The Believing Brain - Michael Shermer [118]
The collapse of World Trade Center building 7, in fact, has grown in importance to conspiracy theorists, especially since standard nonconspiracy explanations for the demise of WTC buildings 1 and 2 became accepted. Since WTC 7 was not struck by a plane, and it did not collapse until 5:20 p.m. on 9/11, the cause of its collapse must be different from that of WTC 1 and 2. According to wtc7.net, “fires were observed in Building 7 prior to its collapse, but they were isolated in small parts of the building, and were puny by comparison to other building fires”; furthermore, any damage from falling debris from WTC 1 and WTC 2 would have needed to be symmetrical to trigger the pancaking collapse of WTC 7.
In point of fact, the fires burning in WTC 7 were extensive, not isolated. Conspiracy theorists tend to only show the north side of WTC 7, which does not look nearly as damaged as the other side. (Compare the photographs in figure 10.)
As the building burned all day, emergency response workers realized that collapse was imminent, and at 3 p.m. they began evacuation of all emergency personnel. When the building did collapse, the south side of the building—which sustained the most extensive damage from the falling debris of WTC 1 and 2—went first. As for the claim that WTC 7 leaseholder Larry Silverstein gave the order to “pull it,” here is the actual quote from a September 2002 PBS special called America Rebuilds: “I remember getting a call from the, er, fire department commander, telling me that they were not sure they were gonna be able to contain the fire, and I said, ‘We’ve had such terrible loss of life, maybe the smartest thing to do is pull it.’ And they made that decision to pull and we watched the building collapse.”
Here is Silverstein’s own explanation for this quote, issued through a spokesperson on September 9, 2005:
In the afternoon of September 11, Mr. Silverstein spoke to the Fire Department Commander on site at Seven World Trade Center. The Commander told Mr. Silverstein that there were several firefighters in the building working to contain the fires. Mr. Silverstein expressed his view that the most important thing was to protect the safety of those firefighters, including, if necessary, to have them withdraw from the building.
Later in the day, the Fire Commander ordered his firefighters out of the building and at 5:20 p.m. the building collapsed. No lives were lost at Seven World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.
As noted above, when Mr. Silverstein was recounting these events for a television documentary he stated, “I said, you know, we’ve had such terrible loss of life. Maybe the smartest thing to do is to pull it.” Mr. McQuillan has stated that by “it,” Mr. Silverstein meant the contingent of firefighters remaining in the building.
Silverstein’s explanation is supported by eyewitness accounts of that day, including that of one rescue worker who noted that there were “tremendous, tremendous fires going on. Finally they pulled us out.” Note the verb.
For my money, the oddest of all the 9/11 conspiracy theories is one involving the Pentagon. The idea, first floated in Thierry Meyssan’s book 9/11: The Big Lie, was that the Pentagon was struck by a missile because the damage was too narrow and limited to be the result of an impact from a Boeing 757. In the 9/11 conspiracy film Loose Change, dramatic reenactments are presented, showing that the hole in the Pentagon was too small to have been made by American Airlines Flight 77. There is nothing like selective visuals. Yet structural engineer Allyn E. Kilsheimer, who arrived on the scene shortly after the impact, reported: “I saw the marks of the plane wing on the face of the building. I picked up parts of