If the American public started raising a ruckus about U.S. missile strikes that blew up civilian foreigners at overseas wedding parties, it's not inconceivable that the U.S. government would attribute those explosions to faulty candles in the wedding cakes. The government offered a similarly unconvincing explanation for the 1996 explosion of TWA flight 800 off Long Island, New York, and the U.S. public has, until now, accepted it.

But If you sit down and watch Kristina Borjesson's new documentary, TWA Flight 800, you'll see a compelling case that this jet full of passengers was in fact shot down by missiles, killing all aboard, and that a CIA video broadcast by U.S. TV networks adheres with none of the established facts, claiming instead that there were no missiles, offering no alternative theory about what caused the airliner to explode and crash into the sea.

The FBI and the NTSB (National Transportation Safety Board) perpetrated blatant coverups that entailed the intimidation of witnesses and investigators, evidence tampering, falsified Congressional testimony, censoring of reports, and serial violations of standard protocol. Some government investigators concluded themselves that the explosion(s) originated outside the body of the ill-fated jet. They were barred from stating this in their reports or testifying to this in hearings. Many eyewitnesses – people on the ground and in other planes, who reported seeing one or more missiles rising from the ground to the airplane – were also censored. Not one of them was allowed to give testimony.

The military test-fired missiles, with witnesses, in their own attempt to prove that they either wouldn't be able to see them, or would report inaccurately what they saw. But these witnesses all reported accurately that they saw the missiles. The report on this test came to exactly the opposite conclusion of what the military hoped and anticipated – but the government pedaled its original conclusion to the media, which obediently repeated it to the public.

Then and now, investigators and eye-witnesses believed that one or more missiles destroyed the plane.The recovered wreckage is consistent with this conclusion. Radar data shows pieces of the plane blown off at velocities consistent with that of high explosives, not an exploding fuel tank. The same data also shows the plane falling, not rising (contrary to CIA claims that Flight 800 rose into the sky as it exploded, thus corroborating witness reports of rising objects). Damage to seats and passengers in the plane was distributed randomly, not focused around the fuel tank. Which make sense, given that there was no wiring near the fuel tank that could have caused it to explode – and no explanation other than faulty wiring was ever offered.

The documentary concludes that three missiles were likely shot at Flight 800 from near the Long Island coast, including one from a ship. There is no speculation as to who did it or why. But powerful evidence is presented that it happened, and that the coverup began from that point forward, with the disaster site cordoned off quickly and put under heavy FBI guard – not standard procedure for a plane crash.

Who was responsible? Naturally, speculation centers on the U.S. military. Was a passenger on the plane the target? Was this a terrible demonstration of technology? A mistake? A part of something larger that was eventually aborted? We don't know.

By the way – The New York Times was impressed enough by the film to favor a new investigation, but bemoans the absence of a credible enough entity to lead it. Which is striking in itself. The U.S. government is so unworthy of trust in the film that it can't be allowed to investigate itself.