Here it is....
"One of the emails most widely distributed in the aftermath of the
terrorist attack on the USA on September 11 2001 claims that it's
spooky, perhaps even meaningful, how many words and names attached
to the attack add up to the number 11:
The date of the attack: 9/11 - 9 + 1 + 1 = 11
September 11th is the 254th day of the year: 2 + 5 + 4 = 11
After September 11th there are 111 days left to the end of the
year.
119 is the area code to Iraq/Iran. 1 + 1 + 9 = 11
Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like the number 11
The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11
But ....There's More.......
State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union
New York City - 11 Letters
Afghanistan - 11 Letters
The Pentagon - 11 Letters
Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted of orchestrating the attack on
the WTC in 1993)
Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11
Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11
You can't really 'debunk' this e-mail -- after all, what it claims
is essentially true
There are a series of names, words and numbers
associated with the terrorist attack on New York and Washington DC
that can be manipulated in various ways to add up to the number
11.
However, let's ask what seems to me to be the crucial question:
what's the point? Why, exactly, does anyone care a great deal about
how many words, names and numbers can be added up or manipulated to
reach 11?
In short: does it actually signify anything even remotely
relevant?
Well, to be honest, not really
What's at work here is a well-known behavioural process called
'observational selection,' which is sometimes described as
'counting the hits and excluding the misses.'
In essence, you simply start examining words etc that have anything
to do with a particular event, and keep the ones that match your
significant number, and discard all the ones that don't. With
enough effort, you should be able to make any number seem
significant.
In fact, if you gave it some thought, it would probably seem almost
spooky how many words, names and numbers associated with the
terrorist attack there are that don't add up to the number
11!
Osama bin Laden = 13 letters without spaces, 15 letters with
spaces
World Trade Center = 16 letters without spaces, 18 letters with
spaces
United Airlines = 14 letters without spaces, 15 letters with
spaces
American Airlines = 16 letters without spaces, 17 letters with
spaces
Flight 77 = 7+7 = 14
Flight 93 = 9+3 = 12
Flight 175 = 1+7+5 = 13
al Qaeda (believed to be the network of terrorists responsible for
the attacks) = 7 letters without spaces, 8 letters with
spaces
Pakistan = 8 letters
The White House = 13 letters without spaces, 15 letters with
spaces
Saddam Hussein = 13 letters without spaces, 14 letters with
spaces
Iraq = 4 letters
Iran = 4 letters
Yasser Arafat = 12 letters without spaces, 13 letters with
spaces
Palestine = 9 letters
Freaky, huh? After all, every single one of the entries on my list
has been mentioned in respect to the attack in one way or another,
and yet none of them add up to 11!
And yet, there's nothing more or less meaningful about my list
above than there is about the list with all of the things that add
up to 11 -- it's just that with my list I'm reversing the process:
I'm making a big deal about all the things that don't add up to 11
and I'm ignoring all the ones that do (i.e. I'm counting the misses
and excluding the hits).
Why don't you try it yourself? I'm sure you can find countless
things related to the attacks that don't add up to 11!"
