By T. Adler<\/p>\n
In the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Americans mourned. American Muslims were among these mourners. They reacted with empathy and support. Even so, many were quick to blame Muslim Americans for the actions of foreign extremists. Knowing this, many Muslims in the New Jersey majority Muslim district put up signs condemning the attacks and disassociating themselves from extremism and violence. President Bush even addressed the American people about unity across religious barriers, saying<\/a> in his post\u20139\/11 speech that \u201cthe enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends.\u201d<\/p>\n But in 2015, Donald Trump challenged this precedent by alleging<\/a> that he \u201cwatched in Jersey City, where thousands and thousands of [Muslim] people were cheering as the World Trade Center collapsed.\u201d Multiple reporters questioned him about the alleged celebrations. He only repeated his story and refused to provide proof. Journalists attempted to find evidence that he could have been telling the truth, but nobody could find evidence of a celebration of that size.<\/p>\n The reason that nobody could find evidence to substantiate his claim is because the story had been completely fabricated. Despite his claim that he watched it on TV, there is no station that can corroborate his claim and there is no recorded footage. However, there were Palestinian celebrations<\/a> filmed and aired on Fox News, CNN, and NBC. Some theorize that Trump could have watched that film and misremembered it as taking place in New Jersey. Another theory<\/a> is that his story may have been a ludicrous embellishment of a report of five non-Muslim Israeli men taking photos of themselves on their roofs with the burning buildings in the background. Initially arrested for \u201cpuzzling\u201d behavior, police quickly released these men. Regardless of where he got the idea from, nobody has been able to find evidence that any Muslim Americans, let alone thousands, were filmed and aired on television cheering on the attacks.<\/p>\n Since news stations followed up on Trumps claim with reports that only five or so people in the United States publicly celebrated 9\/11 (and none were Muslim), one might expect the refuted story to die away. However, the story continued to spread. The fake news story grew a life of its own, as people online claimed to also remember the celebrations that never took place. Even some high-profile people joined in. Nick Vallelonga, the writer of the movie \u201cGreen Book,\u201d responded to Trump in a tweet<\/a> reading \u201c100% correct. Muslims in Jersey City cheering when towers went down. I saw it, as you did, possibly on local CBS news.\u201d Later, he took back his statement and apologized, but his tweet solidified people\u2019s convictions that the celebrations did happen.<\/p>\n Others have reported memories similar to Nick Vallelonga\u2019s. False memories are often a result of the tendency for people to stitch together ideas and memories. One could hear a claim from a false source and generate a memory from that claim that becomes indistinguishable from the truth, even if they are aware that it is a false source. This phenomenon doesn\u2019t just happen to the gullible. President George W. Bush, while in office, claimed<\/a> to have remembered seeing the first plane hit the tower on television on 9\/11 but was later informed that no video was taken or aired of the first plane. The memory was fabricated based on the stories he had heard of the plane crashing.<\/p>\n False or incorrect memories are common, in fact. Researchers followed a cohort of Americans after 9\/11, asking them questions each year about their memories. The results<\/a> showed that even in highly emotional situations that create what are referred to as \u201cflashbulb memories,\u201d vivid memories of traumatic and emotional events, memories are easily warped and frequently incorrect. Rates of memory accuracy among those in the cohort dropped to 57% in 3 years, while confidence in their memory\u2019s accuracy remained high.<\/p>\n