• Mohamed Atta, accompanied by fellow al-Qaeda operative Abdul Aziz al Omari, “boarded a 6:00 AM flight from Portland [Maine] to Boston’s Logan International Airport,” stated The 9/11 Commission Report. [1] After arriving in Boston at 6:45 AM, they boarded American Airlines Flight 11, which was scheduled to depart at 7:45 AM. [2]
• Atta and al-Omari needed to take that early morning commuter flight because, although they had already been in Boston on September 10, they then “drove to Portland, Maine, for reasons that remain unknown,” [3] and stayed overnight in a Comfort Inn in South Portland. [4]
• No theory as to why Atta and al-Omari did this seems “entirely satisfactory,” wrote the New York Times in 2002, “given the risk … that, had the commuter flight been at all late, they would have missed the very flight they intended to hijack.” [5] In 2004, the 9/11 Commission still considered this trip a mystery. [6]
• Nevertheless, that Atta and al-Omari made this trip was proved by an FBI chronology of their movements in Portland on September 10, complete with stops where they were videotaped, [7] plus an affidavit, signed by a judge as well as an FBI agent, stating that the blue Nissan Altima found at the Portland Jetport had been rented by Mohamed Atta, and that “American Airlines personnel at Logan discovered two bags [checked to passenger Atta] that had been bound for transfer to AA11 but had not been loaded onto the flight.” [8]
• Atta’s trip turned out to be helpful to the investigation, according to FBI Director Robert Mueller, who said: “Following the crash of Flight 11, authorities recovered two pieces of luggage in the name of Mohamed Atta that had not been loaded onto that flight.” [9] This luggage contained Atta’s will [10] and other materials that incriminated al-Qaeda. [11]

To summarize the story’s main facts:

1. Atta and al-Omari drove a blue rented Nissan from Boston to Portland on September 10, then stayed overnight.
2. The next morning, they took a commuter flight back to Boston in time to board AA Flight 11.
3. After Atta had flown American 11 into the World Trade Center, authorities at Boston’s Logan Airport found incriminating materials in Atta’s luggage that had not been loaded onto American 11.

The official story about Atta’s Portland trip contains three mysteries:

1. Why were Atta’s bags not loaded onto AA 11? In the affidavit, pointed out a Newsday story in 2006, “there was no explanation of why they had not been loaded.” [12]
   • The loading failure could not be attributed to a late flight: The commuter flight back to Boston was on time, so there was an hour until AA 11 was to depart. [13]
   • This failure also could not be explained in terms of a careless ground crew, because “Atta was the only passenger among the 81 aboard American Flight 11 whose luggage didn’t make the flight, American sources confirm[ed].” [14]
2. Why would Atta have put his will in a bag that was to be loaded onto a flight he intended to crash into the World Trade Center?
3. Why would Atta have taken the risky trip to Portland?

The reasons why these three mysteries exist become understandable in light of news reports in the first days after 9/11:

• According to CNN reports of September 12 and the morning of the 13^th, two al-Qaeda operatives, Adnan Bukhari and Ameer Bukhari, drove a rented Nissan to Portland, stayed overnight, and then flew back to Boston the next morning in time to board AA 11. [15]
• Materials that incriminated al-Qaeda were found by authorities in a Mitsubishi sedan, which had been rented by Mohamed Atta and then left in the parking lot of Boston’s Logan Airport. [16]
• Up to that point, this had been the official story, but later in the afternoon of September 13, CNN apologetically reported that neither of the Bukharis could have died on 9/11: Adnan Bukhari was still alive and Ameer Bukhari had died the previous year. [17]
• On September 14, although CNN continued to state that Mohamed Atta had left a rented Mitsubishi at Boston’s Logan Airport, [18] the Associated Press stated that the rented Nissan had been driven to Portland by Mohamed Atta, who with his companion “spent the night at the Comfort Inn in South Portland before boarding the plane the next morning.” [19]
• This story still said that authorities had found the incriminating materials left by Atta in a rental car at Boston’s Logan Airport, although this part of the story was incoherent, because the new story entailed that Atta must have left his rented Nissan at the Portland Jetport.
• On September 16, a full transition to what would become the official story appeared in the Washington Post: Besides stating that “Atta and Alomari rented a car in Boston, drove to Portland, Maine, and took a room Monday night at the Comfort Inn,” it also said that Atta’s incriminating materials were “left in his luggage at Boston’s Logan Airport.” [20]
• By October 5, the FBI had created a chronology of the claimed movements of Atta and al-Omari in Portland on September 10, complete with videos and photographs. [21] Internal evidence, however, shows this chronology to be a fabrication. [22]
• Internal evidence also shows that the aforementioned affidavit – which indicated that the FBI had from the outset claimed that (a) Atta had driven the Nissan to Portland and (b) the incriminating materials were found in his luggage inside Boston’s Logan Airport – could not have been written and dated on September 12. [23]

As shown by the evolution of the story about two al-Qaeda operatives flying from Portland to Boston, this story originally had no inexplicable mysteries.

But after it was realized that the Bukhari brothers could not have died on AA 11, the three mysteries –

1. why Mohamed Atta’s luggage was not loaded onto AA Flight 11,
2. why he put his will in a bag that was supposed to be loaded onto that doomed flight, and
3. why he would have taken the risky trip to Portland

– came about as by-products in the course of creating, over the course of several days, a revised version of the original story (according to which Atta and al-Omari replaced the Bukhari brothers as the al-Qaeda operatives who drove a rented Nissan to Portland).

Although this story is complex, it suggests that what became the official story was most likely based on creative imagination, not fact.