Every year, new explorations of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center are released, but none have ever had quite the impact as this shocking true story.
For those outside the US, the effects of the September 11 attacks can be partially understood through their influence on popular media.
From horror movies to intense TV dramas and even action-packed superhero films, the imagery and paranoia that resulted from the attacks were hard to ignore.
No format, however, addressed 9/11 as directly as documentaries. From focused examinations of individual experiences to comprehensive minute-by-minute breakdowns, this tragic event has been analyzed from numerous perspectives.
Among these documentaries, one stands out as particularly incredible. The Woman Who Wasn’t There, released in 2012, delves into one of the most astonishing stories to emerge from the attacks, highlighting one of the most despicable lies ever told.
The Woman Who Wasn’t There explores a terrible lie
The Woman Who Wasn’t There investigates the case of Alicia Esteve Head, who adopted the name Tania Head, a woman who falsely claimed to be a survivor of the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks.
Ultimately, it was revealed that this tragic narrative of survival was entirely fabricated. Head was not even in the country during the attacks.
The story was adapted into a book and a documentary in 2012, both named The Woman Who Wasn’t There. The film featured interviews from members of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network, who were familiar with Head before and after the truth came to light.
Tania Head infiltrated a group of survivors
Tania, whose real name is Alicia Esteve Head, was born in Barcelona in 1973. She graduated from the University of Barcelona and worked as a management secretary between 1998 and 2000.
During the World Trade Center attacks in 2001, she was enrolled in a master’s degree program at ESADE, an international business school in Barcelona.
Remarkably, Head wouldn’t visit the United States until 2003, two years after the attacks occurred. In 2004, she became a member of the World Trade Center Survivors’ Network.
One of the network’s founders, Gerry Bogacz, discovered “through word of mouth” that Tania Head had created an online support group for 9/11 survivors. After a few months of correspondence, their groups merged.
The World Trade Center Survivors’ Network aimed to provide support for survivors and the families of those who lost their lives in the attacks, as well as those affected, including first responders.
It’s asserted that Head never profited from her involvement in the network and actually made donations to the cause.
Tania’s story was a disturbing piece of make-believe
Tania fabricated her own version of events from September 11. She claimed to have been inside the South Tower at the moment United Airlines Flight 175 hit at the 78th floor.
According to her story, she crawled through smoke and flames, sustaining severe burns on her arm. She claimed to have a fiancé named Dave, who was killed in the North Tower. (In a later version, she referred to Dave as her husband.)
In a haunting detail, she even said that a man had passed her his wedding ring for her to return it to his widow.
For her “rescue,” she stated that Welles Crowther, a real hero from the South Tower during the attacks, saved her by extinguishing a fire on her clothes. Crowther died while attempting to rescue others, and at least eighteen people credited him with saving their lives.
Alison Crowther, Welles Crowther’s mother, later remarked about the alleged rescue: “[Tania] never shared those details, and it was nothing we wanted to probe. I felt it was too private and painful for her.”
If Tania’s account had been true, she would have been among only 19 survivors located at or above the impact point.
After joining the survivors’ network, Tania garnered media attention, spoke at university events, and even conducted tours for the Tribute WTC Visitor Center in 2005.
On these tours, she stated: “I was there at the towers. I’m a survivor. I’m going to tell you about that.”
At a memorial event in 2006, she told attendees: “What I witnessed there I will never forget. It was a lot of death and destruction, but I also saw hope.”
What happened to Tania Head?
Tania’s fabricated narrative began to unravel in September 2007, when The New York Times sought to verify her claims for an anniversary article.
Previously, Tania had asserted that she held degrees from Harvard University and Stanford University, but neither institution had any record of her. It was also revealed that Merrill Lynch, whom she claimed to be working for in the South Tower, had no employment records for her.
Moreover, at the time of the attacks, Merrill Lynch did not even have offices in the World Trade Center.
After Tania stopped participating in interviews and declined to speak with reporters, the Times reached out to the Survivors’ Network to inquire about her story. On September 27, 2007, Head was removed from her position as president and director of the group.
When questioned, the family of “Big Dave,” a real person from the North Tower, indicated they had never heard of Tania Head.
Subsequently, the Barcelona newspaper La Vanguardia confirmed that Head had been present at ESADE in Spain on September 11, where she had previously told classmates that her arm’s scarring resulted from a car accident (which she would also attribute to a horse accident in earlier years).
The publication reported that she had been at ESADE until 2002 and had expressed a desire to visit New York.
After her exposure and the unraveling of her story, Tania refrained from speaking to the media and left New York shortly thereafter.
In February 2008, a mysterious email from a Spanish address was sent to the World Trade Center Survivors Network, alleging that Head had died by suicide. However, this claim was also proven false, as Head was later spotted in New York with her mother on September 14, 2011.
After losing her job at an insurance company in Barcelona due to her fabricated 9/11 claims, she started a renovation business in 2021. She was photographed in Terrassa, a city in Barcelona, on September 8.
The Woman Who Wasn’t There is available to stream on Amazon Prime Video, Fubo, and Tubi.
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