The Lone Gunmen. Have you heard of it? Chances are, probably not. This is a show that debuted in March of 2001 and only lasted thirteen episodes on FOX before being canceled for some inexplicable reason. To my knowledge, the show was doing well in the ratings, and if you do a search on the show on IMDb’s site, you’ll see that the show is rated a 7.5 out of 10 — not a bad rating for that website.
But that’s not what this is about. This article has to do with the eye opening scenario from which this show’s pilot episode plot was centered around and how it was eerily similar to the now infamous 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Basically the plot is about three guys who are out to prove that a micro chip developed by the E-com-con Company was made with the purpose of invading a customer’s privacy by collecting all of a customer’s personal data — much the same way that the NSA currently collects metadata on every citizen in this country — regardless of whether 99% of the general population is not a terrorist threat. And these guys were out to find this micro chip, steal it, and then expose E-com-con to the American public.
In the meantime, the guys were caught, someone else stole the chip, and the guys were strip searched. In planning their next move, they learn that Bertram Byer, the father of John Byer who is apart of the Lone Gunman trio was evidently killed for knowing classified information about Scenario 12-D, a war games scenario involving domestic airline terrorism. Now you see where this is going, right?
Fast forward a bit and the Lone Gunman guys were able to put together that Bertram could actually be alive and may have in fact faked his death in order to get his assassin’s off his back so John heads back to his father’s house to see what else he can find on this Scenario 12-D war games scenario. In the meantime, while John was searching, Bertram reveals himself to be alive and well and that’s when Scenario 12-D is explained. It’s probably I would argue the most important scene in the pilot episode because that’s when it starts getting eerily similar to 9/11.
Scenario 12-D Bertram explains is not a war game or some kind of military exercise but is in fact a real terrorist threat. It involves a small faction in the federal government who commit a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and use that as justification for going to war. As Bertram explains, “Since the Cold War, the arms market has gone flat, but send a fully loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you’ll find a dozen tinpot dictators all over the world clamoring to take responsibility.” In other words, there’s currently not much justification for going to war but have a notable terrorist attack occur, and you can either blame a dictator for committing terrorism or if you’re lucky you won’t have to as there will be someone to come forward to take credit for the attack. Boom. Just like that, the arms market is back in business and profits are being made. A brilliant plan.
Obviously in the show, the terrorist plot was foiled but there was one other interesting aspect to note about this pilot episode and that is the fact the plane that was hijacked was not done so but a group of terrorists onboard but by someone who took control of the plane from the ground. Make of that what you will. I’m not insinuating that that is what happened on 9/11 but considering all of the parallels and “coincidences” that can be drawn between the Lone Gunmen pilot and the actual events of September 11, I think all possibilities should still be on the table as I do not believe that 9/11 was properly investigated as there are simply too many questions left unanswered by the 9/11 Commission or conclusions made that are very questionable to say the least. And no, I do not want to get into all of the specifics on this particular article.
In conclusion, is it possible that the creators knew or have heard rumor that a possible terrorist attack was coming and wanted to warn the public about it? It seems unlikely because the terrorist attack happened anyway and I don’t recall anyone at that time ever even mentioning the correlations between The Lone Gunmen and the September 11 attacks so if that was their goal then it failed miserably. What’s more likely, according to Dean Haglund, one of the star actors of the show, is that the creators of the show simply wrote in a plot that was similar to one of the Tom Clancy novels or could have picked up on one of the reports about Bin Laden wanting to hijack a US aircraft from years earlier and maybe used things like that as inspiration for writing the show.
Regardless of the reason the show was written the way that it was, the similarities between the plot of the show and the real thing are spooky and too disturbing for me to just write off as a coincidence. Hell, even Dean Haglund said he believed that 9/11 was staged and that this was “America’s Reichstag”. For those of you who don’t know what the term Reichstag is referring to, Reichstag was a German Parliament Building that was set on fire and later accused on the Communist Party which hastened the pace in which Hitler was able to rise to power. Now as to whether the fire was started by one individual unemployed communist or whether it was a false flag event in which Hitler and the National Socialist Party committed themselves in order to frame the Communists is a debated topic but the main point is that it caused a domino effect which led to Hitler becoming Dictator of Germany.
It just makes me wonder if maybe the show was cancelled due to not wanting the show to become too popular because then, if it becomes popular, people are going to want to watch the very beginning of the series to get caught up on what they missed and if enough people see that pilot episode then that might cause more outrage as to how a fictional tv show could predict an event like 9/11 but our Defense Department could not. Why not kill off the show while it hasn’t picked up much steam and trust that the American people have a short term memory and wouldn’t recall a tv show that came on back in March of that same year…but that’s just my opinion.
I would highly recommend anyone who found this article interesting, if you have not seen the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen then go ahead and watch it. First of all, it’s a good episode and surprisingly funny considering the circumstances of the plot but if you don’t want to watch the full episode, the important parts of the episode that I would recommend watching would be at the 22:35 to 23:02, 29:24 to 31:40, 35:25 to 38:05 and the 39:35 to 41:30 marks. Anyway, thanks for reading and tell me what you think of the episode and the parallels between fiction and reality.
