Malcolm McKaySounds like a beat up to me – death duties? Why not simply donate it to a museum as I can’t understand why anyone would pay for something that’s missing 85% of the rest of the Lancaster.
Malcolm McKayMalcolm McKayCan’t be her car – looks nothing like it. Everyone knows that Earhart’s car is shaped like bits of coral and you have to half squint at it to see the resemblance. Good grief have you no scientific training!
Malcolm McKayMFowler said Along with Gillespie’s tendency to be roundly dismissive of anyone who disagrees with him in the slightest, about pretty much anything. With the closing of the TIGHAR forums, he has a virtual bully pulpit for espousing his views, and his alone. Dissent, or even questions – as I found when I started asking them – are not tolerated. Same for their Facebook page and his blog.
Hell I got banned way back in 2013 for having the disrespect to keep asking for explanations as to why certain basic checks had not been carried out that would support the claims being made about their finds. One example concerned the freckle cream jar. A simple question asking if soil tests had been carried out to determine background mercury trace levels in order to determine if the claimed residue in the now legendary freckle cream jar (a jar which TIGHAR claimed contained mercury based freckle cream) could have been a result of soil contamination, rather than the claimed original contents, was met first with dismissal then with hostility. It was clear that the hostility, both from TIGHAR and its supporters, covered up the fact that this simple test had not been done.
The same dismissive response had occurred previously when I asked if the tiny almost microscopic blob on the Bevington photo which was named the Bevington Object, and claimed by TIGHAR to be the Electra’s undercarriage, had been compared with the other similar tiny blobs on the photo. My question was had similar enlargements been done and could we see them, was fobbed off and we never did see the other enlargements. This would have provided TIGHAR with a simple comparative test to see if what they claimed was unique, or was just an artifact created by whatever caused the spots. I took TIGHAR’s refusal to provide that data as tacit admittance that the Bevington Object was a contrivance not serious data.
Then later TIGHAR claimed that they had confirmation from the US State Department imaging experts that this blob was “consistent with being an undercarriage leg” but they then said that this advice was unofficial and would remain so. I suggested that using unofficial advice to raise funds was a brave step, given that it could be interpreted as less than honest, and was fobbed off again by Mr Gillespie while the TIGHAR supporters all agreed with him.
The saga of the Bevington Object didn’t stop there. After I had been banned the already manipulated image was manipulated again by one supporter, in CAD to orientate so that it acquired shadows – perhaps so that it could be matched to the time of day the photo was taken. This blatant example of creating data out of whole cloth was again praised by TIGHAR supporters. Other contributors with similar worries about flexible uses of data were banned. When it became apparent that even its most hardened supporters were showing signs of unease up went the pay wall at the forum. You cannot get a question onto Gillespie’s blog unless it is clearly supportive and as for the Facebook page – why that’s just for the atta boys.
Now TIGHAR are going after Glenn Miller, which makes one wonder what he did to deserve that.
Malcolm McKayMFowler posted if you begin to appreciate the fact that Gillespie seems to regard certain items/artifacts/reports more from their fund-generating potential than from any value they have towards actually solving the mystery.
A behaviour that worried me. Normally in this sort of research where physical artifacts form the data base it is normal to first clearly establish the identity of the artifact before conflating it into your already existing hypothesis. TIGHAR appears to have worked on the maxim “this is something that Amelia Earhart might have owned therefore this confirms our hypothesis that she landed on Nikumaroro”. Rather than first establishing what the artifact is, then establishing how it was in her possession on the flight, then having got that data confirmed, taken it as evidence substantiating the claim that she landed on Nikumaroro.
The other fault in TIGHAR’s handling of data is that they open up the discussion to input from amateurs whose qualifications are unknown and accept that input as just as reliable as that from people with proper expertise. The rather farcical 187 page discussion on the TIGHAR Forum about what people claimed to see in a short underwater video clip along the reef face is an example which mushroomed into a cottage industry based purely on pareidolia, but importantly for TIGHAR the sheer attraction of it no doubt attracted more donors so it was allowed to run despite its manifest absurdity.
Before it was closed people were not only claiming to see the Electra in bits and pieces, but the sum total of those identified bits probably would have enabled a whole fleet of Electras to be recovered if someone had the time and salvage equipment.
😀
Malcolm McKayWell Monty as I have always said TIGHAR displays a certain consistency of performance which is –
The thinner the ice the faster they skate.
Dr Hoodless while not exactly at the centre of late 30s medical research was not some backwoods barber surgeon whose only skill was swift amputation without an anesthetic, and Sir Harry Luke was a capable and well-liked administrator who was given the task of managing the very last expansion of British imperial behaviour before all that was stopped by WW2. But their one fault as far as I understand TIGHAR’s reasoning was that they were British colonial officials and therefore corrupt and stupid oppressors of the locals.
It is of interest that in order to attack Hoodless’ examination of the partial skeleton found on Nikumaroro they first must attack his skills or lack thereof. Yet Burns and Jantz only used his measurements to claim that it was possible that they were those of a thin woman of northern European heritage rather than the short mixed race male that Hoodless claimed – there was no other data available. Then Cross and Wright used the same Hoodless data plus findings from more recent anthropological research, than what Burns and Jantz had, to argue that Hoodless was most likely to be correct. A minor slip on some purely historical data unrelated to the anatomical study was what allowed TIGHAR in the person of Mr Gillespie to claim that the paper was “infamous”. The fact that Jantz in the reply paper still refuses to claim that the skeletal material was definitely that of Earhart seems lost on Gillespie.
The problem with all Earhart research is that the various proponents of different hypotheses seem too ready to translate probable into certain and that is not what the dictionary tells us. And this rush to fictional certainty seems directly related to how much money they have invested in the search. It isn’t scientific it is simply pecuniary.
Malcolm McKayThey didn’t find the bones or test them.
The bone (singular) was recovered on an earlier trip to Nikumaroro in the vicinity of where the remains (now lost) were found and which Dr Hoodless examined in 1940. This bone was so degraded that it was uncertain if it was even human (one suggestion was that it was from a turtle’s flipper) and no DNA was able to be recovered.
End of story.
The new Jantz paper relies on mainly condemning Dr Hoodless supposed lack of qualifications, experience etc. and one small mistake related to the historical detail rather than the anatomical findings in the Cross and Wright paper. Naturally TIGHAR are playing this for what it is worth, which is nothing. I have read all three papers and understand the basics of what is being discussed. The matter has still to be resolved but as both the Burns and Jantz paper and the later Jantz reply to Cross and Wright state quite clearly that their findings are at best only possible, not certain, and, as I said, rely on attacking Hoodless’ supposed ignorance of anatomy then I do not feel that TIGHAR have sufficient grounds to claim that the matter is resolved.
As for attacking Sir Harry Luke – TIGHAR have attacked every colonial official they can find except those they know that they cannot touch like Gallagher, Maude and Bevington. They can’t touch Gallagher because what he wrote at the time raises the possibility that the partial skeleton might be Earhart. TIGHAR skates over the fact that Gallagher dispatched the bones for examination and Hoodless said they weren’t. Maude and Bevington are immune because TIGHAR need the so-called Bevington Object (the claimed Electra landing gear in a photo taken by Bevington) to bolster their very thin hypothesis. All of TIGHAR’s attacks on the WPHC simply smacks of historical sour grapes, no more no less.
Malcolm McKayWell my copy of Pawle’s book The Secret War arrived a few days ago and it it is the most informative piece of comedy I have read in a long time. Thoroughly recommended. :highly_amused:
Malcolm McKayApparently they worked quite well as target tugs in the RAAF.
They worked even better as targets.
Malcolm McKayI’ve always thought that as Luftwaffe (or the Armée de l’Air, for that matter) was no better off in terms of its light bombers than the RAF a death trap like the Battle was cancelled out by their death traps. But then the Blenheim was a death trap as was any poorly defensively armed bomber operating in daylight against the calibre of fighters available to the combatants in 1940. Full credit to the bravery of the crews assigned to these aircraft.
Malcolm McKayI assume you’ve seen this pic –
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/205149990
Meanwhile a pic of Lord Larry with a Lysander
Malcolm McKayIt was so intriguing I snagged a copy of Pawle’s book The Secret War on Ebay today. Very cheap – obviously it’s s/hand.
Malcolm McKayThat’s interesting – I’d never heard of it.
Malcolm McKayYep, first I look at too. A delight to see how you’re bringing the old girl back to life.
Malcolm McKayAaaahhh urban rumours, wonderful fun – if we didn’t have them we’d have to invent them.
Sign In
