Dusting-off Corley: Is this the official response to the discovery of energetic materials in the WTC dust?
Kevin Ryan
911blogger.com
5/31/10
Comment/Update:
Pat Curley posted a blog regarding Ryan's letter and used the talking point I thought he would, so he was pre-debunked. :) As to the possible tampering with of the samples he just sees paranoia, I agree, the difference being that I think it's justified.
It has been over a year since the most recent peer-reviewed scientific article was published on the finding of energetic materials in the WTC dust.[i] During this time, the article was personally delivered to members of Congress and others in positions of power.[ii] Some of those leaders, like 9/11 Commission co-chairman Lee Hamilton, have repeatedly declined invitations to discuss the evidence.[iii] But ultimately, there has been no official response by the U.S. government, and we have seen only apathy or feigned ignorance in response to these explosive findings. In the last few months, however, one of the people who did the most to cover-up the crimes of 9/11 has surfaced again, and is requesting samples.
Comment:
As Ryan noted, it has been over a year since the paper was published, here are three articles from this blog which break down all that has ensued since that time:
Super Duper Thermite: A Year in Review
Thermite Denial - A Year in Review
Put up or Shut up: A Year in Review
Here are two videos I put together which showcase the findings of the paper, as well as the fact that Vice President Joe Biden and White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan were also given the paper:
Immediately after the article was published, it appeared that a response might be forthcoming due to inexplicable damage to several packages sent, via the US Postal Service, between some of the investigators who were involved. When my colleague Steven Jones sent a sample of the red-gray chips to my post office box in late April 2009, the samples had been removed from the double envelope package through a series of slits just barely big enough to slide the small vial out. The postal inspector never responded to my complaint. But when I later mailed something to my colleague James Gourley, the envelope arrived with a corner ripped out, in a gross kind of damage that neither of us had ever seen.[iv]
Comment:
So it turns out that when Pat Curley of the Screw Loose Change blog asserted that independent researcher Frédéric Henry-Couannier said his samples might have been "deactivated to prevent my independent corroboration of a crucial proof," that it wasn't just because he was a "Troofer." This is not to suggest that this was the case, but just to point out that it wasn't completely baseless. I debunked Pat's other points here.
Over the next few months we saw unprecedented attacks levied on the journal that published the paper. The editors of the journal were pummeled with email and blog attacks and one of them, who had not been involved in review of the paper, resigned. Some attackers even sought to discredit the Bentham Science family of journals, of which the Open Chemical Physics journal was one member, by submitting phony articles to see if they could get published. Discrediting Bentham Science would not have fully removed the threat to the official story, however, because the evidence for energetic materials at the WTC is supported by peer-reviewed papers in scientific journals other than just Bentham.[v],[vi]
Comment:
Here is a video by one of this blog's contributors which breaks down the attacks levied upon the paper:
It is not certain if the mail tampering or the attacks against Bentham Science were responses from those who created the official reports. More recent events, however, suggest that our corporate-funded politicians might have decided to produce an official response to the article after all.
In January of this year, one of the independent sample collectors who provided WTC dust to our investigative team wrote to me about an inquiry.
“I got a call last night from a guy named Jay Levin, the founder of the LA Weekly. …He recently interviewed a Gene Corley…[who] is a forensic engineer and was hired by FEMA to look for (certain) things in the dust. Evidence of explosives wasn't one of them. …apparently, he now wants to have another look. If this is potentially a whistle-blower scenario, it could be a wonderful thing…”
Jay Levin is an editor and writer who has done a few articles on the 9/11 Truth movement and, in doing so, has earned the trust of some of the movement’s leaders.[vii],[viii] Although Levin’s articles have been more fair to the cause of truth than the average mainstream media hit pieces have been, that’s not saying much. And according to one of these articles, Levin is also writing a book about the “WTC scientific dispute.”
Levin’s former company, LA Weekly, is now owned by Village Voice Media, a conglomeration of weekly newspapers. This conglomeration includes the Phoenix New Times, which has published some of the most abysmal attacks against the 9/11 Truth movement.[ix],[x],[xi] The current New Times executive editor and Village Voice majority owner is Michael Lacey, who has run rough-shod over the organization and worked to dumb-down the news products since he took over the organization in 2005.[xii],[xiii] Levin is apparently not associated with that company any longer.
In any case, Gene Corley was not hired by FEMA to examine the WTC dust. He was hired by FEMA to lead the entire WTC investigation, which at the time was termed an “assessment.” Six years earlier, Corley had also led the investigation into what happened at the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City, and the resulting report was found to have been very poorly done.[xiv]
For years after 9/11, Corley was the voice of the ever-changing, but always non-explosive, story for what happened at the WTC.
- He led the FEMA investigation which gave us the now defunct “pancake theory"
- Five months later he was a member of the Silverstein-Weidlinger insurance claim team that produced the "columns only" theory (opposite of the pancake theory).
- He was the primary official theory spokesman in all the mainstream media video programs, including those produced by NOVA and the AE/History Channel, that were for years used as the major vehicles for public consumption.
- Leftist commentators like Matthew Rothschild turned to Corley to provide “independent” confirmation of the official story.[xv]
- He provided "public comments" in support of the NIST investigation.
- And last but not least, he posed as a reporter during NIST media sessions, lobbing softball questions to kill the time.[xvi]
I wrote back to the sampler and suggested to him that Corley could probably obtain his own WTC dust samples. After all, Corley had supposedly waded through WTC dust for months. Why was he asking for our samples?
Mr. Levin replied to our sampler saying that he understood the hesitation to send samples to Corley, because, “to be honest,” Corley was a supporter of the official “collapse” theory. Levin went on,
“I have found a lot of good and knowledgeable people with no connection to the government, just as there are many similar people who argue with it. NIST's behavior re the testing might be atrocious but whether you want to believe it or not, not everyone who examines the world trade data and concludes the collapse happened without explosives is covering up something. There is a genuine disagreement among independent experts.”
But Gene Corley is not a good person with “no connection to the government”, and he is certainly not an “independent expert.” On the contrary, he represented the government as he created a false engineering report for what happened at OKC, and later several false and contradictory engineering reports for the WTC.
Comment:
Here is a blog I put together which complies evidence of government involvement the in OKC bombing, including a rebuttal to the television program "Conspiracy Test: Oklahoma City Bombing," which purported to debunk the idea that secondary devices were detonated in the building.
Corley is also an alumnus of the military establishment at Fort Belvoir[xvii], which has many connections to 9/11 including the Able Danger[xviii], al Qaeda[xix], and Ali Muhammed.[xx] Others who have served as 9/11 debunkers are Fort Belvoir alumni as well, like John Fisher, who was one of the few actual engineering experts for Popular Mechanics, and apparently, Frank Greening.[xxi]
In his attempt to promote Corley’s involvement, Levin went on to explain to our sampler how it would not be of any risk to the independent investigators.
“To my way of thinking if Corley tests and says he came up with nothing, it will change nothing. Steve Jones and everyone else will still maintain that NIST has to test in a manner credible to outsiders. And if Jones does come up with something and announces it, that is a potential game changer - and a hell of a story for a journalist.”
Oddly enough, Mr. Levin forgot to mention what would happen if Gene Corley tested our samples and “found” something quite the opposite of what we found.
Comment:
As I pointed out before, it is bunk to claim that a sample of their material is required to confirm their work.
In an exchange of emails with Robert Erickson, producer of the September 2009 National Geographic special on 9/11, Steven Jones suggested that he attempt independent confirmation and gave recommendations as to how this could be achieved, Jones states:
"I urge you to contact Los Alamos National Laboratory and request at least three 'prototype' samples of super-thermite matches.
Ask two independent laboratories to do SEM/EDS and DSC analyses as described in our paper on the super-thermite material contained in these matches. The results would then be compared carefully with those already obtained on red chips found in the WTC dust.
Such analyses are worthy of scientific publication in a peer-reviewed journal (unlike placing bags of commercial thermite next to steel columns)."
This and the above comments by Ryan should make clear, besides scarcity of samples, why these instigators are hesitant to give up their dust, or to do tests for materials that they do not think are present.
Our sampler reported these comments from Levin with “a growing sense of dread.”
Steven Jones took the liberty of responding to Mr. Levin at this point, suggesting that Corley use his influence to get some samples from an “official” source.
“Jay, Here is my recommendation: request that Mr. Corley acquire several ‘official’ WTC dust samples directly from the USGS, and scrutinize these for red/gray chips as defined in our paper. Based on our scientific team's experience, those samplings taken nearer to ‘ground zero’ will be more likely to contain larger numbers of these red/gray particles, so the ‘nearest samples’ should be sought.”
Apparently Corley did not like that suggestion, because although Mr. Levin did not respond for several weeks, he approached our sampler again. This is how it went as reported by the sampler.
“Now, the strange news: Jay Levin, who first called me as Janette was about to go in for her biopsy, called me again just minutes after she came out of surgery last night, claiming that he came across my email, but couldn't remember who I was (apologies for his uncharacteristic lack of organization), so I "reminded" him of our last emails and that I'm not giving up any dust to Dr. Corley. Once the phony formalities were out of the way, he bent my ear for about 20 minutes as my Indian food got cold. He was saying that if his findings were to corroborate your findings, that would be big news! I won't bore you with all the details, but will say that I came away with a bad feeling not only about Gene Corley, but about him as well. He did say that Corley would follow up on Steven's advice, if he can, but isn't sure that he can get his hands on the necessary equipment. This too seems a little odd..”
Needless to say, the samples were not sent to Mr. Corley or Mr. Levin. However it does seem unlikely that Levin couldn’t remember the earlier conversation about what would have been “a hell of a story for a journalist.”
Three months later, Levin approached Steven Jones again. He appeared to have found another independent analyst to test the WTC dust and confirm our findings. Unlike Corley, this one seemed to have read our paper but was skeptical.
“I spoke to Don Broton again at the CTL lab about what he needs to test with an xray defraction cross section. He said a piece that was a few millimeters and referenced the 4 millimeters he said was mentioned in your research report. And he added "of course the bigger piece the better" for the purposes of the cross-section.
As to the specifics, he said he can find "striklingly (sic) similar" element compositions in fly ash where the "map scans are kind of similar in their peak indentifications (sic)" to yours. .
He said the reason your tests are not definitive is that virtually all the elements were present in the WTC and various element bondings may have occurred. (By the way he is the third chemist I know of who has said this.) He said man made nano-thermite would have a very distinct pattern would likely be revealed by x-ray defraction which I told him I gather you understood as you had sent some dust to another lab for the test.”
What Mr. Levin didn’t say is that the independent analyst he found worked for Gene Corley’s company, CTL Group. Gene Corley is the Senior Vice President of CTL Group,[xxii] and the new independent analyst, Don Broton, works for Gene Corley.
The “fly ash” statement was also interesting. This was the exact same “debunker” response to the microspheres found in the WTC dust, long before the red-gray chips had been found. Perhaps Corley and Broton had their stories mixed up.
Comment:
As Jim Hoffman pointed out in his essay "Explosives Found in World Trade Center Dust - Scientists Discover Both Residues And Unignited Fragments Of Nano-Engineered Thermitic Pyrotechnics In Debris From the Twin Towers.":
"'Debunkers' have proposed that the iron-rich spheres were fly ash residues embedded in the Towers' concrete, ignoring that the iron constituents in fly ash are oxides rather than elemental iron. How will they explain away the bi-layered chips, whose red layers have iron oxide and elemental aluminum in the ratio of Fe2O3 thermite as nano-sized particles of uniform shape?"
Apparently with the same explanation!
In any case, Gene Corley, someone who for years was the leading spokesman for the official engineering reports on the WTC, is now intent on getting samples from the independent investigators leading the scientific investigation into what happened at the WTC. This suggests that Corley will be providing the official response to the discovery of energetic materials in the WTC dust.
Additionally, the fact that Jay Levin doesn't appear to know who Gene Corley is suggests that Levin might not be the best person to write additional articles and a book on the “WTC scientific dispute.” We can hope, however, that he is honest enough to admit that.
[i] Niels H. Harrit, et al, Active Thermitic Material Discovered in Dust from the 9/11 World Trade Center Catastrophe, The Open Chemical Physics Journal, Vol 2, 2009, doi: 10.2174/1874412500902010007, http://www.bentham-open.org/pages/content.php?TOCPJ/2009/00000002/00000001/7TOCPJ.SGM
[ii] This article has been hand delivered to Vice President Biden, Senator John Kerry, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, Representative Barney Frank,, Senator JD Rockefeller, Senator Richard Lugar, Senator Lindsay Graham, and Senator John Kyl. The article has been confirmed to be delivered through email to Senator Evan Bayh. Senator Harry Reid was handed the article and refused to take it, as occurred with Newt Gingrich.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-SSRzk12NQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-SSRzk12NQ
[iii] Kevin R. Ryan, Will Lee Hamilton Examine the evidence?, 911blogger.com, 3/13/2010, http://911blogger.com/node/22907
[iv] Was someone looking for samples in the US mail?, ULtruth.com, http://www.ultruth.com/Mail%20damage.htm
[v] Kevin R. Ryan, et al, Environmental anomalies at the World Trade Center: evidence for energetic materials, The Environmentalist, Volume 29, Number 1 / March, 2009, http://www.springerlink.com/content/f67q6272583h86n4/
[vi] Steven E. Jones et al, Extremely High Temperatures During the World Trade Center Destruction, Journal of 9/11 Studies, January 2008 http://www.journalof911studies.com/articles/WTCHighTemp2.pdf
[vii] Jay Levin and Tom McKenzie, Twin Towers, Twin Myths?, Santa Barbara Independent, September 17, 2009, http://www.independent.com/news/2009/sep/17/twin-towers-twin-myths/
[viii] Jay Levin and Tom McKenzie, Explosive Theory: Eight years after 9/11, a growing organization of building trades professionals suspect that there was more to the event than the government will admit, MetroActive, September 9, 2009, http://www.metroactive.com/metro/09.09.09/cover-0936.html
[ix] Stephen Lemons, The Yoda of 9/11: Pat Curley slices through the loony conspiracy theories at his influential "Screw Loose Change" Web site, Phoenix New Times, Aug 9 2007, http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2007-08-09/news/the-yoda-of-9-11/1
[x] Stephen Lemons,, Noam Chomsky and the 9/11 nutbars: Why they suck and he doesn't., Phoenix New Times, Aug 15 2007,
[xi] Stephen Lemons, 9/11 "Troof," Ed Begley, Jr., and Why Van Jones Needed to Go, September 11, 2009, http://blogs.phoenixnewtimes.com/bastard/2009/09/911_truth_dylan_avery_vs_pat_c.php
[xii] Mark Jacobsen, The Voice from beyond the grave, New York Magazine, November 6, 2005, http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/14987/
[xiii] Bruce Brugmann, Lacey’s Wednesday night massacre, SF Bay Guardian, 11/06/06, http://www.sfbayguardian.com/bruce/2006/11/06/laceys-wednesday-night-massacre-la-weeklys-harold-meyerson-says-all-staffers-l7-voi
[xiv] Oklahoma Bombing Committee, Final Report on the Bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building, http://www.okcbombing.net/books&videos.htm
[xv] Kevin R. Ryan, Looking for Truth in Credentials: The Peculiar WTC “Experts”, Globalresearch.ca, March 13, 2007, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5071
[xvi] Archived webcast video of NIST press briefing, NIST News Release website, June 23, 2005 (http://www.nist.gov/public_affairs/releases/wtc_briefing_june2305.htm), 01:15:10.
[xvii] Testimony of Gene Corley before the House Subcommittee on Environment, Technology and Standards, March 6, 2002, p 10, http://www.asce.org/uploadedFiles/Communications/3-6-02wtc_testimony.pdf
[xviii] Wayne Madsen, Able Danger and DIA had advanced knowledge of 9/11, Online Journal, Sept 11th, 2009, http://www.prisonplanet.com/able-danger-and-dia-had-advanced-knowledge-of-911.html
[xix] J.M. Berger, Al Qaeda Recruited U.S. Servicemen: Testimony Links Plot To Saudi Gov't, IntelWire.com, July 01, 2004, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1164071/posts
[xx] Peter Dale Scott, 9/11, JFK, and War: Recurring Patterns in America’s Deep Events, Journal of 9/11 Studies, http://www.journalof911studies.com/volume/2007/ProfScottJFK,911,andWar.pdf
[xxi] Did Frank Greening attend the US Army's engineer officer candidate school at Fort Belvoir?, ULtruth.com, http://www.ultruth.com/Greening.htm
[xxii] SkokieNet, Interview with Dr. Gene Corley - Internationally Renowned Structural Engineer Based in Skokie, April 22 2007, http://www.skokienet.org/node/3876
