http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Navigation Tue, 21 May 2013 14:48:30 -0400 Liveleak http://edge.liveleak.com/80281E/u/u/ll2/logo.gif http://www.liveleak.com/browse?q=Navigation Mon, 20 May 2013 09:18:44 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87c_1369055845 cathy winslow Iran unveils a new air defense system. On Monday Iran's Defense Ministry alongside the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force (IRGC AF) unveiled a domestically built mobile air defense system called "Herze 9". Iran's Defense Minister Brigadier General Ahmad Vahidi commented on this new achievement. "Herze 9" can identify and target enemy helicopters, rockets and fighter jets at low ranges and low altitudes of about 8-12 kilometers. This mobile air defense system uses the most technologically advanced computer hardware and software and the latest navigation system available today. Brig. Gen. Vahidi said Iran has produced this defense system, despite the recent wave of unilateral sanctions of the west against Iran. Iran's Defense Ministry and the IRGC AF future project is to build a domestic high range and high altitude air defense system, which experts believe to be one of the most difficult tasks in military defense. http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/05/20/304447/iran-unveils-new-mobile-air-defense-system/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87c_1369055845 cathy winslow Iran unveils new mobile air defense system called "Herze 9" Iran,Mobile air defense,tehran,Herze 9 Wed, 15 May 2013 23:25:11 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01c_1368674361 plokiju The ghost like appearance sparked UFO reports across southern China. The Chinese Academy of Science (CAS) said it was a rocket launch for aero-logical sounding, but that was a lie. US officials said it was actually an Anti-Satellite missile test. China's military on Monday conducted the first test of a new ground-launched anti-satellite missile that was fired into space and disguised as a space-exploration rocket, according to U.S. officials. The test was carried out early Monday from the Xichang Space Launch center and was identified by officials as the new Dong Ning-2 ASAT missile. The ASAT test comes a week after China protested the release of the Pentagon's annual report on the Chinese military buildup that mentioned Beijing's development of anti-satellite weapons. The Free Beacon first disclosed the existence of the new missile in October and a missile researcher reported in January that a new ASAT missile was being readied for its first test. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei was asked if China conducted an ASAT test during a briefing for reporters in Beijing on Tuesday. He did not deny that it was carried out. "I am not aware of the development that you described," he said. "China has consistently advocated the peaceful use of outer space and is opposed to militarizing and conducting an arms race in outer space." Pentagon spokeswoman Maj. Cathy Wilkinson said: "We don't have a comment on it as we don't discuss intelligence." A U.S. official familiar with intelligence reports said the DN-2, as a high earth-orbit attack missile, is a significant advance for China's program of developing asymmetric warfare capabilities for use against the United States. Others include cyber-warfare capabilities and anti-ship ballistic missiles. It could not be learned if the latest ASAT test involved an impact with a target satellite. A second official said the Chinese apparently disguised the ASAT missile test as a space exploration experiment. The website of the National Space Science Center, part of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, reported Monday that a sounding rocket was used in a high-altitude scientific exploration test. "This experiment used a high-altitude space-exploring rocket, Langmuir probe, high-energetic particle detectors, magnetometers and barium-powder release experimental apparatus and other payload of scientific exploration to test and measure the ionosphere, the high-energy particles and magnetic fields of the near-Earth space strength and structure," the notice said. China in 2007 conducted its first successful hit-to-kill ASAT test against a weather satellite in low-earth orbit. The impact left tens of thousands of pieces of debris in orbit that continue to threaten both manned and unmanned spacecraft. Defense officials have said China's ASAT weapons, including missile interceptors, lasers, and electronic jammers, are designed to disrupt satellite communications and navigation systems used extensively by the U.S. military in conducting joint warfare. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel stated in written answers to questions during his confirmation hearing in January that the United States would seek to avoid engaging in hostilities in space. However, Hagel revealed that U.S. space policy calls for "the secretary of defense to develop capabilities, plans and options to deter, defend against, and, if necessary, defeat efforts to interfere with or attack U.S. or allied space systems." The statement was the clearest indication that the Pentagon is preparing to develop "counterspace" weapons in response to Chinese anti-satellite weapons. "The chances are good this is indeed an ASAT test as it was launched from the Xichang Space Launch Center, the same launch site used for the January 2007 successful SC-19 ASAT interception of a Chinese weather satellite," said Rick Fisher, a senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center. Xichang is located in southern Sichuan Province. Fisher said Chinese Internet reports stated that the ASAT test of what U.S. official say was a DN-2 may have up to four stages and included one or two liquid-fueled upper stages to provide greater thrust as the missile closed in on a target. "While there so far has been no report of a successful interception, even a very near miss would serve to validate this new ASAT system," Fisher said. A validated DN-2 ASAT system would provide the Chinese military with the capability to "degrade or severely damage the U.S. Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) system," he said. "This is not merely a threat against some American military satellites, but a threat to a what has become a vital part of the global electronic infrastructure, affecting global commerce and financial flows, to your personal finances that contribute to personal freedom." Fisher said China has been "preaching" that other states should disarm while Beijing secretly builds space weaponry at the same time it has denied being engaged in the space arms buildup. "In the face of such a threat, the United States simply has no choice but to pursue symmetric capabilities to deter Chinese attacks in space, but also to consider its own requirements for space superiority," he said. The major concern for Pentagon war planners is that China, with an arsenal of around two dozen anti-satellite missiles, could severely disrupt U.S. command-and-control systems, intelligence-gathering satellites, and navigation satellites used to guide precision guided missiles. Security analyst Gregory Kulacki said in an online posting in January that the ASAT test was expected as early as that month. "Given these high-level administration concerns and past Chinese practice, there seems to be a strong possibility China will conduct an ASAT test within the next few weeks," Kulacki, a Chinese-language speaker with the Union of Concerned Scientists stated. Defense officials disclosed to the Free Beacon that the DN-2 test was initially planned for last fall, but was delayed by the Chinese over concerns that the test would upset President Barack Obama's reelection bid. While details of the DN-2 are not known, U.S. officials said it is expected to be a high earth-orbit interceptor capable of destroying strategic navigation, communication, or intelligence satellites by ramming into them at high speeds. The DN-2 is said to be capable of hitting targets in high-earth orbit between 12,000 and 22,236 miles above earth. Many military, intelligence, and commercial satellites orbit at that altitude. A Pentagon-State Department report to Congress last year on export controls stated that in addition to ground-launched ASAT missiles, China is building high-technology kinetic and direct energy weapons for ASAT use. http://freebeacon.com/china-conducts-test-of-new-anti-satellite-missile/ http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=01c_1368674361 plokiju China's mysterious rocket launch China, mysterious, rocket, launch, Dong Ning-2, ASAT, Anti Satellite Wed, 15 May 2013 13:23:07 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c29_1368638432 plokiju The Long Range Anti-Ship Missile (LRASM) is an anti-ship missile being developed by DARPA for the US Navy. Unlike current anti-ship missiles the LRASM will be capable of conducting autonomous targeting, relying on on-board targeting systems to independently acquire the target without the presence of prior, precision intelligence, or supporting services like Global Positioning Satellite navigation and data-links. These capabilities will enable positive target identification, precision engagement of moving ships and establishing of initial target cueing in extremely hostile environment. The missile will be designed with advanced counter-countermeasures to effectively evade hostile active defense systems. Planned to enter service in 2015 Manufacturer Lockheed Martin http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=c29_1368638432 plokiju Long Range Anti-Ship Missile Long, Range, Anti-Ship, Missile, LRASM, Lockheed, Martin Mon, 13 May 2013 04:11:01 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af6_1368432477 USMC_SRT Snipers have been the focus of envy and the personification of legends in the Marine Corps since men like Carlos Hathcock and Chuck Mawhinney looked down their scopes in the jungles of Vietnam. The recent exploits of Chris Kyle, the retired Navy S.E.A.L. who now has the most confirmed sniper kills in U.S. military history, modernized the mystique of the military sniper, but few have what it takes to join the ranks. One such man is Cpl. Miles Cooley, team leader of Reaper Two, Scout Sniper Platoon (SSP), Headquarters and Service Company, Battalion Landing Team 2nd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit. While growing up with three siblings in a nonmilitary family in the suburban town of Algonquin, Ill., Cooley never dreamed he would become one of the top snipers of a Marine infantry battalion. "I didn't even shoot much growing up," reflected Cooley. "I was in the Boy Scouts for some time, but aside from that and playing the drums, that's all I did." Cooley did have an inclination toward the military, however. Starting in middle school he flirted with the concept of being one of the warriors on the front line of the Iraq war, and a few years later, during his freshman year of high school, he knew it would be the Marines. "My older brother went on to be a Marine, so that was a big influence on the specific branch of service," said Cooley. "I had intended to join right after high school, but some family complications put that off for a couple of years. Eventually I walked in and signed up for the 03 infantry option, and a week later I found myself in California." Cooley stepped onto the yellow footprints at Marine Corps Recruit Depot San Diego in November 2007 and subsequently the School of Infantry - West in February. It was there that Cooley learned something about himself when it came to his role as a rifleman in the Marine Corps - he wanted more. "While in school, I was thinking about attending the reconnaissance briefs, but my instructors talked me out of it," he said. "I never lost the thought of trying, though." Shortly after hitting the fleet, Cooley deployed to Iraq as a rifleman with Company F., 2/1, from January to August 2009. It was there that he was able to view Marine snipers in action, confirming his desire to become more than a rifleman. "During our Iraq tour, I talked with some of the company snipers and learned a bit about how they worked," Cooley said. "I was interested in the way they operated, but moreover they were very motivated and locked on. That's what I wanted to be." Three months after 2/1's return from Iraq, Cooley underwent screening to join the SSP and attend the scout sniper school at Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton, Calif. He spent nine months in the platoon as part of the security element until he was selected for a seat in the school. "While you're in the platoon awaiting entrance to the school, everything you do is graded and evaluated," Cooley said. "Just being a part of the platoon is both mentally and physically challenging, but the school proved to be even tougher." Cooley eventually received a seat at the school in the summer of 2010. While at the nine-week school, he learned various scout sniper techniques like advanced marksmanship, stalking and concealment, tracking and counter-tracking, land navigation and survival skills. With a 30 percent washout rate for each class, Cooley knew he would face intense physical and mental trials. "You run everywhere you go all day, putting continual stress on the body," he said. "There is also the possibility that they'll come to you and kick you out for not doing well enough. Those trials really test you, which all go toward tempering the abilities of the snipers." Cooley's graduation from the school consisted of a 20 kilometer maneuver with notional casualties and more than 60 pounds of gear to the top of the highest peak on Camp Pendleton, where he was awarded the traditional "HOG tooth," a 7.62mm bullet. According to military legend, there is one destined round meant to kill someone with their "name on it." Being given this round enforces a battlefield status of invincibility for the sniper. The term "HOG" acronyms the sniper school graduate title of "hunter of gunmen." Cooley returned to 2/1's SSP, deploying to Afghanistan from November 2010 to May 2011. Serving in a combat zone as a scout sniper, his primary function was radically different than that of a rifleman. "In Iraq we were mainly providing security for convoys, commanding officer meetings and the like," said Cooley. "In Afghanistan, I went out with teams operating away from the companies, conducting reconnaissance and surveillance of areas they were going to enter." The use of scout snipers has skyrocketed since the Vietnam War when they were called upon to counter the guerilla-style tactics of the Viet Cong. Sniper teams were sent out for days on end to track and eliminate the invisible enemy that planted improvised traps and lied in wait for passing patrols. According to Charles Henderson, author of Marine Sniper: 93 Confirmed Kills, by the end of the Vietnam War the benefit of scout snipers resounded so loudly through the Department of Defense that training schools were stood up throughout the branches. While snipers proved strongly beneficial in recent wars, the conflict in Iraq and Afghanistan solidified their battlefield presence as an invaluable necessity in advanced reconnaissance, propelling their use and effectiveness into the 21st century. "We were basically the eyes and ears of the company for locations they were going to operate in, acting as the forward observers whenever needed," Cooley said. "We engaged the enemy when necessary, but that isn't the sole function of a scout sniper." Due to their many uses on the battlefield, snipers have been coined a "force multiplier," an asset that better balances the battlefield in terms of immediate capabilities. "Each individual sniper is not only one of the best infantrymen of the battalion in terms of skills, but they are also more mature than those of the same ranks," said Capt. Josh Cox, platoon commander of BLT 2/1's SSP and a native of Colby, Kansas. "All their skills and experience combined make them the battalion commander's hip pocket reconnaissance asset, able to perform in a wide variety of roles other than precision shooters." Returning from his second deployment, Cooley was assigned to various schools to hone his skills as a sniper. The schools included the urban scout sniper school, where Marines perfect techniques for engaging targets in close-quarters environments, and the sniper team leader's course at Marine Corps Base Hawaii. With combat experience as a sniper and his specialty schools completed, Cooley became a team leader for "Reaper Two" and chief sniper for the platoon. As the most experienced sniper, Cooley became responsible for training schedules, running the ranges and ensuring the platoon's Marines are fully trained. Recently serving with Battalion Landing Team 2/1, 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, Cooley was presented with unique training opportunities during the six-month Okinawa iteration. As part of the SSP, he was able to train on aerial platform shoots, amphibious raids and in Okinawa's Jungle Warfare Training Center. "The MEU gives us a rare chance to operate not only in different environments, but also with different countries' militaries," he said. "We gain a wider outlook on our profession when we adapt to foreign variables outside of the desert-oriented operations that have been going on for the past 10 years." Now, with BLT 2/1 rotating back to Camp Pendleton, Cooley is as passionate and dedicated as ever to his job from all he has learned and experienced, something that reflects to the Marines in his charge. "I joined the platoon July of last year, and I quickly recognized him as one of the best team leaders of the bunch," said Sgt. John Lynch, assistant team leader with Reaper Two and a native of Coarsegold, Calif. "He demands excellence in everything we do with no room for failure, always remaining tactical during operations. There hasn't been a time where we've failed a mission or have been compromised." Sniping will forever remain in Cooley's blood, eternal as the HOG tooth around his neck. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=af6_1368432477 USMC_SRT Scout Sniper - More than Marine Rifleman USMC, Marines, Scout, Sniper Sun, 12 May 2013 18:58:14 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ccd_1368399130 plokiju Spy photos and animated video of LiJian (Sharp Sword) A pair of grainy photos shot at long distance could be the best evidence yet of Beijing's first jet-powered and presumably armed drone warplane. The images, one of which was cropped and enhanced by Internet users and has been reproduced here, first appeared to the wider English-speaking world on Thursday afternoon on the Secretprojects.co.uk web forum. The pics follow close behind the equally ambiguous photo debuts of China's two stealth fighter prototypes (in 2010 and 2012) and its homegrown heavy transport plane (this year). A far blurrier and even more ambiguous photo possibly depicting the new drone appeared on a Russian Website in March. "What's Chinese for, 'Here we go again?'" Aviation Week reporter Bill Sweetman quipped upon seeing the purported killer drone images. Consensus among China watchers is that the vehicle depicted in the photos is the Lijian, or "Sharp Sword," Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicle, a collaboration between Chinese aerospace firms Shenyang and Hongdu. Powered by a single jet engine and resting on tricycle landing gear, the Sharp Sword UCAV seems to sport the flying-wing shape shared by several U.S.-made killer drones prototypes. The flying wing platform, also used by the U.S. B-2 stealth bomber, is ideal for radar-evading designs. Beyond its basic shape and possible radar-evading qualities, not much is known about the apparent new drone. But that doesn't mean the robot's appearance is unexpected. China has already unveiled a rudimentary prop-driven armed drone. And the latest edition of the Pentagon's annual report (.pdf) on Chinese military capabilities, released earlier this week, predicted a more sophisticated Chinese UCAV would soon make an appearance. "The acquisition and development of longer-range Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ... and Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles, will increase China's ability to conduct long-range reconnaissance and strike operations," the report stated. It's worth noting that China is the last major aerospace power to debut a jet-powered, low-radar-signature killer drone prototype. The U.S. has led the pack, test-flying no fewer than five UCAVs since the late 1990s and even bringing one unarmed variant, the RQ-170, into frontline service. Europe has the Neuron and Taranis models in development and Russia is working on a version of the MiG Skat. As drone developers all over the world have discovered, airframes are often the easiest part of the system to create. What's hard are the software, datalinks, control systems and payloads that transform what are in essence large model airplanes into effective robotic weapons. And it's with these key subsystems that China will likely have the most trouble. The Pentagon China report specifically lists "solid-state electronics and micro processors guidance and control systems" as technologies Beijing finds it easier to buy or steal from the U.S., Europe and Russia than to develop on its own. U.S. experts worried that China might gain access to some American drone technology via an RQ-170 that crashed in Iran in 2011. So far the Sharp Sword has apparently only been spotted taxiing along a runway on ground tests. It's not clear when its developers might attempt a first flight. Even less clear is whether, and how soon, the Chinese killer drone might enter frontline use. http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2013/05/china-first-killer-drone/ Lijian's combat radius covers the Western Pacific: analyst Following the release of internet photos of the Lijian, China's first stealth combat drone, Peng Tinghua, a military analyst, stressed on his mircroblog that this unmanned aerial vehicle will be able to attack all potential targets within the Western Pacific region. The Lijian is China's response to the push of most advanced countries to roll out unmanned aerial vehicles. The design of the aircraft relied heavily on Northrop Grumman's Dassault-designed X-47B, by the looks of the official photos released by the PLA Daily, the Hong Kong-based Wenweipo said. Peng stated that the range of the Lijian is about 8,000km, according to China Aviation News. It is not able to compare with the Global Hawk, another unmanned aerial vehicle designed by Northrop Grumman with a range of 14,001 kilometers, but the Lijian is still able to attack all potential target within the Western Pacific with a combat radius of 4,000 kilometers. "Since it will not be necessary for China to attack any targets within Europe or the continental United States," said Peng, "the Lijian will be enough for us to face potential threats over the Taiwan Strait, South China Sea and Western Pacific." Like the X-47B, the Lijian and other types of stealth combat drones can also be operated from the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Under the direction of Beidou Navigation System, precision attacks can also be launched by Chinese unmanned aerial vehicles in the future. With enough confidence in China's defense industries, Peng stated that the PLA will eventually surpass the United States and operate its own Global Hawk around the world. http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20130512000097&cid=1101 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=ccd_1368399130 plokiju China's stealth UCAV ready for flight testing China, stealth, UCAV, ready, for, flight, testing, LiJian, Sharp Sword Mon, 06 May 2013 01:46:34 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=65e_1367818712 aydeo Expert analyzes Israeli weapons versus Hezbollah ammunition; from Spice-2000 to Fateh-110 missile - Jets which struck Syria did so while flying above Lebanese airspace and using missiles operated under stand-off technology, according to Reuters and other sources. These missiles allow for high accuracy while launching dozens of kilometers from a target. Though Israeli confirmation of the strike was only done anonymously, analysts note that IAF arsenal includes several stand-off missile variations, among them the Popeye and the Spice-2000 - both manufactured by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems. The Spice became operational in 2003 and its use went public over the last six years. The Spice system allows for "drop-and-forget" launch mode, meaning that once it is launched, it requires no additional guidance. The Spice can hit targets at up to 60 km. Spice-2000: Autonomous operations, visual targeting An autonomous missile, the Spice can be pre-programmed with a photograph of its target, and knows to hone itself in on it. The Spice is known for its destructive capabilities, its ability to perform accurately under any weather conditions, and its ability to remain neutral to attempts at disruption or deception by the enemy. A missile expert who spoke with Ynet estimated that the Air Forceused the Spice-2000 in its most recent strikes on Syria. According to the source, the Spice-2000 provides "high accuracy at low risk. It is immune to disruption, due to the fact that you provide early visual intelligence, thus making it unnecessary to use the GPS, which can be distorted." The missile has another benefit, in the form of a reduced radar signature. While the Popeye has a rocket motor which burns fuel and makes it detectable, the Spice glides toward its target using wings. "This is a missile which saves on the preliminary flight over a target, makes visual contact with its target, and also avoids anti-aircraft systems," the source said, Popeye: Sends video to operator The Popeye is considered one of the big development successes of Israel's military industry. Since its development in the 1970s and its introduction to the Air Force in 1985, it has been sold to foreign militaries including the US, India, Turkey, South Korea and Australia. Its use was first publicized in the media during the Gulf War, when a US B-52 bomber was photographed carrying it. The missile can reach land targets, including missile launchers, without being exposed to enemy anti-aircraft systems. The Popeye missile has been upgraded over the years, with one of its versions, according to foreign reports, enabling launch from a submarine. The missile head carries a television camera, allowing for it to be directed by its operator and locked onto its target, even after launching from the plane. Additionally, the Popeye's internal navigation system leads it directly to its target. The missile carries 350 kg of explosives. It weighs 1,320 kg and is 4.5 meters in length. The Popeye can be launched against targets at sea, and is effective even at night or under adverse weather conditions. Fateh 110: Precise, deadly, reaches Tel Aviv A shipment of Fateh 110 missiles manufactured by Iran and meant for the Hezbollah was the target of the Israeli Air Force in an attack on Damascus International Airport on Friday, and a later attack at a military research facility north of the capital city, said Western intelligence sources Sunday morning, following the second strike. The Fateh 110 is manufactured by Iran, and first came to view in 2001. The initial version was operational at a distance of 170 km, carrying a head of 250 kg of explosives. Since its introduction, three upgrades have taken place, all powered by solid fuel and capable of longer ranges and increased precision. The current version shows substantial improvements over earlier productions. It went on display in Iran in 2010. According to the Iranians, it can reach a distance of 300 km and its warhead carries a half ton of explosives. In 2007, Arab and Israeli media sources reported that Hezbollah had received a number of these missiles, though the specific model was not identified. Hezbollah members were reported to have visited Iran to train in the maintenance and launch of Fateh missiles, before returning to Lebanon. According to reports, the Hezbollah also received copies of the Fateh missile, manufactured in Syria under the sponsorship of Iran. The Syrian version of the Fateh 110, known as the M-600, is considered to be the most evident threat to the Israeli home front. It is likely that the recent shipments of arms to Syria was of this version of the missile, which possess high accuracy at up to 100 meters or less of a target. According to reports, the latest Fateh missiles are capable of reaching Tel Aviv and even further south, when launched from neighboring Lebanon. Fateh missiles are capable of "course correction," via small wings found on their head. Running on solid fuel, they can be launched stealthily, remaining virtually hidden almost to the moment of operation. This makes the Fateh 110 difficult to target from the air. With these qualifications, the Fateh missile is highly coveted by the Hezbollah, and Damascus has high motivation to provide them. It is likely that these missiles are also being used by the Syrian army against the rebels. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4376218,00.html Photos: Fateh 110, Spice-2000 on IAF jet,Popeye missile http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=65e_1367818712 aydeo A look at arsenal of Israel, Hezbollah Israel,Hezbholla,Arsenal,Spice-2000,Popeye,Fateh 110, Fri, 26 Apr 2013 11:51:19 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=556_1366991395 Cloudy_Audi_N_Maui_Wowie The 26-year-old Chinese entrepreneur had just pulled his new Mercedes to the curb on Brighton Avenue to answer a text when an old sedan swerved behind him, slamming on the brakes. A man in dark clothes got out and approached the passenger window. It was nearly 11 p.m. last Thursday.The man rapped on the glass, speaking quickly. Danny, unable to hear him, lowered the window -- and the man reached an arm through, unlocked the door, and climbed in, brandishing a silver handgun. "Don't be stupid," he told Danny. He asked if he had followed the news about Monday's Boston Marathon bombings. Danny had, down to the release of the grainy suspect photos less than six hours earlier. "I did that," said the man, who would later be identified as Tamerlan Tsarnaev. "And I just killed a policeman in Cambridge." He ordered Danny to drive -- right on Fordham road, and another right on Commonwealth-- the beginning of an achingly slow odyssey last Thursday night and Friday morning in which Danny felt the possibility of death pressing on him like a vise. In an exclusive interview with the Globe on Thursday, Danny -- the victim of the Tsarnaev brothers' much-discussed but previously little-understood carjacking -- filled in some of the last missing pieces in the timeline between the murder of MIT Police Officer, Sean Collier, just before 10:30 p.m. on April 18, and the Watertown shootout that ended just before 1 a.m. Danny asked that he be identified only by his American nickname. The story of that night unfolds like a Tarantino movie, bursts of harrowing action laced with dark humor and dialogue absurd for its ordinariness, reminders of just how young the men in the car were. Girls, credit limits for students, the marvels of the Mercedes ML 350 and the iPhone 5, whether anyone still listens to CDs -- all were discussed by the two 26-year-olds and the 19-year-old driving around on a Thursday night. Danny described 90 harrowing minutes, first with the younger brother following in a second car, then with both brothers in the Mercedes, where they openly discussed driving to New York, though Danny could not make out if they were planning another attack. Throughout the ordeal, he did as they asked while silently analyzing every threatened command, every overheard snatch of dialogue for clues about where and when they might kill him. "Death is so close to me," Danny recalled thinking. His life had until that moment seemed ascendant, from a province in central China to graduate school at Northeastern University to a Kendall Square start-up. "I don't want to die," he thought. "I have a lot of dreams that haven't come true yet." After a zigzagging trek through Brighton, Watertown, and back to Cambridge, Danny would seize his chance for escape at the Shell Station on Memorial Drive, his break turning on two words -- "cash only" -- that had rarely seemed so welcome. When the younger brother, Dzhokhar, was forced to go inside the Shell Food Mart to pay, older brother Tamerlan put his gun in the door pocket to fiddle with a navigation device -- letting his guard down briefly after a night on the run. Danny then did what he had been rehearsing in his head. In a flash, he unbuckled his seat belt, opened the door, stepped through, slammed it behind, and sprinted off at an angle that would be a hard shot for any marksman. "F---!" he heard Tamerlan say, feeling the rush of a near-miss grab at his back, but the man did not follow. Danny reached the haven of a Mobil station across the street, seeking cover in the supply room, shouting for the clerk to call 911. His quick-thinking escape, authorities say, allowed police to swiftly track down the Mercedes, abating a possible attack by the brothers on New York City and precipitating a wild shootout in Watertown that would seriously wound one officer, kill Tamerlan, and leave a severely injured Dzhokhar hiding in the neighborhood. He was caught the following night, ending a harrowing week across Greater Boston. Danny spoke softly but steadily in a 2 1/2 hour interview at his Cambridge apartment with a Globe reporter and a Northeastern criminology professor, James Alan Fox, who had counseled Danny after the former graduate student approached his engineering adviser at Northeastern. Danny, who offered his account only on the condition that the Globe not reveal his Chinese name, said he does not want attention. But he suspects his full name may come out if and when he testifies against Dzhokar Tsarnaev. "I don't want to be a famous person talking on the TV," Danny said, kneading his hands, uncomfortable with the praise he has received from the few friends he has shared the story with, some of whom encouraged him to go public. "I don't feel like a hero. ... I was trying to save myself." Danny, trained as an engineer, made scrupulous mental notes of street signs and passing details, even as he abided the older Tsarnaev's command not to study his face. "Don't look at me!" Tamerlan shouted at one point. "Do you remember my face?" "No, no, I don't remember anything," he said. Tamerlan laughed. "It's like white guys, they look at black guys and think all black guys look the same," he said. "And maybe you think all white guys look the same." "Exactly," Danny said, though he thought nothing of the sort. It was one of many moments in their mental chess match, Danny playing up his outsider status in America and playing down his wealth -- he claimed the car was older than it was, and he understated his lease payments -- in a desperate hope of extending his life. Danny had come to the US in 2009 for a master's degree, graduated in January 2012, and returned to China to await a work visa. He came back two months ago, leasing a Mercedes and moving into a high-rise with two Chinese friends while diving into a startup. But he told Tamerlan he was still a student, and that he had been here barely a year. It seemed to help that Tamerlan had trouble understanding even Danny's pronunciation of the word "China." "Oh, that's why your English is not very good," the brother replied, finally figuring it out. "OK, you're Chinese ... I'm a Muslim." "Chinese are very friendly to Muslims!" Danny said. "We are so friendly to Muslims." When the ordeal had started, Danny prayed it would be a quick robbery. Tamerlan demanded money, but Danny had just $45 in cash -- kept in the armrest -- and a wallet full of plastic. Evidently disappointed to get so little out of holding up a $50,000 car, he told Danny to drive. The old sedan followed. "Relax," Tamerlan said, when Danny's nerves made it hard for him to stay in the lane. Danny, recalling the moment, said "my heart is pounding so fast." They lapped Brighton and crossed the Charles River into Watertown, following Arsenal Street. Looking through Danny's wallet, Tamerlan asked for his ATM code -- a friend's birthdate. Directed to a quiet neighborhood in East Watertown, Danny pulled up as told on an unfamiliar side street. The sedan stopped behind him. A man approached -- the skinnier, floppy-haired "Suspect No. 2" in the photos and videos released by investigators earlier that evening -- and Tamerlan got out, ordering Danny into the passenger seat, making it clear if he tried anything he would shoot him. For several minutes, the brothers transferred heavy objects from the smaller car into Danny's SUV. "Luggage," Danny thought. With Tamerlan driving now, Danny in the passenger seat, and Dzhokhar behind Danny, they stopped in Watertown Center so Dzhokhar could withdraw money from the Bank of America ATM using Danny's card. Danny, shivering from fear but claiming to be cold, asked for his jacket. Guarded by just one brother, Danny wondered if this was his chance, but he saw around him only locked storefronts. A police car drove by, lights off. Tamerlan agreed to retrieve Danny's jacket from the back seat. Danny unbuckled, put on the jacket, then tried to buckle the seatbelt behind him to make an escape easier. "Don't do that," Tamerlan said, studying him. "Don't be stupid." Danny thought about his burgeoning startup and about a girl he secretly liked in New York. "I think, 'Oh my god, I have no chance to meet you again,' " he recalled. Dzhokhar was back now. "We both have guns," Tamerlan said, though Danny had not seen a second weapon. He overheard them speak in a foreign language -- "Manhattan" the only intelligible word to him -- and then ask in English if Danny's car could be driven out of state. "What do you mean?" Danny said, confused. "Like New York," one of the brothers said. They continued west on Route 20, in the direction of Waltham and Interstate 95, passing a police station. Danny tried to send telepathic messages to the officers inside, imagined dropping and rolling from the moving car. Tamerlan asked him to turn on and demonstrate the radio. The older brother then quickly flipped through stations, seemingly avoiding the news. He asked if Danny had any CDs. No, he replied, he listens to music on his phone. The tank nearly empty, they stopped at a gas station, but the pumps were closed. Doubling back, they returned to the Watertown neighborhood -- "Fairfield Street," Danny saw on the sign this time -- and grabbed a few more things from the parked car, but nothing from the trunk. They put on an instrumental CD that sounded to Danny like a call to prayer. Suddenly, Danny's iPhone buzzed. A text from his roommate, wondering in Chinese where he was. Barking at Danny for instructions, Tamerlan used an English-to-Chinese app to text a clunky reply. "I am sick. I am sleeping in a friend's place tonight." In a moment, another text, then a call. No one answered. Seconds later, the phone rang again. "If you say a single word in Chinese, I will kill you right now," Tamerlan said. Danny understood. His roommate's boyfriend was on the other end, speaking Mandarin. "I'm sleeping in my friend's home tonight," Danny replied in English. "I have to go." "Good boy," Tamerlan said. "Good job." The SUV headed for the lights of Soldiers Field Road, banking across River Street to the two open gas stations. Dzhokhar went to fill up using Danny's credit card, but quickly knocked on the window. "Cash only," he said, at least at that hour. Tamerlan peeled off $50. Danny watched Dzhokhar head to the store, struggling to decide if this was his moment -- until he stopped thinking about it, and let reflexes kick in. "I was thinking I must do two things: unfasten my seatbelt and open the door and jump out as quick as I can. If I didn't make it, he would kill me right out, he would kill me right away," Danny said. "I just did it. I did it very fast, using my left hand and right hand simultaneously to open the door, unfasten my seatbelt, jump out...and go." The car faced west, upriver. Danny sprinted between the passenger side of the Mercedes and the pumps and darted into the street, not looking back, drawn to the lights of the Mobil. "I didn't know if it was open or not," he said. "In that moment, I prayed." The brothers took off. The clerk, after brief confusion, dialed 911 on a portable phone, bringing it to Danny in the storeroom. The dispatcher told him to take a deep breath. The officers, arriving in minutes, took his story -- with Danny noting that the car could be tracked by his iPhone and by a two-way Mercedes satellite system known as mbrace. The clerk gave him a bottled water. After an hour or more talking to authorities --as the shootout erupted in Watertown -- police brought Danny out to East Watertown for a "drive-by lineup," studying faces of detained suspects in the street from the safety of a cruiser. He recognized none of them. He spent the night talking to local and state police and the FBI, appreciating the kindness of a state trooper who gave him a bagel and coffee. At 3 the next afternoon, they dropped Danny back in Cambridge. "I think, Tamerlan is dead, I feel good, obviously safer. But the younger brother -- I don't know," Danny recalled thinking, wondering if Dzhokhar had discovered his address and would come looking for him. But the police knew the wallet and registration were still in the bullet-riddled Mercedes, and that a wounded Dzhokhar had likely not gotten very far. That night, they found him in a boat. When news of the capture broke last Friday, Danny's roommate called out to him from in front of the living room television. Danny was on the phone at the time, talking to the girl in New York. CREDIT: http://www.boston.com/metrodesk/2013/04/25/carjack-victim-recounts-his-harrowing-night/BhQWGzarWee8MZ6KtMHJNN/story.html http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=556_1366991395 Cloudy_Audi_N_Maui_Wowie Boston Marathon bombing suspect's carjacking victim recalls his ordeal boston, marathon, bombing, escape, ordeal, carjacking Sat, 20 Apr 2013 12:08:53 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=676_1366473453 Vegas Street Prophet Unidentified Object on NASA Stereo Ahead HI2! (HUGE) SunsFlare News http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDvp74ylTzw Published on Apr 20, 2013 There is something that is massive visible now on Stereo Ahead HI2. There is a possibility that it is 67P/Churyumov--Gerasimenko The Rosetta spacecraft will rendezvous with its primary target, comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, set for 2014. Image link that seems to match target from stereo ahead's point of view. http://i36.tinypic.com/2s6as91.jpg jpl applet orbital diagram -- http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?ID=c... Info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Chur... Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko JPL Small-Body Database Browser 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Classification: Jupiter-family Comet SPK-ID: 1000012 Ephemeris Orbit Diagram Orbital Elements Physical Parameters Discovery Circumstances Close-Approach Data ] http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/orbits/images/test242.gif Additional Notes: the orbits shown in the applet are color coded. The planets are white lines, and the asteroid/comet is a blue line. The bright white line indicates the portion of the orbit that is above the ecliptic plane, and the darker portion is below the ecliptic plane. Likewise for the asteroid/comet orbit, the light blue indicates the portion above the ecliptic plane, and the dark blue the portion below the ecliptic plane. Orbit Viewer applet originally written and kindly provided by Osamu Ajiki (AstroArts), and further modified by Ron Baalke (JPL). Top of Form alternate orbits: K084/14 (default) SAO/2002 SAO/1996 SAO/1989 SAO/1982 SAO/1976 SAO/1969 Bottom of Form Orbital Elements at Epoch 2456364.5 (2013-Mar-13.0) TDB Reference: JPL K084/14 (heliocentric ecliptic J2000) Element Value Uncertainty (1-sigma) Units e .6411889611380622 3.2757e-08 a 3.463889153077574 1.5827e-07 AU q 1.242881665518362 1.4587e-07 AU i 7.044033863175343 8.9794e-06 deg node 50.1720552341185 8.3079e-05 deg peri 12.73650673253869 8.4362e-05 deg M 225.0378349463 1.5494e-05 deg t p 2457247.282959700190 (2015-Aug-12.78295970) 0.0001605 JED period 2354.747831480167 6.45 0.00016139 4.419e-07 d yr n .1528826123915392 1.0478e-08 deg/d Q 5.684896640636786 2.5975e-07 AU Additional Model Parameters Parameter Value Uncertainty (1-sigma) A1 9.297767227922673E-10 3.13E-11 A2 1.031296480630282E-10 8.082E-13 A3 1.577975795036645E-10 3.904E-11 Orbit Determination Parameters # obs. used (total) 2629 data-arc span 8727 days (23.89 yr) first obs. used 1988-07-06 last obs. used 2012-05-28 planetary ephem. DE405 SB-pert. ephem. SB405-CPV-2 condition code 0 fit RMS .79178 data source ORB producer Ryan S. Park solution date 2013-Mar-03 19:24:56 Additional Information Earth MOID = .255674 AU T_jup = 2.745 Ephemeris Orbit Diagram Orbital Elements Physical Parameters Discovery Circumstances Close-Approach Data ] Physical Parameter Table Parameter Symbol Value Units Sigma Reference Notes comet total magnitude M1 11.4 mag 1. K084/14 2 parameter fit from 496 observations, autocmod 2.5b comet total magnitude slope K1 11. n/a K084/14 autocmod 2.5b diameter diameter 4.0 km n/a Lamy,P.L.;Toth,I.;Fernandez,Y.R.;Weaver,H.A. (2004) Comets II, pp. 223-264 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Discovered 1969-Oct-22 by Churyumov, Klim Ivanovic at Alma-Ata Observatory, Russia discovered on plate/photo taken on 9/11 Reference: comet.dis Last Updated: 2003-08-29 Alternate Designations Perihelion Year (est.) New-Style Desig Roman Numeral Year/ Letter 1989.8 1989 VI 1988i 1983.4 1982 VIII 1982f 1976.9 67P/1975 P1 1976 VII 1975i 1970.5 67P/1969 R1 1969 IV 1969h Ephemeris Orbit Diagram Orbital Elements Physical Parameters Discovery Circumstances Close-Approach Data ] 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation , search 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Discovery Discovered by Klim Ivanovich Churyumov and Svetlana Ivanovna Gerasimenko Designations Alternative names 1982 VIII; 1982f; 1989 VI; 1988i; 1969 R1; 1969 IV; 1969h; 1975 P1; 1976 VII; 1975i Orbital characteristics Epoch 2010-Jun-13 (JD 2455360.5) Aphelion 5.6839 AU Perihelion 1.2458 AU Semi-major axis 3.4648 AU Eccentricity 0.64043 Orbital period 6.45 yr Inclination 7.0424^0 Physical characteristics Dimensions 4 km in diameter Comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko , officially designated 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko , is a comet with a current orbital period of 6.45 years. It will next come to perihelion on 13 August 2015. It is the destination of the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft mission, launched on March 2, 2004. Contents hide ] 1 Discovery 2 Observations 3 Orbital history 4 References 5 External links edit ] Discovery The comet was discovered by Klim Ivanovich Churyumov, who examined a photograph that had been exposed for periodic comet 32P/Comas Sol'a by Svetlana Gerasimenko on September 11, 1969 at the Alma-Ata Astrophysical Institute. Churyumov found a cometary object near the edge of the plate, but assumed that this was Comas Sol'a. After returning to his home institute in Kiev , Churyumov examined all the photographic plates more closely. About a month after the photograph was taken (October 22), he discovered that the object could not be Comas Sol'a, because it was about 1.8 degrees off the expected position. Further scrutiny produced a faint image of Comas Sol'a at its expected position on the plate, thus proving that the other object was a newly discovered comet. edit ] Observations 3-D illustration of the nucleus of Churyumov-Gerasimenko from Hubble telescope observations. As preparation for the Rosetta mission, Hubble Space Telescope pictures taken on March 12, 2003, were closely analyzed. An overall 3-D model was constructed and computer generated images created. edit ] Orbital history Comets are regularly nudged from one orbit to another when they encounter Jupiter or Saturn in close proximity. Before 1959 Churyumov-Gerasimenko had perihelion distance of about 2.7 AU. In February 1959 a close encounter with Jupiter moved the comet's perihelion inward to about 1.3 AU, where it remains today. edit ] References 1. ^ a b "JPL Small-Body Database Browser: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko" . Jet Propulsion Laboratory. 2010-06-29 last observation. Retrieved 2012-02-09. 2. ^ Seiichi Yoshida (December 30, 2010). "67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko" . aerith.net. Retrieved 2012-02-09. 3. ^ Krolikowska, Malgorzata (2003). "67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko - potential target for the Rosetta mission". Acta Astronomica 53 : 195-209. arXiv : astro-ph/0309130 . Bibcode : 2003AcA....53..195K . 4. ^ "JPL Close-Approach Data: 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko" . 2010-06-29 last obs. Retrieved 2012-02-09. 5. ^ Kazuo Kinoshita (2009-05-07). "67P past, present and future orbital elements" . Comet Orbit. Retrieved 2009-04-25. edit ] External links 67P on Kronk's Cometography 67P/Churymuov-Gerasimenko at ESA/Hubble Color image of 67P/Churymuov-Gerasimenko Detailed description of 67P with light curves and pictures The Dust Trail of Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko between 2004 and 2006 67P at ESA website Mission to Land on a Comet Periodic comets ( by number ) Previous 66P/du Toit 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko Next 68P/Klemola Retrieved from " http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko&oldid=550505960 " Categories : Comets Rosetta mission Astronomical objects discovered in 1969 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko Unidentified Object on NASA Stereo Ahead HI2! (HUGE) - SunsFlare News.pdf https://anonfiles.com/file/a93073ebe78ff954331b9d345cc5b02d http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=676_1366473453 Vegas Street Prophet Unidentified Object on NASA Stereo Ahead HI2! (HUGE) | SunsFlare News Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, NASA, Unidentified Object Thu, 04 Apr 2013 16:57:43 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d58_1365108578 marc1921 April 4, 2013: Israel has developed a larger (11 meter/34 foot) version of their original nine meter Protector USV (unmanned surface vessel). This new one is armed with a water cannon and Spike missiles. The new Protector is more stable in rough seas and can stay out for over 12 hours at a time. The original Protector USV is a four ton, 9 meter (30 foot) long speedboat that can move at up to 72 kilometers an hour and is armed with a remote control 12.7mm machine-gun (using night vision and a laser rangefinder). Both versions of Protector are equipped with radar, GPS and vidcams as well as a public address system, to give orders to boats that should not be there. Protector has been used for the last decade in places like the Israeli coast, the Persian Gulf and Singapore for port and coast patrol. Protector can be controlled from an operator ashore, or in a nearby ship, usually out to the horizon or at least 10-20 kilometers distant. The original Protector can stay out eight hours at a time. The one big shortcoming is that Protector is built for speed, not rough seas. So when the weather turns bad, and the waves get higher, Protector has to be brought in. Protector is used to patrol the Gaza coast and the waters around the Lebanese border. These USVs were also used off Gaza during the 2009 and 2012 wars with Hamas. The U.S. Navy had earlier developed the lighter Spartan Scout USV. The Spartan Scout is a two ton, 7 meter (22 foot) long, radio controlled boat. It is armed with a .50 caliber machine-gun and a number of sensors (mainly day and night vidcams.) Spartan Scout is more suitable for patrolling port areas and inland waterways. Both USVs can operate without an operator (by using GPS to move between specified locations.) Spartan Scout can stay out for up to 48 hours depending on how much high speed (it can hit up to 80 kilometers an hour) running is done. It also has a loudspeaker and microphones, so that the operator, who is usually so far away that he can't see the USV) can converse with crewmen on small ships. Spartan Scout was particularly useful when it got its first tryout in the Persian Gulf during late 2003. There are lots of small boats moving about, some of them up to no good. An Arab linguist on the mothership was able to interrogate suspicious boats the Spartan Scout ran down. The civilian sailors were somewhat taken aback when they were interrogated by this Arab speaking boat that had no one aboard. While Spartan Scout was developed primarily to work with the new LCS (Littoral Combat Ship), every ship now wants one or more of them, just for port security. Spartan Scout is also designed to use different sets of equipment for different missions (detecting mines, Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance, Anti-Terrorism/Force Protection, destroying threats with the machine-gun, and Antisubmarine Warfare.) Seeing the need for a larger USV, the U.S. Navy has developed a new USV (unmanned surface vessel) to be used by its LCS (Littoral Combat Ships) for anti-submarine warfare. Officially called the Fleet class Anti-Submarine Warfare Unmanned Surface vehicle (ASWUSV), the 12.5 meter (39 foot) long boats weigh 8.5 tons and can carry 2.5 tons of sensors and other equipment. The USV can move up to 63 kilometers an hour and stay at sea for up to 24 hours and most of the time it would be moving slowly, using its sonar to search for subs. The ASWUSV is equipped with GPS and a computerized navigation system that allows it to automatically run search patterns. Thus the sailors controlling the boat remotely, can move it to an area that helicopter or aircraft dropped sonobuoys have picked up a contact, and pursue it more intensively with the more powerful sensors it has on board. Such pattern searching (worked out with algorithms derived from experience with what subs can do) has been a successful tactic since World War II. While two of these ASWUSVs can be carried by LCS ships, the boats can also be used from shore stations. The ASWUSV was developed based on experience with the Spartan Scout. http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htsurf/articles/20130404.aspx http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=d58_1365108578 marc1921 Roboships Getting Bigger And More Numerous unmanned surface vessel Israel U.S. Navy Wed, 03 Apr 2013 12:54:59 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=951_1365005205 look2048 Cool thing starting from 2:40 Background: On the morning of April 26, 2012, I woke up and couldn't find my laptop, cellphone, wallet, back bag and shoulder bag. Apparently, someone broke into my apartment in the night and took away them. After a while, I found my car missing too, the car key was in the shoulder bag and I usually parked the car on the street. On the same day, a police officer called me that they found my car in another area of Sydney. Police kept my car for investigation for several days. After I got back my car, I surprisingly found something recorded by the dash cam. I got more than 2 hours' footage and here are the beginning 2 parts. BTW, I hadn't corrected the time of the dash cam, so the time shown on the footage was not the actual time. I hope it won't confuse you guys. I felt kind of lucky that I wasn't woken up on that night. A similar thing happened on that night in Sydney, a boy woke up and tried to fight, he was stabbed in the chest and shoulder, and sent to hospital later. I also felt dispointed for the police haven't caught the guy for almost a year. They had the guy's picture, fingerprint(the guy used the navigation system of my car), and DNA (the police told me they found that guy's DNA in my car and they knew who he is), but they just couldn't solve the case. Maybe my loss was too small to get their attention, just several thousand dollars. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=951_1365005205 look2048 See what the dash cam may find Burglary, Car stolen, Dash cam Wed, 03 Apr 2013 11:28:09 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=979_1365002688 vril Masten Space Systems' Xombie space-access technology demonstrator recently flew its highest and longest flight to date, guided by Draper Lab's GENIE navigation and control system that is designed to replicate the speed and angle of a planetary approach. Xombie Ascended more than 1,600 feet above ground and flew almost 1,000 feet laterally before making a pin-point vertical landing on another pad. http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=979_1365002688 vril Highest, Longest Flight To Date for Xombie & Genie Highest, Longest Flight To Date for Xombie & Genie,NASA Tue, 26 Mar 2013 12:13:08 -0400 http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=694_1364314255 fdal World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search Aerial view of the debris field of the North Tower, 6 WTC, and 7 WTC (upper right) World Trade Center controlled demolition conspiracy theories contend that the collapse of the World Trade Center was not caused by the airliner crash damage that occurred as part of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and the resulting fire damage, but by explosives installed in the buildings in advance. Early advocates such as physicist Steven E. Jones, architect Richard Gage, software engineer Jim Hoffman, and theologian David Ray Griffin, argued that the aircraft impacts and resulting fires could not have weakened the buildings sufficiently to initiate a catastrophic collapse, and that the buildings would not have collapsed completely, nor at the speeds that they did, without additional energy involved to weaken their structures. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the magazine Popular Mechanics examined and rejected these theories. Specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering accept the model of a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse of the World Trade Center buildings, an explanation that does not involve the use of explosives. NIST did not test for explosive compound residue in steel samples, stating the potential for inconclusive results, and noting that similar compounds would have been present during construction of the towers. In 2006, Jones suggested that thermite or super-thermite may have been used by government insiders with access to such materials and to the buildings themselves, to demolish the buildings. In April 2009, Jones, Niels H. Harrit and seven other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, causing the editor, Prof. Marie-Paule Pileni, to resign as she accused the publisher of printing it without her knowledge and that she'd already had suspicions that the "Bentham Scientific" publisher ran pseudo-scientific journals; this article was titled 'Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe', and stated that they had found evidence of nano-thermite in samples of the dust that was produced during the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. NIST responded that there was no "clear chain of custody" to prove that the four samples of dust came from the WTC site. Jones invited NIST to conduct its own studies using its own known "chain of custody" dust, but NIST did not investigate. Contents 1 History 2 Propositions and hypotheses 2.1 Main towers 2.2 7 World Trade Center 2.2.1 NIST Report 3 Reactions 4 See also 5 References 6 External links History Questions related to the technical details of the collapse of the buildings of the World Trade Center have been debated for years, including rebuttals and ridicule. Controlled demolition conspiracy theories were first suggested in October 2001. Eric Hufschmid's book, Painful Questions: An Analysis of the September 11th Attack, in which the controlled demolition theory is explicitly advocated, was published in September 2002. David Ray Griffin and Steven E. Jones are the two most prominent advocates of the theory. Griffin's book The New Pearl Harbor, published in 2004, has become a reference work for the 9/11 Truth movement. In the same year, Griffin published the book The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions, in which he argues that flaws in the commission's report amounts to a cover-up by government officials and says that the Bush administration was complicit in the 9/11 attacks. Griffin theorized in a June 2010 article that those in the alleged false flag operation wanted the buildings to fall straight down. If they had toppled over, they would have destroyed dozens of other buildings and killed tens of thousands of people. Steven E. Jones has been a leading academic voice of the proponents of demolition theories. In 2006, he published the paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?". Brigham Young University responded to Jones' "increasingly speculative and accusatory" statements by placing him on paid leave, and thereby stripping him of two classes, in September 2006, pending a review of his statements and research. Six weeks later, Jones retired from the university. The structural engineering faculty at the university issued a statement which said that they "do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones". David Ray Griffin has questioned the "pancake collapse" theory suggested in the Building Performance Study produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). NIST's report on the collapse of the WTC towers rejected the theory in favor of the column failure theory. In its final report, NIST stated that it "found no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001" and posted a FAQ about related issues on its website in August 2006. The major elements of the theory have been rebutted by mainstream engineering scholarship, where its proponents are considered "outsiders". The magazine Popular Mechanics challenged the theories in the special report "Debunking the 9/11 Myths". Articles, letters and comments by controlled demolition advocates have been published in scientific and engineering journals. In April 2008, a letter titled "Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction," was published by Steven E. Jones, Frank Legge, Kevin Ryan, Anthony Szamboti and James Gourley in The Open Civil Engineering Journal. A few months later, in July 2008, an article titled "Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials," was published by Ryan, Gourley and Jones in the Environmentalist. Later that same year, in October 2008, the Journal of Engineering Mechanics published a comment by chemical engineer and attorney James R. Gourley, in which he describes what he considered fundamental errors in a 2007 paper on the mechanics of progressive collapse by Bazant and Verdure. In the same issue, Bazant and Le rebutted Gourley's arguments, finding his criticisms scientifically incorrect. They suggested future critics should "become acquainted with the relevant material from an appropriate textbook on structural mechanics" or risk "misleading and wrongly influencing the public with incorrect information." In April 2009, Danish chemist Niels H. Harrit, of the University of Copenhagen, and eight other authors published a paper in The Open Chemical Physics Journal, titled, "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe." The paper concludes that chips consisting of unreacted and partially reacted super-thermite, or nano-thermite, appear to be present in samples of the dust. Internet websites and videos have contributed to the growth of the movement of individuals supporting the theory that planted explosives destroyed the World Trade Center. The website of Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth cites the membership of over 1,500 architects and engineers. The controlled demolition theory often includes allegations that U.S. government insiders planned and / or participated in the destruction of the WTC in order to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. The theory features prominently in popular entertainment type movies, such as Loose Change, as well as more documentary type films, such as 9/11: Blueprint for Truth, by San Francisco-area architect Richard Gage, which are based mainly on presentations of scientific and engineering evidence for the controlled demolition theory. While mainstream press has a significant history of derogatory labels, descriptions and interpretations of demolition theory advocates (i.e., in 2006, the magazine New York reported that a "new generation of conspiracy theorists is at work on a secret history of New York's most terrible day." ), the theory has been supported by a number of popular actors, musicians and politicians, including Charlie Sheen, Willie Nelson, former Governor of Minnesota Jesse Ventura, talkshow host Rosie O'Donnell, and actors Ed Asner and Daniel Sunjata. Propositions and hypotheses Main towers On September 11, the North Tower (1 WTC) was hit by American Airlines Flight 11 and the South Tower (2 WTC) was hit by United Airlines Flight 175, both Boeing 767 aircraft. The South Tower collapsed 56 minutes after the impact, and the North Tower collapsed 102 minutes after. An investigation by NIST concluded that the collapse was caused by a combination of damage to support columns and fire insulation from the aircraft impacts and the weakening of columns and floors by jet fuel ignited fires. NIST also found "no corroborating evidence for alternative hypotheses suggesting that the WTC towers were brought down by controlled demolition using explosives planted prior to September 11, 2001". Physicist Steven E. Jones, among others, points to many descriptions by individuals working on the WTC rubble pile suggesting the presence of molten steel in the pile and a stream of molten metal that poured out of the South Tower before it collapsed as evidence of temperatures beyond those produced by the fire. Jones has argued that the molten metal may have been elemental iron, a product of a thermite reaction. Jones and other researchers analyzed samples of dust from the World Trade Center buildings and reported their findings for evidence of nano-thermite in the dust. Jones informed NIST of his findings and NIST responded that there was no "clear chain of custody" proving that the dust indeed came from the WTC site. Jones invited NIST to conduct its own studies with dust under custody of NIST itself, but NIST has not done so. NIST found that the condition of the steel in the wreckage of the towers does not provide conclusive information on the condition of the building before the collapse and concluded that the material coming from the South Tower was molten aluminum from the plane, which would have melted at lower temperatures than steel. NIST also pointed out that cutting through the vertical columns would require planting an enormous amount of explosives inconspicuously in highly secured buildings, then igniting it remotely while keeping it in contact with the columns. The Energetic Materials Research and Testing Center performed a test with conventional thermite and was unable to cut a vertical column, despite the column being much smaller than those used in the World Trade Center. Jones and others have responded that they do not believe that thermite was used, but rather a form of thermite called nano-thermite, a nanoenergetic material which developed for military use, propellants, explosives, or pyrotechnics. Historically, explosive applications for traditional thermites have been limited by their relatively slow energy release rates. But because nano-thermites are created from reactant particles with proximities approaching the atomic scale, energy release rates are far improved. The NIST report provides an analysis of the structural response of the building only up to the point where collapse begins, and asserts that the enormous kinetic energy transferred by the falling part of the building makes progressive collapse inevitable once an initial collapse occurs. A paper by Zdenek Bazant indicates that once collapse began, the kinetic energy imparted by a falling upper section onto the floor below was an order of magnitude greater than that which the lower section could support. Engineers who have investigated the collapses generally disagree that controlled demolition is required to understand the structural response of the buildings. While the top of one of the towers did tilt significantly, it could not ultimately have fallen into the street, they argue, because any such tilting would place sufficient stress on the lower story (acting as a pivot) that it would collapse long before the top had sufficiently shifted its center of gravity. Indeed, they argue, there is very little difference between progressive collapse with or without explosives in terms of the resistance that the structures could provide after collapse began. Controlled demolition of a building to code requires weeks of preparation, including laying large quantities of explosive and cutting through beams, which would have rendered the building highly dangerous and which would have to be done without attracting the attention of the thousands of people who worked in the building. Controlled demolition is traditionally done from the bottom of buildings rather than the top, although there are exceptions depending on structural design. There is little dispute that the collapse started high up at the point where the aircraft struck. Furthermore any explosives would have to withstand the impact of the airliners. Members of the group Scholars for 9/11 Truth have collected eyewitness accounts of flashes and loud explosions immediately before the fall. Eyewitnesses have repeatedly reported of explosions happening before the collapse of the WTC towers, and the organization "International Center for 9/11 Studies" has published videos obtained from NIST, together with indications about when such explosions could be heard. There are many types of loud sharp noises that are not caused by explosives, and seismographic records of the collapse do not show evidence of explosions. Physicist Steven E. Jones and others have argued that horizontal puffs of smoke seen during the collapse of the towers would indicate that the towers had been brought down by controlled explosions. NIST attributes these puffs to air pressure, created by the decreasing volume of the falling building above, traveling down elevator shafts and exiting from the open elevator shaft doors on lower levels). In September 2011 Iranian President Ahmadinejad, who holds a PhD in Transportation Engineering and Planning, said that it would have been impossible for two jetliners to bring down the towers simply by hitting them and that some kind of planned explosion must have taken place. Al-Qaida sharply criticised Ahmadinejad in their English-language publication, Inspire, calling his assertions "a ridiculous belief that stands in the face of all logic and evidence". 7 World Trade Center The position of 7 WTC in relation to the other WTC buildings. WTC 1, 2, and 7 collapsed on September 11, 2001. Proponents of World Trade Center controlled demolition theories allege that 7 World Trade Center-a 47-story skyscraper that stood across Vesey Street north of the main part of the World Trade Center site-was intentionally destroyed with explosives. Unlike the Twin Towers, 7 World Trade Center was not hit by a plane, although it was hit by debris from the Twin Towers and was damaged by fires which burned for seven hours, until it collapsed completely at about 5:20 p.m. on the evening of September 11 (a new building has been erected on the site of the old and opened in May 2006). Several videos of the collapse event exist in the public domain, thus enabling comparative analysis from different angles of perspective. Proponents typically say the collapse of 7 World Trade Center was not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report and that the federal body charged with investigating the event, NIST, required seven years to conduct its investigation and issue a report. In November 2010, Fox News reporter Geraldo Rivera hosted members of a television ad campaign called "BuildingWhat?", a series of commercials in which 9/11 family members ask questions about 7 World Trade Center and call for an investigation into its collapse. Rivera called the television ads "not so easy to dismiss as those demonstrators were," and stated that, "If explosives were involved, that would mean the most obnoxious protesters in recent years ... were right." Days later, Rivera appeared on the program Freedom Watch with legal analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano on the Fox Business Network to discuss the BuildingWhat? TV ad campaign. Napolitano stated, "It's hard for me to believe that came down by itself. I was gratified to see Geraldo Rivera investigating it." FOX News was heavily criticized for airing programs questioning the basis for the collapse of 7 World Trade Center by the internet media groups Media Matters and Newsbusters. Some proponents of World Trade Center controlled demolition theories suggest that 7 WTC was demolished because it may have served as an operational center for the demolition of the Twin Towers, while others suggest that government insiders may have wanted to destroy key files held in the building pertaining to corporate fraud. The WTC buildings housed dozens of federal, state and local government agencies. According to a statement reported by the BBC, Loose Change film producer Dylan Avery thinks the destruction of the building was suspicious because it housed some unusual tenants, including a clandestine CIA office on the 25th floor, an outpost of the U.S. Secret Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and New York City's emergency command center. The former chief counter-terrorism adviser to the President, Richard Clarke, does not think that 7 WTC is mysterious, and said that anyone could have rented floor space in the building. No steel frame high rise had ever before collapsed because of a fire, although there had been previous cases of collapses or partial collapses of smaller steel buildings due to fire. However, 7 WTC also sustained significant structural damage from 1 WTC debris after its collapse. BBC News reported the collapse of 7 WTC twenty minutes before it actually fell. The BBC has stated that many news sources were reporting the imminent collapse of 7 WTC on the day of the attacks. Jane Standley, the reporter who announced the collapse prematurely, called it a "very small and very honest mistake" caused by her thinking on her feet after being confronted with a report she had no way of checking. In the PBS documentary America Rebuilds, which aired in September 2002, Larry Silverstein, the owner of 7 WTC and leaseholder and insurance policy holder for the remainder of the WTC complex, recalled a discussion with the fire department in which doubts about containing the fires were expressed. Silverstein recalled saying, "We've had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it". "They made that decision to pull", he recalled, "and we watched the building collapse." Silverstein issued a statement that it was the firefighting team, not the building, that was to be pulled. NIST Report In 2002, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) began a general investigation into the collapse of the World Trade Center but soon made a decision to focus first on the collapse of the Twin Towers. A draft version of its final report on the collapse of 7 WTC was released in August 2008. The agency has blamed the slowness of this investigation on the complexity of the computer model it used, which simulated the collapse from the moment it begins all the way to the ground; and NIST says the time taken on the investigation into 7 WTC is comparable to the time taken to investigate an aircraft crash. The agency also says another 80 boxes of documents related to 7 WTC were found and had to be analyzed. These delays fueled suspicion the agency was struggling to come up with a plausible conclusion. NIST released its final report on the collapse of 7 World Trade Center on November 20, 2008. Investigators used videos, photographs and building design documents to come to their conclusions. The investigation could not include physical evidence as the materials from the building lacked characteristics allowing them to be positively identified and were therefore disposed of prior to the initiation of the investigation. The report concluded that the building's collapse was due to the effects of the fires which burned for almost seven hours. The fatal blow to the building came when the 13th floor collapsed, weakening a critical steel support column that led to catastrophic failure, and extreme heat caused some steel beams to lose strength, causing further failures throughout the buildings until the entire structure succumbed. Also cited as a factor was the collapse of the nearby towers, which broke the city water main, leaving the sprinkler system in the bottom half of the building without water. NIST considered the possibility that 7 WTC was brought down with explosives and concluded that a blast event did not occur, that the "use of thermite to sever columns in 7 WTC on 9/11/01 was unlikely". The investigation cited as evidence the claim that no blast was audible on recordings of the collapse and that no blast was reported by witnesses, stating that it would have been audible at a level of 130-140 decibels at a distance of half a mile. Demolition proponents say eyewitnesses repeatedly reported explosions happening before the collapse of the towers, and have published videos obtained from NIST, together with indications about when such explosions could be heard in support of the sounds of explosions before collapse. NIST also concluded that it is unlikely that the quantities of thermite needed could have been carried into the building undetected. Demolition advocates have responded that they do not claim that thermite was used, but rather that nano-thermite, far more powerful than thermite, was used. Finally, the theory that fires from the large amount of diesel fuel stored in the building caused the collapse was also investigated and ruled out. Reactions The structural engineering community rejects the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory. Its consensus is that the collapse of the World Trade Center buildings was a fire-induced, gravity-driven collapse, an explanation that does not involve the use of explosives. The American Society of Civil Engineers Structural Engineering Institute issued a statement calling for further discussion of NIST's recommendations, and Britain's Institution of Structural Engineers published a statement in May 2002 welcoming the FEMA report, noting that the report expressed similar views to those held by its group of professionals. Following the publication of Jones' paper "Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?" Brigham Young University responded to Jones' "increasingly speculative and accusatory" statements by placing him on paid leave, and thereby stripping him of two classes, in September 2006, pending a review of his statements and research. Six weeks later, Jones retired from the university. The structural engineering faculty at the university issued a statement which said that they "do not support the hypotheses of Professor Jones". On September 22, 2005, Jones gave a seminar on his hypotheses to a group of his colleagues from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at BYU. According to Jones, all but one of his colleagues agreed after the seminar that an investigation was in order and the lone dissenter came to agreement with Jones' suggestions the next day. Northwestern University Professor of Civil Engineering Zdenek Bazant, who was the first to offer a published peer-reviewed theory of the collapses, wrote "a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives" as an exception. Bazant and Verdure trace such "strange ideas" to a "mistaken impression" that safety margins in design would make the collapses impossible. One of the effects of a more detailed modeling of the progressive collapse, they say, could be to "dispel the myth of planted explosives". Indeed, Bazant and Verdure have proposed examining data from controlled demolitions in order to better model the progressive collapse of the towers, suggesting that progressive collapse and controlled demolition are not two separate modes of failure (as the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory assumes). Thomas Eagar, a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also dismissed the controlled-demolition conspiracy theory. Eagar remarked, "These people (in the 9/11 truth movement) use the 'reverse scientific method.' They determine what happened, throw out all the data that doesn't fit their conclusion, and then hail their findings as the only possible conclusion." Regarding Jones' theory that nanothermite was used to bring down the towers, and the assertion that thermite and nanothermite composites were found in the dust and debris were found following the collapse of the three buildings, which was concluded to be proof that explosives brought down the buildings, Brent Blanchard, author of "A History of Explosive Demolition in America", states that questions about the viability of Jones' theories remain unanswered, such as the fact that no demolition personnel noticed any telltale signs of thermite during the eight months of debris removal following the towers' collapse. Blanchard also stated that a verifiable chain of possession needs to be established for the tested beams, which did not occur with the beams Jones tested, raising questions of whether the metal pieces tested could have been cut away from the debris pile with acetylene torches, shears, or other potentially contaminated equipment while on site, or exposed to trace amounts of thermite or other compounds while being handled, while in storage, or while being transferred from Ground Zero to memorial sites. Dave Thomas of Skeptical Inquirer magazine, noting that the residue in question was claimed to be thermitic because of its iron oxide and aluminum composition, pointed out that these substances are found in many items common to the towers. Thomas stated that in order to cut through a vertical steel beam, special high-temperature containment must be added to prevent the molten iron from dropping down, and that the thermite reaction is too slow for it to be practically used in building demolition. Thomas pointed out that when Jesse Ventura hired New Mexico Tech to conduct a demonstration showing nanothermite slicing through a large steel beam, the nanothermite produced copious flame and smoke but no damage to the beam, even though it was in a horizontal, and therefore optimal position. Preparing a building for a controlled demolition takes considerable time and effort. The tower walls would have had to be opened on dozens of floors. Thousands of pounds of explosives, fuses and ignition mechanisms would need to be sneaked past security and placed in the towers without the tens of thousands of people working in the World Trade Center noticing. Referring to a conversation with Stuart Vyse, a professor of psychology, an article in the Hartford Advocate asks, "How many hundreds of people would you need to acquire the explosives, plant them in the buildings, arrange for the airplanes to crash and, perhaps most implausibly of all, never breathe a single word of this conspiracy?" World Trade Center developer Larry Silverstein said, "Hopefully this thorough report puts to rest the various 9/11 conspiracy theories, which dishonor the men and women who lost their lives on that terrible day." Upon presentation of the NIST's detailed report on the failure of Bldg. 7, Richard Gage, leader of the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth said, "How much longer do we have to endure the coverup of how Building 7 was destroyed?" in which Dr. S. Shyam Sunder, the lead NIST investigator said he could not explain why the skepticism would not die. "I am really not a psychologist," he said. "Our job was to come up with the best science." James Quintiere, professor of fire protection engineering at the University of Maryland, who does not believe explosives brought down the towers, questioned how the agency came to its conclusions, remarking, "They don't have the expertise on explosives," though he adds that NIST wasted time employing outside experts to consider it. See also 9/11 conspiracy theories References 1.^ a b c d e Clarke, Steve. "Conspiracy Theories and the Internet: Controlled Demolition and Arrested Development". Episteme, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2007, pp. 167-180. 2.^ a b c d e f Bazant, Zdenek P.; Mathieu Verdure (March 2007). "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions". J Engrg Mech 133 (3): 308-319. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2007)133:3(308). Archived from the original on 2007-08-09. Retrieved 2007-08-22. "As generally accepted by the community of specialists in structural mechanics and structural engineering (though not by a few outsiders claiming a conspiracy with planted explosives), the failure scenario was as follows " 3.^ a b c d e Gravois, John (June 23, 2006). "Professors of Paranoia? Academics give a scholarly stamp to 9/11 conspiracy theories". The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved 2007-01-24. "Thomas W. Eagar is one scientist who has paid some attention to the demolition hypothesis - albeit grudgingly. A materials engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Mr. Eagar wrote one of the early papers on the buildings' collapses, which later became the basis for a documentary on PBS. That marked him for scrutiny and attack from conspiracy theorists. For a time, he says, he was receiving one or two angry e-mail messages each week, many accusing him of being a government shill. When Mr. Jones's paper came out, the nasty messages increased to one or two per day." 4.^ Asquith, Christina (2006-09-07). "Conspiracies continue to abound surrounding 9/11: on the eve of the fifth anniversary, a group of professors say the attacks were an "inside job."". Diverse Issues in Higher Education: 12. Retrieved 2008-10-09. 5.^ "NIST's Investigation of the Sept. 11 World Trade Center Disaster". NIST. August, 2006. Archived from the original on 2010-05-22. Retrieved June 13, 2010. 6.^ a b c d e f g h i Jim Dwyer (September 2, 2006). "2 U.S. Reports Seek to Counter Conspiracy Theories About 9/11". New York Times. Retrieved April 30, 2009. 7.^ a b Dean, Suzanne (April 10, 2006). "Physicist says heat substance felled WTC". Deseret Morning News. Retrieved May 7, 2009. 8.^ a b Barber, Peter (June 7, 2008). "The truth is out there". Financial Times. Retrieved May 23, 2009. 9.^ "Great Day Talks To Architect Richard Gage About 9/11". KMPH Fox 26. Retrieved May 28, 2009. 10.^ Hoffmann, Thomas (April 28, 2009). "Chefredaktor skrider efter kontroversiel artikel om 9/11". Videnskab. Retrieved November 15, 2009. "Mailen far hende til med det samme at smaekke med doren til tidsskriftet." 11.^ Oder, Norman. "Hoax Article Accepted by "Peer-Reviewed" OA Bentham Journal". Retrieved 2011-01-01. 12.^ a b c d e Harrit, Niels H.; Jeffrey Farrer, Steven E. Jones, Kevin R. Ryan, Frank M. Legge, Daniel Farnsworth, Gregg Roberts, James R. Gourley, Bradley R. Larsen (2009-04-03). "Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe". The Open Chemical Physics Journal 2 (1). doi:10.2174/1874412500902010007. Archived from the original on October 26, 2010. Retrieved October 11, 2010. 13.^ a b Levin, Jay; McKenzie, Tom (September 17, 2009). "The Elements of a Great Scientific and Technical Dispute". Santa Barbara Independent. Retrieved September 19, 2009. 14.^ Harper, Jennifer (February 22, 2010). "Explosive News". Washington Times. Retrieved February 23, 2010. 15.^ Reid, Sue (February 9, 2007). "An explosion of disbelief - fresh doubts over 9/11". Daily Mail. Retrieved May 14, 2009. 16.^ a b Powell, Michael (September 8, 2006). "The Disbelievers". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 1, 2009. "The loose agglomeration known as the '9/11 Truth Movement'" 17.^ Barber, Peter (June 7, 2008). "The truth is out there". Retrieved May 23, 2009. 18.^ "The 9/11 Commission Report: Omissions and Distortions". Book TV on C-SPAN2. Top Nonfiction Authors Every Weekend. July 3, 2005. Retrieved May 15, 2009. 19.^ Did 9/11 Justify The War In Afghanistan? David Ray Griffen for countercurrents.org June 26, 2010 20.^ Rudin, Mike (July 4, 2008). "The evolution of a conspiracy theory". BBC. Retrieved May 23, 2009. 21.^ a b Walch, Tad (September 8, 2006). "BYU places '9/11 truth' professor on paid leave". Deseret Morning News. Retrieved 2009-01-04. Sullivan, Will (September 11, 2006). "BYU takes on a 9/11 conspiracy professor". U.S. News & World Report (www.usnews.com). Retrieved April 26, 2009. "BYU Professor Who Believes WTC Brought Down by Explosives Resigns". Fox News. October 21, 2006. Retrieved May 15, 2009. Walch, Tad (October 22, 2006). "BYU professor in dispute over 9/11 will retire". Deseret Morning News. Retrieved May 15, 2009. "Steven E. Jones. Retired Professor". Brigham Young University. Archived from the original on 2010-07-05. Retrieved May 6, 2009. 22.^ a b c McIlvain, Ryan (2005-12-05). "Censor rumors quelled". BYU NewsNet. Retrieved 2009-08-25. 23.^ Griffin, David Ray (September 10, 2006). "David Ray Griffin interview". CBC News. Retrieved May 4, 2009. 24.^ a b c d NIST (2006-08). "Answers to Frequently Asked Questions". Federal Building and Fire Safety Investigation of the World Trade Center Disaster. Archived from the original on 2010-05-22. Retrieved 2006-01-12. 25.^ Sunder, Shyam (2005). "Consideration of Public Comments". NIST Response to the World Trade Center Disaster. National Institute of Standards and Technology. 26.^ Bazant, Z. K. P.; Le, J. L.; Greening, F. R.; Benson, D. B. (2008). "What Did and Did Not Cause Collapse of World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York?". Journal of Engineering Mechanics (American Society of Civil Engineers) 134 (10): 892. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(892). 27.^ Potocki, P. "Popular Mechanics Debunking the 9-11 Myths: Special report, 2008". Retrieved Feb 22, 2012. 28.^ Steven E. Jones, Frank M. Legge, Kevin R. Ryan, Anthony F. Szamboti, James R. Gourley (2008). "Fourteen Points of Agreement with Official Government Reports on the World Trade Center Destruction". Bentham Science Publishers. 29.^ Kevin R. Ryan, James R. Gourley, Steven E. Jones (2008). "Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials". Springer Netherlands, The Environmentalist, Online First. 30.^ Gourley, J. R. (2008). "Discussion of "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions" by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure". Journal of Engineering Mechanics (American Society of Civil Engineers) 134 (10): 915-916. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(915). 31.^ Bazant, Z. K. P.; Verdure, M. (2007). "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions". Journal of Engineering Mechanics (American Society of Civil Engineers) 133 (3): 308-319. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2007)133:3(308). 32.^ Bazant, Z. K. P.; Le, J. L. (2008). "Closure to "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions" by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure". Journal of Engineering Mechanics (American Society of Civil Engineers) 134 (10): 917-921. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(917). "The interdisciplinary interests of Gourley, a chemical engineer with a doctorate in jurisprudence, are appreciated. Although none of the discusser's criticisms is scientifically correct, his discussion provides a welcome opportunity to dispel doubts recently voiced by some in the community outside structural mechanics and engineering." 33.^ Bazant, Z. K. P.; Le, J. L. (2008). "Closure to "Mechanics of Progressive Collapse: Learning from World Trade Center and Building Demolitions" by Zdenek P. Bazant and Mathieu Verdure". Journal of Engineering Mechanics (American Society of Civil Engineers) 134 (10): 917-921. doi:10.1061/(ASCE)0733-9399(2008)134:10(917). "Although everyone is certainly entitled to express his or her opinion on any issue of concern, interested critics should realize that, to help discern the truth about an engineering problem such as the WTC collapse, it is necessary to become acquainted with the relevant material from an appropriate textbook on structural mechanics. Otherwise critics run the risk of misleading and wrongly influencing the public with incorrect information." 34.^ Politiken: Konspirationsteorier om 9/11 far nyt liv, Jyllands Posten: Forskere: Spraengstof i stovet fra WTC, Ekstra Bladet: Mystik om WTC: Nano-termit i tarne, Kristeligt Dagblad: Dansker genopliver konspirationsteori om 11. september, Videnskab: Dansk forsker: Eksplosivt nanomateriale fundet i stovet fra World Trade Center. The journal Videnskab is sponsored by the Danish Ministry for Science and Technology. Archived July 19, 2011 at the Wayback Machine 35.^ "Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth". Retrieved July 30, 2011. 36.^ a b Eric Lipton (August 22, 2008). "Fire, Not Explosives, Felled 3rd Tower on 9/11, Report Says". New York Times. 37.^ Pilkington, Ed (January 26, 2007). "'They're all forced to listen to us'". The Guardian (London). Retrieved May 6, 2009. 38.^ Moskowitz, Eric (November 29, 2007). "Airing of 9/11 film ignites debate". The Boston Globe. 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Retrieved 2009-09-16. 48.^ "Effect of Al particle size on the thermal degradation of Al/teflon mixtures". Informaworld.com. 2007-08-08. Retrieved 2010-03-03. 49.^ "NOVA Building on Ground Zero PBS". Pbs.org. Archived from the original on May 15, 2011. Retrieved 2008-10-30. 50.^ a b Wilkinson, Tim (2006-01-14). "World Trade Center - Some Engineering Aspects". University of Sydney School of Civil Engineering. Retrieved 2008-09-07. 51.^ Hunt, H.E. (November 19, 2008). "The 30 greatest conspiracy theories - part 1". The Daily Telegraph (London). Retrieved May 30, 2009. "Many witnesses - including firemen, policemen and people who were inside the towers at the time - say they heard explosions below the aircraft impacts (including in basement levels) and before both the collapses and the attacks themselves." 52.^ Asquith, Christina (September 5, 2006). "Who really blew up the twin towers?". The Guardian (London). Retrieved May 6, 2009. 53.^ a b "Neue Videos vom 11. September aufgetaucht". 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