HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ smoyer

Something that this angle shows (and that other footage I've seen hints at) is that the second plane would have missed the tower without a pretty serious turn in the last few seconds. That plane is screaming (we're used to a jet that size flying with it's flaps and landing gear down if (roughly) level at that altitude. This turn would have been higher than normal G forces!

⬐ jedberg

I noticed that too. The second plane almost missed!

⬐ themaninthedark

I was in high school, we tuned in and caught the second plane hitting the tower live. From the view that we saw and the turn it made I thought it was a smaller private plane at first.

⬐ m348e912

It's crazy that someone sat on the footage for 21 years and it just got made public now. Makes you wonder what else other footage or details are out there that has yet to be shared online.

⬐ cpp_frog

It's hard to believe, but new media of the September 11 attacks (and the towers before) comes out all the time. This includes rare pictures and videos. There are YouTube channels [0] specifically dedicated to finding music played on the plaza (muzak), partly inspired by Jack Taliercio's video [1], where you can hear songs being played while the attacks went down. Other channels have more mainstream videos (FOIA, NIST) but all of them were digitally enhanced [2], [3]. Other channels have pictures found online [4], but mainly the pictures can be found in recent subreddits [5], [6] where they also collect pictures of the inside of the towers, the other buildings of the complex and even the bridges between them. There is also a Flight 11 impact video with some recordings that were never quite known [7], although the first everyone has already seen.

Caveat: some of the channel's owners seem to be conspiratorial, but the majority of the videos are unedited. You'll be surprised how specific some of the footage is.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZFlhobtX9IHvXM0h1LcqaA/fea...

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdfqEYITTm8

[2] https://www.youtube.com/c/WTCFOIAVideos

[3] https://www.youtube.com/c/MrKoenig1985/videos

[4] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEpgWCL0UfhN1gwxAWpAo5A/vid...

[5] https://www.reddit.com/r/TwinTowersInPhotos/

[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/WorldTradeCenter/

[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtWcQRCPkKk

⬐ Invictus0

After all these years, I've still never seen a video of the Pentagon impact. Has anything come out for that?

⬐ moron4hire

The road patterns were different back then (they changed them specifically because of 9/11), but if you've ever been near the Pentagon, it's pretty obvious: it's a low building, nestled in a bowl-like land formation, there aren't many good places to sit and "observe" it, and it's surrounded by highways. Most of the time, if you are looking at the Pentagon, you are probably also driving.

⬐ kube-system

And this is 2001, so any tourists driving on those highways were almost certainly holding paper maps and arguing intensely with their passenger about which exit to take to get into DC. They weren’t holding their analog camcorders.

⬐ flycaliguy

It seems perfectly plausible to me that releasing video of the Pentagon being struck by terrorists would only serve to glorify the events that day. At the end of the day those agencies did their job and secured any footage. This gave the government the opportunity to decide what is released to the public and I think they made the right choice considering the promotional value of it to the terrorists.

⬐ Wiseacre

If only they had considered that invading Iraq and Afghanistan would also serve to glorify the events that day.

⬐ Invictus0

That's not how this works. Classified material is not classified because it would make people feel some type of way. It's because the release of the material would have some effect on national security. With the end of the war in Afghanistan, there is no clear reason in my mind why the declassification of any existing video would be a cause of concern.

https://www.archives.gov/files/isoo/training/training-reason...

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-action...

⬐ amscanne

Isn’t the location where Osama Bin Laden’s body was disposed classified for exactly that reason? I guess there’s a more direct line to national security there, but I think other things could have a sufficient powerful emotional reaction that it would also be reasonable to argue that also affects national security.

⬐ throwrqX

"National Security" as a term is broad enough to include anything. Case on point I see "national security" given as a reason why economic espionage is okay or why the government won't release things that are embarrassing to politicians because it can effect how foreign leaders view them and that's "national security".

⬐ GeorgeTirebiter

e.g. Why are there still secret documents on the JFK assassination?

⬐ TacticalCoder

Some 3 letters agency (FBI?) immediately raided all the nearby places that could have had cams and seized everything. I'm pretty sure that it's documented: IIRC footage from a petrol station nearby was confiscated.

I was there (at the time, in front of my TV I mean) and I clearly remember the first witnesses being interviewed by reporters: as soon as a witness would say something not fitting the official narrative, it would never be aired again. For example regarding the pentagon one eye-witness said he saw something like a big missile on which wings had been strapped. I saw that on TV. I clearly remember it. Now I'm not saying it's not a Boeing that hit the Pentagon: what I'm saying is that it's very weird that all these ramblings from these drunkards mistaking, say, a Boeing with a "missile with wings strapped on it" were basically aired once then erased. I'm pretty sure that guy was both drunk and of course because the plane was going fast, the mistake was made in honest faith (you, too, would certainly mistake a Boeing for a missile with wings strapped on it).

Same thing with people saying they heard explosions in the WTC: as soon as they'd mention that, they'd be cut off by reporters and these people would never be interviewed again and their account never aired again (FWIW I don't believe in a controlled demolition but I do believe in narrative manipulation).

After these oddities of course we all know totally normal things then happened: for example IIRC one the rare flight that was allowed to happen when no plane were flying in the US was a flight evacuating members of the Bin Laden family.

And then the wars that followed. Made perfect sense. No fabricated evidence. Guantanamo and the like: all perfectly cromulent.

When you take all this, honestly that we don't have any footage of that impact just seems on par for the course.

⬐ spiderice

It’s interesting to me that even 20 years later, any comments that don’t fit the official narrative still get downvoted on HN (and the rest of the internet). There was such a giant push after it happened to not question the official narrative, and that still remains embedded in everyone’s heads. I wonder how long that will last.

⬐ avalys

I think these comments get downvoted for the same reason that comments that "don't fit the official narrative" about the moon landings would get downvoted.

⬐ pmoriarty

"It’s interesting to me that even 20 years later, any comments that don’t fit the official narrative still get downvoted on HN"

It's more of a case of extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

There are plenty of places on the internet where wild claims without a shred of evidence are tolerated and even encouraged. HN is not one of those.

⬐ freedomben

I can only speak for myself and extrapolate to others, but I think people really hate the conspiracy crap that emerges. There are enough conspiracy people that it falls into the "this is why we can't have nice things" camp. As someone who rejoices in truth, I can relate to this a lot.

However I really hope people move toward skepticism (even of the official narratives) because I fear the effects of censorship more than I do the disinformation. Conspiracy crap has been around a long time and most of those people were considered crackpots, but since the major ramp up in effort that started about 6 years ago, the conspiracy stuff has exploded and is absolutely everywhere now. I think it's because the censorship (in some cases for clearly political reasons) actually makes the conspiracy theories seem more credible, because if they were wrong why would anybody waste effort trying to fight it? (I'm not arguing that's solid reasoning, only that it seems a reasonable argument to most people). Once you can't trust that most people operate in good faith, you have to question everybody's motives with extreme skepticism. Combine that with human nature to look for patterns/explanations in everything and you get a mess.

⬐ samfather

You know how many spooks frequent HN? This place has become worse than DEFCON.

⬐ kube-system

They’re red herrings which have been discussed ad nauseam. 9/11 is the most analyzed event in modern history; we know what happened.

⬐ jallen_dot_dev

Perhaps they didn't rerun the weird takes because as new information came in and everyone started getting a better picture of what happened, they stopped airing info that was apparently wrong. There is always confusion and wrong reports when events are unfolding.

I don't know what Bin Laden flights, Guantanamo, or the following wars have to do with the pentagon on 9/11 or footage of it. Honestly, I don't know what point you're trying to make.

⬐ pkulak

Is there any video of the first NYC plane? If there was a second Pentagon plane, I'm sure we'd have that.

⬐ ceejayoz

There is, yes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=St7ny38gLp4

⬐ pkulak

Holy crap! I had no idea. That's crazy that someone just happened to filming something else and turned the camera around.

⬐ pinephoneguy

IIRC the FBI collected/destroyed as much as they could of that.

⬐ NoSorryCannot

Honest question, what law would enable them to forcibly do that? Or was it a little extralegal?

⬐ edanm

I have no idea if this actually happened, but just hypothetically... they could just ask people to do it without necessarily compelling them legally.

I think lots of people would just comply with the FBI if asked to do something "for the good of the country". Especially right after 9/11.

⬐ tofof

There is helicopter footage that shows an object apparently accelerating outward from the highway. This video regularly gets taken down and is often posted mirrored to defeat automatic screening.

https://imgur.com/gallery/VMe3tqF/

https://youtu.be/Qz9OdOs6La4?t=241

⬐ freedomben

Why does it regularly get taken down? Any downvoters care to share? Like is it doctored or something?

⬐ cpp_frog

I personally don't know if there ever was a video of the impact other than that of the security camera [0]. I think of two reasons: the Pentagon is not NY, which is a highly populated area in a developed country, it's natural that so many people were filming. Even more so, the Twin Towers were cultural icons. I don't know if many people were around the Pentagon, but I have read about witnesses of the crash in DC. The other reason would be that they don't want to release it and it's understandable.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pentagon#11_September_2001...

⬐ mgdlbp

Fascinating are the words of netizens of the time in guestbooks, forums, and homepages of sites large and small that have been immortalized in the Internet Archive [a].

The Internet Archive also has an extensive collection of televised news footage from ‑‑09‑11 and the following weeks; I'm often reminded by its prominent placement in the 'Video' section of their navbar. Ironically, both their original 9/11 web collection (assembled by the Library of Congress shortly after the event) and the related Pew reports on internet use following 9/11 are lost to time; remnants can only be found in the Wayback Machine [0]. For whatever reason, it was replaced with one apparently curated by the September 11 Museum around 2008 [1].

[0] https://web.archive.org/web/20011014012316/http://september1...

[1] https://www.archive-it.org/collections/1029

[a] an aside: I find the archived sites of schools (of all kinds) from the time particularly captivating. Perhaps the abridgement of time enhances their liminal nature. Or maybe it's the feeling of sincerity in guestbook messages and the personal homepages of students and staff.

⬐ pygar

The word "terrorism" wasn't yet in the common vernacular. The people in the video were having a hard time articulating what they saw "That was a..dead on kill, he did it on purpose!".

⬐ greenyoda

> The word "terrorism" wasn't yet in the common vernacular.

The word "terrorism" has been in constant use in the media since the 1970s.

⬐ melling

We see the plane around 2:05.

⬐ shusaku

It’s a shockingly clear shot

⬐ rendall

Back in 2001/2002, I went to a series of seminars hosted by the artist Natalie Jeremijenko. One of the presenting artists had footage of the Pentagon attack, taken from a camera he had set up on the Potomac River. He refused to give anyone else access to it. "I want to think about how to best present this footage." he said. I still have never seen that footage again to this day, and the selfishness makes me angry whenever I think of it.

⬐ GnarfGnarf

Could simply have been a hoax, to attract attention. (Having the video, I mean, not the attack).

⬐ ectopod

What's the hoax? OP has seen the video.

⬐ rendall

Natalie Jeremijenko hosted the seminar, but was not the artist who played the video. Yes, I saw the video. IIRC, it showed the plane passing low over the Potomac seconds before it hit the Pentagon, just out of frame. I don't see how that could have been a hoax.

⬐ spiderice

Have they? It isn’t clear to me if they’ve seen it or just heard that it exists

⬐ rendall

Sorry, I tried to be clear. I did see the video. The artist had it online behind a password-protected web page. He went to some URL at his own site, put in a name and password, and played the video. Some of us asked him how we could see the video again, and that's when he told us that it wasn't "public", that he wanted to hold onto it until he could figure out how to best present it or whatever-the-fuck ever.

⬐ furyofantares

It's clear from the ending where they say they've still never seen it "again"

⬐ CincinnatiMan

> I still have never seen that footage again to this day

I took the "again" to mean they've seen it atleast once.

⬐ GnarfGnarf

The video may be fake. Jeremijenko, the "artist", withholds it to avoid detailed examination.

⬐ rendall

I really was not clear, sorry. Nathalie Jeremijenko was not the artist who had the video. She hosted a seminar where a sequence of artists gave talks. One of these artists presented that video at the seminar.

I really don't see how it could have been a hoax. Computer art and animation was my thing at the time, and I'm pretty sure I would have noticed a fake. 20 years ago, computer animation was pretty good, but it was a rare few who could make truly realistic renders and composit them into recorded video. Not that guy, for sure.

⬐ napier

Asked them about it recently? If not, please do.

⬐ pinephoneguy

IIRC the FBI went to everyone they could and collected/erased footage. I doubt they still have it.

⬐ barneygale

If the CIA/FBI wanted to make people think a plane had hit the pentagon, why wouldn't they just use a plane? This conspiracy theory is one of the dumbest.

⬐ w0de0

The frustration got the better of you, and so here you are responding in anger to foolishness on the internet!

No matter, happens to all of us. Have some relevant comedy as a salve: https://youtu.be/5muY64Oyp10

⬐ etherael

Gov confiscated all footage of incident is not the same thing as because incident nature was x and they were conducting a coverup.

(I have no idea if the footage was confiscated from all people, only that the footage from certain fixed nearby locations was confiscated, and have never seen any proof this was done because it was a coverup attempt.)

⬐ rendall

It was 20 years ago. Maybe someone documented that seminar, and can look up who the presenting artist was, but I sure didn't.

⬐ drtrq

Shock Doctrine is the only explanation of 9/11

the Documentary: https://youtu.be/B3B5qt6gsxY

And the book by Naomi Klein https://naomiklein.org/the-shock-doctrine/

⬐ syspec

Interesting documentary, can you help explain the use of the term `neo liberal` here? I thought liberal meant progressive. Progressive as in more government safety nets

⬐ EMIRELADERO

In Latin America, "neoliberal" often means right-wing, Firedmanesque ideologies

⬐ boomboomsubban

Neoliberalism is a spinoff ideology of liberalism, and to be fair your definition of "liberalism" is a warped version of what liberalism originally referred to. In short;

Liberalism was an ideology centered on liberty and consent of the governed, generally used as the rallying cry in 19th century revolutions replacing the monarchys.

Modern US liberalism is a form of social liberalism that is generally in favor of what you mentioned.

Neoliberalism is generally an ideology promoting free market capitalism. Reagan is one of the great heroes of Neoliberalism.

⬐ syspec

I appreciate the explanation, at the same time I can't help but feel that many people on the right refer to democrats as neoliberals as a pejorative. Is that just a misuse of the term, or is there more to it

⬐ boomboomsubban

The neoliberal ideology infects both parties, modern day democrats agree with much of Reaganomics. I'd be surprised if the right used it as a pejorative, though they may be misusing the term to apply to "new" liberalism, the social liberalism mentioned.

A quick search of "neoliberal left" brings up things like the Jacobin and Noam Chomsky criticizing the left, not something like Breirtbart.

⬐ Simon_O_Rourke

I was in NYC that week, visiting my in-laws, to be honest I've avoided watching this, because it's trauma is still raw, and viewing it again isn't going to provide any closure for me.

⬐ ydnaclementine

Shoutout to the guy at 2:45 who was able to immediately identify the second plane as a United plane

⬐ jquery

I’m shaking after watching that. The confusion and horror is palpable. 9/11, and especially seeing the second plane hit on live TV, gave many of us a form of shared PTSD. I would have nightmares for years afterwards.

⬐ nobrains

https://youtu.be/o6t31R4tI10?t=123

Second plane

⬐ mhb

YouTube doesn't have that image stabilization any more?

⬐ kosasbest

The guy talking in the video sounds like a crisis actor[0]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crisis_actor

⬐ pcdoodle

Same pre impact flash is seen in this one as well (6:00).

⬐ Breza

???

⬐ davidmurdoch

The "(2001)" makes it seem like this is a link to a video titled "Newly published 9/11 footage" that was posted in 2001. Maybe "Newly published 2001/09/11 footage" would be a better title?

⬐ nmilo

Agreed, the (2001) is almost a little ridiculous---we all know 9/11 happened in 2001, and the year in the title is supposed to refer to publication date.

⬐ joelbondurant4

None

⬐ jlkjlkj45y

None

⬐ throwaway5486nv

Structural engineers please explain how can a tall concrete building collapse when hit in the middle?

⬐ ceejayoz

Been in a coma for two decades?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-structural-e...

> The four sides of each building formed a tube with window slots This tube was designed to carry the weight of the building and its contents directly downward to the foundations. The walls acted as vertical beams, wide and tall as the buildings, that bent to the side to absorb wind loads.

https://science.howstuffworks.com/engineering/structural/wor...

> Prior to the construction of the Twin Towers, skyscrapers were designed to support themselves through large internal columns spaced about 30 feet (9 meters) apart, which interrupted the flow of interior space. For this project however, the engineers came up with a different solution -- the exterior walls themselves would support the bulk of the structure, and they would get a boost from one single column of beams in the center.

Make a big hole in the primary support structure and things go badly.

(And before parroting the "jet fuel doesn't melt steel beams" thing as a follow-up, watch this excellent and short video from a blacksmith: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzF1KySHmUA)

⬐ samfather

No point in discussing this on HN. Any comments against the narrative or even slight controversy is "flagged" - also known as censorship.

⬐ samfather

Tried to make two comments on this thread that were critical of government. Both censored within the hour. Fuck this site. It's become a shithole run by agencies. Go ahead and ban my account, assholes. I'll just get a new one over Tor.

⬐ simmo9000

Very powerful emotions watching this... New?

With "Two minute papers" showing us what is possible, will we see more vids that affect us like this?

I watched the second plane hit live whilst being kept up late 20 years ago with bad diarrhea and a one year old. I night I will never forget... (sorry for being graphic).

Why has this vid only now become public? Or has it been around for a while?

Kelvin?

⬐ hackernewds

what is the two minute papers connection here?

⬐ simmo9000

I felt a lot of emotion the day I watched the world break 20 years ago and when I saw this, maybe, 'click-bait' titled HN piece, I became emotional.

Click, watch, hmm, and I was moved.

I try to look at evidence before making judgment and whilst watching this video I exercised skepticism and questioned...

Károly of Two Minute Papers has amazed me with what is becoming possible and I make comment here, HN, to help me make judgement on what is shown to me.

Is this real? And why now? That's all...

Respect to "Two Minute Papers". And Károly. Thank you. I'm holding on...

⬐ hwers

Are you a bot?

⬐ abel_

While progress has been made in computer vision, that progress has been relatively narrow up until now, and I think the activation energy required to produce this level of quality would be more than it's worth. As others have mentioned, new footage comes out all the time.

However, I agree with the sentiment. Someday, we will have a massive foundation model capable of producing any video with a little conditioning on text. But we don't currently have such a model. In some sense, we're still in the era of easily verifiable video, and this era might end someday soon.

⬐ samfather

Tried to make two comments on this thread that were critical of government. Both censored within the hour. Fuck this site. It's become a shithole run by agencies.

⬐ jlkjlkj45y

None

⬐ kungito

is there anything new?

⬐ jack_newmann

The footage? Yes

The attack? No

⬐ TacticalCoder

I'll just say this: many here are convinced our AI overlords have landed and we'll soon all be out of jobs and deepfakes are undistinguishable from the real thing.

So I'll say this: if you believe AI is advanced, then in 2022 it's not possible to take this video for granted and you have to take into account that all evidence surfacing from now may be deepfakes. I'm not saying they are: I'm saying you have to keep that in mind.

⬐ oxguy3

This footage is not a deepfake. Deepfake is the technology that lets you emulate one person's face and slap it on someone else's head. There is no technology that can generate an entire 8-minute video of a specific event like 9/11 out of nothing. AI is not magic.

⬐ zild3d

i have no doubt the mustache and essence of long island in the man he talks to is real

⬐ nest0r

Please for the love of everything go and inform yourself on the basics of computing especially hardware. There is so much shitty hype about everything and we are at least 1-2 Generations away to make anything remotely feasible in that direction.

⬐ Breza

And it's worth noting that this footage shows an event that we watched live in 2001. The idea that any of it could have been faked in realtime across all TV networks is beyond science fiction.

⬐ inside6

None

⬐ kodah

Please stop.

I was in seventh grade when all this went down. It was around the time that they first started putting TVs in classrooms. The teacher flipped the channel to the news when it was announced that an accident occurred and a plane flew into the WTC. Then they kept coming live on TV. In subsequent days I listened to final phone calls between people and their families. The internet was so congested I could barely use it, and a huge part of that was because of services provided out of the WTC.

It is well documented through declassified documents that were written two decades ago that these were Saudi nationals who had moved to America under the guise of learning to fly. They were aided by Al Qaeda and "happenstance" Saudi officials. Osama Bin Laden was a Saudi national, the leader, and one of the founding members of Al Qaeda.

These are barebone facts. Please do not encourage further mythology around 9/11 - the kind of Loose Change-esque rhetoric that is obviously designed more for entertainment than actual productivity. 9/11 happened, everyone saw it, and a new angle isn't anything groundbreaking, therefore there's zero reason to fake it. It won't change our relationship with the Saudis, it won't bring us back into war, etc

⬐ datavirtue

There are many millions of people in the US who still have not seen rational expplainations as to the cause of the towers falling. The misinformation, confusion, and subsequent distrust of the government resulting from that and other factors has led to these people still holding onto the false flag narrative. It didn't help that they new who was responsible so soon after the attack (which I found very maddening and suspicious, certainly not comforting) and that certain elements within the Bush administration used the attack for their own agenda to start another war in Iraq. Years later it was proven to be a lie as we're the fact that the FBI was following all of the attackers, the Bush admin warned numerous times, and that fact was covered up as well.

So, given all that and most of those millions of people probably never seeing anything more detailed than Loose Change they have lost all trust in government. This is one of the core elements of our modern day populist uprising.

I had not even been aware of some of the sound explanations I have heard in this thread today. I watched the towers fall live, I watched the hideous war drumming and lying to start the Iraq war, live. In those days (I was 25) as someone who meticulously kept up with all open source material on world events previous, during, and after, I lost any and all faith in government.

Since then, the opioid epidemic has been exposed and was something I lived through as well...all of it. I lost my dad, brother, closest uncle, and my cousin (brother-cuz) to that fucking nightmare.

I know my experience is the tip of the ice berg. I'm smart and I can feel my way through misinformation but it is still tuff to do. I think people greatly misunderstand the impact of these events and how they are still lighting fires to this very day.

It ain't over.

⬐ kodah

You're definitely repeating some of the misinformation in the form of reductionism. The situation with WMDs in Iraq was definitely wrong, but doesn't rise to lies. Two different countries were saying that they suspected these weapons were in Iraq, where Al Qaeda was heavily present, and often protected. The cherry on top was that in the 1980s Saddam had not only manufactured chemical weapons but he used them as well. Saddam refused to allow UN investigators in, and thus we had the Iraq war. Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_and_weapons_of_mass_des...

One of the things I also remember from this time period was about why 9/11 happened even though some individual agencies had bits of information. It was discovered these agencies didn't share information so as to protect it. FISA and The Dept of Homeland Security are direct reflections of their own internal criticism.

I was raised never to trust the government. I served in Afghanistan under two different presidents and I definitely get what it's like to witness lies and misinformation spewed across TV stations while your reality on the ground is very different. These days I have a healthy distrust for government still, however, I expect to see reports and trajectories change when those institutions mess things up. This is what composes "trust" for me now. That's the best I feel that I can expect from any large bureaucratic organization government or otherwise.

⬐ antisol

> but doesn't rise to lies

Those schematics of the WMD-factory-trucks that I remember seeing on TV and the assertion that saddam had a bunch of them churning out WMDs sure seem a hell of a lot like lies. Maybe someone can explain to me how they weren't.

> I was raised never to trust the government. I served in Afghanistan under two different presidents

These two statements would seem to contradict each other.

⬐ datavirtue

Don't get drawn into this garbage. It is an argumentative technique to obscure the facts they refused to acknowledge or refute.

⬐ kodah

I'm not employing any "technique" just saying things I know and things I can verify, just like everyone else.

⬐ kodah

> Those schematics of the WMD-factory-trucks that I remember seeing on TV and the assertion that saddam had a bunch of them churning out WMDs sure seem a hell of a lot like lies. Maybe someone can explain to me how they weren't.

Those pictures come from somewhere and I believe the Wikipedia article touches on it. The Intel community testified that while this intelligence was provided, it wasn't necessarily an indicator that they were being produced.

> I was raised never to trust the government. I served in Afghanistan under two different presidents

2008/9 was an economic crisis and I lost the job that allowed me to pay for college. I did what paid the bills and what allowed me to live a life with credit defaults.

⬐ antisol

> Those pictures come from somewhere and I believe the Wikipedia article touches on it. The Intel community testified that while this intelligence was provided, it wasn't necessarily an indicator that they were being produced.

If the intel community didn't say that saddam had those trucks, then Colin Powell must have lied when he presented those schematics to the UN as something that saddam totally had... right?

> I did what paid the bills and what allowed me to live a life with credit defaults.

Makes sense, I understand and apologise for my snark. That must have sucked :)

⬐ hondo77

> It was around the time that they first started putting TVs in classrooms.

FYI, I attended an elementary school that had TVs in all the classrooms back in 1970.

⬐ techdragon

Definitely a new angle, but it’s also strange after so many years to find good footage like this. The random extra stuff at the end make it feel very genuinely “found an old miniDV tape with some footage of forgotten about.”

But it’s also just really weird to hear people talking so clearly the moment after it happens. It’s preserved a slightly surreal moment of shock quite well.

⬐ lkbm

> But it’s also just really weird to hear people talking so clearly the moment after it happens. It’s preserved a slightly surreal moment of shock quite well.

Yeah, it feels similar to reading the first Usenet threads about Chernobyl, AIDS, etc.: http://www.eightyeightynine.com/culture/80susenet.html

⬐ lovehashbrowns

The two other videos that got posted alongside this one makes me think it was a "forgotten tape that just got digitized" type of deal.

However, I can also see there being an element of trauma and just not wanting to revisit the footage on purpose. I know I have some pictures I never want to look at again, although nothing on this scale.

⬐ zuminator

I too have a couple of photos I took that beautiful*, awful morning that I never shared online. Nothing that hasn't been seen before, but at the same time they feel very personal. It's not at all surprising to me that people have sat on footage.

* There was nothing beautiful about the attack, obviously, but the day itself was a perfect late summer New York day with a totally cloudless sky. So you'd look in one direction and see smoke and devastation, you'd face the other direction and see nothing but pure crystalline blue skies. It was quite surreal.

⬐ necrotic_comp

9/11 blue is such a distinct color, and it's seared into my brain. It's so intwined with the day, it's part of the permanent collection at the museum: https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/trying-remember-col...

⬐ techdragon

Yeah, not wanting to revisit it fits with the “didn’t remove random other footage”, I can entirely understand them thinking “I’ll just uploaded it how it was because… I don’t want to think about trying to watch this again to edit it”

It’s also surprisingly good quality too. I really was surprised at the zoom and focus on early into it. Gives me a distinct impression it was shot on what was probably quite a good portable video camera for the period.

⬐ freedomben

I had a very similar video camera at the time. It was a surreal blast from the past, especially the slow frame by frame section.

⬐ vmception

There’s also that everyone born after that is 21 years old now or a teenager and could have just found it in the attic, or ask the adult if they have any footage right after the 9/11 lesson in their history class

Plenty of children and sibling’s children around to find this and convince to post it

⬐ Alex3917

> I know I have some pictures I never want to look at again, although nothing on this scale.

Much like photos the U.S. soldiers took in Europe while liberating the death camps. Most of them just went into their attics until they died and their kids were cleaning out their stuff.

⬐ 938rrhri3hirhi3

Hey I’m really sorry my previous comment offended it was a poorly judged and poorly written expression of my feelings. Just that feeling of lost innocence and lost security at the point everyone realised it was on purpose must have been incredibly jarring. Pretty terrible to go from carefree to the idea that this could happen at any moment. The British have done enough meddling around the world that half the world bears us a grudge. There were bombings in London quite frequently when I grew up though they got a lot less deadly into the 90’s. Even so, when the train station I used to go to school had a bomb left in it, I had pretty bad nightmares for a while after that. I always had a sense that something could happen at any time from as soon as I was old enough to understand the security posters and the PA announcements about unattended bags. The last big IRA bomb in London was miles away yet it violently rattled the windows in my house. Then there was a break until 9/11 happened and it was obvious that there was going to be a reaction to this. When the wars in the middle east started we knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to us again. So when ~100 people were killed in the Al Qeada train bombings in London. I felt like ‘oh this again’ and there was just this crushing feeling that it was back for real. I remember randomly bursting into tears in a pub that night at the senseless randomness of it.

Whereas you all got yanked into this different awful reality that happens out of nowhere watching this extreme insane next level thing happen on live TV, it’s quite a different thing to growing up with a low level sense that it is normal that someone might want to do something bad to you purely because you live in a particular place in a particular country. I think thats what I was getting at; that my life experience would have meant that when the second one hit it was a feeling of resignation and deep sadness, because I was used to the idea that terror attacks happen. But coming literally out of the blue for you guys it must have been a different emotion, truly shocking especially given how extreme these attacks were and how they played out in full view of everyone instead of in grimy tunnels and smokey pubs like all the stuff that happened when I was a child. Because it was such a shock for Americans I was pretty scared about how you were going to react, I remember seriously discussing with friends wether we thought you would use nukes or if we were all going to end up conscripted to fight with you in some huge war to exact revenge on whoever had done it seems far fetched now but there have definitely been serious global consequences.

This whole Ukraine thing has really reminded me of the nuclear war nightmares I used to have in the 80’s as well. I feel an impending sense of doom about this also. I hope I’m wrong.

⬐ greenyoda

> Whereas you all got yanked into this different awful reality that happens out of nowhere watching this extreme insane next level thing happen on live TV, it’s quite a different thing to growing up with a low level sense that it is normal that someone might want to do something bad to you purely because you live in a particular place in a particular country.

Terrorism wasn't a new experience to us New Yorkers - we had experienced the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993.[1] That truck bomb under the building didn't succeed in taking down the towers, but it caused major damage and disruption, killed six people and injured over a thousand.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_World_Trade_Center_bombin...

⬐ flycaliguy

My guess is he showed it to his boss, military or police or something. They took it then gave it back to him 20 years later after paperwork or something. Seems plausible.

⬐ ethbr0

As someone who watched the second plane hit live on CNN, it was... hard.

People who weren't alive or were otherwise busy that morning don't remember the uncertainty after the first plane. Everyone thought it was an accident.

No one could conceive it was a deliberate strike. Everyone knew terrorists hijacked airplanes to fly to third world countries, not to commit suicide into buildings.

That cognitive dissonance all collapsed in a single instant as the second plane hit. And that's a lot to process all at once. I still can't watch video footage without crying.

If I'd been the videographer, you'd better believe I'd have locked this in my attic and forgotten about it.

⬐ HeyLaughingBoy

Exactly! I remember getting dressed for work while listening to MPR (Minnesota Public Radio) about an airplane hitting the WTC and I figured it was just a small Cessna 172 or something so I turned on my TV just in time to see the second impact live.

Watching it happen live with the immediate knowledge that it was obviously a deliberate act was, like you said, a huge amount to process all at once.

I actually think that having a goal like "get dressed and go to work" probably was a great benefit to my mental state.

⬐ vb234

The memory I have of that day is similar. I had an early morning class and work in the afternoon. When we left the early morning class, a friend got a call from his parent asking if he was okay. We were in a midwestern college town nowhere near in danger of being a target. Checked the news on Yahoo and all we could get at that point was that a flight flew into the World Trade Center. We thought it was a private small jet that flew off course and laughed it off. Went home, turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit.

I still think back to that day and have some guilt about our initial reaction to the first flight. Given how instantly news propagates today I assumed that back then we knew the details already and just made light of the suffering. I moved to NYC right after college and recall those early years in the city where everyone knew every little detail of the day. Your recollection assuages some of the guilt I harbor from that day.

⬐ ethbr0

I think everyone of a certain age, who was around their peers as it happened, either made a thoughtless comment or heard one.

⬐ vitaflo

I had my clock radio set to MPR as well and woke up to them talking about the first plane. Usually the news every morning didn’t register but that day it did.

I turned on the TV to see what was going on, which I usually don’t do. After a couple minutes of “oh my that’s a tragic accident” the second plane hit an I immediately knew it was no accident.

I worked downtown Mpls at the time and no way I was going to work that day. Thankfully my boss told everyone to stay home.

Seeing all of it live is a memory burned into my brain the same as watching the Challenger blow up live in middle school.

⬐ dkarl

Cognitive dissonance even for people who missed it. At the time I was in my early twenties, started my day late, and usually didn't check news until after getting a little bit of work done. When I got to work, nobody else was there, which was weird. There was a TV on an AV cart in the middle of a hallway, also a bit weird. There was a note from the CEO saying that everyone was going home to be with their families. That also seemed a bit weird, but I shrugged it off. Our CEO was a family values guy, very Christian, and I had heard he used to lead prayers in the office when the company was smaller. (It didn't occur to me that it was a Tuesday and everybody's families should be at school or work.) So I sat down with my coffee and started working. After a while, at a time that I guess would have been close to noon in New York, I went to cnn.com, which came up as a primitive-looking site without any media, so I chuckled internally and took a screenshot, thinking CNN had been hacked. How could CNN let themselves get hacked! I skimmed over the headlines thinking that the hackers would have put in something political or humorous, but I didn't see anything like that, and started to think, okay, this is CNN's real content, so their web site got hacked or otherwise impacted by something, so they put up the text site while they recover. I starting thinking about what could have affected their site like that, and then it dawned on me that the top headline might have something to do with it.

I know others have been downvoted for saying this, but for me the shocking nature of it took a while to sink in. I had not had a chance to travel much yet at that point. I had been to New York City once, just like I had been to Europe once and seen London and Paris and Rome. I came from a small town in Texas and had a habit of thinking of all of those places as the "real world" where big real things happened, places that had diplomats and stock exchanges and famous universities and celebrities and, well, terrorist attacks. The 9/11 attacks didn't violate that sense of order. On a gut, emotional level, it was just a real world type thing happening in a real world type place. It took me a while to understand why people were reacting so differently.

⬐ freedomben

Indeed. I was in high school watching CNN live at the time the second plane struck. There was tremendous uncertainty about what had happened. I thought for sure it had been egregious pilot error.

We watched as the second plane ran right into the tower. At that moment we started realizing that it was intentional. But even then, the uncertainty about who would do that to us and why, was really worse than before.

This event really changed my entire life. Prior to this I had plans to finish my automotive tech trade school program. Within the next few days watching the footage of people leaping to their deaths in preference to burning alive, and as more and more information trickled in about who was responsible for the attack, I decided I needed to join the military to help ensure that nothing like this ever happened again. My life would have played out a whole lot differently if not for this.

⬐ SllX

I second this. I was a child in Elementary school at the time and had just woken up and walked into the living room with the television on after the first plane attack. The reporter (forgot the network, I’d seen the same footage repeatedly all day that day and never wanted to look again) was still talking about the possibility of it being an accident right up until the second plane attacked. Even in my eyes at the time, one might be an accident but two was an attack.

⬐ Geezus-42

I was in 6th grade, when we walked into second period English the teacher had a new channel on the TV. Noone had told us anything was going on so my friend and I were sitting in our desk making jokes thinking it was some movie until the teacher came in and told us it was real, then the second plane hit. Weird day...

⬐ vlunkr

My only connection to the word "terrorist" until that day was from a James Bond game (I was also young). Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all. I think that's why most people's reaction to the second plane was pure bewilderment. It wouldn't be like that now.

⬐ boomboomsubban

>Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all.

Though people were far less concerned about it than now, it's not fair to say it wasn't on their radar at all. The WTC had already been attacked once, and Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City Bombing only a few months before 9/11.

Even on the day, in that twenty minute window between crashes the general narrative was it might be an attack, just no reason to think it is yet.

⬐ 938rrhri3hirhi3

I hope this is not an offensive thing to say somehow but it’s wierd reading about how shocked Americans were when this happened. Of course something was inevitably going to happen, maybe not so dramatic, but definitely something. Having grown up in London we never had anything on this scale but more British and Irish citizens died in the troubles than in 9/11 attacks and there were only a few years between the IRA and ISIS where it wasn’t in the back of your mind that a bag on a train or a rubbish bin or a car on the street might explode. I wonder if this feeling was unique to London, did people from other European countries or even other UK cities feel insecure?

⬐ anonu

I think the world was shocked, not just Americans. You have a bit of a warped world perspective.

⬐ chrissnell

I remember it like it was yesterday. I lived in northern Virginia and was working at AOL as a sysadmin. I was young and a little flaky back then. I overslept that morning and when I woke up to take the dog out, it was a beautiful, crisp fall morning. I called a coworker to tell him that I would be late for the team meeting (this being pre-Zoom and before the "standup" became a thing). He said, "no worries, dude. Turn your TV on, the WTC is on fire and we are watching it." I turned my TV on and a minute or two later, the second plane hit. Instantly, I knew that this was going to be a big deal and since we helped run CNN.com, I quickly dressed and hauled ass to work to help with the inevitable web traffic surge. My buddy called me and said, "don't bother coming in, they are evacuating the buildings". There was a rumor that a hijacked plane was circling DC and AOL was right near IAD. I went back home, only to be called in an hour later. We were taken to the AOL leadership bunker, which I didn't even know existed. A large conference room deep underground below a small data center on the campus. We spent the next two days nursing CNN. for lunch on

⬐ germinalphrase

“We were taken to the AOL leadership bunker”

Is this a “critical infrastructure” thing?