I've heard it, I think, years back. I didn't give it a thought though, assuming it was an urban legend/conspiracy theory. Never looked on line for debunking bc it seemed so obviously wrong.

Oh, right after 9/11 I heard just a ton of stuff like that. I remember particularly the tale of this one rice carver who worked on the boardwalk who didn't show up to work just after 9/11. Well, that was real, but he was later interviewed and it turned out he didn't show up because he and everybody else knew that this was not going to be a good time to be a Muslim in public.

I know that in the days immediately following 9/11, all the Middle-Eastern-owned convenience stores and gas stations in my folks' part of NJ (near NYC) immediately sprouted an extreme number of American flags and bunting and "United WE Stand" signs. A lot of that is still in evidence. All this is, I think, just trying to maintain business and hedge against overflowing prejudice.

I never looked to debunk the stuff either; there was so much truly paranoid anti-Muslim legend floating around that I doubted all of it on its face. It was kind of a crazy time and people were really fearful there were more "evildoers" lurking in our midst and about to mount more attacks. This is the kind of story I heard many versions of, and I don't think I ever saw any corroborated at all.

And why Arkansas?

Hesitate to repost this but this is the kind of sprayed-against-the-wall uninformed and paranoid crap that produces rumors like this. Of course, the Jews had advance warning too.

FWIW, there's a WikiPedia page on "advance knowledge conspiracy theories." Nothing about your rumor specifically but it's a garden variety type of one I recall hearing quite a bit of. Unfortunately that period of time is quite clearly etched into my brain; I can tell you exactly what I was doing almost every hour between 9 AM Tuesday, September 11 and a few weeks later, in OCtober, at my next opportunity to see my very happily intact family.

I can totally see someone of Middle Eastern origin deciding to leave the US after 9/11. But the person who told me this story insisted that their friend personally knew of several convenience stores that were just abandoned -- stock still on the shelves, the works -- in the days just BEFORE 9/11. I kind of pressed on the detail of "now you're sure your friend PERSONALLY knew of these stores," and was assured "oh yes, these were stores he knew ..." Huh. Well, I think this is an example of someone giving an urban legend some extra oomph by personally vouching for the facts themselves. How fun is it to tell a story that is received with a "meh, sounds like bullshit"? Saying he knew the stores personally has to be an embellishment to lend credence to a fun, spooky legend.

The reason I'm so skeptical of this is that, as thoroughly as 9/11 was investigated, it seems certain that such store-abandonments would have been thoroughly examined by authorities and would have been widely discussed.

Oh, and as to "why Arkansas?" That's where this person's friend, who purportedly knew these stores that were abandoned, lives.

the person who told me this story insisted that their friend personally knew of

Three degrees of removal = bullshit. Actual news travels differently than bullshit; if a story has been repeated more than once or twice by people not involved with the story, it's most likely not news, it's bullshit.

Yes, does not pass the propaganda smell test. I wonder about the motivations, conscious or unconscious, of anyone passing along such stories. This kind of propaganda doesn't work without prejudice, I'm afraid. But at least you're questioning the veracity, jayder. Still, I wouldn't pass this along anymore, and I'd challenge others still trying to spread such nonsense.

I don't think "help me find something debunking this obviously bullshit story" counts as passing it along, Pips .... I suppose there's a risk of someone reading this and then uncritically accepting the anecdote as true, but I think there's value in discussing these rumors so they are debunked.

Maybe, but I think this one's long past debunked for most people. Along the lines of the so-called "birthers," in my book. I don't know your motives, though, so I take you at your word. You might want to question the level of knowledge and/or potential prejudices of those who raised this with you, however. If it's insulting to raise such a concern, I'm sorry, but it's a particularly corrosive bit of propaganda you're chewing on there and it runs the danger of unintentionally reflecting badly on you. Something to consider.

I wonder about the motivations, conscious or unconscious, of anyone passing along such stories.
Pure, unadulterated prejudice, as far as I can see (not you, jaydar), all the way from whoever started it to every person who passes it on as 'fact'. There are so many problems with this story on every level that any right-thinking person can see it's absolute bullshit without any need for 'official' debunking. However, you can't prove a negative, so the bullshit keeps flowing around among sympathetic people. Tough economic times are a fertile breeding ground for this sort of thing too, because people are trying to understand the why of everything and it's easier to just blame Other People Who Aren't Like Us than to do any real thinking for yourself.

10 years ago there was an article in the Village Voice describing the writer's interaction with an Egyptian livery driver who told her two months before 9-11 that he was going back to Egypt for a few months because he didn't want to be around when Bin Laden attacked; which he knew for a fact would happen. On 9-11 she reported him to the FBI. He was questioned and released some months later ( he had a green card and had come back to the USA).

Well, I think this is an example of someone giving an urban legend some extra oomph by personally vouching for the facts themselves

Yeah, but everybody wanted to claim that legitimacy....after the fact. If you can't find any documentation in news reports, rest easy, because you can be 100% sure that if this story existed, it would have been reported. What you need to have confidence in this story are: store names; locations/addresses; owners' names, and dates. In the absence of even a scrap of this, all you have is what is actually fourth-hand (read: totally unsubstantiable) rumor.

10 years ago there was an article in the Village Voice

Got the cite? Should be easy to find.

This looks like the story.

Good find, podey.

I have gotten e-mails from people I know saying that Osama bin Laden has planned big terrorist attacks for New York and Washington for that time. It will not be safe here then.

"Oh, you're right," Ameen said suddenly, laughing and looking at me again. "But many people knew this."

Yeah, I guess I'd have to say that this isn't all that surprising. Even the Bush administration knew this. Everyone knew, especially since the previous Bin Laden attack, that he was coming back. But I still don't think we can show that people shut down businesses and left because of their foreknowledge. They left, if they did, because of fear of persecution even if they were not involved.

And Sarah Goodyear's subsequent journalism career seems to have wandered off in different and less momentous directions. I have a feeling that, if there were a powerful lead here, it would have been followed up. Who knows; maybe it was, and maybe that's on some Guantanamo dockets.

Ameen was a pseudonym.

yup, that's what the article says.

Fun history tidbit: one reason why the London fire of 1666 was so devastating was cause large groups of Londoners went looking for Dutchmen to beat up because of a rumor that thy had fled the cityte night before.

Ameen was a pseudonym.

I should hope so; the guy doesn't need to deal with a pitchfork mob of taxi-riding vigilantes.

Also, The Whelk, that's totally interesting. Where do you find that tidbit?

This documentary Miko
http://www.politics.ie/forum/history/178253-1666-great-fire-london-foreigners.html

it happened smack dab in the middle of the Anglo-Dutch war, and was used as a cover to enact "vengeance"

And the larger banks and corporations knew about it. That's what I heard.

I'm wondering if I was the only person in the world who didn't get advance warning.