NIST Denies Reynolds’ Request for Correction:
Preliminary Thoughts
Morgan Reynolds
October 8th, 2007

After dragging its feet for over six months, the National Institute of Standards and Technology finally responded and denied my Request for Correction (RFC) of March 8, 2007, plus my supplemental letter of May1 (all four relevant documents are available here). The only concession was that NIST corrected an alleged typo. NIST clings to its official airplane story just as tightly as ever, perceiving no difficulty at all in aluminum airplanes smoothly disappearing into a steel/concrete Tower without losing a flap, panel or wing tip and no deceleration. NSIT’s answer comes as no surprise but NIST makes a surprising admission in the course of its denial, described below.
At the appropriate time I will formally appeal NIST’s decision, but meanwhile I have filed two requests to obtain NIST data under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) so that I may properly exercise my appeal rights:
• Video evidence from original sources of airplanes at the WTC, held on a secure NIST server
• NIST contract with Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) and related documents regarding the NIST work performed by SAIC
Pending receipt from NIST of the FOIA data I have requested, here is my preliminary reaction to what NIST wrote in its denial letter:
[A rational man] knows that the contradictory
is the impossible, that a contradiction cannot
be achieved in reality and that the attempt
to achieve it can lead only to
disaster and destruction.
–Ayn Rand, 1964
NIST’s response to my RFC is unsatisfactory if predictable, especially since it took NIST over six months to compose a 4-page response, with only two pages of substance. Aside from a concession to a typo correction, NIST restricts its response to only three issues I had raised: its violation of basic physics, its embrace of fake airplane videos and the conflict of interest I alleged for SAIC, a NIST contractor. Does NIST concede the rest of the objections I raised, most enumerated below in section V? I doubt it but it is possible based on NIST’s silence (= lack of objection).
NIST denies my request for correction, but at another level NIST’s response is immensely useful. Why? Because NIST in two sentences admits it rejects the fundamental principles of Newtonian mechanics, “which are the foundation of much of today’s engineering.”
The NIST response deals with photographic and video evidence first, but the logic of NIST’s response dictates that we deal first with NIST’s rejection of Newtonian mechanics. This is at the heart of our disagreement. NIST defends the videos as recording reality and therefore it must reject Newtonian mechanics—the two go hand-in-hand—although its rejection of Newton is disguised. The NIST response to my RFC drops the veil.
I. NIST Versus Newton
Thousands of crashes and collisions have occurred daily throughout history. Crashes are mundane. The elementary physics of these interactions between objects have never been known to vary. All of them have obeyed the laws of physics. Yet somehow, 9/11 was mysteriously different, or so we are told. “Both the aircraft and the towers included deformable components and materials, whose interactions were properly accounted for in the models,” states NIST on p. 2 of its response. “As a result, the aircraft would not be expected to decelerate immediately upon impact with the exterior wall of the tower.” This is a breathtaking two-sentence sequence that I welcome.
• Deformation of materials requires energy.
• Energy can only be spent once.
• If energy is used to deform materials, it must come from somewhere.
• Energy used to deform materials is not available to maintain constant speed.
• Unless the flying object can find a new energy source, it must slow because energy consumed deforming materials is not available to keep speed constant.
Now let us repeat NIST’s claim: “the aircraft would not be expected to decelerate immediately upon impact.” Truly remarkable. In truth, NIST’s modeling violates all three fundamental laws of Newtonian mechanics.
Under Newton’s 1st law of motion, or law of inertia, if a plane does not decelerate upon impact with an exterior wall, no net force could have been impressed on the plane. To restate, if a plane continues to fly at the same speed, no force has been applied to it. That is the law of inertia. NIST’s assertion that we would not expect the aircraft to “decelerate immediately upon impact” against a steel wall backed by steel/concrete floors apparently contradicts Newton’s first law. Since a contradiction cannot exist in nature, I can think of six possible explanations:
(a) the 1st law never has been generally valid and/or does not apply to these kinds of interactions between bodies (Newton was wrong, for example, because the master scientist neglected to account for a time lag between impact and deceleration)
(b) the physical law has general validity, but was temporarily suspended in New York City between 8:46 and 9:03 a.m. on 9/11, perhaps by Muslim terrorists
(c) the twin towers and jetliners were built long after Sir Isaac Newton died and hence his old-fashioned laws could not be expected to apply to “biologically-inspired” designs over a quarter-mile tall and their interaction with jetliners
(d) pre-9/11 mechanics no longer apply in a post-9/11 world
(e) the law of inertia holds alright but the buildings were a figment of our imagination and there was no interaction between objects
(f) the law of inertia holds but the planes were a figment of our imagination and there was no interaction between objects (i.e., the plane was a video insert, a TV special effect).
Engineers would be shocked to learn that Newton’s first law is invalid or did not apply on 9/11 or after 9/11. Their disbelief suggests that explanations a-d can be safely rejected because Newtonian mechanics still apply. And since the Twin Towers were real by all accounts, that leaves fake videos as the most likely explanation for observing little or no deceleration.
Under Newton’s 2d law, sometimes called the law of acceleration, if a force is applied at the front of an airplane, it must slow and the back or tail of that aircraft must slow too. Unless that is, the front is no longer in the way of the back of the plane because the front is no longer connected to the rear, and the disconnect occurred without loss of kinetic energy. Further, according to the 2d law deceleration must be proportional to the force applied. The steel/concrete Twin Towers would administer quite a force against an aluminum airplane flying at high speed.
Since NIST insists that a 159-foot-long Boeing 767 disappeared into the north tower within 0.25 seconds and into the south tower within a corrected 0.23 seconds, almost the same as their speeds in the air, no force was impressed on these planes according to Newton’s second law. ΣF = ma and if a = 0, then no net force was applied. When was Newton’s 2nd law repealed? I did not get the memo. If the 2d law still applies, and I believe it does, then NIST cannot possibly be right and any gashes or hole in the towers that appeared at 8:46 a.m. and 9:03 a.m. on 9/11 must have been impressed by some method other than by a no-deceleration airplane. NIST apparently forgot the lecture on the first day in engineering mechanics class.
Newton’s 3d law, sometimes called the law of reciprocal actions, states that all forces occur in pairs and these two forces are equal in magnitude and opposite in direction. That is, the forces of action and reaction between bodies in contact have the same magnitude, same line of action, and opposite sense. Therefore, if there is a force on the building in a crash, there is an equal and opposite force on the airplane.
If an aluminum plane ran into a Twin Tower, it must crumple, shatter and could not possibly leave a jetliner-shaped, cartoon-like “silhouette of passage” because in a collision with a tremendously strong building, arguably the strongest in the world, an airplane with its lesser mass, density and strength because it is built to be lightweight, would be far less able to withstand the equal force exerted on both bodies. Strength and massiveness matter greatly in which body will fare better in withstanding the equal force of an impact. Everybody knows this in shopping for a car: should I buy a heavy SUV for safety or accept the risk of driving a lightweight econobox or sportscar? If the damage inflicted on the other body in a collision between a jetliner and a Tower were likened to a sports contest, it would be something like Tower 100, Airplane 2. Imagine, for example, that a Tower fell on the airplane instead of the aluminum airplane hitting the Tower: complete and utter devastation of the airplane. However, this mismatch is not what the videos show. Instead, the aluminum plane cuts right through steel and disappears inside the Tower. This is impossible. Structural steel is far stronger than aluminum and present in abundant quantities, and would suffer only light damage compared to complete and utter destruction/rejection of an aluminum airplane, with most of its debris scattered outside the building, especially wings, tail section and a majority of the shattered fuselage. The five floors in each Tower allegedly impacted weighed more than 100X that of the alleged 140 ton airplanes. For more of this analysis, please see here (Madison ST911 Conference) or here (I Had a Car Crash, by Roadrunner – September 11, 2007).

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3

Figure 4
ARA: http://drjudywood.com/articles/ARA/ARA.html
Appeal: http://drjudywood.com/pdf/070822_RFC_Appeal17a_JW.pdf
NIST RFC: http://drjudywood.com/articles/NIST/NIST_RFC.html
II. Airplane Video Fakery
So-called live videos of the south tower plane “event” showed a plane image disappearing behind the South Tower wall, although at least one shows a plane’s nose momentarily exiting the opposite north side, then fade to black, an obvious “overshooting” error in video fakery. Subsequent videos of airplane image entry into the south tower emerged in days, months and years later. These “penetration” videos show impossible physics like little or no deceleration, which NIST and its contractors have accepted at face value. These impossibilities were modeled, allegedly via sophisticated methods, according to the NIST response to my RFC: “The models used to analyze the aircraft impact into the towers fully capture the constitutive properties of the aircraft and the building materials and account for the deformation, fracture, and failure of these materials as well as conservation of momentum and energy.” NIST, of course, did no such thing. NIST did not account for the conservation of momentum and energy because energy can only be spent once. Energy consumed in fracturing tower materials and impressing a cartoon-like outline of an airliner’s silhouette of passage is not available for constant speed. The event as depicted by NIST is impossible.
NIST asserts in its defense, “By using original sources of photographic and video evidence and by using a NIST expert to obtain copies of material directly from these original sources, NIST was able to ensure the integrity of the photographic and video evidence used in the investigation. Further, all photographs and video records obtained by NIST are kept on a secure server with access limited only to authorized NIST personnel.” Am I supposed to accept NIST assertions at face value? Does NIST deny, for example, that the FBI had custody of the Evan Fairbank video for hours and returned only part of the video to Fairbank? NIST does not comment. NIST claims it “collected photographs and videos from original sources only,” yet evidence showing physically impossible events like no crash and no deceleration in the plane image must be fake unless NIST believes Newtonian mechanics no longer apply. “Further, all photographs and video records obtained by NIST are kept on a secure server with access limited only to authorized NIST personnel,” NIST asserts. Secret evidence is no evidence at all. Until shown otherwise, I am told to rely on NIST assertions, undocumented, without proof. To properly pursue my appeal, that is, confirm NIST’s claims independently, I must have access to the photographic and video evidence NIST has denied to me and other taxpayers. I will file a FOIA request to obtain this evidence in order to properly exercise my appeal rights.
III. Are SAIC’s Hands Clean?
In my supplemental letter, I asserted that SAIC had a clear and palpable conflict of interest and offered evidence to support that proposition. “SAIC was contracted by NIST to provide administrative support to the team conducting the investigation,” NIST responds. “They did not perform technical work in support of the investigation.” Yet NIST offers no proof and no documentation for the claim that SAIC did no technical work, only administrative work. SAIC was the largest NIST contractor with 25 employees assigned, followed by ARA with 9, so it is hard to believe that SAIC performed no technical work. SAIC does not reveal the job titles and professional training of its employees and NIST likewise has kept its WTC contract with SAIC secret. I will file a FOIA request to obtain this NIST contract and all related evidence to discover the work SAIC performed.
IV. Are ARA’s Hands Clean?
My original RFC identified ARA as the principal contractor hired to analyze plane impacts and create relevant animations. I obtained this data from the NIST contract with ARA as presented on NIST’s website. But NIST is silent about the role ARA played in plane analysis and animation. The NIST published contract with ARA clearly specified that ARA would perform analyses and animations of plane impacts on the towers. If accurate, ARA plainly violated Newtonian mechanics and substituted patently false physics in its analyses and animations and is therefore culpable for fraudulent and misleading misrepresentations. What role did ARA play? Unless NIST reveals ARA’s role with supporting evidence, I may have to file a FOIA request regarding the work ARA performed.
V. NIST Silent On Most Issues in My RFC
NIST is silent on the remaining arguments and evidence I offered in the RFC such as no collision/crash shown in videos with south tower entry of the plane image but rather an impossible “absorption” by the building or gliding into the building without a single plane flap or wing tip disturbed, no airplane parts broken off during the “impact sequence,” no plane crumpling, no separation of wing tips or tail section, the building “healing itself up” for a few frames after disappearance of the airplane image and before explosions, noiseless penetration despite the 120+ dB sound that would be heard from full throttle jet engines within 1,200 feet, the impossibility of an “invincible” aluminum airliner upon penetration followed by fragility inside the building, Tower gashes that are too small, an impossible “shredding theory,” no aircraft debris showering down below the impact zones, no aircraft debris visible in the gashes, no time-change parts with unique serial parts numbers recovered and verified against each aircraft’s log, and much more.

Figure 5

Figure 6
http://www.911blogger.com/node/11776
Aidan Monaghan
A Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for documentation confirming the recovery and positive identification of debris from the commercial aircraft allegedly used in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 (N334AA, N612UA, N644AA, N591UA), has been denied.
An appeal is pending.
According to the FBI, “the material requested is located in an investigative file which is exempt from disclosure pursuant to Title 5, United States Code, Section 552, subsection (b) (7) (A).”
This subsection reads: “could be reasonably be expected to interfere with enforcement proceedings.”
Concerns of compromising any related, unspecified and presumably pending “enforcement proceedings” did not prevent the release of government exhibits containing images of aircraft debris allegedly of United Airlines flight 93 and American Airlines flight 77, following the successful prosecution of alleged 9/11 co-conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, on May 4, 2006:


Original FOIA request: