Cold Fusion, Thermite, 911 and Steven Jones

[Mike Dexter]

I have followed the career of Prof. Steven E. Jones, formerly of BYU Physics Dept since the time he came out for 9/11 truth, including his acrimonious relationship with Jim Fetzer. The wikipedia article I linked does an OK job of outlining Jones' affiliation with 911 Truth, though of course from the "received wisdom" perspective of Wikipedia.

In this documentary, which I haven't watched for a long time:
http://documentaryheaven.com/heavy-watergate-the-war-against-cold-fusion/
Jones seemed to come out against Pons and Fleischman perhaps a little more vociferously than was necessary.

My reason to post this entirely speculative comment is this. I have always wondered what really prompted Jones to come out for 911 Truth, which he must have known would mean the end of his academic career. (I remember reading at the time that it was his offhand comments about Israel and Jewish bankers that finally caused BYU to want to end their relationship with Jones.)

After reading Jerry's articles on nuclear fusion and listening to the podcasts, I have to ask myself if Jones' role was to distract scientific research exclusively towards nanothermite and away from other possible exotic weaponry. Jones' research and academic careers gave him a foot in both camps, as it were.

I have done some 911 Truth activism. When we talk to newbies, we stick to the AE911Truth version of events. It's safe and relatively non-wacky sounding since nanothermite was actually found in the dust, etc. Some of us do wonder, though, if there weren't more exotic weapons involved.

That said, the pyrotechnics were a big psyop and distraction. What we really need to do is go after the obvious perps, starting with the ones mentioned in Kevin Ryan's Another 19.

I especially want to thank Joe and Jerry for doing the podcasts. Please keep it up!

 

[Jerry Russell]

Hello Mike,

Thanks for visiting our web page, and listening to some of the podcasts. I'm glad you're enjoying them.

Isn't there still a controversy about the nanothermite chips? One story I'm aware of, is that they slipped the article past peer review at the journal that published it, in such a way that the editor of the journal felt obliged to resign in protest over the publication. Also, Jeff Prager (author of 911 America Nuked) pointed out that the USGS dust testing should've detected the thermite if it was really present in their dust samples. He pointed out that there was no documentation of the chain of custody for Jones' samples, and all but accused him of planting the materials. Last but not least, there are debunkers who claim that the "nano-thermite" samples are paint chips.

Having said all that, it seems perfectly credible to me that the perpetrators of 911 would have used nano-thermite and conventional explosives as well, in addition to exotic technology, to bring down the structures.

Wouldn't it be great if we could have a real peoples' investigation with subpoena power, to get to the whole truth about 911?

 

[Mike Dexter]

I just watched the documentary I mentioned again, "Heavy Watergate". It's 15 years old! The story they tell is that Steven Jones heard via a government informant the Pons and Fleischman were working on a cold fusion project. Jones forced their hand in revealing their work before they were ready to do so, thus sandbagging their research. The editorial opinion of the film was that Jones acted unethically. I'm sure he would disagree. ;-)

I think the "no chain of custody" argument for nanothermite is specious. No government "authoritahs" (Cartman's pronunciation) gathered 911 dust with the intention actually revealing its contents. Naturally the USGS tests would show no traces of thermite. Thermite or something very thermitic was used to cut the steel beams of the WTC buildings. We have to rely on the word of residents of lower Manhattan who gave samples directly to Steven Jones. As you say, some other processes may well have been used, but nanothermite was certainly one of the tools used to slice and dice the buildings.

I entertain no hope for an investigation with subpoena power. You saw the media circus around the 50th anniversary of the JFK murder. Researcher Pat Speer did a yeoman's job of documenting the Oswald Did It Alone stories that permeated MSM at the time. The public will see a similar circus in September, 2051.

 

[Jerry Russell]

Hi Mike,

As an alternative to the idea that thermite must have melted the steel beams, I'd suggest that perhaps combustion of the steel with hydrogen from water could have done the job, in the presence of sulfur from gypsum wallboard or concrete dust. That's an exothermic process, although it only gets started at very high temperatures. My opinion is that the heat necessary to get a reaction like that started must have come from some exotic explosive technology (also necessary to pulverize the dust), although I can imagine that a very sophisticated skeptic might claim it was started by combustion of jet fuel & office contents. (I don't know how many people stay committed to the "official story" when they see those samples of corroded and bent steel, so this might be a moot point.)

How does the thermite camp account for the dustification of the concrete?

As to the contents of the dust, I agree that Jones got his samples from trustworthy residents of Manhattan. Prager's veiled accusation is that Jones salted the samples with thermite chips: a very subtle fraud, if indeed it happened. Other than that, I have no reason to doubt the various analyses of the contents by Jones' group, which seem overall consistent with the USGS and Lioy reports. As far as I know, only Jones claimed to test the dust for radioactivity, but it would be surprising to me if the dust is highly radioactive and no one has made a report to that effect.

But: if I don't trust Jones, and you don't trust government agencies (for good reason) then do we really have any data at all? When it comes to investigating 9/11, it's necessary to question all assumptions.

Here's another reason I don't trust Jones. In this interview (linked below) with Jones on Sterling Allen's "Pure Energy System Network", they discuss a circuit Jones calls the "joule thief". It appears to be a simple relaxation oscillator. In the interview, Jones claims the circuit produces power at 20x over unity. Allen is very impressed that Jones has access to a Tektronix oscilloscope, a privilege which is said to elude most free energy researchers.

http://pesn.com/2011/05/27/9501835_Steven_E_Jones_demonstrates_overunity_circuit/

I found this linked from OverUnityResearch.com, where Jones is a frequent poster under the handle of PhysicsProf. Apparently this group has a standing reward of $2000 for anyone who can actually demonstrate an "over unity" device. Jones was pleading for a release from the requirement that the winning device should demonstrate self-sustaining operation, and one of the other members of the group called bullshit, implying Jones doesn't know how to calculate power from scope waveforms.

Here's a link to the discussion of this circuit at overunityresearch. In the discussion, Jones admits he screwed up somehow, and that his circuit doesn't work as advertised. But Allen's article is still on the Internet with the implication that the thing works.

http://www.overunityresearch.com/index.php?topic=1300.0

 

[Mike Dexter]

Hi Jerry,

This discussion is going way beyond my knowledge base! The AE911Truth website only refers to nanothermite, which does employ very high temperatures to generate the nanospheres and dust. Unless Jones et al completely faked their evidence and tests, which I doubt, the "data we have" is the tremendous amount of dust that contains nanospheres that could have resulted from the use of military grade nanothermite. We have a unique crime scene where the criminals used means we haven't seen before or since. We also know that the official story is impossible. Beyond that, I honestly don't know. That's why I tend to leave this area to others and focus on the political and social side of the issue.

I like that link about Jones' "joule thief" gizmo, and his "special pleading" (a logical fallacy) on its behalf. He can't be incompetent, can he? Is this a deliberate distraction? Everything I've read about him in this field leads in the direction of somehow throwing wrenches in the works, having the effect of delaying or sabotaging genuine research into cold fusion. This is way, way beyond my knowledge base, so all I will do is raise the question.

 

[Jerry Russell]

Hi Mike,

I agree that the physics of the tower collapses is an arcane 9/11 specialty, and that it makes sense for most people to stay focused on the political & social issues. I also understand the appeal of "safe and non-wacky" explanations.

But on the other hand, considering all the various information that's been propounded by all the various sources, and considering their credibility, I believe that some form of nuclear fusion explosive is the best explanation. For me, it's a matter of following the evidence wherever it leads.

Whether cold fusion technology exists, is an independent question from whether it was used at 9/11. The best evidence I've seen for CF in the lab, is the work at Italy's ENEA, reported by Del Giudice & Fleischmann in 2005, which I discussed in my recent post "Deuterium Shell Game".

Jones' work on muon catalyzed fusion was very sophisticated. Most of his work on 9/11 is also very solid, aside from his avoidance of "exotic technology" suggestions. So whatever is going on with him, I don't believe he's incompetent. Very much the contrary.

 

[Richard Stanley]

This post of Adam Taylor's has a nice debunking the debunker discussion of the thermite/thermate issue (further down) as well as other Twin Tower aspects. This including the standing core spire, which seems rather problematic, to me, for the micro-nuke theory. That is, how do you selectively take down the much larger outer ring of the inner core columns and not the smaller inner columns at the same time?

Jerry, are you remembering that thermate (as opposed to thermite) formulations typically use sulfur (and not always barium nitrate - apparently only in military TH3)?

 

[Jerry Russell]

Rick, thanks for the link to Adam Taylor's blog post. He mentions a study by Millette, which is available here:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/64959841/9119ProgressReport022912_rev1_030112web.pdf

In this study, Millette also found the magnetic red-gray chips in his own dust samples which were obtained independently from Jones. He disputes that the chips are any type of thermitic material, but this does represent a confirmation that the chips exist.

Taylor's blog post also mentions a study by Gordon Ross, a very detailed study of the structural attacks that caused the observed collapse sequence. Perhaps a combination of technologies were used?

http://gordonssite.tripod.com/id2.html

 

[Richard Stanley]

Yes, I think that the planners of 9/11 generally wanted to employ a variety of approaches wherever possible (e.g. say planes at the twin towers, a flyover plane at the Pentagon, and an empty crater at Shanksville). For one reason, it helps to sow confusion and inherently create marginalizing debate and mistrust amongst different camps of researchers, and secondly, given the complexity of the various demolition jobs, it would seemingly necessitate a variety of techniques be used.

Here's another site for you, which has a great collection of pics I've never seen before.

 

[Mike Dexter]

Just to conclude my remarks on this topic, my opinion is that Steven Jones has been useful to 911 Truth, regardless of his motivation for getting involved in the first place. Many of us suspect that methods and matierials other than nanothermite may have been used, but in introducing the topic to newbies and (gasp, choke) journalists, we stick to the Architects and Engineers approach.

 

[lorenhough]

Yes, I think that the planners of 9/11 generally wanted to employ a variety of approaches wherever possible (e.g. say planes at the twin towers, a flyover plane at the Pentagon, and an empty crater at Shanksville). For one reason, it helps to sow confusion and inherently create marginalizing debate and mistrust amongst different camps of researchers, and secondly, given the complexity of the various demolition jobs, it would seemingly necessitate a variety of techniques be used.

Here's another site for you, which has a great collection of pics I've never seen before.

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[Jerry Russell]

Thanks Loren!

 

[lorenhough]

Thanks Loren!

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