Popular Mechanics 9/11 Author Grilled On Talk Radio

[bird1965]

Originally Posted by icantstandit

With bodies, it is easy, because there is always some DNA left. Even if a body burns for hours in a normal fire, there still will be usable, identifiable DNA in what I like to call "the juicy middle"...

Unless there is a prefect Crematorium-like fire/furnace that totally dries up and destroys every scrap of the human body, there wil be DNA left.

Here is a C & P from the link i provided above: "Nearly 18 months after the attacks, the forensic scientists have managed to identify remains belonging to at least 1,465 of the estimated 2,790 people reported killed in the attacks" End Quote they have ID'ed more than just the hijackers from DNA. Also as someone that used to assist at a Crematorium I can tell you that that fire does not consume all the bones. There are still bones left including most of the skull. Unless Crems have changed since the 80's there will still be left over parts.

[Mens Rea**]

what a cool job. i'm serious

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by HomeCheese

The only pic I have seen is of the damaged corner, not the famous 25% of the side of WTC7 hole. The PM guy says in the interview that it has not been released. Do you have pictures of the hole?

The most recent documentation regarding the WTC 7 collapse that I am aware of can be found --> HERE

There is only one reference I can find to any damage to the side (southwest corner) of the building, and it is pictured. The only other damage to the exterior/facade I see mentioned states there there was damage to the front reaching down 5 to at most 10 floors.

If this has been overtaken by yet another report, I'd be intrigued to see it.

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by CDiablo

Going bakc to the DNA thing......I dont exactly buy it, but the forensics(sp?) field is absoloutley amazing. Heres why I find it hard to believe:

rental cars, hotels all that stuff has had tens to hundreds of users in its lifetime. THings like flakes of skin, hair and other things are all over the place from people that have used thes things before as well as whatever the wind brings in. The steering wheel thing is bs because everyone that drove that car has left some piece of themselves on that wheel.

You have DNA samples from a corpse. You have DNA samples from hair, skin, saliva, et al culled from a source that may have been left by multiple people. You compare them all, one turns into a match. Simple as that.

It is, of course, hardly perfect. Not all of the hijackers were ID'ed.

I still dont buy that they found DNA after the raging infernos of 911(pentagon or that flight in PA I can believe)

Mitochondrial DNA extracted from the tooth pulp of corpses can be, and has been, used to identify bodies which have been otherwise burned beyond all hope of recognition by other means. I believe this was the method used.

Originally Posted by bird1965

Also as someone that used to assist at a Crematorium I can tell you that that fire does not consume all the bones. There are still bones left including most of the skull. Unless Crems have changed since the 80's there will still be left over parts.

I myself addressed this previously where I linked to a website for a crematorium in Canada that gave a detailed explanation of the processes involved in cremating a body. The temperatures required to fully and completely cremate a body are much higher, and the rquired time much more prolonged, than the temperatures estimated to have been generated by at least the Pentagon crash (not sure on the WTC ones). And to my knowledge, what remains must still be ground into a powder before being committed to an urn.

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by computer fogie

The government accused the hijackers of mass murder, so the burden of proof is on them. Info came to light that several of them were alive. Again the burden of proof is on the accuser to explain how living people died on 9/11.

LINK

The BBC News reported on September 23, 2001, that some of the people named by the FBI as hijackers, killed on the crashes, were actually alive and well.

One of the supposed hijackers was Waleed al-Shehri, and he was supposedly found in Casablanca, Morocco.

However, the al-Shehri's father says he hadn't heard from his sons in ten months prior to September 2001.[133] An ABC News story in March 2002 repeated this, and during a report entitled "A Saudi Apology" for Dateline NBC on Aug 25, 2002, NBC's reporter John Hockenberry traveled to 'Asir, where he interviewed the third brother Salah who agreed that his two brothers were dead and claimed they had been "brainwashed".

Furthermore, another article explains that the pilot who lives in Casablanca was named Walid al-Shri (not Waleed M. al-Shehri) and that much of the BBC information regarding "alive" hijackers was incorrect according to the same sources used by BBC.[134]
Abdulaziz Al Omari, Saeed Alghamdi, and Khalid al-Midhar, three other supposed hijackers, were also supposedly reported to be living in the Middle East.

A man with the same name as Abdulaziz Al Omari turned up alive in Saudi Arabia, saying that he had studied at the University of Denver and his passport was stolen there in 1995. The name, origin, birth date, and occupation were released by the FBI, but the picture was not of him. "I couldn't believe it when the FBI put me on their list", he said. "They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this."[135][136][137] This individual was not the same person as the hijacker whose identity was later confirmed by Saudi government interviews with his family, according to the 9/11 Commission Report.[citation needed]

On 23 September 2001, the BBC and The Telegraph[138] reported that a person named Saeed al-Ghamdi was alive and well. His name, birth date, origin, and occupation were the same as those released by the FBI, but his picture was different. He says that he studied flight training in Florida flight schools from 1998 to 2001. The journalist involved with the story later admitted "No, we did not have any videotape or photographs of the individuals in question at that time."[139]

After the attacks, reports began emerging saying that al-Mihdhar was still alive. On September 19, the FDIC distributed a "special alert" which listed al-Mihdhar as alive. The Justice Department says that this was a typo.[140][141]

The BBC and The Guardian have since reported that there was evidence al-Mihdhar was still alive and that some of the other hijackers identities were in doubt. This was commented on by FBI director Robert Mueller.[142]

Consider that terrorists are known to use stolen or doctored ID documentation (i.e. at least one person directly involved in the 1993 WTC attack was in the country using a passport stolen by Iraqis in Kuwait in 1990) it's hardly a massive leap of logic to consider that some of the hijackers who supposedly turned up alive were guys whose identities were being used. Either that, or there may have been mistakes or confusion between them and others with the same and similar names (my name is quite unusual, and yet I know there are others who share it). This is something which is also not unheard of.

[HomeCheese]

Originally Posted by Gregster

The most recent documentation regarding the WTC 7 collapse that I am aware of can be found --> HERE

There is only one reference I can find to any damage to the side (southwest corner) of the building, and it is pictured. The only other damage to the exterior/facade I see mentioned states there there was damage to the front reaching down 5 to at most 10 floors.

If this has been overtaken by yet another report, I'd be intrigued to see it.

I looked at the PP and did not see the picture described by the author. Gregster, here is the hole in B7 described in the PM article:

The most important thing we found was that there was, in fact, physical damage to the south face of building 7," NIST's Sunder tells PM. "On about a third of the face to the center and to the bottom--approximately 10 stories--about 25 percent of the depth of the building was scooped out.

There has never been any pictures of this hole that I have seen.

Now here is a quote from the author interviewed and posted above:

CG: …Building 7 is the first piece of evidence that I turn to. Popular Mechanics…say that a third of the face, approximately 25% of the depth of the building that was scooped out beforehand.
PM: When the North Tower collapsed… there was damage to Building 7…. What we found out was…about 25% of the building’s south face had been carved away from it… Each column that you remove that was destroyed by the wreckage from the North Tower…
CG: That would be very persuasive to me if it were true. And it may or may not be true… I go, oh that’s interesting…if that’s true that would go a long way towards explaining what happened to Building 7. So I turn to the pictures in your book about Building 7 you’ve got a picture of Building 7, but it doesn’t show that. So I’m going, OK, instead of just somebody asserting that a third of the building was scooped away, show me the picture. But you don’t show me the picture.
PM: …We have seen pictures that are property of the NY Police Department and various other governmental agencies that we were not given permission to disseminate….
CG: Popular Mechanics got to see them, but the average American citizen can’t see them.
PM: Correct.
CG: Well, that’s a fine kettle of fish, isn’t it? ….What did you see there that I can’t see?
PM: Just what was described.
CG: Well it must be something that’s dangerous for me as an American citizen or a voter to see. You’re publishers, if anybody is concerned about evidence in a criminal case or something, they’ve done the worst possible thing, they’ve shown it to a damn magazine publisher!
PM: That was done for the purposes of our background research.
CG: What about my background research? Do you see the source of my frustration here? I didn’t know we had different classes of citizens. You can’t tell me it’s because it’s a criminal case because they’ve shown it to a damn magazine publisher.

So again I ask you Gregster, do you think it is strange that they are keeping these pictures from the public? Did you know this evidence existed?

[Gregster]

Originally Posted by HomeCheese

So again I ask you Gregster, do you think it is strange that they are keeping these pictures from the public? Did you know this evidence existed?

I was unaware of this particular item, and I cannot explain why photos might be witheld by NYPD and others, especially considering that photos of other damage are in abundance.

[HomeCheese]

Originally Posted by Gregster

I was unaware of this particular item, and I cannot explain why photos might be witheld by NYPD and others, especially considering that photos of other damage are in abundance.

Thanks for the response.

I think it is weird as hell. They withhold pictures of the damage to WTC7 that was supposedly caused by the falling WTC’s but allow a reporter for PM to see them. As far as I know, he is the only one outside to government to see them. So our government will allow a reporter to see it but not the general public. What makes this reporter special?

Very strange.

[Pennywise03]

Originally Posted by HomeCheese

Thanks for the response.

I think it is weird as hell. They withhold pictures of the damage to WTC7 that was supposedly caused by the falling WTC’s but allow a reporter for PM to see them. As far as I know, he is the only one outside to government to see them. So our government will allow a reporter to see it but not the general public. What makes this reporter special?

Very strange.

The NYPD did not let them publish the picture, not "the government" I would imagine it is being treated as a crime scene photo and that is why it is not released.

[icantstandit]

Originally Posted by HomeCheese

So again I ask you Gregster, do you think it is strange that they are keeping these pictures from the public? Did you know this evidence existed?

Again, "absense of evidence is not proof of guilt". Just because they withheld these pictures literally doesn't mean anything... it could be for any number of reasons: pending cases, further investigations or analysis, respect for the dead, whatever...

And this is one thing about CTers (not nec you HomeCheese) that is illogical: the jump to assume "something sinister" simply because they feel they have a right to see every minor detail of the incident. CTers have no right to have ALL the information they desire. That would mean there would be a non-stop rummaging through teh mountains of evidence, just to satisfy the curiosity of certain persons (who have no right to see that information anyway.. they're not experts nor investigators).


Is it strange that they kept certain pictures from being published? No, not at all. It happens all of the time in disasters of all shapes and sizes (car accidents and murder scenes for example. They take tons of pictures, but rarely do they release ALL of the pictures. Usually it is just a handful of representative photos given to the media).

So, yes, it does add fuel to the CT fire, but no, what they have done (only released certain photos) is quite normal for such disasters.