[JayNorth]

The Navy doesn't conduct live fire exercises anywhere near that area for the simple reason that it is the most heavily travelled air corridor in the world, and the chance of accident would be unacceptably high.

I read all the conspiracy theories with an open mind, and their point is that night they were testing the AEGIS system (I think that is what it was called) specifically as some final test to show that it was sophisticated enough to operate in a very busy warfare situation.

I don't want to believe anyone would be that cold, but then again they did test chemical agents on ordinary citizens in the subway system so who knows.

[Non-Sequitur]

I read all the conspiracy theories with an open mind, and their point is that night they were testing the AEGIS system (I think that is what it was called) specifically as some final test to show that it was sophisticated enough to operate in a very busy warfare situation.

You're probably thinking of the stories concerning a Aegis lab in New Jersey, and the claim that they were operating tests that night. They may well have been, but testing Aegis doesn't require firing a missile. I spent nine years on active duty with the Atlantic fleet, all of it on SAM equipped ships. I never once participated in a missile shoot anywhere except the range off Puerto Rico, I never heard of anyone shooting a missile near New York, never participated in a live fire exercise of any kind north of the Virginia cape. The military isn't stupid, regardless of what people think. And conducting a live fire exercise of any kind near the most heavily travelled air corridor in the world would be way past stupid.