ABSTRACT
At 8:30 pm on July 17, 1996, Trans-World Airlines flight 800 crashed into the ocean. Reports consistent with the theory that a missile attack may have caused the crash soon spread among witnesses, investigators, and the media. Despite physical evidence pointing to another cause, discussion of the missile theory of the crash persisted for years. How did so many witnesses become convinced they had seen a nonexistent missile? And why did their reports continue to convince investigators, the media, and interested observers despite accumulating evidence of another cause? Some analyses suggest that post-event suggestion in the form of widespread speculation about causes of the crash may have brought about the initial potentially false reports consistent with the involvement of missiles. Within days of the crash, the media further fueled the missile theory by publishing seemingly supportive evidence and witness accounts. For example, the New York Daily News ran a story with the headline “Was TWA Jet Shot Down? Missile Attack, Bombing Probed.” Other stories speculated about whether a bomb or possibly a surface-to-air missile more likely caused the crash. Witnesses claiming to have seen a missile were interviewed extensively, leading other witnesses to come forward with similar stories. Their stories in turn encouraged investigators to process evidence with the missile theory as a primary hypothesis, perhaps biasing interpretation of that evidence toward support of the theory.
