Space beams, mini-nukes and “no planes”

Judy Wood, the best-known advocate of this idea, argued that the towers did not collapse so much as disintegrate, and that the pattern of damage, the dust and the small debris piles fit a directed-energy weapon better than fire. In 2007 she asked NIST, under the Information Quality Act, to retract its report. She also accused one of NIST’s contractors, Applied Research Associates, of a conflict of interest, calling it “a significant manufacturer of directed energy weapons.” [1]

NIST answered on 27 July 2007. It said it had “examined the photographs you provided in conjunction with all the other evidence and has found that the evidence does not support a theory involving directed energy weapons,” and that its analysis satisfied the conservation of momentum and energy she said it violated. [1] NIST’s full account of the collapses is in why the towers fell. [2]

Wood then sued the contractors under the False Claims Act, saying they had defrauded the government by helping NIST hide the weapon. A federal judge dismissed the case in June 2008. The Second Circuit affirmed in July 2009. Even if Wood “genuinely believe[s]” the contractors’ analysis is wrong, it wrote, that “does not warrant an inference” that their work, or their bills, were fraudulent. [1]

Wood asked the Supreme Court to take the case. On 25 January 2010 it declined. [2] The courts did not rule on the physics. They ruled that disagreeing with a government report is not evidence of fraud.

A smaller group says no aircraft struck the towers and that the planes on television were computer images. That runs into everything at once. For its investigation, NIST gathered nearly 7,000 segments of video and nearly 7,000 photographs from at least 185 photographers: news crews, agencies and ordinary people, some of whom posted their pictures online that same day. NIST used them to time and map the impacts and the fires floor by floor, and found no evidence of missiles. [1]

The FBI identified the 19 hijackers and traced their tickets and seats. [2] Passengers and crew called family and airline offices from the hijacked planes, and the Commission reconstructed those calls minute by minute. One father, on the phone with his son aboard Flight 175, turned on the television and watched the second plane hit. [3]

For the Pentagon version of this claim, see the Pentagon file. For the calls, see the calls from the planes.