Running Toward Danger, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 87;
17 “It just descended”: Judyth Sylvester & Suzanne Hoffman, Women Journalists at Ground Zero, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 19—in his article “Explosive Testimony,” www.911truth.org, Griffin rendered the text’s word “implosion” as “explosion.”
18 Romero: Albuquerque Journal, 9/11/01, 9/21/01. Undeterred, skeptics resorted to innuendo. One coupled Romero’s retraction to a “rumor” that he had “since found preferment from the federal government.” Griffin has written that Romero had been “a very successful lobbyist for Pentagon contracts.” “Saying that the government got to me,” Romero has said, “is the farthest thing from the truth.” In his initial comment, he would insist, he had “only said that that’s what it looked like” (“rumor”: Webster Griffin Tarpley, 9/11: Synthetic Terror, Joshua Tree, CA: Progressive, 2005, 225; “very successful”: Griffin, Debunking, 255; “Saying that”/“looked”: eds. Dunbar & Reagan, 49);
19 “Then we”: int. John Sudnik, TF, 11/7/01;
20 “First I”: int. Timothy Julian, TF, 12/26/01;
21 “There was”: int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01;
22 “The lowest”: int. Brian Dixon, TF, 10/25/01.
23 Griffin seized: Griffin, “Explosive Testimony.” In his quote of Journal reporter Bussey, Griffin omitted the reporter’s description of the initial sounds he heard as having been “metallic.” He also left out a sentence in which the reporter, amending what he had at first assumed about the use of planted explosives, added, “In fact, the building was imploding down.” Griffin attributed the quote starting “individual floors …” to “another Wall Street Journal reporter”—as distinct from Bussey. In fact, the source makes clear, Bussey is the source of both quotes used (Griffin, “Explosive Testimony” & see source for “individual floors,” above).
24 formal interviews: published online by the NYT at http://graphics8.nytimes.com. Griffin cited Professor Graeme MacQueen, who did study all 503 Fire Department statements, as finding that 118 of them—some 23 percent of the group—“appear to have perceived, or thought they perceived, explosions that brought down the towers.” Our reading of the actual study suggests it is flawed. For example, MacQueen acknowledged having excluded from his analysis “a host of similes and metaphors referring to freight trains, jet planes and the like.” Significantly, he has glossed over the fact that—even under his own criteria —the majority of the 503 witnesses do not claim to have heard explosions. The authors note, too, that MacQueen’s analysis wrongly suggests—and he makes a point of this—that “fire chiefs on the scene thought the collapse of the towers was impossible.” As the authors have noted, the possibility of partial collapse was discussed by fire chiefs early on, see Ch. 6 (Griffin, Debunking, 76, Graeme MacQueen, “118 Witnesses: The Firefighters’ Testimony to Explosions in the Twin Towers,” 8/21/06, www.journalof911studies.com).
25 bangs: e.g., int. Julio Marrero, TF, 10/25/01;
26 thunder: e.g., int. Mark Stone, TF, 10/12/01, int. Eric Hansen, TF, 10/10/01, int. Jody Bell, TF, 12/15/01;
27 rumbling: e.g., int. Patricia Ondrovic, TF, 10/11/01, int. Scott Holowach, TF, 10/18/01, int. John Delendick, TF, 12/6/01, int. John Picarello, TF, 12/6/01, int. Anthony DeMaio, TF, 1/28/02;
28 trainlike: e.g., int. Louis Giaconelli, TF, 12/6/01, int. Paul Curran, TF, 12/18/01, int. Mark Ruppert, TF, 12/4/01, int. Joseph Fortis, TF, 11/9/01, int. Dominick Muschello, TF, 12/6/01;
29 “You heard”: int. Salvatore Torcivia cited in DiMarco, 188;
30 “relaying”: Mackey, 75;
31 Griffin on Kingdome: Griffin, Debunking, 188, & see U.S. News & World Report, 6/22/03, www.controlled-demolition.com/seattle- kingdome;
32 “produced no”: Mackey, 94;
33 “for alternative”: Executive Summary, NIST, xxxviii.
34 “Achilles’ Heel”/“smoking gun”: Griffin, Mysterious, xi; see pp. 97–99;
35 first known/“a mystery”: NYT, 11/29/01.
36 “fire-induced”: “Final Report on the Collapse of World Trade Center Building 7,” Federal Building & Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Washington, D.C., 11/08, ES-3, xxxvi. Author Griffin wrote off that finding as “scientific fraud,” claiming that the institute’s experts ignored numerous items of physical evidence, fabricated and falsified evidence, and ignored a recommendation that their documentation should be peer-reviewed. Evidence ignored, the professor asserted, included in particular the evidence in dust of thermitic material—Griffin thought the “most likely explanation” was that WTC 7, like the Twin Towers, was brought down by explosives (“scientific fraud,” etc.: Griffin, Mysterious, 245–; “most likely”: ibid., xii).
37 “When it fell”: int. Frank Fellini, TF, 12/3/01;
38 Hayden: Firehouse, 4/02, Smith, 31–, 159–, int. Ray Goldback, TF, 10/24/01, int. Richard Banaciski, TF, 12/6/01, int. Robert Sohmer, TF, 1/17/02, int. Frank Cruthers, TF, 10/31/01.
39 Nigro: int. Daniel Nigro, TF, 10/24/01, “Chief of Department FDNY (ret.) Daniel Nigro Addresses Conspiracy Theories,” http://guide.googlepages.com/danielnigro. Brent Blanchard, a senior writer on ImplosionWorld, an online magazine for the demolition industry, has written, “Any detonation of explosives within WTC 7 would likely have been detected by seismographs monitoring ground vibration.… To our knowledge, no such telltale ‘spike’ or vibratory anomaly was recorded.… Several demolition teams had reached Ground Zero by 3:00 P.M. on 9/11, and these individuals witnessed the collapse of WTC 7 from within a few hundred feet.… We have spoken with several who possess extensive experience in explosive demolition, and all reported hearing or seeing nothing to indicate an explosive detonation precipitating the collapse.” Readers who wish to delve deeper could consult Blanchard’s paper; Ryan Mackey’s paper, at p. 112–; the BBC documentary film The Conspiracy Files: 9/11—The Third Tower, July 6, 2008; and of course Dr. Griffin’s book The Mysterious Collapse of World Trade Center 7. (Brent Blanchard, “A Critical Analysis of the Collapse of WTC Towers 1, 2 and 7 from an Explosives and Conventional Demolition Industry Viewpoint,” www.implosionworld.com).
40 photos: credited to Corporal Jason Ingersoll, USMC; Goldberg et al., 159, 245n30, & see photo section, photos also at http://911research.wtc7.net;
41 18 feet/“How could”: David Ray Griffin, The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, Gloucestershire, U.K.: Arris, 2005, 34;
42 wingspan/tail: Goldberg et al., 17fn;
43 “fits”: Griffin, Omissions, 38.
44 Eyewitnesses: e.g., see p. 44. Many more such witnesses are on record.
45 evidence/opinions: Paul Mlakar et al., “The Pentagon Building Performance Report,” Reston, VA: American Society of Civil Engineers, 1/03, 1–;
46 removed/FBI warehouse: ibid., 24, Liberation, 3/30/02, “Arlington County After-Action Report,” www.co.arlington.va.us/fire/edu/about/pdf/after_report.pdf, Annex C, 53–;
47 report concluded: Mlakar et al., 58;
48 “hogwash”/“To look”: corr. Mete Sozen, 2010;
49 Empire State: “B-25 Empire State Building Collision,” www.aerospaceweb.org, “Ask the Pilot,” Salon, 5/19/06;
50 photos: Goldberg et al., photo section;
51 “planted”: Griffin, Debunking,
52 “Don’t be taken in”: “New Study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing Hit the Pentagon, Global Research, 6/24/07. Fetzer was impressed by the suggestion from James Hanson, a retired attorney, who claimed that he had traced the debris that was found at the Pentagon to an American Airlines 757 that crashed in Colombia in 1995! (ibid. & Idaho Observer,
