The Lone Gunmen was a spinoff TV series from the mega-popular X-Files, featuring three geeky conspiracy theorists to whom Fox Mulder
turned during the latter series's first season for assistance with a UFO-related case. The characters published a fictional
underground magazine called The Lone Gunman (named after the alleged single shooter of President Kennedy), subscribed to by
only a few thousand hardcore devotees, which covered the most outlandish of conspiracies, such as those involving Bigfoot, postmortem
Elvis sightings, UFO abductions, etc.
The 2001 pilot episode for the series dealt with some kind of crazy, secret-government-within-the-government plot to hijack an airliner and
crash it into the World Trade Center. Pretty topical, right? Or, you might be thinking, a little too close to home - not only was
it too soon after the September 11th attacks, but as a plot device, it's not too original.
But, you probably already know where this is going: the show appeared before the September 11th attacks - six months previously,
on March 4th, to be precise.
So, we have a show about conspiracy theorists that accurately predicts (more or less) the most devastating terrorist attack on American
soil in history. One might jump to the conclusion that al Qaeda had been inspired by the episode, and created a plot (or altered an
existing plot) to accommodate the details. This thought occurred to the creators of the show on that fateful day, and they were
horrified to think they may have inspired such a dastardly act. But, no - we now know that the September 11th attacks had been planned
years in advance.
Al Qaeda had had a plan laid out as early as 1995 called 'Bojinka,' which had two phases: in phase one, airliners with bombs secreted
aboard were to have exploded over the ocean; in phase two, an airliner was to be hijacked and used as a self-guided missile to slam
into the Pentagon. Fortunately, Bojinka got busted up before it could be put into operation... but its second phase stayed in the minds
of its creators, among whom was al Qaeda henchman Khalid Sheik Mohammed (who, as I write this, stands before a military court on trial
for his various murderous schemes - which include, among other nasty acts, the bombing of the embassies in Africa, the attack on the
U.S.S. Cole, the murder of Daniel Pearl, and much more).
Ah, say the conspiracy theorists of the real world: but the fictional plot device had as its core the idea that elements within our
own government hijacked the planes and had them flown (perhaps by remote control, as in the show) into their targets. This is, in fact,
a theory held by a lot of folks who believe that the September 11th attacks occurred not at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but at
the behest of some of our highest-placed government officials. Naturally, such allegations are considered shocking, unpatriotic, and
impossible to substantiate... which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't true, of course. In the TV episode, the plot was supposed
to have been hatched by arms dealers who stood to make a killing from any overseas military dustup the black-flag episode would create
(i.e., the plane crash would have been blamed on "tin-pot dictators" in other nations, which would necessitate sending our military
over to teach them a lesson). In our world, such a cowardly act would never even be considered, much less acted upon, by upstanding,
God-fearing, American statesmen. Right? Right?
Hey - I wonder how my Halliburton stock is doing? And how 'bout those oil futures, huh?
The Lone Gunmen was a spinoff TV series from the mega-popular X-Files, featuring three geeky conspiracy theorists to whom Fox Mulder
turned during the latter series's first season for assistance with a UFO-related case. The characters published a fictional
underground magazine called The Lone Gunman (named after the alleged single shooter of President Kennedy), subscribed to by
only a few thousand hardcore devotees, which covered the most outlandish of conspiracies, such as those involving 
Ah, say the conspiracy theorists of the real world: but the fictional plot device had as its core the idea that elements within our
own government hijacked the planes and had them flown (perhaps by remote control, as in the show) into their targets. This is, in fact,
a theory held by a lot of folks who believe that the September 11th attacks occurred not at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but at
the behest of some of our highest-placed government officials. Naturally, such allegations are considered shocking, unpatriotic, and
impossible to substantiate... which doesn't necessarily mean they aren't true, of course. In the TV episode, the plot was supposed
to have been hatched by arms dealers who stood to make a killing from any overseas military dustup the black-flag episode would create
(i.e., the plane crash would have been blamed on "tin-pot dictators" in other nations, which would necessitate sending our military
over to teach them a lesson). In our world, such a cowardly act would never even be considered, much less acted upon, by upstanding,
God-fearing, American statesmen. Right? Right?