The Explosive Evidence at the World Trade Center on 9/11
By Richard Gage, AIA, Architect
This first of three parts presents well-documented evidence demonstrating that WTC Building 7 was destroyed by explosive controlled demolition.
We ask that you set aside any pre-judgment that might keep you from evaluating these facts objectively, and let the chips fall where they may. Most building professionals who review this evidence agree with our conclusions and join us in the call for a new investigation as evidenced by the 3,600 architects & engineers signed on to the petition.

The evidence regarding WTC 7 includes its sudden, uniform, and symmetrical descent at free-fall acceleration.
Their findings are based principally on the compelling evidence for the signature features of a typical controlled demolition being present at WTC7 on September 11, 2001:

Their concerns are most quickly and easily understood through a review of the evidence surrounding the largely unexamined third worst structural failure in modern history – World Trade Center Building 7 on 9/11, and how that evidence was largely ignored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), the federal agency tasked by Congress with explaining the historically unprecedented destruction at the World Trade Center:
We need to compare the features of WTC Building 7 to the features of a typical controlled demolition to truly understand what caused its collapse.

World Trade Center 7, a 47-story steel-framed fire-protected high-rise some 300 feet from the WTC North Tower, was the third high-rise to be completely destroyed on 9/11 – after the Twin Towers. Actor Ed Asner introduces the issues in just 15 minutes:
WTC 7 was NOT hit by an airplane, yet it collapsed at 5:20 p.m., rapidly, evenly, and completely. The official story, according to NIST, is that it collapsed due to “normal office fires”:
The heat from these fires created a historically unprecedented “new phenomenon” in high-rise catastrophes: destruction it claimed was due to the thermal expansion of beams, pushing their supporting girder off of its seat on a column, #79, leading to a progressive collapse of nine floors, which caused the buckling of that column, causing the additional collapse of the remaining floors in the east side.

Then this cascade of failures traveled west across this football field-length building, only inside, and in just 6 additional seconds.
However, the reality is that normal office fires had never in history caused the collapse of a Type 1 fire-resistant steel-framed skyscraper – which is what WTC7 was – prior to 9/11, despite these types of buildings having withstood much larger, longer-lasting, and hotter fires.

And we haven’t lost such a skyscraper since 9/11 either – even those fully engulfed in fire:

There was speculation that stores of diesel fuel in the building might have been ignited and produced exceptionally intense fires leading to the collapse, but NIST has officially acknowledged that diesel fuel was not involved. NIST also concluded that damage from impact of debris from the falling North Tower was not a significant contributor to the collapse of WTC 7.
What NIST’s top engineers failed to explain in their Final Report, or in some cases to even acknowledge, are the many features of the destruction of WTC7 that are seen only in controlled demolitions.
Collapse Features of WTC 7 Never Seen Outside of Controlled Demolition
In every respect, the destruction of WTC7 was indistinguishable from a classic controlled demolition:
Feature #1: A Sudden Onset of Destruction
Building 7 stood firmly when, following witness accounts of explosions, it dropped suddenly and smoothly, indicating that the entire matrix of structural steel columns gave absolutely no resistance.

Feature #2: A Straight-Down Symmetrical Collapse into the Building’s Footprint
World Trade Center Building 7, a 47-story high-rise, fell nearly symmetrically into a haystack-shaped pile, only about six stories tall, centered within its own footprint:

This indicates that ALL of the columns had to have, somehow, been removed within a fraction of a second of each other – starting with the interior columns, then a second later the exterior columns, which is the dispositive finding of the Structural Re-evaluation of the Collapse of World Trade Center 7 performed by the University of Alaska at Fairbanks. Fires cannot do this; controlled demolition, however, can and does.

This requires a carefully pre-planned and precisely timed patterned removal of critical columns – not a gradual organic process such as office fires, the official explanation.
Only a carefully engineered implosion could cause this 47-story building to collapse in on itself – and land mostly within its footprint. After all, demolition companies are paid large sums to accomplish this feat, and only a few can do it with tall buildings. Also, the destruction was complete. No portion of the building remained standing, which would have been typical for any naturally occurring collapse.
Feature #3: A Patterned Removal of Column Supports
The patterned removal of all the building’s support columns would have to have been repeated – floor by floor. Any deviation from that pattern would have led to the building tipping over. Fire alone does not have that level of precision.
Feature #4: Free-fall Acceleration Through the Path of Greatest Resistance
Even NIST itself finally – after six years of denial – officially acknowledged that Building 7 did indeed descend at free-fall acceleration for at least a third of its 7-second fall, a distance of more than 100 feet – through what should have been (absent controlled demolition) the path of greatest resistance – through the 40,000 tons of supporting structural steel in its way:
But for that to be the case, each of the building’s 81 columns, on each of eight stories, would have to have been removed (severed) before the collapse began because it is physically impossible for part of a building to crush anything, much less 47 stories of steel columns, while dropping as fast as a bowling ball falling from the sky.

Such column failures had to have occurred before the above building section started to fall – NOT have been caused by it – because a free-falling object cannot exert force on anything in its downward path without slowing its own fall.
Feature #5: Total Dismemberment of the Structural Steel Frame
This 47-story movement-resisting (stiff-jointed) braced-frame steel structure collapsed into a pile only six stories high, like a falling house of cards, with virtually total dismemberment of its steel skeleton. What’s missing from the pile are the 47 concrete floors and beams that by themselves would have increased the height of the pile by at least another ten stories. The missing concrete slabs indicate that they have been pulverized to powder – which only explosives could have accomplished.

Buildings that collapse due to natural causes such as fire are still recognizable as buildings afterwards. Though certainly badly damaged, their columns and beams would not be severed one from another.

Feature #6: Limited Damage to Adjacent Structures
One of the key features of controlled demolition is its ability to limit the damage radius to within the footprint of the building. The buildings across the street from WTC7 sustained some damage when Seven collapsed, but had it not been brought down almost perfectly symmetrically, the damage to adjacent blocks of buildings would have been massive.

The skyscraper was more than 700 feet tall and could have taken out two or three nearby buildings had it tipped over due to the asymmetric damage of a buckled column near the northeast corner, or due to building damage on the southwest corner, both of which NIST itself documented.
Feature #7: Patterned Explosions and Flashes of Light Seen and Heard by Witnesses
Incredibly, NIST claims that there are NO witnesses to explosions prior to the collapse:
“We did not find any evidence that explosives were used in the collapse of building seven. We ran down detailed computer simulations of blast scenarios. This-sized blast would have produced an incredibly loud sound that was not recorded on videos of the collapse, nor reported by witnesses.”
However, there are, indeed, multiple highly credible witnesses to pre-collapse explosions:
Captain Richard Patterson, FDNY, Ret.
“I thanked her and headed back towards 7, now to the south of me, where I could see it was still very much burning. And at a distance of a couple of blocks, when Seven let go as well…. a series of concussive explosions” [Question: “Before it let go?”] “Yes.”
Patrick Dillon, First Responder
- “I’m working my way back up toward the [WTC 1 and 2] pile, and we all felt this rumbling underneath everything, all right? It felt like…. like freight trains underneath the earth, shaking the earth, shaking the pile, even shaking me. I turned toward looking back and that’s when, we all saw, uh, Building 7 crumple in the middle, like, uh, way up at the top and it dropped…. right in front of me.”
- “There were three distinct, um, kind of surges of, um, shaking…. I felt myself. And other people did. I saw people move, uh, and the rumbling. The rumbling was heard“.
- [Question: “How soon after the rumbling did the building come down?”]
- “Well, seconds.”
Darryl, medical student (interviewed on 1010 WINS Radio that evening.)
- “We were watching the building actually because it was on fire…. and we heard this sound…. like a clap of thunder. We turned around, we were shocked to see that the building was, it looked like there was a shockwave ripping through the building and the windows all busted out…. then, about a second later, the bottom floor caved out and the building followed after that. We saw the building crash down all the way to the ground.”
Kevin McPadden, former air force medic
- “And then it was like another two, three seconds. You heard explosions. Like, boom boom. There’s like a distinct sound. It’s not like when compression, like floors that were dropping and collapsing. This was ba-BOOM. You felt a rumble in the ground. Almost like you wanted to grab on to something. That to me, I knew that was an explosion. There was no doubt in my mind.”
Bill Rizzati, interviewed that day on WPIX, New York
- “I was standing two blocks away and all of a sudden I just seen a big flash. And then I see the building coming down….”
Barry Jennings, Deputy Director of Emergency Services for the NYC Housing Authority, on his experience inside Building 7 before either the South or North Tower collapsed:
- (From ABC 7 Interview 9/11/01 early afternoon) “Me and Mr. Hess [NYC Mayor Giuliani’s attorney] made it down to the 8th floor [Jennings later clarified that this was “the 6th floor”, as he and Hess were descending from the 23rd floor] – BIG explosion.”
- (From Avery/Bermas Interview 2007) “When we reached the…. the 6th floor, the landing that we were standing on gave way. There was an explosion. And the landing gave way…. And we were, I, was left there hanging. I had to climb back up…. All this time, I’m hearing all types kinds of explosions. All this time I’m hearing explosions.”
- “The first explosion I heard was when I was on the stairwell landing, when we made it down to the sixth floor. Then we made it back to the eighth floor, heard some more explosions.”
- “When I got to the 6th floor there was an explosion that forced us [to go] back to the 8th floor. Both buildings [Twin Towers] were still standing.”
- “When I got to that [WTC7] lobby, the lobby was totally destroyed. It looked like King Kong had came through it and stepped on it.”
[Dylan Avery: “What people are going to say, is, ‘Barry was hit by debris from the North Tower’.”]
- Barry Jennings: “It definitely happened before either tower fell and I’ll tell you why…. What happened was – when we made it back to the 8th floor, as I told you earlier, both buildings were still standing because I looked…. one way, look the other way – now there’s nothing there.”
The explosion that forced Jennings to “back into the 8th floor” may have been the one that destroyed the lobby, and may have been the one heard by these nearby first responders:
Richard Rotanz, Deputy Commissioner – Office of Emergency Management
- “An elevator car that was blown out of it’s shaft” [on the 8th floor] “and is now down the hall.” [30 to 40 feet from the elevator shaft]
So, how many of these witnesses to explosions at WTC 7 were included in either the FEMA or the NIST report?
Zero. NOT ONE of them.
And yet NIST claims to have interviewed 116 first responders and hundreds of other witnesses and looked at thousands of videos – which were all available at the time of their “investigation.”
We have been attempting, via many successive efforts, without response, to get NIST to acknowledge this evidence ever since 2007.
Top European Controlled Demolition Expert Agrees
The pre-eminent expert on controlled demolition implosions in Europe, Danny Jowenko of Jowenko Explosive Demolitie BV from the Netherlands, was shown the video of the descent of WTC 7 and asked what he thought was the cause – before he was aware of the destruction of the third tower on 9/11. Here is his response:
- “That is controlled demolition!
- Absolutely! It’s been imploded.
- It’s a hired job – done by a team of experts!”
Feature #8: Seismic Evidence Proves Pre-Collapse Explosions
State-of-the-art recording devices at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, 20 miles North of the World Trade Center, documented a Richter scale 0.6 magnitude seismic event produced near the time of the collapse of WTC7, which NIST wrongly attributed to the collapse.

However, this peak seismic signal occurs at 5:20 and 42 seconds, but the building doesn’t even start to collapse until 10 seconds later! It is, of course, impossible for the ground impact of the collapse of a building to cause a seismic signal that happened 10 seconds earlier!
Andre Rousseau, a geophysics expert and author of more than 50 published papers on the sources of seismic waves, says definitively:
“These undeniably have an explosive origin. The bell-like form of the graph points to an impulsive source of energy, not percussion on the ground due to the falling of debris. Seismic waves are only created by brief impulses and low frequencies.
9. Pyroclastic-like Clouds of Pulverized Concrete
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) Guide 921 for Fire and Explosion Investigation is the authoritative source in America on this subject.

It requires investigators to look for and examine any evidence of “large volumes of gas and the large amount of heat released in chemical explosions causing rapidly expanding plumes of hot gases”.

This is exactly what is observed in the video directly following the collapse of WTC 7, racing away from the building in every direction at 35 miles per hour, extending to a diameter many times greater than that of the building.

And where is this massive amount of heat coming from? Just from these few, small, scattered fires?

Not even remotely. In fact, any remaining fires were almost certainly extinguished by the mechanical action of the collapsing floors falling on one another!
So we’re looking for a source of heat far greater than produced by the fires in Building 7.
And we’ve found it! (See “Part 3: Extreme Heat and Thermite at the WTC” in this three-part series.)
10. Destruction of Evidence in a Crime Scene
The unprecedented and catastrophic structural failures at the World Trade Center are easily the three largest and most perplexing in history. Yet, within two weeks of 9/11, the vast majority of the physical evidence was hauled away on 400 truckloads per day, put on barges, and sent to China for recycling – before structural engineers could perform any proper forensic examination.

This was the illegal destruction of evidence in a crime scene – the crime of the century!
This blatant interference with a thorough scientific investigation prompted Bill Manning, the editor in Chief of Fire Engineering Magazine, the most popular communication vehicle among firefighters, to exclaim:

11. Foreknowledge of the WTC 7 Collapse
If Building 7 was a planned controlled demolition, then people would know about it in advance, wouldn’t they?
At about noon on 9/11/01, over five hours before WTC7 collapsed, NYPD Fire Chief Pete Hayden had assigned an engineer, whose identity remains anonymous, to a “transit” to monitor the movement of the building out of safety concern. The Chief asked him, “If we allowed it to burn, could we anticipate a collapse? How soon?”
“And it turned out that he was pretty much right on the money [as WTC7 collapsed at 5:20 PM]
‘In its current state, you have about five hours.’
Figure 22: Chief Hayden’s story about the anonymous engineer’s prediction only makes sense if they knew in advance the approximate time of the collapse.
Wait a minute! Fire had never brought down a fire-proofed steel frame skyscraper, and hasn’t since; and this mystery engineer, whose name they will not provide, stated with certainty “about five hours“. And, sure enough, after multiple witnesses heard those explosions, the building came down – five hours later. Of course, this prediction could only have been made with foreknowledge of the event to come.
A small group of curious construction workers and policemen walking away from Building 7 heard an explosion, and looked back over their shoulders toward the building, and then looked straight into the camera and said THIS:
“Did you hear that?! Keep your eye on that building. That thing is coming down!…. The building is about to blow up…. Move it back…. Flame and debris coming down!”
Many researchers believe that Building 7 was intended to go down immediately after the Twin Towers while under the cover of their massive quantities of dust and smoke, and that these construction workers and police were there in the afternoon to fix a “dud”.
Listen to Kevin McPadden, former Air Force medic. We saw his testimony about the explosions above. He and other first responders were in fact “moved back” several blocks from Building 7 and warned that the building was going to come down. And what did he hear, immediately before experiencing those explosions, from a radio held in the hands of a Red Cross worker?
“At the last few seconds, he took his hand off and you heard, ‘3-2-1.’
What?! Do fires suddenly bring buildings down to countdowns? What is going on here?
The BBC announced the collapse of WTC 7 about 20 minutes before it happened!
At 5:07 PM Eastern, the BBC announced the collapse of WTC7: “…. the Salomon Brothers Building collapsing, and indeed it has“. But the building was still standing behind anchor Jane Standly who was broadcasting LIVE! The building doesn’t actually collapse until 5:23 PM!
What is going on here?! Had they been provided in advance with a script? Are they psychic? They apologized for this grievous error later, blaming it on “the confusing events of the day”…. But that can’t possibly explain the prediction of the historically unprecedented failure of a steel-framed fire-protected high-rise by fire!
CNN also pre-announced the collapse that morning
Alan Dodds Frank of CNN also reported on something that hadn’t yet happened – at 10:45 PM.

“…. 2 or 3 minutes ago there was yet another collapse or explosions…. at a quarter to eleven…. following the 10:30 collapse of the second tower. And a firefighter rushed by and estimated that 50 stories went down. The street filled with smoke. It was like a forest fire roaring down a canyon…”
50 stories went down? WTC7 was 47 stories and no 50-story building went down. Though other buildings were partly damaged, there were no buildings other than WTC7 that collapsed beside the Twin Towers. Dodds could only have been referring to Building 7 – which was nearly 50 stories tall.
Had Building 7 actually been destroyed at that time, as it may well have been intended, we wouldn’t have any videos of it as the massive dust clouds released from the Twin Towers’ collapse would have completely obscured its fall.
WTC 7 Owner: “Maybe the Smartest Thing to do is Pull It”
The developer and owner of Building 7 was Larry Silverstein, and he became the 99-year leaseholder of the entire World Trade Center complex just six weeks before 9/11.
Silverstein was interviewed a year after 9/11 on the PBS show “America Rebuilds” regarding the loss of WTC 7 where he stated the following:
“Maybe the smartest thing to do is PULL IT…”

Well! ‘Pull it’ is a term in the controlled demolition industry to bring down a building by controlled demolition. Furthermore, the firefighters weren’t allowed into the building. They had been told NOT to fight the fires.

The firefighters were told that WTC7 had structural damage – and that “it was going to come down on its own” and even, “that it was going to be brought down.”
It is clear that Silverstein was referring to a decision that was made earlier in the day (or perhaps earlier that year?) to intentionally bring the building down.
“That’ll Be Coming Down Around 5 O’clock”
FDNY Captain Richard Patterson was with Fire Chief Tommy Fox on the WTC Plaza coordinating the response at about mid-day, a couple of hours after the second tower came down (which had nearly killed him), and they had their eyes on Building 7 which was then on fire and needed immediate attention.
A guy in a “new Carhartt outfit” walked by Patterson and Fox from the direction of Building 7 and, having overheard them, blurted out, “That’ll be coming down around 5 o’clock”. They didn’t know what to make of it and didn’t discuss it with the man – who obviously also had foreknowledge of the building’s fate some five hours later.
NYFD Officers Denied Access to the Burning Building by Armed Guards!
Captain Patterson and Chief Fox then made their way to Building 7 and were met there by two men in military-clad gear carrying black rifles who “closed ranks” upon seeing the two approaching firefighters, stating: “This building has been secured!”, preventing them from entering:
First responder Patrick Dillon began immediately searching beneath the pile for survivors that morning. He was completely exhausted from this fruitless work – no survivors had been found – and was guided to the WTC7 lobby to take a break with other first responders who had gathered there. It wasn’t long before this happened:
“Three [FDNY] battalion Chiefs stepped into the lobby, and what stepped in behind them was these two guys in black ski masks on, and Uzi’s…. hanging off their necks. The battalion chiefs started ordering us to get out of the building, “They’re going to pull the building! Everybody Out!”
All of this evidence of foreknowledge of the destruction of this building, much of it hours in advance, is quite chilling. Weighed together with the other evidence, including the presence of the ten key features of controlled demolition and the forthcoming evidence in Part 3 of this report, “Extreme Heat and Thermite at the WTC”, we now have ALL the signs of explosive controlled demolition. And fire – the official government “explanation” – doesn’t account for even one of these signature features, let alone Every One of them!
This is, for most experts and lay people alike, PROOF of controlled demolition with PRE-planted explosives. It is a body of proof that has prompted more than 3,600 architects and engineers to risk their reputations by signing a petition demanding a new and independent investigation into the real cause of the destruction of World Trade Center Building 7 – along with that of the Twin Towers.
12. What about the Twin Towers?
If this third tower was taken down intentionally, then we must ask ourselves a really tough question: “Is it possible that there is also evidence of pre-placed explosives and incendiaries in the destruction of the Twin Towers?”
Do we have the courage to ask that question? And more importantly, do we have the courage to face the answers to that question? Because we DO have them.
You will definitely want to see Part 2 of this report, “The Twin Towers’ Explosive Destruction”, which comes next.
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