TIGHAR

I'm amazed at how little is now being posted here

<tumbleweed>  ~~~~~~~*

Me too.

Don W.

I set up the Forum on  May 21, 2009, at 08:11:13 PM.

It has had a good life, all things considered.

It lasted longer than the email lists from which it descended.

I have made about 3000 posts to it. 

I don't find it surprising that it has gone quiet.

When Ric has new information to process or questions to be answered, there will be a little flurry of posts, and then we lapse back into silence. It still works as a sounding board for TIGHAR's current projects.

I think Niku has been pretty thoroughly searched. I am persuaded that the Niku hypothesis is true, but I know that the things that seem probitive to me do not carry the same weight with other people. That's life with humans.

I'm very happy that I was able to transfer the Forum and the Ameliapedia to our current ISP. I am very proud of both of them, even though they are both pretty moribund. Once upon a time we tried to winnow the Forum to make it more manageable and more accurate for newcomers, but that project failed pretty quickly. The return on investment was just not enough to make the volunteers happy to keep re-reading old posts and deciding what to keep and what to throw away.

"Sic transit gloria mundi."

Hi Martin

I think the Forum and the Ameliapedia are a fantastic resource and you should be proud of your achievement. I have had a great time using it.

Well done you and yours

Cheers
Colin

Ric's recent book pretty much put the nail in the coffin regarding the disappearance of Earhart; there's little else left that is still under controversy. 

Quote from: Colin Taylor on April 19, 2025, 04:21:17 AMI think the Forum and the Ameliapedia are a fantastic resource and you should be proud of your achievement. I have had a great time using it.

Well done you and yours

Thanks for the kind words, Colin.

I have thoroughly enjoyed working on them.

Quote from: Randy Jacobson on April 19, 2025, 08:17:07 AMRic's recent book pretty much put the nail in the coffin regarding the disappearance of Earhart; there's little else left that is still under controversy. 

Agreed.

The two books taken together are a great accomplishment.

It's been quite a while since there were new artifacts or arguments to consider.

Quote from: Martin X. Moleski, SJ on April 19, 2025, 11:43:09 AM

Quote from: Randy Jacobson on April 19, 2025, 08:17:07 AMRic's recent book pretty much put the nail in the coffin regarding the disappearance of Earhart; there's little else left that is still under controversy. 

Agreed.

The two books taken together are a great accomplishment.

It's been quite a while since there were new artifacts or arguments to consider.

Hang on a minute. I have recently proven that the wind forecast was most likely wrong and they ended up North of Howland. You don't have to agree but it is completely wrong to say that the Nicu hypothesis is beyond a reasonable doubt.

Quote

Quote

QuoteRic's recent book pretty much put the nail in the coffin regarding the disappearance of Earhart; there's little else left that is still under controversy. 

Agreed.

The two books taken together are a great accomplishment.

It's been quite a while since there were new artifacts or arguments to consider.

Hang on a minute. I have recently proven that the wind forecast was most likely wrong and they ended up North of Howland. You don't have to agree but it is completely wrong to say that the Nicu hypothesis is beyond a reasonable doubt.

The bolded quote is an oxymoron: If you've proved it, then this is wrong, not "most likely wrong."

Some time ago, I did a Monte Carlo analysis of AE's flight path based upon dead reckoning with two sets of facts: (1) what AE knew from weather forecasts so that she would correct for those, and (2) the weather reported after she left.  Furthermore, the flight from Oakland to Honolulu indicated that no single report from AE on her position was contemporary: i.e. the position was taken sometime in the last half hour before her radio broadcast.  Taken all of this together, the MC analysis had two outcomes: (1) where AE thought she would be, and (2) where she likely was at the time of "100 miles out."  The result of (1) was clustered westof Howland along the intended flight path, and the result of (2) was SW of Howland by at least 100 miles (I'm going on memory here..but it clearly was SW).  The results were in concordance with Brandenburg's radio analysis as well.

Regardless of this discussion, do you doubt that AE ended up on Niku?

It would be interesting to see what AI would project if trained on the AE data currently available.

Rick J

Quote from: Colin Taylor on April 20, 2025, 04:28:45 AMHang on a minute. I have recently proven that the wind forecast was most likely wrong and they ended up North of Howland. You don't have to agree but it is completely wrong to say that the Nicu hypothesis is beyond a reasonable doubt.

I would say that you have recently argued that they likely ended up north of Howland because the wind forecast was probably wrong.

I did not say that I thought the Niku hypothesis has been proved "beyond a reasonable doubt."

I said that I find the argument made by TIGHAR persuasive. It seems reasonable to me.

That is a different standard from that used by criminal courts descended from English jurisprudence.

Quote from: Ricker H Jones on April 20, 2025, 04:44:41 PMIt would be interesting to see what AI would project if trained on the AE data currently available.

It would all depend on the bias of the trainers.

I don't think any AI as yet can exercise free thought.

The premises about the nature of truth and how to test for truth come from the human progenitors of the AI who pay for the hardware, software, electricity, and all of the other overhead expenses for maintenance of the computer centers that allow AI to ingest and process information from other such computer centers.

"Garbage in, garbage out" is still a law of computer science.

AI is truly remarkable, and the world is a better place because of the way it which it can detect patterns in bodies of information that humans have assembled and judged to be reliable: medicine, astronomy, economics, engineering, physics, chemistry, biology.

The thoughts of AE and FN during the flight that affected their decision-making are not part of any of those might databases. When and if someone finds the Any Idiot Artifact that will show where the plane concluded its flight, then AI could be immensely helpful in rapidly framing all of the possible routes that might have led to that endpoint.

The statistics for the Forum are available at the bottom of the home page.

40,217 Posts in 1,820 Topics by 1,696 Members.

That's since May 21, 2009, 5814 days ago.

Some of the posts and threads created in the Forum have been deleted for one reason or another.

This might be a great AI exercise for some budding computer scientist.

Get AI to read the whole Forum and diagram the conversation.

I'm not sure that I would read that analysis.

I have already read every post on the Forum, some more than once.

(https://tighar.org/wiki/images/9/94/Stout.jpg?20090307143359)

I have been a member of TIGHAR since 2000. It has been a great quarter-century of friendship and partnership.

I think that TIGHAR has made an excellent case based on circumstantial evidence. If the Any Idiot Artifact proves me wrong, I will do my very best to revise my belief system in the light of that evidence. I'm not just any old Idiot, you know. I've paid my dues!

I have helped to maintain the website since 2009. I have invested a lot of time in TIGHAR. I hope the Niku hypothesis is true!

Quote from: Randy Jacobson on April 20, 2025, 09:21:28 AMThe bolded quote is an oxymoron: If you've proved it, then this is wrong, not "most likely wrong."

Regardless of this discussion, do you doubt that AE ended up on Niku?

Good point. On the balance of probabilities, the forecast was wrong. If it had been correct it would not be the cause of them getting lost.

Yes, I do doubt that they ended on Niku because the pre-loss evidence indicates otherwise and the post-loss evidence is inconclusive.

I think that forums in general, on many topics, are less active than they were in the past. The format seems to attract fewer users than formerly. I see this in other forums in which I participate or have participated. In some there is also a demographic aspect as to who is likely to be interested in the topic (I notice this in the antique-car forums I sometimes use, my interest being mainly 1920s cars--I am currently preparing a 1931 Ford for summer touring). And in this forum, a lot of topics have indeed already been dealt with, so only when new evidence appears, or a new interpretation, is there anything to talk about.

I appreciate that the forum is here, with all its historical content. I began as a reader of the web site and forum before becoming a member. After joining TIGHAR, I read through many of the old threads to bring myself up to speed on the state of the inquiry, including what had already been discovered or explored. New members tend to ask the same questions, to many of which I found answers in past forum threads. It is also interesting to see what the hot topics were, or the lines of inquiry that led to something, or to nothing.

Having an eclectic mind (I read nearly anything) it even led me to read Marty's writing in his career field, that had been for his students (and very interesting it was, too).

Don W

Quote from: Don White on May 12, 2025, 07:30:09 AMHaving an eclectic mind (I read nearly anything) it even led me to read Marty's writing in his career field, that had been for his students (and very interesting it was, too).

I am laughing out loud! 

I started my TIGHAR career by reading the entire website twice in 2000. That was just after Niku IIIIP. There were many exciting expeditions after that!

Ameliapedia -- Category: Expeditions (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Category:Expeditions)

There were six more Niku expeditions after that, and they were full of drama and discovery.

At that time, conversations took place on different versions of a mailing list. The Forum was born in 2009. When TIGHAR knew that there was going to be interest in the website, we would double or quadruple the size of the server until the rush had passsed. Those were glory days. There were remarkable experts debating each other on the Forum every day. 

Those days are gone. They were not the product of willpower and determination. The time was ripe to pull together many pieces of information.  Among other things, Randy Jacobson did extraordinary studies of the Naval archives to dig out all of the material relative to the loss of and search for AE and FN.

Yes, the Forum is a shadow of its former self, but what fun we had while it lasted -- "What a long strange trip it's been."

You mention the Ameliapedia, which also seems to be a casualty, with no updates in a long time. I read all of that too.

Quote from: Don White on May 13, 2025, 08:10:24 PMYou mention the Ameliapedia, which also seems to be a casualty, with no updates in a long time. I read all of that too.

I know it has not been updated for a long time.

When we moved to our current ISP, it was left behind.

We do not have as many privileges on this server as we had with our old ISP.

I was able to partially revive it. I thought that we were going to move again and that perhaps we might be able to restore the old SEO URLs, but I'm not sure what happened to those plans. Ric and Pat were very busy with finishing the book and finalizing plans for the upcoming work on the Midnight Ghost. I was the driving force behind the development of the Ameliapedia and I have lost my mojo, I guess.

By my count, the last Niku expedition was 2014 (!).

• Niku I (1989) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_I_(1989))
• Niku II (1991) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_II_(1991))
• Niku IIIP (1996) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_IIIP_(1996))
• Niku III (1997) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_III_(1997))
• Niku IIIIP (1999) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_IIIIP_(1999))
• Niku IIII (2001) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_IIII_(2001))
• Niku VP (WOF--2003) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_VP_(WOF--2003))
• Niku V (2007) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_V_(2007))
• Niku VI (2010) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_VI_(2010))
• Niku VII (2012) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_VII_(2012))
• Niku VIII (2014) (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Niku_VIII_(2014))

I really enjoyed tying the results of those expeditions together.

I thought that the underwater searches would turn up an Any Idiot Artifact, but I was wrong.

Because they were sponsored by other organizations, I didn't feel motivated to do any in-depth coverage of them.

I did watch the videos of the most exciting moments. It is a tremendously complex environment that could easily swallow up all of the pieces that might clinch the argument. Reasoning from the clarity of artifacts found on the ocean floor around the wreck of the Titanic was a mistake. Niku is at the other end of the spectrum. What worked so well for the Titanic does not seem to be capable of searching all of the underwater hiding places on the slopes of Nikumaroro.

I kept working away on the list of sextant numbers up until 2018, when "The Ghost of Gardner Island" proved that the sextant box had been on the survey ship in 1939. That made all of the material I had collected on the Ameliapedia page irrelevant:

Sextant Box found on Nikumaroro (https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Sextant_box_found_on_Nikumaroro)

My last edit on that page was on 27 January 2019, at 09:17. At that time, I had been working in Rome for six months or so and had decided that I could resign my teaching position in Buffalo and make a commitment to stay here. I had hoped to get a new assignment in the states last year, but my provincial decided to assign me to stay for another three years. The first is done, leaving two to go, if I don't get sick or die first.