Mini-nukes in the WTC? one more time...
In general, I would say there are two ways to find out whether the “official story of 9/11” is true and complete, or not: 1) by looking at hard evidence and doing experiments to test hypotheses based on that evidence; and 2) analyzing historical and eye-witness testimony.
In my talks, I have emphasized method 1, using the scientific method. But I also emphasize method 2, pointing (for example) to the whistle-blower testimony of Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta regarding the lack of air defenses that day. And the important evidence regarding the purchase of put options on American and United Airlines during the week prior to 9/11/2001. There are many examples of both types of evidence that point to the conclusion that the official story of 9/11 is misleading and false.
Regarding the possibility that mini-nukes were used in the WTC Towers to bring them down, I wrote a paper in 2006 which was peer-reviewed and then published in January 2007. I sincerely wish more people would read the peer-reviewed papers I and colleagues have published, as a way of sorting out that which is based on hard evidence and that which is not. Here is the mini-nukes paper:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/a/Hard-Evidence-Rebudiates-the-Hypothesis-that-Mini-Nukes-were-used-on-the-wtc-...
One week ago, an essay promoting the mini-nukes-destroyed-the-Towers idea was presented in “Veterans Today” by Jeff Prager. It is full of errors, but (sigh) I will provide responses.
Prager repeatedly misspells my name as “Stephen Jones”, suggesting that he has not read my paper on the subject of mini-nukes – indeed, NONE of my published papers is given in his reference list! Not one.
Prager offers nine numbered points in conclusion, which I respond to here point-by-point:
Prager: "My conclusions and assertions are as follows:
"1. Nano thermite is an incendiary. Explosives are classified as having velocities exceeding 3000mps. The incendiary nanothermite allegedly found by Dr. Stephen [sic] Jones is incapable of turning any component of the steel structured Twin Towers or the cement to micron sized particles or what is commonly referred to in scientific circles as ‘very fine particles’, as we all saw on 911 and as Dr. Thomas Cahill outlines."
Jones: First, as I emphasized in my mini-nukes paper, the dust particles in greatest abundance were “unregulated supercoarse” – and not micron-sized:
"A previously published study of the WTC dust noted: “The environmental science community has been slow to understand that the acute health effects were attributable to a complex mixture of gases and particles and that the particles in greatest abundance (mass) in the dust were the unregulated supercoarse (>10-μm-diam) particles, not the fine (<2.5-μm-diam) or coarse (2.5–10-μm- diam) particles that are typically measured.” http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag/40/i22/html/111506feat ure_lioy.html ] "Their supportive data are shown in the table below: {see my mini-nukes paper}
"It seems that the 9/11 truth community likewise “has been slow to understand” that the WTC dust particles in greatest abundance are the “supercoarse” variety rather than “fine” particles, and that significant chunks of concrete were also found in the WTC rubble."
Jones: With regard to nano-thermite, I have repeated noted that NT could have been used to ignite more conventional explosives such as HMX rather than necessarily being used alone; I again cite (as I have for years) the published note by Los Alamos National Laboratories regarding their “super-thermite matches” and how these could be used for “triggering explosives.” www.lanl.gov/orgs/tt/pdf/techs/thermite_matches.pdf
Prager: "2. Nanothermite is incapable of maintaining underground, oxygen starved fires at the temperatures required to ‘boil soil and glass’ as Dr. Thomas Cahill stated. "
Jones: Something maintained those high temperatures (not just NT) – not explained in the official story! We have indeed considered this “mystery” – see (for example) our paper published here: http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/
Prager: "3. The chain of possession of the dust samples allegedly found at Ground Zero and controlled by Dr. Jones is highly suspect, unverifiable and unscientific. The chain of possession of the dust samples procured by the USGS on September 16th and 17th, 2001 at Ground Zero, NYC, is known and secure. The chain of possession followed standard scientific procedure as outlined in USGS Report #01-0429.[6] Nano thermite and energetic compound residue was not found in the USGS dust samples."
Jones: Actually, the chain of custody of our samples is given in some detail in our published, peer-reviewed paper here: http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
Furthermore, the USGS samples held residues which were indeed indicative of energetic compounds as obtained by FOIA action by myself and James Gourley; which we discuss in this paper:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf
Prager: "4. The perpetrators of 911 spent far more time developing strategies to deal with public opinion after the event than they did on the event itself. Public opinion after the fact needed to be carefully managed and that management process was a critical component of the event. "
Jones: I have long maintained that an impeachment or criminal trial would be needed to identify the perpetrators for certain; there is considerable evidence pointing to individuals who should be subpoenaed to testify.
Prager: "5. Dr. Stephen [sic] Jones spent a significant portion of his career at the Department Of Energy which is the government agency that is responsible for all nuclear research in the United States. He worked specifically with Muon Catalyzed Fusion, Cold Fusion, Deuterium, Lithium Deuteride and other elements of the cold fusion process. Dr. Jones is a knowledgeable and respected physicist."
Jones: OK – but did you know that after early retirement I also continue in alternative energy studies, including what some would call “cold fusion” studies?
Prager: "6. Dr. Stephen [sic] Jones refuses to discuss the issues raised in this essay and maintains adamantly that 911 had no nuclear component whatsoever."
Jones: Baloney, Mr. Prager -- if you're reading this, you can see that I'm publicly discussing this notion. Obviously I'm not refusing “ to discuss the issues raised in this essay" as you allege. Why will you not carefully read my published papers and respond to them?
Prager: "7. Dr. Christopher Busby states that the dust samples from 911 indicate a cold fusion process using deuterium which is precisely the science and elements Dr. Jones studied at the Department of Energy. "
Jones: Nonsense, Mr. Prager – please read my peer-reviewed cold fusion paper published in Nature:
S.E. Jones, E.P. Palmer, J.B. Czirr, D.L. Decker, G.L. Jensen, J.M. Thorne, and S.F. Taylor & J. Rafelski, "Observation of Cold Nuclear Fusion in Condensed Matter," Nature 338: 737-740 (April 1989).
Prager: "8. I just as adamantly disagree with Dr. Stephen [sic] Jones. That 911 was a nuclear event is certain and anyone attempting to maintain that it was not is part of the cover-up being foisted upon the American people."
Jones: No, Mr. Prager -- ponder my rebuttal here and reply to earlier published papers.
Prager: "9. Exposure to nuclear radiation is the most odious and repulsive event a human being can experience. That secret is being kept by those in the media spotlight in the 911 movement, to include Dr. Stephen [sic] Jones."
Jones: What nonsense, Mr. Prager. I'm not keeping secret that radiation poisoning is “odious and repulsive”; indeed, I address the radiation poisoning issue in my paper (the first cited above).
We note that Mr. Prager does NOT address several points in my mini-nukes paper, including the issue of how the mini-nuke fire-ball could have been stopped without melting through and destroying the “bath-tubs” under each Tower.
I conclude with my final statement from my mini-nukes paper published over fiver years ago:
"Endless discussions are not fruitful, whereas measurements and experiments often are. Furthermore, when 911 researchers go before the media or investigative bodies, we had better have the best- tested facts and theories available and everything else in categories such as “highly speculative” or better, “dismissed by the data.”"
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I'm hoping that this blog
will be useful to those faced with questions regarding the mini-nukes notion.
I published a paper on the subject back in 2007 which provides evidence AGAINST the mini-nukes idea; and here I respond
to Mr. Prager and refer to the published paper.
I also get questions about Judy Wood's beam-from-space theory, and I point people to published papers which go through and consider the evidence. Several relevant papers are published in the Journalof911Studies including one by Wood and a response to that. The Journal is known for evidence-based and peer-reviewed papers on the subject of 9/11.
Through the years, scientists and engineers have taken the time to look at the evidence (for and against) even for some very "un-scientific" ideas such as Jeff Prager's.
Prager, Webre, Fetzer
what a tangled web we have
http://truthjihadradio.blogspot.de/2012/10/dane-wiggington-of-geoengineeringwatch.html
EMP
Hi Professor Jones,
Wouldn't even a mini-nuke generate an EMP that would knock out most microelectronics near to the blast site? Wouldn't there be a risk that the first nuclear explosion at WTC2 and EMP would disrupt the control of the second blast at WTC1? ...A high risk strategy for an already risky undertaking.
Excellent point about EMP, Ynda.
In tests with nuclear bombs, both the US and Russia established that a strong Electro-Magnetic Pulse (EMP) accompanies nukes, and that this EMP is VERY disruptive to electronics. Indeed, this is the basis of EMP weapons that I've warned about (and that the US is doing so LITTLE to prepare against).
Yes, proponents of the mini-nukes idea need to address the EMP issue -- were all radios and cell-phones and video cameras in the vicinity knocked out (useless) AFTER the first Tower came down? No! (There were problems with firemen's radios, but that was even before the destruction of the Towers.)
IMO, you are right Ynda and the lack of pronounced EMP effects following the Towers' fall may be the last nail in the coffin for the theory that mini-nukes brought down the Towers.
PS -- I have worked on an inexpensive Faraday cage with another physicist, for holding small communications gear and other electronics, for defense against EMP on a personalized basis. If anyone is interested, let me know. (Not for sale, but you can acquire the needed materials inexpensively.)
I don't think there is any
I don't think there is any question it involved a combination of explosives. Mini nukes just dont match the visual data, you can see the Towers were consumed by thousands of small powerful explosions
NT: http://s3.amazonaws.com/nasathermalimages/public/video/DVD_PBS_New_York_The_Center_Of_The_World_wtc1_demolition.wmv
ST: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JnZbYXcbqw
Perhaps some newly developed, still secret aerosol that doesn't leave so obvious a trace was used as well. Based on the level of destruction we know that whatever it was, was well dispersed throughout both Towers The point is why even have this discussion. To Mr Praeger I would say: Please stick to talking about what we do know: http://smu.gs/L8pTCz and save the exact combination of explosives used for a proper investigation. Your baseless accusations of Jones makes me think you are here to create division and misdirection. "The most perfidious way of harming a cause consists of defending it deliberately with faulty arguments." -Nietzsche
We also know that the people that did this are as evil as evil gets and that they have access to the latest and greatest from US military labs. From super nanothermite to weaponized anthrax . The whole series of events shows such an astonishing in our face assault with almost complete disregard for how obvious it would be to so many of us.. I can only imagine more of the same until we finally rush Washington, stand up, and restore The Constitution.
911 and the 911 Wars are the worst kind of Crimes Against Humanity possible. On par with Hitler's mentality and some of his actions.. the manufacturing of war for greed and power. But it will be the people who stood up and spoke the truth in a time of deceit that will be rewarded by history. So thank you, to all of you.
Why Do Some Persist With These Mini-Nuke Claims?
Not being well versed on this aspect of scientic debate, are the mini-nuke claims based on more than just a simple minded assumption that something big was required to knock over something else that was also big?
In any event, the apparently baseless mini-nuke and DEW claims seem to make a mockery of legitimate 9/11 research.
As for the Faraday cage design, I would certainly be interested in learning more.
In response to Don Fox
In a letter to Christopher Bollyn, Fox writes:
“Sent: Tuesday, July 1, 2014 6:31 PM
Subject: RE: Question from Bollyn
“Go study U-235 fission pathways. No need to take my word for any of this. Any high school physics student who pays attention can figure this out. Once see you recognize the pattern of U-235 fission it’s plain as day in those USGS dust samples.”
And in his Veterans Today article dated 6/28/1014, Don Fox states: “they used nuclear bombs to demolish the WTC buildings.” http://www.veteranstoday.com/2014/06/28/deconstructing-christopher-bollyn-and-steve-jones/
So Fox is claiming that U-235 fission bombs brought down the Towers, claiming as evidence that the USGS dust samples show the products of U-235 fission. But take a look at the U-235 fission products, and you notice immediately that there are dozens of radioactive isotopes produced. Basically, the neutrons and protons are being re-arranged in the nuclear bomb with a corresponding release of energy – and experimentally we observe that radioactive products are produced in abundance, which is why FALLOUT from a nuclear bomb is so very dangerous.
Where are the examples of RADIOACTIVE isotopes found in the dust, in particular, Technetium, Strontium-90, Cobalt-60 and radioactive Iodine?
There are hundreds of different isotopes generated in a fission bomb and the initial high radiation levels are most dangerous. In this regard, think of the first responders as “radiation monitors”. Where are the examples of radiation poisoning among first responders? Hair falling out, thyroid cancer and so on?
Initial radiation levels fade fairly quickly, over time periods of weeks and months, but some radioactive products would continue as a problem to this day – if nuclear fission bombs brought down the buildings as claimed by Fox – such as Strontium 90 (half-life 28.8 years, high-energy beta), Cesium-137 (half-life 30.2 years, high-energy gamma), and Tin-126 (half-life 230,000 years, high-energy gamma).
The majority of U-235 fission end-products occur in two peaks, basically strontium to ruthenium and tellurium to neodymium. Do the USGS dust samples show all the tell-tale elements falling into two dominant peaks, including radioisotopes? Fox has not demonstrated this at all; his analysis is lacking and not convincing.
In particular, copper is in neither of the two dominant fission product peaks (too light at atomic number 29) and would not be produced in abundance in Fox's nuclear bomb. Yet he states in his article:
“The copper found in the Ground Zero dust is indicative of nuclear fission.... The decay of radioactive Copper by beta particle emission into Zinc would have been another source for the extraordinarily high concentrations of Zinc found in the World Trade Center Dust.”
Wrong! Copper lies outside the two dominant fission-product peaks. Further, to produce so much zinc from decay of “radioactive Copper” as claimed by Fox means there must have been abundant radioactive copper – where is ANY direct evidence of such radioactive copper? There is none.
As I explained in an earlier paper,http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/a/Hard-Evidence-Rebudiates-the-Hypothesis-that-Mini-Nukes-were-used-on-the-wtc-towers-by-steven-jones.pdf I examined the WTC dust for radioactivity and found none. For comparison, I also found a sample of sand and dust collected near a nuclear bomb test in Nevada – it was still HIGHLY radioactive some 65 years after the Nevada testing.
TRITIUM
I have extensively studied tritium levels found in water samples around the world, as part of my research on the possibility of geo-fusion (Steven E. Jones, et al., Nature 338: 737-740 (April 1989)). I found that tritium does appear in various water samples where one would not necessarily expect it, but these findings are not too surprising given the large quantities of tritium “fallout” produced during hydrogen-bomb testing decades ago. Tritium has a half-life of 12.4 years, and some tritium from these bomb tests lingers today. Further I noted that the small amounts of tritium found in waters under the WTC could be due to tritium in exit signs and gun sights.
Fox states:
“The first thing Jones tries to refute is the tritium levels in the basement of WTC Building 6: “Observation of tritium (an important component of hydrogen-bomb fuel) at WTC sites at the few nano-curie level only. This is strong evidence against the mini-nuke hypothesis.” As we observed in our article Jones fails to account for dilution of the tritium by four million gallons of water. Why was tritium found in the basement of WTC 6 in the first place? Leaking gun sights or EXIT signs can’t explain what happened to that building.”
One cannot claim (without proof) that the small sample of water that showed traces of tritium had been diluted by “four million gallons of water.” I have worked with water calorimetry for many years, and I find that unless water is deliberately and thoroughly stirred, local hot spots (thermals) in the water are common. I expect the same would apply to local high-concentrations of tritium in the water under WTC6. In any case, Fox cannot rule out that possibility unless he has samples from various locations in these “millions of gallons of water,” which he does not have.
Fox's rant continues: “Jones makes no effort to explain HOW the tritium got in the basement absent a thermonuclear explosion.”
Yes I did – and I explained again just above – did you catch it?
(Note that Fox is here claiming a “thermonuclear explosion”, i.e., a hydrogen-bomb involving fusion; in addition to the U-235 bomb he claims in the same article!)
QUESTIONS FOR MR. FOX
So, we have nuclear bombs in the Towers AND in WTC 6, according to Mr. Fox. Let us ask these questions:
1. Why do not radiation sickness effects show up in abundance among first responders?
2. Where is the experimental evidence for radioactive products, such as the radioactive copper you claim?
3. How about radioactive strontium and iodine, which would show up long-term as specific health problems, such as bone cancer and thyroid cancer – where is the evidence? (I am not referring to a generalized increase in cancer, which can stem from a number of exposures besides radiation.)
4. Can you prove that the sampling showing tritium (above background but still small concentration) was not a case of local high-concentration, for example, from a leaking exit sign or gun-sight?
5. Where are the electromagnetic-pulse effects of nukes – where are the fried/inoperative cell-phones and lap-tops? In effect, nearby cell-phones and computers serve as detectors for EMP associated with a nuclear blast – unless you can explain how EMP from your mini-nukes was “turned off” on 9/11.
6. If as you say both WTC Towers were taken down by mini-nukes, why were mini-nukes not used in Building 7? Do you agree with me that explosives brought down WTC7 as shown by its downward free-fall acceleration for over 100 feet?