XCOM: Enemy Unleashed

Game Master JDPhipps

Actually, WTC7 collapsed because of debris from WTC 1. While the debris didn't cause enough structural damage to actually collapse the building, the debris was on fire. The fire eventually caught across the building and caused a collapse which just compounded upon itself until the building was no longer structurally stable and it collapsed.

Yeah, that's what was reported by the NIS. But here's the rub. The building fell on its own foot print with virtually no resistance for the first eight seconds or so. If that were normal, you wouldn't have to spend thousands of dollars to have high rises demolished with expensive explosives experts. You'd could just sent some level floor on fire with office equipment and have the building come down super neat and tidy.

Even if an office fire, which is shown as being nearly extinguished before the building collapsed, was sufficient to weaken columns, what's the probability that all the support columns fail simultaneously such that the building wouldn't tip?

Also, the explosives, if they could level the building, would have caused a 130-140 decible shock wave that would have been heard at least half a mile away.

As a response to that common observation, more than a few people have posted actual videos where explosions are heard and people are reflexively crouching. Truthfully, though, I don't put much stock in that as definitive proof.

Here it is. I'll check out the link.

Conspiracy theories are often fun and I like to look into them.

To be honest, I have largely ignored the conspiracy theories about 9/11. But I hadn't seen the WTC 7 video until a few days ago. One of my beliefs is that conspiracies are too hard to pull off at this level. There are too many loose ends, you need too many things to go just right. But what if that's exactly what we've seen? What if all the things that are proof of a conspiracy are right there and we are still refusing to believe it?

One of the questions that comes up in the videos is about why F-16's weren't scrambled to take out the airplanes? Well...one video explains that of the twenty some jets that should have been available, all but eight were on simulated terrorist attack training. It's suggested that Cheney was the only with the power to coordinate this. In addition, it's stated that all the military personnel in charge of aviation on that day and in that area, were promoted.

As you recall, Bush Jr. was in Florida at a grade school the day of the attacks. When told, he did nothing. Didn't leave the school, or even panic. That feels hinky. Why wouldn't he be afraid that he might be targeted?

I don't know. How much proof would it take to believe that someone like Bush and Cheney were a part of this? It's been pointed out that the subsequent legislation of Homeland Security was a financial boon for many of Bush's associates.

Again, I can't say I believe it 100%. What is the point of taking out WTC 7? I also don't believe that the WTC's were demo'd, but it was interesting to read that the NIS did not look for explosives in the analysis. Not at all. It took 411 days for the report to come out, and at that point, the evidence/debris from the buildings had been destroyed.

There are loud noises, but they aren't consistent with the kind of noise demolitions would have caused nor were they loud enough. Witnesses farther away but within the range to hear such a noise reported nothing, so it's likely what they heard was something like the generator tanks beneath the building exploding or something to that effect. You also linked the same article that I posted, which I think was a mistake.

It's fun to think about, I guess, but the big reason I don't buy it is I don't think other people involved could keep it a secret. Sure, we have people who talk about it but none of them are government officials. You know the old saying that 'two people can keep a secret as long as one of them is dead'? Someone would have spilled the beans. One of Cheney's aides or someone in the military would have brought this forward eventually. I just don't believe conspiracies like this can function.

I think Bush didn't panic or anything because he didn't want to scare the children. Remember, he was reading a book to I believe a group of kindergartners. Him rushing out and running and all that would have probably terrified them. He was trying to be calm. The other thing is, have you seen how Bush is now? He's a broken man because of the war. He spends his days doing portraits of soldiers who died because of his actions as a form of therapy.

Also, again, why blow up WTC 7? None of the planes we know of would have run into it; the only plane that went down was en route to Capitol Hill (which would have killed plenty of Bush's associates and also caused political nightmares). We have recordings from the people on that plane. If it was never going to be hit, wouldn't blowing it up be needlessly endangering yourself? How would they have even planted bombs strong enough to level the place with no one knowing? Why would they be on a timer and not something that someone had to detonate?

I think, all in all, that it's just too unlikely. It seems far too difficult to orchestrate something like this. Too many moving parts, you could never keep it under wraps. It would've come out at some point, you know? Someone involved could have gone to any news station in the country and spilled the beans, and they would have.

It's because of the specific structure of the building and the way the fire weakened it that it collapses in the manner it does.

If they had an engineer who designed the building say this was intended, but I haven't seen that.

The supports, weakened by the loss of the floors which helped to hold the weight, collapsed inward more or less simultaneously.

The probability of that happening in a fire that is initiated from one side of the building is near zero. It isn't possible for an office fire to simultaneously weaken all the support columns to the same degree at the same time, and then have all the columns collapse at the same time.

If you do some research, you'll see that the temp needed to melt steel is around 1300C. An office fire peaks out at about 900C. That's only enough to weaken the steel. So that means the rate and degree to which the columns are affected is going to be highly variable.

It wasn't known beforehand that fire could cause a collapse like this, either.

That's because it's never happened. There have been hundreds of office fires since the advent of the high-rise/skyscraper. I have never seen a report of an office fire collapsing an entire steel framed building in its footprint. And lord knows buildings have caught fire and burned hotter than the one in WTC7.

There are loud noises, but they aren't consistent with the kind of noise demolitions would have caused nor were they loud enough.

That's part myth. Explosions needed to cut through steel columns aren't excessively loud. Thermite burns through steel in seconds and it does not generate loud explosions. In fact, the presence of iron nodules at the WTC7 site is what has convinced a lot of engineers that thermite was used, because you only get those nodules when you melt steel, not when you weaken. Also, shaped charges channel their explosive forces, so they aren't excessively loud unless you're in the direction of the charge. But the idea that people testified about hearing true demolition charges is not a compelling fact for me, so I tend to discount it. Also, I can't tell what is what from a video.

but the big reason I don't buy it is I don't think other people involved could keep it a secret.

But go look on you tube. There are scores of people claiming to know that it was an inside job. I don't know if they are credible, but it's ironic to think that if any of these people are telling the truth, we're not listening. This is compounded by the fact that you'll have some people who will flat out lie or misrepresent what happens. My favorite line in Men In Black is that if you want people to ignore the truth, give the story to the National Inquirer. LOL. As you may recall, Tommy Jones says it's the best news for their profession.

I think Bush didn't panic or anything because he didn't want to scare the children.

I don't buy that. Bush Jr. is not the brightest man in the world and he's a little out of touch. I'm more likely to believe Bush had trouble grasping the significance of what was happening.

He spends his days doing portraits of soldiers who died because of his actions as a form of therapy.

That doesn't exactly disprove that he might be complicit in 9/11 :)

How would they have even planted bombs strong enough to level the place with no one knowing?

In the main WTC towers, there is actually a LOT of talk about the elevators were blocked off for weeks before the attack and there were armed guards preventing anyone from accessing the elevator shafts. One of Bush's cousins or brothers was a board member or part owner of the company doing the elevator work.

Also, again, why blow up WTC 7

That question bothers me too. Any possible answers from the rubble are destroyed.

I think, all in all, that it's just too unlikely. It seems far too difficult to orchestrate something like this. Too many moving parts, you could never keep it under wraps. It would've come out at some point,

you know?

I do. That's exactly my thought process on the matter.. But then I look at all these testimonies from governmental officials and engineers and I am wondering if i am ignoring what is right in front of my face?

I think the reality is that you and i are both imposing our reality on the facts. It's easier for us to believe that something like this isn't possible. Or, more to the point, we both believe if this really happened, then there would be congressional hearings and the news would be talking about it. But guess what? Bush controlled the government and he refused to talk about the investigation beyond the NIS report. In addition, the government only handed over 25% of the documents requested and then it redacted most of those.

If you do enough searching, you realize that there were media members talking about it and asking questions. I just never paid any attention to it at the time.

And here's something else that occurs. I did some research on Stalin back in WWII. The USSER routinely perpetrated public deception and fraud. True, the Russians controlled the press unlike the U.S., but the point is the governments do attempt to hoodwink the public. The rely upon a large percentage of people, undoubtedly like you and I, who have a hard time the government could get away with something so brazen.

Now...do you think there's any truth to Roswell and Area 51?

Plenty of people talk about it, but I guess my point is that someone important would have leaked it. One of Cheney's aides or a senior White House staffer, some high-up military official or perhaps one of Bush's buddies who supposedly would have benefited. There are, by necessity, too many people who could possibly know of that conspiracy for none of them to have stepped forward. One of those people with insider information would have gone forward with it at some point in the last sixteen years. Not only that, the level of secrecy... one paper left on a desk at the wrong time or one overheard phone call destroys you whole plan.

Bush is smarter than people give him credit for. His advisors and Cheney himself just... lied to him a lot. You can say that gives credence to the fact that maybe Cheney was involved and Bush wasn't, but I disagree. If people came out and admitted that people lied to Bush about stuff, I can't believe no one would have done it about 9/11. And if he was involved, I think Bush would have said something by now; he is, very clearly, horrifically traumatized by his decisions and how they impacted the lives of other Americans. I don't think he could keep it a secret. That, or someone with a score to settle or who belonged to the other party would have said something at some point.

Yeah, the USSR manipulated people, but they had so much more control. I guess the biggest thing is that, well, I don't believe the government is that competent. I pretty much refuse to believe that our government could actually physically manage such a thing. Government is so wasteful and inefficient that such precision is beyond them, in my opinion. I'm actually more inclined to believe that the government originally fabricated stories of them perpetrating 9/11 in order to make them seem scarier and more competent than they actually are.

Also, my brother's friend as I said works in demolitions but is a private contractor. If he thinks how it collapsed checks out, I'm inclined to believe him. There's probably stuff about that collapse that we don't understand simply because we aren't trained to.

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Aliens exist. That's just a fact. In an infinite universe, other intelligent life has to exist. In fact, an infinite amount of other intelligent life forms exist. By that logic, some of them must have evolved before us and thus are far more advanced technologically than we are. However, I don't believe they've ever visited Earth, or if they have I don't think we caught them.

It's just so statistically unlikely that aliens like 'the greys' would ever evolve anywhere. Why would intelligent life from another planet look anything like us at all, really? Why would they be bipedal and roughly humanoid? It's far more likely they'd evolve to look much different than us and appear to be utterly... well, alien. Amusingly enough, the Alien movies are far more accurate to what you might theoretically expect to find when it comes to alien life. Again, I also don't believe the government could keep it under wraps anywhere near as well as it did.

However, Area 51 is definitely responsible for UFOs. I just don't think they're alien spacecraft. It's an Air Force base, so it's probably a bunch of crazy s$$# they're testing that people have caught wind of.

That said I made my fair share of research regarding 9/11 and I find the whole attack interesting. The claim, later turned a meme, that jet fuel can't melt steel beams was proved to be fake as the temperatures obtained by igniting the fuel -specially concentrated in a place like the plabe's deposit- could have dealt enough structural damage for the WTC to go down like it did. Which this I establish that I believe the planes did bring down the buildings but bear with me.

How come, as Borax mentioned, no F-14 (correct me if that wasn't the standard combat jet at the age) was stationed and ready to take down the planes? I can understand that the pilots perhaps were already dead and the terrorists indeed piloted them, but air traffic controllers are pretty exhaustive at their job... a non responsive pilot combined with a clear change od route would have sound any alarms and jet's would have been deployed.
And later investigations and media publications showed that the NSA (or the CIA, can't remember) did investigate the terrorists due to suspicions arised by their training and nationality.

So I think the real conspiration lies there. Same as Bush' dad trained Bin Laden for a purpose and later turned rogue with the USA turning a blind eye until he was a menace... either it was a massive f!!& up on the secret service's part or the whole deal was orchestrated to motivate the population's payche to align with the long list of stuff that the USA would later start in the Middle East.
Wars are never liked by the people, unless people feel that some payback and justice are needed.

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Now on a simmilar note, look at the Boston Bombings. Around the dark and strange parts of internet (the least dark of them being 4chan), photographs surfaced of wounded and paramedics after the attack. And I s#+% you not, the same people appeared dressed differently in different situations. Either a lot of twins and triplets worked there or were affected, or some fishy stuff went on. I don't deny the Bombings per se, that would be crazy, but I do think the attack was at a time were antiterrorist campaigns sat at an all time low and needed a boost. Take the suspected terrorists, a pair of teens that weren't the type for that sick thing. During their 'arrest' one of them was gunned down by the police, the other was too wounded to speak there and I don't remember him ever getting out of ICU. Circumstancial evidence like black powder and some sort of manifesto was found at their home.

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And now I want to direct you all to the long list of terrorist attacks happening here in Europe. If you make some research you wilk find that in each and every one of them the Secret Services had investigated the perpetrators but decided that they weren't likely to attack. And I mean each and every terrorist attack, no exception.
So, either no European country has a Secret Service worth s##& or there's some shady stuff going on and orders to let the terrorists do their thing.
Casualties range from minimal to average, but the population's impact is so great that Europe, a region that traditionally have hated with a passion any political movement that was even a tad close to fascism/nazism/far right, has seen an increase on right wing and fascist movement support so huge, during the last two years most of the countries' elections have been won by them.
And the antimuslim movements are at an all time high, believe me. Countries like France, whose muslims are mostly third and fourth generation migrants and therefore completely integrated, suffer from it.

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Before speaking of aylliuuums, I want to take everything I said and postulate my personal moral of the story:
Every generation needs a nemesis, a vile enemy, someone to hate with a passion so we stay docile and forget the s%*~ that goes on in town.
Russians are too​ trite for that job anymore. China is trying his best to not be like Russia. North Korea is almost a joke. And in general no country works for that, because if a single one or a federation of them attacked our lands like this the masses wouldn't rest until the NATO attacked.
But islamic terrorists? They have no distinct region of origin that you can target except for the casual 'France/USA/Rusia has bombed an ISIS base in X' news that keep the fire burning. They are our age's boogeyman, we have been told anyone can be one of them.
They are a perfect for our malcontent and hate, and they will for as long as there is need for them.

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Now on the matter of aliens. The universe isn't huge, it's infinite. Which means that there are infinite planets and many chances for a planet to evolve life.
But the chances of said life evolcing to the point of sentience are narrow at best. We aren't the norm, in fact we are strange as f+~# and have gotten to where we are by sheer luck.
There was an anthropology theory regarding civilizations and spacefaring whose name I can't remember, but the sum up would be the following:
Any sentient being race and civilization has to get through a number of points of extinction during their history.
The first or firsts are catastrophic and endemic to their environment and habitat (like the Ice Age and the meteors during the... jurassic? cretacic? my knowledge here is fuzzy at best).
If they manage to adapt and survive through it/them, they become a Class 2 Civilization and have to face the ones caused by their own civilization. Great wars, pandemics and instability (WWI and WWII anyone?).
If they manage to thrive despite them, they have to face the last: overpopulation, lack of food and resources. Is during this point of extinction, theoretically, that the civilization would turn to spacefaring research, population control and/or overplanet farming/mining/stuff. If they'd manage to develop it and survive, they'd become a Class 3 Civilization. That's what is usually meant by post-scarcity societies.

We Earthlings sit comfortably at Class 2. The overpopulation menace seems real but distant, and we yet have to deal with the whole 'Complete Nuclear Obliteration' event.

I'm a spaniard and I'm not that proud of my ancestors. We were great at two things: genocide and mass enslavement. And that's only five centuries of our planet, the aliens could research us and see that no matter the distance and lack of connection... each and every earth civilization have killed without reason, with reason and for sport. We are damn good at it as a whole and, linking to the conspiration tirade I spew, we need only to feel morally obligated to not feel any remorse for it.

So I too think there is, or at least there has been, extraterrestrial beings. But I can't be sure if they all died when still living in caves, they nuked each other out or simply hungered to death. But let's be honest, if they managed to establish themselves in a global peace, with no hunger and scientific advances that would shame us... the second they take a peek at us they'd either turn tail or destroy us before we evolve and destroy them.
We have a history of being bloodthirsty, ruthless bastards.

Part of the problem with talking about terrorist attacks and those attackers being investigated is that we as societies tend to believe it's way easier to pick out these sorts of things than they are. For another American example, look at school shootings and how people try to 'profile' the shooter after the fact and fit them into a mold. The fact of the matter is, there's basically no profile for a school shooter other than 'white male'. They try to pin it on video games, on violent media, on being a loner, or on mental illness... but none of those are consistent. However, we still have that sort of ingrained in our culture. After Columbine, tons of 'loner' kids were targeted as potential school shooters just for being outside of normal social circles, which just ostracized them more. Ironically, if that profile were true, that would have made them more likely to be a school shooter. We have the same sort of profile for a terrorist, even if we won't admit it. Most people, culturally, think Muslims (and by that, I really just mean Arabs because people rarely differentiate) are the most likely group to be terrorists. This is despite the fact that, in America, the most likely demographic to commit a terrorist attack is 'straight white Christian male'. We think that we should be able to catch people because they fall into that 'profile'. Popular shows like Criminal Minds don't really help that. Fact of the matter is, criminal profiling is insanely difficult and not very precise. Psychological profiles are so insanely hard to get.

As for the people in the same outfits, are you sure you aren't thinking of the Sandy Hook shooting? That's the only place where that was reported to my knowledge. The big thing with the Boston bombing is that there are two guys who 'are a better match' in the crowd. The guy supposedly had the right model of backpack--you know, because backpacks are unique--and was wearing a hat that corresponding to a private military contractors emblem. Coincidentally, that emblem looks a lot like the Punisher's signature skull. People ignore how easy it would be to hide a backpack somewhere and pick it up later, or swap it, or what have you.

Also, the brother who was not killed by police is still alive, and testified at his trial. He was convicted and put on death row.

Fact of the matter is, tons of people go under investigation and weren't found to be a threat before they killed people or committed some other kind of crime. You have to remember that they likely never actually talk about all the people they catch who do fit a profile. It just isn't good news, comparatively. So, we associate them with their failures rather than successes because failures are more public. That's called availability bias, for those wondering. I believe that's more likely than that any political group could reliably cover up all these attacks.

I guess the biggest thing is that, well, I don't believe the government is that competent.

This has been my standard response for the last 15 years or so, but something just occurred to me, referring to it as a "government" conspiracy is probably inaccurate on my part. Something like this isn't orchestrated by the "government" as a whole. It's organized by individuals/entities outside the government and then covered up by a few key people in the government, like the President and the Secretary of Defense.

I saw a news clip of the Bush Jr. after the NIS report had been made available. Bush kept saying that he wasn't going to talk about the "intelligence gathering." In other words, Bush was stonewalling the free press on all levels regarding 9/11 under the auspices of protecting intelligence gathering state secrets and methodologies. I can totally believe that rank and file who might be asked to destroy documents or evidence would buy into that, assuming they had any idea whether the stuff they were doing was even that important or necessary. In other words, when the President starts talking "national security," I can imagine a lot of people are going to take it at face value.

Plenty of people talk about it, but I guess my point is that someone important would have leaked it.

I've totally subscribed to that philosophy, but when it comes right down to it, that isn't really a scientific or provable conclusion. You and I both believe that something of this magnitude couldn't be contained, but then that's assuming any one person has enough information to truly expose it. If some Air Force Captain is told to schedule his training on X day...and he notices that everyone else is doing the same...and he realizes that something is clearly up...what can he do with that besides leak it to some fringe reporter who is willing to risk his or her career on a 9/11 conspiracy theory?

To put it another way, anyone who knows enough to leak it, would know that doing so is likely to get them killed given the atrocity that said organization had planned out and executed. And since we have no idea of who might have been involved, potential loose ends could have been eliminated shortly after and no one would have thought to connect said person with 9/11. Others may know the truth, or suspect it, but have no way to prove it. Without concrete proof of what was said by who and when, you're just another YouTube video.

There are, by necessity, too many people who could possibly know of that conspiracy for none of them to have stepped forward.

It's one thing to know of a conspiracy, and it's quite another to be able to prove it to the national public. And it's a level beyond that to be brave enough to do so and see it through. Look at what's going on with Trump. You have high ranking officials who refuse to disclose info in public despite the witch hunt.

We know that at least individuals in the U.S. government have been involved in illegal and unethical practices:

1. Iran - Contra

2. CIA and the Sandanistas and the drugs.

And this is ignoring the conspiracy theories on Pearl Harbor :) I guess I believe it's naive to think that there aren't people in our military-industrial complex that are beyond attempting to control the public through fear. Yeah, sounds like a skit from V for Vendetta, but Homeland Security would never have been allowed if not for 9/11.

Also, my brother's friend as I said works in demolitions but is a private contractor. If he thinks how it collapsed checks out, I'm inclined to believe him.

I'd love to talk to a structural engineer at some point, but I doubt a room full of structural engineers/architects would all agree on what is possible.

I'll repeat, I don't believe the two main buildings were demolished with explosives. Regarding WTC7, it's impossible to know, isn't it? It's certainly possible the building responded in a way that exposes gaps in the field of engineering.

In any event, it's almost ironic to find your opinion exactly mirroring mine of even a week ago.

Aliens exist. That's just a fact. In an infinite universe, other intelligent life has to exist. In fact, an infinite amount of other intelligent life forms exist. By that logic, some of them must have evolved before us and thus are far more advanced technologically than we are. However, I don't believe they've ever visited Earth, or if they have I don't think we caught them.

I have to laugh because this is like reading my own exact thoughts on the subject:

Statistically, life on another planet seems a certainty and the fact that such life has found us seems a near improbability. But I would add that any sentient beings that have the ability to locate us in the vastness of the universe and then travel here, would be so far beyond us, it's hard to imagine that they'd even bother with us.

What I find far more plausible is something like Independence Day. Some huge colony of organisms traveling through space, stoping to colonize.

And yet...I saw this awesome documentary about Roswell and the UFO/weather ballon found by the farmer. The show essentially said the farmer brought the object to the local military base and it was reported by the base commander as a UFO...then the story was changed to a weather balloon. Only the guy at the base who saw it, knew what whether balloons looked like. There's this great point in the show where we see a picture of some letter the on-base commander was sending or had sent and people were trying to resolve the words on the letter in hopes of proving that the commander had, in fact, reported it as a UFO.

The show also has reported testimony from a pilot who flew the alien bodies out and there's some discussion about the nurses who assisted with the autopsies. It was done so well, I just ate it up. Good times.