9/11: an 'inside job?'

Controlled demolition, claims California architect

By ROSS ROMANIUK

Conspiracy buffs are in for a big treat.

California architect Richard Gage will be in Winnipeg this week to offer his explanation of why the World Trade Centre towers collapsed on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gage has become a leading figure of the so-called 9/11 truth movement, an informal campaign from people all over the world who challenge official accounts of what happened that day.

He argues that a deliberate, controlled demolition using explosive devices is what really destroyed the twin towers that day, along with another skyscraper known as WTC 7 or Building 7. Speaking to Sun Media from his Bay Area home this weekend, Gage said few people are even aware of the third building.

'SMOKING GUN

"It's the smoking gun of 9/11," he said. "It was a 47-storey building, not hit by an airplane, that came down into its own footprint in 6.5 seconds, at nearly freefall speed -- symmetrically, smooth, straight down."

Gage says Building 7 fell after sustaining relatively minor damage due to the collapse of one of the twin towers hours earlier, with small fires on its fifth and 12th floors. continued →