TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Byron Ake on July 14, 2015, 03:06:11 PM
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I know there is still a lot of frustration surrounding Niku VIII, but I have already started thinking about what the next step might be.
I keep finding myself returning to the bulletin from September of 2012, “Better Than Average Luck” (http://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Research/Bulletins/64_ReefLanding/64_ReefLanding.htm) (which happens to have been released shortly after the discovery of the debris field, and I feel may have been passed over by many people a little too soon.) Here we have a real-life sequence of events that is as close to the TIGHAR hypothesis as could be asked for. So my suggestion is this: assuming that no game changing results are obtained from the Niku VIII data, why don't we try searching for that plane? I'm not saying that TIGHAR should immediately plan an expedition to Seringapatam Reef to search for an aircraft that really isn't lost, but instead start out by contacting those who dive or have dived on that reef to see if any aircraft pieces have been seen, then go from there. If people have dived on Nikumaroro, (remember the Cook photo (http://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,1202.0.html)?) then I'm sure there has been activity around Seringapatam. If the ST-18 Croydon plane can be located, that would tell us a lot about the condition and location of Earhart's Electra. Did it stay in relatively shallow water? Did it float for a while before sinking? Is it still in one piece? If it is in pieces, could those pieces be recognizable in sonar imagery after 80 years in that environment? The reef is only 200 miles from Australia and seems to be a lot more accessible that Niku, so one would think it to be a lot less difficult to get equipment there if it is deemed worthy for a visit. In my opinion it is looking more and more like finding a piece of the plane is our best shot at definitively solving this mystery, and any guidance for the search in an environment like Niku's would be worth the effort. Given the lack of aluminum wreckage on the atoll and the recent discovery of lightweight copper sheeting from the shipwreck in shallow water, it seems more likely to me that the plane traveled at least some distance before sinking.
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Ric had created two excellent reports on this subject.
If you start back at the first mention of the Croyden:
https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,253.msg18857.html#msg18857 (https://tighar.org/smf/index.php/topic,253.msg18857.html#msg18857)
Read forward from there for a week or so and follow links to local stories and you will read where there were reports of the skeleton of the Croyden existing on the reef more than twenty years after the incident.
I cannot see any value in posting an expedition to search for that wreck in reference to the task at hand.
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Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think analysis of the data gathered on the current trip is completed yet. I would say that work needs to be finished before considering a next step.
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Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong ...
You've been on the Forum for years, John. Surely you know that you will get corrected even if you're right! ???
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Reverse psychology. By implying that I am okay with being corrected perhaps I can avoid being corrected. ;D
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Reverse psychology. By implying that I am okay with being corrected perhaps I can avoid being corrected. ;D
Thanks for the laugh, John. Best one this week! ;D
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Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think analysis of the data gathered on the current trip is completed yet. I would say that work needs to be finished before considering a next step.
Amen.
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I guess I don't check in here often enough. I thought (foolishly, evidently) that people would realize you won't know what you've learned, or not learned, until you have the chance to thoroughly examine the information you gathered. Silly me.
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Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong but I don't think analysis of the data gathered on the current trip is completed yet. I would say that work needs to be finished before considering a next step.
I was at the Pluto-New Horizons event at NASA Ames Research Center on Tuesday. Even after explaining the distance of Pluto from the Earth, the "bandwidth" limitations of transferring data (including image data) across more than 3 Billion miles, the fact that New Horizons was using most of its resources toward recording data of Pluto and its moons during the flyby and the fact that much of that data would reach the Earth over a lengthy period of time...
...there were still several questions about when NASA would release conclusions about Pluto and what NASA might have up its sleeve for a follow-up visit to Pluto. This was even before the first close-up images or data from New Horizons had even reached the Earth.
I guess that it is good that so many of us are excited about this. Still, I think that this is the time to sit back, relax and let those "in the know" take some time to come up with what it is that they "know."
Of course, this maxim rings true: "Patience is the virtue that you admire in the driver BEHIND you but scorn in the driver IN FRONT OF you."
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"Patience is the virtue that you admire in the driver in front of you but scorn in the driver behind you."
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Perhaps stated/quoted slightly in error. I think, maybe, it should be something like this: Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. :)
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"Patience is the virtue that you admire in the driver in front of you but scorn in the driver behind you."
Perhaps stated/quoted slightly in error. I think, maybe, it should be something like this: Patience is something you admire in the driver behind you and scorn in the one ahead. :)
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Oops. Thanks...and I fixed it. I suppose that the reverse could be true with people who are never in a hurry and despise people who are. I think that I have some neighbors like that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UK3GOFqVSyI
;D
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Found this today. Here's what Paul Allen has been up to.
http://news.usni.org/2015/08/10/bell-of-sunken-wwii-battlecruiser-hms-hood-recovered-from-ocean-floor
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I'm not sure where to post this (Marty, please move it if you need to), but I happened across this article about Naval exploration of the USS Macon wreck off the coast of California. It was a lighter-than-air aircraft carrier which was built in 1933 and crashed in 1935. What might be relevant is that the frame was made of aluminum, and the Navy retrieved a piece which was half-buried and half-exposed to study the effects of 80 years in the ocean environment.
Those who are interested can find the article at the link below (includes video from the ROV):
http://news.usni.org/2015/08/19/exploring-the-wreck-of-uss-macon-the-navys-last-flying-aircraft-carrier (http://news.usni.org/2015/08/19/exploring-the-wreck-of-uss-macon-the-navys-last-flying-aircraft-carrier)
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I happened across this article about Naval exploration of the USS Macon wreck off the coast of California.
TIGHAR underwater aviation archaeologist Megan Lickliter-Mundon is on that team.
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I'm glad to hear TIGHAR is tied in. Hopefully there will be no problem with information sharing.