1:54 On September 11th, we learned that four passenger planes were hijacked and taken radically off course. Within an hour, two of the planes had flown into the enormous steeltowers of the World Trade Center, creating fires and eventually toppling them.

2:20 Dazed by the news, the American public soon believed the fires in the towers had burned so hot they caused the steel frames of the buildings to give way.

2:38 A myth developed, fed by official sources through the media to a bewildered audience. Elements of the myth: the impact of the airplanes, gallons of burning jet fuel, steel melting, the buildings failing and suddenly imploding. In a mere 10 seconds, 110 stories hurtled earthward - pulverizing into dust.

The official story never mentions steel melting. This is what is known as a straw man argument:

This is what the NIST report FAQ has to say about melting steel.

Now we have the “pulverizing into dust” comment. From a strictly factual point of view, using no exaggeration or other techniques inappropriate for a factual documentary, this sentence says:

1. 110 stories hurtled earthwards
2. They pulverized into dust

This is demonstrably false. The following is a dust sample taken from Ground Zero.

If the towers had indeed “pulverized”, the above dust sample would contain high amounts of steel particles. Although some elements of the towers did pulverize, we can see that they are mostly comprised of fragile products such as insulation and fireproofing.

Something more important that we can take from this dust analysis is the absence of explosive products. If the towers were brought down in a controlled demolition of any sort, we would expect to see traces of nitro-glycerin and TNT.

3:35 The myth bled into the FEMA report … and was echoed by the experts.

This would include (but is not limited to):

Debunking911.com also has a good list.

That is a lot of experts who agree with the official story. Perhaps 9/11 Mysteries should have considered why the experts echoed the official story.

3:55 John Skilling and Les E. Robertson were the structural engineers who designed the streamlined steel frames of the Twin Towers in the 1960s. Because a wayward army bomber flew into the Empire State Building in 1945, the towers were built with skyscraper crashes in mind.

We feel that it is necessary to point out that Les E. Robertson does not disagree with the official story. In fact, Les Robertson has even gone to the extent of debating 9/11 conspiracy theorist, Steven Jones.

9/11 Mysteries does make an effort to point out that the plane the buildings were built to withstand was a 707, and not a 767. However, they seem to miss why this is significant.

4:36 Official Story narrator “But the aircraft that hit the towers was a Boeing 767, heavier than a 707, fueled for a transcontinental flight and traveling fast.

4:48 707s and 767s are comparable. The maximum take-off weight of a fully loaded 707 is almost 334,000 pounds. As airplanes only carry the fuel load they need, the smaller-model 767s that struck the towers were not, in actuality, maximally fueled OR close to their maximum take-off weight.

For starters, 707s and 767s are only comparable in some aspects. The 767, however, is 20% larger than the 707.

NIST states this in their FAQ:

9/11 Mysteries tells us that the 767s that struck the World Trade Center buildings were a “smaller model” airplane. This is not true.

Therefore, we know that a 767 is, in actuality, larger than the 707. But what about speed?

The modeled aircraft weighed 263,000 lb (119 metric tons) with a flight speed of 180 mph (290 km/h), as in approach and landing. This was much slower than the actual impacts of 9/11, which were 490 mph and 550 mph respectively. As energy increases with the square of speed, the 767s that hit the towers had a kinetic energy more than seven times greater than the modeled impact.

There has been some recent speculation that the modeled plane impact was actually 600mph as opposed to 180mph. This is what the NIST report had to say about this issue.

There is no documentation explaining the results. Furthermore, NIST also said this about the 600mph figure:

We can observe another straw man argument in this section of the film when the narrator, Sofia, states that the 767s that hit the towers “were not, in actuality, maximally fuelled”. She does this despite the fact that the person who represents the official story, who spoke just before her, says that the planes were “fuelled for transcontinental flight”.

How does she get “maximally fueled” out of that? In fact, the official story states that the planes had approximately 10,000 gallons of fuel on board.

We also know that a 767s maximum fuel load is close to 24,000 gallons.

No one ever said the 767’s were maximally fueled.

5:13 As for the heat of the fires, listen to the radio communications of these New York City firemen:

5:20 Firefighter: “Ladder One-Five, we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire. We should be able to knock it down with two lines. Radio that, 78th floor -- we’ve got two isolated pockets of fire…”

5:32 Isolated pockets of fire. “Two water lines” to knock them down.

What 9/11 Mysteries has failed to do here is distinguish between the fires on the 78th floor, and the fires in the rest of the building.

This heroic firefighter, Orio J. Palmer, was undoubtedly correct in saying that there were only two isolated pockets of fire on the 78th floor. This actually fits with the NIST WTC Fire Recreation report. As we can see, there are only two isolated pockets of fire on the 78th floor.

Now let's look at some other floors. Such as the 82nd and 83rd floors of Tower 2 (the tower Palmer was in).

9/11 Mysteries implies that all of the fires could have been taken down with two lines and were, therefore, not as large as we are led to believe. That would be taking Mr Palmer's quote out of context. He said it would take two lines to knock down the pockets of fire on the 78th floor. As we can see, much more would have been needed for the higher floors of the impact zone.

To assume that the bulk of the fires were located on the lowest section of the impact point is just ignorant.

5:38 FEMA’s Executive Summary relays that much of the fuel in the planes (jet-grade kerosene) was consumed by the initial fireballs and the following few minutes of fire.

5:51 It then tells us that the burning jet fuel spread between floors and ignited the buildings’ contents, causing more fire and generating heat. This was somehow enough to bring down the towers’ 47-column steel core, 236 exterior columns and thousands of steel trusses all at the same time.

“All at the same time”? That would imply that the core fell at the same speed as the rest of the building and that every floor collapsed at the same time. This, clearly, was not the case.

It is obvious that the core took at least 15 seconds longer than the rest of the tower to fall.

Therefore, using this analysis, we can conclude that the 47-column steel core, the 236 exterior columns and the thousands of steel trusses did not fall “all at the same time”.

6:15 Watch the towers smoking in the aftermath of the plane strikes.

6:20 If you have ever tried to light a wood fire, you will know that smoking logs tell you the fire is NOT burning successfully. Smoke is the sign of an oxygen-starved fire. The Twin Towers stood for over an hour, smouldering but not flaming. During that time, thousands of people were evacuated by way of the stairwells.

At the outset, I would like to point out that the World Trade Center fires were not a 'wood fire'. The reason as to why 9/11 Mysteries compares them to a wood fire is beyond us. We thought that we should clear that up for anyone who is may be unaware of that fact.

There is no rule that says “black smoke = oxygen starved fire”. Sure, in some cases (such as a wood fire) this may be the case. However, in the World Trade Center, there was far more than wood burning. There were plastic products (computers), paper, carpet, desks, jet fuel and other items that you would expect to see in an office building, and they were all burning. The equation that 9/11 Mysteries presents to us is highly simplistic and fails to take into account what was actually be burning in the towers.

Take for example this quote from a Health and Saftey paper.

Furthermore, An experienced Fire Investigator John J Lentini tells us that smoke color means absolutely nothing.

So there you have it, smoke color means nothing. In fact, the heat of the fire itself can also determine the smoke color.

Again, there is no scientific law that “black smoke = oxygen starved fire”. This also applies to “lots of smoke = oxygen starved fire”. Here are some open-air fires that show black smoke in oxygen rich environments.

6:51 In fact, the towers did what they were built to do.

6:55 Frank A. De Martini: The building was designed to have a fully loaded 707 crash into it -- that was the largest plane at the time. I believe that the building probably could sustain multiple impacts of jetliners because this structure is like the mosquito netting on your screen door -- this intense grid -- and the jet plane is just a pencil puncturing that screen netting -- it really does nothing to the screen netting.

No disrespect intended, but the late Mr De Martini's analogy is clearly a little simplistic. It does not take into account the fact that, unlike a screen door, the Twin Towers were not suspended in a frame and they were not as flexible as netting.

There are a lot more reasons we could expand into but we do not feel it is worth the time. If you cannot see why the World Trade Center buildings and screen netting are not literally comparable – we are sorry, but that is your own problem.

7:33 The towers were built to withstand 140-mile-an-hour gusts produced by winter storms. Anyone in them on a windy day could feel them swaying. The single impact of a jetliner was no more of a blow than the continued battering of a hurricane.

Wrong.

The wind force placed on the towers during a hurricane would have been dispersed over the entire outer faces of the building. More important is the speed differentiation between the jet impacts and that of a hurricane.

Category 5(highest category) hurricanes travel no faster than 250 mph. (and that is also rather generous)

The jet impacts on 9/11 were focused into a small area of the building. This caused internal and external damage. This included severing critical core columns and igniting fires within the building. Several perimeter columns were also removed by the plane impacts.

The speeds of impact on 9/11 were 490 mph for WTC1 and 590 mph for WTC2. Hardly comparable to a 200mph wind gust dispersed over the entire building.

8:05 New Yorkers were stunned, one hour later, when the first tower fell.

8:13 Les E. Robertson: “To the best of my knowledge, the considerations of the fuel in the airplane -- in terms of an explosion or a great fire -- was not considered. Now … we were not responsible for that aspect of the design...”

8:27 Imagine – building expressly for airplane impact, but never thinking of the fuel.

Throughout 9/11 Mysteries, we are constantly reminded how “jet fuel could not have brought down the towers”, and “fires could not have blown beams this far” etc.

By the standards of 9/11 Mysteries, the towers were practically immune to fire and burning kerosene. 9/11 Mysteries’ assertion that “jet fuel could not bring the towers down” should mean that the fact that jet fuel was not considered should not matter at all. Why do the creators suddenly care about jet fuel then? 9/11 Mysteries leads us to believe the jet fuel was harmless, and now this? This is one of the first contradictions we see in 9/11 Mysteries. It shows us how the creators must know that fire and jet fuel can have horrible effects on steel structures, but still claim that jet fuel could not have brought the towers down.