You read correctly. Not a conspiracy group or theorist, but the National Institute of Standards and Technology is now looking into the possibility that planted explosives played a role in the collapse of World Trade Center 7, something they did not evaluate when reporting on WTC 1 & 2. This is after the release of their final report in October 2005 in which NIST investigated the cause of the collapse of WTC Buildings 1,2 and 7.
On their recently posted
FAQ sheet they state "NIST also is considering whether hypothetical blast events could have played a role in initiating the collapse." They cite a re-prioritizing of staff resources as causing the delay in the release of their findings on WTC-7. Early 2007 is given as a date for release. This would mark a marathon 4 ½ year investigation into the collapse of Building 7.
NIST states in their FAQ that it was not necessary to address explosives in the collapse of WTC 1 & 2 because their models ruled out this as a possibility. The NIST has not made these models public to be analyzed independently.
Also of note is that NIST scientists have explored the use of Thermite, such as those presented by BYU Physicist Steven Jones, in heating steel and have provided numbers relating to the WTC towers:
"Separate from the WTC towers investigation, NIST researchers estimated that at least 0.13 pounds of thermite would be required to heat each pound of a steel section to approximately 700 degrees Celsius (the temperature at which steel weakens substantially)."
NIST however goes on give an estimate of the amount of Thermite required and rules it out as "unlikely" to cause collapse and therefore did not include it in it's formal investigation.
There have been numerous rebuttals of the NIST findings claiming that NIST has not fully explained the events causing collapse. Jim Hoffman has been highly critical and states that "NIST fails to support it's key assertion that 'collapse initiation' automatically leads to 'global collapse'."
With the investigation on WTC 7 now exploring the possibilities of planted explosives leading to collapse, this will surely lead to many questioning why this was not considered from the beginning. Now that NIST has taken the "conspiracy" out of the "theory" of explosives by addressing this directly, where is the line between tin-foil hats and lab coats?