Children and Sept 11
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Calamity Jane
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haven't heard any of this... lemme know if it's verified
freakygirl
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I heard about the one in Texas.. a few weeks ago. Not sure if it's a urban legend or not. I never looked into it and i haven't heard anymore of lately.
freakygirl
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i found this at snopes.com
Young Nostradamus
Claim: A Dallas schoolboy predicted the start of World War III one day before the terrorist attacks on America.
Status: Undetermined.
Origins: This is another single-source anecdote, the source in this case being the Houston Chronicle, which reported on September 19 that:
The day before terrorists attacked New York and Washington, a fifth-grader in a Dallas suburb told his teacher World War III would begin the next day, school officials have told the FBI.
The boy was absent from school the day of the attacks, Sept. 11, and the following day, but has been at school since then, said Rhonda Lucich, a director of elementary education for the Garland Independent School District.
Lucich said the boy approached his teacher on the afternoon of Sept. 10 and casually told her:
"Tomorrow, World War III will begin. It will begin in the United States, and the United States will lose."
That was all the information the Chronicle provided in the article other than noting that the FBI had been informed. The article didn't report the boy's name or the school he attended, nor did it report whether the FBI investigated the tip and what they found if they did. From the information given, one could not rule out the possibility that the boy's teacher misremembered or misreported what he had said to her the day before, or that the boy typically made statements like the one quoted but no one ever paid much attention to him before. Sure enough, twelve days later, the Chronicle reported in a follow-up article:
Garland Police spokeswoman Stephanie Funk said today that FBI agents interviewed the child's teacher and decided no further investigation was warranted . . .
Steve Knagg, communications director for the Garland Independent School District, last week said the teacher later decided she could not be certain the boy had actually predicted World War III would begin on the same day as the terrorist attacks.
The Dallas boy's "prediction" appears to have been yet another case of general statements being misremembered or afforded greater significance than they merit in light of subsequent events. And even if the boy's words were recalled accurately by his teracher, he said nothing about terrorists or hijackings or New York City; the specifics in his statement -- that World War III has begun, and that the "United States will lose" -- have yet to prove true.
A similar incident involving a schoolchild was reported in Brooklyn, New York:
In Brooklyn, a high school freshman who recently immigrated from Pakistan was investigated by federal agents after his teacher reported that he had predicted the Trade Center's collapse a week before the towers were attacked.
The student pointed out a third-story window of New Utrecht High School toward the Trade Center and said, "Do you see those two buildings? They won't be standing there next week," according to three police sources and a city official familiar with the investigation. They said the comment came in the midst of a heated political discussion the student was having with his teacher in an English class for Arab-American students.
Once again, however, no follow-up information surfaced to indicate that the boy had any specific foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks:
Federal agents who visited the New Utrecht school questioned the student and his older brother, who also attends there, the sources said. Afterward, the agents tried to question their father, who chastised them for harassing his children, they said.
Police sources said that, after the interviews, the boy's father left for Pakistan. After his departure, investigators conducted a second interview with the boy and his mother, who told them that her son was having psychological problems.
Additional information:
Trade Center Warning Baffles Police (MSNBC.com)
Last updated: 12 October 2001
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/predict2.htm
Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Alter, Johnathan. "Trade Center Warning Baffles Police."
MSNBC.com. 12 October 2001.
Ratcliffe, R.G. "Boy in Dallas Suburb Predicts Start of WW III Day Before Attacks."
Houston Chronicle. 19 September 2001.
Shapiro, Jeffrey Scott. "Police: Boy Spoke of Attacks Before Sept. 11."
The [Westchester] Journal News. 11 October 2001.
Houston Chronicle. "FBI Dismisses Tip on Child Who Predicted WWIII."
1 October 2001.
Young Nostradamus
Claim: A Dallas schoolboy predicted the start of World War III one day before the terrorist attacks on America.
Status: Undetermined.
Origins: This is another single-source anecdote, the source in this case being the Houston Chronicle, which reported on September 19 that:
The day before terrorists attacked New York and Washington, a fifth-grader in a Dallas suburb told his teacher World War III would begin the next day, school officials have told the FBI.
The boy was absent from school the day of the attacks, Sept. 11, and the following day, but has been at school since then, said Rhonda Lucich, a director of elementary education for the Garland Independent School District.
Lucich said the boy approached his teacher on the afternoon of Sept. 10 and casually told her:
"Tomorrow, World War III will begin. It will begin in the United States, and the United States will lose."
That was all the information the Chronicle provided in the article other than noting that the FBI had been informed. The article didn't report the boy's name or the school he attended, nor did it report whether the FBI investigated the tip and what they found if they did. From the information given, one could not rule out the possibility that the boy's teacher misremembered or misreported what he had said to her the day before, or that the boy typically made statements like the one quoted but no one ever paid much attention to him before. Sure enough, twelve days later, the Chronicle reported in a follow-up article:
Garland Police spokeswoman Stephanie Funk said today that FBI agents interviewed the child's teacher and decided no further investigation was warranted . . .
Steve Knagg, communications director for the Garland Independent School District, last week said the teacher later decided she could not be certain the boy had actually predicted World War III would begin on the same day as the terrorist attacks.
The Dallas boy's "prediction" appears to have been yet another case of general statements being misremembered or afforded greater significance than they merit in light of subsequent events. And even if the boy's words were recalled accurately by his teracher, he said nothing about terrorists or hijackings or New York City; the specifics in his statement -- that World War III has begun, and that the "United States will lose" -- have yet to prove true.
A similar incident involving a schoolchild was reported in Brooklyn, New York:
In Brooklyn, a high school freshman who recently immigrated from Pakistan was investigated by federal agents after his teacher reported that he had predicted the Trade Center's collapse a week before the towers were attacked.
The student pointed out a third-story window of New Utrecht High School toward the Trade Center and said, "Do you see those two buildings? They won't be standing there next week," according to three police sources and a city official familiar with the investigation. They said the comment came in the midst of a heated political discussion the student was having with his teacher in an English class for Arab-American students.
Once again, however, no follow-up information surfaced to indicate that the boy had any specific foreknowledge of the September 11 attacks:
Federal agents who visited the New Utrecht school questioned the student and his older brother, who also attends there, the sources said. Afterward, the agents tried to question their father, who chastised them for harassing his children, they said.
Police sources said that, after the interviews, the boy's father left for Pakistan. After his departure, investigators conducted a second interview with the boy and his mother, who told them that her son was having psychological problems.
Additional information:
Trade Center Warning Baffles Police (MSNBC.com)
Last updated: 12 October 2001
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/predict2.htm
Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Alter, Johnathan. "Trade Center Warning Baffles Police."
MSNBC.com. 12 October 2001.
Ratcliffe, R.G. "Boy in Dallas Suburb Predicts Start of WW III Day Before Attacks."
Houston Chronicle. 19 September 2001.
Shapiro, Jeffrey Scott. "Police: Boy Spoke of Attacks Before Sept. 11."
The [Westchester] Journal News. 11 October 2001.
Houston Chronicle. "FBI Dismisses Tip on Child Who Predicted WWIII."
1 October 2001.
LadyDarkFire
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I do know of one. There is a whisper going around a circle of friends that I am close to one of, and the whisper has apperantly traveled. One of the girls was, apperantly, warned by a friend to Stay off Airplanes on Sept 11th and Out of Shopping Malls on Halloween. The friend got it from another friend who was apperantly dating a boy of Pakistani decent. I don't know if it is true or not, or even if it has been reported, but there alot of rumors like this going around. Long and the short of it is, I stay out of Malls on any day of the week ( I Loathe malls) and Halloween's going to be no different. Take it or Leave it, it's just what I've heard.
A Nation can be Paralyzed by Fear Faster than Anything Else.
A Nation can be Paralyzed by Fear Faster than Anything Else.
freakygirl
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LadyDarkFire said:
It's false
Mall-o-Ween
Claim: Girl receives letter from her disappeared Afghan boyfriend saying terrorists are going to strike at U.S. malls on Halloween.
Status: False.
Example: [Collected on the Internet, 2001]
Hi All -
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.
Origins: The above-quoted e-mail began circulating on October 5, 2001. Its author, a young lady whose signature block is included in a number of the forwards, has told us she got this story from a friend, who in turn heard it from the warned girl.
Whatever the gal who wrote the e-mail believes about the truthfulness of her friend, this particular story is false. A public information officer at the FBI's National Press Office told us that they've fielded many phone calls about this message, they've checked it out, and they have received no letter of warning from a girl with an Afghan boyfriend.
This story fits neatly into the genre of a number of similar rumors about helped terrorists or compassionate Arabs who are moved to offer specific warnings about upcoming attacks, and thus should most likely be dismissed as just more of the same. ("Helped terrorists" of lore offer such heads up by way of thanks for a kindness done them. "Compassionate Arabs" of rumor offer such intelligence to favored neighbors, usually just before they themselves pack up and leave in the middle of the night. Dozens, if not hundreds, of versions of such tales abound, each told by someone who swears he heard it from someone who knows the person who had the encounter.) Such snippets of lore swing on the belief that those who have foreknowledge of destruction to come would jeopardize the outcome of those events by warning others. Terrorists may very well form friendships among the folk they've temporarily taken on the coloration of, but friendship stops at the line where it might interfere with operations. To think otherwise is to surrender to a form of naïveté that can only be characterized as appallingly wishful thinking.
As for the specifics of this particular e-mailed story, you have to ask why the boyfriend would warn the girl against taking any flights on the 11th of September. Wouldn't he have known if she were planning a trip, especially one only a week away? If the story is purely an expression of lore, this literary device is necessary to further the plot because the caution against air travel on the 11th works to provide credibility to the further warning about more mayhem to come on Halloween. One event validates the other; a device used in other "warning" legends.
For instance, this device of one realized event bestowing credibility on a prediction made about a second event yet to occur appears in a rumor from World War II:
In the wake of the anxiety rumors that swept the nation immediately after Pearl Harbor came a pipe-dream rumor which was undoubtedly the most popular of all: the weird tale of the man who picked up a strange woman in his car. Arriving at her destination, his passenger allegedly offered to pay the man for the gas he had used. But the man refused to accept the money, so the woman offered to tell his fortune. And, as the rumor went, mysteriously she told him, "There will be a dead body in your car before you get home, and Hitler will be dead in six months." Supposedly, then, on the way home the man had seen a serious automobile wreck and had taken one of the victims into his car to rush him to the hospital. But the injured person died en route, which left the hopeful implication that Hitler would therefore be dead within the following six months.
Although this pipe dream sounds foolish, it nevertheless spread throughout the country rapidly. It appeared in widely circulated gossip columns, and a lot of Americans took it seriously. Yet this same rumor, in the setting of the period, to be sure, had appeared in every military conflict since the Napoleonic Wars. And it has been said that the rumor probably goes back into the Middle Ages.
Another version of the "Mall-o-ween" rumor surfaced shortly after the first.
My friend Colleen arrived for a facial when FBI agents were leaving Murad on Sunday, October 7, 2001. They were there to interrogate a girl who worked there to find out if she knew anything. The reason for their lead was she was best-friends with a girl who was dating an Arab man, who disappeared and was involved in the terrorist attacks on the WTC. He disappeared this summer and left her a note, saying the following in the effect of:
"I have to go away and will not be able to see you again. Please do me a favor and do not fly in any planes on September 11, 2001 nor shop at any shopping malls on October 31, 2001."
Don't know about you but I live across the street from a shopping mall, and my in-laws do too. Given my daughter is usually at their house on a Wednesday afternoon, right near the mall, am thinking of where else to go.
Halloween may not be so Happy.
Please send this to anyone that you know. Let's hope this isn't for real, but since it was actually left in a letter to a loved one from one of the people involved in the attacks of September 11, 2001, I am not taking it too lightly.
The case against this rumor about terrorist attacks on malls is a fairly solid one -- the theme is both well known in the realm of folklore, and terrorists do not tip plans to outsiders. Moreover, the FBI says it hasn't received such a letter as the e-mail describes the warned girl as having turned over to them. They've been investigating the story and finding nothing to it.
Yet the author of the first e-mail (whom we contacted) believes the story her friend told her. She does not personally know the friend of her friend (the woman who supposedly received the letter), but does trust that her friend's account is accurate.
Will she through further conversations with her friend discover that she's not as close to the source of the rumor as she thought? Will her friend's friend turn out to be someone much farther removed from the "warning" than the usual two links in the "friend of a friend" (FOAF) chain of contemporary lore? That is for the future to reveal.
That one person believes a rumor does not make the rumor true, of course. But that we can trace this rumor to the person who started the e-mail does make this case more intriguing.
Barbara "international intrigue" Mikkelson
Last updated: 10 October 2001
The URL for this page is http://www.snopes.com/rumors/mallrisk.htm
Click here to e-mail this page to a friend
Urban Legends Reference Pages © 1995-2001
by Barbara and David P. Mikkelson
This material may not be reproduced without permission
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sources:
Jacobson, David J. The Affairs of Dame Rumor.
New York: Rinehart & Co., 1948 (pp. 378-379).
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freakygirl
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Mischka said:I say we nominate FreakGurl for the position of Official Urban Legends Debunker.
Oh.. is this a paying job?
Harbinger
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Please
Everyone should always check out potential hoax emails before forwarding them.(snopes.com, datafellows.com or urbanlegends.com) That is just simple courtesy, and has the added benefit of not making one look foolish. That is even truer for this kind of thing. (I'm referring to the Mall-o Ween one.) There is a big difference between vigilance and feeding chickenshit hysteria.
Everyone should always check out potential hoax emails before forwarding them.(snopes.com, datafellows.com or urbanlegends.com) That is just simple courtesy, and has the added benefit of not making one look foolish. That is even truer for this kind of thing. (I'm referring to the Mall-o Ween one.) There is a big difference between vigilance and feeding chickenshit hysteria.
Last edited:
freakygirl
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Re: Please
shhhhhhhhhh .. sheesh.. i'm trying to get a job here.. if you tell everyone where to find the info.. i have NO job..
jeez.. some peoples children..
no really.. in all seriousness.. i agree.. please.. people check hoaxes.. especially as important as this..
Harbinger said:
shhhhhhhhhh .. sheesh.. i'm trying to get a job here.. if you tell everyone where to find the info.. i have NO job..
jeez.. some peoples children..
no really.. in all seriousness.. i agree.. please.. people check hoaxes.. especially as important as this..
freakygirl
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Mischka said:
I don't want perks.. i want cash..
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