When I saw Cloverfield for the first time, I knew what it was really about: 9-11. Something deadly and totally incomprehensible happened and there was nothing the characters could do but fight for their lives.

The illusion of safety collapsed and upended reality. Exactly the way I felt when I saw tower two fall. I woke up in the back of the newspaper office where I was staying till I could find a place to rent. I heard them talking about the World Trade Center on my clock radio and couldn’t understand what was happening.

I went into the little room where they sold satellite TV subscriptions. And saw the tower, smoke billowing out. I thought, what kind of angle is this? Where is other tower? Then it collapsed. Then a plane struck the Pentagon and another one crashed when the passengers overpowered the hijackers.

It was like in that movie. Things just kept coming at us that just didn’t seem possible. I was like everyone else, in shock, angry, confused, not knowing what to expect.

Notice in Cloverfield how you can’t really get a bead on what kind of creature is attacking. It’s like a mish mash of monsters from different movies – Godzilla, Alien, War of the Worlds.

That’s how 9-11 affected America’s psyche. We had this threat that we never expected, that wasn’t supposed to be possible. Reality got turned on its head and the country behaved like a wounded animal.

For a long time after that, most of my news coverage involved various events by country folk showing their patriotism. So many American flags. Any other time I would have thought it was over the top, but I understood.

We wanted to feel like we had some kind of power. It was something you could do: Be super patriotic, and ready to support whatever might prevent something like 9-11 from happening again.

I remember how it felt. I never displayed any yellow ribbons, but I supported the wars we got into. Until I didn’t. Looking back it seems like pure insanity. Which in a way it was. 9-11 shook us up. Threatened our concept of reality.

I don’t know if we ever really got over it. We found out we are vulnerable and we still don’t know the nature of the monster.