Hey everyone,
It’s been several months since I first raised the idea that the Guy Rosbrook tape might not be fully intact. At the time, it started as a simple question — sparked by a small but strange discrepancy — but since then, I’ve had time to step back, revisit the sources, and think more clearly about why this still doesn’t sit right with me.
So I wanted to lay everything out in one place, not to claim certainty, but to explain why I still believe the possibility of cuts hasn’t been convincingly ruled out.
To be clear from the start: I’m not presenting this as proven fact, and I’m not claiming there’s some dramatic hidden segment that changes the entire narrative. This is about unresolved inconsistencies and assumptions that, in my view, remain open questions.
First, the runtime discrepancy.
The version of the Rosbrook footage that’s commonly circulated today runs about 25 minutes. However, during a WNBC segment tied to NIST coverage, the anchor explicitly referred to the tape as being around 28 minutes long. That detail is what originally made me question this in the first place. Three minutes may not sound like much, but when dealing with raw documentation like this, it’s significant enough to warrant scrutiny.
Second, early third-party references.
What keeps this from being just a modern internet theory is that references to the tape being 28 minutes long appear very early on — as far back as 2003 — in forum discussions that predate today’s debates entirely. These weren’t people trying to “solve” anything years later; they were simply describing what they believed existed at the time. Whether those claims trace back to NBC’s reporting or first-hand viewing is still unclear, but the consistency is worth noting.
Third, the assumption that “nothing would’ve been cut.”
A common argument is that there would be no reason to cut anything from the tape, especially since graphic content already exists in known versions. I don’t fully agree with that logic. Broadcast standards, rebroadcast edits, legal concerns, or decisions made by intermediaries who handled the footage later could all result in small trims without any malicious intent. Cuts don’t automatically imply censorship — sometimes they’re just practical.
Fourth, missing segments don’t have to be dramatic.
Even if the missing minutes consisted only of private conversation, dead air, test patterns, or moments before or after the most documented scenes, they would still technically be part of the original recording. The fact that some circulated versions include elements like the “NY SLANT” test pattern already suggests that multiple edits or sources exist.
Lastly, the broader 9/11 media context.
We know that a significant amount of early 9/11 media was lost, edited differently, or disappeared entirely over time. That doesn’t prove the Rosbrook tape was altered — but it does mean skepticism is reasonable. Treating any surviving version as unquestionably complete simply because it’s widely accepted feels premature.
So where I land on this hasn’t really changed since I first brought it up months ago. I’m not saying the Rosbrook tape is definitely cut, and I’m not pushing any single explanation as fact. What I am saying is that there are enough lingering inconsistencies — in the reported runtime, early references, and assumptions about preservation — that the question hasn’t been fully settled.
Until those discrepancies are clearly reconciled with primary sources or an original, verifiable master copy, I think this topic still warrants further investigation. At the very least, it deserves to remain an open discussion rather than something dismissed outright.
If nothing else, continuing to examine these details critically is how we avoid taking incomplete information for granted — especially when it comes to historical media like this.
Curious to hear thoughts from others, especially from anyone who remembers early broadcasts or has insight into how NBC handled and stored this footage at the time.