His new peer-reviewed paper in the Open Civil Engineering Journal doesn't rip NIST or FEMA or the government. It does just the opposite. It lays out 14 points of agreement Jones and his colleagues have with the official government reports.

"We're getting to a higher level of discussion with this paper," Jones said.

The open paper can be found for free on the Web at www.bentham.org.

So what does Jones think happened?

Jones wants NIST to look at new evidence he found in Ground Zero dust samples since leaving BYU. The dust is full of iron-rich spheres and red-gray chips with the chemical signatures of high-tech cutter-charge explosives that he said could explain the collapsed towers. The spheres come from molten metal that Jones said could be caused by cutter charges.

"It's like when you spray water into the air, you get droplets," Jones said. "These spheres are evidence of extremely high temperatures beyond what the fires could have reached."

He's offered samples to NIST and invited NIST to visit one of his group's labs. A NIST spokesman has said that would be a waste of taxpayer dollars, though Jones said the cost would be less than $5,000.

Jones is cautious with money himself. He and his wife are selling off their real-estate investments to make ends meet, but he said they are comfortable and about to move to Sanpete County.

"I haven't profited a penny off this," he said. "I don't want to, and I've been careful not to. I'm concerned about the country, and I'm worried the truth is being covered up here."

He's careful not to speculate about a cover-up, though he said the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq has made many more people receptive to his research.

Would it really hurt the people at NIST to talk to him once?

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Utah County Bureau chief Tad Walch lives with his wife and five children in Provo, their home for the past 21 years. Please e-mail twalch@desnews.com.