Is there any way that anyone could find it credible that a number of passports of alleged hijackers could have been found intact at the site of the Twin Towers collapse?

No, that is monumentally unlikely. The video footage explicitly shows the planes exploding on impact. Is there any suggestion that they were found?

News reports from ABC at the time place at least 4 hijacker passports “surviving” the crashes at different locations intact. It was immediately questioned as to whether or not the evidence was planted.

—Full disclosure: my feeling is that the truther movement tends to have come to a conclusion before investigating the evidence—that is, they decided their conclusion and then looked at the evidence to find proof (however tenuous) of their conclusions. There are certainly oddities in the attacks, but they were also unprecedented situations. I tend to look at the evidence and consider all options. My mind is not made up about the situations that morning. —

Anyways, to the question specifically: the objects in the plane had a high velocity, it is possible (although unlikely) that objects in the airplane would survive. Particularly, objects that were well protected (e.g. a passport in a briefcase)—the briefcase may be thrown clear of the explosion, and open as it impacted some wreckage.

Of note:
(2) passports were found in Flight 93 wreckage
(1) passport was found in NYC
(1) passport was found in luggage that didn’t make it on the plane

Things to note:
1. We have only one passport (of 10) that survived the crash in the towers, and it was charred (as you expect an actual or planted passport to be).
2. The planes did not instantly burst into flame. The sequence (that happens very fast) is: impact, dispersion of fuel, ignition of fuel. As the plane is disintegrating through the building, things towards the front of the plane could potentially be thrown clear before (or just during) the explosion. Again, this is HIGHLY unlikely, but it is not a zero probability event.

My conclusions here: there was not a 10% chance of a passport surviving the impact & explosion, but the probability is there: the passport was possibly located in luggage, the passport was definitely near the front of the plane. I’d give it 50/50 odds that the passport was planted vs. actually thrown from the plane during the disintegration.

Things are found intact after plane wrecks all the time. What do you think they fish out of water sites after a plane blows up over the ocean?

The Marshall football tragedy back in the 70’s, they knew it was the teams plane because they found a players wallet, intact with fully readable id inside. That plane exploded on impact too.

All the passports would have to do is survive the initial explosion, which a large number of things would, and they would be fine save for falling debris (but then all you’d have to do is lift crap off of them).

Hmm…a lot of variables – there would have to be so many things coinciding – passports, controlled demolition style building collapses, thermite in the ruins, video glitches at convenient places, George Bushes’ own brother in charge of security company at WTC. It stinks! The idea that the “truther movement comes to conclusions” without the evidence I dispute – the conclusions drawn by the non-truthers is far less evidence based and on much shakier ground. Very fishy, to say the least.

There are many who cannot deal with the reality that their own government could kill thousands of its own citizens, yet the US were happy, in 1945, to wipe out 200000 Japanese civilians almost instantaneosly. And don’t for a minute think that the military and leadership of the USA really makes a distinction between its own and foreign citizens – if they have to die, it matters not who, as long as the political effect and military strategy is achieved.

Axel:
1. Passport (discussed above)

2. The buildings collapsed far from a controlled demolition, although I can point you to demolition videos that use the same style of collapse (progressive collapse using the upper story as a ram)

3. Thermite-like particles were found in the dust from the collapse, not in the ruins. My theory on those is that the red oxide paint on the steel combined with the aluminum dust from the cladding and steel dust could produce something that burned like thermite. Although that’s a stretch.

4. I’ve not seen nor heard of video glitches—care to share a link?

5. GWB couldn’t scheme his way out of a wet paper bag. You think he orchestrated this?
Look to Rumsfeld or Cheney for that, not Dubya.

6. The “conclusions” I’m referring to are that the building was demolished in some sort of controlled demolition with the airplanes being theatrics. There are weird and suspicious things about 9/11, but the buildings were clearly brought down by the airplanes that crashed into them, not tons of explosives planted in the building beforehand.

7. I have no doubt that the US would fake justification for a war (Iraq) or frame UBL for the 9/11 attacks.

However, I believe that IF they framed UBL for this, they were simply being opportunistic. While we now think of 9/11 as grand attacks, I think the US would have plotted better attacks (more like IRA bombs or Hamas suicide bombers) than the 9/11 attacks.

@Axel When the September 11 attacks occurred, the Islamic world held celebrations in the streets. Whichever way you look at it, convincing a dozen or so young people to kill themselves in so violent a fashion and bring down thousands of others with them requires a seriously warped set of beliefs and values. Those beliefs would have to be potent enough to render the young men psychotic and unable to feel sympathy for fellow humans.
Simply put, the US government does not have that potency at its disposal. There is no doubt that Americans feel strong emotions about their politics, but not enough to brutally murder thousands of their own people. Maybe there are people in the military and intelligence communities who would be able to give the command, but there is no one who would actually do that.
I cannot think of a single ideology more capable of doing damage to these young men such as to cause them to commit a horrendous mass killing than radical Islam. When you are taught from a young age that pleasing Allah is all that matters in life, that the afterlife is the only place to find enjoyment (albeit in deranged sexual fantasies), and that the foreigners have been meddling in your lands for generations, it is little wonder that they were able to be brainwashed into such atrocities.
Also remember that when the US declared war on Iraq, it ignored the international community, ignored warnings of bad intelligence, ignored the United Nations, and went in anyway. Why would they not have the balls to do the same with Afghanistan? For years following the Iraq invasion, people justified it because it removed Saddam Hussein. Why would they not make the same excuses for the far more cruel Taliban? No, the US did not need an excuse to invade, but they were handed the moral high ground by a group of deranged lunatics incapable of tolerating the fact that somewhere in a world far from theirs people were both free from Sharia law and happy (an apparent contradiction in radical Islam).

@axel @grumpyfish I’m a chemist, and have made thermite before. There is NO SUCH THING as a thermite particle. Thermite is a mixture (3 parts to 8) of iron oxide and aluminum powder. As such, it is not at all impossible (or even unlikely) that “particles” of thermite (as in amounts in parts per million) could be found at the site of a massive building collapse that contained thousands upon thousands of tons of iron and aluminum.

Furthermore, thermite would be a poor choice in any demolition. The steel used on the towers would’ve begun to melt and bend at 1000–1200 degrees F. Thermite burns at 6000 degrees F. It would be extreme overkill. All you would need to melt steel is say, a raging fire of office furniture and drywall started by jetfuel.

Also, thermite is extremely stable (so stable in fact, thats its LEGAL to make and own). You need something like magnesium to start it (no traces of magnesium found).

And lastly, for a controlled demolition it wasn’t a very good one. The collapsing towers took half a dozen buildings with them.

@Axel And also, your knowledge of the nuclear weapons used in WW2 is faulty and flawed. Truman wrestled with whether or not to drop the bombs at all, or whether or not to just drop one in a desolate area so Japan could see what we could do. If the goal was just inflicting mass casualties they would’ve dropped it on Tokyo (as mulitple generals suggested) which would have killed millions instantly and probably fatally crippled the Japanese empire.

Instead they chose two smaller cities. They also wouldn’t have dropped the second bomb had Japan surrendered, something they still weren’t going to do even after the second bomb fell, until the emperor fought off a coup attempt.