Slide #67 - Gage's 7 World Trade Hypothesis Recap
The Argument Refuted
In this slide, Gage again presents his key slide for the argument that 7 World Trade was brought down by controlled demolition. However, his attempt to press this argument is an utter failure.
- Free Fall Speed of Collapse - Refuted here and here. The fall took at least 16 seconds, and even the part Gage focuses on didn't fall anywhere close to free fall speed.
- Straight down Symmetrical Collapse into footprint - Refuted here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. The collapse was not symmetrical. Though much of the building did fall into a large heap due to internal failure, buildings well outside 7's footprint were damaged by the debris pile.
- All Columns on a floor are cut at once - Refuted here. Even Gage admits that all columns weren't cut at once.
- Direct Evidence of Explosives - Refuted point by point below
- Sight/Sounds Produced By Explosives - Refuted here, here, and here. Explosions do not mean explosives. Explosives experts watching the fall saw or heard nothing resembling an explosive device, and the scientific evidence from seismographs show no signature spike associated with explosives.
- Rapid On-Set Of Destruction At The Base - Refuted here, here, and here. Gage never actually devotes a slide to this point. However, 7 World Trade deformed slowly over seven hours, and the global collapse itself was progressive by nature.
- Dust Clouds: Thick, Billowing, and Enormous (Pulverized Concrete) - Refuted here. Again, Gage dedicates no slide to this point. Dust clouds are not exclusive to controlled demolitions, and the dust clouds coming from 7 World Trade appear to be lifting up the dust previously laid down from the collapses of the towers.
- Cutter Charges: (Pools of Molten Iron Thermite) - Refuted here, here, here, here, and here. Gage presents no actual evidence of cutter charges nor of the presence of thermite. Stories of molten metal were probably from fires burning under the Pile, and don't indicate conditions before the building fell.
- Squibs: Explosive Charges Visible at Upper Floors - Refuted here and here. The "squibs" are not explosions, but parts of the building ripping loose in a very grainy video. Even Gage has relinquished this point, invalidating his entire argument.
- Demolition Waves Remove Column Support - Refuted here. Another point that Gage doesn't dedicate a single slide to. Hisonly evidence of a "demolition wave" in 7 World Trade is one account of a "shockwave" rippling through the building. This was likely the building trying to redistribute loads after a sudden failure of part of the structure connected with column 79 (the initiating event of 7 World Trade's global collapse)
- Total Collapse: Steel Skeleton Broken Up For Shipment - Refuted here. Of course the building totally collapsed, but the resulting pieces had to be prepared for shipment to the recycling mills. The majority of the north facade draped over the pile in one huge piece, negating this fantasy of Gage's utterly.
- No Typical Characteristics of Fire - Refuted here, here, here, here, here, and here. Of Gage's four characteristics, 7 World Trade actually had two (slow deformation over time and asymmetrical collapse), one may yet be demonstrated (temperatures hot enough), and the fourth was shown to be falsely applied to 7 World Trade (Buildings with larger, hotter, and longer fires than 7 have not collapsed? None of the buildings Gage cites are actually comparable to the situation of 7)
- Gov't Documentation - Refuted here, here, here, here, and here. Gage's argument appears to be absurd, and his attempts to smear four "official reports" ignores several others.
- Expert Corroboration - Refuted here, here, and here. Gage presents only two experts, and the circumstances under which both formed their opinions are suspect.
- Foreknowledge of Collapse - Refuted here, here, here, here and here. Gage finds it surprising that people might suspect 7 to fall, but the awareness of this possibility is demonstrable throughout the day.
- Video Documentation - Refuted here. Though some angles appear to give the impression of a building demolition, others show this not to be the case.
Therefore, Richard Gage has not proven that a single point of his "characteristic features of controlled demolition using explosives" applies to 7 World Trade to the exclusion of destruction by fire.
Furthermore, I've used his features of destruction by fire to demonstrate how they actually do apply to the collapse of 7 World Trade. Gage has done more to show this event a simple collapse than he has to show this event a controlled demolition!
Gage's own lists have betrayed him! We'll have to coin a term for a Texas Sharpshooter with an aim this bad. I am taking suggestions. Addition: Mark Roberts has suggested Texas Footshooter. I believe I must concur.
The State of Gage's Presentation
As I noted at the end of the introduction, Gage's argument was already hopelessly shot.
Premise: Any building collapse that has these features (A, B, C, etc.) must be a controlled demolition.
Premise: The 3 WTC buildings have these features (A, B, C, etc.).
Conclusion: The 3 WTC buildings were controlled demolitions.
The first premise was simply not true. Gage presented no evidence to support this premise at all.
However, he soldiered on to establish his second premise. As you can see above, he failed utterly in an endeavor at which he was allowed to determine the standards of success. In the case of 7 World Trade, none of his features of controlled demolition using explosives apply.
Since he has demonstrated the truth of neither the first nor the second premise, Gage's argument is quite safely rejected.
As I said before, his argument then collapses into the fallacy of affirming the consequent. However, since Gage doesn't demonstrate that a single point of his list applies to 7 World Trade, even that argument is robbed of the slight persuasive power it might have had.
And in a few moments Richard Gage, AIA, will tell us that 7 World Trade was the easiest case for him to make!
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