TIGHAR Legal Defense Fund

[Monty Fowler]

OK, having spent the better part of a day (time taken from my life that I will not get back), I have decided that Exhibit G, pages 8, 9, and 10, wins the "W  T  H" award, for the simple reason that I can divine absolutely no purpose for those pages: To wit:

- Page 8: "Figure 4 The rover camera trajectory (depicted as triangle cloud) over the ocean floor (depicted as sparse point cloud) acquired by analysing the TIGHAR 2010 Nikumaroro video (1920x1080).
- Page 9: "Figure 5 The rover camera trajectory (depicted as trinagle cloud) over the ocean floor (depicted as sparse point cloud) acquired by analysing the TIGHAR 2010 Nikumororo video (1920x1080).

If you want to see what the glowing radioactive trails of a drunken Fukushima nuclear plant-based Giant Snail look like in a legal exhibit setting, peruse pages 8-9 at your leisure.

- Page 10: "Figure 6 Dense 3D reconstruction of the structure of the ocean floor acquired by processing 900 images selected from the TIGHAR 2010 Nikumaroro video (1920x1080).

I'm pretty sure I saw something exactly like that coming out of one of the victims of a very traumatic multi-car accident, back in my younger days.

And that's all I've got to say about that.

LTM, who knows technology has limitations,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER

[George Lam]

Agree with the "WTH" analysis of Monty.  The images are just slapped on the page, but are not applied or subjected to analysis by the very report they are part of.  It's something like, "here are some montages of the Niku ocean floor," next.  I'm guessing the reports will be expanded upon verbally by the plaintiff, and these could just be support documents.   

Another thing I noticed, specifically in figure 3, is a lack of a comparison "before" image so one can compare what the bottom image looks like without the worm gear outline overlaid.  We can't see the defined curves within the coral if the dotted lines are obscuring it.  This seems to be Greg Daspit's view as well, concerning the wheel and rope reference images.

As for the 3d model images... having modeled small scale structures in CAD progams for school myself a few years ago, all they have done is modeled the parts, shown us a rendered 3d image of the the landing gear, then converted the model to "wireframe" view and overlaid that onto the coral.  Getting a little technical, when you import the rendered 3d wireframe model image into, say, photoshop, and have the intention of overlaying it onto an image, say, a sea floor of coral, you either have to shrink or enlarge the imported model to "fit" over the coral shape you want it to resemble.  There is no sense of scale in doing this, since there is no way to determine precise scale in the sea floor images.  I submit that determining scale is a "best guess" in these scenarios. 

Figure 6 of the "symmetrical object" consistent with "man made object" does not point to any relevant conclusion of its origin or identity, let alone the electra.

I did not review these documents in great detail, as I don't have the time nor patience.

[Tim Collins]

What's the next milestone to aim for?

[JNev]

Agree with the "WTH" analysis of Monty.  The images are just slapped on the page, but are not applied or subjected to analysis by the very report they are part of.  It's something like, "here are some montages of the Niku ocean floor," next.  I'm guessing the reports will be expanded upon verbally by the plaintiff, and these could just be support documents.   

Another thing I noticed, specifically in figure 3, is a lack of a comparison "before" image so one can compare what the bottom image looks like without the worm gear outline overlaid.  We can't see the defined curves within the coral if the dotted lines are obscuring it.  This seems to be Greg Daspit's view as well, concerning the wheel and rope reference images.

As for the 3d model images... having modeled small scale structures in CAD progams for school myself a few years ago, all they have done is modeled the parts, shown us a rendered 3d image of the the landing gear, then converted the model to "wireframe" view and overlaid that onto the coral.  Getting a little technical, when you import the rendered 3d wireframe model image into, say, photoshop, and have the intention of overlaying it onto an image, say, a sea floor of coral, you either have to shrink or enlarge the imported model to "fit" over the coral shape you want it to resemble.  There is no sense of scale in doing this, since there is no way to determine precise scale in the sea floor images.  I submit that determining scale is a "best guess" in these scenarios. 

Figure 6 of the "symmetrical object" consistent with "man made object" does not point to any relevant conclusion of its origin or identity, let alone the electra.

I did not review these documents in great detail, as I don't have the time nor patience.

I think you nailed it.  "Eye of the beholder" - it appears to be the best expert shot that can be made - in sum, it very much seems that anything beyond their professionally constrained conjecture (which is what this amounts to) will be up to the willing sponsor to promote.

Which indeed tends to land one in Monty's W T H camp very quickly, IMO.  An old proverb comes to mind - "rots of ruck".

[Ric Gillespie]

What's the next milestone to aim for?

That topic is currently under intense discussion by our legal team.  As you know, Mr. Mellon was highly secretive about the identity and specific findings of his experts.  Now that the cat is out of the bag it turns out that the cat is actually a stuffed toy kitten. There is no cat. This presents us with a number of options, all of them good.

[Tim Collins]

I meant what's the next step as far as the court is concerned in this lawsuit matter.

[Ric Gillespie]

I meant what's the next step as far as the court is concerned in this lawsuit matter.

We still need to schedule and conduct depositions.  Beyond that, the court has set the following dates:

Defendants' Expert Disclosure Deadline: March 28, 2014.

Discovery Cutoff: April 30, 2014.

Dispositive Motion Hearing: July 17, 2014, 8:15 am.

Final Pretrial Conference: August 7, 8:15 am.

Trial set for six days, starting August 25, 2014.

[JNev]

What's the next milestone to aim for?

That topic is currently under intense discussion by our legal team.  As you know, Mr. Mellon was highly secretive about the identity and specific findings of his experts.  Now that the cat is out of the bag it turns out that the cat is actually a stuffed toy kitten. There is no cat. This presents us with a number of options, all of them good.

Mew!

[Ric Gillespie]

Moving right along...

Any further substantive comments about the Plaintiff's experts and their reports?

[Mark Appel]

I don't want to foment overconfidence; anything can happen in court. But the lack of rigor in their methodology and analyses is not just shocking; it's downright weird. From a legal perspective I would think (hope) they're presenting a target-rich environment.

Again, once in court, all the truth and evidence on your side guarantees nothing. But hokey smoke, I can't imagine TIGHAR's legal team can't crush this from any number of approaches...

[Andrew M McKenna]

I agree with others that not having the photos "before and after" applying the overlays they provide makes it hard to judge for one's self whether you actually see what they see without their suggesting what the outcome is.

The lack of scale is of course the biggest problem they have, and without any realistic scale all their work is in question.

Most importantly, none of their stuff supports the claim that TIGHAR knew and withheld information that we had conclusively discovered the electra.  I don't know that any of us looked at the roundish lump of coral they claim is the tail wheel until Mr. Mellon created it, or in my case until I saw his Exhibit A.

And I think we should also point out to the court how the other side not only sees a tail wheel, but toilet paper, banjos, and body parts.  What happened to those items?

Andrew

[Ric Gillespie]

I've removed a few witty but irrelevant postings.  Getting back to the issue at hand, does ANYBODY who has seen Mr. Mellon's experts' findings feel that they have merit?

[Greg Daspit]

I see no merit in the "experts' findings". I did CAD drawings of the landing gear too btw.

The questions I would ask the experts are: "How do you know how thick the "crust" is? How do you know it is a consistent thickness?"
(The "crust" being the suggested encrustation that looks like the same texture and color of the other adjacent lumps of coral.)

It's weird that after rescaling the drawings to fit a cluster of dots, cracks and edges they determined what the size of the rope would be based on that exercise. In other words, they didn't use the size of the rope to determine the size of the objects.  Again, and to agree with everyone else, there is no accurate known scale used.

To illustrate what I think is being done let me use this example. Take a blank piece of paper and stipple it with about a couple thousand random dots. Now connect a few dots to make a shape you want. Its ok to ignore all the other dots. Scale doesn't matter and it does not matter that the dots represent a cover on the object or that the cover's thickness is unknown.

I see zero merit in the case because even if you accept the "expert" findings (which I don't) the case still has no merit. The "Experts" don't clearly see Earhart aircraft wreckage and even if they did it does not prove TIGHAR sees them (they said they don't) or that it's resonable to believe they should have.  It's unbelievable on so many levels. All IMHO

[George Lam]

A few collective observations of many keen Tighar members, and I, bullet pointed:

From a general perspective of the report, an accusation like this must be heavily supported by visual evidence.  Much is stated on their methods and conclusions, text wise, but do the images support their hypotheses?  We all seem to agree that:

1) There is no accurate reference of scale available for comparisons.
     a. What might be the size of an Electra tire might actually be the size of a car tire.  Who knows?
     b. Can the plaintiff provide an accurate representation of the scale of each video still? Dimensions? References within each still?
     c. The image of the supposed "wire" might point to a ball park reference of scale, but it is still undetermined what the "wire" object actually is. Could be 3/8" 
         or 1" diameter.  Again, who knows?  It really matters for one to accept the landing gear hypothesis.  I'm sure there are equally credible ocean 
         creatures/plants that fit the look and occur naturally in these environments.  If not, still just a ropy looking thing in the image.
2) Asserting man-made vs. natural formations is subjective.  Symmetry can occur at any distance to the human eye.  Is it REALLY symmetrical on closer inspection?  Problem is that this is the only video still we have.  I cannot arrive at a comfortable conclusion without further angles and camera proximity to the object.
3) Even if there are man-made objects in the plaintiff's video stills, it does not prove they are from Earhart's Electra.  Then again, how does one prove they are man-made, other than saying they probably are, because they do not fit within the context.  Show me more ocean floor, mother nature will always surprise.
4) On the side of Tighar, did Tighar ever exclaim or even hint at detecting anything in the 2010 video before the 2012 video?  I'm curious.  The report seems to focus on the 2010 footage, and makes vague references to the 2012 video, without visual support, correct me if I'm wrong.  How could Tighar "know," if they never said they knew? 
5) As noted before, the 3d models do nothing more than provide an artificial rendering of the parts claimed to be in the video stills.  All that's required is a "wireframe" 2d line drawing to overlay onto the coral.  With the wireframe line drawing, there must be a discernible object in the video still for an overlay, but I'm finding no such object.  The rounded "tire" coral growth looks promising, since the wireframe drawing does overlay quite well.  However in another angle of the same "tire" object, it falls victim to illusion.  That's how I view it, at least.

Greg Daspit makes a good point about the coral development over the claimed man-made objects. It could be that the coral layered itself into a Electra tire and fork-like object over the worm gear and headphones.  The physical man-made objects in question are unfortunately obscured by somewhat unpredictable coral growth.

The plaintiff's experts' analyses only point to potential objects of interest or unusual sightings in an unpredictable environment. I think merit will be determined by the gullibility of the judge.

[Monty Fowler]

My exhibit by exhibit details comments will be on their way Monday by USPS dogsled team.

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189 CER