James Sanders was the first investigative reporter to take a serious look at what happened to TWA Flight 800. For his efforts, he, his wife Elizabeth, a TWA trainer, and one of his sources, TWA Capt. Terry Stacey were arrested. The Sanderses were tried and convicted in federal court of conspiracy to steal airplane parts. Learn more in TWA 800: The Crash, The Cover-Up, The Conspiracy (Regnery: July 5). 

July 12, 1996, Westhampton, Long Island, a repairman using his video camera to film the dawn, instead captured a large missile solid-fuel exhaust plume climbing into the sky. Then something large fell from the sky, on fire, leaving a smoke trail as it descended slowly toward the Atlantic Ocean south of Westhampton.        

Five days later, in the same area of the sky, just after 8:30 pm, the United States Navy fired off another missile that brought down TWA Flight 800. Almost twenty years later I obtained from the FBI the video of the July 12, 1996, shoot-down, but the FBI refused to send me the documents associated with the video.

Newly discovered CIA documents, however, reveal that a cover-up was ordered. A factually-false narrative disguised as analysis was created, but never released to the media. Highly credible witnesses observed a missile take out TWA Flight 800, statements so compelling the FBI and CIA altered these statements to comport with the desired outcome of the investigation: mechanical failure.        

The New York Times reported the story the FBI wanted read by the masses; therefore, not one relevant witness article was published. When the National Security State ordered the FBI to abandon its “bomb” hypothesis, the Times pivoted, cooperating with National Security State wishes, feeding the masses the new propaganda.

About this time, I began my investigation of the government. I was receiving documents from my sources inside the investigation that confirmed the FBI and NTSB were altering the debris field to comport with a mechanical explanation. I also received information that the United States Navy was involved, including its newest submarine, the Seawolf, then undergoing sea trials, and that a massive failure within the Navy’s AEGIS system was responsible for two missiles taking out the TWA 747.

I received the Supervisor of Salvage log for the Red, Yellow, and Green zones. Cross-referencing this with other documents received from inside the NTSB side of the investigation, I was able to confirm and track the NTSB effort to alter the debris field.

I received forensic evidence of a thermite warhead attached to a solid-fuel missile striking TWA 800’s right side at the point where the leading edge of the right wing attached to the fuselage. A few feet away was engine number three, the first large part of the 747 to fall away. The NTSB/FBI moved the engine more than a mile to the east in its debris log to make the explanation for the crash read “mechanical.”

With some help from me, in March 1997, the Riverside, California, Press Enterprise ran a series of articles revealing forensic evidence of a thermite warhead and solid fuel missile. The DOJ then immediately raided the publisher of my TWA Flight 800 manuscript as it was being prepared for publication.

My phone records were seized, along with my financial records. Mail was seized along with my computer. No warrants were issued because that’s the way the National Security State operates when its existence is imperiled. Later, during the trial, the judge said that these illegal National Security State acts were okay because Congress had not attached a criminal penalty to such shenanigans.    

The CIA and FBI created a propaganda cartoon, presenting it to the world’s media November 18, 1997, about two weeks before my wife and I were arrested for receiving forensic evidence exposing federal lawlessness. The cartoon showed TWA Flight 800 flying east toward Paris, France, when suddenly a mechanical event blew off the front end of the 747, causing it to suddenly zoom-climb several thousand feet. FBI and CIA propagandists alleged this was what witnesses observed climbing into the evening air. A deep voice assured the public that no missile was involved.

Unfortunately for the Keystone Cops managing the cover-up, CIA documents have escaped their control. The CIA analysis concluded the zoom-climb did not occur, could not occur. There went the buffoonish cover story. Did the National Security State rush to the judge and manfully confess to the false CIA/FBI propaganda? Of course not.

Federal District Judge Joanna Seybert helped the National Security State by refusing to give my wife and me discovery, thereby guaranteeing that criminal utterances of National Security State propagandists would not be exposed. The judge then interrogated each member of the jury pool. All potential jurors who believed the federal government might engage in a cover-up were removed on the order of the judge. Seybert later confessed she would not allow a jury to sit in her court that did not believe in veracity of the federal government.

On December 22, 1998, prior to the trial, I was given three hours to photograph the reconstructed 747, along with the debris not included in the reconstruction. The path of the thermite warhead blast was photographed, along with altering of the floor of the center-wing-tank. The judge refused to allow a First Amendment defense so my photos of the criminal alteration could not be shown to the jury.

Times reporter John McQuiston wrote: “Captain Stacey appeared as the chief Government witness against the couple, testifying the three of them had conspired to steal the evidence. He told the jury Mrs. Sanders pleaded with him to help provide evidence for her husband’s investigation into the crash.”

Search the trial transcript and you will find nothing to confirm McQuiston’s allegations. Stacey stated the exact opposite: he did not believe he was breaking the law when he on his “own volition” removed red residue samples and sent them to me to test for evidence of a missile. 

In a tape-recorded conversation, the NTSB’s Dr. Merritt Birky confessed that he and the other red residue propagandists lied. They claimed that the red residue was 3M 1357 glue when they knew that to be false. Birky also ordered NASA (Florida) chemist Charlie Bassett to cease testing when Bassett discovered possible explosive residue on crash debris. Seybert would not allow evidence of these criminal acts in her courtroom.

We appealed the inevitable conviction, and Appellate Judge Sonia Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court Justice, falsified evidence in order to not overturn my wife’s conviction. DOJ lawyer Valerie Caproni forced the NTSB to violate federal law and turn over witness interviews to the FBI where they would be altered. Like Sotomayor, Caproni would become a federal judge. Reward for supporting the National Security State in its hour of need?

“Reality” is what remains after federal propagandists interpret fact. The shoot-down of a TWA 747 is fact; “reality” is everything the NTSB, FBI, CIA and DOJ said about the shoot-down over the last twenty years.