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Author Topic: Is the Seven an "A"?  (Read 105236 times)

Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #15 on: June 07, 2013, 12:14:51 AM »

Ric was there personally on a previous expedition. They carefully calculated the location of the arrow and had to hack their way in to the area. Scaevola has severely invaded the area in recent decades and getting to anything is very difficult. But they got to the location and found nothing but bare white coral under the scaevola.

I'm not sure what "the arrow."  I think you're describing the "G Feature."
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Timothy Takemoto

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #16 on: June 07, 2013, 01:48:35 AM »

I'm not sure what "the arrow."  I think you're describing the "G Feature."

I am not sure what arrow Charlie is referring to. Charlie, thanks for your post above. Please would you be so kind as to tell me which arrow you are seeing and ideally also give a link to the photo you are looking at?

I am seeing an arrow in the 1938 photo from the TIGHAR video above, ringed below


But as for the "G," you have got to be kidding me!

Bearing in mind it is next to a giant "A" and you are looking for someone called Amelia Earhart, what letter would you think it would be?!

First of all Google images for Amelia Earhart signature

And then compare the "G" with the characteristic way in which Amelia Earhart wrote her second initial (please see below). In the second row of her "E"s, I have removed the line that she used to Join her E to her first name.


A giant "A" emphasised by a giant arrow, and nearby a "E," shaped in the way that Amelia Earhart wrote her Initial E, made of hundreds of little pieces of white coral.

Could it be that someone was trying to send you a message? I don't suppose it was for an aeroplane. This is starting to make me want to cry. Think of how she must of felt when she wrote it.

Did you dig in the "backfill hole" and or under the E? It is clear from your description that some digging has gone on there. If she was going to have left a message, that would be where it would be buried. Someone give me a spade and a boat.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2013, 02:18:32 AM by Timothy Takemoto »
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Charlie Chisholm

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #17 on: June 07, 2013, 02:26:23 AM »


I'm not sure what "the arrow."  I think you're describing the "G Feature."

No, not the little G feature - the big arrow north of the seven site in the 1938 Supermarine Walrus photo.
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Charlie Chisholm

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #18 on: June 07, 2013, 02:28:16 AM »

Charlie, thanks for your post above. Please would you be so kind as to tell me which arrow you are seeing and ideally also give a link to the photo you are looking at?

I am seeing an arrow in the 1938 photo from the TIGHAR video above, ringed below



Yes, what you have circled.
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Charlie Chisholm

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #19 on: June 07, 2013, 02:36:30 AM »


First of all Google images for Amelia Earhart signature

And then compare the "G" with the characteristic way in which Amelia Earhart wrote her second initial (please see below). In the second row of her "E"s, I have removed the line that she used to Join her E to her first name.


A giant "A" emphasised by a giant arrow, and nearby a "E," shaped in the way that Amelia Earhart wrote her Initial E, made of hundreds of little pieces of white coral.


The resemblance is uncanny, but I think they have some indication the G feature is actually a hole for a coconut tree during a planting project. Not sure how sure they were, but I think that was the conclusion at the time. They had some kind of indication like somebody that had been on the island at the time of the colony or something knew where the holes were or something like that. Someone would have to search Ameliapedia for "G feature".
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Charlie Chisholm

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #20 on: June 07, 2013, 02:56:17 AM »

I see Martin has posted a link on the G feature above already, and if you go to that page there is another link at the bottom with a summary of it being a coconut tree hole. And somewhere deep in this site there is more info, like details about the 1941 planting operation or something like that. I think they said the size and shape of the hole is identical with the other planting holes, so they were pretty darn sure it was a hole for the planting project, but I had forgotten about the single layer of white coral rocks forming the G.

If it is indeed on top of a hole dug in 1941 it can't be Amelia's handiwork. But yeah, it does look like her squiggly capital E. Somebody obviously took some time and effort to make that symbol, we just don't know who it was or what it is supposed to mean. It is, of course, possible that it is not a 1941 hole, just similar to one. In that case, one can imagine it was her.
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Charlie Chisholm

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #21 on: June 07, 2013, 03:15:00 AM »

I'm not sure what "the arrow."  I think you're describing the "G Feature."

Please would you be so kind as to give a link to the photo you are looking at?



Here is a link to a small version of the original photo, a preliminary discussion of the trails, and a better picture of the trail leading up the the arrow (at that time called the "T-shaped sandy area"): http://tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/2000Vol_16/trails.pdf

Note in the un-enlarged picture from the plane, the arrow feature is easily visible on the right side of the island about half-way up (well it's not half way up the island, it just looks that way from that angle).
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Timothy Takemoto

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #22 on: June 07, 2013, 03:31:16 AM »

Come on...spades a go go!

There is another discrepancy to the TIGHAR hypothesis (other than the Gallagher Paradox) in that, by the same logic as you (Charlie Chisholm) pointed out, that there would have been a sign for planes since she was intelligent, distressed by having been not seen and, a herself pilot..... by similar logic, thinking about how she must have felt, as she faded off this mortal coil, there is something else missing.

She was world famous and dying. She was leaving behind a husband and millions of fans. What person like her, alone in that situation would not leave a message? So where is the message? Someone asked about carvings in the trees (and that is a good start) but if she had a pen knife, or some rouge, and some plexiglass, i.e. effectively a pen and piece of paper, then she would have left a message. Surely....If I understand her feelings at all then, I would say: no message, no Amelia. So okay, the message has not been found yet.

But it seems it has. There is her very characteristic "E" initial next to a hole. Next to a hole. Say it slowly. Amelia's "E," next, to, a hole.

I am of the opinion that one hole in the ground looks very much like another so the fact that it resembles the coconut tree holes doesn't make it any less dig worthy.

Spaaaade!


The only other thing I can think of without going there is, if it was Earhart's E, then there would have been a depression in the center of the upper part of that so called "G," somewhere in the area marked in red below, since the upper area would be the top too prongs of the E smudged together. If there was a depression in that area of the "G" (!), I don't think that I need a spade.

Was there a depression?

Thank you very much for the better, clear picture of the ARROW (T!!) with the track joining it to the "A".

I went for a bicycle ride and had a thought about this. Maybe on another thread I will write about the "madness" that makes us interested in finding Amelia Earhart but in brief, as Ric has said, we do it because it is a wonderful, wonderfully romantic story. I am not going to be able to go there, so there is nothing in it for me but the story is beautiful and there are two things that, while riding my bike, it occurred to me to add. 

1) First of all it is entirely appropriate that Amelia should have used this symbol.

Amelia was famous. She flew planes, and then gave talks about flying planes. She did it over and over again. She was a pilot pop star, and perhaps, in the immortal words of Lady Gaga, a fame monster. She loved her fans. She loved being loved.  But of course, not everyone in the world loved her. She was intelligent enough to know that many people in the world would not know her from Adam. She was intelligent enough to know that a few South Sea Islanders (if that is the right term) might know her so little, love her so less, that they might put her bones in a bag and throw the them overboard into the sea, in case those bones brought bad luck.

When she wrote her "E," she knew that it was too small for any plane to see. It was a message to someone to find. Obviously if anyone came when she was still alive she'd be able to given her message first hand, so her "E" and anything buried beside or beneath it, was message to someone that would come after she is dead, a last will and testament, a legacy, a kind of lover letter.

It was not as if she was burying treasure. She had no gold bars. Far from it. She may at best have had a piece of paper in a bottle. Or a piece of scratched plexiglass. Now, had she left a big "X" or even a recognisable letter, then there would be a good, or better, chance that someone digs up said bottle or plexiglass and thinks "Damn no treasure," "What is this message saying 'Dear George, I love you, I am sorry about Fred...'" Their reaction would be, "splash", as they throw the message into the lagoon. The thing about last wills and testaments, about any messages that people send knowingly into the abyss into the absence, into the impossibility of a response, is that they send them in the hope that the message reaches someone that loves them.

That is beauty of Amelia's "E". I like to think that it was sent to those that love her. Not to some Kiribati fisherman that might happen to walk past, but someone who came searching for her.  In my film script, in the story I see in my mind, as she piled up hundreds of white coral pieces in the shape of her "E," she was intelligent enough, famous enough, and beautiful enough to know that one day, there would be someone who would come searching, and see her sign, and say, "Yes! That is Amelia!" And it was to people like that, people like us, that she sent her message. She knew we would not throw her message away.

If so, isn't that a beautiful story?

I think that one of the reasons she is so beautiful is because she had slight exotropia (non convergent strabismus).


2) This is just waffle but...The "Gallagher Paradox" preys on my mind.
If there really was a plane wreck in the bay, then why wasn't  Gallagher sure that he had found AE? If there were two sets of bones, one a man's another a woman's (as in the Kilts version of events) then why wasn't he 200% percent sure. And what happened to the other, Kilts narrated, set of bones? A possibility occurs to me that, perhaps Gallagher did know of the plane in the bay. Perhaps he did find two sets of bones. Perhaps he did dig around the A site to find evidence -- what is up with digging up trees over there anyway? Weird. And perhaps, bearing in mind that this was only a few years after the disappearance, he wanted the glory. Was there a reward? Did he write less than he knew in his correspondence up the chain of command? Did he dig up whatever hand been left there? Did the Kiribati folk bury what he had found? The possibilities are endless.
« Last Edit: June 07, 2013, 07:18:59 AM by Timothy Takemoto »
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Dan Swift

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #23 on: June 07, 2013, 07:45:25 AM »

As far as the "G" feature, and here's really going out on a limb, looks like someone was killing time in their depression and making a pretty picture of the only remaining part of the Electra (their life).  Looks like the landing gear with the worm gear to me.  Man I hope this limb doesn't break...it's a long fall! 
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #24 on: June 07, 2013, 09:14:40 AM »

I wish I had time to correct the many inaccuracies and misconceptions in this thread.  Briefly:
• We don't have a good explanation for the "arrow" in the 1938 photo.  We went there in 2007 and found nothing unusual.  Believers will construct a hundred reasons why it must have been made by Amelia.  Skeptics will dismiss it as a natural feature.

• The "trails" in the same photo are, to me, more intriguing because they resemble known trails.  See Not-So-Happy Trails

The G Feature is another fascinating puzzle.  There was a coconut planting operation in that area circa 1941which involved the digging of shallow holes.  The G Feature was not in one of those depressions.  It is visible from the air and may be visible in the 1938 photo.  You can see it in the 2001 Aerial Tour video but we didn't notice it at that time.   I found and photographed the G Feature in 2007 but when I went back to that spot in 2010 it was gone - which seemed very strange.  We could only suppose that the churning of the coral rubble from vegetation growth during the three years between trips obliterated the feature - but that's not a very satisfactory explanation.  It may be that I was simply looking in the wrong place.  In fact, in the latest and best satellite image of the island there are some white pixels that just might be the G Feature.


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Matt Revington

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #25 on: June 07, 2013, 10:12:13 AM »

I have a hard time telling how serious discussion on this thread is.

This image is from nearby Kanton Island from google maps, I assume Kanton has similar vegetation and soil.  Either Amelia got around more than most of us suspect or these "letter" shapes are just natural variations in the density if the trees and brush
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #26 on: June 07, 2013, 10:21:09 AM »

I have a hard time telling how serious discussion on this thread is.

Not very ... at least in terms of the shapes of naturally-occurring patches of bare coral.   The "trails" in the 1938 photo are interesting but there's no way to tell whether they too are natural or man-made.

The G Feature, on the other hand, is just downright weird. It's real.  It's certainly a deliberate and quite labor-intensive human artifact. We've never been able to make sense of it.
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Tim Mellon

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #27 on: June 07, 2013, 01:14:25 PM »

I have a hard time telling how serious discussion on this thread is.


Matt, the "A" is all very well and obvious. But isn't the "E" just as important? And the two together in the same picture is, well, dynamite!

Tim
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Matt Revington

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #28 on: June 07, 2013, 01:54:14 PM »

Actually Tim there is another E here
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Matt Revington

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Re: Is the Seven an "A"?
« Reply #29 on: June 07, 2013, 01:55:05 PM »

And another sign here
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