Taraia object

[Randy Conrad]

Okay maybe my depth perception is a tad off but would you agree that something is there?

[Christian Stock]

Looks like a pile of seaweed.

[Ric Gillespie]

Okay maybe my depth perception is a tad off but would you agree that something is there?

Yes.  It's about 15 feet across.  I think it's a bush.

[Christian Stock]

I hate to bring this up again, mostly because it's been beaten to death very recently, but I just rewatched the aerial tour video, and there IS something under water in the exact spot, reflecting light. It's at 23:44 and appears for about 2 seconds.  In my image it is at 8 o'clock, near the left edge of the picture. The reflection appears and disappears before going out of frame.

If you watch the video for 30 seconds or so around that time, you will see plenty of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. This image shows a reflection from something underneath the surface. Maybe a bare spot of sand-worn coral reflecting some sunlight? It's certainly not an entire airplane....

Put a pin in this. ;-}

[Christian Stock]

Nothingburger

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I hate to bring this up again, mostly because it's been beaten to death very recently, but I just rewatched the aerial tour video, and there IS something under water in the exact spot, reflecting light. It's at 23:44 and appears for about 2 seconds.  In my image it is at 8 o'clock, near the left edge of the picture. The reflection appears and disappears before going out of frame.

If you watch the video for 30 seconds or so around that time, you will see plenty of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. This image shows a reflection from something underneath the surface. Maybe a bare spot of sand-worn coral reflecting some sunlight? It's certainly not an entire airplane....

Put a pin in this. ;-}

If I'm not mistaken, we can now definitively stick a fork in it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amelia-earhart-expedition-taraia-object-pacific-ocean/

They have not found anything.

They concede that they were looking at organic debris that is no longer there.

They give credit to TIGHAR for developing the Niku hypothesis and finding evidence to support it.

I won't be surprised if they get funding to go back and do some more work in the lagoon.

IF the reef-landing hypothesis is true, some parts of the Electra may well have ended up in the lagoon, mingled with tons of stuff from the shipwreck. 

If it hasn't all been ground down into metallic sand.

Time will tell, I suppose.

[Christian Stock]

I hate to bring this up again, mostly because it's been beaten to death very recently, but I just rewatched the aerial tour video, and there IS something under water in the exact spot, reflecting light. It's at 23:44 and appears for about 2 seconds.  In my image it is at 8 o'clock, near the left edge of the picture. The reflection appears and disappears before going out of frame.

If you watch the video for 30 seconds or so around that time, you will see plenty of sunlight reflecting off the surface of the water. This image shows a reflection from something underneath the surface. Maybe a bare spot of sand-worn coral reflecting some sunlight? It's certainly not an entire airplane....

Put a pin in this. ;-}

If I'm not mistaken, we can now definitively stick a fork in it.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/amelia-earhart-expedition-taraia-object-pacific-ocean/

They have not found anything.

They concede that they were looking at organic debris that is no longer there.

They give credit to TIGHAR for developing the Niku hypothesis and finding evidence to support it.

I won't be surprised if they get funding to go back and do some more work in the lagoon.

IF the reef-landing hypothesis is true, some parts of the Electra may well have ended up in the lagoon, mingled with tons of stuff from the shipwreck.

If it hasn't all been ground down into metallic sand.

Time will tell, I suppose.

Purdue REALLY wants their plane back.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Me, too.

At least a few leftovers from the wreck that might clinch the case for the Niku hypothesis.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Ric Gillespie sums up the failure of the search for the Taraia Object:

Eyewitness News Unscripted: Search for Amelia Earhart's Plane

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Ric Gillespie sums up the failure of the search for the Taraia Object:

Eyewitness News Unscripted: Search for Amelia Earhart's Plane

Nine months ago, Ric predicted that the Taraia Expedition would fail.

Amelia Earhart Expert Explains Why We'll NEVER Find Her Plane

From the transcript:

Yeah. Uh we we beat that place to death.
There was there was a dozen expeditions
and I led them. I calculated one
time
adding things up that I've got about six
months on that island. I've
probably spent more time on that island
than anybody in the world since it was
inhabited by the British
colonists in the 1950s and 60s.

I know the place and we've
looked in all the places. The idea that the
airplane could be there in a place like Taraia
where we looked twice in 2001 and 2007
wading around with metal detectors that
it's somehow there and we missed it and
oh -- "because it's it's buried in the silt."

The silt there by Taraia is just over your
ankles. The the water's up over your
knees and ... if
there was an airplane there or even any
significant piece of it, it'd be sticking
up out of the water. Uh -- it isn't.


(MXM: I still want to find an Any Idiot Artifact. I imagine they are all buried in coral crevasses. I have no idea how to search there! The failure of the Ballard expedition pretty much dashed my hopes of getting an AIA in my lifetime.)

[Jeff Lange]

(MXM: I still want to find an Any Idiot Artifact. I imagine they are all buried in coral crevasses. I have no idea how to search there! The failure of the Ballard expedition pretty much dashed my hopes of getting an AIA in my lifetime.)

I think we have debated the AIA to the formal conclusion that it does not exist. And, seeing the state of mind of this crazy world now, IF someone found a serial numbered piece or a readable data plate that could only come from the Electra, conspiracy theorists would say TIGHAR planted the object.

Short of said AIA, I am truly convinced that our distinguished group has proven with as much certainty as we are ever going to come up with, that the flight ended on Niku and that Fred and Amelia perished there.

[Christian Stock]

(MXM: I still want to find an Any Idiot Artifact. I imagine they are all buried in coral crevasses. I have no idea how to search there! The failure of the Ballard expedition pretty much dashed my hopes of getting an AIA in my lifetime.)

I think we have debated the AIA to the formal conclusion that it does not exist. And, seeing the state of mind of this crazy world now, IF someone found a serial numbered piece or a readable data plate that could only come from the Electra, conspiracy theorists would say TIGHAR planted the object.

Short of said AIA, I am truly convinced that our distinguished group has proven with as much certainty as we are ever going to come up with, that the flight ended on Niku and that Fred and Amelia perished there.

Sadly, I think this recent expedition has damaged the public perception of the Niku Hypothesis. Just like the with the rocks on the sea bottom a few years ago, the casual, short attention span scrolling reader might now associate Niku with finding a tree. They don't know that the Taraia Object was never more than fringe Pareidolia, and not Tighar's expedition. They just remember it's the island where they found a tree. Tighar now needs some new discovery to shift the news cycle back to its successful research.

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I think we have debated the AIA to the formal conclusion that it does not exist. And, seeing the state of mind of this crazy world now, IF someone found a serial numbered piece or a readable data plate that could only come from the Electra, conspiracy theorists would say TIGHAR planted the object.

I wouldn't agree that it is a "formal" conclusion.

I think it is a reasonable outlook.

I spent a couple of days in the company of our oceanologist, Howard Alldred, in New Zealand, while I was finishing up my research in the Western Pacific High Commission Archives in Auckland.

https://tighar.org/wiki/index.php?title=Howard_Alldred

Howard said he thought that the plane would have been ground into particles the size of grains of sand.

So far, we have not found any evidence to discredit his hypothesis, much to my surprise and dismay.

I don't think it is fair to say that we know for certain that there are no diagnostic pieces hidden in the crevices of the atoll.

I do think it is reasonable to think that if any parts are left, they are hidden so well that we almost certainly won't find them.


I also agree that people will accuse TIGHAR of salting Niku with counterfeit artifacts.

People are like that.