Press Conference at State Department, 20 March 2012

[Dave McDaniel]

Erik,

Sorry to disappoint, but I have no idea as to how 75 year old strut fliud under pressure would react to salt water. My experience is limited to surface slicks. I suppose it's a posibility. Never rule out anything until it can be proved or disproved.

LTM,
Dave

[John Joseph Barrett]

Erik,  it is interesting how the drawing drops right onto the object, almost as if that is really what it is. I do hope that the object is the strut assembly. Again, scale is an issue. Hopefully, the object will be re-located and maybe recovered later this year and found to be a strut assmbly from AE's Electra. It sure looks like it could be.  LTM- who always hated scales-   John

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Erik,  it is interesting how the drawing drops right onto the object, almost as if that is really what it is. I do hope that the object is the strut assembly. Again, scale is an issue. Hopefully, the object will be re-located and maybe recovered later this year and found to be a strut assmbly from AE's Electra. It sure looks like it could be.  LTM- who always hated scales-   John

Any plane would be a relief :-\

[Oskar Erich Heinrich Haberlandt]

The only part of this that I am not thrilled about is the anti-climatic feeling that the discovery/recovery of conclusive proof will bring. Kind of like when you are a kid and have opened the last present on Christmas morning. You may have gotten something really neat, but there is still a let down feeling that it's over. The good part of this is that once this mystery is resolved and TIGHAR's theory and methodology proven sound, it might be easier to fund other searches.

John,
you said exactly what I'm feeling. The MYSTERY was in our minds for such a long time - and soon it's going to be resolved? All presents opened? But there's a hope: That in July there will be found - nothing! (LOL!) ;D

[richie conroy]

I tried my best to keep up with Richies' threads but time got the best of me. I commend him on his eye for detail, diligence and determination. This is how things get done.

Dave,

I created a montage out of the image found by Richie that created a all the fuss.  I feel the black squigly thing may be oleo strut fluid finally bursting out after all these years.

Here's a link to the orignal thread.  Click HERE , where a very large version of the picuture can be downloaded. 

Here's a small thumbnail for the curiosity seekers....

it was jeff hayden that posted that image an what it appears to be

but hay the scouser always gets blamed first haha  ;D

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

I agree Jeff, I hope the search can re-locate whatever all this stuff is down here. I'm more curious as to what exactly this black stuff is as opposed to finding an Electra, just kidding.
When we all first started having stabs at what it could be way back we didn't know then how much black squiggly stuff was actually on the plane (if it is THE plane).
Thin strips of rubber as gravel guards on the rear surfaces
Thin strips of rubber to protect the extra fuel tanks from their restraining assemblies
Could be more for all we know.
It's pretty obvious it's a debris field but, of what and who remains a mystery for a while longer.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Once again I would like to congratulate the team for selling the idea to the state department using the Nessie photo, that was a coup in itself. Maybe a few of the stills from the ROV footage and we could have got God himself to pitch in (or herself) :)

[Andrew M McKenna]

Have you guys ever seen the movie Spinal Tap where the band is playing and the Stonehenge set is being lowered to the stage, only it is ridiculously small compared to their expectations?  The set guy got the scale all wrong.

That is what is going on here, you are the set guy, and your sense of scale is way off.  These photos that the ROV took are taken from from say 1-3 ft away from the objects you are looking at.  Any farther and the light becomes too diffuse to see.  The strut you superimpose, would be maybe 6 inches long instead of the 6 ft you imagine it.  If the object were 6 ft, the camera would have to be a good 20 ft away, and at that distance there simply wouldn't be enough light to light up the bottom.  I don't know what the wattage of the lamp on the ROV is, but it isn't big enough to light up the bottom of the ocean from 20-30 ft away.

Given random pattern, and no scale, we can see all kinds of stuff in these photos, but I really think it is not a productive enterprise.  If there were a real object there, like the rope, we'd recognize it immediately.  Trying to find other stuff that is not obvious may be fun, but is similar to seeing bunnies in the clouds, everyone can see one if they look hard enough. 

We went through this with images in the lagoon that people thought represented the Electra.  We even went to some of the locations just to rule them out, an in every case where someone was sure they could see some sort of object, it wasn't there.

With the upcoming expedition, there will be plenty of images of real stuff to look at - keep in mind the NC wreckage needs to be surveyed to ensure that there isn't an Electra mixed up with that debris, so save your effort for reviewing that footage with a critical eye.

Andrew

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

No, I haven't seen the spinal tap movie set of stonehenge Andrew but, I do live only 5 miles from the real stonehenge in Witshire and, it's not as big as people are led to believe, rather disappointing in fact. Still, it brings in the tourists ;) (I don't think that was its original purpose though)

[Chris Johnson]

Trivia injection re spinal tap

The said same problem occured in 1982 when Black Sabbath (with Ian Gillan) ordered a stonehenge type set which was too big for any stages for the supporting tour.

Jeff - Have always loved Avbury (sp) much more than Stonehenge that is much smaller than you imagine.

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

Not sure where you got the "instead of the 6 ft you imagine it" from Andrew? At no point ever have I claimed the object to be 6ft. In fact if you compare the image of the wheel being measured with a tape measure and then scale the fork section of the Oleo strut from that the figure is 24 to 36 inches max. The photo with AE next to the landing gear will help you scale the fork section of the strut, if the strut fork was 6ft then that would make AE at least 12 ft tall.

[Andrew M McKenna]

OK, OK, I should have said 3 ft not 6 ft, but my point is that without proper scale, we're just making stuff up out of the ROV images that doesn't exist.  I'm not trying to be offensive, or overly critical, it just doesn't seem to be productive in my opinion. 

Keep in mind that when the video was obtained, it was being seen by a professional operator and perhaps several others in real time, so if there was something there to investigate, he did it right then.  Doesn't mean it isn't possible to miss something, but I would consider his trained eye looking at this stuff to be superior to what's been going on here on the Forum.

Andrew

[Tom Swearengen]

ok---I have a suggestion------we all can agree that the scale of the ROV video is creating problems for us. Lets let the new expedition and ROV/submirsible teams find whatever is down there. I certainly hope that we have the origional ROV "area" to start with, along with the other areas. I might be overstepping my bounds, but I think Ric and CO. have done their homework, or the other floks would not be on board. We'll know soon.
Tom

[richie conroy]

ok---I have a suggestion------we all can agree that the scale of the ROV video is creating problems for us. Lets let the new expedition and ROV/submirsible teams find whatever is down there. I certainly hope that we have the origional ROV "area" to start with, along with the other areas. I might be overstepping my bounds, but I think Ric and CO. have done their homework, or the other floks would not be on board. We'll know soon.
Tom

i agree Tom

lets just see how the new search goes, an if they find stuff in the area's we have highlighted an that we said was there then sound,

if not i myself, will be glad Tighar got state backing thru nessie photo an not Rov video still's  :)   

[Jeff Victor Hayden]

I'm happy with scale being an issue, who wouldn't be (apart from the state department). The elephant in the room that is being ignored here is this, there's something down there that isn't 'coral' and, unless there was also a model RC aircraft club on Gardner island then, it's something that logically shouldn't be there. Again, if it's parts from the SS norwich City then they were decades ahead of ship construction when they built it in 1911. As for the fishing fleets from Korea and China either they were fishing for the largest sharks in history or the smallest, depending on which bit of wire you want to examine. Plus, they were also the unluckiest fishing fleets in history when all of this junk landed on top of their lines or, they were using lures that resemble methods of airframe construction (what they expected to catch with wheels, aluminium sheets, alloy forks, RDF antenna etc... remains a mystery)
I'm happy to go along with any reasonable and sensible explanation for all this junk but, as yet, I haven't heard one.
On the positive side though Nessie has been confirmed by the 'experts' as being from an aircraft, where's the rest of it?
All of the above is of course IMHO :)