Hail Mary Analysis

[Bob Smith]

Looking at the various pictures from the latest exploring, it looks like some objects are newer or later placed than others. If there was a way to take a digger tool for the divers next trip to more closely examine the objects, wouldn't that be a possibility, without constituting a "salvage operation" that would cause some political complications? Some smaller items could easily be handled for transportation to a testing lab or whatever to get some expert answers on age and material composition, etc. Tighar has been here before, and we can make things up more or go back to some earlier hypothesis for similar findings, but the island may not be there forever!  I feel some sense of urgency to find real answers now!

[Gabriel Arthur Petrie]

Those planes have been under the Pacific Ocean nearly the same length of time as the Electra. I don't see why it wouldn't look nearly the same. Those aircraft are easily recognizable and are not completely covered over in coral.

It could be due to differences in circumstances as to how the two examples of aircraft came to rest. If the plane came straight down into the water and say into the shallows around a harbor, it's resting above the lining of the ocean floor below it. But in the Electra I think the prevailing theory is that it slid down a slope, very likely dragging a slide of lining down over it, partially or completely burying itself in silt and pieces of coral. If that's the case, then maybe what happened was the corals grew in and there's just -- who knows -- a foot or so of coral regrowth and compressed silt encrusting the fuselage, maybe built up more along one side (toward the top of the slope it fell from) than the other (towards the deep).

[Edit: I say, hoping that's what happened, as a possible good-case scenario. Worst case scenario in my mind: the anomaly is a depression representing where the Electra did sit for some time.]

[Dan Swift]

Near the blue and gray object in 346 is what appears to be a curved piece of wire reminiscent of the famous curved wire in the 2010 "wire & rope " ROV video.

Any way to analyze the circumference of the two to see if they are the same.  You may not have accurate scaling. 

[Gabriel Arthur Petrie]

This is a mosaic of photos overlaid on the skiff track.  The scale and rotation of the mosaic is guesswork based on the field of view in each of the images used in the mosaic.

I keep looking at # 559 in the middle and the rock towards the lower left appears to be the same rock that it almost starts to overlap just to its left, in the merged photo. I underlined this suspect rock in yellow.

There's a shelf of hard material stretching toward the top away from the one on the left; but not the one on the right. What's there however is the anchor, appearing to be making a trail of sand. It's possible that these (underlined in yellow) are the same rock from different angles.

Sorry if this isn't very helpful or I'm just missing part of the process; I've never attempted to rebuild a scene like this and wouldn't know where to start. I wish I had the right kind of software to attempt to merge photos like that, it looks very smooth.

[Dan Swift]

"Can 2" reminds me of an ammunition cartridge. What is the distance between the red laser dots again?

2.5 inches.  Pretty big ammunition cartridge.

Looks like a battery.  You mentioned about the size of a D...may be exactly what it is. 

On another note, I am aware of some investigations into anomalies on the Martian surface that used fractal analysis to identify unusual, potentially non-natural objects. Any chance that such an approach could be applied here?

Who is looking for non-natural objects on Mars?  Sounds a bit "out there."  Do you have a link to a reputable source?

[Dan Swift]

Attached to cylindrical object????? If so, a wire spool,??, void of wire???, color appears to change from blue to silver near the end , as if the object was rotating inside a sleave or collar of some sort. Circled object resembles the end of an electrical cord, to me , but don't see any wire coming from it, so it would have to be nipped off, to be that.

Looks like a pencil or pen...aluminum eraser top. 

[Dan Swift]

I presume that once the mosaic is ready larger scale features will be easier to spot...

The mosaic should give us a better idea of what the bottom topography looks like and where things are in relation to each other. The mosaic is coming along but it's a tedious process.

That will be great!  That was eye opening when they did that with the Titanic. 

[Craig Romig]

Did the Electra float off or get dragged off the reef in a violent action. Did it get pounded back onto the reef edge during any kind of wave action. These are the question that would determine if it was in pieces or in a large piece. We only have minor clues. The bevington photo. The stories of fuselage in the lagoon shore areas. And the seven sites. As well as the Gallagher bones / extant box documentation.
Not to mention 22v1. How do we figure out how many pieces we are going to see or find?

[George Lam]

Probably by seeing or finding pieces.

[Frank Smith]

I believe there are more "things" visible in #394 upper right corner possibly tail wheel partially covered with corral

[Ric Gillespie]

I believe there are more "things" visible in #394 upper right corner possibly tail wheel partially covered with corral

...or it could be a banjo.

We've had a lot of eyeballs on these photos  - expert and amateur - and it is apparent that there's nothing there that explains the anomaly even though we had pretty good coverage in the area where the anomaly is supposed to be.  The lat/long coordinates provided to us by Ocean Imaging Consultants (OIC) were based on AUV position data provided by Phoenix International, the contractor who ran the sonar-equipped AUV.  An exhaustive review of Phoenix navigational procedures and performance over the last few weeks lead to the inescapable conclusion that the AUV position data are unreliable and can be off by dozens of meters. The most logical and likely explanation for the absence of useful information in the photos is that the Hail Mary operation was looking in the wrong place.

Many TIGHAR members have requested links to the dropbox containing the photos and it's only  fair to wait to see if anyone finds anything the rest of us have missed but at this point it looks like Hail Mary, as creative and well-executed as it was under the circumstances, was a bust.

[Bob Smith]

Thanks Ric for that disappointing and difficult, but forthright and honest answer. Your diligence and perseverance in the operation of this exploration is greatly appreciated, no matter what the outcome. Unpredictable circumstances sometimes  don't allow our desired result.

[Monty Fowler]

I rather hope we haven't paid Phoenix International anything; they're not looking very good at all.

Have we?

LTM,
Monty Fowler, TIGHAR No. 2189CE

[Ric Gillespie]

I rather hope we haven't paid Phoenix International anything; they're not looking very good at all.

Have we?

Only $860,000 - up front, before the 2012 expedition. 
They started not looking very good as soon as we got to Niku.  Their performance was abysmal and their failures have been devastating to TIGHAR and to the search for the airplane. How it all came about is a story that needs to be told.  I'll do that as a separate topic when I have time.

[JNev]

I rather hope we haven't paid Phoenix International anything; they're not looking very good at all.

Have we?

Only $860,000 - up front, before the 2012 expedition. 
They started not looking very good as soon as we got to Niku.  Their performance was abysmal and their failures have been devastating to TIGHAR and to the search for the airplane. How it all came about is a story that needs to be told.  I'll do that as a separate topic when I have time.

Ric,

That implies confidence problems with the 'anomaly' itself, if I follow.  We know there were data compression issues and skipped pings with some of that older data (please correct me if I've gotten that conflated with some other detail of the 2012 search) and that 'sizing' of the 'image' (or 'shadow') was questionable until sorted out by another source.  It still seems a bit shaky to me, frankly.

Is TIGHAR re-evaluating the reliability of the anomaly imagery itself because of all this?

Don't get me wrong - you know I'm a 'look wide and deep' guy at this point anyway, but that doesn't mean 'no confidence' in 'Niku, somewhere (as in deeper and further out, maybe even further 'around' the island)', and while I wouldn't quarrel with an 'look at it as can' (and the old 'debris field') if one gets back for a macro-scopic expedition, I wonder more than ever how wise any further singular pursuit of the anomaly really would be at this point.

I also realize I'm a pain in the ass for long asserting the 'wider / deeper' idea - widely and deeply at that - so I fully understand any salt grains falling my way.  But this question now seems more crucial than ever - how much can we rely on any of this 'anomaly' business from P.I.? 

I do agree that what has happened out there with this ROV business has unquestionably been devastating and I can surely understand the deepest frustrations in that.  All I can say is this is a huge business and you have to vet the bloody hell out of anyone you want to use, long and hard.  With all due respect, it being a big, high-risk effort, patience may be the irreplaceable virtue to get it right: what appeared to be intended as a rather 'doable surgical strike' seems to have turned into more of a near-Minie' ball hit to the gut.

I know I don't need to point out how long and hard one has to work to get 'big guns' on the job, if it can be done.  This thing's clearly an awfully tough nut to crack, and I well realize the temptation to go after incremental shots at solving it - but it seems we have a plate full of lessons to take to heart about all that by now.

I hope Phoenix International will also learn from your critical review of their performance - but it would take a lot for me to ever want to consider them again were I you.