Jack Menendez's answer to Why do 9/11 conspiracy theorists disbelieve the official story?

I don't believe anything, but I can tell you why I am skeptical of the official version of 9/11 for reasons that may be different from others. I've been very skeptical since that day, but to understand my skepticism you must know what I knew at the time, which is:

• There was a truck bomb attack on the World Trace Center in 1993 that nearly toppled one of the towers.
• There had been a study by the government of Israel subsequent to the 1993 bombing that had listed the towers as vulnerable to terrorist attack (this was done to decide if it was safe to rent office space for diplomats).

From these I had already concluded that the U.S. government knew the towers were unsafe. I thought about what it would mean if either tower toppled over like a falling tree, which would destroy a large part of Manhattan. It would be horrific.

I am not a structural engineer. I have a technical background in many things, especially math, chemistry, and computer science, so I am able to read engineering and scientific papers in nearly every discipline.

So 9/11 comes along and I'm watching the whole thing on TV. My first reaction was, we are under attack; I even told my wife this. After a while, I remember a news anchor saying that one of the towers has a visible lean to it and I thought this is it; this will destroy a huge area of Manhattan, 10s of thousands at least will die and our economy will be ruined.

Then I watched the first tower fall down in a peculiar way that was most unexpected to me. It was a progressive failure like the building had been made out of cards. I immediately thought that the government had been prepared, thank goodness, and was able to control the tower's fall, no doubt with demolition, and I thought, wow there is no way they will be able to admit this.

I didn't know about building 7 until later. I saw the video of the collapse and became immediately suspicious. According to NIST, Building 7 collapsed in a progressive way similar to the two towers. OK 3 for 3 now, 3 buildings catch fire and collapsed in a progressive way and according to NIST it had never happened before.

So I am skeptical. The report on Building 1 and 2 collapse is large and I don't have the time to take it on. The Building 7 report is pretty short. So far I've been through it twice and there are a few things that stick out so far:

• The report is definitely a "could have happened this way" kind of report. The hypothesis of the collapse is consistent with the photography of the building falling. Remember, the photography came first and the hypothesis second, but in the report the order is reversed saying the photography backs up the hypothesis. The report offers no other evidence because the evidence had all been hauled off and recycled before information was gathered for the report. Thati's it that's all the NIST has to offer.
• The NIST report addresses the idea that there might have been a demolition by assuming that the demolition occurred to start the same progressive failure hypothesized in their report. Why couldn't it happen a different way?
• Their is a lot of hand-waving, it seems to me, about the progressive failure of the 23 central columns after column 79 failed.

The NIST report says that no steel was heated to more than 600 degrees, most not more than 300 degrees. According to NIST Diesel fuel was not a factor and did not burn. According to NIST no other buildings of this kind have failed this way even though one burned for 18 hours and did not collapse. According to NIST the Collapse was started by the failure of a single column and progressed through the building so fast that the entire roof, as a single unit fell near free-fall to the ground.

You would think that a widespread building design that has tall buildings relying on a single "Hail Mary" column holding them up would have a lot of people up in arms trying to fix them all; especially in earthquake prone zones.