Earlier this morning, Wikileaks began to post pager messages that were sent on September 11, 2001. According to Wikileaks, these messages were intercepted by an “organization which has been intercepting and archiving US national telecommunications since prior to 9/11.” Some of these messages are from officials in police and fire departments, though a large number of messages are also from businesses. Others are automated messages to engineers that were sent by computers about network and hardware issues.
Wikileaks is posting these messages semi-live – in sync with the events of 9/11. It’s not clear how Wikileaks got this data or who intercepted these messages.
This archive is likely to become an invaluable source for anybody who wants to study the events and the public’s reaction on this day. Chances are that conspiracy theorists are already wading through this data looking for an official page that authorized the destruction of Building 7.
As is to be expected, the archive includes many Twitter-like messages like “Bush calls World Trade Center crashes apparent terrorist attack.” Others are internal messages from unknown businesses or government departments (“please due to the incidents taking place and with trying to close centers Please do not tie up aol today unless it is business. Thanks”) or personal message (“Things are getting worse….fear is rampid…please call me. HISD are advising to come get children etc.-sm”). This thread on Reddit highlights some of the most interesting (and often shocking) messages.
We don’t know the nature of Wikileaks this source yet, so it’s only prudent to treat this data with some skepticism. Wikileaks, however, has a track record of releasing authentic information and it seems unlikely (but not impossible) that somebody would go through the trouble of writing 500,000 pager messages just to be featured on Wikileaks.
Examples
Here are a few examples from Wikileak’s archive:
2001-09-11 11:20:01 Things are getting worse….fear is rampid…please call me. HISD are advising to come get children etc.-sm
2001-09-11 11:20:01 have you seen the news this morning? penagon and world trade center attacked Mark Hodges – SunIT Ops
2001-09-11 11:20:01 Alaric! Call me on my cell!! Will!
2001-09-11 09:15:01 I just got a page from Jurko in New York. He said they are okay. Thanks
2001-09-11 08:55:35 [email protected]| CNN Breaking News|BREAKING NEWS from CNN.com — World trade center damaged; unconfirmed reports say a plane has crashed into tower. Details to come. For complete coverage of this story visit: http://www.CNN.com
08:50:50 BOMB DETINATED IN WORLD TRADE CTR. PLS GET BACK TO MIKE BRADY W/A QUICK ASSESSMENT OF YOUR AREAS AND CONTACT US IF ANYTHING IS NEEDED AT 212-647-xxx.
2001-09-11 08:45:39 I love you and miss you very much!!!!!!xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo I waited to wave at you at the doorway and you didnt 🙁 I paged you…. you didnt call 🙁 Did I make you angry with me? I love you
2001-09-11 08:45:46 Update X4236083. PROB: Funlove Virus at KCMART IMP: Affecting 33 workstations. STATUS: Desktop technicians are on site and addressing individual workstations. No servers infected at this time. Peoplesoft has been checked and cleared. Bridge
