Does this go to prove that no one really was watching "The X-Files" spinoff series, "The Lone Gunmen?"

TV Guide is reporting that the short-lived series had a very strange parallel to real life events -- something that was virtually forgotten until this week.

On March 4, 2001 -- some six months before the Sept. 11 attacks -- the series premiered with an episode featuring a terrorist plot to fly a commercial airliner ... into the World Trade Center in New York City. The plane, being piloted by remote control rather than suicide bombers, is shown heading toward one of the towers toward the end of the episode, but pulls up at the last minute, just missing the building.

This story was totally forgotten until The Myers Report broke it last week.

"I thought, 'Nobody noticed!" said series executive producer Frank Spotnitz. "But it's strange, too, because that was the pilot and the ratings were actually quite good for (that episode), and yet, we didn't hear anything."

Ed Martin, a columnist for the Web site, said he learned about the parallel from a friend familiar with the series.

"This seems to be collective amnesia of the highest order," he said in his column. "The final act of the Gunmen pilot, which seemingly made no impact last year, no contains some of the most deeply disturbing images ever created for an entertainment program."

Spotnitz recalls what he thought of the moments he learned of Sept. 11.

"I woke up on Sept. 11 and saw it on TV, and the first thing I thought of was 'The Lone Gunmen," he told TV Guide. "But then in the weeks and monthd that followed, almost no one noticed the connection. What's disturbing about it to me is, you think as a fiction writer that if you can imagine this scenario, then the people in power in the government who are there to imagine disaster scenarios can imagine it, too."

"The Lone Gunmen" was cancelled by Fox after just a handful of episodes, and was part of a string of duds created by Chris Carter, including "Millennium" and the poorly-promoted "Harsh Realm."