The 9/11 Forum

If I wanted to surreptitiously destroy the WTC complex I would use pre-planted ammonium perchlorate (AP) accelerant to accomplish my evil scheme since AP leaves no trace of its presence, no "tell-tale" residues.....

Now if any WTC collapse theory is to gain acceptance it must, at the very minimum, be able to explain certain well-documented phenomena such as:

· Sudden on-set of the collapse of each tower and Building 7
· Near free fall descent of a block of floors
· Pulverization and ejection of structural material (concrete/steel) during the building's collapse
· The completeness of the destruction
· Sustained high temperatures in the rubble pile long after 9/11

Most, if not all, of these phenomena are problematic in some way to the currently proposed collapse theories. So I present a new theory of the WTC collapses – one that involves the use of pre-planted ammonium perchlorate (AP) based mixtures. This theory is able to explain all the above phenomena and other important characteristics of the demise of WTC 1, 2 & 7. In many respects, the AP theory is similar to Steven Jones’ pre-planted thermite/explosives theory. However, the use of AP as an incendiary/explosive/accelerant is preferable to thermite mainly because it avoids the problems associated with complex wiring and detonator devices that would have been required to ignite thermite-based incendiaries or conventional explosives.

Background:

Ammonium perchlorate, NH4ClO4, is a colorless, odorless, compound that is stable at room temperature. However, when heated to above 300 °C, or subjected to friction or impact, it becomes violently reactive. In fact, ammonium perchlorate is a much-used ingredient in explosives, pyrothechnics and solid propellants such as those used in the space shuttle booster rockets....

Ammonium Perchlorate (AP) is SOLID ROCKET FUEL!

The decomposition reactions of ammonium perchlorate are complex and variable: Cl2, HCl, NH3, N2O, NO, N2, H2O and O2 have been observed as the major products and are all gasses!. The AP decomposition reaction is highly exothermic, releasing about 2 MJ/kg of heat energy, and is accompanied by the production of about 800 liters/kg of gases including oxygen. The combustion of ammonium perchlorate in oxygen-rich atmospheres produces a diffusion flame at about 3200 °C

The decomposition of samples of pure ammonium perchlorate at 225 °C is 25 % complete after 4 hours. However, if the ammonium perchlorate is mixed with suitable metal oxide catalysts the decomposition is accelerated. Among the large number of metal oxides that have been investigated as AP decomposition catalysts, manganese dioxide is found to be by far the most effective. Thus an addition of 10 % by weight of MnO2 to ammonium perchlorate increases the decomposition rate by a factor of about 2. Based on these properties of ammonium perchlorate/manganese dioxide mixtures, the following scenario is presented:

1. The Twin Towers (and WTC 7) were Primed with AP:

Ammonium perchlorate powder, probably containing manganese dioxide and other additives (e.g. nano-Al powder, HTPB, HMX, etc.), was mixed with binding agents (polysulfide and/or cement) and one or more of the five spray-on fire resistive (thermal insulation) materials used at the WTC. These materials are identified in NIST NCSTAR 1-6A as: (1) Blaze-shield Type D, (2) Blaze-shield Type DC/F, (3) Blaze-shield Type II, (4) Monokote MK-5, and (5) Vermiculite aggregate plaster.

In order to determine where and when these materials were applied to structural steel surfaces in the WTC complex we need to consider the history of “passive fire protection” practices employed by the New York Port Authority during and after the construction of the towers (and WTC 7), starting in 1970 and ending in 2001.

On April 13, 1970, New York City issued a ban on the use of all sprayed on thermal insulations containing asbestos, the notorious fibrous silicate mineral that was a major component of Blaze-shield Type D. The use of asbestos-containing insulation was discontinued at this time at the 38th floor of WTC 1. In February 1975, a fire occurred in WTC 1 that affected floors 9 to 19 and led to a review of the adequacy of the existing thermal insulation in the entire WTC. The need to upgrade the passive fire protection in the Twin Towers was finally addressed in 1995 when, after yet another study, it was decided to apply a 1½ inch thickness of an asbestos-free spray-on mineral fiber fire protection material to selected steel surfaces. Thus, between 1995 and 2001, thermal protection was upgraded specifically on 18 floors in WTC 1, including floors 92 to 100 and 102; and on 13 floors in WTC 2 including floors 77, 78, 88, 89, 92 and 97. (See NIST NCSTAR 1-6A page xxxvii).

How much thermal protection was used? A reasonable estimate would be a thickness of 2 cm over an effective area of 2500 m2 or 50 m3 per floor. If we assume the material had a density of 400 kg/m3 there would have been 20 tonnes of thermal protection per floor.

It should be noted that the specific selection of areas for insulation upgrading would have made on the basis of the need to apply fire protection material to areas that were known to be vulnerable to fire damage because of poor coverage of the original coating. However, in an "AP-conspiracy" theory, the sprayed-on fire protector was, in fact, an AP-based fire accelerant or pyrotechnic agent. Given the fact that upgrading of the passive fire protection of WTC 1 & 2 was an on-going project throughout the late 1990s, a deadly pyrotechnic coating could have been applied almost anywhere and at any time during this period. Building 7 could also have been "pre-conditioned" with accelerant coatings during the OEM diesel generator upgrades of 1999.

If we assume that the normal cement-based fire-resistant material was actually “spiked” with 25 wt.% of an AP-based pyrotechnic mixture, up to 5 tonnes of ammonium perchlorate could have been sprayed onto a designated floor. Furthermore, once applied to a particular floor, the coating would have remained undisturbed, unnoticed, and with no loss of potency, until it was triggered by the events of September 11th 2001.

Hard to beat this one.

Did you do it?

You'll only need from fl 92 to 98 for WTC 1. By starting an overwhelming avalanche within the chute between the core and perimeter, it may be quite possible to demolish the entire building by working from floors 92 to 98. Most all the fires were located in this region.


If we were to see a sample burning, how would the flame appear any different from a normal flame?

What color might the smoke be?

Would a mixture like that be set off by any flame source? Something as small as a cigarette lighter?

If a column connection or a weld was covered in this stuff and set ablaze, would it appear as if the column was burning? What could be the effect on the weld or connection.


There were strange fires in the NE corner of WTC 2 which sometimes appeared whitish, as if "sizzling". This was right next to where the molten something was seen flowing from the building. Are these characteristics that could be associated with AP?

Major_Tom:

Good questions. I am really not an expert on AP fires but I would urge you to dig out information on the PEPCON fire which occurred in 1988 at an AP manufacturing facility in Nevada. There are some excellent videos available on this (just google on PEPCON).

The nature of the PEPCON AP fires might surprise you ........

Considering the discussions going right now, this seems like a neglected corner of the forum. Forget the fuel/oxidizer, forget the fuel, pack only the oxidizer; there's ample fuel in the environment, with convection and flow driven by a hot fire.

How insulative is AP? In other words, a surface reaction on a coating which reacts to partially combusted gases and particulates would heat the surface it's on, but how effectively would this heat transfer occur for AP? Is it necessary to heat by direct conduction in this scheme, or would additional energy to raise the average temperature of the fire be effective?

Edit:

Dr. G wrote:Ammonium Perchlorate (AP) is SOLID ROCKET FUEL!

To be more precise (and as you know), it's the oxidizer in some SF preparations, where the fuel is typically a metal (Al) in a polybutadiene matrix. Polymers and metal, available in large supplies in an office building.

OWE:

Thanks for the post. It has just reminded me to draw people's attention to a paper I recently discovered by A.E. Gash et al. entitled "Nanostructured Energetic Materials with Sol-gel Methods"

Sorry I dont have a link at the moment but this paper (published in 2003) should be pretty easy to find and is well worth reading ......

Very briefly it's about the preparation of nano-energetic materials based on work carried out by the research group at Lawrence Livermore. It describes the preparation and properties of two materials that have potential for use as detonators, ignitors, etc.

One material is fine-grained aluminum/sol-gel iron oxide "nanothermite" amazingly similar to the red/gray chips found in WTC dust as recently reported by by Harrit, Jones et al.

The other material is a nanostructural hydrocarbon resin with fine ammonium perchlorate oxidizer trapped within the pores.

The plot thickens!

Has this intersting idea been looked into evry much? I cant find much talk regarding this topic.

Dan wrote:Has this intersting idea been looked into evry much? I cant find much talk regarding this topic.

No. It's all but ignored. By bumping this thread, you got it 10 more views. Probably ten people who've already seen it. To my knowledge, the idea is posted in at most three places, and has the highest visibility here (without internet search for keywords). No one cares. Rather, no one likes it.

It's not explosive-oriented, so doesn't satisfy the bloodlust for charges ripping all the way down the buildings. If someone believes that when they see ejections and a dust cloud, they're seeing explosions, how can you tell them otherwise? If a person rejects the idea that gravity-driven is even possible, especially in the towers, this isn't enough.

It's not thermite, so doesn't fit in with popular CT. Of course, the same argument about thermite not being explosive is there, unless a fast-reacting thermite is posited. Heating or explosion? With thermite, or thermate, or nano-thermite, you get whatever your imagination requires. It is the all-purpose polyincendiary; it can do whatever is needed to fit any scenario. This avoids arguments between folks who perceive themselves as being in the same camp, because those who think initiation via heating is sufficient don't need to confront those who believe explosives are needed all the way down. "Hey, we're all on the same side!"

(Not that I think this level of consideration has been given. Hardly. No one knows about the AP theory but, if they did, the argument would apply).

Debunkers, the best of 'em that is, fall back on the undecidability given the evidence and conclude with a misapplication of Occam's Razor, choosing to ignore it.

It comes down to this: no one knows because no one cares, and no one cares because no likes it. No one likes it because, to put it bluntly, it wasn't their idea. If any of the CT luminaries had picked up on it, it would have spread like wildfire, because the ability to prove something has never meant jack in this context. Quality and consistency, in the scientific sense, is likewise valued little so the merit not appreciated or seen as necessary. Lip service, yes, but not for real.

If the Harrit-Jones paper should be convincingly shown to be in error, it's too late to embrace this theory and retain any measure of dignity, but that in itself probably wouldn't be an impediment to adoption. No, it would be because it faded into obscurity. Here it is, the best shot offered so far, and it languishes with 360 views in over three years. At least 20 of those views, and maybe more, are mine.

OneWhiteEye wrote:... Here it is, the best shot offered so far, and it languishes with 360 views in over three years. At least 20 of those views, and maybe more, are mine.

Several would be mine. However from my first viewing I took it that the proposal was "tongue in cheek" of similar but not quite as trivial a level as one of mine. The one of mine being my suggestion that explosives had to be placed in the impact and fire zone of each twin tower whilst the fire was burning. The reasoning being simple:
It was not known exactly where the aircraft would strike; or
Where they would strike; or
Which structural elements would be cut by the strike.

....before the event. So once the plane struck the scene was available for placing of the minimum of charges to initiate the collapse. One problem with the logistic arrangements being that it called for a further two teams of fire suited suicide volunteers over and above the 19 already accounted for.

There were one or two other minor barriers to the viability of the plan....

Now Dr G's "plan" suffers from most of the deficiencies of the thermXte based plans:
Which members do you cut so that the assistance rendered remains invisible behind the consequences of aircraft impact and consequent unfought fires?
How do you get it there without being caught? (The timings differ between thermXte, high explosives and perchlorate but the principle issue is the same.)
(A subset of the above) How do you place the material only in the area where it is needed i.e. the impact and fire zone. (You either need to know in advance where the plane will strike and what damage it will do OR you place the material/devices everywhere and let them self disappear after the event....leading to another minor problem or three.)
etc etc through all the well identified problems.

So if Dr G's suggestion was not tongue in cheek it does little more than is done by the thermXte variants. i.e. suggests a material but fails to address the 95% (say) of the challenge - which encompasses how to get it there, what it does and how it remains undiscovered whilst performing a precise job of demolition assistance which remains hidden behind the aircraft impact and fire damage scenario.

Given that anyone clever enough with the engineering to predict where it could be used would also be clever enough to work out that it wouldn't be needed.

Is it possible that the planes were used to carry incendiaries into the building... much like fuel to simply cause massive heating to weaken the columns??? The assumption being that the core being either 87' wide on the short axis and 137 on the long axis would definitely loose SOME core columns on a direct hit. Destroying either Rows 500 or 1000 would lead to a total core failure and then a top drop and a ROOSD... Likely no one contemplated destroyed enough of the core to drop the top and kick off a ROOSD from a plane strike.

We did see very little tilt in tower 1 when the top DID drop and this tends to support the idea that the column failure at initiation was almost uniform and not favoring the side of the impact damage. I am wondering if this was attributable to the hat truss??? As the destroyed and damaged core column loads at the impact zone were being redistributed it may have been the hat truss which was able to effectively UNIFORMLY redistribute the loads to all remaining columns.

In tower 2 when the load exceeded the carrying capacity of the remaining columns buckling began... downward motion was seen. The initial damage was asymmetrical so that the resistance was mostly on the NW side and it enabled a tipping to the SE until the NW columns were completely buckled and providing no resistance at all and the downward vector dominated. The virtual hinge may have been a *actual* hinge up to and until complete failure of the NW side of the core. It seems that the horse shoe columns indicates that the bottom was pinned, the bracing failed.. with the top driven over by an eccentric axial load. Is it known which way the column bent?

Commonly Held Assumption

This of course presumes that the intent was to completely destroy the towers. This may not have been the case, though it seems to be a common assumption. I think one needs to consider the possibility that the planes were intended to cause massive structural damage... though not necessarily fatal damage. They would deliver sufficient fuel to cause massive fires which would spread and be difficult to fight. The result would be two massively damaged towers, which could not be used after the damage. They would have to have been repaired in an extremely difficult and expensive fix. There would likely be no chance for future tenants in those towers and they would stand as towering monuments of a deep wound to America. Under this scenario, the plotters didn't even have to understand a ROOSD possibility and that it was possible to destroy the towers using its failing/falling collapsing floors... a concept that the engineering, truth community, the government and the media seem to not want to address. If the idea was to simply leave charred monuments towering over NYC the loss of life would have been much less as well... with almost the same symbolic impact.

And so what about building 7? That may have been a completely uncontemplated consequence the building being another victim of unsound engineering decisions to build a skyscraper over a massive Con Ed substation using massing transfer trusses to support some of the core with 10's of thousands of gallons of diesel fuel pumped up to gen sets located above the sub station by emergency back up power which could (and likely did) ignite and cook the transfer truss part of the structure all day until it weakened enough to collapse down onto the sub station. A strange unpredictable chain of progression of failure events. Perhaps the Con Ed sub station itself began to fail as a direct result of the plane strike to tower 1 from voltage spikes. Note that in the unclassified report below the Con Ed sub station went down immediately on impact of the first plane with tower 1. What the report does not address is whether or not there were explosions or fires which accompanied it / or caused the sub station to go off line. With the loss of power the sprinkler system pumps stopped working as well making fire fighting almost impossible.

Cascading failures are not uncommon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cascading_failure.

Shit happens.

"UNCLASSIFIED
Commission Sensitive
There were two substations in WTC 7 building, serving the twin towers, and one
substation by the South Street Seaport. A total of eight 13 kW feeders were located at the
WTC.

Timeline on 911112001:
08:46 a.m. Two WTC open/auto (O/A) 13 kW feeders went off
09:02 a.m. Two additional WTC open/auto (O/A) 13 kW went off
09:52 a.m. Four additional open/auto (O/A) 13 kW feeders went off
10:28 a.m. Status: '
Cortlandt 8 of 15 feeders were off
Battery Park City 6 of 8 feeders were off
Bowling Green 6 of 16 feeders were off
Park Place 1 of 12 feeders were off

Con Ed can lose any 2 feeders, and not lose a network grid. It is very expensive to make this investment and have such a robust system. The NYSE was located in the Bowling Green network. Since all 8 feeders were lost prior to WTC South tower falling, it was possible the lights had gone out before. However, the Port Authority controlled the equipment in the towers and Con Ed did not know exactly what happened inside the towers. They did have maps of the towers and were prepared to help the Port Authority in the event they were needed."

Plans of WTC 7:

http://whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICL ... eport.html

An example of an exploding power grid sub station:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkDCS8xeobg

Transformer explosions
"Transformer and oil-filled high voltage equipment may give rise to very strong explosions. A severe electrical fault inside the transformer may well generate pressure that the transformer casing cannot withstand, such that it ruptures. Due to the high temperature and energy released from the arc, the insulating oil will decompose and highly explosive gas mixtures will result (mainly Hydrogen and Acetylene). Upon transformer rupture, gas and oil mist will be ejected to the surrounding area, mix with air and a secondary explosion may occur. If transformers are located indoors or in subterranean stations the pressure loads can amount to more than a bar overpressure. In subterranean stations pressure waves may propagate through tunnels and corridors without weakening and pressure loads can become substantial in areas located far away from the actual explosion."

Good post, SanderO, although I am not sure if this thread is a good place for it.

Some quick ideas:

a) I don't think speculation about the intent to collapse by those planning the plane crashes leads us anywhere, unless we have their words. Retrocative mind-reading has not been invented yet, afaik. So what has OBL said on the matter? I vaguely remember a video years ago where he seemed to have said that they kinda hoped for partial collapse, didn't depend on it , had differences of opinion among themselves, but were overjoyed to see them collapse completely. I don't know if any statements from KSM, Atta or any others are on record with regard to intention of copllapse.

b) No matter what the outcome of plane crashes into New York - if you crash at all, it's a huge success already:
- If you crash into tower and achieve immediate total collapse, that would be best, as it maximizes the death toll (this presents a serious challenge to those speculating about CD: Why did they wait till most people had evacuated the building? With over 2500 dead in New York, surely the perpetrators were not timid about killing. If I had been overlord over a campaign with planes and CD, I would have allowed the first tower to stand for a while, to attrackt media and emergency personel, but then make both towers collapse within seconds of each other upon the second plane crash - and WTC7 following immediately)
- If you crash and achieve total collapse later - huge success; it's the situation we have
- If you crash but no collapse, you can still kill more than a thousand (in fact, most or all people trapped above the fire floors would probably have died a gruesome fire death), and marr the NY skyline for a long time
- If you miss and crash elsewhere in Manhattan, you'll still cause unspoken death and destruction, and it will be a huge success
- Even if the air force manages to intercept and shoot you down, that's a huge success! You forced the mightiest military in the world to turn their guns on their own civilian population - what a terrifying concept!
- The only scenarios that would give the terrorists only modest, or no, success are if the hijacks fail or they can't gain sustained control of the cockpit. That's what happened to flight 93.

c) Remember that when they bombed the WTC in 1993, they said they had hoped one tower would topple and slam into the other, like dominoes. It is not unreasonable to suspect they again tried to topple the towers. So perhaps some of them hoped that the planes would do it, and even hoped again for a dominoe effect.
Also, I read recently a story about the CitiCorp building, which is built over a little church, so the bottom few floors of that building have a smaller footprint than the upper part. After it was finished, one of the lead engineers had second thoughts about the max. wind loads, and they had top secretly reinforce some of the structure. In the article I read it was claimed that they feared back then that a hurricane could cause the building to topple, and that they, too feared a dominoe-style secence of several highrises collapsing!
I guess we know in hindsight, and with thinking much harder and longer about it than the 1993 bombers or the CitiCorp worriers did, that tall office towers don't topple like trees.
Certainly none of the terrorists had particularly and exclusively WTC7 in mind as the victim of a third total collapse, but they might have hoped in a more general sense for collateral damage around the towers.

d) It makes sense on several levels to hijack planes early that are scheduled for a longer distance:
- Doing it early of course minimzes the chance of anyone or anything imnterfering with you before you start your move
- More fuel to start with means more time and distance available to carry out your own plans
- More fuel means more mass means more destruction upon impact
- More fuel is more fuel
However, we don't know with certainty how they reasoned precisely.

e) With 10,000 gallons of pure fuel aboard already, what other incendiaries would have made any sense? You can't place them with any precision by crashing a plane, so all that matters is the amount of energy released. In that department, fuels like kerosine are about the best you can take. Explosives, thermites, ammoniumperchlorate or whatever you care to speculate about would weigh too much per heat unit.

f) I can't say much about the electricity stuff. 8 times 13kW doesn't sound like a whole lot to me - 104,000 Watts total, right? That's barely enough to run 110 microwave ovens (800W each) in kitchens lit by a total of 150W light bulbs each. You don't mean to say that the substations would be maxed out if they heat one instant meal per floor? I am probably missing something there...

ozeco41 wrote:

OneWhiteEye wrote:... Here it is, the best shot offered so far, and it languishes with 360 views in over three years. At least 20 of those views, and maybe more, are mine.

Now Dr G's "plan" suffers from most of the deficiencies of the thermXte based plans:
Which members do you cut so that the assistance rendered remains invisible behind the consequences of aircraft impact and consequent unfought fires?
How do you get it there without being caught? (The timings differ between thermXte, high explosives and perchlorate but the principle issue is the same.)

In many respects this is true, but I must advise you the description above is the most brief telling of the theory. I'll try to locate the others; the scenario is a bit more involved than above.

What it boils down to is this, if I recall the details correctly: there were upgrades to insulation done in both regions of the towers which were impacted, but not the entirety of the towers. Thus, you are put in the position of having to dismiss it as pure coincidence, without having positive evidence for support. It is only the absence of counterevidence you can fall back on. The issue of how "hard it is" is entirely irrelevant if it was done!

It's conceptually the same thing as when someone expresses incredulity at passports being found intact. It may seem highly improbable for whatever reasons but, if it actually happened, the posterior probability is 1. Kinda hurts when the shoe is on the other foot, doesn't it? Incredulity that the perceived necessary logistics is impossible is simply that, incredulity and nothing more. If you think something like this cannot be done clandestinely, then I dare say you would not be hired to pull it off...

Oystein wrote:Also, I read recently a story about the CitiCorp building, which is built over a little church, so the bottom few floors of that building have a smaller footprint than the upper part. After it was finished, one of the lead engineers had second thoughts about the max. wind loads, and they had top secretly reinforce some of the structure. In the article I read it was claimed that they feared back then that a hurricane could cause the building to topple, and that they, too feared a dominoe-style secence of several highrises collapsing!

One of my most oft-used citations. Guess what happens when a skyscraper is "undetectably out of plumb"? People like Leslie Robertson demand a rework.

e) With 10,000 gallons of pure fuel aboard already, what other incendiaries would have made any sense? You can't place them with any precision by crashing a plane, so all that matters is the amount of energy released. In that department, fuels like kerosine are about the best you can take. Explosives, thermites, ammoniumperchlorate or whatever you care to speculate about would weigh too much per heat unit.

You're overlooking the effectiveness of placement. What is the minimum energy required to catalyze the total destruction of the towers? In my opinion, negligible, at least as compared to what is typically bandied about - if strategically applied. There is a difference between possible, probable, and high confidence, I'd admit. And, I'd further admit no one knows the mechanics perhaps as well as is generally assumed. All the same, I suspect the energy contained in a couple of tanks of acetylene, or in a few hundred pyro bolts (firecrackers, relatively speaking), are enough to bring it to the threshold of possibility.

The beauty of the AP is that it can be all over the place; so long as it happens to be where there is fire, it will do its job of very effectively delivering heat energy to the very places which need to be heated to induce failure. Probably more effectively than any other means, and potentially with very broad coverage. By volume/weight, highly efficient.

I always thought it was funny that some of the same people who'd calculate thousands of tons of explosives would be needed to CD the building could then turn right around and claim none were required. Not saying you're doing that, you're not, but it is funny.

ozeco41 wrote:Which members do you cut so that the assistance rendered remains invisible behind the consequences of aircraft impact and consequent unfought fires?

How would you detect AP assisted combustion in the fireproofing? Really, I'd love to know. It probably wouldn't burn at all where there's no incidental fire, it would simply increase the thermal output of whatever fires were already present in a region. Think of all the trillions of (American) commercial cigarettes with potassium nitrate sprayed on the tobacco as an additive to promote combustion. Do they explode in people's faces? No. You wouldn't even know it was done, unless you already know that untreated cigarettes tend to go out when you set them in an ashtray and leave them be. In the case of the towers, unfought fires in a building with non-functional fire suppression... no one is expecting it to go out. So how do you tell?

How do you get it there without being caught? (The timings differ between thermXte, high explosives and perchlorate but the principle issue is the same.)

No, the delivery issues are different. The lynchpin of the AP theory are the chemical properties of the substance itself. It can be mixed with fireproofing and be fully effective; the same is not true of thermite. The fireproofing WAS upgraded on the impact/fire floors. There you go.

(A subset of the above) How do you place the material only in the area where it is needed i.e. the impact and fire zone.

As I mentioned, you can place it all over, and it will be available on demand. Only in the pile later would there be any indication of residual unconsumed oxidizer, in the form of a stubborn fire persisting for months... ah... nothing odd there... see what I mean? There you go.

So if Dr G's suggestion was not tongue in cheek...

It was tongue in cheek but far more serious than you're taking it. I do need to locate his full exposition before rightly asking you to judge, but I definitely disagree with you on some of the perceived shortcomings. It is quite distinct from the possible delivery mechanisms for a thermite based compound, and does not suffer from all the same drawbacks. Some, not all.

I'm not portraying it as a foolproof theory; it isn't. I see it as superior to the competition, in a variety of ways. If anyone wanted to confirm it, dust analysis might suffice, but looking for iron spheres is looking in the wrong direction. Refutation would be a bit tougher, as absence in the dust would only suggest no uncombusted residue made it into the sample.