the façade remained intact. Criticism of the official investigations Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth has expressed concerns that evidence related to the destruction of the World Trade Center could have been distorted and covered up by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which conducted a building and fire safety investigation, one of the official investigations into the event. According to the group, and NIST themselves who considered it unnecessary, NIST did not look for physical evidence of explosives and did not include the eyewitness accounts from first responders and from people who escaped the buildings in their investigation. The organization also alleges that much of the physical evidence, apart from a few selected samples of the steel, would have been destroyed. Gage says that taped eyewitness interviews that were released to The New York Times in August 2005 had been "hidden by the city of New York". After the publication of the results of NIST's inquiry into the collapse of 7 WTC, Gage called a news conference, and leaders of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth dismissed NIST's investigation as flawed. When told of the claims, Shyam Sunder, lead investigator from NIST, responded: "I am really not a psychologist. Our job was to come up with the best science." A spokesperson for NIST said the agency's computer models were highly reliable in assessing the amount of fireproofing dislodged, a factor that would not be present in other steel buildings cited by Gage. References Further reading Architects Shy From Truther 9/11 Conspiracy Theory; Architect Magazine, July 19, 2012 External links AE911Truth's profile at Charity Navigator National Institute of Standards and Technology: NIST & The World Trade Center ReThink911 coalition Organizations established in 2006 Political advocacy groups in the United States 9/11 conspiracy theorists 2006 establishments in the United States Groups challenging the official accounts of the September 11 attacks