Slide #19 - Explosions

How Useful Are Frozen Pictures of Explosions?

They can be very useful when you don't want people to recognize a key feature of explosions - the track of debris flying up.

In this slide, Gage has two pictures of large explosions happening in small buildings. He doesn't source them, so as soon as I find out the details behind these buildings I will add them here.

If you watch the WTC tower collapses carefully, you will see that debris only goes out and down, not up. The only exception to this is the lightest debris with the highest surface area, such as some of the aluminum cladding. The building itself falls away from where the debris left it, trailing the smoke and dust behind it. That is what makes the arced appearance of the smoke and dust.

An explosion is not hurling debris up out of the WTC towers. The debris is falling out and down, and the building is then falling away from that point.

This is not how an explosion acts. This is how falling debris acts when it has ricocheted off something below.

This is one of the more subtle deceptions you will find in Gage's presentation. I would love to be able to say that Gage has fooled himself here. Many others have by simply looking at still shots of explosions and comparing them to images of the WTC collapses. It is not easy to see unless you're looking for it.

But fooled or not, Gage is presenting a deception here. And either way, that makes him an untrustworthy guide into these matters.

(By the way, this particular argument doesn't apply to Building 7 at all. It's one of the reasons Gage couldn't use a single list for both the collapses.)

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This slide has been substantially changed from the September 2007 slideshow (original slide #13). Pictures of volcanic explosions were replaced with these pictures of buildings exploding. Full details about the additions, changes, and deletions between that presentation and the January 2008 presentation will be available at this website.