Your source is a website run by Michael Rivero, banned from FR after insisting that the WTC was brought down by Bush and the Jews -- immediately afterward. You can believe Rivero if you want. The ultimate source of the "red residue" claim was James "felonious stewardess" Sanders, who arranged to steal wreckage and have it tested in support of his antigovernment theories. he was convicted and is now and for all time a felon.
But I won't just bash your theory for the authors of same -- that's an ad hominem attack. I just want to make sure everyone in this thread knows that the conspiracy tools include plenty of people boiling with hate and racism (Rivero) and with gutter morals (Sanders).
So I'll address your "red residue" directly. It was... bottom sediment. Here is the relevant excerpt from the alt.disasters.aviation FAQ.
2.1.5) What was that "red residue?" Should I believe the Sanders sample results?
Contributed by Dr. George O. Bizzigotti
Author James Sanders has made a significant argument based on a red
residue found on certain seat cushions in the TWA wreckage. Sanders
clandestinely obtained a sample of that residue, and submitted it for
elemental analysis. The composition of the residue was reported as
follows:
Magnesium 18%
Silicon 15%
Calcium 12%
Zinc 3.6%
Iron 3.1%
Aluminum 2.8%
Lead 2.4%
Titanium 1.7%
Antimony 0.53%
Nickel 0.38%
Manganese 0.21%
Boron 0.081%
Copper 0.053%
Silver 0.032
Chromium 0.032%
Sanders asserted that this analysis is consistent with solid rocket
fuel; his assertion is supported primarily by quotes from an
anonymous "retired Hughes Missiles engineer and propellants
specialist." However, there is abundant technical literature that
indicates that solid rocket fuels fall into two general categories:
nitrocellulose-based fuels and composite fuels containing aluminum,
ammonium perchlorate, and a polymeric binder, typically butadiene or
polysulfide rubber. Sanders arguments concern composite fuels, so
I'll concentrate on that. Kirk-Othmer's Encyclopedia of Chemical
Technology (4th ed., Vol 10, p. 72) indicates that composite rocket
fuel is typically 70 percent ammonium perchlorate, 18 percent
aluminum, and 12 percent polymeric binder; if the binder is
polybutadiene, one would expect the fuel to have a composition of
18.00% aluminum, 10.66% carbon, 3.74% hydrogen, 21.12% chlorine,
8.35% nitrogen, and 38.13% oxygen. Other compositions are possible, but
none come any closer to matching Sanders' result. Sanders results account
for 63% of the elemental composition, so any carbon, hydrogen, chlorine,
nitrogen, and oxygen can account for no more than 37% of his material
versus the 82% expected based on the technical literature's
composition. The aluminum value is lower than expected by a factor of
six. Clearly, the measured composition does not match (typical
criteria are measured = expected plus or minus 0.4%) the expected
composition.
I begin as a skeptic because Sanders source is a "retired Hughes
Missiles engineer and propellants specialist." Hughes doesn't make
rocket motors; they buy them from subcontractors (e.g., Aerojet,
Alliant Techsystems, Morton Thiokol) that formulate the propellant.
This is roughly equivalent to "a retired Delta Airlines aircraft
designer" giving an opinion on the composition of materials in the
777; its not completely ridiculous, but one might be quicker to
accept at face value if he or she had worked for Boeing. The
anonymous source argues away most of the discrepancies, but on
closer inspection, he or she is wrong on several counts. Magnesium
(at 18 percent in the sample) has been used experimentally as an
igniter or to increase combustion temperatures, but in much smaller
proportions. The silicon (at 15 percent) is described as a "possible
binder component."
However, no one has ever reported using a silicone rubber binder in a
rocket propellant, probably because silicone does not provide
sufficient energy when burned (much of the energy in solid rocket
propellants come from the organic rubber binder). Sanders also
asserts that calcium (at 12 percent) is used as a "heat or shock
sensitive explosive." That's a curious assertion; calcium nitrate
might be found in small amounts in some explosives, but it is not
found in rocket propellant. Rocket propellants are designed
specifically not to be sensitive explosives; they burn rather than
detonate (implied by the term "sensitive"). The silicon and calcium
are telling; they make up 27 percent of the sample by weight, but
they are not used in anywhere near those proportions in any rocket
propellant reported in the technical literature. Neither Sanders nor
any of the proponents of the missile theory have been able to explain
convincingly how these high levels of silicon and calcium could be
found in rocket propellant.
So what could the residue be? I would note that seafloor sediments in
general are high in elements such as magnesium, calcium, silicon,
zinc, iron, and aluminum, with smaller amounts of many other metallic
elements. The exact values found in a sample are variable, i.e.,
samples taken from within feet of one another will vary by + or - 25
percent (which is why analyzing a control sample from the crash site
would not be terribly useful), but the general pattern has been
observed in many different samples (I've personally seen this pattern
in hundreds of samples over more than a decade). What I (and others)
have pointed out is that the Sanders result matches that general
pattern pretty well. The argument actually was never intended to
"prove" that the residue is sediment, but it rationalizes how a piece
of cloth that sat on the sea floor for several weeks could produce
the observed analysis. Nonetheless, the key factor for Sanders'
credibility is not whether or not he might have analyzed sediment, it
is whether the result is consistent with any known rocket propellant.
Sanders and others simply assert that the elements found in the
sample are typical of rocket fuel.
Sanders credibility is also affected because he did the wrong test.
There are other tests, most notably infrared spectroscopy, that allow
the nondestructive, conclusive identification of materials. In
contrast, Sanders elected to do a destructive test that can never
conclusively prove the identity of the material, i.e., one could
prepare a mixture of totally innocuous materials that would have the
identical elemental composition. A demonstrably poor choice of
analytical procedure and an unsupportable explanation for the amounts
of the elements present are what discredit Sanders' lab analysis.
That the sample, which sat on the sea floor, matches reasonably well
with what one would expect for sediment is suggestive, but it is not
necessary to discredit Sanders' argument.
Sorry for the long excerpt, all. But I thought it best to give it verbatim.
To recap: Sanders stole the material, had the wrong tests done on it, then makes false assertions about what the material is based on an anonymous source known only to him. Swordmaker's message to us is, "trust Sanders" (via Rivero), and Sanders's message is, "trust me." That's the evidence; what do you think the jury will say? (We know what the jury did say about bottom-sand-man Sanders, who tried to raise this in his criminal trial: "Guilty!" [Actually, I think he pled guilty, so a jury never saw him -- it was many years ago -- but a guilty plea would show how he judges his own credibility, yes?)
d.o.l.
