The Sham of Uri Geller's Number 11 on the Tragedy of 9/11

[Warph]

Clusters of coincidences can seem designed or the result of a preordained pattern to someone who is very selective in his thinking, such as Uri Geller.  After the anti-American terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, Geller posted his thoughts on the number 11.  He asked everyone to pray for eleven seconds for those in need.  Why?  He was convinced that there was a cryptic, numerological message in the events that occurred that day.  In fact, he admits that he has had a long-term relationship with the number 11.  He thinks that 11 "represents a positive connection and a gateway to the mysteries of the universe and beyond."

But here is what he had to say about the terrorist attack and how 11 relates to this day of infamy:


Uri Geller's Mysterious 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 (reverse the numbers and you have the date) [not true: Iran's country code is 98 (9+8=17), Iraq's is 964 (9+6+4= 19); Saudi Arabia's code is 966 (9+6+6=21.)]

*Twin Towers - standing side by side, looks like
the number 11

*The first plane to hit the towers was Flight 11 by
*American Airlines or AA - A=1st letter in alphabet so we have again 11:11

*State of New York - The 11th State added to the Union

*New York City - 11 Letters

*The USS Enterprise is in the gulf during the attack; its ship number is 65N 6+5=11 [Or, maybe not. I received the following in an email: "We were actually about 12 hours away from the equator (I know this because we were about to have our crossing the line ceremony that night) on our way to South Africa.  We had left the Gulf about a week before that and were relieved by the USS John Stennis (CVN-74 but also adding up to 11)."]

*Afghanistan - 11 Letters

*The Pentagon - 11 Letters

*Ramzi Yousef - 11 Letters (convicted or orchestrating the attack on the WTC in 1993)

*Flight 11 - 92 on board - 9 + 2 = 11

*Flight 77 - 65 on board - 6 + 5 = 11

*The # of story is 110 (2x) 110 - 110 Remember that the zero "0" is not a number, so we have 11:11

*The house where they believed to have lived had # 10001 again don't count the zero.....

Names that have eleven letters
*Air Force One, *George W. Bush, *Bill Clinton, *Saudi Arabia, *ww terrorism, *Colin Powell U.S. Secretary of State

*Remembrance day is November 11....

*November is also the 11th month

*Mohamed Atta, the pilot that crashed into the World Trade Centre.

*Skyscrapers, American Airlines AA = 11


Geller also claimed that "there will be more information coming in" and urged readers to e-mail him with more findings of this kind. Geller also wrote: "I would encourage everyone to send out this message to all your family, friends or business acquaintances and try to put this in the right perspective."

Let me try to put this in the right perspective.

Accumulating more findings like these coincidences between the number 11 and other things should be easy, since there are countless items that can be made to relate in some fashion to the number 11 (or 12, 13, or just about any other number or word). E.g. the country code for Pakistan is 92 (9+2=11), a Boeing 757 holds about 11,000 gallons of fuel and the wingspan is 155 feet (1+5+5=11), Nostradamus and Billy Graham have 11 letters, any word with 8 letters just put 'the' in front of it; any word with 9 letters, just put 'ww' or any two-letter word in front of it, any word with 10 letters, just put 'a' in front of it or add an s to the end of it, etc. It is especially easy to do this since there is no specific guide before we begin our hunt for amazing facts as to what will and what won't count as being relevant. We have a nearly boundless array of items that could count as hits. Unfortunately for Geller and others who are impressed by these hits, there is also an even larger array of items that could count as misses. Geller doesn't see them because he isn't looking for them.

If we start hunting for items that seem relevant but don't fit the pattern, we will soon see that there is nothing special about Geller's list or the number 11. Only by focusing on anything that we can fit to our belief and ignoring everything that doesn't fit (confirmation bias) can we make these coincidences seem meaningful.




List of Meaningless Coincidences:

•the planes hit a little before and a little after 9 am

•there were 4 flights that crashed with 266 people in them; 2+6+6= 14

•one plane was a 767 (7+6+7 = 20)

•the other a 757 (7+5+7 = 19)

•the 767 has 20,000-gal fuel capacity

•the 757 has a 124-foot wingspan (1+2+4 = 7)

•a 767 has a 156-foot wingspan; 1+5+6 = 12

•one tower was 1,362 feet high; 1+3+6+2 = 12

•the other was 1,368; 1+3+6+8 = 18

•the supports are 39 inches apart; 3+9 = 12

•the buildings were leased for 3.25 billion; 3+2+5 = 10 

•the other flights were AA 77  (7+7 = 14) and UA 93 (9+3= 12) and UA 175 (1+7+5= 13)

•flight 11 had 81 passengers (8+1 = 9)

•flight 77 had 58 passengers (8+5 = 13), 4 crew members and 2 pilots (total=64)

•Boston has 6 letters

•Massachusetts has 13 letters

•Pennsylvania has 12 letters

•Washington D.C. has 12 letters

•Los Angeles has 10 letters

•The number of hijackers was 19 (9+1=10)

•Names and words that don't have eleven letters in them: Osama bin Laden, Khalid Al-Midhar, Majed Moqed, Nawaq Alhamzi, Salem Alhamzi, Satam Al Suqami, Waleed M. Alshehri, Wail Alshehri, Abdulaziz Alomari, Dick Cheney, Laura Bush, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, Muslim, Islam, Pentagon, World Trade Center, terrorism, jihad, Taliban, Koran, United States, anti-American, murder, fire, hell, stupid.

What Geller and other numerologists are doing is a game, a game played with numbers and with people's minds.  Sometimes it is amusing.  Sometimes it is pathetic.

[Diane Amberg]

 He missed one. 9-1-1 is the emergency phone number that was called a kazillion times that day.
Actually zero is considered to be a number, a whole number and place holder, but it is not a counting number which starts with one, not zero.  Ask any third grader....
    Uri Geller is an interesting entertainer, period...or perhaps zero? That was fun,thanks.