- The Missile Theory
- Military Denies Loss Of Drones
- Was The Explosion Due To A "Pulse?"
- A New Kind Of Star Wars?
- Are Witnesses Wrong?
- A Mystery Ship
-
- Three years after TWA Flight 800 exploded in the sky,
about 15 miles south of Moriches Inlet, there still remains serious doubt
about the official government explanation of the disaster which killed
230 people.
-
- The National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) claims
a spark from a chafed wire by the Boeing 747-131 aircraft's Center Wing
Tank (CWT) caused the explosion, while others believe one or two missiles
destroyed the plane.
-
- A third theory suggests the commercial airline might
have accidentally flown into the beam of a "coherent" electromagnetic
pulse (EMP) being tested jointly by the Navy, Air Force and Army.
-
- The EMP hypothesis has been promoted primarily by Chris
Fidis, of West Hempstead, Frank Owens, of Virginia, and Professor Elaine
Scarry, of Massachusetts. Fidis is a computer programmer and "trouble
shooter" who has spent the past three years investigating the FL800
issue; Owens is a private investigator and Scarry is a Cabot Professor
of Aesthetics and the General Theory of Value at Harvard University.
-
- Pentagon officials declined comment on the Fidis-Owens-Scarry
(FOS) theory, but documents obtained, from the U.S. Department of Defense's
server computer sites, by Fidis and by Owens, from a high ranking engineer
involved in EMP testing for the Navy, suggest at least some validity to
the theory.
-
- After much controversy, the NTSB admitted it was exploring
the possibility of the EMP (a condensed microwave radar beam) explanation,
but has not officially deviated from its claim that an electronic or mechanical
malfunction allegedly caused FL800's CWT to explode on July 17, 1996, killing
the 230 people on board. The malfunction conclusion has been disputed heavily
by military officers and aviation experts from around the country.
-
- The Missile Theory
-
- Commander William S. Donaldson, USN (Retired), and the
Associated Retired Aviation Professionals (ARAP) group, which was founded
by several individuals who do not believe the mechanical malfunction theory,
say that most of the evidence collected indicates the Boeing 747-131 was
destroyed by one or more heat-seeking Stinger missiles.
-
- Donaldson, who spent his career in the Navy as an aircraft
crash specialist, contends the most important issue in the FL800 puzzle
is that so many eyewitnesses have offered the same, or similar, descriptions
of having seen what appeared to be a missile heading toward FL800 just
before it exploded.
-
- (The FOS theory, however, suggests both explanations
may be at least partially correct. "The Center Wing Tank did indeed
explode," said Fidis. "That explosion was caused by a powerful
lot of heat and energy.")
-
- In his 124-page "Interim Report on the Crash of
TWA Flight 800 and the Action of the NTSB and the FBI," Donaldson
notes, "If one assumes that a 'reliable' witness can report an observation
correctly in only one out of five observations, then there is only a 20%
probability that an event reported by such a witness would have actually
taken place as described. With 40 such independent and similarly 'reliable'
witnesses, the probability rises to 99.99% that the event reported did
indeed take place.
-
- "More than 150 credible witnesses - including several
scientists and business executives - have told the FBI and military experts
they saw a missile [or drone] destroy TWA Flight 800," Donaldson said.
-
- Military Denies Loss Of Drones
-
- The military denies the use or loss of any of its missile
munitions and said it had recovered all of its drone targets used during
maneuvers on July 17, 1996.
-
- In a memoranda posted on a Pentagon site and obtained
by Fidis, General Howard M. Estes, commander in chief of the U.S. Space
Command at the Pentagon, states, "We went back just to make sure something
hadn't been missed somewhere and took a missile count of every single missile
we had - Army, Navy and Air Force - to make sure that something didn't
happen. We looked at the location of every aircraft to make sure we knew
where everything was - where ships were - and we validated to the best
of our ability. We are convinced that the military was not involved in
this in any way, shape or form."
-
- In a magazine article printed in Exotic Research Report
last spring, Fidis states the Navy was "extremely active" in
the area because of military testing. There were several AEGIS class Navy
cruisers, including the USS Normandy, several small recovery-type crafts
and two Lockheed-Martin P3C-Orion radar patrol air crafts involved in training
exercises.
-
- In her 1998 paper "The Fall of TWA 800: The Possibility
of Electromagnetic Interference," Scarry wrote, "The FAA log
books also confirmed that the military had that night reserved [the entire
area south of Long Island for weapons testing and maneuvers, and] We do
know military craft were in the air and sea at the moment TWA 800 had reached
13,700 feet and began to fall."
-
- Fidis, who has spent much of his time during the past
three years investigating the FL800 incident, is convinced the military
is being disingenuous. He noted no one is disputing the fact there was
an explosion. Obviously, he said, there was some "residue" of
Jet-A type fuel in the plane's CWT that exploded. The only disagreement
is how that explosion was caused.
-
- The NTSB, with assistance from the CIA (Central Intelligence
Agency, which has no charter to operate within U.S. boundaries) and the
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), have been promoting the
notion that the heat source that caused the explosion in the CWT of FL800
was "chafed wires" or "damaged electric protective conduits."
-
- According to Donaldson and other aviation experts, it
is impossible to ignite Jet-A-type fuel with an electric spark. The latest
data, he said, shows that Jet-A fuel, which is similar to kerosene, is
safe unless it is met with a high explosive impact or intense heat. Such
an impact could only be caused by a bomb or missile, Donaldson said.
-
- Was The Explosion Due To A "Pulse?"
-
- Having spent the past three years culling through government,
commercial and organization servers that have referenced FL800, Fidis believes
what caused the explosion in the CWT was an intense heat force created
by a dense or "coherent" electromagnetic pulse radiation system
that may possibly have come from something like a truck-sized "microwave
canon" mounted on one of the Navy's AEGIS cruisers, which was participating
in maneuvers involving a faction of the USS Aircraft Carrier Eisenhower's
North Atlantic battle group at the time of the explosion.
-
- A short time after Fidis and Scarry separately presented
their information to the NTSB explaining the FOS theory, Bernard Loeb,
director of aviation safety for the NTSB, announced his agency had indeed
been investigating the "possibility" the accident could have
been caused by an "external electromagnetic field."
-
- In the meantime, Fidis discovered the Navy had been testing
electromagnetic field technology in its Cooperative Engagement Capability
(CEC) radar (microwave) system, which violates a 25-year-old anti-ballistic
missile (ABM) treaty between the U.S. and Russia (the former Soviet Union).
-
- Fidis, who possesses documents with e-mail and web site
addresses attached to them, said he has never been an alarmist or conspiracist,
but "the 230 people on FL800 deserve the truth to be told."
-
- A New Kind Of Star Wars?
-
- According to Fidis and Owens, with the elimination of
the $200 billion "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative, the
Navy, Army and Air Force have been testing a Theater High Altitude Area
Defense (THAAD) interceptor program that is supposed to work with the Navy's
CEC program, but apparently there had been some difficulty with its software,
which was developed by Lockheed Martin, one of the country's largest defense
contractors.
-
- The military has monitored this technology at several
testing grounds, including the Pacific Missile Range Facility (PMRF), off
the northern island of Kauai in Hawaii.
-
- There are similar defense areas, running from the New
Jersey shore, along Long Island, up past Boston and on to Halifax, Nova
Scotia. This offshore weapons testing area is located about 15 miles south
of Long Island and divided up into several grids.
-
- Official aviation and nautical charts of offshore waters
are marked and denote, "Warning: National Defense Operating Areas
. Operations hazardous to the flight of aircraft conducted in this area."
-
- Are Witnesses Wrong?
-
- FL800 witnesses claimed they saw a low-flying missile
crossing over the barrier beach, heading out to sea before turning up toward
FL800. Others reported seeing a low-flying missile heading upward, but
parallel to the beach.
-
- In a 1997 summary of the Cruise Missile Defense (CMD)
program's Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration (ACTD), also known
as "Mountain Top," Eli Zimet, from the Office of Naval Research,
said that in a CEC-THAAD test, "surface-to-air missiles were launched
from an AEGIS cruiser to engage sea-skimming cruise missile test targets
[drones] well beyond the ship's radar horizon" during the PMRF tests
off Kauai.
-
- During the testing, the Navy uses a P3C-Orion, a land-based,
long-range anti-submarine warfare patrol aircraft, equipped with advanced
submarine detection sensors, such as directional frequency and ranging
(DIFAR) sonobuoys and magnetic anomaly detection (MAD) gear. A P3C-Orion
flies at about 20,000 feet to 30,000 feet above the surface to enhance
the CEC over-the-horizon radar system.
-
- The military and area radar systems confirmed two P3C-Orions
were flying over the Long Island area at 20,000 feet and much higher when
FL800 exploded at 13,700 feet.
-
- A Mystery Ship
-
- While the FBI was investigating the FL800 incident, it
discovered a large, unidentified ship was picked up near the southern horizon
on a radar screen at Islip-MacArthur Airport, which "officially"
covers a radius of 60 miles.
-
- That ship dashed off past the horizon at an estimated
30 knots. The Navy denies it was one of its ships, but most AEGIS cruisers,
destroyers and frigates are listed in Jane's Battleships encyclopedia as
having a maximum speed capability of 28 to 32 knots.
-
- The Navy claims the USS Normandy, a CG-47 Ticandaroga
Class AEGIS cruiser, was 183 nautical miles away. Under normal circumstances,
Navy officials noted, the Normandy's radar system would have picked up
FL800, except that it was operating under low electrical capability at
the time of the explosion.
-
- According to Rear Admiral Edward Kristensen, of the North
Atlantic Fleet, at the time FL800 exploded, the USS Normandy was conducting
basic engineering control exercises that could cause a fluctuation in the
ship's electrical plant. Consequently, the Normandy was, therefore, on
low power, which means she had a range on her radar of less than 150 miles.
-
- In her 1998 paper, Scarry states, The Normandy, is suspected
of being a "Smart Ship - a seagoing laboratory for testing new electronic
equipment and carrying out unpublished experiments."
-
- Scarry notes, "The international placement of a
ship in a condition of low electricity is called a BECKY exercise, the
acronym standing for Basic Engineering Casualty and Control."
-
- When a BECKY exercise "is carried out in conjunction
with a high-level military exercise, its purpose is to test whether the
ship can survive even if its own radars are jammed or if it has suddenly
lost electrical power. Its ability to get critical information from other
craft and to carry out self-protective actions on the basis of that information
is often what is being tested."
-
- Owens obtained inside information from John Ganz, a former
high-level environmental engineer at the Harry Diamond Laboratory in Woodbridge,
Virginia, where the government has tested several generations of electromagnetic
pulse systems since 1971.
-
- According to one of the documents provided by Ganz, a
Navy report on EMPRESS II (a second generation EMP simulator), "There
are limitations and problems in all simulators. Therefore, some energy
is wasted and can interfere with other electronic systems."
-
- Data provided by numerous tests with EMPs are "inconclusive,"
according to the Navy, but in order to protect the electrical system of
the AEGIS ships, normal electronics are reduced to a low-power threshold
while the EMPRESS (electromagnetic pulse system) is in operation.
-
- Scarry unsuccessfully called for the feds to include
the USS Normandy in this investigation. "[W]e lack concrete information
about the ranges of electromagnetic transmissions on board the Normandy."
-
- The AEGIS Guided Missile Cruiser "is a gigantic
exhibition hall of electromagnetic equipment," said Scarry, adding,
"an AEGIS cruiser near Rome can protect almost all of Europe from
missiles ascending from a point in North Africa. The billion-dollar ship
has, as impressed observers often noted, antennas the size of three billboards
rising above deck and antennas trailing along behind, sonar mounted on
its bow and sonar towed behind."
-
- Scarry also notes the next generation AEGIS ship, the
DG-51 Arleigh Burke was equipped with a Combat Information Center placed
well below the waterline where all electronics are more protected against
electromagnetic pulse systems.
-
- Additional information supporting the FOS theory comes
from Owens, who offers military documents that suggest the Navy had been
testing this technology on commercial planes since the late eighties under
numerous code or project names, including REPS I&II, VEMPS I&II,
FRED I&II, AESOP and EMPRESS I&II.
-
- Scarry also notes that a seven-month-long Air Force study,
overseen by Colonel Charles Quisenberry, concluded in 1988, the use of
electromagnetic waves by the military have caused "thousands of conflicts."
-
- Electromagnetic interference, according to Scarry, "can
jam equipment, burn out electric circuits and even prompt explosions."
-
- Also, a 1994 NASA study noted, "the cause of High
Intensity Radiated Field [HIRF] events may often be inadvertent effects
on civilian aircraft of high-powered military operations." The study,
writes Scarry, "specifies that military jammers and electronic countermeasures
equipment can affect key systems on commercial planes."
-
- According to documents provided by Owens, The Ridgewood
Research Laboratory in Virginia, where much of the testing on the East
Coast has been conducted, is less than 15 nautical miles from the Ronald
Reagan National Airport, Andrews Air Force Base and Dulles International
Airport. "The commercial airway passes within 10 nautical miles of
the site, as do several arrivals" and approach airways.
-
- In an environmental impact statement, The U.S. Army Laboratory
Command (LABCOM) states, "A potential impact is identified for aircraft
exposed to high EMP fields which may be hazardous to aircraft."
-
- In her paper, Scarry said the final comment by the pilot
of FL800 is indicative of what would happen if the plane were bombarded
with an EMP beam: "sudden interruption in fuel flow and false instruction
to the control surfaces on the wing flaps or rudder."
-
- A minute and 50 seconds before all electricity faltered
on FL800, the captain stated, "Look at that crazy fuel flow indicator
there on number four." Then 10 seconds later he "expresses the
sense that the wing flaps are not in the right position" and works
to adjust the flaps.
-
- Less than a minute before the cockpit was severed from
the plane, said Scarry, the Boston Control Center urgently instructed the
pilot to climb from 13,000 feet to 15,000 feet.
-
- FL800 was apparently flying too low through "Corridor
Betty," a route assigned to commercial airlines going along Long Island's
south shore toward Boston and Halifax, Nova Scotia, to prevent them from
flying through the Navy's weapons testing areas when maneuvers are being
conducted.
-
- The pilot gave the order to climb and the first officer
repeated it, but seconds later the pilot commanded the second officer to
engage the plane's "climb thrusters," as if the order had not
been obeyed. The second officer quickly replied, "Power's set."
Moments later, witnesses watched as the plane exploded into a ball of fire.
-
- Owens, an amateur archeologist, said that in 1993 while
he was out in the woods on a "dig" he witnessed the destruction
of a $6 million Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter about four miles from Quantico.
The Black Hawk had been used four weeks before to transport President Bill
Clinton, but was transporting four Bosnian officials when it was downed
by an electromagnetic pulse beam, said Owens.
-
- As the first person to reach the downed Black Hawk, Owens
said, he found the helicopter's crew of four marines and its passengers
scattered around the crash site with third-degree burn lesions, bubbled
body fluids and bulging eye balls.
-
- "They were burned from the inside out," said
Owens. "There were no smoke or burn marks on their clothing, but their
bodies were clearly burned."
-
- Owens added that the debris was not cleaned up right
away and he salvaged about 70 pieces of the Black Hawk before it was eventually
bulldozed into a ditch and buried.
-
- Military officials denied any knowledge of electromagnetic
involvement and blamed the Quantico crash on a mechanical problem involving
a roll-pin which Owens says is the size of a pencil.
-
- In a 1987 front page story in the Baltimore Sun, Knight-Ridder
News Service reported that throughout the eighties, there were more than
48 servicemen who died in a total of five Black Hawk accidents that are
suspected to have been caused by electromagnetic interference, according
to Army Major Jerry McVey (retired), who led those crash investigations.
Two of those accidents were unexplained and three were listed as mechanical
problems that caused the craft to nose-dive into the ground.
-
- Despite the magnitude of debate surrounding EMP, and
the controversy surrounding the government's FL800 investigation, Congressman
John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science
and Transportation, closed down the investigation.
-
- McCain recently sent a letter to Fidis claiming, "This
is an extremely difficult and complex matter. There will continue to be
differing and potentially contradictory observations and analytical opinions.
However, I do believe that federal investigators acted thoroughly and without
negligence in their findings."
-
- McCain said, "the Commerce Committee does not have
any plans to hold additional hearings at this time."
-
-
- Suffolk Life Newspapers will continue its investigation
and will report its findings as often as possible.
-
-
- MainPage
http://www.rense.com
-
-
-
- This
Site Served by TheHostPros
|