Thanks, Matt, for digging this out of the archives. Assuming that this had to have been dealt with already, I had been looking but hadn’t found much as yet.
That report seems plausible at first glance, and I can see why someone would get interested in it, until they actually looked at the map. I don’t think it’s a piece of the White Bird, but I had fun thinking about it.
TIGHAR’s ace in the hole, of course, is that there are actual artifacts found in the pons in Newfoundland, that, while not conclusively proven to be from the White Bird, are also not proven not to be, and plausibly could be. As Ric said once about the objects found on Niku, if that isn’t how they got there, there is another mystery to solve.
That said, probably someone could concoct a theory of how a wing from the White Bird could drift to that location. What happens to things that drift south in the Labrador Current after they reach Cape Cod?
The telegram itself, or rather the message contained within it, is interesting on several counts. The reported sighting could be several possible things:
A wing of the White Bird, in which case we are totally looking in the wrong place (there being no way I can see that a plane crashes in a pond in Newfoundland and its wing ends up in the ocean).
A part of a different airplane, which is presumably checkable against reports of aircraft losses at the time.
Something else that could be mistaken for an airplane wing.
Something that didn’t exist — i.e., a hoax.
The telegram said “received” but doesn’t way how it was received — by radio, by telegram? Also not said is whether it was sent to USCG HQ as the intended recipient, or was a radio message they simply happened to hear.
Who or what was Rasmussen?
I don’t know what the protocols might have been in 1927 for signing a radio message from a commercial vessel, but it makes sense that there would be more than just the name “Rasmussen” on such a message. Wouldn’t he identify himself more completely, and his ship too?
There is one situation in which a radio message or telegram might be signed so casually, and that is when the sender is someone the recipient knows. So I went looking for USCG ships or officers named Rasmussen. I didn’t find any, but not everything is accessible online, including USCG personnel records from 1927.
Of course Rasmussen could have intended his message for someone else who would already know who he was, and the USCG just happened to hear it, or someone passed it on to them.
These are some of the questions that French researcher should have asked, and that I would ask him to answer in support of his theory.
LTM,
Don