TIGHAR
Amelia Earhart Search Forum => General discussion => Topic started by: Nancy Marilyn Gould on January 20, 2012, 11:19:06 AM
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I recently got this question from a friend who is skeptical of TIGHAR's research. Any idea how to answer this?
1. If Earhart and /or Noonan survived and made it to the island, why no signal fire? Surely with enough combustible material and the knowledge that searchers would be looking for them, they would have built a signal fire. Smoke can be spotted a lot farther away than plane wreckage.
Thank you,
Nancy
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There may have been a signal fire. We don't know that there was one, or wasn't one. When Lambrecht flew over (on the 9th), there was apparently not a fire, but there are many possible reasons for that. AE & FN could have already perished by then.
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I think that AE felt that she had given the Itasca folks enough information in her 0843, 0855, take your pick, radio transmission (Itasca Time) to know that she was flying SSE (337 to 157) towards the Phoenix Group and that rescuers would be arriving at Gardner on the morning of Saturday 7/3/37. Prolly wasn't until Sunday or Monday that they (AE/FN) realized that searchers weren't coming. (they had no reason to think that an air search would take place).
By then they had been without fresh water for 3-4 days in heat over 100 degrees F and needed to kick into "Survival Mode".
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Did either of them smoke? If yes then a signal fire would have been a simple task. There is evidence of fires having been lit around the seven site. But matches/cigarette lighters don't last forever.
Jeff
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Jeff Victor
I think that the consensus about the fires at seven site is that they were used to cook with and to keep the crabs away at night.
The post loss radio transmissions indicate that they were near the plane until 2018 Gardner time on the 6th or 7th( I forget which). Betty's notes indicate that FN was injured (Head) as was AE (ankle) so survival by then was very serious. We just don't know.
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When your friend says "Why no signal fire?", ask him/her how they know there was no signal fire.
When your friend says " . . . they would have built a signal fire", point out to them that when they say "would have", they're guessing.
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Fred was a smoker.
Did they expect rescue? Maybe there was a fire ready to light but when the planes showed AE/FN were in the jungle and by the time they got to the beach to light the fire the planes were gone.
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Fred was a smoker.
Did they expect rescue? Maybe there was a fire ready to light but when the planes showed AE/FN were in the jungle and by the time they got to the beach to light the fire the planes were gone.
How many fires, how many attempts to light said fires and, how long would box of matches/petrol cigarette lighter last? especially as they thought they would be at Howland/Hawaii in a couple of days.
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To those of you who replied, thank you very much for doing so.
Many of you wrote, "How do we know that she didn't light a fire?" But there is still the second half of the question. Let's assume that she did light a fire. Wouldn't the pilots doing the SAR been able to see it?
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Nancy Marilyn
Go to Home, then to General Discussion, then to page 3 and Odds of Spotting Survivors thread for a detailed discussion about spotting folks from the air.
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Harry:
I have read some of the articles about the difficulty of spotting people from the air. But what about SMOKE? It seems to me that smoke would be relatively easy to see.
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Nancy; I'm not sure what you are getting at.
In that context, yes. If she lit a fire, and the fire generated sufficient smoke, and someone searching for her saw the smoke, they might be likely to have connected the dots and gone to the rescue. Now that we agree on that, where do we go next?
You see, if you frame the question in that way and you say "assume she did light a fire", you are guessing. You are assuming. Nancy, she may have lit a fire. She may not have. We do not know exactly what she did. She may have had a fire going for 5 straight days, and then it went out. Maybe it was not burning when anyone was there to see it. Maybe she was foraging, or maybe she was already dead and being eaten by crabs. Maybe her and Fred were playing gin rummy. Who knows?
There's no end of possibilities. But to say that she would have had a fire and the fire would have been seen doesn't prove or disprove anything.
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Nancy; I'm not sure what you are getting at.
In that context, yes. If she lit a fire, and the fire generated sufficient smoke, and someone searching for her saw the smoke, they might be likely to have connected the dots and gone to the rescue. Now that we agree on that, where do we go next?
You see, if you frame the question in that way and you say "assume she did light a fire", you are guessing. You are assuming. Nancy, she may have lit a fire. She may not have. We do not know exactly what she did. She may have had a fire going for 5 straight days, and then it went out. Maybe it was not burning when anyone was there to see it. Maybe she was foraging, or maybe she was already dead and being eaten by crabs. Maybe her and Fred were playing gin rummy. Who knows?
There's no end of possibilities. But to say that she would have had a fire and the fire would have been seen doesn't prove or disprove anything.
Nicely said Alfred and Jeff. We have to also remember that avid readers of this forum pick up on the logical approach of what an event or artifact may OR may NOT mean. I have had the same experience as Nancy when discussing this subject with friends. You have to help them understand the thought processes that we sometimes take for granted. As humans we make assumptions all day long and probably aren't as logical in our thinking as we should be. I know I have learned, and continue to learn, more about the proper way to test a hypothesis, and be careful with assumptions, from this forum and it's contributors. Veteran and newbie. Nancy's friends just need the same careful nurturing we all get here. So I think Nancy that all of the responders to your question have been trying to assist you as best they can.
I will add that the fire features so far, as I understand it, are remnants of cooking fires. I would "assume" if you wanted a signal fire it would be larger than that. But no "large signal fire feature" has been uncovered. Yet. The whole island hasn't been examined as thoroughly as the seven site so there may yet be such a feature.
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On a recent winter-campout (not the same as camping on Niku), a friend and I snow-shoed into the woods, started a fire with flint and steel, and brewed two cups of tea. This took two hours.
The search planes were overhead of Gardner Island for no more than 15 minutes, presumably looking for signs of a recently landed or crashed Lockheed Electra. Not seeing a Lockheed Electra, either sunk in the lagoon or stuffed into the trees, but noting "recent signs of habitation", they moved on to the next search objective. About 45 minutes later they would have been flying back to the ship, making a pass some distance to the north East of Gardner Island. We have no record that they even looked back at Gardner Island to see if there was any smoke, or flashes from a mirror, or anything else.
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plus there was bad rain swells in the area in the lead up to gardner search so maybe too wet to start a fire, also of a day it was to hot to sleep an in the night they were sending sos for 8 nights running
so they probably gave up fell asleep, missed the plane flying over
neither ov there bodies wud av been well equipped for being castaway's, as they were very thin individuals
so i think the odd's were against them :(
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It is called "Group Think" and NASA developed a test to demonstrate it.
The Group was marooned on the moon with a list of things that they had.
There was a atation with shelter and supplies. The object was to get to it.
First, individually you were asked to rank the items on the list in the order that you would dispose of them or leave them behind.
Then, as a group you were asked to discuss the same list and rank order them again as a Group.
Amazing how long the Smokers in the Group insisted on holding on to their lighters (on the Moon, mind you)
I'll try to get a copy of the test and post it on the Forum. It's very educational.
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It is called "Group Think" and NASA developed a test to demonstrate it.
The Group was marooned on the moon with a list of things that they had.
There was a atation with shelter and supplies. The object was to get to it.
First, individually you were asked to rank the items on the list in the order that you would dispose of them or leave them behind.
Then, as a group you were asked to discuss the same list and rank order them again as a Group.
Amazing how long the Smokers in the Group insisted on holding on to their lighters (on the Moon, mind you)
I'll try to get a copy of the test and post it on the Forum. It's very educational.
That sounds interesting Harry. I hope you can find it. The group think idea was copied years ago by SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) with their SETI@home program. http://www.seti.org/ (http://www.seti.org/). This program includes using the idle time on home PC's to search for life in the massive amounts of data collected by SETI. I like to think this forum uses the collective intelligence of the readers and contributors to understand and test the hypothesis. The "collective" of the Borg idea if you don't mind that analogy.
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IRV
The NASA GroupThink thing is online
Use your Browser and go to NASA Group Think Test
Choose the entry The Nasa Exercise Lost On The Moon
It shows how the exercise can be done online.
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Its not just a case of having a fire ready to light, you need some kind of medium to light it quicly such as aviation fuel, gas or very dry tinder. Also something to light them with!
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There was also a breeze, and any signal fire would need to produce smoke that could be seen. It wouldn't help if the prepared fire was on the upwind side of the island - the breeze would just blow the smoke into the trees.
Better to light signal fires on the lee side of an island, if there's a bunch of foliage, and if smoke is the intent.
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also if branches were used to build the fires, they create less smoke than bushes i.e leaves do so that could be a reason why no signal smoke
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To those who replied to my questions: thank you very much!
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As an ex-Boy Scout (aka reformed pyromaniac), as others have pointed out, signal fires are neat and swell and keen and all of that - when you read about them in survival manuals or see them in Hollyweird movies.
In reality, under survival conditions, they are damn hard to start if you don't have something like a cigarette lighter (How many of you in here have done the rubbing two sticks together BS? I have. It can, literally, take you hours). Flint and steel can work, if you know what you're doing - Fred and Amelia were city slickers. Using avgas to get the thing going makes sense, until you consider that the radio signals had stopped, which means the engine wasn't running, which may mean there wasn't any gas left. (Regardless, for starting a fire, it's a really good way to either blow yourself up or lose a lot of hair in various places. As Ric would say, "I don't want to talk about it ...")
Let's say Fred still had his lighter and it still worked. Have to gather tinder, kindling, and fuel for the signal fire, and then keep gathering the fuel wood/material to keep the fire going. You're on Niku. It's July. It's like 100 degrees plus in the shade ... how long, realistically, do you think one or two people could keep a signal fire going under those conditions before they gave it up from sheer exhaustion?
And as others have pointed out, just building a signal fire may, or may not, have gotten them any notice unless searchers came over when it was dark or nearly so - again - to make a lot of smoke, you need green wood, leaves, something like that, and that makes white smoke. Or you could use upholstery/rubber/etc. from the airplane for black smoke. But still ... it's Niku. It's July. It's 100 degrees plus in the shade. What little water you have is going fast ...
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As an ex-Boy Scout (aka reformed pyromaniac), as others have pointed out, signal fires are neat and swell and keen and all of that - when you read about them in survival manuals or see them in Hollyweird movies.
In reality, under survival conditions, they are damn hard to start if you don't have something like a cigarette lighter (How many of you in here have done the rubbing two sticks together BS? I have. It can, literally, take you hours). Flint and steel can work, if you know what you're doing - Fred and Amelia were city slickers. Using avgas to get the thing going makes sense, until you consider that the radio signals had stopped, which means the engine wasn't running, which may mean there wasn't any gas left. (Regardless, for starting a fire, it's a really good way to either blow yourself up or lose a lot of hair in various places. As Ric would say, "I don't want to talk about it ...")
Let's say Fred still had his lighter and it still worked. Have to gather tinder, kindling, and fuel for the signal fire, and then keep gathering the fuel wood/material to keep the fire going. You're on Niku. It's July. It's like 100 degrees plus in the shade ... how long, realistically, do you think one or two people could keep a signal fire going under those conditions before they gave it up from sheer exhaustion?
And as others have pointed out, just building a signal fire may, or may not, have gotten them any notice unless searchers came over when it was dark or nearly so - again - to make a lot of smoke, you need green wood, leaves, something like that, and that makes white smoke. Or you could use upholstery/rubber/etc. from the airplane for black smoke. But still ... it's Niku. It's July. It's 100 degrees plus in the shade. What little water you have is going fast ...
Excellent point re: starting fires WITHOUT, cigarette lighter/matches it's so difficult, even when you have been trained to do it the kit you need isn't always readily available. Matches? a box of them is a limited supply (if dry). Cigarette lighter? Again, a limited supply of lighter fluid (I think it was lighter fluid in those days) and, how long before that evapourated in that heat?
Starting a fire is one thing, keeping it going 24-7 is another, especially if you are weak from dehydration/starvation
Jeff
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Monty:
Thanks for your reply. You have answered the question to my satisfaction!
--Nancy