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Fully one-quarter of Americans think that Malaysia Air Flight 370 was either destroyed by terrorists, landed somewhere and is being kept hidden, or got stolen by aliens. I'm just going to repeat that sentence: Fully one-quarter of Americans think that Malaysia Air Flight 370 was either destroyed by terrorists, landed somewhere and is being kept hidden, or got stolen by aliens.

An exhaustive new survey from Reason.com addresses, among other important issues, the extent to which Americans are baffled by the disappearance of the Malaysia Air flight. Which is entirely understandable. Last month, The Wire walked through the tumultuous, weird, dumb series of assumptions and theories that have plagued the plane's disappearance. It was flying northeast and spotted from an oil rig but then it wasn't and it was headed to Kazakhstan and then it wasn't and it crashed into the ocean. A plane took off, flew normally for a bit, and then flew in silence for hours in the wrong direction. That is odd!

But, America, this is not acceptable:

"Crashed due to mechanical problems" is the accepted excuse at this point. What the problems were, and how they prevented communication are unknown. One-third of Americans say, OK, I can live with that uncertainty. And those nine percent that say they don't know? The most honest of the bunch. What happened to it! Where is the plane?