Amelia Earhart DNA tests inconclusive

Yes. Very good point. I have a feeling this has been discussed before?

I think there is something about if above low water mark then Crown Estate? If not, then certainly HM Receiver of Wreck would have an interest.

So, quite likely it would be regarded as Crown Property anyway then.

But the MOD do NOT own ex USAAF aircraft.

The site is controlled by the provisions of the PMR Act (ie a licence is required) but I have recent correspondence from the US which is quite specific as regards to their abandonment to any claim or title to such wrecks. And they have not abandoned them in favour of the MOD, apparently.

That is not to say, however, that the MOD would not try to flex a bit of muscle and lay claim to it. Recent events rather point to a change in stance on this issue (esp as regards to RAF aircraft) in several cases.

If my understanding is correct, it would be Crown Estates property if abandoned on the foreshore/seabed

But the MOD do NOT own ex USAAF aircraft.

The site is controlled by the provisions of the PMR Act (ie a licence is required) but I have recent correspondence from the US which is quite specific as regards to their abandonment to any claim or title to such wrecks. And they have not abandoned them in favour of the MOD, apparently.

That is not to say, however, that the MOD would not try to flex a bit of muscle and lay claim to it. Recent events rather point to a change in stance on this issue (esp as regards to RAF aircraft) in several cases.

So far as I know they might have difficulty laying claim to Amelia’s Lockheed, though…..or her turtle bone lucky-charm, jar of freckle cream, one shoe and pile of do-do.

The current “Notes for Guidance of Recovery Groups” states that “the Ministry of Defence is not prepared to grant, indefinitely, sole rights of recovery to an individual to excavate a particular site, but, other than in exceptional circumstances, only a single licence will be granted to work in a specified area at any one time” – so yes only one individual is to be licenced for a site at a time, but it seems that that individual cannot continually renew the licence to block others, which is allegedly what is happening in the case of the P-38?

However, the guidelines go on to say “that licence holders will need to apply for a new licence if they wish to continue working on an excavation into a second year and their application will be considered (on its merits) alongside those of any other applicants seeking to work at the site”

So there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping another group putting in an application and if Tigger still have a licence, then it must be that no one else has put in an alternative application? However, it does also seem that perhaps the MOD are close to contravening their own guidelines if they are continually re-issuing a licence to the same individual or group, who are clearly not carrying out any work.

There is no reason why another individual cannot gain a licence providing the landowners are happy for the recovery. However who in the right mind would spend thousands recovering it, to run the risk of having to give it back the the MOD with no compensation for the recovery

This is the likely reason why its still there!!

Hillary is still asleep. In my bed. Exhausted from….well, physical things.

Where’s that picture of Hilary Swank, Frazer Nash?
She’s almost Earhart. But not exactly Earhart.
A minor detail.

Based on the Sextant box…

Note to TIGHAR execs…
1. Go to Hollywood
2. Find Swank. Get Photo of you together.
3. Announce you’ve found Earhart (well, something similar).
4. You’ll be on CNN…I promise. 🙂

Interestingly there were 11 crewmen killed in the ship wreck, TIGHAR’s own archives and interviews of former native villagers confirm that 10 complete skeletons / graves were known to exist, surely providing the obvious explanation for an 11th partial skeleton.

The campsite in the other side of the island is easily explained as the camp of the 24 survivors who occupied it for 5 days with obvious need of fires, eating of fish etc and use of latrines, the shoes/containers/sextant are all easily explained without “extra-ordinary” events being introduced.

The “evidence” of the aircraft wreck resting near the shipwreck, turns out to be a 20′ length of steel pipe covered in red rust, the “dash-dot” aircraft wreckage seen in many of the shipwreck photos of the time is now acknowledged by TIGHAR as being shipwreck debris.

The body of evidence is intriguing, but Gillespie insists the team is “constantly agonizing over whether we are being dragged down a path that isn’t right.”

Now that “IS” a TIGHAR hypothesis worthy of further exploration, as I wholeheartedly agree with its conclusion!

There is a history of great announcements of new “findings” that support the extra-ordinary and improbable hypothesis, but no “re-setting” of the pendulum of probability when those “findings” are subsequently undermined or discounted, or exploration of alternative and ordinary explanations for so called evidence.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

Quite.

A similar number. But not exactly the same number as Noonan’s sextant.

A minor detail.

I see that the now famous turtle was with the empty box. Did nobody notice it had a flipper missing, for heavens sake?!

Where’s that picture of Hilary Swank, Frazer Nash?

She’s almost Earhart. But not exactly Earhart.

A minor detail.

What the hell is this supoosed to mean:

With the bones were found a sextant box bearing a stencilled number that is similar to a number written on a sextant box known to have belonged to Fred Noonan

a similar number? So one could be “1” & the other could be “1001”.. or one could be 123456 & the other 654321 which are also *similar*

What’s needed at this point is another pic of Hillary Swank. I’ll take one when she wakes up. In my bed.

“As unreliable as wiki might be? it provides some alternative explanations?”

Mark, all of this has been well-known to Tighar for years. No surprises here. In fact, I think Wiki got most of their material from Tighar’s website.

Yes it appears well known to TIGHAR but it is dismissed as not supporting their hypothesis and replaced with more extraordinary theories?.

How much is known about the shipwreck at Nikumaroro?

On the night of Friday, November 29, 1929 the steamer S.S. Norwich City made an unscheduled stop at Gardner Island. She was under the ownership of the Reardon Smith Line, Captain Daniel Hamer, Master, and about halfway on her run from Melbourne to Honolulu to pick up a cargo bound for Vancouver. With empty holds, the freighter’s 397 foot length was riding high, especially at the bow, and her 53.5 foot beam rolled with the heavy swell. Amidships her 412 H.P. oil-fueled, triple-expansion steam engine was serviced by nine Arab firemen, while topside a crew of four officers and 22 British seamen completed the ship’s company. Her keel had been laid in Hartlepool, England in 1911 and she was registered out of Bideford in 1919 as ship no. 132596, gross tonnage 5,587 on the Mercantile Navy List.

According to the testimony of Henry Lott of Folkestone, England, Second Officer, given at a Naval Court held December 9, 1929, in Apia, Samoa:

The first thing I knew was at 5 past 11 there was a crash and the vessel went up on the reef. I jumped off the settee in my room, went outside, and returned and put on some clothes. I went straight to the bridge for orders.

The Norwich City was making water in two of her six holds so Captain Hamer ordered everyone to gather in the galley and wait for daylight.

After a considerable time I noticed smoke coming from the fiddley. I looked down in No. 3 [hold] and could just see flames down below.

Hamer ordered the lifeboats lowered but the mountainous seas breaking against the stranded ship ripped one boat from its davit and swept the Captain overboard.

By that time the ship was a furnace …. We had the intention of waiting on board till daylight. [Then] she started exploding down below.

Those who could took to the remaining lifeboat but it was no sooner launched than it was capsized by a wave. Lott was swept to the reef, then back to the ship, and finally, around daybreak, found himself on the beach. In all, five British seamen and six Arab firemen were lost. The 24 survivors were rescued five days later by ships which had set out from Samoa when the first SOS was received.

After two rescue ships arrived from Samoa the survivors were forced to move to the “lee side” of the island because the surf was too severe near the wreck for boats to take them off the island. It is not clear from the available accounts just where on the shore the rescue was effected A note sent by Captain Hamer on December 4th to the captain of one of the rescue ships provides an interesting list of the needs of Europeans marooned on Gardner Island for five days, “… Please send as much water as you can as we have none. We have meat but a case of milk would come in useful as would matches, chlorodyne as some of us have diarrhea and any old boots (one pair size tens) and any old hats and tobacco.” For a complete report of and discussion on the wreck of the Norwich City, see Norwich City.

Extensive official British government records confirm the discovery in 1940 of the partial skeleton of a castaway who perished while attempting to survive on Nikumaroro sometime prior to the island’s settlement in 1939. The remains of a fire, dead birds and a turtle were present. With the bones were found a sextant box bearing a stencilled number that is similar to a number written on a sextant box known to have belonged to Fred Noonan, and the remains of a woman’s shoe and a man’s shoe. Also at the site were “corks with brass chains” thought to have been from a small cask which may have come from the Norwich City supply cache. Similarly, a Benedictine bottle found with the remains may have been part of the cache. Although at first suspected of being the remains of Amelia Earhart, that possibility is later discounted by British authorities after a doctor (with no forensic training) pronounces them to be the bones of a short, stocky male. (Records of the Western Pacific High Commission.)

Although, so far, the present location of the bones themselves is not known, evaluation by modern forensic anthropologists of measurements taken in 1941 indicate that the individual who died on Nikumaroro was most likely a white female of northern European extraction who stood approximately 5 feet, 7 inches tall (not a bad description of Amelia Earhart). (Paper prepared by Dr. Karen Ramey Burns, Dr. Richard Jantz, and Dr. Thomas F. King for the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in 1998.)

Other bones are said to have been found near the shipwreck by the island’s first settlers in 1939. (Correspondence with Bauro Tikana in Tarawa in 1991; interview with Emily Sikuli in Fiji in 1999; search operation conducted in 1999.)

So we have 11 lost crew from the shipwreck, any of which could account for the hemaphrodite skeleton that was determined via direct inspection to be male, but is identified by more recently by review of that inspections report to be “likely to be female”.

We have 24 survivors remaining on the island for 5 days with some suffering diarrhea who obviously would be depositing fecal matter.

Those survivors relocated from the wreck to a position on the other side of the island, they would have had fires, food and latrines, they requested rescuers to deliver them boots and tobacco, and of course discarded shoes and jars/containers could all be an outcome of that request. The site where the skeleton was discovered had items from the ship, corks, bottles, could the sextant box also be from the ship?

Why wasn’t the Electra found when a British exploratory expedition visited Gardner Island in October 1937, just three months after the Earhart disappearance?

It does seem highly unlikely that the aircraft was not seen, but several factors may have contributed to the fact that it certainly was not recognized for what it was. Contemporaneous written accounts and photos show that the party made their landing on the reef just south of the wreck of the S.S. Norwich City. At that time, the grounded ship was still intact and thus masked from view the northern portion of the reef edge where the aircraft wreckage is said to have been located. In a photo taken during the visit, the material on the reef is visible but not recognizable as aircraft wreckage. There is no reason to suspect that it would appear differently to the eye than to the camera. It should also be noted that the two British Colonial service officers and nineteen Gilbertese delegates who made up the expedition party probably had no knowledge of the Earhart disappearance at the time of their three-day visit to Gardner Island. Their purpose was to assess the island for future settlement and their attention was focused upon determining whether the island’s soil was suitable for agriculture and upon digging wells in search of potable water. On the southeastern side of the island in the same area, where bones were found three years later, they did come across “signs of previous habitation” described as looking as if “someone had bivouacked for the night.”

Yes we have 21 people visiting the island for 3 days in 1937, yet no mention of the fact that by late 1938 10 men were based on the island building wells and by mid 1939 there were 29 residents of the colony, all of whom could have been bivouacking for the night on the southeastern side of the island at any time prior to the discovery of the bones etc.

This is ALL information stored in the archives on the TIGHAR website, so they obviously have access to it, but it is all apparantly discounted and ignored as being ordinary explanations as they contradict or do not support extraordinary explanations.

None of it is addressed in the FAQ’s.

Regards

Mark Pilkington

The current “Notes for Guidance of Recovery Groups” states that “the Ministry of Defence is not prepared to grant, indefinitely, sole rights of recovery to an individual to excavate a particular site, but, other than in exceptional circumstances, only a single licence will be granted to work in a specified area at any one time” – so yes only one individual is to be licenced for a site at a time, but it seems that that individual cannot continually renew the licence to block others, which is allegedly what is happening in the case of the P-38?

However, the guidelines go on to say “that licence holders will need to apply for a new licence if they wish to continue working on an excavation into a second year and their application will be considered (on its merits) alongside those of any other applicants seeking to work at the site”

So there doesn’t seem to be anything stopping another group putting in an application and if Tigger still have a licence, then it must be that no one else has put in an alternative application? However, it does also seem that perhaps the MOD are close to contravening their own guidelines if they are continually re-issuing a licence to the same individual or group, who are clearly not carrying out any work.

Tangmere, I am not a member of Tighar and have neither the time nor the ability to answer your specific questions. I’d suggest that you go to their website and pose the questions to Ric Gillespie.

I think it is high time the ability for two licences to be given at the same time should happen and a home grown recovery of the P38 undertaken!

I am actually quite hurt, that chap attacked me on two accounts; spade grips and doing work!!!:):D

Their interest is in seeing the airplane preserved in whatever form is most appropriate, not in seeing it parted out, converted into a Reno racer or sold to a warbird broker.

Yeah, god forbid someone with the means to restore the aircraft ends up with it…:rolleyes: Or someone recovers a partial wreck & uses parts of it to finish restoring another example.
The only thing Gilespie has accomplished in having other people fund his passion for exotic vacations.

Whilst I am not aware of the current licence status on the P-38 in question, Stepwilk, it has certainly been the case that TIGHAR have held the licence over some years. During that time it is true that the RAF Museum have declined taking the project on. However, it begs the question; what other museums or restoration facilities have been approached by TIGHAR to take this on? Certainly none that I know of, although I stand to be corrected.

Is it not the case that they have simply held the licence to prevent recovery by any other party? If not, then why has this project not moved on when there are certainly those within the UK who would and could have taken it on? And if TIGHAR are simply holding a licence to prevent recovery by any party they do not approve of, then who the hell are they to set themselves up as arbiters of what happens in such cases or to establish themselves as some kind of “approval authority” for such work?

An earlier post asked about multiple licnces for one site, and in the past I am aware that this has certainly been the case. However, there are others who are more currently au fait with MOD licence procedures and practices and might be able to comment, although I am fairly certain that multiple licences for the same site will no longer be given.

As I say, I have no idea if TIGHAR have continued to exercise control over the site by virtue of a renewed licence each year, if it has lapsed or if another party might have now applied for a licence. One hopes so – before the aircraft finally breaks up or is pillaged by casual visitors.

I might add that on the WIX forum a while back this P-38 was discussed and the local TIGHAR rep appeared on that forum and promised to answer all of the legitimate questions about TIGHAR and this P-38 that had been posed. He then declined to do so.

There is some irony, surely, in the fact that here is an aircraft that has been found and located and is surely recoverable and yet TIGHAR have done nothing (seemingly) to take the project forward. On the other hand, they continue to bang the Earhart drum and try to take forward a project that is going nowhere apart from making them a fairly universal laughing stock.

“…but I have wondered if that Licence application was ‘pour découragez les autres’ rather than any attempt to seriously recover it themselves.”

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Tighar is NOT in the business of “seriously recovering anything” themselves. They’ll be the first to tell you that their expertise is not in the area of physical recovery but in, if they were to get the chance, recognizing and working with legitimate conservators. Their interest is in seeing the airplane preserved in whatever form is most appropriate, not in seeing it parted out, converted into a Reno racer or sold to a warbird broker.

So who sets them up as the arbiter of what is most appropriate, other than themselves?

“…but I have wondered if that Licence application was ‘pour découragez les autres’ rather than any attempt to seriously recover it themselves.”

As I pointed out earlier in this thread, Tighar is NOT in the business of “seriously recovering anything” themselves. They’ll be the first to tell you that their expertise is not in the area of physical recovery but in, if they were to get the chance, recognizing and working with legitimate conservators. Their interest is in seeing the airplane preserved in whatever form is most appropriate, not in seeing it parted out, converted into a Reno racer or sold to a warbird broker.

The International Group for Historic Aircraft Research

The International Group for Hysterical Aviation Rumours? 😉

Maybe the attention of TIGHAR is firmly in the Pacific region – thus explaining the apparent hiatus in their attentions formerly directed at the so-called “Maid of Harlech” P-38?

Did they not have a fund raising campaign for that project, btw?

They actually explain some of that on their website.

http://tighar.org/Projects/P38/welshlightning.htm

An interesting choice of words:

Contributions to the Maid of Harlech Memorial Fund go to help cover TIGHAR’s expenses in advocating for the responsible recovery and conservation of Lockheed P-38F 41-7677.

The RAFM have apparently said ‘no’ to recovery as they can’t afford it.

Interesting also that David Morris of the FAA Museum is mentioned as a long term member.

Probably not the place for it in this thread, but I have wondered if that Licence application was ‘pour découragez les autres’ rather than any attempt to seriously recover it themselves. But I am led to beleive that there is nothing to stop someone else with sufficient funds applying for a licence as they are not exclusive?