A scant 11 minutes after 230 people settled in for a sleepy, seven-hour night flight to Paris from New York's JFK International Airport, their Boeing 747-100 burst into a fireball and plummeted, in pieces, 2 1/2 miles into the ocean waters off of Long Island. No one on board survived. The known facts of the July 17, 1996 TWA Flight 800 calamity remain sketchy to say the least. Investigators continue looking at three possibilities: a massive mechanical failure, a bomb or a missile. None of them have been confirmed or ruled out.

That, anyway, is what they want you to believe.

But we, the people, are not fooled. We know the dark secret of TWA 800. A United States military missile shot it down and now the government, right up to President Bill Clinton, is determined to cover up the terrible truth.

Another crazy conspiracy theory? Just like the theories that crop up anytime there's a major public crisis, tragedy or scandal? Perhaps. And there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence to support it. So why should we give this conspiracy theory any further attention? Because the TWA 800 theory ushers the culture of suspicion into the age of the Internet. And it shows how conspiracy theories -- traditionally dismissed with a sneer or a chuckle by the "mainstream" media -- are beginning to play a part in shaping important public debates, thanks largely to the buzz they generate on the global information network.

With an alternative media as ubiquitous as the Internet, and one capable of transmitting large chunks of information withthe speed of a mouse click, conspiracy theories are no longer easy to ignore. Unlike most pre-Net conspiracy theories, the TWA 800 theory made a swift impact on the major media. In mid-September, with little else besides the rampant discussion of the theory on the Internet to go on, reporters began quizzing crash investigators about the "friendly fire" scenario.

Of course, it was not the first time major media have fed off the conspiracy-theory underground. Time magazine's controversial 1992 cover story alleging that the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 was somehow connected to a U.S. undercover operation grew out of a theory that had been circulating for more than three years. The TWA theory took less than two months to surface. As powerful a medium as the Internet is, it still takes a mainstream source to get a conspiracy theory off the ground. The net, however, facilitates the synergy between the two spheres. Though conspiratorial murmuring began almost immediately after the crash, it was an article in the Jerusalem Post three days later that fueled the theory. The Post posed a "what if" scenario to anonymous sources in the French Defense Ministry. The sources said that if the plane was indeed brought down by a missile, then it would have to be a U.S. miltary missile. A terrorist weapon just wouldn't have the punch. They gave no further support for their hypothetical assertion.

While a single article in an Israeli newspaper, in the past, would have had little effect on the American zeitgeist, these days thousands of newspapers have Web sites. The Jerusalem Post is one of the thousands. Digitized dittos of the Post story were flying around cyberspace within hours. Conspiracy theories have always been with us, exerting a seductive fascination. But without support from a decidedly non-conspiratorial above-ground press, the conspiracy audience was limited, to say the least. No longer.

Someday the TWA 800 story will be studied in journalism schools as a case study in how the new, mass availability of instantaneous global communication creates an alternative media so powerful that mainstream media are forced to respond. This is how the case study will read:

JULY 17-20

You don't have to be too terribly paranoid to see a certain merit in the "friendly fire" theory. A number of witnesses (anywhere from 10-150 depending on which media account you read) saw a streak of light heading toward the plane before the explosion. Investigators still haven't ruled out the possibility of a missile hit. If that were the case, a bizarre accident -- like the 1988 shootdown of an Iranian airbus by the USS Vincennes -- seems at least as strong a possibility as a nefarious and extremely sophisticated terrorist plot. Who knows? One of these days we may find out that an American missile snafu really is the cause of the crash. But the lack of publicly revealed evidence was no deterrent to conspiracy speculators on the Net. In additiion to the at least superficially plausible "friendly fire" scenario, a number of Internet self-publishers wondered if a UFO hadn't shot down the 747, while yet another speculated that the real target of the shootdown was none other than Henry Kissinger who was said to be a passenger on the plane. Dr. Kissinger, the theory held, has since been replaced by a double.

JULY 21

Conspiracy theorists are never above making selective use of the major media, no matter how suspicious of it they are. The "friendly fire" theorists got a boost when the respected and rather conservative Jerusalem Post ran its story, in which "French Defense ministry experts" asserted that "the infrastructure needed to fire a missile powerful enough to hit a plane at that altitude is only possessed by Army units." The same nameless "experts" predicted that, if the aircraft was indeed shot down, "it is unlikely the U.S. Army will admit it." It was just what the Internauts were waiting for. They scarmbled to download the piece from the Post's Web site and clone it all over the Net, often with their own annotations. "I think it's pretty obvious," stated one contributor to the newsgroup talk.politics.gun, "that TWA 800 was taken down by a SAM. Friendly fire, as it were." "Why should I NOT suspect Clinton," wonders another, going on to cite the "lies" of Waco, Ruby Ridge and Oklahoma City.

JULY 23-24

Using a quick survey of Internet Web sites and newsgroup postings as a political barometer, it looks like President Clinton is is not only headed for a crushing defeat in November, but probably for federal prison and the gas chamber. Clinton is a certified conspiracy theory superstar, allegedly responsible for untold swindles, frauds and atrocities. One document that passed around the Net in 1995 blamed him for over 30 murders. TWA 800 conspiracy theorizers certainly don't spare the ubervillain from Hope. On July 23 J. Orlin Grabbe -- best known for his 37-part Web published series on the Vince Foster "murder" -- confidently asserts on his Web site that Syrian backed terrorsists shot down the plane. Not "friendly fire" at all. But a friendly cover-up. Clinton is suppressing the truth, Grabbe says, because he wants to blame Iran or Iraq instead so he can triumphantly bomb one country or the other as an election-commandeering October Surprise. Grabbe doesn't pause long enough from his omniscient narrative to explain how he knows all this. The next day, a Usenet posting attributed to Gene Hilsheimer of Panama City, Fla., reveals that two Arkansas state troopers were on the plane, on their way to Paris to spill dirt on Clinton in an interview with the French daily Le Monde. The source of this ante-upping information: The Miami Herald.

AUGUST 2-20

The Net may be a quick and accessible source of information, but it's not always reliable. After a week of giddy online debate over "TWA Troopergate," the Miami Herald ran a story exposing the now-infamous posting as a "cyberhoax." The Herald never published such a story and there were no troopers on the plane. The Herald's debunking does not put an end to the ongoing amplification and distortion of facts and myth on the Net. The number of witnesses who saw the "streak of light" zipping toward the doomed the plane fluctuates wildly. Another unattributed, but frequently reiterated claim has it that "there is a report of sailors at sea routinely locking on to airliners during mock missile practice."

AUGUST 22

Conspiracy theories love the voice of authority. Even when that voice has no face behind it. An anonymous e-mail message begins circulating around the Internet declaring in no uncertain terms that "TWA Flight 800 was SHOT DOWN by a US NAVY AEGIS MISSILE fired from a guided missile ship which was in area W-105 about 30 miles from where TWA Flight 800 exploded." The prevailing attitude toward the message was -- as summed up on Sept 12 by one of the many people who reposted it -- "I have no idea whether this is true, but it's pretty damn interesting, and sounds eerily plausible." The message was attributed to "a man who was Safety Chairman for the Airline Pilots Association for many years and is considered an expert on safety." In reality, according to later media reports, it was written by Richard Russell, a 66-year-old Florida resident and former United Airlines pilot. Russell told USA Today that he never intended for his private message to be widely distributed. Nonetheless, his e-mail became the Rosetta Stone of the TWA 800 "friendly fire" theory. The message spread like a viral contagion, replicated countless times and in newsgroups, via e-mail and -- for the benefit of those yet to enter the online epoch -- by fax.

AUGUST 28

More "evidence." New reports described a party snapshot taken by Linda Kabot, a Long Island secretary. Blown up and distributed on the Internet, the picture showed a blip, supposedly a long cylinder with one end aglow streaking through the night sky, allegedly in the vicinity of the doomed plane. Friendly Fire Goes Pop: September

As the crash of TWA 800 neared its two month anniversary the "friendly fire" theory began to surge off the Internet and into pop culture. Multiple copies of the Russell message began showing up in newsrooms, arriving via fax and e-mail. Populist speculation about the U.S. Navy accidentally downing the jet had become too hot to ignore, and major media outlets, from Newsday to Newsweek to the Associated Press to CNN, set out to take a closer look at the theory.

Most reporters quoted official sources scoffing at the Navy "friendly fire" theory. According to Newsweek, the FBI had already looked into Russell's multiplying mailer, and had ruled out the whole scenario, stating that "the friendly-fire rumors have nothing to do with TWA 800." Not surprisingly, Navy spokesmen also vigorously denied Russell's allegations, though they did acknowledge that a guided missile ship was in fact cruising 180 miles south of the crash site at the time the plane went down. (That ship, the USS Normandy, had not been engaged in missile drills, they said.)

Despite the flurry of media debunkings, somebody in an official place was taking the "friendly fire" theory seriously. Marcia Kramer of New York's WCBS-TV echoed that notion in early September when she cited sources close to the investigation as saying that they were still exploring the possibility of an accidental "friendly fire" shootdown. More specifically, Kramer reported that investigators were examining whether a missile might have torn through the jet without exploding. This, her sources told her, would explain the absence of explosives residue in the wreckage. "We thoroughly vetted the sources of this story," Kramer later told us. "This information did not come [to WCBS] through the Internet."

At CNN's New York bureau, Russell's message arrived on Sept. 13, faxed by someone using a machine at the U.S. Dept. of Energy. With that as one in a melange of factors, CNN put the "friendly fire" question to investigators at a press briefing Sept. 16.

"Because these rumors had taken on a life of their own, we decided to try to put it to bed once and for all," says CNN Producer Ron Dunsky, adding that revisiting the story was "the responsible thing to do, because so many people had heard about it and believed it" even though CNN had "resisted it all along," Dunsky said.

"The Internet was part of the reason, one of the factors that tipped the scales" in CNN's decision to revisit a theory they had researched and been unable to substantiate.

After that Sept. 16 press briefing, at which reporters from other news organizations also pressed investigators on the friendly fire charges, CNN broadcast a story citing Russell's message and the denials of government officials. Reuter news service also put a story out on its wire that day dexcribing "exasperated officials" attempting to dispel the friendly fire rumors.

On Sept. 24, USA Today jumped into the not-so-friendly fray with a story headlined "FBI: Jet Not Downed by U.S. Missile."

Newsweek, in its story, asserted rather imperiously (suggesting that its sources were better than Kramer's) that TWA Flight 800 "was almost certainly destroyed by a bomb or a catastrophic mechanical failure" -Kramer defended her reporting. Inside the investigation, she explained to us, there have been competing views all along as to the cause of the explosion. "What's happened is that over the course of time, each one of these theories has risen and fallen" as a favored theory in the press. Kramer says she stands by her report and maintains that investigators are still open to the "friendly fire" scenario.

Apparently, Russell's Internet call to alarm was likewise based on information from a federal source. According to Newsweek, Russell claimed that "he got his information from someone who attended a 'high-level briefing' in Washington in mid-August." Citing "industry sources," Newsweekconfirmed that "a Federal Aviation Administration official told members of the Airline Pilots Association that the Feds were considering the 'friendly fire' scenario."

In short, the "friendly fire" theory may actually have roots in off the-record speculation by government sources--speculation that leaked along separate pathways onto both the Internet and traditional news media outlets. And like liquid rocket propellants, the two elements of speculation proved explosive when they met in the interface between new and traditional media.

OCTOBER 1-15

Although print and television journalists may feel they've laid the "friendly fire" theory to rest, throughout October Internauts continued to follow the spiraling contrails of missile speculation. Could a wayward NASA test rocket have downed TWA 800? inquired one Internet conspiracy tracker in a posting that appeared on a half dozen Usenet newsgroups. "I am not saying it was intentional, just possible," he added. "Accidents happen, so do stupid technicians."

To be sure, disagreement among federal investigators hasn't helped quell such high-flying speculation. Last week, senior officials of the National Transportation Safety Commission announced that the missile and bomb theories were a "lower probability" than the mechanical failure scenario. FBI officials were quick to voice a dissenting view. A senior FBI source told the New York Times that it was "preposterous" to rule out the missile and bomb theories when so much evidence remains to be assembled.

As Kallstrom put it earlier in the investigation, conspiratorial speculation is bound to flourish "in a vacuum of information, because the evidence is sitting at the bottom of the ocean." The complicating factor that few anticipated was the Internet, a potent new medium that would rush to fill that informational vacuum with an ether of instant conjecture, prompting the traditional media to respond, in turn triggering a whole new round of speculation on the popular bandwidth of the information superhighway.