The Apex Truther

By: Myles Power Edited by: James Gurney & Hannah

I recently made a series of seven videos on YouTube, critical of the 9/11 truth movement. For those of you who don’t know, the 9/11 truth movement are a group who reject the official explanation provided for the September 11th attacks and instead, claim complicity on the part of the US government. The videos, which run for just under two hours, debunk many of the claims made by the truth movement, including thermite found in the dust, the World Trade Center towers falling at free fall speed and the collapse of Building 7. As I predicted, the videos received a lot of negative attention from people who believe in the conspiracy. One of the more interesting negative responses came from a chap named Adam Taylor, who wrote a 4349 word blog post on a website  entitled, “Debunking the Debunkers”. Out of the thousands of conspiracy theorists who have contacted me over the past few months, I believe that Adam is an ‘apex truther’.

Adam’s blog post – even with its impressive word count – did not really say much about anything. One of the more interesting claims he made was that the molten material seen flowing from the World Trade Center could not have been aluminium because it was glowing white hot. The blog even had an image showing that it was white. This would be impressive if it did not have, directly above it, a image of it glowing orange. The claim was so bizarre that I mentioned it in my final thoughts, in my final video.

Soon after this, Adam made a video response. He said that I was incorrect in stating that the molten material was orange in the image. He even included an image of myself with the word ‘WRONG’ pasted over the top of it in big, red letters, as if to show just how wrong I was. The video boasted that the blog had 40+ references backing him up. What he fails to mention is that a large proportion of his references are not peer-reviewed research, but references to other 9/11 conspiracy blog posts. Some aren’t even linked to what he is talking about. The perfect example is where Adam says, “Research shows that it has even been used in the demolition of large steel structures.[36]” But the reference is to another one of his blog post named ‘What Is Nanothermite? Could It Have Been Used To Demolish The WTC Skyscrapers?’. Saying a substance is capable of doing something is not the same as saying that it has, Adam. The rest of the video is one big contradiction and consists of video clips from people saying that aluminium both can and can’t glow red/orange.

So what is the deal with aluminium? Can it glow orange and was it the material seen flowing from one of the towers? Aluminium can glow, but unlike steel it melts before it begins to glow. The majority of people working with molten aluminium don’t waste energy by heating it to the point of it glowing. This has led to many uninformed truthers believing that it can’t. Truthers also claim that aluminium instantly goes back to being silvery when removed from a heat source, or whilst being poured. Every metallurgist, chemist, engineer etc. knows aluminium does not have the magical property of turning silver the instant it is removed from a heat source. “But truthers have many videos of them heating aluminium to the point of it glowing and showing it turn back to silver when they pour it”, I hear you say. That’s true, but they are missing one large factor – the volume. If you pour a small amount of aluminium, say 10g, then it will cool down to the point it no longer glows within a relatively short distance. If you were to repeat the experiment with 100kg, then it would take a considerably larger pouring distance to cool down. The amount of material seen flowing from the World Trade Center was a considerable volume and therefore it is not unexpected (if it was aluminium) for it to remain glowing. But was it aluminium that was seen flowing from the World Trade Center? The truth is, we don’t know. The world is chaotic and sometimes no matter how hard people research something, sometimes some questions will always remain unanswered. The best explanation we have is that this molten material is aluminium from the airplane melted by the office fires, mixed with organic material, but we don’t 100% know. This is why I was very careful in the wording I used in my video: “It is more than likely that the molten material seen flowing from the tower is aluminium.” I am very aware that I may be wrong but this does not mean that Adam’s nonsensical theories about thermite are correct. Besides, this article isn’t really about what happened on September 11th, it’s about The Apex Truther and his willingness to ignore reality, to stay safe and secure in his 9/11 conspiracy bubble.

After I posted his video on my Facebook wall, Adam began commenting. In the comments section he was repeatedly confronted with testimony from people who work with molten aluminium, as well as video evidence posted from a guy named John. This video evidence proved without a shadow of doubt that aluminium can glow red/orange, that it continues to glow whilst being poured and whilst left standing for a certain period of time. When confronted with this overwhelming evidence, Adam’s response was unbelievable and everyone in the chat was flabbergasted by it. I found myself with my mouth wide open and hands in the air screaming “WHAT!” in a mixture of confusion and anger.

“John, the videos you provide show aluminum glowing, but keep in mind that aluminum is highly reflective. The glow from the heat source is what is likely shown in the video. Especially the second, given that the aluminum is being poured in the evening. But once aluminum leaves its heat source and does not have any additional heat applied to it, it will turn silver almost instantly.” – Adam Taylor

 

I want you to take that in for a second. Adam is claiming that the light emitted by the molten aluminium in the videos is due to it being highly reflective and reflecting the glow from the heat source. For this to work molten aluminium must also have the ability to bend space and time to reflect light, from a heat source which is not in direct line of sight into the camera, uniformly giving the impression that it is glowing. This was not a one-off comment, as Adam was quizzed by others about his ludicrous claims and he repetitively said that the glow was due to it reflecting the heat source. Now Adam admits that he has no scientific background but says he makes sure to carefully research any subject he is interested in. But you don’t have to have a science background to know this is wrong, you just have to live in the real world.

A lot of you may think that I am being unfairly harsh to Adam, but remember – he is not some anonymous troll on the internet. He writes for the blog ‘Debunking the Debunkers’ and a website called ‘Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth’, even though he is studying Liberal Arts and Political Science (and not architecture or engineering). His delusions and arrogance are a product of 11 years of truther evolution, which has seen weaker truthers leave the movement after being convinced by logic and evidence.  This process has left apex truthers, like Adam.