A never-before-seen video of the Twin Towers collapsing from 9/11 has been posted online 22 years after the attack.
The clip was posted to YouTube on July 23 by a man named Kei Sugimoto and has prompted conspiracy theorists to bizarrely claim that it proves the collapse was a “controlled demolition.”
Mr Sugimoto says he has now posted the video “for historical purposes only” after finding the footage while cleaning out a wardrobe.
In the harrowing footage, Mr. Sugimoto filmed the World Trade Center from the roof of 64 Marks Place in New York City.
In the video, smoke can be seen rising from the towers where the planes crashed into the buildings, while police cars can be heard from the street as the chaos of the tragic events of that day continues to unfold.
Less than a minute later, the South Tower collapses and people in the city can be heard screaming in shock.
Sugimoto then captures the immediate aftermath of the first tower’s collapse, as a massive, all-consuming cloud of dust envelops the city.
Towards the end of the footage, taken with a Sony VX2000 camera, the North Tower collapses, leaving behind another cloud of dust.
Mr. Sugimoto explained in the YouTube comments section why he posted the footage now, saying: ‘I was cleaning out my closet and found boxes full of Hi-8, Digital-8, and DV tapes.
‘When I tried to play them back, I noticed that about a third of them had degaussed over time and were either dead or suffering from serious data corruption.
‘After doing some research online, I discovered that videotapes are not immune to aging, even when stored in ideal conditions. So I rushed to digitize them. So now I’m just uploading the video.’
He says he witnessed the second accident, but only started filming afterwards because he thought it was “not an ordinary accident.”
The clip has since gone viral on social media and has been viewed more than 650,000 times on YouTube.
Many users say the video offers a unique and never-before-seen perspective on the devastating terrorist attack.
On X, a user said: ‘These images offer a unique perspective that you don’t see from the south or east.
‘You’re seeing these angles for the first time.’
Kei Sugimoto decided to post the video of the collapsing Twin Towers ‘for historical purposes only’ after he found the footage while cleaning out a wardrobe
He filmed the World Trade Center from the roof of 64 Marks Place in New York City
The footage has also bolstered conspiracy theorists who claim the footage proves the debunked theory that 9/11 was an inside job.
A user on X claims the footage proves the collapse was a “controlled demolition.”
They claim that the angle in Mr. Sugimoto’s video shows explosive charges detonating.
This theory is rejected, as structural engineers point out that the rapid collapse of the towers was due to a combination of reasons.
Examples of this are the damage to the core of the buildings, which has made them structurally weak, and the intense heat of the fires that raged in the building, which could reach temperatures of up to 815 degrees Celsius.
On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists launched a massive terrorist attack on the United States, involving four planes. Two planes flew into the Twin Towers, a third plane crashed into the Pentagon, and a fourth crashed into a field in Pennsylvania, killing 2,977 people.
The attack remains the deadliest terrorist attack in history.