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Author Topic: Next Expedition  (Read 38081 times)

Chris Johnson

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Next Expedition
« on: March 06, 2011, 05:18:01 AM »

Just been watching a TV show about sea birds in the Western Island of Scotland.  In it they were looking a Puffins which nest in burrows in the ground. To view the chicks they used 'pencil' cameras down the hole, these being unobtrusive and flexible.

If TIGHAR is still interested in finding bones at or near the Seven Site and if Ric dosn't want to loose a finger or two have TIGHAR considered this technology?

Just a thought.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #1 on: March 06, 2011, 07:02:01 AM »

Yes, we've considered using pencil cameras but, as it turns out, there is really no need for them. We were able to check out all of the coconut crab hidey-holes we could find (primarily in the hollow trunks of buka trees) with a good light, a small rake, and somebody dumb enough to crawl in (usually me).
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Tom Swearengen

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #2 on: March 06, 2011, 08:11:52 AM »

So---where does TIGHAR go from here??
Tom Swearengen TIGHAR # 3297
 
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2011, 08:56:04 AM »

So---where does TIGHAR go from here??

Niku 7.

You can tell that it is going to be different from all the rest.  Roman numerals have been abandoned and we've moved up to Arabic numerals!
LTM,

           Marty
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2011, 10:11:35 AM »

What about the land search?

Rolling Thunder revisited at the 7 site?

Shakedown at the village?

Or too early to say?

This is what has been made public.

You may, of course, purchase more information.  I'd say that if you were in the $50,000 range and up, Pat and Ric would take your phone calls.  (My rates are much more reasonable, but that's because I have less inside information.)

I'd bet you could guarantee Rolling Thunder II if you promised to deliver $350,000 or so for that boat and crew alone.  :)

If, like me, you're just offering good advice and noble encouragement, you may take a number and stand with me in that line over there.   :-\
LTM,

           Marty
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2011, 11:14:39 AM »

What about the land search?

Rolling Thunder revisted at the 7 site?

Shakedown at the village?

Or too early to say?

Too early to say.  The primary focus will be the sea search. A land search would be a separate operation.  Separate boat, separate team, probably separate funding.  Shakedown at the village?  Nah.  We hammered the village in 2007 and it was pretty much a bust in terms of artifacts of interest.  I can't say we've found everything interesting that could possibly be there but the returns have diminished to the point that it's not reasonable to expend the resources it would take to flog it again. Rolling Thunder revisited at the Seven Site?  More like Rolling Thunder continued into some areas that we didn't have time to cover.  It's really a question of the availability of funding (as always).
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Ashley Such

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2011, 11:47:25 AM »

Wasn't there a mention that (for those of you who are going to next year's expedition) you all would try to hunt down the bones that are possibly in Fiji? Unless if I'm mistaken....
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Martin X. Moleski, SJ

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #7 on: March 06, 2011, 01:23:32 PM »

Wasn't there a mention that (for those of you who are going to next year's expedition) you all would try to hunt down the bones that are possibly in Fiji? Unless if I'm mistaken....

The work in Fiji can (and should?) be done separately from Niku 7.  It's a whole different kind of expedition.  Suva has air conditioning, restaurants, bars, movie theaters, hotels, automobiles, etc.  I suppose that those with lots of time on their hands might do the Suva search right before or right after Niku 7, but that seems like an overload to me.
LTM,

           Marty
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #8 on: March 07, 2011, 07:17:57 AM »

You heard it here first -
A four-person TIGHAR team led by Niku VI Team Physician Jon Overholt MD will search for the missing bones in Fiji in May.  The focus of their search will be the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva - a prime suspect location.  Previous TIGHAR searches for the bones in 1999 and 2006 were denied entry to the hospital but we now have the hospital administration's enthusiastic cooperation.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #9 on: March 07, 2011, 07:48:54 AM »

Should you find the bones and if they then prove to be those of Amelia Earhart, what are TIGHARS plan for them?

Of course it would not be up to us to decide, but our recommendation would be that any conclusively identified remains be returned to the family for burial or other disposition as see fit. 
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Ashley Such

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #10 on: March 07, 2011, 12:21:35 PM »

You heard it here first -

A four-person TIGHAR team led by Niku VI Team Physician Jon Overholt MD will search for the missing bones in Fiji in May. The focus of their search will be the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva - a prime suspect location. Previous TIGHAR searches for the bones in 1999 and 2006 were denied entry to the hospital but we now have the hospital administration's enthusiastic cooperation.

Thanks, Ric. Good luck of finding the bones and here's to hoping for something wonderful to be found! *Holds up bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper*

 ;D
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Dan Swift

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #11 on: March 07, 2011, 12:28:43 PM »

I agree with focusing on the deep water search now.  More artifacts are probably just going to simply add to the already convincing theory.  The "smoking gun" is on the ocean floor.  Find that, and nothing else matters.   Even if you find the original bones in Fiji, may not have enough evidence to prove they were AE's and that they really came from Niku.  Find a piece of the 10E, any piece. 
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Simon Dresner

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2011, 07:53:39 AM »

I agree with focusing on the deep water search now.  More artifacts are probably just going to simply add to the already convincing theory.  The "smoking gun" is on the ocean floor.  Find that, and nothing else matters.   Even if you find the original bones in Fiji, may not have enough evidence to prove they were AE's and that they really came from Niku.  Find a piece of the 10E, any piece. 

If there still are bones in storage in Fiji, they'll be whole bones that only spent 3 years exposed to the elements and crabs on Nikumaroro and 70 years in a store room, rather than bone fragments that spent 73 years on Niku. The chances of being able to extract enough DNA from them for a match should be much better than they were for the fragments, because most of the DNA in bones is in the marrow and the conditions of storage will have been a lot better. If the mitochondrial DNA matches with AE's maternal-line relations, that should be enough to convince anyone except a conspiracy theorist they're AE's. The bigger 'if' for me is whether those bones can still be found there or have been thrown away at some point in the last 70 years.

Finding pieces of the Electra on the sea floor by itself wouldn't be enough. They need to be pieces that are definitively from the Electra. TIGHAR found pieces that could be from the Electra on Niku. What concerns me is that anything definitive, like the engines, could well be hidden somewhere under the thousands of tons of SS Norwich City debris that has been dragged off the reef over the decades since 1937. Identifying anything from the plane could be made difficult by the much larger quantity of ship debris it would be mixed with.
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Walter Runck

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #13 on: March 10, 2011, 09:08:04 PM »

You heard it here first -
A four-person TIGHAR team led by Niku VI Team Physician Jon Overholt MD will search for the missing bones in Fiji in May.  The focus of their search will be the Colonial War Memorial Hospital in Suva - a prime suspect location.  Previous TIGHAR searches for the bones in 1999 and 2006 were denied entry to the hospital but we now have the hospital administration's enthusiastic cooperation.

Are there any pictures of Sir Harry's office extant?  I have been wondering what kind of a housekeeper he was and whether something like the mysterious boxes from one of the farthest corners of the empire might show up in the background of some photos, kind of like the Pan Am shot.

It might be something to have on the target list for the next trip to Fiji.
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Ric Gillespie

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Re: Next Expedition
« Reply #14 on: March 11, 2011, 06:20:54 AM »

Are there any pictures of Sir Harry's office extant?  I have been wondering what kind of a housekeeper he was and whether something like the mysterious boxes from one of the farthest corners of the empire might show up in the background of some photos, kind of like the Pan Am shot.

There is an anecdotal recollection by a member of the staff that, for a time, one of boxes sat on a credenza in Secretary Vaskess's office but no photo has turned up so far.
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