Trumped - there are a number of reliable pireps (pilot reports) from that area/in those same flight lanes that discount any sort of 'missile' sighting ...
Trump you back
TWA 800 Witness Statements
"We saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up. As a matter of fact, we thought it was from a boat. It was a bright reddish-orange color. Once it went into flames I knew that it wasn't a flare." - Lou Desyron, Flight 800 eye-witness; ABC World News Sunday; 07/21/96.
"I looked up because it sounded like thunder. I kept looking trying to figure out what it was. And that's when I saw a flare come off the water. The flare, trailing orange flame, shot up roughly at a 45 degree angle, then rapidly increased its angle of ascent. Then it appeared to strike something. This was the strangest thing I ever saw. Everyone calls it a 'missile theory,' but when you see something, you know what you see, and I didn't see a 'theory'." - Tom Dougherty, Flight 800 eye-witness; interviewed on Hard Copy, 1996
"It was what we would best describe as a boat flare, a reddish object going up. It went up and a few seconds later we saw an explosion in the sky. I can't say if it came off shore or on shore. At first, we thought it was a boat flare. It zigzagged a little. We thought it was strange. Then, several seconds later, we saw an eruption of fire. We never heard anything. We saw a fireball, and at that point we identified what was an aircraft. We could see it fluttering down. We were the third boat on Long Island to report the incident to the Coast Guard. It was something going up to it beforehand. Yes, I saw flaming debris go down. Something attracted us to the area before it exploded. And even my wife and my oldest daughter, we all were witnesses to it. There definitely was something there first before the aircraft went down." - Donald Eick, Flight 800 eye-witness; October 20, 1997; The Press-Enterprise, Riverside, CA.
"I picked it up three seconds before it turned into a bright white ball, which split. I thought it was fireworks. And then I didn't know what to think because from the white ball, I saw two wide orange bands of light fall down, obviously the fuel igniting. I'll lay my ass on the table and tell the president or the FBI, and someone can hypnotize me: There was no way that red light was descending. It was ascending. It made contact with what turned out to be that airplane and made a white bright light and then split in two. If I were in a courtroom and the prosecutor says I've got an eyewitness, then I become a trump card. We're not just one witness but 135 or more strong. I saw something hit the right side of the plane. My opinion was it blew the wing off on impact. I assumed something went through the airplane, like behind first class and into the wing. My honest opinion, my gut feeling, is that we have the most brilliant people in the world and the best technology, [and] if they've been on scene for a year and they've not come up with something, as a critical thinker I have to ask, could they be covering up something?" - William Gallagher, fisherman from N.J. who witnessed Flight 800 crash; October 20, 1997, The Press-Enterprise
"[The FBI] said, 'Are you sure you didn't see something going down and not going up?' I said, 'No....Gosh sakes I ain't that stupid. I ought to be able to tell if something is going up in the air or going down in the air. No, and I said I'm not changing my mind about it. I'll stick to that until I die. I said I saw something going up and I said there was no question in my mind. I said I'm telling you what I saw." - Roland Penney, Flight 800 eye-witness; quoted from an interview with Cdr. William Donaldson presented at the AIM conference, October 18, 1997. "It looked like a big skyrocket going up. The flash looked like a rocket launch at a fireworks display". - Paul Runyan, Flight 800 eye-witness; N.Y. Daily News, 11/09/96
"More than 150 credible witnesses - including several scientists and business executives - have told the FBI and military experts they saw a missile destroy TWA 800. 'Some of these people are extremely, extremely credible,' a top federal official said. 'When we asked what they saw and where they saw it, the witnesses out east pointed to the west, and the people to the west pointed to the east'." - The New York Post, September 22, 1996.
"Almost due south [of the helicopter], there was a hard white light, like burning pyrotechnics, in level flight. I was trying to figure out what it was. It was the wrong color for flares. It struck an object coming from the right and made it explode." - Capt. Chris Baur, eye-witness to Flight 800 crash; July 1996.
"This is either a train wreck in the sky, or an explosive device - mid-air, outside the plane. The measurements [from the flight recorder] indicate there was an explosion - a big explosion - outside the cockpit." - Navy Cmdr. William Donaldson (ret.); a former plane crash investigator; Louisville Courier-Journal, 1-9-98
"My God! Somebody's shooting at that airplane!" - Crew of a British Airways jet flying behind Flight 800 whom radioed to air traffic control; July 17, 1996.
"I know what I saw. I saw an ordnance explosion. And whatever I saw, the explosion of the fuel was not the initiator of the event. It was one of the results. Something happened before that which was the initiator of the disaster.'' - Frederick C. Meyer, An Air National Guard helicopter pilot who witnessed the explosion of TWA Flight 800; 7/29/97; Riverside Press.
"I know what I saw, I saw several fires go across the sky. One hit the plane at the tail and the second hit at the front, just before the wings. The fire came from both ends and met in the middle and exploded. Then the nose dropped, hung there for a minute. I understand that when a plane bursts into flames the flames fall, but this was a fire going up towards the plane." - Barbara Pacholk, Flight 800 eye-witness; November 19, 1997; The New York Post.
"We know what we saw. We weren't drunk. I looked up and my immediate response was, I never saw an alert flare like that. It was projecting upward with a stream of smoke behind. I don't think our accounts will be reflected in the final version [of the FBI report]. I have a hard time believing that the FBI believes its conclusions. I don't believe that the truth is ever going to come out." - Jim Naples, Flight 800 eye-witness; November 24, 1997, The New York Observer, (p.16)
"She [Ms. Osborn] said they were mistaken in what they saw. That's not very professional, and its not the way to dispute eyewitness statements. Those witness statements should be part of the public record. And they [the F.B.I.] have to come up with a credible scenario of why the eyewitnesses saw what they saw." - Paul Marcone - Press Secretary to Rep. James Traficant - House Aviation Subcommittee
"It's (the C.I.A.) message to the eyewitnesses: Shut up, you didn't see anything." - Philip Weiss - The New York Observer - November 24, 1997
"All evidence would point to a missile. All those witnesses who saw a streak that hit the airplane...you have to assume its a missile. In an investigation like this, you can't overlook anything." - Adm. Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of The Joint Chiefs Of Staff; Louisville Courier-Journal, 1-9-98 Naneen Levine "I thought it was something on the beach going straight up. The red dot went up like this, sort of curved. It came to a point where I thought little fireworks were going to come down or just fade and be a flare."
Capt. Chris Bauer - Airborne "I saw a track of light and saw a hard explosion, then another explosion," - "told officials, repeatedly that I thought a missile hit the plane."
Sven Faret, Private Pilot - Airborne "Pin flash of light near the shore" - "It looked like a rocket launch at a fireworks display. My first impression was that the National Guard had shot down one of their own planes."
Roland Penney ". . . a pencil thin white trail rising like a Grucci fireworks in the middle of the night sky, until it turned into a big ball of just plain white. Seconds later, as the ball of light descended, it exploded into an orange-red fireball."
D.A. Walsh "It is No rumor about sabotage or a missile. Having lived on Long Island for 24 years and only 8 miles from the crash site I am familiar with the area and too many of us saw what happened that nite. I believe that someone is trying to cover up for mistakes."
From: C.C.Jordan@worldnet.att.net (C.C. Jordan) Date: Fri, 11 Jul 1997 02:55:29 GMT Message-ID: <33C59B43.10074841@NETNEWS.WORLDNET.ATT.NET> I live on eastern Long Island. I am good friends with several of the Air Force flyers out of West Hampton. An USAF Blackhawk was flying (training) only three miles away from Flight 800 on a heading to observe the crash. The Plane Commander, a Major, said, in my presence, that he saw what he believed was a missile, coming from sea level go up and explode. He stated this to NTSB investigators and to Air Force debriefers. He is a gulf war veteran and has seen many night time SAM launches, both shoulder launched and fixed sight. No one has yet to refute his observation. Could he be mistaken? Sure. Is it likely he is mistaken? No. NTSB and the FAA have no **real** answer for the crash, or do they? ....By the way, This guy was one of the pilots who flew the Blackhawks 650 miles out into the atlantic to rescue stranded seamen, refueling several times from a C-130. The Air force believes him. They are the 106th Rescue Wing flying C-130 and Blackhawk aircraft. Top notch professionals.
11-9-96 N.Y. Daily News "Red meteor with a smoke trail" Paul Angelides
Olympic Airline Engineer "Suddenly, I saw in the fog to my left, toward the ocean, a small flame rising quickly towards the sky. Before I realized it, I saw this flame become huge. My first impression is that it was a flare shot off a boat."
Colonel Stratemeier - Pilot "said he had seen what appeared to be the trail of a shoulder fired SAM ending in a flash on the 747"
Heidi Krieger "I think it;s a missile or friendly fire or something like that." (She took picture from her boat, squiggley white line in photo, FBI took it and negs)
Richard Grauer (25 yr old Fishing Tackle sales) "It was a thin trail of smoke going up fast - then there was this huge pink ball of fire"
Patrick Grant - 02:27pm Jul 19, 1997 ET (#300 of 321) I live on Long Island. And there were more than a hundred people out here including cops, firemen and National Guard who saw something streak into the sky before the plane came down. Now experts can tell you what would of, or should of, or could of happened. But an eye witness will tell you what really happened. And when a hundred people see something, its not an illusion. I believe the investigators are lying when they say they don't know what happened. And I'd like to see them be forced to take polygraphs. And even those who believe that the government isn't running a cover up should support giving the investigators lie detectors. We all want the truth, don't we?
TWA 800 Witness Statements "We saw what appeared to be a flare going straight up.UNRELIABLE WITNESSES.
I'll take any commercial pilot who was flying that night who is trained and has experience observing 'things' in the air over ANY general member of the public.
Game - set - match.
Table 1: Number of witnesses by situation and observation.
--------------------------------------------------------
Witness situation
Item Land Sea Air Subtotal Unknown Total
--------------------------------------------------------
Sight 420 195 37 652 18 670
Sound 167 48 0 215 24 239
Streak 172 78 6 256 2 258
Fireball (FB) 365 182 37 584 15 599
FB Split 122 61 16 199 1 200
FB Water 122 69 21 212 5 217
Total 460 202 37 --- 37 736