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[John Gubata]

After resupplying in Samoa the E/V Nautilus is now half way to Howland and Bakers Island.

According to this article, Dr. Ballard has remained on board for the next expedition to Howland and Bakers Islands, Johnston Atoll and then finally on to Hawaii.
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/297292-amelia-earhart-expedition-ends-with-potential-clues-but-no-answers

The ship will soon need to take on a northwest heading. I wonder if Dr. Ballard might consider one quick last shot at Nikumaroro's south beach area.
He mentioned the desire to explore it in the lastest NatGeo article and in the last paragraph of the above article:

Ballard, meanwhile, is heading to Howland and Baker Islands — Howland was Earhart’s original destination — to map the undersea areas around both of them. He has no plans to return to the Earhart search but knows where he’d look if he did: the southern part of the island, where there are beaches and a potential campsite that may have been associated with the castaways.

He must realize that it is very unlikely that he will ever get another opportunity to return to Nikumaroro in the next few years to explore that area of the island. While in the next few hours he will cruising right past it! If he is indeed still on board the Nautilus, one would think this thought is gnawing at him.

Let's hope he is the risk taker everyone says he is.

We will see the answer to this question with the next few hours.

[John Gubata]

Here is the full VesselFinder map:

Here is a BigOceanData map:

[John Gubata]

The E/V Nautilus is heading north to Kanton Island and passed well east of Nikumaroro.
There was a tweet somewhere that mentioned dropping off supplies to Kanton before heading on to Howland.

Also, it appears Dr. Ballard left ship at Apia. He is not listed as a leader or team member for the Howland and Bakers Island expedition.
https://nautiluslive.org/cruise/na114

We will have to wait for the next big thing:
All lines of evidence point to the 1940 bones (including Skull fragments) at the Te Umwanibong Museum?
Based on all the research TIGHAR has done in the past this all seems a bit fishy.
Again, let's hope that maybe they got lucky.

In response to Don White's Igor skull fragment hypothesis. What hump?

[Matt Revington]

Yeah, I also wonder what those lines of evidence about the skull are -- and how their forensic anthropologist knows it is of an adult female. Well, as I said, DNA analysis might help. If we got really lucky, there might be a close match to an Earhart or Noonan relative (as far as I recall from my reading, there are no positively identified DNA samples from Amelia or Fred themselves, but relatives have contributed theirs).

I've watched enough episodes of Bones and CSI to have learned that male and female skull can be differentiated by thicker overall bones and prominent brow ridges ( also see this page https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/forensic-facial-reconstruction/0/steps/25656)  , it seems an experienced anthropologist could make a good guess based even on a partial skull, adult is probably based just on size and how much the skull sutures have closed ( https://allthingsaafs.com/2013/09/10/quick-tips-how-to-estimate-the-chronological-age-of-a-human-skeleton-cranial-suture-closure-method/) .  I don't believe any relatives of Fred have ever been identified so DNA id of any part of him would be difficult

[Bill Mangus]

Remember that Fred lost his two upper front teeth in an auto accident before the flight.  He had a bridge made/installed.  If the skull is male and has two natural upper front teeth, it's not Fred.

Amelia had some kind of sinus surgery in 1935 "June, sinus op due to sinus pain, pleuritis, bedridden 10 days."  I think a small  bone was removed from the nasal passage to allow drainage.

[Don White]

That's what I get for not watching much TV, that I didn't know the differences between male and female skulls.
I do remember now that I read in this forum (that I have been working my way through past threads of, I only have 42 pages to go) that no one has located any relatives of Fred.
I'm not surprised that males have thicker brow ridges. I mean some of us get called Neandertals (usually by those of thinner brow ridges).
If my Igor hypothesis of how the skulls got broken is correct, the skull belongs to -- Abby Normal!

LTM
Don

[Matt Revington]

How could the skull have got to the Te Umwanibong Museum and Cultural Centre in Tarawa, Kiribati?  According to this page (http://maa.cam.ac.uk/maa/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Te-Umwanibong-culture-and-development-in-Kiribati.-Heritage-Matters-Report2-1.pdf) that museum was not established until the mid 70s.  While I suppose the med school could have donated random bones I note that there is mention on that page of a call for artifacts for the new museum in the late seventies.  Could Dr  Verrier , who it was suggested coveted the kanawa box the bones were shipped in, and who had large collection of native materials have donated them to museum at that point , perhaps including the bones with the box?  He died in 1981.  Just speculation but it is curious that they may have ended up there.

[Randy Conrad]

Hey Matt...after reading your post, I went looking for Dr. Lindsey Verrier and found this. Hoping it might help somehow! Also, in reply to your comment Matt, in most cases most libraries will tag and catalog stuff that is brought into them. It makes more sense to do this!

 http://asiapacific.anu.edu.au/pambu/reels/manuscripts/pmb1153.pdf

[Don White]

It does seem to me that -- in our eagerness to know more NOW -- we are speculating about things that are bound to be revealed in time. If (according to NatGeo) there are "lines of evidence" that "point to the 1940 bones being in this museum," they'll have to make that evidence public to support that claim; likewise with any forensic reconstruction or DNA test results from the bones they have found. Patience is a virtue.

I recall from reading through the Bones Search reports and forum discussions from before I joined TIGHAR (in my reading through past topics) that it was suggested for a BONES III search, if it were to be done, to look into the possibility of the bones being returned to Kiribati. It's entirely imaginable that they were. It appears this museum had not been checked in any TIGHAR search at that time.

Also I recall that it was remarked upon that, given the British colonial officials' passion for documenting absolutely everything, the absence of documentation of the bones' final disposition (burial, destruction, storage) suggested that there might be more records to be found. Perhaps the lines of evidence are those.

One can but hope.

LTM,
Don

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Bones Searches I-III are described in some detail on the wiki:


https://tighar.org/wiki/Bones_found_on_Nikumaro


Bones IV was pretty remarkable.  The team had help from an American diplomat and were given a lot of access to different locations.  So, for example, they searched the air-raid shelters under one of the hospitals. 

[Don White]

I'll look again -- when I was reading through, I didn't find there had actually been a Bones III and IV.
And I see there's no link to Bones IV on the wiki page. The Bones III report mentions the assistance of the American diplomat.
However, it seems most effort was put into searching in Fiji, as the last place the bones were known to have been, thus the likeliest place to look.
Was any search ever conducted for them (the actual bones) in Tarawa in case they had been returned there? I see a reference to a Tarawa file that led to the discovery of the Bones File, but the link no longer works; neither does the one for the Bones Chronology.

LTM,
Don

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

I'll look again -- when I was reading through, I didn't find there had actually been a Bones III and IV.

Bones III is the last link on the bones page:

https://tighar.org/wiki/Bones_found_on_Nikumaroro

I haven't composed a Bones IV page yet.

However, it seems most effort was put into searching in Fiji, as the last place the bones were known to have been, thus the likeliest place to look.

Right.  For Bones III, we had a legend about Dr. Murphy that was our top priority.  He was in Fiji, so we went to Fiji.  After investigating that, we turned to other lines of investigation, which, in turn, led me to Auckland, where I read the actual Suva bones file with great interest.

Was any search ever conducted for them (the actual bones) in Tarawa in case they had been returned there? I see a reference to a Tarawa file that led to the discovery of the Bones File, but the link no longer works; neither does the one for the Bones Chronology.

These links work for me:

https://www.tighar.org/Publications/TTracks/13_1/tarawa.html

https://tighar.org/Projects/Earhart/Archives/Documents/Bones_Chronology.html

I don't know why they didn't work for you.

[Matt Revington]

Marty, was there anything in the Bones IV research that pointed toward Te Umwanibong Museum?

[Martin X. Moleski, SJ]

Marty, was there anything in the Bones IV research that pointed toward Te Umwanibong Museum?

I must apologize!


I was on Bones II.


Bones III was 2011.


There hasn't been a TIGHAR Bones IV.


Sorry about that!


In any event, this is the first I've heard about any Tarawa bones.

[Don White]

Marty, 943

Your links worked the first time. The links that didn't work were on the bottom of the pages themselves leading to further reading. I recall from older posts that changes to the site have disabled some links within articles, unless these have been updated.

I see that Ric addressed some of what we have been discussing in this thread in his most recent email, which happened to go out as I was traveling to celebrate my mother's 90th birthday (August 31), so I didn't see it until yesterday.

LTM,
Don