The plans of additional terrorists, on board two planes out of Newark around the same time as the others, may have been thwarted with the grounding of all air traffic.
Bob Scene
You may have been correct.
Since SuaSponte posted the OP, the name O. bin Laden has surfaced as “the Guy” to find. (O. Bin Laden, since it was assumed that terrorists had done the deeds, and that ObL trained, and maybe directed, said terrorists.)
The following rumor surfaced late last night.
O. bin Laden was been in Afganistan for a long time. Things have, however, been “heating up” and his Afgani guesthood has been becoming increasing uncomfortable for the Afgani governments. So:
O. bin Laden moved; changed countries; is now located in a not-to-be-named nation-state that, IIRC, is even bigger and more desolate than Afganistan–which has been reported to be the same size as the State of Texas, which is, as anyone who has driven across it knows, vast. A country, oh BTW, il Pipa can be expected to visit momentarily ( 
).
Now this IS a rumor so, I think, not a “hijack”; but what does it have to do with the quotes by Bob Scene and Fiver on the possibility of World War III? Contrary to the *pfoo-pfoo *in the popular press, this particular nation-state, unlike poverty-stricken Afganistan, is a Nuclear Power, with a sizable arsenal of nuclear-based weaponry (and LOTS of very-up-to-date missle experts). :eek:
I heard that there was a bomb planted in a high school, or at least a bomb threat, across the street from one of the towers. How true is this?
Probably just a threat, several were made minutes after the attack.
Back to the rumors:
John Gotti’s son-in-law witnessed the WTC attack from his jail cell. He has offered to donate the use of his scrap metal business to help clean up.
i heard one where it was 9/11 was the date chosen because it was international peace day…
Notice, though, that Sept 11 is called 11/9 in Europe, so the connection to 911 kinda falls apart when you get out of the US. Not to mention…does “911” mean anything outside the US, anyway?
Around 11AM on 9/11 one of my coworkers reported (from hearing a radio announcement) that the FAA (Federal Aviation Admin) facility in Loudoun Co., Virginia (that’s Dulles Airport) had exploded and burned. This would pose a significant problem because I think this facility coordinates a lot of air traffic on the east coast.
At around the same time I also heard that a passenger aircraft crashed ON Interstate 395, which approaches the Pentagon from the south. This raised my interest because I had been driving on that road (from the pentagon to the Beltway) just a few minutes before the attack.
I have no idea how either of these got started.
jsc1953 posted earlier
For whatever it’s worth I thought as you do until a couple of days ago when a police car drove by with a giant 911 posted on its side.
Still, it’s hard for me to see any real connection between that and the selection of a date.
More in line with the OP, late in the evening on Sept. 11, when the news media were first proposing Arabs as the culprits and O. bin Laden as the mastermind, I heard the (adamantly proposed) rumour that the Green’s were behind it all.
It sounded far-fetched but I had to admit that the anti-WorldTrade segment of the those who sometimes call themselves “Green” were becomming increasingly violent and that it would be easy enough to “finance” (with cash, know-how, and planning) an available bin Laden “cell” (if one could be found).
There was this rumor circulating for a few days after it happened that Sua Sponte was doing Pro Bono work for any Dopers living within a 50-mile circle of Ground Zero.
Turns out that was woefully incorrect. You have to take him out to Peter Luger’s Steak House before he’ll represent you.
The most virulent rumor IN NYC, near the site immediately after the buildings dropped was going around through the fire, ems and police people I was with. They were saying that the attackers had planted bombs with time delays so that the bombs would go off a certain amount of time AFTER the planes hit. This would insure killing all the Emergency Personnel who would have responded to the initial plane hits.
This seems to be totally wrong, of course- since engineers have gone into great detail describing just how the metal cores and corner supports melted, therefore allowing the WTC’s to pancake down.
At the time though, it was an awful rumor to contemplate.
We heard that rumor about unaccounted for planes, and by evil timing, JUST a few minutes after someone at the Chelsea Piers ( this was about…hmm…1:00 pm on Tuesday? ) said that an unaccounted for plan was circling in Pennsylvania and might be shot down, two fighter jets went SCREAMING over NYC heading west. About 20 minutes later, they returned heading east. We all wondered at the time…
Absent being sucked in by rumors, we all just went on visual accountability and only believed what we saw.
Of course, nobody could believe their eyes. :mad:
Cartooniverse
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101011008-176941,00.html
Above is the link to Time Magazine’s article on the rumors. God, I can’t believe the one about the bound and severed set of hands that was found turned out to be true.
It isn’t any less scary a couple of weeks later.
Snopes has altered its status to false.
Was anyone killed in a WTC subway station platform, or on a train? I’ve heard a rumor that a train was crushed with people abord.
Well. This is gonna sounds sort of “Snopesy”, but bear with it, it’s not very far removed from my own home.
My neice Lia was made to take the subway home an hour or so after the attack, and collapses. She has told me over the telephone directly that she did indeed take the “A” train home to Brooklyn. This means she passed under the WTC, or what was left of them.
IIRC from getting off at the Chambers Street stop on the “A” train ( it is directly under North Tower, I think…), the escalator from the subway token booth level up to the main shopping concourse underground was something like 4 or 5 stories, diagonally. That’s a LONG way to go upwards, through cut granite. ( that’s what Manhatten island is. That’s also what Manhatten is, which is why he cuts such a fine figure as he strolls down the avenues 
).
She took the train, therefore the tubes were opened and undamaged. She did say that it was dark and smokey AT the Chambers Street stop, and that the train did NOT stop there, but kept going through slowly.
Firsthand report. Take it or leave it.
Cartooniverse
There was another thread about the NYC subway systems that linked to some pictures. I understand that there are two subways lines that run under the former World Trade Center. From the pictures, it looks like at least one tunnel is collapsed. The subway stations appeared to be in pretty tough shape; you could see structural damage, including the support columns buckling.
I’m surprised they did not halt service to the WTC A train stop as a precaution. But what about the tunnel used by the 1 and 9 locals? Several stations on that line remain closed.