Hacker Cinema
The Lone Gunmen
2001 · TV series · 1 season
Created by Chris Carter, Vince Gilligan, Frank Spotnitz, John Shiban
After years of playing second fiddle to Agents Mulder and Scully on The X-Files, the trio of computer-hacking conspiracy geeks popularly known as The Lone Gunmen are finally heading out on their own. Never ones to stray far from the center of corporate and government intrigue, the threesome play like a misguided Mission Impossible team, embarking on a series of comic adventures that simultaneously highlight their genius and ineptitude.
3 positive12 neutralfrom 15 commenters
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15 comments on Hacker News
At least that was cut from the game. I remember that episode from The Lone Gunmen, the X-Files spin-off series, where they stopped the (inside job) hijacking of a commercial airplane from crashing into the twin towers, which aired just a few months before the attack.
I only watched it a few years later, and I had to double check the airing date.
Yup, X-Files were great and I did experience it. "The Lone Gunmen," was good idea as well but they, i.e. tv gods should have waited five years after the X-Files ended, to allow some time for nostalgia to creep into fandom, to do the show. I remember discussing with someone, who knew a guy who knew a guy, online regarding how their personalities should be crafted for the show. They ended up with, funny. Too, funny was not a good fit for them since they had genius level intellect. This show was one of the few places I saw Linux being mentioned by an ape in the episode where The Lone Gunmen receive a message from an ingenious chimp attempting to escape a government laboratory. The way they were killed off was really crappy. They should bring then back on the new series, perhaps as cloned versions.
It is - seriously - no wonder they got destroyed. NYC is a symbol, and the towers were a recognizable icon in the skyline.
There's a high number of coincidences about the towers getting destroyed. It's no conspiracy, it's because the towers and NYC meant something in the eyes of the world with regards to the USA.
Just rattling off a few of the wild ones:
The episode of The Lone Gunmen which predicted an attack with a plane on the towers.
The Sega Master System game (I forget the name, but I own it) where it depicts a missile hitting the towers on the opening screen. It's pixels with little wings, and super spooky in retrospect.
The Dream Theater live album released on 9/11 which showed the NYC skyline burning.
There's so much stuff, I almost don't blame the conspiracy theorists. But they have the causality backwards. They also really like to ignore the fact that 8 years earlier somebody tried to blow up the towers and killed 6 people...
Are you claiming that counts as being seriously considered? Or just floating around?
Clearly, Vince Gilligan is a member of the illuminati. Though the list of follow up episodes was a bit meh. Perhaps also telling?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)#cite_note-11], such as
Episode 6 - "A man contacts the Lone Gunmen, believing his life has been stolen after being abducted by aliens. They end up getting caught in a love triangle involving a one-eyed stereo salesman, brainwashing, and a wrestling dwarf."
Episode 10 - "Yves and Frohike go undercover as tango dancers to stop a man from selling government secrets."
Or, the real 'telling the truth in the form of a lie'?
Their last episode #13 - "The Lone Gunmen team up with Man in Black agent Morris Fletcher to find Yves. What they uncover is Romeo-61, a secret government organization responsible for decades of major incidents."
Was Vince picking up top-secret communications in his fillings (maybe even subconsciously) and ended up telling too much? Or a SG-1 style 'early disclosure'/'disinfo' campaign? Or false-false flag? Or coincidence? Or reaction to some actual gov't preparatory 'conspiracy theory' poisoning the well?
The world may never know. /s
>The issue they’re pointing out is that no one seriously considered terrorists flying airplanes into skyscrapers either, for similar reasons. Until they did it.
Was literally an episode of the Lone Gunmen. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)
In the pilot episode, which aired March 4, 2001 (exactly six months and one week prior to the September 11 attacks[5]), rogue members of the U.S. government remotely hijack an airliner flying to Boston, planning to crash it into the World Trade Center, and let anti-American terrorist groups take credit, to gain support for a profitable new war following the Cold War. The heroes ultimately override the controls, foiling the plot.
The pilot episode of the Lone Gunmen spin-off, released earlier in 2001, featured a plot where "terrorists" had flown a passenger liner into the WTC but it was really a government inside job to gain support for a new war. That show didn't get renewed.
That’s incredibly prescient! What the hell?
The change in that zeitgeist is also one of the things the creators "credit" with its decline, though Duchovny getting into a lawsuit with Fox and checking out certainly didn't help. After the 9/11 attacks public interest in not trusting the government sharply declined. The pilot episode of the Lone Gunmen spin-off, released earlier in 2001, featured a plot where "terrorists" had flown a passenger liner into the WTC but it was really a government inside job to gain support for a new war. That show didn't get renewed.
A bit closer is the X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen, where a March 2001 episode featured a plot to crash an airliner into the world trade center and blame it on terrorists to justify a new war.
Obviously 9/11 wasn't some government conspiracy to purposely spark new wars, but the other details are eerily similar.
Indeed, and I take it you've seen the pilot episode of the lone gunmen series?
I made this same point a while back on HN and the response I received was
>people are half a second between 'that's absurd, they're not doing that,' and 'of course it's always been that way.'
In 1994, X-Files Season 1 Ep. 17 introduced the Lone Gunmen, a group of conspiracy theorists:
>"The characters, who were used to help Mulder appear more credible"
If you watch the episode, one of the main 'batshit insane'conspiracy theories they put forward was that the government is recording everyone's phone calls--then Scully rolls her eyes and Mulder appears skeptical.
You have to admit, it is kind of crazy...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.B.E._(The_X-Files)
That page ought to have a list of TV series in addition to Mr. Robot: X-Files and more so its spinoff show https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen
The pilot episode of "The Lone Gunmen" aired in March 2001, and details a conspiracy by the US government to remote control an airliner and crash it into the WTC to furnish arms sales:
"The Cold War's over, John. But with no clear enemy to stockpile against, the arms market's flat. But bring down a fully loaded 727 into the middle of New York City and you'll find a dozen tinpot dictators all over the world just clamoring to take responsibility, and begging to be smart-bombed."
https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)#Episodes
First episode: https://youtu.be/EjbQ-BDh4PU
Edit: the author of your link addresses the episode in the comments section, "The Lone Gunmen Pilot Episode", and says that the article you linked was only focused on things "in production" when the attack occurred.
It aired in the US 6 months prior and 13 million people watched the episode.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lone_Gunmen_(TV_series)
The "no one ever imagined" line is put forward by DC insiders to cover for the fact that they never planned for a well known attack vector. Reporters spend a lifetime building connections to senior civil servants and have no problem running with lines like that if it will help their contacts keep their jobs.
Want something a lot weirder? Watch the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen (the X-Files spinoff), which aired six months before the attacks:
> Foreshadowing a number of conspiracy theories which would arise in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the plot of the March 4, 2001 episode depicts a secret faction within the US government plotting to hijack a Boeing 727 and fly it into the World Trade Center by remote control. The stated motive was to increase the military defense budget by blaming the attack on foreign interests.