False rumor puts Triangle Muslims on edge

RALEIGH -- It apparently began with a Raleigh couple's decision to catch a matinee showing of the film "Atonement" last month.

It became an e-mail warning of a possible terrorist attack, forwarded among friends and friends of friends. Even after Raleigh police investigated and ruled out the tale of cloaked Muslim women mysteriously fanning out across a multiplex with briefcases and text-message phones, it continues to multiply.

At least 20 forwarded versions of the "Atonement" e-mail already have bounced across the country to the inbox of Snopes.com, a popular Web site devoted to debunking urban legends and examining weird news items. And the traffic is only picking up, said Barbara Mikkelson, who operates the Snopes site with her husband, David, from their Los Angeles-area home.

"It's definitely one of the growing rumors we've been seeing," she said Wednesday. "It's always like a snowball rolling down the hill. It starts small, then very quickly it starts building up because you forward it to a friend, and then they forward it to their friends, and then it just keeps going from there."

The e-mail says that shortly after the movie trailers ended, someone dressed "as a Muslim woman" head to toe in black with only the eyes visible slipped into the same row as the couple at a North Hills Stadium 14 theater. The cloaked figure kept their attention as she clutched a briefcase and received and sent a series of text messages.

An hour into the movie, the concerned couple left to find a theater manager, the e-mail continues, only to be told by an usher that a group in similar cloaks and head coverings had earlier fanned across the theater's different screening rooms.

Was this a rehearsal for a 9/11-style terrorist act, the couple wondered.

"We may never know but I have been sufficiently thrown into high alert," the author of the e-mail writes. "Do what you want with this information, but I for one will not be racing to the movie theater anytime soon. ... perhaps we all need to have a phone number for Homeland Security contact in our cell phones!"

Raleigh Police Department employees were among those who received a version of the message on their personal e-mail accounts, and the department investigated the supposed incident. Police spokesman Jim Sughrue said investigators concluded the incident did not happen.

"It was determined in the end that there had been a single movie-goer, a female in Middle Eastern attire," Sughrue said. "We're not faulting anybody for anything that happened. We ran it down, and we were more than happy to run it down and report that there was not a security threat."

The spreading reach of the e-mail has dismayed some advocates for local Muslims. Khalilah Sabra, director of the Raleigh chapter of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, said she found the reported reaction of the couple in the e-mail odd at first and then insulting.

The balance of fear

"As much as that movie attendee might have been afraid, the woman dressed in all black was probably more afraid of what people would think of her and how she would be perceived," Sabra said.

Regal Entertainment Group, the theater chain that owns the North Hills cinema, said it was aware of the e-mail. Dick Westerling, a Regal spokesman, said the chain looked into the concern and determined that "we have no credible evidence to suggest that any risk exists that should concern our patrons and staff." Ticket sales have not suffered in the wake of the e-mail messages, he added.

But the e-mail continues to circulate.

Raleigh resident Judy Allen first heard about the e-mail Sunday night from a friend at a Super Bowl party. After her friend forwarded her the message, Allen said she forwarded it again to another dozen people, including a friend whom she knew was planning to take her daughter to see the Hannah Montana concert movie at North Hills.

"It rang true," said Allen, who passed the message along primarily to members of her Country Club Hills neighborhood's community watch program. "We just wanted to do our part to protect the community. It's important to keep your eyes open."

Chuck Poe, a retired computer programmer, said his wife forwarded him the e-mail Tuesday. Poe went online to check out whether it had been vetted yet by Snopes.com. Informed that Raleigh police had ruled out the incident described in the e-mail, Poe said he sympathizes with Muslims and the extra scrutiny they feel.

"When people talk about terrorism or Islamic people, people get a little jumpy. I know I do," Poe said. "I hate it that people get so jumpy, yet you want to be vigilant."