(Photo by Aidan Bartos on Unsplash)
If you’ve ever wondered what the voice of pure evil sounds like….here is a tape recording.
ABCNews: Voices from the Sky
(Recording from Flight 93, beginning @1:14)
This particular recording is exceptional because in this case you are looking back on an event with 20/20 hindsight. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt who the speaker is (now long since dead), why he says what he says, and that he is evil.
The speaker is a terrorist.
Further, his words were not spoken with you in mind. His words were targeted at others – and he makes no effort to camouflage the pure evil of his words from you, because he was not thinking about you when he said them.
Like a house of cards, when you look at it straight-on it appears solid and strong, but when you step to one side, you notice the walls are paper thin – its facade is lost to you and you perceive the true nature of its strength.
And so it is with the words of this recording. You are now looking at them from behind and above, rather a bit like Dorothy looking in upon “the man behind the curtain” in the Wizard of Oz. Looking “straight-on”, she trembled in fear, perceiving she stood in the presence of a wizard with immense power. But once Toto pulled aside the curtain; the thin veil that had aided in deceiving so many others before her; she perceived things as they truly were.
Listen to what these voices are saying.
Terrorist: “Ladies and Gentlemen here. It’s the captain, please sit down. Keep remaining sitting. We have a bomb aboard.” (9:32am)
Terrorist: “Hi, this is the captain. We’d like you all to remain seated. There is a bomb aboard. And we are going to turn back to the airport. And they have our demands so please remain quiet.” (9:36am)
These words were not transmitted to the passengers of Flight 93, as the terrorists intended, rather they were transmitted to the air traffic control center in Cleveland, Ohio (see full transcript of the Flight 93 recording).
Looking back, we know the events of that day, and the intent behind the terrorist’s words. We know that Flight 93 was not headed back to Newark International Airport as the terrorist had promised, but was on course to crash into either the United States Capitol Building or the White House, just as Flights 11 and 175 had previously crashed into the World Trade Center, and Flight 77 was to target the Pentagon one minute later.
Students of what happened that day will immediately recognize the parallel between the messages above and the message that the passengers heard on Flight 11:
Mohammed Atta: “Nobody move. Everything will be OK. If you try to make any moves, you’ll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet.”
And later: “We have some planes. Just stay quiet, and you’ll be okay. We are returning to the airport.”
This — again — is the voice of pure, unadulterated evil, laid bare. Perhaps to the passengers of Flight 11, there may have been some ambiguity – but looking back now there can be no denying it.
And what does such a voice advise and encourage the passengers to do? What is its aim? What does it want?
It is rather simple, which is also why it is so profoundly and eerily predictable.
It wants the good men and women aboard the plane to do………nothing.
The passengers of Flight 77 did not survive.
The passengers of Flight 11 did not survive.
The passengers of Flight 175 did not survive.
They were slaughtered.
But what of the fourth plane that was hijacked that day…
