James Woods' 9/11 Flight Suspicion

In August 2001, actor James Woods was on a flight from Boston to

Los Angeles when he observed some Middle Eastern passengers acting

strangely. He told authorities what he saw,

and the FBI has apparently

corroborated that it may have been a dry run for the 9/11

hijackers.

I was on a flight. Uh, without going into the details of,

of what made me

suspicious of these four men, although it would've been blatantly

obvious to the

most casual observer, uh, I took it upon myself to go to the flight

attendant and ask to speak to the pilot of the plane. The first officer came out.

I reported to him that I felt that the four men...

And I said, "Can you look over my shoulder

and see who I'm talking about?" And he

said, uh, "Yeah." I said, "I think they're gonna hijack this plane.

I mean, everything they're doing..." And I explained to him these details,

which

I've been asked to keep private until whatever,

jurisdiction, you know, uh, whatever trials may take place.

Uh, their behavior was such that, uh, that, that I felt they

were gonna hijack the

plane. I also said, "I'm very much aware of how serious it

is to

say, on an American aircraft in flight, the word hijack.

Yeah.

So, I'm saying this because I really have

reason to believe it's true.

As I, I found out later that not only was, did he make a report, but the flight

attendant also made a report of my suspicions to the FAA.

When I got home that night, it had been a very turbulent flight,

I had said to, uh,

this woman I'm dating, and, and, uh, my girlfriend and, and a, my best friend,

I

said, "How was the flight?" And I said, "Well, aside from the terrorists and the

turbulence, it was fine." Which was, now in retrospect,

not such a very funny joke,

but it was August 1st, and nobody was thinking-

Right

... along those lines. And, uh, when 9/11 happened, we were all stunned,

and we all

happened to be at my house that evening.

And my friend Scott said to me, "You know, remember that flight you took in

August?" I said, "Yeah, I've been thinking about it all day." He

said, "Well, maybe

you should call the FBI." And I said, "I'm sure they're being inundated." But I

thought it over, and I called the local office,

and within two minutes got ahold of

a very intelligent young man, a special agent there, um, who,

uh, took the report. And I said, "I hope I'm not wasting your time." He

said,

"Well, we have so many, uh, reports coming in." And he said,

"And by the way, even

if this leads to something, we don't like to backwash information to

people,

because in case they have to go to a trial and be witnesses or whatever.

So you won't hear from us." I said, "Well, great." He said, "But, uh, we appreciate

your calling."

Mm-hmm.

Quarter to 7:00 the next morning I get a phone call that actually wakes me up, and

they said, uh, "We wanna talk to you about the flight

that you took in August." I

said, "Oh, did the, did the manifest match of any of the

flights yesterday and then

my flight?" He said, "Well, we can't tell you that." I said, "Well,

look, I'll get

ready and I'll, you know, I'll come down to the, uh,

to the Federal Building." He

said, "We're outside your house. We'll just wait for you."

Wow, 7:15.

Yeah.

So this is serious.

Quarter to 7:00 in the morning. I said, uh, and I, and this is the only funny part

of any of this, I said, "How do you know where I live?"

And there was a pause.

He said, uh, "We're the FBI."

We know. Right.

"We're the FBI, thank you." So they came in, and I said,

"Look, I, I'm dying to

know, were these the guys?" And he said, "Well, we've had 36,000 tips in one day,

and there's two of us, and we're gonna be at your house all this

morning, so you

can do the math, but we can't tell you." You know,

so since then I have identified

for sure, uh, two of them as

two of the terrorists, uh-

Really?

... who actually were not on Flight 11, but one was on Flight 175

and one was on Flight 77. And I have been told unofficially,

not by the FBI, but

by someone else in a, actually a higher level of government,

believe it or not,

just through a coincidence, through a mutual friend,

that all four of them were

terrorists involved.

That, that is unbelievable.

Exactly.

So it was basically a rehearsal, what these guys were doing.

Right. But, but what's significant about this is

that it was a rehearsal with four

men,

and I, I can't say it as a fact that they were the four,

but I've been led to

believe, without going into details of how, uh,

that they were on

different flights. So the notion that they were separate cells,

um, and this is tricky territory, but I think in the Massari trial there's

gonna be some contention that, you know, he was a soldier and didn't

know what was gonna happen until-

Right

... he stepped on the plane and then decided,

in a fit of good conscience, not to

be a terrorist anymore. In fact, the fact that these two

people were identified by myself and other people, and were on the

Boston-LA flight, and ended up dying on two other flights of

the

four flights, uh, on September 11th-

That-

... show that they were-

What an amazing story.

There was cross-fertilization.

And is this the first time, I've never heard this.

Is this the first time you're telling this story?

Yes.

So it was just you and these four guys in first class,

nobody else, right?

No, no, there was-

There were a couple other people

... a couple other guys. Yes, there was.

Were they nervous too, or w- was it just you-

You know-

... figuring these guys out?

Uh, as I explained to the FBI, they said, "What was your first instinct?" And aside

from certain things like four guys getting on a, a transcontinental flight

without any hand luggage, who...

It, it's funny, I, I notice behavior because I guess I'm an

actor and it's kind of

what I do for a living.

You always watch people, right?

I, I just kind of observe people.

Right.

It's something I've always been fascinated by.

Sort of like that scene in Annie Hall where Woody Allen and Diane Keaton sit and

watch people-

Yeah

... and sort of talk about who they might be.

And there were four guys.

When the flight attendant, who was a woman, came up to them,

they literally ignored

her like she didn't exist, which is sort of a, kind of Taliban-

Which is kind of weird, yeah

... k- kind of a Taliban, uh, you know, i- idea of womanhood as a, you know, not

even a human being. I mean, it seems their,

their disrespect for women is so

extraordinary. And,

and they didn't order alcohol, and they just they said to me, you know,

"What made,

what did you think these guys were?" I said, "Well, I thought they

were either four

law enforcement officers or four terrorists," in that they had

that thing-

Right

... that guys who are undercover or on a mission have between each other,

and

it's impossible to explain.

Well, you were lucky.

Well-

You, you got absolutely lucky that they didn't decide to do it a,

a month before