Theory - ACARS can communicate via VHF and via satellite.
The VHF antenna or its cable were damaged (depressurisation or structural ?) but the ACARS unit was NOT switched off, it simply switched to using the satellite.
Either someone is lying or this takes us back to a catastrophic failure rather than human intervention.
It cant really be that, if it disintegrated then how are signals still being sent 8 hours after it took off, that's pretty much evidence that it was still intact up until 08:11 ,
The rig worker may have seen a bright light in the sky that could have been anything, then the next day hears a plane might have crashed near his area and its human nature to just draw conclusions of your own....(still personally think this was a hoax)