Filmmakers Notebook

Filmmakers Notebook #116
THE MORMONS' GALILEO: PROFESSOR STEVEN E. JONES

A COVER-UP, I GUESS YOU’D HAVE TO CALL IT THAT BYU physics prof Steven E. Jones, in this interview of June 3, 2006 in Chicago, exposed gaping holes in the official story of 9/11, revealing the probable explosives used to bring the three World Trade Centers down (thermite, super-thermite…). With natural reluctance Dr. Jones drew the inevitable conclusions that 9/11 was an inside job followed by “a cover-up. I guess you’d have to call it that.” [transcription below; video 28:30]

Subsequently, just days before the 5th anniversary of the crimes of 9/11, Brigham Young University suspended Professor Jones. The highly respected Mormon university in Provo, Utah on Sept. 7, 2006 issued this Statement:
“UNIVERSITY OFFICALS ARE CONCERNED ABOUT THE INCREASINGLY SPECULATIVE AND ACCUSATORY NATURE OF THESE STATEMENTS BY DR. JONES.”
The university – which has no tenure system -- took the rare measure against Jones, who’s taught there since 1985, removing him from his classroom: ‘Go home! We’ll send you your check.’ The reason, they explain is that there is
“…A QUESTION ABOUT [THE] PROFESSOR’S PERFORMANCE IN CITIZENSHIP, SCHOLARSHIP OR TEACHING.”
Just so. He excels in all three areas and therefore must go.
 

During our June interview with Professor Jones (transcribed below), I wondered what it meant that the Monolithic Mormon Church would let one of their own continue to expose the lies of the government, at odds with their own complicit senators Hatch and Bennett, et alia? Physicist Jones is a Mormon-in-good-standing. Does his freedom to tell the truth reflect some split in the monolith? Will Church Leader Gordon Hinckley give George W. Bush back his Medal of Freedom? How could it be? The Beehive State supplies the FBI & CIA with many if not most of its bubble-headed (true believer) agents. If the LDS command center in Salt Lake City allows one of their own from BYU to expose the 9/11 hoax, the whole trance state is in jeopardy! It could even undermine the fragile Mormon belief system. Are the Latter Day Saints taking leave of their nonsenses?

Fat chance. Steven E. Jones put the Church’s britches in a knot. Even Jones’ colleagues in the sciences at BYU agreed with his questions when he dutifully first presented them at a university colloquium in early 2006. What to do? worries the Mormon inquisition: Go with Popular Mechanics over their distinguished professor of physics, and other faculties? Fire one of their own, a Latter Day Saint in good standing, fellow-believer in the Angel Moroni, son of Mormon, who delivered the Golden Plates to Joseph Smith!?

So now the Mormons have a Galileo on their hands, like the Jews had their Spinoza, and Mordecai Vanunu (et alia). The LDS risks exposing its own complicity in the cover-up by the very act of censuring their brave, believing, patriotic physicist. How hard will they lean on Elder Steven E. Jones’ extended family and friends throughout Mormon-land to force the truth-teller to shut up, to submit?

The Inquisition condemned Galileo Galilei as heretical in 1616 for questioning the earth-centered planetary system. Just 16 years earlier the Church fired Giordano Bruno at the stake for espousing views such as Galileo’s. Galileo was eventually sentenced to life in prison. Or in Galileo’s special case, to house arrest under constant guard by the Inquisition’s police.

In the BYU/LDS inquisition, according to the official statement, “Jones’ work is being reviewed by university administration, the College of Physical and Mathematical Sciences and the Physics Department.” Will these people sign off on silencing Jones? Will they find rationalizations for their dishonesty, cowardice and/or treachery? Will they be given pay raises, new job titles, or medals? Will the Godly Mormons say, in effect, that they have made a mistake in producing such an honest, creative person as Mormon Steven E. Jones? What of the words of Latter Day Saints Prophet Hinkley, church leader since the 30s, who is everywhere quoted as saying "You cannot keep good people from doing good."

Reflected in part by Prof. Jones’ iceberg metaphor, the highly centralized LDS knows that a paradigm shift-type crash is on the U.S.’ horizon. But Church elders seem to be planning to ride it* out by directing membership to store up food, water and medicine. Accept, adapt and don’t interfere with the collective cognitive imperative, the Bush “war on terror,” the unrelenting mass killing and nation-destruction which is based foremost on the lie that the U.S. was attacked on 9/11 by Al Qaida. The lie that the Mormon professor is exposing.


POSTSCRIPT
A note from a reader Brad adds an additional perspective:
I applaud your article on Steven E. Jones regarding 911 and his release from BYU
As a former Mormon this topic is of great interest to me. The LDS church has a lot of control over its members who are constantly reminded to “follow the prophet” (current “prophet” is Gordon Hinckley), despite whether what he says seems logical or not. This control could very easily be used by people within the government who have an ‘in’ with the Mormon leaders. It just so happens that Hinckley received a Medal of Freedom from Bush in June of 2004.
You may or may not be aware that Gordon Hinckley met with Pres. Bush just ONE WEEK BEFORE Steven Jones was released (or put on administrative leave or whatever you want to call it) from his job at BYU (for more information see this article: http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2006/08/images/20060831-1_g015517-515h.html ). This seems far more to me that merely a coincidence. Who knows what kind of pointers Bush slipped to Hinckley (who is probably well-meaning, but surely isn’t the all-seeing prophet that Mormon’s think, of course) about the ‘nutcase’ who is tarnishing his church’s name. And since the Mormon church’s main concern is image and recruitment, I don’t doubt that it was something that had to be taken care of right away. And so it was. This isn’t the first time that BYU professors and others have been fired or excommunicated for bringing to light things that put the LDS church in a bad light (however in most other cases it is regarding their much tarnished history).

(photo caption: Mormon Church Leader Gordon Hinckley and G.W. Bush, June 23, 2004. They met again in Salt Lake City, a week before Steven E. Jones was excommunicated from BYU.

. Re the reference to “ride it out,” what “it” is explicated plainly enough by James Lovelock in his most recent book, The Revenge of Gaia.
Filmmakers’notebook #116 by Roy Harvey who, as an Air Force brat, in 1956 lived in Bountiful and Centerville Utah for a year among Mormons and Jack Mormons.

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Professor Jones interview conducted in Chicago at the June 2-4, 2006 9-11 conference at the O’Hare Hilton sponsored by 9-11truth.org and MUJCA-NET. Questions posed by Barrie Zwicker, author of the important book Towers of Deception (the Media Cover-up of 9/11), and Karen Harvey and Roy Harvey of Snowshoefilms.

[Picture: the Chicago audience at the O’Hare Hilton enters ballroom to hear Prof. Jones speak]

Snowshoefilms: What prompted your suspicions about the official story regarding 9-11?

Professor Steven E. Jones: As I look back, I can see a number of neighbors, friends who nudged me along, suggesting that I look into 9-11.

Finally I did look at a 9-11 video but – this was now perhaps three years ago, so it was quite a while ago – it didn’t impress me too much; but then I had a few other nudges. Finally someone said at a conference I was at, they made a comment, ‘Well if you think that those towers came down just because they were hit by jet liners, you have some major surprises ahead.’ And then the audience just started applauding. And I thought, ‘Well, I guess I… I don’t know what they’re talking about. I better look into this. ‘ And so I did start studying at that point, on my own. And this is just uh, just over a year ago, actually. And I…. but I jumped right into it and studied it on the web, very thoroughly, I think. I landed, fortunately, at Jim Hoffman’s website, wtc7.net. He has good research, references and so on, and that got me started.

Snowshoefilms: What led you to speak out, to publish your research?

Steven E. Jones: There’s a professor Marcus Ford, he’s at a university in Arizona, and on 911truth[.org] he had an invitation, basically, ‘Are there any other academics who are studying 9-11?’ And I responded right away. To tell you the truth I felt a little uneasy about responding, but I did and shortly after that I received a request to write an article, my studies, what impressed me – the collapse of Building 7 caught my I immediately, and so…. and a number of other things, the use of thermite in the buildings, that hypothesis, and then that led into some research. So then I put together this paper which appeared…. well, actually before the paper I gave a colloquium at my university [Brigham Young University, Provo Utah] in September of 2005.

And the response to that at first was quite hostile but as I went on, I mean we went on for a couple of hours and people, finally…. I said, ‘Well, do you think that this should be investigated?’ That was my question. And all but one – and this was mostly professors; there were about 70 people there – so, all but one said ‘Yes, this should be investigated. And the next day that one, a geology professor said, ‘I’ve changed my mind. I think you need to investigate this.’

Snowshoefilms: What were your findings about Building 7?

Steven E. Jones: As I first studied 9-11 I first looked at the collapse of Building 7, World Trade Center 7 which is a 47-story skyscraper – or was – that collapsed on September 11th 2001. What caught my eye and my attention right away was that it collapsed so symmetrically – straight down – it didn’t topple to one side or the other. It collapsed straight down, and very rapidly.

And yet this was, according to the official story, due to some damage on the south side, primarily, and random fires – for which the evidence of…. I mean, it’s…. I couldn’t perceive of how a building of that size could come down with random fires so symmetrically. This violates my sense of probabilities. And then, of course, the rapidity of that. I studied with students. It’s about six-and-a-half seconds for the collapse if you look at the southwest roof, which we did. Just focus on that southwest roof, the corner of the roof and count as it goes down.

Which means, as we look at…. I mean, freefall time is 6.0 seconds. So we looked at the conservation of momentum and energy and it should have taken considerably longer than that. And I looked at this with a mathematician. And his numbers…. just the conservation of momentum,

[Conservation of momentum: For a collision occurring between object 1 and object 2 in an isolated system, the total momentum of the two objects before the collision is equal to the total momentum of the two objects after the collision. That is, the momentum lost by object 1 is equal to the momentum gained by object 2. ]*


not even accounting for the stiffness of the core columns

[video insert 05:17 insert core columns, Bldg 7]

in the building, these huge steel columns supporting the building, just ignoring those – just the momentum of one floor hitting the other and being slowed by the next floor is already over eight seconds….

Snowshoefilms: In looking at the molten metal – both in the sub-basements and pouring out of the buildings before they collapsed led you to questioning what kind of explosive could create such temperatures….

Steven E. Jones: The other thing that I looked at and contributed to was the question of the molten metal pouring out…. particularly out of the south tower. As soon as I saw that, that really caught my eye.


PICTURE: 60 SECONDS / METAL POURS FROM A WTC BLDG

Here is this yellow-hot molten metal, liquid metal pouring out of the building in large quantities, and uh…. I had previously worked with aluminum, liquid aluminum. It didn’t look anything like liquid aluminum which is silvery, like aluminum foil even at elevated temperatures in daylight conditions, aluminum still looks silvery-gray. And so this, on the other hand was definitely an orange-yellow, bright, glowing yellow color, which looked very much like iron. It looked like thermite.

The product of… here it’s a little technical but this reaction, this chemical reaction, thermite reaction involves aluminum powder and iron oxide powder. The oxygen transfers from the iron oxide to the aluminum to make aluminum oxide which comes off as a white dust. And the other product is molten, white-hot, white or yellow-hot molten iron which just flows away from the reaction.

Well, if you look at these pictures in detail, the south tower, you see both of that: you see the white-hot yellow flowing out of the building, in abundance. And you see the white dust coming off.

I mean this is just prima facie evidence for the termite reaction.

Then I looked at other evidence. Recently we’ve analyzed a sample of the previously molten metal which we were able to obtain. Two samples actually. They most assuredly are not molten aluminum that’s solidified, but rather the iron content is very high. And there’s also sulfur in these samples which is a common practice when one wants to cut steel with thermite, then you add sulfur to the thermite. So you have aluminum powder, iron oxide and you add sulfur to that when you ignite it. Now it cuts through steel very rapidly. And sure enough, we found sulfur in this previously molten metal. I believe that’s a contribution that I’ve made to this field, this study.

But I should say that others have…. particularly Professor Jonathan Barnett and his colleagues in Massachusetts did notice sulfidation of steel. That’s a little different aspect but the same signature, you see. Steel heated very hot, structural steel in these World Trade Center buildings. Heated very hot, at least to a thousand centigrade. And then he saw sulfidation in the steel which is again a means of cutting through the steel very rapidly. He did not raise the possibility of thermite but it fits like a glove. The data that he observed, as well as the data we have analyzed, solidified previously liquid metal and just the visual evidence that many people have now seen. The liquid metal flowing out of the south tower just before its collapse.

For thermite to have been used in these buildings to bring them down…. again, Building 7 was not even hit by a plane, so to suppose that a plane hitting the Towers brought down Building 7 is already a stretch.

Snowshoefilms: What are the implications of the evidence you’ve discovered?

Steven E. Jones: As I’ve said, we’ve looked at this evidence for thermite being used. By the way, we find molten metal in the basement areas of all three skyscrapers: both towers and Building 7, you see. Suggesting that thermite was used then in all three buildings. A very strong evidence, actually, for that.

So the implications are, it takes time to load this thermite material into the buildings, of course. And pre-planning would certainly take weeks. Actually installing thermite would require access into the buildings.

And this would explain how they could fall so rapidly, and symmetrically. Using thermite or super-thermite, a variant, to…. which is…. super-thermite is actually explosive. So…. or a combination, more than likely. So using this thermite then, to bring these buildings down, would require access, insider knowledge, certainly.

And the implications are rather enormous, I mean, uh…. As I look at this further, I realize that there are – the United States air defenses were down that day. They, they…. In the year prior to 9/11, the United States had sent up military jets to intercept hijacked or errant -- as soon as a plane goes off track, we send up a military jet. -- sixty-seven times in the year before 9/11. And here on this day, and that just takes five to 10 minutes typically, to send a jet up and intercept. Five minutes is ample time in the Washington D.C. area, for example.

So here we have four hijacked planes and no interceptions, as far as we know. I mean, they’re saying, well, no interceptions that day. This implies somebody inhibited the interceptions. And there are many other aspects that come in. I mean, just a small one comes to mind, but important. FEMA, which so slow in getting going to help the people after Hurricane Katrina, you remember

…

13:40 As citizens, we have a right redress for grievances. and as worldwide citizens, we have a right to the truth and to an end to wars [based] on the pretext of 9/11. I mean, we can all see what’s happened since 9/11 [16:08 – repeat as audio in closing credits].

15:20 The Firemen’s testimony: insert statement by fireman: boom boom boom boom. (insert at 15:33:13)

17:03:21 There are no examples of buildings collapsing due to fire. It just doesn’t happen.

….
17:16 NIST REPORT FIRES (insert)
*(The Physics Classroom, Glenbrook High School, Glenbrook, Illinois)

http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/60800