Proper citations, please

On Jim Fetzer's show yesterday, Steven Jones discussed a journal article on the size of dust particles from the World Trade Center, and said it was published in a letter at Journal of 9/11 Studies.

I found this letter here:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/NoMini-nukes-AppA.pdf

The source for the particle size data is on page 8.

http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag/40/i22/html/11506feature_lioy.html

This leads to a search page, so I typed in the author Lioy, which was not clear from Jones' citation but I was able to ascertain from a reference elsewhere to Lioy, at al.

Ten articles come up, two of which are the most likely candidates:

Persistent Organic Pollutants in the Dusts That Settled across Lower Manhattan after September 11, 2001
Offenberg, J. H.; Eisenreich, S. J.; Chen, L. C.; Cohen, M. D.; Chee, G.; Prophete, C.; Weisel, C.; Lioy, P. J. Environ. Sci. Technol.; (Article); 2003; 37(3); 502-508.

The World Trade Center Aftermath and Its Effects on Health: Understanding and Learning Through Human-Exposure Science, Paul J. Lioy, Edo Pellizzari, Prezant David, Environ. Sci. Technol. A-Pages; 2006; 40 (22); 6876-6885.

The latter seems more likely as Lioy is the primary author.

On page 6, Jones cites to another paper by Lioy on radioactive isotopes, again, just offering a website:

http://www.ehponline.org/members/2002/110p703-714lioy/lioy-full.html

Much better. The full article is available online for free, so I do not to purchase it to see if it is the correct one. Even so, a citation is necessary as websites change.

Paul Lioy, et al, Characterization of the Dust/Smoke Aerosol that Settled East of the World Trade Center (WTC) in Lower Manhattan after the Collapse of the WTC 11 September 2001, Environmental Health Perspectives Volume 110, Number 7, July 2002

This article was published prior to the above two articles, one of which is the one that Jones seems to have cited to. This article contains data on particle size that seems to be the original source of the data published on page 8 of Jones' letter.

An Internet journal like any other journal should provide proper citations, even when publishing a "letter." The reader needs it, and I am sure the author of the study would also want proper citations. I heard Jones refer to this document as a "peer-reviewed" paper. One would expect a peer-reviewer to point this out.

Endnotes would be fine. Other papers are given full citations, while Jones' own paper is not cited but merely described by content with a link to Journal of 9/11 Studies home page. This requires a title, date, and full link.

Papers should also refer to any changes or updates made, and not merely state at the top of the first page that the paper was updated on a certain date. Each change should be indicated. What if someone cites to a portion of a paper that later disappears or is changed, yet remains at the same weblink? The former information should not simply be disappeared; it should remain along with a correction or update. Ideally, a paper once published should remain intact and updates published at separate links.


UPDATE: Someone just released a paper on Mineta's testimony that I think is a good model for Journal of 9/11 Studies:

http://www.members.shaw.ca/truth914/mineta.html#_ednref62

Here's a comment that I made at 911 Blogger where the author was asking for comments:

This is a very impressive and useful paper in terms of content, and I'm also happy to see the citations done so well. It would be nice if Journal of 9/11 Studies could publish both a PDF and HTML with internal and external hyperlinks.

The 9/11 Commission Report website doesn't link to its own footnotes, which is weak and probably intentional as their footnotes often show how sketchy their sources are. Would it be possible for you to make a section of the Commission's footnotes and do internal hyperlinks to those footnotes, using their footnote numbers?

http://911blogger.com/node/5637#comment

(I actually disagree with the author that this Mineta testimony will prove 9/11 was an inside job in a court of law, because I think his testimony could be shredded by a good lawyer, and that alternative explanations would be easy to develop. I gave one in my comment.

I also think this Mineta testimony is what students of covert operations call a "limited hangout."

Still, this article is useful to those who support this Mineta argument and those who do not, as it puts the Mineta argument in one paper. )

Jim Hoffman's critique of "The Physics of 9/11"

Jim Hoffman makes some really insightful comments on the psycho-babble portion of Manuel Garcia's "The Physics of 9/11."

http://911review.com/reviews/counterpunch/markup/physic11282006.html

I particularly liked his point that the populace's ignorance of physics cuts both ways---it explains why we accept the government's ridiculous stories like the "collapses" of the Twin Towers.

My only suggestion would be that the problem is not so much ignorance of physics as it is the social conditioning we receive that tell us that only a physicist can understand physics. A lot of what we call "physics" is experiential common sense, and we are conditioned to believe that the jargon and credentials of physicists and other experts should be believed even when what they say is ludicrous.

This ties in better, I think, with Hoffman's insightful play on Garcia's "fear" theory:

"the fear of confronting a false-flag attack psychological operation --> blind acceptance of the official conspiracy theory."

I think what happens is this: fear of confronting the terrible idea that our government has killed citizens as a psy-op on the entire country makes it easier to blindly accept the opinions of experts even when deep-down we know what they are saying is ludicrous.

Hoffman's critiques of Garcia's physics arguments are also quite good. I was happy to confirm that I had been able to see through Garcia's physi-babble on this point stated by Hoffman:

"Here again is [the] assumption that all of the columns on a floor suddenly vanished so that the top could go into free-fall for 3 meters."

As far as I can tell, Bazant and Zhou did the same by assuming away the energy absorbed by the first "buckling" of columns, and they seem to imply that this first instantaneous buckle took place over 3-10 stories:

http://911research.wtc7.net/disinfo/experts/articles/bazant_jem/bazant_zhou.html


My only concern is that Hoffman agrees with Garcia on the unproven theory that planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11.

For some reason, the fear of confronting the idea that the media is involved in this psy-op is even greater, leading us to credit videos that deep down, we know do not reflect reality.

This seems to happen even, or perhaps more, to experts. MIT's Wierzbicki and Teng said this:

To the casual observer, it would appear that the facade of the Twin Towers did not offer any resistance at all, and that the plane's wings and fuselage slice through the exterior columns as if they were made of cardboard. . . How was it possible that the relatively weak, light, and airy airframe damaged the apparently heavy lattice of high strength steel columns? The devastating result of this encounter came as a surprise to the engineering and scientific community or at least to the present authors.

Wierzbicki and Teng, How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center, Int'l J. of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 601-625

Was it easier for these experts to develop a model that explained away this terrible reality, than to face that reality?

Karim and Hoo Fatt developed a model that was much closer to the terrible reality, but was still influenced by their assumption that what they saw in the videos had to be true:

Before the buildings collapsed, one can see an imprint of the fuselage, engine, and wings on the side of the buildings. This means that the airplanes must have perforated the buildings before exploding and starting fires within the building."

Karim and Hoo Fatt, Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft Into the World Trade Center, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 131, No. 10, 1066-1072 (October 2005), page 1066.

Why "must" it mean that? Because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate? It is certainly not for any scientific reason.

Karim and Hoo Fatt appear to have better overcome this fear, because their model is closer to the common-sense physical reality recognized by Wierzbicki and Teng.

Perhaps it was easier for Karim and Hoo Fatt because, despite the title of their paper, they stated the purpose of the paper to be to determine how thick the external columns would have to be to prevent a Boeing 767 of a similar weight and speed from penetrating the columns. This purpose allowed them to dispense with modeling the resistance of the floors, because as they say on page 1067, "floors would add to the bending resistance of the columns, [so that] a solution without them will yield more conservative results." They also said that ignoring that the column modules were staggered would also yield conservative results. Most unrealistically, they ignored the longitudinal resistance of the floors, which Wierzbicki found would dissipate much more energy than the external columns.

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20II%20Inferno%20@%20WTC.pdf
(page 53)

All of these assumptions fit their purpose of proposing future design standards, but are not realistic assumptions for a model of the alleged events of 9/11. By reading between the lines and combining these results with others, I was able to cobble together a more realistic model of the impact of "Flight 175," which tells me what Karim and Hoo Fatt would not: the videos are faked.

I have also written that NIST seems to show that the videos of "Flight 175" are faked, while saying the opposite,

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/does-nist-prove-no-planes-and-has-jones.html

and that NIST seems to show that the "Flight 11" wheel found at Recter and West is faked while saying that it is real,

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/little-wheel-that-could.html

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/little-wheel-that-could-not-part-2.html

and that NIST seems to show that the "Flight 175" engine fragment found 1500 feet north of the South Tower at Church and Murray is faked, while saying it is real:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/little-wheel-that-could-not-part-2.html

It seems that the best we can hope for from institutionalized experts is for the truth to be hinted at between the lines. Perhaps my social conditioning compels me to seek validation of my common sense from these experts, but their expertise is real, and as a practical matter there is no choice but to back our common sense arguments with expert opinion.

It is up to 9/11 researchers to read between the lines, and to have the courage and integrity to speak loudly the truths that these institutionalized experts can only insinuate.

Does NIST's own data prove "no planes," and has Jones failed to disclose that in his "planes" thesis?

I have previously raised questions about Steven Jones' failure to disclose data from a peer-reviewed engineering journal that contradicts a major part of his "planes" thesis, here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-concerns-about-professor-joness.html

One of Jones' three main arguments in support of his "planes" thesis, which he presents as a rebuttal of the "no planes theory," is the deceleration argument, as follows:

An 18% deceleration of "Flight 175" during its impact with the South Tower, which Jones states can be observed in a video by Evan Fairbanks, is consistent with the expected loss of kinetic energy from such an impact as modeled by Tomasz Wierzbicki, Professor of Applied Mechanics in MIT's Department of Ocean Engineering and director of the department's Impact and Crashworthiness Laboratory.

My criticism is that Jones does not address subsequent research done by Karim and Hoo Fatt who are on the engineering faculty at the University of Akron, and who address Wierzbicki's model in concluding that a much higher amount of kinetic energy would be lost in such an impact.

I have added these two conclusions together the best I can as a non-engineer with high school math and physics, and concluded that these models prove that a real Boeing 767 would have shown much higher deceleration and deformation upon impact with the South Tower.

My analysis and conclusion on this issue can be read, along with some rhetoric about thinking for myself, here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/911-pound-gorilla-in-catos-room.html

The correctness of my analysis and conclusion is not the issue. Rather, it is the failure of Jones to address data that contradicts a major premise of his conclusion. I applied the same reasoning as Jones did in his "planes" argument, and as Salter did in his "planes" paper in the Jones-edited Journal of 9/11 Studies. However, I chose an input that I believed to be based on more realistic assumptions. I believe that my education and experience gives me the ability to understand the assumptions and conclusions of these impact models, even if I could never develop these models myself, and that I have a solid understanding of academic standards and scientific method. Thus, I am confident in saying that both Jones and Salter should have disclosed and addressed this contradictory data that was published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Engineering Mechanics.

I have now learned of other pertinent and contradictory data that was not disclosed by Jones and Salter, even though it was available 9-12 months before each of their publications.

NIST NCSTAR 1-5, pages 24-26, analyzes the Scott Myers video of "Flight 175" and concludes that the tail of "Flight 175" "did not slow as the aircraft entered the building."

I repeat: "the tail did not slow as the aircraft entered the building."

That means 0% deceleration, as opposed to the 18% found by Salter and cited by Jones.

Jones and Salter state that the plane decelerated 18% in support of their conclusion that the video of "Flight 175" is real, but do not disclose NIST's data and conclusion to the contrary.

Please click on the below JPEGs of three pages from NIST NCSTAR 1-5, pages 24, 25, and 26.

Read section 2.3.2, Estimated Aircraft Speed on the first page. It refers to Figure 2-7 on the second page, which is frames of the Scott Myers video on the second page. It also refers to Figure Figure 2-8 on the third page, which shows parallel lines of pixel location of the nose and tail over time, and which NIST says is evidence that the tail of "Flight 175" in the Scott Myers video "did not slow as it entered the building."

After these three pages, I will show that Jones and Salter used another video by Evan Fairbanks to show an 18% deceleration. (After that, please be sure to read Endnote 1, which is important.)




Update: Note that Jones used the lower graph in support of his "planes" thesis, as discussed here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/south-tower-oscillation-as-evidence-of.html

Thus, he cannot reasonably argue that he did not know about the upper graph on this page, which contradicts Salter's 18% deceleration result.

Note also that both of these results were obtained from NIST's analysis of the same Scott Myers video (the "stable video in section 2.3.3 of the above page of NIST text). How can Jones offer the second graph but not the first, without acknowledging the first graph and explaining why he thinks it is invalid?

At Journal of 9/11 Studies, Jones published a Power Point presentation, dated July 2006, entitled "Answers to Objections and Questions" (hereinafter, "Jones Answers")

Until last week, the document was available here:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/JonesAnswersQuestionsWorldTradeCenter.pdf

I have published JPEGs of the title page and the pages purporting to rebut "no planes" theory , here:

http://questions-for-doctor-jones.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post.html


Jones cites the Scott Myers video as evidence that a Boeing 767 hit the South Tower:

Jones Answers, page 173

Above, Jones says that it is not enough to say that a jet would not behave like this. You have to do an experiment, which he says is preferred, or a computer simulation to really know. An experiment is not realistic, even for NIST, so that leaves computer simulation.

As far as I know, NIST did not do a computer simulation of the entire aircraft, but they did conduct a computer simulation of the impact of the starboard engine of "Flight 175," which I discussed for a different purpose here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/little-wheel-that-could-not-part-2.html

In my opinion, NIST's model of the loss of speed of the starboard engine just to clear the external columns and floor truss of the South Tower contradicts the Wierzbicki kinetic energy balance study and should be disclosed. Pending further analysis, I reach no conclusions, but state that this is data that Jones and Salter should have addressed in their papers purporting t prove the "planes" thesis.

I digress, because new failures to disclose keep appearing. Back to the video study.

In the page below, Jones cites an analysis of the Evan Fairbanks video by Eric Salter, who concludes that the video shows an 18% deceleration as "Flight 175" enters the South Tower.

Jones also cites to an analysis of Wierzbicki's online paper by Stefan Grossmann, a German lawyer, which shows 25% loss in initial kinetic energy as "Flight 175" enters the South Tower.

See endnote 2 for links to the studies of Salter, Grossmann, and Wierzbicki.

As one can see from the page just below, Jones fails to cite to the NIST study of the Scott Myers video that he used in the previous page, and which showed 0% deceleration as opposed to 18% deceleration. One can also see that he failed to disclose the Karim/Hoo Fatt study which found a 46% loss in initial kinetic energy from piercing the external columns alone, without considering the increased resistance of the external columns when backed by floors, without considering the resistance of the floors themselves, and without considering the resistance of the core columns.

Jones Answers, page 174

NIST's 0% decleration compared to Wierzbicki's 25% kinetic energy loss gives a drastically larger discrepancy that would not be "consistent with the data within allowable tolerances."

Salter's 18% deceleration compared to Hoo Fatt's 46% kinetic energy loss (really much closer to 100% as I show in my paper) gives a drastically larger discrepancy that would not be "consistent with the data within allowable tolerances."

NIST's result compared to Hoo Fatt's data gives an even more drastic discrepancy, and that's without even considering the massive resistance of the floors and core columns found in Wierzbicki's paper,as Hoo Fatt looked only at the resistance of the external columns.

Jones' own reasoning is that the relationship between observed deceleration and modeled kinetic energy loss is important evidence of a video's authenticity or lack of authenticity.

Any one of these combinations proves that the videos of "Flight 175" slipping into the South Tower are falsified.

Given Jones' failure to disclose these results, he has no business stating that the "assertion . . . real commercial jets did not hit the WTC towers . . . has been disproved by the evidence."

http://stj911.org/jones/debates_or_justice.html

By his own reasoning, this assertion has been proved by the evidence that he fails to acknowledge. (3)

I ask Steven Jones to be more careful in the future about academic standards, both in his own work and in his editing of the Journal of 9/11 Studies.


Endnotes

(1) It may be that neither the Scott Myers video nor the Evan Fairbanks video are authentic, or it may be that one but not the other is authentic. [Update, 3/2/2007: this is a strange statement I made - I think both videos are fake. One video shows 0% deceleration, which happens to be the one the NIST used to estimate the speed of "Flight 175." This speed is nothing more than an artifact of a faked video, but since it results in about the highest speed that could claimed, and the models of kinetic energy use speeds derived from videos, I take these speeds as true for purposes of my analysis. The other video purportedly shows 18% deceleration, though that is disputed by Rick Rajter. Either figure is unrealistic.] Regardless, both need to be disclosed, particularly since NIST has apparently chosen the Scott Myers video over the Evan Fairbanks video. We don't know if NIST would have concluded that the Fairbanks video showed more or less than 18% deceleration, but again, NIST's data must be disclosed. If I had known about NIST's data, I would obviously have disclosed it as it supports my conclusion. You will just have to trust me that I would disclose this or any other data I know about that does not support my conclusion.

Since writing my 911-Pound Gorilla article, I have learned that a group headed by Mete Sozen of Purdue University has done an energy balance study of "Flight 11" hitting the North Tower, and I will need to address it. The website does not disclose the assumptions and conclusions as to energy balance, but concludes that many core columns were destroyed by the impact on the North Tower, and has a simulation showing what I think is impossible---a plane slipping into a WTC tower without any apparent resistance. Therefore, I shall have to request more information and address this research.

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/html4ever/2006/060911.Sozen.WTC.html

Purdue's Sozen has headed an energy balance study of "Flight 77" hitting the Pentagon, which I think is a separate issue that I am not required to address, but should if I have time:

http://news.uns.purdue.edu/UNS/html4ever/020910.Sozen.Pentagon.html


(2) Salter's analysis of the Evan Fairbanks video can be read here:

http://911research.wtc7.net/essays/salter/175speed.html

Wierzbicki's paper can be read here:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf

Grossmann's analysis of Wierzbicki's paper may be read here:

http://www.gallerize.com/Grossmann-Russell_Argument_WTC2_Hit.htm

(3) Jones says that the following assertions have also been disproved by the evidence: "ray-beams from space caused the demolitions" and "mini-nukes were used in the WTC towers." I have no opinions on either of these assertions, other than that they should be considered. It is my understanding that mini-nukes are not considered a valid theory by most researchers, and that "ray beams from space" misstates the Wood thesis which does not limit the source of the beams to space. I try to view each individual argument on its merits, but Jones' failure to disclose in relation to research that I understand will make me question his work on any theory. The sine qua non of honest and valid research is a willingness to disclose and address adverse results. I find it very disturbing that a prominent figure in 9/11 research, who must know that this behavior is unacceptable, is publishing work which can so easily be discredited. This has far more potential to discredit alternative theories of 9/11 than Judy Wood's public research, which she clearly states is a work in progress.

9/11 researchers must question NIST's assumptions

I have already criticized Steven Jones for assuming the authenticity of aircraft debris in support of his "planes" thesis, here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-concerns-about-professor-joness.html

and here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/scholars-for-911-truth-and-justice-on.html

To emphasize my point, I publish page 28 of NIST NCSTAR 1-5, which accepts without question highly implausible propulsions of aircraft debris far from the Twin Towers.

Given NIST's failures in relation to the "collapses" of the Twin Towers, it is not surprising that NIST is not questioning events that may be equally implausible.

Any 9/11 researcher that assumes that the perpetrators of 9/11 are lying about the "collapse," and that NIST are covering this up, should not be at all surprised that the perpetrators would fabricate aircraft debris evidence and that NIST would not question this "evidence."


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Afternote:

Should I question NIST's results on "Flight 175" video deceleration that disprove the "planes"thesis? Perhaps, but I have independent evidence that disproves the thesis, and there is a limit to what I can do.

I have another idea about this: the more I read NIST, the more I think that NIST, between the lines, is offering important evidence that the official story is false. It is important to recognize that and not accept clearly invalid assumptions in support of the official story. NIST scientists are not stupid or evil; they are just constrained by the circumstances of their employment. Take what they can give.

Double standards at the Journal of 9/11 Studies?

First of all, I want to state my displeasure at being forced to intervene in this dispute between Jones and Wood/Reynolds. I do not understand all of Wood/Reynolds' criticisms of Jones, and was off-put by the tone of parts of their criticisms of Jones, though I would not characterize that tone as "ad hominem" argument. I also do not understand all of Jones' criticisms of Woods/Reynolds, and am not saying they are all invalid.

However, I agree with Dr. Reynolds that the "no planes" thesis has been proved; I think that this thesis is central to the truth and nothing but the truth about 9/11; and I am appalled by the standards applied by Jones in "rebutting" this thesis in pursuit of his pronounced "truth and justice." I consider his actions, seen as a whole, to be highly inappropriate and reckless.

For those reasons, I am compelled to continue my criticism of Jones' actions in relation to his "planes" thesis. There are many things I would prefer to do with my time.

I have already stated my concerns about the standard of "peer review" applied to Reynolds "no planes" paper as compared to the standard applied to Salter's "planes" paper, here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-concerns-about-professor-joness.html

I have now identified another application of double standards by Jones.

In his reply to Reynolds/Wood, Jones criticizes them for not addressing the oscillation data, stating:

It will not do in scientific inquiry to ignore data like this – even if one does not trust the source for some reason. In other words, the argument must be to the DATA, not to the source (ad hominem).

http://stj911.org/jones/Jones_Replyto_Reynolds_Wood.html

It is not clear to me why ignoring some data makes an argument ad hominem, but I agree that the data needed to be addressed and did so in my last post. My conclusion is that the data do not prove Jones' "planes" thesis, and thus do not contradict Reynolds' conclusion. Reynolds may have decided it was not necessary to address this data, but it is a fair point that it would be better to address it.

However, I am curious about Jones' statement that data has to be addressed even if you do not trust the source, because the journal he edits just published a paper that criticizes the Wood/Reynolds "Star Wars Beam Weapon" paper based on their use of seismic data that they disclose and acknowledge may not be accurate.

http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/Gourley5JAN07.pdf

In this paper, James Gourley criticizes Wood/Reynolds (WR) for relying on "corrupted data" because they acknowledge that the seismic data may not be accurate. Gourley's states this as his first argument, as follows:

Even assuming the WR paper is valid in all other respects, the WR thesis is based in part on faulty data, which invalidates a major part of the thesis . . ."

Yet it seems that Wood and Reynolds are doing here exactly what Jones criticized them for not doing---addressing data even though they have doubts about the accuracy of the data.

If Wood and Reynolds had not disclosed their doubts, Gourley and his editor Jones might have a point. However, as Gourley recognizes, Wood and Reynolds repeatedly stated their concerns about this data.

The first disclosure and acknowledgment is here:

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam1.html

It is almost as if the data from 9/11 have attenuated, that peak movements have been reduced by some kind of filtering process. Does this difference reflect real data, that is, differences in real phenomena accurately recorded? Or have the data been filtered asymmetrically or differently? Or have the data been completely manufactured? We do not know, but for the sake of the analysis we use the Richter values reported. Could they have been lower than reported? Yes.

This seems to me a double standard by the Journal of 9/11 Studies when it comes to theories disputed by its editor.

I am stating no opinion as to the rest of Gourley's paper, and it may be unfair to criticize his paper for a double standard applied by his editor. I also do not attribute this double standard to co-editor Kevin Ryan. Further, I do not know if Jones was involved in the "peer review." However, I believe that he has exercised editorial control over the Journal of 9/11 Studies when it comes to the theories of Wood and Reynolds, and that my criticism is justified on that basis.

Is South Tower oscillation evidence of a plane? Not necessarily.

In his reply to Reynolds/Wood, Steven Jones states that he has used physics to show that planes hit the Twin Towers on 9/11.

http://stj911.org/jones/Jones_Replyto_Reynolds_Wood.html

The three pieces of physical data he cites are:

(1) deceleration

(2) plane debris

(3) South Tower oscillation data

I have already addressed the deceleration and debris issues here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-concerns-about-professor-joness.html

and here:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/scholars-for-911-truth-and-justice-on.html

I agree with Jones' statement that "[i]t will not do in scientific inquiry to ignore data like this [oscillation data] – even if one does not trust the source for some reason."

Jones cites to oscillation data taken from analysis of a video and published as Figure 2-9 on page 26 of NIST NCSTAR 1-5:

http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-5.pdf

Since I have not addressed this data in any of my articles, I will do so here. Because I have no reason to believe that the data is inaccurate, I will assume it is accurate.

My conclusion is that this data shows the impact of some object, unless it is possible for an internal explosion to cause this oscillation, but that it does not prove what kind of object hit the South Tower.

In other words, this data could be evidence of a Boeing 767, or it could be evidence of a missile of some sort. Therefore, it is not conclusive evidence of a plane hitting the South Tower, which I have ruled out on the basis of the lack of deceleration, but it does suggest that some type of missile hit the tower. I disagree with both Jones and NIST that the only assumption that can be drawn from this oscillation data is that it was caused by the impact of a plane.

(I rule out any type of plane for the same reason I rule out a Boeing 767: a comparison of kinetic energy balance with observed decleration. For all I know, the world's largest aircraft, the Antonov AN-225 "Mriya," fully loaded at 600 metric tonnes and flying at top speed of 528 mph, could have flown right through the South Tower, but that is not the plane pictured here. We are also not talking about some kind of specially reinforced plane, which is essentially a missile and is not Flight 175. For all I know, there exists some aircraft that looks exactly like a Boeing 767 and can get off the ground with a nose cone and wings made out of depleted uranium. If so, it is a missile, not Flight 175.)

Below are the NIST pages which discuss the oscillation data and the video from which the oscillation data was derived. I have already stated my conclusion, which is that the oscillation data does not prove a plane, and have no further analysis.
(See NIST report for versions in color, but black and white is fine for Figure 2-9)

My understanding of Figure 2-9 is that it shows the South Tower rocking back and forth for at least four minutes after "Flight 11" is said to have hit the South Tower, from about 12 inches from center to about 3 inches from center at the 70th Floor. (Is this amount of oscillation even consistent with the kinetic energy contained in the impact of a Boeing 767? I have seen no analysis to that effect, and am incapable of such analysis.)

NIST states on the page below that this oscillation was evident in a stable video of "Flight 11" hitting the South Tower:

(NIST NCSTAR 1-5, page 26)

(NIST NCSTAR 1-5, page 24)

Here is a blurry version of the Scott Myers video frames that NIST used to estimate the speed of "Flight 175" and that appears to be the "stable video" from which the above oscillation data was taken. A clearer but abbreviated version is posted below from Jones' "QuestionsandAnswers presentation, page 173, which until last week was available here:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/JonesAnswersQuestionsWorldTradeCenter.pdf

(NIST NCSTAR 1-5, page 25)

For some reason, at page 174 of his QuestionsandAnswers presentation Jones used Salter's analysis of a different video, the Evan Fairbanks video, to draw conclusions on the deceleration of "Flight 175":

"Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice" on "misinformation"

Steven Jones apparently thinks that he can pronounce what theories are and are not backed by science and physical evidence, then accuse those who question his pronouncements of hindering justice:

http://stj911.org/jones/focus_on_goal.html

I submit that this is exactly what he is doing, and I strenuously object.

The new website of the "Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice" has a page entitled "Perception and Propaganda: Misinformation."

http://stj911.org/perception/misinformation.html#attacks_on_jones

The page begins with this definition of "misinformation":

Misinformation is information that is incorrect but not necessarily an attempt to mislead. Misinformation often arises from poor research, biases, and misinterpretations.

I have pointed to these very problems in Steven Jones' conclusions about the "no planes" theory: his research is poor, he exhibits biases, and he misinterprets physical evidence:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/my-concerns-about-professor-joness.html

The Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice misinformation page linked above states:

Predictably, Jones was targeted with a campaign of attacks characterized by misrepresentations of his work and ad hominems, primarily from individuals and personas embracing unscientific alternative theories of the attack.

I made no ad-hominen attacks in my article above.

I pointed to clear and serious violation of academic and/or forensic standards, as follows:

(1) not disclosing and addressing research that contradicts his conclusion;

(2) assuming the authenticity of airplane debris where there are serious and obvious questions as to whether those various pieces of debris would survive the crash, exit the towers, and be propelled to the locations where found.

The "no planes" theory has not been shown to be unscientific. Common sense shows that the videos of "Flight 175" melting into the South Tower are faked, but my position is that I have used the conclusions of peer-reviewed engineering articles to prove that they are faked.

Using the same reasoning of Jones and Salter, but with more accurate data, I showed that the video of "Flight 175" does not exhibit the deceleration that it should, given the amount of initial kinetic energy that would be lost in the collision.

At the very least, the more recent research needs to be addressed before Jones can pronounce the "no planes" theory to be unscientific and accuse those who question his pronouncement to be engaged in misinformation and ad hominem attacks.

Jones should also show how each piece of airplane debris that he uses as evidence of planes got to where it was found. I have shown at this blog that the wheels from "Flight 11" must have been planted south of the North Tower, and plan to continue questioning the authenticity of each piece of airplane debris from "Flight 175." My research so far has not proved the "Flight 175" debris to be fake, but it is already obvious to me that these pieces cannot be assumed to be authentic.

Jones should have questioned this debris before citing it as evidence of planes.

I am not taking a position on the debates between Jones/Legge and Reynolds/Wood, except as they relate to "no planes" theory, as I do not fully understand the other scientific issues raised there.

In his reply to Reynolds/Wood, Jones makes the following characterization of criticism of his actions in relation to "no planes" theory:

http://stj911.org/jones/Jones_Replyto_Reynolds_Wood.html

I will also observe that there is a group of 9/11 researchers, including Reynolds, Wood, Haupt and Holmgren, who take the approach of personalized attacks on any other researcher who dares to suggest that real planes hit the Towers. Really – they support the “no-planes-hit-Towers” notion so strongly that they resort to personal attacks on anyone who challenges their pet theory. As I have done. I have been the subject of such attacks for some time now.

Soon after entering the field of 9/11 research, Steven Jones proclaimed the "no planes" theory to be "junk science." Gerard Holmgren rightly criticized this behavior, and was excoriated for it.

http://members.iinet.net.au/%7Eholmgren/darkside.html

If anything, Holmgren appears to have been too easy on Jones, because his baseless attack on the "no planes" theory has continued, albeit in a more subtle and pseudo-scientific manner.

This and other "attacks" on Jones, like mine here, are not personal attacks in defense of a "pet theory"; rather, they are justified criticisms of Jones' actions in proclaiming a theory to be "junk science" or "chaff" to his wheat, where he has no basis for these pronouncements.

If Jones had merely said he does not believe the "no planes" theory, while acknowledging that he has not considered all of this evidence, he would not have been subject to these criticisms.

Instead, he has chosen to use his authority as a professor of physics to proclaim this theory to be unsupported. This is an abuse of his credentials, and at least with this author, has undermined his authority. It will be difficult for me to consider his other arguments objectively, but I will try.

This is not an attack on Jones' person, but on his actions in 9/11 research.

----------------------------------------

Afternote:

In the "Focus on Goals" article linked above, Jones states that the following "four areas of 9/11 research that are so compelling that they may quickly lead to the goal of a solid investigation of 9/11 as an un-solved crime scene."

1. Fall time for WTC 7.
2. Fall times for the Towers.
3. Challenging the NIST report and Fact Sheet.
4. Evidence for use of Thermate reactions: What the WTC dust and solidified metal reveal.
   

I agree with 3, and do not know enough to fairly question 4.

I am troubled by 1 and 2. WTC 7 is similar to a standard controlled demolition, which utilizes gravity by removing support at the base of the building. For WTC 7, "fall time" is an accurate word.

WTC 1 and 2 are completely different, as they were exploded from the top down with no use of gravity. Thus, using the term "fall time" for WTC 1 and 2, as well as using the same term for WTC 7 and for WTC 1 and 2, is inaccurate and reinforces the official theory of a "gravity-driven collapse."

At the same time, conflating WTC 7 with the Twin Towers leaves one open to the argument that "controlled demolitions" do not go from top to bottom.

I would even suggest a term other than "controlled demolition" for the Twin Towers, to preclude the counterarguments that controlled demolitions are not done this way and the buildings did not fall into their footprints but spread massive debris over a wide area.

This semantic problems is addressed well in this article linked from the website of the Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice:

http://truememes.com/semantics.html

I'm not sure how to rephrase "fall" and "collapse." It is important to emphasize that the Towers were destroyed to the ground in a time comparable to free-fall, but even that subtly suggests a collapse.

"The massive towers were destroyed (explode, peeled) down to the ground in about the same time (less?) time as it would take for a billiard ball to fall through air from the top of the building to the bottom." Something like that?

The little wheel that could not, part 2

Update: At the link just below, Spooked has calculated that the panel of columns discussed below, which NIST says was dislodged from the south face of the North Tower by the impact of "Flight 11," required an exit velocity of 40 mph to go 500 feet. Since the panel is so massive and has high inertia, I am trying to figure out how much debris moving at what velocity would be required to dislodge the panel and accelerate it to 40 mph. I may have to consider whether jet fuel explosions alone or in combination with debris could dislodge and accelerate this 6-tonne module to 40 mph. Given my discussion of NIST's findings below, my gut still says no. In addition, if a combination of jet fuel explosion combined with debris could dislodge column panels, there should have been panels dislodged on the east and north faces of the South Tower, where the debris is said to have been moving faster and did not pass through the core of the building and the explosions were more focused against the external columns.

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2007/01/speed-calculations-for-immaculate.html

NIST say that the "Flight 11" wheel, which ended up at Recter and West, may have exited the building through an opening in the south side of the North Tower that was created by the dislodging of the external panel pictured below. This panel was found on Cedar Street, between 500 feet (1) and 1,000 feet (2) from the North Tower, and has wedged in it another wheel allegedly from "Flight 11." NIST say this in the 3 pages of their report reproduced below. (These panels of columns have also been referred to as "modules.")


NIST say that the impact of airplane debris propelled this external panel from the North Tower to this location, at least 500 feet. This panel is very heavy, perhaps six tonnes. (3) I could understand this panel being propelled to Cedar Street by the explosion of the North Tower, which videos show resulted in tremendous lateral forces. I cannot see the panel propelled hundreds of feet by the impact of aircraft debris that has passed through one wall of external columns, the core, and workstations on both sides of the core. Moreover, as shown below, "Flight 11" is said to have impacted at a downward angle, increasing the distance and the resistance that would have to overcome to get to the other side of the building. Even assuming that the external columns are weaker against force applied from the inside, there is simply no way that the columns were propelled hundreds of feet, and I doubt that they were dislodged by airplane debris at all.

For an idea of the size of these columns, here is a photograph of one of these external columns being installed.


Outside the right side of Cedar Street in picture above is is the Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church, which was destroyed on September 11 by the exploding buildings. At right is a view of the South Tower and North Tower from just in front of the church, which is a view from approximately where the panel is said to have landed on Cedar Street. The North Tower is at left.



Here is a view of the South Tower exploding from in front of Saint Nicholas. The church's board president stated:

"That day was a nightmare. The debris from the south tower literally pancaked our church. You know, it was an unbelievable amount of debris on it." (4)

According to articles about this church and its destruction on 9/11, the front of the Church on Cedar Street is between 500 and 1,000 feet from "Ground Zero."(1),(2). I will assume 500 feet. The location of Saint Nicholas is indicated in the first photo, and the location of the church can be found to the right of the bridge across West Street in the second and third photos. As one can see, the distance is considerable.





Update: Courtesy of Spooked, here is another photo of the panel and wheel which gives a better perspective on the panel's size, and shows Saint Nicholas Church with the South Tower in the background. This photo also tells me that I was right not to use the 1,000 feet figure from the article in endnote 2, because I cannot see how the church's parking lot on Liberty Street is 750 feet from the church's front door on Cedar Street. Based on the aerial maps and photos above, I estimate that the south face of the North Tower is roughly 300 feet from the south face of the South Tower seen in the background of this photo. I agree with Spooked's comment below that the actual distance is 600 feet, but will continue continue to use my conservative estimate of 500 feet.

Spooked wrote about this panel and wheel last year, and I concur that they are truly bizarre:

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/05/truly-bizarre.html

Spooked raises more doubts here:

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2007/01/things-like-this-disturb-my-sleep.html

The fact that the panel is next to the intact church tells me that it has been planted there, because the church was completely destroyed by the collapse of the South Tower. As I have said, the only plausible argument that this panel is authentic is that it was propelled here by the explosion (the so-called "collapse") of the North Tower, but this has not yet occurred in this picture.





Remember from my first "little wheel" article that none of the NIST models showed any landing gear getting through the core of the building. Update: as explained in an update to that article, I think I misread NIST - rather the models showed the landing gear stopping in the core or just outside the core on the opposite side. So even in the most severe impact scenario, landing gear barely made it through the core. The point remains that little kinetic energy would have remained to impact the external columns on the south side. Figure 7-68 to the right in the NIST report shows the very columns pictured on Cedar Street below, and shows the damage caused to these columns in NIST's most severe scenario.

NIST say that the calculated damage was "substantial," and say that "based on the failure modes observed on the north face and the speed and mass of the debris, the panel would potentially be knocked free by the failing at the connections."

NIST state on the above two pages: "As little other damage had been documented on the south face of WTC 1, it is postulated that the landing gear that landed at the corner of Recter St. and West St. also exited through this panel location."

Even if this panel could be "knocked free," that is a completely different matter from being propelled 500 feet, yet that is what NIST say happened, based on the column panel pictured on Cedar Street which they are stating arrived there as the result of aircraft debris. NIST do not argue that the engines pierced the core and exited the south face of WTC1, but even the massive engines could not do this.


These columns must have been deposited here by the explosions, not an airplane impact, and therefore the wheel on Recter and West, even if it had gotten through the core, would not have breached the external columns on the south side of the North Tower.





This page just shows that the panel on Cedar Street, Figure 7-70, is what is being discussed in the two pages above.

I suppose it is a possible, though very unlikely, that this wheel made it through the core and was embedded in these columns, and then the columns were propelled here by the explosion of the North Tower. Again, NIST's models showed that no landing gear would have made it through the core.

I should also mention the possibility that the panel was knocked off by the plane impact, falling to the ground and opening a space for the Recter/West wheel, and then was propelled to Cedar Street by the explosion of the North Tower. This seem very unlikely, if not impossible, especially since the panel would have been buried by the debris of the South Tower. Could the panel have been propelled part way by the South Tower explosion and the rest of the way by the North Tower? Only in a NIST report.

My main point here is refuting NIST's speculation that these columns were knocked off by airplane debris, opening a door for the wheel at Recter and West to fly out of the North Tower at 105 mph. The columns pictured on Cedar Street were not knocked off, because they would not be there if they had been.

Below are two photographs of the south face of the North Tower prior to its annihilation. The first, taken at 9:41:30 a.m, shows what could be a missing panel at floors 93-96, columns 329-331. However, the second, taken at 10:23 a.m., does not show this missing panel. Columns 329-321 are approximately in the middle of the south face shown in the second picture, so the black line jutting down in the second picture is not columns 329-331. [Update: Thanks to a comment by Spooked below, I realize I mistook the west face for the south face in the second photo, Figure 6-14, below. Pending further analysis, which is difficult because the south face is obscured by smoke in Figure 6-14, I conclude that the pictures are consistent. This does not change my conclusion, as there is no way the panel was propelled 500 feet or more. The only way that panel could have arrived on Cedar Street prior to the explosion of the North Tower is that it was carried there.]






Even if a panel were missing, it had not been propelled 500 feet at the time of the picture. If the panel on Cedar Street is missing in the above pictures that were taken prior to the explosion of the North Tower, then the panel had to be planted at Cedar Street, because only the explosion could have conceivably propelled it there.

Even if debris made it through the core and hit the interior surface of the south face of the North Tower, it would have been moving slowly. The massive starboard engine of "Flight 175" in the South Tower, which did not pass through the core, could not have done this. NIST's most severe impact model showed that engine decelerating from 575 mph to less than 100 mph, as a result only of the external panel and floor truss and workstations. It is doubtful the engine moving at this speed could even dislodge the columns, though I could be wrong. It is absurd to think that the engine could have dislodged the columns and propelled them 500 feet.

Here is the trajectory of the WTC2 starboard engine, not through the core :



Here is the speed of the WTC2 starboard engine, ending at 0.6 seconds:


All the debris of "Flight 11" would pass directly through the massive core, unlike "Flight 175," and with lower initial velocity:


Moreover, "Flight 11" impacted at a steeper angle, resulting in more interaction with the floors and a longer path through the building (as well as a debris trajectory further from the horizontal trajectory assumed by NIST in getting the wheel to Recter and West. ) "The vertical component of the impact load in WTC1 was approximately 40 percent higher than in WTC2."


Based on all of the above, I do not believe that the impact of a plane propelled a wheel to Recter and West. I also question the authenticity of the wheel embedded in a massive steel panel on Cedar Street, which could only have gotten there by passing through the core, wedging itself in the steel columns, and being propelled to Cedar Street. It is more likely the wheel was planted in the steel columns prior to the alleged impact of "Flight 11," and propelled to Cedar Street by the explosion of the North Tower. I am assuming the explosion could do that, but do not know.

As in their discussion of the "collapses," NIST appear to be straining in any way they can to reconcile photographs that do not match their calculated models.

Endnotes:

(1) The distance of 500 feet from Saint Nicholas to Ground Zero is from here:

http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/news010914.htm

ST. NICHOLAS CHURCH DESTROYED IN TWIN TOWERS ATTACK New York, September 14, 2001

The terrorist attack against the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center that killed an estimated 5,000 people Greek Orthodox Church, also destroyed tiny St. Nicholas located about 500 feet from ground zero.

(2) The distance of 1,000 feet from Cedar Street to Ground Zero is here:

http://www.greekworks.com/content/index.php/weblog/extended/saint_nicholas_the_lost_chapel_of_the_financial_district/

Thursday, November 15, 2001
"Saint Nicholas: The Lost Chapel of the Financial District"
By Steve Frangos

When the World Trade Center towers fell on September 11, Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church was totally buried by the debris.

The building rose to a height of only 35 feet.

Depending on how one reckons the distance between the church building (the front door of which was on Cedar Street) and the asphalt parking lot behind it (that ran north to Liberty Street), Saint Nicholas was either within 250 feet of Ground Zero or some 1,000 feet.

These relative distances don't seem to match the map, and it is unclear in both articles whether Ground Zero is the center of the complex or the closer South Tower, or some other point. Therefore, I chose the lower figure of 500 feet, though I think the actual distance may have been higher.


(3) The estimated panel weight is from here:

http://guardian.150m.com/wtc/godfrey.htm

The external framework was erected using prefabricated three-storey units, each comprising columns interconnected by spandrel panels. These units, ranging in weight from 22.3 to 6.0 tonnes, were fitted together, alternately staggered in one storey heights, and spliced with high-strength friction-grip bolts."

(4) From the transcript of a short film about the history of Saint Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and what happened to it on 9/11, available here:

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week902/feature.html

There are no views of the church after it was destroyed and it is more a human interest story, but I want to show respect for the church and its parishioners, who are victims of the 9/11 crimes that I had been unaware of, and who should get restitution for their loss when the perpetrators are tried and convicted.

My concerns about Professor Jones's forensic science

[Update: I have rewritten the Introduction on January 13, for clarity and to add new information. The initial comment at 9/11 Blogger remains the same. The updated portions are in italics. ]

Introduction: On January 12, I posted a comment in a 911 Blogger article related to a German court sentencing Motassadeq to 15 years in prison as an accessory to the murder of 296 airline passengers and crew on 9/11.

http://911blogger.com/node/5509#comment-107334

The main point of my comment is that Professor Jones has spoken against the "no-planes" theory on the basis of two areas of flawed evidence:

(1) He assumes aircraft debris allegedly from Flights 11 and 175 to be authentic, even though it is obviously planted, NIST's own models could not show this debris leaving either building, and as a physicist he should do his own review of the physics of the debris trajectories before citing the debris as evidence.

(2) He pronounced the video of "Flight 175" entering the South Tower to be authentic on the basis that the amount of kinetic energy lost by the plane on impact is consistent with the plane's decleration he says is observable in the video. The problem is that he cites to a German lawyer's analysis of a paper by an MIT professor that was posted on the Internet, and does not cite to two later papers in peer-reviewed journals. One of these papers was by the same MIT professor and not much different in its conclusions. The other paper by another professor shows a far higher amount of lost kinetic energy, which on Jones' own terms would show that the video is fake. He should at least have acknowledged the current literature on the subject.

This comment also applies to Professor Jone's most recent publication, "What are the Goals of the 9/11 Truth Community,

http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/FocusOnGoals.pdf

where he says at page 6:

In contrast the theory that no planes hit the towers does not stand up to scrunity, as published in a peer-reviewed by Eric Salter, here:
http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/200610/Salter.pdf
Salter shows that evidence that real planes hitting the Towers is compelling.

Before publishing my 9/11 Blogger comment here, I will first explain the context.

After providing some information and opinions about the Moussaoui trial, I decided to post a comment about Professor Steven Jones, who has recently published a letter in the Journal of 9/11 Studies in which he held forth on which areas of inquiry are appropriate for the "9/11 Truth Movement" to promote as the basis for a criminal investigation.

http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=unity_card

Several days prior to seeing this letter, I realized that Professor Jones was purporting to refute the "no-planes theory" with evidence and arguments that I considered to be highly flawed.

For the last 2--3 days, I have been commenting at 9/11 Blogger about my concerns about a presentation Professor Steven Jones gave in July 2006 at a "9/11 Truth" conference.

http://www.911blogger.com/node/5470#comment-106738

(Look in the censored comment "Accusing me of 'disinfo' is out of line. Period.")

I had downloaded the Power Point presentation from here, but it is now gone:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/JonesAnswersQuestionsWorldTradeCenter.pdf

I have posted JPEGs of the title page and pages 172-181 that discuss the "no planes theory," here:

http://questions-for-doctor-jones.blogspot.com/2007/01/blog-post.html

At 911 Blogger, I promised to publish my concerns on this blog within a week.

After researching the Motassadeq and Moussaoui trials, I realized that my concerns about Professor Jones's July 2006 presentation, and their relation to future criminal prosecutions, were relevant to an article about 9/11 terrorism trials. I decided to go ahead and write my concerns in a comment.

My concerns about editorial decisions of Professor Jones started less than a week after I dived into this problem of "no planes," but these concerns were trivial in comparison. I published a comment about my concerns about the academic standards of a certain article published at Journal of 9/11 Studies:

http://covertoperations.blogspot.com/2006/11/not-so-scholarly-scholars-for-911.html

I want to make it clear that I am not making any allegations of ill intent, but merely pointing out what I see as very serious questions about Professor Jones' ability or willingness to objectively view evidence.

In this context, I would also point to the level of "peer review" to which the Reynolds/Rajter no-plane paper was subjected. In itself this would be salutary, but it is odd when compared to the low standards apparently applied to Salter's paper, which was a rebuttal to Reynolds' prior no-planes paper.

The "peer reviews" of Dr. Reynolds' paper are available in the preface to the paper that Reynolds submitted to Journal of 9/11 studies, here:

http://nomoregames.net/index.php?page=911&subpage1=exploding_the_airliner_crash_myth

Given that Professor Jones has become a major figure in the "9/11 Truth Movement," most recently appearing in Hustler magazine, I do not think I need to apologize for speaking bluntly.

I am even more concerned now because I have learned that Professor Jones is on panels about "Evidence and Education" and on "9/11 Unity" at an up-coming "9/11 Accountability Project.

My comment at 911blogger is published below. I will look for Professor Jones' email address and inform him of these two publications so that he may respond if he wishes. Ideally, I would have given Professor Jones an opportunity to clarify these matters before I published, but have decided that my conclusions are well-based and my concerns are serious enough to warrant immediate publication. My comment follows.

============================================================================================================

Since we are discussing legal matters, I will make a comment on my view of evidence.

Much of this relates to how I see prosecutions going forward, but also relates to my concern that a man is sitting in a German prison accused of being accessory to the murders of 296 people, a crime I do not think was committed by those he is alleged to have assisted.

That bothers me on principle and should bother all of us, not only for the sake of people already wrongfully convicted, but also for the sake of those who might be falsely accused as scapegoats as a result of a "consensus" reached and promoted by this "truth" movement.

When you start calling for criminal prosecutions, you do not mess around with the truth for political reasons.

Steven Jones in his letter to Journal of 9/11 Studies, "What are the Goals of the 9/11 Truth Movement, " calls for a criminal investigation based on certain theories that he deems most factual, such as "war games" and "stand down."

http://www.journalof911studies.com/letters/FocusOnGoals.pdf

I am concerned that he is not the best person to assess what is and what is not credible, not only as a matter of legal strategy but also as a matter of science.

I base this on two facts related to Professor Jones' statement that the assertion that "real commercial jets did not hit the WTC towers" serves to discredit the movement.

Professor Jones disregards physical evidence, which he should be well qualified to assess, that leads to the opposite conclusion and may constitute the "smoking gun" he says he seeks.

I am referring to a Power Point presentation he gave in July 2006, in which he purported to show that Boeing jets hit the WTC towers:

http://www.journalof911studies.com/JonesAnswersQuestionsWorldTradeCenter.pdf

This material has been removed from the website of the Journal of 9/11 Studies in the last day or two, interestingly after I started making noises about this document here at 911blogger. I have a copy, which I cite to from memory here because it is not with me. I will document this later, but as events are moving quickly, I have decided to write now. Again, I think this article is an appropriate place to introduce my concerns because they relate to criminal prosecutions.

In his Power Point presentation, Professor Jones purported to disprove the "no planes theory."

Among other arguments, he made arguments related to two aspects of physical evidence: (1) the discovery of aircraft debris near the WTC towers; and (2) deceleration of "Flight 175" in a video, and the relation of that deceleration to a paper on the kinetic energy balance of a modeled "Flight 175" done by Professor Wierzbecki of MIT.

I will address these two arguments in turn. They are interrelated because both involve kinetic energy balance calculations.

(1) Aircraft Debris

In his Power Point presentation, Professor Jones showed pictures of aircraft debris that he argued is strong evidence against the "no planes theory."

Sound practice from both a forensic and scientific view is not to assume that the debris is authentic, but to use science to show that the debris is what the government says it is.

The easiest way to rule out this evidence is to do a calculation of the kinetic energy balance:

Given the initial velocity and kinetic energy of the aircraft, and the resistance of the building along the trajectory of impact, could parts of the plane have exited the other side of the building at all, and if so, could they have exited with sufficient velocity for them to have come landed or come to rest where they were found?

NIST has concluded that no parts exited either building in any of their models, though like always they assume that they must have because of photographic “evidence.”

There is absolutely no doubt that the wheel, which is allegedly from Flight 11, and which was found at the corner of Recter and West , was placed there, and did not fly out of the North Tower and come to rest there.

I have shown this here, citing to NIST NCSTAR 1-2 and 1-5, which should be read between the lines but which clearly state they could not model the "Flight 11" wheel leaving the North Tower, and also applying common sense:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2007/01/little-wheel-that-could.html

I also discuss the engine fragment allegedly from Flight 175, but reserve final judgment simply because NIST leaves some possibility that it exited the building. My own conclusion is that there is no way that engine fragment left the South Tower, at least as a result of an airplane impact, and especially not with the velocity necessary to place it at Murray and Church. Reynolds and Wood have also suggested the impossibility of the engine fragment hurdling 45 Park Place, here:

http://janedoe0911.tripod.com/StarWarsBeam4.html#highhurdle

(Please don't get upset by my citing to this paper, and do not infer that I am promoting "Star Wars Beams." I am offering this solely for the purpose of the photographs and arguments about the engine fragment at Murray and Church.)

I hope that Dr. Wood or someone else with the necessary skills will calculate the trajectory needed to get the engine fragment to Murray and Church over 45 Park Place, and also calculate whether there would have been sufficient residual kinetic energy, assuming that such a trajectory was possible at all. I could not find out how high 45 Park Place is (was?) but would like to know.

In any case, I conclude that the "Flight 11" wheel was obviously falsified, which places into doubt all debris that is alleged to be from either plane. (The “Flight 175 fuselage fragment, pictured in the Popular Mechanics article and book, seems particularly absurd, yet Professor Jones cites it as evidence of Boeing jets hitting the towers.)

It is terribly bad science and forensics to just assume the verity of this debris in support of an argument.

It is troubling that a professor of physics that purports to doubt the government's story would simply assume this verity without doing a simple (for him) review of the energy balance calculations of NIST and other published work, which place serious doubt on, if not definitively disprove, the verity of that “evidence.”

(2) Video plane deceleration and the work of MIT professor Wierzbecki

In his Power Point presentation, Professor Jones responds to the argument that the video of "Flight 175" melting into the South Tower showed no deceleration.

I have two concerns about Professor Jones' argument:

(1) Professor Jones cited to a lawyer's analysis of an expert's calculation of kinetic energy balance, and the relation of that calculation to observed deceleration in the video. Professor Jones did not cite directly to the expert's analysis and provide no indication that he had done his own review of the expert's analysis.

(2) At the time Professor Jones indirectly cited to the expert's paper, which had been published on the Internet and not in a peer-reviewed professional journal, that paper had been superceded by a 2003 paper by the same expert and by a 2005 paper by another expert. The second expert criticized the first experts' assumptions and reached substantially different conclusions. Moreover, the second and third papers had been published in peer-reviewed journals, not on the Internet.

Professor Jones cited an analysis of the work of Professor Wierzbecki, who created a model of a plane with the mass and velocity of Flight 175, and calculated how much kinetic energy would be lost by the plane in penetrating a WTC tower.

Wierzbecki is in the Impact & Crashworthiness Laboratory of the Dept of Ocean Engineering at MIT.

The Wierzbecki paper is available here:

http://web.mit.edu/civenv/wtc/PDFfiles/Chapter%20IV%20Aircraft%20Impact.pdf

In his Power Point Presentation, at page 174, Professor Jones cited indirectly to the work of an MIT professor by citing to an analysis of that work by a German lawyer named Stefan Grossmann.

I am not sure, but think that Professor Jones was citing to this May 2005 discussion:

http://www.gallerize.com/Grossmann-Russell_Argument_WTC2_Hit.htm

Grossmann was basically arguing that based on Wierzbecki's conclusion that the plane would have lost 26% of its kinetic energy in entering the WTC tower, and because this should have corresponded to an observed deceleration of at least 12%, then Wierzbecki's study showed that the videos were faked.

Professor Jones used Grossmann's conclusion (and indirectly invoked the authority of an MIT professor) to argue that in fact the observed deceleration was within the margin of error of what one would expect from a 26% loss in kinetic energy.

At the time of Grossmann's paper (May 2005), a follow-up paper by Professor Wierzbecki had been published in the Journal of Impact Engineering in 2003:

Wierzbecki and Teng, How the airplane wing cut through the exterior columns of the World Trade Center, Int'l J. of Impact Engineering 28 (2003) 601-625

Grossmann did not cite to this paper, which I cannot really criticize because I did not either, though I did provide a citation in my blog article:

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/911-pound-gorilla-in-catos-room.html

At the time of Professor Jones' Power Point presentation in July 2006, a new paper had been published which reached a significantly different conclusion as to the amount of kinetic energy that would result from the plane penetrating the external columns:

Karim and Hoo Fatt, Impact of the Boeing 767 Aircraft Into the World Trade Center, J. of Engineering Mechanics, Vol. 131, No. 10 (October 2005).

Karim and Hoo Fatt make a serious criticism of Wierzbecki's model and conclusions, and estimated a loss of 46% in initial kinetic energy from damage to the external columns and the aircraft. This is a much higher figure than 26%, and does not include the resistance of the floors and the core columns.

I made rough calculations by adding the kinetic energy loss of Wierzbecki's online paper, and Hoo Fatt's conclusion in her peer-reviewed paper, and determined that over 90% of kinetic energy would have been lost in getting the airplane into the tower.

http://ningens-blog.blogspot.com/2006/11/911-pound-gorilla-in-catos-room.html

The point here is not that my conclusion is correct . I am not the proper person to do a definitive analysis. Professor Jones would be much more qualified to do that. I published this article less than two weeks after hearing Morgan Reynolds speak about the no-planes theory, and a professor of physics at a major university could certainly have found and analyzed this material quicker.

The point is that Professor Jones showed the relationship between kinetic energy loss and observed deceleration, which is the way I defined the problem after reading the work of Morgan Reynolds and the counterargument of Eric Salter, yet he failed to cite to the most current literature on a key element of this analysis, kinetic energy loss.

Moreover, as editor of the Journal of 9/11 Studies, he published in October 2006 the article of Eric Salter, which also does not cite to the Karim Hoo Fatt article of October 2005.

One would think that the first thing a scientist would do, both in writing a paper and in peer-reviewing a paper , is to check whether the paper at least recognizes the most current literature on a key assumption in the paper.

For these two reasons alone, I have grave concerns about Professor Jones' ability to direct what should or should not be considered to be scientifically and forensic established in a 9/11 investigation.

I will publish this comment in this exact form at my blog, and will not make any changes without indicating that a change has been made.

I will also email him and inform him of this comment and my blog, so that he may respond. Although I am writing under a pseudonym, I intend to be accountable for my arguments and provide an opportunity for rebuttal.