You wrote: "Ambient, benign chemical residues and Sanders' tampered evidence just don’t cut it."

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Test results conflict about the contents of red residue.
In March 1997, freelance journalist and ex-Seal Beach policeman James D. Sanders said red residue found on a piece of the jetliner's seats was consistent with exhaust from solid fuel for rockets. A missile scientist said the elements were consistent with rocket fuel. Sanders used that and other evidence to conclude a missile with an inert warhead shot down Flight 800. His evidence and conclusions were published in The Press-Enterprise.

FBI and NTSB officials said the red residue was adhesive and that their tests showed it to be 3M's Scotch-Grip 1357 High Performance Contact Adhesive. However, Scotch-Grip 1357 is green, not red.

Three independent laboratory tests show Scotch-Grip 1357's makeup is significantly different than the residue Sanders had tested independently in a Southern California laboratory.
The test the NTSB commissioned the National Aeronautic and Space Administration to conduct on the adhesive and Flight 800 seats is so dissimilar to Sanders' test that the results "are like comparing apples and oranges," according to Semtec Laboratories of Phoenix, Ariz., a private test laboratory.

Laboratory manager Ed Holdsworth, who examined the conflicting test reports at the request of The Press-Enterprise, said they showed the adhesive and red residue differences to be significant.
"Clearly the data do not support the statement that the analyses are `consistent with' the residue being 3M adhesive," his report said. But he cautioned he also could not say the red residue was consistent with rocket propellent, in part because of "the lack of any basic data on what the residue from a solid fuel rocket motor should contain."

Two independent tests at a branch of the Los Alamos National Laboratory at Florida State University determined the 3M adhesive and seating material from a TWA sister plane to Flight 800 were missing almost half the elements found in the red residue Sanders had tested. Of the eight elements common to the 3M product and the red residue, most were present in significantly smaller quantities in the adhesive.

The FBI's original samples and Sanders' sample also came from different spots, according to investigators. The FBI's came from inside a plastic inset on seatbacks while Sanders' was fabric from the top ridge of a seat.

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