Night Fall

speed boat had immediately left the area after the explosion, and no one-not the Navy, not the FBI, not the Coast Guard, and not the CIA-had ever identified or found that missing boat. If that were true, then, ostensibly, this was the boat from which the missile-if there had been a missile-had been fired.

The tape was now showing three color photographs, all taken by people who were photographing other people that night, but who had inadvertently captured in the background what appeared to be a short streak of light in the night sky. The narrator speculated that this could be the afterburn of a rising rocket or missile.

The problem with still photography as evidence, especially when it was taken by accident, is that it proved nothing.

Moving pictures, however-videotape and film-were another matter, and I thought again of the couple on the beach.

The most compelling part of this presentation was original footage of six eyewitnesses.

Some of these eyewitnesses were interviewed where they said they had been standing when they saw the streak of light rising into the sky, so they were able to point and make little flying motions with their hands. All of them seemed credible and insistent about what they saw. A few of them became upset, and one woman broke down and cried.

They all described pretty much the same thing with some slight variations: They happened to be looking out to sea when they saw a streak of fiery light rise off the ocean, climb into the air, gather speed, then culminate in a small explosion, followed by a huge fireball, followed by the fireball plunging into the sea.

And now came the CIA animation. I put down my Scotch and looked closely at the animated depiction, narrated by a guy whose tone of voice was as annoying as the pedantic script.

First was a representation of the interior of the empty center fuel tank, showing some fuel residue in between the baffles on the bottom of the tank. Then the narrator mentioned volatile fuel vapors, then a spark was seen coming from some source inside the tank. Then the explosion.

The fuel-air explosion ripped through the left side of the center tank and ignited the fuel in the left wing tank, causing a big explosion, shown as a cartoonish depiction of a big bang.

The narrator explained that the concussive forces of the explosion had caused the nose section of the aircraft to “unzipper” and fall off.

But then, under the category of not leaving well enough alone, the narrator and the animation attempted to explain what the eyewitnesses actually saw, though the narrator didn’t mention that there were over two hundred of those witnesses.

If I could follow this animation and narrative correctly, the CIA was saying that the two hundred eyewitnesses did not notice the aircraft at the moment of the explosion; what drew their attention to the aircraft was thesound of the explosions, which reached them thirty or forty seconds later. Then, when they looked up, they saw two things: the fiery aircraft rising before it plunged into the sea, and/or the burning fuel streams, which may have been mirrored in the calm water. In other words, everyone who saw this event got it backwards in their minds.

A few witnesses came back on the screen, and the first guy said, “How can a climbing aircraft going from fourteen to seventeen thousand feet look like a high-speed missile rising from the water?”

A former Air National Guard guy said, “The streak I saw took three, four, five seconds to rise fourteen thousand feet. It was going at supersonic speed.”

A guy, who I recognized from the FIRO TV news conference three nights before, was interviewed in front of his house on Long Island where he was standing when he saw the incident. He said, “That animation was nothing like what I saw. Not even close.”

A woman interviewed from a bridge where she had been standing that night said, “I did see burning fuel falling, but that was after I saw a streak of light goingup.”

I thought of Captain Spruck’s words again: This way is up. Right?

I stopped the tape, sat back in my recliner, and thought.

The CIA animation raised more questions than it answered, it flew in the face of logic, and it contradicted by cartoon what people swore they saw. Sometimes the least said and the least shown, the better. I might have bought the mechanical failure conclusion-eyewitnesses notwithstanding-if it weren’t for this gratuitous CIA creation.

I hit the Play button, and the tape continued.

Kate came into the living room, wearing a little teddy. “Come to bed, John.”

“I’m not tired.”

She pulled up a footstool, sat beside me, and took my hand. We watched the last few minutes of the tape together.

The conclusion of the pseudo-documentary was not entirely clear, ending with questions and leaving open the possibility of a sequel.

I shut off the VCR, and we sat in the dark, silent room, high above the streets of New York.

Kate asked me, “What do you think?”

“I think this tape is about forty percent inaccurate and forty percent manipulative. Like an Oliver Stone movie.”

She asked, “And the rest of it?”

“Just enough truth to make you wonder.” I asked, “What’s with the missing high-speed boat?”

She replied, “That’s real. A few unimpeachable radar sightings describe a boat moving at high speed-thirty knots-away from the crash site right after the explosion.” She added, “Most private boats in the area wenttoward the crash to see if they could help. The military boats remained on station until ordered to move toward the crash site. The Coast Guard and FBI put out a public call for all boat skippers who were in the area that night to come forward and report their positions and describe what they’d seen. Everyone did, except this one boat, which became known as the Thirty-Knot Boat.”

I said, “So that’s the boat from which the missile was supposed to be fired.”

“That’s the theory.”

I remarked, “Maybe the people on this boat were up to what the couple on the beach was up to and that’s why that boat hightailed it out of there. I’m sure there were a lot of men and women out there on that summer night who weren’t supposed to be there together.”

“So what you’re saying is that the only heat-seeking missile on this missing boat was between some guy’s legs.”

“Sounds like something I’d say.”

She smiled and said, “Actually, you’re not the first person to come up with that thought. What did you think of the CIA animation?”

“There seems to be a disconnect here.”

She nodded, then informed me, “You know, not all the eyewitnesses described the same thing. Some sawtwo streaks of light. Many saw the streak of light ascend higher than the aircraft, then come down in an arc before it hit the aircraft from overhead. Others say the streak rose directly up from the water and hit the underside of the aircraft. Most people describe two explosions-the initial smaller explosion, followed by the huge fireball. But some people describe three explosions. Some people say they saw the nose section fall off, but most didn’t. Some people say the aircraft seemed to stop in midair after the first explosion, some don’t. Some saw the burning aircraft rise after the explosion, which radar sightings confirm, but most people describe a straight plunge into the ocean while others describe a wing-over-wing descent. In other words, not all of the eyewitnesses agree on all of the details.”

I replied, “That’s why I don’t understand how the CIA could make a speculative animation based on so much conflicting testimony. You’d need at least a dozen different animations to account for all the different testimonies.”

Kate replied, “I think the CIA started with one premise-the official conclusion, which didn’t include a missile. Then they depicted that conclusion the way some aviation experts say it should or could have happened. The eyewitness descriptions were irrelevant to the CIA. They simply said, ‘Thisis what you saw.’”

“Right. Somebody in this tape said that the eyewitnesses were never called to testify at any of the official and public hearings. Is that true?”