WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)

This is not the "Part II" I had originally envisioned. That will have to wait for Part III. In following up on the erroneous measurement described by John Gross in Part I, I decided to look more carefully at the measurement and find the video frame NIST claims marks the beginning of the collapse. What I found is that there is no motion of the roofline for at least 20-30 video frames after the point identified by John Gross. In other words, the measurement is a complete fabrication with the goal of producing a "measurement" to agree with the result predicted by NIST's collapse model. This result is sufficiently significant to merit its own video.
...More to come soon in Part III.
(For more on John Gross, see  9/11: NIST engineer John Gross denies WTC molten steel (extended) )






WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)

Part II of this series was going to be an exploration of the significance of NIST's admission the World Trade Center Building 7 underwent a period of freefall acceleration. That'll have to wait for Part III.

After suggesting in Part I of this video that John Gross' method for determining the time of fall might constitute dry-labbing, in other words, falsifying measurements to support a pre-determined outcome,

I got curious to know exactly what event he picked to start the clock. The measurement is a little tedious but the result is very significant. That's often the way it is in science, so stay with me on this one.

Let's start with John Gross' explanation of how he determined the time of fall. By the way, you might recall, this was not the question he was asked, but it is the answer he gave.

"Our calculation was based on the amount of time from the top of the parapet to fall til it disappeared from view between the two buildings seen in the video. That time was established from the video by a single frame. Search of the time, so that was down to 1/30th of a second. And then we did the same thing for when the top of the parapet disappeared. We found that time to be  5.4 seconds."

WTC 7 Frame 178

To identify the point he picked for the start of collapse, we have to work backward. The ending point of his measurement was when the roof line came down to the level of the 29th floor. In our video, there's a structure on the roof of the foreground building that lines up with the 29th floor of Building 7, so it's easy to identify.

I imported the video into a measurement program called VideoPoint, which has a frame counter, and stepped forward to the frame where the roof line lines up with the foreground marker. That's frame 178, counting from the first frame of video clip I'm using.

WTC 7 Frame 16

At 30 frames per second, 5.4 seconds comes out to be 162 frames. Subtracting this from frame 178 brings us to frame 16. So let's go back and see what's happening at, or about, frame 16. I put a red mark on frame 16, so as it goes by, you'll recognize it.

Let's go back to the beginning and step through this section of the video. Watch for the beginning of the collapse.

This is frame 1 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, ... ... ... 29 and 30.

We're up to frame 30. Did you see the collapse begin? I didn't. Try rewinding the video few times. It's pretty boring.

There's not the slightest hint of any collapse until frame 40.

40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, ... ... ... ... ... 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70.

There's a tiny motion of the corner of the west penthouse at frame 40. Then there is no more motion until about frame 46. Note that the motion of the penthouse precedes the movement of the roofline. There is no measurable movement of the roofline until frame 46. That's a full second beyond frame 16. Even then, there isn't any progressive ongoing movement of the roofline until about frame 60. By then we're back at just over 3.9 seconds of collapse time, or in other words, the onset of free fall.

The only rationale I can see for choosing frame 16 to start the clock is to make the measurement come out to exactly 5.4 seconds to agree with the prediction of NIST's collapse model.

But what if I'm wrong? What if they did see some tiny movement on a clearer version of the video? That tiny movement, whatever might have been, did not last. It would have had to have been the glitch and the scientists at NIST would recognize it as a glitch because there's no measurable difference in the height of the roof line for the next 20 to 30 frames.

What can we conclude? You can draw your own conclusions, but I think it's pretty clear that the whole idea there's any kind of real  5.4 second collapse interval is a fiction. It's a crude fabrication, and the three-stage collapse sequence pseudo science in the service of an ongoing coverup.

In Part III, we will return to the central question: in conceding free fall, what has NIST actually admitted?

[The  WTC7 series has elicited a number of questions from people unclear on  the details of how I did the measurements, compared to how NIST did them  and how the representatives of NIST described their measurements. I  have therefore created a WTC7 Measurement FAQ page. I  will also use this FAQ as a place of reference for other questions that  arise as well.]

Related videos:

• WTC7 in Freefall: No Longer Controversial
• WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part I)  
• WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part II)
• WTC7: NIST Finally Admits Freefall (Part III)