Ryan Mackey Offers Answer to Griffin's NIST Chapter

Hi all,

I checked out JREF for the first time in awhile today, and finally their own Ryan Mackey has offered an answer to David Ray Griffin's latest book - at least the NIST chapter. It's an MS Word document totaling 198 pages.

I've read the first several pages where he gives a general overview. I don't have the time or energy to get into it in depth tonight (or for that matter this whole weekend). I would like to read it all, but perhaps some of you can beat me to it. I am open to all sides of an argument and this would indeed be the first lengthy critique to any aspect of Griffin's book. That being said, much of what I've read so far isn't impressive; he basically says, (in a long-winded way designed to fill up space), that "YOU are claiming controlled demolition, so the burden of proof is on YOU, not on NIST."

Anyone out there want to help me out? I'm interested in what people think are the paper's strong points and flaws. I think it's important that Truthers and Debunkers put their strongest stuff out in the open to be examined objectively.

(I will say, if nothing else, certainly this will give the SLC and JREF crowd an excuse to say, "Griffin has now been debunked, now shut up and quit disrespecting the victims!")

http://911guide.googlepages.com/ryanmackey
http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?p=2926000#post2926000

Thanks

for posting this.

I should add

that this is an infuriating document to read. It has the appearance of rational discourse, but it basically has the posture of evangelism.

For example, early on, Mackey relates that Griffin points to several architects of the WTC towers who said they were built to withstand the impact of a 707.

Mackey responds: "Not one of his points above contains anything other than speculation."

Well, shit, if you're going to discard the "speculation" (read: expert opinion) of the architects who actually built the friggin towers as worthless, then whose expert opinion matters? Ryan Mackey's?

Good point.

Good point.

SkrooLooseChange or SLC, UT?

Hello kam,

I know at least two people in Salt Lake City, UT who are finding the use of "SLC" for Pat Curley's "ad hominem brigade" increasingly offensive- we and the airport have been using "SLC" for several decades. I personally am a little proud of those tongue-in-cheek, underground SLcUT t-shirts you may have seen (I'm not too politically correct and don't speak for the Mayor's Office, though).

Another government

...employee speaks out in favor of the official conspiracy theory. And, of course, only because he is a humanitarian.

Since I'm one focus of this paper (should I be honored?), I'll help you out with it shortly.

Note: Joint Strike Fighter = "Department of Defense's focal point for defining affordable next generation strike aircraft weapon systems."

What a humanitarian.

Nice to meet you Kevin.

Nice to meet you Kevin.

Engineering Models would be handy

Hello Kevin,

Wouldn't you think that a scale engineering mockup of either of the Twin Towers made of a similar structural steel and concrete to that actually specified on the WTC blueprints and with 47 central "core" columns, complete with scaled airplane/fuel impacts, would be informative? I was trained to lean more towards experiment than theory, and I don't think it a bad idea, but I don't work for NIST. I haven't seen where FEMA or NIST are really strong on instrumented temperature data for the fire collapse theories (temperature estimates from what I've seen), and high-temp thermocouples and temperature loggers really aren't all that rare or expensive. I find the exact heat transfer mechanism and relatively low thermal conductivity of steel a little problematic for the FEMA and NIST reports too IMHO.

Now if we put the "fire collapse" mockup next to a thermite/thermate/explosive equipped indentical mockup which would you expect to collapse first? I'll warrant that you can also come up with a list of anomalies that you would NOT expect to see in the fire collapse model.

Now if we follow the FEMA, NIST/US Dept. of Commerce, and Kean-Hamilton "chains of command" upstream, don't they lead to the Oval Office? Not really all that independent or impartial, but I think you understand that "political influence" aspect more personally than most from your UL experience, right?

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/orgchart.htm

http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/general2.htm

General Electric-History Channel-Popular Mechanics reports aren't all that independent of the Military-Industrial Complex, either.

Then there are those NORAD "war games"/Mineta and Feb. 13, 1975 North Tower fire problems...

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/wtc_1975_fire.html

Just my $0.02

Miniature tower

I too have often thought that a physical model would be extremely informative.

It wouldn't need to have 110 stories; I'd expect considerably fewer stories to be sufficient to show that a global collapse is impossible.

im really surprised this

im really surprised this hasnt been done yet, but then im not the brightest bulb so im not exactly sure what would go into making something like this happen. seems like a great idea in theory though.

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." ~ William Colby, Former Director, CIA

Pathetic

"YOU are claiming controlled demolition, so the burden of proof is on YOU, not on NIST."

Well DRG and about 120 Million of his closest friends are claiming that it is controlled demolition and we have proven it well beyond any reasonable doubt.

I got as far as his first

I got as far as his first three points all of them wrong.John skilling was obviously Robertsons superior.At the time of construction Skilling was already a leader in his field and Robertson, at that time had no formal engineering qualifications or experience.So Skilling was wrong and Robertson was right.I don,t think so!.

The size of 707 although smaller was faster than a 767,and as one of the variables involved in working out kinetic energy is velocity,a 707 would cause more damage than a 767.

As the plane broke through the exterior kinertic energy was greatly lost.The wings were already smashed breaking through that exterior.It is therefore logical to assume the wings,already destroyed,would have no impact on the core.He asserts the complete opposite saying there is no reason to assume the wings could not cut through a core member.Thats almost moronic!.

I am not reading any more because it appears to have been written by a 10 year old.

I know the author is reading all of our comments on this website.This is directed solely at him.

John Skilling reported on a 1200 page analasis in which he stated that the building could withstand a collision with a 707 travelling at 600 mph.One of the 767,s on 9/11 was travelling at 480 mph.
KE EQUALS 1/2 X MASS X VELOCITY SQUARED.A 707 weighed 328000 lbs at take off,a 707 weighed 395000 ilbs.Now i am assuming you can do basic arithmetic so you can work out yourself that a 707 travelling at 600 mph has a greater kinetic energy than a 767 travelling at 480 mph.On top of that a 707 had 4 engines.
You say that volunteers searched the rubble for!.
..• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 that were exposed to fire and/or impacted by the aircraft;
• Exterior column panels and interior core columns from WTC 1 and WTC 2 directly above and below the impact zones;
• Badly burned pieces from WTC 7;
• Connections from WTC 1, 2, and 7 (e.g., seat connections, single-shear plates, and column splices);
• Bolts in all conditions;
• Floor trusses, including stiffeners, seats, and other components; and
• Any pieces that in the engineers’ professional opinion might be useful.

This was analysed using paint cracking and annealing studies to work out the maximum temperatures reached by the steel.By your own admission this was cherry picked steel from fire damaged and impact damaged areas.The analasis of this cherry picked steel is crucial to the investigation but all it proved was that none of the core and only two pieces of the perimeter got hotter than 250 degrees c.Now don,t even try to say you never had enough steel to analyse because by your own admission this steel was deemed the most important.NIST used a minimum temperature of 700 degrees c for the core temperatures in the computer simulations.None of your cherry picked core samples got hotter than 250 degrees c.250 DEGREES C NO COLLAPSE!.So far from debunking anything all you have done is prove Griffin right,GOOD WORK!.You claim though that Temperatures well in excess of 250 oC will simply destroy the paint entirely, preventing the test.Either you are an idiot or you expect us to be.Please explain to me a supposedly scientific test could be so moronic as to only prove a 250 degrees c temperature and no more.Are you in kindergarden,annealing studies mean just that ,go back to school and stop wasting our time.Annealing studies involve looking at the grain structure,if it reached the temperatures you claim it would have been fully annealed.You cannot call metallurgical studies a paint test,any metallurgist could tell you in 5 minutes the state of the steel which would reveal the temperature the steel reached.You really must think we are stupid.
Eutectic reaction was caused by sea salt,no it was caused by steam,no it was caused by sheetroc.You havn,t got a clue what caused it have you.Otherwise that would mean every steel framed building in the world that is near the sea or has sheetroc walls or in fact any fire started on a rainy day will cause the buildings steel to melt at 500 degrees lower than normal.That is after all what you are implying.This has never happened in an office fire before.It never happened in the 75 fire that burned hotter and longer and that was the same building and the same steel,or are we supposed to forget such a clear precedent.I could go on all day ripping this crap apart but i have work to do.

WTC Blueprints list Skilling from my review

Hello Robby B,

I just analyzed the dialogue over at Mackay's blog. When I review the North Tower blueprint for say the 81st Floor Core Plan (working from my memory of plane impact region- I did not check the exact floor number):

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/plans/doc/pac1TowerA/A-A-137_0.png

http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/evidence/plans/table.html

I find "Worthington, Skilling, Helle, & Jackson, Structural Engineers", but no Robertson listed on the print. I think some at JREF are missing our points about revisionism (and bias/conflict of interest).

Additional comment on the aircraft weight and velocities

All of the points you make are well taken. I just want to add that NIST actually refers to the three page white paper, to which John Skilling refers in his 1993 Seattle Times interview, which describes the aircraft impact analysis and is dated February 3, 1964. NIST relates that the Port Authority had the documents which were written by Worthington, Skilling, Helle, and Jackson and then say that they couldn't find the actual analysis. So NIST actually saw the white paper which describes the analysis. NIST even relates that the white paper says a 707 flying at 600 mph. While they don't say fully loaded that can be inferred as the analysis was already using a worst for the velocity.

See http://wtc.nist.gov/NISTNCSTAR1-2.pdf page "cx", Finding 11.

Also see the technical specifications for the 707-320B and the 767-200ER
http://www.boeing.com/commercial/707family/product.html
http://en.boeing-me.com/ViewContent.do?id=2404

A fully loaded 707-320B weighed in at 336,000 lbs. The 767-200ER aircraft were only carrying 10,000 gallons of their 23,980 gallon capacity so taking 13,980 gallons (at 6.825 lbs/gallon) off of the 395,000 lb. max takeoff weight gives an aircraft weight near 300,000 lbs. Since the aircraft were also light on passengers and cargo NIST estimated the actual aircraft weights between 260,000 and 275,000 lbs.

If the buildings were analyzed for a 336,000 lb. aircraft moving at 600 mph then the actual hit by the North Tower 275,000 lb. aircraft moving at a NIST maximum of 473 mph was only 51% of the designed for impact. A 275,000 lb. South Tower aircraft moving at a NIST maximum of 566 mph was 73% of the designed for impact.

In other words the towers could take and survive 96% more than the North Tower aircraft impact and 37% more than the South Tower impact delivered. The South Tower impact was also off center and both aircraft went in with approximately 30 degree roll angles which meant their wings had to go through multiple floors edge on. There is no chance in hell that those wings got anywhere near the central core columns.

That is a well thought out

That is a well thought out concise analasis which puts Ryan Mckay to shame.Those extra two engines make a lot of difference as well.I went on a bit of a rant because i visited the mans forum and found that he ridiculed my first analasis.How he can refute absolute fact is beyond me but i suppose these are the people we are dealing with.Keep up the good work Tony.

Ryan Mackay's Chain of Command

Still "following the money..."

Ryan Mackay's paper is carefully written, and I have so far agreed with several statements and calculations in my brief scan of the 198 PAGE paper (I have no problem believing that Mackay has considerable experience with "pork barrel" bureaucratic and governmental papers- he would fit right in DC and the "Patriot Act" et al.)

CalTech/JPL
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/

http://history.nasa.gov/spdocs.html

http://history.nasa.gov/Bush%20SEP.htm

Hmmm... Oval Office again! It appears to me that Ryan Mackay was clearly educated by and draws a paycheck from the very Federal Government and Excecutive Branch that he is defending by his "On Debunking 9/11 Debunking" paper about DRG's newer book (some of which I found myself agreeing with). Unfortunately, Ryan Mackay is far from independent of the interlocking secretive "need to know" Military-Industrial-Intelligence worlds.

Big, Bloated Government is Good-- Trust Them 100.0%-- mmmkay?

Griffin is reading it now

I alerted DRG about this. He told me that the 10 pages he had read were "not promising". David complained that the author didn't even get his school right. :)

Mackey is a Crud

And I mean that in the best way possible, bless his heart.

I've finally gotten to the point where I've decided it is no longer worthwhile debating these Losers. (capital "L" Alert!) Or even acknowledging their presence, really. (like when you are supposed to ignore a child who is throwing a temper tantrum and not acknowledge their asininity and they will eventually just stop because no one is paying them any attention, which is what they really want, and they finally stop throwing tantrums all together after they've learned their lesson — one also shouldn't dignify their little shenanigans (questions, etc.) with an answer, as well)

They "debunk" what we say, and then we debunk that, and then they debunk our debunking, and then we debunk their debunking of our debunking, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

If they truly had something good and valid to say, that would be one thing. But they are Skepters to the max and have little, if anything, to add to the discussion. I quit reading their crap long ago because it was all so worthless and such a waste of my time. There isn't one decent human being or even minimally intelligent adult-child among them, imo. (starting with Randy and working your way up)

It would all be funny (-ier) if it wasn't so pathetic and sad.

----
Senior 9/11 Bureau Chief, Analyst, Correspondent, Principle Investigator, Forensic 9/11ologist

http://www.chico911truth.org/

Secrecy is the beginning of tyranny. — Robert Heinlein

Answering the disinformation agents

The difficulty with ignoring these disinformation agents is the possible impact doing so has on the uninformed and undecided, not on people like us. The agents are wont to say they've "debunked" this or that, seeking to give the public the impression that we can't refute those "debunkings."

Do we simply pursue the truth along our own lines, or do we take the time to expose the disinformers' lies and deconstruct their sophistries?

Always the emphasis must be on the former, of course, but so long as the official 9/11 claims are able to dominate by default, we have no good choice but to show that we can hold forth against the disinformation.

We're seeing the "Big Guns" Now?

Mcfrandy has a good point. I have studied Bernay's 1928 Propaganda among other sources for many years- I'd recommend all activists watch "War is $ell" ASAP, maybe at the movie screenings and have discussion afterwards.

I'd also advise developing a leathery hide if you go a-seeking truth- it is seldom popular in our society. We may be watching a "process of transformation" there though (I think that is what Jon Gold posted- he's definitely onto one of the PNAC agendas there- thanks Jon and keep watching).

Some good news, we've weathered FEMA's and NIST's assaults pretty well, and Mackay could soon be on the retreat, I suspect. I have found aerospace engineers to sit fairly high in the intellectual food-chain (some may even be "rocket scientists"). That is a group with some pretty dark histories though, if you bother to look (but I'm not going to "guilt-by-association" here).

Sadly, the "War on Truth" began long before 9/11/01.

Ricochet Ryan and WTC Bouncy Beams made of Flubber

Ricochet Ryan is probably busy working on his Bouncy Beam theory, to explain how the tons of WTC steel beams fell a floor or two, then ricocheted up and outwards over 600 feet at 65 mph with enough force to embed themselves in the AmEx and Winter Garden buildings.

See "Horizontal Ejections of Pieces of Steel" on page 96
http://sites.google.com/site/911guide/ryanmackey

Ryan offers no physical experiment, or reference to one, to show if it is possible. Just some math formulas is all he offers. If he knows how steel can be made elastic, to do this, perhaps Ryan can be the first scientist to really invent Flubber. Boing! :)

Elastic steel beams. What a novel idea in building materials. Hurry up and get the patent!

Page 97
Let us consider the first and simplest example, that of a ricochet. Suppose a large piece of steel is broken loose and swept along with the upper block at the very edge. This piece then experiences a hard collision with the lower block – say the beam-framing of one of the mechanical floors – and ricochets outside the falling mass, becoming an effectively free ballistic projectile until it hits the ground or another building. If the piece ricochets elastically, which is possible for a steel-on-steel collision, then it can rebound with almost the same speed at which it was falling before the collision. To reach 600 feet distance, the piece can be ejected lower in the structure at which point it will have picked up more speed; or it can be ejected higher, in which case it will ricochet with less speed, but it will have more “hang time” in which to travel.