Questioning what happened on 9/11
Professor believes planes didn't cause all the damage around the WTC

Nov. 14: Did planes really bring down the World Trade Center? The Situation's Tucker Carlson talks to one professor who says he has evidence that bombs might have been planted in the towers.

TRANSCRIPT
MSNBC
Updated: 1:51 p.m. ET Nov. 15, 2005

Millions of people watched the horror of 9/11 right before their very eyes, live on television. Two planes, crashing into the World Trade Center. Less than a couple of hours later, both towers, of course, collapsing.

On Monday, Tucker Carlson welcomed Brigham Young University Professor Steven Jones to the 'Situation.' Jones, a professor of physics, believes that the hijackers may not have brought down the towers by themselves.

To read an excerpt of their conversation, continue to the text below. To watch the video, click on the "Launch" button to the right.

TUCKER CARLSON: Well, just sum up this-obviously your theory, just the one sentence that I just explained, in the intro, contradicts what we all think we know about how these towers collapsed. Quickly sum up your explanation for what's happened.

STEVEN JONES, BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY: ... What I'm doing, Tucker, is presenting evidence, but it's a hypothesis to be tested. That's a big difference from a conclusion, and so I just wanted to clarify that. But to sum up that I have looked at the official reports by FEMA, and so on... regarding the collapse of-yes, of these buildings. ...

I'd like to look at the collapse of building seven in just a minute. It was not even hit by a jet. So we'll look at that one.

CARLSON: The two towers. The explanation has been that the fire inside was so intense that it weakened the structural steel and that each floor collapsed down upon the next in a pancake fashion, and they imploded in on themselves. That's essentially, I think, what people think.

JONES: Yes, that's basically it, yes. And so what I've done is to analyze these reports.

I would like to do a little experiment with you, Tucker, if I could. I sent out a video clip of the collapse of Building seven, because most people haven't actually seen that one, and that's the crux of the argument.

CARLSON: Can you sum up very quickly the argument for us? You believe there were explosives in the buildings planted by someone, detonated?

JONES: Well, yes.

CARLSON: Is that correct?

JONES: ... There are two hypotheses here. One is fire and damage caused all three buildings to collapse.

CARLSON: OK.

JONES: The other is that explosives in the buildings may have caused the collapse. And so, then we analyze and see which fits the data better, and I've done that in my 25-page paper.

CARLSON: I want to read you a quote from the 'Deseret Morning News,' a paper in Utah, from you. I'm quoting now.

"It is quite plausible that explosives were pre-planted in all three buildings and set off after the two plane crashes, which are actually a diversion tactic. Muslims are probably not to blame for bringing down the World Trade Center buildings after all."

That's, I would think, pretty offensive to a lot of the people listening. Do you have any evidence for that?

JONES: Well, not-not to the Muslims, I might say.

CARLSON: Well, that's good.

JONES: I have a lot of e-mails.

CARLSON: I'm sure your writings greeted with just glee in Islamabad, and Peshawar and places like that. But for Americans.

JONES: Well, I haven't received notes from there, but just good people. I have Muslim friends. Let me read, for example, but I'm not going to let you off the hook. I really want to do this experiment with you.

CARLSON: We don't have a lot of time for experiments, Professor. But if you could just ... give us one thing to hold onto. How-you make these claims, or appear to make these claims ...

JONES: Tucker, sure, sure. Let's start with the collapse of Building seven. Can you roll the video clip that I sent to you?

CARLSON: OK. I am not sure if we can, but that is the World Trade Center. It's smaller than the other two it was not hit by a plane.

JONES: Let's try.

CARLSON: Of course, it collapsed.

JONES: Right. It's 47 stories.

CARLSON: That's right.

JONES: Twenty-four steel columns in the center.

CARLSON: Right.

JONES: Trusses, asymmetrically supported. Now, I can't see what you're seeing. Are we rolling that?

CARLSON: No. We just see the building. And just so our viewers know, the explanation that I think is conventional is that there was a large tank of diesel fuel stored in the lower level of that, which caught fire, and the resulting fire collapsed the building.

JONES: Well, that's basically it, yes, but as we read in the FEMA report, it says here, and I put this in my paper, of course. "The best hypothesis, which is the only one they looked at, fire, has only a low probability of occurrence. Further investigation analyses are needed to resolve this issue, and I agree with that."

CARLSON: OK.

JONES: But they admit there's only a low probability, and if you look at the collapse, you see what I have studied is the fall time, the symmetry, the fact that it first dips in the middle. That's called the kink. Which is very characteristic, of course, of controlled demolition.

CARLSON: Professor, I am sorry that we are out of time ...

JONES: Whoa, one other thing I want to mention.

CARLSON: Ok. If you can hit it - hit it quickly.

JONES: OK. All right. Here we go. Molten metal in the basements of all three buildings.

CARLSON: Right.

JONES: And yet all scientists now reasonably agree that the fires were not sufficiently hot to melt the steel, so what is this molten metal? It's direct evidence for the use of high-temperature explosives, such as thermite, which produces molten iron as an end product.

CARLSON: OK.

JONES: It's very short time, but people will read the paper, then I talk about the molten metal, the symmetry of the collapse, and the weaknesses and inadequacies of the fire hypothesis.

CARLSON: Professor, we are going to have to leave it to our viewers who are interested enough to follow up to do just that. We appreciate you coming on, even if I don't understand your theories, we appreciate you trying to explain them. Thanks.

Watch 'The Situation with Tucker Carlson' each weeknight at 11 p.m. ET
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A link to the professor's paper is here:
 http://wtc7.net/articles/stevenjones_b7.html

Utah local news interview video link is here
 http://kutv.com/topstories/local_story_314234334.html

Y. professor thinks bombs, not planes, toppled WTC
By Elaine Jarvik
Deseret Morning News
 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,635160132,00.html

WTC7 / World Trade Center 7 Video is here:
 http://www.wtc7.net/videos.html