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Disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 Sparks Conspiracy Theories
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/disappearance-malaysia-airlines-flight-370-sparks-conspiracy-theories-article-1.1717801#ixzz2vjI1Pzep ^ | 3/11/2014 | Carol Kuruvilla

Posted on 03/12/2014 12:04:21 AM PDT by nickcarraway

While tormented family members cling to the hope that their loved ones will be found alive, conspiracy theorists are already spreading rumors online. According to the Internet, it could be anything from alien abductions to the North Korean government.

It may take years before investigators determine exactly what happened to Malaysia Airline Flight MH370.

But the conspiracy theories are already flowing freely. The facts behind the plane’s mysterious disappearance make it ripe for theories that range from the plausible, like pilot error, to the outright bizarre, like alien abduction.

The tale of disappeared Malaysia Airline Flight 370 took another twist today as Malaysian authorities said one of the two people who boarded the plane with stolen passports was an Iranian who had no links to terror groups.

The Boeing 777 en route to Beijing vanished early Saturday morning, along with its 239 passengers and crew. Investigators say the flight veered off course for more than an hour with all of its tracking systems turned off. Dozens of ships and aircraft from nine nations have launched a search and rescue mission, but there’s no trace of the plane — no debris, no pinging from the emergency locator and no guarantees that it will ever be found. Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble has tamped down on suggestions that the plane's disappearance is linked to terrorism. But some theorists are suggesting that terrorists have hijacked the plane and parked it in an undisclosed location, completely intact but with radio devices turned off. Distraught family members on the ground have reportedly tried calling their loved ones. They said the cellphones connected and rang, but that no one was picking up.

But where would you hide a 100-ton jet? Some theorists are pointing fingers at Pyongyang. Reddit user Nickryane claims the plane had enough fuel to easily land in North Korea and still be within cellphone range. The authoritarian country hijacked a jet in 1969, Vocative reports, so they've played this game before.

Another theory is pilot suicide. There’s no evidence that captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah or co-pilot Fariq Abdul Hamid had suicidal intentions. But it’s happened before — in October 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 plunged straight into the Atlantic ocean, killing 200 people. The NTSB concluded that one of the pilots, Gameel al-Batouti, had intentionally brought the plane down. According to CNN, al-Batouti didn't seem surprised in cockpit recordings when the jet started making a downward descent. The pilot also constantly used the phrase, "I rely on God."

There were about 145 Chinese nationals on flight MH 370, so users on the Chinese social media platform TenCent are focusing on the China connection. Some are blaming Uighur separatists. The Uighers are a group of ethnic Muslims from Xingjiang, the westernmost region of China. Beijing has blamed Uighur separatists for a brutal knife attack in Kunming that left 33 dead and more than 100 wounded. Interpol Secretary General Ronald Noble, center, speaks during a news conference at the Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. He said he did not believe the disappearance of a Malaysia Airlines plane was a terrorist incident.

And then there are the folk who think nothing on this planet could have been responsible for something so daring and inexplicable. There were no mayday calls or signs of plane malfunction before the jet went off the radar. A number of people on social media are claiming that such a sudden disapparance could be a sign that extraterrestial life exists.

One blogger speculated about everything from secret military weapons tests to "Bermuda Triangle-like ripples in the fabric of spacetime."

"If we never find the debris," he wrote on Natural News, "it means some entirely new, mysterious and powerful force is at work on our planet which can pluck airplanes out of the sky without leaving behind even a shred of evidence."


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: iran; malaysia; mh370; waronterror
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1 posted on 03/12/2014 12:04:21 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway
They said the cellphones connected and rang, but that no one was picking up.

If these calls went all the way to the phone, then there is a record to trace which cell phone tower the phones were using, which would pinpoint the phones pretty close. Even if these call didn't make it, but the phones were active, and the plane is landed somewhere, there almost certainly would be a tower nearby that would pick up a ping. I think someone knows where the plane is.

2 posted on 03/12/2014 12:12:12 AM PDT by Vince Ferrer
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To: nickcarraway

Some people have been watching too many movies.


3 posted on 03/12/2014 12:19:30 AM PDT by SaxxonWoods (....Let It Burn...)
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To: nickcarraway

People were speculating early on whether the passengers had time to place cell calls should there have been a mechanical emergency. Useless over the ocean, of course, but now being told the aircraft circled back over land for a length of time, it adds the possibility that cell phones were collected prior to the “hard left” and prior to the transponder being shut off, which could mean activity was occurring very early into the flight.


4 posted on 03/12/2014 12:23:18 AM PDT by blueplum
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To: nickcarraway

I have a theory that whenever there is an incident leftist groups float conspiracy theories as a distraction and to create confusion.


5 posted on 03/12/2014 12:24:36 AM PDT by prisoner6 (FREEDOM)
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To: nickcarraway
Either:

It crashed (for whatever reason)

or it didn't.

If it Crashed, either:

Mechanical/electronic failure

Pilot error

Intentional loss of the aircraft, including shoot down.

If it didn't:

Hijacked

Stolen.

Aliens (just kidding).

That the plane crashed, for whatever reason, is possible. If in the ocean, the debris field would have to be located. On land (for instance the central highlands in Nam) the wreckage may be masked by terrain or jungle.

That it was stolen or hijacked, and diverted to another location is also a possibility.

What needs to be examined are the range of the aircraft, and possible destinations.

Bandar Aceh airport has enough runway to land, refuel, and take off fully laden. I would suspect other airfields in range of the aircraft at the time it went off the radar would also be able to provide the same facilities, but the problem is one of getting in and out with a 'hot' plane. This would require cooperation at some level, or some sort of clandestine operation all around.

6 posted on 03/12/2014 12:31:29 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: nickcarraway
"If we never find the debris," he wrote on Natural News, "it means some entirely new, mysterious and powerful force is at work on our planet which can pluck airplanes out of the sky without leaving behind even a shred of evidence."

Meh. No one found Amelia Earhart, either.

7 posted on 03/12/2014 12:33:59 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Vince Ferrer

If this plane crashed into the ocean wouldn’t the water damage the cell phone. I know with mine I had several incidents where water got into my cell phone (don’t ask lol) and it would stop working. The phone buttons do not operate and it acts up like it is possessed.


8 posted on 03/12/2014 12:39:42 AM PDT by Patriot Babe
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To: Smokin' Joe
No one found Amelia Earhart, either

Much smaller aircraft, which could make a difference.

9 posted on 03/12/2014 12:44:25 AM PDT by Mark17 (Chicago Blackhawks: Stanley Cup champions 2010, 2013. Vietnam Vet 70-71 Msgt US Air Force, retired)
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To: Smokin' Joe
Aliens (just kidding).


10 posted on 03/12/2014 12:44:37 AM PDT by GraceG
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To: GraceG; Smokin' Joe

Illegal aliens? Undocumented plane takers?


11 posted on 03/12/2014 12:46:24 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: Smokin' Joe

Has anyone checked where the Bermuda Triangle was at that time?


12 posted on 03/12/2014 12:47:32 AM PDT by nickcarraway
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To: nickcarraway

The BIG problem/issue here is that the Indonesian military knew immediately that the plane had veered off course, yet for TWO DAYS let searchers waste their time looking hundreds of miles in a different direction..


13 posted on 03/12/2014 12:47:46 AM PDT by ken5050 (I fear a world run by adults who were never spanked as kids and got trophies just for participating)
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To: Mark17

The lockheed electra is a smaller aircraft, but people have been looking for that one a lot longer, too.


14 posted on 03/12/2014 12:51:57 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: nickcarraway
Steal it for: terrorist operations, ransom, the people on board, some unknown cargo.

As for illegal aliens, there were two and by some accounts, four on board flying with stolen passports.

15 posted on 03/12/2014 12:55:59 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: ken5050
The BIG problem/issue here is that the Indonesian military knew immediately that the plane had veered off course, yet for TWO DAYS let searchers waste their time looking hundreds of miles in a different direction..

I think the big problem here is that from the standpoint of the flight controllers, we aren't being told what happened which in part fuels some of the wild speculation.

Does a live human actually monitor the radar, does a computer do the monitoring, or are all the return signals just blips on a screen possibly being recorded?

If the plane deviated from course, for how long did it deviate before a human figured out something was wrong?

Then we need to know how contact was lost? Was it in a manner consistent with a sudden breakup at flight altitude, nose dive, controlled decent, or something else?

16 posted on 03/12/2014 1:04:22 AM PDT by fso301
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To: nickcarraway

I think it may have been near Bermuda (unless it was on vacation in the South Seas someplace).


17 posted on 03/12/2014 1:07:25 AM PDT by Smokin' Joe (How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)
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To: Mark17

Lady be Good, a B-24 in WWII did this. Flew by its base at night and crashed in the Libyan desert. Wasn’t found until 1958.
A French attempt just before Lindberg’s flight simply vanished.
Steve Fossett vanished in Nevada for months despite a furious, professional, well-funded and immense search effort.
Flight 19 5 bombers vanished off Florida.

The ocean is very very big. Its entirely possible this machine went deep out over the southern part of the Indian Ocean, ran out of fuel, crashed and sank. We simply may never know what happened.


18 posted on 03/12/2014 1:41:48 AM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: ken5050

More likely that they didn’t discover that westward turn until a careful study was being done of military radar records. Transponders weren’t on, probably took a little sleuthing to realize that.


19 posted on 03/12/2014 1:44:06 AM PDT by DesertRhino (I was standing with a rifle, waiting for soviet paratroopers, but communists just ran for office.)
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To: DesertRhino

Disagree, my FRiend. Once they knew where and when to look, which happened as soon as the plane disappeared..they’d find the weak radar track veering off to the west in a few hours, tops..more like a few minutes..


20 posted on 03/12/2014 1:48:19 AM PDT by ken5050 (I fear a world run by adults who were never spanked as kids and got trophies just for participating)
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