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Morning radio shows often did live prank calls to keep things entertaining. DJs would pretend to be the president or do some other ridiculous bit, and it was usually silly / harmless / funny.
I remember driving to class that morning and hearing the first reports on the radio. My initial thought was, “If this is a prank, it’s not funny.” When I got to class and the professor cancelled because of what was happening, only then did I finally realized it was real.
THat's when I flipped over to the news radio station.
Which is weird because writing this comment made me go glance at /. and it's sad what it ultimately became.
One thing that impressed me about Stern's broadcast that day is he kept calling for calm. One quote I'll never forget: "Don't go around beating up cab drivers." Not sure why that made an impact on me.
When I came back I've noticed we have suddenly CNN channel instead of our regular local TV station (they switched from regular programming to airing CNN live) with South American telenovelas (the guys watched it for pretty babes, I stayed usually with clerks around computers in captain's office playing games or chitchatting).
Then in the evening came barracks chief (don't remember position, I guess Mayor) telling us we are on high alert (though we didn't understand what have something in US to do with us in small european country, not even in NATO back then), we had to double guarding strategic objects (we were nearby NPP and also ammunition storage in forest).
First night after attacks I've spent on night shift next to fax to receive updates, luckily nothing interesting came and WW3 occured and we just continued with doubled guards for some time, which was actually better for the regular soldiers (not for me - office rat doing clerk work helping professional soldiers in office with paperwork and I had to go actually guarding 24hr shifts instead of sitting at computer and sleeping in our own more comfy clerk room), at least you had someone to talk to while doing your 2 hours round in cold forest. In the end they didn't prolong mandatory conscription (many were afraid they are gonna do it because of this) and we finished on time at the end of next April.
I doubt if I were not serving in military during 9/11 I would remember this day in such detail as European not affected by it (other then annoying heightened airport security later).
There's a radio station in Miami that I guess did pranks over the air (I'm from Orlando so I never heard it) and someone animated one of their prank calls. They kept phoning this painter who was Dominican I think, and every time he would say "yes" to the question "Usted es el Pintor?" (Are you the painter?) they would play a clip from a song titled "Pintame" where the artist sings "PINTAMEEEE" and he would get mad, in one call they pretended to speak English just to trick him:
"are you the painter guy?"
"Yes"
"PINTAMEEEEEE"
He knew who it was immediately and went on a rant about how people all around town are yelling at him calling him "El Pintor" it was great, I bet he even got some customers out of it.
Anyway, someone animated it, and you can kind of find it on YouTube , used to be a flash movie. ;) I can't pull up the YouTube video while at work (its kind of locked down) or I would post it, it's mostly Spanish, but still cracks me up. I was showing it to my Mother In Law sometime back, she was busting out laughing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%ADntame_(song)
With the advancement of image and video generation, I think I'd have to see one in person!
That said, I would assume the government would monitor statistics like this as part of standard counter intelligence operations so they could see any patterns of potential issues as they pop up.
Their estimate is more than twice that, but that is probably simply because of a higher age estimation. Mortality rates skyrocket upwards rapidly. At the 35-55 bracket we're already somewhere around 300/100k, which would be around 4k. And that age bracket is probably closer to reality than 25-44. Whatever the exact figure is going to be, 4k is probably a pretty decent ballpark.
And many of those deaths are going to be unusual, because pretty much all deaths at younger ages are unusual. A bit paradoxical given how 'regularly' it happens, when you look at the scale of society.
[1] - https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/dvs/MortFinal2007_Worktable23r...
The single debunking claim says there are 700k "US top secret-cleared aerospace and nuclear workforce" so normal mortality rates should be higher.
Were these people all part of the normal workforce or a smaller category? Are those death rates total deaths or deaths under suspicious circumstances?
Anecdotally, Amy Eskridge went on a podcast and texted friends saying she was at risk and had no intention of killing herself before supposedly killing herself. Will McCasland and others disappeared under strange circumstances and Will was clearly not just part of a 700k person workforce, he was a general who directed a largely classified $4B annual research budget.
I'm not saying there is a broad conspiracy here but it's worth exploring. I miss real journalism. What a waste of an opportunity to write a good story.
Now, the hoax has taken a life of its own on the Web, with waves of naive people believing its silly made-up claims about scientists working in certain fields mysteriously disappearing.
The hoax has even made the HN front page.
Sigh.
Years later, I found out it was completely fake; the end credits even tell you it's fake (I missed that). I had a hard time believing anything after that realization.
* - Mermaids: The Body Found
* Conspiracy about missing/dead scientists from online forums to the White House https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47898228
* Comer and Burlison Seek Information on Missing Nuclear and Rocket Scientists https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47877825
* FBI looks into dead or missing scientists tied to NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47858246
never heard of it
The problem is that there are real mysteries that are connected to a bunch of social media bullshit and more than half of the purported "mysterious disappearances" of people are people that aren't even connected to nuclear research. And then people who hate Trump like the media want to make it seem like Trump himself is being duped and is personally directing the investigators. The multiple layers of indirection here is the real problem, let the investigators do their jobs because at least a few of them need to be investigated properly.
It sure sounds like Trump himself is being duped:
"On April 15, a question about the missing or dead individuals came up at a White House press briefing and by the next day Trump said he had met with advisers and the issue was being investigated. FBI Director Kash Patel reiterated the importance of looking for connections in these cases Sunday on Fox News. The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform is conducting its own investigation."
https://apnews.com/article/scientists-missing-dead-conspirac...