The most interesting thing about being a journalist is being able to watch the stories you cover develop and grow. The fall semester of my junior year, I took a semester off from school to cover a story that I could not afford to miss. I had been researching the events of September 11, 2001 and felt compelled to take the time to interview eye witnesses, emergency first responders, firefighters, the families of the victims and professionals in various fields to discover for myself the true nature of events that unfolded that day.
During the semester I came across a group called Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, and eventually volunteered with them for the semester as a verifier for their petition signers. At the time, between 300-400 degreed architects and engineers were signatories of the petition.
On Feb. 19, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth (AE911Truth) held a press conference in San Francisco at the Marines’ Memorial Club ‘ Hotel to announce that they have recently surpassed a total membership of 1,000 degree architects and engineers. These architects and engineers are demanding a new investigation with subpoena power into the collapse of World Trade Center buildings 1, 2 and 7 on 9/11.
AE911Truth has gathered evidence that they claim disproves the government’s official theory proposed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) that the towers experienced a gravitational collapse. A petition demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder convene a grand jury and conduct a new investigation was submitted to the office of every member of the U.S. Congress. Simultaneous press conferences were held in 47 cities across the globe. Recently AE911Truth concluded an official meeting with 12 members of the Japanese parliament to review the evidence of the event that sparked the global War on Terror.
Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth was founded in 2006 by Richard Gage, a member of the American Institute of Architects. Since then, AE911Truth has been vocal in its criticism of both official reports by NIST into the collapses of WTC 1, 2 and 7. NIST published their final report for towers 1 and 2 in 2005, and WTC 7 in the summer of 2008.
AE911Truth was a major presence during the revisionary periods of the various reports. Its successful petitioning efforts helped lead to the discovery that WTC 7 fell at free-fall speed for a period of over 2.5 seconds. Not noted in NIST’s revision was the clear implication that this feat defies the laws of physics if a gravitational collapse did indeed occur.
Gage addressed some of the key forensic and physical evidence supporting a controlled demolition collapse during the press conference. All three coloccur with near zero resistance such as a controlled demolition collapse rather than a gravitational collapse.
Multi-ton steel ejections were also calculated to be ejected at speeds of over 60 mph and over 600 feet. Gage also addressed the complete pulverization of 90,000 tons of concrete and metal decking from both the Twin Towers and the lack of debris found at their base.
Combined with the fact that the blast radius base was 1,200 feet and that no floors were found ‘pancaked” on top of each other, the ‘pancake theory” holds little water. In addition, molten metal was found at all three sites after 9/11, as reported by firefighters and news reports during the weeks after. Yet, lead NIST investigator John Gross has gone on record denying any such existence of molten metal. If NIST were to acknowledge these reports, jet fuel fires would be nowhere near hot enough to account for metal to have not just weakened, but melted.
In another recent development, a former physics professor Steven Jones discovered nanoparticles of detonation material in multiple samples of WTC dust, coining the discovery ‘the loaded gun.”
AE911Truth has received remarkable coverage internationally while being blacked out by American media. Gage recently concluded tours to various universities throughout Europe, Australia and Japan and he has been featured on major media outlets in dozens of countries.
While there are many lingering (and discomforting) questions surrounding the events of 9/11, Gage and AE911Truth contend that the science behind the collapses is not one of them. In an interview with the Washington Times on February 23, Gage closed with strong words: ‘Government officials will be notified that “Misprision of Treason,’ U.S. Code 18 (Sec. 2382), is a serious federal offense, which requires those with evidence of treason to act,” Gage said. ‘The implications are enormous and may have profound impact on the forthcoming Khalid Shaikh Mohammed trial.”
When I first began to follow this story I slowly began to understand the enormity of the implications, and the inevitability of this information getting out to the public. A year and a half later, it appears that the story has broken in the media.
Sukenik is a member of the class of 2010.
