There is a stupid email making the rounds about fictional registration number for one of the aircraft that was flown into the WTC. Below find my reply and following that the original message to which I was replying.

Feel free to use my response should you find this tripe in your inbox.

_________________________

Subject: Misinformation

Please do not fall for such lies.

Q33NY is not the registration of any of the aircraft involved in the September eleventh terrorist attack.

Quite clearly, someone crafted a rather strange little pictogram in WingDings, changed back to a regular font and then worked backwards to create a silly lie that Q33NY was the registration of one of planes.

Things like this work only because we hope to find symbolism, a pattern, predicability, normalcy, or simply hope itself among the horrors that have befallen our country. We accept it when we are told that the registration of the plane was Q33NY because it is easier to accept this than it is to check out whether or not it is factual, then proceed to be "amazed" or "weirded out" when we discover the pictogram it creates in WingDings.

Challenge assertions and know your sources.

I would appreciate it if you would pass this message on to whoever sent you this in the first place. With the challenges and dangers presently facing our nation, we could all stand to be a bit more skeptical and a whole lot more careful.

Signed (Name removed)

P.S. Background and source follows:

The registrations of the four aircraft involved in the September Eleventh hijackings and intentional downings were N644AA, N334AA, N612UA, and N591UA.

Specifically, N334AA was the first plane to hit the World Trade Center while N612UA was the second plane to hit the World Trade Center. Furthermore, N644AA crashed into the Pentagon and N591UA crashed in a field in rural Pennsylvania.

(See http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?regsearch=N644AA,N334AA,N612UA,N591UA for the source of my information.)

Note that all U.S. civilian planes have registrations that start with the letter N. Further note that United Airline's planes' registrations end with UA and that American Airline's planes' registrations end with AA.



-----Original Message-----
From: XXXXXXXXXXXXxx,XXXX
Sent: Monday, September 24, 2001 12:45 PM
To: (Recipient List Suppressed)
Subject:

Here's another one of these fool things!

In Word, type Q33NY (this was the tail number on one fo the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center).

Change the font size to 24. Change the script to wingdings.

Bazaar!