Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks

Misinformation and rumors about the September 11, 2001 attacks began circulating almost immediately after the September 11, 2001 attacks. The dramatic events of the day filled many people with a sense of uncertainty, and what had previously seemed unimaginable to many had become a reality. In this environment, many wild rumors began to spread. In addition, many people hungered to find meaning in the apparently meaningless violent attacks. For all these reasons, dozens of rumors began to spread.

Some rumors, such as the involvement of al-Qaeda, turned out to be true. Others have been verifiably shown to be false, many of which are listed below. A few have not yet been proven or disproven, but the unfolding of events and the diligence of the 9/11 Commission may eventually lay these rumors to rest.

This page is created in the interest of having a record of some of the rumors and misinformation that can arise in the face of tragedy. It is not intended to be disrespectful of those who, perhaps innocently, might relay incorrect information believing it to be true.

Table of contents

1 Misinformation: rumors later shown to be false

1.1 Claims of Kashmiri responsibility
1.2 Claims of World Trade Center survivors after September 13
1.3 Claims that approximately 10,000 people died in the September 11 attacks
1.4 An alleged
1.5 Rumors of a Passing UFO
1.6 Claim that CNN faked Palestinian cheers
1.7 Claim that a tourist had a photograph taken of himself on top of the north tower seconds before plane struck
1.8 Claims that Osama bin Laden owns part or all of Snapple soft-drinks and Citibank.
1.9 Claims that September 11's events generated a baby boom
1.10 Warnings to avoid malls on October 31st
1.11 Claims that Mohammed Atta was a known terrorist
1.12 Claims that Oliver North warned about Osama Bin Laden
1.13 Rumors of celebrating Arab-Americans
1.14 Claims that the towers were blown up with explosives

2 Rumors that have not definitively been proven false

2.15 Claims of a Jewish Conspiracy to frame Arabs
">2.16 Claims of a "credible threat" against Bush
2.17 Claims that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane
2.18 Claims that US military aircraft shot down Flight 93 to stop it reaching Washington
2.19 Claims that Bush knew of the attacks in advance
2.20 Reports that Zacarias Moussaoui was the '20th hijacker'
2.21 The hijackers took control of the aircraft solely with box cutters
2.22 Iraq was involved with the September 11 attacks
2.23 The attackers planned to use crop-dusters for a biological or chemical attack
2.24 Supporters of the attacks profited on airline stocks

3 Claims which turned out to be true.

3.25 Osama and Evil Bert
3.26 The Smoke Demon
3.27 Hidden Images on the $20 Bill
3.28 False fundraising

4 Other Rumors
5 External links

Misinformation: rumors later shown to be false

The following rumors gained wide circulation after the attacks, but have been later revealed as untrue.

Claims of Kashmiri responsibility

There were early claims of Kashmiri responsibility for the attacks. These were quickly disproven. It is nearly universally accepted that Kashmiri separatists played no role in the attacks.

Claims of World Trade Center survivors after September 13

The search for survivors from the wreckage of the World Trade Center continued for weeks, but the search was sadly fruitless. Several reported rescues on September 13 proved to be false. The only persons rescued were some firefighters who became trapped earlier that day in the search and rescue operation. An office worker named Carla Guzman was, however, rescued from the remains of the South Tower on September 12. [1]

Claims that approximately 10,000 people died in the September 11 attacks

The sheer number of casualties and the chaos of the day meant that missing persons lists were greatly inflated. The true total casualty figure of the day was very close to 3,000. The claim of 10,000 came from a variety of sources that proved to be unreliable.

An alleged

The following text (and variants) began to spread through the Internet within days of the attack:

In the city of god there will be a great thunder,

two brothers torn apart by chaos,

while the fortress endures,

the great leader will succumb.

The third big war will begin when the big city is burning

NOSTRADAMUS 1654

This is not an authentic Nostradamus quatrain. It appears nowhere in his works, and in fact Nostradamus died long before 1654. [1]

Rumors of a Passing UFO

Soon after the attacks, webpages appeared that claimed to show 'unreleased' stills of a UFO rushing past the towers several seconds after the second plane hit.

Closer inspection reveals that the object in question was a bird flying between the World Trade Center and the camera.

Claim that CNN faked Palestinian cheers

Shortly after the attacks, CNN showed footage of Palestinians cheering. Some reported that this was old footage taken out of context. This claim is false. The demonstrations did happen and were condemned by Arafat; the footage was current. [1]

There was indeed some footage that was staged, but it was actually shot by a Palestinian camera crew. The footage is of some cheering children and a middle aged woman eating cookies. Reporters from Der Stern and Dagens Nyheter managed to trace down and interview the woman and she claimed to have no knowledge of the attack at the time she was filmed.

Claim that a tourist had a photograph taken of himself on top of the north tower seconds before plane struck

An email was circulated which showed a photograph of a tourist on top of the north tower just seconds before American Airlines flight 11 struck it. The view of the northern side of the city, and the American Airlines markings on the plane, are both unmistakable. However, this photograph is beyond any reasonable doubt a hoax.

There were many initial clues that the photograph was inauthentic. Flight 11 was moving at hundreds of kilometers per hour just before it struck the World Trade Center. At that speed, it ought to have been a blur. Yet the shot of the plane in the photograph is very clear - it almost seems to be stationary in the air. The aircraft pictured is a Boeing 757, while Flight 11 was a Boeing 767. The World Trade Center did not open its observation tower facilities until 09:30 hrs; the plane struck at 08:46 hrs. September 11 was a warm and sunny day in New York City, yet the man is shown wearing a heavy coat and thermal cap, both designed for cold weather. Finally, there was no observation deck on the north tower.

The original picture was taken when a Hungarian named Peter (who wished that his last name be withheld) visited the Towers on November 28, 1997. The original picture without plane and other pictures of Peter can be found on Wired's website.

Claims that Osama bin Laden owns part or all of Snapple soft-drinks and Citibank.

He does not. Citibank is owned in part by Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who at some point after the attacks was apparently confused with Osama bin Laden. Bin Talal has no connection with al-Qaeda.

The New York Post reported the Snapple story as part of a general story about the Saudi binLaden Group owning part of this company. The Chief Executive of Snapple, Michael Weinstein, released a statement denying it.

Claims that September 11's events generated a baby boom

There was no recorded rise in the US birth rate in June 2002, or in any other part of that year.

Warnings to avoid malls on October 31st

A number of people across the country received an e-mail chain letter making this warning. It said that an Afghan left a letter to his girlfriend on September 10, 2001, asking her not to take any flights on September 11 and not to go to any shopping mall on Halloween. It was said that the letter is now in the FBI's hands. The letter implied that there is a second phase of the terrorist attacks and the targets will be trick-or-treaters.

The email was traced back to a person named Laura Katsi, who apparently has no first-hand knowledge of the event and regrets passing the note along. The FBI has investigated the matter and took the unusual step of issuing a statement on the hoax, declaring the claim to be unsubstantiated. A few variations on this message are also circulating. [1] [1] [1] All of these have been shown to be false.

Claims that Mohammed Atta was a known terrorist

There have been persistent rumors that Mohammed Atta, the suspected leader of the September 11 attacks, was a known terrorist. Reportedly he had bombed an Israeli bus in 1986 and was freed from Israel on insistence by the US as a result of the Oslo Peace Accords. This is incorrect. The bus bomber is the Palestinian Mahmoud Mahmoud Atta. He is a naturalized US citizen and was extradited by the US to Israel in 1990. He was freed after that extradition was held to be invalid by the Israeli supreme court. His whereabouts are unknown. He was 47 years old at the time of the September 11 attack, while Mohammed Atta was 33. [1] [1]

Claims that Oliver North warned about Osama Bin Laden

There have been claims that former Iran/Contra figure Oliver North issued a warning about Osama bin Laden during testimony in the 1980s to the U.S. Senate. This claim has been circulating via email since shortly after September 11. Oliver North did mention a terrorist during his testimony to the Iran/Contra committee, but the individual he mentioned was Abu Nidal, who has no connection to Bin Laden. The U.S. News and World Report looked into this urban legend and interviewed North himself, whose aides "confirmed the fake. North, in fact, suggests that at the time of the Reagan-era Senate hearings into the scandal, rebels like bin Laden were U.S. friends lined up against Soviet invaders."[1] The "Urban Legends" web site also has a page debunking the Oliver North story.[1]

Rumors of celebrating Arab-Americans

Claims that certain groups of Arab-Americans celebrated the attacks circulated through e-mail shortly after 9/11. These e-mails included calls to boycott certain businesses, such as Dunkin Donuts, which supposedly had a franchise owned by Arabs. Another rumor is that American Football Hall of Famer, Terry Bradshaw, attacked five Arabs whom he saw celebrating that day. These claims are false. More information can be found on a snopes.com page

Claims that the towers were blown up with explosives

Some claim that the towers could not have been leveled only from damage caused by collision with the hijacked planes. They find it implausible that the relatively small amount of rapid-burning jet fuel could have melted the towers' steel beams. Some furthermore indicate as suspicious the fact that both buildings fell straight down even though the plane crashed into the corner of Tower 2.

Several variations of this claim exist, but each concludes that the World Trade Center must have been detonated from within.

For example, video footage has led some people to believe that the buildings were demolished professionally with explosives. [1] A group of engineers believe the Twin Towers and 7 World Trade Center strangely collapsed, regarding the vertical collapse of the three buildings as an unlikely occurrence without the aid of explosives. "Explosives put in WTC concrete.."

However, most engineers view the collapse as sensible and even predictable given the conditions. According to this view, the jet fuel (which never burns hot enough to actually melt steel anyway) acted to instantaneously spread the fire. The impact furthermore blew insulation off of steel beams. Because of these factors, the steel was quickly heated enough to lose significant strength. In concert with structural damage, this softening of steel caused failure. [1] Once failure thus occurs, the monolithic mass and internal center of gravity permitted each tower to fall in only one direction: straight down. This view has been officially confirmed by forensic analysis of key components of debris.

Rumors that have not definitively been proven false

Due to their nature, some claims cannot be conclusively disproven. Still others have not been refuted at this time, but may be in the future. Keep in mind that a vast majority of unbiased investigators believe that most of these claims have no merit.

Claims of a Jewish Conspiracy to frame Arabs

Various rumors circulated in the Arab world following the attack to the effect that non-Muslims, in particular Israelis or supporters of Israel, perpetrated the attack to frame Arabs and Muslims. These rumors included claims that several thousand Jews working in the World Trade Center were warned ahead of time and didn't show up for work on September 11. There is absolutely no supporting evidence. For further discussion, see Zionist conspiracy theories.

Claims of a "credible threat" against Bush

After President Bush faced some criticism for flying around the US in Air Force One instead of returning immediately to Washington or New York, members of his administration (Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice) told the press on several occasions that there had been a "credible threat" against Bush by terrorists. Later, AP and CBS news investigated this claim and found it to be false. In response to this, the Administration officials said that there had been a "misunderstanding". White House officials also claimed that the plane which crashed into the Pentagon originally was aimed at the White House. That claim was also debunked.

Claims that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane

A French Web site has disputed that Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. It does not explain what happened to the plane and its crew and passengers. Its claims have now been published in a book.

The claims include that an object depicted in a photograph showing it about to strike the building has a different shape and size than that of a Boeing 757, and that photographs taken after the Pentagon was hit and before the damaged part collapsed, show the hole being less than that a 757 would produce, even assuming that most of the wings did come off.

In March 2002 the US authorities released photographs from a surveillance camera. The pictures, complete with times (set to another time zone) at the bottom corner, can be found on this BBC webpage. The first picture is timed 17:37:19 and the last 17:37:23.

This is a webpage that claims it is mathematically impossible for the plane to have hit the Pentagon in that time without moving at mach speeds.

Claims that US military aircraft shot down Flight 93 to stop it reaching Washington

US authorities have denied undertaking any such action. The evidence for this claim is weak.

One basis for the claim is the fact that wreckage (including engine wreckage) was found upwind of the crash site, and roughly in the direction from which the plane came, implying that the plane broke up at least to some degree before it crashed. However, this is ambiguous and much wreckage can be expected to be strewn as a result of the crash that occurred. Had the plane broken up in midair, at least some of the bodies would have been scattered. Instead they were all found in the crater.

Another basis for the claim is the observations by many eyewitnesses who saw other aircraft in the area. US authorities have said that they have identified a civilian aircraft that was in the area, and that it had nothing to do with the downing of Flight 93. But eyewitness reports state that the plane crashed upside down into the field, following a wobbling of its wings. No smoke from the plane or white planes shooting down Flight 93 were reported.

A statement that a sonic boom was detected shortly before the crash has now been withdrawn by its author.

Contrary to what several media reports have stated, passenger Edward Felt did not report seeing 'white smoke' pouring into the toilet from where he was making a phone call from the plane.

Claims that Bush knew of the attacks in advance

President Bush certainly knew that bin Laden was a terrorist who would like to attack the USA, but the extent of Bush's knowledge is hotly debated. Some rumors suggest that Bush may have allowed the attacks to occur for political reasons, but no substantiating evidence has been made public. Bush has claimed many times that he had no specific forewarnings of an impending attack on U.S. soil.

This is discussed in 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory.

Reports that Zacarias Moussaoui was the '20th hijacker'

When Zacarias Moussaoui was initially taken into custody he was alleged to have been part of the September 11 plot. He was commonly refered to as the "20th hijacker".

Although Moussaoui seems to have been training for an act of aircraft terrorism, there has been no evidence found to link him with Flight 93 or any of the other aircraft. He did not train with the other hijackers and seems to have had no contact with them. According to Ramzi Binalshibh, a person who was part of the plot, a role for Moussaoui was contemplated but never materialized.

Claims which turned out to be true.

Some rumors turned out to be correct, although many are merely strange coincidences.

Osama and Evil Bert

Claim that a "Bert is Evil" website was removed because of an image showing Osama bin Laden and the popular muppet.

A photograph of a pro-bin Laden rally in Bangladesh showed a poster of Osama bin Laden with a small but clearly identifiable image of Bert, a muppet from the children's television show Sesame Street, over his right shoulder. (Another smaller image of bin Laden is immediately to the right of Bert's image.) The photo is from Reuters, and was not doctored. In fact, the image of Osama and Bert had been created (using an image editing tool) by a humorist earlier and placed on a website, and the person who made the poster must have copied it from the World Wide Web, leaving the image of Evil Bert in.

As a response to this, the creator of the "Bert is Evil" website has taken down the site and posted a note explaining the decision. "I am doing this because I feel this has gotten too close to reality," he says, "and I choose to be responsible enough to stop it right here." For full message text, see [1]. For a detailed account of the use of the image, in South Asia as well as by Western news agencies, see [1]. (The latter also argues against the notion that inclusion of the Bert image of the photo is some kind of coded communication.)

The Smoke Demon

Several photographs were circulated throughout the Internet in the days following the tragedy that depicted smoke rising from the Twin Towers that resembled demonic heads. It has been confirmed by AP that at least one of these photos is authentic. See [1] and [1].

The pictures certainly seem to be genuine, but to say that that they portray the Devil or his direct work is ludicrous. There is nothing in the Bible that says that the Devil has horns - this is a popular perception of that entity. It is much more reasonable to say that the resemblance is a grim coincidence.

Hidden Images on the $20 Bill

Within a few months of the attacks, it was discovered that one could generate an image of the attack by taking a new-style $20 bill and folding it in the following manner:

With the picture of the White House facing you, fold the bill in half lengthwise by folding the top down to the back. Now just the bottom of the White House should be visible.

Fold the ends down (toward the front) so that the top forms a point and the two ends are even at the bottom.

When the bill is turned so that the point is at the bottom, an image of what looks like the smoking World Trade Center is visible. Flip the bill over, and an image of what looks like the smoking Pentagon is also visible. In reality, the "images" are portions of the picture of the White House, with the image of the smoke coming from the trees beside it. It startled many to see that such an amazing coincidence could come from a few simple folds, with a bill that was issued several years before the attacks took place. The folding process will not produce the images on an old-style $20 bill, but it will work with the new "colorful" type of twenty that contains the same picture of the White House.

False fundraising

Scambusters reported instances of email fundraising scams in the wake of the tragedy, and posted tips to help consumers ensure their donations reached the right agencies.

Other Rumors

Various incidents have occurred since September 11, 2001, with no evidence to support a causal link to the terrorist attack. They include:

On September 21, 2001, a chemical factory in Toulouse, southern France, exploded, causing 29 deaths. On October 4, 2001, France's environment minister declared that it may have been a terrorist attack.

In the morning of October 3, 2001, a man slit the throat of the driver of Greyhound bus No. 1115, en route from Nashville to Atlanta, 50 miles southeast of Nashville. The bus crashed, killing four of the 36 passengers. Early reports stated at least 10 were killed. Later reports assert that the bus attacker was a drug addict with a history of erratic behavior.

On October 4, 2001, a Russian jetliner en route from Tel Aviv to Siberia with 77 passengers exploded in mid-air before plunging into the Black Sea. All flights from Ben Gurion International Airport were grounded in response. Later reports asserted that a Ukrainian missile mistakenly took down the jetliner. Missile fragments were recovered from the crash site, and the government of the Ukraine has accepted responsibility for the accidental targeting of the jet.

On October 4, 2001, it is announced that Bob Stevens, a 63-year-old Lantana, Florida, resident was admitted to a hospital on Tuesday with non-contagious pulmonary anthrax. He later died. Bob Stevens, a British-born outdoorsman and gardener, was a photo editor at the supermarket tabloid The Sun. On October 8, 2001 health officials and the FBI report that they have discovered bacillus anthracis spores on a computer keyboard at the offices of The Sun and in the nose of a co-worker, who was not diagnosed with the disease. The FBI sealed the building.

On October 11, 2001, 700 pounds (318 kg) of explosives were discovered missing from a facility in Texas.

On October 12, 2001, a case of anthrax was reported in New York City. A female NBC Nightly News employee was reported to have been exposed to anthrax. It was believed that she received it from a letter containing powder on September 25. The powder in the letter tested negative for anthrax. A skin test of the employee by the CDC returned positive for non-contagious cutaneous anthrax. She had been exposed on September 25. She began presenting symptoms on September 28. She began receiving Cipro on October 1. A biopsy was done on October 10 and sent to the CDC.

External links

Urban Legends Reference Pages
About.com--Urban Legends and Folklore A site on rumor-mongering.
Scambusters
Coast To Coast AM.com Some pictures of ''The Smoke Demon' on this site.
RUMORS: As Thick as the Ash, Myths are Swirling, New York Times, 9/25/2001
This urban legends website explores several September 11 myths.