As is to be expected during a crisis, a lot of bad information went out over the airwaves during the first hours after the planes hit. I’m hoping that in this thread we could track down how some of these rumours started and what actually happened.
The following are the false stories that I can recall. Any information would be appreciated, and, of course, if you wish to add other false stories, please go ahead.
Fire on the National Mall - This was one of the first stories I heard on the news Tuesday morning. No specific building was mentioned (I suppose the possibilities were mainly Smithsonian museums), so I had this image of a grass fire sweeping towards the Washington Monument. What was this story all about?
Car-bomb explosion at the State Department - As I recall the sequence of events, this story came in after the evacuation of the State Department was ordered. Anything happen?
Eight Hijacked Airliners - the original number given was 8 hijacked planes, while the final number was four. Anyone know what was the deal with the four planes thought to be hijacked?
A hijacked plane circling Dulles, surrounded by fighter jets - I heard this story repeatedly. What was the story?
Were you looking for cites? can’t help ya there - but I believe the ‘8’ hijacked planes came from : the 4 we knew of, plus -
There was a jet up in Canada that had (I believe) hit it’s “emergency” button, and landed, I read something about a plane from Korea maybe? that there was some concern about. ONce it was on the ground, all alarms were off.
the rest came from, this - Around 10 am, there had already been info re; the 3 crashes, the 4th plane diverting, at that point massive diverting was going on, and at any point during that time, any deviation or lack of quick response by a plane would have gotten it on the ‘watch’ list.
So, during the confusion to have the number go from 4 confirmed to 8 suspected isn’t out of the ballpark given the number of planes going around.
A man was on the 80th floor of one of the towers when it collapsed; he rode the collapse down to the ground and was found almost immediately, escaping with only two broken legs.
Note: the numbering of my rumor acknowledges bup’s as #'s 5, 6 and 7, preserving the convention set by the OP.
It was reported that the borders with Mexico and Canada were closed. So far as I can tell, this is false. Some individual crossings (e.g. Buffalo) closed, but there was never a nation-wide border closing.
I heard all sorts of rumors while I was stuck in airports waiting for flights out. Most of them had to do with why various airports were closed or certain flights were cancelled. I never did find out the truth behind most of them.
On Tuesday, I also heard a rumor about a fire at the White House.
As for the 911 thing, I have a friend who is convinced that they attacked on 9-11 in order to make a sort of “You’re not as safe as you think” statement, with 911 symbolizing our feeling of safety.
What about bound hands found on a rooftop, and bodies found tied to airplane seats?
I’ve heard this several different places, including local newscasts (yeah, I know…) and I find it very difficult to believe.
NPR was reporting smoke over the Old Executive Office Building just before it was announced that the Penatgon was hit (if their studios are where I think they are, the OEB may be on a line with the Pentagon), and I think the car bomb at State was announced before the building was evacuated.
While I understand that things can be confusing in circumstances like this, I’d still like to know how the 10 people detained Wednesday night with box cutters and airline IDs turned into only one material witness.
Sua, good to see you. I was a little concerned over what look like your silence for the past week.
The car bomb at the State Department was a flash in the pan. There was a rumor of a bomb one minute and the next minute “our correspondent at the State Department” was saying that every thing was quiet.
The report that the Air Force shot down the Pennsylvania airplane was being denied Tuesday evening or Wednesday by the Attorney General. In fact, the first I heard of it was in Mr. Ashcroft’s denial. This may be nothing more than a garbled version of the President’s authorization for the Air Force to go after civilian aircraft. It makes no sense that a airliner with an air defense missile up its exhaust pipe would come down in one piece or that no one on the ground would see it.
The local GM dealer was pointing out that the five fire fighters who survived in an SUV were in a Suburban, not an Explorer. I thought it was true. Same with the report that someone rode one of the buildings down from an unreasonable height.
Material witness warrants are a device to avoid habeas corpus. It is a procedure that is subject to abuse since, if challenged, the Government need only to show that there is good cause to think that the person knows something significant and that they might well be hard to locate if they were released from custody. Using a material witness warrant gives the government time to look into the thing before it gets to the “put up or shut up” stage that goes with filling a formal indictment or complaint. It is also a dandy way to induce a reluctant or recalcitrant witness to talk. “Tell us what you know or we will put you in the tank with Big Bruno.” If recollection serves, the protections available to a criminal defendant, e.g., right to counsel, reasonable bail, protection from coercive interrogation, are not available to a material witness
I’d say this one is because the plane crashed into the Pentagon right next to the heli-pad. So an obvious assumption at first would have been that it was a crashed helicopter.
Also, I think that the smoke from the Pentagon looked like it was coming from various other places, depending on where you were in Washington. So it may have looked like close place X was on fire, when it was in fact the much farther away Pentagon.
The border crossings at Detroit were indeed closed for a while. We were told on the local news that all of the border crossings to both Canada and Mexico were being locked down.
As to the plane that crashed in Pennsylvania, I heard that they found some wreckage miles away from the rest of the wreckage. This is why a lot of people think that the Air Force may have shot it down. Under the circumstances, I think that the Air Force would have been justified in shooting down the plane once it became clear that these were kamikazee attacks, and not normal hijackings. Knowing the Air Force, however, they will probably try to keep the shoot-down a secret, if that is what happened.
I also heard about the fire on the National Mall, and was wondering why that story vanished so quickly.
Two guys on the local radio station said a car accidentally caught fire on or near the National Mall Tuesday morning, and that was the source of that story. I can’t confirm.
I read that the “explosion at the Capitol” story was explained away by a sonic boom created by the late arriving fighter jet(s) that took off a few minutes before the plane hit the Pentagon.
Only a guess, but perhaps the “fire on the Mall” story was the result of someone seeing the explosion at the Pentagon from a location to the north of the Mall and misinterpreting the distance.
My classmates and I heard the earliest news of an attack on the way to a lab class where we aren’t allowed to have radios, but a few people were listening with headphones and repeating what they heard, which was a bunch of godawful rumors that had us all convinced that World War III was breaking out. The ones I remember were that the air was full of hijacked planes and the Air Force was shooting them down, there were “car bombs going off all over New York,” and all planes in the air over the U.S. had been diverted to Canada or Mexico.