Charred and twisted
aluminum littered the scene yesterday after a Washington press
conference lapsed into chaos. The aluminum came from the tinfoil
hats worn by cranks who argued over the cause of the explosion of
TWA Flight 800 in 1996. Conspiracy theorist Nigel Von Braun held
the press conference to announce that the cause of the explosion
was "Resonance. The fundamental frequency of the forks in business
class meals was F two octaves below middle C; that was the same
frequency as the fuel tank. Some guy hit the edge of his fork
against the seatback table, and boom. We have been neglectful of
the fork fundamental frequency hazard."
This theory flies in the face of the most popular theories in
Internet chatrooms, which are that the Navy shot the jet down with
a missile test gone awry, or that space alien Marvin the Martian
zapped the center wing fuel tank with his
disintegrator-ator-ator-ray. Before the hotel custodian could
restore order, the missile zealots briefly fought for control of
the podium with the alien buffs. However, the alien buffs had to
leave for a screening of two related documentaries, "The Day The
Earth Stood Still" and "Plan Nine from Outer Space," across town,
and the Navy missile zealots had the bad luck to encounter real
sailors on liberty, who didn't like being compared to terrorists.
The missile zealots were treated and released at City Hospital.
"If I had to admit them, I would have had to say they were in
stable condition," a doctor in the Emergency Room, who asked not to
be identified, explained. "Now, I'm an ER doc, I don't practice in
the mental health field, but even I could see that 'stable' is the
wrong word."
"The best advantage of
this theory," Von Braun told the press, "Is that it sounds
scientific to anyone who never took a class in physics or other
hard sciences. Like you reporters."
Asked to explain the sources of his data, Von Braun explained
that all the whistle-blowers who had provided him data had been
"erased from human memory by CIA mind span control" as part of a
massive cover-up. Told that there was no evidence of such, he
smiled. "Of course not! That proves there is a cover-up, and it's a
rather good one."
The one thing that all the cranks, including the fork cranks,
the Navy missile cranks, and the space-alien cranks agreed on, was
that there was a massive cover-up. "Prove there wasn't!" they said,
crossing their arms in unison.
NTSB investigator Alfred Neuman was not available. "The guy said
what? He's laughing too hard to come to the phone," an unidentified
person at NTSB HQ told Aero-News.