Man Unknowingly Live Tweets About Raid on Osama Bin Laden's Compound
May 2, 2011— -- When 33-year-old Sohaib Athar began sending out live Twitter messages detailing a mysterious blast, shaking windows, and a helicopter hovering above Abbottabad, Pakistan, he had no idea he was apparently documenting the U.S. military attack that took down al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Beginning at 3:58 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday, which was past midnight in Pakistan, Athar wrote, "Helicopter hovering above Abbottabad at 1AM (is a rare event)."
He went on to write about "a huge window shaking bang" and says "it was too noisy to be a spy craft, or a very poor spy craft it was."
At 4:48 p.m., Athar wrote: "The few people online at this time of the night are saying one of the copters was not Pakistani." Then at 5:02 p.m.: "Since Taliban probably don't have helicopters , and since they're saying it was not 'ours,' so must be a complicated situation."
At 5:10 pm: "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."
There were two helicopters, he said, one of which was "down."
The White House has since confirmed it sent two helicopters full of Navy Seals from Afghanistan into Abbottabad to raid the high-walled Bin Laden compound.
During the ensuing raid, one helicopter was damaged and then destroyed by the SEALs before they boarded the remaining helicopter with bin Laden's dead body and flew back to Afghanistan.
Athar, who describes himself online as "an IT consultant" who is originally from the major city of Lahore, Pakistan, but is "taking a break from the rat-race by hiding in the mountains with his laptops" has since been added by thousands of Twitter followers in the hours after bin Laden's death was announced.
He has also tweeted that he is being bombarded by media outlets seeking comment.
ABC News has not been able to independently confirm his identity.
