March 4, 2001: Television Show Eerily Envisions 9/11 Attacks

The pilot episode of a short-lived Fox television program involves a scenario chillingly similar to the 9/11 attacks that occur six months later. In the episode of The Lone Gunmen, which is a spin-off of the popular show The X-Files, a small, radical faction within the US government takes over a large passenger jet plane from the ground, using remote control, and then tries to crash it into the World Trade Center. Their intention is to blame the attack on foreign terrorists and therefore revive the arms race. Their plot is thwarted at the last moment, with the pilots regaining control of the plane and steering it upwards over the Twin Towers. [Knight Ridder, 9/14/2001; Jack Myers Report, 6/20/2002 ] In the program, the plane is destined for Boston, where two of the hijacked aircraft will in fact take off from on September 11. [Fox Television, 3/4/2001; Boston Globe, 9/12/2001] One of its stars, Bruce Harwood, will later call the storyline a “strange awful coincidence,” and add, “[W]ho knows if it was the source of inspiration for September 11.” [Mirror, 11/26/2002] Ratings are good for the show, with 13 million people watching it. [TV Guide, 3/9/2001] Yet despite the similarity to the actual attacks on the WTC, there will be very little commentary about this after September 11. Media commentator Jack Myers will observe, “This seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order.” [Jack Myers Report, 6/20/2002 ] A best selling 1994 novel by Tom Clancy had similarly included a large passenger jet used as a weapon, being deliberately crashed into the US Capitol building (see August 17, 1994). [Newsday, 5/20/2002]