Famous Flag Returns to Ground Zero After it Went Missing for a Decade

FINANCIAL DISTRICT, NY — Maybe the most famous photo from Sept. 11 captured firefighters raising a flag over the rubble of Ground Zero. The flag, missing for 12 years, has finally been found.

The New York Times reports the flag will be put on display at the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum starting on Thursday. The flag is the same one raised on Sept. 11 by firefighters Billy Eisengrein, George Johnson and Dan McWilliams, captured in a famous photo by Bergen Record photographer Thomas Franklin. The photo, titled "Raising the Flag at Ground Zero," appeared on newspaper covers around the world and was even featured on a U.S. Postal Service stamp in March 2002.

The flag was displayed at Ground Zero, flown at Yankee Stadium and signed by Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Michael Bloomberg in the months after the attack — only to later find out it wasn't the correct flag. According to the Times, the original owner of the flag was ready to formally donate the flag in 2002 when she noticed it was the wrong size.

History Channel's "Brad Meltzer's Lost History" featured the lost flag in 2014, and days later a man dropped it off at a fire house — in Everett, Washington of all places — and testing finally confirmed it was the flag that flew over Ground Zero.

To read the full story of the lost flag, check out The New York Times article. Also, the History Channel will air an episode on the recovery of the flag, called "America's 9/11 Flag: Rise from the Ashes," on Sunday at 10:30 p.m. as part of the network's 15th anniversary tribute to Sept. 11.

Photo Credit: Patch