Remembering September 10, 2001

Credit to Paul Thompson, from whose timeline most of this information is culled, and also to Michael Ruppert.

• The last day for suspicious trading on American and United Airlines. Today, three years ago, the Chicago Exchange sees the purchase of 4,516 put options on American to only 748 call - 60 times above normal. On the Pacific Exchange, the trading ratio on United is 25 times greater than normal. Later, investigators can't help but notice that no other airlines saw such trading in their put options. Analyst John Kinnucanone, quoted by the San Francisco Chronicle, said "I saw put-call numbers higher than I've ever seen in 10 years of following the markets, particularly the options market."
• The last day for suspicious trading on Morgan Stanley, one of the World Trade Center's largest tenants. Between Sept. 7 and Sept. 10, the company experiences an increase of 27 times in the purchase of put options on its shares.
• The documented pre-Sept. 11 insider trading that occurred before the attacks involved only companies hit hard by the attacks, including United Airlines, American Airlines, Morgan Stanley, Merrill-Lynch, Axa Reinsurance, Marsh & McLennan, Munich Reinsurance, Swiss Reinsurance, and Citigroup.
• Regarding the spike of unusual stock activity, Dylan Ratigan of Bloomberg says on Sept 20, "This could very well be insider trading at the worst, most horrific, most evil use you've ever seen in your entire life... This would be one of the most extraordinary coincidences in the history of mankind if it was a coincidence."
• Germany's Bundesbank chief, Ernst Weltke tells Agence France Presse on Sept 22 that "bizarre" fiscal transactions prior to the attacks could not have been chalked up to coincidence. The stock activity "could not have been planned and carried out without a certain knowledge, particularly heavy trading in oil and gold futures."
• According to CBS News, on the afternoon of September 10 "alarm bells were sounding over unusual trading in the US stock options market." It is known that the CIA and many other intelligence agencies monitor stock trading in real time using Promis software.
• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announces that the Pentagon "cannot track $2.3 trillion in transactions," or one quarter of the yearly defense budget. The lead story on many newscasts that night, it is buried by the events of the following day.
• Mohammed Atta calls Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the operational planner of 9/11, and receives final approval for the attacks. The call is monitored and translated by the US, though how quickly is unknown, as are the contents of the conversation.
• Two Arabic messages sent from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan are intercepted by the National Security Agency, which state "the match is about to begin" and "tomorrow is zero hour." The NSA claims they were not translated until September 12.
• As reported in Newsweek, on September 10 a number of senior Pentagon officials cancel their commercial flights for the following morning due to security considerations.
• Eight hours before the attacks, San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown receives a warning from his "security people" advising him against flying to New York the next morning.
• A FEMA team arrives in New York City for the "Tripod II" bioterror exercise. Before the 9/11 commission, Rudy Giuliani acknowledged that the FEMA camp was already in place to receive victims of the attack, and was larger and better equipped than the NYC terror response unit that was lost in the collapse of WTC building 7.