Stage 3 | dustification-hints

The mystery of the toasted cars.

There were 1,400 toasted cars in Lower Manhattan. They are called “toasted” rather than burned because this is a strange kind of fire.

A car near Park Place fully engulfed. This fire is of a strange kind. What is burning? What is the source of the flames underneath the car? What is burning on the other side of the car? The front tire seems gone while the rear tire has just started.

We will examine a parking lot adjacent to the Embassy Suites building north-west of WTC 1 (the North Tower) across the intersection of Vesey Street and West Street.

Judging from the shadows, the morning sun is in the east. The cars are in good shape.

At about 10am the first tower to dustify is the South Tower. The white dust cloud soon covers the Embassy Suites building and the parking lot. The North Tower still stands.

As the cloud recedes, we are left with the lot and cars covered in dust but still untoasted.

Then at around 10:30 the North Tower dustifies. The new dust cloud is thicker than before but is still whitish.

As the dust clears we see that some of the cars are giving off clouds of seemingly black smoke.Why are some cars toasting but not others?

Here is a good view from the air. Maybe a day or so later because some cars are moved or gone. And some of the dust seems washed away by rain.

Here is a ground level view of the black dust from the toasting cars in the lot.

Here is a close view. The damage is not uniform. What could have toasted the cars but not burned the papers?

Why do we say these cars are toasted? Why not burned? Because there is a mystery. Many nearby flammable things were not damaged. The damage seems to come from a source that is selective. The nature of a conventional fire is to consume everything available. But this is no ordinary fire. This is no ordinary dust.

End of stage 3.