TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => Alternate Lines of Inquiry => Topic started by: Travis Nutsch on February 03, 2023, 05:50:01 AM
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https://youtu.be/l9_LQVPgOKk
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Where is this airplane? Why no photos of the rest of the airplane?
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The "engine case" that you point out at 1:00 is totally different from the electra. Yours almost completely covers the cylinders inside the engine cowling.
In my opinion, your friends have possibly found a Nakajima Ki-34.
Sorry, different airplane.
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The plane is where she landed Ric. I talked to you on the phone about it almost 2 years ago. I got the coordinates tattooed on my arm. Email me and I can fill you in. Do you have someone you trust in Papua New Guinea who could go check it out and make sure it's not her plane for sure? It's about 100ft deep.
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Do you have someone you trust in Papua New Guinea who could go check it out and make sure it's not her plane for sure?
Somebody finds Earhart's plane in PNG almost as often as somebody finds it on Google Earth. If I knew someone in PNG I could trust ( I don't), I wouldn't insult them by asking them to check this out. To believe that Earhart's plane ended up in, or anywhere near, PNG it is necessary to be ignorant of, or refuse to accept, the established facts of the case.
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Oh ok. In my opinion the established facts are the plane is not where you or anyone else have been looking nor anywhere the US Navy or anyone when they searched in 1937.
PS. The verification captsha on a forum i paid to have access to is super annoying. I can't read it and the audio version is hard to make out.
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In my opinion the established facts are the plane is not where you or anyone else have been looking nor anywhere the US Navy or anyone when they searched in 1937.
You're correct. It is true that no one has ever found a verifiable piece of the plane. In my view, that's because the plane no longer exists.
Your opinion may differ, but the abundant hard evidence that puts the plane and Earhart on Nikumaroro is not a matter of opinion.
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A lot of the circumstantial evidence supporting Nikumaroro can also be applied to other islands in the general vicinity. Considering nobody has found the plane yet at Nikumaroro I'd even say a lot of the evidence would indicate an island other than Nikumaroro is more likely.
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A lot of the circumstantial evidence supporting Nikumaroro can also be applied to other islands in the general vicinity.
What circumstantial evidence are you referring to?
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Tide times lining up with Betty notebook and other post loss signal reports and the reports themselves.
The tide is generally going to be close to the same time at most any island in the South Pacific. This legitimizes the Betty notebook and not necessarily Nikumaroro.
The coordinates at this location has a latitude that matches Betty notebook coordinates and also suspiciously similar to line of position if it was misinterpreted and actually coordinates she said like allll the other transmissions she made stating her position...
The lack of correct longitude easily explained by an inaccurate chronometer and I have numerous sources stating they were having trouble getting the time hack. Some sources say she was completely unable to get it. If you carefully read the chatter report you see where he tells of an inaccurate time signal being received too far from the correct time for them to believe it was accurate so they didn't use it.
No or inaccurate chronometer also explains why they were unable to find howland island.
Lots more I'll elaborate on as it comes up.
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What evidence might indicate Nikumaroro over anywhere else. You looked it's not there... That is probably evidence that it is somewhere else.
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As far as numerous reports rumoring the plane being in PNG; I would suggest it is potentially more likely the rumors were born from some slight truth rather than out of thin air. Ever play the game "telephone" as a kid?
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I mean seriously Ric your amazing Betty notebook artifact contains coordinates "Z or E" I think more than once indicating they thought they were on the other side of the dateline from Nikumaroro. Inaccurate longitude is one thing but do you think they were confused about what side of the date line they were on? I'd suggest you might have knowledge of the Betty notebook being a forged artifact but I am sure it would say "W" rather than "Z or E" to support your Nikumaroro theory if that were the case.
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What evidence might indicate Nikumaroro over anywhere else.
• Earth's statement that she was running north and south on the line 157 337. The only islands that line passes close to are McKean and Gardner.
• The Pan Am and Coast Guard DF bearings cross near Gardner.
• There is photographic evidence of Electra landing gear wreckage on the reef at Gardner.
• The remains of a castaway were found on Gardner. There were no castaway remains found on any other island in the region.
• Peer-reviewed analysis of the remains found on Gardner show a better than 99% chance the castaway was Earhart.
You looked it's not there... That is probably evidence that it is somewhere else.
With regard to the airplane, there's an old saying, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence"?
I'd suggest you might have knowledge of the Betty notebook being a forged artifact
I think we're done here.
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SMH- And Travis wants to base this on 3 grainy images which don't really show anything substantial?
Well, feel free to believe what YOU wish to believe, and those on this forum that have chosen to apply scientific principles to the known facts, artifacts and test different hypothesis with such, will believe what THEY choose to believe. Someday, hopefully, there will be a full answer, but time will tell.
In the meantime- feel more than free to organize, fund, and carry out your own expedition to prove your theory. Believe me, if Earhart's' Electra is discovered somewhere other than Niku, Ric would be the first to step up and acknowledge that discovery.
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Believe me, if Earhart's' Electra is discovered somewhere other than Niku, Ric would be the first to step up and acknowledge that discovery.
Indeed, as I have numerous times when a promising artifact didn't pan out. You follow the evidence wherever it leads, even if it takes you where you don't want to go.
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SMH- And Travis wants to base this on 3 grainy images which don't really show anything substantial?
How many threads are there on this forum about a ring and a piece of rope "aircraft debris field..." That is some crystal clear footage by the way.
I don't understand why this section of the forum even exists if you guys are just going to be rude af to the only person under the age of 35 to ever give a damn enough to pay money to be a part of this forum.
Maybe try to come up with an even remotely plausible explanation for why the most likely last known mostly credible record of a communication from Earhart includes "e or z" which normally would be less helpful than just plain "e" as part of a set of coordinates. But in this case I think it eliminates a lot of other possible transcription errors and further solidifies the fact that Amelia was trying to communicate that she was on the other side of the date line from Nikumaroro.
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What you consider "rudeness" is in the eye of the beholder. TIGHAR follows a fairly rigorous scientific method of proposing various hypotheses based upon factual evidence (some of which is conflicting). These hypotheses are then debated furiously (and sometimes rudely) until they can be ruled out or accepted until more data is found.
If you think TIGHAR is rude, you should be a faculty member at a university doing peer-reviewed research to truly understand what "rude" is.
Your pictures are intriguing, but you don't provide a location, date of the photos, depth of water. More photos would need to be taken to determine if this plane is indeed a Lockheed L-10 or some other plane; if it is an L-10, additional research is needed to determine if it was Earhart's plane or someone else's plane.
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It's pretty clearly a Ki-34, and NOT a Lockheed Electra. It has some bulges all the way around the cowling, the forward angle of the windscreen. There's even a little scoop aft of the engine cowling.
The engine crank case cover on the Electra is smaller, and the propeller hub is much larger.
Not surprising since the area where this one was apparently found was near several Japanese airfields.
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Your pictures are intriguing, but you don't provide a location, date of the photos, depth of water. More photos would need to be taken to determine if this plane is indeed a Lockheed L-10 or some other plane; if it is an L-10, additional research is needed to determine if it was Earhart's plane or someone else's plane.
The coordinates are in the post right above yours Randy. I also said it's about 100ft deep and the pictures are believed to be from September 2022 as per the YouTube title.
I am afraid to elaborate on how I fit the puzzle pieces together to explain my entire theory. It gets a bit conspiratorial and pretty different from most other theories I've heard but it all fits without much of any conflict.
Does anyone know how to find out if the ship logs from the HMAS Kanimbla from 1937 still exist? The Kanimbla was in service rebroadcasting various radio stations from it's onboard radio broadcast equipment for Amalgamated wireless as 9MI. I found it's typical passenger schedule seems to be interrupted in the days around the AE disappearance. I'll add more about this when I get my computer plugged in here in a few.
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Regarding Kanimbla logs: Based on research that I did for some NZ warships several years ago, my guess is that yes, the logs still exist and can probably be found at the UK National Archives, colloquially still sometimes referred to as “The Kew” (after its former location?). They probably won’t be available online, but you can try: https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ . Unless things have changed in the past few years, much, perhaps most, of the collection is not digitized, although they have digitized at least rough headings and descriptions of what they hold. Australia and New Zealand have retaken and/or digitized some of their records, so it is not always clear who has the records. Unless you don’t have a job that will pay you better for your time or have scads of time of time or if you just enjoy digging around for endless hours, I suggest you contact a private researcher. I’ll PM you contact info one who helped me get started and was competent and reasonable. If you want to try to find things for yourself, I’m afraid I can’t remember much, other than you’ll need to start in Admiralty 53.
You can also try the National Library of Australia. https://www.nla.gov.au/ This won’t be easy either. I did a quick check of the Australia Joint Copying Project, and it looks like they have digitized some ships logs, but only for the period 1835-1892, which won’t help you. A simple search there didn’t show any logs for the Kanimbla. The NLA website has a section on contacting private researchers. The staff at NLA are very nice and might be able to guide you slightly over the phone, but they can’t do your research for you. If you go in person, they are more helpful than over the phone (at least they did about ten years ago).
Several years ago, I was able to find ships logs from summer 1937 for New Zealand ships Achilles, Leith, and a few others at the Kew. It wasn’t easy for me, although I think it would be fairly easy for a professional. I’m attaching just the first few pages of a log for the Achilles from July 1937 that I got at the Kew, just to give you an idea of what they look like. I’m guessing that they probably have something similar for the Kanimbla unless Aus and NZ were handled differently. The log will at least tell you where the ship was on given dates, but wont give a description of what they were doing. If you want a description of what they were doing, that might be in some kind of report somewhere, but doubtful it would to have been saved to begin with and hard to find if it were.
Just fyi, I heard from staff at the Butlin archives at Australia National University that some time ago they were getting in quite a few Aus Army patrol reports from WWII. Not sure if they would have anything for the Navy and/or pre-WWII or if they ever catalogued and digitized anything, but you might consider trying them if no luck with Kew and NLA. It would be a long shot though.
Good luck. I’ll do a separate post when I get time on my general thoughts about your project.
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Awesome thank you Diego
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Your welcome. In going through my notes, I noticed that the index to the Admiralty Records is in ADM 12, so you can check there for various other stuff (e.g. individual reports?), but all (?) of the ships logs are in ADM 53.
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I agree with Christian Stock - the photos of the engines and cowlings alone preclude this from being Earhart's Electra. They are not Pratt & Whitney R-1340s.
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It's got a double tail...
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It's got a double tail...
I hope so, because the front of the airplane sure isn't encouraging.
Let's see it.
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Can we agree on certain facts:
1) They left Lae mid-morning with enough gas to fly at least 18+ hrs. More than one timepiece was aboard, and more than one compass. There was enough daylight to distinguish east from west, and there was no weather to extinguish daylight before normal nightfall.
2) At about the expected time of arrival, the Itasca stationed at Howland received a strong radio call "We must be on you...". Details of LOP coordinates, which depend on having been able to see sunrise in the east, were documented.
If those facts are accepted, I have a hard time understanding how NR16020 could wind up underwater near PNG. Travis, if you have another theory, let's hear it.
Dan Brown, #2408
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Can we agree on certain facts:
1) They left Lae mid-morning with enough gas to fly at least 18+ hrs. More than one timepiece was aboard, and more than one compass. There was enough daylight to distinguish east from west, and there was no weather to extinguish daylight before normal nightfall.
2) At about the expected time of arrival, the Itasca stationed at Howland received a strong radio call "We must be on you...". Details of LOP coordinates, which depend on having been able to see sunrise in the east, were documented.
If those facts are accepted, I have a hard time understanding how NR16020 could wind up underwater near PNG. Travis, if you have another theory, let's hear it.
Dan Brown, #2408
This is going to be kinda quick and all from memory and I know there gonna be TIGHAteRs but here we go. Try to keep following along even if it sounds ridiculous at first. This is just a theory but it seems to fit if you are willing to accept the possibility of sabotage being a factor. Additionally the BUKA wreck is not far away. I know TIGHAteRs reject BUKA but shouldn't be considered more wrong than any of the BUKA supporters. Just saying...
Their Chronometer was potentially off by ~3 minutes(my supposition.) Additionally and even worse many news articles state they didn't get it set at all before they left. Longitudinal celestial navigation failure because you need the accurate time. If you read the chatter report carefully and are generally familiar with celestial navigation and other known written recollections of the events in 1937 you will notice a few things to support my theory as at least a possibility.
- Amalgamated Wireless relayed telegrams that conflicted with vacuum oil.
- Amalgamated Wireless relayed to Lae incorrect frequencies to talk to Earhart during her approach/arrival.
- Unexplained seemingly atypical radio interference is mentioned numerous times from many sources before the flight, during the flight, and during the search.
- Flight got delayed due to inability to set chronometer.
- The Chatter report(if you read it carefully) suggests they received a time signal outside of the window that it should have arrived as if the signal had been broadcast late so they decide it cannot be accurate and do not use it.
- Two way radio communication was never established during flight.
- On the day of her expected arrival; Howland Island was able to be sighted from 30 miles away.
- "Distinct Japanese music" heard on frequency(sometimes offset by about 3 minutes) as per log by ships attempting communicate with AE.
- The betty notebook contains coordinates with latitude that matches the coordinates I am suggesting but inaccurate longitude.
Other needed information I've found to be factual but maybe not necessarily a part of typical/standard AE research.
- 3 minutes of chronometer error results in a ~50 mile discrepancy between believed and actual position.
- In 1937 Amalgamated wireless was responsible for rebroadcasting accurate time signals via RF.
- Amalgamated wireless supplied and was responsible for the radio equipment aboard the HMAS Kanimbla.
- The Kanimbla was the first full radio broadcast station aboard a marine vessel and was built in 1936.
- The Kanimbla kept a schedule rebroadcasting a rotating list of land based stations using it's equipment on board as 9MI.
- The Kanmibla was used to transport passengers between various ports around Australia.
- The Kanimbla passenger transport schedule shows no availability for tickets for ~10 days surrounding AE disappearance.
- The Kanimbla's last scheduled destination before the AE disappearance was Cairns, which is on the NE coast of Australia(IIRC.)
- Early radio jamming by the Chinese is known to have been done by playing traditional Chinese music on frequency to block communications.
- If the time signal AE accepted was transmitted late it would result in celestial navigation fix showing she was further east than she actually was so she would have been short of Howland when she believed she was over it and was looking for it.
I know there is more I have found to support my idea I am not going into now for practical reasons but if the plane is confirmed to be at these coordinates then AE couldn't find Howland due to inaccurate chronometer causing her to believe she had gone further east than she actually had and when she was unable to DF a signal or contact anyone on the radio she decided she had to turn back. The track I measure by my math is just about exactly the endurance the plane should have been able to achieve using all her fuel in a straight line according to the pilot operating handbook so she must have been able to achieve slightly better efficiency that it suggests. She landed on the coastline with the tide out in a bay and had terrain on 3 sides and or malicious jamming preventing the search operation from hearing her short path propagated transmissions. What was heard was unable to be accurately DFed which can happen because of long path propagation interference. Tide times line up with transmission times. The radio propagation took the long path and from this location it would have gone right through Amarillo TX and St Petersburg FL(two fairly believable reports hearing AE.) In FL Betty wrote down what looks like to me coordinates and in TX Mabel reported hearing coordinates she easily found on a map. Her longitude was off due to the inaccurate time signal. Betty notebook something that sounds like "New York" is possibly "New Guinea." One really cool one "W40K or WOJ" from the Betty notebook might be referencing 4WK Warwick a station regularly rebroadcast by the Kanimbla. To be able to retransmit the time signal ~3 minutes late in 1937 the technology would have been a 38rpm record lathe. The Kanimbla regularly had a quartet on board they recorded on the ship and later transmitted at various times so I bet a record lathe would have been available on the ship to be able to record with. A record which on a record lathe must be recorded in real time is about 3-4 minutes per side. I am suggesting Amalgamated Wireless in part using the Kanimbla may have maliciously sabotaged the time signal, relayed inaccurate telegrams, and intentionally jammed and or manipulated her attempts at RF communication. Alright now let 'er rip. I am excited to read how everyone thinks I am wrong and bat sh** nutty af.
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To avoid numerous edits to my previous post and to chronologically illustrate the stream of thoughts as I remember things (maybe does not matter) to add I will put them in this post.
I realize this actually lacks continuity to my previous suggestions but this and more just seems to further raise suspicion about the circumstances all together surrounding the documents we've all used to form our opinions.
The Itasca ship logs seem to be added to after the fact by a different typewriter. I know TIGHAR has discussed the misalignment before but if you zoom in on the misaligned letters you can see consistant differences in how the letters look due to unique typewriter artifacts leading me to believe it was done after the fact on a same model but likely a different specific typewriter. I also recall that there are two sources for the same log. The "smoothed" logs are identical except for the final page of one has a blank reverse side where the other one you can see the reverse side of the page is typewritten on. Why are they smoothed anyway and the originals non existant? If they were smoothed why are they still so identically messy with corrections and stuff jammed onto the same line yet the back of one is typewritten onto and the other is not... Something seems off about all this further than TIGHARs position that it was placed back into the typewriter in 1937 to add the inexplicably omitted but document making information.
No doubt Probably Coincidental**
Did anyone ever talk to the Cooper report guy? From what I found I understand he died a year or two ago. It just seems wild that Daniel Cooper... DB Cooper... same name different person... is mentioned in connection to Amelia Earhart in 1937.
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I give you a thumbs up just for working DB Cooper into this. :D I'm happy to see a young person working on this. I'd be interested in knowing what piqued your interest in AE and the particulars of how you came across the photo.
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I am suggesting Amalgamated Wireless in part using the Kanimbla may have maliciously sabotaged the time signal, relayed inaccurate telegrams, and intentionally jammed and or manipulated her attempts at RF communication.
And why, pray tell, would they do that? What would be their motivation?
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I give you a thumbs up just for working DB Cooper into this. :D I'm happy to see a young person working on this. I'd be interested in knowing what piqued your interest in AE and the particulars of how you came across the photo.
I'd also be interested in where you found Wireless Weekly (is it available online?) and where you found the passenger schedules you mentioned. I just did a quick search of Pacific Islands Monthly, which lists most of the inter-island passenger liners in the region, and didn't see anything for the HMAS Kanimbla. If it was a warship, why was it taking passengers?
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I am suggesting Amalgamated Wireless in part using the Kanimbla may have maliciously sabotaged the time signal, relayed inaccurate telegrams, and intentionally jammed and or manipulated her attempts at RF communication.
And why, pray tell, would they do that? What would be their motivation?
Possibly compelled to do so by the Japanese or possibly even George Putnam conspiring with Ernest Fisk of AMA(Amalgamated Wireless) pulling a publicity stunt to get rid of AE and do as he promised to make AE the most famous aviator of all time.
Something else worth mentioning.
To me the first time I read the Chatter report it really seemed like Eric Chatter was hiding something. Simplest explanation for this is they were worried they made a mistake and were just covering their ass but maybe they knew a mistake was made and were trying to hide the fact. The longest section of his report is his explanation of all the details that went into getting the time signal when at the time Lae was as I understand it was a busy aviation hub location and this should have been a routine practice. He was the first instrument(blind flying) flight instructor of Australia and never really got any recognition for it. Perhaps out of jealousy and or even maybe he was an undercover misogynist. He would have known how important it would be for her chronometer to be set correctly and exactly what it would do if it wasn't. All of the details in the Callopy report are covered in the Chatter report as if one or the other had both reports infant of them to make sure there were no discrepancies because they didn't want to get blamed for her loss. The way Chatter further elaborates beyond the Callopy report seems a little odd to me. AE had dinner with Chatter and his wife at their home the night before she left and yet he doesn't include anything about this in the report at all. I even think I remember Balfor(radio operator at Lae? I maybe have this mixed up) said somewhere that Eric Chatter(maybe it was actually someone else in charge?) had him shut down the airport radio communications after AE was a few hours gone and possibly for the next few days if I am remembering right and they were not immediately involved or communicated with during the search effort until later when Chatter was asked for his report. 4 months after AE disappeared Eric Chatter, the originator of instrument flying in Australia, "walked into a propeller." Pretty sure I've seen this mis-stated by TIGHAR as years rather than months. Possibly Chatter was conspiring with the Japanese and knew too much so they offed him? Maybe someone found out and did it out of retaliation? Or the boring possibility maybe he just screwed up and walked into a propeller.
Later George Putnam made a comment in a news report about how he felt reassured that the Chatter Report and Callopy report corroborated each other. Maybe he said this to help cover up deception he was aware of. Maybe he realized the same thing in the Chatter report that I have and was taking matters into his own hands and going to have Chatter pushed into an airplane propeller.
Also have heard that AE refused to give Putnam a hug before she left on this flight and they parted ways with a hand shake due to a conflict between the two. I never met the guy, obviously, but we know he went through several wives and remarried after she disappeared. The scandal of Putnam offing her with intentions to remarry would make a good book or movie anyway...(wasn't there one?)
The maintenance report in the Chatter report talks of EGT(exhaust gas temp) probes being replaced. They were also a maintenance item at least a couple other times at the stops before Lae. I considered the possibility of maybe someone was maliciously tampering with her parked aircraft at. night like maybe it was an easy wire to grab ahold of through the cowling(there wouldn't have been very many wires on the engine) but more importantly this shows AE was meticulous about maintaining them so she could run the aircraft as efficiently as possible and get as far as possible on as little fuel as possible. Not all electra had EGTs installed and so it shouldn't have really grounded the aircraft for them not to be functioning but she repaired these and their connections quite often despite having to interrupt her trip to do so. I think this helps to suggest she plausibly could have had enough fuel to get 50 miles from Howland Island and return all the way back to my crash site.
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I give you a thumbs up just for working DB Cooper into this. :D I'm happy to see a young person working on this. I'd be interested in knowing what piqued your interest in AE and the particulars of how you came across the photo.
I'd also be interested in where you found Wireless Weekly (is it available online?) and where you found the passenger schedules you mentioned. I just did a quick search of Pacific Islands Monthly, which lists most of the inter-island passenger liners in the region, and didn't see anything for the HMAS Kanimbla. If it was a warship, why was it taking passengers?
Good questions Wireless Weekly was not an easy find but I was able to find it online and saved my own local copies. I'll have to figure out where I found it when I have a chance. Before the Kanimbla was a warship it was a passenger ship in 1937. I believe it only went around Australia not between islands. I have those schedules I found all saved as well.
EDIT: Originally was the MV Kanimbla. HMAS Kanimbla when later converted to armed merchant cruiser. I had to look up what HMAS meant... I didn't mean to imply it was a warship at the time.
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I am suggesting Amalgamated Wireless in part using the Kanimbla may have maliciously sabotaged the time signal, relayed inaccurate telegrams, and intentionally jammed and or manipulated her attempts at RF communication.
And why, pray tell, would they do that? What would be their motivation?
Because it's a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists often need to construct some sort of bad actor to help them fabricate the missing pieces of the puzzle in their theories.
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Because it's a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists often need to construct some sort of bad actor to help them fabricate the missing pieces of the puzzle in their theories.
::)...You do know...
The ENTIRE rest of the world calls TIGHAR and anyone else who investigates AE "Conspiracy Theorists..." In fact TIGHAR is the largest most populated and known conspiracy theory group I can think of. Am I so nutty the Conspiracy Theory Club rejects me and calls me a Conspiracy Theorist. LMAO.
So seriously does nobody find all the discrepancies with Amalgamated Wireless suspicious?
The logs from the Navy ships looking for her show "Distinct Japanese music playing" on her frequency at several of the times of her scheduled transmissions. How could there not be some sort of conspiratorial foul play going on? I tend to think it was someone who wanted to point the finger at the Japanese rather than the Japanese themselves jamming the frequency.
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Because it's a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists often need to construct some sort of bad actor to help them fabricate the missing pieces of the puzzle in their theories.
::)...You do know...
The ENTIRE rest of the world calls TIGHAR and anyone else who investigates AE "Conspiracy Theorists..." In fact TIGHAR is the largest most populated and known conspiracy theory group I can think of. Am I so nutty the Conspiracy Theory Club rejects me and calls me a Conspiracy Theorist. LMAO.
So seriously does nobody find all the discrepancies with Amalgamated Wireless suspicious?
The logs from the Navy ships looking for her show "Distinct Japanese music playing" on her frequency at several of the times of her scheduled transmissions. How could there not be some sort of conspiratorial foul play going on? I tend to think it was someone who wanted to point the finger at the Japanese rather than the Japanese themselves jamming the frequency.
That does not mean they are right. To have a conspiracy theory, one needs a conspiracy.
Neither Crashed and Sank (C&S) nor Niku are conspiracy theories in any sense.
C&S: After failing to find Howland, she ran out of gas (we're low on gas....her words), she crashed, splashed or landed on the ocean and was not rescued. No debris was ever found, and she never broadcasted "we're gonna be in the Hudson", "Mayday, Mayday", "oh sh*t", or anything like that. While there is no evidence of this happening, disappearing in the vast Pacific is not that unusual, and is a totally plausible explanation.
Niku: After failing to find Howland, and low on gas (her words), she found an island that is roughly on the line that she was flying (157/337....her words), landed (post loss signals, Bevington object, patch artifact, plexiglas, possibly other random airplane parts), attempted to survive (castaway campsite with cosmetics typically used by a 1930's western woman, clam shells, bird bones) and died (bones found). The only possible conspiracy I can find is among the coconut crabs.
Japanese Capture, Irene Bolam, and whatever Lovecraftian thing you have dreamed up ARE conspiracy theories. They all involve corporations, wealthy individuals, and/or governments conspiring to spy on each other, capture spies, sabotage the flight, or cover up malfeasance. Japanese Capture alone has a number of different endings for Amelia and Fred, with as many different locations and eyewitnesses to the deed.
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Possibly compelled to do so by the Japanese or possibly even George Putnam conspiring with Ernest Fisk of AMA(Amalgamated Wireless) pulling a publicity stunt to get rid of AE and do as he promised to make AE the most famous aviator of all time.
Up to this point although I disagreed with your analysis I would have given you the benefit off the doubt to keep listening but this type of idea requires support ( ie evidence) or it is just too big a reach and makes the whole hypothesis unworthy of further consideration unless you present something to back it up.
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Because it's a conspiracy theory. Conspiracy theorists often need to construct some sort of bad actor to help them fabricate the missing pieces of the puzzle in their theories.
::)...You do know...
The ENTIRE rest of the world calls TIGHAR and anyone else who investigates AE "Conspiracy Theorists..." In fact TIGHAR is the largest most populated and known conspiracy theory group I can think of. Am I so nutty the Conspiracy Theory Club rejects me and calls me a Conspiracy Theorist. LMAO.
So seriously does nobody find all the discrepancies with Amalgamated Wireless suspicious?
The logs from the Navy ships looking for her show "Distinct Japanese music playing" on her frequency at several of the times of her scheduled transmissions. How could there not be some sort of conspiratorial foul play going on? I tend to think it was someone who wanted to point the finger at the Japanese rather than the Japanese themselves jamming the frequency.
That does not mean they are right. To have a conspiracy theory, one needs a conspiracy.
Neither Crashed and Sank (C&S) nor Niku are conspiracy theories in any sense.
C&S: After failing to find Howland, she ran out of gas (we're low on gas....her words), she crashed, splashed or landed on the ocean and was not rescued. No debris was ever found, and she never broadcasted "we're gonna be in the Hudson", "Mayday, Mayday", "oh sh*t", or anything like that. While there is no evidence of this happening, disappearing in the vast Pacific is not that unusual, and is a totally plausible explanation.
Niku: After failing to find Howland, and low on gas (her words), she found an island that is roughly on the line that she was flying (157/337....her words), landed (post loss signals, Bevington object, patch artifact, plexiglas, possibly other random airplane parts), attempted to survive (castaway campsite with cosmetics typically used by a 1930's western woman, clam shells, bird bones) and died (bones found). The only possible conspiracy I can find is among the coconut crabs.
Japanese Capture, Irene Bolam, and whatever Lovecraftian thing you have dreamed up ARE conspiracy theories. They all involve corporations, wealthy individuals, and/or governments conspiring to spy on each other, capture spies, sabotage the flight, or cover up malfeasance. Japanese Capture alone has a number of different endings for Amelia and Fred, with as many different locations and eyewitnesses to the deed.
Yeah so?
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Possibly compelled to do so by the Japanese or possibly even George Putnam conspiring with Ernest Fisk of AMA(Amalgamated Wireless) pulling a publicity stunt to get rid of AE and do as he promised to make AE the most famous aviator of all time.
Up to this point although I disagreed with your analysis I would have given you the benefit off the doubt to keep listening but this type of idea requires support ( ie evidence) or it is just too big a reach and makes the whole hypothesis unworthy of further consideration unless you present something to back it up.
Look... I don't know why it looks like Amalgamated wireless sabotaged the time signal and radio communications... To me, it just really looks like they did, and Eric Chatter from his report, in my opinion, it seemed like he might have known what went wrong. And then 4 months after AE disappeared Eric Chatter died when he walked into a propeller.
I heard about a possible location of her plane so I reversed engineered how it possibly could have gotten there. It all seems to line up pretty well to me so I am just trying to hypothesize how it all went down.
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I heard about a possible location of her plane so I reversed engineered how it possibly could have gotten there. It all seems to line up pretty well to me so I am just trying to hypothesize how it all went down.
Travis,
Could you share you calculations that show how she could have reached NG after being close the the LOP?
Thanks.
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Sorry for perpetuating this but I can't resist. Since we seem to agree she got close to Howland after a flight of 2200+ miles and 18+ hours, I won't quibble over +/- 50 miles. To ballpark it, she used about 2/3rds of her fuel to get close to Howland. Everything else aside, the remaining 1/3rd of her fuel might have lasted at best about halfway back toward PNG.
https://tighar.org/wiki/File:Flight-section-two.jpg
Dan Brown, #2408
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Travis,
You join our forum and then force feed a personally favored theory to the Forum. You aren't shy or even trying to be persuasive-you push. And when members rebut your theory, or ask for evidence, you say we are rude and provide little of substance.
If you think we are rude, you should try some of the REAL conspiracy sites out there, and see if you are allowed to post at all. What you seem to perceive as rudeness is just our members showing where there appear to be weaknesses in your theory. We've been there and done this MANY times before. The usual outcome is that the person who posts the "new" theory eventually gets angry or frustrated that we won't accept what they are offering and they storm out never to be heard from again here or on ANY internet site.
We will be more than happy to debate what you are bringing to the table, and you are welcome to be steadfast in your beliefs, but just don't be upset when we stand by our beliefs as strongly.
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You join our forum and then force feed a personally favored theory to the Forum. You aren't shy or even trying to be persuasive-you push. And when members rebut your theory, or ask for evidence, you say we are rude and provide little of substance.
To be fair, he introduced his theory with nothing more than a Youtube link, was asked for more details and provided them fairly straightforward (at least at first). Things gradually got a little testy, nothing like the before times, and it seems a bit much to say that he's force feeding it. I've read a lot of articles and books on zany AE theories (The British Connection!). Sometimes I just have to put them down, but as long as the writer appears to have done some research or has at least given it some legitimate thought, I generally try to see if there's anything I can pick up from them, even if the conclusion appears obviously wrong. I've picked up a lot of interesting and/or useful tidbits this way. I didn't know that there was an Australian Wireless Weekly mag until I read Travis's posts. (Travis: I'd like to find it).
And as far as denigrating someone for espousing a "personally favored theory," Shirley you’re joking, right? You must be joking because it’s very funny. Or are you just being tongue in cheek, facetious, blowing smoke, yanking my chain, etc.?, for the raven chides blackness. How many people do you think there are on this forum who don't espouse Niku as their personally-favored theory? I can think of two. And it was only one until Travis joined recently. I readily concede that TIGHAR’s Niku theory is the product of a mountain of research and effort, much of it outstanding, and that they looked at and at least considered evidence from other theories along the way. But no one should kid themself into thinking that the Niku/TIGHAR theory got to its current form without a lot of ego involvement that was highly focused on Niku. There’s nothing wrong with that per se - everyone wants to be proven right - but there’s no doubt that almost all of the people who put that effort into the research were pursuing their personally-favored theory.
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I mean seriously Ric .... I'd suggest you might have knowledge of the Betty notebook being a forged artifact ....
Travis - I appreciate your sincere research into AE and the enthusiasm in your posts here, and I encourage you to continue with both. But I also suggest that you keep in mind that there is sometimes a fine line between attacking a given theory or claim and making a personal attack. I've certainly had my differences with Ric over the years, but the above snippet was probably a bit too close to the line for comfort. Just a friendly suggestion fwiw.
Diego
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This section of the forum is for theory not endorsed by TIGHAR so why you guys all mad? With AE as the subject this section should be overflowing with crazy ideas. All you gotta do is find the plane at Niku and I'll be on my way.
I'll type up my calculations for showing the possibility of the round trip endurance tonight. Can anyone tell me for sure if the POH is in statute or nautical miles? It doesn't ever say from what I recall.
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This section of the forum is for theory not endorsed by TIGHAR so why you guys all mad?
probably the whole accusing someone of manufacturing fraudulent evidence thing.
....which, btw, is another favored tactic of conspiracy theorists - Anything that contradicts the conspiracy theory is fraudulent and/or a lie intended to help the conspiracy.
Oh, and someone already crunched all of the numbers for a return to PNG, so you don't have to. Whether possible, I don't know....
https://earhartsearchpng.com/earhart-lockheed-electra-search-project-9/
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probably the whole accusing someone of manufacturing fraudulent evidence thing.
Yo! You misunderstood me then. I was saying that the Betty Notebook clearly includes coordinates that at a minimum tell us that AE was pretty sure she was South of the Equator and West of the Anti-meridian. Nike island is EAST of the anti-meridian. Ric doesn't seem to take the east west thing seriously so my sarcastic suggestion was that he knows the notebook is bogus.
Really it was a joke. The joke being... If hypothetically the Betty Notebook is bogus and Ric knows it's bogus... and if he hypothetically had a part in fabricating it,... he surely would have had the fabricated coordinates in the hypothetically fabricated document at least be on the same side of the anti-meridian as Nike Island. The point being that the Betty notebook, surely isn't fabricated and you guys should open your eyes to your own evidence.
I can think of no logical reason why my point isn't taken seriously if you have faith the Betty Notebook is legit, and I think most if not all of you do, myself included. I believe the notebook to be genuine and I thought all of you were with me on that. My point being that how come nobody else wants to address how the Easterly coordinates in the Betty notebook contradict Nike Island?
Yes! Nike Island. I like it! If even just to piss y'all off more... Seriously tho people take a chill pill. If I am wrong, none of you should care and I really shouldn't be given enough control of anyones emotions to upset anyone.
Now if I am right and y'all wasted uncountable hours and/or years of your life on Nike Island and punk ass Travis shows up the last min of the 4th quarter and proves it... well THEN hate me, curse my name, and be butt hurt. At that point I'll welcome it. Until someone has incontestable proof... we are all on the same team homies.
I get that the Betty notebook being fabricated might be a touchy subject because in the past perhaps it has been indirectly suggested that TIGHAR did have a part in fabricating the Betty Notebook.
I never meant to suggest that I believed that to be the case. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Sorry Ric.
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....which, btw, is another favored tactic of conspiracy theorists - Anything that contradicts the conspiracy theory is fraudulent and/or a lie intended to help the conspiracy.
I meant to indicate that the Betty notebook supported my conspiracy! due to the coordinates suggesting they were on the west side of the anti-meridian and at 3 degrees south of the equator. Probably the most significant piece of evidence that points more to my location over Nike island.
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Oh this rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.........
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Oh this rabbit hole just gets deeper and deeper.........
(https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/41bf5XDyZ9L._SX331_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg)
https://a.co/d/1EJwdxb
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OMG! That's is great! Made me laugh out loud! :D
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Good ol' Chris Williamson. His book is drawn from his podcast series. All theories are equal. Nothing is too crazy for Chris to exploit. He would love Travis's.
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I'll type up my calculations for showing the possibility of the round trip endurance tonight. Can anyone tell me for sure if the POH is in statute or nautical miles? It doesn't ever say from what I recall.
If by POH you mean Pilot's Operating Handbook, all Lockheed Model 10 Operating Instructions refer to M.P.H. except editions intended for European operators which use KmPH. Standard Operating Instructions for the Model 10 are useless for calculating Earhart's endurance. For that you need Lockheed Report 487 and Kelly Johnson's telegrams with the power/fuel management profile he laid out for Earhart.
All speeds in Report 487 are expressed in M.P.H, not Kts.
If you don't know that M.P.H. stands for statute miles per hour and Kts stands for Knots (nautical miles per hour), you're in even farther over your head than I thought.
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I was saying that the Betty Notebook clearly includes coordinates that at a minimum tell us that AE was pretty sure she was South of the Equator and West of the Anti-meridian. Nike island is EAST of the anti-meridian. Ric doesn't seem to take the east west thing seriously so my sarcastic suggestion was that he knows the notebook is bogus. ... I believe the notebook to be genuine and I thought all of you were with me on that. My point being that how come nobody else wants to address how the Easterly coordinates in the Betty notebook contradict Nike Island?
Okay, I'll play. What Betty wrote in her notebook was "South 391065 Z or E". Some time (probably years) later, she added her parenthetical interpretation that the entry meant coordinates "{S 309' 165° E}". Those are not valid coordinates, but let's say she meant "S 3° 09', 165° E".
USS Ontario's assigned plane guard station was 3° 05' S, 165° E. The most commonly confused numbers in radio transmissions are 5 and 9. That's why we say "9er". If the coordinates Earhart sent were actually "South 3°5', 165° E" she was sending Ontario's assigned position.
Why would she do that?
Noonan appears to have gotten at least their latitude soon after their arrival on Adidas, or Nike, or whatever name you prefer. Earhart knew they were "on reef southeast of Howland" but coordinates were Noonan's department. By the time Betty heard Earhart (Monday, July 5), Noonan was out of his head. If she was looking at Noonan's charts to see if he had written the coordinates down somewhere, she may have come across his notation of Ontario's assigned position (something he would definitely need to have). Earhart's knowledge of navigation was notoriously bad, that's why she had Noonan aboard. Is it too much of a stretch to think she sent Ontario's coordinates, not realizing what they were? The similarity between what Betty wrote down and Ontario's position is either a plausible explanation of why she would send coordinates with an "E" or it's an incredible coincidence. In either case, the coordinates Betty seems to have recorded are a loooong way from your engines and can not possibly be where she actually was.
Now if I am right and y'all wasted uncountable hours and/or years of your life on Nike Island and punk ass Travis shows up the last min of the 4th quarter and proves it... well THEN hate me, curse my name, and be butt hurt. At that point I'll welcome it.
It's okay Travis. Nobody hates you. If you can prove us wrong we'll thank you, as we did John Kada when he proved the sextant box almost certainly came from USS Bushnell. It's actually kind of fun and instructive to watch you try. You're a poster-child for bad methodology.
I get that the Betty notebook being fabricated might be a touchy subject because in the past perhaps it has been indirectly suggested that TIGHAR did have a part in fabricating the Betty Notebook.
I never meant to suggest that I believed that to be the case. Sorry if I didn't make that clear. Sorry Ric.
Apology accepted.
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Okay, I'll play. What Betty wrote in her notebook was "South 391065 Z or E". Some time (probably years) later, she added her parenthetical interpretation that the entry meant coordinates "{S 309' 165° E}". Those are not valid coordinates, but let's say she meant "S 3° 09', 165° E".
If I was stranded on an uninhabited island I think I would make sure I wasn't transmitting the wrong coordinates if I wanted to get found. And for sure I wouldn't transmit coordinates on the wrong side of the date line by mistake. I don't care how sloppy noonans notes were after making it this far around the earth AE should have known the relative quadrant she was in and the difference between NS and EW.
Bettys Parenthetical correction especially if she did it much later shows us that she is clearly dyslexic. Did Betty mention anything about the coordinate correction in the margin? What exactly did she say?!?!?
The Chatter report shows us the convention AE used to report her position.
3.19 pm on 6210 KC – “HEIGHT 10000 FEET POSITION 150.7 east 7.3 south CUMULUS CLOUDS EVERYTHING OKAY”
5.18 p.m. “POSITION 4.33 SOUTH 159.7 EAST HEIGHT 8000 FEET OVER CUMULUS CLOUDS WIND 23 KNOTS”.
She flips the order of S and E and she fails to maintain precision of digits as 4.33 is a more precise measurement than 7.3. She does not seem to mix up E and W. Although if one did mix up east and west anything to the west is also to the east of you if you take the long way 'round.
Oh that reminds me! why did chatter say that AE would be txing at 18 past the hour? Didn't everywhere besides the chatter report say 15 past the hour and that she was not going to have any two way communication with any individual station(removing the possiblitlity of a second conversation with LAE after her 15 min report anyone else would be listening for.) A possible way this fits into my theory is Chatter knew her chronometer had been sabotaged and was off by 3-4 minuites and said this(probably overthinking the deception being that he was serious IFR pilot) to suggest it was not a mistake to be hearing her transmissions offset by 3 mins. Many of the ship radio logs also show her transmissions off by 3ish mins and I also find the mass 3 min window/corrections throughout the ship logs seeming to be atypical. This would put her navigation 50 miles short of howland and her position reports would be 50 miles east of where she actually was.
3.09 S 156(dyslexic correction) E begins to look closer to my location and reported position is to the east which is consistent with the 3 min error explanation.
Lets assume she had the tanks all the way full. 1200 gallons. Lae - Howland is a little over 2500 Statute Miles. I am going to assume an average speed of 160mph. She left at 10am. The trip to 50miles short of howland should be about 15.5hrs.
I have never tried to use an air almanac or ever done any sort of celestial navigation. I've never been on a boat with a map... I know how to use a plotter and navigate using charts in an airplane but prefer to rely on GPS whenever possible and have an airport to land at in sight at all times ready to declare an emergency and land in the event of GPS satellites going offline or an electrical system failure... Joke...
Can you imagine working ATC in the event the Chinese nuke enough GPS sats to make GPS navigation impossible for aircraft over the continental US and subsequently having every single stateside airborne flight declare an emergency. LOL. I know there are plenty of older pilots with more experience than me more who are more dependent on GPS than I am...
My mother(AE buff) was at work in a dark room of a flight service station when all aircraft were grounded following the 9/11 attack.
Noonan is looking at an air almanac I assume along side his notes and his sextant. This tells me a few things.
They would be ariving at Howland around 1:30 or 2am? ...I thought it was later in the morning... Maybe 160mph is too fast of an average. Help me on this...? but regardless of the speed and arrival time, the way an air almanac works is, noonan would have to turn his air almanac to the next page after midnight came.
I also believe the way and air almanac works is that he would have to turn back a page as they cross the anti-meridian.
Then if they turned around and recross the anti meridian he has to once more again turn forward a page?
Actually I am pretty sure I could possibly might for sure have that all somehow wrong maybe. It's pretty confusing thinking about all the page turning to me if that is even how it works. Could Noonan have made a mistake in the direction of his page turns and gotten confused as to what day it was vs. their local time zone and thus putting them a degree or two off for each mistake he made by being on the wrong page of the air almanac? I get confused trying to figure it out how it would work so I could see stressed out/loss of faith in navigational ability/sleep deprived/hit his head in the wreck Noonan getting confused after turning around and recrossing the date line as to what day it is and what page to be on. This could further account for the longitudinal difference between the betty coordinates and the PNG island site.
I could have this all wrong I am not sure. It has been a while since I initially jam fit these possible puzzle pieces together and came up with this theory in the first place.
It does seem the 666 report tells us that the possible endurance with the passenger compartment fuel tanks filled with 1200gallons and the plane at 16500lb take off weight would be 4000mi. My suggested flight when accounting for turning around 50 miles longitudinally short of howland and going back the way they came is 4500ish miles. 500 miles seems like a lot of extra miles to be able to make it. Would there not have been any additional included calculated margin of error or reserve in the endurance report? Could the one of a kind fuel tank setup have had any fuel reserve built in? We're talking about 1936 2 barrel carburetors in a draw through? supercharged 9 cylinder radial engine. I think the fuel metering would have been less than precise and if I were PIC I would plan on the conservative side of endurance. Also consider on a 4000mile trip an extra 500 miles is about 11.3% difference. My personal limited probably retarded comparison... in a cessna 150 with an O200 that normally burns 5gph. 12% better would be 4.4gph which I have been able to achieve even better than that with careful conservative mixture operation while still safely operating the engine rich of peak, all without an EGT system. Wind will never really help you when you are considering a return flight unless you get very lucky and the wind direction changes in your favor one way to in your favor the other way but it could happen especially if noonan was able to use his drift sight(?) and they found the best altitude. When you are talking about 4000miles 12% would make enough difference to make it back to my PNG Island(lets actually call that one Adidas.) For the TIGHAR Island lets stick to Nike please.
Super unlikely but I wonder if once "half (h)our fuel left" at altitude you could shut down an engine and get better efficiency in an electra considering the double tail to compensate for asymmetrical thrust. I know this would for sure not work in a 400 series twin cessna(no doubt unrecoverable stall spin crash a big factor being the size of the vertical stabilizer.) Anyone done a check ride in an electra to know if they actually would simulate an engine out? https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/17480/can-a-four-engine-aircraft-with-limited-fuel-gain-extra-range-by-shutting-down-o
My way of fitting the puzzle together could be a long shot but I don't see AE grossly misunderstanding noonans notes and transmitting the Ontario location from the wrong relative quadrant she was in while seeking rescue from an uninhabited island being more likely than the way I fit this all together... Would they have even have known where the Ontario was? I maybe remember a telegram from before the flight containing this information but i'm not sure now.
ADIDAS = All Day I Dream About Sex. Lets not forget the Adidas slogan either: "Impossible is Nothing."
I hope the joking tone of this post is perceived and I don't further upset anyone. Additionally please consider the actual facts of my suggestion carefully before dismissing me all together.
Okay I've been proof reading this post for hours now. It may not be perfect but I am posting it...
Ooops right before posting I realized I am forgetting to consider 10AM is LAE timezone... See I am confused on how to fix this all now. I think my point here still holds true in that they would have been flying at midnight and zone time and crossing/recrossing the date line while using celestial navigation might be more confusing than typical to a 1937 navigator.
Edit/add:
@Ric Gillespie. I was misremembering the Report 478 as the POH. My bad. wishful thinking hoping the endurance potential would be 4000kts rather than statute miles.
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Travis:
Your entire hypothesis is based upon 3 pictures, which have not been independently verified/validated as a Lockheed L-10. That should be your first priority. As others have stated, there are other planes with similar features. Having additional photos/documentation of the plane in question would either greatly strengthen your argument or completely dissolve the hypothesis.
You also disregard known facts, e.g. the amount of fuel Earhart left with; her planned speed was 150 mph in air so that winds would affect her speed over ground. No other AE researcher has come up with a return leg as far as you propose based upon speed over the ground and fuel consumption (yes, some have proposed a return to Micronesia, well short of NG however).
Your arguments are such that you have reached a conclusion and are searching for data that supports that conclusion. That is not the way to do rigorous scientific or historical research. One must first collect all of the facts (yes, even the conflicting ones), and find a hypothesis that fits as many of the facts as possible. Adjustments or outright abandonment of a hypothesis is usually a follow-on, based upon new information or a better fitting of the facts.
I have spent the past 25+ years trying to prove the Niku hypothesis to be wrong, and was one of the first researchers to document the weather, navigation, possible flight paths, all radio messages in a database for others to use. There are still parts of the Niku hypothesis is have a bias against (mostly environmental), but after all this time, I have not been able to disprove the hypothesis.
Again, I go back to the "fact" of the 3 photos of an underwater aircraft wreck as being one of the most crucial facts in your case. If it can be proved to be a L-10, great! Let's go with it! But if it isn't and can be proven not to be, all of the conjecture assuming it is an L-10 is simply blowing dust in the wind, so to speak.
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Travis:
Your entire hypothesis is based upon 3 pictures, which have not been independently verified/validated as a Lockheed L-10. That should be your first priority. As others have stated, there are other planes with similar features. Having additional photos/documentation of the plane in question would either greatly strengthen your argument or completely dissolve the hypothesis.
You also disregard known facts, e.g. the amount of fuel Earhart left with; her planned speed was 150 mph in air so that winds would affect her speed over ground. No other AE researcher has come up with a return leg as far as you propose based upon speed over the ground and fuel consumption (yes, some have proposed a return to Micronesia, well short of NG however).
Your arguments are such that you have reached a conclusion and are searching for data that supports that conclusion. That is not the way to do rigorous scientific or historical research. One must first collect all of the facts (yes, even the conflicting ones), and find a hypothesis that fits as many of the facts as possible. Adjustments or outright abandonment of a hypothesis is usually a follow-on, based upon new information or a better fitting of the facts.
I have spent the past 25+ years trying to prove the Niku hypothesis to be wrong, and was one of the first researchers to document the weather, navigation, possible flight paths, all radio messages in a database for others to use. There are still parts of the Niku hypothesis is have a bias against (mostly environmental), but after all this time, I have not been able to disprove the hypothesis.
Again, I go back to the "fact" of the 3 photos of an underwater aircraft wreck as being one of the most crucial facts in your case. If it can be proved to be a L-10, great! Let's go with it! But if it isn't and can be proven not to be, all of the conjecture assuming it is an L-10 is simply blowing dust in the wind, so to speak.
Less than cooperative locals who I can't trust make this all pretty difficult. They see the gas tanks in the back of the plane and think they are full of gold and then stop being helpful thinking I am going to get rich by sending me pictures and a country who's government monitors all communications in an out after they feel like they got screwed with cooperating on getting the "swamp ghost" shipped out of there make this all pretty difficult. I have an Australian diver on the island and I have sent him out to dive twice where they took him to the wrong location and waste his time because they don't trust him either. Someone in PNG even posted this(attached) on Facebook because they were worried I was going to go there myself... I am still working on getting more pictures...
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A quick question, if this a "swamp ghost" which I assume means it is in a swamp, is there a plausible explanation for how AE could have sent the radio messages heard by Betty ( and others) which requires engines running, propellers turning, dynamo and radio equipment to be dry.
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A quick question, if this a "swamp ghost" which I assume means it is in a swamp, is there a plausible explanation for how AE could have sent the radio messages heard by Betty ( and others) which requires engines running, propellers turning, dynamo and radio equipment to be dry.
Matt, the Swamp Ghost is a B-17 that was found in PNG and extracted, in fairly good condition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp_Ghost
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Travis:
Your entire hypothesis is based upon 3 pictures, which have not been independently verified/validated as a Lockheed L-10. That should be your first priority. As others have stated, there are other planes with similar features. Having additional photos/documentation of the plane in question would either greatly strengthen your argument or completely dissolve the hypothesis.
You also disregard known facts, e.g. the amount of fuel Earhart left with; her planned speed was 150 mph in air so that winds would affect her speed over ground. No other AE researcher has come up with a return leg as far as you propose based upon speed over the ground and fuel consumption (yes, some have proposed a return to Micronesia, well short of NG however).
Your arguments are such that you have reached a conclusion and are searching for data that supports that conclusion. That is not the way to do rigorous scientific or historical research. One must first collect all of the facts (yes, even the conflicting ones), and find a hypothesis that fits as many of the facts as possible. Adjustments or outright abandonment of a hypothesis is usually a follow-on, based upon new information or a better fitting of the facts.
I have spent the past 25+ years trying to prove the Niku hypothesis to be wrong, and was one of the first researchers to document the weather, navigation, possible flight paths, all radio messages in a database for others to use. There are still parts of the Niku hypothesis is have a bias against (mostly environmental), but after all this time, I have not been able to disprove the hypothesis.
Again, I go back to the "fact" of the 3 photos of an underwater aircraft wreck as being one of the most crucial facts in your case. If it can be proved to be a L-10, great! Let's go with it! But if it isn't and can be proven not to be, all of the conjecture assuming it is an L-10 is simply blowing dust in the wind, so to speak.
Less than cooperative locals who I can't trust make this all pretty difficult. They see the gas tanks in the back of the plane and think they are full of gold and then stop being helpful thinking I am going to get rich by sending me pictures and a country who's government monitors all communications in an out after they feel like they got screwed with cooperating on getting the "swamp ghost" shipped out of there make this all pretty difficult. I have an Australian diver on the island and I have sent him out to dive twice where they took him to the wrong location and waste his time because they don't trust him either. Someone in PNG even posted this(attached) on Facebook because they were worried I was going to go there myself... I am still working on getting more pictures...
It's not the airplane.
It's not an L-10.
I hope you haven't sent them much money. They are just telling you want you want to hear. They don't want you or the Australian diver there because you will quickly see that they are swindling you. Run, don't walk, away from this.
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Thanks Christian
But the basic question remains, you have pictures of a submerged aircraft, is there a plausible explanation for how it is currently submerged but would have been dry enough to send radio messages for several days after landing.
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TIGHAR surveyed B-17E 41-2446 in 1986. The video of the expedition, Lady In Waiting (https://youtu.be/jR7RawnWlHY) is dubbed from an ancient VHS copy so the quality is, shall we say, appropriately historic. The 39 year-old investigator doesn't look like that anymore either.
The name "Swamp Ghost" was coined by the RAAF helicopter pilots who first spotted the wreck. Our friend, Fred Eaton, who had been the pilot, hated the name. The airplane did not have a name. We simply called "The Agaiambo E" after the name of the swamp. It was the lead article in the very first edition of TIGHAR Tracks (https://www.tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1985Vol_1/0101.pdf).
We were working with the Travis Air Force Base Museum to recover the airplane, but Papua New Guinea imposed a moratorium on all WII aircraft recoveries due to the abuses of American warbird salvagers. In 2006, Philadelphia builder Fred Hagen bribed PNG officials and lifted the aircraft out of the swamp with a rented Russian helicopter, significantly damaging the plane in the process. The bomber was impounded and sat corroding on the dock in Lae for years before it was finally exported and eventually, in 2013, ended up at the Pacific Air Museum on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor where it I allegedly being "restored."
At an Explorers Club meeting in Philadelphia, I told Hagen to his face that I considered what he did to be the worst act of vandalism in aviation history. The aircraft was doing fine in situ. A properly permitted, competently executed recovery, and prompt exportation to a facility where conservators could stabilize the structure could have resulted in the aircraft's genuine preservation.
From what Travis says, the fallout from Hagen's crime continues.
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TIGHAR surveyed B-17E 41-2446 in 1986. The video of the expedition, Lady In Waiting (https://youtu.be/jR7RawnWlHY) is dubbed from an ancient VHS copy so the quality is, shall we say, appropriately historic. The 39 year-old investigator doesn't look like that anymore either.
The name "Swamp Ghost" was coined by the RAAF helicopter pilots who first spotted the wreck. Our friend, Fred Eaton, who had been the pilot, hated the name. The airplane did not have a name. We simply called "The Agaiambo E" after the name of the swamp. It was the lead article in the very first edition of TIGHAR Tracks (https://www.tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/1985Vol_1/0101.pdf).
We were working with the Travis Air Force Base Museum to recover the airplane, but Papua New Guinea imposed a moratorium on all WII aircraft recoveries due to the abuses of American warbird salvagers. In 2006, Philadelphia builder Fred Hagen bribed PNG officials and lifted the aircraft out of the swamp with a rented Russian helicopter, significantly damaging the plane in the process. The bomber was impounded and sat corroding on the dock in Lae for years before it was finally exported and eventually, in 2013, ended up at the Pacific Air Museum on Ford Island, Pearl Harbor where it I allegedly being "restored."
At an Explorers Club meeting in Philadelphia, I told Hagen to his face that I considered what he did to be the worst act of vandalism in aviation history. The aircraft was doing fine in situ. A properly permitted, competently executed recovery, and prompt exportation to a facility where conservators could stabilize the structure could have resulted in the aircraft's genuine preservation.
From what Travis says, the fallout from Hagen's crime continues.
100 miles over that terrain in a single engine jetranger?
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100 miles over that terrain in a single engine jetranger?
Yeah, insane. The 206 couldn't clear the Owen Stanley mountain range (lowest peaks around 10,000 feet) so we had to sneak through a pass/ravine with dense vertical jungle on each side. Along the way, the pilot pointed out the wreckage of several aircraft that didn't make it. We had to pull pitch at dawn in order to be done and back to Port Moresby before the mountains got socked in as they do every day by noon.
When he dropped us off on the wing of the bomber and left, we had no communications. No hand-held radio. Satphones were not yet invented. Loneliest feeling in the world.
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From what Travis says, the fallout from Hagen's crime continues.
Yup. I had no idea of the details why they are still upset. They know her plane is there. I think they've even made it illegal to photograph war relics in PNG. AEs plane is obviously not a war relic but my guess is the PNG government has a task force to prevent any evidence of her plane or any others getting out of the country. All communication in and out of PNG is monitored. Also check out the obscene calling rates to call PNG from the US. Probably need to bribe some official. Any idea who they bribed for the swamp ghost recovery Ric?
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From what Travis says, the fallout from Hagen's crime continues.
Yup. I had no idea of the details why they are still upset. They know her plane is there. I think they've even made it illegal to photograph war relics in PNG. AEs plane is obviously not a war relic but my guess is the PNG government has a task force to prevent any evidence of her plane or any others getting out of the country. All communication in and out of PNG is monitored. Also check out the obscene calling rates to call PNG from the US. Probably need to bribe some official. Any idea who they bribed for the swamp ghost recovery Ric?
They don't know. They HOPE.
Just like the Republic of Marshall Islands knows her plane is there.
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AEs plane is obviously not a war relic but my guess is the PNG government has a task force to prevent any evidence of her plane or any others getting out of the country.
Why would they do that?
All communication in and out of PNG is monitored.
No it's not. I communicate with people in PNG all the time by email. What evidence do you have that communication is monitored?
Probably need to bribe some official. Any idea who they bribed for the swamp ghost recovery Ric?
I wouldn't tell you if I knew. It sounds like you're willing to be as a big a crook as Hagen.
People in PNG see TIGHAR spending millions of dollars looking for Earhart's airplane so they assume it must be worth a fortune. Every time somebody stumbles across a wreck it automatically become Earhart's Electra. I used to get, on average, one or two emails every month from somebody in PNG who was sure they'd found Earhart's plane. I always asked them for photos, but they usually wanted money to hire someone to get photos, or they sent only teaser photos (like your engines). I never bit.
Others were more gullible. Project Blue Angel (https://www.projectblueangel.com) is a classic example. You're simply the latest sucker.
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For laughs I visited the Project Blue Angel site- boy are you right Ric, they are REALLY stretching the facts and making mountains out of less than molehills there! WoW!
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Not only that, they are taking their time determining that this is not the airplane they seek. That would spoil their fun.
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In good science (like the kind TIGHAR uses) you build a hypothesis out of known, verifiable evidence.
In contrast, conspiracy theories force evidence to fit a predetermined hypothesis (sometimes resulting in painful mental gymnastics).
Science also uses the KISS principle (a.k.a. Occam's Razor) whereas a lot of conspiracy theories seem to require more and more complicated solutions for each piece of evidence.
- Right now there doesn't seem to be any known, verifiable evidence to show that her Electra is in PNG. The explanations offered so far seem to be very complicated and require faking of information, government cover-ups, nefarious and shady characters, and misinterpretation of vast amounts of known and previously well-analyzed data by lots of people.
- There does seem to be a lot of known, verifiable evidence for her landing and being a castaway on NIKU*, involving rather simple interpretations of evidence, which is in general agreement by skeptics and proponents alike.
*Most of the evidence on NIKU (bones, personal effects) don't have another explanation outside of supporting Earhart's presence (although someone may discover one in the future). There does seem to be lots of possible explanations for the presence of a twin-engine plane from the pre-WW2 era underwater in PNG.
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Well I think we can all agree she landed somewhere a rising tide was getting to the airplane while she was transmitting trying to be rescued. Nike island is pretty flat no elevation hardly at all. How come the relatively local search crews were unable to hear her radio calls but Betty in Florida could? KISS. What is the simple good science explanation for that?
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Try searching the forum and the ameliapedia, this group has done a ton of work on those questions, start at the link below
https://tighar.org/wiki/Radio_propagation
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Well I think we can all agree she landed somewhere a rising tide was getting to the airplane while she was transmitting trying to be rescued.
Yes- I think you would find everyone on this forum would agree to that statement.
Nike island is pretty flat no elevation hardly at all.
Again, the short form of the name for the island is NIKU- you REALLY need to be more accurate!
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It's got a double tail...
I hope so, because the front of the airplane sure isn't encouraging.
Let's see it.
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The horizontal portion of the tail extended well beyond the vertical piece on AE's Electra, although your image is murky I don't see that piece
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Still not encouraging. Looks more like a Beech 18 tail. It's missing the extended horizontal stabilizer. There were Beech 18s and C-45's all over this area during and after the war.
You sent them back and this is what they got? They couldn't back up a few feet?
I still think this is a scam.
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Here's a good example of the engine cylinder cover I have been pointing out in this thread. They completely cover the radial engine, unlike the L10E.
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A couple more images to consider. Here is a Beach 10 that was already suggested as a likely culprit. Note the lack of horizontal member passing through the vertical section (which is consistent with the PNG underwater image). The second show's Earhart's Electra with a sizable protrusion beyond the vertical section.
(1st image is via Wikicommons, the 2nd is via The Autry National Center Museum, Automobile Club of Southern California Archives)
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Anybody an image forensic expert? When I analyze the fingerprint using JPEGsnoop it I think it looks like they actually took this picture and it is not something edited off the internet. I was very skeptical too.
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If you compare your pic to the one in Don Yee’s post the position of Lockheed and the symbol are much closer to the center line than they should be, like someone photoshopped them in
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Anybody an image forensic expert? When I analyze the fingerprint using JPEGsnoop it I think it looks like they actually took this picture and it is not something edited off the internet. I was very skeptical too.
I'm not, but I have some expertise in B.S., and this is some.
Do you really think they would still be dealing with you if they had actually found the airplane? It would be the biggest story of the decade. They would be national heroes.
This image is 5K because it is cropped. They take a picture of a picture that they have edited. All of the pics are "too close" because they have to be cropped.
You can see the shine of the aluminum, unlike all of the other pics, which have the airplane coated in crud. The angle of the logo and text would indicate that the airplane is sitting on its gear (which it was, when this pic was actually taken in 1937). Also, this image is a negative.
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If you compare your pic to the one in Don Yee’s post the position of Lockheed and the symbol are much closer to the center line than they should be, like someone photoshopped them in
No, they used the exact same image as Don Yee's second one, but uncropped. Exact match. The N is photoshopped over the R.
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If you compare your pic to the one in Don Yee’s post the position of Lockheed and the symbol are much closer to the center line than they should be, like someone photoshopped them in
No, they used the exact same image as Don Yee's second one, but uncropped. Exact match. The N is photoshopped over the R.
LOL, it may not be legit but you think these guys photoshopped the N over the R in that picture... Why tf would they do that? I know a little about photo forensics I do not see any indication that they have photoshopped the N where the R was in that photo and the JPEG compression signatures I think suggest it hasn't been edited. Could be a picture of a picture but I still doubt they would photoshop the N over the R.
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If you compare your pic to the one in Don Yee’s post the position of Lockheed and the symbol are much closer to the center line than they should be, like someone photoshopped them in
No, they used the exact same image as Don Yee's second one, but uncropped. Exact match. The N is photoshopped over the R.
LOL, it may not be legit but you think these guys photoshopped the N over the R in that picture... Why tf would they do that? I know a little about photo forensics I do not see any indication that they have photoshopped the N where the R was in that photo and the JPEG compression signatures I think suggest it hasn't been edited. Could be a picture of a picture but I still doubt they would photoshop the N over the R.
Reflections are all the same....except one is a negative.
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It shouldn't be a negative I'll give you that one. This guy is probably trying to scam me, I have talked to him on the phone and he is not the person who initially told me of the plane. I have talked to many other people on the island who acknowledge there is a plane there.
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I'm no photo expert but...
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I'm no photo expert but...
Nailed it.
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Also - there's no way markings would be that clear after 80+ years underwater. The fin would be covered in crud, just like the other picture, and the paint faded.
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Well, it's not a Lockheed Electra 10e, and probably not even a real airplane, so either they are hustling you, or you are trying to hustle the world ("Woe is me, the gov't of PNG won't let me go get what is clearly Amelia Earhart's airplane, but I found it").
I think this thread has more than run its course.
Theory disproved.
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It was fun while it lasted.