The National Institute of Standards and Technology says that WTC 7 collapsed due to "thermal expansion" which is a previously unheard of phenomenon.

According to a federal agency report released Thursday, a "new phenomenon" known as thermal expansion was directly responsible for the mysterious collapse of World Trade Center 7 on Sept. 11, 2001.

This study, posed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology -- a federal scientific agency which promotes technical industrial standards -- marks the first 'official' government theory on the collapse.

The building's demise occurred some seven hours after the twin towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001, and has been the source of numerous conspiracy theories key to the "9/11 Truth" movement, most of which argue that the symmetrical, seven-second collapse was brought about by a controlled demolition.

Dr. Shyam Sunder, director of Institute's building and fire research laboratory, oversaw the government's three-year research efforts. The report aims to disprove the controlled demolition argument.

So this institute is going to put to rest all of the conspiracy theorists by using a previously unknown phenomenon to explain the collapse of tower 7? Oh yeah that should totally put this controversy to rest!

However, Richard Gage, founder of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and a member of the American Institute of Architects, doesn't believe a word of the theory.

"Tons of [molten metal] was found 21 days after the attack," said Gage in an interview with a Vancouver, Canada television station. "Steel doesn't begin to melt until 2,700 degrees, which is much hotter than what these fires could have caused."

"There are holes in this story that you can drive a truck through," Gage added during the press conference. His group asserts that thermite, a steel cutting agent, was used to bring the building down.

Dr. Sunder disagreed.

"We conducted the study without bias, without interference from anyone," said Dr. Sunder. "We have only one single-minded goal in this effort."

While the Institute said it considered the possibility of a controlled demolition taking place at WTC 7, the notion was dismissed due to the absence of any recordings of an explosion sound.
(By the way if you want to hear the exposive sound that Dr. Sunder says did not occur then simply click here.)

Thermite, however, does not make an explosion sound. And while this was raised to Dr. Sunder in the media's Q&A session, he dismissed it as impossible.

"FEMA found it," said Gage. "Dr. Steven Jones found it, in the dust that landed in the entire area of lower Manhattan. And he finds it in the chunks of previously molten metal [from the towers]."

Specifically, in Appendix C of its World Trade Center Building Performance Study, FEMA claimed:

Evidence of a severe high temperature corrosion attack on the steel, including oxidation and sulfidation with subsequent intergranular melting, was readily visible in the near-surface microstructure. A liquid eutectic mixture containing primarily iron, oxygen, and sulfur formed during this hot corrosion attack on the steel... The severe corrosion and subsequent erosion of Samples 1 and 2 are a very unusual event. No clear explanation for the source of the sulfur has been identified.

Yet, no study of the mysterious sulfur or melted steel was included in the NIST report.

If the institute cannot answer the question of the molten metal found in the basement of all three towers then this so called "explanation" explains absolutely nothing. In my opinion this is still an ongoing mystery that will never be solved with the Bush administration actively engaged in a cover up.