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.

FMI: www.ntsb-kinda.gov