Can Americans trust their government? Recent evidence suggests that our institutions will lie to us. Consider that, just a few days ago, we learned that, contrary to 60 years of CIA denials, a CIA officer had been involved in psychological operations connected to Lee Harvey Oswald months before John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Those of us who remember the government’s decades-long cover-up of its involvement in the July 1996 TWA crash were not surprised.
On July 17, 1996, twelve minutes after taking off from New York’s Kennedy International Airport, a Boeing 747 headed for Paris exploded in midair over the Atlantic Ocean, instantly killing all 230 people aboard. The resulting four-year investigation into what caused the fatal crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 was the longest, and at $40 million, the most expensive in the history of the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Remnants of TWA Flight 800. Public domain.
Many eyewitnesses reported a missile flying from the ocean surface toward TWA 800, after which they saw an explosion and an object shatter and fall into the ocean.
Among the eyewitnesses were Captain Baur and Major Meyer, who were flying a Black Hawk helicopter in the vicinity where TWA 800 crashed. Each of them described events that indicated a missile was streaking toward TWA 800, followed by an explosion. Major Meyer claimed he witnessed a “flak” explosion, which is military parlance for anti-aircraft fire.
In the months after TWA 800 exploded, eyewitnesses, including commercial pilots, continued reporting missile sightings.
None of this would have been made known to the public were it not for the relentless efforts of physicist Dr. Tom Stalcup. His efforts paid off in 2021 when he obtained several never-before-released FBI records. One described an “original [Navy radar] tape” showing an object “heading straight for TWA 800.” According to a lawsuit, “The FBI removed all copies (original and duplicates) of Navy radar tapes from the Navy...”
The newly-revealed tapes conclusively reveal that an errant U.S. Navy missile caused the deadly crash exactly as Captain Baur and Major Meyer had reported when they witnessed the event while in flight and within range of the TWA 800 Boeing aircraft.
It turned out that, in 1996, the US Navy began upgrading its Aegis Combat System, an integrated naval weapons system that uses computers and radars to track and guide weapons to destroy enemy targets. The key to upgrading the Aegis System for missile defense lay in its radar system, which needed significant improvements.
After an epic struggle that spanned a quarter of a century, Stalcup obtained prima facie evidence that the FBI lied about the true cause of the deadly crash, which led to the above-referenced lawsuit. The 15-plus plaintiffs were family members of some of those who died on the flight. They had met Dr. Salcup on April 15, 2021, when he told them about the key facts he learned from his FOIA lawsuits. Because the government had deliberately concealed the crash’s cause, the court held that the statute of limitations was tolled (i.e., suspended).
When the suit was finally filed in 2022, the media paid attention. The Williamsport Sun-Gazette headlined its article “Families file suit against government claiming TWA Flight 800 was destroyed ‘by an errant United States missile.’” It then reported that
The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, charges that the federal government released a false report contending that the explosion in the plane was the result of an electrical fire in its center fuel tank.
[snip]
[The l;awsuit]also noted that evidence founded by Stalcup establishes that the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Department of Defense and the U.S. Navy acting in concert with Raytheon Company and Lockheed Martin Corp., were testing the Aegis Weapons System and firing SM-2 missiles with live warheads from warship(s) at aerial missile targets off the coast of New York in proximity to commercial airline paths.
[snip]
It is further contended by plaintiffs that the defendants ‘engaged in a top-down cover-up to prevent the public from learning the truth about TWA 800.’ [Emphasis added.]
Did you catch that???
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, the Defense Department, the U.S. Navy, Raytheon Company, and Lockheed Martin Corp...every single one of these behemoths was accused of perpetrating a whopper of a cover-up. They’d hidden from the world the fact that, while implementing fundamental radar improvements, they were testing the equipment in crowded commercial air traffic zones using missiles, some of which were equipped with live warheads!
Then, showing that the cover-up can indeed be worse than, or at least as bad as, the crime, the CIA concocted materials to discredit eyewitness reports that TWA 800 had been downed by some kind of projectile. These materials included a video that was displayed during a nationally-televised FBI press conference that attempted to reconcile eyewitness reports that the plane was downed by a projectile with the U.S. Government’s official position that the crash was caused by a defect in the plane’s fuel tank.
Ignoring overwhelming eyewitness testimony, the sometimes animated video, which was subtitled “What Did The Eyewitnesses See?,” contained a scene with large, capitalized, and underlined words, “NOT A MISSILE.” To ensure that audiences did not miss the point, a narrator read those words aloud.
The video showed the aircraft’s center wing tank suddenly exploding, causing the nose to fall off, after which the aircraft defied the laws of physics and streaked vertically 3,000 feet, resembling an anti-aircraft missile.
In response, retired Navy Commander William S. Donaldson stated in his report to the Subcommittee on Aviation, “It would be easy to understand why 10 year olds watching this cartoon on Saturday morning would believe it on face value, but it is perplexing to think network news producers, who are responsible for providing national news, would be suckered without checking the facts first.”
Ultimately, it took Dr. Salcup twenty-five years, from 1996 to 2021, to obtain crucial evidence that firmly established that the FBI has outrageously lied about the true cause of the crash of TWA 800. This is a reminder of why Americans find it difficult to trust their government on matters such as the Kennedy Assassination, Russia Hoax, the Epstein information, the IRS attacks on conservatives, etc., Americans have such a hard time believing the first, “official” version from the government. After all, they must always ask themselves, “Are you lying now or were you lying then?”