UNLIKELY: 'The South Tower Was Powered Down Before the Attack'

The following e-mail was forwarded by John Kaminski to a CC list of about 50 people in April of 2004. Subsequently, Victor Thorn published an article amplifying the e-mail and promoting its assertions as fact.

From: "Scott Forbes" <scottforbes2002@hotmail.com>
To: skylax@comcast.net
Subject: Official Ver[si]on of 9/11 - new info
Date: Mon, 19 Apr 2004 12:35:12 +0000

To John Kaminski,

I was pleased to read your article "The Official Version of 9/11 is a Hoax" 
... Please note some other facts. My name is Scott Forbes and I still work 
for Fiduciary Trust. In 2001 we occupied floors 90 and 94-97 of the South 
Tower and lost 87 employees plus many contractors.

On the weekend of 9/8,9/9 there was a 'power down' condition in WTC tower 2, 
the south tower. This power down condition meant there was no electrical 
supply for approx 36hrs from floor 50 up. I am aware of this situation since 
I work in IT and had to work with many others that weekend to ensure that 
all systems were cleanly shutdown beforehand ... and then brough[t] back up 
afterwards. The reason given by the WTC for the power down was that cabling 
in the tower was being upgraded ... Of course without power there were no 
security cameras, no security locks on doors and many, many 'engineers' 
coming in and out of the tower. I was at home on the morning of 9/11 on the 
shore of Jersey City, right opposite the Towers, and watching events unfold 
I was convinced immediately that something was happening related to the 
weekend work ...

I have mailed this information to many people and bodies, including the 9/11 
Commission but no-one seems to be taking and registering these facts. Whats 
to hide? Can you help publicise them?

Please feel free to mail me.

Scott Forbes

After being posted on scores of websites for over a year, this story has failed to elicit any corroborating reports, even about the identity of 'Scott Forbes'. Aside from the fact that the sourcing of the story doesn't meet the most basic journalistic standards, its content is thoroughly implausible.

• It makes no sense that the perpetrators would do something so obvious as powering down half of a tower so shortly before the attack. This would create a profound disruption of business for dozens of companies, and would be noticed by thousands of people. Thousands of e-mails would have been broadcast and a great deal of work would have been done by scores of employees to prepare for the outage.
• It makes less sense that they would take such a drastic action but only for one half of one tower. Why was the disruption only necessary for the upper floors of the South Tower, or how would similar power-downs of the other sections have gone unnoticed?
• Powering down for cabling upgrades is laughable as a cover story for demolition preparation work. Cabling upgrades for data bandwidth do not require interrupting AC power at all. Even if the AC wiring were being upgraded, the new wiring would have been installed and powered up in parallel with the old wiring. Any interruptions would be minimized to a few minutes. Powering down large portions of a tower, and for 36 hours, would have generated numerous protests from tenants.
• Contrary to the e-mail's assertion, security cameras are designed to use independent uninterruptible power supplies. If power to the security systems were interrupted, many doors would remain unopenable except by key.

Scott Forbes stands by his story, but has not provided any corroborating information that might allow it to be verified. An article on George Washington's Blog dated November 24, 2005 contains an Interview with Scott Forbes, based on a half-hour telephone conversation in late 2004. The interview provides only a few additional details to the story, such as that Scott worked on the 97th floor of the South Tower, and that the "power down" lasted from approximately 12 noon on Saturday, September 8 through 2 PM on Sunday, September 9. Although the interviewer queries Forbes on several of the points noted above, Forbes fails to explain any of them. He states that "Many, many people worked on the power down" but does not provide any names. When queried on how he knew that the "power down" affected floors 50 and up, Forbes expresses less certainty than in his original e-mail: