# 9/11/02 - Let the urban legends begin **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [September 12, 2002, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159 "2002-09-12T21:38:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![lawoot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/35a633/32.png) [@lawoot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lawoot)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/1 "2002-09-12T21:38:12Z")
Saw these on another website. I have seen #1 substantiated at [CNN.com](http://CNN.com) - as for the rest? > [@](#): > > 1. NY City’s winning lottery number for yesterday was 9-1-1. Auditors reassure that the number balls fell randomly as they always do, and that particular sequence came up on the evening of the 1st anniversary of the attacks. > > 2. Ceremony planners had mourning family and friends place flowers in circles at the “footprints” of each tower. High winds in yesterday’s weather caused dust devils, little mini tornadoes, in the circles, rearranging some of the red, white, and blue flowers into the shape of the American Flag. > > 3. The high winds from remains of Hurricane Gustov did not start blowing in the pit of Ground Zero until around 8:30AM, near the 8:46 time of the first strike. > > 4. Rain fell in several places downtown NY, despite a bright sunshine with one tiny, barely perceptable cloud wisp at a distance. Anybody else heard any other good ones from 9/11/02? ---
**Author:** ![Crusoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/49beb7/32.png) [@Crusoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crusoe)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/2 "2002-09-12T21:43:42Z")
Good grief. The best they can come up with was “it got windy about fifteen minutes before the anniversary” and “it rained even though nobody was expecting it”? ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/3 "2002-09-12T22:43:40Z")
I spent the afternoon reading about the first one at another site. Their calulators were running hot to try and work out the odds of that happening. One line of discussion that was going on alongside the statistics was that of the possibility of collective thought causing “disturbances in the flux of chance” or some such rubbish 🙂 It has however been studied and I am intending to read up some more on it, I mean, it can’t be any odder than how sub-atomic particles behave differently when we are watching, can it? :tinfoil-hat-smily: ---
**Author:** ![AskNott](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asknott/32/5790_2.png) [@AskNott](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AskNott)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2002, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/4 "2002-09-12T23:20:55Z")
Drop by [Snopes.com](http://Snopes.com) , in the Rumors Of War section to see their take on the “Don’t drink Coke or Pepsi after 9-11-02” rumors. I heard that one at work today. –Nott ---
**Author:** ![Coriolanus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/coriolanus/32/18769_2.png) [@Coriolanus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Coriolanus)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/5 "2002-09-13T04:30:30Z")
[Traders puzzled by eery 911 closing of S&P futures](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=520&e=6&u=/ap/20020911/ap_wo_en_bu/us_911_futures) (On Tuesday, September 10, the S&P futures closed at 911.00) The 911 isn’t too eerie - the S&P’s have been around 900 for a while. Yet to tick onto _exactly_ 911.00 at the close is either eerie or some trader with enough funds manipulated it. ---
**Author:** ![Rosebud](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rosebud](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rosebud)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 5:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/6 "2002-09-13T05:50:23Z")
At the memorial service I attended in NYC, it just so happened that the wind picked up big time just as the reading of names began. It did strike some folks as a bit eerie and I’ve noticed a lot of people talking about it here, but I had no idea it was in the running for UL status. ---
**Author:** ![Leaper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/4bbf92/32.png) [@Leaper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaper)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/7 "2002-09-13T06:41:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Corbomite \* > \*\*[Traders puzzled by eery 911 closing of S&P futures](http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=520&e=6&u=/ap/20020911/ap_wo_en_bu/us_911_futures) \*\* Good GOD. That’s astonishing! “Eery”?!? Does Yahoo! usually spell THAT badly?! ---
**Author:** ![jackelope](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@jackelope](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackelope)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/8 "2002-09-13T08:17:27Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Iteki \* > **I spent the afternoon reading about the first one at another site. Their calulators were running hot to try and work out the odds of that happening.** They must have some lame-assed calculators. The odds of 9-1-1 (or any other three-digit number) appearing are 1 in 1000. According to **Peregrine** in [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=135215) they have two drawings a day, so the odds are 1 in 500. Long, but not astonishingly long. Think of it this way: How many millions of three-digit numbers are generated for various purposes in New York City every day? Cab fares, restaurant tabs, wind speeds, time it takes someone to get to work, number of dogs in Central Park, &c. Several of these HAD to be 9-1-1. Heck, I’ll bet you even money that someone in the city died at 9:11 (a.m. or p.m.) that day for reasons having nothing to do with the attacks. This lottery business is up there with the “Ronald Wilson Reagan” thing, in which it is pointed out that each name has six letters, _ergo_ 666. Uh huh. ---
**Author:** ![Iteki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/eada6e/32.png) [@Iteki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Iteki)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 10:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/9 "2002-09-13T10:24:04Z")
Yep the stat you mentioned there was arrived at fairly quickly, but then they started taking into account the various math needed to work out the odds of that combo coming up on this day etc, which apparantly brings in more factors. I am half blind and three-quaters insane from trying to follow it despite my total disintrest 🙂 Personally I am going to sit on the fence between “weird” and “fixed” and read up a little more on this question of mass-concentrations affecting chance. ---
**Author:** ![TelcontarStorm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/3ab097/32.png) [@TelcontarStorm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TelcontarStorm)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/10 "2002-09-13T17:47:03Z")
FWIW: My nephew laid this one on me yesterday. There have been 3,000 songs banned from radio as a result of 9/11. Strangely enough, there has also been 3,000 new songs as a result of 9/11, acording to some such music publishing Co. My thought was…I can actually _believe_ that new songs have been written. What makes this good is, What songs have been banned? And what radio station would be _stuipid_ enough to paticipate in a banning?(Fundies of course aside) The State Lottery # is just too much of a cooincidence to be put to odds. The breeze at Ground Zero sounds like perfectly ghostly behaviour Things like these are the reason why U.L.s exsist. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/11 "2002-09-13T18:21:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by TelcontarStorm \* > \*\*FWIW: My nephew laid this one on me yesterday. > > There have been 3,000 songs banned from radio as a result of 9/11. Strangely enough, there has also been 3,000 new songs as a result of 9/11, acording to some such music publishing Co. > \*\* IIRC that is an urban legend. There have been many bogus lists of titles (some of which are hilariously funny) of supposedly “banned” songs. (Snopes has one of the UL listed [here](http://www.snopes.com/rumors/radio.htm) if you wanna see more.) Many radio stations in the weeks that followed 9/11 did adjust their playlists a bit so as not to offend or seem callous, but there was no widespread systemic “banning” and most went back to their regular playlists relatively quickly. As for 3000 new songs? Yeah, why not. One of the songwriters I work with has written and recorded 3 songs in the last year (_not_ 9/11 related), so I wouldn’t be at all surprise if a few thousand songwriters registered their copyrights in the last year for songs that _are_ inspired by 9/11 and some that _could seem to be_ but aren’t. (ie/ in the past year we relased a song called “Borders” – it has nothing to do with 9/11 and was written quite a long time before it, but conceivably people could think it was inspired by more recent events.) ---
**Author:** ![tiny\_ham](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a183cd/32.png) [@tiny\_ham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tiny_ham)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2002, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/12 "2002-09-13T18:27:12Z")
The dust storm was really eerie, as they began to read the names it was just wild to see the dust clouding the platform. J ---
**Author:** ![TVGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/82dd89/32.png) [@TVGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TVGuy)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2002, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/13 "2002-09-14T13:05:02Z")
I heard that they saw “Tourist Guy” out at the Fresh Kills landfill among the rubble… ---
**Author:** ![Cartooniverse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cartooniverse/32/3084_2.png) [@Cartooniverse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cartooniverse)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2002, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/14 "2002-09-14T16:01:18Z")
How about the one where Rudy Guliani changed his hairstyle so as to no longer have a comb-over that looked just like the American Flag? Or the one where the geosynchronously positioned satellite that shows the Northeast part of the United States showed, at the exact moment a year later that the first tower fell, this huge cloud in the shape of the FDNY priest who died first in the attack? Then, the amazing baby born of a 9/11 widow who’s new son has a Strawberrry Mark on his shoulder that is almost the exact size of a Maltese Cross, the image used by Fire Departments everywhere in their logos. The truly believable one about the fruit wholesaler who dumped a truckload of Idaho potoatoes out into a bin, and saw the facial images of over 1,800 of the dead, one per potato. Gimme a damned break. ☹ Cartooniverse ---
**Author:** ![Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Krisfer\_the\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Krisfer_the_Cat)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2002, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/15 "2002-09-14T16:43:40Z")
THANK GOD FOR SDMB!!! Imagine how far behind in the news world I would be without this message board! You people should be given medals for keeping all us non TV losers up to date… My hat is off to you…soon as I relocate it… ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2002, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/9-11-02-let-the-urban-legends-begin/128159/16 "2002-09-14T17:26:42Z")
The lottery bit is mildly interesting, but hardly indicative of anything unusual. Ohio suffered a huge hit on one of its lottery offerings a few years ago when 111 came up on January 11. I have heard of other states running into similar problems in the 25 or so years that lotteries have been infesting the country. There is, however, a word that describes these events in terms of the technical relationship that links them all together within the universe: . . . . Coincidence.