BYU Brass Discredit Physics Professor for Saying WTC Brought Down by Controlled Demolition
Professor Steven E. Jones only was in the public eye for five days before BYU told him to stop giving interviews. Now the university has issued a public statement distancing itself from Jones and even discrediting his work. Critics suggest Bush administration had its dirty hand in forcing BYU to 'shut up' its professor.
29 Nov 2005
By Greg Szymanski
Brigham Young University (BYU) issued a public statement this week, discrediting and distancing itself from physics Professor Steven E. Jones for publicly claiming the WTC was brought down by explosives not jet fuel like the government contends.
Jones, a tenured BYU professor, went public two weeks ago after releasing a 19 page academic paper, essentially showing how the laws of physics do not support the WTC?s freefall and, consequently, the official government story.
While expressing doubt about the government?s version of 9/11, he called for an independent investigation concerning the strange collapse of the towers and Building No. 7, something the 9/11 Commission failed to do and something the Bush administration adamantly opposes.
However, Jones? notoriety turned out to be short lived as only days after giving numerous press interviews, including a six-minute spot on MSNBC, BYU officials twisted his arm and convinced him to stop appearing publicly.
Critics quickly pointed out that Jones must have been ?silenced quickly? after the Bush administration pressured BYU to end any further embarrassment while, at the same time, reminding officials about the numerous government grants swinging in the balance.
But before the situation turned ugly, Jones himself tried to immediately end the controversy, claiming all parties reached an amicable agreement without anybody strong arming anybody.
?I want to thank everyone for the attention, but it is best that I limit my appearances at this time,? said Jones in a telephone conversation from his BYU office only five days after first appearing publicly about his controversial 9/1 statements. ?University officials and I have come to an understanding that in the best interest for all parties involved, it is better that I limit my speaking on 9/11 to academic peer reviews.?
Even tough all parties appeared to be on the same ?closed mouth? page, BYU this week BYU came out with an official statement, distancing itself from its professor and even finding a way to politely criticize him for the methods he used in researching his 9/11 paper, adding his techniques may have not been up to high standards usually attached to other BYU academic work.
The paper now openly questioned by BYU officials is entitled ?Why Indeed did the WTC Buildings Collapse? and has been accepted for academic publication included in the book ?The Hidden History of 9-11-2001, Research in Political Economy, Volume 23.?
Finding a way to discredit Jones in a subtle way, BYU issued the following public statement about Jones? controversial 9/11 views:
?Brigham Young University has a policy of academic freedom that supports the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge and ideas. Through the academic process, ideas should be advanced, challenged, and debated by peer-review in credible venues. We believe in the integrity of the academic review process and that, when it is followed properly, peer-review is valuable for evaluating the validity of ideas and conclusions.
?The university is aware that Professor Steven Jones' hypotheses and interpretations of evidence regarding the collapse of World Trade Center buildings are being questioned by a number of scholars and practitioners, including many of BYU's own faculty members. Professor Jones' department and college administrators are not convinced that his analyses and hypotheses have been submitted to relevant scientific venues that would ensure rigorous technical peer review.?
Jones was unavailable for comment as he is no longer talking openly with the media, but when he did talk it created a stir which even was addressed on MSNBC by conservative talk show host, Tucker Carlson.
Jones made a brief six minute appearance, saying publicly afterwards he was unhappy by the ?one-sided presentation? siding with the government as well as Carlson?s failure to show the video clip of Building No. 7 freefalling to the ground as requested by Jones during the show.
?I asked three times to play the clip of Building No. 7 falling but they wouldn?t do it,? said Jones after the appearance with Carlson, a well-known Bush administration mouthpiece who slanted Jones? story in favor of the government, as expected.
Not only did Carlson refuse to address key visual evidence clearly showing a freefall of the WTC, he also issued a statement telling Jones and others who think the government may have been complicit in 9/11 to leave the country, an analysis completely lacking sensibility and bordering on outright insanity.
Responding to a caller about pre-positioned explosives detonated in all three buildings at Ground Zero, Carlson said:
?If you really believe the U.S. government killed 3000 of its own citizens for no reason and lied about it and invaded Afghanistan as a result of something it did, you ought to leave the country? because that?s so terrible? so evil, that your tax dollars go in to support it make you complicit in it? if you really believe that, you ought to leave??
Besides the MSNBC appearance, Jones previously granted one of his first interviews to the Arctic Beacon and American Free Press, also making one of his only radio appearances before going silent on Greg Szymanski?s radio show, ?The Investigative Journal,? on the Republic Broadcasting Network. For a replay of the hour-long radio interview go to
www.rbnlive.com (archives page) and for a feature article on Jones go to
www.arcticbeacon.com.
Before ending his media appearances, Jones tried to explain why he wrote his paper:
?I wanted to limit my discussion to my expertise and that is why I talked mainly about the physics of the freefall of the towers and Building 7,? said Jones, adding he did criticize the so-called ?pod theory? or the theory that a ?drone plane? was used to crash into the towers.
In his paper, Jones stayed away from commenting on most other aspects of 9/11 except for the freefall of the towers and the limited criticism of the ?pod theory.?
?I did receive emails about why I did that (criticized the pod theory) and even told Morgan Reynolds, I really felt it was important to stick with the issues of 9/11 that are the most obvious and the easiest to prove. That is why I wanted to limit my discussion, but in further papers I plan to address other 9/11 issues. Also, I feel the 9/11 community needs to work together and not be splintered by constantly arguing among ourselves over conflicting theories that may take away from the ones we can conclusively prove.?
Jones literally shocked the ?Red State? of Utah and the conservative world when he released his 19 page critical paper basically ripping apart the official 9/11 story, limiting his discussion to his expertise in physics and the virtual impossibility of the towers falling from merely jet fuel as the government contends.
Jones earlier said he first presented his explosive conclusions at Brigham Young University (BYU) on September 22, to 60 people from the BYU and Utah Valley State College faculties, including professors of Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Geology, Mathematics and Psychology.
After presently scientific arguments in favor of the controlled demolition theory, Jones said everyone in attendance from all backgrounds, conservative and liberal, were in total agreement further investigation was needed.
Jones added that the contingent of faculty members at the September seminar were all in agreement that the government needed to ?come clean? and release more that 6,900 photographs and close to 7,000 segments of video footage, now being held from independent investigation by the FBI and other agencies.
In Jones? 9,000 word paper, his conclusions why the towers most likely were brought down by a controlled demolition can be summed up as follows.:
? The three buildings collapsed nearly symmetrically, falling down into their footprints, a phenomenon associated with "controlled demolition" ? and even then it's very difficult, he says. "Why would terrorists undertake straight-down collapses of WTC-7 and the Towers when 'toppling over' falls would require much less work and would do much more damage in downtown Manhattan?" Jones asks. "And where would they obtain the necessary skills and access to the buildings for a symmetrical implosion anyway? The 'symmetry data' emphasized here, along with other data, provide strong evidence for an 'inside' job."
? No steel-frame building, before or after the WTC buildings, has ever collapsed due to fire. But explosives can effectively sever steel columns, he says.
? WTC 7, which was not hit by hijacked planes, collapsed in 6.6 seconds, just .6 of a second longer than it would take an object dropped from the roof to hit the ground. "Where is the delay that must be expected due to conservation of momentum, one of the foundational laws of physics?" he asks. "That is, as upper-falling floors strike lower floors ? and intact steel support columns ? the fall must be significantly impeded by the impacted mass. . . . How do the upper floors fall so quickly, then, and still conserve momentum in the collapsing buildings?" The paradox, he says, "is easily resolved by the explosive demolition hypothesis, whereby explosives quickly removed lower-floor material, including steel support columns, and allow near free-fall-speed collapses." These observations were not analyzed by FEMA, NIST nor the 9/11 Commission, he says.
? With non-explosive-caused collapse there would typically be a piling up of shattering concrete. But most of the material in the towers was converted to flour-like powder while the buildings were falling, he says. "How can we understand this strange behavior, without explosives? Remarkable, amazing ? and demanding scrutiny since the U.S. government-funded reports failed to analyze this phenomenon."
? Horizontal puffs of smoke, known as squibs, were observed proceeding up the side the building, a phenomenon common when pre-positioned explosives are used to demolish buildings, he says.
? Steel supports were "partly evaporated," but it would require temperatures near 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit to evaporate steel ? and neither office materials nor diesel fuel can generate temperatures that hot. Fires caused by jet fuel from the hijacked planes lasted at most a few minutes, and office material fires would burn out within about 20 minutes in any given location, he says.
? Molten metal found in the debris of the World Trade Center may have been the result of a high-temperature reaction of a commonly used explosive such as thermite, he says. Buildings not felled by explosives "have insufficient directed energy to result in melting of large quantities of metal," Jones says.
? Multiple loud explosions in rapid sequence were reported by numerous observers in and near the towers, and these explosions occurred far below the region where the planes struck, he says.