The conspiracy theorists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology or NIST recently issued a report claiming that WTC-7 a 47-story building that fell on September 11th, 2001 at 5:20 PM EST collapsed as a result of fire damage. The report cites a new phenomenon called thermal expansion that they claim caused the building to collapse. NIST makes these claims despite the fact that no building in the history of modern engineering has ever collapsed due to fire. The government’s explanation detailing the events of September 11th, 2001 now claim that three buildings all collapsed as a result of fire damage when not one steel framed building has ever collapsed in this manner. The credibility of NIST has reached an all-time low by citing this new phenomenon of thermal expansion to explain the WTC-7 building collapse. NIST is essentially accusing anyone who questions the official story of 9/11 as being a conspiracy theorist, when NIST chooses to use their own conspiracy theory to claim that fires brought down WTC-7. The insanity of this is unparalleled on a number of levels considering a massive amount of physical evidence NIST has chosen to ignore as well as basic common sense. If the government brings forward a theory it is viewed as fact, but when alternative researchers bring forward information contrary to the official government line it is viewed as conspiracy theory.

The collapse of WTC-7 is important to study because a controlled demolition take down of this building indicates that there were people in the government who knew in advance what was going to happen on September 11th, 2001. It is impossible to load up a 47-story building like WTC-7 with demolitions and bring it down in such a clean and concise manner in a matter of hours. Demolitions take many days of preparation, especially when dealing with a 47-story building.

The following is taken from the NIST press release:

The fall of the 47-story World Trade Center building 7 (WTC 7) in New York City late in the afternoon of Sept. 11, 2001, was primarily due to fires, the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced today following an extensive, three-year scientific and technical building and fire safety investigation. This was the first known instance of fire causing the total collapse of a tall building, the agency stated as it released for public comment its WTC investigation report and 13 recommendations for improving building and fire safety.

“Our study found that the fires in WTC 7, which were uncontrolled but otherwise similar to fires experienced in other tall buildings, caused an extraordinary event,” said NIST WTC Lead Investigator Shyam Sunder. “Heating of floor beams and girders caused a critical support column to fail, initiating a fire-induced progressive collapse that brought the building down.”

“Video and photographic evidence combined with detailed computer simulations show that neither explosives nor fuel oil fires played a role in the collapse of WTC 7,” Sunder said. The NIST investigation team also determined that other elements of the building’s construction—namely trusses, girders and cantilever overhangs that were used to transfer loads from the building superstructure to the columns of the electric substation (over which WTC 7 was constructed) and foundation below—did not play a significant role in the collapse.

According to the report, a key factor leading to the eventual collapse of WTC 7 was thermal expansion of long-span floor systems at temperatures “hundreds of degrees below those typically considered in current practice for fire resistance ratings." WTC 7 used a structural system design in widespread use.

NIST’s scientific method is flawed to begin with. In the press release they cite video and photographic evidence along with computer simulations that lead them to their conclusion. First off, all of the photographic and video evidence that is readily viewable on the Internet indicates that the most obvious explanation of the WTC-7 collapse is that it was brought down with explosive devices. The building fell in a little under 7 seconds at close to free fall speed, which is impossible unless explosives were used to destroy the building’s support columns all at once. It is laughable to believe that fire could cause this to happen as NIST claims. In addition, why would NIST not at all consider the work of Dr. Steven Jones whose peer reviewed report concluded that thermite was used to facilitate the building’s demolition? NIST also fails to explain the presence of molten steel pools that were found after the building collapse indicating that some sort of explosive reaction took place. It is physically impossible for fire to turn steel into liquid form unless something else happened. Instead of looking at this physical evidence seriously, they decided that it was more scientific to use a computer model to justify their collapse theory. This flies in the face of logic considering the ample amount of physical evidence that was available to them.

NIST claims they looked into the possibility that the building was brought down by a controlled demolition but dismissed this due to the absence of any recorded sounds of explosions. It is funny that they make this statement considering that the George Washington Blog found several audible explosions including this, this, this and this readily available online. The fact that they would use this excuse to not consider the possibility of a controlled demolition is ridiculous on its face. Basic logic simply did not prevail here.

Of course, NIST makes no mention of the fact that the BBC and CNN both reported that WTC-7 collapsed even though the building was still standing while they made their reports. If the building collapsed due to this new phenomenon as NIST claims, how is it possible that that the media managed to report accurate predictions of this unexpected event well in advance of the building collapse? This fact also supports the controlled demolition scenario. Someone knew what was going to happen to that building in advance but made the mistake of feeding information to the media before the building collapse took place.

Larry Silverstein the owner of the World Trade Center complex also made the comment in a PBS documentary that they made the decision to pull the building in reference to WTC-7. This is a term used in the demolition field to bring down a building. Conspiracy theorists and government apologists have claimed that Silverstein was referring to pulling the fire fighters. Again, this flies in the face of logic and common sense.

Despite all of this information and evidence, NIST has chosen to cherry pick information to support their own official conspiracy theory of events. NIST being a government agency cannot be trusted to be an unbiased independent authority on what really happened to WTC-7. Considering that the scenario of a WTC-7 controlled demolition blows the official story out of the water and points directly to government involvement, it makes sense that they wouldn’t want the truth to come out. The government has lied countless times about almost every other issue of significance, so why would they tell the truth about this? NIST’s theory does not conclusively prove that fires brought down the building but instead shows that they are a bunch of conspiracy theorist stooges issuing a report to brainwash the masses into believing the lie of 9/11.