Recently, the infamous Naudet footage has been released on YouTube and Internet Archives at a high quality. And thanks to Reddit (never thought I’d say that in a positive light) sleuths, one fascinating victim of the terrorist attacks has been identified in the footage, performing an unbelievable task — who had long been rumoured to have been captured on camera during the event, but up until now had seldom been identified in the footage, if at all. But before we get to the footage itself, let’s look at the backstory of this man…

Who was John P. O’Neill?

John P. O’Neill was a former counter-terrorist expert who, before working in the World Trade Centre (WTC) worked as a special agent for the FBI.

After the heavily-overshadowed 1993 WTC bombing terrorists attack, O’Neill was one of the agents who helped to apprehend and capture the terrorist responsible, a man called Ramzi Yousef, nephew of Khalid Mohammed (a chief architect of the attack that later became known as 9/11, would you believe it).

After his role in this apprehension, O’Neill became fascinated and continued to study terrorists play, methods etc. It was in this research that he first became aware of Osama Bin Laden (or Usama as he was known to some FBI operatives, not sure why). Despite warning for many years of growing threats of terrorism, both domestic and foreign, his warnings went largely ignored (or at least overlooked).

On August 23, 2001, O’Neill, having risen through the ranks of the FBI before retiring, became head of security of the World Trade Centre. For years, O’Neill had anticipated a second terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre. A grim foreshadowing of events to come…

O’Neill on 9/11

On the morning of September 11 2001 at 8:46 A.M, O’Neill was in his office on the 34th floor of the south tower when the first plane struck. Immediately realising that his worst nightmare (and prediction) was coming true, O’Neill immediately evacuated his staff and made his way down and out to the Plaza outside. He immediately called his wife and his son to assure them that he was OK. Then, as he made his way across the plaza to the burning North Tower, the South Tower was struck, and now having his suspicions confirmed as a terrorist attack, and despite being retired from the job, O’Neill sprang into ‘FBI mode’, calmly making his way to the North Tower lobby.

The North Tower Lobby/Naudet Footage

By now, the North Tower lobby was being used as the main ‘hub’ by the army of firemen. It’s believed that O’Neill’s first actions may have been to relay critical information to the firemen such as the layout of the complex, mechanical issues, and tower security operations.

At the same time, filmmaker Jules Naudet captured O’Neill on camera. Recently, the full, unedited Naudet footage has been released on YouTube and, thanks to internet sleuths, O’Neill has been identified as the man on the phone starting at the 1:13:10 mark, as seen in the above link. Here is a short clip of the recording:

(On a side note: I love how the cameraman is doing his best to document the day as best he can whilst trying his hardest to keep out the way of people doing critical jobs.)

It’s widely believed that during this phone call, O’Neill is relaying critical information to the FBI about the attack.

Tragically…

O’Neill was last seen heading towards the south tower again, likely to help in the evacuation, only for the tower to collapse shortly after. His body was later recovered from the wreckage.

John P O’Neill was a leading expert on Bin Laden and terrorism, and in fact anticipated another attack on the trade centre. It’s tragic in the sense that the man who was at one point considered one of Bin Laden’s leading counter-terrorist operative was unable to escape that which he predicted.

Thanks for reading (if you did)!