This morning I spotted a case where Google Movie Search began showing this cryptic message about the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center and United States. A search for [movie: nine nyc] returned the words “Showtimes for September 11 attacks” in the blue bar under the search box. Here is a picture:

Google informed me this is some type of bug that they are working on fixing. I am not sure if this is some type of weird joke by someone, like we saw with the Google Trends Twin Towers hoax a couple years back or if this is something else. The reason I am not sure is because a search for [movie: nine ny] returns a reference to the US Airways Flight 1549, which had an emergency landing in New York’s Hudson River this year.

Google sent me the following statement:

We are aware of the issue and we are working hard to identify the cause and resolve it.

Related Topics: Google: Web Search | Top News

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz