And best wishes from me to the Hurricane on its birthday – truly Camm’s masterpiece.

Niku VIII was a shamozzle, and in fact they went backwards in my view,

1. no anomaly identified,
2. the Divers found Norwich City debris on the North side of the wreck against what was claimed the prevailing currents, making the Bevington Object more rationally to simply be a bit of ship wreck.
3. Dr Kings tourists found perfume bottles in the Company Store indicating that the colonists are the likely source of the freckle bottle etc.
4. While they were away Prof Wright has released his rebuttal of the Tighar claims that the “castaway bones” are from a Nordic female, and has again identified them as per the original identification in 1940 as short male of mixed race.

I pointed out when I was allowed that any “sightings” of “aeroplane wreckage” on the north side of the shipwreck had to be taken with great caution as there was evidence from a kite mounted camera pic (earlier TIGHAR work) that bits of the Norwich City could be seen north of the wreck obviously carried by currents and also that closer to the event as the ship was breaking up there are many things from a shipwreck that aren’t necessarily great heavy chunks of iron that could mimic and easily deceive native observers who claimed that they were seeing a piece of the Earhart aircraft. Got howled down and told that all the data showed the currents only flowed north > south.

TIGHAR were taking seriously islander claims about aircraft wreckage when the islanders had actually never seen an aircraft or aircraft wreckage in their lives. That part of the world was an aircraft free zone in the middle 1930s. Pointed that out too and with the usual result.

I also suggested that the Bevington Object in light of the current flow etc. could be a winch or some other object of a suitable shape from the wreck. Got howled down. As for the claims about the Bevington photo and its “analysis” – gawwwwd!!!!!

I never accepted that the partial skeleton found by Gallagher was so badly identified by the original examiner Dr Hoodless that he mistook Earhart for a short thickset islander male. Talk about taken the evidence and bending it to fit the theory!

As for the freckle cream jar – someone else pointed out on the forum that there was every likelihood that it was of post Earhart origin due to documented evidence of importation to the island during the P*I*S*S days. I got expelled for merely agreeing.

Then we have had the recent attempts, once again against the evidence, to identify that fragment of aluminium as off the Electra when as Mark as pointed out its actually a later manufactured chunk of Alclad. That piece was written of years ago and actually they said so on their forum.

That last trip was a joke – especially the “anomaly”. Shows what happens when you outsource research to amateurs.

But the real clincher is the aerial pics taken by the Navy fliers a few days after the loss during the search and there is no sign of an aircraft on the reef at all – despite there not IIRC being any weather that could have washed it off in the interim.

Too many attempts to either deny evidence or bend random objects to fit the theory.

That is good work. Most enjoyable to watch.

Excellent – thanks for posting that.

The issue is as usual about the correct time and place.

Yes there are circumstances where the use of safety gear like helmets, harnesses and safety fencing are absolutely necessary (e.g. working on elevated sites where a misstep could kill you), or where hi-viz gear is essential (e.g. being a worker close to continually moving machinery or traffic etc. where the operators of the machinery must be able to see you). But over use of hi-viz gear which is now seen everywhere (I’ve seen supermarket shelf stackers wearing it) has cheapened it’s effectiveness to the point of just being a fashion accessory for any outdoor or physical work.

That is the problem, because by over use we have simply reduced its value as a safety aid. Now it has just become another quick use tool for crowd control rather than what it was intended for which was to protect public safety in hazardous areas. And that cheapening of its effectiveness is down to those people who blindly follow rules without having the sense to understand where those rules are best applied. Safety rules are only effective if applied where they are necessary, not where some corporate or government drone can’t tell the difference between reality and farce.

Is this the historic aviation forum? Or have I stepped into the classifieds of health and safety weekly.

Well Sir if you have inadvertently stepped into this discussion I hope that you are wearing a yellow flouro vest and a yellow plastic hard hat because how are the properly appointed and trained people, authorised under Section 3952, Sub-section CCCLXVIII, sub-para iii of the Forum Health & Safety Act 1992 (Amended 2008) who have commented, supposed to identify you as a possibly untrained person who has not reported to the site office before hand to receive the properly prescribed (as described in the aforesaid Act Section 1873 Sub-section CCVIII, sub-para vii) which would identify you as “…properly confused.” under the meaning of the aforesaid Act Section 12,744 Sub-section X, sub-para v. I hope I do not need to remind you of the penalties that you have incurred if you have indeed willfully and with premeditation ignored this section – they are quite draconian!!!

….. would those who have subscribed to this thread kindly form an orderly queue to collect their hi-vis jackets and hard hats!

Looks like we might have to – the sense of the absurd seems a bit missing. 😉

Why doesn’t someone put on their swimming costume and take a look? Apparently the lake is no more than six metres deep at its deepest point. That approach would be a good deal simpler than side scan sonar and, I’d suggest, be more likely to produce more positive results. But maybe that wouldn’t be conducive to speculative news reporting on the part of the media?

In today’s ever more regulated world that would need one person who can swim; 25 shore based health and safety supervisors, an ambulance on standby with a team of highly trained resuscitation personnel (just in case one of the health and safety personnel gets sunstroke); a pre-dive assessment conducted by the people at the county administration responsible for the safe and ecologically non-destructive use of all public accessible standing bodies of water; permission from the Ministry just in case the purported object is (or was) one of theirs; a disclaimer in writing signed and duly witnessed from the person who is going to don their togs and actually look, that they absolve all the various authorities (health & safety, county, legal and government etc.) of all responsibility should an unforeseen circumstance arise wherein they get a cramp; several news teams plus assorted experts from various private organizations who assert that the object if it does exist is evidence of an ongoing cover up by the authorities regarding the true identity of the purported object. 😀