| On the night of July 17, T.W.A. Flight 800 exploded
and crashed off the coast of Long Island, killing everyone on board. For
months, investigators have focused on three possible causes -- a bomb,
mechanical failure or a terrorist missile -- but what really happened remains
a mystery.
That's the formal line, anyway. Barely 36 hours after the disaster,
a message posted on an Internet discussion site called "rec.aviation.piloting"
suggested a darker possibility. "Did the Navy do it?" wrote someone from
New York who identified himself as Evan B. Gillespie. "It is interesting
how much evidence there is that it was hit by a missile."
Actually, there wasn't any weightier "evidence" for this than for
the other two theories. Reports from eyewitnesses -- who said they saw
a streak of light approaching the jet before it crashed -- prompted investigators
to entertain the idea that someone shot it down. This still hasn't been
ruled out, though it's now considered the least likely possibility. Within
days of the crash, however, numerous Net writers mulled over the witness
reports and made a startling leap: they speculated that the jet was downed
by accidental "friendly fire" from a United States Navy ship on a training
cruise. Such a horrifying blunder, according to the evolving theory, was
quickly covered up by a conspiracy involving Federal investigators, the
military and President Clinton.
Even by conspiracy standards, this one was pretty weak. But as a
study in how conspiracy theories mutate in the age of easy global communication,
the friendly fire story is a gem. On the Internet, conspiracy theories
gestate almost instantly, and spread with dizzying speed. The theorists
seize on and often distort mainstream media reports, make gross assumptions
about the Government's allegedly boundless capacity for malevolence and,
occasionally, fabricate reports outright.
In the case of Flight 800, the process happened so fast and with
such intensity that the conspiracy theory, which once might have bounced
around harmlessly on the fringe, briefly elbowed its way into mainstream
coverage. In September and again in October, prompted largely by the Internet's
conspiratorial buzz, journalists felt compelled to ask officials about
the possibility of friendly fire. The authorities labeled it "an outrageous
allegation."
News organizations, which subsequently took a closer look, agreed.
But the fact that friendly fire came up at all says a lot about the power
of the Internet. Here is a chronological review of how a theory catapulted
to 15 minutes of fame.
July 17-23: A Penny for Your Plots
In the immediate aftermath of the crash, unhinged speculation was
cheap. Some theorists suggested that the true target of the T.W.A. "attack"
was Henry Kissinger, who was supposedly on board. (He wasn't.) Over time,
the theories included such notions as the jet being zapped by a death ray
possibly operated by a consortium of Russians, North Koreans, and the Japanese
Aum Shinrikyo cult. Predictably, some asserted that a U.F.O. was responsible.
But only the friendly fire theory developed real legs, thanks largely
to a July 21 Jerusalem Post story in which unnamed "French Defense Ministry
experts" asserted that "the infrastructure needed to fire a missile powerful
enough to hit a plane at that altitude is only possessed by Army units."
The story was clearly presented as "what if" speculation, but many
conspiracy theorists took it as confirmation that the U.S. Government had
shot down Flight 800. The Post is available on the World Wide Web, and
the story spread rapidly all over the planet. "I think it's pretty obvious,"
stated one contributor to the "talk.politics.guns" news group, "that T.W.A.
800 was taken down by a SAM.
. . . Friendly fire, as it were."
July 24-29: Troopergate
A posting in the news group "alt.conspiracy" made a more startling
claim: Clinton was probably involved. "Two of the passengers were former
Arkansas state troopers that were on Bill Clinton's security detail," it
read, explaining that the men were on their way to Paris to tell all to
Le Monde. The "source" for this shocker? The Miami Herald.
The "Troopergate" message generated excitement among Net conspiracy
theorists, many of whom believe Clinton to be capable of anything, from
drug dealing to multiple homicide. "Suddenly the T.W.A. 800 explosion got
a whole lot less mysterious," wrote one correspondent in "misc.survivalism."
Over in "alt.politics.org.batf," an America Online subscriber wondered,
"How many (total) does that make now of people who have previously known
our Komrad Klinton who are now pushing up daisies?"
Aug. 2: Cyberhoax
The Miami Herald quickly exposed the trooper message as a hoax.
The Herald traced it to the Net address of one Gene Hilsheimer, a Florida
resident. The Herald said "Hilsheimer denied creating it," though he did
opine later that the posting was probably designed to bait "conspiracy
nuts." Despite this particular debunking, friendly fire kept on going.
Other writers surged ahead with the unsupported claim that "there is a
report of sailors at sea routinely locking on to airliners during mock
missile practice."
Aug. 22: Russell Takes Charge
Friendly fire might have stalled were it not for an anonymous message
that began circulating in late August. "T.W.A. Flight 800 was shot down,"
one version stated, "by a U.S. Navy guided missile ship which was in area
W-105 . . . a Warning Area off the southeast coast of Long Island."
The message was attributed to "a man who was Safety Chairman for
the Airline Pilots Association for many years and he is considered an expert
on safety." In fact, it was written on America Online by Richard Russell,
a 66-year-old Floridian and former United Airlines pilot. Russell later
told reporters that he never intended his message -- originally a private
E-mail communication sent to about a dozen friends who were aviation accident
investigators -- to be widely distributed. Nonetheless, replicated countless
times by unknown Net-izens, it spread like a viral contagion.
"Hey, those who want the truth. This is no joke!!!" wrote
one fan. "Just read on and watch the papers, knowing where you heard it
first. Pretty shocking."
Aug. 28 - Sept. 1: Friendly Fire Skyrockets
As the crash investigation of T.W.A. 800 entered its second month,
friendly fire talk began to move beyond the Internet. It was helped along,
inadvertently, by news reports of more eyewitness anomalies, including
the murky snapshot taken by Linda Kabot, a Long Island secretary. Blown
up and distributed on the Net, it showed a blip, supposedly a long cylinder
streaking through the night sky, allegedly in the vicinity of the doomed
jet.
About this time, multiple copies of the hijacked Russell opinion
began arriving in newsrooms via fax and E-mail. With populist speculation
about friendly fire becoming a roar, major media outlets decided to take
a closer look. On Sept. 1, Newsday launched a pre-emptive strike on the
friendly fire theory, quoting a "senior Federal source" who advised, perhaps
wishfully, "You can put that to bed."
Sept. 5-7: Going Up, Up, Up. . . .
Another mainstream report -- this one by a local TV reporter --
helped amplify the Net buzz about friendly fire. On Sept. 5, Marcia Kramer
of WCBS-TV in New York broadcast that investigators were examining
whether a missile from "a U.S. military plane" might have torn through
the jet without exploding. Her sources? Unnamed officials close to the
investigation.
Kramer's report was ignored by most of her colleagues, a fact that
itself inflamed Net suspicion. "This news item did not show up anywhere
else on radio or TV during the following day," one Net surfer wrote. "Shades
of censorship?"
Sept. 8-17: Pffft! Russell Fizzles
In the next several days Newsday, Newsweek, the Associated Press,
Reuters and CNN decided they had to take a hard look at friendly fire.
"Because so many people were talking about it we felt it was the responsible
thing to do, to revisit this question," says Ron Dunsky, a CNN producer
whose network investigated friendly fire in July, found no evidence to
support it and didn't run a story. Why did it come to the fore again, since
there was no new evidence?
"The Internet was part of the reason," he says, "one of the
factors that tipped the scales."
At a Sept. 16 news briefing on Long Island, Federal Bureau
of Investigation and National Transportation Safety Board officials found
themselves under unfriendly fire from a fixated press corps. The investigators
responded to at least four straight questions about the theory -- including
one from CNN, which later that day ran a serious report on friendly fire.
It mentioned the Russell-authored message and conveyed emphatic denials
from the Government.
Russell can't be accused of courting publicity. He says he has been
contacted by several major television shows, but they've all lost interest
because he won't give up his source. Unless Russell decides to say more,
or his claimed source comes forward, his now-notorious E-mail message
has to remain filed under "Rumors: Unsubstantiated."
Aftermath: It Lives!
Though the Russell-gram seemed at a dead end, the Net has made it
immortal. On Sept. 27 Tom Snyder, on his "Late Late Show," announced that
he'd just found the message on the Net and wondered aloud -- albeit skeptically
-- about a Government cover-up.
Then on Nov. 8, friendly fire made headlines again. This time it
was Pierre Salinger -- the noted journalist and Kennedy Administration
press secretary -- who went public with the theory. Salinger, according
to news accounts, said his source was a document given to him by "someone
in French intelligence in Paris," written by an American who "was tied
to the U.S. Secret Service, and has important contacts in the U.S. Navy."
Apparently, though, the document was the Russell message, or at
least a clone of it. CNN showed Salinger a copy of the message, and he
said: Yes. That's it. That's the document. Where did you get it? He also
told other reporters that he learned only after he went public on Nov.
7 (U.S. media ran the story the next day) that the same document had been
on the Net for weeks. He said the message was dated Aug. 22 -- the same
day Russell sent his famous E-mail.
As Net writers might say: "Interesting!!!" |