The only two children thought killed in the World Trade Center attack never existed - and a man who was reported to be their father is alive and well.
It's a tangled yarn - and it's even more puzzling to Paul and Gail Van Velzer, who can't figure out why a woman they don't know reported Paul and two supposed sons were dead.
"I don't know what is going on here," Gail Van Velzer told The Post yesterday from her home in Alta Loma, Ca.
Paul Van Velzer was unavailable yesterday. But Gail Van Velzer said he's fine.
Van Velzer said her husband and two boys who were supposedly his young sons were reported missing by Elaine Miyamori, a real estate agent from Lake Forest, Calif.
"It's almost like she stole our identitites," Van Velzer said.
About a year ago, she said, New York police called her to ask about her husband and her young sons, who until yesterday were on the list of those killed in the WTC attack.
The police had her down as Paul Van Velzer's wife - but they had wrong names and ages for her sons, who anyway are grown - they're ages 21, 20 and 18.
Then, Van Velzer said, she heard from a British newspaper reporter, who was checking a report that she was so distraught, she'd fled to England.
That wasn't true either.
People in Venice Beach, Calif. set up a memorial for Californians dead in the WTC attack - and the names of Paul Van Velzer and his purported children were part of it.
"We thought, 'Let's go take our picture next to the tree,' " Gail Van Velzer said. "But we never found the park."
Paul Van Velzer and the two non-existent sons, Barrett, 11 months, and Edward, 4, were among 40 names stricken from the official list of WTC dead yesterday. The list now stands at 2,752.
Miyamori - who said Van Velzer and the non-existent sons were in one of the doomed towers - could not be reached.
"We were both born and raised here," Gail Van Velzer said. "We never lived in New York."
She added: "We just kind of laugh about it."
