Did Breaking Bad’s Creator Unknowingly Predict 9/11 With a Mysterious Lost TV Series?
Ever get that eerie shiver when fiction sneakily beats reality to the punch? Sit tight—because in 2001, The Lone Gunmen (yes, the lovable nerds spun off from The X-Files) took that whole “stranger than fiction” thing and blasted it into another dimension . Picture this: nearly six months before the world watched the Twin Towers fall, Vince Gilligan—who’d later cook up Breaking Bad—aired a pilot where a jet gets hijacked by rogue U.S. government agents, headed right for the World Trade Center, using remote control tech . Hold up, did they have a crystal ball … or just a truly twisted sense of imagination?
Here’s the bizarre twist: while the real tragedy unfolded with unbearable devastation, these TV underdogs managed to save the day in the nick of time . But can you imagine being the creator and suddenly thinking, “Did somebody actually watch my show and take notes?” That’s a level of meta I’m not sure I ever want to experience . (By the way, co-creator Frank Spotnitz truly did wonder.) Despite over 13 million tuning in for the wild ride, the show fizzled out after 13 episodes — talk about bad timing colliding with creepy foreshadowing . Pop culture, meet unsettling prophecy .
So… what happens when your paranoid, underwatched TV script accidentally predicts history’s darkest day? Feel out that shiver, and LEARN MORE.
A spin-off of television series The X-Files depicted events that partly coincided with the 11 September tragedy.
The Lone Gunmen, made by Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan, aired almost exactly six months before the terrorist attacks in 2001.
In the pilot, the main characters uncover a secret government conspiracy where rogue elements within the US government use remote control technology to hijack a passenger Boeing 727.
The goal of the government was to blame foreign terrorists to spark a highly profitable war for the US arms industry.
As conspiracy investigators Byers, Frohike and Langly work uncover the secret plan, they have to bear in mind that the plane is remotely controlled and sent towards the World Trade Center in New York, as they desperately attempt to prevent it from striking one of the Twin Towers.
(20th Century Fox Television)
Unlike the real-world tragedy, the fictional protagonists managed to override the remote controls and avert the crash at the last second.
When asked about the episode by the Television Academy, co-creator Frank Spotnitz said: “It was my very first thought when I saw what happened that morning. My very first thought was The Lone Gunmen.
“I thought, ‘Oh, my God, did they watch our show? Did they get this idea from us?’
“A year or so after, I read something that relieved me of that fear — but, wow.”
(Trae Patton/NBC via Getty Images)
Gilligan added: “I’ll never forget going to the Fox lot to work that day. Everyone is in shock, including the powers-that-be. They said, ‘If we stop work, the terrorists win’.
“So, then, everybody got to work — but it was just people staring numbly at each other. Then, the powers-that-be said, ‘Okay, this was a mistake. Everybody go home’.
Despite over 13 million viewers tuning into the premiere, the series struggled to maintain its audience and Fox canceled it after just 13 episodes.
Its final episode aired in June 2001, months before 9/11 took place.
Beyond the pilot, Gilligan said: “I think it just kind of came about organically, as most shows do.”
Spotnitz added: “It just became clear to us that that’s where the show belonged. The second episode — which introduces Steven Snedden as Jimmy Bond and the blind football league — it just felt right. The show found itself because we didn’t really know in the beginning what it was.”
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