But only if you insert numbers and words that aren't there in specific locations in the string of numbers.
Let’s back up a bit. Betty wrote “South 391065.” To expect rigidly the words ‘degrees,’ ‘minutes’, and ‘seconds’ at specific locations in this text does not seem reasonable to me from the standpoint of celestial navigation. Since time out of mind, a large proportion of ship’s navigational logs have had column headers for degrees, minutes and seconds notated at the top of the page simply as º, ‘ and “. The headers obviate the need for writing the units into the individual log entries and consequently many navigators do not bother with them. Alternatively, there are many acceptable ways to note an observed position that do not include these words or these symbols (º ‘ “) at all. I have attached an historical survey of ship’s log entries to illustrate my argument.
A person reading from the log will read these log entries without the units, for the simple reason that the units are not present in the individual entries.
My point is, if you make enough assumptions and excuses, you can find great significance in any piece of evidence. It's called confirmation bias.
You cite the similarity between USS
Ontario’s position and Betty’s marginalia in
Finding Amelia as possibly more than coincidental. You allowed yourself a single excuse, changing a 9 to a 5, to posit this, yet inexplicably disallow anyone else from doing the same. Your
Ontario interpretation sounds reasonable to me, and is in my opinion no more biased than what Wealleans did with “South 391065.”
For Betty’s “South 391065,” there are no numbers or words that must be assumed or excused to make sense to a navigator as a latitude, save for one numeral: 4. The only transliteration that must be made is of this one numeral.
Joe Cerniglia
TIGHAR #3078ECR
"Earhart's messages lacked any useful position information and consisted of generalities." - from Warner Thompson's July 1937 report ‘Radio Transcripts Earhart Flight’ page 47, ‘Flight Summary’.
Addendum: I have recently learned that navigators shy away from the term “fix.” Since all locational information derived from the science of
celestial navigation is by definition imprecise, navigators instead prefer the term ‘observed position.’