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To: E. Pluribus Unum
"how does the following article support your statement that "almost none" of the eyewitnesses reported seeing a missile?"

Unlike you (apparently) and the New York Post, I don't rely on anonymous sources for my information. The transcript of every single witness interview is a matter of public record and available on line. What becomes stunningly clear, is that there is no consistant eyewitness description of what happened that night. Furthermore, as anyone who has witnessed a SAM launch will tell you, the most obvious indicator is the smoke trail it leaves behind. In fact, that is all most people will see. The entire time the rocket burns, it smokes. A lot. So it is incredible that witnesses who reported a streak of light, did not also report a smoke trail. But very few did. Just like very few called it a missile. So you and the Post can say all you want that witnesses observed a missile, but that doesn't make that statement a fact.

Furthermore, not a single investigative body involved in the TWA 800 investigation could find any tangible evidence of a bomb or missile strike in the wreckage (including Boeing, TWA, ALPA and the NTSB). The IAMS report stated they thought an overpressure event happened outside the aircraft, but unless someone created a SAM that explodes without creating shrapnel, it is unlikely such an event occured.

Finally, infrared seekers cannot guide to the center of mass of a target. They can only guide on heat sources, because that is all they "see". An infrared missile will generally lock onto the hottest object it sees, and keep that object in the center of its focal array until impact. It doesn't know if it's locked onto a 747, an F-16, a flare or the Sun. It just knows it has to hit the hotspot. Radar guided missiles will guide to center of mass, but if you want to argue TWA 800 was shot down by a radar guided missile, you're opening a whole new can of worms that is even less likely. Bottomline, not surprisingly, the Post and its anonymous sources don't know what they're talking about.

217 posted on 07/18/2004 9:26:27 AM PDT by Rokke
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To: Rokke
Being tasered was the single worst experience of my life (coming, as it did, on a day that was already bad), and I still feel residual effects.

So what did all those people see?

Are they all lying?

218 posted on 07/18/2004 9:30:35 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum (Drug prohibition laws help fund terrorism.)
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