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The two other videos that got posted alongside this one makes me think it was a "forgotten tape that just got digitized" type of deal. However, I can also see

The two other videos that got posted alongside this one makes me think it was a "forgotten tape that just got digitized" type of deal. However, I can also see there being an element of trauma and just not wanting to revisit the footage on purpose. I know I have some pictures I never want to look at again, although nothing on this scale.

techdragon 5y ago
Yeah, not wanting to revisit it fits with the “didn’t remove random other footage”, I can entirely understand them thinking “I’ll just uploaded it how it was because… I don’t want to think about trying to watch this again to edit it” It’s also surprisingly good quality too. I really was surprised at the zoom and focus on early into it. Gives me a distinct impression it was shot on what was probably quite a good portable video camera for the period.
- freedomben 5y ago
  I had a very similar video camera at the time. It was a surreal blast from the past, especially the slow frame by frame section.
vmception 5y ago
There’s also that everyone born after that is 21 years old now or a teenager and could have just found it in the attic, or ask the adult if they have any footage right after the 9/11 lesson in their history class Plenty of children and sibling’s children around to find this and convince to post it
Alex3917 5y ago
> I know I have some pictures I never want to look at again, although nothing on this scale. Much like photos the U.S. soldiers took in Europe while liberating the death camps. Most of them just went into their attics until they died and their kids were cleaning out their stuff.
ethbr0 5y ago
As someone who watched the second plane hit live on CNN, it was... hard. People who weren't alive or were otherwise busy that morning don't remember the uncertainty after the first plane. Everyone thought it was an accident. No one could conceive it was a deliberate strike. Everyone knew terrorists hijacked airplanes to fly to third world countries, not to commit suicide into buildings. That cognitive dissonance all collapsed in a single instant as the second plane hit. And that's a lot to process all at once. I still can't watch video footage without crying. If I'd been the videographer, you'd better believe I'd have locked this in my attic and forgotten about it.
- SllX 5y ago
  I second this. I was a child in Elementary school at the time and had just woken up and walked into the living room with the television on after the first plane attack. The reporter (forgot the network, I’d seen the same footage repeatedly all day that day and never wanted to look again) was still talking about the possibility of it being an accident right up until the second plane attacked. Even in my eyes at the time, one might be an accident but two was an attack.
  - vlunkr 5y ago
    My only connection to the word "terrorist" until that day was from a James Bond game (I was also young). Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all. I think that's why most people's reaction to the second plane was pure bewilderment. It wouldn't be like that now.
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      >Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all. Though people were far less concerned about it than now, it's not fair to say it wasn't on their radar at all. The WTC had already been attacked once, and Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City Bombing only a few months before 9/11. Even on the day, in that twenty minute window between crashes the general narrative was it might be an attack, just no reason to think it is yet.
zuminator 5y ago
I too have a couple of photos I took that beautiful*, awful morning that I never shared online. Nothing that hasn't been seen before, but at the same time they feel very personal. It's not at all surprising to me that people have sat on footage. * There was nothing beautiful about the attack, obviously, but the day itself was a perfect late summer New York day with a totally cloudless sky. So you'd look in one direction and see smoke and devastation, you'd face the other direction and see nothing but pure crystalline blue skies. It was quite surreal.
- necrotic_comp 5y ago
  9/11 blue is such a distinct color, and it's seared into my brain. It's so intwined with the day, it's part of the permanent collection at the museum: https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/trying-remember-color-sky-september-morning https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/trying-remember-col...
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
938rrhri3hirhi3 5y ago
Hey I’m really sorry my previous comment offended it was a poorly judged and poorly written expression of my feelings. Just that feeling of lost innocence and lost security at the point everyone realised it was on purpose must have been incredibly jarring. Pretty terrible to go from carefree to the idea that this could happen at any moment. The British have done enough meddling around the world that half the world bears us a grudge. There were bombings in London quite frequently when I grew up though they got a lot less deadly into the 90’s. Even so, when the train station I used to go to school had a bomb left in it, I had pretty bad nightmares for a while after that. I always had a sense that something could happen at any time from as soon as I was old enough to understand the security posters and the PA announcements about unattended bags. The last big IRA bomb in London was miles away yet it violently rattled the windows in my house. Then there was a break until 9/11 happened and it was obvious that there was going to be a reaction to this. When the wars in the middle east started we knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to us again. So when ~100 people were killed in the Al Qeada train bombings in London. I felt like ‘oh this again’ and there was just this crushing feeling that it was back for real. I remember randomly bursting into tears in a pub that night at the senseless randomness of it. Whereas you all got yanked into this different awful reality that happens out of nowhere watching this extreme insane next level thing happen on live TV, it’s quite a different thing to growing up with a low level sense that it is normal that someone might want to do something bad to you purely because you live in a particular place in a particular country. I think thats what I was getting at; that my life experience would have meant that when the second one hit it was a feeling of resignation and deep sadness, because I was used to the idea that terror attacks happen. But coming literally out of the blue for you guys it must have been a different emotion, truly shocking especially given how extreme these attacks were and how they played out in full view of everyone instead of in grimy tunnels and smokey pubs like all the stuff that happened when I was a child. Because it was such a shock for Americans I was pretty scared about how you were going to react, I remember seriously discussing with friends wether we thought you would use nukes or if we were all going to end up conscripted to fight with you in some huge war to exact revenge on whoever had done it seems far fetched now but there have definitely been serious global consequences. This whole Ukraine thing has really reminded me of the nuclear war nightmares I used to have in the 80’s as well. I feel an impending sense of doom about this also. I hope I’m wrong.

techdragon 5y ago

Yeah, not wanting to revisit it fits with the “didn’t remove random other footage”, I can entirely understand them thinking “I’ll just uploaded it how it was because… I don’t want to think about trying to watch this again to edit it” It’s also surprisingly good quality too. I really was surprised at the zoom and focus on early into it. Gives me a distinct impression it was shot on what was probably quite a good portable video camera for the period.

freedomben 5y ago
I had a very similar video camera at the time. It was a surreal blast from the past, especially the slow frame by frame section.

vmception 5y ago

There’s also that everyone born after that is 21 years old now or a teenager and could have just found it in the attic, or ask the adult if they have any footage right after the 9/11 lesson in their history class Plenty of children and sibling’s children around to find this and convince to post it

Alex3917 5y ago

> I know I have some pictures I never want to look at again, although nothing on this scale. Much like photos the U.S. soldiers took in Europe while liberating the death camps. Most of them just went into their attics until they died and their kids were cleaning out their stuff.

ethbr0 5y ago

As someone who watched the second plane hit live on CNN, it was... hard. People who weren't alive or were otherwise busy that morning don't remember the uncertainty after the first plane. Everyone thought it was an accident. No one could conceive it was a deliberate strike. Everyone knew terrorists hijacked airplanes to fly to third world countries, not to commit suicide into buildings. That cognitive dissonance all collapsed in a single instant as the second plane hit. And that's a lot to process all at once. I still can't watch video footage without crying. If I'd been the videographer, you'd better believe I'd have locked this in my attic and forgotten about it.

SllX 5y ago
I second this. I was a child in Elementary school at the time and had just woken up and walked into the living room with the television on after the first plane attack. The reporter (forgot the network, I’d seen the same footage repeatedly all day that day and never wanted to look again) was still talking about the possibility of it being an accident right up until the second plane attacked. Even in my eyes at the time, one might be an accident but two was an attack.
- vlunkr 5y ago
  My only connection to the word "terrorist" until that day was from a James Bond game (I was also young). Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all. I think that's why most people's reaction to the second plane was pure bewilderment. It wouldn't be like that now.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    >Its hard to believe now, but the idea of a deliberate attack on civilians was really not on most people's radar at all. Though people were far less concerned about it than now, it's not fair to say it wasn't on their radar at all. The WTC had already been attacked once, and Timothy McVeigh was executed for the Oklahoma City Bombing only a few months before 9/11. Even on the day, in that twenty minute window between crashes the general narrative was it might be an attack, just no reason to think it is yet.

zuminator 5y ago

I too have a couple of photos I took that beautiful*, awful morning that I never shared online. Nothing that hasn't been seen before, but at the same time they feel very personal. It's not at all surprising to me that people have sat on footage. * There was nothing beautiful about the attack, obviously, but the day itself was a perfect late summer New York day with a totally cloudless sky. So you'd look in one direction and see smoke and devastation, you'd face the other direction and see nothing but pure crystalline blue skies. It was quite surreal.

necrotic_comp 5y ago
9/11 blue is such a distinct color, and it's seared into my brain. It's so intwined with the day, it's part of the permanent collection at the museum: https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/trying-remember-color-sky-september-morning https://www.911memorial.org/connect/blog/trying-remember-col...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

938rrhri3hirhi3 5y ago

Hey I’m really sorry my previous comment offended it was a poorly judged and poorly written expression of my feelings. Just that feeling of lost innocence and lost security at the point everyone realised it was on purpose must have been incredibly jarring. Pretty terrible to go from carefree to the idea that this could happen at any moment. The British have done enough meddling around the world that half the world bears us a grudge. There were bombings in London quite frequently when I grew up though they got a lot less deadly into the 90’s. Even so, when the train station I used to go to school had a bomb left in it, I had pretty bad nightmares for a while after that. I always had a sense that something could happen at any time from as soon as I was old enough to understand the security posters and the PA announcements about unattended bags. The last big IRA bomb in London was miles away yet it violently rattled the windows in my house. Then there was a break until 9/11 happened and it was obvious that there was going to be a reaction to this. When the wars in the middle east started we knew it was only a matter of time before it happened to us again. So when ~100 people were killed in the Al Qeada train bombings in London. I felt like ‘oh this again’ and there was just this crushing feeling that it was back for real. I remember randomly bursting into tears in a pub that night at the senseless randomness of it. Whereas you all got yanked into this different awful reality that happens out of nowhere watching this extreme insane next level thing happen on live TV, it’s quite a different thing to growing up with a low level sense that it is normal that someone might want to do something bad to you purely because you live in a particular place in a particular country. I think thats what I was getting at; that my life experience would have meant that when the second one hit it was a feeling of resignation and deep sadness, because I was used to the idea that terror attacks happen. But coming literally out of the blue for you guys it must have been a different emotion, truly shocking especially given how extreme these attacks were and how they played out in full view of everyone instead of in grimy tunnels and smokey pubs like all the stuff that happened when I was a child. Because it was such a shock for Americans I was pretty scared about how you were going to react, I remember seriously discussing with friends wether we thought you would use nukes or if we were all going to end up conscripted to fight with you in some huge war to exact revenge on whoever had done it seems far fetched now but there have definitely been serious global consequences. This whole Ukraine thing has really reminded me of the nuclear war nightmares I used to have in the 80’s as well. I feel an impending sense of doom about this also. I hope I’m wrong.