bbc article

[richie conroy]

just wondered if anyone had come come across this before  http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1012500

'... we are on line of position 156-157...'
'... don't hold... with us much longer... above water... shut off...'
... ship on reef... south of equator...

weren't aware of any amateur radio logs of amelia earhart, saying with ship on reef south of equator

so i assume its false  ???

[Bruce Thomas]

just wondered if anyone had come come across this before  http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1012500

'... we are on line of position 156-157...'
'... don't hold... with us much longer... above water... shut off...'
... ship on reef... south of equator...

weren't aware of any amateur radio logs of amelia earhart, saying with ship on reef south of equator

so i assume its false  ???

Check out the article about a teenager named Dana Randolph in TIGHAR Tracks back in 2005.  It's on page 22.

[Chris Johnson]

Article created May 2003 very poor.

[Bruce Thomas]

Article created May 2003 very poor.

Well, if it's super high quality writing about the topic that you're looking for, that's available, too!  ;D

[richie conroy]

how would a boy ov that age know there was a shipwreck ran a ground on an atoll some were unless it really was amelia

[Chris Johnson]

Article created May 2003 very poor.

Well, if it's super high quality writing about the topic that you're looking for, that's available, too!  ;D

Shame on you Bruce! As a fully paid up Ameliaholic i've got it, read it and had to hide it from the wife who vowed to "ebay that book about your other woman"  ;D

[Gary LaPook]

just wondered if anyone had come come across this before  http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1012500

'... we are on line of position 156-157...'
'... don't hold... with us much longer... above water... shut off...'
... ship on reef... south of equator...

weren't aware of any amateur radio logs of amelia earhart, saying with ship on reef south of equator

so i assume its false  ???

------------------------------

It was pretty common in the '30s to refer to an airplane as a "ship," so this would be a claim that Earhart was saying that her airplane "ship" was on the reef.

gl

gl

[Ric Gillespie]

It was pretty common in the '30s to refer to an airplane as a "ship," so this would be a claim that Earhart was saying that her airplane "ship" was on the reef.

I'm going to keep after you about this "would" stuff. ;D   "Would" is a guess masquerading as a fact.  It's possible and even likely that she was referring to her plane as her "ship." She often did.  But if she meant a vessel she might logically have used the same words.  There's no way to know.

[Harry Howe, Jr.]

It is just as likely, perhaps even more so, that she was referring to a "ship" on the reef, i.e. the Norwich City on Gardner.

Why make simple things complex?

[Gary LaPook]

It is just as likely, perhaps even more so, that she was referring to a "ship" on the reef, i.e. the Norwich City on Gardner.

Why make simple things complex?

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I was responding to reply # 4

"how would a boy ov that age know there was a shipwreck ran a ground on an atoll some were unless it really was amelia"

That writer apparently didn't realize that there was another explanation for the use of the word "ship" so seemed to take it as conlusive that Earhart was reporting the Norwich City and that she must, therefore, be on Nikumororro.

So O.K. there are two explanations and no way to decide which one might be right. Also keep in mind that at wasn't only  Earhart that used the word "ship" in referring to airplanes, it was commonly used by everybody during that era so this message is not conclusively proven as being from Earhart.

gl

[Ric Gillespie]

So O.K. there are two explanations and no way to decide which one might be right.

That's right, but it's not "ship" that makes Dana Randolph's report credible.  He said he heard AE say "ship on reef southeast of Howland" at a time when everyone was still assuming that distress calls were coming from an airplane afloat on the ocean.  Lockheed's statement that the plane could not transmit if it was in the water had not yet appeared in the media.

Also keep in mind that at wasn't only  Earhart that used the word "ship" in referring to airplanes, it was commonly used by everybody during that era so this message is not conclusively proven as being from Earhart.

Yes, ship was a common term for an airplane right up through WWII.  The credibility of Randolph's report has nothing to do with "ship."  A local Department of Commerce radio operator investigated and verified Randolph's report, and found that the call sign heard was KHAQQ, and that the signal frequency was "near 16000" kHz, which is close to 15525 kHz, the 5th harmonic of 3105 kHz. It was plausible for Randolph to be tuning there, since 15525 kHz was near a shortwave broadcast band. The investigator also found that the signal included a statement – not reported by the newspaper – that the plane was "on a reef southeast of Howland Island." The possibility of a hoax can be ruled out, given the investigation and the fact that the newspaper was published every other day, hence printed news of post-loss signals had not yet reached Rock Springs.

[richie conroy]

how would she know the island she was on was southeast of howland if she couldn't find howland to begin with ?

which means she must have had either the sextant box or the map case with her or a compass

[Ric Gillespie]

how would she know the island she was on was southeast of howland if she couldn't find howland to begin with ?
which means she must have had either the sextant box or the map case with her or a compass

She has to be in the airplane to use the radio and the airplane certainly had a compass and a sextant and maps.  There are no islands northwest of Howland, so if she has flown southeast and is on an island she is on an island southeast of Howland.

[richie conroy]

sorry Ric an all

i know if i read all info on Tigar i would get all my answer's, but it would probably take me a few months to do so  :) so sorry for asking or commenting on things that have probably been answered or said a million times  ::)

i have only been interested in amelia earhart since i watched ur program on discovery, an what an excellent program it was i might add,

now the reason i asked about amelia knowing were she was, is too try to work out what she would have took from plane to seven site, to try an identify the remaing artifacts  :)     

[Gary LaPook]

So O.K. there are two explanations and no way to decide which one might be right.

That's right, but it's not "ship" that makes Dana Randolph's report credible.  He said he heard AE say "ship on reef southeast of Howland" at a time when everyone was still assuming that distress calls were coming from an airplane afloat on the ocean.  Lockheed's statement that the plane could not transmit if it was in the water had not yet appeared in the media.

Also keep in mind that at wasn't only  Earhart that used the word "ship" in referring to airplanes, it was commonly used by everybody during that era so this message is not conclusively proven as being from Earhart.

Yes, ship was a common term for an airplane right up through WWII.  The credibility of Randolph's report has nothing to do with "ship."  A local Department of Commerce radio operator investigated and verified Randolph's report, and found that the call sign heard was KHAQQ, and that the signal frequency was "near 16000" kHz, which is close to 15525 kHz, the 5th harmonic of 3105 kHz. It was plausible for Randolph to be tuning there, since 15525 kHz was near a shortwave broadcast band. The investigator also found that the signal included a statement – not reported by the newspaper – that the plane was "on a reef southeast of Howland Island." The possibility of a hoax can be ruled out, given the investigation and the fact that the newspaper was published every other day, hence printed news of post-loss signals had not yet reached Rock Springs.

-----------------------------------------------------
As I see it, there are four possible explanations for Randolph's report:
1) he made it up himself;
2) he heard a hoax broadcast;
3) he misunderstood a news broadcast about the Earhart situation; and
4) he actually heard a transmission from Amelia.

Your argument against the first possibility is that the local newspaper had not yet published a story about the disappearance so Randolph could not have known about it and so could not have made up this story. HELLO!, the kid had a RADIO and could have learned about the Earhart situation before the story was published in his local newspaper.

As for the second possibility, anybody who had also heard of the situation could have made up the story and a hoax broadcast. As to being on a reef southeast of Howland, any hoaxter could look at any map of the Pacific or a globe and notice that the closest islands are southeast of Howland, so it would not be a great leap for a hoaxter to put that language in his fake message and to also use the common word "ship" for the plane on the reef. And this other hoaxter didn't need to read about it in Randolph's local newspaper.

In the third scenario, the kid heard part of a shortwave broadcast in the standard 19 meter international broadcast band, 15,100 to 15,800 kcs:   .....static (fade) "......the ship may be afloat but some believe (suddenly louder) the ship is on a reef southeast of Howland Island (fade) but the Coast Guard is still....." Anybody who has ever listened on a shortwave radio to international broadcasts knows that these signals fade in an out so this scenario is realistic.

And the fourth possibility is that he heard a legitimate Earhart message.

gl