I've learned about someone recently and I know this isn't an Unsolved Mystery or has ever even been technically classified as a mystery, but I was wondering if any of you "detectives" that are old enough to remember this might remember it and could give me your input on it:

In the early 1980's, there was a girl named Samantha Smith who wrote a letter to Soviet president Yuri Andropov because she was worried about the Cold War and threats of possible nuclear war that might be going on at the time. To try and make this shorter/summarize, they somehow decided to respond to her stating they would never start a war/initiate an attack and invited her to go visit the Soviet Union that summer. The visit went well, she got lots of media attention, subsequently appeared on news shows and talk shows, and within a year or two started acting.

Anyway, I read that this might have upset then President Reagan's administration because she was A. unknowingly going against their agenda and kind of "making them look bad" and B. started making a name for herself and starting to have an acting career after doing this.

She got a lead role and started filming a TV series called "Lime Street" in 1985. On August 25th, 1985, she was returning from a break in filming with her father and while on a flight from Boston to an airport near her hometown (Auburn-Lewiston in Maine), the plane crashed short of the runway and killed her, her father, and 6 others (including both pilots).

After reading about Reagan and how he employed his own handpicked air-traffic controllers in 1981 during a strike, knowing about the attention Samantha got from her correspondence with Andropov and reading about interesting details in the accident report, I'm starting to wonder:

Was it really just an accident (as most believe it to be) or was this a set-up with tampering done to have this plane crash?

(PS I read that Bar Harbor Airlines only had 2 crashes ever during the 20 or 20 years it was up and this was one of them and the only one that was fatal.)

My sources. of info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan (scroll down to the air-traffic controllers strike section)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Smith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Airlines_Flight_1808

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Airlines (history of Bar Harbor Airlines)


It would really pi** me off if there really was some plan to tamper with and try to make this plane crash, but I'm starting to think there was because it seems like too much of a coincidence for this to have happened to this particular person/people on an airline with a squeaky clean track record. I've seen pics and found clips online of Samantha: she seemed like one of the sweetest, most beautiful girls and seemed to have a very fun and magnetic personality.

Anyway, sorry this is so long and to totally bring this non-UM topic out of left field, but I figured this might be a good place to find some people who might have some knowledge and input on it.

I wasn't even born yet but by reading all of this, it does seem like they set her up to have her killed. It doesn't seem coincidental, as our government and other governments have been known to keep secrets, have certain people killed to keep quiet and act very shady.

I don't see why they would have to kill her though, what much could she have known anyways? She probably was no threat to anyone and wasn't intent on anything harmful but I guess when some people try to poke around for answers, they get rubbed out and nothing else is said about it and no one takes a second look or has a second thought about it.

I don't know why governments think us the people are stupid, we can see through them and their intentions.

Do I believe that Ronald Reagan, the most respected President in modern times, a man who SAVED 77 lives in his youth as a lifeguard (also documunted in the first link given in the OP's post), orchestrated the murder of not only a peace-keeping, innocent girl but also the lives of several other people completely unconnected to the situation?

Answer: No.

There is simply no evidence to suggest the crash was anything but a result from bad weather and inexperienced pilots.

If you have some evidence otherwise, then we could discuss that. Otherwise this accustion is an EPIC FAIL!

There are too many conspiracy theorists in this country. It's easier to believe it's a big hush hush government conspiracy rather than a simple accidental death. I do not believe our government would set out to kill an innocent citizen who as a small child reached out to the USSR because she was scared of the Cold War.

Do I believe that Ronald Reagan, the most respected President in modern times, a man who SAVED 77 lives in his youth as a lifeguard (also documunted in the first link given in the OP's post), orchestrated the murder of not only a peace-keeping, innocent girl but also the lives of several other people completely unconnected to the situation?

Answer: No.

There is simply no evidence to suggest the crash was anything but a result from bad weather and inexperienced pilots.

If you have some evidence otherwise, then we could discuss that. Otherwise this accustion is an EPIC FAIL!

Yes. This. All of it.

And I'm sure the Reagan administration had better things to worry about than a little girl who wrote a letter to the Soviet president.

I'll concur with what the others have said. I don't really believe this.

The problem is that it is really easy to construct theories like this using vague, yet provable, facts (and disregarding other "inconvenient" facts) to suggest an underlying plot. This is how all conspiracy theories are constructed and consequently they are very difficult to de-construct and disprove. Most of the time these theories are concocted by someone with an obvious agenda - not implying the OP has one - but look at how many books exist on the JFK assassination for example.

I find these theories interesting, yet stop short of accepting them as fact without further scrutiny. Always consider the source and never consider any one source "definitive".

It is sort of a slippery slope though. Believe in a JFK conspiracy, and then you start considering that that there are plausible theories surrounding the RFK and MLK assassinations too. Some people believe all three murders were connected and carried out by the same government entities. If the government is that cunning and ruthless why wouldn't they use Jonestown to conduct mind control experiments, why wouldn't they invent AIDS in a lab so as to eliminate the liberal gay population, etc.?

While I am not against all conspiracy theories, and I have no doubt the US government played a role in a lot of nefarious things during the Cold War, I don't believe they would have assassinated a 13 year old girl whose only political act was to learn that Soviets were people. If the Reagan administration was systematically trying to dehumanize the Soviet people, Billy Joel's 1987 visit would have been stopped, the Soviets would have been banned from the 1984 Olympics (they boycotted, Reagan didn't ban them) as well as many other exchanges between the US and the Soviets.

And, frankly, if they (the Reagan administration) had wanted Samantha Smith out of the picture, they could have simply framed her psychotic stalker (who later went on to kill actress Rebecca Schaeffer.)

Samantha Smith provided a nice shiny human interest story in the Cold War when the Reagan administration probably preferred that to be in the news over the funding of rebels in Nicaragua, Afghanistan and other Soviet allied nations.
Also, Ronald Reagan himself met with a Soviet girl of similar age named Katya in 1983.

I've learned about someone recently and I know this isn't an Unsolved Mystery or has ever even been technically classified as a mystery, but I was wondering if any of you "detectives" that are old enough to remember this might remember it and could give me your input on it:

In the early 1980's, there was a girl named Samantha Smith who wrote a letter to Soviet president Yuri Andropov because she was worried about the Cold War and threats of possible nuclear war that might be going on at the time. To try and make this shorter/summarize, they somehow decided to respond to her stating they would never start a war/initiate an attack and invited her to go visit the Soviet Union that summer. The visit went well, she got lots of media attention, subsequently appeared on news shows and talk shows, and within a year or two started acting.

Anyway, I read that this might have upset then President Reagan's administration because she was A. unknowingly going against their agenda and kind of "making them look bad" and B. started making a name for herself and starting to have an acting career after doing this.

She got a lead role and started filming a TV series called "Lime Street" in 1985. On August 25th, 1985, she was returning from a break in filming with her father and while on a flight from Boston to an airport near her hometown (Auburn-Lewiston in Maine), the plane crashed short of the runway and killed her, her father, and 6 others (including both pilots).

After reading about Reagan and how he employed his own handpicked air-traffic controllers in 1981 during a strike, knowing about the attention Samantha got from her correspondence with Andropov and reading about interesting details in the accident report, I'm starting to wonder:

Was it really just an accident (as most believe it to be) or was this a set-up with tampering done to have this plane crash?

(PS I read that Bar Harbor Airlines only had 2 crashes ever during the 20 or 20 years it was up and this was one of them and the only one that was fatal.)

My sources. of info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan (scroll down to the air-traffic controllers strike section)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samantha_Smith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Airlines_Flight_1808

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bar_Harbor_Airlines (history of Bar Harbor Airlines)


It would really pi** me off if there really was some plan to tamper with and try to make this plane crash, but I'm starting to think there was because it seems like too much of a coincidence for this to have happened to this particular person/people on an airline with a squeaky clean track record. I've seen pics and found clips online of Samantha: she seemed like one of the sweetest, most beautiful girls and seemed to have a very fun and magnetic personality.

Anyway, sorry this is so long and to totally bring this non-UM topic out of left field, but I figured this might be a good place to find some people who might have some knowledge and input on it.
This made an episode of The Golden Girls make sense for me now..... Rose wrote a similar letter and they assumed she was a child........

You are correct, chacha. :)

This made an episode of The Golden Girls make sense for me now..... Rose wrote a similar letter and they assumed she was a child........

I think they did that as a tribute to Samantha. Her show "Lime Street" was to start airing on ABC in the same time slot that the Golden Girls was to start airing on NBC. It did, but was cancelled after only 3 or 4 shows, and I'm sure her death didn't help for the longevity of the show, especially since Robert Wagner had specifically seeked her out for the role of his daughter.

"There is simply no evidence to suggest the crash was anything but a result from bad weather and inexperienced pilots."


I read a detailed report about the crash investigation and they believe it's possible that the plane had a leak in it, which could have thrown off the altimeter settings, particularly when the pilot made the big turn during the attempted landing. Why I don't get is why would the air-traffic controller let the pilot get so far off course that he would have to instruct him to make that kind of a turn in the first place?

Today is the anniversary of the crash. I know most of you who responded disagreed with my notion and believe that is was 100% simply an accident, but I still don't completely rule out that there could have been an attempt to try to get the plane to crash by the air-traffic controller (working with/through others that had that as an agenda).

To someone else, I'm not sure that Robert John Bardo would have been known by the goverment or the CIA at the time of this crash, so I don't think the idea that they could have framed him would have been plausible in August 1985.

http://samanthasmith.ucoz.com/photo/photographs/16-19-0-0-2

"There is simply no evidence to suggest the crash was anything but a result from bad weather and inexperienced pilots."


I read a detailed report about the crash investigation and they believe it's possible that the plane had a leak in it, which could have thrown off the altimeter settings, particularly when the pilot made the big turn during the attempted landing. Why I don't get is why would the air-traffic controller let the pilot get so far off course that he would have to instruct him to make that kind of a turn in the first place?

As you've said yourself, there was a strike going on. Wasn't it just last year that there was talk about how many air-traffic controllers are working on little to no sleep because of the way their schedules are set up? I'd think that would have been even worse during a strike where the people hired were probably not fully qualified for the job. I'd be more inclined to think that Regan picked people according to favoritism (and not qualifications) rather than picking his elite crew of air-traffic controller assassins.

So...."Why would they LET a pilot get so far off course?" Well, how many controllers were on duty? How many planes were coming in? AFAIK, controllers at individual airports deal more with incoming and outgoing planes and not the flight path during an entire flight.

From what I've read at the pages about your links, it seems like it was an unfortunate accident that resulted in more safe regulations. Much like other such accidents, hindsight is 20/20 and rules are enacted to help prevent such tragedies from happening again. The 'If only...' statements are answered and turned into regulations if possible.

I would assume if they actually did want this chick dead, that there would be easier ways to do it

This post gave me the chills.

This post gave me the chills.

how come?

For some reason, the thought that this could actually happen seemed remotely plausible.
I'm pretty sure it was an accident.....but it does make one think.

If Reagan was going to take her out, wouldn't he have done it much sooner?

Sometimes a plane crash is just a plane crash. The more a person travels, the more likely they are to be involved in a crash. Small commuter airlines at this time were far less regulated than they are now. There's no conspiracy here, just the tragic death of a child who, as we all were as children in the early 80s, was worried about nuclear annihilation.

The original post belongs over at Democratic Underground. I'm sure the people over at that cesspool would eat it up with a spoon.

Do I believe that Ronald Reagan, the most respected President in modern times, a man who SAVED 77 lives in his youth as a lifeguard (also documunted in the first link given in the OP's post), orchestrated the murder of not only a peace-keeping, innocent girl but also the lives of several other people completely unconnected to the situation?

Answer: No.

There is simply no evidence to suggest the crash was anything but a result from bad weather and inexperienced pilots.

If you have some evidence otherwise, then we could discuss that. Otherwise this accustion is an EPIC FAIL!

I have little respect for Reagan and believe strongly that his policies harmed this country greatly in the long-term.

That said, I wholly agree with wiseguy's conclusion. There is no evidence to suggest Reagan or anyone in his administration had anything to do with this accident. Let's stop with conspiracy theories and actually use our brains for a moment. What benefit would a President receive from killing a little girl? Funding terrorists to keep the Soviets busy - sure, he did that. Murdering children to avoid a little positive PR? Come on.

I was very compelled and saddened when I first learned about Samantha Reed Smith and her short life last year. It made me want to find out everything about the plane crash.

I know it was off-topic (not a UM segment), so I apologize for that but I don't see why this was bumped back up almost a year later just to bash me (particularly from wiseguy) because I think that it's possible (not probable, but possible) that some tampering could have occurred involving the plane crash and her, her father, and six other people's deaths. I don't appreciate that.

I was very compelled and saddened when I first learned about Samantha Reed Smith and her short life last year. It made me want to find out everything about the plane crash.

I know it was off-topic (not a UM segment), so I apologize for that but I don't see why this was bumped back up almost a year later just to bash me (particularly from wiseguy) because I think that it's possible (not probable, but possible) that some tampering could have occurred involving the plane crash and her, her father, and six other people's deaths. I don't appreciate that.

The problem is that anything's "possible" and conspiracy thinking is, frankly, a poison that effects too many. The lack of critical thinking skills is one of the biggest problems facing this country and conspiracy theories just feed into this - some, harmless, for sure; others causing needless death (look at vaccine or hiv deniers) or leading to war/bloodshed.

Being saddened by the Smith story (which I remember from my childhood) is fine, but a much better way to honor her legacy is to work for the things she believed in, like world peace and shared humanity, not to suggest she was murdered because we didn't want to humanize dirty commies.

I understand that, but there were things that could be questioned regarding the crash such as: why was the plane supposedly to the east/to the right of the runway as it was landing when 3 minutes earlier it was supposedly lined up correctly? Why were the altimeter settings off by 2 when they were found? Was it because of the sharp turn the ATC instructed the pilot to make while in the landing process? Why were they directed to try and land at runway 4 at Auburn/Lewiston airport, the least visible runway at that airport at night, especially when it's foggy?

We have the freedom to question things when there are not definitive answers in the details of something.

I understand that, but there were things that could be questioned regarding the crash such as: why was the plane supposedly to the east/to the right of the runway as it was landing when 3 minutes earlier it was supposedly lined up correctly? Why were the altimeter settings off by 2 when they were found? Was it because of the sharp turn the ATC instructed the pilot to make while in the landing process? Why were they directed to try and land at runway 4 at Auburn/Lewiston airport, the least visible runway at that airport at night, especially when it's foggy?

We have the freedom to question things when there are not definitive answers in the details of something.

Sure, you have the freedom to do whatever you please and believe what-ever you please, although the cynical among us (not I, of course :) might say that this freedom often does more harm than good to the country as a whole when it allows patently absurd, if not downright harmful, ideas to survive as "equally valid" in the court of public opinion, at least.

But non-experts "questioning" things is silly and usually counter-productive, until and unless you educate yourself on the subject matter (and I am not proffering an opinion as to what you've done in this regard one way or the other).

So, certainly, you'd start with the NTSB report(s) and depending on your existing knowledge and background, books and classes on aeronautics, physics, weather, etc. You'd talk to pilots, or take flight lessons yourself to understand the conditions, etc. If after that, there were still issues that seemed unanswered, you'd have both the expertise and/or knowledge to understand the issue and the credibility to present it.

Jumping right into conspiracy theories based on nothing more then conjecture and assumption, as you've seen from this post, is more likely to render you subject to attack and belie any attempts, however well-meaning, to understand or create dialogue because of the natural blow-back they create.

I don't think even most Democrats would think this was anything other than an unfortunate accident.

My favorite "cheesy" moment of Lime Street is this "solidly dated to 1985" blue satin dress that Samantha is wearing in this screencap. My niece looked at it and asked "How can she move her torso in that thing?"

https://i.imgur.com/VZ0b9UTb.jpg