9/11 pager messages released on Wikileaks

Of course the government sent most of them

Over half a million intercepted pager messages sent on 11 September 2001 are being released by Wikileaks.

The messages began appearing at 3am and will continue being released in order until 3am tomorrow. Early messages were mostly server status updates and the likes of "NATALIE NEEDS SOME HELP ON HER SLIDE...THANKS IN ADVANCE".

Shortly after the first plane hit the World Trade Center at 8.49 this message was sent: "A plane crashed thru the twin towers. Real bad..BR". Later in the day we get: "I am so scared! Please be careful!" and "I want you Home! You are to close to washington right now. Call me if you get a chance. love you! XOX"

Wikileaks is not revealing where it got the intercepted messages from.

The organisation said:

Text pagers are usually carried by persons operating in an official capacity. Messages in the archive range from Pentagon and New York Police Department exchanges, to computers reporting faults to their operators as the World Trade Center collapsed.

The archive is a completely objective record of the defining moment of our time. We hope that its revelation will lead to a more nuanced understanding of the event and its tragic consequences.

Whether this archive will really add anything to anyone's understanding of the day seems unlikely, but the conspiraloons and truthers are already busy crawling through the pages. Wiki has set up a Reddit page for people to highlight interesting messages and comment on them.

The Wikileaks page is here for the strong-stomached, and the Reddit page here. ®