Dallas Observer - "Dallas Gets It Very Own 9/11 Truther Billboard on Stemmons Freeway"
On September 25th, 2013, the Dallas Observer, with a circulation of over 77,000, published an article about the ReThink911.org billboard located on southbound Stemmons Freeway (I-35) near the Oak Lawn exit.
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2013/09/dallas_gets_it_very_own_911_tr.php
Dallas Gets It Very Own 9/11 Truther Billboard on Stemmons Freeway
By Brantley Hargrove Wed., Sep. 25 2013 at 9:00 AM
Categories: We Apologize in Advance for This Particular Item
You had to know that the World Trade Center attacks on September 11, 2001, would spawn a host of conspiracy theories, like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and Pearl Harbor before it. So, we here at the Dallas Observer office weren't all that surprised to receive multiple hand-mailed letters from the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, informing us that its campaign to expose the real story behind the fall of the Twin Towers had come to the City of Hate, on a nearby stretch of Stemmons Freeway between Oak Lawn and Market Center.
It reads, "Did you know a 3rd tower fell on 9/11?" and provides a link to its website, ReThink911.org. "Trust Your Eyes, the Facts, and the Laws of Physics," a pamphlet implores readers, before attempting to dismantle the report from the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which concluded that the root cause of the collapse was an "office furnishings-fueled blaze" that burned uncontrollably in the third tower, WTC 7. These fires weakened and unseated a steel girder, whose failure caused a cascade of floor failures. The report found that if the building's sprinkler system had worked (water pipes were damaged by the collapse of the twin towers) WTC 7 might still be standing.
This group, one of many such organizations, claims however that WTC 7 falls all too "uniformly through what was the path of greatest resistance." "A single, localized failure...NIST's unseated girder could not cause the systematic and total failure of 400 other structural steel connections per second."
It could, NIST reports, if WTC 7 had long, unsupported floor spans, which it did.
The group claims to have documented "unmistakable signs of a controlled demolition." NIST says the kind of explosives required to initiate column failure would register at 140 decibels at a distance of at least half a mile. No one, so far, has reported hearing such sounds. The truthers talk about thermite and microspheres -- further evidence, they say, of an explosion. An analysis of the infamous "red/gray chips" by the American Academy of Forensic Science found that they were an epoxy resin, not thermite.
Make of these guys what you will. If you're buying what they are selling, you can literally go online and buy coffee mugs, T-shirts and DVDs. The truth has a price.
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SF Weekly News
http://www.sfweekly.com/2013-09-25/news/truthers-rethink911-bart-advertising/
Another example where the campaign has gotten some coverage.
Question
"An analysis of the infamous "red/gray chips" by the American Academy of Forensic Science found that they were an epoxy resin, not thermite."
This is news to me, has anyone here looked at this claim?
I hadn't heard that either
and am wondering about the veracity of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences claim in the article.
It sounds like the author has some level of familiarity with the issues or talked to somebody who claims to, as he also gave specifics about the NIST WTC 7 report claim that a girder was unseated and initiated the collapse. Of course, that is provably bogus as they omitted pertinent features from their analysis, such as the girder stiffeners, which would make any girder unseating an impossibility.
Paint!
The AAFS is basically saying the red/grey chips are paint.
The following (in bold type) is from their report:
There is no evidence of individual elemental aluminum particles of any size in the red/gray chips, therefore the red layer of the red/gray chips is not thermite or nano-thermite.
Notes on the Source of the Red/Gray Chips
At the time of this progress report, the identity of the product from which the red/gray chips were generated has not been determined. The composition of the red/gray chips found in this study (epoxy resin with iron oxide and kaolin pigments) does not match the formula for the primer paint used on iron column members in the World Trade Center towers (Table 1).16 Although both the red/gray chips and the primer paint contain iron oxide pigment particles, the primer is an alkyd-based resin with zinc yellow (zinc chromate) and diatomaceous silica along with some other proprietary (Tnemec ) pigments. No diatoms were found during the analysis of the red/gray chips. Some
small EDS peaks of zinc and chromium were detected in some samples but the amount detected was inconsistent with the 20% level of zinc chromate in the primer formula.
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) contain some information about product materials. According to the MSDS currently listed on the Tnemec website,17 55 out of the 177 different Tnemec coating products contain one or two of the three major components in the red layer: epoxy resin, iron oxide and/or kaolin (aluminum silicate) pigments. However, none of the 177 different coatings are a match for the red layer coating found in this study.
Some confusion naturally arises when discussing paints and other thin-film polymer coatings as there have been aspects of these substances in the nano realm since the 1950s especially regarding kaolin due to its mill-ability (think of the use of kaolin as a dispersant in bio-weapons such as anthrax powder) but it is questionable, due to the age of the buildings, if a purpose built and globally nano-tech coating was available at the time of the construction of these buildings of the WTC. To retro-fit these buildings with new coatings would be a near impossibility as the process requires white-glove cleanliness for adhesion. We have all seen the photo-micrographs of the red/grey chips and it doesn't take a genius to analyse them as per their molecular size, lack of discontinuities, lack of any extraneous particles and moreover the evenness of distribution and compaction.
I believe that Mark Basile, in anticipation of this report has done side-by-side ignition testing with paint and the red/grey chips and that this appears in 9/11 Experts Speak Out
not the AAFS
The AAFS did not write that stuff, this is from the unpublished report by Dr. Millette who may be a member of the AAFS. More than a year of waiting without it being published says a lot about the quality of this report, and I have good reason to believe that it did not survive the review process. The paper by Basile is next in line. Even NIST admitted that the paint from the towers is stable to temps way above the 425°ignition temp for the chips of ATM.
This story by the Dallas Observer is pretty bad by most standards, and hardly worth talking about.
Thanks
Thank you for the clarification.
paint chips
"OccupyTruth" writes on the Dallas Observer article comment section...
An analysis of the infamous "red/gray chips" by the American Academy of Forensic Science found that they were an epoxy resin, not thermite.
That 'analysis' was not done BY the AAFS but by a man named Millette. He is the same man, not incidentally perhaps, who falsified reports saying that the WTC dust was not toxic and not a health threat to first responders.
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/epamemocomplaint.pdf
Millette and analysis of red-gray chips - http://aneta.org/911experiments_com/millette/
Thanks for the links. It's
Thanks for the links.
It's not easy to find Millette's report. Here's a summary:
In summary, red/gray chips with the same morphological characteristics, elemental spectra and magnetic attraction as those shown in Harrit et al.1 were found in WTC dust samples from four different locations than those examined by Harrit, et al.1 The gray side is consistent with carbon steel. The red side contains the elements: C, O, Al, Si, and Fe with small amounts of other elements such as Ti and Ca. Based on the infrared absorption (FTIR) data, the C/O matrix material is an epoxy resin. Based on the optical and electron microscopy data, the Fe/O particles are an iron oxide pigment consisting of crystalline grains in the 100-200 nm range and the Al/Si particles are kaolin clay plates that are less than a micrometer thick. There is no evidence of individual elemental aluminum particles detected by PLM, SEM-EDS, or TEM-SAED-EDS, during the analyses of the red layers in their original form or after sample preparation by ashing, thin sectioning or following MEK treatment.
Conclusions
The red/gray chips found in the WTC dust at four sites in New York City are consistent with a carbon steel coated with an epoxy resin that contains primarily iron oxide and kaolin clay pigments. There is no evidence of individual elemental aluminum particles of any size in the red/gray chips, therefore the red layer of the red/gray chips is not thermite or nano-thermite.
This appears to be the report: http://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64959841/9119ProgressReport022912_rev1_030112web.pdf
Already mentioned in the comments are the cautions with regard to Millette.
But this is rather precise science and there's a bit of an hypothesis on their part regarding the source of what was found. But at least they looked.
The analysis of these and previous results is beyond me but caution is advised on all sides. I wonder if iron spheres, for example, couldn't be created during construction, welding, etc. Probably not in the quantity, character nor sizes found but, I don't know.
I'm convinced that nano-thermite was used because of the research but I wouldn't be able to explain it. There is other evidence that seems indicative of its use or something like it, including the month of furnace like heat. The complicated assessment of the dust (perhaps not to some) isn't at all crucial to the overall assessment but, of course, if it were taken seriously it seems it should be instrumental to open the case up. It hasn't unfortunately.
Regarding the dust, the fact that we had so much of it in the first place, is primary evidence of the 'in your face' kind :). I've never heard any suggestion of a natural explanation for that. Have you? That much dust, which covered Manhattan and more, would seem to have required an enormous spike of kinetic energy. The fact that some of it was found to be nano-thermitic, well, that's just got to be annoying.
Thanks
Thanks, Tony.
Did you catch this quote "It could, NIST reports, if WTC 7 had long, unsupported floor spans, which it did."? A very sly, though dishonest statement. The "long floor spans" are NOT "unsupported". The beams were sized and engineered to do the support job required, regardless of the distance between columns. I do hate these dissemblers and liars.
Epoxy resin? Yeah, right. (º_º)
QUOTE: (extracted)" ......Separation of components using methyl ethyl ketone demonstrated that elemental aluminum is present. The iron oxide and aluminum are intimately mixed in the red material. When ignited in a DSC device the chips exhibit large but narrow exotherms occurring at approximately 430 °C, far below the normal ignition temperature for conventional thermite. Numerous iron-rich spheres are clearly observed in the residue following the ignition of these peculiar red/gray chips. The red portion of these chips is found to be an unreacted thermitic material and highly energetic".....
* * * *
From what I recall in chemistry, neither paint nor epoxy resin reacts in this manner when ignited. Also, epoxy resin (diglycidylether bisphenol) does not contain either iron or its oxides, or elemental aluminum.
It seems as if the AAFS, just like NIST before, has prioritized political expediency over analytical science.
BOGUS!
Millette
As I recall, Dr. Millette claimed there were four different kinds of red-gray chips, and he declined to run the calorimetry test that would have confirmed that his chips were the same as Dr. Harrit's. Dr. Millette's lack of scientific curiosity in this regard is quite puzzling. It looks like he wanted to "prove" that the chips were not thermitic, and that as soon as he got results (alleged lack of elemental aluminum) consistent with his thesis he declared victory, game over. Very poor science, IMHO.
I am glad that Dr. Millette raised the issue of the presence of stereotyped aluminum platelets in kaolin clay (and the presence of kaolin in ordinary paints). I think he also suggested that iron oxide particles, also of stereotyped size and shape, are also a common constituent of ordinary paint. I'd like to see more micrographs done to positively distinguish the nanostructural features of the Harrit chips from ordinary chips. I'd also like to see the calorimetry tests replicated to eliminate the possibility that some prankster tampered with BYU's apparatus.
I'm pretty disappointed that so far the response of Dr. Harrit's team to Dr. Millette's claims has been so feeble, and I'm also disappointed that Harrit's team has not further developed their work in terms of getting it replicated and positively distinguishing the energetic chips from ordinary paint.
please clarify
your/the quote as being from which source (i'm a non-science dummy). i think i understand that it's the 'good' report (harritt, jones, et al) you quote, that states there was aluminum in the red gray chips, which aafs and/or or millette is attempting to refute, and publish,, albeit, we hope, with impossible difficulty!?
Dishonest or Grossly Misinformed?
Dallas Observer Article on ReThink911.org Campaign - Dishonest or Grossly Misinformed?
http://911debunkers.blogspot.com/2013/09/dallas-observer-article-on.html