The eyewitness reports of a missile still under active propulsion long ago ruled out a Standard missile from the Normandy. But the missile had to come from someplace, and the radar track indicates a launch point which does not correspond to any aknowledged launch point.
It was for this reason I postulated a SUBSAM, which as long time readers will recall, resulted in a rather vigorous drubbing at the hands of the same people who insisted that the Navy's denial of submarines in the area, even though untrue, wasn't really a lie.
The one and only argument against a SUBSAM launch was that VLF and ELF radio are far too slow for the conveying of launch data to a submerged submarine. But now we discover that a high speed laser communication system exists which allows submerged submarines to communicate with aircraft and satellites which are overhead. First deployed on USS Dolphin, such a system would allow AEGIS-CEC commands to be relayed via an overhead aircraft (such as the CEC modified P-3s) or a satellite.
Since high speed response to a cruise missile was the desired result of the CEC system, the cannister launch system would not be usable. Therefore, the USS Trepang, a Sturgeon class submarine, is not a likely platform. But the USS Albuquerque, a type 688 Los Angeles class attack sub, equipped with vertical launch tubes, most assuredly is.
Now the Navy went to great pains to conceal the presence of the submarines and its possible that there were other ships in the area whoes presence is still a secret. But of the known ships in the area, USS Albuquerque, right next to the flight path (although its exact location has never been divulged) gets my vote for most likely launch platform for the missile that brought down flight 800, and a launch flash observed by Faret is perfectly consistent with this theory.
The scenario that has evolved is in keeping with AEGIS-CEC. The airborne P-3 sees the target drone and links its radar data to the AEGIS control ship, most likely the Normandy over the radar horizon. The Normandy is truthfully out of radar range to the 747. But the computers respond to the P-3's radar data and identify the target drone from among the "friendly" military planes and civilian aircraft that clutter the wargame theater. The Aegis selects the launch platform closest to the target drone, the Albuquerque, and radios a data packet to the P-3. The P-3 flashes a laser over a wide area of the ocean surface, so that individual waves cancel each other out (and the P-3 was reported to be painting the ocean surface with laser beams, I recall).
Down below, a sensor on the sail of Albuquerque registers the laser light, not unlike seeing a flashlight through a ripple glass window, and Albuquerque's own computers feed the initial targeting data to an experimental SUBSAM in the vertical launch tube, then launches the missile from the vertical launch tube with compressed air. While under the control of Normandy, the missile came from another source, so again its true that Normandy herself did not fire a missile.
The SUBSAM breaks the surface of the ocean and ignites its rocket motor. It is at this point that James Sanders claims that a second data link, direct from the AEGIS-CEC to the missile, was to take place, but was interrupted by the simulated jamming of the exercise. That left the missile to acquire the target nearest its initial targeting coordinates. The problem was there were two targets, the drone, and the 747. The missile's FULLY-active (not semi-active) radar locked onto the 747.
The entire sequence of events happened within computers, at speeds far in excess of human response times, and was over before the humans watching over the exercise had time to react.
![[Terrorist Launch Diagram]](terdiagram.gif){kind=small}
Click for full size diagram.(5.2K)
Almost before the fires from the crash had cooled, the internet was flooded with hundreds of posts insisting that terrorists, using a Stinger Missile, had downed the aircraft. The sheer volume of these posts called attention to themselves. It's hard to get any 20 internet people to agree to whistle the same song in the same key, yet a clear pattern of coordination of stories was evident.
It's common sense that the harder someone tries to sell you a horse, the harder you should try to find out WHY.
That being the case, with this particular horse(refuse) being shoved down the net's collective throat, careful analysis of the claim was warranted.
The story being put out was that terrorists had acquired some of the Stinger Missiles the CIA had given to the Afghanistan Freedom Fighters, and had smuggled one into the United States.
Almost immediately, one major problem surfaced. According to Raytheon Corporation, the Stinger's operational ceiling is 10,000 feet, 3000 feet below the altitude where the 747 exploded. While the Stinger can top the 10,000 foot mark in a straight climb, it lacks the energy to close and kill a target, and review of the operational instructions given to soldiers reveals that attacks against targets above 10,000 feet are discouraged.
But the altitude of the 747 was not a constant! As one moved west, paralleling the coast of Long Island, the departure path from JFK airport slopes downward to the airport.
Nearer to the airport, the 747 was much lower down, and the PK (Probability of a Kill) much closer to 100%.
There is every reason for terrorists to attack much further west and no reason for them to wait until the 747 was almost out of range (and indeed, it would have been normal for the 747 to be at an even greater altitude by that point in the flight, had it not been avoiding conflicting traffic).
That the explosion occurred where it did is the single strongest argument against a terrorist fired Stinger. Terrorists deliberately targeting the 747 would have launched much further to the west.
Added argument against the terrorist Stinger theory lies with the fact that all man portable missiles target the engines of the aircraft they destroy, and the initial damage point to the 747 is reported as being to the fuselage itself, just ahead of the wing box on the starboard side. None of the four engines showed signs of a missile strike.
A final note. Stinger rocket motors, like any solid fuel rocket, have a limited shelf life. As they age, the motors will develop cracks, and are likely to explode when ignited, propelling the hapless operator farther than the missile itself.
Finally, the FBI c;laimed that no explosive residue was found on the 747 wreckage, attributing earlier reported traces to a training exercise involving the aircraft (a story which was itself later discredited).
![[Launch From Aegis Diagram]](salingerdiag.gif)
Click for full size diagram.(19.4K)
The theory put forward by Pierre Salinger is diagrammed above, with one modification of my own.
I find it impossible to accept an accidental launch of a missile. For this reason, I have added a target drone as the object of an exercise involving the Aegis, which paints the drone, and unknowingly paints the 747 in the distance. The missile launched from the U.S.S Normandy misses the target drone, but reacquires the radar echo from the 747 in the distance and continues onward.
The arguments against the missile originating from the U.S.S Normandy include the 185 mile distance from the ship to the 747, roughly 30 miles outside the maximum range of the currently known variants of the Standard Missile. While it is possible, even likely that longer range versions of the missile are in development, the eyewitness statements are of a missile that is emitting light, "like a flare", which is inconsistent with a Standard ending a ballistic arc from 185 miles away.
There is the very valid observation that the entire crew of the Normandy would be aware that a missile had launched from the ship. It's hard to imagine that being kept a secret. Possible, but not likely.
![[Launch From P3 Diagram]](p3diag.gif)
Click for full size diagram.(20.4K)
This theory is one of two that include an Orion P-3 aircraft which was operating inside the active warning zones.
In these theories, the distant Aegis ship U.S.S. Normandy does not fire a missile, but paints the target drone with a radar beam for the benefit of a missile launched by another craft in the area.
There are several advantages to this idea. First is that the launching platform is free of the weight of a radar targeting system, and because it is not emitting radar signals, is much harder to detect by the enemy. And because the missile launch comes from a different vector than the Aegis radar beams, threat direction is masked, making the enemies air defense problem more complex and difficult.
In the scenario detailed in the graphic above, the Aegis cruiser paints the target drone well inside the active warning zones. Because the Aegis target tracking software has the correct target, spurious background echos are ignored, and the operators are unaware that the Aegis radar is also painting the 747 in the distance, OUTSIDE the active warning zones.
The P-3, using its munitions racks, drop-launches a test missile, expecting it to target the remotely piloted drone, but the missile, upon activation, starts receiving TWO echos of the Aegis radar beam, both bearing the correct target identifier codes. One echo from the drone, and another from the far larger and more reflective 747.
The test missile, without the benefit of the Aegis tracking software that has the correct target, locks onto the stronger signal and powers off towards the 747.
![[Launch From Sub Diagram]](subdiagram.gif)
Click for full size diagram.(22.9K)
This version of the test missile theory relies on the Navy claim that the P-3 was engaged in an ASW (Anti Submarine Warfare) exercise inside the active warning zones.
Left unsaid is that the P-3, dropping sonobouys, had to have a target in the area. That means a submarine. One of ours, trying to hide.
The existence of the submarine was not officially acknowledged until recently, but right from the start it was hard to imagine the Navy dropping sonobouys onto and then recovering sonobouys from empty water.
In the theory detailed in the above diagram, the P-3 is hunting the submarine. The submarine's objective is to destroy a target drone, before the P-3 is able to locate and "ping" the submarine.
As in the above scenario, the Aegis cruiser paints the target drone well inside the active warning zones. Because the Aegis target tracking software has the correct target, spurious background echos are ignored, and the operators are unaware that the Aegis radar is also painting the 747 in the distance, OUTSIDE the active warning zones.
The test missile launches from its surfaced cannister, but the missile, upon activation, starts receiving TWO echos of the Aegis radar beam, both bearing the correct target identifier codes. One echo from the drone, and another from the far larger and more reflective 747.
The test missile, without the benefit of the Aegis tracking software that has the correct target, locks onto the stronger signal and powers off towards the 747.
A variation on this theory is that the USS Normandy was merely observing the test while a self-guided missile was deployed by the sub against the target drone.
It has been suggested that Flight 800 was downed by a meteor, and that this is the bright object seen approaching the plane by eyewitnesses.
First off, all but the very largest meteors, by the time they are down to the level of the 747, have cooled to invisibility and are falling nearly vertically. For a meteor to still be glowing and visible at 13,700, it would be the size of the 747 itself, and all of Long Island would have been notified of its arrival!
By the time meteors reach under 20,000 feet, aerobraking has slowed them to subsonic speeds, where their mechanical effects are comparable to a bullet of the same size. Short of hitting the engine fans or the pilot's windscreen, a small meteorite might do no more than dent the skin.
The eyewitnesses reported horizontal travel.
