This is very strange. Yes, the cache has been deleted.

Tom Tomorrow has been all over this story and you can read about it here. It seems he's caught Snopes changing some things around on their site. And then the cache disappears. Hmmmm. . .

In the meantime The Agonist has sent this email to Google:

Dear Google,

Why did the cache of this page mysteriously disappear?

I am currently researching this whole episode of the bin Ladens dissappearance in the aftermath of 9/11. Snopes.com has changed their story and I would like to know where the previous cached version is. Did they request it be taken down? Can cached items be requested to be brought down?

Thank you,

Sean-Paul Kelley
Editor-In-Chief
The Agonist

And I have sent this email to Snopes.com:

Did you request google to remove this cached item?

If so, why? If not will you ask Google to put it back up?

Thank you,

Sean-Paul Kelley
Editor-In-Chief
The Agonist

This story about the bin Ladens is getting weirder and weirder.

Here is Google's policy on caching: "The "Cached" link will be missing for sites that have not been indexed, as well as for sites whose owners have requested we not cache their content."

( ed. Memo to self: next time don't forget to get a screenshot! )

UPDATE: Try this Google search and see what happens. You get a link to the Snopes page about the bin Laden flights. Look closely on the Google page and you see that they quote Snopes.com talking about Michael Moore. Notice also there is no cache for the page. (Yet, there was a cache of it yesterday.) Then click on the link and you'll see that there is no mention of Michael Moore on the page now. Clearly something is amiss here.

Here's how it looks on Google right now---file cached and saved in The Agonist/Annex.

UPDATE 2: Perhaps Google has changed the caching of Snopes.com. We manged to find a cache (after some serious hunting) and have posted it here. Note the rather large discrepencies between the September update and the March update.

( ed. The lesson here is that Google caching is still an inexact science to me. Perhaps we rushed to judge any nefarious conduct. That was not our intention. The original cache did disappear, however. )

UPDATE 3: Kynn at Shock and Awe has a round up on this.

UPDATE 4: Ed Heil comments. So does Metafilter and as always they have a conversation going on.

UPDATE 5: August Pollack has more. It is very interesting what he has to say as well: "according to a poster on Metafilter, via August, Snopes now has a metatag which prohibits Google caching." ( This is a direct quote from Tom Tomorrow.)