"Scientific Evidence" -- and the Search 75 Symposium

First, for anyone who’s not aware of it, let me announce the forthcoming June 1-3 Earhart Search 75 Symposium, to be held in Arlington, VA (across the river from Washington DC). This conference will feature speakers, panels, and exhibits about the Nikumaroro Hypothesis, our pursuit of it, and other Earhart-related matters. Come one, come all! Full information and registration forms can be found at www.tighar.org.

I also want to take this opportunity to comment on some articles that have appeared in various media since the announcement of the July expedition to search the deepwater face of the Nutiran reef on Nikumaroro. These articles have pooh-poohed the Nikumaroro hypothesis as something akin to Gilligan’s Island, and assured the world that no way, no how did Earhart and Noonan wind up on Niku. They may be right, of course, but they’re not proving their cases by poking fun at ours. More importantly, they’re obfuscating matters by referring to their thinking as “scientific.”

Here’s an example, from the Cedar Rapids (Iowa) Gazette – see http://easterniowalife.com/2012/04/16/local-earhart-researcher-continues-to-search-for-famed-pilot/

Robins resident and former Rockwell Collins engineer Rod Blocksome said The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (TIGHAR) is about 350 miles off course in their search for Earhart.

‘[TIGHAR researchers] are pretty much the masters of the media and they’re very good at coming up with newsworthy things that garner some publicity,’ Blocksome said. ‘…I don’t think they’re going to find anything, though.’

Blocksome retired from Rockwell Collins in Cedar Rapids in May 2010 after 42 years as an engineer. The retired communications systems engineer has worked with Dave Jourdan, president of Nauticos LLC, in searching for Earhart’s wreckage over the past several years.

TIGHAR researchers also said they’ve found evidence – such as broken glass jars and bits of women’s makeup – that could prove Earhart and Noonan lived on the remote island.

But Blocksome said circumstantial evidence and castaway theories are not what he, Jourdan, and Nauticos researchers are looking for around Howland Island. For them, indisputable, scientific evidence is necessary.


‘[We’re looking for] some very hard evidence that’s not controversial when we find the plane,’ Blocksome said. ‘[TIGHAR] comes up with little bits and pieces … Before we get everybody all excited, we want to make sure we got something that’s very solid and holds up to scientific scrutiny.’

What I object to in the above story, and others like it, is the equation of “scientific evidence” with something that’s “not controversial,” and the denigration of “little bits and pieces. The fact is that science works with whatever evidence it can find, and applies that evidence to the testing of hypotheses. In most cases it is precisely the buildup of “little bits and pieces” that makes or breaks the case.

It would be nice to find the indisputable, obvious, no-question-about it, smoking-gun piece of evidence (i.e. the airplane), and maybe it’s there to be found – at Niku or someplace else. But there’s a real good chance that it’s not there, or at least not likely to be found, and a failure to find it doesn’t necessarily mean that TIGHAR’s hypothesis is wrong. There are still all those little bits and pieces. And whether or not we ever “prove” the hypothesis to the satisfaction of every critic, it remains a fact that science is every bit as much about the collection, analysis, and application of “little bits and pieces” as it is about finding the big, obvious, indisputable and uncontroversial piece of data (like an airplane) that in one great flash proves the case.

Archaeological and historical research are applications of science that most particularly depend on the collection and interpretation of little bits and pieces -- whether they're little bits and pieces of hominid bone and crude tools in east Africa or little pieces of jars, bottles, and cosmetics from the Seven Site on Nikumaroro.  I think it's rather sad, and a testimony to the dumbing-down of the media's handling of science stories, to imply that only the big, obvious, flash-bang discovery ("Austrolopithecus walks out of cave to greet researchers: Scientists Stunned") constitutes "science."

Solomons Sojourners Set to Sail

In less than a week – on August 17, TIGHAR’s Solomon Islands team will head for Honiara. The team is headed by Gary Quigg, and includes Nancy Farrell, John Clauss, and Karl Kern. In Honiara they’ll rendezvous with Baoro Koraua, who lives in that city (capital of the Solomon Islands) but was born on Nikumaroro in the early 1950s. With Baoro in his boat, the MV Temauri, they’ll motor up the New Georgia Sound (known in World War II as “The Slot” and “ironbottom Sound”) to the villages of Nikumaroro and Rawaki, where the Nikumaroro colonists were resettled when the colony was abandoned in 1963. That’s the plan, anyway.

The purpose of the trip is oral historical recording – talking with veterans of the Nikumaroro colony and recording their recollections of the place. It follows up on a very short visit made to Nikumaroro Village by Dr. Dirk Ballendorf of the University of Guam back in 1995 (http://tighar.org/testhtml/Publications/TTracks/12_1/solomon.html). Dirk collected stories of human bones being found on the island, but these didn’t mean much to us until two years later when Peter MacQuarrie found the Western Pacific High Commission files on the 1940 bones discovery in the Tarawa archives, and Ric Gillespie and Kent Spading uncovered more in the WPHC archives in England (they’re now in Auckland, NZ).

It would be nice if the Solomons Sojourners could get more information on the bones discovery, but we’re not really expecting that. Anyone who was, say, ten years old at the time of that discovery would now be in his or her 80s. What we’re mostly hoping for is information about what the Seven Site was used for in the 1950s, and what (other than Earhart and Noonan) might be responsible for the strange assemblage of artifacts and building material (corrugated iron, etc.) we’ve found on the site. Recent research by Bill Carter and Ric Gillespie in the Tarawa archives has revealed that the site was known in the late 1940s as “Gallagher’s camp,” and that coconuts were being cultivated there without much success. Why the site was associated with Gallagher almost a decade after his death is another thing we’d like to find out. We feel pretty confident that some of what we’ve found was left by the castaway-who-was-probably-Earhart, but it’s essential that we find out what else went on at the site so we can sort out castaway-related evidence from the leavings of others. The interviews will also give us the opportunity to flesh out our general understanding of the Nikumaroro colony, which is fascinating in its own right.

The team is well equipped to do the work. Nancy has been collecting oral history for decades, and Gary has experience in the field as well. Baoro should be a knowledgeable colleague and translator, while John and Karl can do just about anything. They’re armed with audio and video recording devices and plenty of pens and paper for backup. If all goes well they’ll spend two or three days interviewing in each village (which lie on opposite sides of the sound, about 200 miles from Honiara), and a day or two checking archives in the capital before flying home on August 30.

Yes, I wish I were going too, but I’m not. However, Kris Tague is serving as the Sojourners’ Stateside point of contact, and she’ll be passing information to the rest of us.

Bon Voyage, Sojourners; here's hoping you make interesting and voluble new friends in the Solomons.

Tom

Spam:  See http://www.otpshow.com/ for Part One of my summary of the Niku Research

Book Note: "The Hunt For Amelia Earhart"

Just finished reading The Hunt for Amelia Earhart, by Douglas Westfall (Orange, CA, 2007; Paragon; http://www.specialbooks.com/AEHunt.htm); thanks to Lonnie Schorer for sending along a newspaper article that alluded to it.  The Hunt is a fascinating account of the 1937 search efforts by the Itasca, Colorado, Lexington and other ships, and their seamen and flyers.  Many first-person accounts, some of which are well-known to TIGHAR researchers, others new to me at least.  Lots of good reference data and quite wonderful maps and photos, and at $10 for the downloadable E-book version, it’s a steal.

Reading about how hard the Colorado's crew in particular worked to find Earhart made me think that one thing we pursuers of the Nikumaroro Hypothesis ought to make clear is this: although if the hypothesis is correct, they missed finding Earhart and Noonan on Nikumaroro, this does not mean that they did anything but the best job they could.  Sometimes when I give talks on our work, somebody asks why the Colorado didn't steam in close to Niku and put people ashore to search, or why the Colorado's float-plane crews didn't land to look around.  There are excellent reasons for both circumstances.  The Colorado was a great big expensive battleship, and the waters of the Phoenix Islands were not well charted.  Captain Thompson was very well advised not to steam in too close to islands where uncharted offshore reefs could be lurking.  The situation was similar with the planes.  The only place they could have landed was in the lagoon, which was and is studded with coral heads.  Running into one of those in a flimsy little float plane would really ruin your day.

The pilots gave it their best shot; came in low, made lots of noise, circled and zoomed, tried to attract attention; when they didn't see anyone, they reasonably concluded that there was no one there.  We now know from first-hand experience that it's very hard to see people on the ground amid the hard light/dark contrasts of even the shoreline environment, and quite impossible to see people back in the bush.  We also know how hard it is, if you're back in the bush, to get out to the shore in a timely manner when you hear an aircraft overhead.  The Colorado pilots didn't know those things, and Earhart and Noonan, if they were there, didn't know that airplanes were out searching for them, so there's no reason they would have spelled out "SOS" in seaweed or something.  As for the Electra, if we're right in reconstructing its fate, by the time the Colorado pilots flew over it was off the edge of the Nutiran reef, almost if not completely submerged, in the surf zone where white water would have made it difficult if not impossible to see. 

So, no one ought to affix any blame to the captain and crew of the USS Colorado for missing Earhart and Noonan, if that's what they did, and The Hunt for Amelia Earhart vividly recounts -- often in their own words -- the thinking, planning, and plain hard, dangerous work that they put into the effort.   

Why I Don’t Think We’ll Find the Airplane – And Why I Don’t Think It Matters

As we approach the air date of “Finding Amelia” on the Discovery Channel, and the buzz about the show builds up, there’s some tendency to reduce the complexities of testing the Nikumaroro Hypothesis to “finding the airplane.” If we can find Earhart’s Lockheed Electra off Nikumaroro’s Nutiran reef, we’ll have proved the hypothesis; if we can’t, the hypothesis will be dealt a deadly blow.  I think this is nonsense, and I want to tell you why.

It’s certainly true that if we find the Electra, or some definitive part of it, down there in the deep water off the edge of the reef, that will cinch the case. But I don’t think that’s going to happen, and I think it’s a mistake to even imply that anyone ought to use it as the basis for saying yea or nay to the hypothesis.

When I say I don’t think we’re going to find the airplane, that doesn’t mean I think our hypothesis is wrong. Quite the contrary; I think it’s very, very likely to be correct. We have good evidence – from radio data, from historical documents, and from archaeology, that Earhart and Noonan landed on Nikumaroro, survived for awhile, and died. We have good evidence – anecdotal, topographic, tidal, and photographic – that they landed on the Nutiran reef flat, and that the plane sat there for several days and nights before the high tides, increasing from neap to flood, washed it over the lip of the reef.

So we ought to find it down below 300 meters, where the slope of the reef face becomes less precipitous and the talus slope is probably studded with boulders on which the wreckage could get hung up. Right?

Wrong, I think. I think finding the plane, or even substantial parts of the plane, down there is a very long shot, and while I don’t disagree with plans to look for it down there, I don’t think we should let ourselves get too hopeful. And under no circumstances should anyone think that if we don’t find the plane, we’ve disproved the Nikumaroro Hypothesis.

Assuming our interpretation of the “Nessie” photo is correct, the plane – or a big chunk of it including at least one landing gear – got hung up just over the reef edge, in shallow enough water for the gear to protrude and be captured by Eric Bevington’s camera. At that point it would have been there about three months. Assuming Emily Sikuli’s recollections are correct, some elements of the wreckage were still there a couple of years later, observable by fishermen and recognizable – exactly how, we don’t know – as the remains of an airplane. Then they disappeared. What happened to them, and to whatever parts of the airplane may not have hung together with the “Nessie” wreckage?

Currents along the face of the Nutiran reef are variable, but for the most part they flow at a pretty good clip from northwest to southeast. They’re powered by trade-wind-driven swells from the northeast, sweeping around the island’s north cape. Most of the time the Nutiran reef is in the island’s lee, but there’s still plenty of power in the waves that crash on it. And the big storms that hit the island are mostly westerlies, crashing directly into the Nutiran reef. The reef face, at least its upper parts, are a high-energy environment. A fragile thing like an airplane is not likely to last long.

A decade ago, we were blessed to have on the Earhart Project Advisory Council (EPAC) Howard Allred, a New Zealand-based coral reef geologist (though he’d gone into olive growing to make his living). Tragically, we lost Howard to a brain tumor not long before the 2007 expedition. I vividly recall Howard making a presentation to an EPAC meeting – he’d flown all the way from New Zealand to participate – on what he thought the action of the ocean on the Nutiran reef would do to the Electra. It would most likely, he said, tear it to shreds, and the pieces would then move slowly southeast along the reef face, every now and then being coughed up onto the reef flat. Such fragments may be responsible for the reflective signatures that appear on some mid-twentieth century aerial photos of the southern Nutiran reef flat, and the periodic deposition of such fragments farther southeast, along the Ritiati shoreline, could be the source of the airplane parts we’ve found in the colonial village, some of them fashioned into handicrafts.

At the EPAC meeting someone – perhaps I – asked Howard where the plane parts might be by now. He said that by now they would have reached the midpoint of the shoreline, where the currents flowing down from the northwest run into those flowing up from around the southeast tip.

And how big would they be by now? Howard opined that they could be reduced to the size of sand grains.

Of course, it’s certainly possible that biggish parts of the Electra – notably those two big heavy engines – went down into deep water before they had a chance to be ground up by weather and waves. But the engines and other heavy parts of the airplane have their own problems. They’re steel, as are the pieces of the SS Norwich City that are scattered down the face of the Nutiran reef. The 2010 ROV work didn’t turn up a great deal of Norwich City wreckage on the reef face above 300 meters, but we know that the stern of the ship broke off and went down there, and much of the rest of it must have followed. There’s probably a good-sized Norwich City debris field at the base of the reef, all made of steel. Can the Electra’s steel engines or gear be distinguished from Norwich City debris? Maybe, but I’d call it a long shot.

My point is simply this. It’s very easy to imagine ways that the Electra could have done exactly what we think it did – landed on the Nutiran reef, sat there awhile, gone over the edge and been hung up for awhile in the surf zone or just below it – and leave no trace at all that’s discernible today. Except in the form of fragments collected by the colonists and brought to the village to be made into combs, fishing lures, and inlay for wood boxes. Maybe some big pieces escaped being ground to powder or coughed up in little chunks to be recycled by the colonists; maybe some big pieces slid down into the abyssal depths and can be detected. Or maybe not. It’s the old chestnut: absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. If we find the plane, good, but if we don’t find it, it will not by any means discredit the Nikumaroro Hypothesis.

Buying Thirteen Bones

Anyone interested in purchasing my new novel, Thirteen Bones, can do so directly from the publisher by going to www.tomfking.com. Alternatively, it's available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers. It's the fictionalized (but fact-based) story of the 1940 discovery of what were probably Amelia Earhart's remains on Nikumaroro in the Phoenix Islands, Republic of Kiribati.