Via Herald Net:
The two Everett police detectives didn’t know the flag was missing until a stranger rang the doorbell at Fire Station 1 on Rucker Avenue. The man handed over a plastic bag to firefighters, along with a tale that led the detectives on the investigation of a lifetime.
Nearly two years later — on Aug. 4 — a curator from the National September 11 Memorial Museum made a quiet visit to the Everett police station. She collected the American flag and its rigging rope and hardware.
Detectives Jim Massingale and Mike Atwood breathed a little easier.
They had kept their promises and secrets. The flag was safe. It was headed home.
The museum expects to unveil the flag Thursday at a ceremony in New York City, near where three firefighters raised it over the rubble hours after terrorists brought down the World Trade Center. A photojournalist captured the moment, and his photograph became a powerful symbol of resiliency and patriotism after thousands lost their lives in the deadliest terror attack on American soil.
Everett police are cautious about claiming they’ve recovered the iconic flag. Their investigation leads them and others to believe it’s likely the same one raised at ground zero, they said.
“We didn’t have an agenda. We were never pressured to say it’s the flag. People will draw their own conclusions based on the investigation,” Massingale said Friday.
Lost to history
On Sept. 11, 2001, three New York City firefighters took a 3-foot by 5-foot U.S. flag from the Star of America yacht moored in the Hudson River. They raised the flag over ground zero, using electrical tape to bind together two lengths of rope.
Thomas Franklin of The Record newspaper in New Jersey was nearby with his camera. The photograph was printed around the world.
Within five hours of its raising, the Star of America flag and the halyard — the rope and the brass and silver hardware — were gone. Everett police documented that timeline from a video recorded at the site the evening of the attacks.
Another flag surfaced that for some time was believed to be the one from the yacht. That banner was taken on a tour of the Middle East on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. When it returned, the yacht’s owner and crew members realized it wasn’t their flag. That was the beginning of the mystery.