I was at school in my homeroom class half asleep. My teacher got a phone call and told me to turn on the TV. I did and then all we did all day was watch TV.
I was working, making book deliveries to some schools. It was rather difficult to continue working that day, but I completed the route. It reminded me of the OKC bombing. When that bombing took place I felt reasonably sure it was Islamic terrorism, but soon enough we learned that it was that idiot, McVeigh. Seeing video of the first plane hitting, I thought, "it must be a freak accident." It wasn't until the 2nd plane hit that I figured it was Islamic terrorists. Of course, much later when I saw video of the small tower (which never got hit) having windows blow out, apparently from explosive charges set off inside the building, and come tumbling down... and I heard about all the gold and other stuff stored in the basement... I knew there was more to it all than just Islamic terrorism.
Bogus claim. There was gold buried in the rubble. It was recovered, not stolen. (Is there not a rule - even an unwritten one - against posting conspiracy theories on this site? It’s getting out of hand. So much time and energy has to get spent here debunking bogus claims that it’s almost impossible to simply discuss whatever issue the thread is actually about. This thread is a great example. The OP asked where we were that day, not for us to share either unfalsifiable or provably false claims about the causes of the events.)
Yes, I am reasonably new here and yet I am already sick of having to wade through the conspiracy theories. They are just put out there with no sources, no proof, no real explanation - just wild and fantastic claims about different conspiracies. Isn't there any set of standards for posts here? Sure, we all need to be respectful and polite and courteous, etc, but do we really have to read through insanity? That could get real boring real fast and cause some people like me not to want to read here.
No one will ever be able to provide enough proof for those who have made up their minds otherwise, and providing the proof would quickly become a full-time job with no visible headway resulting from it. Suffice to say, for most of what I say, I have seen tons of evidence. Now, on the collapse of Tower 7 specifically, I'll admit I could be wrong in my understanding of what I have seen with my own eyes in the video of the falling tower. Maybe there's a different explanation for the hard evidence of the windows blowing out prior to the building's collapse. If so, okay then; I just haven't been exposed to any such explanations. Feel free to explain it away! Absent that, it certainly appears to my eyes (after watching it about 20 times) as if explosive charges were going off inside the building. But perhaps you can appreciate my feelings when I read someone denigrating my perception, eyesight, and intelligence while providing not a shred of evidence against it. Seems like the pot is calling the kettle 'black.'
Look Rexlion, I am not trying to denigrate you personally but for a person to have to provide proof of there NOT being a conspiracy, that just seems a little like a defendant trying to prove that there was NOT a murder, rather than the prosecution trying to prove that there was (and that they did it). There are probably a million reasons according to physics why an explosion could go outwards - especially considering the heat of the building inside after the planes hit, and all that jet fuel exploded. I don't know physics and wouldn't even attempt to try to explain these things, but my first thought isn't to jump to a conspiracy theory. That being said, I will grant that perhaps (just perhaps) another terrorist was told to carry a suicide bomb inside the building to go off after the planes hit. Our own eyes are not a good source of uncontested evidence, as is demonstrated over and over again by varying eyewitness accounts of any event. The thing that really shocked me about the whole event was the actual collapse of any of the buildings. I mean I know that buildings are demolished using explosives, but while watching the TTs on the day, I guess I just assumed that the firefighters would make it up to the fires and put them out, even with a lot of loss of life from those who were closest to the hits. When the first building collapsed I couildn't believe what I was seeing, but even that didn't prepare me for the second one to collapse as well. I think that the whole event was so shocking to those of us who were watching when it happened, especially to those of us who were living in America at the time. I was in California and on my way to work when I stopped at a shop for coffee and a donut. they had the TV on in the shop and I saw the first tower burning and had to ask the owners what was happening. They explained that a plane had hit the building and we debated what size plane it might have been and whether it was an accident, etc, when we saw the second plane as it hit! By the time I got to work, no one could do anything but stare at the news as it was happening. So yes, I, too know what my eyes saw, but I am not going to jump to conclusions that aren't evidenced by hard facts and backed up by those who investigated. High emotion and drama just aren't compatible with finding answers to most situations, that why I really don't like the whole trend for conspiracy theories. When they become conspiracy facts, maybe I will be more open to hearing about them.
Thanks for that, @Annie Grace . Saying that someone believes in conspiracy theories has been co-opted by many into a belittling pejorative, but not everyone uses the terminology in that way, I'll admit. I believe wholeheartedly that Satan and his fallen angels are the original, master conspirators, and I could cite some evidence from the Bible. I hope that doesn't make me stand out as a wacko among Christians.
I, too, would like to see an end to conspiracy theories on this forum. Even when asked for evidence you receive the usual garbage in reply that there is evidence, I have seen it, but you would not believe it. That is standard behaviour of those without evidence: they obfuscate all they can. It is not just about this particular conspiracy theory itself. It is about the complete obscenity of what the alternative is. I do not use that word lightly but I think to propose that the US Government blew up the Twin Towers, killing thousands of innocent people in the process, is obscene. It is beyond obscene. My own response is going to be, if the forum can do nothing about conspiracy theories, is that I will not engage at all with those who propose them. I think that is the best way to go. If someone starts a thread with a conspiracy theory no one responds. If someone comes into a thread with a conspiracy theory we simply carry the thread on and make no response to the post with the conspiracy theory. In my experience rational argument with these people makes no difference. If they believe conspiracy theories they seem to me to have gone beyond engaging in a rational manner. Engaging with them simply encourages them to continue because it demonstrates that on some level what they write has been acknowledged. If AF can do nothing to prevent them then we can be by not engaging with them. I do not suggest they may completely go away but we prevent their nonsense from gaining any legitimacy.
Following my previous post, I shall answer the OP in this one. First, I would like to know why you posed the question? People pose these questions such as where were you when Kennedy was shot, John Lennon was shot, Diana died in a Parisian road accident, etc. I see no relevance to the question. I was told by a colleague at work after my first afternoon class and I logged on to my PC because I thought it was the start of some bizarre wind up. I do remember us watching on the computer screen and all being thoroughly disgusted with the news outlets wondering why it was necessary to show over and over again the planes flying into the towers.
I can understand wanting to remember the people one may have lost but I do not understand how what I was doing that Tuesday afternoon* helps that remembrance. *It was afternoon UK time when it happened.
Okay, I wasn't going to write anything else, but now I'm accused of obfuscating. That was never my intent. So here is the brief video clip that changed my mind. Notice the bright flashes of light which appear as the windows blow out, prior to the beginning of the building's collapse; to me they look like explosions inside the building. (If you're not going to believe your own eyes, don't bother watching it.) Anyone who watches that video and wants more evidence, here is some additional info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=677i43QfYpQ https://wtc7.net/videos.html The reasoning is that buildings which collapse on accident don't go straight down; the ones that almost always do fall straight down are the ones that have been brought down by controlled demolition in which all major supports are severed simultaneously by carefully placed explosive charges. WTC7 fell as fast as an object dropped off the roof would fall unimpeded through the air; it simply had no structural resistance. (Jell-O has more stiffness than that, if you ask me.) The BBC reported the demise of WTC7 while it was still standing intact in the background, but we shouldn't read too much into that; it's the BBC after all... There is an actual syndrome (I've forgotten the name) which prevents people from accepting facts that are too upsetting and that push them too far outside of their comfort zone. The human brain sometimes rejects what is true because it messes with the person's paradigm. Like most of you, I would prefer to think that most humans are basically good, decent, trustworthy, and not easily corrupted. The Bible says otherwise, however. Humans are easily corrupted; apart from God working in a precious few, there is no spiritual health in the large majority of humans. Some of them are sociopaths and are capable of truly terrible things.
There is a complete NIST report on the WTC 7 collapse, which is available to the public and which anyone can read. There was no controlled demolition (and that’s not what a controlled demolition looks like in any case). The collapse was a result of the failure of a critical column, due to steel expansion (strain), caused by the intense heat of the fire that had been burning uncontrolled inside the building. It took me longer to write this post than to find the report. https://www.nist.gov/world-trade-center-investigation/study-faqs/wtc-7-investigation
Yes, now I understand what you mean. You're talking about feelings. Yes, it certainly brings back some feelings you do not want to feel.
The horrifying video clips of the tower collapsing do indeed show a sudden burst of flames coming out of the building. Clearly, something exploded. From that it is a huge leap based on no evidence that the explosion was caused by explosives deliberately planted there by some agency of the US Federal Government. A rather large aeroplane carrying a lot of fuel had crashed into the building. There is plenty of visual evidence of that. Perhaps it was the fuel igniting and exploding that caused those flashes of fire to come out of the building immediately prior to its collapse. Indeed, the report I have linked to this post explains that those fireballs were from aviation fuel and the report explains why the towers collapsed. It is here: https://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/0711/banovic-0711.html
Asking “where were you” when such-and-such event occurred and then sharing that information is a form of bonding and community-building, usually in response to something that caused profound grief. I had no trouble understanding the question. As an American who remembers that day like it was yesterday - I was on my way out the door to class when a friend called and told me to turn on the TV after the first Tower was hit - I think I can speak for all of my fellow citizens who remember 9/11 that a small part of me was never the same afterward. I saw the second plane hit the Tower and saw both Towers collapse on live TV, as so many of us did. The raw emotions (and sometimes even tears) come back forcefully when I think about that day, even 20 years later. That terrible moment was a test, and taught us a number of things. We should never forget. And, despite some of the missteps that followed in the proceeding years, I remain proud of the sacrifice, patriotism, and leadership that was shown by so many, from the President to the firefighters, in the immediate aftermath. Their example was inspiring, reassuring, unifying, and appealed to the better angels of our nature. I am glad that we took the opportunity to show compassion and to try to improve the lives of the Afghans rather than take revenge on the country as a whole, even as we were hunting down and punishing the criminals among them who planned and perpetrated 9/11, and I am relieved that that chapter of our history is now closed for good. May all the victims of that day rest in peace. This hauntingly beautiful song sums up my feelings exactly: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ecyQwVQhFzc
Just to clarify, the planes flew into the taller buildings, not this one. No plane flew into WTC7. They say it was damaged by falling debris from the others, though. We will never know the precise details for certain, this side of heaven.
The video clips, and the NIST report I referenced, were regarding WTC 7, a building close to the Twin Towers that also collapsed. The building caught fire from flaming debris from the plane impacts on the main towers. The collapse of the Twin Towers damaged the city’s water mains, which prevented the sprinklers inside WTC 7 from operating. The fire then burned uncontrolled for hours, progressively weakening the steel as well as raising the difference in air pressure between the inside and outside of the building, until the glass in the increasingly concave windows finally succumbed to the pressure. The sudden rush of oxygen into the fire from the outside then caused an explosion inside the building, blowing out several more windows in the process, before the building’s inevitable collapse. That’s entirely normal for a high rise fire like that. People who tried to make a conspiracy theory out of it simply didn’t understand what they were seeing. Like I said, the full report is out there for anyone to read (see my post above).
You are preaching to the choir. I do not buy into any conspiracy theories. I know why those buildings collapsed. It was because of humans with an extremely warped view of their religion thought they were punishing the decdent West and that day they would be being tended by virgins in heaven. If their version of God is like ours their souls should have been in hell before the day was out.