The flag will be unveiled at the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, where it will remain. Experts (who will appear on a History Channel special about the rediscovery of the flag this Sunday) are dubious that Brian’s story is the whole truth.
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The original flag, which was taken from a yacht moored nearby in lower Manhattan, appears to have gone missing within five hours of the photograph, said Mark St. Clair, the Everett Police Department’s deputy chief of operations.
“And that we would always remember and honour all of those who lost their lives and risked their own to save others”.
“Fifteen years later, I can’t believe this is happening”, said Shirley Dreifus, who co-owned the yacht with her husband, and who donated the flag to the museum.
A man who only identified himself as a retired Marine named “Brian” turned it over to a local fire station in November 2014.
Another figure central to the effort to verify the flag’s authenticity was Bill Schneck, a forensic materials scientist with Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory who had previously worked for the McCrone Group, a testing firm in Westmont, Illinois, that specializes in particle identification.
The iconic flag is now back in New York City, 15 years after it went missing.
But it turned out it wasn’t the right one; the touring flag was larger than the Ground Zero flag, which apparently vanished just hours after Franklin photographed it. Then he left. Multiple attempts to find the man since then – including a police sketch and scouring surveillance footage – have failed.
The man, who gave firefighters only the name “Brian”, said he’d gotten it as a gift from an unnamed National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration worker who’d gotten it from an unidentified 9/11 widow.
“It’s truly unbelievable”, Dreifus said.
Star of America crew members informed Dreifus and her husband, Spiros Kopelakis, nearly immediately that first responders had taken the flag, Dreifus said.
“I was working at the Police Department, I was in training at the time”, Templeman said. “In fact, “stunning” is the way I put it”. “He called it the icon of the century”, she said.
Officials from the 9/11 Memorial Museum-where the artifact will be housed-praised the flag’s return regardless.
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The image, captured by a former photographer from The Bergen Record, became a symbol of hope and resiliency in the face of unimaginable tragedy. “We needed both at the time”.
