The 47-story World Trade Center 7 was not hit by a plane on September 11 but, strangely, collapsed completely at about 5:21 on that day. The mystery of this collapse is compounded by the fact that many people knew it was going to come down well before it did. In the present article, originally a talk delivered at the University of Hartford, I argue that attempts to portray the demonstrated foreknowledge as rational, evidence-based prediction do not meet serious research standards.

Many other investigators preceded me in investigating WTC 7’s collapse. To mention just one obvious example, Steven Jones’ early work on the topic was an important stimulus to my skepticism of the official 9/11 narrative (see “Why Indeed Did the WTC Buildings Completely Collapse?” [local PDF]). My only contribution was my single-minded dedication to the foreknowledge problem. See also the article in Section 3 of this collection, “Waiting for Seven: WTC 7 Collapse Warnings in the FDNY Oral Histories”.

The videotape of this talk, given below, begins with an Introduction to William Pepper, who then introduces me.