reinforces the point I made previously. Experimental results from samples require comparison between samples to control for other sources of properties of interest. In this case, the absence of calcium from your sample would appear to be the probable result of a sample that is too small and unrepresentative, which reinforces my belief that, as a physicist and not a chemist, such scientific analysis as you may have conducted is inadequate to support your conclusion.

ORIGINAL (3 May 2007):

(2) It has seemed to me that, if the building was loaded with thermite/ thermate, then it should have been running randomly from the building, not merely from one location on the 80th floor. Is it possible that something about the 80th floor could account for this phenomenon?

JONES (4 May 2007):

Yes, the plane entered the building on the south side of Tower 2 at about this height so fires were prevalent on this floor. It is quite possible that these fires “accidentally” set off the initiator for the thermite charge. Indeed, the appearance of this orange flowing matter just minutes before the collapse of this Tower is remarkable evidence for the use of thermite analogs, as explained in my paper and the UT-Austin presentation (as well as other presentations in recent months, such as at Univ. of California at Berkeley). My paper cited above explains that the rest of the cutter-charges were likely set off using radio signals for the destruction sequence.

FETZER (6 May 2007):

(a) What I meant is that perhaps there was something distinctive about what was located on the 80th floor that could have contributed to this effect, assuming that the films are authentic, which I consider very much open to question. The hypothesis has been advanced by Frank Greening, for example, that the Fuji Bank had that floor covered with large batteries as a back-up in case the power should fail. Lead in batteries has a comparatively low melting point. That's a plausible explanation consistent with the data. What have you done to rule this out?

(b) You do not address the point that this occurrence is peculiar to that corner of the 80th floor. If thermite or thermate (thermite analogs or thermate analogs) had been used throughout the building, why don't we see other examples of this effect? On your hypothesis, these buildings must have been loaded with this stuff and it seems VERY SURPRISING that a flow of molten metal would have come from only that location. Doesn't it surprise you or cause you concern to confront the absence of similar flows from other parts of these immense buildings?

(c) As I explained in my Chandler presentation, the flow of whatever is initially at the third window, then at the fourth. That does not prove the videos are fake, but it does raise some questions, where the correct explanation might simply be that the flow was faked. More important, is it not the case that all metals look similar at high temperatures when in liquid states, which means that, as evidence for molten iron (or steel), what you are citing is highly equivocal and far from conclusive evidence? I have not observed you to acknowledge this key point. Some studies on this topic are archived at http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/why_indeed.html#glowingaluminum

ORIGINAL (3 May 2007):

(3) The photo of the workers peering into the cavern of molten metal has bothered me for some time. Since it would have to be more than 3,000*F, if this photo is authentic, should not the intense heat be melting the flesh from their skulls? Could this be a phony photo?

JONES (4 May 2007):

During the final peer-review process for my paper, questions about this photo arose and this photo has long since been replaced by the published photo, shown below:

It is labeled “Red Hot Debris” and is published in LiRo News, Nov. 2001, http://www.liro.com/lironews.pdf. Moreover, there is recorded eyewitness testimony of the molten metal pools under both Towers and WTC 7; see:
http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/12/why-was-there-molten-metal-.... Video clips provide eye-witness evidence regarding this metal at ground zero:
http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/red_hot_ground_zero_l... , http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3060923273573302287 .”

Note that I along with Kevin Ryan have repeatedly asked Jim Fetzer to not publish any of our writings at his 911Scholars web site. I renew that firm request. He may, of course, link to my publications – for instance at the Journalof911Studies.com.

FETZER (6 May 2007):

Before Chandler, it was there; after Chandler, it was removed. Precisely when did you take it out? By removing a fake photo, did that qualify as one more "peer review"? The papers by you and Kevin Ryan have been posted on Scholars for 9/11 Truth web site since you contributed them. I cannot for the life of me imagine any reason for wanting them to be removed other than perhaps to conceal changes in your research across time. Everyone else who I know takes great pride in having their work posted on other sites; and, in view of history of the society, removing them would be highly improper. Strictly speaking, the journal was founded as a part of Scholars for 9/11 Truth and properly belongs to the society, a position that I maintain with regard to its contents up until the separation between us in December 2006.

ORIGINAL (3 May 2007):

(4) The photo of the back-hoe holding the chunk of glowing steel is also suspicious. Isn't steel an excellent conductor of heat and is it not the case that metals expand when heated? So should not the hydraulics be frozen if this photo were genuine? Is it also fake?

JONES (4 May 2007):

Copper and aluminum are excellent heat conductors; steel by contrast is not. There are two photos in my paper actually, showing the glowing metal some distance below the jaws of the hoe. Furthermore, as stated in my paper: “A video clip provides eye-witness evidence regarding this metal at ground zero:
http://plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/red_hot_ground_zero_l... .”

As you watch that video clip, you will notice that the “chief” describes the appearance of the hot debris and he also explains that WATER is being directed onto the operation, water spray which will keep the equipment from getting too hot.

FETZER (6 May 2007):

(a) I am stupefied. If steel is not a good conductor of heat, how is thermite applied to the outside of a thick steel column able to cut through the column? And, for that matter, if steel (which is mostly iron) is such a poor conductor, why is there such a thing as an iron skillet for cooking food? If you sit on the hood of a cold car that's parked outside in the middle of winter, you will feel the heat being conducted out of your body.

(b) The whole business about molten metal causes me concern, and I am not alone. This and related issues are raised in a recent post "Evidence that ‘Molten Metal’ is Fabricated" by CB_Brooklyn on Fri, 2007-02-02 03:18
which is available at http://www.911researchers.com/node/147 I would point out first that one of the photos, Figure 300, undermines the molten metal theory:

Figure 300. GZ workers descend into the subbasements below WTC2. While there is extensive damage, there is little building debris at the bottom of the hole. There is no sign of molten metal. A worker in the distance walks along a massive core column. [In the photo, note the pool of water, which is neither bubbling nor steaming. http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam4.html#HoleTwo And the PATH train tunnels are obviously not flooded nor full of molten metal: see http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam1.html#PATHplatform ]

(c) Some of your supporters maintain that the bathtub was seriously damaged, but I repeatedly emphasize that it was not sufficiently damaged to allow water from the Hudson River to spill into lower Manhattan, flood the subways and PATH train tunnels, and erode the foundations of other buildings. If it had cracked and there were molten metal, then presumably it would have caused enormous steam explosions! Since they did not occur, it appears safe to infer that either (a) the bathtub did not fail or (b) there were no pools of molten metal or (c) both.

(d) The appearance of a kind of mist over the site seems to have spawned the idea of pools of molten metal, but as Judy Wood has observed, a rain storm occurred in the city a few days after 9/11. Although this “mist” was present before and after the day of the storm, it was not present during the storm, as at least one of the photos on site http://drjudywood.com, displays. I find that rather odd, since one would have supposed that, if there were large pools of molten metal, steam should have been produced in copious quantities. I therefore believe that the preponderance of the evidence counts against it and that the mist may be related to the use of high-tech devices.

ORIGINAL (3 May 2007):

Since I don't know what I have wrong, I would be much in your debt if you could share my concerns with the members of this list in the hope that they might be able to help me to grasp what I have misunderstood. That you have distributed such a powerful endorsement of the thermite/thermate hypothesis that includes Alex Jones' additional certification suggests to me that I must be missing something important here. Many thanks!

Jim

JONES (4 May 2007):

Again, much of what you’ve evidently been missing, Jim, can be seen here:
http://www.anomalytv.com/site/archives/1737

I also urge you to read the fine papers in the Journalof911Studies.com. You are invited to reply in writing by submitting a Letter to the Journal. I think this is the third or fourth time I have extended this invitation to you and your colleagues. I think you are missing a lot actually, based on your questions.

Sincerely,

Steven E. Jones

FETZER (6 May 2007):

From this exchange, I cannot imagine what I am “missing.” You have turned the 9/11 journal into an assault machine. Your whole approach strikes me as very unscientific. Have you actually taken the time to read through the document (presented as a series of ten webpages) by Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds? (See http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam1.html) The attacks emanating from your side to the effect that Judy has not responded to your papers—when they are typified by Greg Jenkins' malicious and unfounded illustration! —belies the reality that you have not responded to questions that they addressed to you in papers they posted some time ago. It is interesting to me that, for those who read the actual transcript from this “interview” by Jenkins, http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/Jenkins_transcript.html, he not only poses questions that are overly precise in relation to the state of Judy Wood’s research but repeatedly seeks to entrap her by using “vaporization,” for example, in lieu of “pulverization,” thereby enormously increasing the energy requirements involved, which, as I have already observed, he carries to an absurd length. Judy skillfully evaded his linguistic traps, but many who are not familiar enough with the technical issues involved here appear to have been taken in by this charade. I was there at the time and immediately lodged these complaints when the interview ended.

You appear to derive a lot of mileage from the contention that your “letters” and other journal articles raise questions that Judy has not answered. But most of them follow the Greg Jenkins’ model of making dubious presuppositions and offering sleight-of-hand arguments. Indeed, a random survey of the “letters” section conveys the rather vivid impression that this “journal” has been converted into a vehicle to assail scholars who are investigating hypotheses that stand as alternatives to the thermite/thermate (now thermite analog/thermate analog) orthodoxy. And I use the word deliberately. A kind of cult-like atmosphere has arisen around you that is completely antithetical to the spirit of scientific inquiry. Moreover, Judy Wood and Morgan Reynolds, who were more circumspect about your results than most of the 9/11 community, have posed questions about your work that you have never taken the time to address, http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/JonesScientificMethod.html, which appear to severely undermine the plausibility of your whole approach. I invite you to answer them:

1. Where is the proof of concept for the thermite hypothesis? Wikipedia Encyclopedia defines "Proof of concept" as "a short and/or incomplete realization (or synopsis) of a certain method or idea(s) to demonstrate its feasibility, or a demonstration in principle, whose purpose is to verify that some concept or theory is probably capable of exploitation in a useful manner. The proof of concept is usually considered a milestone on the way of a fully functioning prototype." Dr. Jones has never laid it out.

2. Where is the proof that thermite has EVER been used to bring down major buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? To our knowledge thermite has never been used to bring down skyscrapers.

3. Where is the proof that thermate has EVER been used to bring down major buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? To our knowledge thermate has never been used to bring down skyscrapers.

4. Where is the proof that nano-enhanced thermite has EVER been used to bring down major buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? To our knowledge nano-enhanced thermite has never been used to bring down skyscrapers. Dr. Jones has criticized the competing hypotheses of others as "wacky, unproven ideas." We wonder if the same denunciation applies to thermite.

5. In his Berkeley lecture, Steven Jones claimed that nano-enhanced thermite or thermate could account for pulverization of the Twin Towers. One difficulty with his hypothesis is that nano-enhanced thermite apparently did not exist in 2001 and only recently has the Department of Defense awarded contracts to prove and develop such a product.

. . .

III. Pulverization

1. Where is the proof that thermite has EVER been used to completely pulverize buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? The mechanisms of cutting and pulverization are mutually exclusive and thermite cuts and melts, it is not explosive. "Cutting requires action in one direction," says Jeff Strahl, a 9/11 researcher, "while pulverization requires action in all directions."

2. Where is the proof, experimental or otherwise, that thermate has EVER been used to completely pulverize buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? [Photos 14(a), (b), and (c) suggest that it may have been used during the WTC clean-up: http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/why_indeed.html#thermite ]

3. Where is the proof that nano-enhanced thermite has EVER been used to completely pulverize buildings in controlled demolition (not simply cleaning up debris)? Could thermite have been used to turn the upper 80+ floors of the Twin Towers to ultra-fine dust?

4. Above all, how do angle-cut columns relate to pulverizing a building? What is the connection? We fail to see it.

. . .

IV. Energy and Placement

1. Where is the proof of concept for the hypothesis that thermite, thermate, and/or nano-enhanced thermite can do any of the things he claimed it did at the WTC, much less explain how angle-cut columns at ground level had any relevance to what pulverized the buildings? He fails to explain how a cutting/melting mechanism can pulverize.

2. Exactly how much energy would be required to pulverize 80-90% of each WTC tower? Dr. Jones has not shown that thermite/thermate/nano-enhanced thermite can generate sufficient energy. Exactly how much energy is required?

3. Exactly what volume of thermite/thermate/nano-enhanced thermite would be required in total to be placed in the building to generate enough energy?

4. Exactly where did it need to be placed? Over how much surface area in the building did it have to be placed? For example, what x% of every beam, y% of every floor, z% of every wall, etc.? How thick would it have to be against various steel columns, beams, concrete, etc.? Derrick Grimmer attempted one calculation along these lines and found that thermite would need to be slightly less than 3 inches thick over the surface of every box column [Grimmer].

5. How many hours of labor would it take to cover every surface of the building, carefully avoiding detection by WTC office workers? Grimmer's calculation ignores the much greater volume of the floors. In any event, thermite does not explode and pulverize. It cannot explain the data.

6. Exactly who placed all the alleged thermite there? Please give us their names, ages, and social security numbers for validation.

7. Who directed them to place the thermite/thermate/nano-enhanced thermite there?

. . .

V. Ignition and Control

1. How was the thermite ignited? Isn't thermite difficult to ignite?

2. Exactly how was ignition accurately controlled? How was it timed? Where is the experiment demonstrating it? Has thermite ever been ignited by remote control? Have multiple thermite ignitions ever been set off with exact timing by remote control? How many remote control radio frequencies would be required to do this? How many ignition devices would be needed to cut 236 outer columns and 47 core columns on each of the 110 floors? An ignition device on each column on each floor would total 31,130 ignitions. None of this would cut floor trusses or pulverize the concrete floors or any of the WTC contents, much less steel beams.

3. Dr. Jones says the buildings "collapsed," but he does not show the exact mechanism of "collapse," he does not model it (just like NIST does not model it), and he does not run experiments that demonstrate it. Of course such modeling is futile because the buildings did not collapse, they were blown to kingdom come. Where was the stack of all the steel from each tower at Ground Zero?

4. And what about the seismic signal? If most of the material from the Twin Towers crashed to the ground, there should have been a significant seismic event. Yet a NIST scientist says that "...the collapse of the towers were not of any magnitude that was seismically significant..."

. . .

VI. The Data

1. Even if Jones were to prove the thermite concept, can he show an "official chain of custody" for each of his samples of materials allegedly from the WTC? Jones himself said at the American Scholars Symposium (ASS*) in Los Angeles in June that all of his samples came from unofficial sources.

2. Can Dr. Jones show how each of his samples is valid and meaningful in terms of possible causation? For example, suppose Dr. Jones acquired a dust sample and had established its chain of custody. How would a chemical analysis of this dust sample prove anything about what caused the devastation at the WTC? What is the logic? A guy in a white lab coat working with something in his lab does not in and of itself establish any causal connection with the events of 9/11 in New York City. We cannot presume a connection; it must be shown. Connections must be drawn conceptually and supported empirically. That is using the scientific method.

3. Dust is not location specific. A dust sample does not allow discrimination about what caused the destruction WTC7 versus WTC1 and

2. Videos, eyewitness testimony, the debris pile, the protective bathtub and other evidence establish that WTC1 and 2 exploded and WTC7 imploded. No amount of dust analysis will change these facts. The destruction method for WTC1 and 2 were fundamentally different from the destruction method for WTC7.

4. How do you know a sample is representative of WTC1 and/or WTC2? Many of the vehicles in the area had their engine blocks disintegrate. So, if you take what's left from one of these cars, it may, for example, have a much higher ratio of barium-to-steel than the typical car. Weren't some of the offices occupied by a medical supply company? How can anyone rule out that someone had barium in a WTC office? And so on.

5. If the Twin Towers were destroyed by unconventional means, how could a scientist know what traces of material it would or would not leave? How would she know a priori?

Now I would concede that some of these questions might require information that is unreasonably precise given the state of your research. But that is exactly what you and your associates have been doing in attacking Judy Wood. The key difference is that Judy has been eliminating possible explanations, while you claim to have discovered the actual one! If your work were well founded, it might deserve the attention and influence it has attained. My concern is that your research has never been carefully scrutinized. If the 9/11 Truth movement were to place all its confidence in your "results" when they could be so easily dismissed, given considerations like those elaborated here, the damage would be enormous and probably impossible to overcome. For that reason, Judy and I have stood up to you and your allies and borne the brunt of your attacks in the interest of truth and science. If we stand for exposing falsehoods and revealing truths about 9/11, then we cannot allow ourselves to be deceived by simple answers to complex questions, no matter how enticing they may sound.

The thought that you have actually discovered the cause (or a partial cause) of the destruction of the towers offers a seductively appealing solution to the problem. No one has to think about the melting point of steel, the highest temperature that a jet-fuel based fire can attain, the mechanics of the initiation of a collapse, the design of redundant, steel structure high-rise buildings, or any other even remotely challenging aspect of this matter. All you have to know is that Steve Jones established that the buildings were destroyed by “cutter charges” using thermite or thermate! That’s all! You spoke and the world swooned at your feet. But the hypothesis that you advance has never been severely tested. When Judy and Morgan raised important questions, you ignored them and accused them of ignoring those a “hit team” was posting in a journal you have converted into a mechanism for conducting a scientific vendetta. Because most Americans are not very literate scientifically and would like to understand complex phenomena on the basis of simple explanations, you have been accorded a position and have exerted an influence wholly disproportional to your attainments.

One of the striking aspects of your attacks upon us has been your unrelenting and unscientific dismissal of unconventional weaponry as a possible explanation for this complicated question. You ridicule us with the use of phrases like "death rays" and "space beams". But lasers, masers, and other directed-energy devices have been taken serious by others before us. Webster Griffin Tarpley, SYNTHETIC TERROR (2nd edition), suggests that chemical lasers may have been used to take down the plane in Pennsylvania (p. 270) and, citing the work of Jim Hoffman, that directed-energy weapons may have been used on the towers (pp. 242-245). Hoffman has previously proposed that masers may have been employed. Tom Bearden, an expert on scalar weaponry, has proposed that high-tech devices could have been calibrated to only dissociate high-grade steel, which could explain the selectivity of their effects and why there was an attraction to engine blocks but not whole car bodies. Are you condemning their efforts as “unscientific,” too?

Moreover, while thermite and thermate (not to mention thermite and thermate analogs) are easily available on the internet via Ebay, for example, the use of high-tech devices directly implicates the Department of Defense and the military industrial complex in this scheme. 19 Islamic fundamentalists might have been able to take control of four commercial airliners and outfox the most sophisticated air defense system in the work under the control of a man in a cave in Afghanistan, but they could not have employed lasers, masers, or plasmoids, for example, to bring about the destruction of the World Trade Center! So the answers to these questions are not merely of scientific significance but have enormous potential probative value in determining who was and was not responsible for the commission of these crimes. Indeed, if we eventually want to bring a case before a court of law, we had better scrutinize our case and know exactly what we are doing. Once we have launched a case and it has been rejected, the psychological damage has been done. Having had the chance to present our “best shot,” the public is unlikely to wait for another round before concluding that we were mistaken right along.

In that same self-serving endnote, Greg Jenkins ridicules me for suggesting that the source of energy for destroying the towers might have been located in WTC-7, which was built over two massive electrical generators providing electricity for lower Manhattan. The source, however, did not have to be land-borne, but could have come from above through the use of helicopters, aircraft, dirigibles, or satellites, for example. See http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/DEW_Contractors.html#blimp Many of those who fall for the “space beams” dismissal appear to be ignorant of the “Star Wars” research program and the results of its pursuit! The very idea of dismissing theories that have the potential to explain what simpler hypotheses cannot smacks of intellectual tyranny, not uncommon but inimical to the progress of science. To this day, my conjecture—and I never advanced it as anything more! —remains the only account of which I am aware that integrates the late destruction of WTC-7 with the earlier demolition of WTC-1 and WTC-2. I hate to say it, but if you can't contribute to solving the problem, then stand aside and get out of the way! If you want to be taken seriously, you are going to have to meet the kinds of objections raised here or be consigned to the dustbin of history.

The latest fashion in 9/11 research seems to be to promote the thought that we already have enough research results to proceed to legal action. If the considerations adduced above are well founded, however, that is far removed from the truth. If the 9/11 community were to place its trust in the thermite/thermate hypothesis or its new thermite analog/thermate analog variant, then the kinds of reasons elaborated here would undoubtedly lead to its dismissal, to the massive detriment of the movement, whose credibility would thereby be discredited. It is an enormous blunder to take for granted that “enough research” has been done when the quality of that research has never been severely tested. The risks to the movement could not be more profound. If we are committed to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths about 9/11, we must apply the same standards of rigor to ourselves that we apply to the NIST and THE 9/11 COMMISSION REPORT.

Jim

James H. Fetzer
Founder
Scholars for 9/11 Truth

Date: Wed, 02 May 2007 10:52:49 -0700 [05/02/2007 12:52:49 CDT]
From: Nila Sagadevan United States
To: "All@Truepennymedia.com"
Subject: Proof of Thermate

I invite you to watch this excellent 2-minute clip on YouTube of physicist
Prof. Steven Jones convincingly demonstrating that Thermate was used in the
demolition of the Twin Towers...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_wVLeKwSkXA