In the OPs defense, he not only determined the average ping interval but also provided analysis on what the numbers could mean...without the second part, the numbers don't matter.

I would hope the people working this case could do the same but I also support the idea of crowd-sourcing.

It sounds like a good idea in theory but, in reality, I think you'd end up with a lot of people coming to different conclusions, all convinced that they are right.

The "crowdsourcers" would be demanding that their theories be looked into and, if they were, it would take away from the search operation vital resources.

It reminds me of when I'm troubleshooting network issues and my (very non-technical) boss calls and offers up his ideas of what might be wrong. It distracts me from what I'm doing and simply results in it taking longer to resolve the issue.