CONSPIRACY IN THE SKIES? : MISSILE THEORY LOOMS IN CRASH OF TWA FLIGHT 800.Byline: Fred Kaplan Fred Kaplan is a journalist and contributor to Slate magazine. His "War Stories" column covers international relations and US foreign policy, with a particular focus on criticism of the Bush Administration, and major related geopolitical issues. The Boston Globe Pierre Salinger is not alone in believing that a missile shot down TWA TWA Time-weighted average, see there Flight 800 the night of July 17. It's also the prevailing view in the seaside villages of Long Island, where dozens of people looked up and saw the jetliner explode in the sky. Several of them saw something else, too - a streak of light zipping up toward the plane before it ignited. These witnesses included lawyers, pilots, fishermen - respectable members of the community. So many of their neighbors can't help but suspect that the government is covering up something. Salinger has blamed a U.S. Navy missile. Linda Kabot, assistant to the supervisor of Southampton Town Hall, said Friday: ``Many people are outraged that the investigators are still talking about things like a mechanical failure or a bomb at all. They don't believe in `friendly fire' but they don't understand why officials aren't talking more about the theory that some kind of missile was involved. Why isn't the FBI saying this photo looks like a missile, but here's what it really is? Instead, they just say we can't comment on that.'' It's a banner time for conspiracy theorists. Movies and television dramas are soaked with plots and cover-ups. The Internet spreads wild ideas with unprecedented speed and indiscriminate authority. Humorist hu·mor·ist n. 1. A person with a good sense of humor. 2. A performer or writer of humorous material. humorist Noun a person who speaks or writes in a humorous way Merrill Markoe calls it ``the X-Filing of America'' - the sense that nothing is as it seems, that dark undercurrents Undercurrents is:
adj. Having total knowledge; knowing everything: an omniscient deity; the omniscient narrator. n. 1. One having total knowledge. 2. Omniscient God. and malevolent. Eight months have passed since the crash, which killed all 230 people on board. Yet federal investigators say the ultimate cause of the explosion remains a mystery. ``It's very unsettling un·set·tle v. un·set·tled, un·set·tling, un·set·tles v.tr. 1. To displace from a settled condition; disrupt. 2. To make uneasy; disturb. v.intr. not to have closure,'' Kabot said. ``So people talk. And what they talk most about are missiles.'' James Kallstrom, assistant director of the FBI's New York New York, state, United States New York, Middle Atlantic state of the United States. It is bordered by Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Atlantic Ocean (E), New Jersey and Pennsylvania (S), Lakes Erie and Ontario and the Canadian province of office, understands the obsession. ``There's a lot of witnesses, people who saw the same thing,'' he said in a phone interview. ``That compels us to take the thing seriously. But historically, eyewitnesses are bad. They saw things in the sky. There's all sorts of things in the sky.'' More compelling for Kallstrom is that, inside an aircraft hangar in Calverston, Long Island, engineers with the National Transportation Safety Board have pieced together 90 percent of the plane from fragments excavated from the ocean floor - and more still of the plane's center fuel tank, which, they are now convinced, is where the explosion took place. Yet they have not found a single clue that points to a bomb or a missile as the catalyst for the explosion. What annoys, even angers Kallstrom, is the ballyhoo bal·ly·hoo n. pl. bal·ly·hoos 1. Sensational or clamorous advertising or publicity. 2. Noisy shouting or uproar. tr.v. over Salinger, the former ABC ABC in full American Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. television network. It began when the expanding national radio network NBC split into the separate Red and Blue networks in 1928. reporter and press secretary to President John F. Kennedy "John Kennedy" and "JFK" redirect here. For other uses, see John Kennedy (disambiguation) and JFK (disambiguation). John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917–November 22, 1963), was the thirty-fifth President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in , who says he has ``proved'' that the plane was downed by a Navy missile that veered off-course during a secret test. Salinger first made the charge in November, citing a document that he said came from an intelligence agent but which turned out to have been circulating for months on the Internet. Last week, Salinger published in Paris Match magazine a 55-page manuscript, restating the claim in greater detail. ``Pierre Salinger's paper is nonsense,'' Kallstrom scoffed. ``It's nothing but inaccuracies, distortions, inventions. The whole thing's a joke.'' Several independent military specialists agree. John Pike of the Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS)[1] is a non-profit organization formed in 1945 by scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear in Washington, said Friday, ``The Navy doesn't do these tests off Long Island. They have no range instrumentation there, so it would be a waste of money because they couldn't measure the results.'' Salinger contends the testing was done clandestinely, claiming the missile carried a certain kind of warhead outlawed by U.S.-Russian arms accords. Pike agreed the missile comes close to violating treaty. However, he said, the Navy has openly tested the missile a half-dozen times and has no need to keep tests a secret. ``The military is certainly capable of covering up a lot of things,'' Pike said. ``This isn't one of them.'' |
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