On the 22nd anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the conspiracy theory that BBC reported the WTC 7 collapse 20 minutes before it happened on that ill-fated day has surfaced.

“I believe it was all about WTC 7 and what was in there……. The BBC reported the collapse of WTC 7 approximately 20 minutes before its actual collapse on 9/11. They even had their reporter deliver this news as Building 7 stood tall in the background. Don’t forget about the missing $2.3 Trillion! Missing just before 9/11,” X user @17ThankQ captioned a video on social media which appeared to show that the BBC broke the news of the World Trade Center Building 7 collapse before it actually took place.

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Based on BBC’s reporting, many have claimed that the 9/11 attacks were “scripted, actor-based reality” and not an unpredicted disaster.

The post first surfaced on Facebook where the collapse of World Trade Center 7 was referred to as a “demolition”. Building 7 was a commercial office building, situated to the north of the main World Trade Center complex. Although the 47-story building was not directly hit by hijacked aircraft, it collapsed on the afternoon of September 11, just hours after the North and South Towers collapsed after falling debris led to fires in the building. 

The building collapsed at 5.20 pm on September 11, 2001. But a BBC journalist reported that it had fallen at 4.54 pm. Richard Porter, BBC’s senior editor in global service at the time of the attack, published a blog in 2007, explaining how the mistake could have been made during live reporting. He highlighted the fact that CNN had reported that the building was on fire and in danger of collapse as early as 4.15 p.m.

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He also wrote: “We’re not part of a conspiracy. Nobody told us what to say or do on September 11th. We didn’t get told in advance that buildings were going to fall down. We didn’t receive press releases or scripts in advance of events happening.

“In the chaos and confusion of the day, I’m quite sure we said things which turned out to be untrue or inaccurate – but at the time were based on the best information we had. We did what we always did – sourced our reports, used qualifying words like ‘apparently’ or ‘it’s reported’ or ‘we’re hearing’ and constantly tried to check and double-check the information we were receiving.” 

“If we reported the building had collapsed before it had done so, it would have been an error – no more than that.”