This past year I took a small step for a man: I offered to present on the collapse of the three World Trade Center (WTC) towers at the August meeting of my local chapter of the Society of Fire Protection Engineers (SFPE).

Of course, being the risk-averse, calculating engineer that I am, my offer was only made after years of contemplation — including review of AE911Truth materials and the Project Due Diligence (PDD) slideshow — and mulling the idea of giving the PDD presentation to my local chapter. I felt equipped, and the 20th anniversary was the extra encouragement I needed to compel me to step forward.

As I began to look through the PDD slideshow I had downloaded when it was initially released in 2018, I realized how much ground AE911Truth had covered in the last few years — including formal release of the WTC 7 report from the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

I reached out to AE911Truth for assistance with updating the slideshow and learned there was already a new presentation dedicated to WTC 7, “Global Failure.” This new slideshow was quickly provided to me, and it looked great.

However, I had committed to talk about all three towers, so I commenced substituting the new WTC 7 slides for the old in the PDD presentation. My goal was to make a seamless transition from “Global Failure” to the slides on the Twin Towers by introducing the title, “Global Solution.” I coined this title by referencing the Toronto Hearings from the 10th anniversary and inserted screenshots from Ansgar Schneider’s presentation of his analysis of WTC 1 into the slideshow.

Then I realized, there were no slides for WTC 2 — and the announcement had already been sent to chapter membership that I would be presenting on all three towers!

Seeking to fulfill my commitment to my chapter, I did a quick internet search to locate analyses of WTC 2 by reliable or reputable resources but did not find any. Recalling how Schneider had tracked the descent of the antenna to analyze the movement of WTC 1, I found video footage of WTC 2 and set out on a similar approach, minus all the mathematics. My intent was merely to illustrate what occurred, not analyze it.

I extracted periodic screenshots of the video from a single stationary camera angle that captured the general tilting motion of the top of the tower. With the apparent asymmetrical loading on the structure below caused by the tilting top section, my goal was to illustrate the case for a new investigation into the subsequent uniform collapse of the 76 stories below. However, my rudimentary analysis surprised me, and raised even more questions.

My presentation of WTC 2 began with a still image from publicly available History Channel footage showing both towers. As illustrated in Figure 1, I added white lines to aid in referencing the apparent corners of WTC 2 shortly before its collapse. WTC 1, with its antenna, can be seen in the foreground.

Figure 1: White lines superimposed over WTC 2 to illustrate apparent corners of structure prior to initiation of collapse. History Channel footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyu-fZ2nRA.

The first surprise came with tracing the corners of the tower during the initial phase of the collapse. I was unable to draw a straight line from the base of the tilting upper portion of the tower to the roof. As depicted in Figure 2, there is an apparent kink in the tilting upper portion of the collapsing tower.

Figure 2: White lines superimposed at base of tower show position prior to initiation of collapse. Orange lines highlight apparent corners of tower during WTC 2 initiation of collapse. Yellow circle identifies region of apparent kink in tilting portion of upper floors. History Channel footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyu-fZ2nRA.

I captured a series of subsequent periodic screenshots, and added a line over the visible corner of the building above and below the kink. Then, I overlayed all of these lines on a single image, as shown in Figure 3. To assist with visualizing the relative movement, I added a circle at the top of each visible corner.

Figure 3: Superimposed red lines track the periodic position of the building corners. Blue circles indicate the periodic position of the top of the visible corner during the initial collapse of WTC 2. History Channel footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyu-fZ2nRA.

It is quite apparent that the lower circles and lines in Figure 3 are close together and vertically aligned, compared to the spacing of the upper circles and lines. This illustrates the independent collapse of two distinct zones occurring simultaneously.

This observation is remarkable, because the area of the most severe damage and visible fire was observed at the base of the lowest collapse zone. If the structure of the tower were intact above that level, the entire upper portion of the tower would move together. Yet, as illustrated in Figure 3, the top of the tower is falling faster than the lower zone. Therefore, something must have occurred to cause catastrophic failure of the structural integrity of the tower to allow this differential movement, other than the apparent office fires, further justifying the call for a new investigation.

When the lower collapse zone was no longer visible, I continued to track the uppermost segment of the tower until it was no longer visible, as shown in Figure 4. The intervals between the marks tracking the building (i.e., the number of video frames between each image used to make the marks) are not consistent. This is because my intent was only to show the general motion of the collapsing tower, not specifically determine the rate of descent or the direction relative to time.

Figure 4: Superimposed red lines track periodic position of building corner and roof line visible during initial collapse of WTC 2, identified with numerical labels. History Channel footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyu-fZ2nRA.

Despite my overly simplified approach, remarkable behavior was still revealed, as shown in Figure 4. Generally consistent motion is observed over the first several marks. However, a remarkable change in the angle of the corner of the building is apparent around point 8. At this interval, the angle of the building is more upright than observed immediately before or after it.

Is this because the falling motion began to be resisted by the structure below, which then suddenly lost that resistance in the next instant? Or is it because the other side of the building, where the load would have been the lowest, suddenly lost its structural integrity?

While I haven’t been able to answer those questions, after the presentation I took some time to view several other video clips to try to understand the kink observed in the tilting top of WTC 2. Focusing on the region where the kink forms, I noticed that there was an increased amount of smoke emanating from where the kink occurs, compared to the building exterior above and below. Amidst this area of smoke, there is a bright flash of light. Below are frames from a few of the videos capturing this bright flash, along with the video from which the first frame is taken.

Video 1: NBC footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUfx_NSPSQw. This clip has been trimmed to focus on the collapse initiation and observed flash.

Figure 5: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. NBC footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUfx_NSPSQw.

Figure 6: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. Amateur footage obtained from https://youtu.be/vg8L6bPDUIY?t=412.

Figure 7: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. Sky News footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMh1xjyNgKE.

Figure 8: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. History Channel footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZysjM2uBa6w.

Figure 9: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. Footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMlMqGwGwGc.

Figure 10: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. Amateur footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W2ivj9uJKbw.

Figure 11: Yellow circle indicates the flash observed on the northeast corner of WTC 2 approximately where a kink subsequently formed. Amateur footage obtained from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2qtU9ffvpA.

Accompanying this sudden flash are other locations of isolated ejections and trailing smoke, including on the other side of the tower. Taken together, these appear to represent an explosive event that contributed to separation of the tilting top of the tower into a lower and upper part. While the initial descent of the lower part apparently encountered resistance of the intact tower below, the faster falling upper part must have been structurally independent.

With the goal of identifying apparent anomalies to warrant calling for a new investigation, we’ve arrived. We don’t have to have all the answers.

As for my presentation, all 90 minutes I was given were filled, between my introduction, the presentation of all three buildings, and time for question and answer or discussion. The questions posed related more to the sources of information presented, which slides came from AE911Truth, and which were my original material. Nothing intimidating.

Following the presentation, a government employee who was in attendance asked me to give a condensed version to another group. Another attendee — a military veteran and firefighter — had been reluctant to broach the topic with me in conversation previously, simply saying, “We lost a lot of brothers.” Yet he attended the presentation and shared later that it came across as a combination of objective analysis and “truther” advocacy. I appreciated this positive, constructive feedback. In all, I received no negative responses.

The support I received from AE911Truth in assembling presentation materials, and the ability to amend it with my own material, made it easy to step up within my local chapter.

Please accept my encouragement to step forward in your local professional chapter or in other group settings to present this information. There are videos of others presenting the material that I viewed to help prepare for the presentation. My recommendation would be to pick an aspect of the event you are passionate about to focus on and limit the presentation to a shorter duration.

With a new year upon us, challenge yourself to deliver a presentation to one group in 2022. I bet you’ll discover something new!

The views expressed are those of the author and not his employer or AE911Truth.