A grainy 80-year old photograph of a woman's back seems hardly compelling. The other pieces of evidence they cite seem equally unconvincing. Maybe I've turned cynical given the current mainstream media circus, but this appears to be more of an advertising piece for the mentioned History channel special. It is glossed over in the article, but I'd be more interested in learning about who took the picture, and why he/she did not report seeing Earhart.
Seems a lot like when the History Channel continuously plugged that they had found "new information" on the DB Cooper case and made a special about it and the new information didn't actually help at all or really provide anything compelling. Did they air it anyway with continuous teasers? You better believe it.
Seems like every 5 or 10 years we have a big burst of Amelia Earhart interest and nostalgia. Guess I don't understand - there's pretty conclusive evidence of her crashing and the circumstances of that.
there's pretty conclusive evidence of her crashing and the circumstances of that.
"Conclusive evidence" would be plane wreckage, fragments of her personal belongings (or those of other occupants) and the like. Or even statements from witnesses about a plane going down that matched the Electra's description.
But we have none of that. The only thing we have "conclusive" evidence for is that at some point she dropped out of radio contact, and was probably low on fuel.
I agree this photo is silly but that’s not quite true - we have partial plane wreckage, of either the same or similar model of plane, and a woman’s bones (now lost).
It’s likely she crashed, and likely died on an island. The evidence is extremely suggestive. Not conclusive by any means but more than simply conjecture.
I thought the consensus was that they turned out to be a man's bones (and not even matching Earhart's proportions). Which may explain why they ended up getting "lost".
That leaves us with just that patch of aluminum, of unconfirmed origin. I would call that kind of an indication "mildly" rather than "extremely" suggestive.
No, that was the initial conclusion but later analysis (of the measurements) put it within the (non typical) range of her.. remember- it was partial remains too.
They also found a woman’s shoe and a sextant with a serial in the range that would have been issued to her.
It’s not conclusive at all, I agree, but it’s got vastly more evidence (that is otherwise not easily explainable) than any other theory.
> Seems like every 5 or 10 years we have a big burst of Amelia Earhart interest and nostalgia.
It's the 80th anniversary of her death. I assume the Amelia Earhart specials that run every five years need some new speculative angle to get people to watch.
(Also, can I note that it's actually kind of sad that Amelia Earhart had all of these astonishing accomplishments over her life... And yet the only thing we commemorate -- and the only thing most people seem to know about her -- is the accident of her death.)
There's no "conclusive" evidence of anything other than her not being familiar with radio and her being off course. There are several strong possibilities of what happened. It's most likely she crashed at sea, but that's not known for sure...there are other accounts that say she didn't. Nothing wrong with a little mystery.
Agree on the pic, but when I saw it I was thinking would some deep learning analysis add any value at all? Maybe just for academic or conspiracist reasons. Like say the analysis determines that there was a 50% chance that the person in the pic is Earhart, but also 50% chance that the person in the pic was John Lennon. I know the analysis would catch an incongruous time period, but just sayin'...
>would some deep learning analysis add any value at all?
"Machine learning is like a deep-fat fryer. If you’ve never deep-fried something before, you think to yourself: 'This is amazing! I bet this would work on anything!'”
Not to veer too far off-topic - but what does deep-frying not work on? (ice cream, veggies, sweets, sea-food, beef/any meats... all delicious when deep-fried). Maybe fruit is the one exception? I have never tried but may give it a go. It seems like a poor comparison, as almost all foods are delectable when deep-fried. I know very little about machine learning though, I will concede. I also cannot open the link (blocked at work).
I say this mostly for the humor, but also for the truth: deep-frying is the best. And I deep-fry food quite often. In fact, I am headed home to deep-fry some Won-Tons soon.
You've probably had deep-fried bananas. I've had deep-fried watermelon. Like most deep-fried foods, neither is particularly memorable except for the kitsch, even if they do taste good.
Which I think supports the original point: you can deep-fry anything and enjoy tasty results, but that _still_ doesn't mean there's anything substantial in the sense of untapped value.
Food is highly sensitive to cultural and social context. Even with deep-fried fruits, the part that stuck with you the most was the "kitsch" rather than the flavor, texture, aroma, size, cost, or any other objective fact about the food item.
My observation offers no lessons on deep learning image recognition, but as long as we are already on a tangent...
Deep-fried battered pineapple rings were a staple of trips to the local chip shop when I was a child. Drizzled with syrup they make an excellent dessert when you've been running around outside all day.
Not what you'd call delicate or refined, though.
Maybe if you used tempura batter instead of chip shop batter.
I think the connection is the overuse/desire to apply deep-frying/machine learning constantly and to everything. While there are certainly (delicious) benefits, there are also drawbacks that make the non-stop use a net loss.
I had a similar thought as I typed - having more than one or two deep-fried dishes a week is unappealing, and having too many deep-fried courses together is unappealing (at least to me). And then potential health issues. When I get home, and after eating my fried won-tons, I'll check out the link.
it seems crazy and impossible. But it reminds me that the Japanese built the two largest battleships ever created, by far, and sailed them for years until sunk at the end of the war, and for decades there were no known pictures of them except those taken during their sinkings by US aitmen.
They were pretty good at keeping secrets under wraps.
Since the Japanese authorities say that they have no records of her being in custody and she presumably knowing that she would be a person of interest, might she have been inclined to give a false name?
Definitely a possibility. Or the Japanese authorities aren't being forthright about their records, just as apparently the U.S. isn't being completely forthright about the source of the photo.
It's all apparently muddled up in confidentiality which is frustrating as the events were 80+ years ago.
An alternative explanation would be that those records weren't kept with any kind of care and the current authorities can't say either way.
The Marshalls are pretty far away from Japan, and so were cut off pretty early. They were also the site of heavy fighting (unlike, say, most of what is now FSM) so it's easy to imagine paperwork preservation wasn't a high priority.
The Japanese also treated prisoners quite horribly during WW2. I doubt records were even kept of every civilian that was killed, especially if that person gave no indication of being significant.
I discovered the story originally while absentmindedly Googling about Earhart a few months ago (when I can't sleep I read about curious historical mysteries; Black Dahlia, DB Cooper, etc. Then I have a harder time sleeping!).
I'm pretty sure researchers have already found the little island next to which she landed. It appears that she and Fred Noonan died as castaways on the island of Nikumaroro. Bones were found on the island several years later, but have since been lost to history. One researcher even found a piece of aluminum on the island that they believe was used to patch a broken window on her plane.
Apparently there are two camps of Earhart searchers: Those who believe she crashed in the Marshal Islands and died as a POW, and those who believe she crashed on Nikumaroro and died as a castaway. The Nikumaroro folks[1] mount an expedition & issue press releases every year or so, now it seems like it's time for the team Solomon Islands to take the spotlight for a moment.
I was actually referring to bones that were found in the early 1940's and lost around the same time. I think we might be talking about a different set of bones.
"I think it leaves no doubt to the viewers that that's Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan,' Henry told NBC News."
Really? Because the only thing I see no doubt of is someone who has reached a conclusion based upon scant evidence, attempting to prime an audience to accept that same conclusion as fact without independent thought or verification.
I am hoping AI can answer these questions more definitely than people second guessing. In general, legends tend to live longer than they may have made out to look.
