  The firewall was introduced into black hole evaporation scenarios as a deus
ex machina designed to break entanglements and preserve unitarity (Almheiri
et.al., 2013). Here we show that the firewall actually exists and does break
entanglements, but only in the context of a virtual reality for observers
stationed near the horizon, who are following the long-term evolution of the
hole. These observers are heated by acceleration radiation at the Unruh
temperature and see pair creation at the horizon as a high-energy phenomenon.
The objective reality is very different. We argue that Hawking pair creation is
entirely a low-energy process in which entanglements never arise. The Hawking
particles materialize as low-energy excitations with typical wavelength
considerably larger than the black hole radius. They thus emerge into a very
non-uniform environment inimical to entanglement-formation.
