◆ PARALLAX

Is anyone else getting this. CNN just cut in -- a plane has hit one of the World Trade Center towers in New York. They are saying small plane maybe, nobody knows. There is a hole and there is smoke, a lot of smoke, high up. I am typing what they say. Somebody who is closer please tell me this is a little Cessna and a very bad pilot.

i am eight blocks away. that was not small. i FELT it. the street is filling up with paper, office paper, it is coming down like snow and some of it is burned at the edges. everyone is just standing looking up. i have to find a payphone the cell is dead. it was not small.

On the scanner now. UNCONFIRMED, all of this is UNCONFIRMED, I am only relaying: FDNY going to a full box and then some, they are calling it a commercial aircraft, not light. Multiple alarms. They do not sound like men who think this was an accident. Tag everything you read in the next hour as rumour, including me.

ANOTHER ONE. a second plane just hit the other tower live on the air, everyone in the office screamed, the anchor stopped talking for a second. that is two. that is not an accident, you do not get two. i do not -- hold on they are replaying it.

It is on every channel here in Europe too. The whole office has stopped. I have nothing useful to add except: please, everyone, when this thread fills up tonight, hold the theories. We do not know who, we do not know how many, we do not know if it is over. Witnesses first. Theories can wait until there is something to theorise about.

two planes inside twenty minutes is not pilots and it is not hijackers with boxcutters either, think about the precision, think about who has stand-off capability and a reason -- i am saying it now while the thread is young, this came from ABOVE and they will give you nineteen names by friday to make sure you never look up.

Augie, not now. I have the mod login but right now I am just a person watching the same thing you are, so take it from the person: there are people in this thread dialling numbers that are not ringing. Whatever you think this is, it keeps. Read the room.

Just came off shift and cannot make myself go to sleep. To anyone in this thread with someone in those towers or on those planes -- I am here, I will sit up with you, you do not have to refresh the news alone. Mara if you find a payphone and you can post again, please do. We are all watching the same smoke and it helps to know which of us is standing under it.