[excerpt][quote]
We proceeded to fly over to the smoke cloud. As we crossed over the shore line I looked down and saw 3 boats enroute to the fire, about 25% of the way. I estimated the flames to be 6-7 miles off shore. We watched intently seeing a flashing light at the SE edge of the flames, but it soon stopped. We observed a steady blinking light drifting SW away from the scene. Ken said it appeared to be a helicopter just west of the flames. Sven thought it could have been a marker beacon on a life raft. This was about 5+ minutes after the explosion. We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above. There was a tornado like tail leaving the bottom of it leading down to the flames. It had a small arc in it as the winds gently moved the cloud NNW. [end excerpt][end quote] Source.
Here's Ian Goddard, King of The Hill of the tinfoil hat wannabe witness report analysts at the time, reporting on it to the LSoft Flight 800 Forum on 18 December 1996:
| Date: Wed, 18 Dec 1996 02:01:03 -0500 Reply-To: Flight 800 discussion list <FLIGHT-800@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM> Sender: Flight 800 discussion list <FLIGHT-800@HOME.EASE.LSOFT.COM> From: Ian Goddard <igoddard@EROLS.COM> Subject: TWA 800: A Pilot's Report Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" (free 2 copy (*)----------------(free 2 forward) T W A F L I G H T 8 0 0: A P I L O T' S R E P O R T
by Ian Williams Goddard What happened on the night of July 17 when TWA 800 exploded in midair? Sven Faret, pilot of a private plane, along with passenger Ken Wendell, were both flying in the area and, with an eagle's-eye view, were on top of it all. Sven spoke on FOX News and CNN the night of the crash. So what did they see? According to Sven's written report [1], Sven and Ken were flying at 8,500 feet over Riverhead, LI, NY at about 8:40 pm, on July 17, 1996 when, accord- ing to the report, "Ken pointed out traffic at 3 o'clock low (actually 2:30). Sven saw a white light steady in the sky." That light, was TWA flight 800. Then the report states that a "short 'pin flash of light' appeared on the ground (perhaps water)." When I asked Sven if this flash rose upwards vertically from the surface, he confirmed that it did. He also told me it was "like a rocket launch at a fireworks display," and that its point of origin was "near the shoreline or in the water." "Very shortly" after they saw this "rocket launch" below TWA 800, their report states that: ...the white light [TWA 800] exploded instantaneously into a huge red-orange ball. My initial thoughts were "who's shooting fireworks tonight." The magni- tude of the fire ball, and altitude, quickly...ruled that out. Notice the harmony of Sven and Ken's observation with that of these ground-level eyewitness ac- counts, ABC World News Sunday (07/21/96): 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 wasn't a flare. The New York Daily News (11/09/96): It looked like a big skyrocket go- ing up, and it kept going up and up, and the next thing I knew there was an orange ball of fire. Roland Penney and his family, who were in a boat at the time, reported (Newsday, 9/1/96) that they saw "a pencil-thin white trail rising up...that hit that plane." Now back to Sven's report. Moments after TWA 800 exploded, Sven states in the report: I asked Ken "What was that!?... It's probably the National Guard boys losing a C130 or something... Maybe they shot down one of their own planes." It looked like the military shot-down the plane! When asked if the military conducts such activity in the area, Sven replied: "On a regular basis." That military activity is frequent in the area is also evident in the account given by S. Beach resi- dent John Bauman (The Independent, 07/24/96), who said "people continued fishing" after the blast thinking it was probably "the Westhampton Air Force Base doing some kind of testing offshore."
CONCLUSION With over 150 eyewitnesses who saw a "streak of light" and a "skyrocket" shoot up and hit TWA 800 initiating its annihilation, and with these wit- nesses on land, in the Great South Bay, out at sea and even up in the air, all giving virtually ident- ical accounts, to say that this is an overwhelming case for a missile hit is an major understatement. How many criminal cases can you recall with uniform testimony from over 150 witnesses? It's a prosecu- tor's wildest dream come true. But in the la-la-land of TWA 800, anyone who considers this testimony as proof of a missile strike is portrayed as a mentally unbalanced idiot by the GovtMedia and are, on the Internet, assaulted with vicious ad hominem attacks and threats of physical violence. How strange. For some, no amount of evidence will shatter their unfaltering faith in the FBI-NAVY-NTSB cover-up; and with all the physical evidence -- debris, radar and satellite records -- locked away, off-limits to public viewing, it's a cover-up by definition. And speaking of a cover-up, why are we not hearing all of pilot Sven Faret and Ken Wendell's eyewit- ness testimony in the media? It's painfully clear that the major media is now following the lead of the government in suppressing all evidence of a missile strike, hence the term "GovtMedia". In August 1997 it was finally pointed out to Goddard and his tinfoil hat followers that ALL the observations of unusual events in the sky by Faret & Wendell, up until then their Star "missile shootdown" witnesses, were BELOW their own flight altitude of 8500 feet. Since then, some the tinfoil hats have been engaged in non-stop efforts to discredit Faret & Wendell, as you have now again dramatized. Lawyers would refer to it as attempting to impeach your own witnesses.
|
There is one fact that bothers us, however. No mention is ever made of the fact that the explosion was at 7500 feet! We do not dispute the fact that something happened at 13,800 feet, but what happened after that. There is 5000 feet unaccounted for.
We would like to emphasize:
"We approached the black-gray smoke cloud on the west side. We were at 7700 feet and were at the top edge of the cloud. The cloud center was at 7500 feet. There were 2 small bumps atop it. There was no smoke or smoke trails above it. It was still lit up a little by the sun, clear above."
We don’t why this has never been discussed in any scenarios.”