Who was the unsung hero who liberated Morpheus from Morpheus is a semi-mythical figure of rebellion in the digital landscape of the Matrix. Neo has heard the name discussed in hushed tones online, but their face-to-face meeting proves wilder than he could've imagined. Morpheus exposes Neo to the truth of the world, offering either the red pill of reality or the blue pill of ignorance. Keanu Reeves swallows the red variety, allowing Morpheus' team on the Nebuchadnezzar to wrench Neo's physical body from the Machines' human battery system, unhook him from the Matrix simulation, and bring him safely aboard.
As Neo receives the mother of all info-dumps on the way to Zion, he learns that almost every person living in the underground settlement experienced the same rough ejection process. The likes of Morpheus lead teams to Earth's surface, risking their lives to liberate humans whose consciousness begins questioning the nature of the Matrix. Their ongoing mission is simply to free as many people as possible from enslavement, but usually only the young are targeted, as adult minds become too indoctrinated to release safely. In addition to Neo, Morpheus also freed Trinity and many other minds from the Matrix, but who was responsible for unplugging him?
Morpheus alludes towards his liberator in the original 1999 The Matrix movie. When describing the nature of The One to Neo, Morpheus says that a man was born in the ancient past who could reshape the Matrix to his will, and claims "it was this man that freed the first of us." In this line, Morpheus' use of "us" could be a generalized term referring to the people of Zion as a whole. But the phrasing might also suggest that Morpheus himself was one of these early humans freed by Neo's predecessor.
Morpheus' story clashes with later revelations that come courtesy of the Architect in The Matrix Reloaded. After Neo finally encounters the Matrix's creator and his immaculately trimmed beard, he's told that the myth of The One is a lie. Despite what Morpheus said, each reincarnation of The One oversees the destruction of Zion and leads a small group of 23 survivors to rebuild the subterranean city. It's easy to see how the Architect's might evolve into the tale being peddled by Morpheus, but the most crucial difference is that early settlers weren't freed from the Matrix - they were already unplugged. It's not clear whether the 23 retain their knowledge of Zion's secret, or whether recollections of the old Zion are wiped from their memories.
The Architect's explanation leaves two options for how Morpheus was unplugged. If he really was part of Zion's original population, the 23 survivors must've been brainwashed into believing they were freed from the Matrix by The One. But if Morpheus was using the royal "us" during his aforementioned speech to Neo in The Matrix, he must've been freed by a character the audience never see, some time after the simulation's latest reset. The latter possibility is perhaps more likely, as Morpheus' age suggests he wasn't among the original Zionites. Since Zion's perception of time is drastically skewed, however, both possibilities remain open.
The mystery of Morpheus' liberation can finally be explored further in Morpheus was unplugged during childhood, and a time travel element could allow the audience to witness this moment for the very first time.
