The Amazing Story of @ReallyVirtual 's unknowing liveblog of the Osama hit

Sunday, May 1, 2011

The Amazing Story of @ReallyVirtual ‘s unknowing liveblog of the Osama hit

A collection of tweets by @ReallyVirtual as he overheard and then figured out he had live tweeted the attack on Osama Bin Laden.

ReallyVirtual Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event). 7:58 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual Go away helicopter - before I take out my giant swatter :-/ 8:05 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual A huge window shaking bang here in Abbottabad Cantt. I hope its not the start of something nasty :-S 8:09 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @m0hcin all silent after the blast, but a friend heard it 6 km away too… the helicopter is gone too. 8:44 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual The abbottabad helicopter/UFO was shot down near the Bilal Town area, and there’s report of a flash. People saying it could be a drone. 9:10 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @smedica people are saying it was not a technical fault and it was shot down. I heard it CIRCLE 3-4 times above, sounded purposeful. 9:15 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @tahirakram very likely - but it was too noisy to be a spy craft, or, a very poor spy craft it was. 9:16 PM May 1st, 2011

smedica @ReallyVirtual 3-4 times is a little less. I’ve been hearing helicopter flying since 12.35 am may be 10-12 times! 9:19 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @smedica It must have been more, I started noticing the helicpoter when the noise got irritating - which part of Abbottabd are you in? 9:20 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @smedica I live near Jalal Baba Auditorium 9:23 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual Here’s the location of the Abbottabad crash according to some people »> http://on.fb.me/khjf34 9:34 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual Two helicpoters, one down, could actually be the training accident scenario they’re saying it was » http://bit.ly/ioGE6O 9:43 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual RT @terminalxpk: A Major of the #Pakistan #Army’s 19 FF, Platoon CO says incident at #Abbottabad where #helicopter crashed is accidental … 9:59 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual And now, a plane flying over Abbottabad… 10:39 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual @raihak The day there is uninterrupted electricity in Lahore for a whole month, I will start packing my bags, until then, Abbottabad is home 11:14 PM May 1st, 2011

ReallyVirtual Interesting rumors in the otherwise uneventful Abbottabad air today 3:00 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual RT @naqvi: I think the helicopter crash in Abbottabad, Pakistan and the President Obama breaking news address are connected. 3:01 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual Report from a taxi driver: The army has cordoned off the crash area and is conducting door-to-door search in the surrounding 3:02 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual @kursed Well, there were at least two copters last night, I heard one but a friend heard two, for 15-20 minutes. 3:24 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual RT @ISuckBigTime: Osama Bin Laden killed in Abbottabad, Pakistan.: ISI has confirmed it « Uh oh, there goes the neighborhood :-/ 3:31 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual RT @BradleyK8Olsen: Abbottabad just became a sexy new spring break destination. 3:50 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual I need to sleep, but Osama had to pick this day to die :-/ 4:03 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual Uh oh, now I’m the guy who liveblogged the Osama raid without knowing it. 4:41 AM May 2nd, 2011

ReallyVirtual and here come the mails from the mainstream media… *sigh* 4:42 AM May 2nd, 2011

Update: This post has gotten hammered ever since it went up last night. I’ve also realized that a recent(ish) change in the twitter API broke the links back to the orginal tweets. Attribution is half the point of Blogatweet, so we are working on getting that fixed. In the meantime, you can find the bulk of @reallyvirtual’s more historic tweets in my twitter favorite’s stream.

Sohaib, if you happen to get to this page, shoot me an email or DM me on twitter, so I can hook you up with all of your tweets.