[Lower Deck]

There was known to be testing of a “friend or foe” missile project that the U.S. Navy had been secretly working on which could discriminate between enemy aircraft and civilian aircraft. This was apparently a LIVE test that failed.

Uh, the military has had that ability for decades before TWA 800. They're called transponder codes.

[Bull Snipe]

back in the day it was called IFF, for Identification Friend or Foe.