Why Do So Many People Misremember 9/11?

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American September collects September 11th stories from all 50 states and all around the world. Feel free to visit the website to read the memories collected so far or share your own!
From Steve Rannazzisi to your weird uncle who claims to know government secrets, find out why nearly 40% of people misremember September 11th, 2001.

[@jessicachernak8699]

Because 9/11 wasn't just one day for most of us it was weeks of constant story after story, video after video. People did see people jump, people heard them fall maybe not on the day itself but people did see every painful detail as it enfolded and felt every minute of that horrible day and had to relive it over and over again. Every new story, new video was another heartbreak. How many times have I seen a video of the second plane flying in to that tower, I would have to say hundreds. Devastating, truly a horrific historical event. People misremember it because that is how the human brain works. Every memory is rewritten at recollection. So you are right maybe people did not see those images the day of the event but we saw it, we felt it and it will stay with us forever.

[@weirdshitcoolideas]

The point of the video .. 2 years later but I mean come on 😊

[@AirQuotes]

Right op is a dummy, and didn't listen to a word the narrator said ​@weirdshitcoolideas

[@gammaphonic]

Human memory isn’t super reliable in general. We tend to remember only certain details and then fill in the blanks. That’s why no court will ever convict someone on eye witness testimony alone. As for my story, I remember joining the army straight from school. On my first day there, a lieutenant gave a little speech saying “the British army is involved in a good war every ten years or so. It was the gulf war ten years ago and the Falklands ten years before that. So we’re due a good war any day now.” The date was 10th September, 2001. The next day we’re queueing for lunch and a lieutenant walks past and says “someone has just bombed the pentagon!” I was the only one who laughed.

[@dexstewart862]

My memory is just coming into my fourth grade class, we were working on some papers, me and my friends were whispering to each other about trading Digimon cards later. Suddenly, the principal rushed in pushing a tv. My class was confused, he switched on the TV. We saw people running, I don't remember what the reporter was saying, but I remember the camera dropping or shaking alot. My teacher asked the principal in a shaky voice what we were going to do. School ended early, we knew what happened, but I don't think we understood what happened. My friends were more upset that we couldn't hang out at recess than anything.

[@555dking]

I was also in 4th grade!

[@kaiokendo]

But Digimon cards were anglospeaking very late

[@kingofpointless]

I really enjoyed this video, but I would appreciate a source list in future. I'd love to look into those two stories you mentioned of the woman who mistook the 9/11 footage for an Independence Day-type movie, or the D-Day veterans whose memories were conflated with scenes from The Longest Day.

[@555dking]

I was 9 years old and in school. I got a call at 9:30 saying my aunt was there to pick me and my cousin up. I was happy (I hated school). The radio was on talking about what happened. Once I got home, my family put on some Rugrats VHS tapes while they watched the news in their room. I wanted to know what was happening but they wouldn’t say anything other than “we were at war”.

[@AirQuotes]

Similar thing happend to me. Was happy to leave school early. We drove down the highway and I asked about the smoke. I was ignored. The day was spent watching cartoon

[@artkalbphd]

If even half the online stories are true, then 1000s of people were supposed to be on those flights, and a million in the buildings, but "miraculously missed their flight/work"

[@wallach-correlle]

You clearly don't understand how many people were and would have been affected by those attacks. The planes hit before thousands more would enter their offices and start work. Do some fucking research before you comment dumb shit like this, retard.

[@TjMetalHead94]

I was 7 when it happened and I'm sure I was sick with a high fever that day. I honestly had no idea what was going on. I remember the impact of seeing people jump out of the buildings. For some reason my brothers and I were really struck by this and we wished we could've gotten those people parachutes. Definitely epitomizes the childhood innocence of processing that day. I also remember my Dad staying home for a few weeks because he was a government worker at Los Alamos National Labs. I do remember LANL being on Al Qaeda's hit list.

[@L_Train]

Nearly every one who says they turned on the TV and saw the second plane hit the tower actually saw a replay and either never realized it was a replay, forgot it was, or the station didn't explicitly say it was a replay.

[@JakvsMetalheads999]

I’m 25, and my earliest memory is my first day of preschool - which apparently, according to my parents, was on 9/11/01, making 9/11 technically my earliest memory. I don’t remember anything at all about the attacks though, I just remember the day at school. I was three, I don’t think my parents said anything to me, I don’t remember if they did, nor do I remember seeing anything on the news. I didn’t have a concept of what happened that day until a few years later.

[@ccaulkins94]

I honestly didn’t hear about the attacks until after school. I remember the teachers acting weird but nothing was said to us and I didn’t know anything until I got home and my grandma was watching the news. I didn’t fully grasp the seriousness of what happened until my mom explained it.

[@nottrash9034]

Idk where my dad was with Iraq day one of the invasion, but I'm certain that by mid-April he was against it. He had some close friends who didn't speak with him for months over it.

[@arcblooper2699]

I remember in fall 2001 sitting in my mom’s car waiting for the school bus to arrive when I heard about it on the radio. I told my mom about it and she said “I know.” For years I thought that was 9/11, and she must have heard about it on the news earlier that morning. It wasn’t until years later I heard that the first tower was hit at 8:46, and I was waiting for the bus around 7 or 7:15am. I asked my parents about it and learned that they hid it from my sister and I out of fear that we would be terrified.

[@tegantalks9612]

I was 7 years old and it was the morning of my grade 2 school picture day. I live on the West coast of Canada, so I was 2 hours behind New York. I went to go turn on my morning cartoons on CBC, magic school bus to be specific, and all that came on was bunch of news footage. I was so confused and I removed watching bits and pieces of it before turning the TV off to get ready for school. I remember my grandma drove me to school that day because my mom was away at a journalism conference. Grandma had the radio on on the way to school and we were listening to them just talk about 9/11. I remember asking questions and being confused. My little child brain couldn’t believe that someone would fly a plane into a building on purpose. I actually kind of laugh at my 7 year old self trying to rationalize the attacks because I recently watched a 9/11 documentary and my 6 year old son walked in the room and saw the same news footage I did that day and actually thought it was a movie. I kind of gave him an age appropriate summary of 9/11 and he reacted to it similarly to how I did at age 7. I also remember showing up to school and sitting on the playground taking about the attacks with classmates and one of my older classmates actually thought I was talking about the Oklahoma City bombing.

[@xoxoalyyy]

Welp, my memory of 9/11 is entirely nonexistent… because I was born eight years after it happened

[@BillyBong]

The one thing people say in SO MANY eyewitness accounts is that they saw flight 175 turn around and come back towards the building. These are eyewitness accounts from the day. No one on earth saw the plane turn around cause if you look at the flight pattern it turned around heading back towards lower Manhattan like over NJ or something. There is no way anyone near the buildings could see the plane turn around from where they were. I can never understand where they all come up with this from. It really bothers me every time I hear it.

[@queuedjar4578]

In some footage that was captured on that day you can see other helicopters around Manhattan, in some footage you can easily confuse them for the incoming plane depending on quality of footage, perspective, etc. Perhaps some people mistook combining the flight paths of those helicopters with the flight paths of 175.

[@FlameDragon296]

I was only 2 years old when it happened so I have no memory but my dad said that he had dropped off my brothers at school and heard it on the radio. The craziest story is definitely my cousin who was born during 9/11.

[@CellarDoor-rt8tt]

Personally, I wasn’t alive for 9/11 (kind of, my mom was pregnant with me at the time). The two stories that stick out to me about 9/11 the most was my mom’s story and my uncle’s story. My mom remembers coming back from work on 9/11 and driving past Princeton Junction Train Station during rush hour. She remembers seeing all of the cars still there. My uncle’s whole story is pretty wild, but the most interesting part is how it began. He remembers a guy following him into the bathroom and then watching him as he boarded his plane. My uncle doesn’t have a military background, but his demeanor and build make him easily mistaken for being ex-military. It turns out one of the hijackers was watching to see which plane he boarded. He was later questioned by the FBI about the incident

[@raptorrixx99-wv2hl]

I wanna start my story by saying, i Don't remember the full day itself, only small bits, and one major section. Starting with the section: I remember i was around 3 yrs old, my mom was pregnant with my brother, and we were going shopping at a VERY specific Newer Walmart (Cause i know the entrance of it in-and-out) that we used to frequent back then. I was sitting in the cart seat, then i turn as we enter, and see on the ceiling mounted monitor, the burning North tower, (possibly a re-recorded clip, cause it couldn't have been live, and cause it wouldhave been around 20-25 minutes after the initial attack) with people shocked at what they were seeing, that's where the major moment ended. I only remember TINY fragments of the aftermath, i know we got home some point afterwards, but all i remember was just, walking around our house, confused, unsure as to what was going on, as my mom had her hand over her mouth watching everything unfold in New York. That's basically the jist of what i can recall.

[@PauliesWalnuts]

Damn. Is that the earliest memory from your life you can recall?

[@raptorrixx99-wv2hl]

@@PauliesWalnuts Nope, the earliest was the night my Mom's mom died. I was a year old.

[@advicehydra6332]

As a non American born after 2001,I only hear it from my mom and see it on the history book. My mom told me that on that day,she went to work as usual (we don't live in America, obviously) and went back home,and saw the news board cast. The problem is,I don't know if this was true or not. She could've seen the news on September 12th,2001 in the evening because of the time zone differences. Or maybe she might have seen the news on September 13th,2001 when 9/11 became a big news around the world. It's even more confusing when you live in a different timezone.

[@Honeycomb-fj3kr]

I was born in America, but my parents are immigrants. So my parents weren't here, but my mom told me that she and my father were watching the news at someone's house, and they were worried about how 9/11 was going to impact them immigranting to America.

[@l.tc.5032]

Same reason people misremember a lot of tragedies. You'll get similar stories from people when they recall for example, the Challenger disaster, about where they were and what they were doing. A lot of them were wrong despite them really believing what they recalled was real. I've studied psychology and I can tell you that memories are not recordings. Our brains are not video cameras. Memories can decay, be altered, and are just overall mailable.

[@dosmastrify]

Sounds like you are really charitable. Thank you sir

[@sparkyfolf9487]

The frankenstein one is more realistic exept for the movie doesn't have music. But in the plaza there was calm, happy instrumental music playing through the speakers. The person said he was basically walking down multiple flights of stairs till his legs started feeling funny and went to the plaza outside and started to hear calm music while smoke and debris were coming out from the uper floors of the twin towers.

[@TheSharna23]

I was 21 at the time, and in college in MD. Given our campus’s proximity to DC (maybe 15 minutes), the first thing we heard about was actually “they bombed the Pentagon!” The entire university shut down and everyone then started turning on their TVs in dorm rooms. That’s when the NYC attacks became the bigger story to us.

[@roxxychik06]

I was 13 years old just started 8th grade like a little over a week before. Just finished lunch and yes our lunch was stupidly at 9:30-10 a.m. in the morning. Just a few minutes after 10:00 we were standing in line to go back to history class. Another teacher walks up to my teacher and because I am the first in line I'm directly behind him I can hear them. The other teacher says to mine in a very low voice the "second tower fell". The teacher looked both calm and Afraid. We immediately went to class. We weren't even all the way into the classroom yet when the school went on lockdown. We got to class and turned on ABC on the classroom TV. For about 5 minutes everybody was interested but then nobody really cared except for me the teacher and one other girl. She was honestly terrified. Turned out her brother worked in the restaurant at the top of the tower. He was a buss boy. We were just kids she had no clue if he was at work or not. Turns out it wouldn't have mattered either way because he was at home sick. Her mom called the school at just after 12:00. They immediately called Down to the classroom and let the teacher know. I remember every second of that day what ate for breakfast. The walk home from the bus stop. Not letting anybody in my family change the channel for the next couple of days. It doesn't help that because I live a few minutes away from Naval Station Norfolk we were all a little worried about a Pearl Harbor situation too. I still have our local newspaper from the days after. I hope to show it to my grandkids one day. I remember the pictures on TV super easy because I've rewatched them every year since then, but the part that trips me out is how much I remember of the day itself. The sights The Sounds the feels. One thing I'm never sure if we actually saw or not was a fighter jet flying over. It would have been a later in the day around 3:00. Me and my sister still to this day swear we did

[@AirQuotes]

Everyone needs to watch this

[@MrOuija-rr8kq]

The vibes of this video got me questioning my life

[@SirRedwall]

I was 12 at the time, and I grew up in Las Vegas. My dad works for FedEx, and he had to be at work at 5. He listened to Howard Stern. So he called us to wake up and watch the news. So i turned the tv in my room. I remember being half asleep and then seeing the first tower on fire and thinking whatever its just a fire and then the second explosion happened, and I popped out of bed

[@KitKat_293]

6:42 i know these come up because witnesses found themselves thinking of the movie in the moment as it unfolded, simply because they had never seen that kind of destruction or panic anywhere but a movie. but you're right that the storytelling suffers and weakens when relying too much on movie comparisons. it's best to use them sparingly. can work well to describe a small child's perspective that is often so lacking in any real world knowledge or comparison, and captures the sort of pop culture and imaginative play focused innocence in kids under 10. with a child's POV account, imo it's most important to capture the common fears and surprising degree of maturity small kids can possess for imagining others' pain and understanding mortality. i wish i knew other people who were 7-9 at the time and very clearly understood they were watching people dying and who mentally spiraled, agonized and broke down over it. most of my peers just describe feeling upset that grownups were upset and going off to play with their toys. we are all quite different in our development at that age.

[@AwesomeDrawer2017]

I don’t understand people who can’t tell what there age was during 9/11, just take your age and count back

[@SamA-cw3be]

I know that this is off topic, but i am willing to die on that hill. I know what Bill Cosby did was horrendous and unforgiavable, but that does not change one word of the Noah bit and that bit is amazingly funny. Look at what Michael Jackson did, but that didn’t change one note of thriller. Beethoven helped drive his nephew to commit suicide. You can admit the horrible things people do but still recognize the quality of thier work. I know that was off topic, and as always you did wonderful work in this video, but I’ve had this discussion many times.

[@jasonr2171]

Agree. Cosby was one of my favorite comedians growing up. That doesn’t change because of the terrible things he did.

[@stackonez7182]

One of my all time favorite sayings: “Hate the artist, not the art.”

[@irishmanrants89]

I can’t believe a clip from The Pest is being used in a video about 9/11

[@lauragrillo27]

Wait a min. I was in Brooklyn that day and they showed it live on TV. So there was footage. Did I misunderstand this video?

[@concretebuilding]

I have one thing about 9/11 that I never told, because why the hell would someone say this out loud? Somehow, I knew the 2nd plane was coming. Here is how vivid I remember the morning: - Early in the year I was in 1st grade. - TV was on. In the house I grew up in, the TV was never supposed to be on before school. - I was eating rice krispies out of an Ernie sesame street bowl. My family still has that bowl. - North tower had already been hit by the time I got downstairs. - Mom was on the phone. - Because there were 2 towers, I had this real gut feeling that the south tower would be hit. Sure enough, it did. I'm not entirely sure how I could work that out before it happened. It still puzzles me to this day and maybe it's a reason why I'm agnostic and not entirely atheist. What I do remember was being absolutely on the nose about it in my head, and then watching people go absolutely ballistic when it happened. I also remember even from that day, people saying "nobody could imagine the 2nd tower would be hit". I couldn't tell them. Keep in mind though, I had no clue that both towers would collapse. The North tower already looked in terrible condition when I saw it, so I thought it might partially collapse or something, but not that both towers would completely go down. Why didn't I say this before? Why didn't I tell friends and family and classmates and teachers about it? Try and see if you have the guts to see someone break down after you tell them something like that. And when you're 8 years old, it just comes across like you're saying it for jollies.

[@DomLaBeau]

I mean it makes perfect sense for a child to have that logic…there are 2 towers, one of them has been hit…it’s like an obvious solution to a puzzle. But of course the adults in the room assumed it was just a single attack or accident

[@charlesmurphy3222]

I can't talk about 9/11. Because I was actually experiencing simultaneously the biggest betrayal which could ever happen to a single man. Courtesy of a woman knowing she was reinforcing a lie. I didn't know of anything going on until around 11:20am EDT. That's almost 2 and a half hours of events going on without my knowledge or awareness.

[@Ciscokidcapo]

0:15 i know this is off topic to 9/11 but thats lil jimmy norton on opie hughes solo show?! Guess my timeline of the fallout is wrong.

[@ricardoaguirre6126]

I was 6 and in first grade but I can't recall that day. I do remember the aftermath, the sudden surge in patriotism. I cant recall when i knew that it happened but from the age of 7 i was aware of a war in the middle east.

[@strawberrylemonadelioness]

3:53, I was kinda caught off guard by that Good Burger clip.

[@leorospigg4520]

I was around 8 when 9/11 happened, I live in Europe but I can honestly say that I don't remember anything about the day itself.

[@FKanimations]

Really great video I love this channel

[@horilaw424]

This is very interesting I'm from a european country, I was 5 at the time and have only one single memory of that day, me standing, almost hiding, behind the table in our living room while I watch two blots of black smoke on tv (I don't remember watching any footage of them going down at that time) For some reason at the time my mind "falsified" my memory of it making me think it was in the morning but of course growing up I realized that was wrong beacuse of the time zones :" What's funny is that most young people around my age have a sort of collective memory from that day of them watching a popular afternoon program that was interrupted for the special news edition talking about the Twin Towers, and I missed this piece of what is essentially a mix between history and pop culture too because I never watched that program :"

[@pendremacherald6758]

Can memories on behalf of others be sent? I wasn’t alive, but I do have a very brief story of a journey some of my family went through that was lengthened because of 9/11.

[@RapaxGuardian]

I can very clearly remember that day: I was 7 years old and in 2nd grade. My teachers did not say anything to us regarding the attacks at all. I found out while waiting for the bus after-school from other 2nd graders just saying "Some planes flew into some buildings and tons of people are dead!" My immediate reaction was "Cool!" I didn't get home until maybe 5 pm, and that was when I finally saw the first news images: my dad was glued to the tv, and I saw replay footage of the 2nd plane hitting the towers. I told my dad I want to watch SpongeBob, and dad tried to explain how this is very important, he can't change the channel, to which I said, "But Daddy, SpongeBob 🙄"

[@ManubibiWalsh]

I was home watching a kids’ show and I was very little and I’m a foreigner, I didn’t know what the twin towers were or why they were significant... I honestly still don’t. I’m guessing an attack to, say, the White House would have probably had a different meaning so i still don’t know how to contextualize 9/11. Also, first responders deserved better treatment. They are the heroes and most people just don’t think about them. There was no need for Marvel to shove fictional superheroes in the story, when regular people were doing so much.

[@Atomo_the_otherworldy]

The twin towers weren’t important for what they were but what they represented. In terms of what they were, many people described them as the box that the Empire State Building came in. But the twin towers represented American commerce and it stood out in the New York City skyline so as you could imagine it would be very difficult to ignore the lives lost. And to the people of the era it was scene as a threat because they were afraid that they could be in the next attack. And for the marvel superhero’s part. That could be seen by ssome as a way of coping. Especially with spider man because what makes Spider-Man so popular is that many people can relate to his struggles and at least someone will relate to it and find it to be comforting

[@murrethmedia]

I don't have this problem because I slept through the entire thing, by the time I woke up the entire event had happened, well maybe except for Building 7 coming down but you know what I mean.

[@J8DENTHECANADIAN]

This guy needs more recidnishin!

[@M_D93]

Unimportant but is there a reason why When It's Over by Sugar Ray is playing? Does it have to do with that song being out in 2001?

[@Т1000-м1и]

2.1k views after 3 years....

[@jtgd]

1:02

[@nicodemusedwards6931]

Because I was… 1 when it happened.

[@Cazz8203]

why does it even matter or considered interesting to hear someones story about when they heard something happened? unless you were actually there, who the F cares? you are not important to this story

[@RackEmRack]

Is there anything worse than hearing anybody’s “where I was during 9/11” story? It’s like when someone tells you “hey I had this crazy dream” 😴 😴 Boring!

[@Newhorizons4u]

Weird judgey tone with this