Photomontage, Nostradamus ... A look back at 5 intoxes around September 11

The attack on the World Trade Center Twin Towers, September 11, 2001 -

• Multiple rumors have emerged after the disappearance of the twin towers of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

• From a photo supposedly taken at the top just before the impact of the first plane to the story of the exploits of a blind guide dog, the intoxes are not lacking in variety.

• 20 Minutes looks back on 5 particularly popular addictions at the time ... and on recently shared inventions. 

17 years after the World Trade Center (WTC) attack, which killed more than 2,700 people, conspiracy theories and other false content still flourish around the drama. 

Photomontage, fictional story, hoax ... 20 Minutes looks back on the most significant intoxes around September 11, 2001. 

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Shortly after the attack, a photo began to circulate massively by email.

Dated September 11, we see a man with glasses posing quietly at the top of the World Trade Center ... without suspecting that a plane, clearly visible in the background, is about to crash into the tower. 

The caption accompanying the snapshot details some “background” elements: “We have seen thousands of photos relating to the attack.

But this one will disturb you.

A tourist who is photographed at the top of the WTC a few seconds before the tragedy ... the camera was found in the rubble !!

"

The picture quickly taken up by many media, toured the world.

However, many elements prove that this is a montage - in addition to the details that arouse suspicion, starting with the at least tiny chances of recovering the camera in good condition ...

The photomontage went viral after September 11, 2001. - Screenshot

A photomontage at the top of the WTC

If legend is to be believed, the man is bound to be on the South Tower (WTC 2) - the only one with an open-air viewing platform.

However, the north tower (WTC 1) was hit first: the tourist would therefore be posing quietly for his photo, unfazed by the neighboring tower burning at his side. 

Above all, the aircraft model visible in the photo is a Boeing 757, while the two aircraft which hit the towers were Boeing 767s. The Boeing integrated in the photo actually comes from the Airliners.net site: it is found in its original position, on a runway at the airport in Dallas / Fort Worth (Texas), in June 2000. 

However, one question agitated the public for several months: who is the man visible in the photograph?

The investigation around this individual now known by the nickname "tourist of death" will eventually go back to a 25-year-old Hungarian, Peter Guzli, identified by his friends in a local media.

Peter Guzli finally admitted to being at the origin of the assembly, by proving his statements with the help of the photos taken during his real visit to the top of the World Trade Center ... in November 1998. He takes advantage of this exchange with

 to explain that this amateur photomontage in no way aspired to such media coverage: “It was a joke for my friends, not for such a large audience.

"

Daisy, the heroic (but fictitious) blind dog

In the aftermath of the attack, a number of anecdotes and testimonies praised the heroic behavior observed at the heart of the drama.

A story shared by email - then declined, more recently, in video - was particularly successful: that of the guide dog Daisy.

The anecdote has everything to move: it tells how this golden retriever has multiplied the trips back and forth in the different floors - despite his master's call to leave the premises - to guide hundreds of people trapped within the north tower .

Until saving, in total, 967, including the boss of his master, "recovered on the 111th floor".

As a reward for her heroism, Daisy, burnt on all fours, was reportedly awarded an honorary medal from the mayor of New York, Rudy Giuliani.

The story, as beautiful as it is, remains fictitious: the New York Times of September 19, 2001, credited as the source, does not mention any bitch named Daisy ... And for good reason: she does not exist.

The feat mentioned is all the more inconceivable that the golden retriever would have climbed to the 111th floor ... in a tower which only had 110.

This invented story was on the other hand probably inspired by acts accomplished by certain animals during the drama, like Roselle, a blind dog who guided her master, Michael Hingson, out of the north tower.

The duo then made multiple appearances on television sets, and Roselle was awarded the PDSA Dickin Medal in 2002 “for having courageously guided [his master] over 70 floors to safety.

" 

CIA plot confessed by former agent

In the summer of 2017, the conspirators will not have failed to relay - in particular on the site "Anguille sous roche" - an "information" of the highest importance: the confessions of a former CIA agent, admitting to be at the origin of the destruction of building 7 of the World Trade Center.

The collapse of this building of more than 40 floors, shortly after 5 p.m. on September 11, when it was not struck by planes, has indeed fueled conspiracy theories for years on an alleged organized destruction. even if its fall is in fact due to the damage undergone by the debris coming from buildings 1 and 2 neighbors, as the Conspiracy Watch observatory recalled in 2008. 

The alleged CIA revelations emanate from the site YourNewsWire, specializing in the publication of intoxicating: “Malcom Howard, a former CIA agent aged 79, has multiplied the surprising statements since his release from a hospital in New Jersey [ ...] after learning that he had a few weeks to live.

Mr. Howard claims he was involved in the "controlled demolition" of World Trade Center 7, the third building destroyed on September 11.

"

The article cites no source, besides the alleged testimony of the agent.

The story, purely fictitious, also uses the same big tricks as an almost identical article published a month earlier by YourNewsWire on the confessions of a former MI5 agent (the British intelligence services).

Visibly consumed with remorse, he would have confessed, on his deathbed, to having murdered Princess Diana ... 

When Nostradamus predicted 9/11

Nostradamus, the famous 16th century French doctor, had he predicted the attack of September 11, 2001?

Shortly after the tragedy, many Internet users received by email an intriguing quatrain, supposedly dated 1654: "A great thunder will strike the city of God / Two brothers are torn by Chaos while the fortress survives, the great leader will die, La third great war will begin while the big city is on fire ”.  

The parallel is quickly drawn with the attack: New York embodies "the city of God", the "two brothers" represent the twin towers, "the fortress" refers to the Pentagon - also struck by a plane on September 11, 2001 -, while the United States is hiding behind the title of "great leader" and the "third great war" would herald a third world conflict. 

An old book dealing with Nostradamus.

- NAMUR-LALANCE / SIPA

The credibility of this rumor is undermined by a simple chronological contextualization: Nostradamus died in 1566 ... 88 years before the alleged writing of the quatrain in question.

Besides, the text is none other than the invention of Neil Marshall, a student who wrote it in 1996 as part of a work on Nostradamus. 

The purpose of the quatrain was precisely to show how easily a text written in the author's characteristic style could be interpreted as a prophecy.

Neil Marshall himself explained: “What does 'the city of God' mean?

It could be Mecca, Rome [...] or any sacred city depending on your religion.

" 

In 2015, Lucette Monje, heritage officer at the house of Nostradamus in Salon-de-Provence, also confirmed to

 :" The quatrain that circulated on the Internet after the disaster does not exist in the writings of Nostradamus .

It is an artificial assembly of verses borrowed from other stanzas.

Pure media hype!

"

Despite everything, the intoxication continues.

In 2017, the channel RMC Découverte thus affirmed, in the trailer of a documentary on Nostradamus: "The attacks of September 11, the great fire of London, the Second World War ... Certain predictions of Nostradamus, French astrologer, have seen the light of day.

" 

The attacks of September 11, the great fire in London, the Second World War, ...

Certain predictions of Nostradamus, a French astrologer, have indeed come to light.

Investigation # RMCDécouverte pic.twitter.com/aZixCMA089

- RMC Découverte (@RMCDecouverte) December 31, 2017

Anna Mae Dickinson, Titanic and 9/11 survivor

A woman who would have survived the sinking of the Titanic in 1912, the torpedoing of the ship Lusitania, the explosion of the airship Hindenburg, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the disappearance of her apartment on September 11, 2001, should she be considered lucky or as cursed?

Internet users who relayed this intoxication on the so called Anna Mae Dickinson have visibly decided, since they present her as the "luckiest woman in the world". 

Anna Mae Dickinson, is quite possibly the luckiest woman in the world!

She survived the sinking of both the Titanic and Lusitania, the Hindenburg explosion, the bombing of Pearl Harbor and when she was 97, the destruction of her apartment during the 9/11 terror attack.

#histo ... pic.twitter.com/FqEMhBAbLC

- Aloha Pearl Harbor (@alohatourph) August 16, 2018

This fiction first appeared on the InstaPunk site in August 2006. The purpose of the hoax is clear: to make fun of New Yorkers opposed to the release of the film

, by Oliver Stone, which they consider premature, five years after the tragedy. 

The tone of the article is clearly satirical, like this sentence: "Anna Mae never married, although she has a cat named Charlie, the 15th to bear this name since the disappearance of the original Charlie. on the Titanic.

" 

The New York Intelligencer, a newspaper cited as the source in the text, is just as fictional as this Anna Mae Dickinson.

Also, the woman seen in the illustration photo is none other than Anna Mary Robertson Moses, a painter best known to the American public by the nickname "Grandma Moses" ... who died in 1961, at the age 101.

This does not prevent the intoxication from being taken up by various Internet users, nor from acting as a legend on the photo of Anna Mary Robertson Moses shared on the social network Pinterest. 

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