Just thought I’d toss this out out so the TM have a reference for when (if) any of you get it:
"I think you all know that I don’t send out hoaxes and don’t do the reactionary thing and send out anything that crosses my path. This one, however, is a friend of a friend and I’ve given it enough credibility in my mind that I’m writing it up and sending it out to all of you.
"My friend’s friend was dating a guy from Afghanistan up until a month ago. She had a date with him around 9/6 and was stood up. She was understandably upset and went to his home to find it completely emptied. On 9/10, she received a letter from her boyfriend explaining that he wished he could tell her why he had left and that he was sorry it had to be like that.
"The part worth mentioning is that he BEGGED her not to get on any commercial airlines on 9/11 and to not to go any malls on Halloween. As soon as everything happened on the 11th, she called the FBI and has since turned over the letter.
"This is not an email that I’ve received and decided to pass on. This came from a phone conversation with a long-time friend of mine last night. I may be wrong, and I hope I am. However, with one of his warnings being correct and devastating, I’m not willing to take the chance on the second and wanted to make sure that people I cared about had the same information that I did.
“Laura Katsis
Implementation Specialist”
More info is available in the actual email; most notably, a phone number and two email addresses I didn’t feel really needed to be included. A cursory google search will reveal all three. A cursory google search will also reveal:
And yes, I did the customary “reply-all” with those links as the sole response. This particular group of friends (baptist student union) has sent me something like six ULs in the past year.
I hope she didn’t use any of the toothbrushes in the house after this occurred. Maybe he went off and stole some kidneys from some dude he met in an airport bar. Who knows?
Someone in my office sent me this one and I printed out the snopes article and put it on her desk. Then after a day I asked if she was going to send out a retraction on it and she just kind of blew me off so I had to send out the retraction and I blasted her for sending out misinformation which basically, by spreading fear was aiding and abetting terroists.
She got kind of mad but I told her to piss off.
I also tried to call that number but it was busy.
** You know, had it been my choice on September 11, I would have much rather been in a random commercial airliner than, say, the World Trade Center or the Pentagon. Maybe they were planning on crashing malls into major national monuments?
One of my biggest beefs with this is the apparent respect said boyfriend was paying his girlfriend. Does anyone remember the thread where a suicide note of sorts was left behind by one of the suspected hijackers? Something about “I don’t want any women near my body when I am buried?” Something about this clashes violently and fundamentally with this guy’s note to his girlfriend.
Huh. The Cat Who Walks Alone came home from school a week ago, very upset. It seems that a girl in her senior English class had stood up and announced in a tremulous voice that she had gotten an e-mail from her girlfriend in another state, and that the GF had had an Afghan boyfriend, who had mysteriously disappeared, etc. etc., and this girl in The Cat’s class wanted everybody to be aware that there was going to be another attack at Halloween.
So this isn’t the first time I’ve explained about Snopes to one of my children, but this is the first time that it’s really been personally relevant to one of them. I said, “That sounds like an UL to me, let’s look it up on Snopes”, turned back to the computer, and 30 seconds later, there it was, much to The Cat’s vast relief.
She was looking forward to going to school the next day to confront the girl about the fact that her friend had obviously, shamelessly, Copy and Pasted the e-mail and sent it out as her own personal experience.
This was probably started by some person who wanted to do his Christmas shopping on Oct. 31… Actually it doesn’t sound like a bad time for me to pick up some things for the holidays either. I imagine a bunch of people will actually believe it and some others will think “better safe than sorry” so the crowds shouldn’t be too bad…so not a bad idea at all (I mean the shopping part not the frightening people part).
I got this one in my E-mail inbasket too. The perp who sent it to me got a big fat Snopes-linked reply.
My big question was: who goes shopping on Halloween? That’s a day when most people are home for the trick-or-treaters, or going around with their own kids. Most of these nutballs have a fairly good grasp of American culture (having been to college here or lived here), and wouldn’t have missed something this common. Why hit the malls when they’re mostly empty?
See they’re trying to convince everyone that this is an UL. Then everyone will go the malls on Halloween to prove that it’s just a UL and that there was no reason to be affraid. Then they can hit the malls. See it’s all so clear.
There are reports that on the night of 9/10, one group of hijackers were spotted in a strip club. And another group tried to hire some call-girls but the price was too steep to service the entire group. Looks like at least six weren’t all that devout, and possibly had no idea exactly what they’d be doing.
Malls are NOT empty on Halloween. For the last 5-10 years malls have been hosting halloween events including trick or treating, games, contests, etc. I have made the mistake of trying to go to the mall on Halloween evening before. You cannot even get in the stores there are so many costumed kids walking around.
Well, I’m going to go against the grain here and say that this or something like it is actually true. A friend of mine has a father who worked in one of the buildings (building 40 or whatever it is). He’s ok, but he does have an interesting story which he told my friend and she told me. Apparantly one of the people he works with has a Afghan boyfriend who had been missing for a week. She found a letter telling her to not fly or go in any tall buildings on the 11th. It also tells her to not go to the malls on halloween. I actually believe it because it came to me from a close friend who actually knew whoever this happened to. So shutup.
I knew it would go to hell once I got that e-mail. I had already been told personally by my friend about this and a week or so later I read it in that e-mail (my friend told me on the first or so, before that e-mail began circulating). If the FBI wants to get the truth out they’re going to have to do it on TV. nobody believes anything they get in e-mail. Neither do I, but fortunately I know my friend’s dad well.
My girlfriend said that it was a friend of her mother’s whose Afghan boyfriend vanished and left a note like that. By the time I got to snopes, she had reconsidered; Why wasn’t the FBI warning people? Why would the terrorists give themselves away? and whatnot.
In case you don’t feel like looking it up on Snopes, they actually called the FBI and asked about it. The feds say they’ve received no such note. Even if it did come from a friend of a very close friend of yours, it’s a game of broken telephone. Facts get distorted. I got it from my girlfriends mother, and I trust her. She’d just fallen victim to a Friend of a Friend story.
A lot of people go trick or treating at the mall because it’s safer (supposedly) than trick or treating strangers’ houses. The one time we did this the mall was packed wall to wall with kids … never again!
My experience with this one…
I got this one in my email about 15 times in one day. Right after I directed all the emailers to Snopes, my husband called and said I shouldn’t go to the mall on Halloween because the sister of a woman he works (Diane) with had this Afghan boyfriend who left her a letter that said…well, you know. I asked to talk to Diane (because I know her outside of work), she said it was really her friend’s sister who had the Afghan boyfriend, but after she called said friend, it turned out to be a friend’s friend’s sister…well, you know.
I directed her to Snopes as well.
:rolleyes: